WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS 



ZOOLOGIST 



1848-1908 

 BY E. A. ANDREWS 



IN the history of zoology in America the advent of Louis Agassiz 

 may be taken to mark a transition period from the days of the great 

 pioneers, Audubon, Wilson and others, who revealed the marvels 

 of wild life in a new country, to the present epoch of intensive 

 investigation of problems common to life the world over. 



Of those who came in the footsteps of Agassiz was William Keith 

 Brooks who in the field of marine zoology added to the pioneer 

 work of explorer his own philosophical treatment of the most 

 fundamental problems of life and linked the past thought of the 

 fathers of zoology to the methods of investigation not possible 

 until now. In the words of a great living zoologist and president 

 of a great University, "He was the wisest of American zoologists" 

 and "the greatest American zoologist, at least from the viewpoint 

 of philosophical thinking." In his life we find much of his great- 

 ness due to Nature, to what was innate in him and much to 

 Nurture, to what his opportunities brought him. 



William Keith Brooks was born in Cleveland, Ohio, March 

 25, 1848, the second of a family of four boys, and he enjoyed the 

 helpful home life found in a relatively new country where his father, 

 Oliver Allen Brooks, was one of the early merchants, having come 

 to Cleveland from Burlington, Vermont, in 1835. 



His mother, a refined and gentle woman, who was Ellenora 

 Bradbury Kingsley, the second of three daughters, the only 

 children of the Reverend Phinheas Kingsley, of Rutland, Vermont, 

 died when the boy was but fourteen years old, yet we may ascribe 



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