434 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



of the lamented Master went again to Penikese to nurture the new 

 conception of a summer school for teachers, both men and women. 



At Cambridge the museum of Agassiz was of less value to him 

 than the contact with McCrady whose work on the jellyfish of 

 Charleston, South Carolina, and whose philosophical discussions 

 alike roused in him keen response. In Boston, aided by Alpheus 

 Hyatt, who gained for him the position of Assistant in the Boston 

 Society of Natural History for the years 1874 and 1875, he learned 

 the collections of mollusk shells by heart and could pick them out 

 in the dark. 



A fellow zoologist, who was a good friend of Brooks through 

 forty years, recalling the striking quality of Brooks' work as a 

 student and his impressive earnestness, says that: "His mind was 

 ever on the problems of his work." 



When, on June 30, 1875, ne received the degree of Doctor of 

 Philosophy from Harvard College, he had already begun to pub- 

 lish natural history articles in popular magazines and brief reports 

 of his own discoveries in anatomy and embryology of marine 

 animals. Two of his earliest communications were presented in 

 1874 and 1875 at the Hartford and the Detroit Meetings of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 



He was recognized as a man of great promise and as in those 

 days there was but little real university work on this side of the 

 Atlantic it wag natural for his friends to wish that he might study 

 abroad. Indeed, Prof. E. S. Morse had urged upon Brooks' 

 father that he be sent to Europe, but the kind and indulgent 

 parent had to realize that the project was one that could not be 

 financed. 



That year of 1875 was one f tne great moment in the life of 

 Doctor Brooks; in it he gained his first real insight into research 

 work at the seaside, and in it he aided in a successful Summer 

 School for teachers. The latter was at his home in Cleveland, the 

 former in the laboratory of Alexander Agassiz at Newport, Rhode 

 Island. 



In Cleveland the Kirtland Natural History Society was chosen 

 as godfather to the new project in which Brooks was a leading 



