WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS 439 



one of the very few here who marked him then, Prof. Basil L. 

 Gildersleeve, who says: 



"The very first lecture I heard him deliver, when he came here 

 a young man, revealed to me at once his uncompromising demand 

 of scientific evidence and his marvellous power of generalization. 

 His popular talks, simple in their form as simple could be, opened 

 vistas of startling significance to those who had learned to think at 

 all. His thoughts did not so much wander through eternity as 

 explore eternity with a measuring rod. To outsiders like myself 

 who were not familiar with the patient process of his scientific 

 research, the word 'genius' seemed to explain everything. He 

 seemed to us one of those rarely gifted beings, in whom child- 

 like sensitiveness is paired with immediate insight, nay, is one 

 with it." 



What opportunity the Johns Hopkins gave this gifted being 

 cannot be realized, nor his life-work estimated without due 

 emphasis upon the marine laboratory which he created and of 

 which he was the Director. 



He thus outlines his policy in one of his reports as Director: 



"In natural science the policy of the University is to promote 

 the study of life, rather than to accumulate specimens; and since 

 natural laws are best studied in their simplest manifestations, 

 much attention has been given to the investigations of the simplest 

 forms of life, with confidence that this will ultimately contribute 

 to a clearer insight into all vital phenomena ... the ocean is 

 now as it has been in all stages of the earth's history, the home of 

 life." 



And the gain he had from his contact with the sea is indicated 

 in these lines taken from a manuscript headed: 



"The Gastrula Stage. What does it mean?" "For many 

 years it was my good fortune to spend my summer months upon 

 our southern sea coast, studying with a microscope the steps in 

 the wonderful process of evolution, or unfolding of animals from 

 their eggs, and the memory of the time which was thus spent will 

 always be the most vivid and suggestive impression of my life." 



Coming to Baltimore, a city at the head of the Chesapeake Bay, 

 with his experiences at Penikese and Newport, and his own suc- 

 cesses in the Summer School of Cleveland fresh in mind, it was 



