HIS DISTINCTION AS A TEACHER 



and a physician, Henry A. Tomlinson. Professors Dana, 

 William D. Whitney, and George P. Fisher, all men of 

 national distinction, were received as members in 1855. 

 For a time Dana was a regular and interested attendant, 

 but ill-health and the necessity of avoiding all social ex- 

 citement soon closed the pleasure of these meetings to 

 one who would have enjoyed them highly. 



For a time he attended the meetings of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, and the 

 National Academy of Sciences, and in both these organ- 

 izations he was elected President. His address at the 

 Albany meeting of the association first named was re- 

 garded as a masterly and comprehensive review of 

 American geology. 



But he had no liking for such assemblies, and as years 

 went on he excused himself more and more frequently 

 from engagements which took him away from home at 

 periods fixed for the convenience of others. 



His rides and walks about New Haven furnished the 

 material for a series of interesting articles upon the physi- 

 cal aspects of that region, which were published in a 

 college weekly, and were afterwards republished in a 

 pamphlet, that will always be readable and suggestive, 

 entitled The Four Rocks. 



There is a certain standard of professorial life which 

 measures the value of a teacher by the number of recita- 

 tions that he hears, or by the skill with which he exacts 

 attention to the lessons of a class-book. Not so should 

 the greatest teachers be estimated. They are the greatest 

 who can awaken in their followers a love of knowledge 

 and show them how this knowledge may be obtained or 

 verified. To this class Dana belongs. His power was 

 that of inspiration and of guidance. He could arrest the 

 attention of his hearers, fill their minds with an enthusias- 

 tic love of science, and inspire them with certain principles 

 which they would not forget as long as life continued. 



