LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



" One of the pleasantest memories I have of Professor 

 Dana is that of his kindness and assistance when I was a 

 young man working alone in central New York. I wrote 

 to him, telling him of my work, and in reply received a 

 letter encouraging me to continue, and offering to examine 

 personally any contribution that I might make to geology 

 or palaeontology. The correspondence, opened in this 

 manner, continued for a number of years, and resulted in 

 great benefit to me by the encouragement received, and 

 still more in its leading me to make visits to New Haven, 

 from time to time, to talk with him. 



"I feel profoundly grateful for the personal influence 

 Professor Dana had upon me as a young man, and for 

 the influence of his Manual of Geology in aiding in the 

 shaping of my geological studies and work. This may 

 be better understood when it is known that at no time 

 did I have any instructor in geology." 



One of the recent Yale graduates has printed several 

 anecdotes of his teacher, which are quite worth preserva- 

 tion. The writer is Edward Linton, Ph.D., Professor of 

 Agriculture in Washington, Pa., and his communication 

 appeared in the Presbyterian Messenger. 



" I have known teachers who prided themselves on 

 their ability to conduct recitations without the open 

 text-book before them, and have often speculated on the 

 amount of misdirected nervous energy which was thus 

 expended in committing the text-book to memory. Pro- 

 fessor Dana's method in the class-room was very different 

 from this. I once saw him stop in the midst of a recitation 

 in his own text-book, which it is to be presumed he knew 

 fairly well, and, after turning over a few pages hurriedly, 

 putting on his spectacles, taking them off, laying them 

 down on his desk, losing them for a little while, and then 

 finding them and putting them on again, all movements 

 very familiar to those who sat under his teaching in the 

 later years of his life, at last excused himself and retired 

 to his private room; whence he soon returned with 

 another book, and after making the remark that the first 

 book had a leaf missing, proceeded with the recitation. 

 In questioning the student, he very carefully followed 



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