358 Asa Gray : Ills Life and Work. 



colleges put together; among whose names are to be found those 

 of the men who designed and built the Brooklyn Bridge, and of 

 many others who are now engaged in the great engineering works 

 of the country. J^rom 1824 to May 6, 1842, the day of his death, 

 Professor Eaton was at the head of this institution. And between 

 1810 and 1841 in addition to other labors, lu) wrote various works 

 on botany, chemistry, zoology, geology, and kindred topics, to the 

 number, including the different editions, of about forty publica- 

 tions in all. 



His biography has never been more than sketched in outline, 

 but it is to be doubted whether any single American has, through 

 his work, his pupils, his methods, an(f the stimulus he directly 

 gave to others, done more for the cause of science, and of com- 

 bined science and practice in the United States, than Professor 

 Eaton did. Neither, owing to circumstances which there is no time 

 here to explain, has adequate justice been done to the methods by 

 and through which he produced the marked eifects to be traced to 

 him, except in the minds of a few. Those methods, in a word, 

 consisted in bringing the student into direct contact with the 

 actual thing to be studied, in relegating the text-book to a secondary 

 position, and in bringing the minds and hands of teacher and 

 pupil into immediate co-opei"ative relations. He divided his 

 plasses into sections of eight, with the most competent member as 

 its captain or leader. The pupils assisted in preparing and 

 (irranging the objects and mechanisms to be employed, whereupon 

 the Professor lectured to the entire class; in chemistry performing 

 all the experiments, and in all the other branches going through 

 with all the manipulations and illustrations with the actual objects 

 in hand; whereupon the sul)ject was taken up in turn by each 

 section and by every member of each section, all of them, with 

 the other members, constituting a critical audience, lecturing 

 upon it in turn and going through all the necessary manipulations, 

 experiments, demonstrations and illustrations. After the lecture 

 on botany the class was usually dismissed with tlie direction to 

 start for the fields with botanical cans, and incited to lind and 

 bring back the greatest possible number of new plants. Through 

 the long list of years, I still vividly recall tlie eager joy of that 

 work, and remember how, from hill-tops and otlier points of 

 vantage, I planned botanical campaigns, studied topography, 

 habitat and enviionment, and thereby sought to discover the 

 hiding-places of particular plants we wished to capture; and how 

 we scoiiumI fatigue, obstacles and laggards in their pursuit. The 

 students were expected on their return, after the first few lessons 

 had been given, to lind for tlieiiiselves the genus and species of the 

 jtlants tlicy brought in. Where they found themselves ])uzzled 

 and could not ))e h('l])ed out by their fellows, they were exjtected 

 to rely U])on the Professor for tlie nunies of genus and species. 



The principle of the lixity of si)ecies was of course formally 

 taught. But the total teaching <liat is, the teaching of the 

 I'rofessors, the books, ond that of tiie lieids and tlie plants them- 

 selves included resulted, not siinjily in tlie relaxing of our belief 

 in it, nor sinij)ly in tlu; accei)taiue of tlie coDvenient Avord 

 "variation" as ex])ressiv(! of tlie actual dilTerences found in 

 S])eciincns evidently of tlici same geiiuo. but not answc;ring to all 

 the details of descrii)tion given in tlie hooks for any particular 

 species. Although a mere child 1 distinctly remember that 



