7 oo POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ried so far in his zeal as to leave the ground of facts. Although 

 a champion of monophyletic derivation, he did not overlook the 

 facts that might be brought to bear in favor of a polyphiletic origin. 



During the later years of his life Schmidt visited Heligoland, 

 and enjoyed the sea air, which seemed to have become necessary 

 to him, during two winters at Dohrn's Institute at Naples, in south- 

 ern France, and at Grado, and attended the meetings of naturalists 

 at Leipsic, Wiesbaden, Salzburg, Baden-Baden, Munich, Cassel, and 

 Freiburg, where he was a welcome guest and a prominent speaker. 

 In September, 1885, as president of the Zoological Section he en- 

 tertained his fellow-specialists at his house. A slight stroke of 

 apoplexy, which he suffered in the summer of 1882, passed away 

 without seeming to leave any trace. He spent the Easter season 

 of 1885 with his son's family in Vienna and with Graff in Gratz. 

 He intended to speak on Easter of 1886 in Weimar and to visit 

 Jena, " whither he expected to return in his sixty-fifth year so as to 

 attach a good end to a good beginning." But on the morning of 

 January 9, 1886, after he had spent the previous evening in pleas- 

 ant social intercourse, there came another stroke. He never re- 

 covered consciousness, but died on January 16th. 



Professor von Graff describes Schmidt's method of teaching 

 as one encouraging the students to pursue their own ways of think- 

 ing. He did not expect formal theses from them, but, having in- 

 dicated the theme, left them to work it out according to their own 

 logical processes, and as often let them choose their own subjects. 

 Having found a pupil's bent, he sought to turn him into a corre- 

 sponding course, " and never tried to make a poor naturalist out of 

 one who might become a good doctor or teacher." In his lectures 

 he was earnest and enthusiastic, not as good a speaker as writer, and 

 sometimes betraying his trouble to find the right word; "but he 

 knew how to win the love of his pupils for his subject, and, while 

 trying to make the comprehension of the matter not too difficult, to 

 keep interest alive by occasional glances at the theoretical signifi- 

 cance of the facts. It was very far from his purpose to make pas- 

 time for his hearers, and, when he was polemical, every one had 

 to be made sensible of the purely technical bearing." 



Professor Schmidt's literary work covered a field of extraordi- 

 nary breadth. Besides numerous works and text-books in system- 

 atic and anatomical zoology and life histories, he published popular 

 lectures and essays in many different periodicals, recensions, re- 

 views of books, translations, and even political articles. It would 

 be impossible to give a complete bibliography of his works, because 

 he left no notes respecting them. A list of his publications in 

 zoology, by Professor von Graff, includes ninety-nine titles. 



