10 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



to push forward the boundaries of knowledge abreast with the 

 scientific workers of Europe, had hardly been attempted at that : 

 time in the United States. 



The achievements of Henry in this direction soon began to win 

 for him an increase of reputation as well as an increase of knowl- 

 edge; but in the midst of the fervors which had come to quicken 

 his genius, he was visited by the fancy (or was it a fact?) that a 

 few of the friends who had hitherto supported him in his high 

 ambition were now beginning to look a little less warmly on his 

 aspirations. Suffering from this source the mental depression 

 which was natural to a sensitive spirit, no less remarkable for its 

 modesty than for its merit, he found solace in the friendly words 

 of good cheer and hopefulness addressed to him by Mr. William 

 Dunlap.* While one day making, with Mr. Henry, a trip down 

 the Hudson River on board the same steamboat, Mr. Dunlap 

 observed in the young teacher's face the marks of sadness, and, on 

 learning its cause, he laid his hand affectionately on Henry's 

 shoulder, and closed some reassuring advice with the prophetic 

 words, "Albany will one day be proud of her son." The presage 

 was destined to be abundantly confirmed. Soon afterward came 

 the call to Princeton College, and, because of the wider career it 

 opened to him, the call was as grateful to Henry as its acceptance 

 was gratifying to the friends of that institution. And shortly 

 before this promotion a new happiness had come to crown his life 

 in his marriage to the excellent lady who still survives him. 



He entered upon the duties of his new post in the month of 

 November, 1832, and bringing with him a budding reputation, 

 which soon blossomed into the highest scientific fame, he became 

 the pride and ornament of the Princeton Faculty. The prestige 

 of his magnets attracted students from all parts of the country; 

 but the magnetism of the man was better far than any work of 

 his cunning hand or fertile brain. It was in Princeton, as he 

 was afterward wont to say, that he spent the happiest days of 

 his life, and they were also among the most fruitful in scientific 



*This Mr. Dunlap had been the manager of the Park Theatre in New York, 

 and combined \vith his dramatic vocation the pursuits of literature and the 

 painter's art. He wrote the " History of Arts and Designs in the United States," a 

 work which was esteemed a standard one at the date of its first publication in ls.54. 



