106 CHARLES ANTHONY GOESSMANN 



the times, he had a clear comprehension of the actual 

 conditions and the needs of chemical education in this 

 country. 



He lived to see the most remarkable changes in the 

 science which he had himself so successfully cultivated. 

 But like his great master, he preferred demonstration 

 to speculation; and although ready to adopt what was 

 established by experiment, however it might conflict 

 with his previous views, he was strongly opposed to 

 innovations based upon mere hypotheses. His pro- 

 found love of truth made him the cautious, painstak- 

 ing, persevering inquirer he was. He was a student of 

 facts. Like Faraday, he could 'trust a fact.' He 

 searched for facts and taught their value. He cared 

 rather to gather them than to deduce from them 

 general laws. Slow to generalize, in his judgments he 

 was conservative and independent. 



Admirably fitted by tradition, training, experience, 

 and temperament for the life of a teacher and investi- 

 gator, he brought to the service of the College a singu- 

 larly happy combination of qualities genuine devo- 

 tion to his subject, great capacity for work, the power 

 to kindle enthusiasm in others, a well-balanced mind 

 and body, and a robust physique. In the retrospect of 

 his life one is struck with the amount of labour which 

 he performed. Always at work, never in haste, sys- 

 tematic beyond most men, perfect order pervaded all 

 that he did. In his speech he never wholly lost his 

 foreign accent and German idioms. Yet as a writer he 

 had a good style and wrote English with facility and 

 ease, with scarcely a trace of the involution of his 



