70 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 



intimate knowledge of details shown by McGee. His publications 

 are voluminous, and show a grasp of the larger features and relations 

 of many of the highly specialized sciences. 



The ability to accomplish such unusual results in a lifetime by 

 no means long, has been due to an extraordinary diligence and power 

 of application. Possessing a strong physique and untiring interest, 

 McGee was able to concentrate upon each subject which came before 

 him, and regardless of time or external distractions, continued hour 

 after hour, sometimes all day and far into the night, on the subject in 

 hand. Generosity marked all his acts and was one of his best recog- 

 nized characteristics. At all times he freely shared with his associa- 

 ates the idea developed by him, discussing frankly all related facts 

 and theories. Few men have done more to stimulate and diffuse 

 general information, and to give freely to all who would receive his 

 ideas and original conceptions. He was fearless in advocating the 

 truth as he saw it, and in showing the fallacies of mistaken ideas, 

 however popular they might be. He thus had a wide circle of very 

 warm friends, who now miss his cheerful companionship and sin- 

 cerely mourn his loss. 



His character may be summed up in his attitude toward his ap- 

 proaching end. Interested at all times in matters of health, he 

 discovered through observation that he had a fatal disease long before 

 definitely assured of the fact by physicians. At once, he took a keen 

 impersonal scientific interest in its progress, made accurate estimates 

 of the probable length of life, the amount of work he could accom- 

 plish, made his plans systematically, and finished the work a few days 

 before he was finally compelled to abandon original investigation. 

 As long as consciousness remained, he took a lively interest in the 

 doings of his friends, was at all times cheerful, preserving to the last 

 his characteristic sense of kindly humor, and seemed more solicitous 

 for the comforts and convenience of his associates than for himself. 



From Doctor J. F. Kemp, of Columbia University: 



When we find a man who works out his own preparation by the 

 vastly more difficult method of personal effort, and who fits himself 

 thoroughly and well in his early years, under his own ins true torship, 



