HIS QUALITIES AS A TEACHER 367 



it might present itself. There may have been others who stated 

 a scientific fact as well, but there were few of his time who gave 

 so wide an application or humanized as he did the subjects of 

 his instruction. "Under Professor Shaler," says one of his col- 

 leagues, "the student gained a kindling vision of pretty much 

 all the natural world " ; and one of his old students writes in 

 The World's Work : 



The dramatic points of his subjects were always brought out in his lectures 

 with great relish. To have heard him describe the movements of the ice-cap 

 over our continent, you would have thought he had been there, observing 

 from a mountain-peak : and, when he wound up with the fact that he him- 

 self owned "a patch of glebe on the very moraine piled up by the edge of 

 that creeping ice-sheet," you felt that the Creator had probably parceled it 

 out to him as his rightful share in the great land improvement. 



Another of his former pupils, now a well-known teacher, 

 sets forth in the Journal of Geography his impressions of the 

 teacher : 



As youths, students were inspired by his wonderful exposition in the 

 class-room, and by his deep love for all that was noble and pure; as the 

 years went on they came to love him because of his breadth of sympathy, 

 his versatility, and his nobleness, which could not be appreciated in early 

 acquaintance because their knowledge was not deep enough. Those who 

 knew him longest loved him because of all these qualities and many others 

 that became deeper and richer as the years advanced. . . . The large major- 

 ity of students went forth from his classes broader in their mental vision, 

 more in sympathy with Nature, more keen to analyze the problems of sci- 

 ence presented to them daily, and with a deep conviction that they had 

 gained a mental altitude that gave them a more human outlook on the 

 world. Professor Shaler was a great teacher because he was primarily a 

 broad-minded, big-hearted man, vigorous of speech, keen of mind, quick 

 of action, versatile almost beyond belief, always interested in everything 

 about him however remote or seemingly trivial. He sacrificed his strength 

 in every way in the service of his fellows, but his influence will go on through 

 the generations, by his books and writings, but more especially by the teach- 

 ings of those he taught to teach by his example. 



The mere mention of the course originally called Natural 

 History Five, and subsequently Geology Four, recalls to hun- 



