OBITUARY NOTICES. "xvii 
tic theories. His last work was upon Z/ementary Principles in Sta- 
“istical Mechanics. 
The value of Williard Gibbs’ work to science has been formally 
recognized by many learned societies and universities at home and 
abroad. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, 
the Royal Institute of Great Britain, the Royal Society of London, 
etc., etc., and the recipient of honorary degrees from Williams Col- 
lege and from the Universities of Erlangen, Princeton and Chris- 
tiana. In 1881 he received the Rumford medal from the American ~ 
Academy of Boston, and in 1901 the Copley medal of the Royal 
Society of London. 
His life was uneventful. He made but one visit to Europe. He 
lived in New Haven, in the same home which his father built, a few 
rods from the school where he prepared for College and from the 
University, in the service of which his life was spent. He never 
married. He was retiring in disposition, went little into society and 
was known to few outside the University. His modesty in regard 
to his work was proverbial. ‘‘ Unassuming in manner, genial and 
kindly in his intercourse with his fellow-men, devoid of personal 
_ambition of the baser sort, or of the slightest desire to exalt him- 
self, he went far toward realizing the ideal of the unselfish Christian 
gentleman.’’ He died April 28, 1903. 
They are gone. The world and we shall miss them. May the 
good they have accomplished serve as further incentives to us to 
press forward—each in his own specialty—without ceasing, in quest 
of the all-satisfying, all-enlightening truth. 
