678 HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN 
antagonism to the church’s teachings. Professor Mudge lectured about this 
time on evolution, to which he remained opposed until his death. It was my 
first introduction to the doctrine to which I soon after became a devoted 
Gisciple teen 
I was very fortunate in the character of my teachers, especially the teacher 
of science, Professor Mudge. I have published a brief sketch of his life and 
need not say more about him here. I doubt not that my life has been devoted 
to natural science chiefly because of his influence. I studied every study that 
he taught and they were many: natural philosophy, chemistry, botany, 
geology, zodlogy, veterinary science, mineralogy, surveying, spherical geom- 
etry, conic sections, calculus, etc. Mudge had a considerable collection of 
fossils and minerals that filled a long case. To me it was a wonderful museum. 
There were no laboratories of any kind, no microscopes, and but few instru- 
ments. ‘The college catalogue of about that time, in enumerating its equip- 
ment, gravely mentions an electric machine, three Leyden jars, and six test 
tubes. The electric machine was a never-ending source of delight. The Pro- 
fessor occasionally got it out and charged the Leyden jars, and then, with hands 
joined in a circle, gave us a shock. He prophesied that some day electric light 
would take the place of other illuminations. My ambition was to make a 
machine myself, and I nearly succeeded, but I found no way of boring a hole 
through the glass plate for the shaft. The oxyhydrogen light was another 
great wonder. My greatest interest was given to physics, or natural philosophy 
as it was then called. I read every book on the subject that I could get in 
the library. Chemistry had second place, while biology interested me but 
little. 
Williston left home at the age of seventeen, adventuring life 
first as a day laborer and then as a railroad engineer’s assistant. 
He returned, however, to the Kansas Agricultural College and took 
the degree of B.S. in March, 1872. Once again he took up civil 
engineering, which he followed for a year. It was this profession 
that prepared him for his field work and for his subsequent obser- 
vations in geology. It was in the spring of 1873 that he under- 
took the study of medicine in the office of his old family physician. 
Here he had free access to the doctor’s library, and he at once 
turned to his initial studies in anatomy and physiology, which laid 
the foundation of his anatomical training and ultimately qualified 
him for a professorship in the medical school of Yale University. 
In the meantime he had become an enthusiastic follower of the 
Darwinian doctrine, which was not at that time accepted as a 
demonstrated fact, and in February, 1874, he delivered in the local 
