Febbuaky 25, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



173 



was devised — ^the Sedgwick Rafter method — 

 etiU used to-day. 



I One of his students took up the study of 

 milk; another that of food; and to-day the In- 

 stitute has an important department of indus- 

 trial biology. Several studied sewage and its 

 methods of treatment, and for years this con- 

 tinued to be a fruitful field of research. Aji- 

 other studied the bacteriology of ice; another 

 the bacteriology of soil. Then there were 

 studies of particular species of bacteria — the 

 longevity of the typhoid bacillus, and so on. 

 The reason for mentioning these things is 

 to illustrate the breadth of the investigations 

 and the fact that Sedgwick always worked 

 with and through his students. He did very 

 little scientific work alone and he generally 

 gave to his students more than a fair share 

 of the credit for the work done. 



We hear much said to-day about research, 

 about the advantages of organized research. 

 In my opinion there is danger that research 

 may be organized to death. The compilation 

 of facts by committees of learned societies is 

 all very well, tests by competent scientists in 

 government bureaus are desirable, and research 

 conducted by the experts of great corporations 

 are necessary in order that modern science 

 may be applied in the most economical way to 

 human needs — but the highest type of research 

 is that which takes place in a iiniversity lab- 

 oratory where an inspired teacher and his 

 mature students sit down side by side and in 

 quiet study endeavor to search out the secrets 

 of nature and the chemical, biological, and 

 physical laws of God. Let the scientists of 

 America not follow too much the method of 

 organized research — let them give even greater 

 weight to the individual method of Hudey 

 and Pasteur and Sedgwick. 



When, after a long experience as a prac- 

 tising engineer, I came to Harvard to teach, I 

 had many talks with Sedgwick about methods 

 of teaching. He was no longer thirty-three 

 years old, but fifty-five. He had been teach- 

 ing for twenty-five years and he gave from his 

 experience. He said, "I keep three things in 

 mind — the past, the present, and the future. 

 First, I teach by the historical method. That 



has two advantages: my students learn what 

 has been done, and my lectures don't have to 

 be written over every year. Second, I teach 

 of what is going on now." His present- 

 day students knew well his habit of rushing 

 into the lecture-room with a clipping from 

 the morning paper or a copy of the Medical 

 Journal and talking about something which 

 somebody had discovered in Chicago or the 

 Fiji Islands, or about some new engineering 

 project. AH kinds of fish were caught in his 

 net, and he believed that the students should 

 study these fish while they were alive. 

 Thirdly, he said, " I try to teach of what is 

 likely to happen in the future. I try to make 

 the students see the problems they will be up 

 against." History, present problems, and re- 

 search — these were his three principles. 



His teaching was far from being exact. 

 Sedgwick did not have a mathematical mind. 

 His lectures were never formally prepared and 

 as he grew older they became less methodical. 

 He cared for general principles more than for 

 details. The opening sentence of his first 

 lecture to engineers, which I have already 

 quoted, shows what he wanted most to impress 

 upon his students. " The sanitarian needs a 

 proper working theory." But it was chiefly 

 his personal magnetism and his inspiration 

 which told on his students, and this never 

 failed him. His optimism was as strong at 

 sixty-five as it was at thirty-five. 



Sedgwick wiU be remembered first and 

 foremost as a great teacher — yes, even as a 

 teacher of teachers — ^because his enthusiasm 

 was contagious and others followed in his 

 steps. One has only to mention Dr. Calkins, 

 of Columbia; Dr. Jordan, of Chicago; Dr. 

 Winslow, of Yale; Professor Gunn, and other 

 names, now well known, to realize the extent 

 of Sedgwick's influence as a teacher upon 

 teachers. But among his pupils are sanitary 

 engineers, bacteriologists, health officers, lab- 

 oratory workers in many fields. Red Cross 

 officials, physicians, nurses, manufacturers, 

 teachers of domestic science, housewives — men 

 and women, a great company of enthusiastic 

 followers who recognized him as " Chief." 



Soon after Sedgwick came to Boston the 



