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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 727 



hibited characteristic interest in the solu- 

 tion of problems and distaste for such 

 mechanical drudgei-y as had only practical 

 and not theoretical ends in view by the 

 invention of a calculating machine to lessen 

 the amount of unprofitable manual work. 



To get the higher education despite lack 

 of financial support he became a teacher at 

 Hobart College and there entered upon a 

 second marked period in necessary prep- 

 aration for his life-work. He learned the 

 boy mind and the simple way to teach by 

 arousing interest in the truths of nature. 

 Some others profited by this much later 

 when he was induced to give private lessons 

 in natural history to boys in Newport and 

 the same bent always made his university 

 lectures the opposite of that ill-digested 

 verbiage that is sometimes heard. At 

 Hobart two great opportunities were util- 

 ized : communion with nature as presented 

 along the rapids below the falls of Niagara 

 and communion with the thought of phi- 

 losophers he met in his readings in the 

 library. It was then that he became so 

 strongly impressed by the writings of 

 Bishop Berkeley as never to be oblivious of 

 the relation of observational science to the 

 fundamental character of the ego. In the 

 woods about Hobart, Brooks made those 

 observations upon the habits of squirrels, 

 that were probably his first publications 

 and perhaps his last contributions in print 

 to the study of mammals, for his life-work 

 was largely in the field of the lower animals 

 though the complex psychology of the 

 mammal appealed to him strongly. 



After two years he entered Williams 

 College where a love of natural history was 

 fostered by the society that sent out an 

 expedition across South America. Receiv- 

 ing the A.B. degree he was drawn by the 

 fame of Agassiz to his first experience with 

 marine life at the famous experiment, the 

 Penikese school, where he shared the dis- 

 comforts and the delights of the beginnings 



of that hastily materialized ideal. Sailing 

 to that island by fishing vessel the poetic 

 strain in his composition long treasured the 

 glimpse of his point of departure, the then 

 picturesque hamlet of South Dartmouth, 

 much later recognized, for its rare atmos- 

 phere, by the artist, Tyron. 



At Harvard College, he received the de- 

 gree of Ph.D. He had the stimulus of con- 

 tact and friendship with Hyatt and Mc- 

 Crady and the environment of the mu- 

 seums of Agassiz and of the Boston 

 Natural History Society. With Hyatt's 

 aid he added to his own studies of the 

 embryology of pond snails, such intimate 

 knowledge of the large collections of 

 gasteropod shells that he could distinguish 

 and identify them in the dark. By Mc- 

 Crady he became inspired by the beauties 

 of form and problems of life-history of the 

 medusas that McCrady's studies at Charles- 

 ton, S. C, were revealing. 



In 1875, he, with H. Tuttle and Theodore 

 B. Comstock, opened a summer school at 

 Cleveland, with some twenty-five, chiefly 

 school teachers, in attendance, with lec- 

 tures, excursions and laboratory study of 

 both local and marine animals and plants. 



With the opening of the Johns Hopkins 

 University, Dr. Brooks saw an opportunity 

 to devote himself to the study of zoology 

 untrammelled by tradition and with the 

 freedom to express the genius that was in 

 him. Appointed fellow, he was at once 

 made instructor, and having no adminis- 

 trative routine was enabled to give him- 

 self wholly to investigation— not that he 

 was lacking in initiative and practical ex- 

 pedients. By personal representation he 

 obtained from prominent citizens a nucleus 

 of support for the founding of the Chesa- 

 peake Marine Laboratory, the first school 

 for study of marine life to take the field 

 opened by Agassiz 's initial experiment. 

 He also induced the civic authorities to 

 open a public aquarium in Druid Hill 



