Februaet 7, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



235 



York University. He became tvitor in natural 

 history in the City College in 1866, under 

 Professor John C. Draper, whom he succeeded 

 in 1886, as head of the department. He was 

 a well-known member of the scientific organi- 

 zations of New York, and was a recognized 

 expert in biological microscopy, devising new 

 combinations in the mathematics of lenses 

 and conducting important experiments in the 

 early days of photomicrography. In his work 

 in the City College he introduced laboratory 

 methods and developed its museum, enriching 

 it with the fruits of several paleontological 

 excursions to the Rockies. He is best known, 

 however, as the teacher and devoted friend of 

 those whose interests in natural history led 

 them to carry their studies beyond the door of 

 their classroom, and he was generous, even to 

 a fault, in giving them his time, means, books, 

 apparatus — all that he had. Not a few of his 

 pupils became prominent in New York as 

 physicians and as biologists. B. D. 



MORRIS K. JESUP 



In the death of Morris K. Jesup, science in 

 America has lost one of its wisest supporters 

 and most liberal benefactors. Mr. Jesup's 

 name has been closely associated in our minds 

 with the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, and it is true that during his presidency 

 of twenty-seven years his chief interests have 

 been centered there, but his enthusiasm in the 

 cause of education and of science reached far 

 beyond the bounds of the City of New York; 

 in fact, it is doubtful if there has ever lived 

 in America or any other country a man 

 trained originally for business who developed 

 more universal sympathies and interests. The 

 most northerly promontory of the Arctic bears 

 his name; he was instriimental in exploration 

 of the extreme south; as president of the 

 Syrian College at Beirut his influence has been 

 felt through the orient, and expeditions, made 

 possible through his generosity, have investi- 

 gated many scientific problems in the west. 



There were two grandly distinctive features 

 of his administration of the American Mu- 

 seum. First, his desire to popularize science 

 through the arrangement and exhibition of 



collections in such a simple and attractive 

 manner as to come within the reach and intel- 

 ligence of all; second, to make the museum a 

 center for research and an agency for the 

 exploration of unknown fields. It may be 

 said without reserve that he was as full of 

 enthusiasm for, and faith in the cause of pure 

 research as he was in that of popular educa- 

 tion. During 1907, the last year of his 

 administration, and with his sanction, the 

 museum spent at least $80,000 for strictly 

 scientific work. It is important to make this 

 statement because the extent of the activities 

 of the museum in the field of pure science is 

 not so widely known as it should be. 



Two years ago the trustees of the museum 

 invited Mr. Jesup to celebrate the twenty-fifth 

 anniversary of his presidency of the institu- 

 tion. A loving cup beautifully designed in 

 gold was presented to him, with inscriptions 

 and symbols in allusion to those branches of 

 science in which he had taken special interest. 

 On one face of the cup reference was made 

 to the forestry of North America ; on another, 

 his interest in vertebrate paleontology was in- 

 dicated and his gift of the Cope collection of 

 fishes, amphibians and reptiles was mentioned ; 

 on the third face was a design symbolizing the 

 work of the Jesup North Pacific expeditions, 

 the last and gi-eatest of the enterprises toward 

 which his efforts were directed. Two years 

 have elapsed since this memorable meeting, at 

 which the three surviving founders of the 

 museum, J, Pierpont Morgan, Joseph H. 

 Choate and Mr. Jesup, were present. 



It is not possible to review or summarize 

 here all the different directions in which Mr. 

 Jesup was led by his keen sense of the duties 

 of citizenship. He was a man who had a 

 strong civic pride; he believed in American 

 ideas and in American men, and was ever 

 willing to sacrifice his own interests to those 

 of the community. He was an idealist, an 

 optimist, and keenly patriotic. He was san- 

 guine, determined, forceful, trustful, appre- 

 ciative and even affectionate toward those 

 closely associated with him. Many of his acts 

 of kindness will never be known, because hun- 

 dreds of his deeds were on the principle of 

 not letting the left hand know what the right 



