50 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 810 



personal benefit. But its aim is thereby to 

 secure for all others more freedom at a 

 higher level. Society forbids a company 

 of physicians to pour out upon the com- 

 munity a horde of ill-trained physicians. 

 Their liberty is indeed clipped. As a re- 

 sult, however, more competent doctors be- 

 ing trained under the auspices of the state 

 itself, the public health is improved; the 

 physical well-being of the wage-worker is 

 heightened; and a restriction put upon the 

 liberty, so-called, of a dozen doctors in- 

 creases the effectual liberty of all other 

 citizens. Has democracy, then, really suf- 

 fered a set-back? Reorganization along 

 rational lines involves the strengthening, 

 not the weakening, of democratic principle, 

 because it tends to provide the conditions 

 upon which well-being and effectual liberty 

 depend. 



HENRY AUGUSTUS TORREY ^ 

 Henry Augustus Torrey, assistant pro- 

 fessor of chemistry and member of this fac- 

 ulty for the last seven years, died of endo- 

 carditis on Friday, March 25, at his home, 5 

 Fuller Place, Cambridge, after an illness of 

 several weeks. 



Torrey was born on August 29, 1871, at 

 Burlington, Vt., the son of Professor Henry 

 A. P. Torrey, of the philosophical department 

 of the University of Vermont, and Sarah 

 Paine Torrey, daughter of the late President 

 Torrey of the same university. Thus he came 

 on both sides from families noted in the edu- 

 cational world. He received the degree of 

 bachelor of arts from the University of Ver- 

 mont in 1893, and in the following year took 

 a position as assistant in food investigations 

 at Middletown, Conn., going thence to Har- 

 vard in 1895. Prom Harvard he received the 

 degree of master of arts in 1896 and doctor of 

 philosophy in 1897, as well as a Parker fellow- 

 ship in the following year, which he devoted 



'■ Read at tlie meeting of the faculty of arts and 

 sciences of Harvard University, and entered upon 

 its records, June 21, 1910. 



to study in Leipzig and Berlin. On his return 

 from Europe in 1898 he became instructor in 

 the University of Vermont, where he was made 

 assistant professor in 1899. In 1903 he was 

 called to an instructorship at Harvard, and 

 was promoted in 1905 to the assistant pro- 

 fessorship which he held at the time of his 

 death. In 1906 he was married to Miss 

 Dorothy Van Patten, of Davenport, la., who 

 with one son survives him. 



Torrey was selected as instructor in organic 

 chemistry after careful deliberation and much 

 thought, because he was believed to combine 

 in rare degree all the varied attributes needed 

 by the successful teacher and investigator ; and 

 his work immediately vindicated the choice. 

 In his lectures he succeeded in so illuminating 

 an involved and technical subject as to show 

 clearly the vivid interest of its underlying 

 facts and theories; and through his numerous 

 papers on structural organic chemistry he had 

 already begun to make his mark among those 

 who seek to discover not merely the products 

 but also the mechanism of organic changes. 

 His knowledge of physical chemistry contrib- 

 uted greatly to his power of solving the new 

 problems which daily confront the organic 

 chemist. His academic advancement was as- 

 sured, he loved the university, and rejoiced in 

 his opportunity to serve her. His place is 

 very hard to fill. 



His kindly and sympathetic personality won 

 for him many friends among both the faculty 

 and the students. All who knew him prized 

 very highly his ideals and his faithfulness in 

 ever seeking to attain them. Among the stu- 

 dents he was unusually popular, not because 

 his courses were easy (they were indeed un- 

 usually difficult), but because the men appre- 

 ciated his intelligence and his uprightness as 

 well as his vivifying similes and his quaint 

 sense of humor. Few even among his inti- 

 mates realized fully the heroism with which 

 he threw himself into his work. His health 

 was frail, and he well knew its frailty; but 

 he never faltered. His courage was none the 

 less real because it was silent and unobtrusive. 

 He leaves with us poignant regret for his 

 untimely death, an enduring reverence for the 



