56 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 837 



Professor Wliitman's interest in the teach- 

 ing side of his profession is fully demon- 

 strated by his organization of teaching as a 

 department coordinate with research in the 

 Marine Biological Laboratory. He stead- 

 fastly resisted the influence of some of the 

 investigators in favor of doing away with in- 

 struction at the laboratory. He held that 

 teaching exerted an important reflex influence 

 on the body of investigators. He enjoyed and 

 valued the presence of the student element, 

 for whom he had constant sympathy and 

 towards whom he exhibited the utmost friend- 

 liness. It has resulted at "Woods Hole that the 

 institution, which was made by investigators, 

 ias aided in the making of many investiga- 

 tors. Surely no environment more favorable 

 for awakening and stimulating scholarly am- 

 bition could be found. 



Although Professor TThitman published 

 relatively few papers he nevertheless occupied 

 a commanding position in science. Some of 

 the reasons have already been indicated. His 

 " eye was single and his whole body was there- 

 fore full of light " ; his devotion to scholarship 

 was never open to the slightest shadow of sus- 

 picion. He was continuously engaged in his 

 personal research which dealt with the most 

 fundamental problems of biology, and he had 

 accumulated vast stores of data, which we 

 hoped he would live to publish himself. But 

 apparently he could never satisfy himself 

 with reference to the fundamental problems 

 on which his mind was fixed; the grand con- 

 summation of his work had not come, and he 

 could not reconcile himself to the publication 

 of more or less fragmentary pieces of work. 

 His published papers, mostly short, are models 

 of condensed thought, written in a fine, pol- 

 ished, characteristic style. No less care was 

 devoted to the form than to the substance, and 

 some of his papers certainly will endure as 

 classics, of the biology of his time. His ac- 

 tivities in connection with the Journal of 

 Morphology and the llarine Biological Lab- 

 oratory brought him into close personal rela- 

 tions with the leading biologists of his time, 

 most of whom learned to value highlv his 



somewhat rarely and deliberately uttered ex- 

 pressions of opinion on scientific problems. 



It was, therefore, not only his publications 

 but also his work with his journal, his labora- 

 tory and his students, his constant helpful as- 

 sociation with other workers and the example 

 of his austere and studious life that brought 

 him recognition. He never permitted himself 

 to be distracted by the confusion of modern 

 life, social or academic, nor diverted from 

 his steadfast purpose by clamor for quick re- 

 sults. 



It is impossible for us yet to measure justly 

 the value of such a life to our community; it 

 conveys a much-needed lesson of consecration 

 to the ideals of scholarship; our appreciation 

 of it will surely increase in proportion as time 

 eliminates all the petty details that confuse 

 the picture of a great man's life, and permits 

 its essential nobility to shine forth un- 

 dimmed. 



P. E. L. 



December 21, 1910 



With the death of Charles Otis Whitman 

 America has lost the third of her greatest 

 scholars. Professor Whitman's name belongs 

 with those of William James and Simon New- 

 comb, not only because of the profound influ- 

 ence he has exerted on the development of 

 zoology in this country by means of his per- 

 sonality, by founding at Woods Hole a unique 

 biological university and by the establishment 

 of the Journal of Morphology, but also be- 

 cause of the strength of his character and the 

 greatness of his achievements in science. 



His scientific work marks him as a great 

 master, for his finished, published papers are 

 truly masterpieces both of content and ex- 

 pression. In addition to these he had accumu- 

 lated by long, patient and untiring study an 

 enormous mass of observations on the habits 

 and behavior of pigeons, their phylogeny, in- 

 heritance, the origin of species and the pro- 

 gression of species by orthogenesis, indepen- 

 dent of natural selection. The general results 

 of this work he had presented from time to 

 time in brief addresses and he was preparing 

 for publication a full report of it, when he be- 



