638 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1088 



the industrial section. Those of the graduate 

 students who are granted the title of fellow in 

 pure chemistry are considered by the Mellon 

 Institute as equal in rank and privileges with 

 the industrial research fellows. 



W. A. Hamors 



FSEDEBIC WARD PUTNAM 

 The following minute on the life and serv- 

 ices of Professor Putnam was placed upon the 

 records of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences 

 of Harvard University at the meeting of Oc- 

 tober 26, 1915 : 



Frederic Ward Putnanij son of Ebenezer and 

 Elizabeth Appleton Putnam, was born in Salem, 

 Massachusetts, April 16, 1839. His ancestors on 

 both sides were early immigrants from England, 

 the first American ancestor being John Putnam, 

 who settled in Salem in 1640. The father, grand- 

 father and great-grandfather of Professor Put- 

 nam were all graduates of Harvard College, and 

 the associations of his mother's family had been 

 close with the institution from its beginning. 



His early schooling was received in private 

 schools and at home under his father's tuition. 

 At an early age he showed great interest in nat- 

 ural history and had thoughts of devoting himself 

 to scientific pursuits. Promised an appointment at 

 West Point, however, he was preparing himself to 

 adopt a military career, when Louis Agassiz met 

 him at the Museum of the Essex Institute, and, 

 recognizing in him a keen student, persuaded him 

 to take up natural history as his life work. His 

 preparation for the military profession was ac- 

 cordingly abandoned, and he devoted himself at 

 once to the study of birds, being made curator of 

 ornithology in the Essex Institute in 1856. In the 

 following year he was made assistant to Professor 

 Agassiz, and entering the Lawrence Scientific 

 School received the degree of S.B. in 1862. Eor 

 a number of years after this, he continued his work 

 in the study of animal life, as curator of verte- 

 brates at the Essex Institute, of Ichthyology at 

 the Boston Society of Natural History, and as as- 

 sistant in the museum of comparative zoology at 

 Harvard University. During these years he had 

 also some experience in museum administration, as 

 he was entrusted with the charge of the Museum 

 of the Essex Institute and of the Museum of the 

 East Indian Marine Society in Salem, and later 



3 Assistant to the director of the Mellon Insti- 

 tute of Industrial Eeseareh. 



was made director of the museum of the Peabody 

 Academy of Science in the same city. In 1873 he 

 was chosen to fill the important position of perma- 

 nent secretary of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, an office which he 

 held for twenty-five years. Professor Putnam's 

 connection with the association lasted through one 

 of the most important periods in its life, and to his 

 energy and administrative ability much of its suc- 

 cess was due. 



Although it was in the field of natural history 

 that Professor Putnam for many years carried on 

 most of his work, his interest in archeology was 

 early aroused. While attending the meeting of 

 the American Association at Montreal in 1857, he 

 discovered on Mt. Eoyal a small kitchen-midden, 

 and was thus among the very first in this country 

 to recognize the presence of the remains of pre- 

 historic man. In 1874 Dr. Jeffries Wyman, the 

 first curator of the Peabody Museum of American 

 Archeology and Ethnology, died and Professor 

 Putnam was appointed to take the place. Thus 

 began his connection with the institution of which 

 he was the director for over forty years. In 1886, 

 he was made Peabody professor of American 

 archeology and ethnology, and served as such until 

 1909, when he joined the group of the emeriti. 

 During the nearly half -century of his connection 

 with the museum, he labored unceasingly to build 

 up its collections, both by purchase and by ex- 

 plorations in the field. He was one of the earliest 

 to realize the need of archeological and anthropo- 

 logical exploration, and to insist that careful field- 

 notes and data are equally important with the 

 specimens themselves. The great collections which 

 he gathered and which place the museum in the 

 forefront of the museums of this country, are a 

 witness of his success. 



With the appointment to the Peabody pro- 

 fessorship, Harvard University became one of the 

 first institutions in the country to offer instruction 

 in the field of anthropology and American archeol- 

 ogy. Although always more active in museum and 

 field-work than in teaching, Professor Putnam 

 strove constantly to develop the instruction in his 

 chosen science, from the time when, before any 

 courses were offered, he had several voluntary stu- 

 dents working under his direction, to the very last 

 days of his life, when nearly a score of specialized 

 courses were offered by the division of which ne 

 had for so long been the head. 



Striking as were the results of his work here at 

 Harvard, his influence was literally nation wide, 

 and he may justly be called one of the fathers of 



