HENRY TORSEY FERNALD 



Henry T. Fernald was born at Litchfield, Maine, April 17, 1866, 

 about a year after his father, Charles H. Fernald, had accepted the 

 principalship of Litchfield Academy. From the time he was five years 

 old until he was twenty, his father was professor in the Maine state 

 college at Orono, and his youth was wholly spent in the atmosphere 

 of the academy or college campus. 



His early training was received entirely at home, and there he 

 fitted for college. He entered the Maine state college and received 

 from it the degree B. Sc. in 1885. The studies of greatest interest 

 to him were chemistry, botany, zoology, and especially entomology; 

 thus he followed closely in his father's footsteps. From his father he 

 received instruction in entomology in the classroom and outside it. 

 Most of his summers were spent at the old Fernald homestead, Fer- 

 nald's Point, Mt. Desert Island, where he became acquainted with a 

 large variety of both terrestrial and aquatic forms of animal life. 



He pursued post-graduate study at Wesleyan University, Middle- 

 town, Conn., in 1885-1886, under the noted biologist Dr. H. W. Conn 

 and the geologist Dr. W. N. Rice. In the fall of 1886 he entered 

 Johns Hopkins University, but ill health forced his vx^ithdrawal after 

 a short time. The spring of 1887 found him in the Bahamas, attend- 

 ing the Johns Hopkins University Seaside School at Nassau, and the 

 fall found him again at Johns Hopkins, where he took post-graduate 

 work in morphology, physiology and botany under such eminent 

 teachers as Drs. W. K. Brooks, H. N. Martin, and W. H. Howell. 

 The Maine state college granted him its Master of Science degree 

 in 1888, on presentation of a thesis. He continued his studies at 

 Johns Hopkins, in his third year serving as laboratory assistant, and 

 received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1890. The training 

 which he received in zoology in its broad aspects was as good as 

 could be obtained anywhere in the United States at that time. His 

 major work was done in invertebrate zoology. His thesis, "The 

 Relationships of Arthropods," was based on histological and other 

 researches and was published in the "Biological Studies from the 

 Johns Hopkins LTniversity," 1890. 



Dr. Fernald had chosen teaching as his profession, and he went 

 immediately as assistant professor of zoology to the Pennsylvania 

 state college. After three years of efficient service, he was made 

 professor of zoology there, and remained at that institution until the 

 summer of 1899. 



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