Ruschenberger.] _ 440 [Feb. 15, 
expressing regret, sympathy, and, for themselves as well as 
their predecessors, “profound respect for Dr. Bridges as a 
chemist, and their most grateful esteem for him as their friend 
and instructor,” and earnestly invoking the divine blessing 
upon his remaining years. 
He tendered his resignation in a letter dated March 4, 1879. 
At a meeting of the Board of Trustees, March 14, a preamble 
and resolutions were unanimously adopted, stating in substance 
that he had devoted his time and abilities to a conscientious 
discharge of the trust assigned him for a long period, during 
which the professors received a scanty remuneration, that ‘to 
his sound judgment and patient labor” the success of the col- 
lege is much indebted ; that the good work he has accomplished 
has its record in those who have been his pupils in the college 
—about five thousand—and that he has the sincere thanks and 
sympathy of the Board. 
At the celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary, March 11, 
1879, the Phi Zeta Society, which is composed of alumni of 
the college, created a scholarship and named it the Robert 
Bridges scholarship, as a token of its high estimation of his 
character and official services. 
The Board of Trustees after due deliberation, “in view of 
his faithful and efficient labors,” conferred upon him, May 6, 
1879, the title of Hmeritus Professor of Chemistry, with an 
annual salary of one thousand dollars, to be paid in equal in- 
stallments quarterly, in advance, during his life, from the first 
day of July ensuing. 
By this spontaneous act of benevolence, the Trustees have 
shown themselves to be worthy of honor as distinguished as that 
which they conferred on Dr. Bridges; and they have set an ex- 
ample eminently proper to be followed by all incorporated 
educational institutions. There are no skilled laborers whose 
work is more important to the community, and yet none so 
inadequately paid, as professors and teachers in our colleges and 
schools of every name. During the vigorous period of their 
lives their remuneration affords them and their families a very 
modest living; but it is too scanty to permit investment of a 
