DANA CENTENARY 61 



wardrobe and relieve the oft-burdened mineral satchel borne by each of them. 

 until such time as they reached a suitable place for shipment." 



I have quoted thus at length from Doctor Bagg's letter, because Professor 

 Dana used often in conversation to refer to those early days at Utica and the 

 advantage that a country boy had over a city boy in the study of nature, 

 ascribing to Mr. Edgerton the crystallizing into permanency his own inclination 

 toward nature study. I do not recall his ever mentioning Asa Gray as being 

 one of his teachers, though the great botanist succeeded Edgerton at Bartlett 

 Academy before Dana left home for New Haven, and Dana and Gray were 

 lifelong and fast friends. 



Dana, as he himself said in his inaugural address as professor, was attracted 

 to Yale in 1830 by the elder Silliman, another marvelous teacher, then in the 

 zenith of his fame. Thus we can trace the influence of one great teacher on 

 another — Silliman on Eaton, Eaton on Edgerton, Edgerton and Silliman on 

 Dana, Dana on many of the geologists of the present day. 



In 1833 and 1834 Dana spent sixteen months on a United States naval vessel. 

 cruising to the Mediterranean as a teacher of mathematics to midshipmen. 

 Then came a period of three years without a position, except temporarily as 

 assistant to Silliman, fruitful in producing the first edition of his ••System of 

 Mineralogy," a remarkable book for a young man of 24 to prepare. After this 

 period came the United States exploring expedition under Captain Wilkes. 

 1838-1842, giving Dana an unequaled opportunity for accumulating data and 

 experience, and this was followed by fourteen years devoted to getting out his 

 truly monumental reports on the zoophytes, the geology and the Crustacea of 

 the trip, and to the preparation and publishing of the second edition of his 

 "System of Mineralogy," his "Manual of Mineralogy." the third edition of the 

 System, coral reefs, and islands, and the fourth edition of the System, besides 

 many long and short articles that appeared in the American Journal of Science 

 and elsewhere — about 7,000 pages of printed text, besides hundreds of plates 

 and figures, coining from his pen in these years. 



These thirty years, as we may say, of preparation brought him to his pro- 

 fessorship with a fund of knowledge and experience possessed by none of his 

 colleagues in geology. Except for periods of enforced rest, when the frail body 

 was allowed an opportunity to recuperate from the strain put on it by the 

 intensely active brain, Professor Dana was on the active teaching force of Vale 

 College for about thirty-five years, or until the fall of 1890, when persistent ill 

 health forced him to give up class-room work. In 1S!>2 he formally relin- 

 quished his professorship and two years later was made professor emeritus. 



At first he had classes in mineralogy as well as geology, but as he pre* away 

 from the narrower science he retained those in geology alone. :in elementary 

 required course for the college seniors in the fall term, followed by an ad- 

 vanced elective course in the spring, with occasional graduate students, const! 

 tuting the program of directly instructional work that fell to his lot. :it least 

 during the latter pari of his career. 



It is quite the custom in many quarters to inveigh against the usage that 



prevails in most American universities and colleges of requiring full professors 



to give elementary Instruction in the class room. There is this to he said in 



its favor, however, that it widens the Influence of the master mind, arouses 

 more thought in the average undergraduate than .an he engendered h.\ an in- 



