ALPHEUS HYATT, 1838-1902 135 



of a general marine laboratory, nor was Hyatt sufficiently interested in 

 the minutiae of executive detail to make a good director of a permanent 

 station, so after a few years the Annisquam project was abandoned and 

 the laboratory was removed to Woods Hole, Hyatt being the first 

 president of its board of trustees. 



Hyatt was a great, generous-minded, altruistic man; who formed 

 warm and enduring friendships with those about him. He was a 

 teacher and a student rather than an executive, and Ms faith in young 

 men was one of the beautiful sides of his character. Advocates of 

 peculiar theories of their own making are commonly conceited or 

 narrow-minded men, but Hyatt was the reverse of this, for his modesty 

 was real, and his breadth of view, founded as it was in superior knowl- 

 edge of science, and in interest and respect for those about him, was 

 constantly expanding. No man could have been more approachable, 

 and no educator of his generation was more highly esteemed for his 

 kindly personal qualities than was Alpheus Hyatt. 



His interests in educational affairs in Boston caused him to be ap- 

 pointed professor of zoology and paleontology in the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology, a chair which he held for eighteen years. He 

 was also professor of biology and zoology in the Boston University from 

 1877 until his death in 1902. 



But it is as a teacher of teachers that he will be best remembered by 

 the public of Boston. He loved to teach, but was never a pedant, for 

 as he says : 



Teacher and scholars should recognize that science is infinite, and they 

 should work as companions learning from each other's observations. Better a 

 child should learn to handle one animal, to see and know its structure and how 

 it lives and moves, than to go through the whole animal kingdom with the 

 best teacher. 



His knowledge of invertebrate zoology was profound and extensive, 

 and he had an apt manner in illustration which made his lectures 

 popular and brought his pupils close to nature ; as Agassiz said of him, 

 " he possessed the essential element with which to engage the attention 

 of an audience — knowledge thoroughly his own." In 1870 with sup- 

 port from Mr. John Cj Cummings and the cooperation of many educa- 

 tional leaders and philanthropists, he organized the Teacher's School of 

 Science and gave courses of lectures upon biology to the public school 

 teachers of Boston. Between 1870 and 1902 more than 1,200 school 

 teachers attended these lectures, and the school is still being successfully 

 conducted by Professor George Barton. A good account of the origin 

 and history of this school is given by Frances Zirngiebel in Popular 

 Science Monthly, August and September, 1899. 



Professor Goodale suggested that guide-books of a peculiar character 

 should be written for the benefit of the teachers who might attend these 

 lecture courses; accordingly, between 1878 and 1896, thirteen short 



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