George Jarvis Brush. 391 



papers with this title were published in volumes xv and xvi of 

 this Journal. This work in mineral chemistry served to show 

 both his ability in research, his grasp of scientific methods, and 

 his interest in the subject. It also made him feel the necessity 

 of further scientific study and training ; and, after spending the 

 summer of 1853 as assistant in charge of the department of 

 mineralogy in the Crystal Palace at the International Exposition 

 in New York, he sailed in the following November to Ger- 

 many. The years 1853 to 1855 were spent in Germany, at 

 first at Munich with Liebig, von Kobell, and Pettenkofer, and 

 later at the mining school at Freiberg, Saxony. These years 

 were rich in results, not only in the scientific training they 

 gave, but also in the opportunities for close association with 

 his professors and fellow students. 



In 1855 Mr. Brush was elected professor of metallurgy at 

 New Haven, in the Yale Scientific School that had been slowly 

 developing ever since its beginning in 1846. To train himself 

 for his future work he spent another year abroad, studying at 

 the Royal School of Mines in London and also visiting the 

 chief mines and smelting works of Great Britain and the con- 

 tinent. In Januaiw, 1857, he entered upon the duties of his 

 professorship of metallurgy : later, in 1864, his chair was 

 broadened so as to include mineralogy, and in 1871 it was 

 finally limited to the latter subject, the one in which he was 

 particularly interested. Of his work after the time when he 

 became professor in the Scientific School, one who was later 

 his colleague for many years wrote of him in 1881 : * 



" From this time on the history of Professor Brush has been 

 the history of the special scientific department of Yale College, 

 which, in 1860, owing to the liberal benefactions of Mr. Joseph E. 

 Sheffield, received the name of the Sheffield Scientific School. 

 He came to it while it was not only without reputation, but with- 

 out appreciation or expectation. He came to it while it was poor 

 beyond even that decent poverty which apparently belongs, in the 

 nature of things, to institutions of learning — while it was in a state 

 of mind so unorganized that as a whole it could hardly be said to 

 have a being at all. It exhibited, indeed, a good deal of life in 

 the College catalogue, but beyond that its vitality did not extend. 

 There was vigor enough in certain of its departments, especially 

 in that of civil engineering, under the charge of Professor William 

 A. Norton ; but in such cases it was a vigor due to the energy of 

 the individual instructor, and therefore almost certain to disap- 

 pear whenever he disappeared. To bring these scattered units 

 into an organic whole, to build up a complete and consistent 

 scheme of scientific education, which should have both definite 

 and lofty aims, which should train men thoroughly in scientific 

 methods, and w r hich should continue to exist by its own inherent 

 vitality after the men who established it should have passed 



* Popular Science Monthly, vol. xx, pp. 119, 120, Nov. 1881. 



