NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS — VOL. VTI 



who was at work upon a cytological problem, he mildly pro- 

 tested that such work was not morphology ; and to one who 

 offered him a thesis on cell-lineage, he remarked, "This uni- 

 versity has accepted theses on counting words; I suppose it 

 might accept one on counting cells." 



But though he sometimes disagreed with the conclusions of 

 his students, he never attempted to dictate to them. They 

 were treated as absolutely free and independent investigators, 

 and he usually assumed no responsibility for their work or 

 results. 



He lived with his students on terms of comradeship. In- 

 deed, between himself and them there existed a real but 

 undemonstrative affection, which was shown on his part, not 

 merely by solicitude for their safety when they were in 

 danger, but by many little kindnesses at the laboratory and 

 in his home. In particular he used to refer with pride and 

 sorrow to those of his students who had died: Rice, Bruce, 

 Humphrey, and Conant. On one of my visits to Baltimore 

 he led me without a word to the tablet which had been placed 

 on the wall of the laboratory in memory of Humphrey and 

 Conant, both of whom lost their lives of yellow fever on their 

 expedition to Jamaica in 1897. We both stood and silently 

 read the tablet, and then as we turned away he said, simply 

 but with emotion, "I thought you would like it." When once 

 relations of comradeship had been established with his stu- 

 dents, neither time nor separation changed these relations, and 

 they never needed to be renewed. When attending the Interna- 

 tional Zoological Congress in Boston, he saw in the hotel lobby 

 a former student whom he had not seen for nine years. He 

 spent no time in renewing acquaintance, but went up to him, 

 as if there had been no break in their associations, and said, 

 "Do you know where I can get a shoestring?" There was a 

 sort of helplessness or lack of worldly wisdom on his part 

 which made his students feel responsible for him, and which 

 increased their affection for him. His interest in his former 

 students was genuine and hearty, though he rarely expressed it 

 to the person concerned. He did not lose his critical judgment 

 in his affection for his students, though he often showed that 

 he was proud of their accomplishments. "One of the joys of 



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