NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOL. VII 



pencils on paper, which drawings were then transferred di- 

 rectly from the paper to the stone. In later years he made 

 much use of sepia washes, and he had all his students using 

 them. He expected all his students to learn to draw ; to some 

 of them he would say time and time again, "You'd better learn 

 to draw," apparently unmindful of the fact that he had given 

 this advice before, and that they were trying to learn, as rap- 

 idly as possible ; and sometimes, when shown a drawing of 

 which the maker was rather proud, his only comment would be, 

 "You can't do anything well without patience." 



He loved to work with simple apparatus, and his technique 

 was never complicated. He never mistook paraphernalia for 

 science, and he went directly to the end he sought. He had a 

 great fondness for primitive methods, and used to advise his 

 students to learn to cut free-hand sections, and to use some of 

 the oldest methods of staining and imbedding. At one time he 

 had some of his students repeating ancient history in trying to 

 imbed tissues in soap, and to more than one who asked him for 

 advice about staining microscopical preparations he recom- 

 mended Beale's Carmine ; the results were always unsatisfac- 

 tory, but in the meantime the student had learned something 

 about the historical development of staining methods, and, 

 best of all, had also learned to rely upon himself rather than 

 upon Doctor Brooks. One such student, after laboring for 

 some weeks with Beale's Carmine, saw Doctor Brooks and 

 told him that he could not get satisfactory results. After wait- 

 ing in vain for some response, he ventured to ask whether 

 Doctor Brooks had ever used the method. Yes, he had. 

 "What did yon think of it?" " "T wasn't worth a damn." 

 Not infrequently, when students asked him to suggest some 

 topic for research work, he would recommend some wholly im- 

 practical thing, such as the study of siphonophores at Woods 

 Hole or the study of Amphioxus at Beaufort ; and such stu- 

 dents were left to find their own problem and to work out their 

 own salvation. 



Although he would present a subject in his lectures in the 

 clearest and most entertaining manner, he rarely, if ever, 

 attempted to smooth the path of the investigator; the latter 

 was to a very large extent thrown upon his own resources. He 



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