NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOL. VII 



one occasion he undertook to demonstrate a cross-section of a 

 hair, and after much difficulty in trying to cut a free-hand sec- 

 tion, he lathered and shaved a portion of his face, and then en- 

 gaged the students in other things, while he waited a half hour 

 for the hair to grow before he shaved again. 



Prof. S. F. Clarke, of Williams College, one of his first stu- 

 dents at the Johns Hopkins University, said of him in an obit- 

 uary notice in the Williams Record : 



His mind was markedly of the philosophical type which appeared even 

 in his college days, when he was known among his classmates as "the 

 philosopher." I remember his saying that there were two. things in his 

 college course which were of special interest to him, and which also in 

 the retrospect gave him the most satisfaction: one was solving the 

 problems of Euclid; the other was the study of philosophy under Mark 

 Hopkins. 



In 1870 he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts and was 

 elected to the honor society, Phi Beta Kappa. It is probable 

 that at this time he had decided to follow a career of teaching 

 and investigation, but it seems likely that he doubted whether 

 he could find an opportunity to teach natural history, for in 

 after years he said that he was in doubt when he left Williams 

 whether he should teach mathematics, Greek, or biology. 

 However proficient he may have been in the two former, there 

 can be no doubt that by nature, early training, and inclination 

 he was especially fitted for the career which he later entered. 

 As indicating the manner in which he was "finding himself" at 

 this time, the following extract from a letter of his cousin, the 

 Rev. William J. Cleveland, is of interest : 



On another occasion, I think it was in 1869 or '70, after I had 

 graduated, he visited me at Orange, N. J., and was full of the idea of 

 teaching. He had with him a big lot of specimens of one kind and 

 another, and his ambition was to try the experiment of giving public 

 lectures. Enlisting me as assistant in a business way in this enterprise, 

 a hall was engaged and announcements made in a small town "up the 

 road" from Orange. I do not recall whether it was Milburn or Chat- 

 ham, but at one of them he delivered what, no doubt, was his first public 

 lecture. There was not a big crowd, but my recollection is that there 

 was a very respectable and interested audience, and that all passed off 

 nicely. He was in no sense oratorical or florid, but he went straight to 

 his subject and on with it to the end, relying solely upon the interest of 

 the subject itself, which was so great to him, to hold the attention of 

 the audience. 



36 



