2 
WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS 
shown special interest in philosophy and in studies with the micro- 
scope, he was uncertain on graduation whether to devote himself 
to natural history, to mathematics or to Greek, in all of which 
subjects he excelled. After leaving Wilhams College he spent 
a short time with his father in business, but this occupation was 
not to his liking and he gave it up to become a teacher in a school 
for boys at Niagara Falls. After holding that position for two 
years he became a graduate student at Harvard College under 
Louis Agassiz, who was then at the zenith of his career, and at 
the seaside laboratory estabhshed by this great master in 1873 on 
the Island of Penikese, Brooks began a life-long devotion to the 
study of marine zoology. In 1875 he was appointed assistant 
in the museum of the Boston Society of Natural History and in 
the same year received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from 
Harvard. It was during the summer of this year, while at home 
on his vacation, that he organized, together with Theodore B. 
Comstock and Albert H. Tuttle, a class for laboratory instruction 
in zoology and botany for teachers. 
With the opening of the Johns Hopkins University in 1876, one 
of the twenty fellowships was awarded Brooks, who thus at its 
very foundation entered the service of the institution with which 
he was to remain connected until his death. He was immediately 
advanced to the position of Associate and later was successively 
appointed Associate Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Asso- 
ciate Professor of Morphology, Professor of Animal Morphology, 
Professor of Zoology and Head of the Biological Department. 
In 1878 he was made Director of the Chesapeake Zoological 
Laboratory of the University, an institution which he organized 
and which became a potent adjunct to the Baltimore laboratory 
in the training of biologists. 
Professor Brooks was the recipient of numerous public honors. 
When but thirty-six years of age he was elected a member of 
the National Academy. He was chosen a member of the Ameri- 
can Philosophical Society in 1886, and of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences in 1887. He was Lowell lecturer in 1901 and gave one 
of the three general addresses before the International Zoolog- 
ical Congress at Boston, in 1907. He received the honorary de- 
