ROLAND DUER IRVING. 
Former President of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. 
By T. C. CHAMBERLIN,* 
President of the University of Wisconsin. 
Professor Irving was bom in the city of New York, on the 29th day of 
April, 1847. His father, the Rev. Pierre P. Irving, was a clergyman of 
the Episcopal church and a nephew of Washington Irving. His mother 
was a daughter of Chief Justice John Duer, of the supreme court of 
New York. Sprung thus from a family of literary talent on the one 
side and of judicial on the other, Professor Irving inherited tastes and 
capabilities that especially fitted him for his subsequent work. His 
birth and early education in the metropolis of our country impressed 
upon him something of the breadth and complexity of its commercial, 
social and intellectual activities and gave to a mind naturally disposed 
to large and analytic conceptions a pronounced breadth and a discrimi¬ 
native habit. His youth was spent upon Staten Island, to which his 
father had removed in his second year. A lack of entire robustness of 
health, emphasized by frequent attacks of illness and a weakness of 
sight, interfered with systematic study and checked the indulgence 
of his passionate fondness of reading. His early training was therefore 
conducted mainly at home, his father and sisters being his chief in¬ 
structors. It was only in his twelfth year that he entered school. His 
dominant studies were classical, but he was fortunate in falling under 
the instruction of a teacher whose frequent rambles with his pupils 
fostered a love for natural history. Young Roland became especially 
interested in the collection of the rocks and minerals that were accessi¬ 
ble upon the island. The identification and classification of these may 
be looked upon as the initiation of his subsequent scientific studies. 
In 1863 he entered the classical course of Columbia college. Forced by 
the condition of his eyes to suspend his studies in his sophomore year, 
he spent six months in England, the impress of which in certain choices 
of language and methods of thought remained with him throughout 
* This Sketch was first published in the American Geologist for January, 1887. 
28—A. & L. 
