James J. Blaisdell. 
521 
may become classic in the literature of the care of depend¬ 
ent classes. In all of these ways and in the countless influences 
that went forth from him as a citizen and as a man, he aided 
this commonwealth in the effort to produce and maintain a 
noble life. 
It seemed to us that in his seventieth year he was at the 
summit of his power. His intellectual activities never seemed 
more clear and keen nor the wings of his imagination more 
strong for flight. His hold upon his students never was more 
absolute, in their confidence in him, and. devotion to him; and 
we hoped that for many years to come he might be spared to 
do the work that was given him to do in Wisconsin. And yet 
during the past few months we detected in him a feverish eager¬ 
ness which was, it seemed to us, somewhat ominous. He could 
not give due thought to the question of the limitations of his 
power. It was as if, seeing the westering sun, he felt that he must 
work with growing intensity and the more rapidly as the time 
grew short. And so at the end of the last college year, and after 
meeting his college class of fifty years ago and pouring out his 
spirit with them in reminiscence and in hope, he came home 
spent. He went to seek rest beside the great lake, but the bal¬ 
ance of his powers could not be renewed; the harp of his spirit, so 
delicately strung, sounded chords that were strange and be¬ 
wildering, and in a moment of conflict in which we cannot follow 
him save with awe and fear, he passed from life. It was as when 
a warrior falls in the front line of the charge. As the soldier, 
seeing the greatness of his country’s need, puts his life in 
jeopardy and reckons not the chances of its sudden end, so Pro¬ 
fessor Blaisdell, realizing with deepening intensity the need of 
mankind, the need of the commonwealth, flung himself so without 
reserve upon the hosts of evil that he fell wounded to death. 
On an October day, such as he himself so greatly loved, when 
the air was full of mellow haze and the sun shone with softened 
radiance and the brilliant leaves were dropping to the ground, 
we passed from the college chapel, where throughout the morn¬ 
ing he had lain, that students and friends might look again upon 
that face, so strong, so peaceful, so natural. The Grand Army, 
who loved him and shared his love, bore the precious burden 
