Memorial Address—Nathaniel Southgate Shaler. 925 
ity to preach it under the very eyes of the man who had been 
called the “Pop© of American science,” 
In 1891, Professor Shaler became the dean of the Lawrence 
Scientific school, a position which he held until his death. 
During these fifteen years, the school not only increased rapid¬ 
ly in numbers, but advanced quite as much in the quality of 
the work done. Yet it could hardly have been on this account 
that by a common impulse the flags upon city buildings and 
students’ clubhouses were hung at half-mast and that the shops 
in “Old Cambridge” were closed, upon the afternoon of Pro¬ 
fessor Shaler’s funeral. Such a tribute has not been paid to 
any other professor of the university within the past genera¬ 
tion. It was rather because each student felt that the dean 
had taken an interest in him personally and had seen to it that 
he was squarely dealt with. It has been said that during the 
last fifteen years, while Professor Shaler was dean, not a stu¬ 
dent was ill but the dean paid him a call to see that he received 
proper care, and those more seriously ill received daily visits. 
It seems also to have been Professor Shaler’s custom to look in¬ 
to the justice’s court and to inform himself concerning stu¬ 
dents arrested for pranks of one sort or another. Many a 
young scapegrace found guilty of sign-stealing or other petty 
offense, has had to thank the opportune word of the thin, wiry 
man with the gray pompadour for a clemency which otherwise 
could not have been procured. 
The personality of Professor Shaler was a most striking 
one. Tall and spare—lanky—his strong features, piercing 
but kindly eyes, and his shock of iron-gray hair, made him 
conspicuous in any assembly. He always wore a soft slouch 
hat and was often heard to say that he would as soon wear an 
iron pot as a top hat upon his head. He was accustomed to 
walk with his stick tucked under his arm and his hands deep 
in the pockets of his coat. Indefatigable as a walker, he took 
the Indian gait with swinging pelvis whenever he desired to 
hasten. Some one has happily described his laugh as one of 
many stops. His lectures were garnished with good stories 
admirably told, and it was a perhaps unconscious habit for his 
