|
AT the re-organization of the College, under the control
of the Methodist Church, the Department of Natural Science was fortunate
in the selection of Dr. Durbin as the organizing head of the College.
His full sympathy with all branches of human learning, accompanied by such
a familiarity with physical science as had led to his election to the professorship
of Natural Science in Wesleyan University, was reinforced by an intense
appreciation of the natural world and its varied phenomena. His exquisite
description of Chamounix, unsurpassed in all the literature of travel since,
alone would be sufficient to establish this feature of his character.
The professorship of Natural Science was one of the earliest-filled in
the re-organized Faculty, in 1834, and measures were at once taken for
increasing the collection of apparatus; and "I whilst endeavoring to accumulate
the endowment fund first proposed, and soliciting funds or even obtaining
them by loan for
the erection of East College, he could not resist the temptation
to acquire what was at that time a fine collection of apparatus, belonging
to Professor Walter R. Johnson, of Philadelphia, which had been employed
by him as Secretary of the Franklin Institute. He was about
to assume a position in the Wilkes' Exploring Expedition, which, for some
reason, he finally failed to accept, and was thus left without apparatus.
Among the pieces was the Rotascope, employed by him in his investigations
of Rotary Motion.* and which was noticed as anticipating some of the peculiarities
of the Gyrascope, in 1856.** The collection was secured for $2,000,
although its original cost had been $5,000. It was necessary for
Dr. Durbin to assume the responsibility of the purchase, and he unhesitatingly
did so, supported by four gentlemen of Philadelphia, and in spite of the
hard times, collected one half of the money during the course of the year.
In a letter to the writer, a few years before his death, he alluded to
it as the "magnificent apparatus," and adds, "but progress has left my
once cherished basis of philosophical apparatus far behind."
Its transportation from Philadelphia was no small matter at that day, and
was superintended by Professor Allen, who then filled the chair of Natural
Science. It was transhipped on wagons at Columbia, Pa., and reached Carlisle
with but one article damaged. During Dr. Durbin's visit to the East
the interests of the College seem to have been continually present to him.
At the Giant's Causeway he secured three large sections of columns, of
three pieces each, besides a complete wooden model; at Chamounix
he procured a model of the valley and Mount Blanc chain; in Egypt he secured
several mummies of the Sacred Ibis, together with other minor specimens.
It is but natural to assume that he was not so much in
*Am. Jour. Sci., Vol. XXI, lst Ser., (1832) p. 265.
** Am. Jour. Sci. , Vol. XXI, 2d Ser., p. 146.
earnest in regard to these appliances as static elements
of mere display, but as dynamical elements of instruction, and that he
would be equally solicitous in regard to the instructor. In 1834
Col. Thomas E. Sudler, of St. Johns Coilege, was elected Professor of Natural
Science, and upon his declination in the spring of the year following,
the College was fortunate in securing the services of William H. Allen,
A. M. A graduate of Bowdoin College, he had been engaged in
teaching Latin and Greek for two years, and at the time of his election
had charge uf the High School at Augusta, Me. Elected as Lecturer
on Natural Science for the first year, at the close of that engagement
he was elected professor. Under his administration for twelve years
the department enjoyed a great measure of popularity. He was a gentleman
of decided ability in different departments of study, and of consummate
tact in administration. As a teacher he impressed the students with
a belief in his infallibility on questions of science, and as a lecturer
he was clear and full, and possessed the happy faculty of seizing the salient
points of his subject and keeping them in view until fixed in the memory.
The apparatus was enlarged, and loans were even authorized at times for
the purpose. T he branches of Electricityand General Chemistry were, perhaps,
best represented, and an inventory made at the time shows a number of pieces,
effective then, which, by the rapid advance of science, have been relegated
to historic niches, whilst their modern successors hardly exhibit traces
of relationship, and the whole mode of instruction has been made to yield
to the strain of the same advance.
Upon the election of Professor Allen to the chair of English Literature
and Philosophy, in 1848, Spencer F. Baird, was elected to the chair
of Natural Science. A native of Reading, Pa., he had received his education
in the College, entering the preparatory department in 1835, and graduating,
at the age of seventeen, in the class of 1840. He had been connected
with
the College since 1845, as Curator of the Museum and
Professor of Natural History, and the College had had the advantage, not
only of his services, but of his large collection of specimens in Natural
History, perhaps unequaled, in some of its classes, in the country.
His enthusiastic and unreserved devotion to science was calculated to awaken
a deep interest in its study in the College, and a number of young men,
who afterward achieved eminence, received their impulse from him.
He was a gentleman of great ability for organization and administration,
as well as of broad scientific culture, traits that have contributed so
largely to his usefulness in his subsequent connection with the Smithsonian
Institution, at Washington. He continued his devotion to his specialty
of Natural History, more particularly Ornithology, although he also published
a descriptive list of the surrounding flora. He made excursions of many
miles on foot, throughout the State of Pennsylvania, in pursuit of facts
and specimens connected with his favorite studies. In one of his
tramps, in the neighborhood of Carlisle, it is said that whilst hammering
away at a rock, in search of fossils, he was on the point of being arrested
as an escaped lunatic. But the rustic council of war did not furnish
anyone courageous enough to make the arrest. During his connection
with the College he also explored the cave on the Conedoguinet, a point
of considerable local interest, with numberless traditions clustering around
it. He extracted much of scientific interest from it. At that
day cave-hunting had not assumed the character of a distinct and intensely
interesting branch of scientific investigation, as at present. Large
quantities — -wagon-loads — of organic remains were removed, including bones
of all the species of mammals found in Pennsylvania, with the only exceptional
feature of excess in size over those of the present day. A few years
ago, the broken thread of these investigations of more than a quarter of
a century be-
fore, was resumed by him, and a more exhaustive examination
exhibited the usual kitchen-midden characteristics. The resignation
of Professor Baird, in 1850, was occasioned by the superior advantages
for the prosecution of the branches of science to which he had especially
devoted himself, offered him as Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, with especial charge of the National Museum, a position he
filled with such eminent ability that, by common consent, he was recognized
as the most fitting successor to Professor Henry, as Secretary, upon the
death of the latter, in 1878. His departure was a matter of great
regret to all connected with the College, and he was, at the same time,
elected to fill a vacancy in the Board of Trustees, and continued to act
with that body, until pressure of other duties began to interfere with
his regular attendance.
The services of Professor Baird to science, in connection with the
Smithsonian, cannot be overestimated. Among his labors, in addition
to those of his office, he has, for a number of years, as United States
Commissioner of Fisheries, done much to encourage pisciculture, by investigating
the habits of food fishes, and stocking the streams of the country with
varieties of fish suitable to them. During the sessions of the Commission
of Halifax, his services were in constant requirement. He has also
utilized the vast resources of the Smithsonian files of all the scientific
journals of the world, in editing the invaluable Annual Record of Science
and Industry, published from year to year, by Harper & Brothers, and
has made the Scientific Record, in the Monthly Magazine of those publishers,
worthy of the established character of that publication.
The election of a suitable successor to Professor Baird was no easy
matter. As has been elsewhere mentioned, Reverend Erastus Wentworth,
D. D., a highly esteemed minister of the Methodist Church, and, at the
time, President of McKendree
College, Illinois, was unanimously chosen. Erlucated at Cazenovia
Seminary and Wesleyan University, he had, immediately after graduation,
taught Natural Science in the academy at Governeur, New York, and afterward
in that at Poultney, Vermont. His connection, for four years, with
McKendree college, had been highly creditable to him. As a professor
in Dickinson, he was a popular instructor, and fully met the expectations
entertained at his election, although better known as a preacher, and as
a graceful and vigorous writer. Although the department moved on
largely under the impulse it had received, and was not enlarged or made
particularly prominent under his administration of it, the course was,
doubtless, as full and as efficiently carried out, as in most of the colleges
at that time. In 1854, he was called from the College by the Church
to engage in missionary work at Foo Chow, China, in which field he labored,
with marked success, for a number of years. He also afterward, at
the call of the Church, edited the Ladies' Repository, with marked ability.
In proceeding to fill the vacant chair, the trustees first resolved to
appoint a Lecturer on Natural Science, with the duties of a professor,
and William C. Wilson was elected to that position, for one year.
A native of Elkdale, Chester county, Pennsylvania, a graduate of the class
of 1850, with distinction, he had been successfully engaged in teaching
in a classical school, in Chester county, Pennylvania. He was a comparatively
young man, of broad culture, vigorous intellect, and enthusiastic disposition,
and of tastes and aptitudes in the direction of the exact and experimental
sciences, and withal, a layman, and, consequently, perfectly free to devote
himself exclusively to the prosecution of his favorite studies. The
selection was one full of promise to the College.
The entrance upon such a position is necessarily attended with embarrassments
and labors from which other departments
are free to take an inventory of the educational appliances
in the way of apparatus, may be the work of a few days, but to learn its
condition and availability for iustruction, involves most patient, careful,
and time-consuming investigation, and testing frequently only to reveal
that it is defective or perhaps worthless, or requires much more expenditure
of time alid labor for adjustment. Even then some unnoticed apparently
trifling peculiarity may remain as a cause of mortifying failure.
It was the writers privilege to listen to Professor Wilson's first course
of lectures, and, under all the circumstances, they may be described as
highly successful. As a lecturer, he was perhaps, by nature, too
impulsive, or even impatient, and consequently wanting in that deliberation
and delicacy of manipulation often essential to the highest success, but
he rapidly improved in these particulars, and as his experiments were always
well chosen and adapted to the purpose, he became, with greater familiarity
with the apparatus at his disposal, eminently successful as an instructor.
Not satisfied with the prosecution of his studies within the limited range
of facilities offered by the College, he availed himself, during his vacations,
of the advantages of study in the laboratory of the eminent chemist, Dr.
F. A. Genth, of Philadelphia, now Professor in the University of Pennsylvania.
The characteristic manifested in his first encounter with his class,
of absence of respect for or toleration of cram or sham knowledge, grew
with his growth as a teacher, and was but the legitimate outgrowth of a
character permeated in every fiber with sterling honesty and conscientiousness.
His contributions to the Quarterly Review and occasional addresses, exhibit
him as a careful, clear, and vigorous writer. Soon after his election,
the department began to sympathize with the college in the distracting
influences of the increasing political excitement, and during the war,
it suffered with it in its struggle for existence. Some efforts were
made to enlarge the course of scien-
tific studies, but as they were made in the direction of
post-graduate privileges, they produced no decided or permanent effect.
Overwork, exposure in the ill-ventilated rooms occupied as laboratory and
office, had much to do in developing a disease, which for years before
his death rendered physical labor irksome, and which, finally, resulted
fatally. His indomitable will kept him at his post to the last.
His last lectures were delivered in his chair. He died March 2, 1865,
calmly and without fear, in his thirty-eighth year. What he might
have accomplished as a scientific man under more favorable circumstances,
it is of course difficult to say, but that he accomplished all that could
have been done by anyone in his position under the circumstances, is unquestionable.
He was eminently social in his disposition and warm in his attachments,
and in spite of a manner at times somewhat brusque and abrupt, he is kindly
remembered by those who came into intimate contact with him.
|