AMERICAN CONTEMPORARIES Edwin Julius Bartlett
T
HE year IS79 marked a change in the scientific work in Dartmouth College the importance of which was per-
haps not appreciated a t the time. The instructioo in chemistry in collcge and in medical school was intrusted to a ncw man. It is true that he was not B stranger to the institution. Oi :in old New Hampshirc fmnily. Edwin Julius Baitlctt was horn in 1851. in Hudson, Ohio. He passed his boyhood in Chic a m and was . graduated from Dartmouth Collerc in 1872. He then received his medical degrec a t the Rush Medical School. During this work his particular interest lay in the Iincr. of chemistry, rather than in the practice of medicine, with special reference to physiological chemistry, in whicfi his interest was always most keen. The task which confronted the new teacher was plain enough to visualize, though difficult to carry out. The old Ncw 1:rigland college as an institution w a s at that time far from being in the i r m t line of scientific progress. Proiessors of chemistry there had been a t Dnrtmouth from an early date, but in general they were not men oi particular eminence in the science. nor in ~ l l lcases did they have an especial interest in it. Even if they did, the atmosphere was not entiicly sympathetic to scientific progress. Proicssor James Freeman Dana, the truest scientist among thcm, compared his positioii Edwin J. to that of a log anchored in the river; its service was merely to show the velocity of the current running past it. It was the duty of the new teacher, therdore, to organize climiical instructioii in the college so that it should be abreast of the limes. First came the necessity of obtaining matcrial facilities. a y solved by a n elbowing process which resulted in the which generally attends such processes if patiently iollowetl. Edging his way into a corner of Culver Hall---then the recent of the rollegc buildings, a splendid cxunding bad taste and lack of couvenicnce of the sevcnties-he established a primitive laboratory for the chemical instruction of undergraduates, the first that the collcge had ever Bad. Here he was professor and laboratory assistant, lecturer and storemom man. chrmical consultant and filler oi reagent bottles. As the needs of the growing depcartmcnt incressd various other occupants oi the building were induced to leave, their departure hastened--so the unkindly say-- by judiciously selccted reactions carried on with results unpleasant t o superciliously esthetic but chemically uneducated nostrils. Pinally. t b c whole building came into possession of the drpartmcnt, and eventually about sin hundred men, coming both from the academic and the medical departments, were doing chemical work in a structure never designed for laboratory purposes. By the irony of iatc only in the year of his rctirrment was built the present adequate home of the chemistry department. Such was the material side. Intellectually, the student body
so011 became aware that a real force was among them. to their examinations with the song
Coming
The boyr they call him Bubiiy The fatuity, Edwin J. He lakes you down io Culver Hull And Runks you ell so gay
they were telling the truth. Flunk them he did, if they deserved i t ; but not otherwise, and no one knew that better than thosc who failed. But they knew and valued the intellectual in oreanizine" makeenness and ;rlertness of the man.. his renius .~ terial, his clarity in its presentation, his skill in taking.from drudrcrv some 11 of its irksomeness by the awaking power interest. Men who became chemists received from him a n adequate start in their profession; those who chose other lint3 obtained a lusting sensf of the meaning of science and of its place in the world. But t o both classes came the impact of a personality: the man of keen insight, sound judgment, and of broad and catholic intellectoal interests. He would say that his work in life was to bring chemical instruction in the college intostcp with the timcs. That he did, and did successfully; but his great work has been to impress upon the forty-two classcs of undergraduates who have received instruction from him some meaaurc of what the man himself is. Busy as he was with the work of instruction he has not been allowed to confine himself to that alone. His keen Rarfleft business sense, and his ability to plan .. . and to carry through what he has planned, have made his name the one als a y s first to lie suggested in Hailover when any new enterprise is under way. His long service 011 the athletic council, during the pcriorl when the athletics of the college werc passing irom their meager beginnings to their present development, his untiring efiorts in behali oi the Mary Hitchcock Hospital, of which he has lung beeii chairman of the board of trustees, are hut examples of the actixzitics in college and community in which he has beeii ellgaged. Nor should his repute as a speaker be lorgotten. The occasions that have been saved from disaster by the interposition of a siivcch from Profcssor Bartlett, with its mellow humor and its sound sense, among the stodgy and heavy remarks of those who ought to be able t o speak and cannot, have not been few. The quality of having something worth saying and oi being able to say it is not common, and he who possesses it is no small benefactor to those whose attendance upon academic and public functions is not alw;iys a matter of choice. Profcssor Bartlett retired from active teaching in 1920: Since that time he has published various articles of reminiscence summing up the impressions gathered irom his long career as a teacher, set iorth with the rippling humor and genial philosophy chai-actcristic oi the man. He retains some of the connections with the activities of the community in which he has been so active a factor. The good wishes of the hundreds of Dartmouth men with whom he has had to do go out to him in these days of his LEOPB. RICHARDSON well-earned leisure. ~
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