corps of practical observers, whose labors, when they should be scattered abroad in this vast country, should not be lost to science."
In purely practical lines of enterprise he invented an excellent stove which bore his name, and the patent for which brought him considerable profit; and he devised a preparation of lead and rosin for lubricating machinery.
Of his qualities as a teacher Prof. Silliman mentions especially his uniform kindness and courtesy of demeanor and patience in imparting instruction; the excellent moral influence he always exerted, his consistent Christian example, his personal counsels, the genuine friendliness of his disposition, and the unaffected interest he always manifested in the welfare of his pupils. He was ever ready to encourage and assist any who exhibited special fondness for the studies of his department, and it always gave him pleasure when students passed beyond the bounds of ordinary attainment.
He labored to make knowledge more accessible to the people, and science comprehensible and interesting to them. Dr. Barnard, who describes him from the point of view of a teacher, says that he "availed himself at all times of the lyceum and the popular lecture, as well as of the daily press, to apply the principles of science to the explanation of extraordinary phenomena of meteorology and astronomy, as well as to the advancement of domestic comfort and popular improvement generally. In an essay read before the American Association for the Advancement of Education, at New York, in 1835, he showed, in a felicitous manner, that the whole tendency and drift of science, its inventions and institutions, is democratic,"
Besides the works already mentioned. Prof. Olmsted published many articles of a scientific or literary character in the leading periodicals of the day—contributing thus to the American Journal of Science, The Transactions of the American Association, The Smithsonian Contributions, The Christian Spectator, and The New-Englander. He was especially fond of biographical composition, and his memoirs of Dr. Dwight, Sir Humphry Davy, Governor Treadwell, Eli Whitney, and William C. Redfield are mentioned by Prof. Silliman as favorable examples.
