Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/720

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
700
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ried so far in his zeal as to leave the ground of facts. Although a champion of monophyletic derivation, he did not overlook the facts that might be brought to bear in favor of a polyphiletic origin.

During the later years of his life Schmidt visited Heligoland, and enjoyed the sea air, which seemed to have become necessary to him, during two winters at Dohrn's Institute at Naples, in southern France, and at Grado, and attended the meetings of naturalists at Leipsic, Wiesbaden, Salzburg, Baden-Baden, Munich, Cassel, and Freiburg, where he was a welcome guest and a prominent speaker. In September, 1885, as president of the Zoölogical Section he entertained his fellow-specialists at his house. A slight stroke of apoplexy, which he suffered in the summer of 1882, passed away without seeming to leave any trace. He spent the Easter season of 1885 with his son's family in Vienna and with Graff in Grätz. He intended to speak on Easter of 1886 in Weimar and to visit Jena, "whither he expected to return in his sixty-fifth year so as to attach a good end to a good beginning." But on the morning of January 9, 1886, after he had spent the previous evening in pleasant social intercourse, there came another stroke. He never recovered consciousness, but died on January 16th.

Professor von Graff describes Schmidt's method of teaching as one encouraging the students to pursue their own ways of thinking. He did not expect formal theses from them, but, having indicated the theme, left them to work it out according to their own logical processes, and as often let them choose their own subjects. Having found a pupil's bent, he sought to turn him into a corresponding course, "and never tried to make a poor naturalist out of one who might become a good doctor or teacher." In his lectures he was earnest and enthusiastic, not as good a speaker as writer, and sometimes betraying his trouble to find the right word; "but he knew how to win the love of his pupils for his subject, and, while trying to make the comprehension of the matter not too difficult, to keep interest alive by occasional glances at the theoretical significance of the facts. It was very far from his purpose to make pastime for his hearers, and, when he was polemical, every one had to be made sensible of the purely technical bearing."

Professor Schmidt's literary work covered a field of extraordinary breadth. Besides numerous works and text-books in systematic and anatomical zoölogy and life histories, he published popular lectures and essays in many different periodicals, recensions, reviews of books, translations, and even political articles. It would be impossible to give a complete bibliography of his works, because he left no notes respecting them. A list of his publications in zoölogy, by Professor von Graff, includes ninety-nine titles.