Henry S. Pritchett: A Biography 9780231883504

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Illustrations
Ancestry
Boyhood
Early Manhood
Coast and Geodetic Survey
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
The Carnegie Foundation Bulletins
The Annual Reports
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Other Activities
Santa Barbara
Appendices
Index

Citation preview

H e n r y S. Pritchett

mm

H E N R Y S. P R I T C H E T T ,

1928

Henry S. Pritchett

By A B R A H A M

1

FLEXNER

943

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1 9 4 3 COLUMBIA U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S , N E W Y O R K FOREIGN A G E N T : OXFORD UNIVERSITY P R E S S , Milford,

Amen

House,

B. I. Building,

London,

Nicol

Road,

E.C.

4, England

Bombay,

Humphrey AND

India

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Preface T H E WRITING of this biography of Henry S. Pritchett has been made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The officers and the staff of the Corporation, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America have assisted me by placing at my disposal correspondence, memoranda, reports, and other material, and in discussion of Dr. Pritchett's policies and activities; but while I have enjoyed frequent opportunities of conference with them, the sole responsibility for the biography rests with me. I am deeply indebted to Mrs. Pritchett who supplied me with an extremely helpful memoir of Dr. Pritchett's life in all its aspects, as well as with correspondence and a great variety of material bearing upon Dr. Pritchett's numerous activities. Mrs. Pritchett has read the manuscript and made many important suggestions. M y grateful acknowledgments are also due to Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, to Chancellor John G. Bowman of the University of Pittsburgh, formerly secretary of the Carnegie Foundation, to Mrs. Berenice Morrison-Fuller, to the late Professor Otto Heller of Washington University, to the present director of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Rear Admiral L. 0 . Colbert, to Major H. H. Hartley, librarian of the Survey, to Dr. St. George L. Sioussat, chief of the Division of Manuscripts of the Library of Congress, to Professor Alexander Bone of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for an account of the Charles River Basin, to Dr. Robert Payne Bigelow for a very valuable account, charmingly written, of Pritchett's work and influence during his years as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to Mr. W. R. Boyd, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for a helpful memorandum, for his careful reading of the

proof, and for many talks about Pritchett, whom he knew well. T o all those who have assisted me and to m y secretary, Mrs. Esther S. Bailey, I owe thanks for cooperation, without which the book could not have been written. ABRAHAM

New York February 26,1943

FLEXNER

Contents

ANCESTRY

I

BOYHOOD

I6

EARLY MANHOOD

24

COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY

50

THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

67

THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHING

87

THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION BULLETINS

IO5

THE ANNUAL REPORTS

129

CARNEGIE CORPORATION OF NEW YORK

137

OTHER ACTIVITIES

155

SANTA BARBARA

176

APPENDICES

199

INDEX

203

Illustrations H E N R Y S. P R I T C H E T T , 1 9 2 8

frontispiece

AS A Y O U N G B O Y , IN POST-CIVIL-WAR HOMEMADE CLOTHES B U S T B Y JO DAVIDSON

18 192

Ancestry 1 H E R E are few, if any, more fascinating historical stories than the tale which Theodore Roosevelt called The Winning of the West. The Revolutionary War was won by a population of two millions inhabiting a narrow strip of country between the Atlantic and the Alleghenies. The colonists lived and loved the simple life, enjoying, after they had surmounted the early trials and hardships involved in settlement, not only abundance of food (game, fish, grain, and vegetables), but also the freedom to read and think, which depended so largely on the spaciousness of their immediate environment. Living in the crowded quarters of great cities, we have nowadays at hand telephone, telegraph, radio, air mail, and motor car, which, whatever their usefulness, have destroyed forever the advantages of our forefathers. T h e y saw one another rarely, but then in leisurely fashion; to meet one another they had to travel by rough roads and rest in primitive taverns. But they had time to talk, reflect, and discuss, for they read and reread few but good books, which they had abundant time to think over. These facts help to explain how a thinly scattered population, which if brought together today would form only one city of moderate size, produced not only a race of hardy pioneers, but an amazing group of thinkers in the fields of government, law, theology, and science. A nation of 130,000,000 today does not contain a group of social philosophers comparable in the breadth and depth of their thinking with the greatest of the American colonists and their immediate successors—Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Marshall, Clay, and their contemporaries. National independence brought, as one of its immediate consequences, increased population; and the increased population. 1

while not averse to small settlements, was still attached to the loneliness characteristic of eighteenth-century America. T h e movement towards the boundless West began when the ink was hardly dry on the newly adopted Constitution. N o better examples can be found than are furnished by the careers of teachers like Carr Pritchett or statesmen like Henry C l a y . Scarcely more than a boy, C l a y made a reputation as lawyer and publicist in Virginia. Who, today, with the prospects and achievements of Clay at twenty-five, in the then leading state of the new Union, would have sacrificed all in order to start a new career in Kentucky, still " a dark and bloody ground"? But C l a y sensed the future. He believed in the West, just as some of his friends believed in the South and endeavored to persuade him to join them in New Orleans. Discarding his promising future in his native state, he moved to K e n t u c k y , soon achieved distinction as a lawyer, became a member of the State Assembly, which he swayed with his eloquence, within a few years was appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate, preferred the more popular and boisterous House of Representatives, was elected to Congress, and was chosen Speaker on the very day on which he took his seat as Representative. We shall see that C a r r Pritchett showed similar initiative. T h e Louisiana Purchase and later the Mexican W a r converted our small republic into a continental democracy. From the beginning of the nineteenth century up to the Civil W a r , adventurous individuals, families, and religious groups pushed their w a y over mountains and rivers or through dense forests, seeking what their descendants show indications of avoiding, namely, solitude and space. Following the discovery of precious metals in the West and on the coast, the tide swelled in the years before and after 1850. Horace Greeley tersely expressed the prevailing mood in his familiar injunction, " G o West, young man, go West." The steady stream of pioneers during the previous century led to the official closing of the frontier in 1890—about half a century ago—when Oklahoma was opened to settlement; but men

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who were then in their prime still recall, or have left written accounts of, the conditions under which their families moved across the Alleghenies and in which they grew to manhood. Among them was the Pritchett family, which preferred the unknown hardships of the West to what seemed to them the comparatively ordered life of Virginia, in which they, their wives, and children began to feel crowded as the population of the state increased and social life became more settled. There is little danger that Americans will be "softened" by the technological progress of the last half century; for facing a world crisis, as we do at this moment, our youth has shown itself gallantly ready for any sacrifice needed in order to preserve the American way of life. None the less, historians and biographers carry a heavy responsibility. They must preserve for posterity in detail the picture of the intrepid courage with which the great westward trek was carried out. The story of the Pritchett family is one of thousands that must never be permitted to grow old. In his retirement after 1930, Henry S. Pritchett, the ablest and most distinguished of the Pritchett clan, occupied his leisure at Santa Barbara by writing an account of his early memories. The family, which had immigrated to Virginia in the early eighteenth century, was, as far back as it can be traced, Welsh in origin. It appears that originally the name was Apritchard—son of Richard—a name that was perhaps converted into Pritchett after the wars in France in the fourteenth century, when apparently many good old Welsh and English names were modified as a result of prolonged contact with the French people. The first Henry Pritchett in America was married in 1822 to a member of a numerous family, the Wallers, a family whose lineage has been traced by Colonel C. B. Bryant of Henry County, Virginia, to Aluned de Waller who died in 1183.* Their eldest son, * Colonel Bryant compiled several hundred tables, listing between 6,000 and 8,000 persons, which at his death he left to Mr. E. P. Waller of Schenectady, New York. Communicating with Mr. Waller in 1934, Pritchett asks whether "the poet Waller was in this line of descent and also whether Sir Richard Waller, who, I believe, fought at the Battle of Agincourt, was of the f a m i l y . "

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C a r r Waller Pritchett, was bom in September, 1823. Seventy years later Carr Pritchett recalled vividly the old Virginia plantation where the family lived from his fourth to his ninth y e a r — the sagebrush pasture with its straggling sassafras trees, the poor galled fields where he followed his father's plow, the stockyard, stable, and granary, the apple tree under which they used to churn and under which he recollected seeing his Grandfather Pritchett kill a big moccasin snake, and the old spring, gushing cold and clear out of a cleft in solid rock. Of Pritchett's mother we know less. In 1785, John Smith of Halifax County, Virginia, married M a r y B y r d . Their granddaughter, Betty Susan Smith, married Pritchett's father. T h e frequent occurrence of the name B y r d in the Pritchett family suggests pride in their connection with the B y r d family. T h e Virginians of that day showed the same general characteristics that were common to the other colonists, with certain differences due to climate and geographical situation. T h e y were a hardy race, deeply attached to the soil, possessing slaves or not, according to the character of the land they cultivated, deeply religious, self-reliant, and eager to educate their children, who walked to and from the old red schoolhouse or, if fortunate, made the journey, sometimes perilous, on horseback. T h e Pritchett family, closely knit, nevertheless exhibited the restlessness of the pioneer. While they loved proximity to the members of their own family and relatives, they viewed with misgiving the increase in the general population. Virginia, according to the ideas of the old settlers, was changing. Hence in 1835 Henry Pritchett, Carr's father, decided to move with his family, a few relatives, and his slaves—by no means numerous— to the newly created state of Missouri. T h e y made their w a y amidst hardships of almost every variety through East Tennessee and Kentucky and at a point near the present town of Henderson, Kentucky, crossed the Ohio R i v e r on a horse ferry. Here they saw a miracle—the first steamboat they had ever beheld. 4

December was now close upon them, but with undaunted courage the family continued its journey through rain, snow, and mud. On Christmas Day they reached the eastern bank of the Mississippi, opposite St. Louis. There was no East St. Louis at that time. It was past sundown before the old horse boat could ferry the family and their belongings across the river, full of floating blocks of ice. They landed at the foot of Market Street and, trudging along, late at night reached the Irish Tavern where, after much entreating, the four Pritchett families were crowded into one room where they slept or rested on the floor. Pushing on, they camped first at a point two miles north of the present town of Wentzville. Here they rented part of an old house and, losing no time, put in a crop. But Henry Pritchett the elder was not satisfied. He bought government land, built a loghouse during the autumn of 1836, and in December, when the ground was covered with snow, moved into it. The primeval forest surrounded, but did not daunt, him. Henry and his oldest son Carr cleared a few acres, digging the ground with hoes. For two years their water supply was a small creek a quarter of a mile distant. Cloth was spun and woven at home from flax, cotton yarn, and wool. The first crop of tobacco brought thirty-two dollars, and Mother could buy a calico dress and a few necessaries for the children. They felt comfortable now; yet they lived in a single log cabin with a stick-and-dirt chimney and a ladder on which to ascend to the loft. They practiced economy, industry, self-denial, and good management. With characteristic impulse to a higher spiritual life, the family soon joined the church near by. Ministers visited their cabin, preached in the large room, and slept in the loft. Not a trace of self-pity can be found in the family records or memories of these years. The Pritchett family was made of sound, enduring, and aspiring material, as was the Pilgrim band who had settled New England, contending in the same spirit with similar obstacles. The children participated in all the work of the farm. Carr Pritchett was accustomed to take the corn

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and wheat to the mill on horseback—a somewhat adventurous undertaking for a small boy. The Missouri of that day—one of the many states carved out of the Louisiana which Jefferson had purchased—was an uneasy and restless state, which consisted of three parts. The river counties, dividing it like a great wedge, were slave-holding areas, with a proportion of one slave to three whites; in that district, slavery was profitable. In the northern and southwestern counties, the proportion was smaller—one slave to thirteen whites; slavery was unprofitable there. St. Louis, slave market though it was, contained one slave to forty whites. In the early days of the state's settlement, the moral issue was barely raised; slave or nonslave status turned upon the agricultural question: was the soil adapted to the cultivation of tobacco or cotton? Two thirds of its area contained relatively few slaves; the remaining third— agricultural in character, the bottom lands producing rich tobacco crops, the uplands mainly corn, wheat, and oats—contained most of the slaves. But the plantations were relatively small, and the number of slaves upon each was never large. Between the admission of Missouri as a state and the outbreak of the Civil War, the moral problem had become acute, and opinion as to the wrongness and folly of slavery had created a sharp issue, as in other border states. Meanwhile, during this entire period the population of the state continued proud of the fact that its origin bound it strongly to Virginia. It is significant that from the first moment of settlement in Missouri the education of their children became a matter of deep concern to the pioneers. Carr Waller Pritchett, the father of Henry S. Pritchett, had, however, to shift for himself. Before leaving Virginia, his mother had been his first teacher; in 1833 he was sent for a brief period to school to "Old Jamie Williams, an Ironside Baptist deacon," who lived three miles distant, but Carr, "who had to walk there and back every day, did not mind it in the least." Only a few books were available in the household, the. 6

Bible aid The Pilgrim's Progress among them. From this Calvinistic household, Shakespeare was banned. In 1^42, after Carr had worked for his father until he was in his tweitieth year, the sale of four slaves provided him with the funds necessary to attend a small college at St. Charles, twenty miles distant. The head, Dr. Fielding, had been educated at Trinity College, Dublin. It was a long leap from the poor little school in Carl's Virginia birthplace to the college at St. Charles, where he came under the influence and tutelage of a scholar who knew Latin, Greek, and elementary mathematics; up to this time Carr Pritchett had never even seen a Latin grammar, an algebra, or a book on geometry. At St. Charles he made rapid progress in Latin—so rapid that he began Greek on his own initiative and was soon admitted to the Greek class. "In a few weeks Dr. Fielding told him that he knew the Greek grammar better than the Senior Class soon to graduate." His own illness and the death of Dr. Fielding in 1844 suddenly brought his formal education to its close. As long as he lived, however, he was haunted by the knowledge that only the sale of human beings had enabled him to extend his education. Other colleges there were none. He therefore started a school of his own. Out of its meager earnings he sent his sister Elizabeth to a school at Danville; returning, she joined her brother's teaching staff. A larger schoolhouse was built on the edge of their father's farm. The school itself, by that time well known as Pleasant Hill Academy, was soon so flourishing that it was difficult to find homes for "boarders." In course of time Carr Pritchett deserted education in order to enter the Methodist ministry. His home was a center of Methodist activity. For a while the school was carried on by his sisters; but as matrimony thinned the teaching staff, the school faded away. In 1849, however, Carr Pritchett returned to his first love and resumed teaching at Danville, thirty miles distant. This step had for him momentous consequences, for at Danville he met another

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emigré from the Old Dominion, the eldest daughter of Byrd Smith, who became his wife in the autumn of the same year. Carr Pritchett and his wife had a family of five children, of whom Henry Smith Pritchett, born April 16, 1857, was destined to be the most eminent. T h e mother, like her husband, was a person of remarkable qualities and abilities. T o his last days her son Henry vividly recalled her extraordinary courage and attractiveness. He remembered, as he neared the end of his life, a trip he took with her shortly after the Civil War when he was still a young lad, to see her brother, a practicing physician in Amherst County, Virginia. I t was the first meeting of brother and sister since the war, during which she had been a staunch Unionist, he an equally staunch Confederate. The boy never forgot the deep emotion of both on this occasion; but of bitterness or reproach there was none. T h e visit was otherwise memorable, for in Richmond the child was taken b y his uncle to see the house of General Lee, who was then at Lexington fighting his last battle on his sick bed. In later years he showed a critical appreciation of Lee's greatness in character, magnanimity, piety, and soldierly qualities, but he saw clearly the inherent defects in Lee's thinking, for he once wrote, " I f a state m a y secede as it pleases, there can never be an American nation." His mother died shortly after the visit to Virginia; Pritchett's reverence for her never faded. He had "gone to school" to her during the war; as her oldest son, child though he was, he felt himself her protector. But she always stood her own ground. She rose easily to two great emergencies: the first, when, leaving her with several small children, her husband went to Harvard to study astronomy and mathematics; the second, when during the Civil W a r her husband had to flee for his life. In his later years Pritchett remembered with affection and admiration his brave and idealistic parents, representatives of a type then as now the backbone of our democratic way of life. Having exhausted the educational opportunities of the vicinity and progressed a considerable distance through his own efforts, 8

Pritchett's father became in 1851 professor of mathematics at Central College, situated at Fayette, Howard County. The entire teaching burden was borne by three men—Carr Pritchett and two associates, all Methodist ministers. For many years ministers continued to hold the inside track in the matter of teaching appointments, though after the Civil War they had as competitors the needy ex-Confederate brigadiers. Town life was not congenial to the young professor. In 1856, therefore, he purchased with his school earnings a small farm some two miles distant. Love of the open country was obviously still strong within him. There was doubtless another motive. On a farm the few slaves whom he had inherited from his father could be happy and useful; their earnings augmented the slender income derived from teaching. Increased income, however slight, was not to be despised; for the Pritchett family was growing in numbers. On this farm Henry Smith Pritchett spent his first eleven years. The following year Carr Pritchett did the extraordinary thing to which I have already alluded. Aware of his professional limitations, he left his family in the care of his wife and their few slaves in order to spend an entire year at Harvard in the study of astronomy and mathematics. Money was loaned to him by Mr. J . O. Swinney, a fellow townsman. He was received hospitably by William C. Bond, director of the Observatory, and assigned to superior men in higher mathematics and theoretical astronomy. There too he met Asaph Hall, destined to become famous twenty years later when he discovered the satellites of Mars, and Simon Newcomb, just at the outset of a brilliant career. In his old age, he wrote: " I went to Cambridge in October, 1858—a poor, backward, timid, green man of thirty-five years. I left behind me my dear brave wife and two children, Lizzie, nearly six, and Henry about eighteen months of age. N o one can ever know with what sadness I parted from them and took my seat in my road wagon, with

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Stephen as driver, for Glasgow where I took the boat for Jefferson City whence I proceeded by train for St. Louis. Up to this time I had never seen a railroad." With frequent changes he reached South Amboy, New Jersey, where a boat waited to carry the worn and dusty passengers to New York. He felt "little and forlorn" but bore up until, using the imperfect transportation facilities then available, he finally reached his destination. He wrote, " I cannot describe my emotions, as I came in sight of the buildings at Harvard. My heart almost failed me. Here was I, a grown-up man, more than a thousand miles away from home, where I knew not a single soul." But he promptly plunged into work. He realized his defects but he was not for a moment discouraged. Invited to supper during the period when Donati's comet was "then in all its superb glory," he felt "ill at ease in such grand company and soon after supper went home." He was later in Cambridge "on the hundredth anniversary of Washington's assumption of the command of the American Army [July 4, 1875] under the old elm and recalled the poem written and read by James Russell Lowell, entitled Virginia." T o Carr Pritchett his Harvard experience was priceless. Beyond question it became later a decisive factor in determining the profession of his son Henry. Carr himself found his sphere of activity gradually shifting from mathematics to astronomy. Within two decades after his return to Missouri in 1859, he created and became director of an astronomical laboratory which, as his son reports, contained "one of the finest object glasses ever made by the famous telescope makers, Alvah Clark & Sons." The money was furnished by Miss Berenice Morrison, who still survives to enjoy the far-reaching results of her beneficence. It was a long and rocky road that Carr Pritchett had thus traveled since, already twenty years of age, he had resolved to get an education. Towards the end of his life, his son Henry thought his father's ambitions more vaulting than wise. Carr Pritchett had had at Harvard no experience in astronomical observation; he built an

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observatory that would have kept three or four men busy. The school to which it was attached lacked security. Henry thought his father would have done better had his aim been less ambitious. In the middle 1930s, after the son had retired to Santa Barbara, he was able to evaluate his father's error of judgment, if such it was. Looking back, he regretted also the effect of the observatory on his own career. He had himself wished to study law, but because of the telescope he was committed almost inevitably to a career in astronomy. This, however, within a few years led to the broader educational interests that occupied the rest of his life. Was the telescope a lucky or an unlucky accident for him? One cannot judge positively, but there is reason to believe that his deep interest in astronomy gave his early life a turn of which higher education in America was later the beneficiary and could ill afford to have missed. One may well pause amidst the comforts and assurance that we now enjoy to marvel at the heroic action of both Carr Pritchett and his wife. Who in these days of relative ease and plenty would leave a wife and two small children in a distant wilderness in order to make his way through hardship and deprivation over a distance of more than a thousand miles for the sole purpose of realizing an educational dream which he had cherished for years? Nor would it be easy to find a woman who would cheerfully bid her husband godspeed on an errand of this nature and take upon herself all the responsibilities connected with the upbringing of two children and the care of farm and slaves, without any assurance whatsoever that their fortunes would thereby be advanced. Looking back at his ancestry, the sacrifices that they made, the hardships they endured, the determination with which they clung to high ideals, one can all the more easily understand Henry's future career, marked by episodes calling forth in different form and under gentler conditions the qualities which his parents displayed at what proved to be the turning point of the family's career. The Civil War soon wrought havoc with the scientific career

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for which C a r r Pritchett had made so great a sacrifice. Missouri was sharply divided, as were all the border states, between proand anti-slavery partisans. Neighbor was arrayed against neighbor, brother against brother, sometimes father against son. C a r r Pritchett was the only Union man of his immediate family; his wife stood valiantly at his side, while two of her four brothers served in each army. T h e first Confederate soldier Pritchett ever saw was his father's youngest brother, a boy of twenty-one. He afterwards wrote: " I remember as if it were yesterday the morning he left our house to join Price's army. His determination to join the Confederates was one of the most bitter experiences through which my father went. I could not at that time understand the meaning of his tear-stained face, nor the sadness which seemed to cling about my Mother in all her movements. I only knew that it seemed to me very grand to have such a horse to ride away to the war. J u s t that day a week I watched my father turn the same bend as he rode a w a y to bring back his brother's body. He had been shot through the heart at the first assault which took place next d a y . " I t was a ghastly period. Irregular armed bands, known as guerillas or bushwhackers, ranged throughout the state, avoiding a pitched battle, but descending when least expected here or there in a mad and cruel search for food and loot. " A u n t Annie," the colored cook, used to say she could never get a batch of biscuits baked but the soldiers would appear and take them all. Men of character, like Francis Cockrell, later a prominent statesman, appealed vainly to the lawless bands to join one or the other army; he practiced his own doctrine and raised the Fifth Missouri I n f a n t r y which gained repute as one of the best fighting regiments of the Confederacy. An uncompromising Unionist like Carr Pritchett found his position increasingly difficult; by the summer of 1864 it had become impossible. Henry Pritchett, then a lad of seven, remem12

bered to his last days how in the June of that year the blow fell. Twenty armed men appeared "to search the house" at Fayette. Carr Pritchett assured them they would find neither arms nor ammunition, but the marauders robbed the household of blankets, clothing, and other articles. Mrs. Pritchett was ordered to hold a lamp so that they might miss nothing of value. In so doing, she recognized one guerilla, a boy whom her husband had helped at school. She asked, "Aren't you ashamed to come to my house on such an errand?" "No, I am not ashamed of anything." An encounter near by between Union troops and guerillas proved to Carr Pritchett that his life was no longer safe. He left his home, and soon thereafter two revolver shots convinced his wife that he had been shot. Then for the first and only time in two tragic years Mrs. Pritchett lost control of herself; she was sure her husband had been murdered. At two o'clock next morning one of the blacks slipped quietly into the house to report that "Marse Carr, he saunt word not to worry, he all right and gwine to the Union camp." Carr made his way to Washington where, with the help of Professor Asaph Hall, he secured a post on the United States Sanitary Commission. His letters to his family disclose his constant solicitude for their welfare. From the office of the United States Sanitary Commission at 224 F Street he writes "at 3 P.M., March 24, 1865": " . . . I am glad, Daughter, to see you took more pains in your writing. I have not had time to see whether the problems are right. You can do so well when you take pains and try. Remember the Lord holds us to a strict account for the improvement of our time and talents. "When you visit your Cousins, remember you must not neglect your books entirely. I hope you will not grieve your dear mother by rudeness and romping. Help her to take care of your little brothers, and to instruct them in all that is good for them." His anxiety for the well-being of his family never left him. Over

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twenty years later he wrote from Glasgow, Missouri, to his daughter Sadie, a student at Mt. Holyoke Seminary, in reply to a letter containing an account of a New England Thanksgiving, " I understand you to say that you do not wear your flannels. I am greatly surprised and much concerned about this, for I thought you would act more sensibly. It is full time you had them on, and I hope you will wear them uniformly till June next." Carr Pritchett remained with the Sanitary Commission till after the assassination and funeral of President Lincoln. He took part in the procession which escorted the dead President from the White House to the Capitol; and he was one of many ministers "who waited on President Johnson in the Treasury Building and presented him with an address of condolence and fealty." Returning to Missouri in 1866, he interested Miss Morrison in providing the observatory already mentioned, and with the financial help of Mr. Swinney, an uncle of Miss Morrison, became principal of "Pritchett School Institute," though the observatory and the Institute were never legally united. A Directory and Catalogue of the Pritchett School Institute for the year 1867-68 shows that it combined a high school and a collegiate course. Carr Pritchett refused explicitly to "engage to finish the great work of education in any specified number of years." He dispensed "with the classification of studies by years. The student wears his honors when the course is finished whether in two, four, or six years." The scholastic year consisted of forty school weeks; the tuition fees, inclusive of modern languages, music, and general branches, amounted to approximately $100 per annum. "No scholar is enrolled until his or her tuition for the session is paid. This is fair notice to all. We invariably suffer when this rule is violated." The School's motto was "Doce, Disce, aut Discede: Teach, Learn, or Leave." It was a Christian, but not a denominational school—a strict institution conducted on a high educational and moral level; discipline was firm, but mild and uniform. Carr Pritchett remained its principal until his resigna-

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tion in the fall of 1873 at the age of fifty; he retained, however, the professorship of mathematics and astronomy until 1905. In that year he retired, making his home at Independence, Missouri, until his death five years later.

IS

Boyhood H E N R Y P R I T C H E T T never failed in his loyalty to his native state. In his mature years he was sensitive on the subject of the pronunciation of its name. He once wrote, " 'Missouri' is of Indian origin and is said to mean 'Big Muddy,' a most appropriate name for the great stream. N o one knows how it came to be spelled as it is. However, the men who cleared its forests and first tilled its soil learned to pronounce its name with a good southern sound at the end as if it were spelled 'Mizoura' and so it is called today. When you meet a real son of the state whose descent has come through the old Virginia and K e n t u c k y migration, you m a y know it by the fact that he always says, 'Mizoura'—not 'Mis-sou-ri.' " He never forgot his disgust when he first encountered the conventional spelling. T a k e n to a steamboat on the river—a novel sight—across the paddlebox in large letters he saw painted " T h e Belle of Missouri." He could hardly restrain his impatience to tell his mother of the joke, and he could scarcely believe his ears when he found that this was the accepted and orthodox spelling. It was his first great disappointment in English orthography. The fertile forests of central Missouri were peopled by a sturdy and homogeneous population in whose life religion played an important role—"an old-fashioned religion with a literal, yawning, burning Hell and a Heaven of shining streets and golden crowns. In each town there was a small congregation of Episcopalians from the older and more aristocratic families, but Methodists and Baptists were the leading denominations with now and then groups of Campbellites and Presbyterians." During the Civil War, Henry Pritchett's most intimate comrade was an elderly slave named Steve. Pritchett in his mature

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years used to maintain that, in mental qualities, there was nothing to choose between them. One of their favorite occupations, while food was scarce and precarious, was to plan the feasts in which they would indulge after the war. No matter what the projected menu, the meals always ended "and then we'll have sardines." He could not recall that either Steve or he had ever seen a sardine or knew what a sardine was, but they were both fascinated by the name. Later, after reaching manhood, Pritchett's memory often reverted to his boyhood. He wrote: "Fancy a boy's life in a community in which there is no school—a life in which each day brings before his eyes the scenes and deeds of the soldier, the scene shifting so frequently that the boy was never quite sure when he woke in the morning whether it would be a Union or a Confederate soldier who would first greet him." In his earliest recollections war was the natural and normal condition of life. All the men went to war, all the youths who could ran away and joined the men, and the children who were too young to follow played war at home. With the peaceful regime out of joint, the lives of youngsters became vastly different. As there were no schools, the mothers taught the rudiments of knowledge, the fathers being at war or, if too old, carrying on other occupations. Duties ordinarily imposed upon grown men were performed by boys of eight or nine. A young boy, mounted on a horse to be coveted by either army, could go where no man could possibly go. He was allowed to pass the pickets and, if he fell in with outposts of the opposing forces, he was merely turned back. Boys of tender age thus performed services of considerable difficulty, being entrusted with verbal messages, sometimes with messages concealed in their clothes, sometimes with money to be delivered to this person or that. Leaving the Union pickets, young Henry frequently met within a half-mile the pickets of the Confederates or the bushwhackers. In Pritchett's proudest moments he was even permitted to join a scouting party search17

ing for the enemy or forage; then he was allowed to fall in with the column or at times ride side by side with an older soldier at the rear. On one occasion, trotting along scarcely half a mile from his home, he and his column came upon a single guerilla. The troop fired their revolvers; their intended victim galloped away, jumped a fence, and disappeared. At the outset, Henry had a good saddle, bridle, and horse, but long before the war was over he had been deprived of them all. He owned too a sharp knife, which was similarly appropriated. This was too much to endure. He cried out passionately, "That's my knife; you can't take it." But the soldier, noting a small wound on one of Henry's fingers, remarked, "Sonny, a knife like this is too sharp for a little boy," and calmly put it in his pocket. The state of war was in no way more manifest in a boy's life than in his play; he played war with his young friends and companions. The boys made wooden pistols and revolvers, deriving confidence from their possessions. With the passage of time and the increase of bitterness they took sides, and on meeting one another they asked at once "Union or Secesh?" Ammunition was provided by clods of earth in summer and snowballs in winter, and imitation battles were fought by more or less organized groups on both sides. Pritchett was too young to understand the issues at stake, but, even as a child, he noted the widening breach between members of his own family and the bitterness which warfare brought into the community. His grandmother on his mother's side was a stately old lady with strong Southern sympathies; his parents were equally strong Unionists. As success wavered from side to side, deep feelings were inevitably aroused, though every possible effort was made to restrain their expression and to preserve peace within the family. Writing in 1936 to Charles Nagel, an intimate friend in his St. Louis days, who had retired from public life, and thanking him for a copy of his book, A Boy's Civil War Story, Pritchett 18

AS A YOUNG BOY, IN POST-CIVIL-WAR HOMEMADE CLOTHES

said: " Y o u r experience as a boy reminds me of my own. I was brought up in a region where sympathy was largely with the Confederate cause. I was only eight when the war ended, but the years '64 and '65 are still remembered as vividly as any years of my life." Feeling ran high after Appomattox, though it was relieved to some extent by the migration of former soldiers to regions farther west. Late in life, Pritchett recalled an incident which throws light on the readjustments in the domestic situation. Almost the first morning after his father's return from Washington, Henry noticed that his father had gone to the barnyard much earlier than seemed necessary. Following him a bit later, Henry found the astronomer hopelessly involved in the effort to milk a cow. A thin stream testified to his inability to perform the task. Henry, who had been "allowed" by the servants to officiate during the war years—much as Tom Sawyer "allowed" his playmates to assist in whitewashing a fence—offered to undertake a task which his father gladly relinquished. His efforts were so successful that he found to his regret he had now taken on a task from which he was only freed afterwards, when a younger brother showed like ambition and made a similar demonstration, with identical results. Forty years later, Pritchett visited a ranch on which several thousand cattle had been herded for milking. Not a cowpuncher on the ranch could milk a cow. In a moment a cow was roped for him. The skill had not been lost. Thereafter he had milk in plenty. " T h e art of milking," he remarks—and it is true of other things— "is one that must be learned in youth." The war between the states once over, a tremendous interest in education made itself felt. Questions still undecided came suddenly to the fore: Should higher institutions of learning be privately or publicly controlled or perchance both? Should they provide for both sexes or for one only? What part should religious denominations play in their control? On the whole, the pendulum

19

swung towards privately endowed institutions set up by religious denominations, some under strict, some under mildly supervised theological control. Pritchett's father, as I have already mentioned, was soon invited to become head of a new school at Glasgow, which was to be known by his name as Pritchett School Institute. This invitation Mr. Pritchett accepted in 1866. There Henry Pritchett, who had previously had no instruction except from his mother, became a student in the preparatory department when he was ten years of age, beginning the study of Latin at once and taking up Greek a year later. He had had the usual preparation of his day—reading, writing, arithmetic, and English—with probably more than the usual amount of mathematics, inasmuch as he had been brought up in the family of a mathematician. At college he pursued the conventional studies of the time; towards the end of his course he received a limited amount of scientific instruction and experience. His cousin, Ida Williams, whom he subsequently married, was a fellow student at the time and lived with Carr Pritchett's family. B y a strange coincidence Pritchett's teacher in English literature was Oren Root, elder brother of Elihu, who years afterwards became one of Pritchett's warmest and most beloved friends. Professor Root did not remain permanently at Glasgow. He later became professor of mathematics at Hamilton College, a thriving eastern institution which his younger brother Elihu and Elihu's own son attended and to which the Root family has been loyal over a long stretch of years. Pritchett was a student, first in the preparatory department, subsequently in the Institute, at Glasgow from 1866 to 1875, when he was graduated with the degree of bachelor of arts. He was an all-around student, excelling both in books and in sports. Studious though he was, he shared the athletic interests of his fellows, especially baseball, the physical and moral demands of which he continued throughout his life to regard highly; he also 20

hunted and fished with his associates, as occasion offered. Late in life, he recalled how in his boyhood baseball was played more or less informally. He contrasted the sport of that era with the extreme regimentation that prevails today. His youthful prowess became so well known that on graduation from college he was offered a position on the old St. Louis Browns professional team. Under parental pressure he declined the offer, but his interest in the game did not abate. He had been at one time captain of the college team and had served as catcher. In 1935 he wrote Professor Bliss Perry: " I was devoted to baseball with an intensity that I have been able to reach in few other matters. A t the little fresh-water college where I played (catching under the bat had just begun in m y time) I was a catcher. M y only protector was a rubber contraption that the catcher wore in his mouth. T h a t I escaped without a broken nose or a bad eye was due to a special dispensation of Providence." Courage, determination, qualities of friendship shone whether he was studying astronomy, hunting, or playing games. These qualities and interests persisted throughout his life. Later, Pritchett deplored the development that converted a college playground into an arena "which has the tenseness of a stock exchange," making the players "pawns" directed by a coach all too keen to win. In the light of present-day conditions, his opportunities were meager. He attended no other educational institution until nearly twenty years later when he studied mathematics and astronomy at Munich. But his bearing, his range of interests, his command of his native tongue betokened the fact that he was a trained and educated man. How is this to be accounted for? Mainly, I think, by his unusual native ability, the influence of his parents, and perhaps, most of all, by the existence in Glasgow of a public library containing some 4,000 volumes of which he made the best possible use. There he found Darwin's Origin of Species, which in his 21

family circle was regarded as a "wicked book," though Pritchett himself used to wonder where the "wickedness" was. Few, if any, books have ever exerted a wider influence on human thought. Young Pritchett studied its closely reasoned pages. His scientific turn of mind and the pattern of expression that became characteristic of him throughout his life may perhaps be partly traced to the influence of Darwin's book, with which he became acquainted at the age when a well-endowed mind is most susceptible. But Pritchett was a normal boy. He loved the things that normal boys love, although, in addition, he possessed unusual taste and discrimination in reading. He always had a healthy interest in outdoor life. He remembered vividly his excitement over a deer hunt. Thirty years later, owner of a ranch in the Rockies, he still felt as strongly as ever the "call of the w i l d " and he has left a written memorandum, describing in detail the manner in which deer hunting was carried on. When hunting and horseback riding ceased to be feasible by reason of urban residence or increasing years, he turned to golf and became a skillful and devoted lover of that sport. A t eighteen he was confronted with the momentous question of choosing a profession. Professor Root agreed with Pritchett's preference for the law; but his father's enthusiasm for astronomy and the actual existence of the observatory prevailed. An excellent example of Pritchett's loyalty and persistence is to be found in his interest, constant over half a century, in the telescope which Miss Morrison had provided for his father in Glasgow. After he had left Glasgow and his father had died, general interest in the telescope lapsed. Not, however, his interest, for in 1935 he urged the Carnegie Corporation to make an appropriation for the purpose of transferring the telescope from Glasgow to Central College at Fayette, Missouri. He knew the educational situation in Missouri thoroughly. There were, he argued, three endowed colleges relying on denominational support and 22

the State University. Writing to President Jessup of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1935 in the effort to make the telescope once more useful in education and research, he was aware of the fact that Mr. Carnegie had been averse to cooperation with denominational institutions, but he pointed out that in less than half a century the sectarianism of Protestant churches had largely evaporated. Thirty years ago, he argued, sectarianism was strong. At present, however, sectarianism has merged into a moral and religious influence and is therefore a source of support. "Denominations have not lost their interest in the colleges upon which they once relied, but they have largely ceased to regard them as channels for denominational advancement." While the sum required to move the telescope from Glasgow to Central College was being raised, Pritchett and some of his friends made contributions to meet the conditions of the Corporation. An excellent observatory was built, as well as a suitable residence for the director. Pritchett had the satisfaction of seeing Miss Morrison's gift, made long since through his father, become once more an active factor in the study of astronomy.

23

Early Manhood M O V E D by his father's enthusiasm and possessing a sound knowledge of mathematics and the technical equipment requisite to the use of delicate instruments, Henry Pritchett in the autumn of 1875 betook himself to Washington to study astronomy under the direction of Professor Asaph Hall of the N a v a l Observatory. Having now dropped all thought of law, Pritchett was busily happy in this first Washington period. He was in daily contact with Hall, in whose home he lived. He quickly came to know the other distinguished astronomers of that day—Simon Newcomb, William Harkness, and John R . Eastman, and now enjoyed the first taste of club life through his membership in the Cosmos Club. Newcomb, recognizing his ability and devotion, utilized Pritchett's services in computing his monumental tables of the moon, the most difficult of the heavenly bodies to keep track of. Pritchett thus entered the astronomical field at the right moment. Improved instruments were rapidly expanding human knowledge, and Pritchett was fortunate in his close connection with an admirable observatory and in his association with a group of eminent men who appreciated his ability. Towards the end of his life he wrote: " W e have learned in the last century and a half more concerning man's home, the earth, and more concerning the solar system of which our earth is a somewhat insignificant member than mankind had learned in all the previous millenniums of human history. And we have just begun." In 1876, he visited the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, keeping a diary in which he recorded his experience. On September 4, he writes of his trip: 24

" M y first view of salt water. The expanse of water blending in the distance with the sky gives one the impression of traveling up hill. The roll of the waves in the evening made me a little uneasy about my supper. The sunset was glorious. The sun set in a clear spot, but long lines of clouds ran out like splintered fingers of fire, and the blending of colors was the finest I ever saw. The full moon rose soon after, and a fairer scene than the moonlit waters and the inlets of Chesapeake B a y it was never my fortune to see." In Philadelphia he was interested in "mementoes of the old Colonial times; the revolutionary struggles cluster thick about them. We stood with deferential mien and bared head before the original copy of the Declaration of Independence. The old bell which first pealed out the news of the adoption of the declaration still stands in the building." In the Exposition itself he spent most of his time in Machinery Hall. He wrote: "An American cannot but feel proud of American machinery. In perfection of finish and workmanship, as well as in beauty and elegance of design, America already outstrips all other nations. Strength, solidity, firmness seemed to characterize foreign machinery. The American engine has beauty as well as power. Its body was long and graceful as a greyhound's. Its whole surface shone resplendent with burnished brass and to crown all, the American eagle spread his wings in broad defiance. . . . Passing through this wonderful exhibit of human ingenuity and seeing hundreds of machines acting with perfect precision and almost human intelligence, the thought arises: how far will human invention go? T o what triumph will it not come?" After his return home, his professional progress was rapid. Three years after reaching Washington he was made assistant astronomer in the Naval Observatory; two years later (1880) he was appointed astronomer of the Morrison Observatory at Glasgow; the next year ( 1 8 8 1 ) he was called to Washington Univer-

25

sity, St. Louis, as assistant professor of mathematics and astronomy. While at the Morrison Observatory and at Washington University, he made observations of the positions of various satellites and comets and secured numerous measurements of the distances and position angles of double stars, which served for the determination of their orbits. In 1882, he obtained leave of absence to serve as assistant astronomer on the commission which was shortly sailing for New Zealand, where the transit of Venus was to be observed. As a matter of fact, in consequence of the illness of his superior, Pritchett actually became astronomerin-chief of the commission. T o appreciate the importance of his service at that time, it is necessary to understand the conditions under which astronomy was then carried on and briefly to describe Pritchett's previous activities. About 1880, when Pritchett started his career as an astronomer, the scope of astronomy was much narrower than nowadays. Astrophysics, the study of the physical and chemical constitution of the celestial bodies, was still young, and astronomy was preeminently the science of the motions of the stars and of their interpretation by Newton's theory of gravitation. In these branches of what now is frequently called classical astronomy, Pritchett had received a thorough training under Hall, and his facile command of classical methods is amply attested b y his numerous scientific publications. At the N a v a l Observatory he participated in routine work at the meridian circle, the standard instrument used for the determination of fundamental stellar positions of the highest accuracy. Such precise stellar positions are of the greatest practical importance for the maintenance of the astronomical time service and for the needs of navigation. T h e y also serve for large-scale astronomical triangulation of the continents on which the construction of geographical maps is based. Pritchett's competency in dealing with these problems of applied astronomy found wide recognition later when he became director of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. 26

Even before his appointment to this post, Pritchett enjoyed an excellent reputation as a skilled observer, as was shown by the part he played in observing the transit of Venus. Although in recent years more reliable methods have been developed, observations of the planet Venus crossing the disk of the sun used to afford a convenient means of determining the solar parallax and the distance between earth and sun and hence, indirectly, of fixing the absolute distances of all the other planets, their relative distances (in units of the distance earth-sun) being known from Kepler's Third Law. When his colleague fell ill on their voyage to New Zealand and was unable to do his share of the scheduled work, Pritchett finished the exacting observational program singlehanded and thus saved the day, for the transits of Venus are exceedingly rare phenomena. Since the earliest observed transit in 1639, only four have occurred, namely, in 1 7 6 1 , 1769, 1874, and 1882, and for the next one astronomers will have to wait until the year 2004. In 1891, Pritchett also observed the transit of Mercury. This planet revolves around the sun in an orbit much smaller than that of Venus and in a correspondingly shorter period of revolution. The transits of Mercury occur much more frequently, the average interval between them being about one decade, and furnish an opportunity for determining corrections in the planet's place and its orbital elements. It would be difficult to specify any contribution or discovery of Pritchett's that brought his name to the attention of elementary students or gave him a place in the textbooks. His labors were of the kind that are rewarded by the satisfaction of having helped to augment the slowly growing stock of astronomical knowledge. His interests were, however, by no means confined to the narrower field of classical astronomy in which he had worked so successfully. In fact, a vivid passage of the unpublished travel diary written during the Pacific expedition of 1882 tells us how much the author longed to expand the scope of his astronomical activities. 27

A f t e r the successful conclusion of the Venus observations Pritchett visited Australia and called upon his colleagues at the S y d n e y and Melbourne observatories. E v e n now the number of astronomers and observatories located in the southern hemisphere is so small that the exploration of the southern sky is somewhat fragmentary. Half a century ago the traveler gazed upon w h a t was largely a sphezra incognita.

A t Sydney on Janu-

ary I I , 1883, he committed to his note book the following lines, which m a y be quoted at length as they describe so a p t l y the enthusiasm of a true devotee of science: " A t night after I observed for a time M r . Russell and I h a v e stayed up till about 2:00 A.M. looking at some of the wonders of the southern sky with his fine 11-inch refractor. Such beautiful sights I have never seen as some of the nebulae and clusters and double stars of the far southern sky. T h e famous Lemniscate N e b u l a about tj A r g u s and the G e m . Cluster, the great cluster in T o u c a n , the cluster about K Crucis, and the nebula in C e n t a u r are objects which have no counterpart in the northern sky. I couldn't make up m y mind to go to bed and feel well nigh broken down. I am to go to Melbourne on F r i d a y and will h a v e some nights with the great 4-foot reflector. H a v i n g seen the observations here I can't help wishing I might spend ten years in the southern hemisphere with a good glass. N o b o d y is doing a n y thing in the southern s k y with the equatorial and in fact scarcely a n y t h i n g has been done since Sir John Herschel went to the C a p e with his 18-inch reflector. Here at Sydney M r . Russell's time is so taken up b y routine business and meteorological work that he can do scarcely a n y t h i n g and has confined himself to making drawings of a few of the well-known nebulae. A t Melbourne the great reflector is an elephant on their hands, and nothing of note has been done with it. A t the C a p e and at Cordoba in South America attention is given only to meridian work. There is a big pile of glory waiting for some energetic man who will come to the southern hemisphere with a 12 or 15-inch C l a r k glass, and I only 28

wish I had the opportunity of doing so. In fact, since I have been here and had a look at part of the southern sky, I have gotten quite wild about it, and I believe I will always have a longing in that direction." In 1883, Pritchett was promoted to the professorship of astronomy and made director of the observatory at Washington University, St. Louis. The St. Louis observatory was inferior in equipment to that at Glasgow, but Pritchett made the best of the situation; he was never a man who "quarreled with his tools." If he could not observe, he taught; "my work," he wrote later, "was essentially that of a teacher of mathematics and astronomy." On January 1 9 , 1 8 8 1 , he married his cousin, Miss Ida Pritchett Williams, who was born in 1859. They had both been students in the Collegiate Institute at Glasgow, and Miss Williams had made her home with Carr Pritchett and his wife. During the summer vacations, Henry "spent a great deal of his time in the Williams home at O'Fallon, Missouri." Their "cousinly attachment" soon ripened "into deeper affection." During their married life of eleven years, they had three sons and one daughter: Harry, Edwin E., Leonard, and Ida Williams Pritchett. All had been going well with Pritchett and his family. He had a happy home and an established profession with a promising future. The tragic blow fell when the young wife died ten days after Ida's birth in 1891. Miss Morrison still recalls the long, agonized letter which Pritchett wrote to her at that time. After the death of his wife, his younger sister, Sara Byrd Pritchett, came to keep house and look after the boys while Ida was cared for by her maternal grandmother and aunt at Fayette. Perhaps the most dramatic episode of his scientific career during this period was his opportunity to observe on January 1, 1889, a total eclipse of the sun visible in California and Nevada. As the chances for clear weather were good, Pritchett determined to observe it, if possible. The national government made no financial provision to cover the necessary expenses, but the superin-

29

tendent of the N a v a l Observatory had offered to lend Pritchett the necessary photographic equipment if he could privately procure the requisite $2,500 to carry out the undertaking. Generous friends who believed in him contributed the sum, while the railroads and express companies carried the party, the telescopes, and the photographic equipment free of charge. Pritchett was accompanied by two of his faculty colleagues, Professors Nypher and Engler, photographers, and, most important and most diverting of all, Father Charles M . Charroppin, a Jesuit priest who was professor of astronomy at St. Louis University. T h e good Father was a delightful talker and loved a quiet game of whist, promptly terminated on the stroke of eleven in order that he might seek the comfort of his breviary. Pritchett reached the point of observation ten days ahead of time. A mile distant was a comfortable residence belonging to a Mr. Rideout of San Francisco, which the owner turned over to the group. But comfortable as the party was, it was impossible to be rid of anxiety as to the weather. Would the day be clear? T h e Sacramento Valley was usually clear in the early mornings, but as noon approached fleecy clouds were apt to drift across the skies and by noon—the approximate time of the eclipse—the heavens might be more or less obscured. While Pritchett and his friends were unable to shake off their apprehensions, Father Charroppin suffered no concern whatsoever. He maintained that when so many pious persons united in a petition to the Virgin for a good purpose, the prayer would certainly be granted. The Father even gave a written undertaking to walk to Ogden and back—a distance of 800 miles—should cloudy weather prevail. He asked only that, in case of clear weather, his Protestant colleagues would kneel and thank God for His beneficence. The Father's faith was justified. During the brief period of totality the sky was absolutely clear, and the photographic program was carried out completely and successfully. Father Charroppin was a generous victor, for he suggested that

30

each of the doubters should in the privacy of his own room carry out his agreement to kneel and express thanks to God in his own way. When Pritchett became assistant professor at Washington University, William Chauvenet was supposedly professor of mathematics and spherical astronomy. As a matter of fact, aside from his teaching, Chauvenet occupied himself with the writing of textbooks in mathematics, some of which were still in use many years later. Chauvenet was of course not wholly to blame for this change in his activity, for when he came to Washington University from the Naval Observatory he had expected to obtain a telescope of some power. As the University possessed no such instrument, his work took the form of teaching mathematics and theoretical astronomy. Thus, on reaching St. Louis in 1883 Pritchett found the equipment limited to a transit instrument for determining time, located in a little shack at 18th and St. Charles Streets. It was inadequate for the accurate work which he was eager to carry on. Nevertheless, it was utilized by observers belonging to the Coast and Geodetic Survey as well as by Pritchett himself and served as a convenient station for determining the longitude of western points. On his return from the transit of Venus observation he found that the railroads radiating from St. Louis needed more accurate time signals, and he established a time service which he kept in operation over a long period. He also procured a modern transit instrument comparable to those possessed by the Coast Survey and a small equatorial sufficient for teaching purposes. These instruments were in constant use as long as he remained at the University. Professor R . S. Woodward, who in later life was president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was a member of the Geological Survey which determined the longitude of points west and southwest from St. Louis. He and Pritchett cooperated, Woodward setting up his own instruments alongside those possessed by the University. Late in life Pritchett stated

31

that the record of the comparisons made b y the two men in observing transits of stars probably covers a longer period than has ever been studied by any two observers. Pritchett also became interested in the exact determination of the longitude of the National Observatory of Mexico, situated near the C i t y of Mexico. He employed telegraphic methods and by exchange of signals showed that the longitude formerly given for Mexico C i t y was erroneous to the extent of more than a mile. With the progress of astrophysics in the period following Pritchett's activities at St. Louis, mathematical astronomy such as he carried on has sunk into second place. Astronomy was thereafter sharply divided into two parts: one branch, concerned with measurement, seeks to ascertain the motions of the stars and the masses, orbits, and physical characteristics of the planets—the astronomy of position and measurement; the second, now known as astrophysics, utilizes the spectroscope and the photographic plate and is concerned with the physical and chemical constitution of the planets, the sun, and the more distant stars. T h e newer astronomy, the limits of which are still f a r distant, disclosed the existence of worlds beyond worlds and the comparative insignificance of our own terrestrial universe. As late as 193 5, Pritchett outlined to Professor Roever of Washington University a course of study containing three parts: first, a general cultural course in descriptive astronomy and astrophysics; second, a course for civil engineers, in order to enable them to make elementary determinations of time, latitude, and longitude; third, an advanced course for students seeking the doctorate in astronomy or astrophysics. When one considers that Pritchett's career as a teacher began in the early '80s and that he continued his interest in the astronomical work of Washington University into the 1930s—a period of fifty years—one gets some idea of the pertinacity with which, having once taken up a subject, he clung to it because of the vivid interests it invariably aroused. But combined with tenacity in familiar areas, Pritchett possessed the rare

32

faculty of attaining competency in other fields. Thus only can one account for the breadth of interests which he developed as time went on. His interest in astronomy never flagged. Almost thirty years after leaving his professorship at Washington University, he wrote his friend Dr. George E. Hale, director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, under date of September 12, 1926: " I grew up in the astronomy of position, a field peculiarly attractive to the amateur observer. Thus a large number of persons got considerable satisfaction out of the work and passed on to other intelligent people a knowledge of astronomy and of the celestial bodies. Since that day, the old astronomy has become quite secondary to the fascinating developments of astrophysics; but the spectroscope is an instrument not so easily handled, and, as a consequence, the amateur astronomer has almost entirely disappeared. I think it would be of great value if some simple form of spectroscopic apparatus could be devised for the use of amateurs. You have done so much in making accessible to popular appreciation the magnificent gains of astrophysics in the last quarter century, that I hope you may find it possible to follow up your own suggestion in the paper in Nature and see if we cannot raise a new group of amateurs in astrophysics to replace those who formerly had small telescopes." Pritchett's tenure at Washington University lasted sixteen years (1881-1897). The institution was small, but the faculty contained able and scholarly men, who soon became friends of the young astronomer. In a letter written in 1932 to one of his former colleagues, Professor Otto Heller (recently deceased), he recalled vividly the "occasion fifty years ago, when the twentyfifth anniversary was celebrated in which I took part. The exercises were held in the evening in the gymnasium on the old site at 17th Street and Washington Avenue. Chancellor Eliot, the creator of the University, was then at the head. There were perhaps two or three hundred present, including all the faculty of the College and Scientific School" (whom he mentions by name). 33

Pritchett spoke on behalf of the faculty—a sure sign that his worth was already appreciated, for he was then only assistant professor. His subject was " H o w far that little candle throws its b e a m ! " chosen because the matter of standard time for railroads was under popular discussion; from that Pritchett proceeded to the importance of the University. T h e student body took no part, for it numbered less than a hundred. T h e orator of the evening was General William Tecumseh Sherman and his theme, " I n T i m e of Peace Prepare for W a r . " In the midst of his address, the students turned out the lights. Sherman's fighting blood was thereby roused; he made it absolutely clear that no such maneuver would silence him, and he continued in the darkness, pouring hot shot into the critics of military preparedness. Pritchett's range of acquaintance extended beyond faculty limits. H e was interested in the Ethical Culture Society and its leader, Walter L . Sheldon; he believed that an organization of this kind, under proper leadership, might well satisfy and inspire those who were not orthodox Christians. He formed lifelong and intimate friendships with William Trelease (the " T r e l l y " of his letters), a professor in Washington University, later director of the Botanical Garden, and with Charles Nagel, prominent lawyer, trustee of Washington University, and finally Secretary of Commerce and L a b o r in President T a f t ' s Cabinet. Soon after he went to St. Louis, he also met Robert S. Brookings, the most active and public-spirited businessman in St. Louis and a recent addition to the board of trustees. He spent delightful week ends with Brookings at his place on the river some twenty miles below St. Louis, and there the two men discussed the problems of the University. Brookings, just forty-six years of age, turned from a prosperous business career to devote himself to higher education as represented by the struggling young University. H e became president of the board of trustees; his interest grew rapidly; he studied the various departments and out of these studies, continued after Pritchett went to Washington, grew the transforma34

tion of a small and cramped urban college into the beautiful structure which Mr. Brookings conceived and largely financed. In the years at Washington University Pritchett also sought recreation in hunting. He loved not only the sport, but the opportunity for companionship. Late in life he used often to say that he intended to write a paper entitled "Dogs That I Have Known." His guide on a hunting trip in Colorado in the 1890s, John D. Crawford, related: "We used to camp out together on hunting and fishing trips mostly up Elk River and Hinman Parkway in Routt County, Colorado. He was a splendid shot with a rifle and did a lot of his deer hunting over west on the Cow Creek Divide. One time we saw the Northern Lights—so bright and pretty—and he told us a lot about them. And in camp he would point out different constellations and tell all about them. One time he was along with a party camped in the east end of Luna Lake and the moon was coming up and showing on the water and he quoted something about Fair Luna and the lake took on a white man's name right there and then. He used to have a canvas bag about four feet long and small in diameter. He would pack a lot of duffle in it and tie it behind his saddle. It was a very handy affair and he called it 'a gut.' Henry seemed always to get a deer when he went hunting. Of course, the country was full of blacktails in the early '90s. As well as I remember, he and Mr. McKinlay fished quite a lot and also would shoot grouse, both willow and dusky kinds; also sage chickens in Twenty-Mile Park and Deep Creek basins. I wish I could tell more, but know he was a sportsman A-i, and we who used to guide some of the parties always thought a heap of Henry." His interest in quail continued to the end. Persistent in this as in other matters, he wrote charmingly from his Santa Barbara home to his friend Elihu Root as late as 1936: "You would be interested to see the flock of quail in my garden. Every day I distribute a few handfuls of wheat and corn, and 35

they have learned to look upon me as a friend. These California quail are handsome birds, but they do not approach the bobwhite of the Middle West for either shooting or eating. Besides, the bobwhite is a gentleman. He will lie staunchly to the dog and then get up boldly and sail away, giving a man a fair shot, but these California quail with their handsome topknots are runners. T h e y have no sense of sportsmanship. I t is not astonishing that they make so poor a showing on the table, considering their indifference to the legitimate rights of the sportsman." Pritchett's children retain vivid recollections of his personality. T h e y thought him somewhat stern and strict, but their devotion to him, still fresh in their memory, suggests that his apparent sternness was perhaps due to absorption in his scientific work. His son H a r r y , writing in February, 1 9 4 1 , recalls: " M y earliest recollections of my Father date back to 1883-84, when I was three or four years old. M y impression from those days was that of a stern young man, wearing a small moustache. This was long before the day of the neat Van D y k e type of beard. " I saw a good deal of my Father at close range up to the time of the death of my Mother when I was about ten years old. A f t e r that there was more or less separation, my two brothers and sister living with different branches of the family. There were frequent visits from Father, however, and he kept in fairly close touch with us. He had been a baseball player during his college days and enjoyed taking a bat and knocking out flies to Ted and me. He could knock the ball high and f a r and these high flies were more than we had been accustomed to handling. We frequently failed to hang to them and 'muffed' the ball. When this occurred it caused him amusement, and he would call us 'butter-fingered.' "Father's children always stood a bit in awe of him. He was somewhat reserved and a strict disciplinarian. It would never have occurred to any of us to question a direction he gave. At the same time he possessed that rare quality that caused us to feel

36

great devotion for him. Whenever I accomplished anything that caught his attention and seemed to please him it always caused me great pride and satisfaction. " M y Father's love of the outdoors and hunting probably brought my closest and most intimate contact with him. He was a fine shot both with the rifle at large game, and with the shot gun at quail, pheasants, ducks, etc. I have often tramped the mountain ranges of Colorado with him as a boy and have seen him bring down deer and antelope, often with long and difficult shots. I accompanied him on many quail hunts through the stubble fields of Missouri, after the wheat and corn had been harvested in the fall of the year. He usually brought in the largest bag of the party, and seldom missed a bird on the wing when it presented anything like a reasonable chance. He was tireless when hunting, putting into it the same intense concentration and effort he gave to every activity in life to which he turned his attention. For the moment hunting would be the most important thing on earth." Pritchett was quick to observe a creditable performance on the part of his children and always showed his pleasure and appreciation. He was, even as a young man—and he remained through life—complete master of his temper and emotions. He remarked on one occasion that, as a boy, he had witnessed a quarrel which so shocked him that he instantly decided never to quarrel—a decision to which he adhered all his life. In 1894, he went to Munich to obtain the coveted doctorate, taking with him his two older boys, Harry and Ted, then in their teens. His letters, still preserved by his daughter Ida, kept his family informed of his studies, his life, and journeys. They begin with the voyage abroad, on which he and the boys started June 16 in delightful weather and with a smooth sea. At first, he could write, "None of our party was in the slightest affected by the voyage. Ted improved from the moment we got on board." But two days later there is a different story to tell. "Awakened by 37

rain, sharp lightning, and thunder; began to be much rougher and very warm below. Ted pretty sick. He couldn't go to breakfast or lunch." Soon, as weather improved, Pritchett renewed an old acquaintance with Baron Rosa, Russian Minister to Mexico. " H e is very pleasant and intelligent and sadly in need of company, as his eyes are troubling him and he cannot read." But next day, " T e d was ill again and I had to devote to him a good deal of attention. Henry turns out to be a pretty good sailor and scorns sea-sickness. He and I are always first at the table and the last to leave." He meets other pleasant people, among them a Britisher who knows the astronomer Sir Robert Ball. "Altogether we begin to be quite well acquainted and the boys—particularly Henry— know many more." T h e weather improved two days later. " T h e Baron and I have become quite chummy. I see more of him than anyone else and find him a delightful, cultivated man with far more experience of the world than falls to the lot of most men." He first passed a day or two in Bremen; then, ten days later, he writes his father from Heidelberg: " S o much has been crowded into each day that it has been impossible to write. Travel amid scenes of such historic interest, the curious life, and the whole arrangement and order of the business have kept me in a continual state of pleasure and excitement. We spent three days in Berlin, stopping at the same pension as the Englers. They were very kind. Mrs. Engler devoted every afternoon to taking the boys around the city. T h e boys have been so good and sensible and manly that I have been very proud of them." The Hilgards, St. Louis friends, met them at Heidelberg. "Their home is almost adjoining the mountain on which the celebrated castle stands. Food is good, well prepared, abundant; dinner ends with apricot ice—'very nice'—and coffee. The boys have all that can be desired, each with a good bed and separate clothes closet, separate wash stand, a writing desk, comfort-

38

able chairs, and with their pictures placed about the room, it seems quite homelike. T h e y study German with their host and hostess, and Henry will pay some attention to his Latin. In the afternoon they swim and walk up the mountain." Of his own joumeyings he can scarcely write at the time: Berlin, Wittenberg, the Wartburg, and Heidelberg. I t is a pleasant picture—Pritchett's keen interest in his distant family, his enjoyment of German sights and life, his solicitude for his boys. " L a s t night I could not sleep till late, for thinking of three years ago and the pain and sorrow of those days." And to his sister, " I cannot remember without emotion how much you did for me three years ago and have done these last three years." T h e wound had not healed. Next he visits Strassburg, where he was greatly impressed by the university and the observatory, and goes on to Bonn the next day. He begins to feel that for work he will choose between Strassburg, Bonn, and Munich. Meanwhile, he makes short stays at Bingen, Brussels, and Cologne. " T h e cathedral at Cologne impressed me more than any building I have seen. I t is indescribable." Thoughts of having his father join him and the boys occur to him. From T h e Hague he writes in mid-July to his father, " Y o u cannot know how often I have wished you with me the last few days. I have passed through so many scenes which would have been of the greatest interest to you and which your presence would have helped me to enjoy more." From Zurich, after a brief stay at Munich, he first writes of his future friend and teacher, " I was very much pleased with Munich —much more than with any other German city. Also Professor Seeliger was very friendly, and the opportunities in the observatory and university seem excellent, so I shall live there next year." He spent August in travel. His letters from Switzerland are frequent and radiant. He visited Basle, Interlaken, Chamonix, and

39

many other points of interest, made many walking trips through the Alps, and finally with Engler and Chaplin visited Paris, Dijon, and other places, and made brief, but stirring trips to London, Vienna, Budapest, Constantinople, Sophia, and Belgrade. Nothing, however, was more thrilling than a rapid trip through Greece. A t the beginning of the fall semester he was once more in Munich at work with Seeliger. The boys lived with their father in a German pension. He applied himself with utmost intensity to his work; sometimes as he worked he would hum or sing softly to himself. Of this period his son Harry writes: "During all of the early fall, winter, and spring of 1894-95 the three of us lived in a pension in Munich, and it was during this period that I saw my Father more intimately than in any other period of his life. Always stimulated by contact with any intellectual group of people he entered quite freely into the social and student life of the great University of Munich. He often dropped in at the student gatherings where steins of beer were emptied and German songs were sung, and also attended a few of the meets of the student dueling clubs. Except however for an occasional Saturday evening when such festivities were held he spent almost every evening at his writing table intently at work upon his thesis. I vividly recall watching him night after night filling up page after page of legal-sized paper with careful close-spaced writing. I have no idea now how many of such pages the thesis covered, but it was a great number. He would tend quite often to sing some old song softly to himself as he wrote and thought and at times consulted some reference book. He was absolutely submerged in his work and had, I am sure, no idea that he was singing. These efforts were invariably limited to two old songs— 'Titwillow' and 'The Last Cigar.' The first lines of the latter w e r e ' 'Twas off the blue Canary Isles one glorious summer's day I sat upon the quarter deck and whiled dull care away.' As a matter of fact, Father did not have much of a singing voice, and his

40

tones were inclined to be a bit off at times. Ted and I would go to bed in the adjoining room each night, leaving Father at what seemed to us to be his ceaseless writing. Occasionally when I happened to awaken late at night his light would still be burning." Pritchett is soon occupied with "Elliptic functions and definite integrals—the latter new to me." But "Seeliger is the best of them all" and with him he studies "the theory of planetary perturbations and photometry." He writes that his habits are regular: he works five days a week from nine until one, when he dines, loafs a while after dinner and reads physics after two o'clock for recreation; has lectures again from three to five, three days weekly; at five goes to the café—all the world does in Munich— has coffee and reads the papers, sits at the same table and is waited on by the same waitress, walks home, helps the boys with their lessons, reads and studies till past seven when supper comes, grinds hard until ten, when he goes to the Lohengrin Lokal, where he drinks half a litre of Hofbrau, smokes a cigar with fellow students; he is at home and in bed at eleven. It is a good, wholesome life. He is learning more than he ever did before and will make a great year of it. There are no lectures on Saturday so that he can devote himself to his Saturn work entirely. Sundays he rests and writes letters; occasionally he goes to concerts or to a theatre. He joins a Mathematical Verein, made up of professors, docents, and students, which has for generations met in the same café. There papers are read and discussed; after which the hours are devoted to Gemüthlichkeit, with songs, talk, and brief speeches. The whole thing is innocent and "in many ways good for the young fellows." His life was almost too busy to allow him time to write; but no one was ever happier or more profitably occupied. By Christmas he felt fagged; his appetite was gone; he needed change. A "cheap excursion" made it possible for him to take the boys to the Riviera. They stopped en route at Verona, where "art and nature had united to beautify the place," and at Monte 41

Carlo, Monaco, where "ripe oranges hung on the trees, the scent of flowers was in the streets and every prospect pleases and only man (and more particularly woman) is v i l e ! " He visited the Casino twice but "did not find it a pleasant sight, for the misery of the whole thing does not lie f a r below the surface." B y this time he was speaking German fluently and French with sufficient ease. Back at Munich, he was once more hard at work grinding away at the usual rate. He states: " M y memoir goes on merrily and will be practically finished by the end of the semester. I expect to present it as a thesis and go up for the doctor's examination in June. It would be rather nice to take back a doctor's degree from where Liebig and Fraunhofer have 'made the Doctor' as they say here. However, this is only a side issue with me, and the real attraction has been the opportunities for original work. I hate to think of going back to teach Freshmen. " T h e American colonies in Europe are filled with women with their children, while their husbands are at home at work. And generally the children are the worst behaved young cubs one can imagine. Europeans get their ideas of American children from these specimens. . . . " I t seems that

was taken with one of her alarming

spells which nothing would cure except a trip abroad. She came alone, having recovered miraculously as soon as the doctor said, 'Europe.' Those people have all been trained by a long course of systematic selfishness so that their ability to make one another uncomfortable has really become an art." L a t e in February, 1895, he wrote urging his father to spend the summer with him. He proposed to meet him in Antwerp, "go up to Cologne, then on the Rhine to Mainz, thence to Lucerne and over the Briinig Pass to Grindelwald, the J u n g f r a u , Interlaken, Geneva, Paris, and Condon." 42

He is meanwhile turning his memoir into German. " T o d a y I succeeded in constructing a sentence in which the noun came at the top of the page and the verb only as I got near the bottom and have felt highly elated over it. I have worked very hard this winter—as hard as a man can work and keep well and have really accomplished a good deal." He has been compelled to commence the use of glasses while at work. " T h e only consolation about using them is that these large, awkward-looking German glasses give me a delusive appearance of wisdom such as no man could fairly claim." Unfortunately, one of the boys became ill, and his older sister, Elizabeth, went abroad to take the boys home. The spring vacation he spent in Italy, seeing Florence, M a n t u a — "the birthplace of Virgil" — Villafranca, Bologna, and thence traveled to Rome, Vesuvius, Sorrento, Venice, Milan, and finally Genoa, Pisa, where he began to adjust himself to the absence of his two boys. He had discussed with his sister the preparations which his father should make and promised to be entirely at his service after J u l y i. Meanwhile, towards the end of April he was back in Munich, still missing the boys. On April 21 he wrote his sister Sadie, " Y o u don't know how I miss them; it seems I cannot get accustomed to their absence." The printing of his thesis had been delayed "because one man (an anthropologist who will not read it) forgot to sign it before going on his vacation, and I must wait ten days till his return, before I go on with the printing. T h e y say that will take three weeks; it would take three days in St. Louis." He recurs in the same letter to the Italian Lakes: " C o m o is the most beautiful place I have ever seen; perhaps you remember Virgil's praise in the Georgics. I was there at a lovely time. T h e trees were just in leaf; the peach trees in full bloom, the earth covered with flowers, the lake deep blue and all this under a lovely bright sky. On my birthday I was at Lake Lugano and climbed to the top of M t . S. Salvatore, an isolated

43

peak. From its summit one sees all of Lugano, a large part of Lake Maggiore, and a magnificent view of the Alps from the Italian side. Monte Rosa and the Matterhorn seemed like old friends." He made a profound impression as a student of astronomy under Professor Seeliger, one of the outstanding German astronomers of that day. Seeliger was already familiar with Pritchett's American work and was so greatly impressed with his ability that he decided to perform a miracle and cut through no end of red tape so as to make it possible for Pritchett to become a candidate for his degree within a year. Pritchett presented a thesis entitled "Ueber die Verfinsterungen der Saturntrabanten" and passed a brilliant oral examination. Professor Otto Heller told me that Pritchett was much in the company of his teachers and thus saw not a little of German academic life from the inside. On M a y 8, 1895, at 3 P.M. he wrote for the first and only time exultantly to his father: M y dear Father: I send you a line because I know that no one will take more interest than you in learning of my success and to let you know that I have just come through the Examen Rigorosum with flying colors and in fact surprised myself by carrying off a summa cum laude, which is the highest honor a man can get in a German university. In consequence I am filled, as the old Negro said, "Wid' pride and vanity." It does not mean so much in America, but over here a summa cum only comes about once in ten years, and to a foreigner very, very seldom and has never before been obtained after one semester's work. I am just now a very much envied man and tonight the Americans in the University are going to celebrate—of course, at my expense. I am now going to stop work till next fall. I am pretty tired, and the rest of the time I shall rest and travel. I shall hope to hear about your trip soon. I leave for Paris via Leipzig and Dresden in two days. M y paper is now about ready, and I will mail you the first copy. With much love, '

H. S. P.

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If this seems full of blow, you will excuse the enthusiasm of the moment, for I have just come from the examination. Physicians advised him, however, to spend some time recuperating at Carlsbad. He followed their advice and changed his plans somewhat. A week later he was in Prague, proceeding thence to Kiel and Christiania, continually looking forward to meeting his father in J u l y : " M a k e up your mind to come and above all don't fail to come. It will give me more pleasure to have you come than anything else. If anything arises so that you cannot come, wire me Pritchett Christiania ' N o . ' " Alas, in Christiania the dreaded " N o " reached him. His disappointment was intense. But his brother Oswald had been taken seriously ill with pneumonia, and Carr Pritchett felt it his duty to remain at his bedside. Pritchett wrote feelingly, reproaching himself for "having such a good time when you may be having serious trouble at home." But there was nothing more that he could do. He visited Norway, Sweden, "where there was no night," and St. Petersburg. "These last days of June and first days of J u l y are always sad ones for me." Unless Oswald improved—as he fortunately did— " I will come home directly." From Finland, as it is now, and Russia he returned to Berlin and thence for a brief period to Paris and to England, where he visited Thackeray's grave from which he plucked ivy leaves still treasured. He took passage for home on August 30, arriving in New York on September 10, when he wired to his father, "Start west tomorrow." I have quoted from Pritchett's letters at length, first, because of their inherent interest; second, because of the light they throw on his personality. He was devotedly attached to his family—an exemplary son, brother, and father; he was a hard-working student, yet a sensible one, thoroughly enjoying the lighter sides of university life; he was an unwearying but conventional traveler, keen to see what was famous and to appreciate what was beauti45

ful in nature and in the works of man; he tried to understand other peoples than his own; finally, the social gifts, so prominent in his later life, had already flowered: he loved the company of older and distinguished men and women; he willingly learned from them, and they, in return, delighted in his company. He possessed a real zest for life, but his memory of the loved and lost never deserted him. It is significant that his stay in Munich enabled him to understand the great strength of the German universities because of the freedom which they gave to the advanced student and their emphasis upon original research. There is, however, no evidence that Pritchett made at this time any study of the German Gymnasium upon which the university superstructure rested. Obviously, this would have been impossible unless he had prolonged his stay. We shall find that, when later he became president of the Carnegie Foundation, he was keenly alive to the importance of sound and thorough secondary school and college training. Y e t neither in Europe nor in America had he made a close study of either subject. He must have possessed quick and penetrating insight even though he made no record of his observations at the time. When he came home, having received his degree summa cum laude in less than a year and a half, his old associates at St. Louis could scarcely believe it. Years later when he was president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a German scientist asked Heller what had become of Pritchett. When Heller related to him Pritchett's quick rise, the German exclaimed: "Echt amerikanisch! [Genuinely American]; when once in a long while they get a first-rate scientist and teacher, they must elevate him into an administrative position, the head of something or other just as if teachers and scholars could 'be picked off the trees.' " The German university of his day made upon him a deep impression, which was never effaced. For example, in 1930, Professor Ernest G. Sihler of New York University wrote a letter to 46

him in which he spoke slightingly of the societies existing in the German universities. Said Sihler, " I never attended any Commers [meetings] of students. I considered these convivial and lyrical meetings of students silly." Wrote Pritchett in reply: "This was a rash judgment. I received my doctorate under Seeliger at Munich. Once I visited a friend of mine at Berlin who took me to a Commers of the Historisches Verein. About nine o'clock a little old man with a great head of white hair and flashing black eyes came in. The boys cheered and rubbed him a royal Salamander, and after a little delay he got on his feet and before he got through he touched those younger men from the intellectual side and even from the spiritual side in the most deft fashion I have ever seen students dealt with. It was Mommsen. The Commers is not only an agency for the cultivation of Gemiithlichkeit but it is what the Methodists call a means of grace. You are not too old to try one the next time you go to a German university. An alter Herr is always welcome." Pleasant to recall, especially in these days, is his correspondence soon after the first World War with his former teacher at Munich. A letter, dated June 3, 1919, from Professor Seeliger is dignified and pathetic. His old teacher remembered him as a promising young astronomer. He expresses his gratification that his former student still remembers him. Seeliger describes the condition which compelled him to retain his professorship with its modest salary during the terrific days of inflation. He regrets that he had not before the war purchased a small house; now, although prices, in gold, were reasonable, the demoralization of the German mark had forced the price of real estate far beyond his reach. In addition, whatever quarters they might obtain, they must accept the billeting of a commissioner. Seeliger's fortune had of course melted away. His salary had been nominally increased, but the increase bore no relation to the decrease in the value of money. His old age was therefore something very differ47

ent from the old age to which he had looked forward during his forty years of activity as director of the Astronomical Institute at Munich. " I cannot lie," he said, " I am often very unhappy." Replying to this letter, Pritchett recalled the kindness of his old teacher and asked for information as to how he and other pupils could be most helpful. From Seeliger's letters to him, Pritchett compiled a magazine article, eliminating all personal references, and published it in the Atlantic Monthly, remitting to his former teacher the sum received for it, together with a substantial addition from himself. In acknowledging the remittance, Seeliger wrote, " Y o u r pious ruse is understood, but I am grateful for the aid." Concluding the account of this part of Pritchett's career, one is most deeply impressed by his ceaseless intellectual and physical activity. One thing suggested not only another but many others, and as long as he lived he retained the memory and the ideas which experience had at one time or another suggested to him, but which circumstances had not permitted him to carry out. Had there been a good observatory at Washington University, he would have made a distinguished reputation as an astronomer. Had it been possible for him to remain in the Southern Pacific, our knowledge of the southern heavens would probably have been greatly extended by a life devoted to their study. But circumstances moved him from place to place and, wherever he went, he took hold of the situation he found with alacrity, thought rapidly and soundly, was never discouraged by obstacles, preserved his good humor, thought of what he could do next without waiting to finish what he was at the moment engaged on. William James said on one occasion that a great mind was distinguished by the way in which one idea suggested in quick succession a great many others, and he added, "Of course, the ideas are not all equally important and in any event no single individual could pursue them all and exhaust them." This was true of Pritchett. Whatever he did suggested other 48

things. He made a choice, got well under way only to find that the development of the idea was itself a source of other ideas. Professor Franklin P. Mall, the distinguished Hopkins anatomist, once said, " D o n ' t ever try to finish completely anything that you undertake. Do the main thing. Leave the fringes for other persons who will not think of the main thing or be able to do it. Don't get stuck. Move on." All his life Pritchett's mind was eager, versatile, and flexible, and turned readily and fruitfully to new problems and activities without abandoning what was most important in his present or his past. He "moved on."

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Coast and Geodetic Survey PRITCHETT had written to his father from Munich that, after his experience in a German university, he disliked the prospect of returning to St. Louis to "teach the Freshman year." He did not, as it turned out, have to teach Freshmen long. In 1897, two years after returning home, he was surprised to receive a letter from L y m a n J . Gage, Secretary of the Treasury, requesting him to come to Washington. The object of the invitation was not stated, but Pritchett went to Washington promptly. T h e Secretary was surprised b y his youthful appearance and remarked upon it; Pritchett replied that that was something that would take care of itself. With a good deal of humor, Mr. Gage went on, " I f you accept the job I am about to offer you, it won't take you so long to grow old." T h e job was the superintendency of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Long after, Pritchett told his friend W. R . Boyd of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, of the interview with Secretary Gage: " T o say that I was surprised is to put it mildly. The Secretary gave no hint as to why he had offered me this place. A t that time I was a Democrat. I told him I would think it over and return next day. I sought out Senator Stone, one of the Senators from Missouri, with whom I was acquainted, and asked him if he knew anything about it. He said: 'No, not a thing, but I think that the President and the Secretary are showing wisdom in offering this place to a scholar, instead of a politician, and I advise you to take it. Y o u have an opportunity to do a great work—a useful work. Y o u r contacts will be pleasant and advantageous. It might well prove a stepping-stone to something very worth while.' " T h e outcome was Pritchett's acceptance of the superintendency. He moved to Washington, shortly, with his sons H a r r y and SO

Ted. Leonard joined them later, while Ida remained in Missouri with her aunt and grandmother. Pritchett related to me and others his interview with President McKinley before finally making up his mind to accept the new post. He already knew the part that politics had in recent years played in making up the Survey personnel as it then was. But, on the whole, the Survey had enjoyed high repute. Its creation was due to Thomas Jefferson, at whose suggestion a survey of the coast line of the United States was approved by Congress in February, 1807. For a few years the project was not pushed; but in 1 8 1 1 a Swiss scientist, Dr. F. R. Hassler—described by one of his successors as "not a man, but a genius"—was sent to Europe by Jefferson to procure the necessary instruments of precision. Hassler's conception of the Survey was adequate and sound, and in its comprehensive character it remains today—despite great expansion due to the growth of the country, to commercial and scientific developments, and to war—essentially as he originally conceived and subsequently enlarged it. Hassler spent four years in England and on the Continent, returning in 1815 to begin fieldwork. His work was interrupted in 1818, when Congress modified the law so as to prohibit the employment of persons other than Army and N a v y officers. Between 1818 and 1832, little was accomplished; instruments, records, and funds were transferred at first to the War Department, later to the Navy. Ex-President Jefferson, then living in retirement at Charlottesville, asked that the instruments be transferred to the University of Virginia, but fortunately Congress reenacted the law in its original form, and Hassler was recalled to the superintendency, a post which he filled brilliantly from 1832 to 1843, when the Survey, enlarged in scope, was returned to the Treasury. Its reorganization in its new home was mainly planned and executed by Hassler under the name of Coast and Geodetic Survey. Hassler was followed by a succession of able men: Alexander 51

Dallas Bache between 1843 and 1867; Benjamin Peirce, the great Harvard mathematician, 1867-1874; and Hilgard, whose failing health played havoc towards the close of his career, 1881-1885. In the latter year, President Cleveland offered the post to Alexander Agassiz who declined but wrote to his friend, Edwin L. Godkin of The Nation, that he would have accepted had he been "four years older." In his stead, Cleveland appointed Frank Manly T h o m , a lawyer, and an excellent executive, who preserved the high scientific quality of the organization. Under his successor, the physicist Thomas C. Mendenhall, the Survey once more fell into scientific hands. A brief era of political management by William Ward Duffield followed between 1894 and 1897. But after an effort made by Duffield to dismiss at one blow three of the most distinguished scientists in the Survey, the mathematicians and physicists of the country protested so violently that Duffield was removed on November 30, 1897, and the post was bestowed on Pritchett, who took office the next day. Pritchett explained to President McKinley that the Survey was a scientific institution with which politics could not be allowed to interfere; dismissals would have to be made, and new appointments must go to persons without political backing: it should be solely a question of scientific competency. T h e President and Secretary Gage gave him a free hand and kept their word. With characteristic tact the organization was rapidly and wisely improved, but Pritchett leaned backwards in the desire to be fair to recent appointees, even though in some instances they may have been unsuited to their posts. Before leaving for Washington he had been advised to meet issues personally. He followed the suggestion. When called before a Congressional Committee the very day he took office, he was asked many questions, some of which he could not answer. A committeeman remarked, " Y o u seem to know very little about questions under your jurisdiction. How long have you been superintendent of the Coast Survey?"

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Taking out his watch, Pritchett replied, "Four hours and some minutes." Good humor was at once restored by the laugh that followed. William S. Learned of the Carnegie Foundation recalls a story of the same kind that Pritchett told him. He was under questioning by a committee, of which "Uncle Joe" Cannon was a member. A project of purely theoretical interest but involving a certain amount of international obligation had been repeatedly urged by many witnesses, who tried to establish its great practical importance. Successive committees had repeatedly rejected requests for funds. When Pritchett appeared, Mr. Cannon asked, " W h a t will be the practical outcome of this scheme, if the money is appropriated?" Pritchett replied, " I t has no immediate practical value. It is a purely theoretical matter of some importance in which the United States has taken a hand. We ought to finish up our share." Said Mr. Cannon with vigor, " I have voted against this proposal time and again because I thought its proponents overconfident. Now, on the basis of Dr. Pritchett's statement, I shall vote for it." And the appropriation was made. Pritchett was superintendent of the Coast Survey for only three years, but this brief period sufficed for several major achievements. He soon perceived that what is now the Bureau of Standards should stand on its own feet. Pritchett suggested and accomplished the severance and independent development of this important scientific agency, which was to take over the office of weights and measures of which he was ex officio the head.* This was the first, but far from the last evidence of his pliant, resourceful, and fearless mind. He was never given to the habit of extending the territory he ruled. On the contrary, in this instance

* The separate development of the Bureau was advocated in 1821 by the then Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, in a report to President Monroe. There is no copy of the Adams report in the library of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, but there is a copy in the library of the Bureau of Standards, acquired October 3, 1903.

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and in his later experience, he was interested in sound organization regardless of its effect upon his own position. When the question of detaching the Bureau from the Survey was first mooted, he was called to testify before the House Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures on M a y 3, 1900. One member inquired, " I thought you were opposed to the Coast Survey's being divested of power?" Pritchett replied, " N o t at all; I am in favor of people attending to exactly the duties to which they have been assigned. As long as the Office of Standard Weights and Measures is small, it might remain under the Coast Survey, but if given the power of testing other standards than those of weight and measures, it seems to me wiser that it should be administered by someone who can give it his whole time." Later, Dr. S. W. Stratton, then an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, who ultimately became head of the B u reau of Standards, stated that Pritchett had requested him to join the Survey staff temporarily in order to study the problem. Pritchett asked him to investigate two possibilities, the second of which he himself favored: to leave things as they were; to establish a separate bureau "having broader functions, covering measurements in the various lines of physics, the properties of materials and physical constants, data needed as much as standard yards and pounds." Pritchett's conception was endorsed, when Stratton recommended to the Treasury the second of these alternatives. Stratton characterized Pritchett's action as "remarkable," but Pritchett did not stop there. In 1 9 2 1 , he wrote President Hoover of the important work still awaiting the Coast Survey in the Philippines and Hawaii. He pointed out that while superintendent of the Coast Survey twenty years before he had sent one of his best men to the Philippines. Now it was proposed to reduce to a skeleton what he had done. Politely but vigorously he pro54

tested. " I hope," he wrote Mr. Hoover, " t h a t you will continue the old policy." About the same time ( 1 9 2 1 ) he wrote Colonel E. Lester Jones, protesting against rigid regulations arising from internal jealousies in the matter of transferring and promoting personnel: " T h e Coast and Geodetic Survey, the oldest scientific bureau of the government, has a fine history and tradition. N o man can have had a share in this work, as I did, without retaining through life admiration for the men in it and keen interest in its progress and adaptation to the changing needs of commerce and navigation." One of his younger associates at the time testified that " i t naturally fell to Pritchett to see the new Bureau of Standards started on its way, and he contributed to its successful launching." A f t e r two years of independence as the National Bureau of Standards, it was, in 1903, transferred to the Department of Commerce and Labor under the simplified title of Bureau of Standards. " T h e uniformity and precision in weights and measures which the makers of the Constitution desired to insure is thus secured by furnishing to official sealers, acting under governmental authority, and to private parties accurate standards of length, mass, and capacity." T h e scope of the Bureau has been extended from time to time; but to Pritchett, acting through the Treasury during his tenure of office ( 1 8 9 7 - 1 9 0 0 ) , undoubtedly belongs the credit for placing the Bureau in a position in which it could grow and at the same time maintain the highest scientific quality. T h e Spanish W a r brought other problems. In his first report (1898) he wrote, " T h e resources of the Survey were utilized to furnish the greatest possible amount of assistance to the military and naval authorities in the conduct of the War. In addition to the collection and preparation of information regarding maps of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines the Survey furnished

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the N a v y Department between April I and J u n e 3 0 , 1 8 9 8 , 27,678 charts. T o meet this unprecedented demand, all supplying of charts to private parties was stopped and the presses were run from eight a.m. to midnight." When Admiral Dewey set sail from Hong Kong in April, 1898, Pritchett tried to follow his course as closely as possible, enlarging charts that had been prepared by the English admiralty. On M a y 2, the day after the battle of Manila, he had occasion to pass the White House on his w a y to the State Department. Wondering whether President M c K i n l e y was fully informed as to the geography of the region it occurred to him that a large-scale map of Manila B a y might be useful, and accordingly he rolled up the chart and gave it to Mr. Porter, the President's secretary. M r . Porter, delighted to find a large-scale chart of the Manila B a y region, said at once, " G o right in and take it to the President; he is alone, and a detailed map of Manila B a y is just what he wants." Entering the President's room Pritchett found him reading the dispatches from Dewey, which were being sent over from the N a v y Department as fast as they could be decoded. He had before him a map of the Islands about as large as one's hand, apparently taken from a school book, upon which Manila appeared little larger than a pinhead. On this map he was vainly trying to find Subig B a y , Cavite, and other points mentioned in the dispatches. When the large-scale admiralty chart was thus spread out, showing the great sweep of Manila B a y with Subig north of the entrance, the city of Manila on the eastern rim of the circle, and the naval station of Cavite to the southwest across the chord six or eight miles long, the cable message became intelligible. T h e second of M a y , 1898, was a great day for President M c Kinley. As Pritchett rose to leave, the President remarked, " I see I must learn a great deal of geography before this war is over, and I am going to ask you to help me." With this he led the way through the reception hall to the room

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occupied by Colonel Montgomery, who had for many years had charge of the White House telegraphic service. "Now," remarked the President, "everything on the walls of this room can be taken down, and I want you to see that all maps and charts that can be of service are placed here where I can study them. I will be grateful if you will anticipate my needs." The duty thus half humorously imposed proved extremely interesting and afforded Pritchett the opportunity to know the President at the most important moment of his career. From that time on, the Coast Survey endeavored to keep ahead of the President's requirements. The Survey contained and has always contained some of the most expert cartographers in the world; they ransack every source available; if no map of a region to be studied exists, maps or charts of proper size and with the desired information are made for the use of the authorities. During the Spanish W a r on one or two occasions, maps were prepared on a large scale at the Survey in the course of a single night's work; on them were—and still are—placed symbols respecting cable lines, coaling stations, and other matters germane to the study. When Admiral Cervera left Spain, it was supposed that his operations would lie in a region extending due west from the Spanish peninsula and including the Azores and the West Indies. As no adequate chart of this region was in existence, the Survey prepared one and hung it conveniently in the map room. The locations of the American and Spanish fleets were indicated by pins stuck into the map and held by the pine board at the back. Small blue pins represented American ships; red pins represented the Spanish men of war. The pins were moved as fresh news arrived. It proved difficult to keep accurate knowledge of the enemy afloat. Entering the room one day, Pritchett found the President clutching a telegram and searching a map intently. The red flag stood somewhere in the Caribbean Sea where Cervera ought to be if he had followed the Survey's anticipations. "Where is Curaçao?" inquired the President. 57

"Curaçao," replied Pritchett, "is south of our map. W h y do you a s k ? " "Because Cervera is there," he answered, adding with a smile, "how can I keep up with Cervera if he gets off your m a p ? " Pritchett admitted that there was a considerable discrepancy between his red pins and the location of Cervera's fleet. B u t he added, " W e have Sampson's fleet correct, and if you will telegraph Sampson to stay on the map, perhaps Cervera will come back on it." The very same night the Survey began a new map, showing the entire lower part of the Caribbean Sea, including the Dutch possession of Curaçao, but the President had no occasion to use it. Within a few days Cervera returned to the map with his dreaded fleet and never left it again until he sailed for the United States as a prisoner of war. Pritchett's report for 1899 after enumerating work throughout America and its possessions continues, "Miscellaneous drawings were also furnished: San J u a n , Hawaiian Islands, G u a m Island, Ladrone Islands, and a new chart of the Philippine Islands." He wrote to his father on M a y 3, 1899, " I do not go often to the White House in the evening, although the President has kindly invited me to come. L a s t night I went with Secretary Hitchcock and we found the President and Mrs. M c K i n l e y alone. T h e y were playing a quiet game of cribbage which they soon finished. The President finally spoke of the war, of his own responsibilities, and of the w a y in which he had gradually come to have his present position with respect to the Philippines. He described his efforts to avert the war, how he had carried the effort to the point of rupture with his party, then came the Maine incident and finally a declaration of war. He spoke with more emotion than I have ever seen him exhibit and no one could doubt the sincerity of the man." Following the Spanish War, Pritchett became an important

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factor in settling the long-standing dispute regarding the A l a s k a boundary. T h e unfortified line separating C a n a d a and the United States is a reproach to the rest of the world, concerned to the point of warfare, as it has been for centuries, about relatively small patches of territory. Obviously the use of a single language has enormously simplified our own problem, as the great variety of languages and races has complicated the problems of other continents. None the less, differences of opinion have occurred between the United States and C a n a d a . T h e only important issue in which Pritchett was involved was the controversy over the boundary line between A l a s k a and the Canadian N o r t h w e s t including British Columbia. A good deal of heat had been generated on both sides in consequence of the discovery of gold in A l a s k a . Pritchett, w h o sat with the A m e r ican Commissioners, pointed out that no controversy could possibly h a v e arisen had Russia and G r e a t Britain had an accurate map at the time the treaty w a s made in 1825. T h i s t r e a t y undertook to determine a line which would bar G r e a t Britain from access to salt water; but the language actually employed was based upon Vancouver's chart which was inaccurate. O v e r fifty years later, a claim was made b y C a n a d a that left several harbors inside the C a n a d i a n boundary. In 1897, G r e a t Britain and the United States referred the problem to a joint Commission. Pritchett was requested b y the State Department to assemble all available information at once and to prepare an exact map that fairly presented the claims of both countries. T h e final decision depended on the interpretation of the treaty of 1825. A t one point, Sir Wilfred Laurier pointed out that G r e a t Britain would be satisfied " w i t h one small modest port." Pritchett, w h o sat next to the chairman of the American representatives, whispered t o him that the south bank of V a n c o u v e r Island would be an excellent quid pro quo. In reply Sir Wilfred said, " I t will be a cold d a y when we trade y o u a port on V a n c o u v e r Island for a port in A l a s k a or for anything else."

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Finally, the Commission accepted the American contention, Lord Alverston voting with the American delegates. M a n y years later Pritchett and Laurier met at Cape Breton Island. Laurier came forward with his accustomed smile, shook hands cordially with Pritchett, and remarked, " I hope, m y dear fellow, you are not up here still seeking the south point of Vancouver Island." Pritchett's activities at the Coast Survey were by no means limited to the somewhat dramatic and amusing incidents which have been described. In 1929 he prepared a memorandum on the work of the Coast Survey in his time. He begins by pointing out that the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington is world-wide in its operation, but it is the child of the Division of Magnetics of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. During his superintendency, 1 8 9 7 - 1 9 0 0 , the work of this Division was so expanded as to undertake a systematic magnetic survey of the entire United States. T h e routine duties which he had to direct were the fieldwork of hydrography and geodesy, and the contributions of the Survey to science and commerce, which depend directly on what in his time was called the Computing Division, the business of which it is to extract from observations information that can be placed in effective use. T h e problem of precise leveling was carefully investigated b y a committee appointed by Pritchett, with the result that it was greatly simplified, the expense reduced, and the instruments used much improved. The Division of Terrestrial Magnetism was created by Act of Congress in M a y , 1899. Dr. L . A. Bauer, formerly associated with the Survey, was employed b y Pritchett to study the problem on a world-wide basis. Bauer himself became the first head of the Division. His plan for an international bureau of magnetics led the Carnegie Institution of Washington to invite him to become the director of its Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, for the purposes of which the nonmagnetic ship called after Mr. Carnegie was constructed. As superintendent of the Coast Survey, Pritchett, following

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long custom, became one of the civilian scientific members of the Lighthouse Board, as provided by the law passed in 1852. He retained this post until Congress abolished the Board in 1910. He enjoyed immensely the inspections which he was required to make; occasionally an intimate friend joined the party. The Board was, however, neither a consultative nor a junketing body; it actually administered the Lighthouse service, the largest of its kind in the world. N a v y and Army officers on detail were among its members. As a lay member of the Lighthouse Board it was his privilege to invite guests to accompany him on the annual inspection—of course, at his own expense in respect to food, cigars, and so on. His preference in the matter of individuals is indicated by the choice of those who were his guests: one summer, for example, President and Mrs. Eliot; the next year, President and Mrs. Hadley; and the third summer, Mr. Charles A. Stone, who has left as a record of his trip to Alaska a volume of snapshots showing the singular beauty of the western coast line of North America. As the work of the Board grew in extent, it was converted by Congress into a civilian bureau within the Department of Commerce. Pritchett approved, and was active in perfecting the law which effected the change. One of his associates remarked, " H e had enjoyed the duty, but this did not interfere with his advocacy of a reform which he considered to the advantage of sound administration." In June, 1910, he wrote to his old St. Louis friend, Charles Nagel, who was at that time Secretary of Commerce and Labor: "As I am sailing in a few days, I venture, as the member of the Board longest in service, to make a single suggestion regarding the legislation now under consideration by Congress. The success of any administrative organization will depend absolutely upon the man chosen as head of the service. I venture to suggest the name of Mr. George R. Putnam. I sent Mr. Putnam to Manila in 1900 to organize the surveys of the Philippine Islands.

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He remained six years and did a most admirable work. H e has in addition carried out surveys in A l a s k a and is now at the head of a division in the C o a s t Survey work. He has not only personal and professional qualifications but knows government service and government methods of doing business; otherwise he m a y m a k e m a n y mistakes and have m a n y difficulties to overcome." N a g e l replied, " W h i l e the unsatisfactory condition in the Board was apparent enough, I doubt whether I should ever have had the courage to go into the fight, but for your counsel. Y o u r telling me how important the reorganization was added interest and made the fight worth while. A n d , finally, I w a n t to thank y o u for suggesting the chief of the present Bureau w h o is just the right man for the place." T h e three years during which Pritchett had been head of the C o a s t and Geodetic Survey passed quickly and happily. In this brief period he came to know men of prominence in science, administration, politics, and social life. His distinctive qualities impressed those who met him in his office and in private gatherings. Before the end of his tenure, his administrative ability, his scientific competence, and his social charm were widely recognized. T h e friends he made in Washington remained friends as long as he or they lived. Prominent among them were President M c K i n l e y , Secretary Gage, Secretary Hitchcock, Frank A . V a n derlip (Gage's assistant secretary), Theodore Roosevelt, " U n c l e J o e " Cannon, Herbert Putnam, head of the Congressional L i brary, and T h o m a s Nelson Page, a genial, gentle soul of w h o m he was particularly fond. Mr. Vanderlip became later a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation. Page subsequently became Wilson's Minister to Italy during the first World W a r ; he and Pritchett kept up a steady correspondence on the issues of the day. Washington also gave him his first taste of club life, which thenceforward, wherever he might be, w a s a source of.recreation, sociability, and stimulus. A t the age of twenty-one he was among 62

the founders of the Cosmos Club, other founders being President Gilman, Professor Ira Remsen, and Henry A. Rowland of Johns Hopkins University, Drs. J. S. Billings, J. R. Eastman, E. M. Gallaudet, 0 . H. Tittman, and other eminent Washington scientists and scholars. At the Club he met and chatted with government officials and visitors from all parts of the country and from overseas. It was for him an ideal place for the development of his social gifts and the widening of the sphere of his interests. He enjoyed these contacts, though he never permitted them to interfere with the strict performance of his official duties. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Cosmos Club (1878-1928), Pritchett was the first speaker. He was in excellent form. He described the Washington of 1878 as "a delightful and hospitable town; there were no rich people; everybody had his daily work in some department of the government and carried his lunch with him—the more aristocratic in cotton napkins, the bourgeoisie in paper napkins. All went home t o a half-past five o'clock dinner. For six months of the year the social life of Washington was on the front door steps of democratic, but none the less hospitable, homes." He explained that his connection with the Club dated back to the period of study and work at the Naval Observatory (18751880) and was due to his association with Professor Holden in making midnight observations of the bright star Procyon in the Little Dog constellation: " I t was in the course of these observations that he kindly offered one night to include me in the list of those invited to form the new club. At the time, twenty-five dollars initiation fee and twenty dollars a year dues seemed to me a reckless expenditure of money, but having no responsibility of wife and children I decided to make the great adventure and so became a Founder Member of the Cosmos Club. Immortality was never purchased at a smaller price. "Few of us had ever belonged to a club, and we were somewhat

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uncertain as to what a man ought to do when he went to his club. There were a few sophisticated members who belonged to clubs in N e w Y o r k , but there was a suspicion among us simple folk in Washington that the things done in clubs in New Y o r k might not be entirely suitable for scientific men. I think, also, a certain flavor attached to our conception of the word 'club', due to the fact that Washington people were familiar with the Congressional Club, and it was strongly suspected that the members of the Congressional Club were given not only to the consumption of strong waters, but that they also played games that ought not to be played by dignified scientific gentlemen. " I t was a little club in those days. It is a fine experience to be one of a great club like the Athenaeum or the Century, but there are certain charms distinctive of little clubs. I have joined, since that day, many clubs, but among those that will linger longest in m y memory are the little clubs. There was the Cosmos Club when it was little; the T a v e r n Club in Boston, which dwelt in a back alley; and the Santa Barbara Club where men foregather from the ends of the earth and where they are so conservative that the Volstead Act has never been formally acknowledged. " T h e r e is something intimate and friendly about a little club. I have a notion that when we all go to Heaven—and of course all members of the Cosmos Club will be there—we shall find Heaven made up of little clubs of good fellows." While still head of the Coast Survey, Pritchett was invited to deliver a Commencement address at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He made an admirable speech, which m a y well have come to the notice of the trustees of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In any event, in 1900 the trustees of " T e c h " offered him the presidency of the Institute. T h e decision to accept carried him into the field of educational administration which occupied him during the remainder of his active life. Under date of December 1 4 , 1 9 0 0 , D r . T i t t m a n prepared in be-

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half of the Survey staff a memorandum dealing with Pritchett's administration of the Survey. It begins: "The assumption of the presidency of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Dr. Pittchett naturally invites attention to the results of his administration of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and in the record for vigor and brilliancy there exhibited is found a most happy augury for the success to be expected from his direction of the great scientific institution over which he now presides. . . . The outbreak of the war with Spain suddenly and with no preliminary warning deprived the Survey of the services of many able naval officers—a withdrawal which reduced the field force of the Survey by nearly forty per cent. A t the same time all the vessels of the Survey on the western coast were placed at the disposition of the N a v y Department and one of the small force of steamers on the Atlantic Coast was turned over to the military authorities. As in 1861, when a similar unexpected crisis had called naval officers back to the quarterdecks of the warships, the superintendent found among the civil assistants the trained force about which he developed an organization which quickly and effectively took up the hydrographic work, the complete change of personnel causing no break in the direction of the work. The success with which Dr. Pritchett met the grave responsibilities thrown upon his Bureau by events growing out of the Spanish War are alone sufficient to secure his recognition as an executive of exceptional ability who finds inspiration in an emergency.... "The importance of the magnetic work which furnishes values of vital importance for the mariner and surveyor has now secured for it the attention commensurate with its importance. Pritchett increased the number of field parties employed in the determination of the magnetic elements and in establishing standard reference meridians, near Washington, D. C., Sitka, Alaska, and in Hawaii."

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Leaving Washington must have involved a wrench for Pritchett. He had just been settling down in an environment t h a t was very congenial. He was winning golden opinions for his achievements at the Coast Survey; he was making friends in the Capital city. All his life he greatly enjoyed such associations. At the Cosmos Club and elsewhere he met almost daily men whose interests ran parallel to his own. Pritchett decided, however, t h a t his duty lay in Boston. There is no trace in his letters or memoranda t h a t he ever regretted a decision t h a t must have cost him much. Though the Boston period proved difficult and contentious, his urbanity was never disturbed, and he went forward buoyantly, confidently, and considerately in the direction t h a t , after deep thought, seemed to him sound and right. He had matured since the St. Louis days, but he clung to his ideals.

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T h e Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1 H E Massachusetts Institute of Technology was conceived by William Barton Rogers (1804-1882), once professor of geology and natural philosophy at the University of Virginia. For full ten years prior to the Civil War, Rogers had endeavored to establish such an institute and had chosen Boston, to which he had moved his home, as its site because, knowing Boston and Bostonians, he believed it to be the community "most certain to derive the highest benefits from a polytechnic institution." A charter, granted in 1861, stated its purposes: the maintenance of a society of arts, a museum, a school of industrial science, and, in general, the advancement, development, and practical applications of science in connection with arts, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. In 1865, Professor Rogers, its first president, started the Institute modestly, in rented rooms, with fifteen students. Rogers was compelled by ill health to retire temporarily in 1870, but resumed office in 1878 and continued until 1881, one year before his death. He was succeeded by General Francis A. Walker, economist, statistician, and soldier, who served as president from 1881 to 1897. Professor Crafts, a chemist of distinction, held office for three years; then came Pritchett. A gracious letter from President Eliot welcomed him to his new post. It read as follows: Harvard University, Cambridge, May n t h , 1900 Dear Mr. Pritchett, One of the pleasantest things I have heard this spring is the

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announcement that you are coming to the Institute of Technology in Boston as its President. I believe you are well fitted for the post, and that you will find the work to be done there highly interesting and useful. Boston is a community which appreciates an intelligent and devoted public servant and sticks by him. T h e function of the President of the Institute is recognized as a very honorable public function. The institution has never had the endowment it deserved; but some large sums have come in within two years, and the prospects are good in this respect. Some people have supposed that there was an injurious competition between the Institute and the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge; but in m y opinion this supposition is groundless. The two schools can prosper abundantly side by side in hearty cooperation. I am very glad you are coming to Boston for Boston's sake, and on the other hand I congratulate you on the personal opportunity which the selection gives you. Very truly yours, CHARLES W. ELIOT

Pritchett was at that time in his forty-third y e a r — a handsome man, with wide interests, an excellent conversationalist, fond of the society of able, cultivated, and active men, deeply, though not coventionally, religious, possessed of a quiet sense of humor, and fundamentally concerned with doing things well, regardless of tradition or bias. In 1900, the year in which he became president of " T e c h , " he married Miss Eva McAllister of San Francisco, with whom until the end he enjoyed a perfect married life—in Boston, New York, Washington, and in his retirement at Santa Barbara. T h e y had one daughter, Edith, now living in New York. Several years after their wedding Mrs. Pritchett returned to California to visit her family. She had arranged with her husband to meet him on her way back at Glasgow, Missouri, in order that they might to68

gether visit his father and other members of his family. It had been supposed that Pritchett would arrive in Glasgow before his wife. As a matter of fact, he was detained in the East by a brief illness. Mrs. Pritchett arrived in Glasgow and was met by the elder Pritchett, who was at that time advanced in years. He wore a long white beard and was standing by his horse and buggy. Mrs. Pritchett distinguished him at once, went up to him, and flung her arms around his neck, saying, "Here I am. What do you think of me?" He looked at her for a moment and replied with grave humor, "We must make the best of it." In Boston, the Pritchetts made common friends, for their tastes and temperaments were similar. From the very start, they were a great social success at "Tech." Mrs. Pritchett saw to it that "neither big matters nor little ones went wrong at home." Whether income was small, as in the Boston days, or larger, as it later became, made no essential difference. Mrs. Pritchett knew her husband's tastes and his capacity for friendship and for almost forty years provided for them with sensitive and constant hospitality and courtesy. The harmonious family group was completed when Ida came to Boston in 1901. The younger boys were in high school; on graduation Ted entered West Point in 1903 and a year later Leonard matriculated at Harvard. Harry, meanwhile was launched on his army career, making his way up from the ranks to win his commission. B y the time the family moved to New York (1906), only Ida and the young sister Edith were left of the children at home. A student at "Tech," then halfway through his studies, has written me of those days: "When I entered the Institute in 1898, there was a sense of chill. General Walker had died only a few months earlier, and Professor Crafts, who was acting as president, while an eminent chemist, was not a man to have much hold on the students. The Institute was in a large city and the majority of the students

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commuted each day from their homes or from the homes of friends and relatives near Boston. Students who came from a distance lived in lodging houses or else in rather crude fraternity houses. There was no college life. There were student activities of a sort, but these were tolerated rather than encouraged by the authorities. On the whole, we were very much on our own. "When Dr. Pritchett was inaugurated a few weeks after the Institute convened in 1900, we got up a torch light parade and marched up to his house in the evening. Dr. and Mrs. Pritchett and their guests came out on the front steps, and we cheered, 'What's the matter with Dr. Pritchett? He's all right!' " I can see Mrs. Pritchett's tall figure now, in her white dress —she was a bride of only a few months—and on that cheer she seized a light scarf from her shoulders and waved it. One of the marshals caught her spirit and called out, 'What's the matter with Mrs. Pritchett? She's all right!' And she was. "The warm interest that Dr. Pritchett took in his students, not only as a body but as individuals, soon began to be felt and in this Mrs. Pritchett was his ally and helpmeet. I will cite one instance that touched me deeply. "In the section in Architecture of my class was a frail little fellow of German parentage. He was a gentle little chap, too frail almost for our boisterous horseplay. He seemed like a slight flower among a patch of lusty weeds. In the late winter of our Junior year—the Pritchetts' first in Boston—poor Ernest came down with typhoid and was taken to the hospital; he was very ill and his parents came on from Chicago. The crisis seemed to be past, and his parents started back, but he had a relapse and died before they reached their home. They returned and a service was arranged at an undertaker's rooms. The place was in a poor street, next door to a burlesque theater; the day was miserable and sleety; and a dismal Lutheran clergyman did nothing to help matters. The one redeeming note was the presence of Mrs. Pritchett (and only a most pressing engagement kept her husband 70

from being there also) and the gracious way in which she spoke a word of sympathy to the stricken parents. As she 'sloshed' back with us to the subway, we felt that her presence was a real comfort." A tempest in a teapot arose over Pritchett's attitude towards beer. The question was raised as to whether he objected to the drinking of beer in moderation at lunch or dinner at the Social Hall or Union which he had established. Mindful of the custom as he had seen it practiced in Germany, Pritchett made no objection. A storm of exaggeration and adverse criticism arose outside the Institute. A group of ministers lodged a formal protest. Pritchett replied with his usual urbanity and frankness. In a communication dated December 19, 1901, after stating that the particular gathering in question was held in a building partly controlled by the Institute, that it was a harmless and pleasant meeting, and that only about a half-pint of beer for each student was consumed, he continued as follows: " I desire to be most frank with you, and as your letter really asks for my own attitude in such matters, I am perfectly willing to state it. I regret that I have been put forward as an advocate of a beer cultus. I am not likely to advise any man to drink beer or wine. At the same time I believe that there is a use of beer and wine which is right and proper, and another which is wrong and degrading; and whenever I have had occasion to speak with students on this subject I have put forward some such statement as this. The question comes before me in this practical form: shall students be allowed to come together in informal gatherings for discussion of topics of technical and general interest, in buildings under my control, with instructors present, where an inexpensive and simple lunch is served and the drinking is restricted to a moderate use of beer, or shall they be sent to hotels and restaurants where expensive dinners are the rule and all restrictions removed? In my judgment, the first position is the truthful one, and that which will help the boys to temperate and clean living."

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Inquiries directed to men still living who were instructors in Pritchett's time recall prompt and sound educational and social reforms. It was customary, according to these men, " f o r Freshmen to receive instruction from younger or less important instructors or professors, so that Freshman year was largely a continuation of the preparatory school. Pritchett would have none of this; he was a pioneer in insisting that the Freshmen should meet some of the best or leading men at once, heads of departments, at times." A Danish scientist, called to the faculty in 1902, writes: " I was met in the most friendly manner by President Pritchett. He took every opportunity to assist me in my work. He will always stand for me as one of the best representatives of American sympathy and generosity. He was always cordial, ready to give constructive advice and assistance." Again: "Technology had not dormitories and President Pritchett set about to stimulate social activities." He "envisaged a group of student houses" located near the athletic field in Brookline where "students not residing at home could live together under attractive conditions." In recognition of his interest in student welfare, one of the dining halls in the Walker Memorial Hall was afterwards dedicated as Pritchett Hall. His personal and official relations with the faculty "were cordial and h a p p y , " writes another of his staff. " I was then keen about the encouragement of research and the development of graduate work at the Institute; his sympathetic views on these matters, emphasized in his annual reports to the Corporation, were warmly welcomed not only by me, but by many of my colleagues." Upon his recommendation a graduate school of engineering research was established, and the doctorate in engineering was offered. Though the school was discontinued later, it was the first step towards the present graduate school and included architecture as well as engineering. Dr. Robert Payne Bigelow writing me at length regarding

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Pritchett's career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says: "President Pritchett's administration was a turning point in the history of the Institute. General Walker was not bothered about a deficit; with his dynamic personality and charm he usually found a friend to supply funds when urgently needed. Pritchett found the Institute with a minimum of organization, some of the faculty superannuated, the more active supplementing their meager salaries by much outside work. His primary interest throughout was in the welfare of the students, intellectual, social, and physical. In an early talk to the students he said, 'There is no work which I can do so important as that which brings me in touch with your life, your difficulties, and your aspirations. Come to me for consultation or advice and admit me to your friendship.' " I n his first report to the Corporation, December, 19c», he outlined a department of physical education to be headed by a physician who would give his full time to the work. Next year, at his behest, the cane rush, intercollegiate football and baseball were abolished; two years later the Cabot Athletic Field in Brookline was acquired by gift. He explained to the students the pleasant, inexpensive student life of the German universities and gave an excellent dinner at a cost of fifty cents each to a group of fifty students. Dr. and Mrs. Pritchett also made every effort to cultivate friendly relations with the staff. He was concerned about salaries, urging me to request an increase, which was granted. In spite of the Institute's poverty, he made new appointments, increased salaries, and sent professors abroad to visit laboratories. He developed the departments of chemical engineering and applied electricity. The alumni were at first very cordial to Pritchett, and the younger men remained loyal to the last. Having been so intimately associated with it, I have naturally watched with much interest its growth from the turning point under Pritchett to the magnificent institution it is today. I have seen practically all of Pritchett's dreams come true. Soon 73

after he left, I called on him in New York. He seemed quite touched by such an attention on the part of a 'Tech' man. He said, 'Bigelow, you don't know what it is to have more money than you need to spend.' " Pritchett's view of the relation between culture and scientific studies is still valid. In his last annual report, published in 1907, he said: "Twenty years ago schools of technology were criticised on the ground that they taught men to make a living rather than to live. In response to this criticism, many schools of applied sciences, of which the Institute was a leader, have added to their courses of study a growing amount of so-called 'culture' studies. I think I express the opinion of many teachers in saying that the result has not been all that might be hoped for." Later he wrote: "Speaking frankly we men in the colleges of technology need to recognize clearly that it is neither the study of literature, nor of economics, nor of history, nor of any other thing, that per se brings culture and a broad sympathy with m e n . . . . The fact that we need to lay to heart is that which brings about true culture in men is intercourse with other men of culture, acquaintance with the thoughts of great men either through the medium of books or through the words of living men, and the rubbing together of one student against another. If we desire to increase in our colleges of technology the spirit of true culture and to bring about a larger human interest, the proper way to do this is to bring into our colleges teachers who are themselves exponents of this culture and of this wide human interest and to see to it that the student who comes from a cultured home may have the easy opportunity to bring that home culture in contact with the student who has not been so fortunate. For as one torch lights another and is not diminished thereby, so one spirit touches another and inspires it with the true warmth of human brotherhood." Thirty-four years thereafter (March, 1941) the 74

Technology

Review, discussing the humanities at the Institute of Technology, states: "Pritchett believed that any course, for example, chemistry or physics, could be taught in such a way as to develop great humanistic interests as effectively as any of the so-called cultural subjects. From between the lines of his report we gather that he thought that each student should specialize very definitely in a single field of intellectual endeavor and that the broader culture which life so evidently requires could be secured not from the subject matter taught but from the personality of an inspiring and carefully chosen teacher." The Institute is today admirably housed and equipped; its investment in buildings, grounds, and apparatus is estimated at something more than $16,000,000. Its productive endowment approaches $40,000,000. From friends and alumni it is in receipt of additional, though varying, annual gifts. While there are still unsatisfied needs, still ways of making the Institute more effective and serviceable, it already belongs in the small category of privately well-endowed and well-supported institutions of learning. The situation was different in 1900. The great foundations had not yet been established. Only a few universities could be called fairly well-to-do. When Pritchett went to Boston, the Institute was situated in Boylston Street in a series of dark red-brick buildings. There were 1,277 students; the financial outlook was unpromising; the endowment was only $2,478,752. Pritchett himself could never be a money-raiser. With four children to educate, a social position to maintain, the president's salary had to be severely strained. Temporarily his financial position was eased when, following the example of General Walker, in his first summer he accepted the post of superintendent of awards at the Buffalo Exposition. But he was not troubled solely by his own situation. As early as May, 1902, he wrote President Butler of Columbia: 75

" E v e r y year we appoint, in the Institute of Technology, between thirty and forty assistants at salaries of $500 to $600 a year. These men remain, as a rule, one, or at most, two years, and then go into practice. Out of their number, however, are chosen a small proportion as instructors, and these in turn eventually find their way, in a still smaller proportion, into the faculty. The result of such a plan is too much in-breeding, and a gradually increasing feeling on the part of the men that the instruction given and the methods pursued are superior to those given elsewhere. When I have insisted, as I am doing, that the heads of our departments choose assistants and instructors from other institutions the objection has been made that the best men of graduating classes are likely to be kept in the institution from which they graduate, and that those who go elsewhere are not so desirable. I should like to inquire whether you find a similar sentiment, and whether it is not possible to adopt a policy of reciprocity which may result in a choice of a considerable proportion, at least, of men from outside institutions." Though offered other more lucrative university presidencies, Pritchett did not think it right to abandon "Tech" so early in the game. A large bequest to Harvard for a school of science seems to have indicated a wise and possible solution—both educational and financial. Professor Crafts had already perceived that the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were really complementary institutions. The Lawrence Scientific School, which had been founded for the purpose of training engineers, was in fact a school of pure rather than applied science, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded with clear vision by Rogers to train engineers, lacked money and facilities for the work in pure science on which a first-rate school of engineering should rest. In certain subjects like geology collaboration was already under way. Pritchett saw no reason why the collaboration, started under Crafts, should 76

not go much further: the two institutions, still preserving their autonomy, might by operating under a single conception offer the requisite opportunities in both pure and applied science. That was the thorny problem which confronted Pritchett, and he did not shrink from it. Its very existence challenged his ingrained ideas of economical and effective administration. Much water has flowed under the bridge since Pritchett attacked the problem during his brief presidency of the Institute. The question has now practically settled itself. The Lawrence Scientific School continues to follow the course it pursued in Pritchett's time. The greatly expanded Institute has been enabled to fulfill the ideals which Pritchett rapidly developed. What were the obstacles forty-odd years ago that gave rise to bitter feeling and rendered a coalition impossible? First and foremost, the alumni were divided. They were mostly opposed. A fine group supported Pritchett; but the large majority reasoned that, if the small and inadequate Institute of Technology had sufficed for them, why should it not suffice for their successors? In the most diplomatic way Pritchett tried to win the support of additional alumni to his conception, but though in some instances he succeeded, most of the graduates were bitterly against anything which to their minds would submerge their beloved Institute. Many of the older members of the faculty agreed with Pritchett, and the Harvard Corporation as well as the Technology trustees were favorable, but the younger instructors were on the whole implacable. There was no bitterness in Pritchett's heart. To a prominent alumnus he wrote: " I recognize that the action of the Association of Class Secretaries in sending out their notice to alumni after my words to them is a practical note of lack of confidence in my handling of the matter under consideration. It is not this, however, which I wish to discuss, much as I regret it, for I am quite willing to step out tomorrow and let someone else, in whom the alumni have confidence, take the load—what I am concerned for is that no 77

harm shall come to the Institute of Technology through this discussion. In order that this may be, it is essential that you and Wigglesworth and Lowell and the rest of us should not lose touch with and confidence in each other. Y o u have been my closest friend since I came here, and I do not mean that my intentions in this matter shall be misunderstood by you if I can help it, nor do I wish you to underestimate the spirit of the other men who are absolutely desirous to serve the Institute in the most real way. Let us have a talk together before the matter comes u p . " Shortly after, with equal objectivity he wrote to one who had sided with him: "When one finds himself suspected of small motives and of inferior purposes he needs to hold himself fairly stiff in order to preserve his own perspective and his own fair vision. Under such circumstances it is very encouraging to have a word such as you send me from a man who is doing a large work; and I assure you I appreciate it heartily. T h e statements you make are absolutely true; there has been at the Institute for many years a system of in-breeding which was sure in the end to bring trouble if any man came into an administrative place in it and tried to freshen the course of instruction or the ideals of the student life. I am quite sure the Faculty are most honest and sincere in their position, and I am also equally sure that their point of view is one which the Institute cannot safely accept." It is interesting to add that many of the surviving members of the faculty of Pritchett's day testify that, though they were opposed to the merger, their personal relations with the president continued "extremely pleasant and did not seem to be in any w a y affected by the controversy, although they did not agree with him." Finally, I venture to quote two brief notes written in October, 1905, to Professor N. S. Shaler of Harvard, a former friend, afterwards, on the question of the merger, a bitter opponent: " I regret keenly that you oppose a movement which seems to

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me large-minded, unselfish, and for the public good. You are an older man than I, and perhaps nearer the end of your work. Perhaps it is asking too much to expect you to take an impersonal view on this matter and to acquiesce in the disappearance of a part of your own work even on the ground of a large and farsighted public policy. If you live, however, as many years as I hope you may, you will, I am sure, in the end realize that you have lent yourself to the smaller and personal side of this question rather than to the larger and more unselfish one. " I recognize that there are many wise things that cannot be done. It may turn out that this is one of them; but I am quite content to let the correctness of my thinking in this matter be determined by the results of the next twenty years." Again: " Y o u r note of the 30th is just received. Whatever else you do, you old firebrand, you are not going to quarrel with me. I have loved you too long and too well. Wait till you hear my story." The important interrelation between the pure and the applied sciences was not so obvious in 1900, and Pritchett, supported by his own Board and the Harvard Corporation, found himself facing a stone wall. A legal difficulty complicated their problem. The site of the Institute of Technology had been presented as a gift by the city to the Institute on condition that it would not be sold or used for other purposes without the consent of the residents immediately in its neighborhood. Some objection to removal came from this source. Time and the courts have cured this difficulty, but it was unquestionably a factor to be reckoned with in Pritchett's day. There was also some feeling that the Institute would be swallowed up if it were moved to Cambridge, though Pritchett would have continued to be its president. The contemplated new site, favored by A. Lawrence Lowell, then professor, who, as a representative Technology trustee, was closely associated with Pritchett, is the site today occupied by the Harvard Business School. But those who clung to tradition

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were unwilling to consent to a movement which at the time was sensible and economical. Meanwhile, public feeling on the subject ran high. Even private friendships were affected or broken. Though some of those who differed with Pritchett had been generous in expressing their appreciation of his fitness for his post, he himself felt that his future usefulness might be impaired if he continued to hold it. Lowell, a strong believer in the soundness of Pritchett's views, resigned from the Board of Trustees of the Institute promptly. Pritchett resigned its presidency in 1905. B u t " T e c h " was far from consuming all of Pritchett's time and energy. His agile mind had also been busy with other subjects. He was profoundly interested in promoting industrial education. Benjamin Franklin had bequeathed to Boston and to Philadelphia each the sum of ^ 1 , 0 0 0 , the interest on which was to be added to his gift for a century to come. He stipulated in his will that the fund—principal and accumulated interest—was to be loaned at five per cent to "young married artificers" and he calculated that at the close of a century his bequest would amount in each case to ,£131,000. Of this anticipated sum, ^100,000 were to be expended in public works, the remaining ^ 3 1 , 0 0 0 to be treated as was the original gift. Franklin's anticipations were not fulfilled, largely because the apprentice system of his day disappeared. On J u l y 1, 1891, the total fund accumulated by the Boston trustees was $391,000; the Philadelphia fund amounted at the same time to $90,000, though both funds had been administered with scrupulous care. In 1904, the managers of the Boston fund had in hand $408,000. Legal technicalities prevented action for some years. Ultimately the Philadelphia fund was turned over to the Franklin Institute and used for the construction of its building. In view of changed conditions, the Boston trustees inclined to the founding of an endowed evening training school. Pritchett, who had become a trustee, visited Mr. Carnegie at Skibo Castle in 1904 and "had some t a l k " with his host on the subject. Carnegie was deeply interested and asked Pritchett why 80

the trustees hesitated. " F o r lack of adequate funds," was the response. Thereupon Mr. Carnegie said, "I'll match Ben Franklin." The City of Boston gave a suitable site. Mayor Collins took Carnegie's offer seriously, the requisite court action was obtained, and the fund was turned over to what is now the Franklin Union. Mr. Louis Rouillon, fresh from a great success as manager of the Society of Mechanics and Trades in New York, came to Boston as the Union's first director. The Franklin Union has thus far fully justified the hopes with which it was launched. Less than a century hence, our descendants will have to make an accounting of what has been accomplished with the remainder of Franklin's bequest.* Somewhat later Mr. Lowell became impressed with the fact that, while schools and industries of various kinds were promoting industrial education for workmen, the superior workman who might hope to become a foreman was totally neglected. Neither the industrial schools nor the engineering schools were cognizant of his existence. In 1903, Lowell, as trustee of the Lowell Institute, acting on his conviction of the value of technical training for the superior workmen, modified the work done by the Lowell Institute, founded by his grandfather, by announcing that the Lowell Institute in connection with the Institute of Technology would henceforth and to a constantly increasing extent endeavor to provide further training for men who could be called the noncommissioned officers of industry, namely, the foremen. These men were promoted from among the workmen. Instruction had therefore to be given in the evening. Pritchett was asked to find the man who could organize and conduct courses aiming to train industrial foremen. Looking back over an experience of forty years, Lowell has expressed to the writer his conviction that Pritchett selected the ideal person, Dr. Charles F. Park, to be * To the Atlantic Monthly in November, 1924, Pritchett contributed an interesting paper on this subject, entitled "The Tale of Two Cities."

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director of the Lowell Institute School for Industrial Foremen, and to this suggestion emanating from Pritchett Lowell attributes the signal success of this novel enterprise. Here, as at the Institute, Pritchett felt deep concern for wholesome student life. Dr. Park writes: " I t was Dr. Pritchett who had a room fitted up with lounging chairs and facilities for serving meals on the second floor of the 'Garrison Street Shops.' Here the fellows congregated and had a good time. Here they were allowed to drink beer and sing the 'Tech Stein Song.' Here Dr. and Mrs. Pritchett entertained with a Christmas tree party those who could not go home for this festival." Shortly after reaching Boston, Pritchett had been made chairman of a committee appointed to consider the advisability of constructing a dam across the Charles River between Boston and Cambridge. T h e dam was opposed by certain factions largely on the argument that shutting off the flow of tide to and from the basin would remove the beneficial effect of scour and cause silting of the harbor, and that the basin itself would become stagnant and the water foul. There were also objections from private interests that would be inconvenienced. M a n y older residents of Boston remarked, perhaps half in fun, that they liked to have the Charles R i v e r water in their cellars! In 1903, the committee made a favorable report. T h e soundness of the committee's conclusions has been borne out by time since the construction of the dam, and the maintenance of a constant-level basin has transformed the unsightly and foul-smelling flats into a beautiful basin bordered with parks. T h e basin has come to be an outstanding feature of the Boston and Cambridge scene. In addition to the dam, the improvements contemplated, completed by 1 9 1 0 , included a canal and locks through the dam, a marginal conduit along each bank of the river to receive storm water and sewage overflow, improvement of sanitary conditions in the fens where the Stony Brook drained into the river, and the landscaping of the embankment along the river. Pritchett re82

mained chairman of both committees until 1908. The following minute appears in the report of the commission issued in that year: "On January 1, 1908, the Commission lost its first Chairman, Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, who resigned to become the head of the Carnegie Foundation in New York. His large experience in construction work for the United States Government and as head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had been most helpful in organizing and planning the Commission's work. During his Chairmanship of the Committee on Charles River Dam, upon whose decision the Charles River Basin Act was predicated, investigating the sanitary and other questions connected with the proposed Dam and helping to produce the Committee's excellent report, much prized by hydraulic engineers and sanitary experts throughout the world, Dr. Pritchett was able to become familiar with the most important problems which confronted the Commission, to which was assigned the task of building the Dam. This knowledge, combined with his sound judgment, was felt from the outset in the selection of the Commission's engineers and in laying out the work to secure rapid and effective construction at low cost." T o nothing that he achieved during his brief residence in Boston did Pritchett look back in subsequent years with greater pride and satisfaction. But even professional activities did not wholly suffice to exhaust his energy. He kept up the political interests which had developed during the Washington period. As early as 1904 he wrote to President Theodore Roosevelt, discussing the race question and the errors, as he saw them then, of the Republican party in dealing with the subject. He wrote President Roosevelt, December 24, 1904: " I do believe in you so heartily and in your opportunity that I have ventured to write warmly. You are, I thoroughly believe, working in Lincoln's spirit. You have his high-mindedness, his intelligence, his political sense, and above all, his absolute sin-

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cerity. These are the great and essential qualities; b u t in order to do what you wish it is necessary to add two more of Lincoln's qualities, his patience and his sense of humor. And even then you will in these next four years get not praise b u t blame. You must expect abuse, lies, misrepresentation, calumny. But if you can go forward as you have begun, in the full spirit of Lincoln, there will be a place for you in the regard of the American people next to Washington and Lincoln. " I never go into the White House and through the corridors and up the stairs where you pass every day without thinking of old Lincoln, with his shambling figure, coming down the steps in the early morning, in his cloth slippers, on his way to the W a r D e p a r t m e n t to read the night's dispatches. And of how few amongst his friends or his enemies estimated at its right value his qualities or his work. But there were those even then who saw in Lincoln all we see in him now. Lowell was one, and in his commemoration ode there is voiced all the praise of Lincoln t h a t has been written in all the books. I t is the estimate of one great soul by another. And nothing is more wonderful in what Lowell writes than the wise judgment with which he puts his finger on the real qualities which make up Lincoln's greatness. Our children shall behold his fame, T h e kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame. "There are some things like a man's communion with his own better spirit or his Maker of which one has a deep, immovable conviction and yet whose actual operation he cannot describe. T h a t way lies not only your country's good b u t your own title to immortality. Your problem is a hard one but it is soluble." Replying, President Roosevelt said: "I think of Lincoln, shambling, homely, with his strong, sad, deeply-furrowed face, all the time. I see him in the different rooms and in the halls. For some reason or other he is to me infinitely the most real of the dead Presidents. So far as one who is 84

not a great man can model himself upon one who was, I try to follow the general lines of policy which Lincoln laid down. I do not like to say this in public, for I suppose it would seem as if I were presuming; but I know you will understand the spirit in which I am saying it. I wish to Heaven I had his invariable equanimity. I try my best not to give any expression to irritation, but sometimes I do get deeply irritated." Pritchett showed these letters to his friend, James Ford Rhodes, then engaged in writing his volumes dealing with the Reconstruction period. Rhodes, returning them, wrote Pritchett on January 3,1905: " I have read nothing since Lincoln's private letters, which shows such nobility of feeling and earnest endeavor to pursue the right and manly course." Pritchett met Roosevelt again late in 1910, on the ex-President's return from Africa. On November 17 of that year he wrote to him: " I t was a great pleasure to meet you today and renew the associations of past years. I hope you will allow me a friend's privilege to add a word to today's table talk which I found it difficult to get in. Colonel Nelson and President Van Hise assured you, and I am sure most honestly, that your hold on the country is as strong today as it ever was. I travel this country from one end to the other. I am your friend and I am sure this statement is a mistake. You have a great hold on the country but not the same hold you had on the June day on which you landed. Particularly is this true among people like professional men, teachers, and others who really in large measure influence them around them." He thereupon proceeds to enumerate the acts, which, in his judgment, had impaired the former President's popularity: his too frequent and undignified speeches, his indulgence in personal attacks which were "below the plane of political campaigning, on which you stand." He closed his candid statement with the words, " I hope you know how friendly a desire to serve you goes with this." Boston was a city of clubs. Pritchett was promptly invited to

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join the Tavern, which included men of varied interests—scientists, artists, and literary men. He joined also the St. Botolph and numerous dining clubs, among them the Wednesday Evening Club which met at different houses for supper on Wednesday evenings; the Thursday Evening Club and the Saturday Club; in the last-named he retained his membership as long as he lived. Finally, he entered " T h e " Club, being influenced by President Eliot, who told him that no one could afford to refuse its invitation, for it had been founded by Emerson. T o the personal friends made in Washington were now added those made during his five-year residence in Boston, among them President Eliot, President Lowell, Moorfield Storey, M a j o r Higginson, Samuel Cabot, James J . Storrow, James Ford Rhodes, Charles Eliot Norton, Charles Francis Adams, Richard Olney, Charles A. Stone, Dr. Donald of Trinity Church, and a host of others at whose homes he and his wife were welcome guests and to whom he continued to write long after he had moved to New York. Unfortunately he kept no diary, so that there is little record of his conversation. While his correspondence is abundant and deals intelligently with education, politics, and local affairs, it is often limited to making appointments for luncheon, dinner, or week-end visits. There can, however, be no sounder evidence of the impression that he had made on his friends and associates in Boston than a sentence in a letter from Rhodes written the year before he left to assume the presidency of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: " F o r one who works as you do, the only safety is complete rest at times. You must know that you have a unique position in being an intermediary between scholars, men of the world, and the public. T h e mantle of President Eliot is going to fall on your shoulders, for you have the gift of interesting the public and conveying pregnant and serious ideas, which can only be had from a scholar."

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The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching A T T H E opening of this century little thought had been given to the crying need—humanitarian and educational—of making the teacher's old age secure or to the effect on the teaching personnel of its insecurity. Two or three quite accidental and disconnected occurrences not only brought the subject into the foreground, but also led to action within an extraordinarily brief period. In 1890, Mr. Carnegie was made a trustee of Cornell University. In his interesting and authoritative story of Forty Years of Carnegie Giving, Mr. Robert M. Lester, now secretary of the Carnegie Corporation, reports that "when he took his seat as a trustee of Cornell, Mr. Carnegie was shocked to discover that college teachers were paid only about as much as office clerks. Of all professions, the least rewarded, he found, was that of the college or university professor. For a professor to save for old age from his small salary was next to impossible." Though Mr. Carnegie was not a regular attendant at board meetings, this discovery made a deep impression on him. Some ten or twelve years later, Pritchett, accompanied by his wife, went abroad and was invited to visit Skibo Castle, Mr. Carnegie's summer home in Scotland. Mr. Carnegie inquired about his errand. " I am trying," so Pritchett related the incident to me, "to get a 325,000 professor for a £7,500 salary." About two years afterwards Pritchett and the Carnegies lunched at the White House with President and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt. On the Pullman later in the afternoon, Mr. Carnegie and Pritchett occupied adjoining chairs. Their talk reverted to

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the financial status of the professor and the importance to him and to higher education of making provision for his old age. F i f teen years had passed, since as a trustee of Cornell, Carnegie had become aware of the problem. He had now retired and was engaged in distributing most of his fortune. He decided to act. He selected a board of trustees; he made up his mind that Pritchett should be president. These decisions, carrying with them an endowment of $10,000,000, were announced in 1905. It was widely believed in Boston that Pritchett would continue to hold the presidency of " T e c h , " but Pritchett foresaw that the benefaction could be made much more than an agency to distribute pensions. He resigned the Boston post, although he commuted weekly between N e w Y o r k and Boston until his successor was chosen almost a year later. I t seems fitting to halt at this point in order to say a word about the remarkable man with whom his relations began in the early part of the twentieth century, relations that became more intimate and more influential until Mr. Carnegie's death in 1 9 1 9 and continued on the same basis with Mrs. Carnegie until Pritchett's death in 1939. T h e history of Mr. Carnegie's life has been told by Mr. Burton Hendrick in his biography and need not be recounted here, but a few important landmarks should be indicated. He was a Scotch peasant born in Dunfermline in a small cottage which has become a shrine. He had had no schooling worthy the name. Emigrating to America, he became a telegrapher during our Civil War. He foresaw the possibilities of developing the steel industry at Pittsburgh, where iron ore, coal, and lime existed side by side. He became the foremost manufacturer of steel in the United States and probably in the world; he became the friend of eminent men in Great Britain and the United States. As his fortune grew by leaps and bounds, he turned aside from the making of money to making the proper use of it. Retiring from active business at the beginning of the present century, he announced his conviction that a rich man owed 88

his fortune largely to circumstance—not solely to himself—and he spent years in distributing most of it. " H e practiced what he preached," as Pritchett said of him.* He knew the use of books and founded libraries which fairly dotted the land; he endowed the Carnegie Institution of Washington, devoted to scientific research; as a complementary institution, he endowed the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; he stimulated human idealism through the Hero Fund; international peace through the Peace Endowment; discriminating philanthropy through the Carnegie Corporation of New Y o r k ; and discharged his duty to his home city through the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, consisting of a municipal library, a museum of fine arts, a museum of natural history, and an institute of technology. Nor did he forget his native country and his humble birthplace, both of which were munificently assisted, and unostentatiously he supported worthy individuals. It is a noble record. " T i m e , " remarked Pritchett, "is the nurse and breeder of all good; but only they who have vision and imagination leam to work with time." Andrew Carnegie learned. Mr. Carnegie's letter of gift, addressed to the trustees of the Foundation, gave abundant leeway. He had, he said, "reached the conclusion that the least rewarded of all the professions is that of teacher in our higher educational institutions. New York City generously, and very wisely, provides retiring pensions for teachers in her public schools and also for her policemen. Very few indeed of our colleges are able to do so. The consequences are grievous. Able men hesitate to adopt teaching as a career, and many old professors whose places should be occupied by younger men cannot be retired." Further on, Mr. Carnegie's letter states: " B y a two-thirds vote they [the trustees] may from time to time apply the revenue in a different manner and for a different, • Andrew Carnegie, an anniversary address, delivered before the Carnegie Institute of Technology, November 24, 1915. Privately printed.

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though similar purpose, should coming days bring such changes as to render this necessary in their judgment to produce the best results possible for the teachers and for education." Mr. Carnegie's action was generous and hopeful. Had a committee of present-day university presidents and actuaries endeavored to formulate his action, had the trustees been aware of the difficulties that would ultimately have to be surmounted, and had they made Mr. Carnegie more or less aware of them, perhaps the Foundation would never have been established. There was no body of knowledge or experience to guide Mr. Carnegie and his aides. In consequence, the trustees were obliged to start the Foundation somehow or other, relying on the power given them to change the rules as experience suggested in order that in the course of two decades the Foundation could be remade and thus fulfill the purpose of the founder. Pritchett's twenty-five annual reports set forth with candor and clarity the problems which the creation of the Foundation had raised almost from the very outset. N o one can read these documents or the Foundation pamphlet issued in 1940 under the title A Third of A Century of Teachers Retirement without coming to appreciate fully the number and variety of vexatious and painful situations with which almost annually the officers, trustees, and their counsel wrestled. As things have worked out, Mr. Carnegie's provision for teacher pensions, generous though it seemed at the time, proved to be quite inadequate in scale: the maximum free pension once fixed at $4,000 has now been reduced to $ 1,500, and much bitter criticism of the Foundation and of Pritchett himself has resulted. But even so, and without taking into account the creation of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, the Foundation brought about a great improvement in the financial situation of the college teacher. It compelled attention to a problem that had not been faced and led both colleges and teachers to grapple with it themselves, so that pension systems, more or less adequate, had been installed in most of the stronger American 90

colleges before 1930. Furthermore, experience with the Carnegie pensions has had a far-reaching effect on the provision already made for other classes of teachers as well as for many other groups. While nothing can justify reckless action or failure to consider previous experience, a study of the history of the Carnegie Foundation impresses upon one the importance of providing in untrodden fields easy opportunity for change and for meeting, often empirically, the problems that change creates. President Jessup has called my attention to the fact that the makers of the automobile of today would have been tied hand and foot, had they waited on the engineers. Manufacturers began by producing what they found they could make, namely, a motor car that ran. But as defects made themselves evident, they devised annually new patterns that remedied previous defects and both revealed and created additional ones. Had they waited until the present-day automobile could be conceived, there would not be a motor car in the world today. It is this pioneering spirit, this willingness to take chances in new and unknown situations that may be properly called the American spirit. Throughout his life Mr. Carnegie showed himself in this, the best, sense of the word a thoroughgoing American; and in nothing more so than in the creation of the Carnegie Foundation—a generous act which might well have paralyzed his imagination, had it been possible, as it was not, to set down in advance the succession of problems that, in creating the Foundation, he was bequeathing to its officers and trustees. There were perhaps some points in respect to which more careful thought would have avoided subsequent trouble, though as to one of them the danger was recognized by Pritchett within a brief experience. Excluding institutions under denominational control and state universities, Mr. Carnegie's gift provided free pensions —that is, pensions which imposed no obligation to contribute upon either institution or teacher. Mr. Carnegie assumed that 9i

denominational institutions would take care of their own, while state-financed institutions would be cared for by taxation, following the example of nondenominational and privately endowed educational organizations. T h e assumption that a fixed capital sum of $10,000,000 would provide free pensions for growing college faculties proved a most unfortunate error of judgment. A t the outside the income of the Foundation could not exceed 3500,000 annually. T h e letter of gift contained no intimation that further endowment would be forthcoming. In his very first report Pritchett stated that 327 institutions with staffs aggregating 6,207 at a total compensation of almost $10,000,000 would be eligible to the benefaction of Mr. Carnegie. He added, " I t is clear that an income of $500,000 could not maintain an adequate retiring allowance in all these institutions." So far he was correct; but in the next paragraph he goes on to say, " I t may be safely assumed that the average faculty of institutions to be admitted in the future, omitting state institutions, will not exceed this, and that it would almost surely fall somewhat below it." Looking back over the last forty years, during which colleges and universities have expanded tremendously in size, in faculty, in endowment, and in salaries, it is difficult to realize that Pritchett's view was by no means rare at the turn of the century. T h e General Education Board cherished for a time the belief that 100 colleges, each with an endowment of $1,000,000, would provide for the country's need in the field of higher education. Apparently the census, showing the increase of population, the quick growth of elementary and secondary schools, the inevitable development of science and knowledge, passed unnoticed. With the rise in the age of compulsory education, another factor has in recent years been added. N o one foresaw what happened then; no one can now foresee what another half century will bring forth. It is the part of wisdom not to prophesy too confidently. T w o other early provisions were widely criticized. Mr. Burton Hendrick's biography of Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Carnegie's auto92

biography show clearly that in establishing the Foundation he was thinking of the professor who was earning $1,500 to $2,500 a year. Writing in 1934 to Mr. Henry James, president of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, on the general subject of retiring allowances Pritchett said: "What you say touching on the indifference of the college authorities to their own responsibility in the matter has been one of the curious features of the whole development of teachers pensions. It has been almost impossible to get the college authorities to consider their own problem. At the time when Harvard adopted what is, as you know, a very bad system, I tried to get the President to give a half hour to the matter, which would have been enough to afford a man of his ability a knowledge of the fundamentals, but without success. He turned the whole problem over to three professors, apparently as if the Corporation had no responsibility." Towards the end of his life Mr. Carnegie wrote: " M y belief was that our chief universities such as Harvard and Columbia with five or ten thousand students were large enough, that further growth was undesirable, and that the smaller institutions (the colleges especially) were in greater need of help and that it would be a better use of surplus wealth to aid them." Nevertheless, his first board of trustees contained the heads of eminent and, for the time, relatively well-to-do institutions, and Pritchett's first report stated that they and others of the same rank had been accepted as eligible to the benefits of the Foundation. The trustees, with the consent of the founder, soon realized that a restriction of pensions to the less well-to-do institutions was at bottom inconsistent with the position taken by the Foundation that a pension was not a charity. The size of a university or the amount of its assets was therefore irrelevant. Another early error, the impracticability of which might have been foreseen, was the provision of a retiring allowance after twenty-five years of service. If we assume that persons became 93

collegiate teachers in the early thirties, this provision made it possible for them to retire at fifty-five. If it was meant for distinguished persons who might wish to devote their remaining years to carrying on research of outstanding importance, fiftyfive was too late rather than too early. The difficulty of applying the proviso lay in the fact that men who wished to change their career or men who had lost interest in education might become a burden on the Foundation's income for a period of twenty years or more. Pritchett and his trustees soon recognized the impracticability of this provision. It was repealed within three years from the period of its adoption. T h e disability provision for retirement after twenty-five years of service continued, however, as was right and proper. Of Pritchett's relation to the Foundation, one of the Foundation's officers has written: " F r o m 1905 to 1930 the history of Henry Smith Pritchett was the history of the Carnegie Foundation. This identity of man and works was inevitable because the Foundation was passing through its formative period without, so far as Dr. Pritchett was concerned, precedents in other philanthropic bodies. T h e president of the Foundation not only controlled and operated it but made his own precedents as he went along, and identified himself almost completely in the public mind with the Foundation's functions and activities. Foundation policy probably reflected the Pritchett temper, method, approach, and handling more closely than almost any other philanthropy in relation to its chief executive officer." Pritchett's first task was the definition of a college or university such as would make it eligible to Mr. Carnegie's benefaction. At that time and to a considerable extent still, the terms—college and university—were very loosely employed. This was particularly true in the South and in the West, but to some extent it held true even in the East. Writing to M r . Carnegie in 1906, Pritchett stated, " I t was a surprise to us all to find that not a

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single institution in the South maintained entrance requirements equal to the modest standard prescribed by the law of the State of New York." After careful thought the Foundation decided that no institution could be considered to be either a college or university unless the admission of students rested upon a definite basis and, inasmuch as the high school had already begun to be recognized, especially by the Board of Regents of the State of New York, as covering the field of secondary education, it was wisely decided that no institution could be admitted to the accepted list which did not require for admission a four-year high-school education. A movement towards standardization at this level was thus already in progress and was enormously accelerated by the creation of the Carnegie Foundation. It was urged by some that standardization on what might be called a more or less mechanical basis was unfair, inasmuch as certain individuals of unusual ability or students who had procured their education by unusual methods would thus be excluded. The so-called Carnegie units, which attempted to define the amount of work which might be fairly required of high-school students, aroused therefore considerable criticism, but in this matter, as in the matter of starting the pension system, Pritchett had somehow to make a start. He had to provide an artificial scaffolding which would hold the structure up, trusting that time would correct the artificiality of his procedure. The "Carnegie units"—which, by the way, the Foundation did not invent—were a practical device to aid the high schools in organizing four years of a pupil's time without raising questions which at that time were not clearly understood and could occur to no one when the units were invented. There is no doubt that the units soon outlived their function, but it is impossible even at this date to see how else Pritchett could have launched an institution dealing with retiring allowances for college and university professors. His earliest reports show that he was fully aware of the fact that in the America of 95

that day not every four-year secondary school possessed the teachers or the equipment or the students which measured up to his ideal. None the less, his judgment was sound, and his confidence that a provisional definition would tend greatly to improve and stimulate secondary education has been vindicated b y experience. Since the early 1900s the four-year high school has spread over the whole country, and the content of its curriculum has been enriched with the progress of the years. Our late Ambassador to Great Britain, Walter H. Page, used to urge the preeminent importance of enthusiasm for the feasible. What Pritchett undertook to do for the college was, by using the units in the four-year high-school course, to adopt a feasible method of building a substructure. T h e exclusion of institutions under denominational control proved also to be a more difficult matter to adjust than M r . C a r negie had supposed. F i f t y institutions were admitted in short order to the benefits of the Foundation after an examination of their academic standards and the evidence furnished b y their written charters; yet within a year or two it became obvious that these criteria were not conclusive. Institutions under denominational control pleaded the unsectarian character of the instruction which they offered. Moreover, certain institutions which had originally been founded by a denomination had in the course of time shed all denominational criteria. For example, Princeton was often loosely spoken of as Presbyterian and Y a l e as Congregational. Neither of these institutions was denominational from the standpoint of its management and control at the time the Carnegie Foundation was established. An institution with as little denominational connection as Princeton, Harvard, or Yale, deserved to come within Mr. Carnegie's original stipulations. But from the outset, M r . Carnegie's wishes were literally respected. On the other hand, the charter of the University of Chicago provided "that the president of the university and the head of the

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college and two-thirds of the board of trustees shall at all times be members of regular Baptist churches and, inasmuch as contributions have been solicited upon this basis, this charter shall not be amended hereafter in any way that would modify these qualifications." As a matter of fact, the Northern Baptist Convention many years later, with the consent of Mr. Rockefeller, the founder of the University, procured the necessary legal authority to abolish denominational restrictions of all kinds. Indeed the University of Chicago from the very first had been conceived by President Harper as an institution of learning, and the faculty contained Jews and Christians of many denominations. In addition to the careful examination necessary to decide whether institutions were actually controlled, managed, and influenced by denominational considerations, the Foundation was besieged with inquiries as to whether it would advise the amendment of a charter in such wise as to make the institution eligible to the benefits of the retiring allowance system. Here once more Pritchett's answer was sound and clear. He asked the college authorities to face fairly the question: What does your denominational connection mean to you? If it means a gain to the spiritual and intellectual life of the college or if its abrogation means the abandonment of obligations assumed in good faith, the inquiry can go no further, "for I hold no gain in college support can compensate for the loss of college security." The next hurdle which Pritchett had to leap was the state university. In the original letter of gift Mr. Carnegie had excluded state universities from the Foundation benefits on the theory, already stated, that state legislatures would follow the lead of the privately endowed institutions; but state legislatures are not so easily convinced. Although, on the whole, several states have been generous in taxing their respective citizens for the public good, the university is too remote from the ordinary man to make so ready an appeal as good roads or good farming. While the trustees of the Foundation recognized the fact that the states

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should as a matter of dignity and power do as much for university teachers as the Foundation was endeavoring to do for private institutions, they also realized that a uniform system which brought state-supported and privately supported institutions under the same general scheme had unmistakable advantages. It would at any rate remove the financial temptation of leaving a state university in order to accept a similar position in a privately supported institution on the accepted list of the Foundation. Representatives of state universities and colleges presented this point of view to Mr. Carnegie. In a letter to Pritchett, dated March 3 1 , 1908, Mr. Carnegie removed the ban from state universities and gave the Foundation the additional sum of #5,000,000 in order that professors in state universities might be placed upon precisely the same footing as professors in endowed institutions. Equal standards for admission to the Foundation list were thereupon applied to state universities and with precisely the same result, namely, that many state universities which had relatively low standards of admission were spurred to raise them; this they accomplished through cooperation with the state education authorities to which the care of high-school standards throughout their respective states had been entrusted. Meanwhile, the accepted list continued to grow in size, and Pritchett's hopeful anticipation that the load of the Foundation would decrease was soon abandoned. B y 1909 it became obvious to the trustees that the endowment of $15,000,000 would not support the burden of free pensions throughout the country. Pritchett's successive reports for these early years show the careful and thorough scrutiny which he and his associates gave to various pension systems in vogue in this country as well as abroad. For a while the hope was entertained that an increase of endowment might suffice to maintain the Foundation on the basis upon which it had been established. T o that end Carnegie Corporation, which had been established in 98

1 9 1 1 , began a series of grants or gifts, and in 1 9 1 7 added something over ? 12,000,000. Meanwhile, however, it became evident that the interest on no obtainable sum would suffice to carry out permanently Mr. Carnegie's ideas in their original form. During the period 1909-1918, the officers of the Foundation, through their studies of the pension load and through observation of experience abroad, became convinced of the weaknesses in the original plan of the Foundation. They saw, first, that endowment alone could not fulfill its purposes and, second, that a joint contributory system of retiring allowances on a contractual basis was both necessary and desirable. Searching continuously for alternatives, Pritchett decided that a pension fund could best be maintained if the institutions assumed one part of the responsibility, the professors an equal share, while a newly created and independent organization to be called the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America was enabled to conduct on sound principles a system of insurance which would offer protection and security. Thus the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, a legal reserve life-insurance company, incorporated in 1918 under the laws of the state of New York, came into being. It was made possible through an initial grant in 1917 by Carnegie Corporation of New York of $1,000,000 for capital and surplus, with subsequent large additional gifts. This provided an effective means through which a comprehensive plan of retiring annuities and life insurance for teachers and staff members in colleges and universities might be established on a contractual basis and at economical rates. Annuities are secured by a payment equal, according to the usual arrangement, to ten percent of the teacher's salary, one half coming from the institution in which he teaches and one half from the professor himself. Thus college and university teachers may now procure not only retirement annuities but several forms of life insurance at a reduced rate in consequence of the facts that no agents are employed, relatively little advertising

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is carried on, while part of the overhead expenses of the Association has been met from grants, first, by the Carnegie Foundation, subsequently by Carnegie Corporation of New Y o r k . Without any question this is a sounder method financially and actuarily than that which was envisaged by Mr. Carnegie's original gift. On the other hand, it can be affirmed that, but for M r . C a r negie's original gift, the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America would never have come into existence at all. T h e stock of the Association was owned by Carnegie Corporation of N e w Y o r k during the period of development of the Association from 1 9 1 7 to 1938. It was then transferred to the Trustees of T . I . A . A . Stock, a group chartered by special legislative enactment, thus making the Association wholly independent of C a r negie control. Annuity contracts in operation at the close of 1942 totaled 3 1 , 2 2 8 ; life insurance policies, 1 3 , 1 3 1 . T h e number of educational institutions represented was 956. More than 200 colleges and universities, some of them state institutions, use the Association retirement annuity contracts in connection with their own retirement plans. As early as M a y , 1906, Pritchett had written Mr. Carnegie, " T h e teachers of the United States are recognizing gradually that the Foundation is not a charity, but a great educational force, and if it proceeds wisely and carefully, I am sure it will be an educational force for good." T h e assets of the Association at the close of 1942 were $ 1 4 1 , 7 1 9 , 7 6 0 . T h e Association has received a total of $8,413,659 from Carnegie Corporation of New Y o r k and $508,795 from the Carnegie Foundation. Pritchett was president of the Teachers Insurance and A n nuity Association from its organization until 1930. T w o years later, Henry J a m e s succeeded him as president. M r . J a m e s has supplied me with a memorandum in which he discusses Pritchett's work with the Association and with the Carnegie institutions as follows: " I n connection with the work of the Carnegie foundations and

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following in Pritchett's footsteps as I did in the T.I.A.A., I came to have a fairly clear understanding of the way he worked and of the way in which his character and temperament affected his work. What he did to develop the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association was done with imagination, vigor, and ability. The company was a new kind of company. Pritchett gathered and listened to a great deal of advice, but did not waver in his course after conclusions had been reached. He then pushed ahead energetically, left a few irreconcilable critics along the wayside and attained important results. "If events have shown that he sometimes went wrong in the Carnegie Foundation or the T.I.A.A., it was because he was not cautious enough in some of his calculations. But it is surely proper to remember that he belonged to the adventurous-minded generation which, from the Civil War to 1920, guided the country's great industrial and commercial development. Many of his personal associates had been builders of the great prosperity. Their experience had been that of a marvelous expansion with almost no setbacks. Their outlook was characteristically sanguine, and so was Pritchett's. "Pritchett and I had more than one occasion to refer to the misfortunes of the Carnegie Foundation's free pension plans. He never blamed anyone else for these misfortunes, but I consider that he has been allowed to shoulder a greater burden of responsibility than it is fair to assign to him. Everything that was done must have been discussed in committee and board meetings with his fellow trustees. Almost every one of the trustees would have resented a suggestion that he himself was not a sound, conservative man of affairs. If critics of the Foundation's record say that developments which all ultimately regretted should have been foreseen and forestalled by Pritchett, they surely imply that these events should also have been foreseen and forestalled by his fellow trustees. "He had plenty of courage and held strongly to his opinions;

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but he wasn't a bit of a bully in a board or committee. Anything of that sort would have offended the high standards of trusteeship which he himself observed and which he believed others too must be allowed and expected to observe. On this score I can bear personal testimony. When I became president of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, the hard times had begun to change the pattern of the company's problems, and the management of its affairs had to be veered into a course which departed from the course that Pritchett had pursued. Pritchett said enough to let me see that he didn't like some new measures that were proposed; but he never tried to use his prestige to defeat the new management or to interfere with its freedom of action. I never saw in him any sign or evidence of 'smallness' in dealing with people or issues; no vanity or petty resentments. He was unusually magnanimous." Looking back after his retirement, Pritchett wrote to Mr. James: "One aspect of the thing, and to my thinking a fundamental one, is this: neither the Carnegie Foundation nor the Carnegie Corporation is interested in the operation of an insurance company qua insurance or qua annuities. The only justification for establishing and operating such an agency is that it offered a sound method of using Mr. Carnegie's gift to college teachers. The free pensions which he proposed, with their restrictions touching denominational and tax-supported institutions, would have exercised an unwise pressure on the colleges themselves. The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association was planned to perform in the future services for college teachers which would fulfill Mr. Carnegie's desire to help them without the objectionable effects of a free pension system. An agency which did not afford some such service to college teachers could hardly be said to carry out the provisions of Mr. Carnegie's gift. Any plan, therefore, for the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association ought to be designed from that point of view." 102

Pritchett's original contention that a retiring allowance is a reward not a charity has become even more obvious since educational institutions and teachers themselves have come to recognize the responsibility which rests upon them to make a proper contribution towards the support of teachers who, after a life devoted to education, have reached the time when they retire from the active performance of their professional duties. The cooperative steps of the Corporation and the Foundation have assured as far as is now possible the payment of the Foundation's allowances and pensions until Mr. Carnegie's initial purpose has been fulfilled. On the other hand, the transformation, just described, was not executed without criticism from the outside. T o one charge Pritchett replied calmly in a letter to Senator Chamberlain of Maine as follows: " I am sure that you would not knowingly make an incorrect or unjust charge against an individual or an association of individuals. I therefore ask with entire confidence that you correct in such manner as your own sense of fairness and justice may indicate the misrepresentation of the Carnegie Foundation made in your remarks contained in the Congressional Record of January 26, pp. 2 3 0 2 - 2 3 1 0 . . . . You twice make the specific charge that the Carnegie Foundation had at various times in the past paid salaries to men connected with governmental bureaus who received nominal pay and certain alleged privileges by their governmental connection. Your charge against this Foundation is absolutely without warrant. Not one cent has ever been paid by the Carnegie Foundation to any person in government employ nor has it ever entered into any arrangement of any description whatsoever by which it paid the salary or had any means of controlling or influencing the action of members of any government bureau. On the contrary the Carnegie Foundation has carefully avoided any such connection. It has consistently maintained the position that an endowed agency had its field of usefulness out103

side of governmental departments. Its policy has been exactly the opposite of that which you attribute to it." He was also occasionally criticized by a small academic group who held the opinion that in England and Germany the faculties governed their respective universities. One of them had written: "The academic executive and all his works are anathema and should be discontinued by the simple expedient of wiping him off the slate; and the governing board in so far as it presumes to exercise any other than vacantly perfunctory duties has the same value and could with advantage be lost in the same shuffle." Faculty government in the sense of the words above quoted exists nowhere in the world. At Oxford and Cambridge, the colleges—usually small—appear to govern themselves; the universities composed of the colleges are conducted by large bodies made up of graduates and fellows and are therefore inefficient. Three times in recent years statutory commissions set up by Parliament have been compelled to intervene; strong, though indirect, pressure is exerted through the University Grants Commission, which makes quinquennial financial grants aiming to improve conditions. Young reformers and older research workers—men like Sir Charles Firth—are dissatisfied with the manner in which too many dons fail to take advantage of their scholarly opportunities. In Germany, the Cultus Ministerium and the faculties conducted the universities. "The system works best," said Professor Ulich, now at Harvard, formerly in Saxony, "when a strong ministry and a strong faculty cooperate." T h e American system is a composite of both. Informal cooperation and mutual confidence can alone solve administrative and educational problems.

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T h e Carnegie Foundation Bulletins T H O U G H Pritchett had at once perceived that the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching could wield a potent influence on the development and improvement of higher education in America, he never dreamed of using retiring allowances as a means of applying pressure upon colleges and universities. He had necessarily to define the terms "college" and "university," because he had to define the area within which the Foundation would operate; within this area through bulletins, reports, letters, interviews, and addresses he felt free to criticize educational policies. Accurate and careful description of existing practices here and abroad he could not and did not deny himself; he was at all times good-tempered, even when dealing with reprehensible practices. I t is clear that neither Mr. Carnegie nor any of his trustees had seen the opportunity upon which Pritchett's roving mind seized. What was his preparation for this opportunity? At his father's collegiate institute he had studied the conventional subjects, and he had been a professor at Washington University, which was still an inconspicuous institution, although the faculty fortunately contained a number of cultivated scholars. In addition, he had been in contact with first-rate educational practice during his brief period of study in Munich, but he could not have had a thorough acquaintance with secondary, collegiate, or university conditions in either Europe or America. On the basis of his rather meager firsthand experience he felt intuitively that American education was, as he was given to saying, "insincere," that it did not live up to its opportunities or to its promises, and nothing is commoner or more frequent in his reports and in his correspondence than his unswerving insistence upon the need of io

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sincerity, that is, the urgency of doing what the subject required and what the institution professed to furnish. T h e Carnegie Bulletins show that, whether for right or wrong, Pritchett, following probably the spirit of the old German university, having chosen a man, left him to his own devices. He never attempted himself to manage an investigation; that would have implied that he already knew something which the investigator was to find out. Pritchett's easy hold over his associates was at times expensive; but not more expensive in the long run than would have been an attempt on his part to oversee work too closely. Temperamentally also, he was disinclined to force his views on anyone selected for a task that in the first place was an inquiry and in the second place might suggest a program. T h e great teachers in the German universities at their prime were stimulating, without being "bosses." A similar air of freedom prevailed at the Foundation—freedom not only to think, but to work or to be idle. Somehow the idle person was very rare; he would in any event become unhappy and disappear. Pritchett at Munich had been part of a society of scholars. T h e bulletins issued in his time by the Carnegie Foundation had all the virtues, as well as some of the defects, of his attitude. I t is curious to note that Mr. Carnegie's own procedure in the upbuilding of his great steel works was essentially the same as Pritchett's: "Find the man," he was accustomed to say, "and let him alone." Everything—almost everything—that is of fundamental value goes back not to a group of men, but to a man for whom the patient work of others has prepared the way. During Pritchett's presidency of the Foundation, in addition to skillful revamping of the pension scheme and the preparation of his own annual reports, twenty-five bulletins were published.* As this volume is designed to portray Pritchett rather than to be a history of the Carnegie Foundation, I cannot, even briefly, discuss them all. Of the educational bulletins which Pritchett * F o r a complete list, see Appendix I.

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envisaged in 1908, all but one (on schools of theology) were completed during his lifetime. It is important to emphasize the fundamental part that Pritchett played in all the studies that the Foundation undertook. His convictions, developed in advance of the several studies, were almost uncanny. He had empirically, almost in every instance, reached the conclusions that the untrammeled work of his investigators substantiated in detail. When he and one of them differed, as was rarely the case, each had his say. The studies are therefore almost as much part of Pritchett as were his annual reports, his essays, his speeches, and his letters. A brief account of some of them is the only way of showing Pritchett's breadth of view, his tolerance, his wisdom, his instinctive sense for the main point of attack. I select, therefore, as most important and fruitful from an educational point of view, four: the bulletins on medical education, legal education, Mr. Savage's bulletin on American college athletics, and Mr. Learned's study of Pennsylvania college admission and achievement records. All these show the pragmatic character of Pritchett's interest and his openness of mind. In 1902, the American Medical Association had set up a Council on Medical Education, of which Dr. Arthur Dean Bevan was chairman. A report made in 1905 showed that only five of the 155 medical schools existing in the United States and Canada required two or more years of collegiate training before admission to medical studies: the Johns Hopkins, which had begun by requiring a collegiate degree in 1893; Harvard, which had begun to move in the same direction in 1900; Western Reserve, 1901; University of Chicago, 1904; California, 1905. The Council on Medical Education had collected information from the schools themselves and divided them into four groups according to the success of their students in passing state-board examinations. This was probably the first attempt made in America to rank institutions of higher education on some sort of qualitative basis. Feeling, however, that the reports on which these classifications

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were made might not be adequate, Dr. Bevan and Dr. N. P. Colwell, secretary of the Council, framed a score card of ten topics and made a personal inspection of a considerable number of medical schools, the results of which were made public at a meeting of the Council on Education, held in Chicago on April 29, 1907. As this work developed, it occurred to Dr. Bevan that President Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation might be interested in the subject. Responding to a cordial invitation for an interview, Pritchett went to Chicago, looked over the materials, and at once grasped the possibilities. He saw and insisted upon the fact that the subject was not a medical but an educational one and tenaciously defended this position as long as he was at the head of the Foundation. In the following year (1908) he recommended to the executive committee that the Foundation undertake studies of medical, legal, engineering, and theological education. Other subjects occurred to him as time went on, but he insisted that the work should be done for laymen by laymen, and such effect as it has had is very largely due to this conception. The Foundation's work in the field of medical education had far more effect than that of the Council on Medical Education, for the Council addressed the medical profession, while the Foundation addressed the general public. Pritchett, however, was always extremely generous. In 1913, he wrote, "Credit for the progress achieved in the field of medical education in the United States belongs in the first instance to the American Medical Association and its Council on Medical Education." On the basis of a small book, which I had written on the subject of The American College and which Pritchett liked, I was fortunate enough to be chosen by Pritchett in 1908 to make the study of medical education in America, subsequently in Europe. At our first interview, he asked me whether I would be willing to study the subject. I answered, " I am not a physician; aren't you confusing me 108

with my brother Simon at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research?" " N o , " rejoined Pritchett. " I know your brother well. What I have in mind is not a medical study, but an educational one. Medical schools are schools and must be judged as such. For that, a very sketchy notion of the main functions of the various departments suffices. That you or any other intelligent layman can readily acquire. Such a study as I have in mind takes that for granted. Henceforth, these institutions must be viewed from the standpoint of education. Are they so equipped and conducted as to be able to train students to be efficient physicians, surgeons, and so on?" I am not sure that I appreciated the distinction, which had been perfectly clear to Pritchett when he first conceived the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The academic profession had hailed the Foundation as a pensioning agency. Pritchett saw that, before pensions could be widely or intelligently bestowed, fundamental educational distinctions must be made. His interest in medical education emphasized not medicine but education. The reception of the medical bulletins by the medical profession in America and abroad showed that in the medical profession the number of those who shared Pritchett's view was at first small, though, as Pritchett stood by his guns and in his reports and addresses restated it with characteristic frankness and total lack of rancor, the number increased so rapidly that a veritable revolution took place. As I remember events, Pritchett encountered an easily understandable difference of opinion as to my fitness or indeed the fitness of any layman when he brought my name before the executive committee. At first he did not insist upon his point of view, though he never for a moment abandoned it. He knew how to be patient. But there came a time when he reported to me the fact that the executive committee accepted his suggestion, though somewhat reluctantly.

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" I had," he told me, " t o say that I must be free to choose m y own associates, for whose competency I assume full responsibility. Your salary will be small, smaller than I like—$3,000 a year; but when you travel, you will be supported by the Foundation." "Freedom to go about without concern about expense is of greater moment than my salary," I rejoined. I visited every one of the 155 medical schools in the United States and Canada. But in the first place I familiarized myself with the literature of the subject, reading or examining the annual reports of the Council on Medical Education of the American Medical Association, Billroth's classical work on the European medical faculties, and finally conferring with Dr. Bevan and Dr. Colwell, who year after year had been visiting and gently stimulating medical schools to improve in this or that direction. Naturally I spent many days at the Johns Hopkins Medical School and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. T h e Johns Hopkins was at that time already regarded as a model; and I became sufficiently familiar with its organization and methods of teaching to take it as a pattern, ineffaceably stamped on my memory and imagination. With this in mind, I traveled through every state in the Union and every province of Canada. M y inspection began at Tulane University—as f a r away from New Y o r k as I could conveniently get. Having visited half a dozen schools, I soon got the impression that my mission had created the feeling or hope that it would be followed b y gifts from Mr. Carnegie to set things right. I tried to correct this misapprehension, but I did not succeed. From time to time, I returned to New Y o r k to write up my notes and to submit them to Pritchett. He praised them and urged me to keep on measuring everything by the best. This I consistently did.* Pritchett hated humbug. When the report on a school of osteopathy at Des Moines was turned in, reciting, as it did, the fact * The reader interested in details may consult I Remember, York, 1940, pp. 1 1 0 - 3 2 .

no

an autobiography, New

that on my visit to the school, in company with its dean, every door was locked and the janitor, who had possession of the keys, could not be found, Pritchett suggested no modification. A ruse was employed by which I was enabled to see the "laboratories"; for, getting rid of the dean at the railway station, I returned to the school, found the janitor, and with a five-dollar bill induced him to open every room. Though they bore signs "Anatomy," "Physiology," "Histology," and the like, none of them contained anything but chairs, a small table, and a small blackboard; equipment was totally missing. Obviously, the students studied textbooks—if they studied at all—and recited what they had learned. That report Pritchett did not send to the dean for comment or criticism; it was printed precisely as it was written. The mention of Iowa recalls another incident that had for Pritchett and the present president of the Carnegie Foundation, Dr. Jessup, momentous consequences. Mr. W. R. Boyd of Cedar Rapids writes me as follows: "Fortunately for me personally, and especially, for the interests I later came to represent, I became acquainted with Henry S. Pritchett not long after the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching came into being. Looking back upon it and the far-reaching results which followed, it was one of those things which my mother would have called 'providential.' " D r . Pritchett had come to Cedar Rapids to look over Coe College. He spent a week-end here and was a guest at the home of the president. I was invited to meet him at dinner, being the only other guest. That evening is still as fresh in my memory as though it had been yesterday. I was greatly impressed with the man—the keenness of his mind, the breadth of his view, and his wisdom and common sense." Shortly afterward, in 1909, the Iowa legislature created a State Board of Education which provided for a unified system of government, under which every state institution of learning is separately administered by a single state-wide board. Mr. Boyd was in

chosen chairman of the finance committee which is in reality an executive committee. He goes on to say: "Dr. Pritchett impressed the members of the board of education with his wisdom and his forthrightness. Shortly after his visit the board adopted a set of general principles to govern its action substantially along the lines agreed upon at this memorable conference. These remain the guiding principles of the board to this day, after thirty-two years. That the policies of the board have been wise is best evidenced by the fact that the statute which called it into being has been changed in no important particular since its enactment nearly a third of a century ago. "But the conference with Dr. Pritchett proved to be only the beginning. Bulletin Number Four, which Dr. Pritchett characterized in a letter to me shortly before his death as the most important educational report of the period judged by what it accomplished, had been published under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation. It was a candid and absolutely accurate summation of the conditions in every medical college in the United States and Canada. It criticised the University of Iowa College of Medicine very severely. The faculty of this college denounced the report as unjust. They charged that the conclusions were hastily arrived at and were not founded on fact. I felt well enough acquainted with Dr. Pritchett to write to him and tell him what these people were saying. He replied that he would ask the man who made the survey to return to Iowa to check up on his findings and said that he would also send an independent investigator, which he did. Both men agreed that the original report was without error. "Confronted with this situation, the board asked itself, 'What are we going to do?' The inclination was to give up any teaching of clinical medicine at the university; simply to provide the laboratory courses and let the young men of Iowa who wished to study medicine go elsewhere for their clinical instruction. The writer 112

begged the board not to do this until the question could be put up to the legislature, namely, Do you or do you not want a decent college of medicine at the State University of Iowa? This counsel prevailed. The legislature ultimately answered the question in the affirmative and gave the board every cent it asked for." The publication of Carnegie Foundation Bulletin Number Four in June, 1910, created a tremendous furor. I do not believe that any other American educator would have pursued the course that Pritchett took. The results of my observations were summarized in the first part of the Bulletin; in the second part, I dissected the institutions state by state, school by school, giving names and places. Pritchett read the whole, and it was published and widely distributed without emendation. Characteristically, he wrote an urbane introduction, standing by the report in full without apology or explanation. He called for more stringent public opinion, "educational patriotism on the part of institutions of learning," and "medical patriotism on the part of the physician." Without bitterness, he exposed the horrors resulting "from poor schools for poor boys." Without recrimination, but with pitiless exposure of facts, he besought the schools to address themselves to the task of reconstruction. The press of the country did the rest. It accepted the report and Pritchett's recommendations as true and in news columns and editorials denounced the prevailing system. The schools tried vainly to excuse or explain the situation. No one listened to them. In a short time, resentment subsided. Pritchett was requested to address medical gatherings in all parts of the country. His speeches were models of lucidity, kindliness, good temper, but he never uttered a word that might be held to justify or apologize for the conditions pointed out. He became the friend and counselor of those whom the Bulletin criticized without ever once yielding an inch of ground. Since that day American medical schools have been reduced from 155 to about 60. Funds amounting to hundreds of millions have been procured

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for the reorganization of the survivors; a new generation of welltrained young men conducts small schools whose equipment is today among the best in existence. If America now holds the first place in the world in medical education, the credit is due to four great leaders: President Eliot, who from his inauguration in 1869 was interested in the medical school and who had already provided at Harvard splendid laboratories for work in the underlying medical sciences; President Gilman of Johns Hopkins, who from the day he was called to Baltimore in 1873 conceived of the medical school, laboratories and clinics alike, as scientific faculties made up, like the faculty of arts and sciences, of the best talent to be found anywhere in the world; Dr. Welch, who shared Oilman's ideals and knew who and where the men were who should constitute the original faculty of the Johns Hopkins Medical School; and finally Dr. Pritchett, the layman, who comprehended the idea when it was presented to him and who had the courage to pursue a straight course, who enlightened both laymen and the profession, and who in all this won friends for himself and the cause. Ambulando discimus—we learn by going about. In the course of our work on Bulletin Number Four it struck us that, with relatively few exceptions, American teachers of medicine were generally ignorant of European experience. T o be sure, no European school of medicine could be transplanted or imitated; further, the Johns Hopkins Medical School had been created by men who knew the European faculties and had worked under the great masters in England, France, and Germany. But only a small proportion of even well-meaning American physicians and teachers of medicine knew the Johns Hopkins at first hand. T o remedy this situation, it was decided that I should proceed abroad and report on medical education in Germany, England, and France. Bulletin Number Six entitled Medical Education in Europe was the result. Its tone is very different from that of the previous Bulletin. 114

There was more to praise, less to condemn. Moreover, it was written from a different point of view. No effort was made to reform even what was obviously defective abroad, though defects were mentioned as they were encountered. I was seeking for what was better than our own practice, and on that I dwelt with emphasis and in detail. The Bulletin was published in 1912. Pritchett once more contributed an admirable and characteristic introduction. He had carefully assimilated the whole. And once more his original insight was vindicated. Medical education abroad was education, not medical science. It was honest; stringent regulations determined the competency of the students to undertake medical study; adequate facilities—laboratory and clinical—were universal; the state maintained strict oversight. Almost everything that we lacked Europeans everywhere possessed, even though here and there defects—not too serious—were apparent. Pritchett's introduction, written clearly and sympathetically, without animus or bias, summarized the situation in his usual urbane manner. The two Bulletins, published thirty years ago, still circulate. There are few details that are not now obsolete; but the principles underlying medical education were stressed, and these are as pertinent today as when they were formulated in Bulletins Number Four and Six and driven home by Pritchett's introductions. At this point, on Mr. Carnegie's suggestion, Carnegie Corporation transferred to the Carnegie Foundation the sum of $1,250,000 to support its Division of Educational Enquiry. In the next few years Pritchett attacked a variety of subjects. He undertook a study of education in Vermont, a report on which was published in 1914. The Vermont report, the first modern study of all aspects of education in an American commonwealth, set a pattern that was extensively copied. Its own inspiration was to be found in the notable studies of certain English counties made by Sir Michael Sadler some years before. The findings of the Vermont inquiry were thoroughly digested by a ri

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distinguished Vermont Commission, and most of its recommendations were duly enacted into law. The year before this report was published the trustees had approved a plan for the study of legal education, involving not only an examination of existing law schools but of methods of instruction, bar examinations, and the relation of these matters to the quality of legal practice. This study was undertaken by Alfred Z. Reed, who took charge in 1913. Pritchett too hopefully expected that a final report could be prepared in a year and a half. The first World War, 1 9 1 4 - 1 9 1 8 , was a factor that made for delay. But the inquiry was greatly prolonged partly because of two preliminary studies: one, by Professor Josef Redlich of Vienna, which discussed the contentious problem of that day, namely, the case system developed at the Harvard Law School, was issued in December, 1914; the other, a sociological study entitled Justice and the Poor by Reginald Heber Smith, appeared in June, 1919. T o Redlich, law was a philosophical discipline. He had already written (in 1904) an authoritative work on Local Government in England, and another published three years later on The Procedure of the House of Commons. He knew therefore the legal systems in vogue on the Continent and the common law of England. In the space of two months he attended class exercises in ten American law schools. He saw clearly the strength and the weakness of the case system. Pritchett says quite rightly in his Preface that the report "must be read in its entirety to appreciate both the philosophical reach of its treatment, the attention to legal technique and to the practical administration of the law." Redlich found the "case method laid its main emphasis upon precisely that aspect of training which the older text-book school neglected: the training of the student in intellectual independence, in individual thinking, in digging out principles through penetrating analysis of the material found within separate cases. . . . It prepares the student in precisely the way which, in a 116

country of case law, leads to full powers of legal understanding and legal acumen." There lay its strength. B u t Redlich found there also its weakness. " T h e students never obtain a general picture of the law as a whole—not even a picture which includes merely its main features." He recommended therefore an introduction to the entire curriculum which would introduce the student " t o the fundamental concepts and legal ideas common to all divisions of the common law"; and with equal emphasis, he urged at the end of the course a group of lectures "which shall furnish the American law student once more a general summing up and survey of the law." Thus the student would be enabled to see a case against the background of the entire structure. The two courses, which Redlich advocated, would become to the student, as Pritchett viewed the situation, what mathematics and physics, studied as such, mean to the practice of engineering or what "fundamental chemical and biological concepts" mean to the student of "the science as well as the practice of medicine." Mr. Smith in Bulletin Number Thirteen gives as a subtitle " A study of the denial of justice to the poor and of the agencies making more equal their position before the law." T h e "cumbersome or defective machinery," Pritchett points out in his introduction, "goes far to defeat the aims of the law." Mr. Smith lays bare the methods by which the law actually works: he discusses the ideal and contrasts it with the f a c t — t h e equality of justice as against the denial of justice. In a succession of chapters, he analyzes defects of administration, delay, court costs and fees; thereupon he describes agencies which might secure a more equal administration—small claims courts, conciliation, arbitration, domestic relations courts, administrative tribunals, and various types of legal-aid work already in process of development in the United States. Mr. Smith's thoroughgoing exposure of the facts made a deep impression upon a leading American lawyer at that time. Mr. Elihu Root wrote in his Foreword: "This book shows that we have not been performing our duty 117

very satisfactorily and that we ought to bestir ourselves to do better. . . . W e have been so busy about our individual affairs that we have been slow to appreciate the change of conditions which to so great an extent have put justice beyond the reach of the poor. It is time to set our house in order." Mr. Reed's contribution consists of two Bulletins, one dealing with the general topic Training for the Public Profession of the Law, the second called Present-Day Law Schools in the United. States and Canada. T h e former describes in great detail the historical development and principal contemporary problems of legal education in the United States and to some extent in England and Canada; the latter is an exhaustive account of admission requirements, the time element, summer sessions, study in a law office, the curriculum, the elective system, part-time schools, night schools, and concludes with a description of individual law schools by states and provinces. T h e two Bulletins leave nothing to be said as to the facts, and are mines of information for either the present or the future reformer of every aspect of legal education in the United States and Canada. But from the practical point of view which Pritchett had in mind in other bulletins their encyclopedic character was perhaps unfortunate. Mr. Reed is thorough, impartial, judicious, and clear. Thoroughness and impartiality have their place; but though the Bulletins have been widely circulated, their actual effect on legal education has been probably less decisive than would have been the case had the key points been made with greater emphasis. Pritchett was not unaware of the difficulties involved in Mr. Reed's method of treatment. However, he pursued in this instance as in all others his consistent policy—to let the investigator solve his problem in his own way. From his own boyhood and college life Pritchett had been interested in school and college sports. His experience in playing baseball colored his views of sport as long as he lived. He cared for sports that were pursued for fun, although of course even 118

sports pursued for fun must be carried on with a considerable degree of regularity and interest. He tried to impress his conception of the proper place of sportsmanship in an institution of learning upon the students and faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the years in which he served as its president. After he became president of the Carnegie Foundation, he was struck more and more by the exaggerated importance which had come to be attached to sports in the American college, particularly to football, which lends itself very easily to exploitation. The subject was cursorily discussed in two annual reports of the Foundation—the eighteenth and the twentieth—and in Bulletin Number Eighteen, but Pritchett was not satisfied until he had secured a thorough study of the whole subject. He chose Mr. Howard J . Savage to make the study. Mr. Savage had first seen Pritchett in 1923. The point that stands out most clearly in his memory of their initial interview is Pritchett's insistence on the fact "that the staff of the Foundation consisted of persons who were merely students of education and that there was no disposition on anyone's part to set up as an authority." To this conception Pritchett recurred frequently and emphatically in the course of a half-hour's interview. Savage regarded its iteration as "certainly a wholesome premise." On a spring day in 1925 Pritchett, inviting Savage into his office, asked whether it was true that he and his wife were expecting to spend part of the autumn abroad. Savage's affirmative reply led Pritchett to say, " I n that case I wish you would go to England after your holiday and look at the athletic sports in the universities and write a report." This incident was the real start of the Foundation's athletic study. In compliance with various requests, especially one from the National Collegiate Athletic Association, it was authorized by the executive committee in January, 1926. After the meeting, Pritchett notified Savage of the action taken. " Y o u will handle this study and be in charge." It was as simple as that. Savage 119

enjoyed complete freedom. He and his chief talked from time to time about this institution or that, this practice or that. B u t Pritchett never insisted upon his own point of view even when it ran counter to that of Savage and his collaborators. Indeed, when Bulletin Number Twenty-three appeared in 1929, Pritchett wrote an introduction urging that the "paid coach" was the root of the evil, while the Bulletin itself took a quite different view. Pritchett made no effort to persuade the investigators of the soundness of his view as opposed to theirs, nor did he use the slightest pressure. If he was pained by the diversity of opinions, he did not show it; he respected the integrity and assiduousness of his chosen associates. Savage's staff, consisting first and last of five members, visited 1 3 0 schools, colleges, and universities and through frequent discussion and conference endeavored to preserve a single point of view and a careful use of descriptive or critical terms. Only those who have read the Bulletin can appreciate the number and variety of phenomena that have grown in and out of college athletics. L o y a l t y to the university ought to mean primarily loyalty to its intellectual advantages. Such is the case in the professional schools of law and medicine in the New World as well as the Old. B u t the American boy is not yet as a rule sufficiently mature to realize the overwhelming importance of intellectual training as against the various forms of enjoyment—some harmless, some harmful—that are open to him when he leaves home and goes to college where he is on his own. T h e problem therefore of subordinating athletics to intellectual training will be solved only when parents, alumni, teachers, and the press all combine to put the successful athlete in his proper and legitimate place. The struggle to bring this about is going to be long and severe, for it involves the education of the American public, the financing of colleges and universities on the basis of intellectual performance, and various other steps, all of which are connected with maturity. Bulletin Number Twenty-three clears up all the subterfuge and

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indefiniteness with which discussions of college athletics have been carried on in this country for the last half century or more. The subject haunted Pritchett even in retirement. He wrote Savage from Santa Barbara on February 20, 1934: "To my thinking one of the worst features of American football lies in the fact that the players are put under the supervision of a trainer who is not, as a rule, a cultivated man but who has such chances to influence them and to mold their character as no professor can expect to have. In this lies, to my thinking, a good deal of the objection to commercial football or to any form of college sport which involves the handing over of undergraduates to uncultivated men." In 1936 he wrote President Gaines of Washington and Lee University: "The question in my mind is whether college games have not been so saturated with the professional spirit that they cannot be rescued from that present low state and put back into the hands of boys to manage as games without a capital operation. Such changes as are contained in the resolutions that you mention are a step in the right direction, and I hope something of the kind will be done by all colleges. . . . What I would like to see would be a moratorium declared on football by all the better colleges of the United States for a period of a few years, during which the game might be got back into the hands of boys to be played for pleasure and under the management of the boys themselves, not of professionals. . . . I believe there is no greater obligation today on college presidents than to reform this situation. It can be done at any time that the college people have the courage and good sense to stand together and say, 'no professional coaches, no gate receipts.' In other words, take the commercial profit out of it." On the other hand, President Butler of Columbia, which had abolished football in 1905, took the more conservative and less alarming view in writing to Pritchett at Santa Barbara in 1934: "Do not disturb yourself about football at Columbia. We did 121

all the things you wish for twenty-nine years ago and they have stayed 'done.' W e have never since been troubled in any wise. T h e newspapers treated the Columbia-Stanford game as if it were a new world war, but nothing which might be done by anyone here could possibly alter that highly emotional situation. There is, with us, no question of the enormous gate receipts of former times and there has been none for a long time past. T h e young men, all of excellent scholastic standing, who so much enjoyed their trans-continental trip lost but a single day of academic attendance, and if let alone by the newspapers will be greatly benefited and in no sense injured by their interesting and unique experience. Their homes were in states as widely separated as Massachusetts and Texas, but it so happened that not a single one of them had ever been to the Pacific Coast before. T h e y behaved themselves very well and are now chiefly concerned with passing their mid-year examinations, all of which is as it should be." Careful reading of the Savage report and Pritchett's letters and papers, continuing at intervals into his years of retirement, leads to the conclusion that, while Pritchett was correct in most of his strictures and criticisms, he had oversimplified the problem by adhering to his own experience as a student and teacher in St. Louis. A return to the conditions of that time is impossible; too many additional threads have become interwoven. The solution lies in the future, not in the past. T h e group of phenomena known as college athletics was, as a matter of fact, more complicated than Pritchett had supposed to be the case. It has been already pointed out that in setting up a system of retiring allowances Pritchett walked a hitherto untraveled path and that mistakes were bound to be made before he reached the main highroad. Precisely the same situation occurred as Pritchett puzzled over the criteria to be employed in deciding whether an institution, whatever it called itself, deserved to be regarded as a college or a university. Conditions were confused; ideals were 122

practically nonexistent. Yet he had to act. Certain well-known colleges and institutions were at once placed on the "accepted list." How was he to deal with the others? Fortunately, the New York State Board of Regents had developed a working formula: a college was, in their definition, an institution, the faculty of which contained at least six professors giving full time to their teaching and research, which offered a course of four full years of instruction in liberal arts and sciences, and which required for admission not less than four years of high-school training in addition to preacademic or grammar-school studies. In order to judge what constitutes a four-year high school the Foundation adopted the plan used by the College Entrance Examination Board, which employed quantitative units. A subject, like plane geometry, studied for five hours weekly, constituted one unit—one fourth of a year's work. Fourteen to sixteen such units, made up of English, mathematics, modern or ancient languages, history, science, and so on, constituted a high-school course. Institutions on the accepted list had thus to meet these mechanical requirements, which soon came to be known as the "Carnegie units." Pritchett could not have done better. Under existing circumstances the enforcement of these standards did much good. But from the first the unit system was criticized on the ground of its exclusively quantitative character. For a while Pritchett saw no alternative. But in 1913, he invited William S. Learned to become a member of the staff, after sending him as an exchange teacher to Germany where he made a study of the Oberlehrer in the German Gymnasium. Learned had been graduated at Brown University in 1897. After some years as master and headmaster in secondary schools, he had studied at Berlin and Leipzig and in 1912 had received his Ph.D. at Harvard. The trend of his thinking was made clear by his essay on the Oberlehrer. In it he not only traced the rise of the professional secondary-school teacher but also endeavored to outline what America might, if it would, learn from the experience of the old Germany. America could not 123

imitate Germany; but it could learn, just as our universities and medical schools had learned. Aside from details of organization and administration, Learned's essay stressed the need of sound scholarship and deep professional consciousness. From that day to this he has been a leading exponent of the fundamental importance of the mastery of subject matter. "Knowledge is power." Other things, to be sure, the teacher requires and can acquire; without knowledge he is lost. The studies which Learned has printed mainly through the Carnegie Foundation since 1914 are many and varied: they deal with the quality of the educational process in the United States and in Europe; the professional preparation of teachers for American public schools; education in the maritime provinces; the student and his knowledge; responsible learning. All these he undertook at Pritchett's behest. In the field of teacher training, Pritchett enabled Learned with his colleagues, William C. Bagley and others, to make a thoroughgoing study in Missouri. The study revealed the fact—as true elsewhere as in Missouri—that schools for the training of teachers do not, as a rule, attract the more competent high-school teachers; it showed the shortcomings in respect to scholarship of the faculties of these institutions, the unsatisfactory results of the elective system, the shallowness of many so-called "professional courses," the perfunctory nature of student-teaching, and other important defects. The Missouri survey caused reverberations in teachers colleges far from Missouri. For example, it led Teachers College of Columbia University to establish a graduate department for the study of specialized problems involved in teacher training. Following the general pattern of the Missouri study, state and city surveys have been widely undertaken by local authorities throughout the country. In the study of the relations between high school and college in Pennsylvania, Learned with his associates planned a practical attack on college procedure and its fundamental assumptions.

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He raised the issue of quality as opposed to quantity. He pointed to our smoothly molded curriculum, over which students are conducted as painlessly as possible, with administrative checks on attendance, but no real inspection of qualitative educational results. Elementary schools, high schools, and colleges in America seem to exist each for its own sake; there is little consciousness that all three must work together to contribute to the production of intelligent and well-informed individuals, as Pritchett had always believed. A single process runs through all, and this the Pennsylvania study sought to prove by taking stock now and then of the qualitative results. Individuals differ greatly in their appropriation of ideas; but schools and colleges are usually organized on the assumption that differences are negligible and that more or less uniformity is the rule. The standards in actual use brought together groups with divergent traits, abilities, and achievements. The tendency of Learned's study was therefore to discredit the petty class and course regulations out of which the four-year college had been built up. Knowledge is admittedly not everything, but inasmuch as the college course is based on knowing this, that, or the other subject, it would seem that administrators would welcome the effort to find out just what their students know. But so habituated have most teachers become to the easy-going use of grade A, grade B, and so on, for knowledge briefly studied and soon forgotten that the average institution rather resented a really penetrating analysis of the student's scholarship. The very title of the inquiry, The Relations of Secondary and Higher Education in Pennsylvania, implied the continuity of the educational process rather than the conception of education as a structure with horizontal compartments. Education is an individual affair not to be achieved through organization, administrative formulae, or curriculum patterns. The Pennsylvania study also gave objective proof of the futility of a large part of conventional teacher training. Largely under the ingenious direc-

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tion of one of Learned's associates, Dr. Ben D. Wood, it resulted in several outstanding examples of implementation, first used or directly influenced by the investigation. For example, the Cooperative Test Service of the American Council on Education is directly traceable to the results obtained by objective tests during the early years of the survey. A considerable part was played in promoting the Educational Records Bureau, long since become a vigorous, self-supporting organization for educational measurement. The cumulative record has enabled teachers to visualize the continuity, complexity, and variability of the growing pupil. Finally, the study was instrumental in developing and securing financial support for the electric test-scoring machine, a unique device that not only reduces drudgery and expense, but has become an indispensable aid in research. By way of illustrating the enlarged usefulness of such tabulating and accounting machines beyond the educational field, one operator and one tabulator did in six months lunar computations which had once at Yale required twenty-six years to complete and had involved enormous expense. These expansions and by-products flowed naturally and rapidly from Pritchett's original point of view. There is a deep-seated prejudice among teachers as to the validity and scope of tests and measurements, though there are signs that it is disappearing. Charts in the form of zigzag graphs showing a student's achievement from year to year in different subjects, to be sure, look artificial; but let the significance of these irregular lines be explained. Soon the zigzag becomes a human being; one perceives patterns of behavior, response, effort. The chart visualizes what a teacher gifted with sympathy or intuition has more vaguely learned from his own experience in dealing with youth. The teacher need no longer grope, guess, and try empirically. The attainment of the student in respect to his knowledge is concretely depicted, and the teacher does not work in the dark. On the other hand, Learned himself would be the first to 126

recognize the limitations of measurement: it tells nothing of the background, temperament, creative powers, and outlook of the individual whose specific achievements it so carefully records. Other sensational results emerged during the six years in which the study was carried on. For example, it was proved that a large proportion of college students just ready to become highschool teachers were demonstrably less well informed than a considerable proportion of high-school seniors. In general, educational values, already supposed to be valid, the superiority of certain institutions, already believed in, and the selective power of certain curricula were amply supported. But, on the other hand, the emptiness of artificial standards, both among and within institutions, the vast disparities of student achievement misbranded as identical and the futility of a so-called education that was never tested as to its durability or genuineness, all these were clearly revealed. In the light of these results, many institutions that were frequently tested modified their procedures; Pennsylvania is today by far the largest purchaser of educational tests of any state in the Union. Both within and outside that state, comprehensive examinations, honors systems, and the like, have been set up. Many other forces contribute to this movement towards higher quality; but the Pennsylvania study that Pritchett backed was and still is an important factor. In exposing so dramatically the fallacies of credits, degrees, and "units," the Foundation once more destroyed one of its own props. Pritchett had had to find some tool or measure in order to start an accepted list. Twenty years later the Foundation itself proved that a better tool could be made. Gradually therefore the unit, together with its attendant "credits," is disappearing from educational use. Other consequences have followed, such as the adoption by one city after another of a cooperative test which all wishing to teach must pass satisfactorily, well in advance of receiving an appointment.

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In the Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Foundation, President Suzzallo, Pritchett's immediate successor, and Mr. Learned after reviewing the history of the units state: "Today, none recognizes more clearly than the Foundation that these standards have served their purpose. With changed conditions and sharper and more wieldy tools, such expedients become obsolete. T h e y should undoubtedly give place to more flexible, more individual, more exact and revealing standards of performance as rapidly as these may be achieved. T h e Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching looks with favor upon any and all means of judging qualifications for college admission which recent widespread experiment, scientifically and practically appraised, reveals as distinctly better than previous methods. A system of continuous individual records, including information about every phase of student interest and accomplishment, represents a decided advance over any basis for college admission previously in use. Certainly it is a marked improvement upon the 'unit' system which in the early years of the present century began to bring order into the much confused situation respecting admission to college." As a matter of fact, the Foundation has with absolute candor been the most effective critic of the framework which was empirically devised in order to get the Foundation going. N o one was more sympathetic than Pritchett himself.

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The Annual Reports I N A D D I T I O N to the Carnegie Foundation bulletins dealing with medical education, dental education, engineering education, college athletics, educational standards, and various aspects of the pension problem, Pritchett issued during his presidency twenty-five annual reports. Though the pension problem was intricate and troublesome, his deeper interest lay in the improvement of higher education in the new world. Writing to President Jessup on February 20, 1934, shortly after Jessup had accepted the position of president of the Foundation, Pritchett said: "One of the fine things about the presidency of the Carnegie Foundation is the great freedom of speech the president has. He has no constituency like a great body of alumni on his back. The trustees have got pretty well inured to the notion that the president can take up any subject in education he pleases without wounding their feelings. First and last, I had to get after the medical schools of a good many of these trustees, so that was good training for them. Whether it is wise for a man to have as great freedom to air his opinions as all this comes to is another matter. I do think, however, it means much in American education to have at least one agency free of the pressure of any particular group of men, and the presidency of the Carnegie Foundation comes as near that as anything I know." As regards pensions and retirement, Pritchett's reports were usually divided into sections, the first of which discussed the working, adaptation, and improvement of the Foundation's retiring allowances. The second section dealt usually with pension systems in use in industry or in foreign institutions. Pritchett was not, of course, an actuary, but he was an excellent mathematician. He therefore readily grasped the technical problems con-

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nected with pension systems and retiring allowances, and his lucidity of mind and style enabled him to discuss with clarity the problems involved. A third section of his reports usually recurred to one of the bulletins which had either recently been issued or was in process of preparation. In addition to his own intuitive sense, he possessed very remarkable absorptive powers and in quick succession mastered the principles and details of the various topics with which the successive bulletins dealt. Knowing as he well did that the bulletins themselves would probably not be widely read in their entirety, he selected from year to year some aspect of professional education or college activity and subjected it to wholesome scrutiny. He was generous in giving credit to the sources from which data and aid had been received in the preparation of the several bulletins. There are few better essays on one or another phase of the subjects more fully treated in the Foundation bulletins than are contained in these successive annual reports. Pritchett had a keen appreciation of what is really important. He wrote fluently though at times with perhaps excessive prolixity. He was always clear and definite, while at the same time preserving a friendly attitude towards educational organizers and administrators. It is impossible in the scope of a memoir to do justice to the persistence with which he dwelt upon outstanding points or to the breadth of interest which he displayed in viewing the American educational scene. A few illustrations, however, will show his attitude at the same time that they throw a strong light upon his personality. F o r example, in institutions conducted and controlled by the state he soon became aware of the fact that it was extremely difficult for a governor, politically chosen, and a board of regents chosen in the same w a y to keep politics out of the state universities and other institutions. In 1908, when the Foundation was only two years of age, two state universities—the University of Wyoming and the University of the new State of Oklahoma— 130

had come under political control. In the former a president had been summarily dismissed; in the latter a number of professors had been expelled. Pritchett went to Oklahoma to study the situation on the ground, and his Third Report contains his comments on the situation in general and in particular on the University of Oklahoma. While it was quite obvious that the board of regents and the governor had acted badly, Pritchett's detailed account does not contain a harsh or bitter word. Indeed, he said: "The careful examination which I have made of the whole matter leaves in my mind no doubt of the high standing and good intentions of the board. It would be difficult to select a group of more intelligent and well intentioned citizens." Thereupon he describes the condition in which the relatively new state had been built up, the considerations which had led to the location of the state university and other state supported institutions, and the various petty complaints which drifted to the ears of the members of the board, who, as he said, "decided that the university was morally in a bad way and they were called on to clean it up." He points out in simple and convincing language the fundamental error of confusing government with administration—a distinction which he made time and again in the course of his activity. "The board," he argues, "was appointed to govern, for which they were competent, but instead of governing they undertook to administer, a task for which they were unfit. The proper work of the board," he goes on to say, "is to choose a president. Having done so, the internal affairs of the institution must be left to the president and his faculty." In simple language he states that "a well meaning board, appointed to govern and cherish the university, has struck it a blow from which it will take years to recover." The note which is perhaps most frequent in his reports is his plea for educational sincerity. He hated pretense. If an institu131

tion announced in the catalogue that it would admit students only on the basis of a four-year high-school education, Pritchett believed that honesty required it to abide by the letter of its own law. His primary interest in professional schools arose from his interest in ascertaining what their requirements for admission were and whether the school strictly enforced them. He often ventured upon controversial ground as, for example, when in one of his early reports he discusses the relation between religious denominations and the colleges which they had supported. He described and evaluated the work of the Presbyterian College Board, the Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Congregational Education Society, the Board of Education of the Reformed Church in America. He does not conceal his satisfaction when he is able to quote the secretary of the Congregational Board as saying, "When a college has reached maturity and feels that it can go alone and states to the society that it wishes to be independent, then the society will probably accede to its request." It might have occurred to a lesser man to use the retiring allowance to put pressure upon institutions to mend their ways or to live up to their words. This he never did, and there is not the slightest reason to believe that he ever thought of doing so. It would have been unworthy; that was enough, so far as Pritchett was concerned. If he called attention to inconsistencies between promises and practices, he invariably preserved his good temper. Meanwhile, having interested himself in professional problems, he did not easily let go of any that he undertook. He studied the effect of the bulletins issued on these topics as well as the effect of other agencies and influences, and in successive reports devoted many pages to recording his judgment and to pointing out the road along which progress could alone take place. But whether his advice was taken or not, there is no evidence in any of his reports of annoyance or disappointment. From these successive reports ranging over a period of a quar132

ter of a century it would be easy to make up a volume which would discuss lucidly and convincingly the fundamental principles underlying the development of American secondary and higher education. The points he made year after year have lost none of their validity with the passage of time. On the other hand, annual reports are, except for specific purposes, forbidding documents. A volume carefully chosen to represent in moderate compass Pritchett's critical thought and advice would be frequently resorted to by persons charged with educational responsibility. The volume might also contain some of the papers dealing now with education, now with politics, and again with miscellaneous topics which he contributed from time to time to the Atlantic Monthly and other journals.* Such a selection would include a very important section of Pritchett's Second Annual Report in which he emphasizes the fact that the Carnegie Foundation is "an educational agency." I doubt whether the beneficiaries of the Foundation realized for many years after its establishment that the educational exposition which Pritchett used was more important in the long run to American education than the beneficence of the Foundation in providing through its own funds and through its example a comfortable old age for those connected with our higher institutions of learning. More than this, it is not possible to estimate how largely the institution of old age pensions in industry and finally in general social security was accelerated by the retiring allowance system of which Pritchett was the author. The same report contains what is one of the earliest discussions of the loose use of the terms "university" and "college," and an account of the evolution of the American type of university. Pritchett recognizes fully the unique opportunity that arose in America immediately after the close of the Civil War and the epoch-making work of President Charles W. Eliot, who, beginning in 1869, during a period of forty years transformed Harvard College, with its * Appendix I I contains such a selection.

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loosely organized and unrelated professional schools, into H a r vard University, of which the professional schools are an integral part. He does full justice to the stimulus given by institutions like the Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago, neither of which was a growth, both of which were "established out of hand by large gifts with no traditions back of them," thus giving them a "certain advantage over the older colleges in the creation of a university atmosphere." B y the time Pritchett's Third Annual Report was issued he had already struck out in the fields of professional education. He discussed professional standards, the interest of the public in bringing them to a high level, and, very significantly, the business of law and medicine versus the profession of law and medicine. T w o years later his mind turned to the problem of the relations of colleges and secondary schools, their quarrels with one another and the views of an outsider, the light thrown upon the problem by college entrance tests, and, once more prophetically, the testimony of the Oxford tutors. His mind was obviously already playing with the idea which ultimately led to Learned's scientific studies in this field. T h e next year he discusses medicine, engineering, law, theology, and the rise of the graduate schools. T h e Nineteenth Annual Report, issued in 1924, is in some respects the most interesting of the entire series. H a v i n g surveyed the progress of previous years, Pritchett raises the important question as to what progress really is. He says, " T h e essential question concerning which mankind desires to be satisfied relates not so much to the speed at which it m a y travel as to the direction in which it is going and the destination at which it expects to arrive." He records the achievements of the preceding fifty years and some of the by-products of the educational advance. Realizing that progress has resulted in enormously increased expenditures and the creation of a complex educational machine, he points out

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the importance of accurately defining the function of the various units and the strategic position which the secondary school holds. Up to 1924 the annual reports contained no by-lines. The single signature of Pritchett at the end of the running text of the president's report was the only indication of authorship or responsibility; but the field covered by the reports was so wide and varied that it became obvious to Pritchett that, as he had utilized the experience of his associates, the reports would gain in weight and authority if some of the sections were signed by those mainly responsible for them. As Mr. Clyde Furst, when secretary, once pointed out, without individual signatures there were two dangers: first, the president of the Foundation might appear to be laying claim to excessively detailed technical knowledge—a situation which might become a source of embarrassment to him; the second arose from the fact that Pritchett did not wholly subscribe to some of the views expressed in the various sections of his report. An officer of the Foundation says: "The following facts are to be noted emphatically: never to my knowledge did Dr. Pritchett try to alter in a report the contributor's views or to get him to change them if they grew out of the underlying inquiries, never tried to dictate views of his own to a contributor, and never failed outwardly to respect the views expressed by one of his men. At the same time his own views were sometimes far more radical than his staff members' inquiries permitted them to hold." It has been remarked that in the course of the average week during his active career Pritchett saw and talked with many persons, men and women at his office and his clubs, at social gatherings, at Santa Fe and other board meetings, at dinners, on the street. From every one of them he collected a view, an impression, a question, a plea. He was an inveterate and insatiable prober of opinion, individual and public. He much preferred to talk to an author or an expert than to read his book, although a little careI3S

fully chosen reading was a daily ration. His conversation was never one-sided; like President Eliot, he loved to listen and to question. In this way he came to know what intelligent people with whom he was on terms of intimacy were thinking, saying, and doing. We are thus enabled to understand in part his breadth of knowledge and interest, the accuracy of many of his predictions, and the quality of his opinions. Conversations with Senator Root, with the Santa Fe divisional superintendents in the directors' car on the transcontinental shift, with M r . Charles A. Stone, President Butler, Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Vanderlip, and others might have taken place within a week. Whatever men were doing had meaning for him. What the persons with whom he came in contact thought or did or hoped, opposed or advocated, kept his mind fresh and his powers of thinking well nourished. When he had his idea well assimilated, he was ready to put his words on paper. T h e ease with which his writing can be read should not deceive the reader, for Pritchett wrote and rewrote time and again until he felt satisfied with the result; but he did not write at all until he was perfectly clear as to his thesis, and having become clear he did not hesitate to repeat and reiterate. When his reports were in confidential proof, his associates hacked at them with absolute freedom and conscientiousness. Pritchett was therefore not infrequently bombarded, but his behavior under bombardment was magnificent. He appreciated collaboration and freely adopted proposals for change. He did not resist suggestions; he was far more likely to ponder them and finally in many cases to accept them after meticulously sifting and weighing them.

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Carnegie Corporation of N e w York

B E F O R E creating the Carnegie Foundation, Mr. Carnegie had founded and endowed four other American institutions, already mentioned, which were intended to serve designated fields. Carnegie Corporation of N e w Y o r k ( 1 9 1 1 ) , the last and largest of the trusts, was left free to apply its income to any purpose which might, in the judgment of its trustees, promote "the advancement and diffusion of knowledge." When Mr. Carnegie retired from the presidency of the Corporation, he was succeeded in 1920 by Dr. James R. Angell. A year later Dr. Angell accepted the presidency of Yale University; Pritchett was acting president from 1921 to 1923, when Mr. Frederick P. Keppel was chosen as president. While the search for a president was in progress, Mrs. Carnegie, under date of February 24,1921, wrote Pritchett from Princeton, New Jersey, where she was spending a brief vacation, deploring Angell's resignation and showing how much she relied on Pritchett and Root to find the proper successor. Among other things she says: "Just when Dr. Angell had taken such splendid control of affairs, his resignation is an overwhelming loss to us. Of course, the presidency of Yale was too great an honor to be refused. Y a l e is certainly to be congratulated. M y sympathy for you and Mr. Root is very great, for it is to you we must look for a new president. The affairs of the Corporation are in such a difficult condition just now. If the Corporation is to have any vitality of its own, it seems as though we should settle liberally but for all time the policy and development of the different Carnegie interests. This is no easy matter. T h e y are like children and look to their parents for support and to a certain extent I feel they are right. It is difficult to know where one's responsibility ends."

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There is nothing in writing or in print which shows precisely the relation which Mr. Carnegie expected to exist between Carnegie Corporation and other institutions founded by him, but Mrs. Carnegie's significant words must not be overlooked—a "vitality of its own." In the thirty-one years which have elapsed since its founding, the Corporation has frequently found it advantageous to use its sister trusts as agencies through which its own larger purposes might be realized; indeed, a recent analysis of grants, prepared by the secretary of the Corporation, shows that approximately one-third of the total income of the Corporation has been so used. T h a t this course was consonant with Mr. Carnegie's own wishes is revealed both by grants to the other trusts made during his presidency of the Corporation and by the reference to "hero funds," "scientific research," and "technical schools," in the letter of gift which created the new trust. But as to any expressed or implied obligation on the part of the Corporation to use its funds solely and chiefly for the support of the other endowments, the record bears out the following statement which President Keppel made in announcing the last of a series of generous grants to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: " T h e several trusts created by Mr. Carnegie are wholly independent of one another. No one of them is under the slightest legal obligation to aid any of the others, except as it may voluntarily agree to do so." When the Corporation was transferred from Mr. Carnegie's home to a separate suite of offices adjoining those of the Carnegie Foundation, Mr. Carnegie gradually rid himself of responsibility. T h e process of converting Carnegie Corporation from a purely personal agency to an institution which viewed opportunities and requests from a broader point of view was, however, not easy. It involved inevitably the definition of policies and the discovery of methods which would enable the officers and trustees of the Corporation to act with an increasing amount of objectivity. Be138

tween those who had been in closest personal contact with Mr. Carnegie's gifts as made in his own home and those who, gradually managing an evolution which looked forward to the time when Mr. Carnegie would lose touch with details, there was inevitably a period of stress and strain which was felt deeply by both Pritchett and the others involved. Up to the present time the Corporation has given to related Carnegie agencies the sum of approximately Î72,000,000. When Mr. Carnegie died in 1919, the Corporation board of trustees was composed of the heads of the five Carnegie institutions in addition to Mr. Franks, Mr. Bertram, and Mr. John A. Poynton, who were close personal friends and members of his personal staff. Pritchett records a conversation touching the constitution of the Corporation board of trustees while Mr. Carnegie was still engaged in planning it. Mr. Carnegie had decided that he would appoint as trustees the heads of the institutions bearing his name, having been led to this conclusion by the notion that the five boards, diversely constituted as they were, could be trusted to select able and unselfish men as their presidents and that these men would also serve the Corporation competently as trustees. Pritchett called his attention to two objections: first, that the institutional trustees would be put into the position of dual roles, each being both a distributor and a beneficiary of the fund; and second, that constituting a majority, should they decide to combine, they could completely control the board. These questions did not seem to Mr. Carnegie to carry much weight. He therefore kept to his intention. The institutional trustees were a majority, though as long as Mr. Carnegie acted as chairman, he by himself constituted a "majority." Writing in 1931 on the subject of the history of the first twenty years of the Carnegie Corporation, Pritchett tells the following story: " M r . Carnegie's original intention was to leave the bulk of his fortune to a Corporation to be formed after his death. Mr. Root 139

advised against this and pointed to the example of the Tilden will, under which M r . Tilden undertook to do precisely the same thing. B y the time the courts got through with this will there was nothing left of the charitable trust M r . Tilden had sought to found. Organize your trust in your own lifetime, was M r . Root's advice. Put into it only a limited sum if you so determine. I t will be a duly incorporated going concern ready to undertake the administration of any funds you may by will devise. M r . Carnegie wisely accepted this advice and later decided to transfer to it the bulk of his remaining fortune and to give in the future through this Corporation. Naturally, M r . Carnegie desired to administer these funds himself during his lifetime. T h e organization of the Corporation was set up with this in view. T h e trustees were all his intimate associates. T h e executive committee consisted of M r . Carnegie, Mr. Franks, and M r . Bertram. T h e board met once a year, and between the annual meetings the executive committee had all the powers of the board. In a word, during this first period the Corporation was practically Mr. Carnegie himself. This was as it should be and was gladly accepted by the board. " M r . Carnegie had grown accustomed to giving out of capital. He tore off huge blocks—usually ten millions at a time. Giving out of income, even that of a $ 125,000,000 endowment, was somewhat irksome to him. " N o t long after the Corporation had been organized he telephoned me to step in a moment after breakfast. ( I lived next door.) " I found him walking up and down his library in a fine humor. (The decision to make a great gift was always an exhilarating moment to him.) " 'Pritchett,' said he, ' I have decided to give ten millions to a foundation I am about to create in Britain'—Mr. Carnegie never said England—'and I want Franks to arrange to fund it through the Carnegie Corporation.'

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" I replied that it would be quite possible to do this out of income in two years but not out of principal. This did not suit him, since it meant stopping all other giving from the Corporation for that period of time. He was of the opinion that this could be given out of principal if all the trustees agreed. I promised to bring Elihu up to talk to him on the matter. In trouble we always fell back on Elihu. Mr. Root was then in the Senate, but the first time he came to New York we went to call on Mr. Carnegie. Mr. Root made it clear that if we made any such grant from the Corporation endowment we would be personally liable. Then it developed that Mr. Carnegie had promised the ten millions. Rather than wait two years he took it out of his own pile, which by that time was reduced to a moderate fortune. It made him cautious in the future. "As an administrator Mr. Carnegie made a great record. He drew no salary, not even the $5,000 to which he was entitled as a trustee. The Corporation paid no rent. The overhead for the first year was $305.47 and the surplus from income something over two millions. Neither President Angell nor President Keppel [nor, I may add, Pritchett himself] with all their ability, had been able to approximate this record." Pritchett continued to feel the urgency of enlarging the board of trustees so as to provide some means of bringing in fresh views as to the causes upon which the Corporation might bestow the income of its great endowment. Three years after Mr. Carnegie's death it was decided to increase the number of trustees to a total of fifteen members, including six ex officiis—all to serve without salary. He conceived of the trustees as highly qualified men drawn from various groups—a great physicist or historian or author, a social worker, an economist or a business man of imagination—each to serve for a term of five years and to be succeeded by some person from some other field. His notion was that in this way the original trustees would still remain the permanent core of the governing body, but that the outlook of the board would

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be broadened and that its judgment as to what were fruitful agencies would be clarified and widened. He felt that it was greatly to the credit of the institutional trustees that they consented to this dilution of their powers; as a matter of fact, experience has shown that the term members are through successive reelection to all effects and purposes life members. During the rest of his active life Pritchett showed keen interest in the development of the Corporation. Writing Mrs. Carnegie on April 16, 1923, as she was starting for Scotland, he says: " I hope that you are to have a happy and restful time and that it m a y bring you the solution of some problems which you must be anxious to get out of the way. Before you return, m y term as acting president of the Corporation will have ended and the responsibility will be turned over to the new president who, I hope, will have a long and wise administration. I have taken a certain satisfaction in carrying the work of acting president for two years and particularly because it was a labor of love without financial consideration and out of the hope of rendering some service to secure the plans and hopes of our Founder. I am, however, v e r y glad to get back to undivided attention to the work of the Foundation. There are one or two studies in progress that I hope to complete. I am sixty-six years old today and another year or two will see me ready to surrender the Foundation and its child, the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, to other and younger hands. I have a horror of old men who hang on too long." A few months later he writes Mrs. Carnegie from Santa Barbara: " I find these separations from the pressure of N e w Y o r k very fruitful both in the w a y of health and in the w a y of work. It is not easy to view problems in perspective when one is in the middle of executive detail. There is just one drawback to coming to Santa Barbara: people in the West have gradually learned that this is my summer habitat and the number of visitations 142

which I receive from those who desire to get assistance or talk over educational problems constantly grows." A month later he writes Mrs. Carnegie again: " I have just returned from an interesting visit to the Mt. Wilson Observatory and to the research laboratories in Pasadena which the Carnegie Corporation has been assisting. It was a most inspiring visit. Dr. Adams, who has succeeded Hale as the director of the observatory, is a very able man and is working on the problems planned and begun by Hale. Also the researches of Dr. Noyes and Dr. Millikan with their associates in Pasadena, on the constitution of matter, are making great progress. No one can tell to what important results these researches may lead or how practical they may be in affording to the human race a form of energy that will take up a great part of the hard physical work of the world. Y o u will also be interested to know that in the chemical side of the research work, they are doing very interesting things in the study of the new substance, insulin, used in the treatment of diabetes. Our chemists are trying to go much further than the doctors have gone and to discover what is the essential substance in insulin which produces the effect." While acting as president of the Corporation in 1 9 2 1 - 2 3 , Pritchett prepared two successive reports with Mr. William S. Learned, his colleague in the Foundation. His first report as acting president emphasizes the fact that a foundation cannot always accomplish its purposes by means of annual appropriations from current income. He continues: "The [Corporation] has conceived its function to be not that of an operating agency in itself, but rather that of an agency charged with the duty of studying and estimating those forces and institutions that make for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge in English-speaking North America, and of aiding these institutions in such measures as may be possible within the 143

income of the Corporation, having care always to the fact that the income of this foundation is to be a liquid asset for each generation. " I t goes without saying that such an agency cannot always accomplish its purposes merely by appropriating year by year from its current income. In order to deal with great and important causes, it is necessary to use a budget period somewhat longer than a single year, but in general the Corporation restricts itself, in the support even of the largest enterprises, to a limited budget period, and by a resolution recently adopted, has determined that expenditures should not usually be based upon an income extending over a period of more than five years. " I t is the difficult duty of the Corporation to select with discrimination from the many well-intentioned efforts, those that seem in their judgment most likely to make the greatest contribution to knowledge and understanding among the people of the United States." In this connection Pritchett discusses the science of giving. T h e older economists, among them Adam Smith and Turgot, expressed grave doubt as to the wisdom of continuing trusts even when they were devoted to charitable and educational purposes. Turgot is quoted as saying: " B u t of whatever utility a Foundation might be at its conception, it bears within itself an irremediable defect which belongs to its very nature—the impossibility of maintaining its fulfilment. Founders deceive themselves vastly if they imagine that their zeal can be communicated from age to age to persons employed to perpetuate its effects. There is no body that has not in the long run lost the spirit of its first origin." In answer to Turgot, Pritchett states: "Present-day conditions offer a larger opportunity and no doubt a sounder justification for the creation of such foundations than any previous epoch in the world's history. In the first place, greater fortunes have been gathered by single individuals, thus 144

affording the basis for the formation of an agency that may perpetuate the author's desire for human improvement. In the second place, the conditions of civilized life are enormously more complex while, at the same time, the peoples of the world are knit together in an economic interdependence such as was unknown a century and a half ago. Under these conditions it is fair to assume that there may be found a true function for the trust established by accumulated wealth which may justify its continued and indefinite existence. This problem is now being tried out in the United States on a scale never before attempted in any country of the world." However, in the midst of the present global war in which all previous records have already been shattered, in which the number of men, the number of countries, the burden of taxation upon income, inheritance, and sales call for sums totaling unheard of amounts, one may well doubt whether the perspective from which Turgot, Adam Smith, and Pritchett viewed the future of foundations will continue to be maintained. When the Johns Hopkins University and Hospital were founded seventy-five years ago, each with an endowment of $3,500,000, public opinion was practically unable to take in the boundless possibilities which a gift of this size might achieve. Twenty-five years later an endowment of $ 10,000,000 was less startling than the sums which Mr. Johns Hopkins had bequeathed to each of the institutions which he founded. During the first year of Pritchett's acting presidency of the Corporation the grants voted were miscellaneous and with few exceptions small, though their total reached the sum of almost $3,000,000. Undoubtedly every one of them relieved a temporary emergency, but very few were large enough to make any considerable difference beyond mere relief. The largest gift was that of $1,650,000 over a ten-year period to found an institute of economics in Washington, which later with gifts from Mr. Brookings and others became the Brookings Institution. On the other hand, 145

the gift of $8,000 annually over two successive years to the University of Toronto for research in the treatment of diabetes enabled Dr. Banting, Professor MacLeod, and Dr. Best to complete their epoch-making work on diabetes. From most of the small gifts made during this first year probably no such far-reaching effect is to be expected. In the latter part of 1925 Pritchett planned a trip to the Near East. He and Mrs. Pritchett visited Athens, Cairo, made a trip up the Nile and finally short stops in Jerusalem and Rome before returning to New Y o r k . Pritchett's interest was primarily in educational institutions in E g y p t and Palestine and in presiding at the dedication of the Gennadeion Library at Athens. Mrs. Pritchett's letters to "the f a m i l y " gave a vivid and interesting account of the tour. T h e ocean voyage was smooth and delightful. On their way to the Near East they made the usual hurried stops for a day each—at the Madeira Islands and Gibralt a r — " w i t h its strange blend of nationalities," where the Rock itself was "the most impressive part of the place, and where, as one studies it, one has a new respect for our British cousins—Algiers, the Riviera—where we took luncheon and dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes, who have been living there during the past year." In the course of the journey, Pritchett learned that the inn in which his sister Sadie had been living in Washington had been destroyed by fire and with it all her possessions. In an undated letter, he sends sympathy and funds and urges her to find a comfortable, even if more expensive, place in which to live, saying, " I will be only too glad to send you anything you need; let me know what money you ought to have." In the next few days the tourists had glimpses of Monte Carlo, Nice, Naples, and at last Athens. T h e y made for the Parthenon; "the rush and crush were very bad and took away a great deal from the dignity and impressiveness of the first view." The Pritchetts were met by Dr. Hill, director of the American Classical 146

School, and his wife; they had tea and an early dinner together — " t h e usual hour for dinner is nine or even ten, but the school dines at eight; the servants like the late hours, for they are thus enabled to take several hours of rest in the afternoon." At tenthirty in the evening they sailed for Constantinople, in which, on the whole, they were disappointed; "we were fortunate in having a motor for ourselves, but it is not pleasant to be herded in large groups. I do not think either of us would care to do it again." T h e next letter is sent from Cairo, written while Pritchett "is smoking his cigar downstairs." " T h e trip from Alexandria to Cairo by train was full of interest and excitement; the land is very flat, the fields fertile—tilled by men and women, the women doing most of the work; how the people work or walk in their picturesque costumes—long-skirted, one-piece garments—is a mystery, but they walk with a splendid, swinging stride and balance great burdens on their heads with grace and precision; this again is woman's work." They watched the excavations at the Sphinx and the Pyramids under the supervision of the late Dr. Reisner of Harvard, " t h e natives chanting as they toiled." They planned to remain in Cairo until April, when they were to go to Jerusalem for ten days. The haste with which the Cook tour traveled made the experience unsatisfactory. Luckily, at Luxor they encountered Dr. Winlock, head of the Metropolitan Museum expedition. T h e y were ready to appreciate to the full the "great good fortune of having an expert guide," who possessed a car, "enabling them to reach the impressive tombs of the Kings, before the throng overtook them." Pritchett stayed long enough to examine Winlock's maps. Thence they proceeded to Assouan; Mrs. Pritchett cannot go into details, but she repeatedly praises the picturesqueness of the country and notes that "the people are the most pathetic you can picture." T h e natives sing at their work, "but always in a plaintive minor key." Returning to Cairo, Pritchett's logbook records conferences 147

with the minister of education and his assistant; he saw a primary school and a teachers college, found it "most interesting to hear an exposition of Moslem education from the standpoint of a fundamentalist"; was presented to K i n g F u a d ; " m e t the faculty of the American University, where Pritchett gave a brief talk; spent a forenoon at the new E g y p t i a n university in the suburbs of Cairo; talked with Lord Lloyd, the British Resident." B u t , alas, he gives no adequate account of what must have been an interesting series of visits and conferences; had he lived to complete his own memoirs, this great lacuna would have been adequately filled. T h e same lack of detail characterizes the log when he visited Jerusalem and traveled by car with his wife to many points of interest in Palestine. B u t his early training is obvious in a letter written from Jerusalem to his daughter Ida: March 30, 1926 M y dear Ida, On Palm Sunday—which was two days ago—the Protestants in Jerusalem gathered at B e t h a n y — t h e home of M a r y and M a r t h a and Lazarus—about three in the afternoon and walked slowly over the Mount of Olives and down to the gate of the city along the path Christ is believed to have followed on that first Palm Sunday when the people received him with shouts and palm branches. There were some four hundred persons and it was an interesting and moving sight. T h e Bishop read at various stopping places the description in the N e w Testament of the events of that day. Our walk ended at Gethsemane, where the company dispersed, but we went, with one or two friends, into the garden and having been introduced to the old priest who kept it were allowed to pluck a few violets and to take a few twigs of the old olive trees—more than a thousand years old—that grow there. I send you one, thinking you m a y care to have a remembrance of this pathetic spot in the world's history gathered b y me. F o r whatever one thinks of Jesus Christ, the faith of the

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world, and its hope have so gathered about him that these scenes of his death and of his last days must alway have an absorbing human interest. Y o u might also like to know that we thought of you with deep affection in this wonderful place. With much love, FATHER

Late in April the Pritchetts reached Athens where the Gennadeion, financed by the Carnegie Corporation, was to be dedicated and thrown open to students, under the auspices of the American Classical School. T h e American School of Classical Studies at Athens was founded in 1881 and supported by the cooperation of twentyseven of the leading American universities and colleges. T h e student body consists of graduates engaged in study or research in Greek literature, art, or antiquities. Excavations at Corinth and elsewhere, which have thrown a new flood of light on Greek history and art, have been conducted under the supervision of the director, and a journal called Hesperia is now issued in the United States in which the work of the school is regularly reported to Greek scholars all over the world. T o those of us who believe in the permanent value of Greek literature, Greek thought, and Greek art the contribution of $200,000 for the building of the superb library of white marble, which now houses the unique collection of Mr. George and Mr. Johannes Gennadius, possesses lasting importance. T h e library, thus beautifully housed, consists of some 50,000 volumes and pamphlets, ancient, Byzantine, and modern; the gift is comparable in significance to the one made subsequently by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., which has enabled the American School to carry on excavations of the site of the ancient Athenian agora that have yielded untold artistic, literary, and historic treasures. In an address made at the opening of the library, Pritchett 149

paid tribute to Mr. Carnegie, who was in the last resort responsible for the gift, to Mr. Root who was chairman of the Carnegie Corporation, and to Mr. Gennadius and his son to whose foresight and intelligent devotion the collection of this extraordinary library was due. He described the father as an illustrious patriot, an eminent man of letters and organizer of the educational system of Greece, who had begun, almost a century earlier to collect books, manuscripts, and pictures relating to Greek art, Greek history, and their influence upon the civilized world. His son Johannes inherited the spirit of his father, was himself an eminent man of letters and had been honored by the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and St. Andrew's. Pritchett said: "In the ripeness of his mature judgment and at the summit of his career as a diplomat and scholar he made of this great library gathered by his honored father and himself a gift to the world. He hoped that it should always remain in the capital of Greece where the tradition of Greek philosophy and Greek scholarship will ever remain fresh and whither students will come with the keenest anticipation and with most sincere inspiration. " I t may be that in the hurry of our American conquest of a new continent the vision of ancient Greece so dear to us is not quite so bright as in our youthful days, but this school stands as a perpetual reminder of the spiritual and intellectual debt that the great new world owes to Greece. That debt can never be forgot." From Athens the Pritchetts journeyed to Rome, where it fell to Pritchett's lot to carry on negotiations with the Vatican Library. The late General William Barclay Parsons, long a trustee of Columbia University and for fifteen years preceding his death chairman of the board of trustees, had been engaged in preparing a volume entitled Engineers and Engineering in the Renaissance. For material he searched the British Museum in London and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Then his studies carried him to Rome. There he found an infinite amount of material in the Vatican Library, of the existence of which relatively few scholars 150

knew. It was, moreover, practically unusable because it had never been catalogued and classified or arranged. When in 1925 General Parsons brought these facts to the attention of Dr. Butler, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dr. Butler requested Pritchett, his close friend and associate in other Camegie enterprises, who was shortly leaving for his trip to the eastern Mediterranean, to stop in Rome and inquire into the feasibility of remedying the defects which had impeded the studies of General Parsons. He had a most gracious reception at the Vatican and an audience with His Holiness Pope Pius X I , who had himself at one time been librarian of the Vatican. The officials of the library were interested and most cooperative. As a result, the work of thoroughly modernizing these invaluable collections was begun and is still in progress. The librarian of the University of Michigan, Dr. William Warner Bishop, was selected as head of the American librarians cooperating with the Vatican Library officials. Monsignor Mercati and Monsignor Tisserant, both of whom have since become cardinals, were put in immediate charge of the library. They came to the United States to inspect our important university and public libraries with a view to seeing how far our experience could be made useful in Rome. While the collection of printed books in the Vatican is old and important, the great treasure is its collection of manuscripts estimated to number between 50,000 and 60,000. The Vatican Library is now catalogued and equipped with steel bookstacks of American manufacture of the same type as those used in the Library of Congress, with stack elevators and book lifts with every provision for the necessary machinery to operate by electrical power. Precautions were also taken to offset excessive humidity and to guard both books and manuscripts against any undue dryness. Unfortunately, the steel stacks, six stories in height and capable of holding 600,000 volumes, proved too heavy for their supports. The necessary repairs were made and the reading rooms were redesigned and refuriSi

nished. T h e library staff of the Vatican has been increased b y the addition of seven men, five of whom were trained in the United States through support obtained from the Carnegie Corporation. T h u s after twelve years of scholarly work this unique collection of source material in the fields of literature and history is now available for easy and comfortable use day after day by scores of scholars from every civilized land. During Pritchett's second year as acting president of the C o r poration an unusual number of grants were made to meet current expenses; these usually only tided over an acute temporary difficulty. However, the grant of #150,000 to be used over a fiveyear period for the study of atomic structure to the California Institute of Technology for Dr. Robert A. Millikan resulted in some thirty-five fundamental investigations of enduring significance. Of the larger grants, the gift of $2,000,000 to the Johns Hopkins Medical School for the endowment of its dispensary and public clinic has the quality of relative permanence, for it will house and support medical care and the teaching of medical students for years to come; in the same category one may include the gift of over $7,000,000 to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council for research and building, and a gift of $1,625,000 for the construction and equipment of the New Y o r k Academy of Medicine. At the conclusion of Pritchett's experience in giving we are faced with a problem that haunts all administrators of large sums for educational and philanthropic purposes; a flash of genius or a happy chance may lead to the making of a temporary grant which will prove to have world-wide significance. A long succession of small temporary grants, while affording temporary relief, may result in ultimate embarrassment to an institution which will in the course of a year or two have to seek elsewhere for funds to capitalize or continue a grant whose term has expired. Pritchett in his retirement was by no means unaware of the

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pressing problems which had constantly to be faced by his successor, Mr. Keppel. Writing to him in January 1935, he says: " I t seems clear that the Camegie Corporation should not only establish a sharper scrutiny over the individuals and the agencies that apply to it, but that it should also develop its own facilities for ascertaining the significant causes and able men, independently of the applications that may be made. While the askers occupy the time and thought of the officers of the Corporation, it is quite possible that other causes and other men, even more deserving, might be discovered by a judicious inquiry. Mr. Carnegie intended his gift to apply to the five English-speaking commonwealths in North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Deserving agencies in Texas or Manitoba, in Australia, in New Zealand or in South Africa have little opportunity to make known their needs or their deserts to the Corporation. "Might not the Corporation establish some better approach by which the distant cause, or the modest thinker whose work may be extremely important but is not heralded to the world, have an opportunity to be considered?" Mr. Keppel bears witness that while Pritchett was most considerate in refraining from the slightest interference with its administrative work, his contributions as an experienced and wise counselor continued to be of the greatest value to the Corporation. As Pritchett laid down the office of acting-president in 1923, Mrs. Carnegie in the fullness of her heart had written him the following generous appreciation of his services: " I thank you warmly for your kind note. The meeting on Thursday was indeed a memorable one. Great things were done and the Corporation put on a solid foundation. I feel this was due almost entirely to the splendid work of the Acting President and I for one want to thank you and tell you how much I appreciate all your painstaking labor. " M r . Root's impassioned words lifted us all to a high plane and 153

I am sure we shall never forget them—it seemed as if Andrew himself were again speaking to us. My heart is full of gratitude to you both for the splendid way in which his ideals are being fulfilled."

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Other Activities W H I L E Pritchett's main thought and preoccupations were necessarily with the Carnegie Foundation and with Carnegie Corporation of New York, his intimacy with Mr. Carnegie influenced the setting up of other foundations associated with the Carnegie name. Though the Carnegie Institution of Washington, a research institution in science at the highest possible level, was established in 1902, prior to Pritchett's acquaintance with Mr. Carnegie, Pritchett's interest in the establishment of an institution of this kind probably goes back to the time when he was directing the Coast and Geodetic Survey—perhaps even further. Among his papers there is to be found an undated memorandum entitled " A National Institute for Advanced Instruction in Basic and Applied Sciences," that may have been drafted at any time between 1898 and 1902. He writes: " I n 1793 France was economically disrupted, intellectually and morally uncertain, at war with the strongest powers of Europe; her educational facilities were disorganized. But men of vision and initiative were not lacking. A group of outstanding scientists gathered around the mathematician Gaspard Monge. They conceived a plan for an institute for higher learning at a level unheard of before; democratic, but restricted to a small group of carefully selected students; the very best scientists in the country were to be the teachers. In spite of general confusion, in spite of tremendous pressure on every person and every resource, the plan was adopted by the government, and the Ecole Polytechnique opened its doors in 1794 to some 300 students. Soon the highest expectations were realized. Within less than two years army, navy, industry, and administration began to receive a supply of men whose education was superior to any-

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thing available in the world. (Napoleon's staff, for example, contained many polytechnicians.) It has continued until today the development of the basic and applied sciences." Pritchett looked forward to cooperation with other institutions, to social rooms for informal discussions and contacts, to abolition of fees and the establishment of paid fellowships—and to other arrangements, similar to those adopted in the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton some thirty years later. A f t e r the founding of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the first president of which was Dr. Daniel Coit Gilman, formerly president of the Johns Hopkins University, Pritchett wrote Gilman from Boston on J a n u a r y 1 3 , 1902: " I think all men who concern themselves with the philosophic bearing of scientific work have felt that our American universities are not contributing to research as they ought. T h e reasons why they are not doing so are not so important as the question how to bring about a condition favorable to the spirit of research. I believe that the Carnegie Institution will, if wisely administered, prove the most far-reaching agency to this end which could be devised. Amongst other considerations which should be kept in mind in its beginning seem to me the following: " 1 . An organization capable of commanding the best scientific aid and advice. "2. This would doubtless involve some sort of scientific council—however that body might be called. " 3 . T h e Institution must be connected, as rapidly as possible, with the institutions of the country by ties of sympathy and interest. "4. In of strong with the tory and

the end even this will not be sufficient unless a few men force and high scientific and literary type are connected headquarters of the Institution where certain laboralecture facilities will be indispensable.

"Perhaps I can illustrate what I mean by pointing to the Royal Institution, which has been the real inspiration of English scien-

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tific activity during the past forty years, rather than the universities. But this would have been impossible had not a group of men like Hooper, Tyndall, Huxley, Dewar, and the rest been at work there. M y idea is simply this, and I consider it most important. No set of half dozen or more men can be the almoners of a great scientific trust fund and hope to inspire the research spirit by merely distributing (however wisely) money for research work. In the end there must be gathered about the Institution a group of men who will themselves keep alive the sacred fire." While the Carnegie Institution was in process of forming, Pritchett wrote on M a y 15, 1904, to his friend Major Higginson: " I understand from your letter that an administrative plan is agreed upon under which executive authority and initiation shall rest in the Executive Committee, and therefore instead of a President the trustees will choose a Director to carry out the plans of the Executive Committee. You ask if I care for the place of Director under this plan of organization. " I look upon the Carnegie Institution as the most interesting effort the world has known for the development of a national interest in research. T o direct its work would be, to my thinking, the most attractive career to which a man could give his life and I heartily appreciate the fact that you and your colleagues should have thought of me in this connection. I have therefore all the more regret in saying that the administrative plan you outline is one under which I do not think I would be useful, nor would it be fair for me to accept an executive post under an administrative regime which limits so seriously, as it appears to me this plan does limit, the service of the institution to science and to the nation." Almost forty years later Mr. Gilbert, secretary of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, wrote me the following letter: " I had opportunity to see Dr. Pritchett in action for many years while he was serving as a member and later as Chairman of our Executive Committee. For a long period he was also a member and later Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Institu-

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tion. I came to have a high regard for his knowledge and wisdom. One had the feeling in his presence that the world could not go very far astray. Is this a test of greatness? A t least I think it indicates that the man concerned is actuated by compelling and abiding ideals. In the history of the early days of the Institution, my guess is that the two men who will stand out as the ablest and most far-sighted are Mr. Root and Dr. Pritchett. " D r . Pritchett's voice was always listened to with respect, and in many instances was sought for guidance, in the councils of the Institution. His role of diplomat in Carnegie interests always appealed to me as an important and direct contribution, not only in our own affairs as a Trustee of the Institution, but in interrelations of the various Carnegie organizations in which he had responsibility. Such things seldom come to the surface. In many instances, moreover, he served as interpreter of the Founder's wishes and interests. His knowledge of the academic world, in general and in particular, was a real asset in these connections." As far back as 1 9 1 1 Pritchett's health had not been vigorous. He had a sensitive throat and was liable to more and more frequent attacks of influenza, but physical disability stretching over a long period never affected the activity of his mind or the variety of his interests. Shortly after going to Santa Barbara for a sabbatical year he met Mr. E . P. Ripley, at that time president of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company. Mr. Ripley discussed with him the political, financial, and labor problems encountered in the administration of that vast common carrier. Mr. Ripley was so much impressed by Pritchett's quickness of appreciation and b y his sound sense in commenting on the problems with which he himself was dealing that in 1 9 1 4 Pritchett was made a director of the Atchison. Unless prevented by circumstances over which he had no control, Pritchett attended the meetings of the Atchison board regularly, and made inspection trips not only with Mr. Ripley but with his two successors, Mr. Storey and Mr. Bledsoe. His correspondence with

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each of these men shows that the problems of the railroad were carried home with him for careful reflection, following meetings of the board. His letters are copious and at times humorous, though they deal with subjects which, because of lapse of time and the war, are of only historic interest today. If the history of this great continental railroad system is ever written, Pritchett's correspondence will form an interesting chapter. Most of his colleagues on the board are now very elderly men or have passed away, but the clerk of the board during the entire period of Pritchett's directorship, Mr. L. C. Deming, recalls vividly Pritchett's bearing and influence in the counsels of the Atchison board. He did not, according to Mr. Deming, make any pretense to being an expert on transportation. He was, however, an excellent listener to discussions carried on by railroad men. When important points of policy were decided, he expressed his opinion as a layman. While deferential towards those who had spent their lives in the conduct of the railroad, Pritchett rapidly went to the heart of successive problems, commented, and advised without undue emphasis, calmly, judicially, and with supreme common sense. He gave no superficial counsel; though a layman, he was able to understand the basic principles involved in the conduct of an enterprise of this kind. His words were listened to with the respect to which they were entitled on their merits. Nor was his connection with the Atchison limited either to attending meetings of the board or inspection trips. As illustrating his careful observation, a brief note to President Bledsoe written as late as 1938 may be quoted: " I have been spending some two weeks at Arrowhead Springs, near San Bernardino, and have therefore seen something of the devastation of the excessive rainfall on our lines. The topography of this stretch of track is such as to make it peculiarly liable to such disasters. The line runs approximately parallel to the coast range and from this range a number of arroyos descend to the coast. Ordinarily they are dry, but when one of these heavy sea-

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sonal rains comes, the run off is rapid and the problem of protecting the roadbed becomes one of great difficulty. Our people struggled with it in every possible w a y but disaster is likely to recur whenever there is an abnormal discharge down one of these arroyos to the ocean. T o deal with it is a costly business, but seems inherent in the topography and the conditions of the rainfall. E v e r y year, however, our engineers fortify first one place and then another so that in time we shall be protected against these sudden and violent torrents as f a r as this is humanly possible." He found time to reflect in his leisure moments on fundamental problems involved in railway management. Among his papers there are two memoranda which he evidently prepared for the purpose of clarifying and summarizing his own thoughts: one called " F u n d a m e n t a l Principles underlying Railway Operation," the other a discussion entitled " T h e Bureau of R a i l w a y Supervision." There was also a third which he wrote, as he says, in the midst of great pressure, and sent to President Butler. It is entitled " W h a t Is the Matter with the R a i l w a y s ? " His attitude was identical when later he was made a member of the advisory council of the National Broadcasting Company and trustee of the New Y o r k Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Huntington Library and A r t Gallery. One of his sons on one occasion asked, " F a t h e r , what do you know about a r t ? " T h e president of the Metropolitan Museum, M r . Robert de Forest, replied, " W e don't need your father as an authority on art. T h a t is in the hands of the technical staff. We do need his counsel on large matters of general policy." Where and how he found the time to keep up with his varied responsibilities, activities, and relaxations one cannot say, but there is no evidence in any of his communications of hasty or superficial thinking even at a time when every y e a r several months had to be found in which either in America or abroad he could take care of his health. On the contrary, he wrote in a

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leisurely manner and with a clear knowledge of the facts as they existed in his time. Pritchett was not only a man of action, nor was he only an administrator. Mrs. Pritchett has collected in three large volumes various papers and addresses published in the Atlantic Monthly or in other journals and magazines of similar standing. These papers are written in the same tenor as his annual reports, and they reflect the amazing range of his interests over and above his primary interest in the Carnegie Foundation and his secondary interests in general educational organization and in railway problems. Of all these papers one can only repeat words that have already been written, "Education has produced enough excitable individuals, but is producing too few dispassionate scholars." As applicable today as it was when written are the following sensible words from a paper entitled "Education and the War," published in June, 1917: "One thing we may surely say—that whatever may be the duties of this war time, we cannot afford to let our schools and our colleges go backward. The best service that men in education can do for the country and for the world is to examine sincerely the American school of today and to address themselves genuinely, earnestly, with open mind to the problem of adapting it more fully to the spiritual, the intellectual and the economic needs of our people. Whatever else we may intermit, whatever else we may temporarily discontinue, we cannot during war time suffer our schools to go backward, either in purpose or in -perjormance." The volumes include addresses to college students on such subjects as "Is There a Place for a Profession in Commerce?" and an address to the same audience entitled "What Is Truth?" Anticipating the point of view from which he later looked at the opportunities of the Carnegie Foundation, he wrote in 1902 for the Technology Review, a paper entitled "The Service of Science to the University and the Response of the University to that Serv161

ice," and for the Atlantic Monthly in 1905 an article entitled "Shall the University Become a Business Corporation?" During his retirement at Santa Barbara in the middle 1930s he continued to produce occasional articles marked by serious thought and wide knowledge of events, among them a paper printed in 1935 in the Atlantic Monthly entitled "What's Wrong with Congress" and another interesting and amusing article entitled "Politics in a Pullman C a r . " A biographer cannot possibly do justice to the variety of his writings and speeches or to the general common sense and soundness which inspired them all. I single out for more detailed comment an article published shortly after he went to Boston entitled " I s There a Place for a Profession in Commerce?" and the only book he ever wrote, entitled What Is Religion?, a summary of informal addresses made to the students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The notable feature of the first paper is the breadth of its conception, for Pritchett, who had never had any business experience, studied and understood important practical business details. He calls attention to the fact that the value of the export trade in cotton manufactured goods about 1900 approximated $500,000,000, of which, however, only $23,000,000 represented goods manufactured in the United States, though nine-tenths of the raw material is grown here. He says: " I was further struck by the fact that the little mountain republic of Switzerland, having no seaport and in which not a pound of cotton is raised, has an exporting business of cotton manufactured goods of nearly $1,500,000 more than that of the United States." He points out that modern industrial life is characterized by three factors: ( 1 ) communication and transportation; (2) the influence of the trained engineer and the effect of his training upon the mechanic; (3) the tendency in all directions to concentration

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and organization. Each of these points is more fully expounded as the address proceeds. He says: "There is needed in ever increasing degree a class of men who can deal with the problem and relation of the rights of men in an intelligent, sensible, and systematic way. . . . A man ought to be educated in some broad view of the relation of men with each other if he is to assume administrative duties in commercial affairs of large magnitude. . . . For it is still true in the sense in which Bacon wrote it and yet in a more different sense that 'The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.'" Since this address was delivered, schools of business have sprung up all over the country. I cannot pretend to an acquaintance with the philosophy of business such as Pritchett possessed and still less to a thorough knowledge of the schools of business now connected with universities, but it appears doubtful whether any of them in scope, spirit, and details has yet realized the conception which many years ago Pritchett forecast in this memorable address. The little book containing the addresses, given in 1905, on What Is Religion? is still timely. Pritchett had been reared in the atmosphere of strict Methodism. But he soon realized the incompatibility between his family faith, modern science, and industrial progress. At the Massachusetts Institute he encountered young men torn with doubts. These doubts he attempted to resolve. He pointed out to his students that "traditional authority means less to those who have grown up in an intellectual atmosphere in which scientific generalizations of the last fifty years form a part of the every-day philosophy of life." This does not mean that the students are fundamentally less religious than their fathers or less ready to think of service or less rich in the things which create the religious sense, but the student's life suffers from the same dangers which confront men in mature life, 163

namely, the pressure of the commonplace and the utilitarian which may crowd out philosophy, religion, or service. "Scientific method is," he urged, "characterized by the approach to all problems and all difficulties with an open mind and by the courage to follow the truth wherever it leads. . . . T o the man trained in science religion is nothing more than the divine life as it is manifested in the human soul and by the divine flowers which may grow in the human heart—unselfishness, love, fearlessness, serenity, patience, and service." Between religion considered as the divine life in the soul of man and theology which is merely the attempt to formulate our thinking with respect to fundamental problems Pritchett draws a sharp line. Theology is an effort to make a science out of religion, but in the effort religion is all too apt to disappear in metaphysics, verbalism, forms of worship, and the articles which make up a creed. He says: " S t a r t i n g with a small group of devoted and religious men who represented no compact administration, the church gradually assumed a complex organization. This differentiation into sects has gone on until today the Christian Church is represented in the world by so many sects that it would be difficult to name them." He does not deny that religion—not theology—has brought comfort to many hearts and has bound all men together in one faith. T h e devotee "of science need not deny himself or his children the joy and comfort of this fellowship," but it is a purely individual matter whether the student attaches himself loosely or firmly to an orthodox church. Pritchett's lively concern about politics, with never the slightest indication that it was other than that of a good citizen, was stimulated in N e w Y o r k and kept alive during his Santa Barbara days. I have already touched on his relations with Theodore Roosevelt. With Roosevelt's successor, President T a f t , he was equally frank and friendly. T o T a f t , then resting at Hot Springs, he wrote in 1908:

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"There is a deal of talk at the moment about a reorganization of the Navy. For many years no Secretary of the N a v y has held office who has really been willing to tackle his job. Such a Secretary can do for the N a v y what Elihu Root did for the Army, but to do it he must have some knowledge of the spirit and ideals of the service; secondly, brains; and most important of all, bowels. Lastly, he must be willing to stay by the job." He was not afraid to tender advice about appointments. In 1909 in a letter marked personal he writes to President Taft: "The papers state from time to time that is being considered for the post of Ambassador to Vienna. I hope you will not appoint him to such a place. I lived in Missouri a good many years, during which a decent Republican party in that state was made impossible by him. He is too ignorant a man to know how bad he is. Morally, intellectually, and socially he is utterly unfit for the place of an ambassador." A little later he ventures a suggestion to T a f t over forthcoming appointments to the Supreme Court. He writes as follows: " I t seems to me that few other duties which you are to perform are more important. I am taking the liberty as a layman and as a friend to make one suggestion. Elihu Root's name has been much talked of in this connection. For twenty years he has been my friend. His brother was my teacher. I am devoted to him and appreciate at the highest his service to the country. At the same time I am sure that his appointment to the supreme bench would be a serious mistake." When, during Wilson's administration, the controversy over Panama Canal tolls was at its height, he sent ( 1 9 1 3 ) the following statement to his brother-in-law, Senator Francis C. Newlands of Nevada: "The argument which you make in favor of the plea that the Panama Canal is to be considered in the light of a domestic waterway does not seem to me to hold water, although I dare say the Canal will. A canal constructed in one of our states or a river im165

proved in any of these states lies wholly in territory which we own. It is concerned with domestic commerce alone and it does not seem to me that this situation can fairly be regarded as parallel to that of the Panama Canal, which is a work constructed in territory 1500 miles across the ocean in a strip of land secured under treaty, in which we agree not only to conduct the Canal which we are to construct under this treaty as an international work, but we also agree that no change in the territorial character of the strip should affect these conditions. It seems to me it would be wiser to admit frankly that our domestic ships cannot be sent through the Canal free of toll without invalidating a treaty, that therefore one of two things must be done: either the government itself must pay these tolls or else the legislation must be repealed. It does seem to me that it is up to you gentlemen in the Democratic party somehow or other to get us out of this situation." Pritchett strongly favored American entrance into the League of Nations and deplored Wilson's stubborn objection to reservations of any kind. In 1918, he wrote T a f t , then professor of law at Yale: "When Wilson was carrying out his reforms at Princeton, some of which I think were admirable, he demanded enormous power from the trustees. One of these said to him one day, 'Mr. President, don't you think it would be better to persuade these men gradually to come into your plans rather than to demand such coercive measures?' " 'Why,' Wilson is quoted as saying in reply, 'how can I democratize this college unless I have absolute authority?' " His residence in California for three months of the year made Pritchett acutely aware of rising ill-feeling between Japan and the United States. He believed that distrust and friction could be removed by diplomatic and legislative "patience and tact"; otherwise he foresaw " a very real danger in the future." He suggested to Colonel House the appointment of " a small commission to visit Japan for the purpose of conferring with that country." The commission "if made up of sensible men," could quietly take

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up with the Japanese government the present sources of friction and give the President specific recommendations both for diplomatic procedure and for legislative action. " I believe," he adds, on the basis of his knowledge of California, "that these measures could be carried through with the approval of the Pacific Coast. I believe the time will never come when this can be done so readily or so successfully as now." One cannot but wonder whether in making this suggestion Pritchett w a s — o r was not—unduly optimistic. He was delighted when in 1920 T a f t was appointed Chief Justice. His letter of congratulation reveals his lighter side. He writes: Dear Brother T a f t : I wonder if you recall the night I spent with you at the White House while you were wrestling with the problem of the selection of a Chief Justice? Y o u had some talk with me touching the possible appointment of a common friend. I remember your saying at the time that it was a travesty of Fate for you to be appointing a Chief Justice, a place which you yourself would have looked upon as the highest opportunity open to an American of your training and ideals. Fate does not often spin our threads of life as kindly as she has done for you, but it is a great satisfaction to know that she should have been so considerate in this case. Let me venture the hope that it may not be inconsistent with the dignity of the Chief Justice to play an occasional game of golf. Long observation in this matter has led me to the conclusion that no experience is better qualified to develop the judicial quality of mind than to play about three games of golf a week. Should you look favorably upon this theory, I trust I may from time to time have the opportunity to join you in such part of your judicial duties as may lie in Chevy Chase. I am disposed to warn you that certain of your associate Justices are dangerous men with a golf club. Sincerely yours, HENRY S. PRITCHETT

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T a f t replied in similar vein: " I have just played my first game of golf after an interval of six months and find myself worse than a beginner, but I nevertheless enjoyed it and expect to play golf in Washington as often as my labors will permit. I don't mind being beaten and am so humble as to feel no humiliation. I should be glad to play over the links with you in order that I may give you the satisfaction which complete and overwhelming victory gives." Pritchett opposed bitterly the so-called Bonus Bill and in 1923 addressed vigorous remonstrances on the subject to Senator Copeland of New York and others. T o Senator Bennett C. Clark of Missouri, whom not long before he had congratulated on the authorship of a small book, he sent in May, 1935, the following communication. M y dear Senator Clark: It is sad to see a man of your background desert his president and go over to the bonus chasers and inflationists. No lobby has ever existed in any country as greedy as the present bonus seekers and when with this is coupled the inflation measure it is difficult to understand how any clear thinking patriotic man with your background could stand for this measure. I am sure your father must have turned over in his grave. Yours sorrowfully, H E N R Y S. PRITCHETT

The possible creation of a department of education headed by a member of the cabinet he vigorously opposed. He pointed out in a letter to President Coolidge, written in 1923, the following: "The National Education Association, like many other organized bodies, has found that Congress can be subjected to great pressure through organization. The Association has now official headquarters in Washington and it is bringing to bear upon the 168

representatives in Congress very great pressure in favor of this measure. The most thoughtful men in education in this country —those who desire to keep education out of politics and who believe that a bureau direction of education from Washington would be on the whole unfortunate—look upon the measure as one of great unwisdom." In similar tone he discussed the proposed Child Labor Amendment, the efforts regarding the "coining of silver at some assumed ratio to gold," and other issues of importance during the last thirty years of his life. He pointed out to President Eliot with complete frankness the inconsistency between his liberal views and his position in favoring the Volstead Act; in a letter, dated August 22, 1924, he wrote: "There is one thing concerning which I have never felt entirely satisfied and my regard for your processes of thinking is such that I venture to put it up to you. It is difficult for me to understand how so thorough-going a believer in personal liberty as you are could approve the legislation of the Volstead Act. The abolition of the saloon is plainly a right the community may exercise with full regard for the principle of civil liberty. But when regulation goes so far as to prescribe by law what I may drink in my own house it seems to me there is no limit that can be set to the interference of government with individual habits and customs. Indeed, a crop of such legislation is now being grown. Legislation is now before Congress whose purpose is to place education under the supervision of a central Government Bureau and to provide with this a huge subsidy, or bonus, for public school teachers. A twentieth amendment to the Constitution has been proposed by the Congress, which if accepted by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states will result in placing the control of the labor of persons up to eighteen years of age in the hands of a central Bureau at Washington. All this seems to me a natural outcome of the legislation involved in the eighteenth amendment and the Volstead Act. It is difficult for me to see how

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legislation like this can be reconciled with the fundamental conception of civil liberty of which you have been the foremost advocate in our country."* T o discuss more fully Pritchett's interest in current political questions would swell this volume beyond its proper limits. Enough has been said to prove the truth of a characterization made b y one of his successors as president of the Carnegie Foundation, Dr. Jessup, "Pritchett was an ideal citizen." His correspondence is throughout characterized by the absence of personal interest or bitterness, by the dignity and clarity with which he sets forth his views, and by the obviousness of his simple, patriotic desire that right should prevail. It shows him in various aspects, namely, as a citizen who felt in duty bound to keep in touch with current developments, local, state, social, and national; as an administrator, and as one to whom in succession one post after another was offered—the directorship of the International Exhibition at St. Louis, the superintendency of public instruction in the Philippines, and the headship of various academic institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Wisconsin. He had quick insight, sound judgment, and always an open and even-tempered mind. There is unfortunately no record of his conversations with President Eliot, Mr. Root, President Lowell, Mr. Moorfield, Storey, President Butler, Theodore Roosevelt, General Wood, Governor Draper, Professor Charles Eliot Norton, and scores of others; he did not commit to paper the substance of the subjects discussed, though such a record would have been priceless; it would have shown how his flexible and eager mind kept in touch with public and personal relations and how almost nothing with which a good citizen should concern himself really escaped his thoughtful attention. Again and again his biographer regrets that he could not, at luncheon or dinner, have actually heard * President Eliot's rejoinder is given in Henry James's Charles W. Eliot, I I , 3 1 7 - 3 1 9 .

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Pritchett and his friends in discussion or that Pritchett himself did not keep a diary. The task of appraising his influence is therefore difficult, because he was essentially a social human being who loved good talk and who gave himself out freely without, however, making a record from which today his views and activities could be re-created. Only when he was confronted with an actual teaching or administrative responsibility as at Washington University, at the Coast and Geodetic Survey, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, or at Carnegie Corporation, did the variety and flexibility of his interests and capacities and his charming personality come into such bold relief that it can be adequately described. What Pritchett was as a man and as a citizen is therefore best known, and perhaps only known, to those whose relations with him were frequent and personal; but they can be inferred from the situations of which the record is full and which deal with the responsibilities which crowded upon him one after the other throughout his life. There is no better proof of the profound impression of ability and charm that he made upon his contemporaries than the steady succession of opportunities which he declined in order that he might give his attention consistently to the administrative problems through the handling of which he will be best known. Characteristic of his entire life are the range and the persistence of Pritchett's interests as well as the tolerant spirit in which from time to time he urged them upon those in a position to carry them on. He did not move from one subject to another leaving his former interests behind as his mind traveled and expanded. He possessed a singular capacity for maintaining but at the same time constantly broadening the sphere of his interests, and he wrote and spoke of them all in the same urbane, quiet, confident manner. He did not express himself until to his own satisfaction he had thought things through and, having done so, throughout 171

his whole mature life he expressed himself in the same key. I attribute this singular and unusual pertinacity and absence of partisanship, whether in the field of science, education, or religion, to the fact that he reasoned from principles of the soundness of which he had convinced himself b y careful reflection; he never ceased to be an "astronomer." None of his letters or papers indicates action or thought dictated b y impulse. He brooded a long time over the various problems in which he was interested, always holding fast to certain elementary principles of which he never lost sight. His views rested upon principles and are therefore deductive in general character. He seemed never to raise his tone or to use a provoking or careless phrase. Discussing his general character with his colleagues at the Carnegie Foundation, we have sought for a term by which Pritchett himself could be characterized. " H e w a s , " said one of them, " a thoroughly civilized human being." He took problems seriously. Whether he was head of the Lighthouse Board, director of the Atchison R a i l w a y , mediator in labor disputes, it mattered not. He was patient, he heard every side, he did his own thinking, and he always participated in reaching a conclusion when there was a conclusion to be reached. When he became a trustee of the Huntington Library at San Marino, California, his interests were quickly aroused in new fields of activity. Replying to a letter from me, Dr. M a x Farrand, its director, wrote in 1 9 4 1 : "When I came to know him better, I was frankly surprised to find how keen his appreciation was for the things we were developing at the Huntington Library—history, literature, and art. He understood better than anyone else on the board what we were striving for and became m y strongest ally and backer. He had no particular knowledge of art but he recognized the integral part that art must play in the study of the culture of any time. He had a much wider knowledge and a conscious appreciation of

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the value of literature. Of course, his whole career revealed his interest and belief in the importance of history. "I recall one time, it seems as if he must have come down by train alone, when I met him he had a small book in his hand that he had taken with him to occupy himself on the journey. It wasn't the Golden Treasury, but it was something of that kind. I expressed my interest that he should select a book of that sort. His reply (I am sorry I cannot quote his exact words) was to the effect that he considered great works in literature of equal value with and perhaps of even more importance than the great discoveries in science. That from a scientific man showed an unusual comprehension of spiritual values—of the part the social studies and humanities play in our life." Pritchett studied the problems of this entirely new type of institution and took an active part in the deliberations of the board. Boards of trustees rarely function in this fashion. But Pritchett realized the difference in function between administration and general government. Having had his say, he left general decisions to the board and never interfered in the execution of plans by the director. There is, therefore, a strong vein of consistency that runs through his entire life. It would be difficult to find another instance of a long career in which so little has to be explained away. In New York, as previously in Boston and Washington, and later in California, Pritchett found relaxation, amusement, and stimulus in club life. At the Century Association, where he lunched regularly, he met men variously engaged in education, law, medicine, engineering, the practice of the arts, and many other callings, with whom he could discuss problems that haunted him and from whom he could obtain data and opinions upon which he could afterwards ruminate. His preference for "small clubs" to which he clung long after the Cosmos Club had ceased to be small he still retained. 173

M r . Frederic R . Coudert writes me an account of the " P h i losophers." T h e little dinners of the Philosophers were without organization. T h e y began at the house of Mr. Coudert and later took place at the home of Mr. Boris Bakhmeteff, Russian Ambassador to the United States at the time of the Kerensky Government. Dr. Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute dined with these two gentlemen occasionally, usually on Tuesday evenings. Shortly thereafter a delightful person and erudite gentleman, Father Cornelius Clifford, who had been a member of T h e Society of Jesus in England and had lived and taught in the Society for some twenty years, was added to the group. Father Clifford brought with him subsequently Father Tyrrell and others who were leaders in the so-called Modernist Movement during the early part of the century. For nearly thirty years Father Clifford held a lectureship in mediaeval philosophy at Columbia University. Visiting foreigners such as Professor Bergson, Professor Eucken, T h e Abbé Gasquet (later Cardinal G a s q u e t ) , and many others on occasion joined the little dinner parties, which rarely exceeded eight in number. Occasionally Dean Woodbridge of Columbia, President Butler, historians, philosophers, scientists, and others appeared, among them the future Justice Benjamin Cardozo, then at the peak of his fame as Chief J u d g e of the Court of Appeals. I t was he who dubbed the gatherings " T h e Philosophers." Pritchett's affection for small clubs was explained later in the course of a letter to J u d g e Robert Grant, to whom he recalled the Saturday C l u b in Boston: " I was much interested in what you said in your autobiography about the Saturday Club and the difficulty of starting round table talk at its dinners. I was taken into the Saturday Club in 1 9 0 1 ; I think Lawrence Lowell and I were elected at the same time. " I often was struck by this feature of the Saturday Club's dinners, and as f a r as a younger member could do so I sought several

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times to start a round table discussion, but not with success. As I remember Mr. Norton was rather hospitable to the notion, but Mr. Eliot never took to it kindly. "I have belonged in New York for many years to a somewhat similar club, The Round Table, which was begun by William Cullen Bryant. It dines on the first Friday of each month at the Knickerbocker Club, omitting, of course, the summer months. When I first knew it, Mr. Choate and Mr. Root were the leading spirits, but it has remained still a very delightful dining group where the round table talk has flourished. I have several times made the same speculation as you indulge in as to why round table talk at the Saturday Club has never been popular. "I am inclined to think there are two reasons: one is that the Saturday Club is a little large—when there is a large attendance —to have round table talk, but I think the chief difficulty lies in the fact that with us moderns talk does not flourish in the garish light of day. It may have done so in Mr. Emerson's times, when he and his famous colleagues gathered for their two o'clock dinners, but there is something nowadays about the circumstances of an evening meal that makes for good fellowship and good talk which seems to be absent from a midday gathering. "Of late years I have come but seldom to the dinners of the Saturday Club, partly because of the journey and partly because the men I knew and loved are gone; only you and Lawrence Lowell remain amongst those who were members when I lived in Boston." In addition to his own social life at clubs and on the golf links Dr. and Mrs. Pritchett dined out frequently and often entertained friends and guests. Annual vacations were necessary to a man whose time and thought were thus incessantly occupied. Santa Barbara thus became a retreat to which he looked forward eagerly; but even in Santa Barbara his restless mind was never, as long as health permitted, altogether free of intellectual and social preoccupation. 175

Santa Barbara A C O M B I N A T I O N of events led Pritchett and his family to southern California in 1 9 1 1 - 1 2 to spend a sabbatical year of eight months. Pritchett himself had not been well. His sensitive throat had been a source of great annoyance; his teeth had troubled him. Dr. and Mrs. Pritchett had considered a long visit to the French Riviera, but Leonard was ill. The foreign visit was therefore abandoned. Leonard went to the Adirondacks where he fully recovered his health. Mrs. Pritchett with her infant daughter went to California, and in Santa Barbara found a suitable cottage—a fortunate circumstance, for on Pritchett's arrival a little later he immediately took to his bed and remained there for a considerable period. He loved the sunshine; with returning strength, he basked in it, sat in the parks and on the beaches where he could look out through tall palms upon the blue ocean. Later, the Pritchetts drove slowly behind a pair of black horses. Subsequently, he again took to golf. The links were four miles distant; reluctantly, the family purchased a motor car, having held back for fear that the possession of a car would make them too conspicuous—an amusing fact at a distance of only thirty years. The family made friends quickly in the hospitable town, already frequented by winter visitors. Among the earliest was Mr. E. P. Ripley, president of the Santa Fe Railway, with whom, as they walked the links, Pritchett began his initiation into transportation problems, which led to his becoming a director of the road. The outdoor sports which he had enjoyed all his life became more restricted at this time. Baseball had long since disappeared; shooting and hunting gradually faded out. Horseback riding with Mrs. Pritchett, golf with young and old were prominent in his good

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days at Santa Barbara. Mrs. Pritchett recalls overhearing a youthful victim confiding in a friend, "You should just have seen the way the old doctor did me up this morning." His fondness for youth and the charm of youth for him which were prominent at "Tech" continued through the days in New York and were unchanged during the Santa Barbara period. His pride in his golf score went back at least as far as 1908. At that time he spent a summer in Manchester-by-the-Sea. He had had an excellent vacation there playing golf daily. A friend remarked to him, "Now your summer problem is solved." "No," he rejoined, "we shall never go back; I can play golf all day, but I can't stand talking it all night." But golf figured humorously in his correspondence. For twenty years he and Taft had been exchanging letters. They began somewhat formally in 1908 when Taft was Secretary of War. Pritchett had been spending a few weeks in the Middle West where, being, as he said, " a gregarious animal," he had "communed" with college professors, editors, governors, politicians, farmers, drummers, and other travelers. Continuing, he remarks, "If you have had as hard a time as I have in getting your score below 100, you will realize the right of such a man to speak his mind on any subject." On one occasion Mr. Root scribbled a brief note to Pritchett: "Mr. Carnegie wishes me to bring before the trustees your conduct in cheating in your count at golf. He thinks that a man who would treat the founder in that scandalous way ought to be expelled from the board." The Pritchetts left Santa Barbara in the autumn of 1912 without expectation of returning. But Fate took the matter in hand. The next summer, Mrs. Pritchett being quite ill, the family went to Baden-Baden, where Mrs. Pritchett made a good recovery. Pritchett found the links there excellent, but it rained profusely and his mind reverted to "the land of sunshine." So with their daughter Edith, they returned to California for the summers of 1913 and 1914 to occupy a rented cottage. 177

In 1916, Edwin ( T e d ) , who had graduated from West Point, was tragically killed in an automobile accident. The other children were launched on their separate careers. Ida graduated from Bryn M a w r in 1 9 1 4 , and in 1 9 1 9 entered the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene. Harry was on his way to becoming a colonel in the United States Army, and Leonard, who had graduated from Harvard and from " T e c h , " had settled in New Y o r k . In the middle 1920s Pritchett built a home in Garden Street, Santa Barbara, where space, gardens, and books were abundant. From 1925 until 1930, the family returned summer and winter to Santa Barbara for limited periods; from 1930 until the end Santa Barbara was their main residence. In 1936 Pritchett severed all connection with the Carnegie institutions, and in 1937 he came east in the autumn for his last visit. During this period of almost fifteen years Pritchett kept all his varied interests alive. His correspondence maintained the high level of his earlier years—much of it perhaps as significant today as at the.time it was written. T o Root, who was ill at the time, he wrote in J u l y , 1 9 2 1 : " W e have been enjoying heavenly weather during your period of misery. It is one of the chief pleasures of the climate, both winter and summer, to reflect on the sufferings of those less fortunately situated, particularly if they are so unfortunate as to live in New Y o r k or Chicago. I suppose the feeling is somewhat akin to that pleasurable excitation which the saints in Paradise experience when they are permitted to gaze upon the sufferings of the lost. " I made a great discovery this summer—the Yosemite Valley. I feel ashamed that I have been going up and down near it for nearly forty years and never visited it until this June. Hereafter I shall make an annual pilgrimage. When I left the High Sierras one morning three weeks ago with its snow fields and green valleys and came down into the Yosemite with its waterfalls and perpendicular walls, thence into the San Joaquin Valley full of 178

orchards of fig, oranges and lemons and so by evening arrived at the cool waters of San Francisco Bay, I came to the conclusion that there is nothing like California." In the same vein he wrote about the same time to President Butler: " T h e late rains have left Santa Barbara more lovely than I ever saw it and we have been revelling in the beauties of our garden and the luxury of a daily ocean dip. " I have just discovered the Yosemite Park. Next year I shall hope to induce you to go with me. Truly California is a wonderful country. Where else could one, in a single day, traverse such a variety of scenery and of climate? "This year I have not so much to do as ordinarily and if you were here we should do a lot of playing. There are few spots in the world where one can find such charm of nature, such opportunity for outdoor life and for pleasant companionship as in this old half-Spanish town. Our garden this year is a joy. I wish I could send Mrs. Butler the roses that stood on my breakfast table this morning; she will see no finer ones in England." In the course of his life Pritchett saw much of Theodore Roosevelt, Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie, President Eliot, President Butler, Secretary Root, Herbert Hoover, Francis Kellam, Newcomb Carlton, Mark Requa, Thomas Lamont, George Hale, and others both on his visits to the East and in California, but their correspondence was irregular; they usually waited until they met and then talked seriously, but not too seriously, for Pritchett instinctively knew the proper moment for pleasantry. Mrs. Pritchett recalls an occasion many years ago when she and Dr. Pritchett, President and Mrs. Eliot visited Williamsburg, Virginia, and called on President Tyler (son of the former President of the United States) who was then head of William and Mary College. Pritchett introduced Mr. Eliot to Mr. Tyler, who inquired, " I s your friend a college president?" 179

" W h y , yes," said Pritchett, "this is Mr. Eliot." T y l e r blandly inquired, "Of what college?" M r . Eliot meekly murmured, " H a r v a r d . " From the outset, he judged rightly the character of the Hitler regime. Writing to his old friend Professor Ernest G . Sihler in 1933, he says: " I t is not easy to estimate [Hitler's] character but he has certainly governed Germany with an iron rod and his treatment of many of the Jews has been unnaturally cruel and unjustified. Whether the claim is true that the Hitler movement prevented a Communistic uprising in Germany is difficult to tell. This was the story that the Hitler people continually circulated. I should have some doubt as to whether it is entirely true. " T h e German people have gone through a hard and bitter experience, a terrible war with defeat at the end, a treaty of peace which was impossible to carry out, and with a failure in their republic which they were not at all ready to operate, so that the w a y was open for a movement which undertook to use force. But whether that movement will prove sound and fruitful seems to me very doubtful. " T h e German people were not ready for a republic. T h e y have never learned the political art of compromise and in consequence they split up into a number of irreconcilable small parties. Hitler's rule of force has wiped out all these parties but one. His rule of arbitrary and irresponsible government is against all our traditions and history." And as late as 1936 shortly before his last illness he wrote to the chairman of the American Jewish Committee: " T h e abuse of civil liberty by the German Government is, in my judgment, one of the most atrocious governmental proceedings that has been enacted in modern times, and the great danger in it lies in the fact that this action may cause to spread to other countries the tendency to restrict the personal liberty of the citizen." 180

When Pritchett felt well, the house on Garden Street was almost always full of guests—many of them unexpected. Thus his intellectual life continued to be well nourished. Writes his wife: "There were people from Pomona College in the South, or some of the scientists from Lowell Observatory, or from California Tech., and representatives of the local paper, always breaking bread with us. Mark Requa, so close to Hoover, was here a great deal (he lived in Montecito) and many San Franciscans passing through. Henry had pleasure in his hospitality. He liked the companionship and the coming together of so many different minds. I recall my asking him once whom he had most enjoyed at the Bohemian Grove, and his reply was Paderewski. T o my jocose response that I was unable to understand how his Methodist hymns fitted in with Paderewski's music he replied, 'We did not discuss music at all, but enjoyed one another, and I am going up to Paso Robles to pay him a visit.' This came to pass a few weeks later, and Henry returned with some amusing anecdotes and many pleasant memories. Another annual episode that used to give him pleasure was going to Monterey for the annual golf tournament. There is a silver trophy in the study, which bears testimony to his prowess, and says, 'Western Golf Association. Amateur Championship. Tournament 1916. Runner Up, won by Henry S. Pritchett.' " In these days when college and university heads and their faculties are—war or no war—practically part-time officials, rushing from pillar to post, an extract from a letter to President Butler written from Santa Barbara in 1924 is well worth pondering: "There is a great satisfaction in being able to buckle down to work in the early morning hours uninterrupted by all the details that occupy one's time and attention in an executive position. I am convinced that a retreat of this character is necessary for the wholesome development of a Simple Thinker about twice annually. The weather has been heavenly, but the ranch people have been sad at the lack of rain and vigorous petitions to Prov181

idence have been going up on the part of the faithful. A s a consequence this part of the country has just been visited by an allday rain which fell so gently that almost all of the two inches of water went into the ground. There is some question as to whether the Catholic prayers or Protestant prayers were the more effective. The Catholics got into the game earlier, but the Protestants claim that the quick action which resulted after their petitions began to go up was a striking example of what the fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man avails. In any case the rain has come and the country will now blossom like a rose." Pritchett's quiet life was interrupted by the disastrous earthquake of 1925, which caused an estimated property loss of some # 15,000,000. Though engaged in writing his annual report, he was made chairman of the Reconstruction Committee. He took hold with vigor and intelligence. He described the calamitous event in a letter to M r . Charles Keeler of San Francisco: " M y personal experience of the earthquake was in a well built wooden house, on a good foundation, which suffered little damage from the earthquake. T h e first and most severe shock came about 6:45. I was occupying a sleeping porch which looked out both on the ocean and the mountains. I had just been wakened by the morning light and was deliberating whether to pull the shades and have another nap when I heard the ominous roar of the on-coming earth movement. This roar could be heard two or three seconds in advance of most of the heavier shakes, but it was loudest and most terrifying as a forerunner of the first great movement of the earth. " T h e roar which preceded the first shock was that of a grinding, crushing process, not a comforting sound to hear. I had barely time to realize that a sharp earthquake was at hand, when the shaking began. T h e vibrations seemed to come from the north and for a half a minute or such a matter the house rocked and jumped. One felt as if he were on the back of a bucking horse, with no control of the horse. The house seemed uninjured, al182

though, like Muir in the Yosemite, I could scarcely understand why anything remained standing. " T h e members of my household made haste to clothe themselves in slippers and wrappers and to reach the garden at the back of the house before the next shake, which came in about five minutes. While not so violent as the first shock, the impression made upon one in the open was more terrifying than that in a well built house. The plainly visible motion of the wave in the ground gave a sense of utter helplessness. These waves appeared to be about twenty-five feet long and one could see them as they crossed the lawn or traveled down a hedge. Trees bent over as the wave came up and returned to an upright position after the wave had passed. The whole effect upon the face of nature was uncanny. The earth seemed to shudder in distress. "During the first fifteen minutes there were seven of these shocks of diminishing intensity. Thereafter, during the day, 103 tremors of greater or less strength kept coming, but none comparable to those of the first fifteen minutes. On the seismograph 285 vibrations were recorded from the first day to its cessation ten weeks later. "While the earthquake of June twenty-ninth was not reckoned by seismologists as one of the first magnitude, nevertheless Santa Barbara suffered a great disaster. The business section of the city, built upon rather deep soil, suffered most. The main street was one mass of debris from fallen buildings or from buildings that had been partially destroyed. As it was, some fourteen persons were killed. In half a minute of time,a prosperous community in one of the most charming places of the world, and living in a peaceful sense of security, found itself confronted with an overwhelming disaster." On September 24, 1925, he wrote Mr. Keeler again, announcing his resignation from the chairmanship of the Reconstruction Committee: "As I must return in a few days to my duties in New York, I

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shall therefore not be able to exercise the functions of Chairman of your Committee longer. I present herewith a memorandum setting forth briefly the work of the Committee up to the present time. . . . The funds at the disposition of this Committee up to and including September 24 are as follows: From the California Development Association, known in our records as the Santa Barbara Relief Fund $428,057.72 From the Special Committee, and designated as the Special Relief Fund 234,120.65 Total

$662,178.37

" . . . the California Development Association . . . deserve the thanks of this Committee, and of the community, for undertaking what has proven to be an arduous and difficult task. Santa Barbara will come out of this experience a more beautiful and self-reliant city and with grateful appreciation of what has been done in her behalf by the various counties of the great commonwealth of which she is a part." Shortly after the earthquake, he writes to T a f t : "Having been yourself a sort of minor Pope you will be interested to know that while the Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregational, and even the Unitarian Churches were all impartially leveled, the Christian Science Church escaped without a scratch, showing how Providence looks out for His Own, although, as Mark Tjvain once remarked in comparing the misfortunes of the Christian Cemetery with the good luck of a Jewish Cemetery under similar conditions, 'Nepotism to this extent makes me tired.'" Pritchett's devotion to club life revived as he recovered his health. At Santa Barbara he invariably lunched on Wednesdays and Saturdays at the Santa Barbara Club; he was also the moving spirit in forming the Square Table, as distinguished from New 184

York's Round Table. He enjoyed, however, nothing more than the famous Bohemian Grove, which had an annual midsummer encampment in the redwood forest. There he met men whose friendship and conversation he greatly enjoyed. The club was founded as long ago as 1872 by a small group of journalists, artists, and musicians. In 1878 its members purchased a grove of giant redwoods which was converted into a permanent camping place where they sojourned at first for a week and later for two weeks. Ultimately its equipment consisted of a fine open-air theater with a stage backed by a steep forest hillside, a smaller intimate theater in a canyon, a great outdoor dining circle accommodating 1,200 persons, a campfire circle surrounded by benches hewn from logs, a bar, a grill, an artists' studio, and nearly 200 comfortable and well-equipped private camps. An original music drama was given in 1901 and some similar entertainment was given year after year. Pritchett himself belonged to a group which included President Butler and Mr. Jerome Landfield, who made coffee at eight and supplied it to his friends. After breakfast they talked for a while and then at ten, led by Mr. William H. Crocker, tramped over the mountain trails for an hour and a half. In the afternoon their activities varied. Some of them played cards or other games, some swam in the river, others read. Pritchett and Dr. Butler often went to the camp of Professor H. Morse Stephens, the historian, for an hour's chat. At five in the afternoon they scattered to make calls or to partake of a cocktail. Dinner was served in the open at seven, although at times small dinner parties were arranged in private camps. In the evening the members came together for an hour to participate in a musical or literary entertainment, usually impromptu in character. One of the most important achievements of the Bohemian Club was its influence in inducing the late Mr. Edward S. Harkness and Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., each to provide $500,000 for the permanent preservation of the so-called Dyerville Tract, 185

conditioned upon an appropriation by the state of California of an additional $1,000,000, needed to secure the purchase. Good citizen as he always was, Pritchett continued to write and speak on both national and state affairs. He kept in close touch with Alfred Holman, editor of the San Francisco Argonaut, who was a regular visitor. He endeavored to compose labor troubles which were frequent in Santa Barbara and sometimes violent. His views on national policy, expressed in calm, detached, and unmistakable manner, were always welcome whether his correspondents agreed or disagreed with him. He continued to object to making education a Federal rather than a state obligation; he opposed the reelection of Hiram Johnson as senator; he praised Hoover and Coolidge for their vetoes of the Bonus Bill; he was uneasy about the country's attitude on the Japanese question; he thought the use of cheap Mexican labor on the Atchison likely to cause trouble. There is a slight rise of temperature in his discussion of the absurd Townsend Plan and the frequent recalcitrancy of Senator Borah; but writing in 1936, he grants that "presumably Dr. Townsend is honest and sincere, but he has the mind of a promoter." He admits Borah's ability, but is "simply unable to follow the workings of his mind," as were many others. So the years rolled on—interesting, placid, active, one form of occupation replacing another, as prudence dictated. He was never in vigorous health from the time that he first came to Santa Barbara. He reports objectively his bouts of illness when writing to his friends; there was never a note of depression at home or in his letters. He preserved his serenity, apparently without effort. He accepted his lot "without a murmuring word." During the 1930s his conscience, however, pricked him; he could not keep up his pace. Writing in 1934, he said of his retirement from the Carnegie Foundation and other Carnegie institutions: "This matter of retiring is a difficult one for an active man to settle. I retired myself three years ago at the age of seventy-three, 186

but I still have an arrangement with the various Carnegie institutions which keeps me in the office at N e w Y o r k for two months and a half in the autumn and another two months in the spring, so that I am not wholly detached from the work with which I have been so long associated. Unfortunately, too, m y successor, Dr. Suzzallo, died suddenly last September and I became b y the wish of the trustees acting-president again, but I took over this job merely to be of assistance to the trustees in finding a new president whom we have chosen in the person of Dr. Jessup of Iowa." One by one, to the infinite regret of his associates, he withdrew from various boards—first the N e w Y o r k Public Library, the Huntington Library in 1936, and finally in 1937 from the Atchison. Pritchett's intimate correspondence with Elihu Root continued until Root's death in January, 1937. From Santa Barbara, in reference to the Metropolitan Museum of A r t in N e w Y o r k , he had written Root in January, 1932: M y dear Mr. Root: We have just had a visit from Mrs. Robert de Forest, who is living at the Hotel El Encanto (the Enchantment) just above the Mission where there is a stunning view out to sea and over the islands. She was so full of spirit and so pleased with the sunshine and flowers that it was a delight to see her. She related again her story of having been your pupil and expressed such affectionate regard and admiration for you that I am sure you would have enjoyed it, though you must have heard it often. I t is delightful to see her half proprietary interest in the Museum which goes back to her father's day. I wonder if you have seen an illuminated edition of Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, the illustrations done by Mrs. Huger Elliott, the wife of the head of the educational work of the Museum. If you have not seen it, have them send you over a copy to look at. The Colophon is delightful for it shows 187

Elliott shaking his finger at his wife and evidently criticizing her perspective. I have just returned from four days in Pasadena where I saw and talked with Professor Einstein quite a lot. He is a most extraordinary and delightful human being, full of good talk on all sorts of topics. He is beginning to speak English and in another year will no doubt be fairly at home in it. He is a loyal German in sympathy and has almost nothing in his manner to suggest the Hebrew. Hale was looking well and was anxious to know if you had received his little book, Signals from the Stars, that he had recently sent you. A line to him would give him great pleasure. T w o years later he writes:

M y dear Mr. Root: One of the drawbacks to living in the glorious climate of California lies in the fact that I cannot go in twice a week to collogue with you. You may find my repeated visitations something of a bore but to me they are vastly comforting in this wicked world. Our common friend, George Hale, has just been spending a weekend with me. Of all the men who have been drawn into the various Carnegie groups, he seems to me the most fruitfulminded. He has thought out and started more good things than any other man in scientific work in our country. He is now, of course, deep in the problem of the 200-inch reflector, the money for which, as you remember, came from the Rockefeller Foundation. They spent a lot of time and money trying to make a mirror of fused quartz, but were compelled to give it up. They are now, however, succeeding admirably with glass, having received great assistance from the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution, as well as from the experts of the glass manufacturing company in Corning, New York. Hale always speaks of you with affectionate regard whenever we meet. Sincerely yours, HENRY S. PRITCHETT 188

And again on February 8, 1934: Dear Mr. Root: A week from today you will be celebrating with other gay friends another birthday. I am only sorry that I cannot be there for the jollification you will have, but I send my hearty good wishes and my most affectionate greetings. Incidentally, I commend to your prayerful consideration the sixteenth verse of the Ninety-first Psalm. In November, 1935, Root writes in his own hand: M y dear Henry: I was much distressed by the news of your illness but now that you appear to be able to live in comfort I have been applying to your case the same philosophical views evoked by my own experience. Meantime we have a multitude of memories worth cultivating — t h e most valuable possession in life, and we have a capacity for sympathetic interest in what is going on in the world—a thing denied to those who have always lived in a rut. However, I recall Shakespeare in closing the list of evils in the 30th Sonnet: But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end. In what high and inspiring effort we have worked together! How many priceless memories remain to us! I cherish my affection for you. I am happily proud that you count me as a friend. No one could ever say or print any good thing about me worth so much as that. Give my love to Mrs. Pritchett and believe me always your admiring and faithful friend ELIHU ROOT

The next month—December, 1935—having received the early bulletins of the Institute for Advanced Study, he wrote me as follows: 189

" I t is always a pleasure to get a letter from you, and I am particularly interested by yours of November 22nd and the details you mention regarding the work of the scholars you have brought together. I am delighted to know that students are responding, and if I were younger I would come and join your seminar. Among the most stimulating intellectual experiences of my own life was that I had as a member of Professor Seeliger's seminar in the University of Munich. Seeliger was—in his time—one of the great mathematical astronomers of Europe." Mrs. Pritchett has written: "Privations he never allowed to affect his well-controlled temperament. I recall a bad misadventure when cutting across fields. Henry's horse became entangled in some loose barbed wire we had not seen. The result was bad, for after his efforts to get the horse free, Henry had a heart attack, and we were far from home. The heart in later years continued to act badly, but in all of the attacks, I was struck by the attitude of rather aloof reasoning, almost as if he were not the patient but some one called in, to reason about the symptoms." Since their marriage his wife had read aloud to him; in the last years her reading aloud increased. A t one time she read the whole of Trollope's novels from beginning to end. Finishing, she inquired, "What next?" He rejoined, "Read Trollope all over." He was equally fond of Thackeray. At the Century Club he would very frequently spend twenty or thirty minutes in the library after luncheon. On his return from Europe or from Santa Barbara, in the fall, in discussing office matters in general he would quite regularly talk about the books he had been reading. His bookish interests were more substantial than they appear to be if one judges mainly from his letters. Of purely personal letters to Mrs. Pritchett or his children practically none exists. Pritchett was a sensitive man, who did not wish letters of so intimate a character to fall into the hands

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of others. In accordance with his express desire, they were therefore destroyed. But enough is known to warrant a general statement that his married life was ideally happy and that he enjoyed profound pride and satisfaction in the career and achievements of his children. Beginning in 1920—the year following Mr. Carnegie's death— he wrote fully and gratefully to Mrs. Carnegie. For fourteen years they had been next-door neighbors. When he and his wife moved to Park Avenue, he could no longer drop in morning or afternoon to discuss business or to make a friendly call. " I t seems very strange," he wrote on November 2, 1920, "to be anywhere except next-door to an old neighbor." On the trip to the Near East in 1926 he kept Mrs. Carnegie informed in a series of brief letters written in his own hand. He moved rapidly, but he observed keenly. " I t is," he wrote to Mrs. Carnegie from Cairo, "another world than ours and the poorest American has a better outlook and a better chance to progress than any of these people." Three times during his last decade, his physicians sent him to Nauheim on account of his cardiac condition; he improved under the treatment and the after-cure. But in the summer of 1935, he "had a severe illness that kept me in bed some five weeks and my doctor has urged me so strongly to continue here for the winter that we shall not see you till next spring when we return to New Y o r k . " Early in 1937 Mrs. Pritchett "stepped on a pebble, fell and fractured her hip"—a misfortune similar to one she had experienced ten years before. " I t is not a cheerful prospect, but she accepts it with her usual courage and fortitude." The course taken by the German government filled him with anxious forebodings; but his faith that mankind would ultimately find a substitute for war was never extinguished. " D e a r old Elihu," he wrote at the close of 1937, "often talked this matter over with me; he felt that the time would come when Mr. 191

Carnegie's clear vision of the effects of human warfare would be accepted by the world." The Pritchetts, so Mrs. Pritchett records, were accustomed to take "long drives into the country every afternoon, often carrying a tea basket and loitering either on a distant beach or in the mountains. T h e other unalterable custom was that I should read aloud all evening." Meanwhile he was gradually becoming weaker. His heart trouble was more frequent; his life became more and more circumscribed. " A n d so the last months ended with an increasing lessening of his powers till the last days when there was prolonged unconsciousness." He died on August 28, 1939, in his eighty-third year. On a f a vorite walk in the Garden of Santa Barbara Mrs. Pritchett has placed a bench, on which are inscribed these words taken from an address he had made to college students: THE W A Y OF TRUTH IS ALONG THE PATH OF INTELLECTUAL SINCERITY

"One word more," writes Mrs. Pritchett, "should be said which perhaps no one else can give with the authority and knowledge I possess. T h e world at large may have realization of what Henry stood for in matters of education, the courage that was needed, and the standards that were involved. The character that these qualities betrayed is not spoken of lightly, but unless living under the same roof with Henry Pritchett, no one could appreciate his temperate and even nature or his self-control." It is to be hoped that in the telling of the story of Pritchett's life something of his unique personality has been caught and transmitted to the reader. The survivors of his time at the Coast Survey remember him with affection; Boston was always a second home to him and his wife. Of him as a human being no one has written more truly and vividly than his associate in N e w Y o r k , Mr. Henry James: 192

BUST BY JO DAVIDSON

" M y acquaintance with Doctor Pritchett began while he was still president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After 1925 I saw him more frequently and from 1928 when I became a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation until his death, I saw him quite often, not only in connection with the work of the Carnegie institutions but at his apartment in New York and twice at his home in Santa Barbara. Wherever I happened to meet or encounter him—in the hallways of 522 Fifth Avenue or lunching at the Century or in his own office or in board meetings or in his own home, he was always a welcome sight as he came stepping forward with his unhurried, vigorous stride. His figure was compact, his clothes were well-cut, his beard neatly trimmed, and even in old age he looked as if his body were close-knit and hard. His steady blue eyes gave you a friendly greeting. They were observing eyes. " A s years deepened the lines in his face, the characterful physiognomy that shows so well in J o Davidson's handsome sculpture portrait, became more striking. Into his voice as he greeted you there crept for the moment an undefinable but audible suggestion of a cordial chuckle. Inquiries and questions were apt to follow, and soon one found oneself discussing something interesting. I don't believe anyone would have called him a 'hail-fellowwell-met,' but he was certainly a companionable person. I have heard that his assistants in the Carnegie institutions were a little in awe of him and that he never encouraged or indulged in familiarities. Very likely. He was not easy-going with himself, and he had had too much executive experience to want to encourage the notion that he might be easy-going with others, and too fairminded to take liberties which he wouldn't want others to reciprocate. Besides, I believe that underneath all the social facility which his rich worldly experience had given him, he cherished an unusual reserve. I am no less confident that he had strong feelings than I am that their expression was instinctively inhibited and controlled. This being so, it was remarkable that he estab-

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lished friendly relations so easily and had so many friends among other men. But in spite of his reserves, an honest, frank, interested good will unmistakably came through to one. I t warmed his intelligence, his shrewd and humorous good sense, and his wide-ranging curiosity. It made men enjoy his company and his talk. Indeed, he was an unusually agreeable man to talk with. He n t / e r became excited and his conversation always led to something worth while. I don't think small talk and gossip interested him in the slightest, but he dealt with any subject that did interest him in a simple and fresh way; and he carried his own freight of learning and experience lightly. He had traveled widely and known many people concerned in important or significant affairs. "He never seemed to forget anything. I t didn't irk him to have an attic full of old furniture in his mind, and the attic was always dusted and the furniture repaired. He expressed his opinions easily and frankly, was ready to argue, quite ready to disagree, assumed that others would not hesitate to disagree with him. I never knew him to wax hot and vehement, no matter how firmly he pressed his own view. It appeared to me that he judged people very justly, and I am sure that he valued them for such virtues as they might possess and paid little attention, except for the sake of understanding them better, to their origins, limitations, or defects. It would be hard to exaggerate the multifarious character of his interests and his experiences. These were not confined to the public services for which he is remembered. He had had a country bringing-up, and all his life he had enjoyed or had seized for himself opportunities to gratify his taste for some kinds of sport. Once when I spent a week with him at the False Cape Duck Club off the coast of Virginia I had a good opportunity to see that he was a good sportsman even in his later years. He was still a good shot, and he knew what some ardent duck hunters don't know—how to take his sport in a reasonable way. He enjoyed going out to a blind in the morning, and when he had had enough of 194

it, he came in for a bath and a nap and was then always ready and eager for talk during the remainder of the afternoon and evening. Circumstances and conditions at the False Cape Club naturally suggested other subjects of conversation besides politics and problems of the Carnegie institutions, and I wish I could remember well enough to repeat some of the experiences that he there recalled: an heroic opera-bouffe adventure when as a small boy in Missouri he helped an old darky trap a whole flock of turkeys in one pit; experiences when as an older boy he rode on long errands over roads that were harassed by Confederate and Union foraging parties; other adventures all the way from the Rockies to Australasia. He didn't inflict such stories on one, but at the False Cape Club one or the other of them would be apropos of something that was happening or being said and would come out delightfully." I have in the course of this volume discussed separately, as I had to do, Pritchett's official or professional characteristics, the manner of man he was to his family, associates, and friends, the way in which he manifested himself at the clubs of which he was so fond. But Pritchett was one person, not three; in him as human being all three were thoroughly integrated. In his office at Washington, Boston, or New York, he was not merely an official; in his home he was not merely son, husband, father, friend; in his clubs, he was not merely clubman: he was always all three. The keen sense of responsibility, the strong sense of duty, the twinkling good humor, the fairness and deference to others, the love of fun, sport, the outdoors were always merged, though now one, now another was for the moment more prominent as occasion demanded; but all irradiated his conduct, his bearing, and thus fused to make Henry Pritchett the wise, able, equable, lovable, serious human being that from early manhood through life he was. Perhaps in the speech at the Cosmos Club, made when he was seventy-one and dealing with memories and experiences of his twenties, the chemical combination of the various aspects of 195

his personality is to be most clearly perceived; in that, and in his letters to T a f t and Root, restrained but unmistakably tinted with emotion, seriousness, humor. Let me, in conclusion, give a quick glance over Pritchett's active career. His college training was limited to a small institute —Pritchett Collegiate Institute—in a remote corner of Missouri. Following that, he had a brief contact with Asaph Hall in Washington. He went back to Glasgow, Missouri, and he shortly became professor of astronomy and mathematics at Washington University, which was itself an inconspicuous western college at the time; for a brief period he studied at Munich and won his doctorate with distinguished honor. I t is not surprising that with his acute mind he acquired rapidly a knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. I t is surprising that without contact with other colleges either as an administrator or a professor he should have rapidly developed far-reaching views regarding both research and education. When, for example, he was called to Washington as superintendent of the Coast Survey, he seemed to see through the whole organization as if it were a piece of plate glass. He grasped intuitively the possibilities of an enlarged and expanded Bureau of Standards. He saw long before anyone else in the N a v y the part that the Coast Survey could play in respect to the Spanish W a r and the subsequent developments in Hawaii and the Philippines. T o have accomplished so much in three years is little short of a miracle. He had, it is true, spent something over a year in the study of astronomy in Munich and there undoubtedly profited by seeing at first hand the high standards of scientific work which prevailed in the German universities. But when he went to Boston as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his letters gave no indication that he had visited or studied problems of engineering education. At a glance he saw the weakness of the M . I. T . and the importance of combining its practical work with the Lawrence Scientific School, which was a school of

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pure science. He further saw that even this combination would not cover the field. Hence arose his interest in the Franklin Institute, out of which ultimately came the Franklin Union. Meanwhile, though he was still in the early forties, the financial plight of the professor was an object of concern at a time when, as far as the records show, no one else except the individual professor was worrying about it. Thus on a chance meeting with Mr. Carnegie he was ready with the suggestion that the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching be created for the primary purpose of providing retiring allowances which would undoubtedly react on the quality of the American professor. But he saw something else, namely, that the Camegie Foundation could do more than cooperate in paying retiring allowances. While his experience with American institutions of learning was limited, he knew that college and professional education needed critical examination from the standpoint of quality and financing. True enough, the question of medical education was mentioned to him by Dr. Bevan and his associates, but it was remarkable that he so quickly saw an opportunity to perform a fearless and thorough-going task, the ultimate result of which was the complete reorganization of medical education in America. He saw another thing at the very outset, namely, that he had no measuring stick with which to determine the kind of institution which should share in Mr. Carnegie's benefaction. Although he adopted the standards of the New York State Board of Regents, he knew perfectly well that this was a quantitative and not a qualitative test. He bided his time until Mr. Learned attracted his attention and thereupon steered gradually away from the quantitative test to a qualitative test, which is now almost universally accepted. In addition, his reports contain the examination of almost every aspect of higher education in the United States and Europe. B y this time, of course, he had come into immediate contact with institutions of learning in this 197

country and abroad and with American and European scholars, but once more he showed an instinctive appreciation of the difference between what was superficial and what was sound, and he never ceased to uphold the cause of sound, sincere, and solid learning as against the fads and frills by which most American institutions, driven by the desire for numbers and the still more urgent need of tuition fees, were being demoralized. He was a reformer in every field in which he entered, and a reformer who never lost his good temper and who never displayed bitterness or disappointment; he dealt fairly and candidly with institutions of great repute like Harvard and Y a l e just as he did with small denominational colleges scattered throughout the country. He had a consciousness of what was right which never deserted him. He had "the prepared mind," upon the importance of which Pasteur had insisted, but how it was prepared is not known. Dealing with one topic after another, he showed wisdom and appreciation of what was sound and right. Meanwhile throughout his life his range of reading, acquaintance, and correspondence extended: Opportunity never caught him unawares.

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Appendix I CHRONOLOGICAL L I S T OF B U L L E T I N S P U B L I S H E D B Y T H E C A R N E G I E FOUNDATION FOR T H E A D V A N C E M E N T OF T E A C H I N G 1907-1930

Papers Relating to the Admission of State Institutions to the System of Retiring Allowances of the Carnegie Foundation. 1907. The Financial Status of the Professor in America and in Germany. 1908. Standard Forms for Financial Reports of Colleges, Universities, and Technical Schools. 1910. Medical Education in the United States and Canada. 1910. Academic and Industrial Efficiency. 1910. Medical Education in Europe. 1912. Education in Vermont. 1914. The Common Law and the Case Method in American University Law Schools. 1914. A Comprehensive Plan of Insurance and Annuities for College Teachers. 1915-16. Federal Aid for Vocational Education. 1917. Engineering Education. 1918. Pensions for Public School Teachers. 1918. Justice and the Poor. 1919. The Professional Preparation of Teachers for American Public Schools. 1920. Training for the Public Profession of the Law. 1921. Education in the Maritime Provinces of Canada. 1922. Retiring Allowances for Officers and Teachers in Virginia Public Schools. 1926. Games and Sports in British Schools and Universities. 1927. Dental Education in the United States and Canada. 1927.

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The Quality of the Educational Process in the United States and Europe. 1927. Present-Day Law Schools in the United States and Canada. 1928. A Retirement Plan for Colorado Public Schools. 1928. American College Athletics. 1929. The Literature of American School and College Athletics. 1930. The Social Philosophy of Pensions with a Review of Existing Pension Systems for Professional Groups. 1930.

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Appendix II S E L E C T E D L I S T OF P R I T C H E T T ' S M I S C E L L A N E O U S PAPERS AND ADDRESSES

"A Plan for International Measurement of an Arc of the 98th Meridian." Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, May 27, 1898. "Is There a Place for a Profession in Commerce?" Transactions 0} the New England Cotton Manufacturers' Association, No. 70, April 24, 1901. "What is Truth?" The Outlook, March 8,1902. "The Place of Industrial and Technical Training in Popular Education." Technology Review, IV (1902), No. 1. "Story of the Establishment of the National Bureau of Standards." Science, Feb. 21,1902. "The Part of the Manual-Training High School in American Education." Proceedings of the National Educational Association, July, 1903. "The College of Applied Science as a Factor in the Growth of an Industrial City." Address at the inauguration of President Charles W. Dabney, University of Cincinnati, Nov. 16,1904. "How Science Helps Industry in Germany." The American Monthly Review of Reviews, Feb., 1906. "Mr. Carnegie's Gift to the Teachers." The Outlook, May 19,1906. " A Woman's Opportunity in Business and the Industries." Address at the second annual Commencement of Simmons College, Boston, June 12,1907. "The Roosevelt Doctrine of a Strong Navy." The Outlook, Jan. 1 1 , 1908. "The Relations of Christian Denominations to Colleges." Address before the Conference on Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, at Atlanta, May 20, 1908. 20I

"Some Recollections of President McKinley and the Cuban Intervention." The North American Review, March, 1909. "How to Study Medicine." The Outlook, Oct., 1910. "The Vigor of Vermont." The Independent, New York, May 25, 1914. "Democracy and Medical Education." The Lancet-Clinic, March 20, I9I5"Should the Carnegie Foundation be Suppressed?" The North American Review, April, 1915. "Andrew Carnegie." Anniversary address delivered before the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Nov. 24, 1915. " A Half Century of Technology." Address delivered on the occasion of the dedication of the new buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1916. "The Pension Problem and Its Solution." Atlantic Monthly, Dec., 1918. "What is the Matter with the Railways?" Tracts for Today, Feb., 1923. "Copernicus and the Fundamentalists." Scribner's Magazine, Jan., 1924. " A Teachers Bonus Bill." The New York Times, April 6, 1924. " A Tale of Two Cities." Scribner's Magazine, Nov., 1924. "Earthquake Days in Santa Barbara." Scribner's Magazine, June, 1926. "The Use and Abuse of Endowments." Atlantic Monthly, Oct., 1929. "The First Twenty Years of Carnegie Corporation." Speech at dinner in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Carnegie Corporation of New York, Nov. 1 9 , 1 9 3 1 . "What's Wrong with Congress." Atlantic Monthly, March, 1935.

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Index Academy of Medicine, New York, 152 Acknowledgments, v Adams, Charles Francis, 86 Adams, John Quincy, 53» Administration, distinguished from government, 1 3 1 , 1 7 3 Agassiz, Alexander, 52 Alaska boundary dispute, 59 Aiverston, Lord, 60 American College, The (Flexner), 108 American Jewish Committee, :8o American Medical Association, Council on Medical Education, 107, 108, n o American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 146, 149 Andrew Carnegie (Pritchett), 89« Angell, James R., 137, 141 Apritchard, original names of Pritchetts, 3 Astronomy, Can- Pritchett's career, 10, 14; Henry Pritchett's study of, and early career, 24 if.; instruments, 10, 22, 2 3, 31, 33, 5 1 ; early or classical astronomy: newer developments: astrophysics, 26, 32, 33; transit of Venus, 1882, 26, 27; exploration of the southern sky, 28; total eclipse of sun, 29; longitude determination, 31; Pritchett's doctorate, sumrna cum laude at Munich, 44; Hale's work: the 200-inch reflector, 188 Astrophysics, 26, 32, 33 Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company, Pritchett's connection with, 158-60, 187 Athletics, 20; in colleges, study on, 119— 21 Atlantic Monthly, 48, 8ln, 133, 161, 162 Atomic structure, grant for study of, 152 Australia, visit to, 28 Bache, Alexander D., 52 Bagley, William C., 124 Bakhmeteff, Boris, 174 Banting, Dr., 146 Baptist church, relation to University of Chicago, 97

Bauer, L. A., 60 Beer drinking, 71 Bertram, 139, 140 Best, Dr., 146 Bevan, Arthur Dean, 107, 108, 110, 197 Bigelow, Robert Payne, quoted, 72-74 Billroth's work on medical faculties, 110 Bishop, William Warner, 151 Bond, William C., 9 Bonus Bill, 168, 186 Borah, Senator, 186 Boston, Benjamin Franklin's bequest to, 80 Boyd, W. R., 50; quoted, 1 1 1 Brookings, Robert S., 34 Brookings Institution, 145 Bryant, C. B., 3 Bryant, William Cullen, 175 Buffalo Exposition, superintendent of awards, 75 Business, Pritchett's conception of, 162; schools of, 163 Butler, Nicholas Murray, 151, 160, 179, 181, 185; on college football, 121 Byrd, Mary, 4 California, University of, 107 California Institute of Technology, 152 Canada, Alaska boundary dispute, 59 Cannon, "Uncle Joe," 53,62 Cardozo, Benjamin, 174 Carlton, Newcomb, 179 Carnegie, Andrew, attitude towards cooperation with denominational institutions, 23, 91, 96; adds funds to Franklin's bequest, 80; biographies, 87, 88, 89^92; made trustee of Cornell: interest in teachers' salaries aroused, 87; institutions endowed by, 88, 89, 91, 137; Pritchett intimate and influential with, 88, 15s; landmarks in story of, 88, 106; provisions for, and grants to, retirement allowances, 89; removed ban from state universities: gave grant for their pensions, 98; creation and administration

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Carnegie, Andrew (Continued) of Carnegie Corporation, 137, 1378F. passim; freedom given to trusts created by, 138; death, 139; intention that the five English-speaking commonwealths should be beneficiaries of the Corporation, 153; Pritchett as interpreter of his wishes and interests, 158; vision of effects of war, 192 Carnegie, Mrs. Andrew, 88, 142, 1 9 1 ; reliance upon Pritchett and Root, 137; letter of appreciation, 153 Carnegie Corporation of New York, 22, 89; grant for biography of Pritchett, v ; grants to Carnegie Foundation, 98, 1 1 5 , 138; to make Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association possible, 99, 100; control relinquished, 100; function: presidents, 137; Pritchett as acting president, 137, 143; use of its sister trusts as agencies: their independence, 138; amount of grants to them, 139; organization, 139 ff. ; trustees, 139, 1 4 1 ; evolution from a purely personal agency to an institution, 138 ff.; financial record under Carnegie's administration, 1 4 1 ; Pritchett's reports, 143; concept of its function: financial management, 143 f. ; miscellaneous grants made by, 145, 149, 150, 152; beneficiaries intended by Carnegie: those that should be sought out, 153 f. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, v ; events leading to, and creation of, 87 f.; under Pritchett's presidency, 88-104; Carnegie's letter of gift, excerpts, 89; difficulties to be met, 90 ff.; influence and achievements, 90, 98; conditions under which free pensions were granted, 9 1 , 9 3 f.; institutions excluded, 9 1 , 96-98; finances, 92, 98 f.; Pritchett's identity with policy of, 94; college and university defined, 94, 123; standards established: the "Carnegie units," 95, 123, 127 f.; grants from Carnegie Corporation, 98, 1 1 5 , 138; relation of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association to, 99, 100 ff.; not a charity, but a great educational force, 100; no money ever paid to members of government, 103; bulletins, 105-28; Pritchett's methods, 106, 107; number of bulletins published, 106; the studies

on medical education, 1 0 8 - 1 5 ; on education in Vermont, 1 1 5 ; on legal education, 1 1 6 - 1 8 ; on college athletics, 1 1 8 2 1 ; on the Oberlehrer, 123; in the field of general education, 1 2 3 - 2 7 ; president's freedom of speech, 129; annual reports, 129-35; government distinguished from administration, 1 3 1 ; emphasized as an educational agency, 1 3 3 ; Pritchett's far-reaching vision of, 197 Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, 89 Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, 60; function, 89, 155; Pritchett's early interest in, 155-57; member of its executive and finance committees, 157 "Carnegie units," 95, 123, 127 f. Carrel, Alexis, 174 Case system in legal education, u 6 Centennial Exposition, 24 f. Central College, 9, 22 Century Association, 173 Chamberlain, Senator, 103 Charles River Dam, Committee on, 82 f. Charroppin, Charles M., 30 Chart-making, Spanish War, 55-58 Chauvenet, William, 31 Chicago, University of, 96, 107, 134 Civil War in Missouri, 12 f., 17 ff. Clark, Alvah, & Sons, 10 Clark, Bennett C., 168 Clay, Henry, 2 Cleveland, President, 52 Clifford, Cornelius, 174 Club, " T h e , " 86 Clubs and club life, 24, 62, 63, 64, 86, 173 ff., 184, 185; why round table talk not popular, 175 Coast and Geodetic Survey, see U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Cockrell, Francis, 12 Coe College, 1 1 1 College Entrance Examination Board, 123 Colleges and universities, Carnegie's attitude towards aid for denominational institutions, 23, 91, 96; German, 46 f., 104, 106 (see also under German); financial status of teachers, 73, 76, 87, 90; few able to provide pensions, 89; Carnegie's provision for, 89 ff.; those excluded from Carnegie system, 91, 9698, 132; indifference of authorities: pensions no longer restricted to poorer

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institutions, 93; task of defining and standardizing, 94., 122, 127 (.; state universities placed upon same pension system as others, 98; retiring annuities and life insurance for personnel, 99 f.; faculty government, 104; study of athletics in, 1 1 9 - 2 1 ; formula of N. Y . State Board of Regents, 1 2 3 , 1 9 7 ; relations between high school and college in Pennsylvania, 124 ff.; the issue of quality as opposed to quantity, 125, 197; relation of politicians to state universities, 130; evolution of, 133; see also Education; Pensions; and under names, e.g., Massachusetts Institute of Technology Collins, Mayor, 81 Columbia University, football, 121; Teachers College, 124 Col well, N. P., 108, n o "Commerce, Is There a Place for a Profession in" (Pritchett), 161, 1 6 2 f . Congregational Education Society, 132 Congressional Club, 64 Cooperative Test Service, 124 Cornell University, Carnegie a trustee, 87 Cosmos Club, 24; founder members: history, 63 f. Coudert, Frederic R., 174 Council on Education, 108, 124 Council on Medical Education, 107, 108, 110

Ecole Polytechnique, 155 Education, Carr Pritchett's schools, 7, 9, 14; his ideas, 14; interest in, after Civil War, 19; Pritchett's presidency of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and its constructive results, 67-80, 88, 163; his views of relation between culture and scientific studies, 74; defining and standardizing colleges and universities, 94, 122ff., 1 2 7 f . ; high schools,95, 96, 123; studies of medical education, 108-15, 197; of education in Vermont, 1 1 5 ; of legal education, 116—18; Learned's study of the Oberlehrer, 123; his other studies in field of education, I24f.; Missouri survey, 124; Pennsylvania, 124(1.; the issue of quality as opposed to quantity, 125, 197; measurements and tests, 1 2 6 - 2 8 , 197; improvement of higher, a main interest of Pritchett, 129; creation of a government department of, opposed, 168; see also College and universities; Teachers medical: in America, 108-14; reception of the studies, 1 0 9 , 1 1 3 ; their influence, 1 1 3 , 197; number of schools, 1 1 3 ; four great leaders responsible for America's front rank in, 1 1 4 ; in Europe, study of, H 4 f .

Darwin, Charles, 21 Davidson, Jo, sculpture portrait by, 193 De Forest, Robert, 160 Deming, L. C., 159 Denominational institutions, Carnegie's attitude towards cooperation with, 23, 91, 96; difficulty of excluding from pension system: those admitted to its benefits, 96; relations between religious boards and institutions they controlled, 97, 132 Diabetes, research on, 143, 146 Duffield, William Ward, 52 Dyerville Tract, 185

Educational Records Bureau, 126 "Education and War" (Pritchett), excerpt, 161 Einstein, Albert, 188 Electric test-scoring machine, 126 Eliot, Charles W., 6 1 , 86, 136, 169, 175, 179; letter of welcome to Pritchett, 67; credit for Harvard medical school, 1 1 4 ; epoch-making work at Harvard, 133; approval of Volstead Act, 169 Eliot, William G., 33 Elliott, Mrs. Huger, 187 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 86, 175 Engineers, training schools for, 76 Engineers and Engineering in the Renaissance (Parsons), 150 England, college and university government, 104; Sadler's studies of education in, 1 1 5 Engler, Professor, 30, 38 Ethical Culture Society, 34

Earthquake of 1925, 182 ff. Eastman, John R., 24

False Cape Duck G u b , 194 Farrand, Max, quoted, 172

Crafts, Professor, 67, 69, 76 Crawford, John D., 35 Crocker, William H., 185 Culture, relation to scientific studies, 74

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Fielding, Dr., 7 Firth, Sir Charles, 104 Flexner, Abraham, study of medical education in America, 108-14, 197; in Europe, 114L; writings by, 108, 110« Flexner, Simon, 109 Football, 119, 120, 121 Forty Years of Carnegie Civing (Lester),

Hendrick, Burton, 88, 92 Hero Fund, 89 Hesperia, 149 Higginson, Major, 86, 157 High schools, standardization: the "Carnegie units," 95, 96, 123; relation between colleges and, in Pennsylvania, 124. ff.; training for teachers, 124 Hill, Dr., 146 Hitchcock, Secretary, 58, 62 Hitler, Adolf, 180 Holden, Professor, 63 Holman, Alfred, 186 Hoover, Herbert, 179, 181 Hopkins, Johns, 145 Hunting, Pritchett's love of, 22, 35, 37, 194 Huntington Library, 160, 172, 187

87 Foundations, creation and science of, I44f. France, before and after formation of Ecole Polytechnique, 155 Franklin, Benjamin, bequests to Boston and Philadelphia, 80 Franklin Institute, 80 Franklin Union, 81 Franks, 139, 140 Fürst, Clyde, 135 Gage, Lyman J., 50, 52, 62 General Education Board, 92 Gennadeion Library, 146, 149 Gennadius, George, 160 Gennadius, Johannes, 149, 150 German universities, 46 f.; Pritchett's study and doctorate at Munich, 37-46 passim, 190; faculty government, 104; spirit of the great teachers in, 106. Germany, Leamed's study of the Oberlehrer, 123; Pritchett's judgment of the Hitler regime, 180 Gilbert, W. M., quoted, 157 Gilman, Daniel Coit, 114, 156 Golf, 176 Government distinguished from administration, 131, 173 Grant, Robert, 174 Hadley, President and Mrs., 61 Hale, George E., 33, 143, 179, 188 Hall, Asaph, 9, 13, 24, 26 Harkness, Edward S., 185 Harkness, William, 24 Harper, President, 97 Harvard University, 96, 107, 114; Carr Pritchett's journey to, and study at, 9; retirement system, 93; Law School, 116; Eliot's transformation of Harvard College into, 133; see also Lawrence Scientific School Hassler, F. R., development of Coast and Geodetic Survey, 51 Heller, Otto, 33, 44, 46

Institute for Advanced Study, 156, 189 Insurance for college personnel, 99, 100, 102 Iowa, Board of Education, I I I , 112 Iowa, University of, College of Medicine, 112 1 Remember (Flexner), 110» "Is There a Place for a Profession in Commerce?" (Pritchett), 161, 162 f. James, Henry, 93, 100, 170«; on Pritchett as a human being, 192-95 James, William, quoted, 48 Japan, U. S. relations with, 166 Jefferson, Thomas, 51 Jessup, President, 23, 91, I I I , 129, 170, 187 Johns Hopkins Medical School, 107, n o , 114, 145; endowment of dispensary and clinic, 152 Johns Hopkins University, 134, 145 Johnson, Hiram, 186 Justice and the Poor (Smith), 116 Keeler, Charles, 182, 183 Keppel, Frederick P., 137, 141; quoted, >38, I S3 Lamont, Thomas, 179 Landfield, Jerome, 185 Laurier, Sir Wilfred, 59 Lawrence Scientific School, proposed collaboration of Massachusetts Institute of Technology with, 76-80

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League of Nations, 166 Learned, William S., S3, 143. 197; background, 123; studies in field of education, 123-25; quoted on the unit system, 128 Lee, Robert E., 8 Legal education, studies of, 116-18 Lester, Robert M., 87 Life insurance for college personnel, 99, 100, 102 Lighthouse Board, 61 Lincoln, Abraham, 14, 83, 84 Longitude determination, 31 Lowell, A. Lawrence, 79, 80, 81, 174, 175 Lowell, James Russell, 10; quoted, 84 Lowell Institute, 81 f. McAllister, Eva, 68; see also Pritchett, Eva McAllister Machinery, American, 25 McKinley, President, 51, 52, 56, 62; position with respect to war and Philippines, 58 MacLeod, Professor, 146 Mall, Franklin P., quoted, 49 Map-making, Spanish War, 55-58 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pritchett's presidency, 64, 67-80, 119; early history: first three presidents, 67; student life, 69 ff.; educational and social reforms, 72 ff.; financial position, 75; collaboration with Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School proposed: resulting controversy, 76-80; Pritchett's resignation, 80, 88 Measurements and tests, educational, 12628; the "Carnegie units," 95, 123, 127 Medical education, see under Education Mendenhall, Thomas C., 52 Mercati, Monsignor, 151 Mercury, transit of, 27 Methodist Episcopal Church, Board of Education, 132 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 147, 160, 187 Millikan, Robert A., 143, 152 Missouri, Pritchett family's move to, 4; life of pioneers, 5; slavery and other conditions in, 6, 16; educational situation, 7, 22; during Civil W a r , 12, 16ff.; origin and pronunciation of name, 16; survey of education in, 124 Mommsen, Theodor, 47

Monge, Gaspard, 155 Morrison, Berenice, 10, 14, 23 Morrison Observatory, 25 Mt. Wilson Observatory, 143 Munich, Pritchett's study for doctorate in, 37-46 passim, 190 Nagel, Charles, 34, 61 National Academy of Sciences, 152 National Broadcasting Company, 160 National Bureau of Standards, 55 National Collegiate Athletic Association, 119 National Education Association, 168 National Research Council, 152 Naval Observatory, 24, 25, 26,63 Newcomb, Simon, 9, 24 Newlands, Francis G , 165 New York (city), pensions, 89 New York (state), Board of Regents, formula for college rating, 123,197 New York Academy of Medicine, 152 New York Public Library, 160, 187 New Zealand, commission to observe transit of Venus in, 26, 27 Norton, Charles Eliot, 86, 175 Noyes, Dr., 143 Nypher, Professor, 30 Oberlehrer, Learned's study of, 123 Oklahoma, University of, 130 Olney, Richard, 86 Origin 0} Species (Darwin), 21 Paderewski, Ignace J., 181 Page, Thomas Nelson, 62 Page, Walter H., 96 Panama Canal tolls, 165 Park, Charles F., 81, 82 Parsons, William Barclay, 150, 151 Peace Endowment, 89 Peirce, Benjamin, 52 Pennsylvania, study of relations between high school and college in, 124(f.; educational tests, 127 Pensions and retirement allowances, few colleges able to provide, 89; New York City's, 89; inadequate provision for, 90, 92; A Third of a Century of Teachers Retirement, 90; far-reaching effect of Camegie system, 91, 133; institutions excluded, 91, 96-98; indifference of the colleges, 93; no longer restricted to the

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Pensions (Continued) poorer institutions: age of retirement, 93; Carnegie grants unable to carry pension load: need for, and creation of, a joint contributory system on a contractual basis, 99 f., 102; reward, not charity, 103; treatment in Pritchett's annual reports, 129; never used to put pressure upon institutions, 132 Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin's bequest to, 80 Philippine Islands, maps, 55 ff.; McKinley's position, 58; organization of surveys, 61 Philosophers, The, club, 174. Pius X I , Pope, 151 Pleasant Hill Academy, 7 Poynton, John A., 139

Pritchett, Henry, 3; move to, and life in, Missouri, 4 ff. Pritchett, Henry Smith, private life: ancestry, 2; account of early memories, 3; birth, 8; family affection and interest, 8, 29, 45, 68, 1 9 1 ; opinion of father's astronomical ambitions, 10; boyhood, 16-22; education, 2of., 37 ff.; marriage to Ida P. Williams: her death, 29; children, 29,68, 178; as his son remembered him, 36,40; first journeyings in Europe: study in Munich, 1894-95, 37-46, 190; desire to have father join him, 42, 45; marriage to Eva McAllister, 68; poor health, 158, 176, 186, 191; request that all his purely personal letters be destroyed, 191 ; death: words inscribed to his memory, 192

P r e s b y t e r i a n College B o a r d , 1 3 2

Present-Day

Law Schools in the United

States and Canada (Reed), 118 Princeton University, 96, 156 Pritchett family, members; westward movement, 3 ff.; qualities, 5, 8 Pritchett, Betty Susan Smith (Mrs. Carr Waller Pritchett), ancestry, 4; marriage: death,8; character, 8 , 1 1 ; Henry's reverence for, 8; during Civil War, 12, 13 Pritchett, Carr Waller, 2; birth, 4; marriage, 4, 8; education, 6 f . ; early career as teacher and minister, 7; character, 8, 1 1 ; children, 8, 9, 13; Henry's affection for, 8; journey to, and study at, Harvard, 9; as an educator, 9, 14; career in astronomy, 10, 14; during Civil War, 12; with U. S. Sanitary Commission, 13; retirement: death, 15; urged to join son in Europe, 42; unable to take trip, 45; meeting with Henry's wife, 69 Pritchett, Edith, 68, 69, 177 Pritchett, Edwin E. (Ted), 29, 37 ff., 51, 69, 178 Pritchett, Eva McAllister (Mrs. Henry Smith Pritchett), 176, 177, 181, 190; marriage: daughter, 68; hospitality, 69; as college president's wife, 69, 70, 82; letters from the Near East, 146; collection of Pritchett's papers and addresses, 1 6 1 ; tribute to husband, 192 Pritchett, Harry, 29, 37ff., 50, 69, 178; on his father's personality and interests, 36, 40

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us piufcssiunal

man, citizen,

anil

friend: close friendship and correspondence with Elihu Root, 20, 177, 178, 187-89, 191; choice of a profession, 22, 24; study of, and career in, astronomy, 24ff.; rapid professional progress: positions held, 25 ff.; professorship of astronomy at Washington University, 26, 29,31 ff. ; observation of transit of Venus, 26, 27; of Mercury, 27; visit to Australia: interest in the southern sky, 28; wins doctorate summa cum laude in astronomy, 44; alive to importance of thorough school and college training, 46; articles contributed to Atlantic Monthly and other journals, 48, 8ln, 133, 161-63; interviews with Lyman J. Gage and President McKinley, 50 f., 52, 56; superintendency of U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 50-66; severance from it, and development of, Bureau of Standards, 53-55; map- and chart-making during Spanish War, 55-58; a factor in settling Alaska boundary dispute, 59; other achievements, 60; a lay member of Lighthouse Board, 61; lifelong friendships made in Washington, 62; relations with T. Roosevelt, 62, 83-85, 87, 164; speech at Cosmos Club anniversary, 63; presidency of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 64, 6780, 119; interest in student welfare, 70ff.; attitude towards beer drinking, 7 1 ; educational and social reforms made, 72 ff.; relations with faculty, 72,

73, 78; view of relation between culture and scientific studies, 74; financial stringency, 75; refusal of more lucrative posts, 76; proposal of collaboration with Lawrence Scientific School: resulting controversy, 76-80; resignation from Institute's presidency, 80, 88; public services in Boston: education for workmen, 80; on Committee on Charles River Dam, 82; interest in political questions, 83, 164-70, 186; personal friends of Boston period, 86; intimate and influential with Andrew Carnegie, 87 f-, '55; relations with Mrs. Carnegie, 88, 137, 142, 153, 191; presidency of Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 88-136; Andrew Carnegie, an address, 89*1; identity with policy and work of the Foundation, 94; task of defining and standardizing educational institutions and arriving at units of measurement, 94 if., 122 f., 127; vision for, and presidency of, Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, 99 ff.; his work with the Carnegie institutions appraised, 100102; responsibility shared by fellow trustees, 101; criticisms of, 103, 104, 123; vast opportunity that he foresaw, and his preparation for it, 105; methods used, and fundamental part played, in preparation of the Carnegie Bulletins, 106 ff. passim; bulletins prepared during his presidency, 106-28 (see under Carnegie Foundation); influence on Iowa Board of Education, 1 1 1 ; on the medical profession, 1 1 3 , 197; concern about place of athletics in colleges, 119, 1 2 1 f.; annual reports when president of the Foundation, 129-35; freedom of speech and action, 129; deep interest in the improvement of higher education, 129; plea for educational sincerity: hatred of pretense, 1 3 1 ; realization of difference between government and administration, 1 3 1 , 173; above using retiring allowance to put pressure upon institutions, 132; as acting president of Camegie Corporation, 137, 139-154 passim; made two successive reports, 143; views on the science of foundations, 143-45; trip to, and activities in, the Near East, 146-50; negotiations in

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Rome, with Vatican Library, 150; belief that the Corporation should make its own discoveries of significant causes and able men: appreciations of his services to Corporation, 153; relations with Camegie Institution of Washington, 155-58; influenced the setting up of other Carnegie foundations, 155; able and far-sighted in his role of diplomat in Camegie interests, 158; relations with Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company, 158-60, 187; memoranda on railway problems, 160; other interests and trusteeships, 160, 172; What Is Religion? the only book he wrote, 162, 163 f.; relations with President Taft, 164, 166, 167, 177, 184; "an ideal citizen": characteristics of his correspondence: many posts offered to, 170; his later years in Santa Barbara, 177-92; severed all connection with Camegie institutions, 178, 186; friends of his California life, 179, 181, 185, 186, 188; concern about Germany, 180; during earthquake: chairman of Reconstruction Committee, 182 ff.; withdrawal from boards on which he served, 187; summary of his active career, 19698 characteristics: interest in athletics, 20, 118; in hunting and outdoor life, 21, 22, 35. 37, 194; characteristics, 2 1 , 32, 3 6 , 4 5 , 6 3 , 6 6 , 6 8 , 7 2 , 1 0 7 , 1 3 5 , 1 7 0 , «9398 passim; why he appeared a trained and educated man, 2 1 ; influence of Darwin's book, 22; pleasure in club life: clubs he held membership in, 24,62,63, 64, 86, 173 ff., 184; pleasure in travels, 24, 38!!. passim, 61, I42f., 178; breadth of interests and of view, 33, 107, i l l , 130, 136, 161, 1 7 1 ; aids old professor at Munich, 47 f.; intellectual ability and ideas, 48, 86; social gifts, 63; held to his opinions, 101, 109; never interfered with freedom or opinions of associates, 102, 106, 120, 135; remarkable absorptive powers: generous in giving credit, 130; hatred of pretense, 1 3 1 ; invariable self-control and good temper, 132, 192, 198; loved to listen, question, and gather impressions, 135; as conversationalist, 135, 1 7 1 , 179, 194; method of writing and rewriting: did not resist sug-

Corporation, 137, 139, 141, 150, 153; with Carnegie Institution, 158; service to Army: not the man for Supreme Court, 165; in Round Table club, 175 Root, Oren, 20 Rosa, Baron, 38 Rouillon, Louis, 81 Round Table, The, 175 Royal Institution, 156

Pritchett, Henry Smith (Continued) gestions and changes made by associates, 136; personality appraised, 170?.; views and action rested upon principles, not impulse, 172; skill at golf, 176; love of reading: favorite novelists, 190; Henry James's portrait of him as a human being, 192-95; appearance: sculpture portrait, 193; had "the prepared mind" and was reformer in every field he entered, 198 Pritchett, Ida P. W. (Mrs. Henry Smith Pritchett), 20; marriage: death, 29 Pritchett, Ida Williams, 29, 37, 51,69, 178 Pritchett, Leonard, 29, 51, 69, 176, 178 Pritchett, Oswald, 45 Pritchett School Institute, 14, 20, 196 Professors, see Teachers

Sadler, Sir Michael, 1 1 5 St. Botolph Club, 86 Salaries of teachers, see Teachers Santa Barbara, the Pritchett's life in, 177— 92; earthquake disaster, 1 8 2 8 . Santa Barbara Club, 64, 184 Saturday Club, 86, 174 Savage, Howard J., study of college ath-

Putnam, George R . , 61

letics, 1 1 9 - 2 1

Putnam, Herbert, 62 Qualitative vs. quantitative test in school and college rating, 125, 197 Railroads, time service, 3 1 , 34; Pritchett's interest in, 158-60; and papers on, 160 Redlich, Josef, study of legal systems, 116 Reed, Alfred Z., study of legal education, 116,118 Reformed Church, Board of Education, 132 Reisner, Dr., 147 Relations oj Secondary and Higher Education in Pennsylvania, 125 Religion, Pritchett's book on, 162, 163 f. Religious institutions, see Denominational institutions Retirement provisions, see Pensions Rhodes, James Ford, 85; quoted, 85, 86 Ripley, E. P., 158, 176 Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 149, 185 Rockefeller, John D., Sr., 97 Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, 1 0 9 , 1 1 0 Rogers, William Barton, 67, 76 Roosevelt,Theodore, 1,62,87,164; Pritchett's advice 10,83,85; reply, 84; nobility of feeling and purpose, 85 Root, Elihu, one of Pritchett's warmest friends, 20; their correspondence, 35, 177,178, 187-89,191; Foreword to legal study, 1 1 7 ; relations with Carnegie

Scientific research through Carnegie Institution: Pritchett's ideas, 1 1 5 ff. Scientific studies, relation to culture, 74 Seeliger, Professor, 39, 40, 41; guides Pritchett's study for his degree, 44; postwar difficulties, 47; aided by Pritchett, 48; one of greatest astronomers, 190 Shaler, N. S., 78 Sheldon, Walter L., 34 Sherman, William Tecumseh, 34 Signals jrorn the Stars (Hale), 188 Sihler, Ernest G., 46, 180 Slavery, 6, 7 Smith, Betty Susan, see Pritchett, Betty Susan Smith Smith, Byrd, 8 Smith, John, 4 Smith, Reginald Heber, study of law in relation to the poor, 1 1 6 , 1 1 7 Spanish War, problems of Coast and Geodetic Survey during, 55-58, 65; McKinley's position, 58 Spectroscope, 33 Square Table, 184 Standards, Bureau of, 53-55 State universities, exclusion from pension system, 91, 97 f.; ban removed: fund granted for: resulting rise in standards, 98; relation of politicians to, 130 Stephens, H. Morse, 185 Stone, Senator, 50 Stone, Charles A., 61, 86 Storey, Moorfield, 86

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Storrow, Jame» J , 86 Stratton, S. W., 5+ Sun, eclipse of: observed, 29 Survey of U. S. coast line: development into Coast and Geodetic Survey (q.v.), 5« Suzzallo, President, 187; quoted, 128 Swinney, J . O., 9 , 1 4 Taft, William Howard, correspondence with, 164, 166, 167, 177, 184 "Tale of Two Cities, The" (Pritchett), 81» Tavern Club, 64,86 Teachers, low salaries, 73, 76, 87; Carnegie's discovery of financial status, 87; his provision for retiring pensions, 89 B. ; training for, 124, 125; see also Colleges: Pensions Teachers College of Columbia University, Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, v ; how and when created, 99; functions, 99, 102; grants to, 99, 100; relation to Camegie Foundation, 99, 100ff.; finances: presidents, 100; Pritchett's work with, 100 ff. Technology Review, 161; excerpt, 75 Telescope, provided for Carr Pritchett, 10, 22; efforts to make telescope again useful in research and education, 23 Terrestrial Magnetism, Division of, 60 Tests and measurements, educational 126-28; 197; the "Carnegie units," 95, 123, 127 Theology, defined, 164 Third of a Century of Teachers Retirement, A, 90 Thorn, Frank Manly, 52 Thursday Evening Club, 86 Time service, railroad, 31, 34 Tisserant, Monsignor, 151 Tittman, Dr., 64 Toronto, University of, 146 Townsend Plan, 186 Training for the Public Profession of the Law (Reed), 1 1 8 Trelease, William, 34 Trusts, creation and science of, 144 f.

Tyler, President of William and Mary College, 179 Tyrrell, Father, 174 Ulich, Robert, 104 United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, Pritchett's superintendency, 50-66 passim; history: early administrators, 51 f.; Office of Standard Weights and Measures severed from, 5 3 f d u r i n g Spanish War, 55, 65; during Alaska boundary dispute, 59; Division of Magnetics, 60 United States Sanitary Commission, 13 Universities, see Colleges and universities Vanderlip, Frank A., 62 Van Hise, President, 85 Vatican Library, modernization and cataloguing of, 150-52 Venus, transit of, 26, 27 Vermont, study of education in, 1 1 5 Virginia, early home of Pritchetts: characteristics of the people, 4 Volstead Act, 169 Walker, Francis A., 67, 69, 73, 75 Waller, Aluned de, 3 Waller, E. P., 3n Waller family, 3 Washington, D. C., in 1878,63 Washington University, 26; Pritchett's professorship at, 29, 31 ff.; Brookings' aid to, 34 Wednesday Evening G u b , 86 Welch, William H., 114 Western Reserve University, 107 hat Is Religion? (Pritchett), 162, 163 f. illiams, Ida, 20; marriage to Henry Pritchett: death, 29 Williams, Jamie, 6 Wilson, Woodrow, 166 Winlock, Dr., 147 Winning of the West, The (T. Roosevelt), I Wood, Ben D., 126 Woodward, R. S., 31 Wyoming, University of, 130 Yale University, 96,137 Yosemite Valley, 178

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