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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 1898)
YALE ALUMNI WHEKLY ne ———. PROFESSOR MARSH'S ADDRESS. Informal Remarks at the Yale Alumni Dinner in New York. Mr. President and Gentlemen: I thank you very much for your invitation to attend this banquet, and for the cordial welcome you have all given me, but I am sure you will expect only a few words from me. I recognize fully that this evening is given over to hero-worship, and that we are here to do honor to the victors in the forum of debate and on the foot- ball field. They deserve all the honors we can give them, and every Yale man will join in their praise. On such an occasion, it is not for those in the more humble walks of life to claim your attention, whether they represent lit- erature, ait or science, bit as _your chairman has so kindly referred to my own work, I will at least say that, as a loyal son of Yale, I have tried to do my best for our Alma Mater, whenever opportunity occurred. But, in Science, as in all other kinds of work, there are obstacles to be overcome and enemies to conquer, Opponents with tongues as sharp as those encountered in debate, and others as dangerous as those met on the football field, are always on hand, and every man who tries to do his duty, and honor his Alma Mater, is sure to meet such adversaries. In my Western work, twenty-five years ago, there were plenty of difficul- ties to overcome and hardships to be endured. I do not allude to such tri- fling things as alkaline water for a daily beverage, an occasional Junch of mule meat, or constant danger from hostile Indians, for all these things were then expected by Western explorers. Vari- ous other enemies soon anveared, and the civilized ones were more bitter and persistent than the savages themselves. FRIENDS AND FOES IN SCIENCE. One thing, however, I hardly looked for, and in this quiet family circle of Yale men I may safely mention it. One Yale man, a brilliant semi-class- mate of mine, known to you all, was in the West before me, and as the Gov- ernment had placed him in charge of the public domain, he magnified his office and soon thought he owned the whole Rocky Mountains. When I got there and tried to dig out the pre- Adamite man and the horses he rode, my friend objected in a quiet way, but that did not discourage me. As I pushed the work on year after year, he finally made what he called a protest in behalf of science; but, in my private opinion, it was only an indication of per- sonal jealousy, for in College we were rivals in trout fishing, and one April Fast Day I beat him. The scientific charge he brought against me was an important one. He said I had taken hundreds of tons of fossils from the top of the Rocky Mountains, one or two miles high, and shipped them down to New Haven, at the sea level, and this, he said, might shift the center of grav- ity of the earth, change its axis of rota- tion, and throw the whole thing out of gear. A most serious charge, if true. I am happy to say, however, that up to date Mother Earth has not gone back on Mother Yale. : Astronomers tell us that the axis of the earth has indeed wobbled a little during the past few years, and we have heard of cold chills passing through Eastern Massachusetts, where our dear- est foes are domiciled; and there have also been plenty of shakes in New Jer- sey, where Edwards (a Yale football man, if I remember rightly)— | ‘* Mighty Edwards stamped his iron heel ;”’ but in Connecticut all remained quiet and serene, and Yale is still doing busi- ness at the old stand. INDIAN SKULLS IN YALE MUSEUM. Another sarcasm cast upon me and my work by that same witty semi-class- mate of mine was even more serious, because it pertained not to this world, but to the next. I had long been greatly interested in the question of the origin of the American Indian, as no one knew where he came from or what he is. I thought to solve the problem by getting together the skulls of every tribe of North American Indians, about fifty of each, so as to eliminate the variations of age, sex and previous condition. Also those from Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, Japan, China, and the Sandwich Islands, and by compar- ing them all together, to try to find out what the native American really was and where he came from. This whole- sale plan of collecting skulls and send- ing them to Yale, did not please either my friends or foes. A lot of good old women of both sexes in a neighboring city were after me for this skull business. They did not hear of it, of course, until some -time after it occurred, but when they did wake up, they made a direct charge against me, namely, “desecrating In- dian graves in the interest of science, falsely so-called.” This charge was untrue, as I had not touched a single Indian grave. I did not have to, as the Western Indians leave their departed friends in trees or on platforms, where the coyotes cannot get at them. The same band of professional philanthro- pists even accused me of wishing to put in my collection the skulls of some of my Caucasian foes, when all I really cared for was their scalps. I was afraid that there would be fur- ther trouble in this same business from my semi-classmate, for he came near giving the whole thing away in a maga- zine article, and it was reported that he himself had even stolen the skull of a king of the Cannibal Islands right out of the royal tomb. I did not see him take the skull, but I did see him after- wards talking to the queen of the same islands, and I know positively that he refused to give that skull to the Yale Museum, because I asked him myself. So, as my collection of the skulls of native Americans and their neighbors rapidly increased at Yale, I knew this classmate would be heard from, and he was. He merely remarked, however, that when the final day of judgment came, the Angel Gabriel, if he knew his business, would come straight to New Haven and give his first blast there, to save time. RECENT GIET.TO. VALE. Such were some of the discourage- ments I encountered long ago in the “bone business,’ as my first guide, the famous Buffalo Bill, used to call it. When all my collections were together at Yale, another question of still great- er importance came up, and that was what to do with them, cspecially in case of my death. I, of course, could not take them with me, for if I did, they would probably burn up, as some of our clerical friends believe, and there- fore the disposition of them was a seri- ous matter. As I had no time to settle this theological question, I thought it safer on the whole to leave my fossil treasures in a fire-proof building in New Haven, much as I disliked to part with them. This I have done; and on the first day of January last I presented them all to Yale. ‘Another reason, and the main one, for giving them to my Alma Mater now, was that I hoped by this gift, and the fact that about three-fourths of the specimens are now stored where they are of little service to the public or to Yale, that some generous friend of the University or of science would give the small sum necessary to complete the main museum building, so that the whole could be ready for our bi-centen- tennial celebration in 1901. How exten- sive the collections are, I cannot now stop to tell you, except that they will fill the new building we are hoping for. They represent thirty years’ work, and nearly all my patrimony. We ought to have had this building long ago, but one trouble with Yale is that she hides her light under a bushel, reposing upon her well-earned dignity, while the old fresh-water colleges, as Holmes called them, and the new brass-band institu- tions, as the students term them, rush in for the plums that lie by the way- side or drop from above. WHY YALE JS: POG. Another reason why Yale gets so little money is mainly theological. She is not quite good enough to secure the saints, nor quite wicked enough to catch the sinners. Princeton gets the first and Harvard the second, while Yale is left between the upper and nether millstones, and therefore must depend mainly upon her own graduates. When the extent and value of my scientific collections at Yale became known, especially in Europe, the facts were not always received kindly by other institutions in this country. What some of our dearest foes of the Unitarian faith said in stage whispers, and some of our bitterest friends (as the students say) of the Presbyterian persuasion uttered openly, about the large collections going to New Haven, I should not dare to repeat -before this refined audience. What some of them are now saying since these collections became the property of Yale, the Recording Angel alone has an accurate record, and this, in the interest of peace on earth and good will to men, he very properly withholds from mortals—at least for the present. How I feel about all this, you can imagine, but I shall not attempt to do justice to the subject here. I really could not do it. If I were out West, it would be different, but long ago, wishing to set a proper example to the undergraduates, as every professor should, I made a solemn vow never to use any profanity east of the Missouri River. I hope, therefore, that you will excuse me if I say no more, for really I could not free. my mind with my limited New England vocabulary. Considering all these drawbacks to my life work, I hope the friends of Yale will now come forward and complete the museum building in time for our bi-centennial celebration in 1901. Bi A Roe ‘¢ Scientific Monthly” Contents. The February number of the Sci- entific Monthly appeared Friday, Febru- ary 18. The contents are as follows: “On Decomposition,’ by W. J. Gies; “Pump Irrigation in the West,” by Hunter Morrison, ’99S.; “Count Rum- ford, By = Ws Walkeés, “og Si; = “fhe Future of Our Forests,’ by H. S. Canby, ’09S.; “Modern Telephone In- struments;’:-by F.'G, dally Jr. ‘99 5.; “St. Anthony Falls Power Plant,’ by E. N. Saunders, 99 S. There are also the usual departments of book notices, alumni and editors’ notes, together with a digest of the Freshman physics. )DRESS ronone 2¢ STAMP MBIA DEALER. : Be: B 3 Athletic Calendar. March 12.—Annual indoor games, — Second Regiment Armory, New Haven. March 23.—Annual Spring games, open to Yale men, at Yale Field. March 30.—Invitation games, at Yale Field. May 14.—Dual Yale-Harvard track games, at Cambridge. May 27 and _ 28.—Intercollegiate games, New York. June 23.—Yale-Harvard baseball at Cambridge. June 28.—Yale-Harvard baseball at New Haven. July 2—Yale-Harvard baseball at New York, if necessary in case of a tie. FRADE MAR K “YY OEO, LOCK FRONT. AOLT- NY J. EDWARD SOMERS, IMPORTING TAILOR, 63 Center Street, NEW HAVEN, - CONN. tr: RK BEISS & CoO... <— TAILORS ~~» CHURCH AND CHAPEL STREETS, New Haven, Conn. _ SHARLES 1...RENNELL, Successor to Wm. Franklin & Co., [IMPORTING | AILOR, 40 Center St., New Haven, Conn. PRCT PROS COLLEGE PHOTOGRAPHERS, 1024 Chapel St., New Haven. 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