Rutgers University - Scarlet Letter Yearbook (Newark, NJ)

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Editorial. HE CLASS OF NINETY-NINE has been nearly three years within these college walls, and feels that they have been years of pleasure and profit. The task now falls upon it to take up the publication of THE SCARLET LETTER, which for twenty-seven years has been issued regularly as the annual publication of the college students. Its worth is recognized by all, since it is looked to for the authentic record of events which have occurred during the year. XVithin one volume, handy, compact and concise, is presented a review of intellectual, athletic, musical and other acliievenients. But not alone for facts is its publication eagerly awaited, for there is also enough light reading and fun to inake it interest- ing reading. This has been the experience of the best issues of previous years, and it is the Wish of the Editors that such may be the case with the present issue. We feel it a privilege and a duty to give expression to our sympathy for that nieinber of the class who first was appointed editor-in-chief, George XV. Ecker, who took up the work full of enthusiasm and vigor, but reluctantly gave it up when forced by sickness to leave college. To our friends and readers we present our publication. There are some new features, we have endeavored to keep the best of the old. XVe trust it is worthy of Old Rutgersf' for whose honor We issue it. As a matter of convenience, we have made it a rule that our record of events is from April 1, 1897, to April 1, 1898. To a certain degree we have departed from it, for in the preceding issue are the accounts of some events occurring between those dates. However, for the sake of aid to those who may at any time wish to look up references, we adopted the above rule, and would suggest it to the editors of succeeding issues.

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Julius Nelson, Ph.D. R. JULIUS NICLSUN, Professor of Biology in Rutgers College, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, March Gth, 1858. Ile came to this country with his parents in 1863. The family settled at XVaupaca, then a town of about Hfteen hundred inhabitants, near the frontier, in the State of XViseonsin. The educational environment of the lad was however, exceptionally good. The town was the county seat, and the predominance of the 7 New England element in its population assured the presence of excellent graded schools with able teachers. Ile began attending school in his seventh year. It is interesting to note that among the earliest books studied by young Nelson was the NVilson Natural History series used as reading books in the lower grades. On the other hand, though the high school curriculum included nearly all the subjects taught in a college, Zoology and Chemistry were omitted, so that the early bent received towards Biology, Was sustained during the most important years of his educational development, almost solely by his most favorite study, Physical Geography. Ile manifested but slight interest in Botany, taught merely as tt key-workn for the identification of speciesg but he was passionately fond of Physiology. lle preferred study to playg and before entering college he had read widely in Science and Philosophy, from the libraries of his teachers and pastors. XYhen he graduated from the lligh School in 1876 he was wavering between the choice of civil engineering and of teaching, as a profession, he even took a post-graduate course in astronomy, surveying and trigonometry to fit himself for the former. In 1878 Mr. Nelson entered the scientific department of the State University at Madison, XVisconsiu, and it was here that he found such facilities for the study of biological subjects that he definitely determined to choose thc teaching of Biology as his profession. Throughout his course his financial resources were very limited, but by rigid economy he succeeded in making them adequate for his wants. He was graduated in 1881 with class honors and also special honors in Zoology. He presented a thesis on the Embryology of the Trout. I-Ie at once began working for the Master's Degree studying the Embryology of Zygonectes, a 4' Top Minnow. This work was inter- rupted by his call to the principalship of a school in 1882, and the thesis was not completed and the degree granted until 1884. Meanwhile Mr. Nelson had entered the Johns Hopkins University as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Here he chose Zoology as the major subject and Physiology L21 9