University of Michigan - Michiganensian Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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Professor Henry S. Corhort. ENRY S. CARHART was born at Coeymans, Albany County, New York, March 27, I844. His early life was spent on his father's farm and the educational facilities afforded were confined to the district school. Naturally of an ingenious and mechanical turn of mind, the young physicist found little to his taste in farm life except in so far as it afforded an opportunity for the use of tools or the management of machinery. His fondness for books and the example of an older brother preparing for college easily gave a scholarly bent to a mind already so inclined. Obliged by neces- sity to depend entirely upon his own efforts in his preparation for college, we find him at sixteen installed as teacher of the district school near his home, and filled with the desire for a collegiate education. The following summer he worked as usual upon the farm, where his readiness in the use of tools rendered him a valued assistant. A picket fence about the old homestead, built by him in his seventeenth year, still stands, an upright witness to his careful skill and thorough workmanship. After two years of district school in winter and work on the farm in sum- mer, he spent a year in the Hudson River Institute, at Claverack, in preparation for college. The next year he was in charge of a Quaker school for boys in a Small town near Poughkeepsie, where he earned sufficient money to enable him to complete his preparation at Claverack. Having read thenecessary G'reek in'a single year, and completed the' Latin and Mathematics in a little over two years, he was examined and admitted to Yale College in l865., The succeeding autumn, however, he decided to enter the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, from which he graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1869. After graduation he taught Latin for two years at Claverack. At the end of that time he decided to try for something better, and, although strongly dissuaded by the same man who had urged him to go to college, he resigned and entered the Yale Divinity School. This year was a period of transition 5 the charms of the classics and theology were balanced against the

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PROFESSOR HENRY S. CARHART

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attractions of scientific study and research, the powerful infiuence of Professor Whitney, with whom he studied German, the nearness of the Sheffield Scien- tific School, and his uniform success in teaching, all served to turn his mind toward teaching as a profession, and the choice of his life work was made. , In 1872, Mr. Carhart was called to the Northwestern University at Evanston, the first year as instructor, the following year as Professor of Physics. Here he remained for fourteen years. During this time the equip- ment for teaching the Physical sciences at Northwestern, rose rapidly from a meagre collection of useless apparatus, to the completion of a magnificent laboratory carefully planned and liberally furnished throughout. This was a period of remarkable development i11 the scientific world at large, electricity advanced with giant strides, the telephone, the microphone, the dynamo and the electric light followed each other in quick succession, like the glittering pageantry of a dream, and the public were eager to hear and know of the last new thing. Professor Carhart was one of the most enthusiastic explorers in this new domain of science, and in response to urgent appeals, delivered popular scientific lectures i11 many cities, including Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Evanston, Chicago and New York. In I876 he was married to Miss Ellen M. Soule, at that time Dean of the Woman's College of the Northwestern University, and Professor of the French Language and Literature. To the enthusiasm, inspiration, and sympathetic encouragement of this gifted and cultured woman he owes much of his best work. In 1881 he was granted leave of absence for a year's study abroad. After attending the Paris Exposition of Electricity as one of the International jury of Awards for the United States, he spent the greater part of his time in study and research in the University of Berlin. Here he came under the personal instruction of Professor von Helmholtz, at whose suggestion he undertook the investigation of the relation between the electro-motive force of a Daniell cell and the density of the included zinc sulphate solution, The investigation was so thorough and the results so important as to command notice in all the leading scientific publications of Europe, and the values are found in tables of physical constants today. An immediate result of this year's work was the development of the Carhart-Clark Standard Cell. to the perfection of which he has given years of patient study. This cell, which is a modification of the form originally proposed by Latimer Clark, is in many respects the most Q