University of Massachusetts Amherst - Index Yearbook (Amherst, MA)

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MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE Richard Swann Lull MERSON has said: The universe has three children, born at one time — the Knower, the Doer and the Sayer. These stand respec- tively for the love of Truth, for the love of God and for the love of Beauty. Each of these three has the powers of the others latent in him, — his own, patent. To each man, following out his own instincts, comes the choice which of these three shall be his inherit- ance. The class of Nineteen Hundred Eight has elected to dedicate this book to one who chose for his lot the knowing, the pressing on to one field of research after another, that he might read what Nature has written of her history upon the earth ' s face. Richard Swann Lull was born with the love of the sea in his veins, while in his father. Captain Edward Phelps Lull, U. S. N., he had a most illustrious example of patriotism. With all the traditions of his family calling him to the life militant, it may seem strange that Dr. Lull chose rather to study the records of the warfare between the primal forces of creation. Perhaps, as in the case of Agassiz. Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee. Saying, ' Here is a story book The Father has written for thee, ' Born in Annapolis, Md. thirty-nine years ago. Dr. Lull was prepared for college at the State Model School, Trenton, N. J. He entered Rutgers College with the class of 1 892, but dropped his college work for a year, to engage in teaching. Returning to college, he elected the course in Biology, and was graduated with the class of 1 893, receiving the degree of B. Sc. In 1 896, he took his Master ' s degree from Rutgers, and in 1 903, was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Columbia. Following his graduation, Dr. Lull obtained the appointment of Special Agent of the Division Entomology, with headquarters at the Maryland Experiment Station. Six months later he was appointed Assistant Professor of Zoology, at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, as well as Curator of the Museum, being advanced to the Associate Professorship in 1 903.

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THE 1908 INDEX VOLUME XXXVlII During his career at this college, Dr. Lull has steadily pushed forward in his work as an investigator. One summer was spent at the Biological Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor, while on the invitation of the American Museum of Natural History, Dr. Lull spent two summers working among the fossil deposits of the Bad Lands.. Among the published results of his investigations are — Memoir on the Fossil Foot- prints of the Jura-trias of North America; a monograph on The Ceratopsia, (with J. B. Hatcher) ; articles on Adaptive Radiation in Vertebrates, published in the Amer- ican Naturalist, as well as frequent contributions to The American Museum Bulletin, The Journal of Geology, and others. In June of 1906, Dr. Lull accepted an appointment to Yale University as Assist- ant Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology, and Associate Curator of Vertebrate Paleon- tology in the Peabody Museum. Because of the wider field, the greater opportunity. Dr. Lull is to be congratulated upon his new station. Equally should Yale be congrat- ulated that she has added to her corps of instructors a man with whom Massachusetts most reluctantly parts. To the quality of his work at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, a host of enthusiastic students speak most eloquently. Another witness, silent, but none the less eloquent, may be found in the results of his curatorship of the Museum. His influence has been felt in all departments of college life, and always for good. With a keen love for the out-door life, he sympathized most heartily with the athletic interests of the college, while the weight of his influence has been thrown toward clean spcrt and the love of the sport for itself rather than as a means of self-aggrandizement. What records of the early days may still be hidden within the earth, unread, one cannot know. But it is certain that, in the future as in the past. Dr. Lull will work on steadily in the path that he has chosen, Searching Nature ' s secrets far and deep. For what he has given the college through all his years of service here, we rejoice, to his career in the future we look with anticipation, and with all good wishes for his When through many a year his fame has grown, we, his associates at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, passed far beyond those days but not beyond their memory, shall hold in pleasant recollection the years when we were all workers together. (j cA: 3i Ar t 4it r x i x;;