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

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THE 1909 INDEX VOLUME XXXIX the largeness of their lives and the effectiveness of their work, attest the significance of the Gottingen laboratory. It was from this great laboratory, from this fervid crucible, which refined many of the crudities of the old agriculture from which has grown the beautiful system of today, that Professor Goessmann came with his message to us. A great responsibility rests with the men of this college. The old watchword noblesse oblige stands to us who have enjoyed so great an inheritance from these men of blood and iron and of achievement in Scientific Agriculture. Among M. A. C. men it used to be the mode to bend all energies to go to Gottingen for a course of study in the Wohler-Goessmann school. This seems now to be an outgrown fashion. Would not the return of such an AuswanJeru.no yield to the younger men, also, a rich experience? Wohler ' s laboratory was the train- ing school and the fruitful workshop of many of the great chemists who during the century-ends have finished, or are finishing, their work. A list of their names, too long for our use, shows an army of fighters for progress of great brilliancy. One contribution which Professor Goessmann has brought into our lives, and which is very difficult to explain, may be referred to as the German sociality, a quality of which we Yankees know little, but which contributes largely to make up the charm of the life of the real Germans, even though they be in a frosty New England town. Possibly the power of the Germans as investigators and teachers takes its source here. They live in gardens. This very name comes to us from them. They have not only kitchen gardens, flower gardens, and fruit gardens, but still other kinds, unfamiliar to us. They love the meadows, the woods, the brooks, the flowers, the birds. Every one of these has a German name, not a foreign name, and in turn, they name themselves from these, their bosom friends. Walter of the Bird-Meadow. John Sebastian Brook, Martin Cabbagebloom witness thereto. A German farmer regards his wheatfield with an affection unknown to us. The German teacher studies and teaches how to raise a crop, not primarily because of the dollars it will yield, but because it brings intimate communion with nature, the mother of us all. It expels conceit and artificiality. It produces natural men. I [ere must be oik- reason why the old nun refer as thev do, with affection, to the teach- ings ot our friend.

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MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE After an extended trip through Europe, in 1857 he came to America and was respectively chemist and manager of the Eastwick Sugar Refinery in Philadelphia, chemist to the Onondaga Salt Company in Syracuse, and Professor of Chemistry in the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy. Since 1867 he has been Professor of Chemistry in this college, and since 1877 chemist, director, and honorary director of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station. To his many other posi- tions and commissions and the reports and papers written by him, only this reference can now be made. It seems appropriate here to mention other features of his career which, perhaps, appeal in a more general way to our college circle. Fortunately, steady habits and a systematic life have laid the foundation for a vigorous continuation of the years of study and of counsel which he now, as ever, generously and graciously offers to all. His past with its fullness is ours, but it is incumbent on all who claim to be students, to make sure that we read not only the significance of what has been, but also the significance . of what is now and ot what is to be, in this continued association. Many of us, even yet, fail to realize what our relationship to Professor Goess- mann really means. It means that through him M. A. C. men are brought into intimate association with the lives and the work of the great achievers in science of the nineteenth century. When we consider that his lectures and talks and social intercourse bring us closely into the companionship of the builders of scientific agri- culture as it is today, we cannot fail to be thrilled and aroused. The intimacy of Goessmann and Wohler has been referred to. Wohler we may look upon as a center of influence from which radiated the light of experimental knowledge, especially in chemistry and agriculture, during the last seventy-five years It was in Berzelius ' s laboratory in Sweden that Wohler, as a boy, found the inspiration which he transmitted to many a worker in the field of science. For forty- four years Wohler and Liebig, on terms of intimate friendship, carried on a correspond- ence which covers seven hundred and fifty printed pages. Another group of these men, or rather sub-group, made up of American cotemporaries of Professor Goessmann in Gottingen, is especially interesting to us. It included Professors Joy and Chandler of Columbia University, Caldwell of Cornell, Mallett of the University of Virginia, and our own President Clark. These all, by

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MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE As the vacation rambler returns from the mountains and directs reluctant steps toward home, his wistful eyes turn manv times backward toward the noble forms, which, during the pieceding days and nights, have filled him with strength and courage for impending tasks. The progress of his journey is marked by the diminishing number of summits visible. At first the large assemblage is bewildering. Gradually only the higher and nobler remain in view; these become three, then two, and at last the chief alone is visible. The older students of our college circle have, from time to time, looked back- ward on the group of men of w T isdom who started them on their way and guided them into the narrow path, or at least exhausted human strength in their attempt to do so. The distance has lengthened, and in that measure the number ot those heroes has diminished, until now but one remains. Toward Professor Goessmann Massachusetts ' men bear a feeling which cannot be expressed. Attempts at telling him our high regard have variously been made and will continue to be made. In June last came together a remarkable series of anniversaries for him and so for us. They were his eightieth birthday, his fiftieth year as an American, his fortieth as a Massachusetts ' 7 man, and his thirtieth as chemist to the Experiment Station. The united alumni presented him on that occasion with a testimonial of appreciation. Smaller groups and individuals, by floral and other tokens, by letter and by personal visit, have indicated their regard. And now the Undergraduates, through the class appointed to voice college sentiment at this time, extend to Professor Goessmann their message of esteem and friendship. What others did at distance hear, And guessed within the thicket ' s gloom, Was shown to this philosopher, And at his bidding seemed to come. Charles Wellington.