WILLARD B. RISING.

BERNARD MOSES.

It is fitting that we who live should mark the passing of those who die. When the career of a comrade is finished, it is for us who survive to contemplate not a goal attained, but a course run. For the individual man, life is only a running. The expected goal, the satisfaction which he seeks, is still, when he falls, beyond his reach in the elusive future. Whatever beneficent results proceed from his efforts are achieved not for himself, but for the society that lies within the circle of his influence.

The life of Professor Willard Bradley Rising derives part of its significance from the fact that he was one of the little group of professors gathered here in the early years of the University. The service which these men rendered is not to be measured by their strictly scientific or literary achievements. Their most important work was to give the University practical form and to determine its intellectual character. Their mature activity belongs to the most critical years of California's educational history; years when there was need of organized effort to perpetuate here the finer traits of civilization, and to provide for the youth born in this State influences and opportunities like those offered by the older communities from which their fathers had come. These early professors had all been educated under a system that laid stress on the humanities and encouraged the cultivation of the human spirit as well as the

acquisition of knowledge. They were, therefore, men with common intellectual sympathies; and whether called to establish instruction in Agriculture, Physics, Geology, Chemistry, or Literature, they were inspired by a common ideal, and they worked unselfishly and in harmony toward the realization of this ideal.

If the products of original investigation in the early years were not abundant, an adequate reason may be found in the lack of facilities for research, in the heavy burden of class-room instruction, and in the absorbing task of internal organization. Yet in spite of the obstacles in the way of realizing their personal ambitions as scholars and investigators, the professors of the first decade turned to their great undertaking with peculiar interest.

I recall distinctly the occasion in Berlin when Professor Rising received the notification of his election to the Professorship of Chemistry. He had just come up from Heidelberg, where he had received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and where he had been long and intimately associated with the distinguished chemist, Bunsen. We were a little company of students, who were accustomed to dine together after the work of the day was done. Of these, one was the late Professor Seymour, of Yale; another has been for many years the Professor of Greek in the University of Michigan; and still another was lately the president of Rutgers College. After he had been informed of his election, Professor Rising's thoughts were no longer with us. We were free from responsibilities, and our conversation ranged the universe of things and ideas. But every now and then Rising would call us back to listen to remarks about his plans for a laboratory, the work he expected to do, or the University as it rose before his imagination. He had already been in California, and the spell of Arcadia was over him.

With his return to this state, the problem of his career was solved. He had found the work he wished; and his domestic life, then happily begun, was destined to be con

tinued in unbroken affection until the end. The gentleness and consideration which he was accustomed to manifest toward his associates and friends was displayed in its most agreeable form among the members of his own household. Here the old-fashioned virtues prevailed, but not the oldfashioned severity. Few men have ever lived and worked for the welfare of their families with such unselfishness as he displayed from the beginning to the end, and few have found equal joy in their devotion to the interests of others.

In the attention which the professors gave to the work of organizing and directing the internal affairs of the University in the early years, there was a danger that their interest and their efficiency in scholarly pursuits would decline; a danger to which any scholar is liable who turns his mind to the construction of rules and the administrative details of an institution of learning. When a university selects a scholar for its president, scholarship makes an inevitable sacrifice; but when, in addition to this, professors have their time and thought absorbed in the details of administration, the university, to the extent that this is done, falls short of its high purpose, and the professors become subordinate and sterile parts of a machine that runs for the sake of running.

It is only the rare mind that can turn back successfully to strictly scientific and literary work from a long excursion in the field of practical details. In the attempt to do this, one is often found neglecting all details of a practical character without being able completely to reassume his former attitude with reference to scientific research and exposition. This was essentially the position in which Professor Rising found himself in the later years of his activity. If some of his colleagues showed less positive effects of their early experiences, it was largely because either by nature or by conscious determination they were able to prevent administrative details from taking serious hold on their minds.

But the feature of Professor Rising's life which especially interested those who knew him well was his character.

I knew him intimately for many years, and in all this period no shadow of a suspicion ever passed over my mind concerning his absolute sincerity and conscientiousness in all his relations with his fellowmen. His honesty was so thoroughgoing that he was apparently never conscious of two possible ways of acting with respect to any question that involved a moral consideration. This trait with him was fundamental. He surrendered himself to the guidance of his conscience without seeking to know whether there might not be some other way. His moral force was sufficient to have made him especially conspicuous but for the fact that he lacked the aggressiveness needed to bring his qualities into prominence, and make them appreciated as they deserved to be. But if his genuine modesty prevented him from appearing in an aggressive attitude-prevented the full realization of his power in his public relations—it is not possible to comment on so excellent a virtue except with sentiments of admiration.

One of our friend's most noteworthy characteristics was his loyalty. But this loyalty is not to be confounded with that show of universal friendliness which makes no discrimination between man and man. The constitutionally genial person who greets everybody with the same appearance of cordiality is seldom moved to make great sacrifices for anybody. The loyalty of which I speak is that which leads one to be profoundly interested in those things that interest his friends. It is not a state of personal receptivity, but a disposition to be of service. Such loyalty constitutes one of the elements of our ideal of human character. attracts us; we rejoice when we discover it in a friend; we regard it as a response to one of our noblest sentiments; and we hail it as the basis of those personal relations between others and ourselves that make life worth the living.

It

But there was a feature of his character which carried him beyond the circle of his family, beyond his work on behalf of the University, and beyond the association of his intimate friends. This was his patriotism, his love of

country, which made itself manifest particularly in a strong desire for the progress and civic righteousness of the coinmunity in which he lived. The growth of this community, the development of its institutions, and the thought that it might be maintained as a clean and well-governed city, were real sources of satisfaction in his latest years. He wished the town, as well as the University, to be a place characterized by clean living, and to be known everywhere for its public virtues. His sentiments on this subject were a phase of his genuine and positive patriotism.

The closing of Professor Rising's career is not merely the ending of a life spent almost entirely in the service of the University; the event is, in truth, a feature of the transition from an earlier to a later generation of university men. In the beginning this University had no recognized position in the State; and the earlier generation of professors had imposed uopn them the task of giving the institution standing not only in the state, but also in the country. Public schools of various grades, and other organizations for instruction, were already established; and the University, appearing late on the scene, came among them with pretensions to superiority. This had the very natural effect of provoking jealousy and hostility. Some heads of secondary schools affirmed there was no need of instruction higher than that over which they presided. The University had, therefore, not only to pretend to superiority, but also to make its superiority known to all the world. There was apparently only one way by which this could be done, and the doubters convinced that was by making the instruction of such a character that it would justify the highest pretensions. The professors were, consequently, moved by their circumstances, both in season and out of season, to lay stress on intellectual effort, and to establish a regime of severe requirements. Their labors were effective. The University passed from them to the second generation, bearing an enviable reputation, and rejoicing in the loyal support of a great commonwealth. Among those who contributed to this