OBITUARY NOTICES OF MEMBERS DECEASED. JOSEPH GEORGE ROSENGARTEN. (Read February 4, 1921.) Joseph George Rosengarten, third son of George D. Rosengarten and Elizabeth Bennett, was born in Philadelphia, July 14, 1835. He received his early education in private schools of this city and for a time came under the influence of a scholarly man in York, Pa., the Rev. Charles West Thomson, who aroused in him a liking for literature that became an abiding habit and accounted for the astonishing voracity in reading that marked him to the end. He passed from the old Academy (the institution out of which grew the College and University of Pennsylvania) to the College itself and received his degree of A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1852 at the early age of seventeen, and three years later the degree of M.A. After graduation he studied law in the office of Henry M. Phillips, one of the leaders of the Philadelphia Bar, and was admitted to practice in 1856. The elder Rosengarten, realizing the extraordinary value of foreign study and travel, sent four of his sons abroad to prepare themselves for their future careers. In pursuance of this plan Joseph Rosengarten went abroad shortly after being admitted to practice, to study history and Roman law at the University of Heidelberg and to engage in travel. In this way he was thrown into contact with men of distinction in various fields and acquired that appreciation of scholarship which grew ever stronger with the passing years. Besides the eminent men at that time at the University of Heidelberg, among them Haeusser, the professor of history, and Vangerow, the professor of law, he met among others during his European studies, James Fitzjames Stephen, the great jurist, and his equally famous brother Leslie Stephen. Returning to this country in 1857, it was not long before the rumbling of the thunder in the distance was heard. By a curious chance Mr. Rosengarten witnessed the first outbreak against slavery, the famous raid of John Brown. He happened to be travelling as a guest with the Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad (of which his father was one) on a tour of inspection. The train stopped at Harper's Ferry and there Mr. Rosengarten saw the attack made by the soldiery on the engine house in which John Brown had taken. refuge. He saw John Brown lying wounded and he gave a description of the hero in a vivid article contributed by him to the Atlantic Monthly in 1865. May we not assume that the incident made an impression upon his youthful spirit which intensified the fervor with which he threw himself into the Union cause? Upon the outbreak of the war, he first joined a company of volunteers, Co. A of the Pennsylvania Artillery, which was made up largely of lawyers. It included men like Chief Justice Mitchell, Judges Penrose and Hanna, Mr. R. C. McMurtrie, John G. Johnson, Charles Godfrey Leland, Geo. W. Biddle, Wm. Henry Rawle, and among the survivors of this company are Judge Wilson, Mr. C. Stuart Patterson and Mr. Frank Rosengarten. Later he became enrolled in the 121st Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, of the Corps of the Army of the Potomac. His regiment was assigned to guard the city of Washington and subsequently passed further south. In the engagement at Fredericksburg he distinguished himself for bravery, picking up the colors after four sergeants had been disabled and carrying them successfully through the engagement. The attention of Major General John F. Reynolds was called to the act of the young officer and he was offered the post of Ordnance Officer and a member of General Reynolds' staff. He remained with General Reynolds until the battle of Gettysburg in which General Reynolds fell. To Major Rosengarten was assigned the honor of bringing the body of the fallen hero to Lancaster. His association with General Reynolds was intimate and he was the natural selection deputed to deliver the address at the dedication of the monument to Reynolds at Gettysburg in 1889. After the war Major Rosengarten returned to Philadelphia and resumed the practice of law in an office in which he was associated with the late George Junkin and Mr. Henry S. Hagert, both men who rose to eminence. A great part of his time was taken up with the management of his father's business affairs, for the elder Rosengarten by virtue of his unusual ability was not only a pioneer in founding and building up a large chemical establishment, but became interested in many other business ventures, and with rare foresight promoted enterprises that proved to be of value to the country as well as successful from a financial point of view. I have not been able to ascertain when Mr. Rosengarten's participation in the work of the many public institutions with which he became connected, and with which his name will always be associated, began. In the case of the University of Pennsylvania there was no interruption in his interest from the year 1848, when he entered the college as a freshman, until his death. By the close of the seventies we find him absorbed also in other public institutions like the House of Refuge and the German Hospital, now the Lankenau Hospital. He was elected a member of the board of managers of the House of Refuge in 1878, served as vice-president of the corporation from 1893 to 1910, and as president from 1911 to 1914. He was the assistant chairman of the board from 1893 to 1908, and the chairman from 1908 till 1914. It was largely through his urgency that the complete change in the treatment of the juvenile offenders was carried out through the removal of the institution from the city to the country,-at Glen Mills for the boys, and at Sleighton Farms. for the girls. Instead of being treated as prisoners the boys and girls. were placed in homes organized on the cottage system. They were placed at work in the fields, given enlarged opportunities for education, and through gymnastic exercises placed in a receptive physical condition for receiving cultural influences through music and other high forms of entertainment. Mr. Rosengarten was a close friend of the late John D. Lankenau, the great benefactor of the institution which now properly bears his name, and many of the plans for the enlargement of the hospital and the home were carried out by Mr. Lankenau in consultation with Mr. Rosengarten. He served from 1871-1913 as solicitor for the institution, and as honorary solicitor till his death. Service on the board of a public institution was never a perfunctory performance with him. It may be said of him that he never accepted a public position without taking upon himself in a |