in the presence of a hungry mob of politicans seeking office for their friends and dependents. This work immediately established in Europe the reputation of General Walker as a statistician of the highest order.' In 1881 Walker was summoned to succeed the admirable William Barton Rogers, one of our associates, then a seriously sick man, as President of the Institute of Technology in Boston. This practical and special school, one of the first of its kind in the United States, was founded by private effort just as the war was beginning, and, helped by State grants, it led a languishing life during the war years. Then it gained under the faithful nursing and educational gifts of President Rogers. In 1881, however, it was still poor, and for some time did not gain due reputation and popularity. General Walker was a strong believer in the value of liberal studies 'severely pursued' in preparation for the profession of engineering. He saw the uses also of strenuous athletics. 'He was preeminently a leader' to quote the words of Professor H. W. Tyler, of the Institute faculty-'preeminently a leader of young men. His soldiers fought with his courage, his students studied with his insight, his associated teachers taught with his enthusiastic, vivifying zeal. He knew young men, he rejoiced in young men, and his knowledge was power over them and power in them. He always judged them with abounding charity. The earnest student, without ever exchanging a word with the President, felt for him the cordial confidence of a younger brother. Even the inveterate shirk, coming to him perhaps for censure, was uplifted by his generous optimism, gaining self-respect and becoming for the time, at least, as earnest as his fellows. With his nearer associates and friends he had that sunny cordiality which radiates light and warmth, but which so rarely survives the stress and strain of toilsome middle life.' Miss Elizabeth C. Putnam, famous for her devotion to good works in Boston, once said that on matters of public social concern, like schools, reform-schools, and the political and religious problems then arising, General Walker was always ready to come into council and lend himself as freely and fully to his interlocutor on these troubling questions as if he were not one of the busiest of men. Yet with all the claims upon his time conscientiously met, General Walker's writings books, magazine articles, addresses, Lyceum lectures, pamphlets, would have more than filled the time of most scholars. Of the long list of his written work, Professor C. F. Dunbar said, 'It is a remarkable record of intellectual activity, maintained for nearly forty years, and resulting in a series of important contributions to the thought of his time, manifold claim to eminence in the world of science and letters.' And not only the educators, but those who met Walker in varied public service or discussed or corresponded with him on the new and insistent problems of the day, while impressed with his severely exact mind, found him advancing, humane, brave, and courteous. a In conferring on General Walker the degree of Honorary Doctor of Laws at Edinburgh, in 1896, Sir Ludovic Grant, Regius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nations and of Nature, Dean of the Faculty of Law, said: 'His book "The Wages Question" contributed largely to the revolution in economical opinion on the subject of wages, not only where the English language is spoken, but in all parts of the civilized world. His work on "Money" is acknowledged to be indispensable to all who would aspire to an understanding of currency questions; and a very high reputation and wide popularity is enjoyed by his "Political Economy" and his "Land and its Rent." Even opponents of Walker's theories recognized his courage and frankness. A critic in the Yale Review, while seemingly admitting that he was right in opposing the wage-fund theory of the English economists, 'that all wages were paid out of capital, and limited by the ratio between capital and population,' yet objects to his claim 'that wages were paid out of production, and indeed constituted the residual share of the product.' This critic admits that 'Walker's theory is eminently characteristic of the hopefulness and buoyancy of his character, and the central idea of the theory, that the laboring man can contribute towards his own wages by increased efficiency, will, we believe, stand.' Not only was the influence of General Walker progressive and optimistic, but it was also essentially honest. He wrote a special book in order to combat the confiscatory proposals of Henry George, and, though an advocate of international bimetallism, and indeed the most able and distinguished promoter of that cause in our country, he was careful not to lend himself to any plan which would in his judgment have the effect of scaling down debts. As a political economist, said Carroll D. Wright, 'he was orthodox enough to insist that ethics could not displace economics; he was just and fair enough to recognize that economics could not displace ethics, and his well balanced mind taught him that, economic conditions once established, the relationship of men under them became ethical. This fairmindedness, of course, subjected him to attacks from both schools. When his invaluable work on wages... appeared, in which he made his brave and democratic attack upon the settled wage-fund theory of the great economists of Europe, he called down upon himself attacks which might have staggered a less courageous fighter, but with his human and humane instincts Walker kept on his course. He placed manhood at the centre of his economic system. . . . While not a socialist, he had no fear of the advance of socialistic thought. He was a truer friend of the wage-receiver than the socialist himself, for as an economist he was ever wont to urge the man who worked with his hands to equip himself for higher employment.' Some years before his death, General Walker wrote, 'I believe I was the first person occupying a chair of political economy to declare [that] the sympathy with the working class on the part of the general community may, when industrial conditions are favorable, become a truly economic force in determining a higher rate of wages; but by sympathy, I certainly did not mean slobber.' Our late member, Judge Francis Cabot Lowell, paid this tribute: 'Walker seemed unable to refuse an opportunity of public service. He had, indeed, the faults of his temperament. Though he broke down under his incessant labors, he was not always able to discharge as he wished the duties he undertook. His reputation might have gained if he had somewhat limited his undertakings, but to his generosity limitation was impossible. Happily for him, "No pale gradations quenched his ray." He was found dead in his bed on the morning of January 5, 1897. A blood-vessel had burst on the brain during the night. "The shortest notice of General Walker would be incomplete if it contained no mention of his wonderful personal charm. Every man who met him, though a mere acquaintance, felt himself the possessor of General Walker's personal friendship. The feeling was produced without insincerity or exaggeration.' His friend Dunbar's summary of the personality and gifts of General Walker well recalls this strong soldier scholar, administrator, and writer, stamped for a career of distinction: 'In any company of men he instantly drew attention by his solid, erect form and dignified presence, by his deep and glowing eye, and by his dark features, cheerful, often mirthful, always alive. His instant command of his intellectual resources gave him the confidence. needed for a leading place; and his friendly bearing, strong judgment, and easy optimism made others welcome his leadership.' The Monkish motto 'Horæ pereunt et imputantur' is good to stand before the eyes of the slothful worker or the dreamer, but this brave and eager soldier and helper might well have said with the hero in the epic 'Behold I wend on my way, And the gates swing to behind me, and each day of mine is a day CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 1835-1915 As a companion of Herman von Holst during his delivery of a Lowell Lecture course early in 1894, I received a note from Adams dated Friday, February 23, 1894, saying: 'The somewhat famous Saturday Club dines at the Parker House tomorrow at 2.30 o'clock. If you and Dr. von Holst would do me the favor to dine with the Club as my guests, the members would, I am sure, be much pleased.... I will merely add that as respects dress, etc., the dinners are wholly informal affairs.' This letter is cited, as Adams spoke of the Saturday Club in the terms used by nearly all members as 'somewhat famous.' Nor need it occasion surprise, as he had previously, in his 'Life of Dana,' given a thoroughly sympathetic account. He called it 'the most noteworthy of the many Boston dinner clubs.... Because of the eminence and reputation of those who had been members of it, [it] could be brought into comparison with its prototype, made famous through the pages of Boswell, of which Johnson, Burke, Reynolds and Goldsmith were original members.' Further he speaks of 'the little circle of friends who through so many years gathered at Parker's... Emerson was the Johnson of the Saturday Club, as Woodman was to a degree, and should have been wholly, its Boswell... The roll of the Saturday Club membership has, first and last, contained a singularly large proportion of well-known names and some that are illustrious.' I A comparison of this felicitous account with Adams's later attitude seems to convey to the mind the opinions of two different men. He was elected a member in 1882, and must have attended enough of the dinners to imbibe fully the spirit of the Club or he could not have written so sympathetically. But in 1913 he wrote to Dr. Emerson a severely critical letter of the Club as a social function. It met in the middle of the afternoon, he said. "The conversation was as a rule broken up, and only occasionally was there See Richard Henry Dana: a Biography, II, 163 et seq. |