fighting in the arena, while he must be sportsmanlike, cannot always display social graces proper to the drawing-room. But persons built of sterner stuff who comprehend the enormous power and extent of iniquity will hardly chide Godkin for his relentless pursuit of evil, as he saw it embodied, for instance, in Tammany and its supporters. They know how hard it is to rouse mankind to take the moral side on any issue, and they would not have Dante abate by a single word his condemnation of the sins and sinners of his time; and so they do not rebound from Godkin's chastisement of the wicked to take the part of the wicked themselves. Nevertheless his critics are probably right when they affirm that he might have lured converts by using more honey and less gall; only, we must remember that Godkin never intended to catch the concurrence of the public by snares or traps: he meant to tell them with uncompromising directness what was just and what was righteous. He despised the sophist's art. Criticise him as you will, however, the fact remains that posterity will get at the truth of the chief public affairs in America between 1865 and 1881, in the Nation better than in any other contemporary source; time has confirmed most of his verdicts. What more can we say in praise of his insight, his truthfulness, and his sense of justice? Godkin was elected a member of the Saturday Club in 1875. The first reference to him in connection with the Club occurs, so far as I am aware, in Emerson's Journals for October 30, 1864, in which he says: 'At Club, yesterday, we had a full table, Agassiz, Hoar, Hedge, Cabot, Holmes, Appleton, Peirce, Norton, Forbes, Ward, Sumner, Whipple, Woodman, Dwight, Emerson; Andrew (who, with Brimmer and Fields, was elected yesterday); and, for guests, ... Mr. Godkin, the English correspondent of the Daily News.' It was natural that Godkin who counted so many friends among the members of the Club should have been elected to its company. Norton and Lowell were his particular intimates there, and during his residence in Cambridge he attended its meetings frequently. Later, he came when his visit to Boston happened to coincide with Emerson, Journals: x, 79. the last Saturday of the month. From the few members now living who were his associates thirty or forty years ago I have been able to gather no salient recollections of him. His son tells me that he always greatly enjoyed coming to the Saturday Club, but he too recalls nothing particularly striking which his father reported of the meetings. So is it with much of the best talk all over the world; it goes unrecorded; there is so much to it beside the spoken word there is the tone of the voice, the expressive face, the play of the eyes, the spontaneity of gesture, the determining but often illusive temperament. In conclusion I quote, and there could be no better summing up, the epitaph which Godkin's old friend, James Bryce, wrote for his tombstone. Edwin Lawrence Godkin, Publicist, Economist, Moralist. Born at Moyne, Wicklow, 1831. Died at Greenway, Devon, 1902. For forty years a citizen of the United States. Gifted with a penetrating intellect and singular powers of expression, constant in friendship, tireless in energy, dauntless in courage, a steadfast champion of good causes and high ideals, he became an inspiring influence, and bore a foremost part in all efforts to make government just, pure, and efficient, and wrought unceasingly to strengthen the ties between the nation whence he sprang, and that to which his services were given through a long and laborious life. Buried in Hazelbeach Churchyard, Northampton, May 28, 1902. Sapere audi. WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER UNLIKE WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS 1804-1882 ́NLIKE most members of the Saturday Club, William Barton Rogers was not of New England ancestry. He was born in Philadelphia, December 7, 1804. He was the second of four brothers, the eldest being James Blythe Rogers, the third Henry Darwin, who owed his middle name to the esteem of his father for Erasmus Darwin, and the fourth Robert Rogers, who afterwards assumed the middle name of Empie. All four brothers achieved distinction in science as geologists, chemists, or physicists, and three of them became teachers in institutions of higher learning. Rogers was educated at William and Mary College, and on his father's death succeeded him there as Professor of Chemistry and Physics. Early in his residence in Virginia he had become interested in the industrial applications of chemistry and in the importance of geological research for the State of Virginia. Through his activity a State Geologic Survey was organized, of which Mr. Rogers became the head. In 1835 he was called from William and Mary College to the University of Virginia, where be became one of the most successful teachers. Indeed his charm as a teacher has been equalled by few men in any country. His manner of presenting even the most ordinary subject in science was characterized by such fluency and clearness of expression and beauty of diction as to attract the attention and to excite the imagination of students. Tall in stature, with a face of great dignity, resembling Emerson in appearance, and having a voice whose compass and quality were capable of charming effects, William Barton Rogers in the height of his power was one of the most effective lecturers among the scientific men of his time. In 1842 he collaborated with his brother, Henry Darwin Rogers, who held a corresponding position in Philadelphia as State Geologist, in a most fruitful paper on the Laws of Structure of the Disturbed Zones of the Earth's Crust, which marked one of the important advances in the theory of mountain building. |