THE DEATH OF PROFESSOR BREWER
Until the establishment of the Johns Hopkins University in 1876, Harvard and Yale were our chief centers of scientific research and productive scholarship. We are losing one after the other the men who gave distinction to these universities. Yale has mourned the death of Dana, Loomis, Newton, Gibbs, Marsh and Johnson, and now in the death of William Henry Brewer one of the few remaining links with the past is severed. He belonged to a generation and to a type of university professor which scarcely survive. The man of the world is now likely to be found in the university chair as elsewhere, leaving small space for the naive and the unconventional.
In 1864 Brewer began his long service as professor of agriculture in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. In addition to the work of his chair, he was indefatigable in investigation and exploration, in lecturing and in attendance at scientific gatherings, being rarely absent even to