d. April 29, 1842), is a shining example of patience and genius for

investigation, discovery, and deduction in medical science. The nervous system was his particular forte; and he discovered the most important principle that the brain is divided into two parts, each having its corresponding division in the spinal marrow, and that one set of nerves conveys sensations from the body to the brain, another carrying back to the body and its muscles the command of the brain, and finally that nerves conveying different sensations are connected with different parts of the brain. He was a remarkable surgeon, a brilliant lecturer, and a medical author of universal fame.

Samuel D. Gross (b. July 8, 1805; d. May 6, 1884) ranked as one of the epoch-makers in his profession. As physician, surgeon, and medical author he showed a lofty aim, strict devotion, marked originality, and powerful intellect. His numerous works commanded world-wide attention and became accepted standards. Two of them, at least, were the first of their kind ever published in America.

George C. L. F. D. Cuvier, of France (b. August 23, 1769; d. May 13, 1832), exhibited in his career the immense reformation and advance in natural history during the first three decades of the nineteenth century. He expanded the system of comparative anatomy as the only true basis of natural history, and from an utterly chaotic and unintelligible heap of dry facts concerning animal structures he finally deduced the underlying, natural principles of unity, in their classification and division. He also established many positive laws of geology and paleontology and, by his vast discoveries and daring conceptions therein, developed the comparatively new science of fossil animal-life to an extent hitherto undreamed of.

Charles Robert Darwin, of England (b. February 13, 1809; d. April 18, 1893), was one of those well-equipped and persistent scientists whose investigations led to the modern doctrine of the origin and evolution of species by means of natural selection and preservation of favored races in the struggle for life. His conclusions were at first bitterly rejected, especially by religious scientists, but ere the end of the century came they met with wide acceptance. Only such a genius and patience as his could have collected, arranged, and interpreted the gigantic mass of facts out of which he slowly deduced his conclusions.

Louis J. R. Agassiz (b. May 28, 1807; d. December 14, 1873), was the premier of his day as a scientist and naturalist. Of wonderful physical and mental power, vast enthusiasm, untiring industry, and exceptional propensity for research and orderly arrangement, he developed the modern science of ichthyology, propounded new and accepted theories of geology and of glacial systems, and established the magnificent Museum of Natural History at Cambridge, Mass. Astonishingly prolific as a writer, he remains a constant source of inspiration to naturalists and scientists.

Samuel C. F. Hahnemann, of Germany (b. April 11, 1755; d. July 2, 1843), was an epoch-maker in the field of medicine. By 1820 his theories and publications had awakened universal interest, and the homœopathic system had become an established school. Despite the long and bitter war between allopathy and homœopathy, it is certain that the latter has contributed largely to render medicine free from many old-time methods of an indefensible, if not actually harmful or dangerous kind.

Horace Wells, of Hartford, Conn. (b. January 21, 1815; d. January 14, 1848), was a dentist. His use of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) to render the extraction of teeth painless led to its fuller application as an anæsthetic in surgery, and hence to the discovery of modern anæsthesia by ether and chloroform. Though robbed of the honor of his discovery by others, the dentist Wells is no less a contributor to mankind of one of the greatest boons of the century.

Louis Pasteur, of France (b. December 17, 1822; d. September 28, 1895), gave new direction and impulse to chemistry and pathology by the discovery that fermentation arose from micro-organisms, and also that disease was, in many instances, due to the presence of bacilli in blood or tissue. He followed this with his system of culture and inoculation, by means of which he performed most miraculous cures of even such a vicious disease as hydrophobia. The Pasteur Institute in Paris stands a monument to his genius and philanthropy.

PHILANTHROPISTS.—Stephen Girard (b. May 24, 1750; d. December 26, 1831) was crabbed, unapproachable, penurious, irreligious, yet strangely liberal in large public or charitable affairs. Twice he helped the government with large loans. Public charities and improvements, hospitals, and paradoxically enough, even churches, were indebted to him for munificent gifts. The greatest monument to his philanthropy is Girard College, founded by a bequest of $8,000,000, for the education of poor white male orphans.

James Smithson, of England (b. about 1765; d. June 27, 1829), was possibly the first philanthropist to bestow a large endowment upon the United States. With the sum of $500,000 to $600,000, which came to it from this benevolent foreigner, the young republic founded and endowed the splendid Smithsonian Institute at Washington for the spread and increase of knowledge, thus putting Mr. Smithson in the highest rank of the world’s benefactors, and erecting an imperishable monument at another turning-point in the progress of civilization.

George Peabody (b. February 18, 1795; d. November 14, 1869) ranks as one of the century’s greatest philanthropists. Among his noblest gifts were $3,500,000 for free education and the training of teachers in the Southern States, $1,000,000 for a scientific institute at Baltimore, large sums to Harvard University, and a great amount to his native town, Danvers, Mass., for educational purposes. Dying in England, he left $2,500,000 to London, to found workingmen’s homes.

John Jacob Astor (b. July 17, 1763; d. March 29, 1848) used much of his colossal fortune in philanthropy. Perhaps his largest single gift, at least that by which he is best known as a benefactor, was the sum of $400,000 to found the Astor Library of New York city. This noble institution is conducted on the public plan, and contains nearly 300,000 volumes.

James Lick (b. August 25, 1796; d. October 1, 1876) amassed a fortune in California, out of which he provided a trust fund for certain public and charitable purposes. This fund amounted to $5,000,000 at the time of his death. To him is due the famous Lick Telescope in the University of California, which cost $700,000; the California School of Mechanic Arts, costing $540,000; the free public baths of San Francisco, costing $150,000; and numerous other charities and benefactions.

Leland Stanford (b. March 9, 1824; d. June 20, 1893) acquired a great fortune in California. Inspired by a dream at the time of his little son’s death, he determined to found and endow an institution of learning in his State. The result was the Leland Stanford Junior University, whose direct endowment was princely, and whose indirect endowment is expected to amount to $20,000,000 or more.

Florence Nightingale was born, May, 1823, in Florence, Italy, of English parents, and, prompted by philanthropic instincts, turned her attention to the relief of humanity. After study in various nursing schools, she was sent at the head of a corps of trained nurses to care for the sick and wounded soldiers of the Crimean war, in which position she displayed marvelous energy and ability. A grateful public subscribed for her a testimonial of $250,000, which she devoted to the founding of a training-school for nurses.

Clara Barton (b. about 1830) left a clerkship in Washington to engage in the work of alleviating the sufferings of the soldiers of the Civil War, on the battlefields and in hospitals, a work she performed with rare energy and self-sacrifice. She afterwards aided the Grand Duchess of Baden in establishing her hospitals during the Franco-Prussian war, and was decorated with the Golden Cross of Baden and the Iron Cross of Germany. In 1881 she organized the American Red Cross Society, for which she secured an international treaty giving it protection. She performed splendid service in camp and field during the Spanish-American war.

John D. Rockefeller (b. 1839) is a splendid example of those many and noble American millionaires who have responded with astonishing liberality to the promptings of their philanthropic natures. The reconstruction of the Chicago University, the founding or endowment of other public institutions, and of numerous charitable benefactions, together embracing the expenditure of many millions, are magnificent monuments to Mr. Rockefeller’s share in promoting the progress of his country during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Matthew Vassar (b. April 29, 1792; d. June 23, 1868) founded Vassar College, N. Y., in 1861. A brewer of large fortune, he conceived the idea of erecting and endowing a college for women, wherein education could be obtained either moderately or gratuitously, and which should be undenominational. To this end he gave land and $428,000 for buildings and equipment. Again he gave $360,000. Other members of his family added to his gifts, till $1,000,000 and more were expended in buildings, apparatus, etc., and the endowment amounted to over $1,000,000.

INVENTORS.—George Stephenson, of England (b. June 9, 1781; d. August 12, 1848), was the first (1814) to construct a satisfactory locomotive steam engine. In 1815 he introduced the steam blast into his second locomotive. In 1822 he built and operated his first railway, eight miles long. In 1829 his engine, named the Rocket, was driven at the rate of twenty-nine miles an hour. He invented a safety lamp, which is still in use in English collieries. A natural genius and self-taught mechanic, he refused knighthood, but has received by common consent the title of the father of railways.

Richard M. Hoe (b. September 12, 1812; d. June 7, 1886) completely revolutionized the art of printing by the invention of his “lightning” rotary press, in 1846. This marvel was capable of printing 20,000 impressions an hour. After many costly experiments, with a view to printing both sides of a sheet at once, he evolved his web-perfecting press, which drew the paper from a roll, perhaps miles in length, at the rate of 1000 feet a minute, printed both sides simultaneously, and cut and folded the sheets at the rate of 20,000 per hour. Subsequent improvements have given his machines a much larger hourly capacity.

Elias Howe (b. June 9, 1819; d. October 3, 1867) contributed the sewing-machine to the century’s triumphs and wonders, though it is alleged that the honor of inventing both the eye-pointed needle and the lock-stitch belongs to Walter Hunt, between whom and Howe long litigation prevailed, finally resulting in the recognition of the 1846 patent of the latter. Modifications and improvements by more recent inventors have made the sewing-machine the household boon of to-day.

Cyrus W. Field (b. November 30, 1819; d. July 12, 1892) made the problem of a telegraphic cable across the Atlantic an aim of his life. For thirteen years he labored with wonderful faith and perseverance, and at last, after a series of defeats and mortifying failures, succeeded (1866) in laying a cable that thoroughly solved the problem. Since then submarine telegraphy has become one of the most useful and powerful factors in the private and public life of the world.

Samuel F. B. Morse (b. April 27, 1791; d. April 2, 1872) contributed to the century’s triumphs and world’s civilization by that brilliant and persistent series of investigations, which resulted in the first practical telegraph. He brought his invention before the world in 1844, and with the aid of the government set up a line of forty miles between Washington and Baltimore, over which dispatches successfully passed, May 24, 1844. From this moment his triumph was complete, and he became the recipient of many flattering distinctions at home and abroad.

John Ericsson (b. July 31, 1803; d. March 8, 1899) either invented, or first made practical, the steam fire-engine, the artificial draught for locomotives, the reversible locomotive, the “link-motion,” the caloric engine, and the screw propeller. Discouraged in England, he came to the United States in 1839, where he revolutionized naval warfare by applying the screw propeller to the U. S. S. Princeton, and employing a range finder. In 1854 he invented the Monitor iron-clad on principles first applied in the Monitor which defeated the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, Virginia, March 9, 1862. His career was signalized by many other valuable inventions.

Alexander Graham Bell, born March 3, 1846, besides exploiting in America his father’s valuable system of instruction to deaf mutes, typifies the inventive spirit of his age by his contribution to public progress through the material side, as exemplified in that indispensable aid to modern life, the telephone, with the invention of which he is generally, but by no means undisputedly, credited.

Thomas Alva Edison (b. February 11, 1847) is a splendid example of the tireless, acute, and practical scientific inventor, and is well named the electrical “wizard.” Among the triumphs of his skill and genius are the automatic telegraphic repeater; the duplex telegraph, afterwards developed into the quadruplex and sextuplex transmitter; the printing telegraph for stock quotations; the carbon telephone transmitter; the aerophone; the megaphone and microphone; the phonograph and photometer; the incandescent lamp; and many other devices for electric lighting.

Nicola Tesla (born 1858), a former pupil and assistant of Edison, shares with his master the honor of representing the world’s greatest and most practical of scientific inventors and discoverers. His most noted investigations and discoveries have been along the line of arousing luminous vibrations in matter, without, at the same time, setting in action heat-vibrations. He has made the remarkable discovery that 200,000 volts may pass harmlessly through that body which 2000 would kill, and is experimenting to produce 3,000,000 vibrations a minute in matter. He has also shown that both motors and lights can be operated on one wire without a circuit. His rotary motor is used in conveying power from the great plant at Niagara Falls.

NOVELISTS.—Sir Walter Scott, of Scotland (b. August 15, 1771; d. September 21, 1832), exerted a powerful influence on the literature of the century through the medium of his stirring poetry and delightful fiction, in both of which he was most ready and prolific. His numerous works, teeming with striking situations, strong and noble in style, are models of literary excellence, and are as captivating to readers of to-day as they were half a century ago.

Charles Dickens, of England (b. February 7, 1812; d. June 9, 1870), ably exemplified that school of novelists who paint homely social life with all its innocent, clumsy efforts at humor; its sorrows, vanities, and weaknesses; its selfishness, malice, and vice; its wrongs, sufferings, and goodnesses. Though faulty in plot and style and ridiculous in their exaggerations, his novels marked a new era in literature, and no books ever so appealed to the sympathies and good impulses of readers.

James Fenimore Cooper (b. September 15, 1789; d. September 14, 1851) typifies a large and apparently enduring class of fiction writers of which he was a remarkable forerunner; that school of novelists who deal with stirring, bold, and healthful adventure, in which the Anglo-Saxon mind particularly seems to find unfailing delight. Both at home and abroad, his novels attained a wide, sudden, and well-deserved popularity. And to this day no library of fiction is complete without them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (b. July 4, 1804; d. May 18, 1864) exhibits in his numerous fictional works a man’s breadth and strength of imagination and a woman’s quick perception and spiritual insight. Almost gloomy in color, overhung with impending fate, and often uncanny, his stories are yet always fascinating. As has been well said, one catches in them “gleaming wit, tender satire, exquisite natural description, subtle and strange analysis of human life, darkly passionate and weird.”

Count Leo (or Lyoff) Alekseevich Tolstoi (b. August 28, 1828) is a Russian aristocrat by birth, but has assumed the dress and life of a peasant, the better to exploit his doctrines respecting non-resistance, communism, labor, religion, politics, government, and society. His numerous writings show a combination of keenness of realistic insight and wealth of poetical imagination, of a wonderful breadth of view with perfect handling of minute detail, seldom rivaled in all literature. Whether or not he will prove to be the forerunner of a great revolution in the world’s national and social life, there is no disputing his genius and pertinacity.

Edward George Earle Bulwer (Baron Lytton), of England (b. May 25, 1803;