and vivified his understanding of his own subjects, and-joined to his ruling desire to know everything as it really is, to have the exact truth-gave him a most fine and perfect power of discrimination. His final judgment on any intellectual point was apt to have almost standard rightness. It was easy to be unaware of this, because Professor Sill-impulsive in speech and with little pride of consistency-took no pains to keep his opinions suppressed until he had formulated them into his final judgment. Indeed, his very habit of seeing all sides of a subject sometimes made him seem one-sided: for it was his disposition in discussion to throw himself almost wholly upon that side which was being neglected, to bring forward that consideration which none else had thought of. His temperament was to see one aspect of a subject at a time, and that vividly; and thus, in successive single views, caught as with lightning illumination, he would in the end give to the friend who followed his speech, a singularly complete estimate of the whole, fair as the perspective observer's, bright and full as the partisan's. When he wrote for the public, he took pains to state his whole view, and his wise insight, his clear discrimination, his single-minded effort to state the exact truth, became apparent. "How hard it is to tell the truth!" he wrote to a friend. "What a grand essential of 'style' in writing it is! I should preach it more if I had teaching to do now -the carefully sober aim at exact truth, that won't need modifying one way tomorrow and a little the other way the next day." "There is nothing I admire so heartily as fairness-especially fairness under temptation to the opposite. "To see things as they are they may make game of that aspiration in Boston, but I hold it to be a big thing." "The only men and women who are any account, in the long run. . . . . . are the people who have the instinct of getting right down and looking into a matter to see what the exact facts are-first of all."

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In his nominal specialty of literary criticism, Professor Sill had absolutely no superior. "Criticism" is here meant in its higher signification-appreciating an author, estimating him rightly, expressing that estimate. He was a generous critic, reverent of greatness, and despised the small detractions and comparisons of conventional criticism. "It puts me out of all patience," he said of reviewers of Emerson, "to hear these fellows who try to go round such a man with their foot rules-inch rules-and diminishing glasses. You can't do that with the smallest man-let alone the biggest kind." He was catholic in his appreciation, partisan of no school as against another; he had his favorites, but his universality of mind made him appreciative of the qualities of all-Carlyle or Lamb, Pope or Keats, Howells or Hawthorne. He knew very well why he admired in every case, could analyze keenly the author's special qualities, and was absolutely independent in his estimates, and not afraid before mere name and fame. He had nothing of the universal complaisance of Longfellow, who found in everything "some good lines." Charlatanry or intentional grossness he pardoned nowhere. "Tell 'em," he wrote to a friend about to review Flaubert, "Tell 'em Salammbô is the idyl of the shambles; the pastoral symphony of the vivisection room. It so reeks and smells that it ought to be bound in disinfectant paper.. It is the rotten fruit of a rotten tree." And again, of some lauded names: "I mean to imply that all this hullabaloo about certain names is fictitious weight, got by skillful working for it, mainly. It seems to be disgraceful to human nature, the way our young writers push and strain and gesticulate and yell for recognition." He had, also, little hospitality for weak and commonplace writing, and little disposition to pick out its small merits, holding that when time is too short for the reading of great works, the desire of the many to precipitate their feeble stammering

upon the public is nothing finer than a contemptible egotism.

Yet when the stammer

ings appeared before him not as candidates. for fame, but as the efforts of learners, (and much, very much, advising of young writers fell to his share,) no one could be more appreciative of every spark of promise. Yet he was at the same time sternly intolerant of faults, and uncompromising in giving those plain-spoken estimates of the value of the work which most men called on for such judgments evade by every euphemism; and this he did sometimes at cost of a good deal of distress to himself-for he was the most sensitive of men-believing it to be the only honest and kind way. He rendered by this frankness of criticism incalculable service to some young people, and offended others.

Professor Sill has left a few careful critical essays', a large number of anonymous reviews in various periodicals, and a good many light essays of fancy and description, most of these in the Contributor's Club of the Atlantic Monthly. These,

with communications from time to time to the press on current educational or other public topics, and a translation from the German (Rau's Mozart. Leypoldt & Holt, 1868.), will constitute his prose writings, unless he has left work ready for publication. They are mere fragmentary evidences of what his work might have been; but there is very little prose written that offers a better model of thought and style. The little sketches-parenthetic scraps from a mind. whose lightest musings were never shallow or commonplace-flow into comparatively Perhaps the following list contains most of them: Shakspere's Prose, OVERLAND, January, 1875. A Private Letter. The Californian, October, 1880. The Best Use of Wealth. The Californian, January, 1881. Shall We Have Free High Schools? The Californian, February, 1881.

What is a University? The Californian, May, 1881. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Californian, May,

free play of phrase and figure and fancy; but in critical or argumentative writing, Professor Sill was straight to the point, keen and forcible, with no delay or digression for the sake of beauty in style. A rich and figurative diction and a wealth of suggestion and side thoughts came naturally to his lips or pen; but he rejected all that was not to the purpose. "I take much delight in that modern way of saying directly what we think, without any ffills," he said. "I picked up ―'s book lately, and tried to read. It is full of interesting facts and ideas, but a disgusting flounced and furbelowed style. I couldn't stand it, and couldn't read it." But his own style was not merely clear and direct. It is somewhat of the school of Arnold's and Lowell's prose. Like theirs, it is forcible and convincing to the thoughtful reader, but not of the rugged force that would seize the attention of the thoughtless; and like theirs it is noteworthy for a fine sense of the value of language, a command of its resources, and a certain inherent beauty, quite other than that of ornamentation.

But when one has spoken of Professor Sill as poet, critic, scholar of all that he ever put in print and gave to the publicone has touched but the surface of his life. He did not live for the public, but for his pupils and friends. "I am not a poet, I am a schoolteacher who occasionally writes verses," he sometimes said. Early in life, he deliberately renounced the pen for the schoolroom, saying, in some one else's phrase, which pleased him, that his choice was not to make something of himself, but to make something of other people. Until within the last five years of his life, when personal circumstances withdrew him from the work of teaching, scarcely a fragment from his constant and wonderfully efficient activity floated up to the surface in print. Even in his educational work, the results that can be put on record and weighed in the world's scales, are not such that by

merely enumerating them one could give any true idea of what has been lost to us by his untimely death. In this State-the State of his choice and his affection-he was for three years a teacher in the Oakland High School, and occupied for eight years the chair of English Language and Literature in the University. In these positions he very rarely came in any way before even the local public; he made no stir, left no conspicuous changes behind him. Yet the great ability, the infinite industry, the positiveness, enthusiasm, courage, and personal potency of the man, sc wrought in every department that he touched, and among all that he came in contact with, that few men have ever left so profound, so ineradicable an impress. "I would like to live a little, and not see so much written about it !" he said once; and in the minds of those who knew him, he left some such sense of the comparative superficiality and unreality of all visibly recorded work, as beside the fact of such a man himself.

His remarkable quality as a teacher was partly due to his complete belief in the work. "The whole problem of the progress, and even of the maintenance, of civilized society depends on the success or failure of a people in lifting the lower to the higher grades. And now, how can this be done? With the adult population, it cannot be done at all. It is not altogether a pleasant truth to contemplate, but grown men are as they are. Not so, however, with children and youth." Therefore, to his mind, the very best of all services was that of teaching the young; and believing as he did in the supreme importance of the human soul, teaching meant to him moulding the still plastic nature into the highest product of mind and character possible to it. All his judgments about methods of education were based on this conception of its object. His faith in its power to mould the character was very great, and therefore his anxiety that it should be of the best quality

was unbounded; and no one was to his mind so much the public enemy as the charlatan or ignoramus in education, or the man who would use its means to his own political or personal ends. A very important part of his educational work in this State consisted in his ardent, unreserved, unceasing advocacy of the highest ideals and soundest methods in education. At once familiar with the homeliest details of class-room work, and inspired by the largest conceptions of its significance, he was as completely equipped as possible for such advocacy.

But his high ideal of education, his conscientiousness in its daily drudgeries, his infinite ingenuity and comprehension in applying his theories in detail, were all perhaps less rare than the unstudied effect of the man himself. To know him well was itself an education. To his pupils and friends he poured out freely the genius of which he only shyly and reluctantly gave an occasional hint to the public. Before strangers, he was diffident, and often constrained; and in writing he addressed his readers with dignity and reserve, having none of the disposition to take the public into his confidence that has revealed a few writers to all the world and for all time as personally charming; but none of these exceeded him as he was known within a small circle. His unstudied talk, blending all the qualities the reader finds in his poetry and his prose, was yet better than either by a charming unconventionality, a winning kindliness, a humor keen and pervasive, but spontaneous as breathing. He was absolutely without affectation in speech, genuine beyond the manner of man. To prepare a bon mot, to seek an effect, would have been about as easy to him as to pick a pocket. "It is dreadful to me always to find a 'smart' thing repeated that way," he wrote: "But the remarkable talkers all seem to do it. Moral let us not be remarkable talkers. It is a frightful thing to be." Yet while he could not assume, he

could conceal; he had large reserves of reticence as to himself and his affairs, even in his most intimate speech.

His range in talk was inexhaustible, his interest universal. From the very stars to the homeliest daily detail; from the grave and sweet discourse that left the heart lifted as by sacred music, to boyish nonsense, and laughter as natural as a little child's;—everything he touched with the beauty of his own nature. He was as far as possible from a monologueist: his mind. was constantly in touch with that of his companion, his attention sympathetic and eager, his response prompt and full of comprehension. No one more appreciated and enjoyed congenial and stimulating companionship; and tiresome, foolish, most of all, insincere talkers, he endured with suffering, and shunned with an even comical terror. Men, women, and children alike found him a fascinating companion. He made himself one to children not often by bringing himself down to their plane, but by lifting them to his. He believed that their power of understanding and feeling is underrated, and he talked freely with them of great thoughts, of lofty motives, of aspirations and high spiritual planes, of the wonders of science and history, the great world-activities, the beauty of nature and art-now in effective detail, drawn from their little observations, now in bold and beautiful generalizations. His results justified his theory, for the children always loved his talk, in some sort comprehended it, and never altogether forgot it. Even in the schoolroom he insisted on not being mere lecturer, but made discourse as far as possible mutual, listened with real interest to their little views of time or eternity, and took, in work or in play, the attitude of a comrade yet always with some invisible hint of what he was beyond what they could see, which made them hold him in a certain awe. They confided in him infinitely; they told him their secrets; but take liberties with him, question his decisions, conscious

ly displease him, the hardiest would not. Indeed, so far from familiarity breeding contempt, regard for Professor Sill was in singularly direct ratio to the extent of acquaintance with him : and no less did he refute the other foolish cynicism, that "No man is a hero to his own valet ;" for servants, laborers, tradesfolk, who dealt with him, came to regard him with almost reverent enthusiasm. His "goodness" was always their talk.

Perhaps they, as did children, caught in their simple judgment the chief secret of the man when they said of him, "He is so good!" The common temptations of life, the common objects of the world's struggle -personal ease or profit, material success --these things seemed too far away from him to be even renounced, or resisted. They were a tawdry sort of child's play, which men would drop of themselves if they understood the greater joys of life. He was absolutely without a littleness. The taint of money meanness-even in its most plausible form of a selfish lavishness--or of commonplace self-indulgence and petty selfishness, it seemed, could no more come near him than the dust of the highway could be thrown upon a star. In this respect alone was it true that he was unpractical, even quixotic. He was not in the least visionary about business matters, and could give sound advice therein: and he was perfectly well aware that his ideal of integrity between man and man would have made the whole fabric of even honorable business and public life, as at present woven together, impracticable-so searching, so transcendent was it; and was too fair to condemn in others some necessary departure from a standard which nevertheless he preferred unobtrusively to live up to himself.

Only when it was a question simply of giving, could his open-handedness sometimes be imposed upon. To bear a grudge or retaliate an injury, was simply impossible to him: though injury or unkindness was

a

Professor Sill lived above the level of these pettinesses as naturally as above that of arson or murder. Of that higher self-seeking that is often cherished by cruder moral natures as a lofty aspiration-the desire for fame-he spoke in younger life as temptation to be avoided. A mind fixed on men's praise would inevitably lose sight of the higher standard of simple usefulness. By this fame, the effort for which he early renounced, he never meant other than that which comes of itself as the result of worthy achievement; the effort to push one's self, to secure recognition," at no time would have seemed to him anything but repulsive. As he came to middle age, not only did his horror of this struggle deepen, but he more and more regarded even an honorable fame as an unworthy and demoralizing object of desire. "If only he hasn't the 'vicious quitch' of a craving for fame in him!" he said of a promising young man; and of a distinguished woman, "Her interest in things outside of relation to her seemed rather fictitious. It is a horrible penalty to pay for fame and flattery! I more and more believe the only safe way for ordinary mortals is to keep out of sight." "The desire for personal reputation seems to me a very contemptible and objectionable thing." Yet, with a lovable inconsistency, he rejoiced greatly in all deserved fame of others; and delighted, too, in the small successes of promising young people, and, while warning them against the quest of fame, could not infrequently be detected giving a covert push to their baby reputations.

It is natural, over his grave, to dwell on the sweet kindliness of his nature and be

havior, his exquisite considerateness, the flower-like delicacy and purity of his spirit, the loftiness in which his thoughts dwelt, so that without effort or consciousness he wrapped around those who associated with him, an atmosphere of higher taste, higher thought, higher motive and principle; on the long record of his unselfish acts; on the fine sensitiveness, as keen for others as for himself, that made so cruel to him the rough contacts of the world; on his affectionate tenderness, and the power of comprehension that made him an ideal confidant and companion; on his love of nature, and music, and books, and seclusion, with choice companionship, his poet's moods of sadness, his genial humor, his self-distrustful modesty. But his friends misrepresent the man if they speak only of these. As truly his own was the power of indignant scorn; the cold contempt with which he drew away from the foul or the mean; the white flash of anger that occasionally sprang out upon them. It is no mere sweet-souled dreamer that we have lost. He took Emerson's advice, and was not tender of making himself an enemy now and then. Sound education in this State has had many friends; but it has always had to be protected from marauders. In this cause, and in others, Professor Sill never shirked battle; he was even prompt to join it: but he had no joy in contest. He dreaded it and suffered under it. He always went to the front of the field, but he went with a naked breast; and not one of the rougher blows with which obtuser men returned his keen, indignant strokes failed to leave its hurt; the mere fact of contest distressed him. But those upon whom one of his swift, low-voiced flashes of fine scorn descended, never forgot nor forgave it.

His shrinking from mankind, too, was scarcely half shyness, and more contempt for its falseness and coarseness and meanness. "Unpopular doctrine as it necessarily is," he would sometimes say in effect, "the un