The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-06-03
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS THE
LATE PROF.. HENRY BRONSON, NJ. ID.

BY DR.. stephen G. Hubbard-Read Bef IRE
the New Haven Colony Historical socle-
ty, by Invitation by the Society, May
~, 1898.
The life and chara cter Of hint whose
memory we are now assembled have
peculiar claims TO honorable mention by
the wise and good in this community
and particularly among his associates
in this society, of which he was one of
the corporate members. He was
known as a quiet, unobtrusive gentle
man of high character and distin-
guished attainments-as a man offew
words, but of direct and honest thought
and as an advocate Of whatever he re-
garded as abstract truth
He came to us in the full development
of his intellectual faculties, at time
when he impressed all with whom he
came in contact as a man of rare pow
ers Of observation-of broad and liberal
views Of public affairs-as a close and
logical reasoner and lover of equity.
Touching this community and the state
at so many points as he did, and leav-
ing upon every side the impress of a
noble character, the beneficial but UNI
conscious influence of which still re-
mains an active living force. can but
feel, Mr.. President, that in accepting
your INITIATING have assumed diff
cult but honorable and most pleasing
duty in attempting to speak fittingly
here of his great wisdom and of his
many virtues.
Only words of discriminating eulogy
will be appropriate to express my esu-
mate of such a character.
HENRY BRONSON
was born in Waterbury on the 3Oth Of
June. 1904. He died in this city of the
accumulated infirmit1es of age on the
26th of November, 1893. Like most Of
the boys of New England of that day,
his early youth was spent in assisting
his father in the cares of the farm, and
in acquiring such an education as was
afforded him in the common district
school of the town, supplemented by tu-
ition at the Hopkins Grammar school
in this city. With these slender oppor-
tunities of acquiring knowledge he de-
veloped a remarkable love for letters,
which continued through a long life,
and caused him during the earlier years
of his pupilage to expend for books all
of his available resources,
AT the age of seventeen or eighteen
years, a period when most farmers
sons, unable to endure the rigorous eli
mate and the severity of discipline adj
ministered to them after which so few
lived to be quoted as examples of the
Survival of the fittest," he began to
shrink in form, and to deteriorate in
physical vigor His health, never
strong, became delicate, and the occu-
pations of the farm grew more and
more distasteful to him; so that, when
the time came that he must choose for
himself calling for life, he fully rea-
lized that the ancestral acres had for
him no charms.
His father, Bennett Bronson, Yale 1897,
was lawyer by profession in Water
bury, and was for many years a judge
Of the county court; he was also a large
landed proprietor and a man of wealth
and influence. Judge Bronson had all
ready sent two sons to Yale college,
both of whom died young, and it was
the desire of his heart that this son
would remain at home and take charge
Of the estate.
But the intellectual life Of the son, so
far from being satisfied in its demands
by the attractions of a pastoral exist
ance, Ionged for the mental stimulus
and growth to be gained by profession
al study; and 1t was only after critical
analysis of his own powers, and care
full balancing of the arguments for and
against his natural preference that he
finally adopted for his ultimate pursuit
the profession of medicine,
Well knowing his fathers long-cher-
shed hopes and desires that his son
would become so much attached to
country life that he would adopt agri-
culture as a PROFESSIONALISM knowing |
also his fathers natural intolerance Of |
opposition to his wishes-and owing to
MS own native modesty and retiring |
being averse to meeting his |
'ather with a personal assertion of his |
own preferences in opposition to the |
settled plan of his family, he found |
himself in a most difficult and unpleas-
int position
Under these circumstances he adopt
I'd the only course that seemed open to
aim, and it proved to be wise one. |
he addressed to his father a long and
iispa ssionate letter, opening to him his
very heart; and offering for his consid-
ration such weighty arguments and
.ogent reasons why it was the most de-
irable thing possible for him to study a
profession instead of becoming a fixture
lpon the farm, that the father at once
,oincided in opinion with his son; and
lenceforth every facility for study
which the times afforded was placed
within his reach. From this day on
ward the entire current of the boys
bought was deepened, broadened,
trengthened and refined by definite
i'm in the work of his life.
The choice Of a profession marks an
pooh of the gravest Importance in the
areer OF any young man. 1t becomes
nsensibly to himself a point of depar-
ure as we'll as Of conveyance, of all
he lines that enter into his future his
ory, while hidden indications of native
enius, warmed by the promethean fire,
he silently assuming form and proper
lons which are eventually to illustrate {
hid adorn his intellectual life. Thus it !
las that, in an hour the entire course
our friends life was radically {
hanged and intensified.
la iudicious line of procedure was de-
he'd and followed and in 1924 he en- I