The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-10-22
Charles Anderson Dana-A Personal
Tribute.

1t is hard to write when the heart is
aching. Yet, such are the exigencies of
the daily press, and such was the eminence
of CHARLES A. DANA in his profession, that,
even in the first poignant bitterness Of
grief, q word of love and tribute m be
spoken. But how weak and worthless
seem all words in comparison with the
merit of a man for whom the friends who
truly knew him would have gladly sacri-
feed their lives, and who, on many planes
of excellence, has left no peer in the Ameri-
can community. With him has passed
away an Incompatible repository of knowl-
edge. which was applied to public affairs
with a wisdom acknowledged by impartial
observers, and with a benignity, generosity,
n acute sense of justice which those near
him could best appreciate and which his
tory will fully recognize.
There has never lived in the United States
more genuine American than CHARLES
A. DANA. Never has our commonwealth
boosted of a citizen who was more deeply
im%pregnated, by birth and education, with
the spirit of our institutions, or more
thoroughly and fruitfully conversant with
their workings and their transformations
during the last fifty years. From thisp point
Of view he has been, at times, compared
with HORACE GREELEY. 1t is certain, how
ever, that Mr.. DANA's mental training in
early life was much more rigorous and
cumulative, and that his stores of knowl.
edge were far ampler and more various
than those of the elder journalist. Yet
GREELEY himself was not more purely and
Enthusiastically a product of this country, OF
it's traditions and of it's atmosphere.
His stalwart n uncompromising Amer
icanism was the outcome of ante
natal prepossessions as we'll as of life
long associations. CHARLES a. DANA was
of Puritan stock, and to this fact, doubt
less, we should attribute the sturdy re
lance on his W conclusions, and tn,
readiness to defy the world on their behalf
which were among his most striking char
acteristics. He differed from GREELEY no
only by virtue of a more virile tempera
ment and much greater moral steadiness
but in this significant particular, that
far wider and deeper intellectual cultur,
had given him more unerring intuitions
greater breadth of vision and of sympathy
and a more powerful logical faculty. H,
had none of GREELEY's premature cock
sureness and none of his ill.timed ~irresolu
ton after the die was cast.
1t is a present duty to review briefly som
of the incidents of Mr.. DANA's life, for tn
reason that they shed light Upon the char
acter, the qualifications, the requirements
and the achievements of the man. He wa
descendant of RICHARD DANA, of whom
mention Is made in the annals of Cam
hrtJna Maze no aarly ,a 1Rtn IIoual-.
In Hinsdale, n. H., on Aug. 8, 1910, but hi
childhood and ~boyhood were passed Il
western New York. A clerk in a store il
Buffalo, he fitted himself for college, an
entered Harvard University in 1896
where, however, a serious trouble with hi
eyesight prevented him from completin
the academical course. This temporar
physical disability did but whet his app,
title for knowledge the habits and mett
DDS of application which he acquired O
college gave him the instruments of sci
instruction, and from that day to the close {
his life, he found or made opportunities {
study mid the incessant and imperativ
duties OF a most exacting calling. Withou
undertaking the charm or the value of clal
steal history II literature, as some colleg
men have done, he used his academical a
tainments to unlock the treasures handle
down in those languages of modern EuroI
which are daughters of the Latin speed
and lac used his mastery of his native Al
gio-Saxon to obtain an intimate acquain
ance not only with the kindred Germa
but with the allied Scandinavian tongue
AS regards the scope and thoroughne,
OF his literary accomplishments, he hi
never had an equal in this country with
his own profession. Literature, how
ever, represented only one side
his equipment. He was one of the fe
men who, despite the cares of business an
the constant labors of an arduous profe
sion, was able to keep pace with the Gu
rent of scientific research and speculation
with the biological, botanical, astronom
cal, dynamical, and philosophical disco
cries and tendencies of his own day.
ahauld be added that in q singularly pr