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Throughout his life, Prof. Tyndall has been an advocate of scientific study for the simple love of truth, and, in this and many other respects, has constantly furnished an example of what the ideal student should be. The desire for personal advancement, or acquisition, has never entered his mind, and while others have delved for fame or wealth, he has simply sought the truth.
In 1872, in response to the earnest appeals of his American scientific friends, Tyndall came to this country. Before deciding to come, however, he received repeated assurances from various sources, that it would be a profitable trip to him from a money point of view. In reply to these supposed allurements, he said that he would come, if he came at all, because his friends thought he would aid the cause of science in America, and not a dollar would he carry out of the country!
True to his word, upon the completion of his American lecture tour he left every cent that he had received, above his actual expenses (about $13,000 in all) in the hands of three trustees. These gentlemen were to spend the income from this sum in giving deserving and intelligent students "the higher opportunities of scientific culture available in European universities."
The original design was carried out for a number of years; but recently, the trustees, being widely separated and engaged in distracting pursuits, began to find it hard to hit upon suitable young men upon whom they might bestow the income. The original sum of $13,000 had increased, by careful investment, to about $35,000; and the gentlemen, finding their work becoming too difficult laid the case before the donor, Prof. Tyndall, begging him to receive back the fund, or make some other disposition of it.
Immediately, according to his own words, he decided "to divide it equally among the three leading institutions in America which had, among their objects, the promotion of higher scientific study." As a result, it has been given in three equal amounts, to Columbia, to the University of Pennsylvania, and to Harvard, to found three permanent scholarships in Physical Science.
Thus one more name is added to the list of the benefactors of Harvard, the name of an Englishman whose love of truth finds expression in a desire for the whole world's enlightenment, a man whose liberality is as unbounded as his learning.
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