Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/424

 prominent men of science as well as students, will always remember with pleasure and gratitude delightful trips made with Prof. Hertz to the Siebengebirge or evenings of genial intercourse at his house in the Quantiusstrasse at Bonn. Absolutely devoid of any desire to pose before the public, the professor sometimes astonished students newly entered for his lectures by putting in a bit of humor where they had expected abstract instruction; but they soon found themselves none the worse for it. Some simple word, a casual remark made as if it were a self -understood thing, from his lips did more toward improving the mind of his audience than a long lecture from another. He was not a scientist inculcating one special branch of knowledge—he was a thinker. To be considered an authority, even by the youngest beginner, was an idea that never entered his mind. In the congenial atmosphere of advanced classes, new ideas and conceptions seemed to rise in him and flow from his lips as though there could be no easier thing in the world. He was at his very best when propounding a problem to this small circle, showing how he would attack it. None, however capable, but could profit by this teaching; genius itself seemed to prompt it.

With penetrating perspicacity he took hold of his problems. As a veritable disciple of natural science, he strove to accomplish his ideal ends, although by means of theory, which he completely mastered, yet not merely by theory and not for her sake only; what he aimed at first and last was the most accurate establishment of facts. Pervaded as his strong personality was by an absorbing love of his science, the rare harmony of his nature kept him equally from an exaggerated enthusiasm and from prosaic dullness. An uncommonly great number of valuable researches made at the Physical Institute at Bonn during the short time of his leadership prove his rare capacity and untiring eagerness to incite young talents to the best possible application of their faculties and so pave the way for their success in research. But in a wider sense of the word we may call his disciples all those physicists who are at this moment, and will be for a long time, occupied in exploring the provinces which he was the first to open. In this sense almost one quarter of all living physicists call themselves Prof. Hertz's followers.

The honors paid at his funeral to the memory of this young and ardent worker were exceptionally great. He was buried in his native city, Hamburg, where the most widespread sympathy for his family and the deepest regret over his loss were shown. From Bonn, Karlsruhe, and Berlin came friends, colleagues, and students, some of them officially representing their colleges. Universities and prominent men from all parts of our globe have sent messages of esteem and sympathy to the wife, the parents,