James

dents of residence, and in part to the father's
scrupulous regard for the genius of his children
and his desire that they should develop from
within rather than be moulded from without.

William was born in New York City, prob-
ably at the Astor House. In October 1843 he
was carried off to Europe, where the family re-
mained for a year and a half. After a two years'
sojourn in Albany, they took up their residence
again in New York City. William and his broth-
er Henry attended three or more different
schools before 1855. In June of that year the
family again sailed for Europe, this time for
expressly educational purposes. There followed a
series of experiments each of which was deemed
a failure in itself, but the total effect of which,
if one is to judge by the results, seems to have
been remarkable. The younger of the two broth-
ers referred many years later to the "incorrigible
vagueness of current in our educational drift."
There was drift in the form of mobility, and a
vagueness arising from the ambiguous aptitudes
of youth. First, a residence at the polyglot Pen-
sionnat Roediger at Chatelaine, Geneva, was
terminated rather abruptly by a return to Eng-
land in the autumn of 1855. The next winter was
spent in London, where the boys were entrusted
to the tutelage of a Scotchman, Robert Thomp-
son. Then came a year of Paris with M. Leram-
bert of Rue Jacob as pedagogue, followed, after
some months, by the Institution Fezandie, con-
ducted somewhat after the manner of a "pha-
lanstery" by an ex-disciple of Fourier. During
this winter William, whose interest in painting
was becoming more and more dominant, also at-
tended the atelier of Leon Cogniet. In the sum-
mer of 1857 the family moved to Boulogne, where
in the autumn the boys entered the College
Communal. This period of discipline and lean-
ness was followed in June 1858 by a return to
America and a residence for a year in Newport,
R. I. Next, in the late summer of 1859, there
occurred another migration to Switzerland, and
this time with more permanent results. William
was installed in the Academy at Geneva, where
he was subsequently joined by his brother
Henry. The summer of 1860 was spent in Bonn,
where William lived and continued his studies
in the house of a certain Herr Stromberg.

He had now acquired the fragments of a liberal
education. In addition to his schooling he had
stored up a fund of memories which he esteemed
lightly, but which had nourished his mind and
stimulated his imagination. Though he had
learned little but languages and the rudiments
of mathematics, he had experienced much,—gal-
leries, spectacles, literature, the theatre, places,

James

landscapes, and people,—all unconsciously as-
similated, and giving to his mind a characteris-
tic urbanity and ready adaptability. Before he
reached manhood he was already uprooted, or
had in fact formed the habit of perpetual up-
rooting, of oscillation between ennui and the rel-
ish of adventure. Meanwhile the question of his
vocation had resolved itself into a choice be-
tween painting and science. His father, who had
long since recognized his eldest son's exception-
al endowment, cherished the hope that he would
prefer the less "narrowing" career of the scien-
tist. But he was willing to bide his time, and
meanwhile the artistic interest asserted itself to
a degree that forbade its being dismissed with-
out a trial. So, trailing in the wake of budding
but uncertain genius, the family returned in Sep-
tember 1860 to Newport, where the new experi-
ment was begun in the studio of William M.
Hunt, and where John LaFarge was conducting
a more auspicious experiment at the same time.
A year sufficed to convince William (though it
did not convince others) that distinguished at-
tainment in the field of art was beyond his reach.
In the autumn of 1861, therefore, he entered the
Lawrence Scientific School and thus inaugu-
rated that career of science, and that connection
with Harvard University, which continued until
the day of his death.

Although the chosen field was science its nar-
rower delimitation was attended by further
doubts and experiments. Three years were spent
at the Lawrence Scientific School, devoted main-
ly to chemistry under Charles W. Eliot [g.^.]»
and comparative anatomy and physiology under
Jeffries Wyman. In the autumn of 1864 James
entered the Harvard Medical School, but in
April 1865 his studies were interrupted for nine
months by the Thayer expedition, headed by
Louis Agassiz, for the collection of zoological
specimens in the basin of the Amazon. Although
James soon discovered that he was not destined
to be a field naturalist, the association with
Agassiz, like that with Wyman, gave him a re-
spect for facts and for the mastery of first-hand
observation, which became one of the fixed ele-
ments in his composition. He resumed his medi-
cal course in March 1866, first at the Massa-
chusetts General Hospital, and in the autumn at
the Harvard Medical School. In April 1867 he
sailed for Europe in pursuit of health, experi-
mental physiology, and the German language.
The next eighteen months, spent mainly in Dres-
den, Berlin, and at cures in Teplitz and Divonne,
were a period of discouragement and indecision,
but at the same time of efflorescence. He soon
became convinced that he was not physically

591