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 HENRY R PIERSON 
 
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University of the State of New Yorl^csU^^u^ 
 
 ADDRESSES AND MINUTE OF THE REGENTS 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 Hon. Henry R Pierson, LL. D. 
 
 1819— 1S90. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE MINUTES OF A SPECIAL MEETING OF THE 
 REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY, SENATE CHAMBER, ALBANY, JAN. 30, li 
 
 ALBANY 
 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 
 
 1S90 
 

 v<^ 
 
 HENRY RUFUS PIERS ON 
 
 Died, Jaiuiaiy i, i8go 
 
 Born, June ij, i8ig 
 
 Elected Regent of the University, April 2^, 18 j 2 
 
 Elected Vice- Chancellor, Jamiary 11, i8y8 
 
 Elected Chancellor, Jan^iary ij. 1881 
 
 
%n "^cmoxiam 
 
 Henry R. Pierson 
 
 Address of Chancellor George William Curtis : 
 
 It is with profound feeling that I stand in this place in which for so long a 
 time we have been accustomed to see another figure and to hear another 
 voice, and with the highest sense of the honor of your friendly favor, I ac- 
 cept the great trust that you confer upon me. I cannot bring to the dis- 
 charge of its duties — no man could bring — greater zeal, or diligence or 
 devotion than my predecessor, and any successor of his may be counted 
 happy if he shall be as tenderly remembered as we remember Chancellor 
 Pierson. 
 
 A man of various tastes and interests and pursuits, he knew many cities and 
 many men. Full of public spirit he held himself at the service of others, 
 and brought to the discharge of every duty an ardor and energy which time 
 could not wither. Others may speak of him in other relations, I knew him 
 only as a Chancellor of the Universit}'. While the chief occupations of his 
 life were those of active affairs, yet, like the prince who had early pledged 
 his faith to Egeria, he was always loyal to the good genius of letters and 
 education. Born in circumstances which did not assure him what he in- 
 stinctively knew to be the opportunities and advantages of intellectual and 
 scholarly training he secured them for himself. Unfavored b}^ fortune he 
 owed to himself alone the distinctions that he achieved. Whatever those 
 distinctions may have been, I am sure that nothing gratified his tastes and 
 ambition more than to stand where George (Linton, and John Jay, and Daniel 
 D. Tompkins had stood, not as Governors of New York, but as Chancellors 
 of the University. 
 
 The University of the State of New York is one of the most ancient insti- 
 tutions of the state, but beyond the very important circle of educational 
 and academic interests it is probably the least known of those institutions. 
 It is the creation of a suggestion of George Clinton's and a law of Alexander 
 
4 He]nrv R. Pierson 
 
 Hamilton's. Its original purpose was to provide a central governing board of 
 all colleges that might arise in the state. But this purpose was modified 
 more than a century ago, and was distinctly defined with enlarged powers in 
 the law of 1889. b3Mvhich the University consists of all the colleges and acade- 
 mies which may be incorporated in the state, together with the state library 
 and state museum, and such other similar institutions as the regents may 
 admit to the University. The regents have all the powers of trustees, with 
 authority to adopt all rules and ordinances for the accomplishment of the 
 trusts reposed in them. They charter colleges and academies, and they are 
 the almoners of the state aid to academies, an aid distributed according to 
 the results of a system of examinations in the conduct of which there were 
 prepared ..nd issued and revised more than 300,000 examination papers last 
 year. 
 
 These are great powers. They contemplate a great institution in which all 
 the schools of higher education in New York are virtually blended into one, 
 under the government of the regents. There is no body of public servants 
 in the state who, in view of the purpose of their trust and of the association 
 with it of illustrious names in our history, should feel more deeply the import- 
 ance and the dignity of their duty. Their work is hallowed and dignified by a 
 long succession of distinguished men. Every regent occupies a chair which 
 owes distinction to his predecessors. The first occupant of the chair in 
 which I sit was John Jay ; its second occupant was the elder Gulian Ver- 
 planck ; its third occupant was James Kent. Each of my colleagues traces 
 a kindred ancestry of his chair, and each acknowledges, in the only sense 
 in which Americans can use the words, that noblesse oblige. 
 
 The high function of the Unive'rsity and its dignified tradition are recog- 
 nized in the method of appointment of the nineteen regents with whom the 
 highest officers of the state are associated by virtue of their office. The 
 regents are elected by the legislature with the formalities observed in the 
 election of senators of the United States. In itself this method, like that 
 of the election of the Superintendent of Public Instruction by the legisla- 
 ture, is a proper acknowledgment of the importance of the tiust. The only 
 regret is that in both cases the conditions of the nomination and election 
 bring within the range of party politics a legislative action which should be 
 absolutely independent of politics. In the selection of a regent of the Uni- 
 versity the state should be searched for the citizen most fitted, and known 
 to be most fitted, for such a trust. For the regents carry the standard of 
 higher education in this state, and New York is surrounded by states 
 which constantly elevate that standard and challenge her to a friendly com- 
 petition of excellence and superiority. Should such an election degenerate 
 
IN MEMORIAM 5 
 
 into a mere political compliment the cardinal interests of education and the 
 renown of the state would necessarih^ suffer. 
 
 Mr Pierson did not unduly magnify the representative character of the 
 chancellorship of the University. Its actual function is not one of execu- 
 tive detail but of executive supervision. The Chancellor is the official head 
 of the whole system of higher academic education in the state, and it is 
 pleasant to recall that the last words which the late Chancellor spoke in this 
 place, at the opening of the University Convocation last summer, were an 
 expression of just and honorable pride in the representative office which he 
 held. That he lighted and cheered the deliberations of the board by his con- 
 stant and cheerful humor; that his heart was an ever-bubbling fountain of 
 youthful feeling, and that at threescore and ten his industry and the fresh- 
 ness of his interest were unabated, your friendly memories go before my lips 
 to recall. We are here to take the burning torch from his falling hand and 
 to carry it forward unextinguished. By his grave we are to pledge ourselves 
 anew to the great trust committed to us, and to resolve in our degree and 
 with our power, to discharge our duties in a manner, if it may be, not 
 wholly unworthy of the illustrious men who have preceded us, and of the 
 imperial state whose servants we are. 
 
 Address and Minute of Regent Charles E. Fitch: 
 Mr Chancellor: 
 
 I am honored by your request to prepare a minute of the life and the ser- 
 vices to the cause of the higher education of the late Chancellor of the 
 University. In doing this, I have phrased the tribute in such simple form 
 of words as, I am sure, he would have preferred. And in prefacing it with a 
 few remarks, I have no set and elaborate speech to offer, but must trust to 
 the inspiration of the occasion and my cordial esteem and affection for him 
 for my feeble and imperfect estimate of his worth. 
 
 In reflecting upon the life tenure of the members of this board there is 
 much which informs it with dignity and honor. In the stress and struggle 
 of modern utilitarianism, in the democratic canons of national and state 
 government, in the swift mutations of civil service, the board of regents is 
 the only body, with the exception of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, which illustrates the conservatism of colonial and earl}^ constitutional 
 days. For over one hundred years it has maintained the life tenure, and the 
 legislature has invested the election of a regent with much of ceremonial 
 significance. In this view, we cannot be insensible to the high privileges and 
 prerogatives we enjo)^, and those who have had extended service must also 
 have that feeling of fraternity, which proceeds from long and intimate asso- 
 
6 Henry R. Pierson 
 
 elation, with kindred devotion and common purposes to attain. Certainly, 
 that sentiment of fraternit}^ abides with me, and never more so than in such 
 a solemn moment as this, when sorrow for the departed blends with and sub- 
 dues the pleasure of communion with the living. 
 
 For with the dignity of the life tenure and the dear emotions of fraternal 
 intercourse, we must note the shadows which ever encompass us, and amid 
 whose gloom we think and act. Death, in its relentless sweep, comes to all 
 humanity. Sometimes its dread and sudden presence appears in other legisla- 
 tive bodies, but, in the ordinary course of nature, they are comparatively 
 exempt, as being constituted for limited service ; but here we know the grim 
 messenger must come to sever close relations and to constantly remind us 
 of our mortality. Above our heads the storied sword of Damocles is ever 
 suspended. Since I have been connected with the board three Chancellors, a 
 Vice-Chancellor and seven I'egents have passed away, but never has the 
 sharp contrast between the quickened energies of life and the marble repose 
 of death been more vividly enforced than in the loss of our late presiding 
 officer. There were in him such a vivid and pervasive personalit3^ such a 
 warm greeting, such a cheery presence, such an intimate acquaintance with 
 and faithful discharge of his exective functions that we most keenly miss his 
 commanding form, bis sound counsel and his cordial friendship. As we were 
 in business session, to-day, discussing the questions with which he was so 
 familiar, and upon whoce settlement he could have thrown so much light, the 
 oppression of his absence was Avith me, at least, controlling. It possessed 
 my thoughts, and without him it seemed as if the meeting was unreal and 
 unsubstantial, like the fabric of a dream. It seemed as if he must be in his 
 accustomed place, and without him that our deliberations lacked authority 
 and validity. At the previous meeting he had presided, and never was he 
 more fruitful in suggestion, more considerate in manner or more exuberant 
 in spirit ; and, as we separated, it was with the conviction that his would be 
 an enduring presence with us, and that, although his locks were whitened 
 by his three score years and ten, it would be long before the seasons would 
 stiffen his sinews or dampen the glow of his still youthful ardor; that they 
 would reserve his dissolution to the distant future, and would approach him 
 only with the benediction of the larger wisdon. Alas ! this was not to be. 
 He was to fall, full of years and honors, and yet untimely, if age is, to be 
 measured by the capacity for achievement, as well as by that which it has 
 accomplished. 
 
 I have reserved for the minute, the formal record of the career of the dead 
 Chancellor, with especial reference to his work in the board, but I have failed 
 in my purpose if I have not, in these remarks, indicated something of the 
 
IN MEMORIAM 7 
 
 place he held in the hearts of his associates, and I should utterly fail if I did 
 not testify to the sense of personal obligation I entertain for many acts of 
 kindness toward myself For one, he was at once colleague and guide, and 
 I note that he was more than kind to the foreign members of the board, who 
 will always tenderly cherish their association with him and ennoble his mem- 
 ory. In the illustrious roll of the Chancellors of the University there may 
 have been men with an ampler equipment as statesmen, with more generous 
 gifts of scholarship, but there has been none who brought to his exalted 
 trust a truer appreciation of its dignity, a more singular consecration to its 
 duties or more of zeal and fidelity in their fulfillment than did Henry R. 
 Pierson ; and certainly none was more beloved by his associates, in the dual 
 relation here established of official organization and personal comradeship. 
 Mr Chancellor, I will now read the minute: 
 
 Henry R. Pierson. for eighteen years a regent, three years Vice-Chancel- 
 lor, and nine years Chancellor of the University of the State of New York, 
 died at his home, in the city of Albany, January r, 1890. 
 
 He was born in Charleston, Montgomery count3^ June 13, 1S19. Strait- 
 ened circumstances delayed, but could not defeat, his ardently-cherished and 
 long-matured plan for securing a liberal education, and, with the means ob- 
 tained by teaching, he pursued the course at Union college, entering that in- 
 stitution in 1843, and graduating therefrom in 1846 with high honors, in a 
 class, many of the members of which have distinguished themselves in va- 
 rious activities. He studied law with Little & Campbell of Cherry Valley, 
 and with the Hon. Gilbert M. Spier of New York, and was admitted to the 
 bar in 1848. Settling in Brooklyn, he became a man of affairs as well as 
 prominent in his profession, and political honors were soon bestowed upon 
 him. While a resident of Brooklyn, from 1849 until 1869, he was president 
 of the city railroad, a member of the board of education, an alderman, and 
 president of the common council and a state senator. In 1869, he removed 
 to Chicago as the financial agent of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad 
 Company, of which he subsequently became vice-president. In 1871, he 
 came to Albany and was made resident director of the New York Central 
 and Hudson River Railroad Company. After a few years service in this ca- 
 pacity he relinquished it and established a private banking-house in Albany, 
 in the management of which and of various fiduciary trusts, both of a pub- 
 lic and private nature, he was occupied until his death. 
 
 In 1873, he was a member of assembly from Albany county; in 1S70 he 
 was elected a trustee of Union college, of the Albany Medical college and 
 of the Dudley observatory; in 1872, he was chosen a regent of the Univer- 
 sity, thus vacating his other educational trusteeship. In 1878, he was made 
 
8 Henry R. Pierson 
 
 Vice-Chancellor, and in 1881, upon the death of Chancellor Benedict, Chan- 
 cellor. He received the degree of doctor of laws from his alma mater in 
 
 1874. 
 
 Tributes to his legal attainments, his business ability and his Christian 
 character, have been made elsewhere. His associates in this board desire to 
 testif}^ their appreciation of the zeal and fidelity with which he discharged 
 the important functions of Chancellor. To these he brought a genuine sym- 
 pathy with the cause of higher education, stimulated by his memories of his 
 own early struggles in that behalf. He gave much attention to the details 
 of his position, being in almost daily attendance at the home office, and 
 making more frequent visits to the institutions under the supervision of 
 the board than was the habit of some of his predecessors. His presence 
 was always a welcome one at literary festivals. Upon educational legislation 
 he exercised a marked influence, securing, by his suave and gracious man- 
 ner, needed and even liberal appropriations for the use of the University. 
 He believed in business methods in the conduct of the board, and is to be 
 credited largely with the excellent system that there obtains, and with the 
 passage of the law of 1889, which endows the board with wider powers and 
 graver responsibilities than it had previously possessed. In the schemes for 
 enlarging and popularizing the state library and the museum he was cordially 
 enlisted, and did much to maintain the vitality and to broaden the scope of 
 the annual Convocation. He commended and endeared himsell to the educa- 
 tors of the state by his manly bearing, his genial hospitalit}^ and his unaffected 
 interest in their work. Although not a great orator he always had a fitting 
 word for fitting occasion, and his earnestness informed his speech the essen- 
 tials of eloquence. In all ways, he did good and permanent service for the 
 cause of higher education, and his name will be enduring with those who 
 recognized the sincerity of his consecration and the value of his labors. 
 
 Address of Regent Hamilton Harris : 
 
 Mr Chancellor : 
 
 Mr Pierson's great services to the state and his Avorth as a man impel me 
 to place some tribute to his memory. 
 
 The animation and buoyancy of spirits exhibited by him at the last meet- 
 ing of the board of regents — only a month ago — I'ender it difficult to re- 
 alize that his labors are forever ended. Although the frosts which never 
 melt had settled upon his locks, he was so full of vital force, and the 
 springs of life seemed so fresh, that we had never come to associate with 
 him the infirmities of age. His intellectual strength, his impulsive nature 
 
IN MEMORIAM g 
 
 and his restless energy were as distinguished at the close, as they had been 
 before he experienced the vicissitudes and endured the trials of life. 
 
 I can do no otherwise than speak lovingly of him, for our acquaintance, 
 which began when he came to reside in Albany in 1871, had ripened into a 
 warm friendship. He had already achieved success in life and evinced in 
 many high positions eminent fitness for pubhc service. His great exec- 
 utive ability had been illustrated by the successful manner in which he had 
 managed large corporate interests intrusted to his care and charge. His 
 cultivated and vigorous mind, his gracious bearing and enthusiastic spirit 
 brought him, upon making this capital city his home, prominently into its 
 social and intellectual life. He became intimately connected with every 
 movement tending to its growth and prosperity. The breadth of his views 
 and the wisdom of his counsel forwarded every enterprise calculated to 
 benefit the community. During the eighteen years of his residence here, 
 he had borne himself so pleasantly in its society and impressed his person- 
 ality so strongly upon its interests, that when he came to die he was one of 
 the foremost of its citizens. 
 
 Mr Pierson's energies and influence also extended throughout the state. 
 He found his most congenial employment in promoting the cause of educa- 
 tion, and when he was elected a regent of the University he devoted the best 
 activities of his mind to its work. Upon becoming Chancellor, he infused 
 by his indomitable energy greater power for educational and scholarly use- 
 fulness into all the departments of the University. He was prominent at 
 convocations of teachers and at college commencements, with his words of 
 cheer and advice. The enlightened views, the high public spirit and the 
 great executive capacity which he displayed during the eight years that he 
 presided over this great state University, gave fresh life, impetus and vigor 
 to the educational interests of the state and will forever ally his name to its 
 institutions of learning. 
 
 The personal traits of Mr Pierson were marked. He had a dignified 
 presence, an attractive face, a joyous temperament, with a cheery manner 
 and a frank carriage. He was a delightful companion, and his hearty and 
 genial address made him a welcome guest in society and an agreeable asso- 
 ciate in business circles. He was a ready and fluent speaker, enlivening his 
 speech with humor and anecdote, which frequently won, when logic failed. 
 Selfishness and meanness were unknown to his generous nature. Manliness 
 characterized his demeanor. I saw him a few hours before the surgeon's 
 knife was the third time to probe for the deadly cancer. There was no 
 trepidation. Resentment and enmity were alien to his character. Once 
 upon my expression of surprise when some of his professed friends had un- 
 
lo Henry R. Pierson 
 
 justly assailed him in business, his only answer was the repetition of the Bible 
 verse — " It was not an enemy that reproached me ; then I could have borne 
 it ; but it was a man, mine equal, mine acquaintance." It was in sorrow, not 
 in anger that he spoke. 
 
 In all the mutations of fortune he kept an even course, and retained to the 
 end the same genial nature, with which he started in his career of manhood. 
 He met death, as he had wrought in life, with a manly, Christian fortitude. 
 
 Address of Regent St Clair McKelway : 
 Mr Chancellor and Brother Regents : 
 
 Following the official announcement of the death of Henry R. Pierson 
 and the expressions already rendered touching that event and him, I have 
 been requested to say a few words. They should be few because the mind 
 of the man who was lately with us was direct, simple and straight-lined. 
 Many things in him went to the making of a prodigious personality. In 
 feeling the personality you forgot the things. The man net was the forcible 
 fact. Death, in his case, was as complete and prompt as always had been 
 the virile organization which it laid low. The time of his departure surprised 
 me; the manner of it did not. I thought he would go out like an ex- 
 tinguished light, as he did, and not gradually pass away. I did not think 
 that it would be this year or for several years to come. His quick efface- 
 ment is a " Be ye also ready " to all of us. However or whenever or wherever 
 the summons may come, may we be as fearless in facing it as he, and along 
 the varied lines of character and effort may our career be as vivid, as vital 
 and as intelligible as his was. I knew Mr Pierson a quarter of a century. 
 The last four years of his residence in Brooklyn were the first four of mine 
 in that city. Nearly a decade following his departure from Brooklyn, 1 
 began a seven years' sojourn with him in Albany. Two periods of our lives 
 thus were passed in mutual observation and each measured the other by the 
 environment of two communities. The first public trust in which I knew 
 him was an educational one. He was a member of the school board of the 
 city of churches. Sitting with him for seven years in the highest educa- 
 tional board of the state, the end of my impressions, like the beginning of 
 them, touched him in his character as an educational official. It is in that 
 character that he will be longest and best remembered, and in that fact there 
 is a lesson. He was an assemblyman and he was a state senator. In those 
 relations he discharged a mixed party and public trust. He was a master of 
 corporations employing vast numbers of people and then he established a 
 business of his own. In both careers he dealt with competitors, was a 
 student of markets and alternately a winner and a loser in the battle of wits 
 
IN MEMORIAM II 
 
 and resources. An hundred years from now every point at which he touched 
 Hfe in his time will probably be unrecorded, excepting the points in which he 
 touched it as a trustee of the educational powers reposed in him by the 
 elected representatives of the people. His labor here brought him not bread 
 or money or lands or houses. It was unremunerated in the sense in which 
 men use that term, but he, being dead, that labor is found to have been the 
 one that yielded fame, love and respect as its interest and the one which, 
 under the impetus given to it by him, will go on forever for the glory of the 
 commonwealth and the good of humanity. He did not originate that work. 
 He received it as a legacy from the hands that for a hundred j^ears had car- 
 ried it on in this board. To the hands that will here carry it on for more 
 than an hundred years to come he transmitted it. The workers die. The 
 work goes on. Much as the workers may honor the work, signally more the 
 work honors them. It was Mr Pierson's privilege to do this work in all its 
 stages. He was a member of this board in the rank and file. He was chair- 
 man of some of its most responsible committees. He was its Vice-Chancel- 
 lor. He died its Chancellor, and that is the distinction and the duty in which 
 he would have chosen to die. We all know how fond he was of what he had 
 to do. We all know how earnestly he went at doing it. Did we ever disa- 
 gree with him or he with us ? Yes and no. Yes, in the initiative ; no, in 
 the eventuality. He was a man who talked his way into what was true, whole 
 and wise. His propositions at birth, like those of others of the board, 
 would be sweeping, radical, iconoclastic. The form of their first statement 
 would be as dogmatic as if they were long matured conclusions. He would 
 encounter a declaration of opposite views as absolutely put as his own. 
 Comparison, discussion, examination would ensue and out of the attrition of 
 debate the stately and simple column of right and fact would rise. There 
 was no man more candid in combat or in concession here than he was. If 
 he was not always considerate of the susceptibilities of others in this foray 
 of views, he did not ask them to be considerate of his own. Impulsively and 
 temporarily unjust he could be. Intentionallj'- and permanent!}^ unjust he 
 knew not how to be. Happily he was among those who understood him and 
 whom he understood. The age of his body was three score and ten. The 
 youthfulness of his mind was perennial. He was never younger in heart or 
 more vigorous in thought than at the meeting in December, when his out- 
 look on life seemed so real and hopeful. For one, I am glad that the highest 
 honor of this board, under its reorganized and augmented powers, came 
 to him in the blossom of age whose decreptitude he never was to see. Let 
 us, from his enthusiasm, from his legitimate pride in his position and from 
 his desire worthily to magnify it, take courage and example. Let us, like 
 
12 Henry R. Pierson 
 
 him, go we soon or late, have no enemies and no favorites among our num- 
 ber, but an equal friend in every one. It was the felicity of this strong 
 Chancellor's life to watch the misconceptions concerning this board pass 
 away and to launch it down its second century on its new career of larger 
 and more intimate relations with the learning and the living of all the people. 
 To die on the heiglits of achievement is from the topmost round of life to 
 step into the skies. Of such men the memory is strength. To such men, I 
 profoundly believe, death works only a change of venue for their disem- 
 bodied and quenchless vigor, recalling it from the earth to release it to the 
 universe. 
 
 Address of Regent Martin I. Townsend : 
 
 In the death of our beloved Chancellor, Hon. Henry R. Pierson, the cause 
 of education in this state has lost one of its most devoted and efficient 
 friends. Few have known how tireless and persevering have been his la- 
 bors in this philanthropic work. 
 
 He brought to the discharge of his official duties a mental and physical 
 energy rarely equaled. Nature had cast him in her strongest mould. His 
 acquisition of the admirable education which he possessed was due, in a 
 great degree, to his indomitable will and his own relentless exertions. In 
 the great variety of employments, as lawyer, as senator, as member of 
 assembly, as railroad director, and in many other positions in which he had 
 been placed by a confiding public, he had not only discharged his duties in 
 a manner which secured him the contidence of all who knew him, but had 
 broadened his own originally admirable faculties, and rendered himself bet- 
 ter fitted to assume duties which could only be successfully discharged by 
 one whose intellectual powers had become fitted to grasp and wield the for- 
 ces at the service of those who walk abreast with the 19th century. It 
 was with powers so ripened and broadened that Chancellor Pierson entered 
 upon the duties of his exalted position. He brought to his work a warm, 
 generous, and philanthropic heart aglow with love for the whole race of man. 
 
 His toil brought no pecuniary requital, and yet for the long years of his 
 chancellorship, his zeal never for a moment lost its fervor, and his labors 
 never slackened. We who have been associated with him know better than 
 others can know, how thoroughly he has performed the work set for him to 
 do. No interest throughout our empire state which required our attention 
 has been neglected. 
 
 His supervision over our educational institutions and enterprises, has 
 been like the care of a father for the interests of his beloved household. 
 Now that Providence has removed him from this sphere of activity, where 
 
IN MEMOKIAM 1 3 
 
 the work of an active, an honorable, and a useful life has been supplemented 
 by so many years of philanthropic labor, we are prepared to utter from the 
 depths of our affection, " Well done, good and faithful." 
 
 The recollection of our pleasant association with him in his great, enthu- 
 siastic, and devoted labors in behalf of the coming generations of our peo- 
 ple, will ever remain with us, amongst our dearest and most cherished recol- 
 lections. 
 
 Address of Regent William L. Bostwick : 
 
 The death of the late Chancellor Pierson removes from among us a man 
 sincerely devoted to the cause of education, active in the business affairs of 
 life, and earnest in effort to benefit his fellow men. His face carried an ex- 
 pression that always cheered, and his hearty greetings and kind words en- 
 couraged and comforted all with whom he came in contact along the pathway 
 of life. His career has been a marked one. His life and record illustrate 
 what may be accomplished by an earnest and high-minded citizen. 
 
 I have heard him relate his experiences as a boy, just graduated from col- 
 lege, starting out on the voyage of life. How he was buffeted and tossed 
 about in a great city, friendless and almost penniless, in search of a place to 
 pursue the profession of law. Often he was almost disposed to abandon his 
 purpose, but, with stout heart and firm resolve, he kept to his course, which 
 eventually landed him in a partnership with the eminent lawyer who had 
 first received him as a clerk. 
 
 Mr Pierson filled many otfices of publie and private trust, and, in all, he 
 discharged the duties with fidelity and integrity. As regent and Chancellor 
 of the University, he devoted many years to the important detail work of 
 the board. His zeal in the cause of higher education was manifest, not only 
 in the board, but at the Convocations and in his visitations of colleges and 
 academies. In all educational gatherings he was a welcome guest and many 
 a young man and woman has received fresh inspiration from his helpful and 
 encouraging words. 
 
 His heart was in his work ; his wise counsels and broad views commanded 
 respect, and gave him an influence potent and far-reaching throughout the 
 educational interests of the state and nation. He was a genial and generous 
 friend. To those who knew him intimately his death is a personal loss. His 
 life was well rounded out and replete with good will toward men. He rests 
 from his labors, but the grand works he wrought will live after him and bear 
 fruit for coming generations. 
 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS^ 
 
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