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E XT L  O G  X
ON THE
LIFE AND CHARACTER V>
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OF
3SM
THEODRIC RQMEYN BECK, M, D„ LL D,
BY
FRANK HASTINGS HAMILTON, I. D.
" ■ ■ ■' 4 
ARMY MEDICAL LIBRARY
FOUNDED 1836
WASHINGTON, D.C. 
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EULOGY
ON THE
LIFE  AND  CHARACTER
OF
BECK, M. Dv  LL.D..
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
MEDTCAL SOCIETY OF THE STATE OF XEW-YORK,
BY FRANK HASTINCwS HAMILTON, 1>I. D.
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SENATE.
*\>VJ-
        ALBANY:
PRINTED BY CHARLES VAN BENTHI YSF.X
           1856.
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EULOGY.
  It is a swift current—that stream of life on which
we ride.  We fall asleep—and awaking, find ourselves
almost home.   Our companions, too, are constantly
changing; at every moment new ones come aboard,
and old ones leave us; and we have scarcely time to
become familiar with their faces, or to make ourselves
acquainted with their characters and purposes, before
they  are summoned to the gangway — the boat is
lowered, and we wave them a friendly farewell.   All
along the sands of that  silent  shore, which we now
so faintly see, our friends have left us; and we are
awaiting  the  time when, cheerfully, manfully and
hopefully, I trust, we shall receive our summons, and
" depart alike  to the inevitable grave."
  I am not, gentlemen, one of your oldest members—
yet,'of those who occupied these seats when, for the
first  time I listened to your deliberations, not a few
are now dead; but of the pioneers — the founders and
early members, not one remains.  Most of them died
many years since, and their vacant places have been
so long filled by others, that we have ceased to notice
their absence.
O --.' t- L- C. L 
4
   But to-day, a chair is vacant which no one has yet
 come to fill — where, for nearly forty years, has sat a
 beloved associate, and to which you have, for as many
 years, been accustomed to look for counsel.   During
 all this period its claimant  has been rarely absent,
 unless detained by sickness or by urgent and impera-
 tive duties.  But, in the absence of its venerated
 occupant, during our deliberations  which have just
 closed, and on this anniversary occasion, you have, I
 am instructed to tell you,  the  sad  and significant
 announcement that Theodric  Romeyn Beck is dead,
 and that he, also, will counsel with us no more.
   Let us pause, while we  review his  labors, and
 contemplate our loss — for, in such a life as has here
 terminated, there must be something instructive, and
 we ought carefully to estimate its value.  Upon the
 speaker,  who was once his  pupil, subsequently his
 colleague, and now, by your partial  suffrages, his
 successor, has seemed to devolve the duty  to trace
 his history — to epilogue the long chapter of his life,
 and to draw the moral; in  order that these things
 may hereafter find a faithful record upon the annals
 of our society.  With an earnest desire  that I may
do no injustice to a theme so sacred, both to the living
and to the dead, yet with doubting and unequal steps,
I undertake the task.
  Theodric Romeyn Beck was born at Schenectady,
in the State of New-York, on the 11th day of August,
1791.  The  family were  of English origin, but so 
5
long settled at Schenectady that their descendants,
by association and intermarriage, became  identified
with the Dutch population.
  The first of the  family, of whom  we  have  any
knowledge,  was Caleb Beck, who sailed as master of
a vessel from Boston to England,  and who having
married at Schenectady, was subsequently lost at sea.
His son, the great grandfather of the  subject of our
memoir, as we learn from the  probate of his  will
before the commissioners at Albany, in  the year 1733,
was  "Caleb Beck, gentleman, a freeholder in  this
colony; having during his life, and at the time of his
death, goods,  rights  and credits in divers places in
our province."
  His grandfather was admitted an attorney at law,
to practice in all  the courts, at Albany,  in the year
1751.
  The father of Dr. Beck, who also studied law, but
never practised, married Catherine Theresa Romeyn,
only  daughter  of the Rev. Derick Romeyn, D. D.,
then pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church, at Sche-
nectady, and well known as a distinguished professor
of Theology in that church.
  The ancestral name Caleb, was preserved through
five successive generations, having only ceased with
the brother of Dr. Beck.
  The Romeyn family came from Holland, and settled
in New-York  about  the  middle of the  seventeenth
century.  Among those who acquired distinction, and 
o
 whose names have come down to us, in addition to
 the Rev. Derick Romeyn, of whom we have spoken,
 we may recognize the brother of Mrs. Beck, the Rev.
 John B. Romeyn, D. D., who died in New-York, in
 1825; and a cousin, Nicholas Romaine,  M. D., who
 was  president of this Society in 1809,  10, and 11,
 and who was made an Honorary Member in 1812.
   Dr. Beck's father having died in 1798, at the age
 of 27 years, left his five sons to the sole care of his
 young widow,  to whose indomitable energy,  sound
 education, piety and good judgment they are probably
 mainly indebted for the distinction which they all
 subsequently attained.
   Abraham, a lawyer of much promise,  died  at St.
 Louis, Missouri, in 1821.
   John Brodhead Beck, M. D., who was elected in
 1829 a member of this Society, late Professor of Mate-
 ria Medica and  Botany, at  the College of Physicians
 and Surgeons in the city of New-York, and author of
 many medical works, besides the chapter  contributed
 by him to "Beck's Medical Jurisprudence," died in
 New-York, in 1851.
  Nicholas Fairly Beck died while holding the office
of Adjutant General of the State,  under DeWitt
Clinton, in 1830.  And
  Lewis C. Beck, M. D., late Professor of Chemistry
in the Albany  Medical College, and in the Rutgers
College,  New-Jersey,  author  of  several scientific
works, and who, as a member of the scientific corps 
7
which  made the New-York  Geological Survey, con-
tributed the volume on Mineralogy, one of the most
valuable portions of that excellent State Report, died
in 1853.
  The rudiments of Dr. Beck's education were acqui-
red at  the grammar school of his native city, under
the more immediate supervision of his maternal
grandfather, the Rev. Derick Romeyn, D. D.
  He entered Union College, at Schenectady, in 1803,
and graduated in 1807, when only sixteen years old.
Union College had then  been established but  a few
years,  and, in a great measure, through the exertions
of Dr. Romeyn.
  Immediately on leaving  college he came to this
city, and was admitted to the office of Drs. Low and
McClelland, the latter of which gentlemen was the
first president of this Society.
  His  medical education  was completed, however, in
the city of New-York, under the personal instructions
of the celebrated  Dr. David Hosack.  At the same
time, also, he attended the lectures at the College of
Physicians and Surgeons of the Eastern District, then
recently established in that city; and in 1811  he
received the degree of Doctor in Medicine; on which
occasion he presented, as the subject  of his inaugural
thesis, a paper on  "Insanity"—the first fruits  of the
study  of that subject which afterwards  engaged so
large  a share of his  attention, and  upon which  he
expended such stores of learning, and exhibited such 
8
powers of research.  The thesis was published in a
pamphlet form, containing thirty-four  pages, and
received  from  various  quarters  highly  flattering
notices.
  In this early composition of the young student, we
may see  plainly enough the presage of his future
eminence.  Claiming,  with characteristic modesty,
no credit for originality,  and acknowledging that  he
had  no practical experience to relate, he gathered
from a  great number of sources  facts and opinions,
and so condensed and arranged them as to present a
complete epitome of what was then known upon this,
with us, hitherto neglected subject.  With great care
he arranged also, in a multitude of foot notes, all his
references, which, in themselves, testify to his already
remarkable classical attainments,  and to his laborious
habits.
  After a brief notice of the  history  and literature
of insanity, there follows a synopsis of its  symptoma-
tology,  its etiology, pathology,  and prognosis.   In
conclusion,  he has  devoted a chapter to  medical
jurisprudence and police,  and a section to the treat-
ment of the insane,  wherein he protests against the
confinement of criminal lunatics in jail, as incompati-
ble with proper attendance and with the safety of the
other prisoners.   He advocates also the establishment
of public asylums,  which  shall  be subject to the
supervision and control of competent commissioners. 
9
  On his  return from New-York, he commenced at
once the practice  of medicine  and surgery in this
city, and the same year he was appointed physician
to the alms-house.   On resigning this office, he pre-
sented a memorial to the  supervisors  on  the subject
of work-houses, the practical wisdom of which daily
experience proves at this time.
  Dr. Beck was married in 1814, at Caldwell, Warren
county, to Harriet,  daughter of  James  Caldwell, a
merchant of this city, but whose principal estate and
residence was at Caldwell, on Lake George.  He was
a gentleman of Irish birth,  and well known for his
wit and hospitality.   His humor  has  been especially
celebrated in several of the entertaining tales written
by J. K. Paulding.
   In the year 1815, at  the age of twenty-four, Dr.
Beck received the  appointment of professor  of the
Institutes of  Medicine,  and of lecturer on Medical
Jurisprudence in the College of Physicians and Sur-
geons for the Western District, established under the
auspices  of  the Regents, at Fairfield, in Herkimer
county, New-York;  an institution then in the third
year of its existence.  Notwithstanding this appoint-
ment, which  required his absence from home only a
 small portion of the year, he continued in the practice
 of his profession at  Albany.
   At the opening of the term in 1824, he delivered
 an introductory lecture on the Advantages of Country
 Medical Schools, which was published by request of
              2 
10
the class.  The subject  had  been suggested by a
remark  made  in an introductory lecture  by one of
the professors in New-York, disparaging  to country
schools,  and which had  found its way into some of
the New-York prints, to which this discourse was a
severe, but dignified and  dispassionate reply.
  In testimony of their  utility, he referred, among
other things,  to the  not inconsiderable number of
their graduates who  had already risen to merited
distinction; and in answer to the illiberal declaration
of the New-York professor, that the Legislature ought
to withdraw its aid from all other schools and concen-
trate its efforts upon the  "school of the metropolis,"
Dr. Beck justly said:
  " The  State of New-York, we may  safely predict,
will never adopt the counsel that has been given her.
Her statesmen, her legislators, her learned men and
her citizens generally, have not thus estimated the
wants of the community.  Her course uniformly has
been to cherish learning in every situation, and to
foster its first  fruits with the care of a parent.   At
this crisis, flourishing in arts, unrivalled in commerce
and exalted in wealth, she surely  will not stint her
supplies, or pour them with a partial hand into one
portion of her dominion,  while she leaves the other
to need.   She will not destroy what is flourishing, or
overturn what is becoming permanent.  She will, as
she has  ever done, regard the interests of education
with an impartial eye. 
11
  " In thus doing  she can alone perform her proper
duties, and fulfil the promises of her high destiny."
  Already, in 1817, Dr. Beck had withdrawn entirely
from  the  practice of medicine, having  in this year
accepted  the place of Principal to the Albany acad-
emy.
  His success as a practitioner had been quite equal
to his expectations, and with less devotion to science,
or with less care for his patients, he  might have  con-
tinued in practice.  But it was soon manifest,  both
to himself and to  his friends,  that he could not  long
continue  an equal attention to both.   He was unwill-
ing to assume the responsibilities of  a physician
without  devoting to each case that  exact amount of
 careful  investigation which  his high standard of
 fitness demanded.  Every new  feature in  disease
 provoked, in a mind trained to accuracy and observa-
 tion,  new solicitudes, new doubts, and claimed new
 and more thorough examination.  Added to this, the
 scenes of suffering which he was compelled to witness
 wore gradually upon a frame naturally sensitive, and
 his health began  visibly to decline.
    At first, one must naturally regret that a mind so
 well stored, and so  eminently  qualified, in  many
 respects, to minister successfully to the sick, should
 have been diverted thus prematurely from its original
 purpose    It would be difficult to measure the amount
 of .ood which, as a practitioner of medicine, he might
 have accomplished;  how  much  individual suffering 
12
 such talents might have alleviated, and how many
 valuable lives such attainments might have saved.
 This is a loss which the citizens of his adopted town,
 and of the country adjacent, have chiefly sustained,
 and which they must  estimate.  It is a question to
 them  whether he has made himself as useful  as a
 teacher as he might have been  as a physician; but I
 believe they will be slow to find fault with his choice,
 when they have carefully figured up the account, and
 have balanced the reckoning.   In fact,  I think, that
 in the fame alone which his illustrious name has given
 to their city, they must find an  adequate apology and
 compensation for all his  apparent neglect of their
 physical sufferings.
   But this would  be  indeed only a narrow view of
 the question  upon which the young, and, I have no
 doubt, conscientious Beck,  assumed thus early  the
 right to decide for himself.   Although Dr. Beck
 formally, at  this time, relinquished the practice  of
 medicine, and never again resumed it, yet his inte-
 rest in the science  did  not cease, but to the improve-
 ment and perfection of some one or another of its
 departments  the balance of his life  was, in a great
 measure, devoted, and  especially to such portions as
 were of general or of universal interest.   He seemed
 to have called in his attention  from a narrow range
of objects, only that he might fasten it again  upon a
much wider range.  He withdrew himself from the
alms-houses  and the jails, in which the unfortunate 
13
maniacs  were treated rather as  criminals than as
proper objects of sympathy and of medical care, that
he might, in the  retirement  of  his  study, within
which he had accumulated nearly all the experience
of the world, devise the more unerringly the means
of unfettering their intellects and their limbs, then
so cruelly chained.
   In a  letter  to his uncle,  Dr. Romeyn, then in
Europe, dated June 30,1814, he says:  "I have begun
to look upon medicine in a very different manner
from what I formerly did.   Although  delighted with
the  study yet I dislike the practice,  and I had not
acquired sufficiently comprehensive views of its value
and  great importance as an  object of research.   I
now  find it  a  subject worthy of  my  mind, and for
some time past I have brought all my energies to its
examination."
   From this remarkable passage,  in which we have
definitely the  plan of his future  life,  we learn also
what enlarged  and intelligent views  he entertained
of the value  of true medical science.
   In 1829 Dr. Beck was elected President of this
Society,  and  was re-elected the two succeeding
years — in itself a  sufficient testimony of the esteem
in which he  was held by his fellow-members.
   His first annual address was devoted mainly to the
subject of "Medical Evidence," which he regarded  as
embracing not only  the  interests of the profession,
but of the community generally.   In this address he 
14
 urges the propriety of appointing in certain counties,
 districts, or parts of the  State, medical  men, who
 shall be especially charged with the duty of making
 the examinations upon the cadaver, in order that by
 experience and study they may become better fitted
 for the performance of this important  duty.  In  all
 cases  he believed the  medical witness ought to  be
 permitted to present a "written report" of his exami-
 nation, and not be required to give it  verbally and
 without sufficient preparation.  Nor could Dr. Beck
 see any good reason why, if such services are impor-
 tant  to the community in promoting the  proper
 administration of justice, the medical men who render
 them are not entitled to receive an adequate compen-
 sation.  "There  is not," says Dr. Beck,  "an indi-
 vidual attending on any of our courts, who is not paid
 for his time and services, with the exception of such
 as are  engaged in these  investigations."
   In his second annual  address he calls  the attention
 of the society to the rapid  progress of the  science  of
 medicine, especially in  its growing distrust of mere
 medical theories,  and in its devotion to pathology,
 anatomy, chemistry, materia medica, and the collate-
 ral sciences.  In  defence  of those who pursue the
 study of anatomy, he  utters the following just senti-
 ment :  "All will grant their pursuit would not have
 been selected except from a high sense of  duty.   It
 requires some lofty incitement—some moral courage,
to  be thus employed.  The mysterious change which 
15
death induces, is alone sufficient  to startle the most
buoyant  spirit; but with this, the pathologist must
familiarize himself.   He proceeds to his  high office
at the risk of health—often, indeed, of existence."
   In conclusion,  he bestows a well  merited rebuke
upon those who pretend to employ vegetable reme-
dies  to the  exclusion of  mineral, on  the  assumed
ground that while minerals are poisonous, vegetables
are innocuous, demonstrating, by a reference to their
well  known  properties, that among  vegetables may
be found the most active  poisons in nature; and he
appeals  to his countrymen that they will  not open
wide the door to empiricism, and thus  contribute to
the  destruction of a profession so important as that
of medicine.
   As a theme for  his last annual  discourse,  Dr. Beck
selected the subject of Small Pox, as one of " perma-
nent and abiding interest, not only  to us as medical
men, but  to the  whole community, indeed to the
whole human race."
   This paper consists  mainly of a rapid history of
the origin and progress of this terrible scourge, and
of the value and necessity of thorough vaccination,
with a view to its ultimate extinction.
   "I do not pretend," says Dr. Beck, "to recommend
laws exactly similar to those that have been enume-
rated, for our free governments, but I will say that
they furnish subjects for serious consideration.  Whe-
ther some regulations could  not be devised to arouse 
16
the apathy of that portion  of the community who
are always the largest sufferers—whether the appoint-
ment by  authority  of  medical men, particularly
charged with the duty of vaccination, and preserving
and transmitting the vaccine matter,  and obliged to
keep registers of  those  they attend—whether the
promulgation of instructions, stating the dangers that
threaten, the misery and  mortality  that  may be
avoided, the circumstances that prevent the complete
influence of the cow pox, and the precautions neces-
sary for its constitutional effects — whether, in fine,
a census  should not be taken of those who have not
labored under one or other of these diseases, and
they be compelled, under proper penalties, to submit
to the  latter — are suggestions which, to my mind,
deserve some weight  with those who have the power
to render them imperative.
   " Life can be hazarded under our own roof as much
as in the field of battle, and the experience  of all
nations shows that in this case the chances have been
fearful.   When  the means of prevention  are within
the power of a determined and  united community,
what can preveut their adoption with as much efficacy
as ever resulted from the mandates of an absolute
monarch ?
   "As  a  profession, we  have not been  wanting  in
sounding the alarm and providing against the danger.
And it is a proud  reflection, that the dangers of the
small pox, its wide-spread ravages,  and its constant 
17
succession, have been  broken in upon  by one who
lived and died a physician.  But he must be insensi-
ble to  the loftier  bearings of the subject, who can
leave its consideration without referring to the govern-
ment of that Being in  whose hands are the 'issues of
all things.'
   " Its history teaches us gratitude to that Providence
which does not willingly afflict the children of men;
which suffers physical as well as moral evil only for
a season,  and which, while it has permitted former
generations to be scourged by ravaging infection, has,
in mercy to us, removed the dreaded pestilence,  or
confined the operation of its destructive march."
   I  have been  thus diffuse in  my  quotations from
these several addresses of Dr. Beck, that you may see
to how late a period he continued to feel an interest
in, and to cultivate laboriously the science of medi-
cine. Selecting always those themes for his discourses
which  were  of the largest  interest to the largest
number, he was able  to discuss them  in  a manner
which  indicated an intimate acquaintance with all
their relations  and bearings.   His suggestions  are
constantly such as might become a physician, a phi-
lanthropist and a statesman; and that they were not
Utopian is proven by the fact that very many of
them, either  in their original  forms, or only slightly
modified, have been  adopted  as  measures of state
policy and general hygiene, or, if not adopted, they
still continue to commend themselves to the intelli-
             3 
18
 gence of enlightened men everywhere, and physicians
 still continue to reiterate his sentiments, and to urge
 their adoption upon those who have the care of the
 public interests.
   Nor can I omit to indicate as worthy of especial
 notice,  the humble,  christian-like deference  with
 which he recognizes the hand of a kind Providence
 in all those discoveries and improvements in medi-
 cine, resulting in the amelioration of the condition of
 our race, of which our profession has been so long the
 chosen and honored medium.
   In 1826 Dr. Beck was made Professor of Medical
 Jurisprudence, at Fairfield Medical College,  instead
 of lecturer, and in 1836 he was transferred from the
 chair of practice to that of Materia Medica, in accord-
 ance with his own request;  and these two chairs  he
 continued to  occupy until the  abandonment of the
 College in 1840.
   Medical colleges had  been  established  both  at
 Albany and Geneva under new and favorable auspi-
 ces,  each  having received liberal endowments from
 the State, and although the  College at Fairfield still
 retained the  confidence of the  profession to such a
 degree that in its last catalogue its pupils numbered
 114, and its graduates 33;  yet as it was apparent that
 the wants of the community did not require three
 colleges situated so near each  other, and  as both
Albany and Geneva had the advantage in their rela-
tive  size and accessibility, it was determined by the 
19
several professors to discontinue the lectures at Fair-
field.
  At this time the faculty consisted of Westel  Wil-
loughby, John De Lamater,  James Hadley, James
McNaughton,  T. Romeyn Beck and myself, as their
newly  appointed  Professor in the chair of Surgery,
recently made vacant by the resignation of Reuben
D. Mussey.
  Very few changes had ever occurred in the school
since its first organization.   Lyman Spaulding, the
first professor of anatomy and  surgery had  died;
Joseph White and Delos White, respectively profess-
sors of surgery and of anatomy,  had resigned,  and
also Dr. Mussey,  my  immediate predecessor.  With
these exceptions the faculty remained as in 1815.
  So  intimately  associated  is the history of  this
college with the subject of this memoir, that I shall
be pardoned for occupying your time with a lively
description of the college and country adjacent, writ-
ten by an old pupil* and published in the Nov. No.
for  1851 of  the New-York Lancet.
  "The  pioneers in medicine in central  New-York
are almost forgotten;  and to refresh the memories of
the brethren  we propose a short sketch of the Pro-
fessors  of  the 'Old  Pioneer'  school  in  Herkimer
county, N.Y.
"Does any one remember crossing the  country in a
rude wagon from  Little Falls to the village of Fair-
               * B W. Richmond, of Ashtabula, Ohio. 
20
field, eight miles into the country ?   It is a grazing
district—the  farm-houses  are  plain, the  farmers
plainer, and  their daughters expert  at cheese and
butter making, and even often successful in securing
a graduate for a husband.  The village lies in a high
region of country,  and is mean in appearance, and
wholly without local interest, save what was imparted
by the medical college and an academy.
  " The school was started under the management of
such old veterans as Willoughby, White, Hadley, and
De Lamater, somewhere about the year 1812.
  "At an early day, in the very heart of the wilder-
ness, Dr. Willoughby and a partner in medicine had
entered on the race  for fame, as practitioners  of
medicine and  surgery, in that  part  of the country
which lies  between Fairfield and  Newport.   They
lived in a log cabin — were both bachelors — cooked
and  washed for themselves, and made their sallies
on horseback into the surrounding forest, broken only
here and there by  a dwelling.  One of the partners
is lost to memory,  so far as we know, but Dr. Wil-
loughby became the first professor of obstetrics  in
the Fairfield Medical College, and remained connected
with  it until  its close.  Dr. Willoughby acquired
wealth, and Willoughby Medical  College in  Ohio,
received from him a liberal endowment and its name.
  "This bye place had been  selected for the school
because students could live cheaply,  and  the rural
character of its population rendered it probable that 
21
they would be subject to fewer temptations  to vice
and idleness.  A small stone edifice was erected into
which three hundred students and sometimes more
were crowded."
   From  these rude walls, built upon these cold  and
inhospitable hills, have  gone out more than three
thousand pupils,  and nearly six hundred graduates;
of whom nineteen have  held, or do now hold,  pro-
fessorships in colleges, eight are in the United States
service as  surgeons, and very many more have risen
to distinction in the practice of medicine and surgery.
   Immediately on resigning his  place at Fairfield,
 Dr. Beck was elected to the chair of Materia Medica,
 in the Albany Medical College.  The chair of Medi-
 cal Jurisprudence, to which he would most naturally
 have been chosen, being already occupied by a very
 able teacher, Amos Dean, Esq.
   This  professorship Dr. Beck continued to hold until
 1854, when his declining  health, together  with an
 accumulation of other pressing  duties,  induced  him
 to resign his place as an active officer, having  now
 taught  medicine  in some of  its departments for
 thirty-nine years,  and the  trustees then  conferred
 upon him the honorary  distinction of Emeritus Pro-
 fessor.
    It has been mentioned that in 1817, Dr. Beck was
 made principal of the  Albany  Academy; and  in a
 letter to his  uncle, Dr. Romeyn, dated August 1,
  1817, shortly before the  appointment, he writes as 
22
 follows:  " This I know, that by zeal  and attention
 on the part of the  instructors, it can be made an
 eminent and useful institution.    *   *   I pray you
 to believe that the mention of  my name as a candi-
 date, was unsolicited and very unexpected.  It is a
 spontaneous offer,  and as such I shall always look on
 it as a testimony of no mean value."   The  citizens
 of Albany and his numerous  pupils, now scattered
 throughout the United States, can bear witness, how
 great has been his zeal in behalf of that institution,
 and how well he has fulfilled his promise.
   The building occupied as the academy, was erected
 for this purpose  by the city authorities; it is large,
 commodious and distinguished, even among the nume-
 rous public edifices which adorn this capital, for  its
 fine architectural proportions.   Each department is
 supplied  with able teachers, and with  ample means
 for illustration,  and  during the more than thirty
 years of his administration, it has sustained a reputa-
 tion second to no similar institution in the State.
   I  find in  one  of  the  Albany  city papers, dated
 some years back, pencil sketches of a few of its most
 prominent citizens, among whom is mentioned Dr.
 Beck.  The writer, who is not ignorant of his many
 other public  services,  and of his reputation  abroad,
 thus speaks of his connection with the academy:
  " The Albany academy is  an institution which has
furnished the community with more mind, than any
other academy in this country.   A distinction that is 
23
doubtless due  to the admirable discipline, and well
stored  brain which Dr. Beck brought with him into
the institution, in 1817."
  In 1848, Dr. Beck resigned his place as principal
of the  academy, and on the death of James Steven-
son, Esq., he succeeded him as president of the board
of trustees.
  The "Society for the promotion of Agriculture,
Arts, and Manufactures,"  was incorporated  by the
Legislature on the 12th of March, 1793, with Chan-
cellor Livingston as its president.   The existence of
the corporation was limited by its charter to the first
day of May, 1804.  On  the 2d  day of April, 1804,
the Legislature virtually renewed the charter, making
it perpetual, changing the name  of the corporation to
that of "The  Society for the Promotion of Useful
Arts," and Chancellor Livingston was appointed the
president of  the  new corporation.  Dr. Beck  was
admitted a member of this society on the 5th day of
February, 1812.   Among  its officers,  in addition to
its distinguished  president,  already  named, were
Simeon  De Witt,  John Tayler, David Hosack, Ste-
phen  Van Rensselaer, De Witt  Clinton, Edmund C.
Genet, and others prominent in  the history of our
State.  Although Dr. Beck was at this time only in
his twenty-first year, yet at the second meeting after
his  election,  he  was  made chairman of a standing
committee of five, appointed "for the purpose of col-
lecting and arranging such  minerals  as our State 
24
 affords."   And on the  1st of April, 1812, less  than
 two months after his admission, he was appointed to
 deliver the annual address at the following session of
 the society.  This duty he performed on the 3d day
 of February, 1813, in the old Senate  Chamber, the
 principal part of which, by means of  changes made
 in the building,  has  been incorporated into the room
 in which we are now assembled.   The object of this
 address, as he remarks in his preface, was to "exhibit
 at one view the mineral riches of the United States,
 with  their various application to the  arts,  and to
 demonstrate  the practicability of the  increase of
 different manufactures, whose materials are derived
 from this source."
   This was eminently the field for Dr. Beck's pecu-
 liar talent; it was new,  and  everything had to be
 learned from the beginning;  a host of persons  and
 authorities had to be consulted, and the whole to be
 carefully digested, analyzed, and applied.   The result
 could not have disappointed those who were familiar
 with his habits;  but  to one who had known him less,
 or who was at all acquainted  with the  difficulties
 which he was compelled  to encounter in the little
 that was then known of the mineral resources of this
 country,  the result seems  astonishing; and to that
 elaborate and timely paper, we think, the American
 manufacturer is, to-day, in no small degree indebted
for his wealth and prosperity.  It was the lens which
first brought the scattered  rays of light upon  this 
25
subject to a focus, and which now melts the ores in a
thousand furnaces.  If, as Dr. Beck asserts, American
mineralogy was  then in its infancy, he was  the first
to urge upon  it a confidence in itself,  and to demon-
strate to others  its unsuspected capacities, and it is
through such early guidance and assistance that it
has so rapidly grown to complete manhood, no less
than to the "persevering industry, the unconquerable
enterprise, and  the extraordinary ingenuity of our
citizens."
  In 1819, Dr. Beck read, before the same society, a
"Memoir  on Alum," the object of which  was to pre-
sent a view  of  one of the most important of the
chemical  arts.   In preparing it, " I consulted," says
Dr. Beck, "every work relating to the subject within
my reach."
  "Had the work conducted some years ago  by Prof.
Cooper, of Philadelphia, under the title of the Empo-
rium of Arts, been  continued, this attempt  would
doubtless  have  been  useless,  as  the subject  under
consideration was one of those which  he proposed to
notice.  I venture, though with unequal  steps, to
examine the history, progress and present  state of
the manufacture of alum, with a hope that my  inves-
tigations may prove useful to some who are unable
to consult systematical  works, and  above  all, that
they may direct the attention of our citizens  to the
means which they possess, within their own  reach,
             4 
26
 of converting useless  mineral  products into  rich
 sources of individual and national profit."
   This,  together  with  the paper first mentioned, is
 published  in the Transactions of the Society,  before
 which they were delivered.
   The Albany Lyceum of Natural History, was incor-
 porated  by the Legislature on the  23d day of April,
 1823.
   Stephen Van  Rensselaer  was, by the  charter,
 appointed  its first  president,  and Dr. Beck, its  first
 vice-president.   A  union between this  association
 and the society for the promotion of useful arts,  was
 agreed upon and carried into effect  in 1824, and con-
 summated in form  by  an  act of the  Legislature of
 the 27th of February, 1829, incorporating  the Albany
 Institute, which was to  consist of three departments:
 the first, that of the physical sciences and the arts,
 to consist of the society for the promotion of  useful
 arts as then constituted; the second,  that of natural
 history, to consist of the Albany Lyceum of Natural
 History,  as then  constituted;  the third, for the pro-
 motion of history and general literature, to be formed
 for the purpose.  Of the Albany Institute so consti-
 tuted, dating back its foundation to the establishment
 of the society for the promotion of agriculture, arts
 and manufactures in 1793, and thus being, I believe,
the oldest institution of this character in our  State!
and  one of the oldest in our country,  Dr, Beck was 
27
not only one of the most active members, but it may
be safely said, without doing injustice to many others
who have been connected with it, that he did more
to keep up its organization, to enlarge its library and
collections,  and generally to advance  its interests,
than any other person.  Its proceedings, as well as its
published transactions,  bear evidence  to the fidelity
and zeal  with which he labored for its prosperity.
At the time of his death, and for many years before,
he was its president.  In 1835, Dr. Beck, by appoint-
ment, delivered before the institute a eulogium on
the life and services of Simeon DeWitt,  Surveyor-
General of the State, Chancellor of the University,
and also, at the time of his death,  one of the vice-
presidents of the society.  After a sketch of the life
of the highly  esteemed and venerable  Surveyor-
General, remarkable  for the simplicity and clearness
of the style and narrative, adverting to the loss which
the institute had  sustained  in  the death of other
members, he closes in language which has a peculiar
appropriateness on this occasion.
   "Happy, (says  he), if, when our  account is made
up, we shall be found each in his appropriate sphere,
like our honored fellow members, to have done  some
service to the community  or  the  State.  Then,
whether  in the morning of life, or at  its fervid bust-
ling  noon-day, or  in the declining  hour, we depart,
 our  memories  will  be  cherished, and our names
 implore the passing tribute of a sigh." 
28
   One of the originators of the plan for the Geologi-
 cal  Survey of the  State,  Dr. B.  became one of its
 most ardent supporters, and under  the successive
 Governors, he was entrusted with much of the super-
 vision of the work.  As evidence of the great  part
 which he took  in this labor, I subjoin the dedication
 of the 5th volume, on "agriculture," written by E.
 Emmons, M.D.
 "To T. Romeyn Beck, M.D. LL.D.:
   "Sir:  There  is  more than  one  reason why the
 concluding divisions of the present work, undertaken
 to explore and illustrate the Natural  History of the
 State of  New-York, and conducted under legislative
 patronage, should be dedicated to you.
   "You were among the first to foster the enterprise,
 and  remained  its consistent advocate in times when
 adverse circumstances seemed to jeopardize its con-
 tinuance ; much more than this, your whole life has
 been assiduously engaged in promoting the advance
 of science and the spread of popular education,  and
 the published  results of your scientific and literary
 labors, may be referred to as reflecting an honor upon
 your native State.   Would  that  the  merits  of the
 present volume were such as to render it more worthy
 its dedication."
  The Legislature of 1850 confided  to the Secretary
of State, and to the Secretary of the Board of Regents,
the supervision of the publication of the remainder
of the Natural History of the State.  The geological 
29
survey having been  protracted much  beyond the
period originally  contemplated,  and various  claims
existing  in reference to it,  the  two officers  named
were required by law to report to the next Legisla-
ture what those claims were, and what contracts
existed between the State and individuals for  such of
the work as remained to be completed.   They were
also required to report a plan for the final completion
of the survey, and to submit estimates of the cost of
such completion.   Dr. Beck's acquaintance with the
history of this work, and all the matters connected
with it, was perhaps more complete than that of any
6ther person  in the State; and this fact led to the
selection of  the  Secretary of the  Regents  (which
post  he  then filled),  as one of  the Commissioners.
Whether we  look  at the  interests of  the State or
 those of science, no  better  choice could have been
 made.
   The reports of the Commissioners to the Legisla-
 ture, show the good effects of the investigation made
 by them; and, judging from the order and system
 which the affair soon assumed under their hands, and
 the  comparative  economy  which  attended  their
 expenditures and plans, it is hazarding little to say,
 that, had a permanent commission of this character
 been charged with the care of the survey from its
 outset, the work would have been more systematically
 pursued, and  at an  expense greatly less than that
 which the State has incurred. 
30
    Since 1841 he has occupied the office of Secretary
 of the Board of Regents; a  position of great honor
 and trust.
    The Regents  have a  supervisory charge of the
 educational interests of the State,  and are required
 to report  annually  the condition of all the  colleges
 and academies under their care.  His  reports made
 during the period of his incumbency  are not only
 voluminous, but they are equally models of accuracy
 and of compactness.
   But the supervision of colleges and  of academies
 does by no means limit the powers and responsibili-
 ties of the Regents.  To them is entrusted the care
 of the  State Library, and of the  State Cabinet of
 Natural History, with also the management of much
 of the foreign correspondence, and all of the  literary
 or scientific international exchanges.  Most of which
 various duties devolved officially upon Dr. Beck.
   To his earnest devotion, and eminent qualifications,
 the State is therefore indebted for its large and judi-
 ciously  selected library; and  especially for its unri-
 valled  collection  of  works on the  history  of this
 country and State.
   In the  language of Dr. E.  H. Van Deusen, from
 whose  brief but elegant biography,  written  for the
 American Journal of Insanity,  I am  indebted  for
 several of the facts contained in this memoir:
   " Dr. Beck has witnessed the adoption in this State,
of a public system  of education,  elementary  and 
31
collegiate, alike thorough  and successful; and as the
crowning effort in the field of his severest, yet most
congenial labor, a "State Library" which, for com-
pleteness of organization and beauty of arrangement,
stands unrivaled, and for which, it may be remarked,
the State of New-York is almost entirely indebted
to his extended  and complete knowledge of the his-
tory of literature  and science, in which he  had no
equal in this country, if indeed anywhere."
   Many years ago Dr. Beck became interested in the
subject of a State Museum.  In fact, while connected
with  the City Lyceum, established in the  Albany
Academy,   he was  industriously  accumulating and
depositing  every thing of which he could possess
himself, relating to history, or to natural science.  A
passion, which, it is well  known, did not cease  or
abate, when his admission into the Board of Regents
gave him a wider field for its exercise.  To the State
Library and the  State Cabinet hereafter his time and
talents were in no small  degree directed; and  such
was his zeal in  behalf of these institutions that  he
has not hesitated at times when the illiberal policy
of individual members of the Legislature, hazarded
the success of necessary appropriations,  to give his
personal pledge that the moneys should be judiciously
applied, and by becoming, as it were, the endorser
of the government, he has secured the  recognition of
the claims of these interests, and obtained the neces-
 sary supplies. 
32
   On the arrival of M. Vattemare  in  this country,
 Dr. Beck immediately saw the value of such a system
 of international  exchange  as  was proposed,  and
 became  at once  one of its warmest advocates; nor
 has he ever ceased to urge upon the successive Legis-
 latures the continuance of the system;  and  even
 upon his death-bed he entreated,  as  a personal favor,
 that his  friends would  not forget  the claims of this
 subject, in which he  had always felt so  deep an inte-
 rest.
   In a letter lately received, M. Vattemare writes—
 " The death of Dr. Beck deprives me of the best and
 most faithful friend I ever had, as well as of the most
 enlightened and active co-operator in the noble cause
 to which my life  is devoted.    #     =*    #     #
 I  thought that  with my friend all  was gone; but
 the recollection of his  solicitude for the  system of
 exchange, as well as his paternal anxiety for the State
 Library—that glorious monument of his patriotism
 and high knowledge—revived my courage, and with
 it  the hope that those kind friends  I  have yet among
 the Regents of the University, and  the recollection
 of the friendship  of Dr. Beck for me, and of his asso-
 ciation in my labors, would secure the  continuation
 of  their good will."
   Outside of his  own  peculiar sphere of duties, no
object of public  interest  was  undertaken without
finding in him a warm supporter.   When the project
of a University in the  city of Albany  was started, 
33
intended to supply, in some measure, the scientific
and literary wants of the whole  United States, Dr.
Beck, while seeing clearly  all the difficulties and
discouragements  attending  such  a scheme, did not
fail to recognize its practical bearings, and his views,
as may be  seen by a reference to the sketch of his
speech appended* were liberal and comprehensive.
   Of the American Association of Science he was an
active member, and rendered to it many services.
   In obedience  to those  promptings of  humanity
which seem in a great measure  to have determined
his course  in life—laboring always  most zealously
for those who were least able to appreciate his  servi-
ces, or to recognize them—he read before this society
in 1837, a paper on the statistics  of the  deaf and
dumb, which had the effect to direct the attention of
the public  and of the legislators more  fully to the
condition  and necessities  of this unfortunate  class,
and the results of which may be seen in the  estab-
lishment in the city of New-York of a school for deaf
mutes, unrivalled in  the excellence of its system and
 in the perfection of its details.
   By the  act of its incorporation, in April, 1842, Dr.
 Beck was  made one of the  Board of Managers of the
 New-York State Lunatic Asylum, situated at Utica;
 and he has been re-appointed by the Governor and
 Senate at  the expiration of each successive tri-ennial
 period.  Upon the death of Mr. Munson, in; 1854, he,
                      * See Appendix.
              5 
34
 although a non-resident member, was  unanimously
 elected President of the • Board.   This important
 institution,  established  and endowed by the  State
 upon a scale of almost  unparalleled munificence,  is
 no doubt indebted largely  to Dr. Beck, for his wise
 counsels and efficient personal aid, which he has  at
 all times freely contributed.
   Dr. Beck was also an occasional contributor to the
 pages of the American Journal of Insanity, published
 at Utica under the editorial management of Dr.  Brig-
 ham, the late principal:  and when, upon the death of
 Dr. Brigham, in 1850, the management of the  Jour-
 nal fell into the hands  of the Board, Dr. Beck was
 chosen its editor, a place which he continued to hold
 "until the close of the last volume, when advancing
 years and more imperative duties compelled him to
 relinquish his editorial connection."
   Of the chief labor of Dr. Beck's life, and of that
 which has made his name illustrious wherever science
 and literature are cultivated, it still remains to speak.
 I allude to his work on " Medical Jurisprudence," and
 which  no less  reflects honor upon us as Americans,
 upon this city of his adoption, and upon you, gentle-
 men, who were his associates and fellow-members in
 this Society.
  From how early a period in his life the subject of
this work occupied his attention we may infer from
the following brief extracts from letters written  to
his uncle, the Rev. J. B. Romeyn. 
35
  The first is dated in 1813:
  "Permit me to press upon you the obtaining of one
or the other of the French authors on legal medi-
cine.  It  has long  been a favorite  idea with me to
prepare a work on that  subject, and should I be ena-
bled to procure Fodere or Mahon, my design may be
completed."
  The  second  is dated June 30,  1814, and was
addressed to his uncle at Lisbon, Portugal:
  "As the communication is now open between Great
Britain  and France, you will doubtless be enabled to
procure the books I wished.  Dulan advertised them
some years  since."     *      *     *     *
  On this topic I find  ready at my hand nearly all
that it is necessary to say,  in a biographical notice of
the author,  contained in the first volume of an ele-
gant  publication, entitled, "The National  Portrait
Gallery of distinguished Americans," issued at New-
York in  the  year  1834,  under the auspices of the
"American Academy of the Fine Arts."
   In 1823, Dr.  Beck  published his work  entitled
' Elements of Medical Jurisprudence,' in two volumes,
octavo; which at the time, attracted great attention,
and has  since  continued  a standard work on  the
subject-of which it treats.  The science of  medical
jurisprudence is one of great interest and importance.
It  treats of all those questions,  in which the testi-
mony of a medical  man may be required before courts
of justice, and from  the nature of many of the ques- 
36
 tions, it is obvious that their discussion requires the
 widest  range of medical  and scientific knowledge.
 Although deeply studied in Italy, France and Ger-
 many, this science had  scarcely attracted any atten-
 tion, either in this country or in England, previous
 to the publication of the work of Dr. Beck.   To him
 is certainly due the high credit, not merely of rousing
 public attention to an important and neglected subject,
 but  also of  presenting a work upon  it which will
 probably  never be entirely superseded.  In foreign
 countries, its merits have been duly appreciated and
 magnanimously acknowledged.   The Edinburg Medi-
 cal and Surgical Journal says of it, vol. 22, p. 179,
 (1824,):
   "We undertake this task with the greater pleasure
 on the present occasion, that we shall  have to throw
 aside, for the first time  on medico-legal subjects, the
 character  of the austere critic.   It  has been our
 misfortune to handle with  some freedom, almost all
 previous works on the subject.  And  we have been
 induced to handle them  more freely than many may
 have thought  was called for, because  we apprehend
 that all early  works on  medical jurisprudence, espe-
 cially of the  systematic kind, should be viewed with
 peculiar jealousy by every  one interested in its pro-
 gress.  For as it is now circumstanced, languishing
 still in its infancy, and struggling against the supine-
ness, indifference and prejudices of those who ought
to be its most zealous protectors; no greater mischief 
37
could happen than  that  systematic treatises on it
should pass without warning into the hands of the
public, which, however meritorious, are nevertheless,
not on a level with its state of advancement, and do
not  present an  expanded view of its  general spirit
and  practical applications.
   "At length, however, the English language may
boast, that it is possessed of a general work on medical
jurisprudence, which will not only stand comparison
with the  best of the kind  that the  continent has
produced, but which may also be referred to by every
medical jurist as a monument worthy  of his science,
and as a criterion by which he is willing that its
interest and utility should be tried.
   "Under the unassuming title of Elements of Medi-
 cal  Jurisprudence, Doctor Beck has presented us with
 a comprehensive  system,  which  embraces  almost
 every valuable  fact or doctrine relating to it.  Each
 of its diversified  departments has  been investigated
 so minutely,  that few cases  can occur in practice, on
 which it  will  be necessary  to seek  elsewhere for
 farther  information.  At the same time by studying
 succinctness  and shunning those  verbose oratorical
 details  with  which other  writers, and particularly
 those of France abound, he has succeeded in render-
 ing his treatise comprehensive within a singularly
 moderate compass.  We may securely assert, that a
 work on  the subject  is  not to be found in any lan-
 guage, which displays so much patient and discrimi- 
38
nating research, with so little of the mere ostentation
of learning.   The opinions expressed both on general
principles and on the particular questions which have
occurred in  courts of law,  are given  clearly  and
judiciously.   There are few  occasions,  even  where
the points at issue are difficult and obscure, on which
persons of skill  and experience  will be disposed to
differ materially with him."
   In the various medical .colleges of Great Britain,
there has been,  we  believe, no text book on medical
jurisprudence positively adopted;  but we have been
informed that Dr. Beck's work  has been  for years
recommended to students by professors.
   In 1828, it was translated into German, at Weimar,
and has been favorably received in various parts of
the continent of Europe.
   It is not alone the physician and the jurist who are
indebted to Dr. Beck  for this essential work;  but it
has proved to the general reader, we believe invaria-
bly,  a fund of interesting information;  and we will
venture to say  that no one has ever risen from its
perusal without experiencing an agreeable surprise,
that a subject so uninviting in its title,  should afford
so much amusement.  The remarks of a writer in
Blackwood's  Magazine  agree  so well with our  own
experience, that we cannot do better than adopt them.
"The  ignorant  state  in which jurymen continually
come to the  consideration  of points of  medical evi-
dence, on criminal  trials, is lamentable.   In  regard 
39
to men of any habits of reading it is really sinful;
and  certainly not  the  less  so, because the  works
which they ought to read  and master happen to be
about the most interesting and amusing books in the
world."
   To these  testimonials we will only add,  that the
work has already passed through five American, and
four London, besides the  German edition.  In the
preface to the first London edition  which was  pub-
lished as early as 1825,  with notes,  by Dr.  Wm.
Dunlap, the editor says:
   "We do  not claim for the present work the meed
of a faultless performance, but we fear not to  chal-
lenge  a comparison  of it  with any of the English
works in scientific accuracy,  philosophical  plainness
and precision of style, extent of research, genuine
scholarship and erudition,  pointedness of illustration,
and copiousness of detail  and  reference to original
documents."
   Says  a bibliographer, in a notice of the German
edition, "Among the numerous and unequivocal evi-
dences of the very  high  estimation  in  which Dr.
Beck's 'Elements of Jurisprudence' are held by the
profession in Europe, their translation into the Ger-
man language must be regarded as the most flattering
and decisive indication of their true  value.  In no
country has this interesting and varied science been
prosecuted  with such unabated zeal, or have so  much
learning and research been elicited on its several 
40
 curious topics,  as  in Germany.  From the  time of
 Zachias, indeed, to the present day it has been the
 favorite object of study with German physicians, and
 their opinions of the merits of any  treatise  on  the
 subject  are therefore entitled  to the highest weight
 and the most respectful consideration.   Proud are we,
 therefore, to see them prize the performance of  our
 learned countryman  so high as to deem it worthy of
 transfusion into their vernacular tongue.   In  his
 native language his work is as yet without a parallel."
   Although  the two volumes  originally  comprised
 more than 2000 pages octavo,  yet to each successive
 American edition he did not fail to add largely from
 his apparently inexhaustible stores of knowledge and
 research.  Nor even here did his labors cease, but he
 continued to contribute almost to the  period of his
 death to one or more of  the  medical or scientific
journals of the country, such additional  facts or dis-
 coveries as from time to time came to his knowledge.
 In the American Journal of Medical Science, edited
 by Dr. Hays, may be  found  many of his most valua-
 ble papers.
  Says a distinguished writer for that periodical,  in
reviewing the tenth edition of  his Medical Jurispru-
dence : " The pages of this journal,  for many years
past, have borne constant evidence  of  the untiring
and invaluable research of Dr. Beck, whose observa-
tions and extracts from foreign and domestic sources
have  filled  that portion of it devoted  to medical 
41
jurisprudence; and the writer of the  present notice
bears his  testimony to the same effect; for, having
taken much interest in the subject, and consequently
had  occasion to examine the  journals, he found it
impossible to furnish a single novelty to this depart-
ment in which he had not been anticipated by Dr.
Beck."
   Nor is there perhaps, any testimony more pertinent
as to the  rank occupied by Dr. Beck  in the literary
and  scientific world, than the large number of socie-
ties, both  abroad and at home,  which conferred upon
him either honorary or active memberships.  Among
others less known we may mention the New-York
Historical Society, of which he was elected a member
in 1813;  Physico  Medical Society, N.  Y.,  1813;
Antiquarian Soc, Mass.,  1816; Academy of Natural
Sciences,  Philadelphia, 1816;  Lyceum of Natural
History, N. Y., 1817; American Geological Society,
New-Haven, 1819;  Natural Hist.  Soc, Montreal,
1821;  Hon. member of Med. Soc, London,  1824;
Medical Society, Quebec, 1824; Cor. member Lin-
nean Soc,  Paris,  1826;  Hon. member  Med. Soc,
Conn.,  1826 ; Society of Emulation, Charleston, S.
C, 1827;  Med. Soc. of New-Hampshire, 1828; Asso-
ciate of the College  of Phys., Philadelphia,  1829;
Hon. member of Royal Med. Soc of Edinburgh, 1832;
of Meteorological Society, London, 1838; of Ameri-
can Philosophical Society,  Philadelphia, 1839; of
Med. Soc of Rhode Island, 1839; National Institu-
              6 
42
tion for the promotion of science, Washington, 1840;
Historical  Society of Pennsylvania,  1841;  Amer.
Ethnological Soc.  1842;  Northern Academy of Arts
and Sciences, Dartmouth, 1845; Cor. fellow of New-
York Academy of Medicine, 1847; Royal Society of
Northern Antiquaries,  Copenhagen,  1848;  Histor.
Soc, Vermont,  1850;  American  Statistical Soc,
Boston, 1851;  State  Historical Society, Wisconsin,
1854.   The degree of LL. D. has been conferred upon
him by the Mercersburg College, Penn., and by Rut-
gers College, N.  J.
   Dr. Beck enjoyed during his life, almost uninter-
rupted health, the result, we suspect, of a good natural
constitution,  and of temperate, regular, and, so far at
least as his  literary  pursuits would  permit, active
habits.
   The following account of his last illness and of the
autopsy,* is too interesting to admit of abridgement,
and I shall make no apology for its introduction.   It
was furnished at my request by his attending physi-
cian, Dr. S. D. Willard, of this city, who visited him
from the earliest  stage  of his illness,  and  whose
personal care and devotion,  as well  as that of Dr.
Hun, who was called in counsel, toward  the  close of
his life, was most faithful, unremitting, and far exceed-
ing all claims of professional duty.
   "Dr. Beck suffered from an attack  of indigestion
in the early part of January, 1854.  It was at a time
                    * See Appendix. 
43
when he was busily engaged in his official duties,
and although he placed himself under medical treat-
ment, and was visited twice daily by his physician,
he did not allow himself, as I remember, to be deter-
red from going to his office for  a single day.   He
recovered from this attack  in two weeks, and  with
the exception of a slight paroxysm of gout, he enjoyed
nearly his usual health during  the remainder of the
year.
   In February, 1855, he  was again taken ill, and the
symptoms with which his illness began were precisely
similar to those of the year previous.  The  weather
was intensely cold, and he was  induced on account
of it to remain at home for a few days,  though he
was quite unwilling to admit the necessity of such
regimen.  The symptoms did not yield as readily as
they had done before; he experienced great uneasi-
ness about the stomach and bowels; his appetite not
only failed, but he felt nausea at the very mention of
 either food  or medicine ;  he complained greatly of
 weakness, but was almost invariably invigorated by
 his  sleep at night.  He was so much better at the
 end of a fortnight as to  go out, and this he continued
 to do nearly  every day,  utterly regardless of  the
 weather, and appeared  to be daily gaining strength
 until the last of March, when the symptoms returned
 upon  him,  as violent as they had been  at first; but
 they again yielded after a week or ten days, and with
 the exception of his not  having regained his strength, 
44
he appeared for a little time nearly recovered.   We
looked forward to the return of mild weather with
confident  expectation  that  his  health  would  be
restored.  During the month of May he was daily at
his office, and continued his labors and researches
with his accustomed untiring industry.  About  the
first of June he visited his daughter, Mrs. Van Cort-
landt, at Croton, and while there he had a recurrence
of some of his unpleasant  symptoms,  though they
were less severe than in preceding attacks.  His visit
at Croton was brief, and he returned again to pursue
his labors  beyond the measure of his strength.  At
length he yielded to the solicitations of his friends
to make his summer visit to Lake George a few weeks
earlier than usual,  and this in the  belief that total
relaxation would prove of the desired benefit to him.
Here, however, he  indulged  less in  the social plea-
sures and rural sports than had for many years been
his practice.  Occasionally  he went  out on the lake
for fish, and once he joined a party that had arranged
to dine on a rock about five miles  down the lake.
He went  and returned  in  a row boat, and though
much fatigued, bore the exertion better than could
have been expected.  [August 29.]  His very nature
gave him a keen relish for such pleasures, but he now
united in them with reluctance.  He became averse
to exercise, and  much of the time was passed with
his friends on the piazza of the hotel, or in his own
room, re-perusing some favorite volume.  Scarcely a 
45
week passed without the return of some of his annoy-
ing symptoms, and notwithstanding he thought him-
self getting better,  he was  becoming  weaker  and
losing flesh.  He returned  from Lake George on the
7th September.   His journey home greatly fatigued
him, and he found himself obliged  to  send for his
physician  the  next  day.   Medication almost  uni-
formly brought him present relief, but it did not serve
to eradicate the morbid condition to which his system
had become  subjected.  He continued  to go to the
State Library until the 15th of September,  when he
left it for the last time.
   Until the present  there  was, to my mind, no posi-
tive indications of other than functional derangement
in his  case.  He was very weak, and  had  not  only
lost his full, portly habit, but had become greatly
emaciated.  His appetite, at times, was good, but not
uniformly so.   The food he took did not appear  to
assimilate with and nourish his  body, although it was
generally well  digested.   He retired  early, slept
quietly, and maintained  his fixed habit of  rising  at
five or six o'clock in the morning.  He had not, thus
far, suffered any severe pain during the progress of
his illness; the recurrence of nausea gave him great
uneasiness, and he complained likewise of lassitude
and debility, but not of pain.
   For  several years he had, at times,  been afflicted
 with paroxysms of dyspnoea, and he assured me that
the pulsations of his heart had " always been irregu- 
46
 lar."  Since  he had  become  so feeble, these had
 increased  to such an extent as to indicate that they
 were occasioned by disease of the heart—but they
 lacked essentially  some  of the  peculiarities which
 would be expected in advanced disease of that organ.
   It was at this time that Dr. Hun, who had seen
 him at intervals while visiting other members of the
 family, united with me in regular attendance.  So
 great a change  had taken place in his  appearance,
 that it now became  manifest  that the  disease was
 making rapid inroads upon his remaining strength,
 and was advancing to a fatal termination.
   The doctor consented to remain quiet for a  few
 days;  it was without a realization of his own feeble-
 ness.  He  consented, not because he admitted the
 necessity  of quietude,  but because his physicians
 positively  enjoined it.  He still looked forward,  one
 week after another, to the time when he should be
 able to resume his duties, and appointed several days
 when he hoped to go out;  but, when the time came,
 he felt that his strength was insufficient to the effort,
 and  consented readily to abide  the  advice of his
 attendants  and friends.
  During  these  weeks of  confinement, he  was uni-
 formly cheerful,  and looked on the bright side of his
 own case.   He seldom complained of pain, and was
 rather unwilling to admit  that he suffered any.  He
rarely  inquired particularly about the nature of his
disease, nor did he evince anxiety about the manner 
47
in which it  might terminate.   Thus he  continued
until  late in October, when, upon the suggestion of
his daughters, he consented  to an arrangement for a
consultation with Dr. Willard Parker, of New-York,
who had been the physician of his brother, Dr. John
B. Beck, and who is likewise a warm personal friend
of the family.
   The evening before Dr. Parker came (October 24),
he spoke more freely of himself than  he had  pre-
viously done.  It was conclusive to me then, that the
character of his malady had  not escaped his  own
 careful observation.  He said  to me: " I don't  alto-
 gether give up my own case  yet, but I  have  lived
 long enough to wear  out  my constitution—and,
 whatever is the result,  I must be content."  These
 were the first words indicating that he regarded his
 condition critical.   The next morning he was visited
 by Dr.  Parker,  together with Dr. Hun and myself.
 He received us with great  composure and cheerful-
 ness, and made a clear, full statement of his  case,
 speaking of himself as if he was not  the person
 interested in the examination.
    After the consultation,  we returned to his room,
 and Dr. Parker taking  his seat by him kindly said,
  "Now Doctor we have  asked you a great many ques-
 tions, are there any you would like to ask us?"  His
  reply was strictly characteristic of himself  as a man
  of few words.  He did  not seek to evade  the result of
  this investigation,  but  arrived at once at the conclu- 
48
 sion, by a  single question  that  covered  the whole
 subject, "can you get me  well?"  Dr. Parker  told
 him that we were unable to detect organic disease,
 but there was a suspension in the process of assimi-
 lation, his food digested  but did not assimilate, "the
 engine," said he, "you have, but the  fuel fails to
 make it work."  Again he asked "can you get in fuel
 that will ?"   The answers to these pointed enquiries
 were necessarily of a negative character;  to  which
 he replied, "You make out  my  case very  unfavora-
 bly."  In the afternoon of the same day, I found him
 cheerful, without having been fatigued by the morn-
 ing interview, and he  expressed  some confidence in
 the efficacy of the nitro-muriatic acid sponge bath
 which was suggested by Dr. Parker.
  Until the  11th November no special change occur-
 red ; he slept more than usual, and at night  comforta-
 bly, awaking at his accustomed hour in the morning;
 he sat up nearly every day for a short time, and often
 devoted a part of this to business; his books and his
 papers were around him, and he still devoted himself
 to them with untiring industry; although he was sick,
 he did not know how to be idle.  I visited him at all
 hours, and I always found him  with a book in his
hand; when he retired at night, it was with lights
arranged by his bedside that he might read until he
fell asleep.
  With  the  first loss of sleep, (Nov. 11,) came total
prostration, he was unable longer to take nourishment, 
49
and soon began what appeared  to be the  process of
dying; of this he was fully aware, yet no murmur
escaped his  lips, nor the wish that the termination
might  be averted. (Nov. 14.) His breathing became
gradually more difficult, and his  extremities cold, he
was exceedingly restless,  but  uniformly  answered
"no"  when asked if he was suffering.  Each  hour
appeared for two or three days to be his last, but he
rallied again however, and remarked of the wonder-
ful tenacity of his constitution, and expressed surprise
that he lived so long. " It is hard breaking the chain,"
and then he  asked  "Is not this a long  struggle?"
"How long  have I been in it?"   To my reply "more
than twenty-four hours," he asked,  "do you think it
will last much longer?"  Addressing his daughters,
who were by his bedside, he said "I had  a coldness,
a sort of spasm  in my side last night,  that was near
my idea of  the  coming on of death; I have thought.
my case over, it is a remarkable complaint, don't you
all think so ?"  And at  the same time he expressed
his conviction that he must have organic disease.
   At another time, when he thought  his daughters
greatly fatigued by prolonged attention to him, gazing
upon  them with  paternal tenderness, he said, "I am
sorry to tire you so;  I wish it was over."   Thus, in
his last hours, he did not fail to regard the comfort of
others before himself.  His hearing continued acute,
and his mind clear and calm through those hours of
protracted dissolution, although  he was so weak that 
50
he could  not converse.  Thus  he lingered until the
morning  of the 19th.  A few hours  preceding  his
death,  Mrs. Parmelee was sitting by his side, when
he asked, "Where is Catharine?" (Mrs. Van Cort-
landt); immediately she was with him.   He pressed
her hand in token of recognition, gazed  upon  them
for a moment, and then closed his eyes forever.  His
breathing became quiet, fainter, and still more faint,
until at length,  gently as sleeps a child, the slumber
of death came  upon him.  And thus passed  away
this great man, on  the 19th of November, 1855,  at
the age of sixty-four years  and three months.  Mr.
and Mrs.  Parmelee, Mrs. Van Cortlandt  and  myself,
were with him when he died.
  During the whole period of his illness, his daugh-
ters watched him with the utmost filial devotion and
tenderness.  They were almost constantly with him,
anticipating every want,  and administering every
comfort.  His last hours were not only  soothed by
their presence, their words of kindness and love, but
by their  earnest prayers that he might be sustained
by his Heavenly  Father in the eventful hour that
still awaited him.
  To the inquiry, so natural to one who reflects upon
the life and labors of our deceased associate,  " How
has any  man been able to accomplish so much in a
single  life?"  The  reply is,—it was the result of
system, indomitable perseverance, of ardent devotion
and honesty of  purpose, united to excellent talents. 
51
But no one quality so much  contributed to his extra-
ordinary attainments as that methodical improvement
of time which he adopted from the first and retained
to almost the last hours of his life.  Every duty had
its time and place, with which no other duties were
allowed to interfere.   A  given portion of each day
was assigned to a particular  subject, and this arrange-
ment was  not to be interfered with.   The  morning
study was never postponed to the evening, nor relax-
ation nor miscellaneous reading permitted until the
allotted tasks were respectively dispatched.   Having
determined also upon any great purpose it was never
relinquished  until it was accomplished.  With him
there was  no vacillation or uncertainty of design;
and  at his death nothing  seems to  have been left
unfinished, but that one labor which he had underta-
ken, too late for its full completion, a memoir of his
early friend and counsellor,  the lamented  DeWitt
Clinton.  A  work  for which his long and  intimate
acquaintance, his sympathy  of feelings and tastes,
with his rare literary attainments eminently qualified
him.
   They were alike  men of talents, education, system
and  perseverance:  each labored for the public good
rather than  for  private  interest:  each entertained
enlarged and almost prophetic views of State and
National policy; each selected judiciously the time
and means for the attainment of their great purposes. 
52
   DeWitt Clinton was a statesman, but  no less a
philosopher and a patriot.   T. Romeyn  Beck was a
physician, but no less a scholar and a philanthropist.
De Witt Clinton sought to penetrate the State with
the commerce of the world, and to develop by this
means also its agricultural  resources.  Beck sought
to determine its mineral wealth, and thus to encour-
age its manufactories, with which both agriculture
and  commerce are  mutually allied.  Operating in
different channels, their ends and aims were the same,
and it would be difficult to say to whom  the citizens
of this prosperous State owe  the most, to the  illus-
trious  statesman, or  to the no less illustrious physi-
cian.
   No one  will deny  the comparison, which neither
detracts from the merits of the one, nor exalts invidi-
ously the claims of the other.
   More than two years ago, at  the earnest solicitation
of the Clinton family, Dr. Beck  had consented to
write his life,  and was furnished with the  large and
valuable collection of papers belonging to the family.
He had already made some progress in arranging and
digesting these materials when  disease arrested the
prosecution of a  work,  which, there is reason to
believe, would have been such a biography as the
illustrious  statesman  deserved, and such, probably, as
none but Dr. Beck, who had so long shared his inti-
macy and  confidence, could have written. 
53
  In his domestic relations, Dr. Beck was kind and
affectionate.  I hesitate, even in a biographical me-
moir, to invade the sanctity  of private life; but I
must yield to an impulse which instructs me to value
the example of a pure and unsullied character in  its
relations to home and to the social circle.
  To his wife, who died in 1823, at the early age of
31 years,  a woman of rare accomplishments and of
refined sentiments, he was devotedly attached; and
I am told that the greater part of his work on Medi-
cal Jurisprudence was written while watching at her
bedside during  her last and  painfully protracted
illness—a most touching memorial to her virtues and
to the kindness of his own heart.
  Of his brothers, he was the oldest;  and although
accustomed always to exercise over them  a  kind of
paternal care, he was singularly attached to them;
and when, one after another, they died, until he alone
was left, he has seemed to suffer the most poignant
grief;  and especially did the death of his last and
youngest  brother—the late Lewis C.  Beck—with
whom his associations and his pursuits were the most
constant, fall heavily upon him.
   His mother—that venerated woman, who herself
had watched over his infancy, and guided him care-
fully through his youth, up to manhood—found under
his roof a  welcome shelter in  her declining years,
where at all times her wants were more than supplied,
and  her  counsels and  precepts were  reverentially 
54
respected.  Brought up under her father's care, her
education was solid and judicious, and, until the last
three or four  years of her life, when her mind gave
way, she preserved her interest in all literary pur-
suits.  She lived to see all her children attain emi-
nence  and  respectability,  and died  at last at the
advanced age of 85 years.
  Dr. Beck had no sons.   His two daughters, Catha-
rine, wife of Pierre Van  Cortlandt, Esq., of West-
chester, and Helen, wife of Hon. William  Parmelee,
of Albany,  still live to attest his inestimable worth
and to exemplify his virtues.
  In the presence of strangers, Dr. Beck  was some-
what reserved, and not unfrequently seemed unsocial;
but with his  more intimate acquaintances   he  was
remarkably  free,  affable,  and unrestrained;  and
through all his familiar social conversations there was
a rich  vein of humor mingling with  the profounder
currents of thought and discussion.
  His knowledge of books was not confined to scien-
tific  treatises.  He read most of the standard works
in history, romance, poetry, and in all departments
of light literature.  He read rapidly, and soon pos-
sessed himself of the meaning or value of any author;
which faculty, united to a retentive memory,  made
him  almost  the final umpire wherever questions of
text or of authority arose.   In the language of one
who knew him intimately,  and who had  been a co-
laborer with him in the establishment of the State 
55
Library, " His knowledge of what I would call the
science  of literature, I have never seen equalled."
  He was liberal to the poor, and kind to all.  Not
even the brutes escaped his sympathy.   Cruelty  to
animals excited  in  him  always the most  intense
disapprobation.
   His belief in the divine revelation, and in its doc-
trines, as held by the great body of Protestant Chris-
tians, was firm, decided and often expressed;  and he
could never tolerate any attempts on the  part of any
person  to impugn or to throw discredit upon them.
   In conclusion, I beg to repeat the language and
judgment of a well known gentleman who had spent
 several summers in his society at Lake George,  Mr.
 George  Ticknor, of Boston.   In  a letter written
 during the illness of Dr. Beck,  he says: "I  have
 known few men of so faithful a nature as  he was, and
 still fewer in whom, on a more continuous acquaint-
 ance, I have been so much interested.   The amount
 of his knowledge, and the eagerness with which he
 pursues it, are remarkable; but not more so than  the
 excellent use to which he puts it all."
    Also, of an intimate personal friend, the Rev.  Dr.
 J. N. Campbell, of  Albany,  who was his pastor for
 some years and his associate as  a member of the
 Board  of Regents:  "I  think that the secret of that
 respect and regard which Dr. Beck had acquired in
 the community, and which he enjoyed  in a measure 
56
rarely attained by  any man,  is to be  found  in  his
industry and disinterestedness, and these were promi-
nent  features  in  his character.  He was  the most
laborious man  I ever knew.  He never lost a minute,
and we all know how much he  accomplished; yet he
never appeared in anything he did to be  seeking to
acquire position or  honor for himself—and I have
repeatedly remaked that,  in speaking of the results
of his labors, he was always careful to  give all the
credit to his associates and to claim nothing for him-
self." m * *  "He  was a remarkably  pure minded
man—of  true honor, above all  meanness, and of the
sternest integrity."
  It has been  my desire, gentlemen, to present you
with an impartial history of our deceased  associate,
in which his services should not on the  one hand be
undervalued, nor on the other  magnified into undue
importance.   I have sought to be brief, and yet to
omit  nothing which posterity might some time wish
to know of that man whose cotemporaries have every
where greeted him with such sentiments of applause,
and whose name will hereafter  reflect so much honor
upon our age and country.
  Upon you, gentlemen, new  duties now devolve.
The burdens of those who fall must be divided equally
among those who remain,  in  order that the great
work  of the  advancement of human knowledge may
not  be delayed.  To each must  be assigned a share— 
57
and they must see to it that the night does not over-
take them before* their allotted task is done, and they
" steal inglorious to the silent grave."
   It was not so with him  whose last rites  we have
now performed.   And as we deposit the urn in which
we have thus carefully gathered his consecrated ashes,
let us carry away with us some of those sacred fires
which gave inspiration to his genius, and which still
continue to shed a halo of light around his tomb.  For
             " Lives of great men all remind us
               We may make our lives sublime,
              And departing, leave behind us,
               Foot-prints on the sands of time."
8 
APPENDIX.
    AUTOPSY OF DR. T. ROMEYN BECK.
               [Furnished by Dr. Willard.]
  Present—Drs. Jas. McNaughton, March, Armsby,
H. Townsend, Boyd, Cogswell, Hun and Willard.
  The examination was held November 20, twenty-
nine hours after death.
  The lungs were healthy.
  The  heart was large, measuring from  the  apex,
transversely, seven inches.  There was, in patches,
on the surface of the heart,  especially near the pos-
terior surface, near the origin of the blood vessels, a
soft fibrinous deposit,  which was easily rubbed off.
The walls of the left  ventricle were from an inch to
an  inch  and  one-eighth in thickness.  The  aortic
valves  were thick and opaque.  There  was  slight
calcareous deposit on the mitral valve, with thicken-
ing and induration.
  The coronary arteries were ossified.
  The hepatic artery was thickened and indurated.
  The  liver was congested and healthy, excepting
the ramifications of the  hepatic artery; these were
indurated. 
59
  The stomach.—The mucous membrane of the stom-
ach  was of a greyish color, except at  the  posterior
part, where it was congested, and lined with a bloody
mucus.
  There was thickening and induration of the pyloric
orifice.
  The kidneys were somewhat  shrivelled on the sur-
face, but the texture was healthy.
  The most remarkable appearance was the extreme
emaciation.   In health Dr. Beck weighed two hun-
dred and ten pounds;  at the  time of  his  death he
weighed  not over one hundred pounds, and possibly
not  over ninety.  He was  fat, not muscular.  Here
then is  a loss  of  one hundred and ten pounds cer-
tainly, and possibly one hundred  and twenty pounds!
[The change in his personal appearance was so great
by  this loss that  his most intimate friends and col-
leagues could not recognise in his features any thing
to remind them of Dr. Beck.]
   The progress of  his illness was from February,
1855* The heart was  evidently  in a state of hyper-
trophy,  but the  immediate cause  of his  death was
DEFECT IN HIS POWER TO ASSIMILATE.
  * Period of illness 9} months, though confined to the house only nine weeks.
  Note.—Dr. Lewis C. Beck died in a similar manner He was a spare man, and having no
fat to consume, his illness continued only a few weeks.  Dr. T. Romeyn lived until he had
consumed over one hundred pounds.
  Dr. Parker informed me that the arteries in Dr. John B. Beck were ossified (those in  the
trunk); he compared them to macaroni.  A similar condition had, to some extent, taken place
in Dr.  T. R Beck. 
60
 The annexd is a list of offices which he filled, and socie-
           ties to which he was elected, etc.
 Alms House Physician, Albany,   ........... 1811
 Fellow of the College of Phys. and Surg., N. Y., 1811
 Medical Society, State of New-York,........ 1813
 New-York  Historical  Society, New-York, • • •  • 1813
 Member of Physico-Medical Society, New-York, 1815
 Trustee of the Albany Academy,........... 1815
 Professor of the Institutes of Med., Fairfield, • • 1815
 Hon. Mem. of Academy of Nat. Sciences, Phila., 1816
 Receiving Officer of Antiquarian Society, Mass., 1816
 Hon. Mem. Lyceum of Natural History,  N. Y., 1817
 Hon. Mem. Amer. Geolog. Soc, New-Haven,- • 1819
 Hon. Mem. Medical Society, London,........ 1824
 Hon. Mem.  Medical Society, Quebec,......... 1824
 Corresponding Member Linnean Society, Paris, 1826
 Hon. Mem. Medical Society, Connecticut, «... 1826
 Hon. Mem.  Nat. Hist. Society, Montreal,.....1827
 Senior Hon. Mem. Med. Soc. of Emulation of
     Charleston, .....  ................... 1827
 Hon. Mem. Med. Soc. of New-Hampshire, • • • • 1828
 Associate of the College of Physicians, Phila., 1829
 Hon. Mem. of the Ithaca Lyceum,..........  1830
Hon. Mem. of the West Point Lyceum,......1830
Mem. Albany County Agricultural Society,.. .  1830
Hon. Mem. Royal Medical Society, Edinburgh, 1832
Philosophical Society, Rutgers College,......1833
Prof. Materia Medica and Med. Juris., Fairfield, 1836
Hon. Mem. Meteorological Society, London,- • •  1838 
61
Hon. Mem. Amer. Philosophical Society, Phila., 1839
Hon. Mem. Medical Society, Rhode Island, • • •  1839
Hon. Mem. Nat. Institution for Promotion Sci-
    ence, Wash.,.........................  1840
Hon. Mem. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1841
Hon. Mem. Amer. Ethnological Society, N. Y., 1842
Hon. Mem. North. Acad. Arts and Sciences,
    Dartmouth,......................... 1843
Corresponding Fellow of N. Y. Acad, of Med., 1847
Degree of LL.D., Mercersburg, Pa.,......... 1849
Degree of LL.D., Rutgers Col., New-Brunswick.
President of Albany Institute.
Royal Soc. of North. Antiquarians, Copenhagen, 1843
Hon. Mem. Historical Society, Vermont,.....1850
Hon. Mem. American Statistical Soc, Boston, • 1851
Hon. Mem. State Historical Society, Wisconsin, 1854
Trustee  State Lunatic Asylum and President
     Board of  Trustees.
Pres. of  the Board of Trustees Albany Acad.,- 1852
Mem. Executive Com. of the Normal School.
Emeritus-Professor Albany Medical College,-- 1854 
62
          UNIVERSITY OF ALBANY.
Remarks of Dr. T. Romeyn Beck, on the proposed esta-
  blishment of a University, made in the Capitol before
  the Literary Convention and the Legislature, March
  30, 1854.
  I beg to say that the plan presented by our respected
president, is one which meets my hearty approbation.
It includes very many of the subjects required to be
taught in the proposed  University—all of them are
more or less imperatively called for by the wants of
the times and of the  country.   If the  objects set
forth are not immediately accomplished, as for a few
years can scarcely  be  expected,  still  the necessity
will become more and more apparent.
  I have, however, been accustomed of late, to look
at this matter in a somewhat different point of view.
The remark  has been frequently made,  and I have
not been insensible to its bearing,  that the proposed
new institution will, even if successful,  be  only
another college  added  to  the too  many  already in
operation.  We  must endeavor to avoid this.   We
must also, especially, take care that in anything now
to be done, we do not run counter  to the system of
instruction  at present existing.  I lay it down as a
settled proposition, that the present course of instruc-
tion in the various States of the Union, from common
schools up to schools of law, divinity and medicine,
is a good one.  It may  have defects  which require 
63
amendment, but not its destruction.   In all that we
do, we  should look to its stability.   We shall lose
every thing by undermining or endeavoring to sup-
plant it.  All who were at  all conversant  with  the
system  of education in our own  State, forty  years
ago, will fully appreciate the improvements that have
been  made, and  they have a right  to imagine an
onward and forward course  hereafter.  The want of
a sufficient complement of competent  teachers  in. our
common schools,  academies and colleges, although
manifest at the period referred to,  is rapidly  being
supplied.  An  University in this  country, on  the
broad, liberal and enlightened policy, that has been
foreshadowed, would be a mighty agent in meeting  '
such deficiencies.
   The  first  practical  question then, is, whether a
University in the most extended sense of the term is
needed ?  I answer emphatically that it is.  And for
this purpose, we need a co-operation of feeling  and
interest, not so much for expensive buildings  and
broad lands, as for supplying the museums, apparatus
and other appliances that may be necessary for  expla-
nation  and elucidation.  Above all and first  of all,
we want eminent professors,  accomplished in their
respective branches of knowledge, and lastly, we need
students to attend them.
   What shall be the system of instruction ?  Are the
Latin and Greek languages to be taught?  Certainly
not, in the ordinary  sense of the  term.  We have 
64
already in this State alone, some one hundred  and
sixty academies,  and some  seven or  eight colleges,
in which the study of these is pursued.  And if the
teachers be competent, we do not need an University
for that purpose.
   But it is very desirable to have a professor, or pro-
fessors, who are perfect masters of those  languages,
intimately acquainted with all the authors of each;
in one word, capable of fully illustrating  the litera-
ture of both.   Such  men  are  not easily obtained.
They in a great degree make themselves in any coun-
try.   They are known by their works.
   You cannot  expect that they will be attended  by
large classes, and this renders it the more imperative
to endow professorships for them.   Even in the most
favorable event, the number to be instructed  will be
few.  What is now the mode of preparation for such
an office?   The individual goes to Europe—-to Ger-
many.
   Even if we establish such professorships, it may
still be highly proper for their incumbents to visit
foreign countries.  But  I look forward to the time
when this may not be absolutely required. We owe
something on the score of national character, to take
part in and foster this higher  instruction—to form
men among  ourselves, who shall  be equally learned
and as fully prepared to instruct in this as the most
renowned of other countries. 
65
  Dr. Beck  here alluded to a fact mentioned by the
Rev. Dr. Robinson, in his papers on University edu-
cation in Germany.  At one of these institutions,  a
teacher in a branch of  classical literature, had but  a
single auditor, and still this person was so devoted to
his profession  and the  cause  of  learning,  that he
was as untiring in his  lectures, as those with large
classes.
  The same remarks will, in a great degree,  apply to
the study of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy.
These branches of knowledge  are  now largely  and
extensively taught.  We have most able professors
in many of our colleges—but still  it is impossible to
do full justice to them  in a sub-graduate course.
  We require persons to expound their application to
the useful arts and the  ordinary  purposes of  life.
Civil  engineering,  for example, should be taught on
an extended scale and with  larger appliances.  How
much of the comfort, safety and life of  the travelling
community is  dependent on the  proper  care  and
management of  railroads and steamboats?   How
many accidents upon both are occasioned by want of
knowledge,  and  hence imperfect  structure.   How
much mischief  results from an ignorance of, or incom-
plete   acquaintance  with first principles?  What
grievous destruction originates  from a want of study
of the metal that forms so material an instrument  in
the architecture  of both.  To  some of my hearers,
the great improvement produced by the introduction
             9 
66
of the hot blast must be  familiar.   Indeed I know
of no subject in the physical sciences that better
deserves the establishment of an independent  pro-
fessorship than that of Iron,  its chemical characters,
its manufacture and its application.
   Then as to the engineers.  They are frequently
more rapidly promoted to  that  position,  than  the
knowledge of the duties  they are  to  perform  will
warrant.  Therefore, means  should be afforded  to
them for  enlarging  and increasing  that knowledge.
I consider this subject as most worthy of reflection,
eminently deserving of careful attention and conside-
ration.  It is vitally connected with the safety of the
community, and without its proper appreciation, the
casualties and  accidents that have already occurred
will not be diminished.
   But along  with these needs and  fully and readily
conceding that many departments of useful and ele-
gant literature and moral science should find a place
in the proposed University, there still remains many
specific wants, which could readily be made subjects
of successful investigation,  if fostered  by public or
private beneficence.  For example: we need profes-
sors of  Natural History, both in its enlarged sense,
and in its   numerous and  important  subdivisions.
This is a wide subject, embracing a broad field of
investigation, and  daily  requiring  more  and  more
studious application, on account of the branches of
science that are constantly  brought to bear on its 
67
proper elucidation.  Look at the most recent one,
that is now becoming a subject of great popular inte-
rest, viz.,  Microscopy.  It is already  successfully
applied to the development of the intimate structure
of man and of the inferior animals.
  We  want  a professor of Physical Geography and
Meteorology.   This is peculiarly called for, on account
of the important bearing of the latter subject on the
safety of  Navigation.   It  has been asserted of late
years, that a ship can outride a storm.   Certainly we
know, that if the barometer  was generally  studied,
many dangers might be avoided.  What higher object
can be proposed to a man of science, than to develope
and arrange the many results that even now  could be
collected from the great mass of facts  already accu-
mulated.   We need a professor of the General Health,
or as it is also styled of Public Hygiene.   This subject
is the particular care of several of the governments
of Europe.   France, Holland, Belgium, and latterly
the English government has given considerable atten-
tion to it.  The construction of buildings in towns
and  cities—the condition  of the  sewerage—the
number of persons that should be allowed to inhabit
a tenement — the nature of the water that is used—
the adaptation of proper means for analysing it—the
allowance or  disallowance of various kinds of manu-
factories—the construction of public baths—all these
are  but items of the great subject lying so closely at 
68
the foundation and preservation of the  health and
prosperity of a community.
  Nor let those, who reside in the country  suppose
that such an appointment is not needed by them.
How  often do  epidemic or endemic diseases  occur
there, and frequently from slight and unnoticed causes,
that only require scientific investigation to avoid or
to remedy.
  We  require the appointment, under public autho-
rity, of a Professor of  Medical Jurisprudence or Foren-
sic Medicine.   It is not possible  to do full justice to
this subject in Medical Colleges—we teach  there
what is known; we want a  person or persons  who
shall  ascertain, if possible, the unknown; and  great
as have been the discoveries of late  years  in this
science, still  the cunning of the murderer has fre-
quently outrun them.   Why should not men,  duly
qualified, be appointed to such an office, who, by their
researches, would be far in advance of those who, by
secret, and in some cases almost unknown means,
prevent detection in the commission of crime.   There
is a person  now living,1* the  certainty of whose
knowledge  on the power of poisons is  such,  that he
is not only called to examine cases in every part of
France, but not long since was summoned to Belgium
in one which at the time, attracted the attention of
all Europe.  I hold that there should be two or three
      * Dr. Orfila. The next mail from abroad brought the news of his death. 
69
persons of this  character appointed and paid by the
government to perform this important duty.
  It is impossible for our public institutions to support
professorships in  these various  and  accumulating
sciences and branches of sciences.  You require the
aid of the government, or what is still better, private
individuals  must  come forward,  foster and support
them.
   Addressing myself to an audience partly composed
of members of the Legislature, I submit, with great
deference, that there are certain subjects which most
particularly claim their care and endowment.
   For example, a  Professor of  Statistics might be
 appointed with great advantage to the community.
 His duties  would be laborious,  but how much time
 and money might be saved were he to compare, ana-
 lyse and  determine, what has been accomplished as
 to prisons, hospitals, asylums, and, indeed, the whole
 range of our corrective and beneficent institutions.
 How much useful information is even now gained by
 examining the returns of the census and of annual
 bills of mortality.  I can only glance at this subject,
 nor can I do more with another, and which may be
 styled a professorship of  Comparative Law and Legis-
 lation.  Reform is on foot, even under absolute gov-
 ernments.   One  State is  borrowing from another.
 Great efforts are making to simplify and condense the
 laws under which we live. 
70
   It is not within the bounds of possibility that men
elected for one or two years to the  Legislature are
competent to grapple with  these subjects.   They
should be furnished at the public expense with all the
preliminary information that genius and industry can
devise.
   And now,  in concluding these hasty and not suffi-
ciently  digested remarks,  I  return  to  the point at
which I commenced.  I fear that the plan proposed
by our president is scarcely  attainable  until after a
series of years.   Constitutional scruples  will be inter-
posed.  Session after session in Congress,  even if the
subject  were allowed a hearing, would  be consumed
in the discussion,  nor would the  sanction of Wash-
ington, of a National University, as expressed  in his
will, be sufficiently regarded.
   It only remains to call  on State and private patron-
age.   I consider it to be conceded, from the general
interest that has now for several years been expressed
on this subject, that there is a need of such an insti-
tution, in its  broadest sense,  without encroaching on
any other existing one, but in fact, being rather acces-
sory to it.  The wants of  the masses call for it, for
it is impossible to establish such an one, without hav-
ing a number of free seats.
  There is an important  branch of learning to which
I have not as yet adverted, and that is physical astro-
nomy, and its most important bearings on commerce 
71
and navigation.  I have not spoken of it until now,
because I wish  to bring its encouragement promi-
nently forward as a model and an example for future
action.
   Through the noble-hearted generosity of a lady in
this city, ample provision has  been made for  the
erection and endowmen of an Observatory,—a most
enduring monument to the memory of her deceased
husband, who held a conspicuous position during his
life, and whose memory is  cherished by all who
 enjoyed the pleasure of his acquaintance.
   This  Dudley Observatory  is  the  commencement.
 What we now ask for, is that our wealthy men, who
 by  their commercial, financial, or professional pur-
 suits,  have  been eminently  successful—men who
 have  acquired  the title of merchant princes among
 us__men whose hands are open for every object of
 private or public beneficence, should come forward,
 and endow and thus found one or more professorships.
 Every such single  endowment  may, and doubtless
 will lead to another.  I have no doubt that the sum
 of from $10,000 to $15,000 would be amply sufficient
 for that purpose.   This  would  truly form a begin-
 ning, and I am strongly impressed with  the opinion
 that  in no other way can this University gain life
 and being.
    But if this should be the result, the understanding
 must be fully carried out, that it is not to be  an insti-
 tution for boys and girls, but  for men and women. 
72
An institution,  where a person in any profession or
position in life, who may desire to increase his store
of knowledge, in any particular branch  of it,  may
have the opportunity afforded to him.   Such will  be
found in every rank of social life.   The necessity of
increase in knowledge is recognized by every right-
minded man until the day of his death.   It is keenly
felt, even by those who look merely  to  pecuniary
advantage.
  I have thus  imperfectly endeavored  to impress  on
my hearers,  and particularly on the  citizens  of
Albany, the necessity of moving in the matter, and
of making a beginning, as alone  promising a com-
pletion.
             NON OMNIS  MORIAR.
  The various  institutions  and organizations with
which Dr. Beck had been prominently connected, on
the occasion of his decease expressed their apprecia-
tion of his virtues and talents, and the great general
loss sustained in his death, in the following proceed-
ings and resolutions:
  University of the State of New-York.—At a meet-
ing of the Regents of the University of the State of
New-York, held Nov. 29th, 1855, it was ordered that
the following record be entered on their minutes:
  "The Regents, in recording the death of their late
Secretary,  Theodric  Romeyn  Beck,  unanimously 
73
express their high appreciation of the excellences of
his character, distinguished by its modesty, simplicity
and integrity, of the extent and variety of his acquire-
ments, of his eminent,  long-continued and  efficient
labors for the promotion of education and  science, of
his faithfulness and diligence in the discharge of the
laborious  and varied  duties of his office, and of the
great value of his services in the several departments
belonging to it."
   Resolved,  That in testimony of their respect for the
deceased, the Board,  together with  its officers, will
attend his funeral on  Wednesday  next, and that on
that day the State Library be closed.
   Resolved,  That the  Regents tender to the family of
the deceased the assurance of their sincere sympathy
with them in their bereavement,  and that a copy of
this record, attested by the Chancellor, be transmitted
to them.              JOHN H. HICKCOX,
                               Secretary pro tern.
  Managers of  the  New-York State  Lunatic Asy-
lum.—At  a meeting of the managers of the State
Lunatic Asylum, held at Utica, on the twenty-first
day of November, 1855, it was
  Resolved,  That the intelligence of the death of Dr.
T. Romeyn Beck, the President  of this Board, has
been received with deep regret and sorrow; that this
Institution, from its commencement, has been greatly
indebted to him for his wise counsels,  his judicious
             10 
74
and efficient action, his integrity and independence in
pursuing the path of duty, his warm sympathy with
its officers and the afflicted subjects of its care, and
his  prompt and hearty devotion to all  its interests;
and that, in his removal, it has  suffered a loss which
is painfully felt,  and which can hardly be repaired.
And that the individual members of this  Board,
remembering his great private as well as public worth,
and having in mind the unbroken kindness and har-
mony which have prevailed in their association with
him, feel his death to be a severe personal affliction.
  Resolved, As a token of respect to his memory,
that his funeral be attended by the superintendent of
the asylum, and so many of the  managers as shall be
able to accompany him to Albany.
  Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent
to the family of Dr. Beck.
               CHARLES A. MANN, Chairman.
  E. A. Wetmore, Secretary.
  Trustees of the Albany Medical College.—At a
special meeting of the Trustees of the Albany Medi-
cal  College, held Nov. 20, 1855, on  the occasion of
the  death of Dr. Theodric Romeyn Beck,
  Resolved, That we have learned  with deep regret
the  death  of Dr. Theodric Romeyn  Beck,  who for
forty years past has been identified with almost every
leading measure, in this  State, for the promotion of
education,  and of medical and general science and 
75
letters, and who for many years was one of the most
laborious and distinguished professors in this institu-
tion.  That,  while his varied attainments and his
able and  learned  contributions to medical science,
and to almost every department of liberal knowledge,
have  reflected  honor upon  himself and  upon his
country, he has endeared himself to us by his general
and estimable qualities as a man, and by the example
of a pure life devoted with great energy and single-
ness of  purpose, to objects of lasting interest and use-
fulness  to the whole community.
   Resolved, That we tender to his family our earnest
and respectful sympathy.
   Resolved, That  as a mark of our respect we will
attend  his funeral in a body.
   Resolved, That  a copy of these resolutions be sent
 to the  family of the deceased, and be also published
 in the  several daily papers.
                A. J. PARKER, President pro tern.
    0. Meads, Secretary pro tern.

    Proceedings of  the Faculty of the Albany Medical
 College, at a meeting held Nov. 20,  1855:
    The Faculty have heard  with deep regret  of the
 death of their beloved and honored associate, Profes-
 sor T.  Romeyn Beck, and wish to express their sense
 of his  excellent qualities and  eminent services.
    By  his labors in  science he was a benefactor of
 mankind,  and an  honor to his  country; by  his 
76
teaching  and influence he elevated the character of
our profession and extended  its usefulness;  by the
purity and honesty of his life he has commanded the
respect, and by his noble and generous temper, won
the love of all who knew him.  Therefore,
  Resolved, That to mark our  respect we will attend
his funeral and wear the usual badge of mourning.
  Resolved, That  we offer to  his family our  sincere
sympathy in their affliction.
  Resolved, That  these  proceedings be entered on
our minutes, and communicated to the family of the
deceased.
             HOWARD TOWNSEND, Secretary,

  Alumni of the Albany Medical College.—At a spe-
cial meeting of the  Albany  Medical  College, con-
vened  on the occasion of the death of the late Dr.
T. Romeyn Beck, on Tuesday evening, Dr. W. H.
Craig,  president of the society, arose and remarked
as follows:
  Gentlemen of the Society,  it becomes my duty to
announce  to  you the decease of Prof.  T. Romeyn
Beck, and  the object of meeting at this time is one
of a painful nature.
  The Alumni of the Albany Medical  College owe,
in part, their celebrity and prosperity to the teach-
ings and influences of Prof. T. Romeyn Beck.  We
have indeed occasion to mourn his loss.  Identified
as he was with a  department of medical instruction 
77
requiring  ripe  scholarship, profound  and accurate
analysis, he  was pre-eminently qualified to impart
knowledge, and lead the pupil through the labyrinth
of scientific  research.   His name will ever be asso-
ciated with the science of medical jurisprudence.
   We have, in the present instance, opened up anew
a  train of  sorrowful recollections.  It is but a short
time since a vacant chair in the laboratory  told of
the loss to us of another instructor and guide.  It is
rare to meet, united by kindred, two nobler or more
illustrious  in social or professional life than the broth-
ers Beck.  In  their decease, in the meridian of their
usefulness, education  has  lost noble  advocates, and
we worthy exemplars.  I trust that the recollection
of the many virtues of the  deceased  may  be to us,
in the pursuit of a noble profession,  a  guiding and
inspiring  remembrance.   Hoping that the  society
will adopt some suitable mode of expressing their
sorrow for this bereavement, I leave the subject with
you.
   Dr. U. 0. Bigelow, president of the Albany County
 Medical Society, also paid  a feeling tribute to the
 memory of the deceased.
   Prof. Quackenbush, of the Albany  Medical Col-
 lege, made a few remarks, after which  he presented
 the following  resolutions, which were  unanimously
 adopted:
   Resolved,  That the alumni and members of the
 Albany Medical College have received with sincere 
78
 sorrow and regret the announcement of the death of
 their former teacher, Theodric Romeyn Beck.
   Resolved, That while this announcement occasions
 deep sorrow, the memory of his great  attainments,
 his extended usefulness, his world-wide reputation,
 his kind and generous qualities, and his noble virtues,
 afford consolation in the hour of  bereavement.
   Resolved, That we respectfully tender to the family
 of the  deceased, our heartfelt  sympathy  in  their
 affliction.
   Resolved, That we  will  attend, as a society,  the
 funeral of the deceased.
   Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent
 to the family.
                    WM. H. CRAIG,  President.
   Levi Moore,  Secretary.

   Medical  Society of  the county of Albany.—At a
 meeting of  this society, held in the Common Council
 chamber, on Tuesday, November 20th,  at 12 P.  M.,
 the meeting having been called by the president,  Dr.
 Bigelow, in consequence of the death of Dr. T. Ro-
 meyn Beck, who has been a member of the society
 since  1811—Dr. James McNaughton  rose and spoke
of his long  and  intimate relations with the deceased,
and that upon him now, as the oldest member pre-
sent, devolved the melancholy privilege of presenting
for the consideration of the society the following: 
79
  Whereas, It hath  pleased God to remove by death
our associate and much  esteemed friend, Theodric
Romeyn Beck;  and
  Whereas, It is meet and proper, that when men, who
have been eminently useful in their generation, are
called from their labors, their decease should be fol-
lowed by a public expression of a sense of the loss sus-
tained by the community to which they belonged; and
   Whereas, Our  lamented brother was not only dis-
tinguished for his social and private virtues, but for
great public  services, which rendered him a  bene-
factor to the  human race; therefore,
  Resolved,  That, as a mark of respect to the  mem-
ory of our deceased brother, we will attend his fune-
ral in a body, and wear the usual badge of mourning.
   Resolved,  That we deeply  sympathize with the
family of the deceased in their affliction, and offer
our sincere condolence.
   Resolved,  That a copy of  these proceedings be
transmitted to the family of the deceased.
   The  resolutions were unanimously adopted, and
the society adjourned, to meet at 3h  o'clock,  P. M.,
Wednesday,  at  the Common Council chamber, pre-
paratory to attending the funeral.
          SYLVESTER D. WILLARD, Secretary.

   Albany Institute.—At a meeting held at  the
Albany Academy, Monday evening, Nov. 19th, 1855,
the following was unanimously adopted: 
                        80
   The members of the Albany Institute,  assembled
on the occasion of the death of  Theodric Romeyn
Beck, their president, desirous of paying to his mem-
ory those  tokens of respect which are prompted by
their sincere affection for him while living, and their
sorrow at his death, and which are due to his large
attainments in letters and science; to his labors for
many years in the advancement and diffusion of sound
learning;  to his practical wisdom  in the discharge of
the many duties which have been imposed upon him;
to his kindly  temper, to his benevolent heart, to his
unstained  integrity in all the relations of a long life,
do resolve,—
   1. That they tender to the family of the deceased
their respectful sympathy in  the  affliction that has
fallen upon them.
   2. That they will, in a body, attend the funeral of
the deceased.
   3. That the record of these proceedings be entered
upon the minutes of the  Institute, and  that  a copy
thereof be delivered to the family.
   Members will assemble at the  Institute rooms at
3i P. M.
              JOHN E. GAVIT,  Recording Sec'y.

  Trustees of the Albany Academy.—At a meeting
of the Trustees of the Albany Academy, held Nov.
20, 1855: 
81
  This Board having learned with deep  sorrow the
decease of their honored friend and associate,  The-
odric Romeyn Beck, M. D., LL. D., who for more than
thirty years was the principal of the Academy, and
for the last seven years has been the president of this
Board,  deem it proper to record their sense of the
eminent services rendered  by the deceased to this
Institution and to the cause of science and education.
And especially would they bear witness to the sim-
plicity, frankness, and elevation of his character,—
to the  respect and affection with which he was ever
regarded by his pupils,—to his large and varied lite-
rary and scientific  acquirements, and to the disinte-
rested  zeal and faithfulness with which  he labored
through the whole  course of his life to advance the
interests of sound learning.
  Resolved, That as  a  manifestation of our esteem
and respect for the  deceased, we will attend his fune-
ral in a body, and wear the usual badge of mourning;
and that  the faculty, with the  former and present
students of the Academy, be requested to join us.
  Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent
to the family of the deceased, and be also published
in the several city  papers.
               R. V. DE WITT, President pro tern.
   W. A. Miller, Secretary.

   Alpha Sigma.—At a special meeting of the Alpha
Sigma, held Nov. 20th, 1855, the President having 
82
announced the death of Dr. T. Romeyn Beck, on
motion the following were appointed a committee to
draft  resolutions expressive of the feelings of  the
Society;  John E. McElroy,  W. H.  Haskell,  E. B.
Miller, E. J. Miller, and J. C. McClure; who reported
the following,  which were unanimously adopted:
   Whereas, The Alpha Sigma, composed of the former
students of the Albany Academy, have heard with
profound  sorrow of the  death of their much beloved
principal, Dr. Theodric Romeyn Beck; and
   Whereas, The members of this Society individually
can testify to his care and devoted exertions as prin-
cipal  of  that  Institution, and of his good-will  and
friendship to  each and every one in later years;
therefore, in testimony of our grief for his loss, be it
hereby
   Resolved,  That in the death of Dr. Beck, we  recog-
nize the inscrutable providence of an all-wise Jehovah,
in the removing from our midst a bright and shining
light, distinguished  alike for the brilliancy of his
genius, and the simplicity and honesty of a refined
and generous heart.
   Resolved,  That this  Society unite with the other
students of the Academy in testifying our veneration
for the memory of Dr. Beck, and that we  hold his
life to be  an exemplary  criterion for our fellow young
men here and elsewhere.
   Resolved,  That this  Society attend  the funeral of
Dr. Beck in a  body, and that  a copy of these proceed- 
83
ings be transmitted to the family of the deceased, and
published in the city papers.
                   A. McCLURE, Jr., President.
  R. V. De Witt, Jr., Secretary pro tern.

  Meeting of the Old Pupils of the Albany Acad-
emy.—Pursuant to the published  notice, a very large
attendance of the pupils of the late  Dr. Beck was
held yesterday at the Academy.
  Mr. Miller, Principal of the Academy, called the
meeting to order, and nominated  J. V. L. Pruyn, Esq.,
as  chairman, and the  nomination being confirmed,
Mr. Pruyn, on taking the chair, made a few appropri-
ate remarks in reference to Dr. Beck, and concluded
with the suggestion that an appropriate testimonial
should be erected in memory of  the deceased.
   On motion, Lewis Benedict, Jr., was nominated as
secretary.
   Mr. Meads moved that the chair appoint a commit-
tee of nine to draw up resolutions  expressive of the
feelings of the meeting.  He prefaced his motion with
an eloquent  tribute to the character of the deceased,
 briefly  reviewing his life as that of one whose exam-
 ple and whose works  rendered  his demise  a public
 loss.  He, too,  cordially seconded the suggestion of
 the chairman, that a permanent and enduring memo-
 rial should be erected.
    The  cha^r appointed the following committee on
 resolutions:  Orlando Meads, Andrew Brown, Henry 
84
L. King, Carlton Edwards, Robert H. Pruyn, Gilbert
H.Wilson, Rev. Sylvanus Reed, George W. Carpenter,
George Ten Broeck.
   The following resolutions were thereupon submit-
ted and unanimously adopted:
   Whereas, The graduates and old pupils of Albany
Academy  are desirous of expressing  in  some public
manner their affection and esteem for their former
teacher, Dr. T.  Romeyn Beck; therefore be it
   Resolved, That in his death they mourn the loss of
an instructor who devoted the  best years of a long
and useful  life to the young, and whose  unremitting
and laborious efforts in their behalf should enshrine
his memory in the  hearts of all the friends of the
noble cause of education.
   Resolved, That the Albany Academy owes much of
its reputation and success to the protracted and syste-
matic  regulation of Dr. Beck, who,  for a  period of
over thirty years, was its head and principal,  and
whose wholesome advice and judicious discipline gave
it an honored  and respected position among similar
institutions throughout the land.
   Resolved, That his old pupils desire to pay, in the
same simple and unpretending spirit which was one
of the noted traits in the remarkable  character of
their former teacher,  a tribute  to the excellence of
his life, his unselfish and self-sacrificing disposition,
to the soundness of his judgment, the sagacity of his
intellect, and to the generous and genial graces which 
85
made Dr. Beck a universal favorite among his pupils.
  Resolved, That we  mourn  in  his  loss a devoted
friend to the young and middle-aged men of Albany,
and find in his death another link broken in the chain
which  unites the past with the present, and a fresh
severing of old ties and  cherished associations  con-
nected with the earlier and happier moments of life.
  Resolved,  That we attend his funeral obsequies in
a body, and  that  the family and more immediate
friends of the deceased have  our sympathy and con-
dolence in an event  which has  bereaved them and
inflicted a loss upon our  own city and the  world at
large.
  Resolved,  That the chair appoint  a committee of
ten, who shall be charged with the duty of procuring
some suitable memorial of the deceased, to be placed
in the academy, or its grounds.
  The appointment of the committee under the last
resolution, was left with  the chair to  report, and pub-
lish hereafter.
   The meeting then adjourned.

  Executive Committee of the State Normal School.
—At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the
State Normal School, held at the office of the Super-
intendent of Public Instruction, on Tuesday afternoon,
Nov. 20th, 1855, the following preamble and resolu-
tions were offered by the Superintendent, and ordered
to be entered upon the minutes: 
86
  The Executive Committee of the New-York Nor-
mal School, in recording the decease of their Secre-
tary, T. Romeyn Beck, M. D., take occasion to declare
their deep and earnest consciousness that the spirit
of a good and useful man has withdrawn from the
earth;  that  from society has been taken one of its
brightest ornaments; that this department of science
has lost an efficient laborer and zealous teacher,  and
that the school of which this committee have charge
has been  deprived of an able and constant friend.
In consideration, and as a befitting acknowledgment
of this afflictive  dispensation, it is therefore hereby
  Resolved,  That, in testimony of veneration  and
respect for the memory of the deceased,  and with a
desire  to emulate his virtues, this committee will
attend  his funeral on Wednesday next, and order that
on that day the State Normal School shall be closed,
and its exercises suspended.
  Resolved, That we tender to his bereaved family
the assurance of  our sympathy with them in the loss
which  they have sustained, in the dissolution of rela-
tions, the duties of which were performed by the
deceased with the most  constant rectitude, affection
and fidelity; and that a copy of this record, certified
by  the Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction, be
transmitted to them as an evidence thereof.
           CHAS. L. AUSTIN, Secretary pro tern. 
87
  At a special meeting of Master's Lodge, No. 5, of
Free and Accepted Masons, held at Masonic Hall, on
the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 20th, the Worship-
ful Master having announced the decease of Brother
Theodric Romeyn Beck, on motion,  a committee of
three were appointed to draft resolutions suitable to
the occasion, who reported the following:
  Resolved, That Master's Lodge has received with
great regret the intelligence of the decease of one of
its earliest and most eminent members.
  Resolved, That while the members most sincerely
sympathise with the  family and friends, in their sad
bereavement, they are consoled by the reflection, that
the life of their cherished brother has been spent in
the exercise of all that is great and noble, and that
his whole career has been distinguished by an earnest
endeavor to render himself useful to his  fellow-men.
  Resolved, That, as  a tribute of respect to his mem-
ory, this Lodge will attend his funeral in a body, and
wear the usual badge of mourning.
  Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  these  resolutions be
communicated to the family of the deceased, and
also published.
                  JOHN JACOB WENDELL,
                  STEPHEN CLARK,
                  CHAS. D. RATHBONE,
                                     Committee.
  Cornelius Glen, Secretary. 
88
              FUNERAL OF DR. BECK.
      The funeral of Dr. Beck was very largely attended
    on Wednesday afternoon,  November 21st, from the
    house  of  his  son-in-law,  Hon. William  Parmelee.
    Rev. Dr. Campbell conducted the services, and paid
    an eloquent and appropriate  tribute  to the distin-
9   guished character and virtues of the deceased.
      The funeral cortege moved from the house at half-
    past four, in the following order:
                  Clergy of the City.
                       Bearers.
                      Mourners.
              Regents of the University.
          Officers of the State Lunatic Asylum.
      Officers and Members of the Medical  Society.
              Free and Accepted Masons.
   Trustees and Faculty of the Albany Medical. College.
      Trustees and Faculty of the Albany Academy.
          Former Students and Graduates of the
                  Albany Academy.
       Present Pupils of the Albany Academy.
                      Citizens.
           Officers of the Police Department.

     New-York State   Medical  Society, February 7,
   1856.—Dr. Fisher, of Sing Sing, presented the fol-
   lowing, which  was unanimously adopted: 
89
   Whereas, Prof. Theodric Romeyn Beck, of the city
of Albany,—who for thirty-nine years  has  been a
permanent member of this Society, and for  several
terms the distinguished president of the same, whose
"Transactions" from its origin  to the present  time
have been enriched  by his erudite communications,
its members encouraged by his noble example,—has
since  our last  meeting, after a long illness,  been
removed by death; therefore,
   Resolved, That in  the death of Dr. T. R. Beck, the
State Medical Society has lost one of its most valua-
ble members, the Faculty of  the Albany College one
of their main pillars of strength, the medical profes-
sion of the State of  New-York, of the United States,
and of the world at large, one of the most devoted,
indefatigable,  and earnest  promoters of medical sci-
ence.
   Resolved, That the deaf, the dumb, the insane, have
lost their most faithful friend; the cause of education,
and the public  generally, one of its greatest benefac-
tors.
   Resolved, That  we feel  deeply  this dispensation
of  Divine Providence, and  sympathise profoundly
with  his  family and friends in this their greatest
affliction.
   Resolved,  That a copy of these resolutions be trans-
mitted to the family of the deceased.
   The Society  adjourned to meet at 7 o'clock, to hear
Dr. Hamilton's address.
             12 
90
  The Society met at 7h o'clock, and proceeded to
the Capitol, where the President of the Society, Dr.
Frank H. Hamilton, delivered the annual address, the
subject of which was, "Life and Character of Theodric
Romeyn Beck, M.D., LL.D."
  Dr. Goodrich presented the following, which was
adopted:
  Resolved, That the thanks of the Society are emi-
nently due, and are hereby tendered, to the President,
Dr. Hamilton, for his interesting and  truthful deline-
ation of the life and character of the late Dr.  Beck,
and that he  be requested to furnish a copy to the
committee of publication for the Transactions of the
Society.
  The address occupied over an hour, and was lis-
tened to with great interest by a large audience. 
I 
 
JUL 19 1946 

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