Death of David BARCROFT.
David BARCROFT died at Hornitos on Thursday, August 2, 1894, at 3
a.m. At the time of his death he was 34 years, 2 months and 5 days old.
David BARCROFT was a man of high attainments. He was graduated from the
university of California in 1882, receiving, with Miss HITTELL and J. J.
DWYER, the highest honors the university could bestow. He was immediately
offered a position as instructor in the mathematical department at Berkeley,
which he accepted and held for two years. During this time some of his
mathematical work attracted the attention in the east, and he was awarded
a scholarship in the John-Hopkins University at Baltimore. The next year
he won in competition a fellowship in the same institution. His record
in that college was brilliant and he was graduated in 1887, receiving the
degree of Ph.D. His thesis, embodying the result of original mathematical
research, was ordered printed and was distributed among the leading mathematicians,
an honor which few students attain.
After leaving Baltimore, by solicitation of Prof. NEWCOMB, he accepted a position
on the Nautical Almanac at Washington. He was promoted after a short service,
but sickness compelled him to relinquish his post and he returned to California.
For a time he seemed to improve, and in 1889 he undertook to teach in the
Oakland high school. But again sickness forced him to leave his work. He
returned to Hornitos and shortly after was stricken with an attack of pneumonia,
which complicated his disease so that recovery never after seemed possible.
Since that time he had been calmly waiting for death.
He was an ideal scholar. With a mind keen, penetrating and logical were
united an untiring energy and marvelous capacity for work. These stimulated
by an ernest spirit of inquiry and an ambition to stand only among the
highest in his profession, placed him at the age of 27 in the front rank
of scientific men. Only original investigation yet awaited him. The bounds
of modern mathematics had been reached and to enrich science with the fruits
of his own inquiry was to be the exalted field of his further labors. Fair
and inviting indeed was the prospect held out by th efuture. What grand
hights might be attained. How rich the trophies he might win. Hard indeed
it must have been to give this all up. Yet with a strong Christian faith
he bowed without a murmur to the inscrutable wisdon of his creator.
There remains yet to be told those traits which rounded out his character
and raised him to a full stature of true manhood. His was a heartful of
piety and love for his fellow men. During the time of his hardest study,
a member of the society of Saint Vincent De Paul, he found time to engage
continually in charitable work among the poor and sick. In the wretchedest
hovels and in the prisons of Baltimore he found a place to labor and at
no time did he shrink from his duty. He is gone. Sad is the parting and
somber the gloom about us. Yet through the shadow of our grief there shines
a ray of brightest hope. He went
"Like one, who, sustained by an unfaltering
trust.
Wraps the drapery of his couch about him and
lies him down to pleasant dreams."
Requiescat in pace.
W.
