Henry E. Crampton

Henry E. Crampton graduated from Columbia in 1893 and took a Ph.D. there in 1899. He was zoölogist, and from the time of his graduation he taught at Columbia and Barnard. In those days biology was supposed to have something to do with medicine, and the department was lodged in a room in the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Harry was brought up on the works of Darwin, and Spencer, and Huxley, and he became marvellously interested in evolution. He discovered an island in the South Pacific, evidently the peak of some sunken mountain, where deep ravines ran from the top down to the shore. In each of these gorges lived an isolated colony of snails. All these snails belonged to the genus Partula. These Partulae never cross sand, nor go into deep water, and the young are hatched as tiny adults, so there is no chance that the members of a given colony could be spread around as free-swimming larvae. Thus, each separate colony is an isolated group with its own particular species and subspecies.

When Harry saw all this he realized he had here a laboratory that had been operating for a million years under the laws of evolution: with changes coming from mutations, and new combinations of genes, and the sifting action of natural selection. He collected snails, brought them home, examined them with microscopes, and got to know them very well. Then he wrote a book about evolution and the science of genetics: a first-class contribution to the modern knowledge of these mysteries.

The same year he published the book, 1911, he was elected to the Century. He was a perfect member. Among other things, he was one of the organizers of the Stimulation Committee, and he attended most of the meetings of that committee from 1924 till the time of his death. The Committee has done an important job in finding men who ought to be members of the Club, and getting them proposed by suitable people; and Harry was very proud of his part in all this, and justly so. In 1946 he was made an Honorary Member of the Century—and everyone rejoiced.

He used to play cowboy pool; but his back became impaired, so he could not bend over, and he made all the shots with a bridge. His admirers thereupon presented him with a special bridge at an hilarious ceremony in the Billiard Room where Harry played cowboy till after midnight.

Last year, on his eightieth birthday, about fifty of his friends gave him a dinner. Harry announced beforehand that he never made speeches, and certainly wouldn’t at the dinner; but several good friends did, and the old man was so moved that he got up and took the ever present pipe out of his mouth, and, for once, he did make a little speech.

Harry did so much for the Club over so long a period that one almost forgets that he was one of the leading zoölogists of his time. He brought lustre to the Columbia faculty, and he was invaluable to the Museum of Natural History. He was extremely able, a scrupulous investigator; once launched on a problem he never let it go. He labored in a controversial field of science, and was a target for Lamarckians, theologians, and Russian Communists; but always on these fires intense he played the hose of common sense.

George W. Martin
1957 Century Association Yearbook