The appearance of Professor Benjamin Peirce, whose long gray hair, straggling grizzled beard and unusually bright eyes sparkling under a soft felt hat, as he walked briskly but rather ungracefully across the college yard, fitted...

[Benjamin Peirce’s] lectures were not easy to follow. They were never carefully prepared. The work with which he rapidly covered the blackboard was very illegible, marred with frequent erasures, and not infrequent mistakes (he worked...

{Before the time of it never occurred to anyone that mathematical research} was one of the things for which a mathematical department existed. Today it is a commonplace in all the leading universities. Peirce stood...