In memoriam : James Constantine Pilling, 1846-1895

LIBRARY

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

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JAMES CONSTANTINE PILLING.

1846--1895.

MR. JAMES CONSTANTINE PILLING, whose death
occurred on July 26, 1895, was born in Washington,
D. C., November 16, 1846. He was educated in the
public schools and at Gonzaga College, and displayed
in early boyhood that power of concentration and
precision of intellectual effort which in later years
distinguished his scientific work. He was employed,
after his graduation, in Morrison's book store, and at
the same time perfected himself in the then novel art
of stenography. His ability in this direction soon
became marked, and he quickly came to be regarded
as one of the most expert shorthand writers in the
country.

At the age of twenty he was employed as stenog-
rapher in court work, in committee work in Congress,
and in various commissions established by Congress
for the settlement of claims resulting from the civil
war. In 1875 he joined the survey of the Rocky
Mountain region, under Major J. W. Powell, which

organization gave a large share of attention to
the Indian tribes, and from that time until 1880 he
was almost continuously in the West among the native
tribes, engaged in tabulating vocabularies of their
languages and collecting tales of their weird myth-
ology. The successful investigator in this line must
spend many sleepless and weary nights, often go
hungry and wet, and experience hardships in which
only the enthusiasm born of a genuine love of science
can sustain him, and during these years Mr. Pilling
overtaxed his strength.

When, in 1881, Major Powell succeeded Mr. Clarence
King in the directorship of the present United States
Geological Survey, Mr. Pilling was made chief clerk
of that bureau. He did not, however, abandon his
ethnologic researches, but, as a member of the Bureau
of Ethnology, also, he continued until his death to
give to ethnologic and linguistic work all the time
and strength he could command, and this sufficed
to enable him to catalogue and index the literature
relating to the languages of nearly all the Indian
tribes of North America.

In 1885 there was issued by the Bureau of Eth-
nology a small edition of a volume of nearly 1,200
pages entitled " Proof-sheets of a Bibliography of the
Languages of the North American Indians, by James
Constantine Pilling." The compilation of this material
had been begun some years previous as a card-cata-

logue for the use of members of the Bureau of
Ethnology, and as a basis for a projected work by
the Director, Major J. W. Powell, on the classification
of the North American tribes by language. From
year to year the work grew, and as material accumu-
lated on his hands Mr. Pilling was encouraged to
believe that a monograph of the subject might be
compiled ; the " Proof-sheets " was the result. This
was considered by Mr. Pilling a preliminary, tenta-
tive, and incomplete catalogue, embodying information
which he had gathered from printed and manuscript
authorities, by personal visits to public and private
libraries throughout the United States and Canada,
and by an extensive correspondence. To this task
Mr. Pilling had given the patient labor of years, and
developed a genius for the work which later placed
him in the foremost rank of bibliographers. His
system of card-cataloguing and cross-referencing is a
model for all workers in the same field.

After the issuance of the " Proof-sheets " Mr. Pilling
had an opportunity to visit many of the national
and private libraries of Europe, and in view of the
large amount of new material thus collected, he was
led to believe that a separate catalogue of the works
relating to each of the more important linguistic
stocks of North America might be prepared. In 1887
he began such a series of bibliographies, which occu-
pied his attention to the time of his death. The

Eskimo was the initial volume ; then followed, in
order, the Siouaii, Iroquoian, Muskhogean, Algonquian,
Athapascan, Chinookan, Salishan, and Wakashan. Mr.
Filling's last energies were devoted to the preparation
of a bibliography of the ancient Mexican languages ;
this he succeeded in practically completing, and it will
be published as soon as indexed. Probably the most
noted of these books is the Algonquian, which is
regarded as one of the most important ethnological
works in existence, and the portion of it published
separately and devoted to Eliot's Indian Bible has
attracted more attention than any other publication
of the Bureau of Ethnology.

It is impossible to contemplate these great results
of painstaking and technical effort — results not only
of philologic and ethnologic, but of sociologic and
literary interest — without admiration for the man
who, in addition to exacting clerical labor, and in
the face of hopeless and progressive disease, still
struggled bravely on, building a monument to his
name which shall endure so long as kindred minds
shall seek for truth and the human heart bow before
an honest life usefully spent.

The funeral services were held at 1343 Fifteenth
Street, N. W., the late residence of Mr. Pilling, at
eleven o'clock on the morning of Monday, July 29,
1895, Rev. Howard Wilbur Ennis officiating. At the
conclusion of the services, which were in accordance

with the usual form employed by the Presbyterian
Church, Mr. Marcus Baker, for twenty years a close
friend of the deceased, made the following remarks:

" It is fitting that the kindly sentiments we all
share towards him whose face now turns from us and
whose voice is still, should be spoken at this time,
when we are met to take final leave of our comrade,
associate, and friend ; but it is with misgiving that I
have yielded to a request to be the speaker. If
friendship for him or admiration of his nobility of
character were the only requisites for the well doing
of this labor of love, then indeed would it be well
done. But such is not the case. May I not, then,
have your sympathetic indulgence for a few moments
while, as best I may, I attempt to voice our feelings
as we gather around our friend, whose sufferings we
rejoice to know are ended at last.

" Many and varied are the emotions of those
assembled to pay the last tender tribute of respect to a
departed friend. Around the bier gather the play-
mates of childhood, the companions of youth, the
associates of mature years, and with them come those
nearer by ties of blood, each stirred by his own
peculiar emotions: the aged father, grief-stricken at
the untimely cutting off of a favorite son ; the fond
brother and sister, proud of the achievements of a
noble brother ; and the devoted wife, who, after years
of patient watching and care, bears her grief alone, —
for who shall share her grief who for years has
seen the dearest of all on earth to her under sentence

e

of death, walking steadily down, down into the valley
of the shadow, where she must say good-bye and re-
turn alone. To her flows out the full measure of
sympathy from us all, and yet how slight it all must
needs be in contrast with her lonely sorrow.

" To few of us is it given to know intimately the
whole life of any of our fellows. Some of us see its
morning, some its evening — some more and some less —
and our feelings are a reflection, as it were, of that
which we have seen ; hence the difficulty in forming
a just estimate of the whole life of any comrade. My
acquaintanceship with and affection for our friend be-
gan together some twenty years ago, and thus I knew
the late middle and afternoon of his shortened life.
Few of all my friendships have been more pleasant
or more useful. To know him was to love him, and
companionship with him was an inspiration. His
ideals were lofty and ennobling. Meanness and petti-
ness he hated with a consuming hatred. Coarseness
was intolerable to him. ' The ladies are always pre-
sent ' was a maxim and rule of his life and conversa-
tion. His affections were strong and his hatreds
strong, but he hated only the hateful. Placed
for years in positions of trust and responsibility,
he had to do with many men. His sense of justice
kept him ever watchful over the interests of the lowly
faithful one, but the sluggard or the petty deceiver he
despised with an indescribable intensity. His char-
acter was intense ; there was nothing lukewarm or
half-way about it ; it was positive. His training as
an executive led him to prompt conclusions, and his
keen sense of justice led him, as by intuition, to decide

justly. To foreknow his decision on any question it
was only needful to know the justice of the case.

" Thoroughness was a strong trait in his character.
Whatever he did, he did with all his might. When
as a boy he began the study of stenography, he
promptly mastered the art and became prominent
among the foremost experts ; and when, later, he be-
gan the preparation of a catalogue of the literature
relating to the languages of the North American
Indians, under his enthusiastic zeal this work grew
rapidly from a catalogue to a bibliography, and
among bibliographies it promptly rose to foremost
rank, where it now stands without a rival. Through
this great work will the name of James Constantine
Pilling be perpetuated and held in grateful remem-
brance by many who know not the author but only
his name and work — a work constituting a monument
more enduring than granite. To these this bibliog-
raphy must seem — nay, it does seem — to be the
sole work of a long and laborious life. And yet it is
not so. It is less than twenty years since he entered
upon its preparation, which was taken up in addition
to his exacting duties as chief clerk of the Powell
Survey. So skilled was he in the art of utilizing
scraps of time that it was begun and carried on for
about fifteen years as an addition to those duties
which ordinarily consume one's whole time and energy.
During the latter part of this period he was in im-
paired health also, fighting an unknown disease.
When some five years ago the real nature of his
dread malady was discovered and its progress com-
pelled the relinquishment of his executive duties, with

8

characteristic resolution and courage he with one hand
fought off the arch enemy and with the other pushed
on with his work. But the fight was a hopeless one,
and he knew it. Great, therefore, is our admiration
of the courage which he could command and the
results he could achieve when so disabled. Thus, in
mid-life, broken in health but unbroken in courage,
his great work has ended. Our admiration for his
achievement is increased by considering the circum-
stances under which it was accomplished.

" And now, from the house of mourning let us re-
turn to our vocations, carrying fresh inspiration for
our work — inspiration gathered from the contempla-
tion of a noble and well-spent life ; with grief at our
loss, but with joy that our friend is free from pain at
last, and with heartfelt sympathy for the bereaved
ones. Their grief will finally pass away, but their
pleasure in the contemplation of so noble a life will
grow with the passing years."

Prompted by these remarks, Mr. Ennis spoke as
follows :

" To have known the friend who has gone from
us was not my privilege, — and I use the word in its
fullness, but I count it an honor to place the period
mark to the sentence his life has spoken.

" When we look about us and mark the life mem-
ories that are most revered and treasured, they are
not of those who, having fought honorably and bravely,
have returned from the battlefield, perhaps but rem-

nants of their former selves. Not even such worthy
heroes receive the richest wreath of laurel. It is the
name of the man who was granted the boon of laying
his life, not falteringly, but freely, a sacrifice upon the
altar of duty which the recording Angel of Fame
writes high above his fellows in fadeless characters of
matchless glory. And the hardest contested battle-
fields are riot marked by shock of armor, in the
presence and with the encouragement of hosts, when
chivalry and sentiment and fervor lend their succor-
ing strengths ; but when the warrior stands alone,
fighting forces unseen, and accordingly vastly more
subtle than armed men, denied alike the eclat of
numbers and the enthusiasm of battle, fearful of be-
trayal by the weakening of his natural and best ally,
the human body, buoyed up but by a consciousness
of duty performed — it is then we behold the hero.

" The true badge of a manly man is his energetic
desire to labor as best he has faculty and opportunity,
seeking honestly to add to the general good of his
kind and never questioning whose shall be the gain.
Only such as he deserve place in the society and es-
teem of his fellows.

" If, as I believe, the good Creator was wise enough
to set, and to hold in their respective orbits, the
great hurtling spheres of the marvelous systems of the
universe, surely when He fashioned the epitome of
creation in the creature we call man, He was wise
enough to appoint unto the veriest of humans a spe-
cific place and work in His surpassing plan. This
special work for the performance of which he has been
called into being is the profession — aye, better, the

10

vocation — of each of us; having found which, we may
prove the temper of our manhood.

"The life that has just gone out I helieve to have
been such as I have described. Quick to discern his
natural bent, he was no less ready to follow in that
chosen path as rapidly and as long as life permitted.
Delving deep in the mines of natural wisdom, he was
tireless in effort to unearth treasures of truth. Dangers
that would have halted brave men, he would not
recognize. Bodily suffering that would fairly have
incapacitated strong men, to him served but as warn-
ing that he must hasten in his life work ; he needed
no stronger incentive 'to do — and die.' Utterly un-
selfish, he found his greatest joy in doing for others.
He had sunk his own identity in an overpowering
zeal to be of service to the race. Science has indeed
lost a faithful, fearless, and tireless servant.

" I am conscious that many of my hearers would
disagree in part, perhaps in toto, with me in my
beliefs. At this moment I am reminded of a beauti-
ful mural painting I saw sometime since in a northern
city. It was an allegory of wondrous depth of
meaning, where each stroke of the artist's brush had
been, as it were,- the moving of the pen of mystery,
writing a message to men in characters of parable.
In the center of the picture stood an angel of surpassing
beauty and loftiness of expression, holding an open
book, while the eyes were lifted above, as if seeking
from the Source of all wisdom a key to the under-
standing of some unillumined passage. The face,
though, was lit up with a look of faith, a look 'made
all of sweet accord/ fully confident of receiving an

11

answer to the prayer rising from the expectant eyes.
This was the Angel of Light, Love, and Life; to and
around whom in loving submission knelt figures,
symbolic of lofty thought and aspiration, waiting for
her as oracle to reveal the deep truths as yet thick
veiled. At her feet grew the chaste lilies of the
Resurrection. On either side stood two figures, those
of an old and a young man. The twain on the one
side — the aged, patient patriarch, Research, and the
quick, strong youth, Intuition — stood for Science.
The two on the other side — the hoary-headed saint,
Reverence, and the sturdy, cheerful young man,
Inspiration — represented Religion. Hovering near
Science were the spirits of Devotion, of Labor, and of
Truth ; while the guardian angels of Religion were
Purity, Faith, and Hope. The artist had caught and
portrayed God's plan for the growth and development
of His children, along lines, mental and moral. Religion
and Science, aided by the highest faculties of honest
research, should work patiently together to discover
the combination ' sesame ' that shall throw open the
portals of the Temple of Knowledge, high, noble,
and pure.

"Science and Religion have too long gone divorced.
God meant it not so. May we in the eventide of
the nineteenth century behold them each under-
standing the other better than in the past, recog-
nizing that they should be as a complement one to
the other, closely wedded and interdependent; Science,
the guide of the twentieth century, leading men to
the threshold of Bethlehem's inn ; and in return,
Religion with all confidence relying upon and glory-

12

ing in the achievements of the scientific world ; and
they together joining in the doxology of the ages.

" May we who stand in the solemnity of this hour
go again to our tasks conscious that because of the
faithful example of the friend taken from us we will
strive to be better men, better women, finding our
chiefest joy in the welfare of our fellows, having
learned what the poetess meant when she sang :

" ' The man most man, with tenderest human hands,
Works best for men, as God in Nazareth.'"

After the public announcement of the death a
number of letters were received from sympathizing
friends. Among them was one from his life-long
associate, Major J. W. Powell. Because of this rela-
tionship and the sentiments expressed in the letter,
it has been selected for reproduction here as a
part of this Memorial.

"GLOUCESTER, MASS., August 12, 1895.
" MY DEAR MRS. PILLING :

"The death of your husband and my life-long friend was not
unexpected, and it came as a relief from pain that had for years made
life a burden. How great this burden of pain was is known only
to yourself, and perhaps to myself; to all others I believe it was
concealed by such a manifestation of courage and good-will as I
have never witnessed in any other person.

"Through many of the years of active life James and I were
associated, in the office and in the field. Field work led us into
the wilderness of mountain and canyon, of forest and desert, away
from the comforts and conveniences of civilization, where life itself
was preserved by a constant struggle. In all this experience my
boon companion never failed nor faltered, always doing more than

13

his share in the struggle for existence and in the effort necessary
to fill life with joy. He never rested from his labor when labor
could be of avail ; he never lost courage, and courage was always
in demand. He never forgot the sweet amenities of life, not even
when labor and danger would seem to call for all his attention and
all his energies.

" In all my life I have never known a man more steadfast to
his moral and intellectual convictions, which were held with that
charity for others which is possible only to those who have strong
and well-founded convictions of their own. The field of research
in which he was engaged was in part common ground with my
own, and we were thus brought close together ; and he shared with
me responsibilities in financial affairs and in business operations. I
thus knew him well, and I know that in everything he played a
most honorable and efficient part.

"His contributions to bibliography constitute a monument to
wisely directed labor, and, by reason of his great scholarship, will
remain a guide to men of learning.

"Please accept this tribute from me to the great-souled man
who has left us and whose loss is your loss more than that of any
other person. I know well the extent of his dependence upon
yourself, and of the wise care you gave to his declining years of
pain and anguish. It would perhaps be presumption on my part
to express my gratitude to you for the care and loving regard which
you have extended to my friend, but be assured, my dear Mrs.
Pilling, that it is profoundly appreciated.

"I am, yours cordially,

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