Edgar Wales Bass

     - born 30 October 1843
     - 15 June 1868: graduated USMA and appointed Brevet Second Lieutenant in Corps of Engineers
     - Aug 1869-Feb 1874: Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, USMA
     - Mar 1874-Sep 1875: Assistant Astronomer of US Expedition to New Zealand to observe transit of Venus
     - Sep 1876-May 1878: Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, USMA
     - May 1878-Oct 1898: Professor of Mathematics, Head of Mathematics Department, USMA
     - died 6 November 1918, age 75
 

     Edgar Wales Bass was born at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin on 30 October 1843.  At the age of four his family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota where Bass attended public schools.  On 13 August 1862, he entered the military service as a Private in Company K, Eighth Minnesota regiment, U.S. Volunteers.  In December of the same year he was appointed Quartermaster Sergeant.  His enlistment coincided with the "Sioux Indian outbreak".  He served against the Sioux Indians and was discharged 30 June 1864 to begin his appointment as a cadet at USMA.  He graduated USMA 4th in a class of 54 on 15 June 1868.  Upon graduation, he was commissioned a Brevet Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers.

     Lieutenant Bass was initially assigned to the Engineer Battalion at Willet's Point, New York.  He served there until August 1869 when he was selected to fill the position of Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at USMA.  His selection and return to USMA came at an unusually early age.  He remained at USMA until March 1874 when he participated in the celebrated expedition of the United States to New Zealand to observe the transit of Venus.  Upon his return in September 1875, Captain Bass commanded the Engineer Company and then was the Battalion Adjutant at Willet's Point, New York.  In September 1876, he returned to USMA as Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy.  On 2 May 1878 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics, Head of the Mathematics Department.

     Professor Bass succeeded as Head of the Mathematics Department an honored incumbent, Professor Albert E. Church.  Professor Church's tenure as department head was for forty-one years.  During this long period, Professor Church rewrote the majority of the textbooks used in the mathematics courses of instruction at USMA.  These textbooks were then used by many other institutions in America.  However, Professor Bass was not satisfied with the clearness of language and simplicity of certain fundamental definitions and concepts from Church's textbooks.

     Professor Bass joined the best American mathematicians of their day in superseding these "old definitions" in both American and European works. Furthermore, Professor Bass disagreed with the method of instruction for differential calculus.  Professor Bass was of the belief that it should be presented as the "science of rates."  This was the same concept used by some of the first teachers of calculus.  One of Professor Bass' significant contributions to the field of mathematics was the textbooks that he wrote.  Since 1843, USMA had been using Albert Church's text on calculus.  Professor Bass spent many years writing a calculus textbook.  As portions of it were finished, he had them published as pamphlets and issued to the cadets to supplement Church's book.  In 1896, Bass'  Elements of Differential Calculus replaced Church's text, a book that had been used for over fifty years at USMA.

     Captain (retired) Metcalfe, a former classmate of Professor Bass' depicts Professor Bass as an "exceedingly accurate mathematician, a devout West Pointer" who was instrumental in developing the efficient method of teaching mathematics at West Point.  Professor Bass was also characterized as being "alert, decided, punctilious, his standards of performance and deportment were high and he had no toleration of slacking in either.  Though a strict, severe, disciplinarian, no man was ever really more helpful to his pupils, no one fairer or more just.  He was determined, and in that determination he was eminently successful that every West Pointer should know mathematics of the soldiers profession."  As a former student stated, "...the hardest task of the cadet was to win a victory over 'math' with Colonel Bass intrenched in the classroom."

     In October 1898, due to the severe worsening of his eyesight, Professor Bass retired as the Head of the Mathematics Department and from the Army.  He resided for the next twenty years at Bar Harbor, Maine and in New York City.  On 6 November 1918, Edgar Wales Bass, age 75, died from the illness of pneumonia.
 

Publications:

"Introduction to Differential Calculus" 1887

 Elements of Trigonometry (Ludlow) 1888

 Elements of Differential Calculus 1896
 

References:

Annual Reunion of the Association of Graduates,  10 June 1919, page 144.

Cullum's Register, Volume III, page 108.

Memorial, Commandery of the State of Minnesota, 10 December 1918.

New York Times, 7 November 1918, page 15, column 4.

Who's Who in America, Volume I.
 
 


 

The following notes are from the Cullum file of Bass, 2222.

There are two folders. One contains two photographs. The first was when he was "Acting Asst Prof of N & E Philos USMA". There is a note that it is in 1878-4. The photo is by Warren, Boston and Cambridgeport, Mass. Mustachs hangs down. He is already quite bald, but his hair is still dark. The second is by Pach Bro's, 841 B'way, NY. White hair, mustasch turned up on the ends. Both are in uniform. There is another copy of this one in the other folder. But "Prof. Bass" and "Mathematics" has been written on the front.

1918 November 25. Excerpt from the proceedings of the Academic Board about his death. Nothing here I did not know.

1918 November 8. Special orders 229 dealing with the funeral of Bass. It will be November 9, a Saturday. His body will arrive on the 1 PM West Shore train. I copied this.

1918 May 22. His record was mailed to 77 Park Ave, NY, NY.

1918 May 24. Bass, at the above address, to Cullum. "My health is so poor that I am unable to do much of anything except to take care of myself. I have no photo of a more recent date than about 1890. He regrets that he will be unable to attend the 50th anniversary of his graduation.

 

I looked through all of this and made some photocopies. This is a rather thin file for someone who was here for 20 years as Professor.