IN MEMORIAM.
HENRY SCHEIB.
lier. Henry Scheib was born July 8th, 1808, at Bacherach, a little town on the border of the Rhine. His father was a wine-grower.
He received elementary instruction at the Latin school of his native town and then entered the Kreuznach College, where he layed the foundation for his broad knowledge of classical literature. The recently founded University of Bonn offered to the young student all the advantages so richly connected with these centres of German intellectual life, while at the Utrecht University the peculiar Dutch civilization gained his heart. He did, however, not return to the “Fatherland,”—if we are allowed to give this name to Germany of those days,—having already felt the heavy hand of the “ Reaktion,” but looked towards the United States, - whence such a hearty welcome was extended to all those labouring in a hopeless struggle. In 1835 he landed at Hew York. Soon he was called to Baltimore, where the pulpit of Zion church was vacant. The young preacher, inspired by the liberal ideas both in «theology and politics, was at his first sermon the chosen leader of the liberal party of said church, and by his strong will and eminent qualities he succeeded in stamping his mind on the congregation.
Talent, however, as well as inclinations, led him more to emphasize the necessity of a modern school founded upon and directed after the German methods of education, chiefly taking natural history as the basis of instruction. He shared the youthful expectations of the new science which claimed to solve the enigma of existence. Exact science rather than theology seemed to him to he the source of truth. On the other side he studied universal history with the means of his time, and strongly advocated the right of the Reformation.
Zion School, therefore, could be considered as the first higher school of the city, if not of the country. It raised the intellectual standard not only of the German population, but also of the community. It was the pioneer school of Baltimore.