Of the father little is known. He does not seem to have attained any eminence at the bar, and it is certain that he left his family straitened in circumstances.  But he is said to have possessed a treasure above fame and to have a nobler patrimony than wealth - a name for "integrity and strict adherence to principle."  He was a man of marked eccentricities, and in his home was sometimes severe in manner; but his disposition was one of strong and earnest affection.

The mother was regarded by her children with love and admiration.  They have spoken of her as gifted with a superior mind and refined tastes. She had literary tendencies and composed in both prose and poetry, partly in obedience to her own impulse, and partly for the entertainment of her friends. It was perhaps from her that her son received both by nature and training his love and ambition for literary pursuits. 

The children of James W. Welsh and his wife were Arilla Sophia, born in 1847; Alfred Hicks, born in 1849; Ada Augusta, born in 1852; and Ammy Wilson, born in 1860.  After her second marriage Mrs. Welsh had one son, Selah Wallace Bush, born July 26, 1864.

At the time of his father's death, Alfred was eleven years old.  Until that event he had attended the common school, but some time after, the family needing his assistance, he obtained a situation in Mr. - afterwards Gov. - Foster's store.  "At this time," says Gov. Foster, "he seemed like a nice, well-behaved boy, desiring to better his condition, and to make a man of himself."  On his mother's second marriage, he went with here to Cherry Valley, and was employed in a dry goods store for about a year, when his mother, thinking it best to place him in different associations, sent him to Mr. Joel Wininger, his former teacher, and an intimate friend of his father. Mr. Wininger lived on a farm near McCutchinville, Wyandotte County, Ohio, and here Alfred made his home, working on the farm, and during the winters, attending school, until he was eighteen years old.  He did his part of the farm labor faithfully, but spent all his leisure in reading and study.  For this reason he was thought by the other boys of the neighborhood to be proud; and, although the reason of his seclusion was not what they supposed, it is known that he cherished a dream of future triumphs.  The first step towards its fulfillment was to obtain a college education.  His friend, Mr. Wininger, sympathized with his ambition, and being acquainted with the President of Baldwin University, at Berea, Ohio, took him there and during the first two years paid his expenses.  This was in 1867.  He entered the preparatory school, but was admitted to freshman rank the next year.  His friend feeling unable to afford him further assistance, he contemplated withdrawing from the college in order to earn money for the completion of his course.  But at this juncture Gov. Foster came to his aid and generously met his expenses.  He graduated in 1872 as the valedictorian of his class.  He had not sought or expected the honor, and was surprised when informed of it.

He was at once elected to the chair of mathematics in Buchtel College, which opened in Akron, Ohio, in the autumn of that year.  Two years later he was transferred to the chair of natural science, which he held for one year.  He then retired from the institution, and spent the following year in travel and recreation.  In 1876 he became the teacher of mathematics in the High School of Columbus.  This work was afterwards exchanged for that in English.

His connection with the High School having closed in 1880, he devoted himself to the completion of his work on the "Development of English Literature and Language." The prologue is dated "July 4, 1882," and it appeared in two volumes September 30, of that year.  The book more than any other of his works made his reputation.  It was widely noticed and discussed in this country, and attracted attention abroad. Its title to originality was sometimes disputed, under which attacks, however, Prof. Welsh was supported by several of the best critics of the country - among them Whipple and Steadman.  The merits of the work were generally acknowledged, and it may be fairly said to have survived the period of criticism.  I have seen no adverse criticism of any of his later books, and I am informed that they have met with nothing but praise.

His "Essentials of Geometry" was published August 18, 1883.  It was followed by his "Essentials of English." August 2, 1884, by his "Complete Rhetoric," August 29, 1885, and by "Man and His Relations" about the same time.

In the fall of 1885 he began his connection with the Ohio State University as assistant in the department of History and English.  All the work in English was assigned to him.  At the end of two years the department was divided and he was made head of the new department of English with the title of associate professor.

During his first year at the University he published nothing; but in January, 1887, his lessons in English Grammar appeared, followed in September by his English Masterpiece Course, in August, 1888, by his First Lessons in English, in November, 1888, by his Plane and Spherical Trigonometry, and in June, 1889, by his English Composition.

Professor Welsh was married December 25, 1888, to Miss Emily L. Clark, daughter of C. T. Clark, Esq., of Columbus.

The close of the last college year found him engaged on a book to be entitled "A Digest of English and American Literature."  The work was approaching completion, and he purposed to finish it before he allowed himself any vacation.  He went with his wife to a house in the country near Huron, Erie County, and gave himself to incessant labor. He rose about four o'clock in the morning and, contrary to his custom, he often continue his work in the evening.  On Thursday, July 18, he reached the last chapter, a part of which had been previously written.  On Friday, he took his first holiday, going with a friend to fish on Lake Erie.  He ate heartily at dinner and in the afternoon bathed in the lake.  The next day he resumed his writing, and in the evening went fishing again. On Sunday he was unwell, but on Monday, in spite of the fact that he kept his bed, he did some work. 

On Tuesday he supposed himself to be better, and arranged for another fishing excursion the next day. But the next day he was worse, and that night Mrs. Welsh's mother was called by telegraph.  On Friday morning his physician having pronounced him dangerously ill with peritonitis, her father, also, was summoned.  He suffered less pain than usually attends the disease, but he was so nervous that his hands and head were in almost constant motion, and he was unable to sleep any after Tuesday morning.  The appearance of a consulting physician at noon on Friday, led him to surmise that his illness was liable to prove fatal, and when the doctors withdrew he asked his wife if they thought he would not get well.  She told him that they thought so, but she did not, as doctors often gave up too easily.  She urged him to make up his mind to get well, since the will has so much to do with the result of a disease, and his will was so strong.  But he smiled and said, "I'm going the way of all the earth, the way of Plato and Aristotle, and where all must come soon."  At this time all pain left him, and he was surprised at the efforts of his physician and nurses to restore him.  His voice grew strong and he talked to Mrs. Welsh of his death in the most natural and quiet tone.  "If the worst comes to the worst, you will look after the books, dear.  You will finish the last chapter, and will make arrangements for the writing of the preface.  I couldn't do it in this condition, anyhow.  At my funeral I want certain passages read from my 'Literature' expressive of my faith - the closing words on Addison, Hume, Gibbon, Shelley, and Keats."  His wife entreated him not to talk of giving up, but he said, "It is well to talk of these things, Emily."

Then he turned his attention to his dying, and for the remaining hours advanced with conscious steps to meet his fate.  "I did not think I should come to this end so soon, but I have done enough to warrant my going, haven't I?"  He looked at some persons standing outside of the house, as if trying his eyesight, and said, "I can't see them very distinctly."  He asked the doctor how long he would have to wait. When told that it would perhaps be three or four hours, he replied, "I don't want to wait so long."  He felt his pulse and said, "It is very weak," then his fingers, and said, "The numbness is coming on," and turning to Mrs. Clark, he added, as if confirming what the doctor had told him, "I do have very peculiar feelings."  After a short pause, he remarked to the doctor, "This is not my idea of death."  Later he said, soliloquizing, "The soul takes its flight slowly."  He continued to sink gradually and without a struggle till at seven o'clock in the evening, when he quietly ceased to breathe.

One who is familiar with the Phaedo can hardly fail to be reminded by this account of the sublime death of Socrates.  "The true philosopher," said Socrates, "has reason to be cheerful when he is about to die, and to hope that after death he shall receive the highest good in another life."  Taking the cup of poison, he drank it readily and cheerfully. To this time his friends who were present had been able to restrain themselves; but when they saw him swallow the death potion, they broke into tears.  Socrates alone remained calm.  When his legs began to grow numb, he felt them with his hands and said. "When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end."  In a short time he passed tranquilly away, like one who fully believed, as he had said, that in death the interference of the body will cease, and that we shall be pure and shall hold converse with other pure souls, and shall of ourselves behold the clear light everywhere, and this light shall be the light of truth.

"Death," wrote Professor Welsh, in one of his letters, "is but the triumph-hour of entrance through an arch of shadow into everlasting day, where we shall enter upon an endless career in which hope is changed into fruition, and aspiration into achievement."

No one could know Professor Welsh, even casually, without being aware of his great industry.  He lived for and in his work.  He adopted from Carlyle a motto to this effect: "What matter whether we be happy, if we work and our work lives after us?" and he often said that he lived to work and to die well.  In his University work he was a model of painstaking, conscientious toil.  That in addition to this he should, during the four years of his connection with the University, have sent to the press five books and have written another, leaving it all but ready for publication, is surprising; and yet it is true. He was the author of eleven books already published, and the twelfth is written.  Still another on "The Real and the Ideal" was projected, and was intended by him to be the great work of his life.

It was his habit to rise early, generally as early as five o'clock, and often at four o'clock.  The first hours of the morning and all the intervals between his hours of college work were devoted to close study.  His vacations were as diligently used as the time of University sessions.  At these times he usually sought a retired place and there gave himself without reserve to the work that he had in hand.  To the very day from which his fatal illness dates he rose early and toiled with unabated energy to bring to completion the book on which he was engaged.  He worked with singular concentration.  When he sat down to his task he at once became absorbed and expended his whole force in what he had to do.  We get a glimpse of his character as well as a proof of his industry and a view of his methods in the following extract from one of his letters: "I had set myself a task and dared not to stop.  That is a device of mine for stimulating and supplementing the forces of nature.  When I am ready to begin a chapter, I sit a few moments, not seeing my way clear perhaps, wondering how I shall get through it all, and sometimes with a little consciousness of the weight of clay, then I say to myself, 'This must be done by a certain hour.'  There is no further debate or faltering, and I usually get through ahead of time."

It would be expected of such a man that he would be of a serious and earnest spirit.  And so he was.  He was never inclined to indulge in frivolous talk, but always had at hand a subject that he considered worth his listener's attention.  His whole aspect, at least in recent years, and the whole tenor of his work, bespeak a man who was conscious of the dignity of life and the value of time.

In one of his letters he wrote, "So many influences are at work to lure us from our ideals into forgetfulness of the meaning and mission of life, that the grand problem for every soul is to keep itself in a sufficiently serious frame of mind."  And in another he said, "Only that which is done in us, in the way of refinement and expansion, is significant and worthy of our concern."

Yet he was no recluse.  His manner was cheerful and he delighted in recreation.  He loved nature as well, at least, as he loved books.  We may almost say of him what he wrote of Wordsworth:  "His love of nature was a passion - a blissful and holy one," and he could enter into the spirit of Wordsworth's own language: -
 

He planned many excursions.  In winter he was often on his skates, and in summer he loved to fish, and swim, and row.  His death was probably due to over-indulgence in this last-named pleasures immediately after the long and close confinement of the preceding year, and especially of the few preceding weeks.

In his recreation he kept in view the pleasure of others.  If he went to skate, he  invited a troop of young friends to go with him.  If he went to gather flowers, he sent supplies to his friends.  The last communication that I received from him informed me that he was about to send me a box of water lilies, of which there was a great abundance on the farm where he was summering.  The same spirit characterized him in other things.  If you had good fortune, he was prompt to  congratulate; if ill fortune had befallen you, he was equally prompt to condole.  If he saw a way to accommodate you, he hastened to lend his aid.

He was appreciative.  The acts of others, instead of being  unkindly censured, were spoken of with such praise as they deserved.  He often spoke to me of the good work of students in his classes.  The boy of bright mind, or careful industry, or emerging power, was sure to be recognized.  An essay that showed any for of special merit gave him peculiar satisfaction.  This appreciation extended to conduct and moral quality.  He admired dignity and propriety of deportment, and much more elevation and firmness of character.  It was not an uncommon thing for him to speak to me of  some exhibition of manly or womanly qualities that he had observed among the students.  Indeed, this breadth of interest in the welfare of the students was one of the most marked features of his University life.  Others have given more attention to the material development of the institution; others have studied more carefully the construction of courses of study; others have labored more assiduously in the administrative duties of the faculty; but none have surpassed him in solicitude for the interior life of the students, and for the purity and propriety of their conduct. 

Within the more limited functions of the class-room, where he performed the special duties of his position, he sought to carry out sound and pregnant educational ideas.  To some of these ideas he gave expression in the Prologue to his "Development of English Literature and Language," e.g., "Knowledge is valuable chiefly as a means of intellectual activity."  "The end of liberal education is the cultivation of the student through the awakened exercise of his faculties."  "One thing at a time is the accepted condition of all efficient activity."  "Without twisting a story into a sermon, I have humbly endeavored to present it as the artist describes nature, with a light falling on it from the region of the highest and truest."

With such thoughts as mentors and guides, it will be an occasion for wonder, if some minds have not been awakened, under his tuition, to high conceptions of the life of the mind and heart, and received an impulse toward "the highest and truest" that will now be quickened into new life by the death of its author.

Of the direction in which the currents of his own aims were set, there are many indication in his literary work.  In the Prologue, from which I have already quoted, speaking of the influence of the study of English Literature, he said, "If it warms not the feelings into noble earnestness, elevates not the mind's ideals, nor supplies healthful truths by which to live and die, it is lamentably defective."  Again: "The high and natural destination of the soul is the full development of its moral and intellectual faculties."  In speaking of Matthew Arnold he says, "His supreme virtue is his essentially religious feeling - his serious intention, and his sympathetic treatment." In another place [Development of English Literature and Language, p. 442.] he says:  "Against the prosaic, earthly temper of the next period, when Philosophy shall turn her face earthward, the mind be plotted out into real estate, and grandeur become a thing unknown, let us hold in remembrance the words of Sir Thomas Browne on the true dignity and destiny of man as the highest sublunary object of our theoretical and moral interest,  This poet philosopher shall give us the last accents of the Elizabethan age: - 

" 'For the world, I count it not an inn, but a hospital, and a place not to live, but to die in.  The world that I regard is myself; it is the microcosm of my own frame that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. * * * The earth is a point not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part within us.  That mass of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind; that surface that tells the heavens it hath an end, can not persuade me I have any.

 * * * Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm or little world, I find myself something more than the great.  There is surely a piece of divinity within us, something that was before the elements that owes no homage to the sun.  Nature tells me I am the image of God, as well as Scripture.  He that understands not this much, hath not his introduction or first lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man."

Such were the sentiments under which he was forming himself.  A man who habitually writes thus has his face toward the heavens and a "light will fall upon it from the region of the highest and the truest."  He may advance but slowly.  The light may seem to his yet unsteady vision to grow dim at times.  But gradually he will ascend, and gradually his eyes will bear the glory of the bright effulgence; and gradually the nature that is in him will be transformed under its power. 

True, he had his faults - faults visible to the eyes of angels and men.  He was in no sense a man of affairs.  The practical side of his life was foreign to him, and his judgments concerning it were sometimes singularly unbusinesslike, not to say unsophisticated.  And "Brutus says he was ambitious." This, I believe, is true.  He coveted literary fame and he believed himself to be on the high road toward it.

But the balance is strong on virtue's side.  His merits outnumber and outshine his defects.  And, as years advanced, his ambition grew broader.  It became an ambition less for fame and more for an honorable performance of the work that he believed it lay in him to do - less for himself and more for the service he might render to others.  And so it was with him.

For four years we were associated, and year by year, month by month, as I saw his work and was witness of the fidelity with which he performed it, as I saw his trials, some of them peculiar and exceedingly bitter to a nature like his, and was witness of the spirit with which he bore them - I have learned to recognize in him elements of character which I had not seen in him before.  And the change, I now know, was not altogether in him.  In a great degree he already was what I was only learning him to be.  Others also have noted the ripening of his nature.  One has told me that he grew more amiable, more gentle, more considerate of others, all the time.  He was very sensitive of criticism, but he held himself under rigid self-control.  He spoke of his hurt to no one; and it was only those who were near to him that learned to detect the signs of it.  By silent endurance he was growing into the possession of a richer life.  By the transfiguration of pain, he was becoming a nobler and a truer man.

But the end has come with almost tragic suddenness.  The hand that wrought so faithfully has laid down the pen and shall take it up no more.  The eye that shoe with a light so kindly is closed now, and shall be opened no more.  The voice that spoke so often the generous and magnanimous word is silent now and shall speak no more.  The brain that was so active and untiring is tenantless now, and shall feed the fires of thought no more.  The heart that beat so high with ambition and love lies cold and still now, and nevermore shall spreading fame or tender love awake its answering pulse.

We mourn the departure of a friend.  But we are advancing by the same road and shall reach at last the same goal.  Let us walk by the same, or, if we may, by a still better rule, and hold steadfastly to the same exalted faith.

Life is a fragment.  A human being emerges a new fragile thing out of eternity.  The infinite past is wrought into him, but it exists only in the quality of the stuff.  Except in his capacities and tendencies, the past is not his.  He has no grasp upon its accumulations of wealth, or knowledge, or experience.  His new life is a beginning, to be knit into what has been, and become continuous with it by his own impressions and activities.

So it is also at the end.  A life having grown into vital union with the world, its persons, its institutions, its pervading spirit, partaking of the common circulation, throbbing with the common pulse, is at last torn off; the currents that flowed from it are suddenly stopped, and the currents that it received are congested or pour upon the waste.

The better men lead lives of aspiration, of hope, of purpose.  They have plans which are to be built into the future.  They have seen in through a fair and noble structure that is to be.  They have perhaps laid the foundation; or perchance have made good progress on the rising walls.  But death comes.  The trowel drops from the nerveless hand.  The workman disappears.  His work stand unfinished, a monument of unrealized ambition. 

We are told of the pangs of death, and the terrors of death; but here is the very pathos of death - that a fine and magnanimous spirit, inspired with great aims and consecrated to their fulfillment, should suddenly perish from the earth and leave his projected work partial or fragmentary.  The far-reaching purpose has been frustrated.  The imposing structure that rose to the imagination in the splendor of perfection, lies in melancholy incompleteness.  What seems infinite possibility has become an abortion. 

These are natural thought to-day.  A man just come to the fullness of his powers, having acquired large resources of knowledge, trained in methods of study, pressing on with steady step and quenchless ardor toward a goal that has become clear to his sight, has in one short week vanished from the scene, taking into oblivion all his unfulfilled ambitions, all his unmaterialized hopes. 

He had indeed done much.  The vast majority can at his age show no achievements comparable with his.  But what he had done seemed but an earnest of what he might do.  That some power was in him had become manifested; and besides, the command of resources, the habits of work, the growth and molding of mind, which were the result of his past labors, had qualified him for yet worthier future performance.  His life, thus broken off in the midst, is a fragment.  It is a small arc - well struck, indeed, but alas, how short!  The circle will never be completed.

Never?  I say too much.  The second Marquis of Worcester, Savory, Newcommon, Watt, each in turn left the steam engine incomplete.  But successors have entered into their labors and carried them forward to far higher stages of adaptation and efficiency.  Philosophers from Thales to Hegel have left imperfect schemes of thought.  But many have contributed material and stimulus which others have received and by which still further advance has become possible.  English liberty is the last splendid fruit of a long succession of struggles, many of which seemed wholly in vain, and none of which attained completeness within itself.  But by all of them has 
 

So it true in all fields of activity or thought.  What the world possesses has been attained by slow approximations.  Here a little and there a little, many men in different lands and in successive generations casting there mites in to the common treasury, the wealth and wisdom of the race have grown to their present great dimensions.  No worthy work can perish.  It enters into the great aggregate; it becomes a part of the common stock; and it shall surely abide.  Nor shall it abide in incompleteness.  Other hands, wittingly or unwittingly, will take it up and carry it forward.  Someone else will strike a brief arc, seeming perhaps to be alone - another poor partial circumference, left and mourned by him as a perishable fragment.  Another sometime will do the same; and, it may be, yet another; till some far-off day reveals the fact that all these lie in the same circumference, and complete the arc now left by the hand of our friend.  Though he has not himself received the fullness of the promise, yet those who come after would not be made perfect without him.

In yet another way may the fragmentary life become complete.  It is said that we brought nothing into the world, neither can we carry anything out.  Applied to material possessions the saying is certainly true; but in a deeper sense we do both bring something into the world and carry something out.  Our friend has indeed left behind his books, his apparatus for the mechanical part of his work, his friends, his students, his reputation.  But were these his only possessions? 

Nay, he has taken with him the essence of all these and of all his living, interwoven into the texture of his intellect, his feelings, his will, his whole nature.  The thoughts and sentiments that his mind fed on while here were incorporated into his spiritual substance and became an inseparable part of him.  His character is what it was, and the forces in him will henceforth work with a freedom and fullness unknown before.  He is but emancipated from mortal restraints, but born into his perfect life.  If he could return and stand among us here, he would say: “My friends, you live under a strange delusion.  What appear to you the essential things of my life were but external and adventitious.  The spiritual effluence of them, unseen by the eye, unheard by the ear - this was the vital element and this I shall evermore retain.  My library, which I could handle with my hands, was distinct and foreign from me.  The mental and moral life it woke in me, the capacities it developed, the aspirations it kindled, the affinities it created, these still belong to me.  What I wrote became separate.  It went out from me and was no longer of me.  But the power to observe, to discriminate, to comprehend, which it developed, the habits of concentration, of continuous exertion, of orderly procedure, which it formed, the elevated feeling of admiration for the beautiful, the deep reverence for the noble, the passion for the ideal, which it nourished - these became constituents of my being and are imperishable. The mechanics of the class-room were extrinsic, and are gone.  But the discipline of mind and temper, the quickened interest in the lives of others, the deepened fellowship with our common nature, the ripening of character under responsibility and under the daily effort to lead others into the true intellectual and moral life - these remain as a portion of my eternal inheritance.  Even the tenderer tie so lately formed had its outward form and symbols.  These have fallen away.  But the inner union remains unbroken; the sweet revelations and inspirations of a pure and potent love - these are mine and they will be mine forever."

Such an utterance would but repeat to us what has already been told us in many forms - that the soul in all things lives; the husk decays, but the germ springs into increasing and multiplied life.  All that was really vital in our friend, continues.  He is but risen - risen to new relations and a larger sphere.   But whatever was truly and immediately his own before he died is truly and immediately his own to-day.  He has lost nothing essential, but has saved it beyond all contingency and peradventure.