Unfortunately, the Dalmatines have not been quick enough to take advantage of the opportunity thus offered to them to establish a new industry on their not very busy coast. Bucchich continued Schmidt's experiments till 1872, but no capitalists have been found to establish the cultivation of sponges on an extensive and permanent scale.
Another enterprise, however—the Zoölogical Station at Trieste, to which Schmidt for a time devoted all his energy—has had a more fortunate realization. The plan of it was developed by Carl Vogt, but it would never have been erected if Schmidt's practical sense had not adapted the plan to the actual needs of the case and the financial conditions imposed by the state, and if he had not given the weight of his personality to the accomplishment of it.
The erection of a German Empire at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War was an occasion of proud and exultant joy to Schmidt; and when, in the spring of 1872, he was elected, at the instance of his friend Haeckel, a professor in the newly instituted university at Strasburg, he deemed it a patriotic duty to accept.
With his removal to Strasburg, what both Erich Schmidt and Professor von Graff call the third period of Schmidt's scientific career began. It was a period of undisturbed ease in his home life, and was devoted chiefly to the continuation of the studies of the sponges, with a few special researches, the results of which appeared in books, on the theory of descent, fossil animals, on Hartman's theories, and on social democracy. His systematic and anatomical labors on the sponges—the provisional conclusions of which, in 1870, constituted the Grundzüge einer Spongienfauna des Atlantischen Gebietes (Outlines of a Sponge Fauna of the Atlantic Region)—were carried on, Professor von Graff says, from the point of view of the development theory. Besides several smaller contributions to the building up of the theory of descent, the most important of all his works of this time is his book on the Theory of Descent and Darwinism (Appletons' International Scientific Series)—"one of the best presentations of all the questions pertaining to that subject, and distinguished from other similar works both by the philosophical spirit with which the whole discussion is carried on, and by the even consideration it gives to all the various fundamental points of the principle of descent. The prominent features of Schmidt's presentation appear most especially in the final chapter, the subject of which is the Application of the Theory of Descent to Man, which he had also previously discussed in a public address. Shortly after this he reduced to absurdity, in a very forcible attack on Hartman's Philosophy of the Unconscious, the idea of the Social Democrats that they could use Darwinism to the advantage of their Utopia, and treated the subject of the Mammalia in their Relation to Primeval Times (Appletons' International Scientific Series) most vigorously from the point of view of the development theory." He also found time for special researches on the Structure and Development of Loxosema, the Eyes of Arthropods, and, still keeping up his studies of the sponges, closed his more than twenty years' labors on this group with his Sponges of the Gulf of Mexico, and his last scientific work—Derivation of New Species through the Decay and Atrophy of Older Characteristics. The preface to the former work, Professor von Graff says, shows plainly how Schmidt, in contrast to so many fellow-laborers in the field of the theory of descent, was always circumspect in a high degree, and never suffered himself to be carried so far in his zeal as to leave the ground of facts. Although a champion of monophyletic derivation, he did not overlook the facts that might be brought to bear in favor of a polyphiletic origin.
During the later years of his life Schmidt visited Heligoland, and enjoyed the sea air, which seemed to have become necessary to him, during two winters at Dohrn's Institute at Naples, in southern France, and at Grado, and attended the meetings of naturalists at Leipsic, Wiesbaden, Salzburg, Baden-Baden, Munich, Cassel, and Freiburg, where he was a welcome guest and a prominent speaker. In September, 1885, as president of the Zoölogical Section he entertained his fellow-specialists at his house. A slight stroke of apoplexy, which he suffered in the summer of 1882, passed away without seeming to leave any trace. He spent the Easter season of 1885 with his son's family in Vienna and with Graff in Grätz. He intended to speak on Easter of 1886 in Weimar and to visit Jena, "whither he expected to return in his sixty-fifth year so as to attach a good end to a good beginning." But on the morning of January 9, 1886, after he had spent the previous evening in pleasant social intercourse, there came another stroke. He never recovered consciousness, but died on January 16th.
Professor von Graff describes Schmidt's method of teaching as one encouraging the students to pursue their own ways of thinking. He did not expect formal theses from them, but, having indicated the theme, left them to work it out according to their own logical processes, and as often let them choose their own subjects. Having found a pupil's bent, he sought to turn him into a corresponding course, "and never tried to make a poor naturalist out of one who might become a good doctor or teacher." In his lectures he was earnest and enthusiastic, not as good a speaker as writer, and sometimes betraying his trouble to find the right word; "but he knew how to win the love of his pupils for his subject, and, while trying to make the comprehension of the matter not too difficult, to keep interest alive by occasional glances at the theoretical significance of the facts. It was very far from his purpose to make pastime for his hearers, and, when he was polemical, every one had to be made sensible of the purely technical bearing."
Professor Schmidt's literary work covered a field of extraordinary breadth. Besides numerous works and text-books in systematic and anatomical zoölogy and life histories, he published popular lectures and essays in many different periodicals, recensions, reviews of books, translations, and even political articles. It would be impossible to give a complete bibliography of his works, because he left no notes respecting them. A list of his publications in zoölogy, by Professor von Graff, includes ninety-nine titles.