Charles Eliot, the eldest son of President Eliot, died at his home in Brookline, yesterday morning of cerebrospinal meningitis after only a weeks' illness.

Charles Eliot was born Nov. 1, 1859. At the age of eighteen he entered college with the class of '82. While in college, though never attaining any exceptional rank in his work, he was known for his fidelity and for his high and generous ideals. Almost immediately after graduating he decided to become a landscape gardener. He studied here, and later abroad, and began his professional training in the firm of Olmsted and Co. in Boston. A few years later he was taken into partnership by Mr. Olmsted.

The monument to his memory, which will last as long as the city of Boston, and which is the product of his own genius, is the Metropolitan Park System of Boston. He was influential in arousing interest in this undertaking in the beginning, and later the plans were in great part entrusted to him.

His death comes as a blow not only to his family and to his personal friends, but to the whole community, of which he was a member. Only thirty-seven years old he had the best half of his life still before him. The work which he had devoted himself to was one of the greatest public importance and benefit, and he himself, by virtue of rare foresight, clear-headedness, vigor, artistic taste, generosity and nobility of purpose united with high public spirit, had already become one of the most valuable citizens of the commonwealth.