Penn State University - La Vie Yearbook (University Park, PA)

Page 16 text:

Zin Jifflemnriam Henry Freeman Stecker EDieu 9Dctuher so 1923 c-A True Sczentist and cyln I spmng 'Teacher n n . .

Page 15 text:

been since that time a centre for alumni pilgrimages and for the enter- tainment of college guests--a place of rare hospitality. Two chil- dren were born into this home, Mary Louisa, now an instructor in the college, and Edward Lawrence, now an undergraduate student. Few mathematicians have had more of poetry in their souls than he. From his great teacher at Dartmouth, Arthur S. Hardy, mathe- matician, novelist, poet, he learned that a scientist, even in what many deem the dryest of the sciences, need not have the native poetry with- in him denied and starved. Always as an avocation he kept abreast of the literature of the time, always he read and reread the older classics, and often he wrote for his club papers that surprised even those who knew him well by their trenchant criticism and their reve- lations of mastery of a field seemingly apart from his profession. He was a poet, though never a poet for publication. Only a few weeks before his death he penned this telling lyric, To the Pacific Oceanf, his valedictory, a lyric that reveals better than any words that I might pen the soul of the man, a soul sweeping in thought the mightiest of the oceans and dreaming of the vastness of a peace that touches on every side the infinite: Thou teeming child, of heaven, to whose peaceful bosom The swelling commerce of a world now turns, that stirs our souls To seek thy own great quiet and unfathomed rest, Bring back the Peace! full Hood, to the distracted life of men New horn, and o'er it, crowned with smiles, sing soft again The Angels' Song of Bethlehem. llll

Page 17 text:

1. ut M.. .X ,-', gl V I 7 if 1 , I f 1 -1 . 1 Vt HENRY FREEMAN STECKER i -xl ENRY FREEMAN STECKER, for many years an out- S Z standing personality in the field of mathematics, was born in WlSCOIlSl11 in 1867. He was graduated from the University of WiSCO11Sll'l in 1893. A year later he received his Master's Degree, and in 1897, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, both from his Alma Mater. He spent the next few years as a teacher, first in Wisconsin, and later at Cornell University. In 1903, he came to Penn State as a member of the faculty in the Department of Mathematics-the position which he held until his recent death. Dr. Stecker devoted much of his time to research work and to the presenting of many scientific papers by means of which the re- sults of his efforts have been preserved. His work was chiefly in the field of non-Euclidean geometry, geodedic lines, foundations of geometry, line geometry, and integral equations, this work is rep- resented by twenty-two published papers. He was a member of many scholastic organizations among which are: The American Mathe- matical Society, The German Mathematical Society, The London Mathematical Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and Phi Kappa Phi. As a mathematician, Dr. Stecker stood in the very first rank and was con- sidered as one of the few greatest men of his time in this field. After a long period of ill health, he died at the Mercy Hospital in Baltimore on October 30, 1923. ln his death the college and the world at large have lost one of their most valuable servants, and his loss is felt keenly by those interested in scientific pursuits. Dr. Stecker was one who always stood for that which would tend toward scholastic' achievement and the world owes much to him for his contributions and for his efforts in extending the bounds of knowl- edge as well as for his example as a real student. E131