University of Chicago - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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SIDhituaty PAUL OSKAR KERN DAVID A. COVINGTON DANIEL ROBERTS BROWER JOSEPH FRANK RUMSEY, 69 WILLIAM J . SHERMAN, 05 TILDEN R. WAKELEY, 02 NICHOLAS J . AYLSWORTH, ,63 IRA WASHINGTON RUBEL, ,81 CHARLES MACKAY VAN PATTEN, ,092 MARY PARMELIA SQUIER, ,01 WILFORD SANFORD BLAKESLEE, ex309 RUTH BLEEKMAN, 07 DAVID FORMAN, 11 ENOCH T. MELLANDER, 12 THEODORE G. SCHAUMANN, 09 ARTHUR ROY WILSON, 10

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19am EDskat 71mm By the death of our colleague and friend, Professor Paul Oskar Kern, on September 4, 1908, the University lost one of its most faithful workers. It would be hard to find a man with a higher conception of duty to family and fellow-men than he possessed 01' with more unflagging zeal in the performance of it. He was a rare combination of the German and the American. His sojourn in England and his experience in American Schools made him appreciate the American student with whom he came in contact. As a German he retained all that is dear to the idealist of his Fatherland, and it was this side of him that stood forth in his teaching and won him the love of the student. This blending of what is best in both nations adapted him most peculiarly t0 the position of departmental examiner which brought him into close relation as friendly adviser to a great number of students and teachers of German. Great credit is due him for raising the standard of German instruction in the secondary schools aHiliated with the University. His position with the department was becoming more and'more that of a teacher of teachers,Athe study of the pedagogy of German having occupied a large part of his time during the last years of his life. He strove to have German intro- duced as a regular subject for discussion in the teachefs county institutes and it was a strange coincidence that a call last spring to a session in Scott County, Iowa, as lecturer should have been the final bit of his lifeis work. Soon afterward the illness that caused his death began. In the field of research the principal contribution from him was a study in Early New High German, which was well received by critics. It was in this period of the language that he was engaged in study at the time of his death. Paul Oskar Kern was born F ebruary 6, 1859, in Berlin and received a public school education and gymnasial training in his native city. He entered the Univer- sity of Berlin in 1877 and there studied Germanic and Romance Philology under Bliillerhoff, Seherer, Geiger, Zupitza, Gaspary and Tobler. These studies were interrupted by a year of military service during which he became a member of the Kaiser Franz Regiment. He spent the year, 1880a81, in England, 1882 in Berlin at the University. In 1887 he came to America and taught French and Latin in the high school of Princeton, Illinois. The year 1888v89 saw him in Paris at the Sorbonne and at the College de France. From 1889-95 he taught French and German in the Chicago high schools. In the year 1892 he matricu- lated in the University of Chicago as a graduate student and received the doc- torate in 1897. His period of service to our University began in 1895 with an appointment to an associateship in Germanics and ended with his death. CHARLES GOETTSCH. 17