University of Massachusetts Amherst - Index Yearbook (Amherst, MA)

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11916 c llexander cAnderson cTVlackimmie HEN the tide of immigration in early days set toward America, the Scotchman, like many another, saw across the sea a land of greater jtromise than he had found in his native land. A pioneer, seeking in Canada or in the states a new home, he brought with him, not alone an infinite capacity for work, but he brought with him, also, a profound reverence for the wisdom found in hooks, and for his University whose scholars were leaders towards Life ' s ideals. From such an ancestry comes Alexander Anderson Mackimmie, a man who counts as his richest inheritance forbears who called the University of Edinborough Alma Mater, whose fealty was pledged to the Eraser clan, whose watchword through the years had been Toujours jiret. Studying in the public schools of Nova Scotia, under teachers whose strict rule made every lad give his best effort to each task, the boy Mackimmie counted among his treasures the leather-bound books that had been his great grandfather ' s in university days. Perhaps through these books a vision came of the city set upon a hill, whose university is its crowning glory, and of the land where the scholar is peer in his own right. Perhaps then the ambition came which has crystallized in his life, — to learn for the love of learning, counting the joy of pursuit as reward in itself. At sixteen Mr. Mackimmie began teaching in the schools of his home province, continuing in this work until 1!)0(I. An opportunity for foreign travel then presented itself, and the next three years were silent in the south of Europe. Then Mackimmie turned his face homeward, and September of 1903, found him at Princeton, a member of the Sophomore class. Princeton justified this bit of wisdom on her part three years later, conferring on Mr. Mackimmie the degree of Hachelor of Arts, magna cum laudc, and awarding him the Boudiuot fellowship in modern languages for lf)07. For the next two years Professor Mackimmie taught at Truro Academy, but in 1908 he came to the states, beginning his work as instructor in French at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, in Se} tember of that year. In 1909-10, he served as assistant to the Acting Dean and in 1911 received his ap- pointment as assistant professor of French, a position which he still holds.