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

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1922 INDEX service as a patient, kindly friend of the student, knowing his interests and loving him; it is as an inspirer of students and faculty to generous fellowship and high aspirations; it is as an educator with vision, one who sees the path ahead but forgets not the dangers overcome; it is in this daily influence that Dean Lewis makes himself a force through all our college life. One cannot refrain from mentioning his crystal candor — that which is, per- haps, most striking to his friends — his poise and judgment, his white heat on any issue of righteousness, his simplicity, his noble talent as a reader and speaker, his inspiring power as a teacher, and his love of men, a love that wherever he goes attracts like a magnet the love of all to him. He is a born leader. It is a period of challenge to education. Every college requirement is called upon to prove its right to exist. A dean ' s special province in a college is to main- tain the standard of scholarship. Yet no attack is ever waged to raise the standard or to make it more difficult to enter the college or to graduate from it. Vision is needed. Dean Lewis has it. And he has courage and knowledge of the game. There will be no lowering by a single inch of the hill-top from which Aggie ' s banner flies. 11

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Bimt Cbtoarb JWiorsan iletDi£S SHOULD a college instructor or a college student carefully enumerate the qualities essential to a wholly successful college dean, he would place first the zest of youth, then moral courage, then educational vision. Many college deans have only one of these qualities, a few have two of them. Whoever knows Dean Lewis will not fail to say at once, He has them all. Dean Lewis comes of sturdy Welsh ancestors of that class that forms the sinew of Britain. He came to this country with his father and mother and two other children when he was only eight years old. The family settled in Utica, New York, largely by chance. By studying in night schools and clerking in dry goods stores he managed to go a long way toward preparation for college. An education was his dream and nothing could prevent the courageous and per- sistent youth from pushing on toward it. There was a scholarship for Welsh boys in a little college in Ohio. The boy got it. But in order to live he must find work. He clerked, carried mail, did anythihg that he could find to do. Up to this time the boy had never pitched a game of baseball. Some students noticed his great speed in throwing and insisted that he try to pitch a class game. He won the game and pitched the next summer for the town team. Money was easy now and he was soon able to enter Williams College. At Williams his wonderful ability as a pitcher made his way comparatively easy. He interested himself in the Y. M. C. A. and in every uplifting influence in the college life. He was graduated as a scholar of high attainment in English, but he left Williams also as the chivalrous knight of athletics, honored and loved as a kind of Bayard, sans peiir et sans reproche. The insistent calls that had come to him to leave college and go into profes- sional baseball he had put aside, but now the way was open. His career with the Boston Nationals from 1896 to 1901 is one of the most brilliant in baseball. In 1897, Ted Lewis was high pitcher of the league with a record of 25 victories out of 33 games played. He played in two world series. At the end of the 1901 season he could have had anything he would have asked for in baseball. However, in the midst of all this baseball experience he had so used his winters at Harvard that he had received from Williams an M. A. in English and History. He now accepted an instructorship at Columbia in Public Speaking at a salary of $1200. It took courage to make such a change with a wife and child to support. It was six years before his salary as a teacher had risen to that which he had received in baseball. From Assistant Professor at Williams, in 1911, Lewis came to M. A. C. as Assistant Dean and Assistant Professor in English. He has held the position of Dean since 1914. In 1913-U and also in 1918-19, Dean Lewis was Acting Presi- dent of the college. Both administrations were unusually successful. In both he was able to secure new buildings and equipment. But it has been in his daily 10

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