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

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3n iHemoriam CJjarleg l cnrp Cf)omps(on

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0iiittx of (General bminisitration Roscoe Wilfred Thatcher, D.Agr,, LL.D. . . . President ' s House President of the College B.Sc, University of Nebraska. i8q8. M.A., iqoi. D.Agr., iqio. LL.D. Hobart College. iq25. Assistant Chemist, Washington Agricultural Experiment Station, iqoi-03; Chemist, 1903-07. Director. 11507-13. Professor of Plant Chemistry, University of Minnesota, 1913-17. Dean, Department of Agriculture, University of Minnesota, 1917-21. also. Assistant Director, Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, 1916-17, and Director, 1917-21; Director of New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, 1921-23. Director of Agricultural Experiment Stations, Cornell University, 1923-27. President, Massachusetts Agricultural College, 1927-. Member, President Coolidge ' s Agricultural Conference Commission, 1924-25. Fellow, American Association for Advancement of Science. Fellow, American Society of Agronomy, President, 191 2-1 3. Member, American Society for Promotion of Agricultural Science; President. 1919-20. Member, American Chemical Society, Society of Experimental Medicine and Biology, Society of Biological Chemists. Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Xi, Alpha Zeta, Gamma Sigma Delta, Alpha Theta Chi. Author, Chemistry of Plant Life. 1921. William L, Machmer, A.M. . . ... . 25 Amity Street Dean Fred C. Kenney ........ Mount Pleasant Treasurer Fred J. Sievers, M.Sc. ..... 7 East Pleasant Street Director of the Experiment Station and Director of the Graduate School Roland H. Verbeck, B.S 10 Orchard Street Director of the Short Courses Willard A. Munson, B.S 10 1 Butterfield Terrace Director of Extension Service Robert D. Hawley, B.S. South Amherst Secretary Basil Wood, A.B. ..... 11 South Prospect Street Librarian George E. Emery, B.S. ...... 88 Pleasant Street Field Agent

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? r T 1 3n itlemorp of rofesiiSor Cfjarleg ?|enrj tKfjompsion CHARLES HENRY THOMPSON, late Professor of Horticulture at Massa- chusetts Agricultural College, was born in Turlock, California, in 1870, and died at his home in Amherst, January 23, 1031. He graduated at Kansas State Agricultural College in 1803, took graduate work at Leland Stanford University, and was connected at one time or another with the work of Missouri University, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Missouri Botanic Garden and the United States Forest Service. He came to this college in iqiy. Before that time he had had extended experience as a teacher, a horticulturist and a plant collector. His work here was principally in the teaching of plant materials. Shortly before his death he published, in collaboration with Pro- fessor Waugh, a bulletin on the trees, shrubs and vines growing on the campus. Professor Thompson was the ideal student of plants. He had studied them widely, not only in the herbarium, but in their native surroundings. He was familiar with their habits and characteristics. This knowledge was minute, exact and comprehensive. He had an unending enthusiasm for plants, an enthu- siasm which was felt and respected, even if not always shared, by the students who, note books in hand, followed him about the campus from tree to tree. Professor Thompson was a teacher, communicating his enthusiasm for plants to those who were ready to receive it and infinitely patient with those who were not. Always kindly, sympathetic and human, he sometimes fell short of being a stern disciplinarian; and more than one student could testify that it was the teacher ' s generosity more than the pupil ' s work that passed the course. His kindly personality appealed to all. He was inexhaustibly good natured, even against provocation, and this warm friendly quality endeared him to all his associates. It is the one thing above all others which will be remembered life- long by his students. He had that fine sense of humor which makes men congenial. He not only relished a joke or a good story, but he had the deeper perception which sees the contradictions and absurdities of life in all its comic and tragic aspects. Such qualities made him a jolly companion, but gave also the solid foundation to his broad human sympathy. This same well-balanced sense of humor expressed itself in his unusual histrionic talent. Just because he could easily enter into the feelings of another person, he was an amateur actor of marked ability. Many persons will always remember with del ight his acting and especially his impersonation of Irish characters. ' With all his other qualities Professor Thompson had a rough and rugged honesty which was most reassuring, a simplicity and a sincerity of daily contact which above all gave confidence in his integrity and testimony to his fundamental worth. There was no hypocrisy nor pretense about him. His genial, happy, homely ways were founded on a solid bedrock of character. ' We who knew him best knew him to be every inch a man. FRANK A. WAUGH 23