Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Peddler Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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V Elbridge Sinclair, Ph. D. OR forty years, from the beginning until his resigna¬ tion in the year nineteen hundred and eight, Profess¬ or Sinclair occupied the chair of Higher Mathematics at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The men of the first forty classes have sat in his recitation room and left it filled with love and respect for this man of men. John Elbridge Sinclair was born at Brentwood, New Hampshire, on the twenty-eighth day of March, 1838. It was here that he obtained his primary school education, and at Exeter Latin School near by, he prepared for college. In 1858, at the age of twenty, he was graduated from the Chandler Scientific School of Dartmouth College. His choice of vocation was made even before the completion of his college course, when he gained his first teaching experience, “boarding round,” in a district school at Falmouth, Mass. After graduation he taught for a year in the high school of Adrian, Michigan. Following four years’ service at Washington University, he became Professor of Mathematics at Dart¬ mouth, remaining with his Alma Mater for the following six years. Dur¬ ing this period Professor Sinclair married Miss Elizabeth Noyes, who died in 1868, leaving two children. In 1869, upon the founding of the Institute, then the Worcester Free Institute of Industrial Science, Doctor Sinclair accepted therein the chair of Mathematics and Civil Engineering. Worcester had become his perma¬ nent home, and in 1870 he married Miss Fletcher, then instructor in French and German at the Institute. For a dozen years, during the early life of the Institute, he supervised the course in civil engineering. He used to drive about the country keep¬ ing tabs on the parties in the field. The ancients tell us that many a case of sleeping sickness among the Civils was suddenly cured when his familiar horse and phaeton loomed up on the horizon. Yet it was in those days that Tech turned ont a Kendrick and a Darling! With the growth of the Institute, these double requirements became too great for one man, and for the rest of his career he served as head of the Mathematical Department. 8

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To -John E. Sinclair Professor Emeritus of Mathematics who Closed a Remarkable Career with our Class this AFTERMATH is Dedicated with Reverence and Love by the Class of 1910 to Whom he Taught not Less of Honor than of Mathematics

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In other institutions his work gained the same approval as here, as is evidenced by the degrees conferred upon him by them: in 1863, the degree of A.M. from Washington University; in 1879, the same degree from Dartmouth, and the further recognition from his Alma Mater by the degree of Ph.D., in 1883. To us, Professor Sinclair seemed truly one of the mythical “gentle¬ men of the old school.” His kindly, gentle manner, his ideals and his very personality proclaimed it. His frank comments upon new develop¬ ments of Institute activities revealed the depth of that personality. With simplicity and finality he judged our actions by the courage, honesty and love which he found in them, teaching us then as now in the message which he has sent to our Class from across the sea, to “fight square.” Certainly there is no man among us who can remember Professor Sinclair and not try his best to do that. Analytical geometry and calculus were the subjects that brought us to his class room, but in a sense they were the least of his teachings. Of the mathematics, we retain today perhaps no more than if another had been our guide through their intricacies; but the little lessons of honor, of truth and of sturdy manliness—these shall be with us always. In the frequent little “heart-to-heart talks,” as Doctor Sinclair liked to call them, and as they were in fact, it v r as impressed upon us that the ideals of true living were the things worth while, and that, against them, all else Avas nothing. We of Nineteen Hundred and Ten were the last Institute men to know the inspiration of this splendid man. We are thankful that we came before his retirement, and proud that we enjoy the distinction of being the last of so long a line, yet we are sincerely sorry for those who come after us. They have lost more than they can ever realize. Professor Sinclair, wherever he is or may be, shall always have with him the affection, the deep respect and heartiest good wishes of the men of Nineteen Hundred and Ten. Long life to John Elbridge Sinclair! 9