Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Peddler Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

Page 19 text:

Levi Leonard Conant, Ph.D. Acting President the finest facts and one of the strongest forces WOULD call him comrade, yet that does not at all adequately express our relationship to him. He is much more than that. A leader whose example serves but to show us that true suc¬ cess does not lie in personal gain but in sin- cerest service; a scholar, counsellor and friend, combining with a quiet, reserved, gentlemanly dignity a warm congenial spirit of friendliness that has drawn all of us to him. A man far above us in every respect yet without aloofness. A graduate of Dartmouth College of the Class of 1879 and receiving the degrees, Master of Arts, Dartmouth, 1887; Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy, Syracuse LTniversity, 1893; his life has been one of continuous service. At graduation he took up public school work, in which he served until 1887 when he accepted the position of Professor of Mathematics in the Dakota School of Mines. Leaving this for further preparation he spent a year in post graduate work at Clark University. In 1891 he began his service here at the Institute. For nine years an active member of the Worcester Board of Education, its chairman in 1909, and since a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, author of several helpful textbooks in Geometry and Trigonometry, editor of the Worcester Poly¬ technic Institute Journal for eight years, as well as a generous contributor to numerous educational and scientific periodicals, has been his record as the world has seen it. That his work has been appreciated and felt was shown by his election to the office of Acting President of the Institute in 1911. For twenty years the catalogue of the Institute called him Professor of Mathematics. Yet how well does every student and alumnus know how far those words come from expres sing his true position. Always calm, con¬ genial, sincerely interested in all those who came to him for instruction and making his finer, truer character felt by them. He taught us Mathematics, but that is not all. The quiet, unassuming attitude of service and trust “ Comradeship is one of in life .”—Hugh Black. 15