Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Peddler Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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Harold B. Smith, M.E., Professor of Electrical Engineering Professor Smith was born in Barre, Mass., in 1869. From Barre High School he entered Cornell, and on graduating was elected to Sigma Xi. After graduate work he became head of the Electrical Department of Arkansas State University. He remained there but one year, having accepted a position as Head Designer and Electrical Engineer with the Elektron Manufacturing Co., and a Professorship at Purdue University. In 1896 he came to W. P. I. as Head of the Electrical Department, where he has built the Department from a mere side study to its present high standing. He is a member of many prominent societies both at home and abroad, among them being the A. I. E. E., A. S. M. E. and B. I. E. E. He has also written many papers of engineering value. Since 1905 he has been Electrical Engineer and Designer for the Westinghouse Co. Last year he was granted a two years’ leave of absence to be spent in travel and study. H. B. is honored and respected by everyone with whom he comes in contact. He has been the dominant force of the Electrical Department since its institution in 1896, and we have missed him during the last year. His greatest ability seems to be in showing anything and everything by means of curves. He has even been able to tell by curves what a magnificent salary we will be receiving in 1920. No one could doubt him after seeing the curve; it’s self evident. Arthur William French, C.E., Professor of Civil Engineering Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers And “ Kink o’ de Civil bunch ” “ Prof ” has a versatile nature. Perhaps its chameleonlike qualities depend upon the point of view. Our first impressions of him alternated between an Ogre and a Stealthy Steve. When we began to know him bet¬ ter they alternated between a mental Hercules and a certain Biblical char¬ acter for whom a large modern club has been named. Now the impressions don’t alternate, because we know that he is not like any other character in history or biography. He is a summation, between the limits of hard work and good nature, of a multitude of characteristics, which, when integrated, give us a Man and an Engineer. In the real Engineering that we have studied we have run into “ Prof ” at every turn, and after each collision we have gotten up with more sense than we previously had. The amount that he has made us think he knows 22

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Walter Lewis Jennings, Pli.D., Professor of Organic Chemistry “ Beily ” graduated from Harvard in 1889 with some lore of classics and much skill in tennis. Three years later he became the Herr Doctor, and then, in order that he might enjoy the Herr part of it, he studied at Berlin and Heidelberg for two years. With distinctly German tastes in certain lines he came to Tech as Assistant Professor of Physics, being pro¬ moted soon after to Assistant Professor of Chemistry. Now you will find him at the head of the stairs in the “ Chem Building,” very much at the head of the Department. We understand that his only disappointment in his latest elevation is that the pressure of department business detracts from his peregrinations as head of the “ Old Sleuth Detective Agency.” Freshman year the guilty learned to hide in his slop jar when “ Moon- face ” was approaching, being careful first to turn the shoes on his feet and walk from the jar of his neighbor to that at his own desk. Sophomore year we learned that “ if one can whistle, two can whistle,” and that the man nearest the door must needs be an efficient crows-nester. Junior year we approached Organic with fear and trembling, but his lectures on the alcohols exterminated the last teetotaler, and thereafter we had for him, in spite of his pet eight o’clocks, a kindred feeling. Senior year we came to really know him. You must certainly hand it to him that he is SOME lec¬ turer, in spite of the “ errr-ah.” He’s the Chemikers’ “ Little Pater,” and we love him accordingly, even to the indolence which is his only limitaton. Zelotes Wood Coombs, A.M., Professor of English, French and German Coombs is surely a blessing to the Freshman Class. When we were in that premature state we all swore allegiance to his colors. What did we care if the things he said had been by-words of Freshman classes years before we came? What did it matter if we heard about the historic trip to Wachusett or the “ benefits of physical training to the Engineering student ” until they were our by-words? They amused us then and benefitted us, and we cared not a whit who had heard them before. He took an interest in athletics and was always ready to praise or comfort as the case might be. During the past year he made himself famous by the great Umbrella Episode in Boynton Hall. We wish to remember “ Coombsie ” in the years to come, after we leave the old Hill, as we knew him when we were but Freshmen. We will always think of him as a generous hearted, hard working gentleman who remembers every man among us and has a warm place in his heart for the boys who once passed in themes “ with commendable regularity.” 21

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and has done would be enormous if it were all collected in one pile, but when spread out makes a wonderful fertilizer for such brains as ours. His stories are always full of Thayer School experiences and of problems that he nonchalantly solved when the whole engineering world was baffled by their complexity. His slide rule and cigar are his omnipresent companions. The latter, despite the blazing “ No Smoking ” signs in Boynton Hall, still continues to send its wreaths through the portals of his sanctuary. Every Civil knows that in his relations with this man he gets a square deal, and that whatsoever he may make of himself in the future as an engineer depends to a large extent upon the thoroughness with which he has applied the common sense teachings of “ Prof ”. A. Wilmer Duff, D.Sc., Professor of Physics “ Ah, gentlemen, there is some little difficulty with this experiment. You see that the aphatus is not working well.” We a ll speak with reverence of Sophomore Physics. It was fine after it was all over. The little dif ' -fi ' - culties that Professor Duff got into were nothing compared to the ones we got into later, and some of us wake up in the night even now and catch glimpses of Nicol’s prisms and diffraction gratings. A. Wilmer is primarily a scientist. He could no more omit a tenth of a milligram than he could omit finding the possible error in the coefficient of expansion of a mustard plaster. We can see him now as he used to reach beneath the lecture table and draw “ a few drops of wau-ta ” or as he “ do-ra-me-fa-so-la-se-doed ” up the spiral stairs of the Lab and then “ do-se-la-so-fa-me-ra-doed ” down again. A finely educated man is Prof. Duff, and we who hit the high spots of his science and drop the milligrams and even the hundreds of pounds can hardly appreciate his place in the world of engineering. If some of us have our little bruises from contact with his work may we leave them behind us when we go, in the realization of the fact that it is the subject that influ¬ ences the man and not the man who makes the subject a stumbling-block in our path. William W. Bird, Professor of Mechanical Engineering “ Piggy ” is a familar sight on the Hill, where he takes particular delight in springing “ bum ” jokes and in sticking everyone with foolish questions. Occasionally when aroused by one of Prof. French s stories of