Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Peddler Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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commands our admiration, an advisor whose counsel enjoins our gratitude, a friend whose warm regard we cherish. How often has his gentle voice brought smiles to our faces or storms of applause from our assemblies! How well he battled with our slowness over the many problems of Calculus, his gradually increasing impatience—at its height as gentle as his voice—marked only by the increasing rate at which his foot would swing from his crossed knees. “How many did you do?” would come softly from his lips, and as the answers, “one,” “three,” “none,” “two,” reached their end, he would gaze sorrowfully at us and say, “Dear, dear, the men don’t seem to be interested.” Professor Conant, or better, “Coney,” graduated from Dart¬ mouth in 1879 and has received the degrees, Master of Arts, Dart¬ mouth, 1887; Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy, Syracuse Uni- versitv, 1893. His life has been devoted to ed¬ ucational work; upon graduation he became associated with the Public Schools until 1887, when he became Professor of Mathe¬ matics at the Dakota School of Mines. A year of graduate work at Clark University fol¬ lowed, and in 1891 he came to the Institute. For nine years he served actively on the Worcester Board of Education, becoming its Chairman in 1909; since that time he has been a member of the State Board of Educa- tion. In spite of his many duties he has still found time to prepare and publish several ex¬ cellent text-books on Geometry and Trigo- II

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Levi Leonard Conant, Ph. D. Acting President FTER all, how little the Catalogue tells of the latent possibilities that await the entering student! None can predict the effect which the four years following his acceptance at the Institute will have upon his life—a life for which the Catalogue calmly explains the course offered by the Institute in preparation for a useful existence, quietly records the posi¬ tions held by previous graduates, eloquently describes the equipment. But these are only a small portion of the influences which are to surround the newcomer. His fellow-students of varied types from many nationalities are to strike undreamed of chords in his nature. Friends he will make, and what manner of men will these friends be? The lonely life away from old-time friends and parents offers him whatever he cares to choose, and what will he choose? And his instructors exert upon him an influence as strong and directing as it is invisible, unrealized, intangible. And here we pause, for this influence of the Faculty which may well be relied upon does not reach him strongly during the year he needs it most, for the new Techman, isolated from his father’s guiding words and example, is denied the more intimate acquaintance with the older Professors which is the privilege of the upper classmen. His first year is “plugged” out alone, almost entirely shut off from the guidance of older men. But simultaneously with the beginning of his Sophomore year commences his closer knowledge of the Faculty members—those men who have labored patiently with successive batches of semi-raw material, shaping and fashioning it into finished products capable of creditable work in its chosen field. It is at this time that the Tech¬ man begins to obtain his insight into the Peer of Professors, the soft- voiced, gentle leader whom the Catalogue so coldly terms “Acting- President and Professor of Mathematics.” How much more than that he is to the graduates of the Institute! A scholar whose efficiency if 10

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V -f nometry. As Editor of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Journal for eight years and a contributor to educational and mathematical period¬ icals, he is well known among all students. In 1911 he was appointed Acting President of the Institute, and immediately plunged, “with misgivings ,” he told us, into the added work. How little necessary were the misgivings is amply shown by the rapid strides made in the last two years. And all this work for others! A life of service and trust has well become the quiet, unassum¬ ing man who has become the friend of every student at the Institute and whose influence upon our lives cannot be measured, for who can predict at what points in our Future we are to show the effect that contact with his noble nature has made upon our characters? We tender him our thanks and sincere appreciation of his work in our behalf, hoping that in the years to come we may always co-op¬ erate and serve with him in his efforts for our Tech. 12