Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Peddler Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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f - Tech he spent his time travel¬ ing from coast to coast. In this way he has worked in every city, tackled every kind of a job, and become acquaint¬ ed with every engineer on the face of the earth to-day. Thus qualified he has entered our portals to tell us of things that are. When we first came to the Institute, “Prof” was an en¬ thusiastic bicyclist and not unlike Silas Marner he would ‘gallup’ off on his mechanical horse with his coat tail in a horizontal plane and his elbows flapping in the wind. How¬ ever, since then “Joe” Phelon has converted him into an ardent follower of the four- wheel buggy. “Prof” has two indoor sports which he delights in, especially as a winter pastime. One is in kidding “Doc ” Bonnet and the other one is in telling “Joe” Phelon funny stories. “Doc” and “Joe” have daily reserved seats in “Profs” office, which they occupy from 3 to 6.30 p. m. He is a worker, and surely knows how to get the work out of others. He believes in getting results regardless of consequences, if he thinks himself in the right; and in this respect he is like Nero, of ancient Rome, who, unable to convince the people that the city should be rebuilt, said, “To Hell with the people. I will rebuild the city if I have to burn it down.” It is doubtful if “Prof” can be ap¬ proached on the Hill as an instructor. NE other gentleman with whom every man in the Institute comes into more or less intimate contact is A. Wilmer Duff, D. Sc., Professor of Physics. Another scientist of the first water, he is one of the few men on the Hill who wanders about unnicknamed and un¬ moved by the occasional storms of enthusiasm or protest that sweep and eddy about the School. Always the same, and calmly caressing his chin and cheek, he can be found in his sanctum, delving into the recent theories of Physics. 28

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o destroy his pets? How foolish he made us feel, when he loosened up one morning and told us what he thought about our artistic efforts on the stonework of the Institute, and did n’t he get us out with scrubbing brushes and chemicals to remove the marks of our childish¬ ness? We’ve often wondered whether it was the earnestness of his lecture on that subject or the indignity of scrubbing stones and cement that made such a lasting impression on us, for never again did our numerals decorate (?) the property of the Institute. Many things will make us stand by Coombsie, long after his Beowulf and his other dead pets have been relegated to the realms of oblivion, for he won our affection at a time when we were lonely and unacquainted with the mysteries of Tech, and his cheery greeting, every man by name, will live long in our minds. ,NE of the professors with whom it has been our mis¬ fortune not to become acquaint¬ ed is Harold B. Smith, head of the Department of Electrical Engineering. He is a graduate of Cornell; he first became head of the Electrical Engineering Department of Arkansas State University, remaining but a year, when he accepted a position with the Elektron Manufacturing Co., and a pro¬ fessorship at Purdue University. In 1896 he came to W. P. I. and under his efficient manage¬ ment the course developed from a mere side-study into a full- fledged department. A two years’ leave of absence was granted him shortly after our arrival at the Institute and his absence continued during the whole of our course, thus denying us the privilege of contact with one of the brainiest and most influential men on the Hill. P ROF. French, the elongated head of the Civil Engineering Department is a product of New Hampshire where he was brought up on tacks. Correcting for temperature stresses he has an elevation of something like seven feet above his abutments. Before he came to 27

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the Sophomore year. If Prof. Duff cracks a joke, you may be abso¬ lutely certain that it is unintentional, and we are sure that our occasional uproarious appreciation of amusing points in his dis¬ course jarred on the gentle¬ man’s usual patience. When he carefully added a few drops of water to a solution in an already full beaker and innocently informed us that he “sometimes got a drop too much,” we were quite alone in appreciating the humor of the situation. But a scientist he is, down to the smallest frac¬ tion of a milligram which he He, too, had his difficulties in satisfactorily performing experiments on the lecture table, and often “the crudity of the apparatus,” “the meteor¬ ological conditions,” or the “unreliability of the action” made it necessary for us to ' assume the truth of his state¬ ments. However, we soon got used to assuming things in Phy¬ sics, even our answers, and after a month had passed we were sufficiently grounded in the subject to overlook the failure of experimental work to bear out the theory. These lectures in Physics were a blessing to some, as they afforded the only opportunity for sleep during Jr 29