LIFE AND CAREER. 
Vll 
Our departed friend has talked to me many times of those 
golden days at Munich, and I have always believed that they 
gave him the perfection of his ideals and logic and the sound- 
ness of his methods and thought and work. He left Munich fully 
equipped for work, and for a brief period labored and studied 
in England, first in the private laboratory of Sir William Perkin, 
where he devoted himself to analin dyes, and later at Owens 
College, Manchester, where he was an assistant instructor. But 
his desire was to return home, and when Tuft's College offered 
him a place he gladly accepted. But he was not to remain 
there. The faculty of the University of Michigan had heard 
of his ability and rising fame and offered him a larger field 
and scope of work. He went to Ann Arbor as lecturer in 1889 
and a year later was honored with the professorship of inorganic 
chemistry, with a chair in the Medical School as well as in the 
School of Arts. It has been testified by many that Paul Freer 
brought to Michigan a wonderful stimulus for original work. 
He had the high ideals of the German university, less known 
and understood then in our American universities, he had the 
enthusiasm of youth, and he had ability as his commanding 
talent. He was impatient of mediocrity, and gave the best of 
himself to the earnest worker, the advancing student who came 
to him for instruction and guidance. His seriousness amounted 
at times to austerity, but it produced results and was in keeping 
with the high standard of scholarship of the members of the 
faculties at Michigan. In 1895 the University of Chicago 
sought his services, offering him a professorship of chemistry, 
but he declined the flattering offer, electing to stay where 
he was accomplishing so much good work. There he remained 
until 1901, when the United States Government gave him a 
chance for service in this field, so rich in opportunity for prac- 
tical scientific work. He accepted the task, and here are written 
the last and greatest chapters of his life. You know them 
perhaps better than I. I was his personal friend and could 
share but little in the multiplicity of his official and professional 
activities, many of you were of them with him, I do know 
that we meet to-day in one institution and are surrounded by 
