Xviii ■ WORCESTER. 
Doctor Freer's preliminary scientific training, begun in the 
United States and completed in Europe, had been exceptionally 
thorough and broad. He had displayed very distinguished abil- 
ity as an original investigator and had always been most suc- 
cessful in directing the investigations of others. He had placed 
his own laboratory at the University of Michigan on a sound 
basis and had made numerous helpful suggestions calculated to 
promote efficiency and economy in the work of others of the uni- 
versity laboratories. Incidentally he was the youngest man ever 
appointed to a full professorship in the University of Michi- 
gan. I, myself, had been a student there at the time of his 
appointment. 
Later, when both of us were members of the University fac- 
ulty, we had repeatedly discussed the possible reorganization 
and centralization of the laboratory work of the university and 
had agreed that greatly increased economy and efficiency might 
readily be secured were some one competent person put in 
charge with power to act. 
When the opportunity came to make a clean start in the 
Philippines, I felt that Doctor Freer was just the man whom 
I needed, and having first secured due authority, I offered to 
him the newly created position of Superintendent of Govern- 
ment Laboratories, at the same time outlining my plans for the 
future. The opportunity for creative work appealed to Doctor 
Freer, and to my very great satisfaction he accepted the posi- 
tion. We have profited by his mature knowledge, amazing in 
its breadth and accuracy. 
At the outset he had no thought of permanently abandoning 
his university career, but requested and obtained a year's leave 
of absence in order to help us get started. At the end of that 
year his work was only begun. Mr. Taft, then Civil Governor, 
secured an extension of his leave for another year, and at the 
end of this second period successfully urged upon the university 
regents the almost unprecedented act of granting to a member 
of the faculty a third consecutive year's leave. 
Meanwhile things had been happening here. At the outset 
Doctor Freer had found himself in the embarrassing situation of 
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