ACADEMY OF SCIENCES] BIOGRAPHY 5 



others. The last three years of his life he was also working on a treatise relating to steel manu- 

 facture which he was not permitted to finish. 



In 1918, he accepted the position of consulting metallurgist on the staff of the Bureau of 

 Standards, which he held until his death, and he also had a similar relation with the Bureau of 

 Mines. He wanted no remuneration, but merely facilities for productive work at his laboratory. 

 The product of these connections is given in the last writing to bear his name, published after 

 his death under the title, "Influence of temperature, time and rate of cooling on the physical 

 properties of carbon steels." 



It was not, however, merely in Howe 's formal writings that he was listened to by all interested 

 in the subjects of which he treated, but if one will examine the printed discussions of the many 

 technical meetings he attended one will be surprised at the wealth of suggestive and clarifying 

 material he would offer spontaneously. It was a delight to all present to hear him in a scientific 

 meeting, clear, concise, witty with homely, trite, and often epigrammatic comment, always 

 courteous, always thorough, and unerringly pointing out the weak spots, yet never forgetting 

 to give commendation where merited and occasionally unstinted praise. No man could better 

 summarize another's work than he. 



He gave his advice very freely and completely in correspondence with his friends and profes- 

 sional colleagues, and some of the letters I have seen are in themselves models of composition 

 and exposition, and each evidently formed the substance of a portion of some scientific paper 

 in preparation. By thus communicating his ideas in advance of publication he was able to 

 fortify himself and reap the benefits of preliminary friendly discussion. All his published 

 work gives evidence of the greatest care in preparation; he considered all the alternatives pos- 

 sible : and in a subject such as metallography, singularly prone to awake controversy, he was gen- 

 erally able to put forth facts and conclusions that were not seriously questioned. 



One of the most charming of his traits was his interest in and the encouragement of the 

 younger men at scientific gatherings. He never failed to say the right word to stimulate further 

 effort, and well I remember the profound impression he made on the occasion of my first paper 

 before the mining engineers by his statement, "We can hardly overestimate the importance 

 of the entry of the Bureau of Standards into our field." Many others have mentioned this trait, 

 which is well described by Mr. A. A. wStevenson, himself a steel maker and a friend of 30 years or 



more standing: 



Much may be said about what Doctor Howe lias done for the steel industry and what he has written, but 

 bo far as I am concerned, I feel the greatest legacy Doctor Howe has left is that of his influence on the younger 

 men with whom he came in contact. 



Another characteristic was his indomitable persistence and will to work together with an 

 optimistic outlook and cheerfulness as illustrated by the last year and more of his life, when 

 he writes to his sisters : 



As for me I am getting on after a fashion. I am so thankful to be spared most of the pain which usually 

 goes with this ailment and continue to be of real service, and so busy with my readings, and writings, tho they are 

 all done on the bed, that I have no time to be bored, and I think no inclination to grumble, especially when I 

 think of those who voluntarily brought far greater hardship on themselves in the service of their country. 



I have just practically finished an important professional paper, "practically finished," because I am now 

 engaged in revising the section and page numbers. I expect a collaborator here the last of next month to take 

 up another important paper with me, and I am making substantial progress on a book. 



So it might be worse, incomparably worse, and we may still hope that it will be better. 

 Doctor Howe had a fine sense of patriotism intensified by his sense of the Nation 's as well 

 as the individual's duty, often expressed when occasion offered, and he even made the occasion, 

 as when receiving the John Fritz medal on May 10, 1917, he stated: 



To prolong thanks is so thankless that I might well now hold my peace were it not for the world crisis, ever 

 in our consciousness. This so presses for our best thought that attention to other matters suggests fiddling 

 while Rome burns. For Rome truly is in flames. We are as a family in a burning home. Democracy itself is 

 at stake. 



Our problem at the end of the war will be to prevent future wars, to prevent the actual employment of the 

 enormously enhanced destructive powers sure to evolve, to force the nations to keep the peace as we have forced 

 individuals. To say that we are inherently incapable of preventing our own annihilation; that because the 

 less developed past did not learn to prevent its little wars, killing their tens of thousands, the more developed 

 future must ever remain impotent to prevent its wars with their far higher order of havoc, killing their millions, 

 is to betray a fatalism, a pessimism as unworthy of Americans as it is foreign to our nature. To me it seems an 

 insult to the mothers who bore us, nay, to the God who made us. 



