460 First European Journey 



as a plant pathologist and his candidacy was sponsored by Farlow 

 who addressed to the members his already quoted letter. Home 

 Secretary Hague announced to Smith his election to membership 

 as an expression of the Academy's " high appreciation of [his] 

 services to science." For three years the honored plant pathologist 

 served as chairman of its botanical section. 



Another honor may have been Smith's this year. Neither he nor 

 any official of the Department of Agriculture announced this. 

 But in May, 1913, newspaper accounts of the country disclosed 

 that at a salary of $10,000 a year he was offered a position with 

 the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. 



In April 1913 Dr. Simon Flexner of the Rockefeller Institute 

 contemplated appointing a plant pathologist in his department 

 of the laboratories for the year 1913-1914. Minutes of the Board 

 of Trustees of the Institute confirm this, and also that in 1920 

 the matter of forming a department of plant pathology was con- 

 sidered, each time Dr. Flexner consulting Dr. Smith. The latter's 

 diaries of later years reveal that at some time an offer was made 

 to him and that for the same reason he had refused other offers 

 to remain with his Laboratory of Plant Pathology he declined this. 

 This offer could have been either in 1913 or 1920, perhaps both, 

 but as to the year 1913, the matter was settled by an exchange 

 of letters in June. On June 30, Dr. Flexner advised Smith that 

 the staff of the Institute was made up for the year 1913-1914 but 

 that he would " probably have to call upon [him] again." None 

 of the correspondence confirms the $10,000 figure as to salary 

 mentioned in the newspaper article published over the country. 



Smith may have also been considered for a professorship at 

 Harvard University. In 1909 he appears to have had a conference 

 with Dean Wallace C. Sabine of the Graduate School of Applied 

 Science concerning a teaching appointment and perhaps to have 

 recommended Dr. L. R. Jones for the position. Smith wrote Jones 

 who answered on April 13 " that if their school is to accomplish 

 the things that they wish in the large way you are the one man 

 essential to them. If then, they can afford two men I believe I 

 could help in certain ways." 



Harvard's courses and laboratory research in all branches of 

 cryptogamic botany had maintained under Thaxter and various 

 assistants the standards of excellence set by Farlow during his 



