BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORANDA 



siderent comme ses eleves. Permettez moi de me ranger dans leur 

 nombre et de vous dire combien je suis attache a sa memoire.' 



Another manifestation of Kluyver's concern for individuals, char- 

 acteristically cloaked in practical terms, may be found in his after- 

 dinner speech in Washington on 'An Aspect of the Promotion of 

 Science'. Here he made an eloquent plea for the 'romantic scientist', 

 the genius who has difficulties in adjusting himself to society. On the 

 ground that 'we cannot afford to let scientific geniuses perish', he ad- 

 vocated the establishment of institutions where these men could work 

 under conditions attuned to their particular needs. Those who have 

 known Kluyver will readily infer that this plea was not based on the 

 stated motive alone, and that he was also, perhaps even chiefly, moved 

 by a direct solicitude for these geniuses themselves. Practicing more 

 than he preached, he extended these ideas to the humblest of his 

 pupils, providing for them an environment where they could thrive 

 and develop to the best of their abilities. 



This concern for others dominated all his actions, harmoniously im- 

 buing them with added significance in purpose and effect. The re- 

 sponse must have enriched his life, and may perhaps have compen- 

 sated for the utter loneliness that his position inexorably engendered. 



In any group, whatever its function, he saw furthest, and thus irre- 

 vocably became its focal point. It was not for him to be comforted; he 

 could not afford to let responsibility slip away or to indulge in the easy 

 escape into anger. 



His perception of the infinite potentialities of life had made him rec- 

 ognize the human mind as the acme of evolutionary development. 

 Hence he believed that man's particular role in future evolution 

 should rest upon the proper exercise of his spiritual powers. Only a 

 few days before his death he attested to this conviction by quoting a 

 fragment of the words of the Dutch poet, A. Roland Hoist, engraved 

 upon the National War Memorial in Amsterdam that had recently 

 been unveiled: 



'Never, from ore to eagle, was any creature free beneath the sun, 

 nor was the sun, nor were the stars. But spirit broke law, and in 

 that breach uplifted man'. 



Thus, above all else, Kluyver was a man who moved in life's true 



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