W. E. Stone 33 
WINTHROP ELLSWORTH STONE. 
Born—Chesterfield, N. H., June 12, 1862. 
B. S.—Massachusetts Agricultural College, 1882. 
B. S.—Boston University, 1886. 
Ph. D.—Gottingen, 1888. 
LL. D— Michigan Agricultural College, 1907. 
Assistant Chemist, Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, 
1884-1886. 
Student at Gottingen, 1886-1888. 
Chemist, Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station, 1888-1889. 
Professor of Chemistry, Purdue University, 1889-1900. 
Vice-President and Professor of Chemistry, Purdue University, 1892- 
1900. 
President, Purdue University, 1900 to July 17, 1921. 
These are the significant dates in a life of unremitting toil and 
high achievements—a life that meant much to the State and to the 
cause of education. They are more than mere dates, for they tell of 
heredity, of natural aptitudes, of training, of ambitions and of achieve- 
ments. The great, steady sweep of such a life can only be realized by 
those who through the intimacies of daily association have been able 
to separate its incidental surface features from its underlying funda- 
mental and basic principles. 
To his New England ancestry we can attribute the Pilgrim ele- 
ment in his blood. He had the Pilgrim faith in Almighty God and the - 
Pilgrim faith in his own high mission. In the courage born of these 
faiths he did his work and lived his life. To the accomplishment of 
the high purpose to which he felt he was called he devoted every power 
of body and mind and soul, and no pressure of persuasion or criticism 
could turn him from the path he had marked out, which was to him 
the path of duty. 
He had also in a very large measure the Pilgrim’s instinctive sense 
of fairness and justice. In all of the years of my association with 
President Stone, I never heard his fairness questioned. We might feel 
at times that there was a little too much of the New England granite 
in him, but we never questioned the absolute fairness and justice of his 
decisions. 
In spite of his manifold duties President Stone was always easily 
accessible. No member of the University force ever failed to receive 
a patient and sympathetic hearing. He was indeed essentially demo- 
cratic; he hedged himself about with no dignities; he was a man among 
men in the University life, but, facile princeps. 
It is scarcely necessary to speak of his fine integrity. It pervaded 
his every act. It was a part of his very being. His acts were as direct 
and clean cut as his thoughts and words. This ingrained honesty made 
him a man both positive and aggressive. He never avoided an issue, 
nor feared a fight for what seemed to him to be right. He was noth- 
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