BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



YRIL GEORGE HOPKINS was born upon a farm 

 near Chatfield, Minnesota, on July 22, 1866. As a 

 small child he moved with his parents to South 

 Dakota, where, as he grew up, he lived the life of 

 the pioneer. While teaching country school as a 

 means of earning money for a college course, he nearly lost 

 his life in a blizzard when caring for the children under his 

 charge, a loss he would have cheerfully met rather than 

 abandon his duty, as his later life abundantly testified. 



He was graduated from South Dakota Agricultural College, 

 at Brookings, in 1890, obtained his state teacher's certificate in 

 1891, earned his master's degree at Cornell in 1894, and his 

 doctor's degree in 1898. A year later, 1899-1900, he studied 

 agricultural chemistry at Gottingen. 



Doctor Hopkins began his college service immediately after 

 graduation, serving as Assistant in Agricultural Chemistry in 

 his Alma Mater from 1890-1892, then in Cornell during 1892- 

 1893, returning to Brookings as Acting Professor of Pharmacy 

 during 1893-1894. In May, 1893, he married Emma Matilda 

 Stelter, of Brookings. 



In the autumn of 1894, he was appointed Chemist of the 

 Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Illinois. 

 This responsible position he held continuously thereafter. In 

 accepting the appointment, Doctor Hopkins made a reser- 

 vation covering his purpose to work for the doctorate, and 

 this he secured at Cornell four years later, offering as a thesis 

 his famous treatise "The Chemistry of the Corn Kernel," re- 

 porting a piece of work which he had begun at the University 

 of Illinois. 



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