CYRIL GEORGE HOPKINS 



His greatest test came in turning aside matters and money 

 that would have greatly enriched his department and its work 

 upon the ground that Illinois did not want a "lop-sided" Uni- 

 versity. More on this point I cannot say without violating 

 confidence. 



LOYALTY 



Only a few of the outstanding virtues of a man like Doctor 

 Hopkins can be mentioned in so short a paper as the limits of 

 the occasion impose, but his spirit of loyalty must not go un- 

 mentioned. 



His nature was not fickle. Once an issue or an idea or a 

 man was accepted, the new conception became a part of his 

 very being and henceforth figured as a permanent element of 

 his existence. He was loyal, therefore, not only to his family 

 and immediate associates, of whom he conceived no evil, but 

 he was loyal also to that multitude of men whom he came to 

 know more or less intimately as students, and to that larger 

 company of business men, particularly farmers, nation-wide, 

 even world-wide in its extent. His interest in truth was such 

 that he forgot both himself and the man, and therefore met 

 governors and ministers and kings exactly as he would meet 

 a forty-acre farmer on his farm in southern Illinois. 



His loyalty was not limited to ideas and to immediate 

 associates, but it extended widely to everybody and every- 

 thing that might be involved. He served the University and 

 the state of Illinois as few men have served anything outside 

 themselves. He had declined repeated opportunities to enter 

 more lucrative service, and when at last the most tempting 

 proposition came, he wrote me substantially as follows: 



"I want to do what good I can while I stay, and will ac- 

 cept detached service when possible. But I owe all that I 

 am to Illinois and the University, and no place this side of 

 Heaven shall take me away." 



In a few weeks he was gone to his long home, but he went 

 from Illinois as truly as if he had never sailed away. 



68 



