THE CULMINATING YEAR IN THE LIFE OF 

 DOCTOR HOPKINS 



By GEORGE BOUYOUCOS 



Michigan Agricultural College. Captain in American Red Cross 



Commission to Greece 



ON September 20, 1918, I received a letter from the one 

 whom we commemorate today, informing me that he had 

 accepted a call to go to Greece to help rejuvenate the agricul- 

 ture of that country and asking me if I would join him. You 

 can all imagine, of course, what my answer was. A few days 

 later I received a telegram requesting me to prepare to meet 

 him in Chicago after two days. When I met him in Chicago 

 I found him very serious but full of joy and enthusiasm, the 

 reasons for which he soon confided to me. They were two : 

 first, that he had an opportunity to take a more active and 

 direct part in helping win the war; and second, that he was 

 going to study the soils of that old country which have been 

 farmed for thousands of years, to ascertain in what condition 

 they were and to see what he could do to make them produce 

 more quickly and permanently. 



Doctor Hopkins immediately applied himself to learning 

 the Greek language with a rare enthusiasm and great intensity, 

 and by the time we arrived in Greece he had already made 

 notable progress in it. 



On our arrival in Greece he entered upon his work at once 

 with a boundless enthusiasm and interest, passionate devotion, 

 intense concentration, and ceaseless labor. 



His greatness as a scientist, his love for the truth, his con- 

 scienciousness and practicability are further revealed by the 

 plan he followed in performing his monumental work in 

 Greece. He absolutely refused to give advice or to make rec- 

 ommendations regarding the soils of Greece until he had made 

 a thoro and scientific investigation of them. Accordingly, he 

 instituted as thoro and extensive scientific study of the soils of 



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