THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WORK OF 

 DOCTOR HOPKINS 



By E. W. ALLEN 

 Chief, Office of Experiment Stations, United States Department 



of Agriculture 



IT is said, "There is no joy the world can give like that it 

 takes away." The taking away of an illustrious public 

 servant in the full vigor of his career arouses not only a sense 

 of irreparable loss but a first feeling that his passing was pre- 

 mature, that his work had not been finished, that he was 

 needed to carry it forward. We may forget that life is meas- 

 ured not by its length but by its accomplishment, that the most 

 that can be expected of any man is that he "will stir a few 

 grains of sand on the shore" of knowledge — that his greatest 

 service may be to supply a new vision or set in motion a move- 

 ment so far-reaching that it will require time and others to 

 complete its fulfillment. The larger the idea or the greater its 

 reach the more rarely can he see it thru. The work of a man 

 who has been a great constructive force lives on after he has 

 passed, marking a definite step in human progress and gaining 

 strength with perspective. 



In the death of Doctor Hopkins not only Illinois and the 

 Central West, but the country, agricultural science, and the 

 American experiment station system, loses one of its foremost 

 students and one of its most conspicuous examples of a life of 

 service in science for agriculture. He belonged to all of us. 

 He was a powerful champion of the underlying purpose of 

 agricultural investigation, and he was a great stimulating influ- 

 ence in giving it direction. He dealt with subjects of funda- 

 mental importance in a manner which was at once scientific 

 and practical ; and by the clearness of his thinking, the per- 

 severance of his efforts, and the vigor with which he expounded 

 his conclusion, he made a nation-wide impress. 



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