Pebbuabt 25, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



177 



and we can sepnd our time best by living and 

 not trying to stay alive. Fortunately, health 

 is a positive quality which can be cultivated 

 in ways that are pleasant, and with reason- 

 able understanding and moderate care we can 

 protect ourselves against those diseases which 

 are preventable. 



I am personally out of sympathy with in- 

 jecting the propaganda and the slogans of 

 public health into the services of the churches, 

 although I am most heartily in favor of church 

 people doing all that they can to mitigate hu- 

 man suffering by methods of prevention as 

 well as those of relief. This concerted move- 

 ment of the women of Boston to improve the 

 health of our children strikes a responsive 

 chord in all of us. "We know that Professor 

 Sedgwick's voice would have been lifted' up 

 in favor of this weeks' crusade. His very 

 heart went out to the refugee children of 

 Prance, and one of the most beautiful epi- 

 sodes of his life was associated with Chateau 

 Lafayette, which he and Mrs. Sedgwick vis- 

 ited last summer and to which they hoped to 

 return. 



We come finally to Sedgwick's last great 

 work in connection with the School of Public 

 Health of Harvard University and the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology. This school 

 he helped to establish in 1913 and served as 

 chairman of the administrative board until 

 his death. He delighted to see it grow, he de- 

 lighted to see students coming to it from 

 foreign countries — from Italy, from China, 

 from South America, from India and Siam, 

 from Czecho^Slovakia, and from Mexico. Pew 

 ■people of Boston realize how solidly this little 

 school has taken its place as a center of public- 

 health education, or how its example has been 

 followed by other universities in America. 



Nearly twenty years ago when Sedgwick 

 joined the American Public Health Associa- 

 tion, he was made a member of a committee 

 on the Teaching of Hygiene and the Granting 

 of the Degree of Doctor of Public Health. 

 He always held the view that the public health 

 service was different from the medical serv- 

 ice, that a man could be an efficient health 

 executive without being a doctor. His last im- 



portant address, given at the 100th anniver- 

 sary of the medical school of the University 

 of Cincinnati, was devoted to the subject of 

 the edtication of health executives. He advo- 

 cated what he called the T plan, by which 

 ■medical schools should have two programs, 

 alike during the first two years, but after- 

 awards diverging, one towards the degree of 

 doctor of medicine and one towards the degree 

 of doctor of public health. 

 . His last act as a member of the administra- 

 tive board of the School of Public Health, held 

 December 19, 1920, was to assist in preparing 

 a statement relative to the future of the 

 school, planning for a reorganization of its 

 gHjvernment and doing so at the sacrifice of 

 his own position as chairman and having in 

 mind only the future good of the cause of 

 public health education. In time to come 

 .Sedgwick's part in the organization of this 

 school, which seems destined to take its place 

 side by side with the Harvard Medical School, 

 Will stand forth as one of his most construc- 

 tive works. May it not be possible that in the 

 near future some friend or group of friends 

 will contribute a fund big enough to endow a 

 William Thompson Sedgwick professorship in 

 this School of Public Health of Harvard Uni- 

 versity and the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology which he loved so well. What 

 finer memorial could be given than one which 

 would tend to make his name and teaching 

 known to the students of the coming years! 

 ' And so we may sum up Professor Sedg- 

 wick's life as that of a great teacher, an in- 

 terpreter of science, a wise councilor, an am- 

 bassador of public health. Friend of young 

 men, loyal supporter of the institute, patriotic 

 citizen, a Christian gentleman, he will be 

 greatly missed by all who were fortunate 

 enough to know him. 



On Sunday mornings I like to hear the Har- 

 vard student choir sing in Appleton Chapel. 

 .Sometimes the music rises and falls in vary- 

 ing melody until at the end it fades away as 

 ■in a distance. At other times it pursues a 

 simple motif, which grows in volume until it 

 culminates in a burst of song and, on a sud- 

 dten, ceases. For an instant the air tingles 



