THE LIFE AND CAREER OF DOCTOR FREER. 



By Martin Egan, 

 Editor of the Manila Times. 



When Doctor Musgrave asked me to come to this memorial 

 gathering and sketch in brief the life and career of Paul Freer, 

 my first thought was to ask him to excuse me from a task so 

 painful. I knew that if I did so I must bare my heart in sorrow 

 for my friend who has gone and then I realized that we would 

 all be here to-day with our hearts bared in sorrow, that no man 

 need hide his heart in such a communion of friendship in grief, 

 and so I come to take my place among those chosen to pay tribute 

 to the memory of the good man whom we have lost from our 

 councils, the friend passed from the narrowing circle. Paul 

 Freer descended of a line worthy of him, its product, he worthy 

 of his lineage. His father was a man of scientific attainments, 

 who gave his life in that noblest aim of science, the saving of 

 human life; his mother, a scholar, a linguist, of high culture, 

 of rare mind, and compelling maternal love for the well-being 

 of her children. The elder Freer, bom in New York of an old 

 family of Dutch extraction, settled in Chicago, then a scattering 

 town of 7,000, and entered upon the practice of medicine. He 

 quickly advanced to leadership in the growing city, and became 

 president of Rush Medical College which he had helped to found. 

 Overwork in a severe epidemic of typhoid fever that swept the 

 city led to his breakdown and death, and the care and education 

 of his children, including him whom we honor and mourn to-day, 

 passed to the widow and mother. Mrs. Freer, his mother, was 

 bom in Wiirttemberg and as a girl went to New Orleans to 

 make her home with her uncle. Herself an advanced student, 

 she devoted herself assiduously to the education of her children. 

 It is related of the family that it was a rule to conduct table 



