LIFE AND CAREER. vil 



Our departed friend has talked to me many times of those 

 golden days at Munich, and I have always believed that they 

 gave him the perfection of his ideals and logic and the sound- 

 ness of his methods and thought and work. He left Munich fully 

 equipped for work, and for a brief period labored and studied 

 in England, first in the private laboratory of Sir William Perkin, 

 where he devoted himself to analin d.ves, and later at Owens 

 College, Manchester, where he was an assistant instructor. But 

 his desire was to return home, and when Tuft's College offered 

 him a place he gladly accepted. But he was not to remain 

 there. The faculty of the University of Michigan had heard 

 of his ability and rising fame and offered him a larger field 

 and scope of work. He went to Ann Arbor as lecturer in 1889 

 and a year later was honored with the professorship of inorganic 

 chemistry, with a chair in the Medical School as well as in the 

 School of Arts. It has been testified by many that Paul Freer 

 brought to Michigan a wonderful stimulus for original work. 

 He had the high ideals of the German university, less known 

 and understood then in our American universities, he had the 

 enthusiasm of youth, and he had ability as his commanding 

 talent. He was impatient of mediocrity, and gave the best of 

 himself to the earnest worker, the advancing student who came 

 to him for instruction and guidance. His seriousness amounted 

 at times to austerity, but it produced results and was in keeping 

 with the high standard of scholarship of the members of the 

 faculties at Michigan. In 1895 the University of Chicago 

 sought his services, offering him a professorship of chemistry, 

 but he declined the flattering offer, electing to stay where 

 he was accomplishing so much good work. There he remained 

 until 1901, when the United States Government gave him a 

 chance for service in this field, so rich in opportunity for prac- 

 tical scientific work. He accepted the task, and here are written 

 the last and greatest chapters of his life. You know them 

 perhaps better than I. I was his personal friend and could 

 share but little in the multiplicity of his official and professional 

 activities, many of you were of them with him. I do know 

 that we meet to-day in one institution and are surrounded by 



