PROFESSOR DUDLEY'S WORK FOR STANFORD* 

 By Professor LeRoy Abrams 



PROFESSOR William Russel Dudley, who became professor emeritus of 

 botany at the opening of the present semester, although born in an old 

 New England town that has been the home of the Dudley family since 

 early colonial times, is essentially a pioneer. Entering Cornell University 

 with its second freshman class, he remained in that young institution after 

 graduation, first as instructor and later as assistant professor of botany, 

 until the foundation of our own university, when at the urgent request of 

 President Jordan, his college mate and intimate friend, he came to Stan- 

 ford as one of the pioneer professors at the opening of its second year. 



Of Professor Dudley's experience at the very beginning of work in 

 his new field, and of the arduous times during the dark days that en- 

 gulfed the university soon afterward, I have no personal knowledge, for 

 it was some four or five years after his arrival that I came to know him. 

 Upon entering the university I sought out the department of systematic 

 botany with the intention of carrying on some studies in flowering plants. 

 At that time the twelve small buildings which form the inner quadrangle, 

 and three small shop buildings in the rear of them, were the only build- 

 ings available for university work. In my search for the department I 

 was directed to the farthest of the shop buildings, the one situated just 

 back of the new geology building, where I was told that I would find 

 Professor Dudley on the second floor. And here I did find him, tucked 

 away in one end of a loft, in a single room, one corner of which had 

 been partitioned off as an office. In a quiet, reserved manner he talked 

 over my work; then he took me into the main room to select a table and 

 material for study. It was a curious room, this "laboratory," perched 

 high amid the rafters. Three huge beams ran lengthwise of it a good 

 hurdling distance apart, but about five feet and a half from the floor. 

 With an apologetic smile, he warned me of these as he calmly ducked under 

 the first. The table was soon selected and my initial study outlined. Day 

 by day, throughout the course, as he went from student to student directing 

 their studies, he patiently dodged those formidable beams. 



For ten years this man, one of America's foremost teachers of botany, 

 conducted his classes under such handicaps. Yet with these great obstacles 

 constantly checking the normal growth and development of his cherished 

 plans, he labored on incessantly; his quiet, dignified, courteous manner. 



* From the Stanford Alumnus, Vol. XII, No. 6, pp. 165-166, February, 1911. 



