WILLIAM RUSSEL DUDLEY 



[Read before the Stanford Alumni Association at Washington, D. C, 

 November 11, 1911.] 



By William Franklin Wight 



DURING the early summer one of Stanford's most lovable teachers 

 closed his life's work and found that last long rest which must come 

 to us all. I wish therefore to-night to pay a brief tribute to the 

 memory of Professor William Russel Dudley. His kindly feeling and in- 

 terest in his students made him loved by them all, and he possessed that 

 indescribable quality in a teacher that without thought and without effort 

 instantly arouses enthusiasm in the laboratory and in the classroom. He 

 was an unusual teacher, and it is a sad thought to realize that years before 

 the allotted time of life his voice will be heard no more in the classroom 

 and his charming manner will be unknown to the students who shall fill 

 the halls of Stanford. 



It was my fortune to be with him on the last day. I had visited him 

 a few weeks earlier, and then he was hopeful that there might still be left 

 to him a few years in which to complete, the botanical work that he had 

 begun almost immediately on coming to California. Nevertheless, those who 

 saw him knew that it was even then too late — that the end must soon come. 

 It was therefore with a sad heart that I went on the morning of June 4th 

 to pay a last visit to my friend and teacher. 



From the balcony where he lay in the cottage at Los Altos one could 

 look across the valley to the Mount Hamilton range bathed in sunlight, and 

 view the glory of a California landscape. The air was crisp and full of 

 life to the strong. It was indeed a beautiful day in which to live, but 

 there with the vision of nature he loved so well before him, now too far 

 away for his eyes to see, in the midst of a few friends, he calmly awaited 

 the end. 



It is however of other days that we would keep the memories fresh. 

 We would rather remember him strong and enjoying the activities of a busy 

 life. And I think he took keen pleasure in all his work, for he appeared 

 to go through each year at the university with an enthusiasm equal to that 

 we should expect if the studies and discoveries of the laboratory were as 

 new to him as to the student. But it was on long tramps in the mountains, 

 in the solitude and grandeur of the redwood forest, that one really began 

 to appreciate the fineness of the man, to know how much he saw in mountain 

 and forest, and how much he loved nature in sunshine and in storm. At 



