678 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
shortly after. “We are beginning to get ready to move into the 
new house,” he wrote, June 21. “Probably in, two weeks we 
shall be in our own home. My wife looks forward with great 
pleasure to the new life, and I hope it will be in every way bene¬ 
ficial. * * * Neither of us is in the best condition.” 
Early in July they moved into the new house they had built, 
and on the 26th he passed away. 
In, one of his later letters there is a reference to the book of 
resolutions—with signatures of all the faculty—prepared in 
consequence of his resignation, and with that I may close: 
“The Cardinal book touched me so deeply I have hardly dared 
to venture on a formal acknowledgment; but I must do so ! with¬ 
out much delay. Especially gratifying was the note preceding 
the signatures themselves. As a whole I believe the work to be 
unique. Surely our dear old Patrick (janitor) would have 
called it a ‘wonderful char-ac-ter from me last place!’ God 
bless you all!” 
Charles Eorster Smith. 
DP. GEORGE McKENDREE STEELE. 
In comparatively inconspicuous positions there have often 
beeni princes. Some men are great enough to do large work in 
humble fields. Usually the place surpasses the man, but some¬ 
times the man, relatively speaking, surpasses the place. Such 
seems to have been the case with George McKendree Steele to 
whose life and service we are today to pay respect. 
Dr. Steele was built on a large scale. Physically, he stood 
Achilles like among men. His stalwart frame was full of 
rugged strength. Of his leonine head, President Warren of 
Boston University has said, “Surrounded with a diadem it 
would have reminded men of Charlemagne.” He was a man 
who conquered where he stood, for there was about him such 
weight and power, such a dominance of personality, that others 
instinctively gave him the right of way. He possessed what 
Emerson has named character, “a reserved force which acts 
directly by presence and without means.” 
He was nobly born, for his cradle was rocked in a home where 
there was no confusion of material and moral values, but where 
