Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 185

1897. It was a severe shock to the students and his colleagues, though for several years they had known that his health was precarious. In spite of intense pain and frequent confinement to bed, he had carried on his work until a few months before his death, when a series of operations had made activity impossible. His service of twenty-six years had been a substantial contribution to the Institute.

Professor Kimball's place was left vacant until the fall of 1899, when the Trustees again went to Purdue and brought to the Institute an able scientist. A. Wilmer Duff, new head of the departments of Physics and General Science, was thirty-five, a Canadian by birth. He had accumulated four degrees, one from New Brunswick, one from London, and two from Edinburgh. His doctorate, also from Edinburgh, was awarded in 1901. Prior to coming to Worcester he had taught at the University of Madras, India, at the University of Berlin, where he held a fellowship, at the University of New Brunswick, and since 1893, at Purdue University. He had written extensively on various phases of Physics, a groundwork for his noted textbook, which was to be used by many generations of college men and women.

Joseph Beals, who had been an instructor since 1891, was promoted to assistant professor after Professor Kimball's death, a position which he held until 1900, when he was elected clerk and business manager of the Worcester school department. Dr. Edward Rhoads served as instructor in Physics from 1898 to 1900, when he was succeeded by Arthur W. Ewell, Yale, '97. Dr. Ewell had achieved high university honors in Mathematics and had held the John Sloane fellowship for two years while working for his Ph.D. degree. He had spent another year of graduate work at Johns Hopkins before coming to the Institute.

In the department of Civil Engineering, Professor White was assisted by Arthur D. Butterfield, '93, from 1894 to 1898. In the latter year Mr. Butterfield became head of the Mathematics department in the engineering school, University

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