Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 320

1913	    Endowment		    1925
$320,250    for general purposes    $1,613,205
289,304	    for designated purposes 823,000
none	    reserves		    100,574
 _______			    _________
$609,554			    $2,536,779

The normal course of resignations and appointments produced numerous changes in the teaching staff between 1921 and 1925. Two professors and one veteran instructor died; one department head retired. Prof. William W. Bird, for twenty years a capable leader of the Mechanical Engineering department and director of the Washburn Shops, asked to be relieved of his major responsibilities in 1923. Though still a comparatively young man, his health would no longer permit him to carry a heavy burden. For a time thereafter he taught the practical course in business engineering that he had developed, but death came suddenly in January, 1926. Soon after he died it was learned that he had made a unique bequest. He had established a trust fund of $100,000 for Mrs. Bird's life use, but which eventually was to remain at interest until it produced a $10,000 sustaining scholarship for the Institute, followed by other similar scholarships far into the future.

During the summer of 1921 word reached the Institute that John Jernberg, grand old instructor of forge practice, had died while on a visit to Sweden. He was sixty-three, and for thirty-nine years had served the Institute almost continuously. During that time he had become an authority on steel and its heat treatment, and had imparted his knowledge to hundreds of young engineers. He was succeeded by Carl G. Johnson, who for several years had been his assistant.

Death struck again in the fall of 1923, removing William C. Himmer, an excellent instructor in German, who had been on the staff since 1918, and who had been promoted to assistant professor in 1922. He had been forced to withdraw because of health eight months before he died. Robert C.

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Last Modified: Fri Jul 30 11:15:25 EDT 1999