Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 353

was given assistants in the department of Economics and Government: Leo J. Meyer, Wesleyan, '31, for one year, C. Grove Haines, Ursinus, '27, for two years, then Albert J. Schwieger, Hamline, '28, in 1930.

Richard A. Beth, '27, served two years as instructor of Physics, then went to Germany in quest of a doctor's degree. Paul C. Shedd resigned in 1928 after four years as instructor in Physics. Carl H. Nordstrom, '26, and Richard B. Dow, Clark, '27, came to the department in 1928, the former for one year only. Reginald J. Stephenson, University of London, '24, and Millard I. Manning, Trinity, '28, were instructors from 1929 to 1931. Semen A. Lepeshkin, Columbia, '27, began a threeyear term as instructor in Mathematics in 1929. Only change in the department of Physical Education was when Frank W. Grant succeeded Herbert H. Ashjlan as swimming instructor in 1929.

At the close of the 1931 college year the college lost the services of two senior professors of Electrical Engineering. Joseph 0. Phelon, a member of the staff almost continuously since his graduation in 1887, had spent the year 1928-29 on sabbatical leave in California. He enjoyed it so much that he retired two years later, at the age of sixty-eight, to make his home on the Pacific coast.

Prof. Harold B. Smith retired in 1931, broken in health, physically and mentally. In 1929 he had been elected to the presidency of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, a post that demanded much of his time and energy. He went on several wide tours of the country, speaking before engineering societies and colleges. His health broke soon after the end of that year. Much of his misfortune, like his professional achievement, was attributable to his dominating, sometimes ruthless, personality, yet the wrecking of such a notable career was pitiable. Selfish though his aim may have been, he built for the Institute an Electrical Engineering department that was not excelled by that of any other college. Professor Smith died February 9, 1932.

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