The retirement of Barrett Wendell from active professional duties at Harvard means the loss of all those forces for the advancement of learning which go into the making of any college "celebrity." A professor may become that figure by the possession of a unique personality or of a few striking idiosyncrasies only. Or he may radiate from his every glance and gesture a powerful and independent spirit, apt more to excite awe than to invite friendly or filial attachment. But whatever the qualities that go to the making of a college "celebrity" they are sure to be of the kind that compel affection. Such a man teaches not alone by word of mouth. He instructs as much by his example of manhood, by the standard of his tastes. He is something more than an instructor; he is an influence.

Such a man was Professor Wendell. He always taught most effectively when least conscious or deliberate in his teaching. With his flawless taste in letters, hew was the surest possible guide to his students. Always he pointed them surely and directly to the best. With a gift for whimsical humor to sharpen his judgement, he invariably carried the interest of his students with him where-ever he chose to turn the shafts of his penetrating criticism. Ridicule was his favorite weapon for the banal and he had no mercy for the pious shams, the stuffed dummies that persist in all literature. Always he was sane, sound and exacting. Thousands of young Americans have left his classroom bearing the stamp of his taste and the stores of his learning.

As an author Professor Wendell ahs placed upon the shelves, casually and with too much modesty, two excellent novels, and a book on English composition which has carried his precise knowledge, the guidance of his flawless taste and his inspiriting influence far beyond the walls of Harvard. Whatever he wrote himself bore all the graces of a distinguished literary artist. He leaves Harvard the poorer by a genial personality an unfailing sympathy for the student (too often obscured behind an exterior of mocking shyness), and a fund of knowledge which the college will be long in replacing. Boston Tcaucribt.