With the death of Professor Barrett Wendell yesterday Harvard lost one of the greatest figures in her history. No man was more intimately associated with the growth of modern Harvard than he. None combined in a rarer way the qualities of scholar, teacher, and friend.

Little need be said about his scholarship; his books speak for themselves. He did for American literature much what Taine did for that of England. He could interpret without distortion, and while he charmed the reader with his own style he inspired him to read the originals discussed. Though a critic, he was ever impatient of those who use criticism as a substitute for the reading of the classics, and it is the glory of his criticism that he kept it ever an open door to the knowledge of literary masterpieces at first hand. He was a master of trenchant phraseology, but he never permitted epigram to degenerate into verbal trickery. Keenly satirical, he was in tolerant only of hypocrisy and the wealth of kindliness that lay behind the satire made him able to rebuke without bitterness. There was in his genius something of that universality which marks the truly constructive scholar. He made no pretense to a technical knowledge of art, yet he was keenly appreciative of art in all its forms and exquisitely capable of communicating this appreciation to his pupils and his friends. He went through life enjoying all that is finest in it and genially sharing his enjoyment with his fellow men.

Master and Friend

To his contemporaries he was a sympathetic and broad minded labourer in the field of knowledge. To those of us who were younger he was able to be both master and friend. Probably no teacher in Harvard ever had a more devoted following among younger scholars and they can be proud who have helped him, if ever so little, in his work in later years. He valued to the highest degree this association with younger men, and one of the most beautiful tributes he ever paid was to one of them. In a note prefacing his last volume he mentioned the help given him by my classmate, the late Frederic Schenck and in conclusion wrote: "If I felt sure that the book deserved such honour it should be dedicated to his brave and happy memory." Of the many gracious things that Mr. Wendell has said probably none reveals so clearly the modesty, the utter absence of smug self-satisfaction, that was perhaps the most endearing quality of the teacher and the man.