Northwestern to Chicago
At Northwestern, Professor Pound had a light, six hour teaching schedule with ample opportunity for research and writing. Soon the University of Chicago offered him a staff position with a high stipend. Dean Wigmore volunteered to meet the figure, but Pound took the position that it would be "intolerable" for him to receive a higher salary than
His brief stay at Chicago was the last stop on the road to Harvard. Dean Thayer invited him to become Story Professor of Law, and 1913 found him Carter Professor of Jurisprudence. At Dean Thayer's death in 1916, Professor Pound became Dean of the Law School. He was the first men graduate of the School to hold that post.
During his 20-year tenure as dean, Harvard became the nation's leader in training men for teaching and government service. While this program was carving out the success that Dean Pound had worked for, the enrollment doubled, remaining at 1500 from the immediate postwar period throughout his deanship. In 1936 he became a University Professor and added undergraduate courses to his schedule.
Astounding feats of memory have along fascinated Professor Pound's friends and associates. Undergraduates are flattered to find he remembers names, faces, and even the details of term papers.
Before delivering an address to the Chicago Bar Association, Professor Pound was approached by the editor of its Review with a suggestion that the Review publish the speech. Professor Pound pulled out his manuscript and handed it to the editor. "Is this your address for tonight?" he asked. Pound replied that it was nut that he did not need his text, as he had dictated it on the way over from Philadelphia so that it was fresh in his mind. Following the talk through the pages of the manuscript, the Review's editor reported that they corresponded nearly word for word, with all the changes seemingly for the better.
Professor Pound has always been a strong man and for years could run a five minute mile. When he lived in Belmont, he walked six miles a day to Cambridge, and he became famous among his neighbors for going coat-less in subzero weather.
On one occasion he excited the sympathy of a group of people who saw him walking along the shore overlooking to bay. He was coat-less as usual; the thermometer read ten below. Mrs. Pound, who tells the story, was embarrassed to confess to the commiserators that the "poor man" was her husband, as she was swathed warmly in mink.
Professor Pound, still vigorous and active, is today the epitome of what a man retiring should be. He refuses to be drawn into controversy.. "I have been in the midst of controversial issues all my life," he replies to queries about the New Deal or the Supreme Court. "This is not the time for that." He has already achieved substantially all the honors that can be accorded to a lawyer. He retires from the University in an aura of faculty-student regret at giving up a great thinker and a great teacher. But it is an aura of mutual good will.
At the time of his retirement, Professor Pound became the focal point of a flood of congratulations and good wishes mixed with regret at the loss of his figure from the American legal scene. By wire and mail and phone the 76-year old giant got his due from the top minds in American government and law.
Albert Kourek, professor emeritus at North western university where Pound started his long teaching career, summed up the general feeling with his statement: "In our time in this country in the field of legal philosophy, one alpine peak has appeared above the surrounding landscape. This is Roscoe Pound."
Punctuality
Among other of his characteristics, Roscoe Pound has always emphasized punctuality. Only twice in his career at Harvard did he fail to keep an appointment. Once was this spring term, his last at Harvard, when he missed the first meeting of his undergraduate course. Government 43 to the surprise of the assembled and expectant class. The explanation was a simple one, though: in the confusion of different College and Law School opening dates he had merely forgotten to note the lecture date on his overstuffed calendar.