Friends and relatives gathered in Memorial Church yesterday in memory of Professor of History H. Leroy Vail.

Former students and colleagues spoke of the compassion and teaching ability of Vail. He was 55 years old when he died March 24 after an extended battle with lymphoma.

In a service that included a reading from Ecclesiastes as well as singing by members of the Kuumba Singers, speakers said Vail's empathy complemented his academic integrity.

Foster Associate Professor of African Studies Emmanuel K. Akyeampong repeated some advice Vail had given him early in his career that he said highlighted Vail's mix of academics and compassion.

"Leroy told me I could read hundreds of books and write a dozen, but to be a true scholar I'd have to be a human being and that, he emphasized, is the hard part," Akyeampong said.

Vail's teaching abilities were lauded by each of the speakers at the memorial service.

Ruth G. Okediji, a professor at the University of Oklahoma Law School who met Vail while she was at Harvard Law School, talked of the attention Vail gave to those he taught.

Although she never took one of Vail's courses, Okediji said she considered her-self one of his students nevertheless.

"By the end of my first year at Harvard, I had met many professor, but almost no teachers. Leroy was a teacher," Okediji said.

"He made students feel that they were discovering new information and that they had something new to contribute," said Nannette M. Christ '93, a former student of Vail's.

Christ said that she felt incredibly lucky to have known Vail and to have benefited from his teaching abilities.

Vail joined the Harvard Faculty in 1984 and was a pioneer in the field of African history at Harvard.

He co-authored a number of books on African history and linguistics.

At the time of his death, he was working on compiling dictionaries of the Lakeside Tonga and Tumbuka languages of Northern Malawi.