The Two Towers: Main

guages and History with the assistance of a teacher of German, Claude K. Scheifley.

Herbert Taylor, the Alumni Secretary and editor of The Journal, reported this meeting of the faculty with the remark that this sixty-ninth year would mark the division between two epochs of school history. Actually it was the seventieth year which made the most lasting impression, chiefly because of Professor Taylor himself.

Herbert Taylor's definitive history entitled Seventy Years of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute can never be too highly appraised or praised. A seven-year labor of devotion--even with its chronological detail, it had warm readability and surprising objectivity. The objectivity was doubtlessly a personal characteristic attained, as only such detachment can be attained, by a serious illness which developed shortly after Herbert Taylor accepted the assignment.

In 1929 The Journal had had one blank page with the explanation that the alumni secretary had spent "too much time and too much energy" to fill it up. For fourteen months thereafter Herbert Taylor recuperated in the Rutland Sanitorium. He was deluged with attention. "I am hopelessly in debt," he wrote. "As soon as I get some strength I shall start refunding."

"The debt had been paid in advance," reassured The Journal, while twelve persons scrambled to take care of Professor Taylor's many projects, especially the new ones connected with the Homecoming Day planned for the fall.

In inimitable fashion Herbert Taylor refunded with many subsequent years of alumni secretaryship and with his comprehensive record of Tech life, which has become the bible of reference at the Institute.

Meanwhile the Alumni registers became heavy with names and statistics of the school's greatest pride--its graduates. Names of famous men began to tumble over each other in their bid for well-deserved recognition. In 1938 there were 4500 members in the Alumni Association, and many were the surveys made of their whereabouts and accomplishments. At one point the Alumni office attempted to make a projection of how many graduates would still be living in another fifty years.

"We don't care how many," teased Professor Allen out at the Alden Hydraulic Lab. "Just tell us which ones."

The gifts to the school began to reflect the prosperity and generosity of its graduates. Some gifts, to be sure--such as the David Hale Fanning legacy--came unexpectedly from outside sources in recognition of the school's new prestige. There were others, like Dr. Kinnicutt's and William Bird's, which came from the teachers. But most of the gifts came from former students. More than a million dollars was contributed for scholarships, thereby giving one-third of the students some form of financial aid. There were also gifts of cherished land, exemplified best by the homes and property on West Street given by the Higgins families.