Birthdays

A very old man, President Emeritus of a Massachusetts University, celebrated a fortnight ago his 92nd birthday. No enormous cake glistening with petals of pink fondant marked the occasion; no 92 candles shone in the old man's eyes, no speeches were made, no toasts drunk. On the contrary, this aged onetime University President passed the day reading, studying, strolling in the morning sunshine, answering his correspondence. Once the intimate friend of Bryant, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Whittier, Aldrich, Longfellow, he can still read with ease and operate a typewriter. In 1874, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, then working to perfect the tele phone, was a member of his faculty. This old man is Dr. William Fairfield Warren, President Emeritus of Boston University.

Another elderly man, one year younger than Dr. Warren, also President Emeritus of a Massachusetts University, likewise celebrated his birthday, during the past fortnight, as he has done every year for 91 years and rarely, it is believed, without due notice from the press. What he (Dr. Charles W. Eliot, erst head of Harvard) did on his birthday, was set forth in detail in newspapers throughout the land.