Neff to Baylor

Neff to Baylor

''He is a native-born Texan and a rustic who has never shot a gun, baited a hook, used tobacco in any form, or drunk anything stronger than Brazos water.''* Thus wrote the late President Samuel Palmer Brooks of Baylor University (Waco. Tex.) in his introduction to Battles for Peace, a collection of addresses by his good friend Pat Morris Neff. Many people might have doubted that such a Texan ever existed. Pat Neff not only existed but became Texas' Governor (1921-25). Well-known now is the story of how. hunting with a party which included the late William Jennings Bryan, he sat down to breakfast, found a wooden decoy duck on his plate. It was explained that each was to eat what he had shot the day before. Said Governor Neff: "The report that I never fired a gun almost cost me my governorship. Now my expert marksmanship is about to rob me of my breakfast."

Year ago Pat Neff, who had resumed his old law practice in Waco, hurried out to Baylor. His friend Sam Brooks lay dying of cancer, signing diplomas for his seniors almost to the hour of his death (TIME, May 18). Lawyer Neff watched by his side. Between the two was long and close friendship. They had roomed together for a time at Baylor, from which Pat Neff was graduated in 1894. Brooks became Baylor's president in 1902, Neff its board president in 1903. Both worked for peace, the one as organizer of Texas' first State Peace Congress in 1907, the other as chairman of the Texas League to Enforce Peace. Both became presidents of Texas Baptist Conventions. Lawyer Neff waited until his old friend could sign no more diplomas. Then he went away. well aware that Baylor's presidency would soon be empty, perhaps also aware that he would be asked to fill it.

He was asked last February. Presumably because he is a member of the potent State Railroad Commission (which controls oil, also settles rail & bus disputes), perhaps because he disliked leaving his two colleagues a free hand, he delayed his decision. Up until last week he had not resigned his Commissionership. But he announced last week he would assume the presidency of Baylor next autumn.

Pat Neff, 60, is austere, eloquent, old-fashioned in his wing collar, string tie, Prince Albert. He is a Lion, Rotarian, Knight of Pythias, Mason. In 1913-15 he was president of a Conference for Education in Texas. In the Texas Outlook last week appeared his "Interpretation of Texas Week" (March 2-9) in which he said: "During that week nature is waking her sleeping children from their winter sleep, the invigorating breezes are blowing, the flowers are bursting into bloom, the trees are fixing to robe themselves in their glorious garments of green, and the peaceful valleys and hillsides are spreading their blue bonnet carpet."

Riches to Rochester

When George Eastman took his life (TIME. March 21), little was known of his affairs. During his lifetime he gave away some $75,000,000; most people assumed he had little left beyond a nominal share in his kodak company. The filing of his will last week disclosed an estate of some $20,000,000. Of this $200,000 goes to Mrs. Ellen Andrus Dryden of Evanston, Ill., his niece and nearest relative. Other bequests go to her husband and children, to employes and associates of Mr. Eastman, to Rochester charities. The residual estate is such as to raise the University of Rochester to the position of fifth among rich U. S. educational institutions,* to bring protests from Cornell University which had understood it would share in the fortune./- Just before he wrote "My work is done. Why wait?" Mr. Eastman added a codicil to his will (dated 1925) eliminating from it Cornell, M. I. T. and the Rochester Y. W. C. A. Last week lawyers pointed out that these institutions had been provided for since the will was drawn. The attorneys for Cornell and the Y. W. C. A. withdrew their objections. M. I. T. had made none (as "Mr. Smith," Mr. Eastman had given it $19,500,000).

During his lifetime George Eastman gave the University of Rochester $35,500,000 for its four divisions, each with a physical plant of its own. Oldest, the College of Arts & Sciences for Men, which was moved from its old site out to the banks of the Genesee, received $6,600,000. The Women's College got $3,000,000; the new School of Medicine & Dentistry $4,000,000. Chiefly Mr. Eastman was proud of his School of Music, which cost $4,500,000 to build. He gave it $7,900,000 more and a $3,000,000 theatre. To all four divisions he gave other amounts periodically. By his will last week they received another $12,000,000. unrestricted, plus $2,700,000 for the School of Music and $2,000,000 for the upkeep of the Eastman home, which is to be the residence of the University's president. The use of the remainder is to be determined by the trustees--"a tremendous obligation. "First occupant of the big house will be Rochester's President Rush Rhees. He will have the use of 37 rooms, twelve bathrooms, nine fireplaces, two elevators, a private laboratory and a private kitchen where, if he wishes to emulate Mr. Eastman, he will experiment with cookery, particularly lemon meringue pies and chocolate cakes.

King to Amherst

President Arthur Stanley Pease of Amherst College resigned last January to become professor of Latin & Greek at Harvard (TIME, Jan. 25). An earnest, retiring pundit, steeped in the classics, he is little known to his students, resembles greatly Amherst's Trustee Calvin Coolidge. Who would succeed him? Students planned to petition for Headmaster Alfred Ernest Stearns of Phillips Academy, Andover, but campus newspapers spiked the idea. There was idle talk that Trustee Coolidge, often seen about the campus, might take the post. Neither of these was elected last week. Amherst's eleventh president is to be Stanley King, 48, retired Boston lawyer and businessman, chairman of the executive committee of Amherst's trustees.

New President King went through Amherst in three years, was graduated summa cum laude in 1903. He went to Harvard Law School, practiced in Boston. Notable were his Wartime activities, as a member of the Council of Defense committee on supplies; special assistant and later secretary to Secretary of War Newton Diehl Baker. In 1919 he became secretary of President Wilson's Industrial Conference Board whose reports he prepared with Herbert Hoover and Owen D. Young. He is now chairman of Massachusetts' employment commission. In 1920 Lawyer King helped raise the Amherst Centennial Gift of $3,000,000.

Said Newton D. Baker last week: "Stanley King's love of life, his knowledge of youth, his happiness and integrity are all qualities which will make him a great example as a college president. . . . The highest qualification for a college presidency is that the students should desire to be like the president. I can imagine few people whom it would be more wholesome to be like than him." Said President Ernest Martin Hopkins of Amherst's rival. Dartmouth: "My respect has continued and grown for the scope of his intellectual interest and for the quality of his thinking in regard to political and social problems.''

Speer to Northfield

At a commencement reunion 600 alumni voted to build a house for the principal. But they could not wait! They ran off to the barn, hauled out plows, climbed a high hill and began to dig at once . . . that was in 1912, at Mount Hermon School for Boys.

The man whose house they could not wait to begin was Dr. Henry Franklin ("Doc") Cutler, who had been Mount Hermon's principal since 1890. Dr. Cutler was (and still is) reputedly able to call every one of his old boys by name. During the last fortnight many and many of the 14,000-odd alumni of the school were saddened, for as "Doc" returned from a tour of 35 Mount Hermon clubs between Northfield and Chicago it was announced that he would retire at 70 next month. Dr. Cutler will travel in Europe with his third wife who was a member of the Mount Hermon faculty when he married her in 1927. Later he will settle near Mount Hermon, but not so near as to "bother" his successor whom he nominated himself: Elliott Speer, son of Dr. & Mrs. Robert Elliott Speer (see p. 56).

For six years Elliott Speer has been president of the corporators & trustees of the Northfield Schools which Evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody founded 50 years ago for worthy youngsters who lacked advantages. Last year he finished raising $2,750,000 for the Northfield Schools, took his wife and three children off to Edinburgh, where he is now taking his second degree. When he returns to become Mount Hermon's principal he may sit on his front lawn, look across the Connecticut River at Northfield Seminary for girls, and like "Doc" Cutler reflect: "If the boys want to get over there, they've got to swim."

*The Brazos River flows through Waco, Tex. * Richest four are Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago. Fifth was M. I. T. /-Cornell announced last week it faced a $250,000 deficit for the year. Dreading salary cuts, it asked alumni aid.

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