So Long

There are those professors who, though absurd and far from wise, are well loved by the students to whom they lecture. There are also those professors who are respected by their peers and regarded with something more than apathy by their students. Professor Franklin Henry Giddings of Columbia belongs in both classes and in neither. Last week, in one of his Friday lectures, Professor Giddings told his listeners that he was retiring from the teaching staff of which he has been a member for 37 years; that thenceforth he would devote himself to research. At this, many of the 60 students who had come to the lecture were seen to cry.

In the course of his lecture he spoke also of his early career as a newspaper reporter and of his entrance into the profession of learning about and teaching sociology. His confreres, hearing of Professor Giddings' proposed retirement, though they knew that he was 73 years old, were confident that he would not cease to reinforce his preeminence in the science he has learned and taught so well, so long.