News

Harvard Alumni Email Forwarding Services to Remain Unchanged Despite Student Protest

News

Democracy Center to Close, Leaving Progressive Cambridge Groups Scrambling

News

Harvard Student Government Approves PSC Petition for Referendum on Israel Divestment

News

Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 Elected Co-Chair of Metropolitan Mayors Coalition

News

Cambridge Residents Slam Council Proposal to Delay Bike Lane Construction

PROF. NORTON'S FUNERAL

In Appleton Chapel at 12.15.--Suspension of College Exercises.

By M. H. Morgan.

The funeral of Professor Norton will be held in Appleton Chapel today at 12.15 o'clock. Rev. E. C. Moore '78 will officiate, and the following will act as honorary pall-bearers: President Charles W. Eliot '53, Professor William Watson Goodwin '51, Mr. Horace Howard Furness '54, Major Henry L. Higginson h.'82, Mr. William D. Howells h.'67, Mr. James Ford Rhodes h.'01, Professor Charles H. Moore h.'90, Professor William James M.'69, Professor George H. Palmer '64, Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson '66, Professor Barrett Wendell '77, Mr. Lawrence Godkin '81, Mr. William Roscoe Thayer '81, and Mr. Gardiner M. Lane '81. The interment will be private.

Seats in the front part of the Chapel will be reserved for the immediate family, the honorary pall-bearers, members of the Faculty and their families, and the eight undergraduate pall-bearers. The rest of the student body will be assigned to whatever seats remain on the floor and to the seats in the gallery.

The following appreciation of Professor Norton's life, work and character was written at the request of the CRIMSON by Professor M. H. Morgan '81:

The very first thought which students in Fine Arts 4 heard Professor Norton express was "excellence"; for he used to preface his lectures with a quotation beginning "A nation once so excellent." And this idea of excellence, of which so few of the thousands of his hearers had any true conception before they listened to his talk, was the keynote of most that he had to say to them. The course professed to be about Greek art, and certainly nobody was better qualified to illuminate that subject; but it was wonderful to observe how he showed that such a seemingly dead and gone thing could be a living influence, in so many different ways, upon this work-a-day world. It may seem a prodigious leap from Apelles to chromos, from the Greek tunic to ready-made clothes, or from the Parthenon to a house with a mansard roof covering nothing, but he took us over it lightly. Not to put up with what masquerades as excellence, not to be content with makeshifts, to know that to seek excellence is natural, and to learn, if only from the living instance before us, that it can be achieved in the things of every-day life, was one of the great lessons which he taught.

Another admirable thing about him was his cordial hospitality to students at his house, and his sympathy with them when they were in academic trouble. When you went to him, you felt that here was a man who might have done, when he was young, just such things as you had done (unless they were pretty bad), and that whether he had ever done them or not, you would meet in him a human being and not a bureaucrat. It was not that he could always save you or wished always to save you from academic penalties--and yet I well remember the first year of the Administrative Board of the College, when he was the oldest and I was one of the youngest of its members, how he always seemed to take the side of a student in trouble, much to the impatience of some of us younger brethren, who were too apt to think that "something must really be done about this case." But when he wished not to save you, you were always made to feel that your punishment was not greater than you could bear, and that you could make it serve you to something better; for he was one of those who could say, in the verse of another of our lately-departed colleagues:

"It is the part of man to seek the light, Even though it come from his own falling star."

Courage was another of Professor Norton's attributes, and particularly the courage to speak out his convictions, no matter who or how many were on the other side. He did this always politely, and not from wanton aggression, but the very polish of his expressions, his logic which could not be confuted, and the wealth of examples which his well-furnished mind could bring to the support of his positions, sometimes drove his opponents almost rabid in their replies to him. This courage also saved him from the littleness of "answering back," and enabled him to possess his own soul in peace.

Thus as I look back upon the presence of Professor Norton, I think of his ideal of excellence, of his kindness, and of his courage,--qualities to be commended to the youth of Harvard College which he loved.

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

Tags