Chapter 12 Ph.D. “A man will turn over half a library to make one book.” - Boswell’s Life of Johnson.   Frederick himself had told, in the sermon he preached to his people in Independence before we left for “Worcester, why he considered a Ph.D. degree and his year at Clark University an essential part of the preparation for his life work. He had long been serving them as an official, he stated, but he believed that a man must “study to show himself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.”   With the offer of a fellowship from Clark University, that unique American university, the graduate school of which was for years the workshop and laboratory of Dr. G. Stanley Hall, the eminent psychologist, a small but extraordinarily able faculty and [204] a limited but deeply interested group of students, a continuation of the work begun at Lawrence was brought forcibly to his attention, and it was arranged that he should go East with his family for the residence work required for the doctor’s degree.   On the way to Worcester we had a most delightful week in the Philadelphia home of our old time friend, Bishop John Zimmermann, sr. Besides all the efforts of the entire family to make our stay a pleasant one, there were old-time associations which made the visit double enjoyable. When I was a girl attending school in Philadelphia, I used always to go to my own church on Sundays, and the dinners at the home of Brother Zimmermann and his excellent wife were my greatest protection against homesickness.   With Frederick, too Bishop Zimmermann and his wife are old friends. I can remember as a young woman of his cordial congratulations and expressions of approval of the occasional sermons on consecration and the financial law of the church which Mr. Zimmermann heard my husband preach. It was largely due to this man’s generosity, too, that Frederick was enabled to get this last year of study and preparation; for though the church is accustomed to educate the men who expect to give it their best service [205] still Mr. Smith did not feel that he could take in addition to his regular allowance enough to keep himself and his family in Worcester during an entire winter; but when his desire became known to this great-hearted man he immediately telegraphed that he would furnish the means necessary for the move.   Almost before we could settle ourselves in the pleasant house we found in Worcester we went for our first interview with G. Stanley Hall concerning the work that my husband should take up during his final year. I say we, for Fred insisted that I should go with him as usual, and I was willing enough, for the proper completion of this work was a matter of great interest to me both because of my lifelong habit of following and assisting my husband’s development and because of my desire for the welfare of the church and success in the work which was expected of him.   We found Doctor Hall in his den, where his excellent old colored man led us.   “Come on in,” called Doctor Hall, and we were received as cordially and informally by the great educator as if we had been old friends “Find seats and excuse the appearance of this,” and he waved his hand unconcernedly at the littered desk and the uncompleted manuscripts with which it was piled. [206]   The men proved congenial at once and conversed of things national and international, until the subject of Mr. Smith’s matriculation was brought up.   “Well, Mr. Smith, what are you here for?” demanded Doctor Hall abruptly, getting to the matter at once.   “You understand from my correspondence and that of others that I am a church man, and I come not to specialize particularly but to generalize.”   Doctor Hall listened intently to Mr. Smith’s brief explanation of his needs and of his ideas for his future work, but when my husband said he had expected to “major” in sociology the venerable president shook his head slowly.   “No,” he said, “I think in consideration of the work you have already along that line we would have more to give you here of a psychological nature. Our best men are psychologists, not sociologists.”   Mr. Smith agreed, and has never been sorry that he had this opportunity of studying that most basic of the social sciences and the kindred subjects he took up under such men as Doctor Hall himself, Doctor Baird, Doctor Blakeslee, Doctor Burnham, Doctor Fernerger and those other fine specialists who have made Clark University the school [207] with the reputation which it bears today, even after many of them have left its faculty for the completion of their individual contributions to knowledge and literature, and other duties.   The congeniality which was apparent between Doctor Hall and my husband at their first meeting was the source of an even deeper friendship than is usual between student and master which lasted until the venerable scientist’s death. Later in the year Doctor Hall asked Mr. Smith to be his companion for the walks or rambles the great educator took in company with some student or professor of his choice every day at five o’clock. Mr. Smith told me that he valued the opportunity as one of the most important phases of his education. Frederick said he had difficulty keeping up with Doctor Hall in spite of his age, but the chance of intimate contact with the great intellect and the human interest of the famous psychologist made the effort very worth while.   Doctor Hall’s personality was one which attracted many people; he was a lovable and affectionate man. In spite of his extraordinary understanding of human nature and human reactions he was to the end of his life a “friend of man.” That is an encouraging thing is it not, that the keenest students of [208] the genius homo still have tolerance for its weakness and faith in its strength?   Before we left that first day, I remember, “Doctor Hall turned to me with his kindly, confidential way, and said:   “And you, Mrs. Smith, what do you expect to take while your husband is competing his work this winter?”   Perhaps the shrewd analyst had discovered that though I had the whole world on my shoulders, I should still be picking up every crumb of knowledge or information I could carry along for those who might not have the same chances for study as I; and he added with that easy generosity that marks the broadest of university people: “Drop into any of the classes you wish, Mrs. Smith, with your husband or by yourself. You will be welcome to anything that interests you. And by the way, Mrs. Smith, are you in favor of women’s suffrage?”   I hesitated. I had never worked extensively for suffrage, though from a girl when I attended to my mother’s taxes on her large Iowa farms, I had known that taxation without representation is not a principle of highest democracy, but I had always been more concerned in educating women to the point where their inclusion as citizens would be an actual benefit to the nation - and besides [209] I was in New England, where the sentiment both ways was very strong. Theoretically Fred has always felt the same about the subject as have I; but this time he saved me an answer by reaching out a big hand to pat mine gently and saying:   “You see how it is, Doctor Hall, this little woman has been so well treated by the male members of her family and the world that she has never felt much interested in the vote.”   I could not control the twinkle in my eyes as I look at Doctor Hall, and his keen eyes twinkled back. It would be a poor psychologist who did not know that a good husband is not always exactly informed on the state of his wife’s interest in such matters.   In addition to the splendid courses in educational psychology, psychiatry and social survey which I took in response to Doctor Hall’s invitation it was also my privilege through Dr. Amy Tanner, who was then Doctor Hall’s secretary and assistant in the writing of his many manuscripts, to attend the Worcester Women’s Clubs, and the excellent lectures in citizenship, current events, and woman’s suffrage which it offered. The club was a large on and the waiting list long, but through Miss Tanner I was admitted [210] at once as a guest; and when I wondered if I should try to carry this too, Frederick urged me to do so.   “The study of their organization will be useful to you in organizing the women of the church,” he said.   Of course it was no more possible for me, in spite of the new life and environment which we so thoroughly enjoyed to refrain from what I have always called “my missionary work” that it was possible for Fred to forget in the interests of his last school year the responsibilities which were before him. It has always given me great pleasure to explain a little about our church work and ideals to any who might be interested, and I was particularly impressed by the attention which such explanations received among these broad-minded, intelligent and unprejudiced university people. I remember especially being asked by Mrs. Hall at one of her big formal teas to follow an excellent Boston harpist by telling something of my husband’s church work as a part of the program which the hostess had provided for her guests. Frederick was much pleased at this incident, and used to embarrass me occasionally by telling people that I was a better missionary than he.   It was indeed a privilege to work with and [211] to know socially such people as those with whom we came in contact at the university. Personally perhaps our nearest friends were Dr. George P. Partridge and his wife and their son and daughter. Doctor Partridge is an eminent psychologist and a thorough student and friend of Doctor Hall’s. He has many books of his own, but modestly the one he most values is his epitome of the works of Doctor Hall, the only book of this sort which Doctor Hall himself considered representative. This resume has been translated into many languages including Slavic and Oriental tongues. We happen to be calling one afternoon when he received by mail a copy of the Japanese translation of his epitome. It was his book he was sure, he said, because there was Doctor Hall’s picture in the back! Otherwise Doctor Partridge declared he never should have recognized it.   Mrs. Partridge too is a writer and specialist on story-telling and Indian folk-lore. She has some charming books, many of which are illustrated with photographs for which her own children posed. Philip and Miriam are delightful and surprisingly normal children, considering the fact that they have acted as specimens for both their parents since their earliest days. When I first studied psychology, I recall, my preceptor [112] impressed on me the fact that psychology was a subject the laboratory of which was ever present, and I appreciate the experimental nature of the Partridge children’s raising because I have sometimes used my own little ones and friends and acquaintances as the objects of my general study.   The difficulty of course with this extended laboratory method is that the scientists sometimes carry it a little too far with the best intentions in the world. I remember particularly the case of “Bishop” Perry, a Negro minister of somewhat limited intelligence who had the idea firmly fixed that he would eventually take a Ph. D  from the great Clark University. Rather than tell the man that he was utterly incompetent to achieve such a distinction, the faculty had let him come to his examinations for years while they analysed, explained and argued among themselves about his mental powers and traits of color. It was Doctor Burnham, I believe who said of him that the essential requirement for a Ph. D which Perry most lacked and never would acquire was “intelligent ignorance”   Mr. Smith was as greatly interested in Perry’s reactions as the others. He even went to the church where the old Negro preached; but when he learned that the poor [113] fellow was kept on year after year and there was not the slightest hope of his ever receiving his degree, my husband was perturbed.   “That is not fair either to Perry or to the institution,” he said. “If the man knew that he was not being seriously considered he might go on and spend his time more suitably elsewhere; and it is damaging to the university to have such a man representing himself as a candidate for the highest degree offered, as an equal and intimate associate of the other candidates and the faculty as well.” He pointed out to Doctor Hall, and asked him why, in kindness, if Perry was never to receive his degree, he was not told so; and Doctor Hall, never having looked at the matter in that light before, willingly took the necessary steps for removing “Bishop” Perry from among the great and near-great of Clark’s student body.   Perhaps one of the most noted institutions of Clark University was the Monday night seminar which Doctor Hall held for so many years at his home. Here candidates for the higher degrees met and read from theses in process of construction for the approval of the faculty and the discussion of the other students. Doctor Hall once asked me why I never brought the children with me when I came to his house, or to the seminar; [114] he said he wanted to see them. Thinking that perhaps such an experience would prove memorable to the little girls and happy to gratify even so small a request from the good friend who was doing so much for us both I accordingly sent Alice once with her father when I was unable to go, and myself too Lois another time, to her great amusement, for while Alice was seriously interested in what went on at this very famous seminar, Lois was at an age to receive the affairs of her elders with a gravely acquiescent and tolerant air.   “Now, Doctor Hall,” I told the great educator, “no matter how these children act here, or what they do, it is your fault and not mine, for I have raised them according to your instructions, and I began reading your books on youth and child training and adolescence the winter Alice was born.” Whether or not it was from a sense of responsibility after that or because the daughters vindicated his advice, for the evening at least, and were sufficiently silent during the reading and sufficiently lady-like during the refreshments, but Doctor Hall became very fond of the girls.   Almost before my husband’s last year of preparation was well begun, he was called [215] home because of the death of his father; so that during his only winter at that great school his mind was burdened with the full weight of the load which he had shared with his father for so long, and in the spring a long illness kept him from his work.   And yet he devoted himself to his class work with his usual concentration and completed the year’s work satisfactorily, but the book moved slowly. He gained strength gradually after his illness and was weak and restless and anxious to be home, and though we would often have loved a ramble in the glorious Massachusetts woods, or a weekend with Boston friends, we sacrificed our pleasure frequently that he might have an uninterrupted afternoon or evening at his writing.    We had given up one room entirely to his papers and books and had loaned him the dining room table that he might spread his work out before him. The children liked to work there with him. He gladly cleared space for their writing, and Alice traced out laboriously her earliest contributions to literature and Lois struggled with penmanship during the framing of the doctor’s thesis. I shall never forget them as they sat around the [216] table buried in papers and absorbed in their writing - but never too absorbed to stop for anything that offered them the slightest respite from the hard tasks they had all three set themselves.   They were particularly interested in the system of fire whistles the city employed, and if any of them heard the distant shriek of the siren all stopped work simultaneously and listened in breathless silence, counting and recounting the signal, checking and comparing figures and finally looking up on a city map, the location of the fire.   Fred would insist too on stopping to read to me everything he found that he thought might interest me and to discuss with me every point until I quite knew the book by heart even before it went to the proof reader. In fact by the time it was out I could discuss it so intelligently that a friend with whom I was speaking of it, turned to me and asked suddenly:   “Did you say that was your book, or Dr. Smith’s?”   Which reminds me of what Doctor Hall said to me the night Frederick first read a portion of his thesis before the graduate seminar. There was a large crowd present, but when he took his place in the chair where many had faltered at laying before so critical [217] an assemblage, what was expected to be their best possible, his thoughts were already too absorbed with his with his subject to give attention to minor sensations. He sat down at the table very deliberately, adjusted the green shade over the lamp and began without ceremony to read the material which he had accumulated on the subject. He read resumes, he cited references, he quoted contradicting authorities, he discussed, analysed and commented - Doctor Hall was listening closely, hoping he would not be disappointed in his favorite’s thesis; but as the time passed, the allotted period had been consumed and the customary hour for intermission and refreshment had come and gone, the good doctor became more and more restless.   “Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith,” he broke in at last, “did you say this was your entire thesis you are reading to us?”   Frederick paused. He took off his glasses and polished them and readjusted the shade so that he could look again at his listeners. “Have I used up my time?” he asked amiably. “No, this is just some of the material I have been looking over for a part of my chapter on primitive religions.”   I leaned over and whispered to Doctor Hall: “This was the subject he wanted to [218] write on in the first place, you know, although he was quite willing to take the larger subject you suggested. But he has done some reading on other parts of the book.” “Mrs. Smith,” said Doctor Hall to me a little later, over the ices in the dining room, “I have given your husband the largest subject of the year. He is certainly a thorough student. But I am afraid that if he goes so deeply into every phase of his subject we shall never get his contribution; that is, unless you keep back of him.”   “No,” I said, “that is my job when we are at home. You will have to be the one to keep him at work this time.”   Nevertheless the thesis was eventually finished, although before it was quite completed Mr. Smith’s anxiety to return became so great and it was not until the next June, after the publication had at last taken place that the Ph. D. was granted. Mr. Smith did not go back to Worcester to receive his sheepskin. An old friend, Mr. S. A. Burgess, who had gone to Clark the following ear, took it for him and brought it to Independence where he had already entered upon a new phase of his life work.   The edition of the book was limited, and [219] what the university did not require for its own library and those with whom it exchanged, he gave over to his church publishing company to do with as it wished, reserving only a few copies for himself and friends. It is rather typical of him that his book, once finished, should become a closed incident with him, and it never occurred to him that he might have made money from its sale.   There were sufficient copies sent abroad however to arouse a diversity of opinion. Doctor Hall wrote shortly before he died that it was still largely in use in the university library, and that the material which my husband so laboriously collected has never been quite duplicated in arrangement or treatment.   There were some however who thought that it was largely a resume of the many works he had read in connection with its writing. But Doctor Partridge, our good friend, also spoke of the book in a recent letter to my husband. “I have just been rereading your book, Doctor Smith,” he said, “and find it to be more of a creative offering than I had at first supposed.” We laughed at this of course when we remembered that Doctor Partridge’s first reading was no doubt colored by the fact that he and Dr. [220] George T. Patrick, another noted writer along the same line, different the theory of alcoholism, and Doctor Smith upheld Doctor Patrick’s opinion. It is just possible that Doctor Partridge’s later reading was a more impartial one. And it is quite like our friend to write and frankly admit a change of opinion.   There have been others whose first criticism in this regard has been softened by a second reading, and justly so I think. I cannot see how the Higher Powers of Man could not be discussed at any length by one of my husband’s caliber without the book containing something that was his own. It is even possible that though he treated his subject from a psychological point of view he was able unconsciously to impress it with something which was scientific and yet not purely science, in spite of the fact that some of the church people were sorely disappointed to find so little of the “gospel” in it. And surely his suggestion that a man can perhaps learn to rise to higher and higher levels of mental and cultural life is an inspiring thought.   I agree with Doctor Johnson about its taking over half a library to make one book. It certainly does - and more. If the man happens to be of my husband’s type it takes [221] the better part of half a dozen libraries, the persuasions of a corps of educators, the labors of a score of assistants and counselors and secretaries and the minor efforts of a small but self-sacrificing wife to make on “great contribution to creative science,” or one thesis for a Ph. D. Previous chapter (11) Next chapter (13) Frederick M Smith page Who was who