LAW SCHOOL HEAVY LOSER

Ezra Ripley Thayer '88, Dean of the Law School, died on September 14. Dean Thayer had been kept from his work for two months last spring through poor health, and although he returned to finish the academic year, was ill most of the summer.

Dean Thayer was born at Milton, February 21, 1866. He graduated from the College in 1888, took his A.M. degree and graduated from the Law School in 1891. From then until 1910 he practiced law in Boston, and for five years has been Dean of the Law School.

Professor Samuel Williston, of the Law School, has written the following appreciation of Dean Thayer for the CRIMSON:

"The Law School has suffered an irreparable loss by the death of Dean Thayer. Five years work at the head of the school had proved his pre-eminent fitness for the task which he assumed in 1910, when he gave up assured distinction at the bar for an academic career. He was a man of rare endowments. From early boyhood his brilliancy of mind and strength of character was marked. Always first as a student in school, College and Law School, he nevertheless found time for much besides study. Whatever interested others in the way of physical sport or social diversion interested him and in everything he excelled. He brought to his work as a teacher and dean a sympathetic nature which readily understood the varied aspirations and interests of the young men under him. They felt him to be, as indeed he was, their friend; and like a friend he demanded their best and secured it. He was never too busy with study to deal with his students personally. He knew them individually and devoted himself unreservedly to them and to the Law School. He did a great work, ended too soon."