Repository: UIHistories Project: Booklet - Memorial of Cyril George Hopkins (1919 Selections) [PAGE 6]

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CYRIL GEORGE HOPKINS It was the desire to prosecute further studios with starch

that took him to Germany a year later; ami while tin he was appointed Professor of Soil Fertility ami l b 1 of the

newly organized Department oi Agronomy of the University

oi Illinois in 1900, a position tendered and accepted by cable, ( ami one which he held until his death. In l X)o he was appointed Vice Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station It was characteristic of the man that he said Ion- afterward. "1 accepted the position to head the agronomy interesl not because 1 coveted prominence and responsibility or because 1 felt myself qualified, but because such men as President Draper. Doctor Burrill, Professor Forbes, and the Dean of the College considered that I was the best available man ; and whenever four equallv irood men feel that another is better qualified, then 1 am ready to surrender the position at an) time." And in this statement he was perfectly sincere. He threw himself at once and unreservedly into the prob lems oi the department. In attempting to discover its field

of service to the Commonwealth he organized a soil survej

of the state, the most comprehensive ever undertaken, and he studied the problem of production from the Standpoint of maintaining unimpaired the power oi the soil to produce crops His textbook. "Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture. embodies the results oi his studies both scientific and philosophical, and has long been recognized as a classic. Doctor Hopkins lost no opportunity to preach the doctrine of soil conservation and this disposition to serve, combined with a desire to broaden his experience, led him in 1913 to accept for one year the position as Director of the Southern Settlement and Development Organization with headquurt< at Baltimore. It is needless to observe that it was as Professor oi Soil

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Fertility that Doctor Hopkins performed his great servi i to

mankind. This is not the place to speak of that service fur ther than to say that he literally put his lii\ into the pi blem

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