Dennison Emer HARRIS

                   OBITUARY: Memorial Services
for
President Franklin Stewart Harris

OBITUARY: George Albert Smith Fieldhouse
Monday, May 23, 1960
10:00 a.m.




OBITUARY: Dr. Franklin Stewart Harris
President of Brigham Young University
1921-1945

OBITUARY: Contents

OBITUARY: Program.....................................................................................................................................    2
Biographical Sketch:  Karl E Young  .......................................................................................   3
Address:  President Ernest L. Wilkinson  .................................................................................   7
Tributes:
	William H. Boyle  .......................................................................................................... 14
	Newbern I. Butt  ............................................................................................................. 14
	Clawson Y. Cannon, Sr.  ................................................................................................ 15
	Elsie Chamberlain Carroll  ............................................................................................. 16
	Parley A. Christensen  .................................................................................................... 17
	Herald R. Clark  ..............................................................................................................18
	Gerrit de Jong, Jr.  .......................................................................................................... 18
	Harvey Fletcher  ............................................................................................................. 19
	Belle and Wayne B. Hales  ............................................................................................. 19
	Christen Jensen  .............................................................................................................. 20
	Bent F. Larsen  ............................................................................................................... 21
	Wesley P. Lloyd  ............................................................................................................ 22
	Florence Jepperson Madsen  .......................................................................................... 22
	Milton Marshall  ............................................................................................................. 23
	Joseph K. Nicholes  ........................................................................................................ 24
	Jessie N. and L. Weston Oaks  ....................................................................................... 24
	T. Earl Pardoe  ................................................................................................................ 25
	Kiefer B. Sauls  .............................................................................................................. 26
	Sidney B. Sperry  ............................................................................................................27






OBITUARY: Memorial Services
for
President Franklin Stewart Harris

OBITUARY: George Albert Smith Fieldhouse
May 23, 1960
10:00 a.m.

OBITUARY: President Joseph Fielding Smith, Presiding
President Ernest L. Wilkinson, Conducting

OBITUARY: Music: O Light Everlasting  ................................................................................................Christiansen
B.Y.U. A Cappella Choir
Director, Newell B. Weight

OBITUARY: Invocation  ...................................................................................................................... Vasco M. Tanner

OBITUARY: Remarks  ........................................................................................................................... Christen Jensen

OBITUARY: Remarks  ............................................................................................................................ Kiefer B. Sauls

OBITUARY: Remarks  ........................................................................................................................ William H. Boyle

OBITUARY: Address  ......................................................................................................President Ernest L. Wilkinson

OBITUARY: Music: I Know That My Redeemer Lives  ............................................................................... Edwards
B.Y.U. A Cappella Choir
Director, Newell B. Weight

OBITUARY: Benediction  ................................................................................................................... Dean A. Peterson






















OBITUARY: FRANKLIN STEWART HARRIS

OBITUARY: Vitae

OBITUARY: 	Born, Benjamin, Utah, August 29, 1884, son of Dennison Emer and Eunice Stewart Harris; married Estella Spilsbury, 1908; six children: Arlene, Franklin S., Jr., Chauncy D., Helen, Leah Dorothy, and Mildred; B.S., B.Y.U., 1907, LL.D., 1947; Ph.D. (Soils), Cornell, 1911; D.Sc., U.S.A.C., 1950; instructor in science, Juarez Academy, Mexico, 1904-05; assistant agricultural chemist, B.Y.U., 1906-07; assistant chemist, Experiment Station, Utah State Agricultural College, 1907-08; assistant in soils technology, Cornell, 1909-10, instructor, 1910-11; professor of agronomy, U.S.A.C., 1911-16; agronomist, Experiment Station, 1911-21, director, 1916-21; president, Brigham Young University, 1921-45; president, Utah State Agricultural College, 1945-50; emeritus president, 1950-60; agricultural advisor to Iran, 1939-40; chairman, committee to study colonization in Russia, 1929; chairman, U.S. Department of State and Agriculture Mission, Middle East, 1946; chairman, Foreign Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations Mission to Greece, 1946; chief, Mission on Technical Collaboration between the United States and Iran, 1950-52; technical advisor to U.S. ambassador to Iran, 1951-52; fellow, American Association for Advancement of Science, American Geographical Society; president of American Society of Agronomy, 1920-21; member, American Farm Economics Association, National Education Association, American Asiatic Society, American Oriental Society, American Academy of Political and Social Science, Academy of Western Culture; Sigma Xi, Gamma Sigma Delta, Phi Kappa Phi, Pi Gamma Mu, Alpha Kappa Psi, Sigma Mu, Delta Phi; author, The Principles of Agronomy (with George Stewart), 1915; The Young Man and His Vocation, 1916; The Sugar Beet in America, 1918; Soil Alkali, 1920; Scientific Research and Human Welfare (with N. I. Butt), 1924; Fruits of Mormonism (with N. I. Butt), 1925; and more than six hundred scientific papers, bulletins, and articles; died April 18, 1960, Salt Lake City, Utah.

OBITUARY: Biographical Sketch

OBITUARY: 	A biography of Franklin Stewart Harris might be written under a variety of headings. A life could be written of F. S. Harris the Humanist, or of Harris the World Citizen, or of Harris the Educator, or of Harris the Man of  Religion, or of Harris the Big Brother to All His Fellows. But Franklin Harris's greatest work in life was in education. He was born into a family of educators. His father and his mother had both been teachers before they married and were both teachers after their marriage. His father left a post as superintendent of schools in the Nebo District of Utah County to teach, first at Colonia Diaz, and then at Juarez Academy in Chihuahua. Several of his brothers have been in education a good part of their lives, and a sister, now deceased, married a college teacher. His two sons, Chauncy and Franklin, Jr., have both dedicated their lives to university teaching, and the atmosphere has thus been a dominant one in the family for three generations.

OBITUARY: 	Franklin's own career as a teacher began in 1904, when , as a twenty-year-old, after one year of college at Brigham Young University, he taught science at Juarez Academy. Then, on returning to Provo, he served as an assistant to Dr. John A. Widtsoe until he received his bachelor's degree in 1907. Dr. Widtsoe encouraged him to go on working for a Ph. D., and , after a year as an assistant chemist at Utah Agricultural Experiment Station, he enrolled at Cornell University. He took his bride, Estella Spilsbury, with him to Ithaca, where they lived on Spartan fare for three years while he earned his doctorate. During this period at Cornell, he served as assistant  and as instructor with such distinction as to earn for himself a professorship in agronomy at U.S.A.C. In 1911.

OBITUARY: 	He stayed in Logan for ten years, as Director of the school of Agricultural Engineering from 1912 until 1916, and then as Director of the Experiment Station until 1921. From 1921 until 1945 he was President of Brigham Young University, during which period he made great advance in transmuting a small church-supported school into a real university. Then, in 1945, he responded to a call to go back to the U.S.A.C. as president, for another five years.

OBITUARY: 	These are the highlights of his career as an educator, but the account of his personal influence in rousing people to a desire for education would fill many books. One incident may illustrate this claim. In the early twenties, a young man from one of the Mexican colonies asked President Harris for a job to help him earn his way through school. Knowing how many discouragements and disappointments lay ahead of the student who worked his way through college, the President replied, I don't know a single member with your family name that is worth a hill of  beans. No, I won't give you a job.

OBITUARY: 	The young man was humiliated and angered beyond expression, but he could still think. He donned a pair of overalls and started sweeping out the Education Building in the early morning hours before school. After a few days B. T. Higgs, the superintendent of maintenance, said, Well, if you're going to work here every day, you might as well be on the payroll. The young man's determination to show President Harris what his family was really made of carried him beyond his B.A. to a Ph.D. and a distinguished career in social science, all to the infinite delight of Franklin Harris.

OBITUARY: 	Similar effects, though achieved with less drastic means, marked President Harris's administration, for he had a genuine personal interest in all of his students, most of whom he could call by name. He had a fatherly habit of putting his arm around a young man's shoulders and encouraging him to exert himself beyond his usual capacities to gain a better education. Many an instructor at B.Y.U. can recall occasions when the President came unexpectedly into the office or the laboratory to inquire how the work was progressing and to give encouragement to academic ambition and achievement. Many a student can tell how he gave warm advice and financial help to him when he needed it most. One grateful recipient of his thoughtfulness and encouragement reminisced the other day over how, when she was left a young widow without means of support, President Harris advised her to sign a note and begin her education at B.Y.U. After a year and a half of hard work and good grades, she received one morning an envelope containing her cancelled note. There was also a letter from President Harris informing her that since she had proved that she was serious about her education, she would not have to pay back the investment that the University was making in her.

OBITUARY: 	Underlying this dedicated belief in the value of education lay a benevolent interest in the welfare of his fellow humans. And since no man can have very profound interest in other people unless he shows a real affection and regard for his own family, Franklin Harris revealed how deep and kindly was his concern for others by his treatment of the members of his family.

OBITUARY: 	In this respect he showed many of the fatherly qualities of an Abraham. Though he was not the eldest son, yet he had in him such components of character that when his father died the rest of the family looked to him for guidance, and they received it. He took upon himself the responsibilities of holding the family together, of helping to educate the children, of supporting them financially when they needed assistance, of helping them serve missions for the Church, and of providing for the needs of his mother. Thus in 1917 when he persuaded his mother to come to Logan, where he resided, he borrowed the money and was instrumental in building a home for her. He largely supported Sterling on his mission and contributed to the support of Hyrum, and after encephalitis had struck  down his young half-brother, Ervin, Franklin sent him a check every month for many years.

OBITUARY: 	This was much, but it was not all. Though a very busy man, Franklin found time to write many letters to all members of the family. He arranged for big family dinners, called on distant members when traveling, and encouraged and fostered them all in many thoughtful ways. In his own home, too, he was a wise and kindly father. Franklin and Estella were blessed with four lovely girls and two boys; these children were given valuable guidance in organizing their habits so as the make the most out of life. The President took his wife and children on many trips as a family unit - to the world's fairs in Chicago and New York, on camping expeditions into the wilds, and on visits to other places of interest where they could enjoy each other's company in new and fresh surroundings. An example of his imaginative relationship to his children was his habit of calling his two young sons, Franklin Jr. and Chauncy into the bathroom every morning for a long, continued story while he shaved. Then, when his family was almost fledged and their last two children were in their last year at home, death overtook the parents of six-year-old Nancy Becraft, a niece, and immediately Franklin and Estella took the child into their home to rear her. It was a labor of love.

OBITUARY: 	This devotion to his family was a reflection of the warm nature of his regard for all humanity. After he left Mexico, the people remembered him as a big brother to them all. They revered his wisdom and his success in the outside world. But his interest in them was not a light and casual thing, expressed in glittering generalities. Witness the time he took occasion on a visit to them at stake conference to stimulate them to more effort in improving their living conditions. Said he,  I'd have a shower in my house if I had to punch a five-gallon can full of holes and get my younger brother to pour in the hot water for me. He continued in this vein, exhorting the members to paint their houses, to use nails and patch barns and fences, and to tidy up their premises generally. And the folk did not resent him, for they heeded his advice.

OBITUARY: 	He liked to see people improve themselves, and advance and succeed. Hence, he supported faculty members in their efforts to do graduate work, and also supported them when they returned to the University to teach the truth as they saw it. Whenever controversies arose over the teachings of the members of his faculty, President Harris was the first to rise in the defense of his colleagues. He had the tolerance and the broad understanding necessary to reconcile differences in intellectual and spiritual matters. Indeed, no aspect of his character was more worthy of a university president and spiritual leader than this.

OBITUARY: 	Nothing was more characteristic of President Harris than his loyalty to the members of his staff as demonstrated by his faithful attendance at every University function from the Training School Jamboree to the Junior Prom. No one ever more clearly illustrated the truth of Francis Bacon's famous sentence: Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business. So faithful were Franklin and Estella in this respect that one wondered how they could ever find any time for home life.

OBITUARY: 	Franklin was an extraordinarily busy man. Yet he recognized the value of re