Barrett Wendell

The best witness to the educational genius of Barrett Wendell is the vividly distinct picture, which his course at Harvard seems to have left in the mind of every one of his students, of what might be called the literary personality of the great figures whom he discussed and criticized. The best evidence of his own quality is the feeling among his friends that something has gone out of their lives. We need such men more than ever, one of his Harvard associates lately said, “to link us with the amenities and graces of the past, to keep us sane in the mad rush for novelties, intellectual and moral, of the hurried present.” “I do not care to go to Boston any more,” was the remark of one of our own Centurions in speaking of Wendell’s death. Even his eccentricities, which were numerous, seemed to endear him to that wide circle of friends. The old acquaintance who has recalled in a published reminiscence his “high-pitched voice and explosive speech, his nervous manner as he strode up and down the platform, twirling his watch chain,” described them only to emphasize the vitalizing influence of his work with the Harvard undergraduates.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1922 Century Association Yearbook