Elmer Ellsworth Brown

In cheerful animation, the picture presented by the faces and talk around the Century’s long dinner-table changes little as the years go on. But it is often hard to realize the change in personnel that comes with the remorseless flight of time; perhaps nothing but Dr. Northrup’s little photographs of the dining-table circle, a dozen years ago, brings the changes vividly to mind. Chancellor Elmer Ellsworth Brown was of recent years one of the most familiar figures at the table; his simplicity of manner, total lack of opinionated judgment, unfailing interest in the ideas of others, and always-present vein of reminiscence flavored with quiet humor, contributed to the cheerful conversation.

The Chancellor was a veteran in his craft. During half a century he had been school principal at two Illinois cities, teacher on the faculty of two Western state universities, National Commissioner of Education under two Washington Administrations, and for twenty-two years the head of New York University. In the last-named institution, whose student membership accurately reflects the strata of the city’s population and which in Germany no doubt would be suppressed or exiled by a benevolent Hitler, Chancellor Brown transformed a minor instrument of instruction into a temple of higher education. What the community and the college will chiefly associate with his career is the high ideal for which he stood, in his teaching as in his public speeches, with regard to duties of citizenship and responsibilities of active life.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1935 Century Association Yearbook