biography
| name: |
Clark, William Smith
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1826–86)
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| biography:
| Agriculturist and educator, born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, USA. He studied at Amherst College (1848) and, after taking his PhD from Göttingen, Germany (1852), returned to teach chemistry, zoology, and botany at Amherst (1852–61). After serving with the Union army during the Civil War, he became a moving force behind establishing the Massachusetts Agricultural College (1867–79), where he also taught botany and history, and was the first president. The college later became the University of Massachusetts (1947). When the governor of Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, visited the college, he was so impressed with Clark's work that he invited him to help found what became the Imperial College of Agriculture at Sapparo on Hokkaido. Clark spent a year there (1876–7) to get it established, and also held Bible study classes in his spare time. He has been revered ever since by the Japanese (who in particular repeat his parting advice, ‘Boys, be ambitious’). Massachusetts and Hokkaido now enjoy a ‘sister-state’ relationship that attracts many Japanese to study at the state's university. |
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