On June 9, 1939, Massachusetts State College held a dinner in observance of the retirement of Dr. Frank A. Waugh from active teaching. Within the printed program of the schedule of events at the dinner was this biographical sketch by Arthur Harrison.
Frank A. Waugh
A Biographical Sketch
Frank Albert Waugh began his study of the American landscape at Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin on July 8, 1869. His father, Albert Freeman Waugh was from ancestors who had settled in the Litchfield Hills of northwestern Connecticut. His mother, Madeline Biehler, was a native of Alsace and was of German parentage.
Bardsley in his Dictionary of Surnames states that the name Waugh Is probably of Scottish origin as persons of that name were land-holders in the south of Scotland as early as the 13th century, and Lee's Biographical Dictionary records that one Waugh was a standard-bearer on Flodden Field.
When Frank was two-and-a-half years of age his family moved to Kansas where they took up a farm of 640 acres in McPherson County near the geographical center of the state. One may well imagine that his boyhood activities were largely involved with the growing of wheat, the tending of livestock and riding the range on his favorite pony.
At seventeen years of age he entered the Kansas State College at Manhattan on September 8, 1886. He was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Science on June 10, 1891, having withdrawn from registration for the scholastic year 1888-89 in order to earn funds for further study. This he did by teaching a country school and serving as teamster and man of general utility in the Horticultural department of the college under Professor E. A, Popenoe. Dr. J, T. Willard, who has been associated with the college for more than 55 years and who is now serving as College Historian, knew Frank Waugh as an undergraduate and writes me: "While he was a student he had an excellent reputation and was noted then as now for his sociability and generally acceptable personality. His scholarship record shows very high grades in practically all subjects."
His Interest In matters extra-curricular is shown by his having joined with others in 1891 to form a college band, in which he played the B-flat flute. This band he led for one year.
A number of his classmates or members of other classes during his undergraduate years are now nationally or internationally famous. The horticultural explorations of David Fairchild, son of the then President of the college, remind one of Longfellow’s description of Bayard Taylor as - - "the wandering bard who from him hurled the poor squeezed orange of the World." Others, among them our own Charles Henry Thompson and Fred C. Sears, are well known throughout the country for their successful horticultural careers, while two of the co-eds of those classes have long been locally held in highest esteem for they later became Mrs. Sears and Mrs. Waugh.
For a year or two after graduation the young man was engaged in editorial work for newspapers or other periodicals in Topeka, Helena, and Denver.
On September 14, 1893, Frank A. Waugh and Alice Vail were married. They went to Oklahoma, where for two years he taught horticultural subjects in the State Agricultural and Mechanical College and was active in the work and publications of the Experiment Station preparing and issuing four Experiment Station bulletins.
In the fall of 1895 he was called to the State Agricultural College of the University of Vermont, where he served as Professor of Horticulture and Station Horticulturist for seven years during which time he Issued eleven Station Bulletins, contributed to six Station Reports, and started the State Horticultural Society on its way.
Among the students who came under his instruction during his stay in Vermont were several who have done notably fine work in various fields of horticulture among whom It may be mentioned:
- The late Dr. William A. Orton, Director of the Tropical Research Foundation.
- Dr. C. F. Clark, Potato Breeding Specialist in the U. S. Department of Agriculture.
- The late Dr. W. J. Morse, Director and Plant Pathologist of the Maine Experiment Station.
- Dr. M. B. Cummings of the University of Vermont.
- Dr. J. K. Shaw of the Massachusetts State College.
Professor Waugh’s long-time friend and sincere admirer. Dean J. L, Hills of the College of Agriculture, who was primarily responsible for his coming to Vermont, writes me: “He became while with us an - - perhaps the - - outstanding student of plum culture in the United States; did much to evaluate and promote apple orcharding practice in Vermont; and made several studies of enzymic activities and of physiological constants as related to plant growth. . . . . . Dr. Waugh, having been on our faculty for seven years and rendering notable service, was naturally looked upon by the late President Goodell (of the Massachusetts Agricultural College) as the logical successor to Professor Maynard, and when he asked me my judgment I could not and did not withold [sic] commendation, although I did so with an aching heart for Dr. Waugh had, not only because of his acumen but because of his many fine qualities, greatly endeared himself to his associates and to his students."
Professor Waugh became a member of the Faculty of the (then) Massachusetts Agricultural College in the summer of 1902 and but for short intervals of Sabbatical leave and military service has been on active duty since. His term of service covers fully half the period during which instruction has been given at this college, he established the Department of Landscape Gardening - - later renamed Landscape Architecture - - and his teaching here, while not confined to that subject, has been largely devoted to it and to closely related fields. Complete figures are not at hand but such as are available indicate that fully 3000 students have profited by his teaching - - or at least had the opportunity to do so.
The list of graduates from the Department during these 37 years is much too long to enumerate here, but it Includes many names well known through notable accomplishments in the profession, through successful teaching in other colleges and universities, or through administrative activities, investigational studies or effective designing in city, state and national departments involving the landscape development of publicly owned areas.
The instruction in landscape work in that first year of 1902-3 was given in the second floor room of the old Botanical Laboratory, now the Physics Building. Three students took the course, one of whom later took up entomology. Of the others, Myron West is a practicing landscape architect in Chicago and Charles P. Halligan has for many years been in charge of the Department of Landscape Architecture in the Michigan State College in East Lansing.
Increasing interest in the new work as well as similar developments in other departments of the Division necessitated more laboratories and classrooms and in 1905 a new Horticultural Building, named Wilder Hall for a noted amateur horticulturist of Dorchester, one of the first trustees of the College, was built from plans developed under the advice and suggestion of Professor Waugh.
For many years Professor Waugh was Head of the Division of Horticulture as well as of the Department of Landscape Architecture and in that capacity exerted a decided influence upon a considerable portion of college development and instruction. He inaugurated a series of exchange lectures in horticulture with other colleges of similar character and acted as our representative on several such occasions.
He was largely responsible for the conception and development of our Horticultural Show which has perhaps done more to bring the college to public notice than any other one activity.
As Head of the Division he introduced the plan of subdividing the Instruction into definite departments with Instructors devoting their entire time to special subjects such as floriculture, pomology and other branches of horticultural science. This marked a notable step in advance of anything which had previously been done in similar divisions elsewhere.
In developing his department Professor Waugh has introduced several new activities or opportunities for study. Some years ago a course of study was arranged leading to a Masters’ degree in landscape architecture and more recently a course which, by a fifth year of work after graduation, leads to the degree of Bachelor of Landscape Architecture. Extension work in landscape architecture was carried on in connection with the Department for several years and numerous bulletins were Issued. This work is now somewhat broadened in its scope and is called extension horticulture.
For a good many years Professor Waugh was in charge of the designing and maintenance of the campus. In 1911 he collected into a single volume the several studies and reports which had been made by various authorities, including the recommendations of Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. and Mr. Warren H. Manning, regarding the development of the campus and prepared a plan making suggestions for future development.
The Department has always kept in close touch with its graduates by means of many personal letters and by an annual News Letter initiated some years ago by Professor Waugh. This has enabled him to help many of the graduates to find employment in congenial work. In order to continue and increase the intimate relations of the Department and its graduates, Professor Waugh, in the fall of 1937 called a meeting of department graduates, students and faculty, and at that meeting, held in December in Wilder Hall, the Massachusetts State College Association of Landscape Architects was organized and is now functioning in a decidedly helpful way.
One of Professor Waugh’s most successful innovations, which Is perhaps the most widely Interesting to the college as a whole and to townspeople as well, is the series of art shows held each year. These naturally Illustrate some special form or phase of art and are, of course, for the most part pictorial, though occasionally textiles or other objects are shown. An especially interesting and successful exhibit each year is one which he calls "the family show" consisting of pictures or other works of art produced by members of faculty families, graduates or students. He frequently contributes his own work to these shows; an expert with the camera, he has made a very considerable number of fine portrait-photographs of faculty members, townspeople and visitors of note. In more recent years he has been particularly interested in etching and has produced many landscapes and tree portraits in that medium.
Professor Stowell Goding, who has served on the Fine Arts Council of the College with Professor Waugh for several years, writes this appraisal of his musical interest and activities:
"Chairman of the Fine Arts Council is perhaps one of the most appropriate positions of Professor Waugh in connection with his contributions to M.S.C. and the community. Just as this committee under his guidance has synthesized all the arts on campus, he has combined them all in the finest way in his life and in his teaching.
"His notable Landscape Architecture 75 has left with a host of students a lasting taste for all that is best in any art. Not the least of these is music. Many a student has had his first insight into the true meaning and value of music through the kindly Influence of Frank A. Waugh.
"Not only in connection with his teaching but in many other ways, too, he has been perhaps the most Important single force in the advancement of music in all its phases at M.S.C. and in Amherst. President of the Community Concerts, Chairman of the Fine Arts Series, he has had a large part in the creating of the finest type of audience. For more than two decades informal listening groups have gathered before the fireplace in his home to listen to recordings of the world’s best music. Not occasionally, but regularly each week throughout the year these students have accumulated a store of musical knowledge and appreciation not to be duplicated in any formal teaching.
"The musical audience gathers to listen to a good performer. An Amherst concert season would have been incomplete without a group of solos by Professor Waugh on his chosen instrument, the flute. Whether at one of the concerts in the Fine Arts Series or an informal chamber-music presentation with that other incomparable musician and friend of the arts, Anna Laura Kidder, many of us have enjoyed his delightful performances as flutist.
"But in the last analysis, music will always depend on the composer. M.S.C. and Amherst may well be proud of having sheltered another creative artist in Frank A. Waugh. His compositions for his own instrument have increasingly of late delighted listeners, marking a milestone in the career of the composer as well as in the artistic progress of the whole community. The compositions are like the man. Rich In the classical tradition, they are fresh, individual and, withal, outspoken.
"Most Important of all, his entire contribution has been distinguished by an impeccable taste and an insistence on the highest possible standards whether of appreciation, performance, creation or warm, friendly advice and encouragement".
In addition to his college work numerous outside Interests have attracted him. For years he gave frequent lectures before women’s clubs and other organizations. He has done considerable in professional design and in particular prepared in 1914 a master plan for the development of the Kansas State College for the next fifty years.
In the summer of 1923 Professor Waugh gave a course in landscape appreciation and design in the University of California In Los Angeles, and in 1929 he gave a similar course in Dartmouth College.
For several summers he made careful inspections of National Forest holdings for the Forest Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture and prepared plans or made reports for the development of recreational areas therein.
He has served as one of the Trustees of Public Reservations for the commonwealth and on the local Town Planning Board.
In the summer of 1919 he was granted leave from college duties in order to serve, with the rank of Captain, in the Sanitary Corps of the U. S. Army at its hospital in New Haven, Conn., where he was in charge of Occupational Therapy.
Professor Waugh Is a member of several professional or scientific societies among which are the American Society of Landscape Architects, the American Pomological Society; the American Civic Association and the Patrons of Husbandry. He has for many years been closely Identified with the Congregational Church.
He has travelled extensively in the United States, has made several trips to Europe and in 1932 spent a half-year’s Sabbatical leave visiting Japan and China. With his other activities he has found time to take post-graduate work in several institutions including Cornell University and his own Alma Mater, from which he received the degree of Master of Science on June 13, 1894. In Germany he took special courses in landscape design in the Gaertnerlehranstalt zu Dahlem under Wille Lange, and in the summer of 1937 studied in the Eoole des Beaux Arts at Fontainebleau, France.
On June 18th, 1933 his Alma Mater conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Science. The University of Vermont a few years ago conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.
Professor Waugh has been a fertile writer, both of short articles for numerous periodicals, and of books on many varied subjects running well up to 30 volumes. This is not the place for a formal bibliography but the listing of a few titles will Indicate the range of his Interest. These include: Landscape Gardening 1898, Plums and Plum Culture 1899, Systematic Pomology 1903, The American Apple Orchard 1908, The Landscape Beautiful 1910, Rural Improvement 1914, The Agricultural College 1916, Outdoor Theaters 1917, The Natural Style in Landscape Gardening 1917, Occupational Therapy in Tuberculosis (a pamphlet reprint) 1920. He has also edited editions of several older works and contributed substantially to some by other authors.
In this list of accomplishments mention should certainly be made of the fine family of two daughters and four sons which Professor and Mrs. Waugh have reared to womanhood and manhood and who have now found places of responsibility and honor In the fields of investigation, instruction, art, finance and home-making.
I cannot close this brief recital of the activities and characteristics of Frank A. Waugh without adding my personal tribute to the sterling qualities of the man with whom it has been my good fortune to be associated in college teaching for nearly thirty years. Others are quite as able to speak for his professional and scientific attainments but few have been as intimately associated with him in the daily vicissitudes of faculty life. He has been a careful student, a successful Investigator, a patient teacher and a capable administrator, but above all he has been a helpful adviser, a staunch supporter, and a true friend. No word of annoyance or misunderstanding has ever passed between us. Much of whatever I may have been able to accomplish has been due to his helpfulness; my respect and love for him have deepened as the years have passed, and to me his highest title is — One of God’s Noblemen.
Arthur K. Harrison
Amherst
April, 1939
