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The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has placed on record its grateful recognition of the services rendered to the University by the late Professor Norton.
In the deliberations of this Faculty he bore an active part and worthily represented the cause of the humanities to which his enlightening instruction gave a position of unique distinction. He gave his hearty support to measures directed to the moral well-being of the students. He was an earnest advocate of his convictions, and steadfastly loyal to his ideals; nor did the unpopularity of any policy cause him to abate his ardor in its defense. His intellectual, as his personal, sympathies were wide. His glad recognition and generous encouragement of merit endeared him to workers in many fields. He was a just censor, a wise counsellor, not sparing of himself if he might help others. His critical instinct was distinguished for its delicacy, his taste refined to severity, his judgment clear and sober. His mind was ripened into the temper of a true cosmopolitanism by study of the best books, by knowledge of his own and of other countries, and by acquaintance and enduring friendships with leading men of letters. He bore his learning with a grace that was peculiarly his own. Simplicity, sincerity, gentleness, courage, generosity, and unfailing courtesy marked the temper of his mind and his dealings with his fellow men.
His distinction as a teacher rested on his many-sided scholarship; on his power to transmute whatever he taught into terms of a common humanity; and on his eagerness to find moral beauty in all excellence. He loved art and literature, and he had a large faith that both could be made to lend their concurrent influence not only to refinement and delight, but also to dignity of life and to the formation of lofty standards of thought and action. He inculcated the virtue of reverence. He awakened and developed ideals in his pupils, he did not impose them from without. His presence lighted up the lower levels of life and in it all seemed to be welded into a community of higher resolve. He sought for truth and beauty in the works and character of man; and this ideal standard of truth and beauty, by which he measured all things, his pupils found embodied in the man himself.
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