The windswept wastelands of the Dust Bowl made it clear to many Americans how fragile the human place in nature is. Suddenly, schools across the country wanted to teach conservation, erosion prevention, and wildlife management. Letters piled up on Leopold’s desk, asking his advice. Leopold replied with a list of resources, but his overriding message was that nature was the best teacher. At fifty-one, Leopold had seven graduate students and a full flock of undergraduates. With a blend of affection and awe, they called him “the Professor.” Marie McCabe, the wife of graduate student Robert McCabe, was quite surprised when she first met the Professor. “I had expected him to be a combination of Abe Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. Here he was, extremely gracious, but of ordinary size and appearance, not at all handsome … showing no sign of being an author and absolute authority on everything.” Game Management 118 had become a campus favorite. Robert S. Ellarson, a Leopold wildlifer, recalled his first meeting: “The class had assembled before the Professor arrived. Soon the clicking of steel-cleated heels signalled his approach. When he arrived and stood before the class, I was impressed by the bold, virile, almost macho appearance of the man. And I was absolutely enthralled by the lecture that followed.” On Saturdays, the class traveled to the arboretum (which was slowly growing toward a natural state) or to various research plots. In the field, Leopold pointed out such elements as animal tracks and rubbings, scat, browsed plants, nests and burrows, gullies and runoff tracks, ground cover and foliage, and rock formations. Then he asked questions, pushing the students to put together the signs they had seen, to draw for themselves a recent and not-so-recent history of the plot of land: . . . Look at the trees in the yard and the soil in the field and tell us whether the original settler carved his farm out of prairie or woods. Did he eat prairie chicken or wild turkey for his Thanksgiving? What plants grew here originally which do not grow here now? Why did they disappear? What did the prairie plants have to do with creating the corn-yielding capacity of this soil? Why does this soil erode now but not then?. . .
A history of radiology and radiation oncology at Thomas Jefferson University.
