J. William Hebel (1891–1934)

"His great interest was in English poetry, particularly that of the spacious times of Elizabeth and of the Seventeenth Century. He edited Drayton’s Endymion and Phoebe, 1915; and (with Hoyt Hudson), Poetry of the English Renaissance, 1929; John Donne’s Biathanatos, 1930. His finest and most scholarly work was an edition in five volumes of The Works of Michael Drayton which he prepared for the Shakespeare Head Press in England. Of this four volumes have been published and have established Professor Hebel’s reputation as a scholar both in England and America. His future held great promise.

"His loss to the University is both professional and personal. He was an allround man, a scholar without being a pedant. He loved life, and he knew how to make wise use of its good things. It was because of this combination of humanness and true scholarship that he was a fine teacher. Students found in him a man helpful and sympathetic; one who made them feel that literature was not a mere dust of words but a thing vital, joyous, inspiring. Hence his large following, and his effectiveness as a teacher."