Clark, William Smith

Clark, William Smith, 1826–86, American educator, b. Ashfield, Mass., grad. Amherst, 1848, and studied chemistry and botany at Göttingen (Ph.D., 1852). He taught at Amherst until the Civil War, fought in many battles, and emerged from the struggle a brigadier general. He was elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1864, 1865, and 1867 and while there secured the location at Amherst of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (the present-day Univ. of Massachusetts). He was president of this institution from 1867 to 1879, helped organize its work, and taught botany and horticulture. He went to Japan (1876–77) to establish the Imperial College of Agriculture at Sapporo.

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Clark, William Smith (1826–86) agriculturist, educator; born in Ashfield, Mass. He graduated from Amherst College (1848) and after taking his Ph.D. from Göttingen, Germany (1852), he returned to teach chemistry, zoology, and botany at Amherst College (1852–61). After serving with the Union army during the Civil War, he became a moving force behind establishing and the first president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (1867–79), where he also taught botany and history. (It would become the University of Massachusetts in 1947.) When the governor of Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, visited the college, he was so impressed with Smith's work that he invited him to help start what became the Imperial College of Agriculture at Sapparo on Hokkaido. Clark spent a year there (1876–77) to get it started (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.