Evening star., 1945-01-27
Dr.. William A. Wilbur, sc, Dies;
Widely Known G. w. Educator
Professor Emeritus
Wus Also Noted as
Bible Teacher

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Bible, provost and dean during g.
40-year career at George Washing
ton University, died yesterday at the
university hospital. He had been i'll
there since he suffered a severe fall
on December 18.
Funral services for the noted edu-
Gator will be held at pm. tomor-
row at the Calvary Baptist Church,
where he had taught a Bible class
for 80 years. He will be buried in
Mystic, Conn.,, where he was born
and spent all his summer vacations.
The body will be at Hysong's funeral
home until the services.
DR.. Wilbur was regarded as the
most widely known educator in
Washington. Even after his. retire.
ment from the university in 1885,
and his withdrawal from active Bible
teaching about three years ago, he
was known to thousands of WASH
ingtonians who had come under his
wholesome and lasting classroom in
fluence. He was proud, he told
friends, that he could never step on
a bus but some passenger would
jump up and give Dean Wilbur" a
seat.
DR.. Cloyd Heck Marvin, president
Of George Washington University,
today paid the following tribute to
Dean Wilbur:
For more than As years the loyal
ty and affection of our university
membership gathered about the per-
son Of Dean William Allen Wilbur.
He had the great gifts of the true
teacher. The faculty members,
alumni and students learned to de-
pend on him as very sincere per-
sonality. His high purpose has
blessed us. In the days to come his
Christian ideals will not be lost to
the university"
Professor Emeritus.
Explaining his own method of
teaching at the university, where he
was head of the English department
from 1897 to 1885, dean of the CO.
lumbar College from 1904 to 1928
and provost from 1928 to 1885, Dean
Wilbur used to say: '"The heart is
the prime factor in teaching, be-
cause the heart is the prime factor
In life" He made this same state
ment at colorful retirement cere-
monies in 1885, when the university
bestowed upon him the title of pro-
fessor emeritus.
His favorite authors were Milton,
Shakespeare, Browning, Tennyson
and Wordsworth. He rarely at
tended any Shakespearean produc-
tions on the stage, however, except
those in which Miss Julia Marlowe
appeared. He felt that she was one
of the few capable of Interpreting
his best loved author.
His lectures on all of these
authors were attended not only by
the freshmen, for whom they were
compulsory, but by dozens of
visitors who had heard him praised
by former students. He used in his
classes a text he wrote himself,
English Rhetoric"
Anecdotes Of the Sea.
whenever an anecdote was needed
to clarity a point, Dean Wilbur was
most likely to choose a story of the
sea. Descended from q line OF
whalers and clipper captains, he
built and sailed q series Of boats
at Mystic, Conn.,, all named Sweet
heart" for his first wife, Mrs. Han
nah Knapp Wilbur. He spent hours
discussing how to sail his boat from
Connecticut to Chesapeake Bay. but
never figured the way. When the
many students and friends who
constantly called at his home, 1916
Military road NV, were slow to
begin conversation, DR.. Wilbur
would talk a few minutes about his
boat.
He has left directions, friends
said, that with his death the sweet
heart" is to be taken into Long
Island Sound and sunk, in the ira
dttion of New England sailormen.
A portrait of Dean Wilbur by
Richard Meryman, which hangs in
Corcoran Hall, suggests his love Of
both literature and the sea. He is
pictured in academic robes, holding
a copy Of shis rhetoric. In the back
ground scene portrays a family
incident the dean described number
less times. His father, John Palmer
Wilbur, was trying to sail around
Cape Horn in one of the last of the
Clipper ships. A heavy storm tossed
him across another ships bow.
Barely avoiding a collision, he found
a brother, from whom he had long
been separated, was captain. They,
yelled to each other through mega
phones as the storm swept them
apart again.
Career Began in 1895.
Dean Wilbur's career at George
Washington University began in
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