My wife and I attended graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis. We didn't meet there - we'd been married for four years before we packed everything into a rented truck and headed west. We spent five years in St. Louis. During those years there was exactly one day on which the official temperature topped 100 degrees: the day we moved-in to our apartment. It's always about timing.

Charles & Henry Greene spent a large part of their childhoods in St. Louis and then attended the Manual Training School of Washington University. The Manual Training School, and others like it, were founded on the belief that head and hand should be trained together, that a purely academic education was not sufficient to train young men (and only young men) for careers in an industrial society, particularly engineering careers. Founded by Calvin Milton Woodward, the first Dean of Engineering at Washington University, the Manual Training School existed for roughly 35 years. The university archives contain significant records about the school. Unfortunately, during my time at WashU I hadn't yet discovered Greene & Greene and was unaware of their affiliation with the university. It's always about timing.

The Chancellor of Washington University from 1971 until 1995 was a man named William H. Danforth. "Chan Dan" as he was affectionately known is a cardiologist who was on the faculty of the School of Medicine before moving up the academic ladder. Much beloved, he was by all accounts an excellent leader of and ambassador for WashU. Born to the family that founded Ralston Purina, Chan Dan and his brother John, formerly a United States Senator from Missouri, are testament to the wealthy's best impulse toward service, an impulse that seems greatly diminished today.

While researching Poems of Wood & Light, I had the opportunity to visit the Washington University Archives to examine the records of the Manual Training School. Among the many interesting items was a record of graduating classes. I turned to the appropriate pages to find Charles, class of 1887, and Henry, class of 1888. Reading through the class list for 1887, I noticed the name William H. Danforth. The archivist quickly confirmed that this classmate of Charles Greene was grandfather and namesake to Chan Dan. After graduating from the Manual Training School, he studied Mechanical Engineering at Washington University and then went on to found Ralston Purina.

I subsequently wrote Chancellor Danforth to ask if he had any records of or correspondence from his grandfather's time at the Manual Training School. Very graciously, he replied that he did not but wished me luck with my search. As this was certainly a line of inquiry tangential to my primary topic, I didn't pursue it any further. Nevertheless, it was a little exciting to discover this link, however tenuous, between Charles and Henry Greene and me. That the link involves a true pillar of the community, a man for whom I have great admiration, makes it all the better.

Hail to the skillful cunning hand,
hail to the cultured mind,
Contending for the World's command,
here let them be combined.
-- motto of the Manual Training School