Professor M.F. Arey, for years a leader in Iowa educational circles, a member of Iowa State Teachers College faculty for twenty-seven years, and a veteran of the Civil War, died at his home 2320 College Street, at 9:00 o'clock Friday, March 20, at he age of 87. Death was caused by a gradual decline in general health incident to his advanced age.

Professor Arey was born at Hamden , Maine , January 19, 1844 , where he grew to early manhood. He entered Bowdoin College at the early age of eighteen years, but soon left his studies at the call for volunteers. He enlisted in the Union Army where he served as private and corporal in Company A, 22 nd Maine Infantry. At the close of the war he returned to Bowdoin College where in 1867 he was graduated with the B.A. degree. He distinguished himself as an undergraduate student having been elected for the honor of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1870 he returned to his Alma Mater to receive the M.A. degree.

Before coming to Iowa , Mr. Arey was employed as a teacher in the public schools of his native and adjoining state New Hampshire .

He came to Iowa in 1873, and for one year maintained a private school at Cedar Rapids . In 1874 he was called to Cedar Falls where he served for four years as superintendent of the city schools. In 1877 he was elected to a similar position at Fort Dodge where he served for a period of thirteen years. He returned to cedar falls in 1890 to accept the headship of the Natural Sciences Department in Iowa State Teachers College, a position which he held until the fall of 1917, when he retired from active teaching and was made curator of the college museum and supervisor of the college field and garden which he held until he became to feeble for active service of any nature.

Professor Arey's interests were numerous, and decidedly altruistic. He was active in civil affairs, serving on the city council for a period of thirteen years and on city library, hospital, and church boards. In the state he was educationally prominent. For twenty-five years he was secretary of the Educational Council, an organization which had much to do with shaping the educational policies of the state. In 1890 he was elected to membership in the Iowa Academy of Sciences. As a fellow of this organization he wrote many valuable papers as well as serving as president during 1905. As special assistant to The Iowa Geographical Survey, he contributed largely to he early geographical history of the state, having written the geology of Black Hawk, Grundy, Butler , Davis, Wayne, and Iowa counties. He was chosen as a member of the Iowa University scientific exposition to the Bahama Islands in 1895.

Professor Arey, however, was best known as a great teacher. It was in the classroom where his keen wit, his broad sympathetic understanding of student life, his well trained mind, his deep insight in the interpretation of scientific truths, made him a special favorite among the entire student body. Scientific , yet practical, exacting, yet just, in weighing opinions of others, intensely earnest in truth, an enemy of sham and frivolity, quiet, modest, always cheerful, magnetic of personality and a firm believer in the higher values of life, are a few of the outstanding attributes of this useful life.

It may be truly said that he was an ideal teacher and citizen. For sixty years he exercised a tremendous influence in college, state, and community life. The monthly pay check to him was ever a constant reminder for better and more efficient service to his fellow men.

-Memorial of M.F Arey published in the Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science, 38:46-47. All rights reserved.