 After graduating from Ferguson High School in Ferguson, Missouri, he was unable to afford college, and instead began work as a laboratory boy at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis, where he learned chemistry from Charles Luedeking and William Lamar.Mallinckrodt loaned him enough money to allow him to attend Harvard University, where he graduated "summa cum laude" in 1907 after only three years of attendance (a record at Harvard that would remain for more than 40 years).After graduating, he returned to Mallinckrodt, where he became a chemist in the alkaloidal department.