There is a long human tradition of celebrating the lives of great men by naming buildings and institutions after them. Men that were consequential to their age — or a later one, for that matter — are memorialized by their progeny and held out as the pinnacle of human achievement. Brave, heroic, intelligent, leaders of men, father’s of their people or their field of study, such men are the stuff of legend and societal memory. Memorializing them brings social continuity and gives current generations an ideal model to emulate.
