University of Wisconsin Madison - Badger Yearbook (Madison, WI)

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11 Gartp Qecabe of 'wisconsin Qlniversify. Br Prior. J. D. Bl I'I.liR. Madison, as the name of the capital ol' Wisconsin, I hrst heard of in 1856. The next year, while a Professor in Wabash College, I was invited to address the Athenzean and I-Iesperian Societies in the University of Wis- consin, at the third annual Commencement. My theme then was 'K'1'he Characteristics ofa Scholar. I spoke in the Baptist Church where also all the University exercises were held. Under the auspices of the societies, I then delivered several European lectures for defraying my traveling expenses. At that time, no more than three Madisonians had, as tourists, visited the Old World, and so my rambles in Naples, Pompeii and that neighborhood, as well as descriptions of St. Peterls and the Alps were fresh and welcome themes. Coming from the platitudes of Indiana, I could not fail to view Madisonian scenery as a nook of paradise regained. I In 1858, I was unexpectedly elected a Professor in the Wisconsin State University. If I had hesitated about changing my field of teaching, my memories of chills and fever on the Wabash would have turned the scale in favor of residence where such ailments were held to be never indigenous. Q lVhen I entered the Wisconsin faculty, we considered that body to number seven, namely. hve full professors, one teacher of modern 'languages aiiine tutor. Two of the professors were nine year veterans. They had been on the ground from the opening of the institution, the rest of the teaching board no more than two years. The grounds of the establishment, perhaps forty acres, were hemmed in on the West by a line running from the lake through the valley east of Observatory Hill. Its buildings were two, namely, the North Dormitory dating from 1851, and the South from 1854. In the former were students' rooms, recitation rooms and the chapel. In the South Dormitory, in addi- ' si

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82 THE BADGER. tion to lecture rooms, and the chemical laboratory, there was the Univer- sity collection of minerals as well as of fauna and Hora. But this edifice was mainly a boarding-house. The center of the lower story was a dining- room. At the head of each table sat a Professor, and most of the out- of-town students depended for their daily bread on these commons. Each professorial family had the use of a flat, or a portion of one. Wood-fur: naces made the whole pile comfortable. The caterer was a steward appointed and salaried by the Regents, who kept down prices and bore losses. But in 1859, nnding the losses too great, they obliged the Professors whom they had before crowded into the Dormitory, either to leave it alto- gether, or to buy in the old furniture, cows, etc., and furnish board to such students as desired it. Three of us remained, the rest took houses in town. Two of the three departed at the close of another year, and so, for a year or two, I was, with my family, the sole occupant of the huge building, and one of my children was born there. Nobody claimed board and I was not obliged to grant it. A The outlooks around the buildings were then no whit inferior to those now so much admired. The trees close at hand were not high enough to obstruct the view, those in the distance were many of them patriarchs of the forest primeval. Gulls, ducks, loons were never absent from the lake. Three eagles were often swooping above me during my morning swims beneath the bluff. V The alar extent of one that was killed there fby P. -I. Clawson, now State Senatorj. I measured while he was still alive. It was seven feet. On the ridge, a hundred-foot prehistoric lizard was creeping along the very crest toward the North Dormitory. I led many strangers, among them Charles Francis Adams, to the top of the central dome. As that New England celebrity emerged from the trap-door, and caught a glimpse of the land and lake scenery, he cried out: 'I I could live here! and it is the first place I have seen West, where I could. When he asked me how many Professors we had, my answer was, I do not know, for I cannot satisfy myself how many Professors I ought to set down the aesthetic prospect we here command as amounting to. In 1857, I saw some excavations which had been already made for the central edince. Near them lay the section corner stone-mark, a measured mile due west from the center of the Capitol, The chief aim in planning this