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

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AN EARLY DECADE OF WISCONSIN UNI VERSITY. 83 y s t ure was o ma e a fair show, a queenly crown, as was said, on the hill top I here was much, exultation when its topstone was laid, or rather when the colossal goose quill meant to be an emblem of the pen as mightier than the suord , uhich was to serve for a weather-cock, had oeen set on the lofty spne It was soon apparent, however, that the architects model seemed to have been a hollow tree, or that he must have imitated the Irishman who, for making a cannon, took a large hole and poured non aiound it Besides, the central pit was in danger of becoming a water cistern The leaks about the dome above it were so numerous and lurked so slyly that for yeais nothing could stop them. When this white elephant u as turned over to the laculty, they were at quite a loss how to make it subserve educational ends It is clear that the Regents expected too much of the Faculty. Their revenue just sufficed for the equipment of a petty Eastern college. But they drew up a Cl.lI'11Cl1lL'l1'1'1 with departments enough to deserve the pretentious name of university. They called on half a dozen teachers to work this machine. They turned them out every year, in hopes by some hocus pocus of re-organization to achieve the miracle they craved. Oszzlzrfa simpli- fifar! ' They wasted thousands in securing Henry Barnard, a reputed wise man of the East, to pose as a figure head of the University ship. Another feature of their plan was to bottle up their ofticers, for they forbade them to do outside work, that is to receive anything for preaching orlecturing, a grievous veto for men already living on half rations. They were proud of having built their dormitories as exact copies of those at Ann Arbor. Colossal copyists of deformity. In this move- ment, however, they showed how a man's following a wise step of another may prove as foolish for him as Pharaoh's following the Israelites into the Red Sea turned out for him. The Ann Arbor buildings were built at the expense of the State of lVlichigan5 those' in Madison were paid for by the Wisconsin University with money raised through selling lands at three dollars an acre which within a decade would have commanded twenty-five. third Universit tr ict ' ft t tk . C - Q . . V D V . I . . n 'C I . ,N .- I 1 . 'I C -Q - .- I O rc - - T 1 . C . I . C D 5 V C If some outlays of the Regents were of a questionable character, some of their economies were still more so. When I had completed nine years' work, I had not received nine years' salary. What had been paid melacked one quarter's salary of that amount, and yet i1 had carelessly given a receipt in full. Loving peace and hating litigation, I sought no redress, but

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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

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84 THE BADGER. my wife, indignant at what she held for a fraud, brought suit while I was in Egypt, gained her case in all courts even up to the highest, and obtained the money she claimed. i For a score of years Wisconsin has now been liberal to its University, but 'that State never gave a dollar to the institution that was called by'its name till more than eighteen years after Prof' Sterling had begun his teaching, and till after my own nine years of service had expired. The University knew the State only as an exactor of clerk-hire for keeping its accounts, and of pay for taking care of its lands. When war and evil days came, and Professors were no longer allowed homes in the University buildings, and salaries which had been EE1,5oo, shrank to a thousand and fees which did not average 55300, even after officers paid tuition money for being allowed to teacli their own children, while all prices doubled, not a dime of aid came from the State. No matter what the endowment, no matter what the policy of Regents, nothing analogous to the present expansion of the University could have been possible thirty years ago. The population of the State was then only about one-third what it now is. The number caring for higher education- able to afford it-and in the vicinity of suitable preparatory schools was not one-ninth as many as we now see. It was accordingly clear to all intelligent on-lookers that a veritable university, if born here then, would have been born out of due time. It would have been a supply for which demand had not yet risen. Its hour was not yet come. Of the faculty thirty years ago there was not one officer without some strong points. Lathrop, who had from the hrst borne the title of Chan- cellor, had served with credit in more than one other institution. Indeed, almost all his associates had done likewise. Mr. Lathrop, an elegant scholar and an elegant man, had been soured by the Regents feeling dis- satisfied with his eirdeavor to make the institution disciplinary rather than practical. He was accordingly content to go through with his customary routine, and neither excited nor sought to excite enthusiasm in his disciples. His leisure he spent as a society man and diner out. Secure of a more congenial position elsewhere, he was indifferent what might become of him here. Prof. Sterling had stood by the cradle of the institution and was determined, if it must die, to stand by its grave. He always took a