University of Oregon - Oregana Yearbook (Eugene, OR)

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john ID. johnson V John W. johnson, the first President of the University of Oregon, acceptably filling that office from its beginning, in 1876, until his resignation in 1893, was a native of Missouri and early a student and teacher. An Oregon pioneer of 1850, he understood from his youth the condition and needs of this long isolated people. He was himself endowed by nature with those vigorous qualities which make the dauntless frontiersman, and all his instincts were in harmony with the proud motto of our state, Aliis volat propriisf, When student life at the newly founded .- Pacific University, at Forest Grove, was interrupted by an Indian war, he was constrained to pursue advanced study where it could best be accomplished, and by great effort and sacrifice earned the A. M. degree at old Yale, on the Atlantic slope; but as soon as that degree was obtained he returned to the Pacificdcoast. Here he devoted himself to teaching, choosing for his special labors those classic languages which demand the utmost of scholarly attainment and laborious care, but which bestow as a reward for continued study an ever-widening Vision of e the glory that was Greece and the grandeilr that was Rome. Aspiring, he awoke aspiraticn in his students; exacting of himself, he accepted nothing of others but the best possible attainments. ' ' After successful years at Corvallis and McMinnville, he accepted the princi- palship of the Portland High School, and added to success as. an instructor a rep- utation for efficiency as administrator, and when a State University was organized by a band of sagacious men, he was chosen to combine administration With instruc- tion. As President, he had many difficulties to overcome in a sparsely settled state, possessing very limited means of intercourse with other communities; a state whose inhabitants were struggling to secure agricultural homes and gain the neces- sities of daily life, having no system of schools to train in college preparatory stud- ies, and generally holding the belief that a state government should not foster the higher education. President Johnson accepted those conditions and knew how to accomplish much without attempting too much. He aimed to lay substantial foun- 13