The Days of a Man 1879 



History. Presumably, however, we made a modest 

 impression upon our arrival in town, for the official 

 committee who came to meet me returned to the 

 college reporting that "the Professor was not on 

 the train. No one got off but two drummers who 

 went straight to the hotel." 



The board of trustees being then in session, I 

 went before them by request, to set forth in all good 

 faith my friend's qualifications for the vacant chair. 

 To my surprise I was later informed that I myself 

 had been unanimously elected to the position. In 

 Judge Rhodes of Indianapolis, one of the trustees, 

 who became a good friend and remained so until his 

 Successor death, I had from the first a strong backer. I thus 

 Richard became the successor of the veteran geologist, 

 Owen Dr. Richard Owen; and Brayton, I may add, gen- 

 erously approved my decision to accept the ap- 

 pointment. 



Indiana Indiana University had been founded in 1821 as 

 Unwer- j nc ji ana Seminary. In 1838, however, it became 

 Indiana University, definitely recognized by the 

 authorities of the state as the head of its public 

 school system. As endowment they set aside the 

 township of Perry, Monroe County, and then sold 

 it practically all at a pitifully low price (about a 

 dollar an acre) to settlers, reserving only about ten 

 acres, adjoining the village of Bloomington, as a 

 campus. 



During its half-century of existence between 1838 

 and 1879 the university had passed through many 

 vicissitudes. In the first place, Bloomington, healthy 

 though it is, being in an elevated district free from 

 malaria, the old curse of Indiana river bottoms, lies 



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