CHAPTER FOURTEEN 



IN the spring of 1886 I was offered the presidency of A call 

 the State University of Iowa, whereupon I visited to Iowa 

 Iowa City and felt strongly disposed to accept the 

 offer, for several reasons. As the finest farming 

 district in the whole United States, Iowa was destined 

 to be very rich; at the same time, with no large 

 cities and no congested manufacturing districts, its 

 population rated higher on the whole than that of 

 any other state. The university trustees, moreover, 

 seemed eager that the institution should lead in 

 educational progress. On the other hand, the 

 faculty was quite disorganized, its members at odds 

 among themselves, and several were marked for 

 removal (more or less justly) by the authorities. 



On returning to Bloomington, I found the board 

 a solid unit against my going. Mitchell and Richard- 

 son, especially, made it a matter of personal appeal 

 so strong and so touching that I finally declined to 

 leave Indiana. I then ventured to suggest to some 

 of the Iowa trustees that their young professor of 

 Botany, Thomas J. McBride, would be admirably 

 fitted for the position in question; but they elected 

 Dr. Charles A. Schaeffer of Cornell, my former pro- 

 fessor of Chemistry. Schaeffer's long and successful 

 administration, ending with his death, was followed 

 by two others, after which McBride succeeded to the 

 office. Unfortunately he had then about reached the President 

 retiring age, but his appointment was acceptable to McBnde 

 all interests, and his brief service as head of the 



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