John Price Durbin John — An Appreciation. 



Wm. ]M. Blaxchard. 



On the seventh of August of the present j^ear passed to his reward John 

 Price Durbin John. Were it for no other reason that that he was a charter 

 member and an early president of our Indiana Academy of Science, it would 

 be appropriate for us to pay tribute to his memory. There are other reasons, 

 however, why it is befitting that we make this meeting an occasion for express- 

 ing our api)reciation of the life and labors of this great man. During the 

 present year the people of Indiana are observing in various ways the one 

 hundredth anniversary of the admission of the state to the Union and they 

 are recj'lling to the younger generation the various forces and factors that 

 have contributed largely to our Avonderful development. Indeed, the key- 

 note of the present meeting of the Academy is Indiana's Centenary and much 

 effort has been made to have this meeting mirror our State's growth along 

 material and intellectual lines. Now the most conspeiuous factor in a State's 

 development is her men and feAv men have exerted a deeper influence on the 

 educational and spiritual forces of our commonwealth than John P. D. John. 

 And Dr. John was distiuftively an Indiana man for all of his home life was 

 spent in three college towns of the State: Bro(jkville. Moores Hill, and Green- 

 castle: and this remarkable fact is worthy of publication, while he was not a 

 college graduate he had the unique distinction of becoming a professor in and 

 president of the college in each of the.se towns. As a matter of record a 

 brief biographical sketch A\nll be in order. 



Dr. John was born in Brookville November 2o, 1843. He became a 

 teacher in the i)ublic schools at seventeen and at twenty was elected Professor 

 of Mathematics in Brook\ille College, an institution of some y)rominence a 

 half century ago. He became President of the college in 1869. serving in this 

 capacity for three years. In 1872 he became Professor of Mathematics in 

 Moores Hill College and four years later was elected President. In 1882 he 

 was elected Professor of Mathematics in DePauw University and in 1889 

 became its president. The same year he was elected President of the Indiana 

 Academy of Science and the following year was chosen President of the 

 Indiana College Association. He resigned the presidency of DePauw in 1895 

 and from that time until the year of his death he was a conspicuous figure on 

 the lecture platform. 



Dr. John's chief service lo his Slate was in the fields of religion and educa- 

 tion, and it was not to his own State alone that he rendered such conspicuous 

 service for his ui)lifting influence was felt not only by thousands of people in 

 Indiana but by multitudes in practically every state in the Union. 



As a teacher he is said to have been original and inspiring. Dr. II. A. 

 Gobin, a life long friend, has said of him, "His students always regarded him 



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