JOHN PRICE DURBIN JOHN — AN APPRECIATION. 79 



teacher and student. Furthermore, he wouhl hold each instructor under 

 obligation to keep abreast of the tide in his OAvn subject, intimatelj^ acquainted 

 with the progress of research in his chosen field, not merely from year to year, 

 but from month to month. There must be no laggards on his faculty. Each 

 professor must be a specialist and each professor must be adequatel.y supplied 

 with tools for his work. To fill a college position a man must have done grad- 

 uate work in the larger institutions equipped for highly specialized research 

 and he must have become a master in some particular sphere of intellectual 

 activity. I commend to your attention the words in which he summarized 

 this address: "The three essentials of a great modern college are able instruc- 

 ors, liberal equipment, and wide differentiation of work; able men who can 

 inspire ambitious youth by mere contact; large equipment that every subject 

 may be comprehensively taught, and broad differentiation that every in- 

 structor may be an authority in the department for which he stands." On 

 the roll of his faculty are found the names of Oliver P. Jenkins, now at Leland 

 Stanford, Clarence A. Waldo, now at Washington University, and Lucien 

 M. Underwood, late Professor of Botany in Columbia University. Men who 

 knew Dr. John well have expressed the opinion that if he could have received 

 the financial support upon which he had counted when accepting the presi- 

 dency of DePauw, his achievement at Greencastle might have been com- 

 parable with that of President Harper at Chicago. 



It was an occasion of great regret to faculty, students and alumni when, 

 in 1895, he resigned the presidency of the University, a position which he had 

 filled for only six years but with conspicuous success. During the brief period 

 of his administration he placed the institution upon a higher plane and started 

 its development long new lines. In building a university he placed the 

 chief emphasis upon the college of liberal arts. During these years he was a 

 great inspiration to faculty and students and his uplifting influence was felt 

 upon the educational work of the entire state. 



If Dr. John's withdrawal from this particular position gave rise to the 

 fear that he was lost to the educational forces of the country, his rapidly in- 

 creasing prominence on the public platform soon demonstrated that he had 

 merely widened the sphere of his influence and the field of his labors. His 

 services were in great demand and it is said that at one time he had the great- 

 est number of engagements ever booked by a single lecturer. And it is a 

 high tribute to his eloquence, his personal magnetism, and the forceful pre- 

 sentation of his arguments that for almost a quarter of a centiu'y he traveled 

 up and down this country addressing large assemblies on such themes as 

 "Signs of God in the World," "The Worth of a Man," "The Overlap of Science 

 and Religion," " The Sublimity of a Great Conviction" and never for once 

 felt the need of a joke, a harrowing story, or a stereoptican to assist him in 

 commanding the attention of his audience. The lecture that first brought 

 him into prominence was that entitled "Did Man make God or did God make 

 Man?" prepared in reply to the great agnostic orator, Robert J. IngersoU, 

 who had coined the expression "An honest god is the noblest work of man." 



