‘912 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
DAVID BOWER FRAUKEHBURGER 
Ho member of the faculty ever had a larger acquaintance 
.among the student body than had Professor Erankenburger, 
and no member of the faculty was ever better liked. And no 
member of the faculty was ever more overworked, or ever vol¬ 
untarily assumed the tasks that he did. 
The lot of the instructional force in public speaking is far 
easier in these degenerate days than it was when forensic ora¬ 
tory flourished with a vigor that was almost violence; when the 
joint debater was a bigger hero than the football man now; 
when even each sophomore semi-public of the four literary so¬ 
cieties in turn could draw audiences of eight hundred—more 
than the joint debates do now; when twice in each of the three 
terms ,in a year the best senior and junior orator, the best 
sophomore essayist and the best freshman declaimer 
.appeared before the assembled University. Assembly hall 
(that is what the miscalled Library hall was called 
for years after its erection and ought to be called 
now, unless some man is to be commemorated in its title) was 
ever resounding to glowing periods of practicing debaters and 
orators, and Professor Erankenburger was there working with 
them, throwing himself into the thought of their production, 
amplifying it, interpreting it, supplying the appropriate gest¬ 
ure. Then our semi-publics alone made a force of thirty-two 
men to be given rehearsals, and each got at least two. 
Sixty-four rehearsals there, anyway, and the debaters usually 
got three or four. And before these rehearsals, the written mat¬ 
ter had been gone over with the writer himself, and gone over 
again when the corrections had been incorporated. Hight after 
night, along toward eleven or twelve, the owls of the student 
body would see a light in Assembly hall, hear a cavernous voice 
reverberating through its emptiness. A rehearsal, and Profes¬ 
sor Frankenburger there to hear it. 
In the morning, he heard his full complement of classes; in 
the afternoon, he heard essays read, which he took home and 
