Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Nevins) [PAGE 114]

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YEARS OF DEPRESSION

as director of the evening high school in Chicago. He was above all else an educator in the narrower sense, drilled in the educator's routine. His training had accentuated methodical, precise traits of mind that threw him into contrast with Gregory, sanguine, energetic, inclined to dream and plan in a large way. Dr. Peabody was received warmly by the faculty, and most students,1 and must have seemed an excellent choice for the place. He was physically commanding, his scholarship was high—he had a doctorate from Vermont—and he knew how to use it, and though as a speaker he was ineffective beside Gregory, in writing he expressed himself well. His conception of the functions of the University was much what Gregory's had been, for while he quite grasped the idea of the founders, he also had been liberally trained.||He was proficient primarily in engineering and no one who sat under him in the classroom or worked in his laboratory could fail to be impressed with the fact that his knowledge here was thorough and that he had a rare ability in imparting it—but it was his boast that if necessary he could take the place of any professor. For example, he was a good entomologist, with a valuable collection of beetles. Like Gregory, he wished to keep the practical studies in the foreground, but believed that if a farmer's son tasted a little Latin it would do him no harm. Finally, he was the model of industry that his predecessor had been, with this difference—that Gregory had

I " In the< first place," said Dr. Peabody in later recounting the difficulties he had faced, "many of the students looked askance at the new Regent, part because he was not Dr. Gregory, pj because he was not Dr. McCosh. The seniors were said to lire held a meeting to determine whether they would return or not, but kindly consented to give the new man a trial." Yet the IlHni was effusive in welcoming him.

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