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Kansas University Weekly.
MEMORIAL SERVICES.
Kansas University, Oct. 25, 1895.
ADDRESS BY CHANCELLOR F. H. SNOW.
It was in the capital city of the Swiss Republic, in full view of the lofty range of the Bernese Alps with their white-crowned summits emblematic of eternal peace and eternal rest, that I received the overwhelming intelligence of the death of my long tried friend and associate, Professor David Hamilton Robinson. I had not been prepared for the sad intelligence by the anxious watching and waiting and hoping for a different result which would have been mine if I had been informed of his condition from day to day. Indeed the death of no member of the faculty could have been to more unexpected. On the 10th of June, when he came to bid me farewell upon the eve of my departure for my vacation trip, he presented so marked an appearance of sturdy health that I congratulated him upon his youthful mien, his clear eye and ruddy complexion, the absence of silver threads in hair and beard, and the quick, energetic step which made him seem not one day older than fifteen years before. I little thought that night that never again should I receive the cordial grasp of the hand nor look into the brotherly eyes of him who for twenty nine years had been my constant companion and most efficient coadjutor in the great work to which we both had consecrated our lives.
It was in the first week of September in the year 1866 that our pathways became so intimately connected.—only a few days before the formal opening of the University on the 12th of the same month. We lost little time in calling upon the chancellor, the Rev. R. W. Oliver, to ascertain what arrangements needed to be made for the proper inauguration of the course of study. We were not a little surprised to learn that nothing had as yet been done and that not much could be accomplished until after the beginning of the term. On the arrival of the third member of the faculty, however, Professor E. J. Rice, we were able to hold full faculty meetings and to make the best possible provision for the care of our classes. In those few days before the assembling of the students many important problems relating to the educational management of the University were considered and solved, and Professor Robinson was always ready both to lead and to follow, in whatever direction a wise and energetic policy might seem to point. The inaugural exercises were held in the only building then provided for the use of the institution—the building now known as North college—and the carpenters had
hardly completed the finishing of the stairway when the citizens of Lawrence and the State crowded the upper hall to listen to Judge Thacher's eloquent address. The erection and equipment of this building without doubt required a greater amount of self-sacrifice and generosity on the part of the friends of higher education in those pioneer days than the erection of any one of the subsequent structures which have taken their places on Mount Oread in later and more prosperous times. Judge Thacher, in speaking of this building remarked that 'its dimensions were satisfactory, its proportions symmetrical, its workmanship and finish unexcelled; so solidly constructed that the fiercest storm which ever sweeps over Mt. Oread fails to jar its walls and so conspicuously located above the markets of trade, barter and commerce as first to attract the eye of the visitor to our city, proclaiming by its exalted position the immeasurable height there is in the unfolding and expansion of the mind above the ordinary avocations of life."
The southeast room of the first story of this structure was occupied as a study by Professor Robinson and myself during the first two years of the history of the institution. It was here that many serious problems connected with the management of the students and the development of an educational policy were discussed and decided. Here on every afternoon except on Saturday, and on nearly every evening until 11 o'clock the two young professors devoted their energies to both general and special studies which should enhance the value of their instruction to the young men and women of Kansas and prepare them for the future advancement of the then preparatory school to a rank somewhat in accordance with its name. At the beginning of his university career Professor Robinson had charge of the instruction in both the Latin and the Greek, his chair being designated as the chair of ancient languages. From the very outset, however, he announced his preference for the Latin language and declared to me his ambition to become a Latin professor of the highest attainments. He never for an instant wavered from this determination, and when in 1872 the department was divided by the appointment of the brilliant Byron C. Smith to the chair of Greek, Professor Robinson was enabled to devote his entire attention to the language, the literature and the archaeology of the ancient Romans. That he was successful in his life's ambition in spite of the limitations imposed by the paucity of the library facilities of the University and the meagreness of his own salary in the early days, is abundantly substantiated by the loving testimony of hundreds of his sorrowing students and by the phenomenal length of his professional term
of service. It was a fitting recognition by the board of regents of the value of a long life of self-sacrificing devotion to the higher education of the young men and women of Kansas, when at the completion of a quarter of a century, alike of University history and of his own connection with that history, the salary of Professor Robinson was raised above that of his colleagues.
If I were called upon to name the most conspicuous trait in Professor Robinson's character I should give first place to that rare fidelity to duty which characterized his every action. Carlyle has well said "He is wise who can instruct us and assist us in the business of daily virtuous living; he who trains us to see old truth under academic formularies may be wise or not as it chances, but we love to see wisdom in unpretending forms, to recognize her royal features under a week-day vesture." Every day of Professor Robinson's life was an eloquent witness to his faithfulness of spirit and of deed. From Sunday morning to Saturday night of every week of the year his virtuous living was an inspiration to all who knew him. He splendidly illustrated that constant fidelity in small things which has been well denominated a great and heroic virtue.
As a member of the University faculty he willingly undertook his share of the detail service essential to the management of a well ordered university. The advancement of a university largely depends upon the harmonious cooperation of all the different elements of which it is composed. The freedom from dissension and the willingness to bear the burden of necessary routine duties which characterize the present board of instruction have resulted from a general cultivation by its members of the spirit of fidelity to common obligations which so conspicuously marked the career of our departed senior professor. For many years he was secretary of the general faculty and no darkness of night or inclementy of the weather was sufficient to keep him from his post at the secretary's desk, although a two and a half mile walk was to him the necessary accompaniment of every meeting. Whenever a public lecture or other University exercise required attendance in University hall he considered it almost a religious duty to be present. If urged to remain at home on such an occasion, on account of fatigue or an impending storm, he would invariably sav that it was incumbent upon him to show his personal interest in whatever might be of profit to the students. If by his presence he could awaken in a single student a greater interest in his legitimate University work he was amply repaid for a third journey to the summit of Mt. Oread.
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