was no Methodist college near at hand in Tennessee or Kentucky. This was the Indiana Asbury, now De Pauw University, located at Greencastle, a small town, fairly typical of the Central West, in rather a flat though slightly rolling landscape, in the western part of Central Indiana. The young boy remained there but a few months, and no glimmering of the future scholar's life yet dawned upon him. He was merely one of the youngest of numerous boys, and his teachers were teachers-this seems the sum of the im

pressions left. He was, probably enough, too young and very unevenly and ill prepared. He blames no one. With perfect frankness he speaks of this year: "I did nothing, and at sixteen I was again at home."

The father was wise enough to seek the remedy, and was fixed in his purpose that the boy should learn something. From the same frank source we are told: "For the next two years and a half I went to school to Mr. Quarles, a graduate of the University of Virginia, and from him I learned more than I had learned all the time before." Then for two or three years he seems to have stopped school. He probably remained at home, possibly worked on the farm, and lived the usual life of a Southern boy in the country or small town about 1870. But the father was ever anxious and ambitious for the now fully grown young man. Another college was sought out, and this time more happily chosen. Methodist institution in the South, Randolph-Macon College, had been recently moved to Ashland, only twenty miles north from and virtually a suburb of Richmond, Va. He himself says: "When I was twenty-two years old my father induced me to go to Randolph-Macon College, Virginia. There I was taught in my favorite studies by men who had studied in Germany, and by their advice I was led to come to Leipzig in the summer of 1874."

The oldest

Going to Randolph-Macon was the turning point in his life. Three men moved mountains for him and remained life influences. The Rev. James A. Duncan, D.D., the elder, was President, one of the most gifted and sympathetic pulpit speakers of his day. Casting aside denominational

lines and resolved to gather about him the best men he could get for his institution in its new and favored location, and thus in the truest sense to serve his Church by throwing inspiring influences about her young men, Dr. Duncan had a small faculty, but one so carefully chosen, that for a period of eight years at least, 1868-1876, Ashland became one of the inspiring intellectual centers of the Southern States. One of this Faculty was Prof. Thomas R. Price, now of Columbia University, New York, who, side by side with the course in Greek, instituted what was then an innovation for very many even of our best American colleges, a full course in English. Another member of the faculty was Prof. James A. Harrison, who afterwards made the reputation of the English course at Washington and Lee, and was subsequently called to the University of Virginia.

A new world was revealed to the young man. From now on he became a devoted student of languages-Greek, Latin, French, German, and particularly his own language and literature, English. In the sciences and mathematics he did not come under the same impelling influences, nor were his tastes toward these studies; and at this early time of life, characterized by hearty likes and dislikes, he was as pronounced in his indifference to this side of the college course as he was ardent for language and literary work. At last the young energies had been set on fire, and he moved in the direction his instincts and interests led him. He took all the studies in his favorite departments and few or none at all in others. He thus was a candidate for no degree at college, and I believe, never received the title of Bachelor of Arts. He was of maturer age than many of his companions, and from the moment his work grew into a genuine interest and deep-seated passion he began to specialize in it. Such are the impressions received from many bits of conversations and chats at different times. I recall his speaking warmly of his roommate at college, brilliant "Dick" Beirne, who afterwards became one of the best-known figures in Virginia journalism and public life. They were "club mates," and he spoke almost gleefully of Beirne's fine qualities even then

displayed for winning over people his way. These are now memories years old that creep forth from the past, scraps from talks in my father's home, or from chats after class hours, with Latin and English lessons over.

His affection and love for the men of Randolph-Macon never waned. Of Dr. Duncan he always spoke in a spirit of the highest esteem; and one of his last publications, the Anglo-Saxon Reader, was done in collaboration with Prof. Harrison. I happened to be with him when he paid his last visit to Prof. Price. We had traveled together from Tennessee to New York on the same car, in attendance upon the meeting of the Committee on English from the several associations of schools and colleges in the United States. It was at luncheon at the University Club that the two men met for the first time in many years. Both had been former teachers of mine, and it was with peculiar pleasure, therefore, that I observed their keen enjoyment in bridging over the years that had passed, and Prof. Baskervill's zest in putting questions and sounding new depths in his friend and teacher, who, he always cordially acknowledged, had been a vital influence in directing his young life.

After two years of special study in language work at Randolph-Macon, he proceeded, as said, in 1874 to Germany to pursue his favored studies. A number of young Southern men, of whom Randolph-Macon sent more than her share, went abroad about the same time, and most of these preferred Leipzig, chiefly on account of the fame of Georg Curtius and others. Baskervill succeeded in getting under the best influences then in Leipzig. He got to know personally those of his instructors who touched him closely. The Professor of English, Richard P. Wuelker, was particularly kind and helpful. Baskervill's dissertation, the Anglo-Saxon text of Alexander's epistle to Aristotle, which can be found in the volumes of "Anglia," and the warm dedication to Wuelker, show clearly the friendly relations existing between the two-relations further testified by the hearty words of commendation given by Wuelker to both Profs. Harrison and Baskervill in the "Grundriss." Basker

vill remained abroad two years, when he returned to America to teach awhile and go back later for his degree. It was in the Centennial year, 1876, that he was back-a year of distinct impetus to much of the best in the work of the Southern writers-when he was elected Professor in Wofford College, South Carolina.

The young teacher was still fortunate in his new surroundings. At Wofford College was a union of the best elements and traditions in Virginia and Carolina Methodism. The men in the Wofford Faculty for its first quarter of a century had been splendid types of the educated Southern gentlemen of the "old school: " William M. Wightman, Albert M. Shipp, David Duncan, Whitefoord Smith, Warren Du Pre, and James H. Carlisle. Dr. Carlisle had entered upon his Presidency the year before, in 1875, a man fashioned in the same teacher's mould as Dr. Arnold of Rugby, and of whom every student ever with him thinks reverently as of one of the truly and simply great in his state and age. A new set of young men were grouped about him. Baskervill was one of these. Another, associated a year before, and also a Leipzig man, was Charles Forster Smith. These two were to prove lifelong friends, and to become closely associated in their work later at Vanderbilt, as now at Wofford. In large measure it was their efforts that revolutionized the attitude of both institutions, and ultimately of the entire Methodist Church, South, in their standards of educational endeavor. The two men, fresh returned from the lecture rooms of Leipzig, and ardent in their studies, gave the course at Wofford at once a distinct linguistic and, in part, a literary turn. The courses in Latin and Greek were made singularly thorough and rigid, the studies of French and German were introduced as integral parts of the curriculum, and in the spirit of Price at Randolph-Macon, Baskervill began a formal course in English. One of the first pupils these two young professors found at Wofford was James H. Kirkland, the present Chancellor of Vanderbilt. He followed in their footsteps, went abroad to Leipzig for Greek, Latin, and English, succeeded one and was colleague of the other at Wofford,

and was again associated with both at Vanderbilt.

And all

three of these young men needed and recognized the conservative and suggestive influence, yet full sympathy, of their President, Dr. Carlisle.

Students in the college at the time recall how the two men, Smith and Baskervill, took papers and journals in common, discussed eagerly together questions and men and movements, in letters, in scholarship, and even in politics. It was a rubbing together of minds and keeping alive the flame of thought that was to do both good for many years. Shreds of these discussions would often come suggestively to the students. As an instance, I remember distinctly the enthusiasm of the two about Cable's Creole stories and "The Grandissimes," as they were appearing in the old Scribner's Magazine, and how intently both men were watching the beginning of the new Southern literature and Southern education. Possibly then and there was engendered the first conscious thought of Prof. Baskervill's later volume on Southern writers.

Meanwhile both Smith and Baskervill had left Wofford and had returned to Leipzig for the Doctor's degree. Baskervill was accompanied by his wife, who had been Miss Florence Adams, of Virginia. Dr. Carlisle has told me of the simple pathos of the message that afterwards came back across the waters by cable: "My wife is dead." Those were dark days, a dreary, gloomy winter in Northern Germany, accompanied with sickness and bereavement. He soon returned to America, with his child, to continue his work at Wofford, again going over one summer, if I am not mistaken, for the Doctor examination. Shortly afterwards, in 1881, he received the call to the chair of English just established in the new Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The position meant for him a return to his native State under the most flattering circumstances. But it also stood for much more. It offered untold possibilities for scholarship for the South as a whole. It would give the opportunity for influencing vitally the educational method of all the States in the Lower Mississippi Valley, and affecting even those far