A Book Lover in Texas Page: 19
xi, 169 p. : ill., ports. ; 19 cm.View a full description of this book.
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The Beginnings
As class ended he signaled me to stay. He wanted to
know where I was from. When I told him Texas, he gave
me his first smile and said, "I thought so."
Professor Lynn was from the days when only a
bachelor's degree was essential for a university faculty, well
before the Ph.D. epidemic.
At the University of Chicago I had the feeling that I
was at a gourmet cafeteria, with every field of study
irresistible. I took all the undergraduate courses in anthro-
pology, and dreamed of becoming an archaeologist for
treasures of knowledge of the past, like the great Franz Boas
who came to lecture at the developing Field Museum of
Natural History and which our class attended.
But my fascination was with philosophy as taught by
the noted T. V. Smith, a veritable Niagara of wit and
scholarship. He was a fellow Texan, born on a poor cotton
farm in Brown County near Blanket in 1890. Tall, skinny,
freckled, sandy-haired, he had walked barefooted to the
University of Texas in Austin to work his way through
college. He literally lived in the library between jobs and
classes. The brilliance of his record there catapulted him to
the University of Chicago for a doctorate degree and then
as professor of philosophy from 1923 to 1948.
In the classic Greek tradition the philosopher in-
cluded the study of politics, otherwise we would never have
had the guidelines of Plato's Republic. Thomas Vernor
Smith became an Illinois State Senator and then was
elected to the United States Congress as a Democrat
There his series of debates with Senator Taft produced19
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Oppenheimer, Evelyn, 1907-. A Book Lover in Texas, book, 1995; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc28327/m1/32/: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.