The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 92, July 1988 - April, 1989 Page: 105
682 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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J. Frank Dobie and Walter Prescott Webb
The summer of 1938 was an eye-opener for me. I made friends with
the old guard of professors who had come much earlier in the cen-
tury-Robert A. Law, a venerable and friendly man; Leonidas Warren
Payne, Jr., a founder of TFLS, lively and amiable; William J. Battle, a
Greek scholar who had once been acting president; James B. Wharey, a
well-known John Bunyan specialist; Charles F. Arrowood in education,
and a good many more. They were all "great-hearted gentlemen," in
Browning's phrase, but they were already being elbowed off the scene
and showing signs of obsolescence. Professor Wharey and his wife, for
instance, attended a lecture-recital by Carl Sandburg a year or two be-
fore my arrival, and when Carl sang, "Oh, my name it is Sam Hall, and
I hate you one and all... God damn your eyes!" Dr. and Mrs. Wharey
got up and left the hall.
Dobie was especially unfond of Dr. Battle, who had been the man in
charge when the Library Tower was built in the middle of the campus.
Battle had preempted the top floor for his office and the classics library.
Dobie called the building "Battle's last erection" and said it would have
been all right if they had laid it on its side and put a gallery in front of
it. Gallery is the Texan word for front porch.
The antediluvian professor whom I saw most often was Dr. Reginald
H. Griffith, well known as an Alexander Pope specialist. He lived at the
University Club, a block west of the campus, where I stayed that sum-
mer. He was a tall, reserved, misanthropic fellow who took himself seri-
ously (after all, he had one of the best Pope collections in the world in
his Tower office) and did not suffer amateur scholars gladly. He was
the one, according to legend, who looked at John A. Lomax's collection
of cowboy ballads and told him that they were of no value, so John A.
went out behind "B" Hall and burned the lot.
This could hardly have been true, since Lomax took his songs and his
six-shooter off to Harvard, impressed George L. Kittredge, and even-
tually became famous for Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. I am
quite sure, however, that Griffith sniffed at those cowboy songs if he
actually saw them. He was not prepared to approve very much of any-
thing or anybody outside the eighteenth century. I take pride in the
fact that he accepted me as a friend and that we stayed in contact.
I remember sitting on the porch of the University Club with him un-
til time to meet the southwestern lit. class at which I intended to talk
about John A. Lomax and his cowboy songs, mentioning Griffith's part
in the story. I did not reveal what I was about to do-but I thought how
ironical it was that I should be talking to him at that particular moment.
I wish now I had asked him what really happened.
Dobie, I am quite convinced, expected me to make a poor showing in
his course. I asked him to tell me how he conducted it and what he105
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 92, July 1988 - April, 1989, periodical, 1989; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101212/m1/132/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.