Page:Debt of Pacific Northwest to Dr. Joseph Schafer.djvu/2

Rh emotional values. His new absorptions and achievements in Wisconsin did not erase his abundant, robust, congenial years in Oregon.

In 1900, Dr. Frank Strong was president of the University of Oregon—another man permitted to leave and to build up a great university at Lawrence, Kansas. In that year, Professor F. G. Young went to the University of Wisconsin for summer study. He was an advisor to President Strong in finding an instructor of history. He had known Dr. Schafer ten years before at the Dakota normal school.

Thus it turned out that Dr. Schafer was to come to Oregon. Moreover, he was to come in a way to conduct him forthwith into the spirit of Oregon's history and backgrounds—via the Oregon Trail. Further still, he and Professor Young were to journey along the yet remaining emigrant ruts on bicycles. In treble historical intimacy, they were to cover the old route on wheels that were second-hand.

During the previous March had been issued the first number of the Oregon Historical Quarterly. Professor Young was its editor and was to remain its editor for 28 years. He was preparing for the magazine an article on the Oregon Trail.

In the December number of the Quarterly—volume I, number 4—Professor Young's article duly appeared. Those who have that valuable number, may find the article and enjoy reading it again, for it is one of the best essays ever written on the Oregon Trail. It has 31 pages of text, and 16 illustrations, presumably from amateur photographs by the two bicyclists. The account, however, is quite impersonal. It says nothing about bicycles. In one of the pictures, legended "The deep worn Trail along the Sweetwater," there is included with the ruts a small figure of a man standing beside a bicycle-whether Professor Young or Dr. Schafer, the engraving is too indistinct to reveal.

In the Oregonian for September 9 and September 17, 1900 , there appeared two less formal narratives of the trip, with some