Page:Debt of Pacific Northwest to Dr. Joseph Schafer.djvu/6

 study in minutest detail their local origins, and, gathering ultimately into little county historical societies, should sow the seed that would make the whole state history-minded, and at the same time prepare a rich soil for the later growth of a more scholarly historical literature.

He got this movement well under way but was never to complete the work in Oregon. The historians of his native state, Wisconsin, appreciated the deep significance and the practicali ty of his idea, and reached out for him, placing under his control the vast resources of the great Wisconsin Historical Society, with the mandate to carry out in Wisconsin the exact enterprise he had dreamed of and invented in Oregon.

With small means, Dr. Schafer raised a larger family than most people now-a-days dare attempt. In his later years, he struggled with ill health and great pain. But never did his personal concerns lessen his enthusiasm, his gusto, his belief in other people and in their work and his.

In addition to being head of the history department at the University of Oregon, he was director of the extension division and of the summer sessions. In the latter he started the practice, since followed, of securing some of the most distinguished teachers of America to break down what otherwise might become a provincial type of instruction and to make it possible for a teacher in the remotest section of the state to receive directly, and not through books alone, the stimulus of these intellectual leaders. He brought out among others, Harry Huntington Powers, J. Duncan Spaeth, G. Stanley Hall, and Stockton Axson.

He had a large family, as Dean Allen has mentioned; his teaching load at the University was heavy; he carried what was equal to a full-time job of administration in handling extension and summer sessions and in assisting President P. L. Campbell in the University's struggles for support; yet he found time—many wondered how—to do the writing that very soon gave him a national reputation.

It was the old, old story of midnight oil, still by no means out of date for those who make a noticeable impact upon the world through the amount and quality of their labors. Dr. Henry D. Sheldon, research professor of history at the University of Oregon, was Dr. Schafer's colleague on the faculty practically all during the latter's stay in Oregon and has been a close friend during the 20 years since. Dr. Sheldon has written as follows of his work in history-in teaching, in research, and in writing: