A Hoosicr at Harvard
A Hoosicr at Harvard William E. Wilson” It was 1923, late August,- in Evansville, Indiana, where I was born. I was seventeen. On the telephone Mr. John 0. Chewning, principal of Central High School, from which I had graduated in June, was asking me if I would like to go to Har- vard. At that time, for reasons that I can no longer remember, I thought I wanted to go to Yale. But Yale was still a year or two away. My father had just been elected to Congress from the old First District of Indiana, and the family would be moving to Washington, D.C.’ I planned to enroll in one of the colleges in Washington and later transfer to Yale if my grades were good enough. Thus I would avoid the entrance examinations that only a few colleges required in those days. It was true that I had so far neglected to advise Yale Uni- versity of my intentions or any of the institutions of higher learning in Washington on my list, for that matter. But in 1923 going to college was a more casual business than it is today; in most instances one simply packed one’s bag at the last minute and went, * William E. Wilson is James A. Work professor of English emeritus, Indi- ana University, Rloomington. At times a reporter for the Evansville, Indiana, Press and New Bedford, Massachusetts, Standard and associate editor of the Baltimore Evening Sun, Wilson has also authored numerous historical works and novels. Included are The Wabash (Riurrs of America series; New York, 1940); The Angel and the Serpent: The Story of New Harmony (Bloomington, 1964); Crescent City (New York, 1947); and Every Man Is My Father (New York, 1973).
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