Clark, Robert Carlton, Ph.D. "History of the Willamette Valley Oregon." Vol. 2. Chicago: Chapman Publishing Company, 1927. p. 5. PRINCE LUCIEN CAMPBELL, LL. D. Prince Lucien Campbell, who during the last twenty-three years of his life occupied the presidency of the University of Oregon at Eugene, was in the sixty-fourth year of his age when called to his reward on the 14th of August, 1925. Thomas Lamb Eliot said: "Dr. Campbell's life-work was made up of acceptances and aspirations, acceptances of the materials close at hand in things and men, aspirations towards social, mental and spiritual betterments, always conceived unselfishly, and toiled for in human ways. This combination is of the essence of good will, that ‘express jewel of the soul' as the philosopher Kant named it; one hand always reached out to the world as it is, and the other toward the world as it ought to be." The forward in an attractive volume containing the biography of Prince Lucien Campbell which was prepared by Joseph Schafer and was published by the University Press in 1926 is as follows: "This memorial volume, issued on the occasion of the Semi-Centennial of the University, is the contribution of the class of 1927. In addition to financial subvention, the class has undertaken the task of distribution, and if a surplus results, plans to devote it to the purposes nearest to President Campbell's heart, thus constituting a double memorial. Veneration and reverence for the character and life of President Campbell increase as time goes by. For many years yet to come we shall be adding to our gallery of impressions sharply etched pictures and clear recollections of a truly great life. He was a great man and belongs among great men by right of his immense power of hard work, his unfailing pursuit of what seemed to him to be right, and above all by that childlike directness and simplicity of vision which none but the greatest carry through life. We can learn much from his patience, his modesty, his sincere optimism, and his eloquence so inspiring and so magnificent. It is because we of the class of 1927 so warmly remember by intimate contact the inspiring personality of our beloved leader that we undertake to bridge the coming years with the written memory of our late president, not only as a tribute to President Campbell, but as a service to his students, to his friends, and to the citizens of the state he so nobly served." Prince Lucien Campbell was born October 6, 1861, in an unpretentious rural village called New Market, which lay near the Missouri river in Platte county, Missouri, his parents being the Rev. Thomas Franklin and Jane Eliza Campbell. He was the third son in the family, and at the time of his birth his father was the Christian preacher and also teacher in his own school in New Market. The career of Thomas F. Campbell had been somewhat changeful up to that point. Reared on a Louisiana plantation (although born in Mississippi), he remained with his father till about twenty-five years of age. After that he acquired a classical education, studied the law, and began its practice, varied with teaching, in the new state of Texas. But he did not long remain there. It seems probable that teaching rather than law was his main dependence, and his several removes, from Texas to Kansas and thence to Missouri, may have been determined by the quest for increasingly favorable teaching opportunities rather than by the hope of a widening circle of clients and a more lucrative class of legal cases. Those who knew Thomas F. Campbell in later years regarded him as a man in many respects well fitted to shine as a lawyer, and such also is the evidence of his published writings, which disclose a legalistic cast of mind. Yet he abandoned the law, practically, after a brief experience, and thereafter combined preaching with the school teaching from which he was never quite able to divorce himself. Thomas F. Campbell became an eminent preacher. Before he left Missouri, in 1863, he was recognized as a man of power and real distinction in the pulpit. Doubtless the circumstances of Thomas F. Campbell's college career were ultimately, if tardily, responsible for his momentous resolve to enter the ministry. The institution he selected was Bethany College, West Virginia (then Virginia). That was the school which had been opened in 1841 by Alexander Campbell, the famous theologian who was the founder of the Campbellite, or "Christian," church. Since Alexander Campbell traveled widely through the western and gulf states, Thomas F. may have enjoyed some chance contact with Bethany's president during one of his tours to preach and incidentally raise funds and gain students for the college. Be that as it may, Thomas F. Campbell went from Louisiana to Bethany in 1848 and graduated in 1852, having experienced four years of close relationship with one of the most magnetic of the great religious teachers of the time, with whom also he became connected by marriage. Thomas F. Campbell must have been in touch also, at Bethany, with the revered patriarch Thomas Campbell, father of Alexander, who was the American pioneer of the family, coming to Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1807 from the north of Ireland, where he had been preacher and teacher for many years. These three constitute a series in the transmission of influence. To one knowing President Campbell intimately, and having acquired some knowledge of the personal traits of his father, of Alexander, and of Thomas Campbell, there comes a subtle suggestion of "the laying on of hands," the apostolic succession from the venerable Thomas, to Alexander, Thomas Franklin, and lastly Prince Lucien. Through his mother, Jane Eliza Campbell, and probably also through his father, the Oregon president was born into the clan Campbell of Scottish history, for the family of Thomas and Archibald Campbell has long been recognized as an offshoot from the Argyll Campbells, whose medieval capital was the famous castle of Inverary and their chief, in former days as at present, the Duke of Argyll. Thomas Franklin Campbell, the father of Prince L. Campbell, filled pastorates in Texas, Missouri and Montana, where he was principal of a boys' school, prior to coming to Oregon in 1869 as president of the Christian College at Monmouth, of which he remained at the head until the end of the school year 1881-1882. His resignation was due to the one event which weakened his determination to carry on. the death of the wife he had married in Bethany thirty years earlier. Mrs. Campbell had been long in feeble health and she passed away on the 18th of October, 1881. Her husband finished out the year, then sold his Monmouth home, started his son Prince off to Harvard, and himself went east and south on a long tour to lecture and preach among the good people he had known in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi during the years before his migration to the far west. Aside from traveling as preacher, evangelist, and lecturer, he held several pastorates for short periods, he wrote numerous letters to the Christian Messenger, he taught in at least three different institutions. In 1885 he married Miss Mary Stump, daughter of one of his closest Monmouth friends and a member of his first college class. They had three children, two daughters, Catherine Elizabeth and Agnes, and a son, David Campbell. During his last years he lived among the old friends at Monmouth, where his son Prince was president of the normal school which was the successor to Christian College. There he was pastor of the Christian church up to the time of his death, January 17, 1893. He was mourned by thousands of people, scattered widely through a dozen states. He was a Mason of high degree and, moreover, was a recognized leader along advanced lines of thought concerning governmental policies. In 1874 he was made the candidate for governor on an independent platform and subsequently he became allied with the prohibition party. The deepest interest of his life was preaching the gospel and teaching those principles "by which the spirit is fed, and clothed with truth and righteousness." Prince Lucien Campbell was a lad of only eight years when his father removed with his family to Oregon. He pursued his education at Monmouth and was graduated from Christian College there in June, 1879. Because he had already such a mastery of the classics and so strong a liking for those subjects, his father kept him on as assistant at Monmouth Christian College during the next three years. This was his 'prentice period as a teacher. In 1882 he entered Harvard University, from which institution he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1886. The degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Pacific University in 1911 and by the University of Colorado two years later. A series of newspaper articles he wrote for the Kansas City Star, so far as it goes, supplies an authentic record of his intellectual and artistic interests during the Harvard period. The letters are seven in number and were published between October and May of the year 1885-1886, his senior year in college. He had been a reporter on the staff of the Kansas City Star from the summer of 1884 to the fall of 1885. The name of Christian College was changed to the Oregon State Normal School and from that time the institution was familiarly known as the Monmouth Normal. Both father and son sought this change of name. Prince Campbell returned to resume his teaching under conditions sufficiently like those he had left in 1882 to make the place thoroughly homelike to him. In the catalog of 1885-1886 he is announced among the faculty for the next year (1886-1887) as teacher of "ancient and modern languages." The catalog for the year 1889-1890 presents the name of P. L. Campbell, A. B., as president, and "professor of didactics and Latin." To this teaching program was added psychology. He had been a member of the new faculty for four years and evidently was regarded as the outstanding teacher. He had also been a member of the board of trustees, filling, in some sense, his father's former place in the council of the institution. When President Stanley retired there was no difficulty about a successor, for though still under thirty, Mr. Campbell's conspicuous leadership, his scholarly attainments, and natural aptitude for managing educational affairs singled him out for preferment. He was given the headship, which he held for twelve years, until he was promoted to the presidency of the University of Oregon in 1902. President Campbell, during the Monmouth period, was one of the chief promoters of the educational interests of the state. He was a great believer in organization, cooperation, and planning for results. He was a leading factor in the state teachers' association and was present at all gatherings of men to shape new legislative policies. He was, likewise, a favorite institute conductor, being chosen by the county superintendents because they were generally fond of him and because their teachers almost universally favored his selection. In the institutes his chosen subjects of instruction were English and pedagogy; but he was versatile and readily responded to calls for any subject for which no other provision had been made. He also gave general lectures to teachers and citizens. In 1887, the year after his return to Monmouth from Harvard, Mr. Campbell was married to Miss Eugenia J. Zieber, of Forest Grove, Oregon, who had been teacher of drawing and painting in the normal. It was a happy union but the young wife died in March, 1891, a few weeks after giving birth to a daughter, Lucia, now Mrs. Sidney Henderson, of Baxter Springs, Kansas. A son, Herbert Maurice, born in May, 1889, died in infancy. On the 20th of August, 1908, seventeen years after the loss of his first wife, President Campbell married his cousin, Susan Campbell Church, daughter of Enos Campbell, cousin of Alexander Campbell. Soon after America entered the war, educational leaders promoted organization in aid of the cause, the new agency being the Emergency Council on Education, of which Mr. Campbell was chosen secretary and vice president. Practically this meant that he and the council's president would exercise the directorship in rotation, relieving each other at the central office as often as possible. In connection with that work President Campbell spent most of the bitter winter of 1917-1918 in Washington. He conferred widely with men of all types whose common purpose it was to devise ways by which success might be achieved with least damage to the national welfare. The Emergency Council sought to bring the institutions of higher education into effective cooperation with the government. But, what was equally important, and a point which Mr. Campbell stressed, was to prevent as far as possible a wastage of our resources in trained intellects, and any disorganization in higher education which would make difficult the resumption of normal life after the war. Were his activities at Washington to be narrated in detail they would make a most interesting chapter. His correspondence contains evidence that interviews were held with government officials both civil and military, with educators of every section, and with representatives of the allied states. It shows something of the far-reaching plans of the Council—plans which were largely of his devising. Above all, it shows that Mr. Campbell "carried on" at Washington in the same serenely confident, but intense, infinitely circumspect and wary manner which was so characteristic of his administration at home. The war made him an outstanding national figure in the fields of educational statesmanship and administration. In Joseph Schafer's biography of President Campbell, from which the above is largely copied, a chapter each is given to the latter's attainments as an artist and as a philosophic thinker. "It remains to summarize the concrete achievements with which the president is to be credited as directing head of the University of Oregon during a period of twenty-three years. In 1902 the campus was still the original parallelogram of about eighteen acres, with which thirty years earlier the institution had been dowered by the city of Eugene and the county of Lane. The erections upon it, to be sure, were not the same. Instead of the one lone building (Deady Hall) with which the University began, there was a second general college building, erected in 1885 and named Villard Hall in honor of the most generous of the institution's early benefactors, Henry Villard. That building served both as recitation and lecture hall, and as business headquarters. The auditorium on the second floor, capacity about nine hundred, was the place where all university convocations were held. Aside from the two structures already named, President Campbell found the chemistry department housed in McClure Hall, with some spare rooms temporarily tenanted by the departments of psychology and history. That building, an unpretentious and nondescript one costing about sixteen thousand dollars, had been completed in the summer of 1900. The men's dormitory, subsequently named Friendly Hall in honor of Regent Samson H. Friendly, was opened in 1893. These, together with the small brick gymnasium later assigned to the women, but destroyed in the fire of July 29, 1922, and the very modest heating, light and power station and Mechanical Hall, then just completed at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars, constituted the University's 'plant.' The aggregate first cost of the five structures did not exceed one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. That plant, meager and homely as it seemed, was nevertheless more nearly adequate to the institution's needs than is the vastly enlarged and infinitely more beautiful plant of today, which two years ago was inventoried at an aggregate cost valuation of one million, five hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars. During the college year 1901-1902 the total student population was three hundred and forty-five. ... By contrast, the student body which was on the campus in the school year 1925-1926, the year which opened just after the president's death, is reported to have been, in round numbers, three thousand two hundred, all of college grade or above." President Campbell was a member of the State Text-book Commission (1901), the Oregon State Bureau of Mines and Geology and the Oregon State Library Commission; a member of the executive committee of the Young Men's Christian Association of Oregon and Idaho; vice president of the Oregon Social Hygiene Society; director of the Oregon Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis ; vice president and acting president of the National Association of State Universities in 1916 and 1917 and chairman of the committee on scientific research for the Oregon State Council of Defense in 1918. Joseph Schafer says in conclusion: ''It is hardly easier to take leave of President Campbell, the subject of biographical analysis and narrative, than it used to be to take leave of the man himself. He was so many-sided in his interests, so bountiful, so sympathetic and altogether delightful as companion and friend, that one had no wish but to stay on and on in his company- Similarly, the characteristics of his life and work, the evidences of his administrative genius, his artistic and philosophic outlooks upon the world, are so enticing that the temptation is strong to share the results of this study with him many friends in more ample measure than has been done in the foregoing pages. . . . The announcement of his death, though not unexpected, brought a response that showed how completely, in his quiet and unpretending manner, he had won the hearts of the Oregon people, and of thousands of others scattered all over the United States. Praise of him was upon all lips. With unbroken unanimity, the newspapers of the state acclaimed him one of the noblest men and educators of his time." "President Campbell," said Dr. Thomas Lamb Eliot, "has left us in the very midst of his fullest achievements, and his warmest ambitions—but 'being dead he will yet speak' to his people, to his fellow workers, and to the number till student body which his good will has touched. He teaches us to 'lay aside every weight.' to rejoice in every conquest over what is crass materialism, or stupid conventionality. His is a guiding memory to keep alive the spirit of wise compromise, to foster growing methods rather than catastrophic breakings, to 'prove all things and hold fast what is good.' He teaches the power of silence, as well as the power of speech: the wisdom of waiting as well as of 'going ahead.' His is an example of the highest courage, that which can truly master men by truly serving their minds and hearts, and which is content to endure much misunderstanding in the process. There is no administrative work in society more difficult than that of a college presidency— and to have preserved a facile hand and steady purpose, a heart of good will with an everyday tact, and ideals never lowered, through all the vicissitudes of a generation such as this last most eventful one, constitutes an enduring fame." ******************* Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in June 2016 by Diana Smith. Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.