First recollection invoked is of “Miss Bishop,” Bess Streeter Aldrich’s filmed story of primitive university life, which had its premiere in Lincoln. Another is Oscar Wilde’s visit to the university in the eighties. There, garbed in his eccentric finery, he walked unhappy as a strange cat, distressed by the uncouthness of Nebraska and its university and especially by the ugly castiron stove which heated the premises. After expressing this distress, along with his regular lecture, Wilde, in knee breeches, buckled slippers and velvet coat, shuddered his way back to the Arlington hotel, 841 Q, and was soon lost to this region forever. Nobody was depressed over his disapproval and irrepressible Journal reporters put him and the castiron stove into facetious rhyme. The cornerstone for U hall was laid Sept. 23, 1869, with ceremonies—Masonic ceremonies, in fact. An Omaha brass band led a procession and a thousand people banqueted—which must have more than depopulated residential Lincoln—then danced until 4 in the morning. Lumber for the building was shipped from Chicago to Nebraska City and thence came slowly over the hills in wagons. Brick was burned in a kiln on Little Salt creek. On Jan. 6, 1871, the doors swung open and in walked ninety young men and women. Rumors that the building was unsafe continued off and on for fifty years. Every now and then some propping was done. Finally the two top floors and belltower were taken off, but classes are still held on the remaining first floor. No. 21—Don Love Memorial Library [Illustration: {uncaptioned}] The beautiful new library, now North Thirteenth’s visual shortstop, will make 1871-1942 students brothers to the pioneer who slept, ate, cooked, played and quarreled in one room. The new edifice has a student lounge, auditorium, social studies reading room, general and humanities reading room and browsing room. Those who did their lounging, their browsing, their studying of the humanities and their date making all in one big room under an uncompromising row of green shaded lights will feel outmoded indeed. But casting envy aside, this generous gift, one of several from the late Don Love, is a welcome addition to the campus and the city. True, it turns its back on the city as it communes perpetually with its sisters of The Quadrangle—teachers’ college, social sciences and Andrews hall—but it is a slender ribbed, sightly and aristocratic back. Earlier buildings were sardine-packed on a small campus. Later edifices, given space on the avenue, took on social graces. To the north of the quadrangle, Memorial mall forms the center of another group of aristocrats—Morrill hall, Bessey hall, Memorial stadium and the Coliseum.