ABSTRACT
The University of Buffalo was located at the northeastern edge of the city. There it occupied about 125 acres of what once had been farmland. Gently rolling grassy lawns made up a large part of the campus; a small wooded area was at one end, a parking lot at another. The philosophy professor was a retired Unitarian minister. And while it was obvious he knew a great deal, he made dreadful efforts to be humorous and was exceptionally dull. By the late 1930s many of the faculty had gained international reputations. Wealthy donors, likely cultivated by Capen and wanting to contribute to and also be associated with the growing prestige of the university, gave substantial sums for book acquisitions and the building of a fine new library and other buildings. The social-esthetic criticism was applied to music, painting, movies-to every kind of "ideational" product high or low.
