GEORGE L. TEEPLE.
Mr. George L. Teeple was born in Champaign, Illinois, in 1864, and at the age of nine came to Whitewater to live with his aunt and uncle. He was graduated from the old "Academic Department" of the Whitewater Normal, about which school he writes so charmingly in the sketch here given.
Mr. Teeple planned his collegiate career in preparation for the profession of engineering. He was graduated from Cornell University in 1889, and was engaged in active engineering work and instructural duties in this line until 1895. But at this time he felt the call to the field of English, and he gave special study to this subject for two years at Harvard. From 1897 to 1899 he was instructor in English in the State Normal School at Stevens Point, but at this time the demands of his health made it necessary that he resume active outdoor work, so, since the latter date, he has been more or less closely identified with his first-chosen profession. But in all these years he has never lost his interest in creative literary activities. He writes very slowly and carefully, with infinite pains and almost endless revision. His work, as represented in "The Battle of Gray's Pasture," fully repays his effort, for, though the phrases seem to have come easily and readily, they show the fitness and grace that are the result of no other thing than rigorous care.
His home is in Whitewater, which, as will be noted, has sheltered many Wisconsin writers, notably President Albert Salisbury and Dr. Rollin Salisbury, George Steele and Julius Birge. The selection here given is an account of a real football battle. But "Gray's Pasture" has now been transformed into a modern athletic field, and the "spreading oak" has been replaced by a concrete grandstand.