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With the exception of the school of music, which began as a private
institution, The Temple, at 12th and R, is the only university building
which does not stand on the campus. The reason for this seeming
ostracism of the Temple—indeed, actual ostracism at the time it was
built, is that it was a gift from John D. Rockefeller, jr. The time was
1906, when muckraking and Rockefeller reviling were at their height.
Rockefeller had been a student at Brown university when E. Benjamin
Andrews, in 1906 chancellor at Nebraska, was its president.
The name of Rockefeller and the smell of oil were offensive to those who
had to do with accepting and placing buildings, but the gift was not
quite to be refused. The Temple was delicately dropped outside the
gates. However, the Temple has been a useful and busy edifice these 35
years, and but for reporters with fingers always crooked hungrily over
typewriter keys old ghosts would not have been disturbed. The Y. M. C.
A. has used the Temple for headquarters and other innocent activities
have been housed therein.
Principally, however, the building is known as the theater of the
University Players, Lincoln’s theatrical stock company, personnel of
which consists of instructors and advanced students of dramatic art. Six
plays are presented each university year. Here Fred Ballard’s “Believe
Me Xantippe” had its premiere—Mr. Ballard being a university student
some 35 years ago. His more recent “Ladies of the Jury” also appeared
here, but not the premiere. A number of the players have become known
elsewhere—Zolly Lerner, Augusta French, Jack Rank and others. The name
of Miss H. Alice Howell, for years director of The Players, is
inevitably connected with this organization.