That fall, Alex took a job at Grove Academy, a preparatory school in Dallas, Texas, owned by one of his former teachers. Grove catered to what Alex called the spoiled sons and nephews of “New York millionaire stock gambler[s].” He was able to send some money to his parents and help keep Charlie in school, but Alex hated Dallas. Mosquitoes bit him even in December, and he suffered from constant colds. His skin broke out in painful boils which had to be lanced. And the other teachers, he wrote his parents, “were not good men.”
William suggested that his son start a YMCA. But Alex pointed out that city clubs were very different from rural ones, and that he didn’t know how to run one. Instead, he decided to try another sideline—he would hire a hall and offer lectures on edifying subjects. Against his father’s advice, Alex went to a print shop and ordered a stack of handbills. “Slang, and How it is Slung,” trumpeted the fliers. “Popular Lecture by Prof. A.C. Miller [sic], of the Grove School. . . Instructive and Entertaining, Bristling with Anecdote and Illustration, Chaste and Vigorous, it will please you. A new lecture on an old habit; will you hear it?” Adult admission was 50 cents—almost half a day’s wages for common laborers, and a hefty sum even for those with middle-class means. A child’s ticket cost a quarter.
Alex expected his students and colleagues to turn out in force. But the head of the school, Professor Grove, refused to endorse the project and, instead of attending, “stayed at home and read the paper.” Grove and his wife, Alex concluded, were “hypocritical frauds” who were “enough to make anyone sick of life and humanity.” And yet he acknowledged the raw truth— “people don’t care about hearing me.”
After that, all he could think about was finding another job. On New Year’s Day, 1886, just after the close of his first semester at Grove, something miraculous happened. Alex got a letter from Neosho College, a Methodist school, offering him a job as principal, with the promise that if he did well he would be president within the year. It seemed like a godsend, a way to leave Grove in triumph. He expected his employer to balk at the short notice, but the school was not full and Grove was eager to save money by lopping off his salary. On Jan. 11 Alex left Dallas to take up his grand new position.
Missouri and the ministry