USA > Iowa > Linn County > History of Linn County Iowa : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 30
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While the college had thus had the city's advantages of communication and markets because of its nearness to Cedar Rapids, it has retained all the peculiar advantages which inhere in a location in a village Like Bowdoin, Dartmouth, and Oberlin, Cornell has found in the small town, rather than in the city, an ideal college environment. It has never permitted the presence of saloon or other haunt of vice. The citizens with whom the students have made their homes have been people of culture drawn to the town by its educational advantages. In all that makes for the intellectual life, in libraries and collections, in lectures and good music, and church privileges, Mount Vernon has had more to offer than perhaps any city of the state; while the temptations and distractions, the round of low amusements offered by the eity, have been fortunately absent.
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
More than geographic location, it is great men and great plans that make great schools. Let us give much credit therefore to the men who have administered the college as members of its board of trustees. Our debt to them is like that of Michigan University to its board of regents whose wise plans pushed it carly to the fore among the state universities of the west and far in advance of the place to which geographic causes alone would have assigned it. Some of these were pioneers of only local fame, such as Elijah D. Waln, Henry D. Albright, William Hayzlett, Jesse Holman, Noah Mckean, and Dr. G. L. Carhart, men whose memory will ever be cherished in Mount Vernon. Others were men of note in the early history of the state, such as Hon. Hiram Price. of Davenport, Jesse Farley, of Dubuque, and A. P. Hosford and W. H. Lunt, of Clinton. Especially to be noted is the long serviee which the trustees have given to the school. Of the members of the executive committee Col. Robert Smyth, sturdy Scotch Presbyterian, was a member for twenty-eight years until his death in 1896. On the same committee Hon. W. F. Johnston, of Toledo. long president of the board. has already served for thirty-three years. Col. H. H. Rood, another of the members of the executive committee, has served continuously as trustee since 1867, and Capt. E. B. Soper, of Emmetsburg, since 1878. Captain Soper has long been one of the most influ- ential members of the governing board, and it is to his initiative and faith that the alumni gymnasium is due. Dr. J. B. Allbrock has served since 1874. II. A. Collin was treasurer of the college from 1860 to his death in 1892. Hon. D. N. Cooley, of Dubuque, served as trustee for twenty-four years. and Hon. W. J. Young, of Clinton, for twenty-six years, their terms of office being terminated only by death. Of the present board of trustees there may be named as among those longest in service, F. HI. Armstrong, of Chicago; Ilon. W. C. Stuekslager, of Lisbon ; E. J. Esgate, of Marion; Maj. E. B. Hayward, of Davenport; Hon. Eugene Seeor, of Forest City ; Dr. Edward T. Devine. of New York; T. J. B. Robinson, of Hamp- ton ; John II. Blair, of Des Moines; Rev. W. W. Carlton, of Mason City ; Rev. E. J. Lockwood and John HI. Taft, of Cedar Rapids; Hon. Leslie M. Shaw, of Phil- adelphia ; R. J. Alexander, of Waukon ; E. B. Willix, of Mount Vernon; Senator Edgar T. Brackett, of Saratoga, N. Y .; O. P. Miller, of Rock Rapids; Rev. Homer C. Stuntz, of Madison, N. J., and N. G. Van Sant, of Sterling, Ill.
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Among the eminent men who have served the college we must give special mention to Rev. Alpha J. Kynett, one of the pioneers of Methodism west of the Mississippi, who served on the board from 1865 to his death in 1899. Dr. Kynett was the founder of the great Church Extension society and for many years was its chief executive. In this capacity he probably built more churches than any man who has ever lived. For a third of a century he was a close friend and ad- viser of the college, and all his wide experience and his ability as an organizer and financier were always at its service.
THE ADMINISTRATION
In 1863 occurred the sad death of President Fellows, under whose superin- tendence the school had been organized. He was succeeded in office by William Fletcher King, a graduate of the Ohio Wesleyan University and a member of its faculty, who thus brought to Cornell an acquaintance with the scope and methods of one of the best colleges of the middle west. At the time of his eleetion to the presidency Dr. King was professor of Latin and Greek at Cornell, and thus for the second time a president was chosen from the ranks of those actively engaged in the work of higher education rather than, as was then almost universally the custom, from those of another profession. In 1908 Dr. King resigned his office after a term of service of forty-five years. For a number of years he had thus been the oldest college president in the United States in the duration of his office. His administration was essentially a business administration, with little talk but meh of doing. There was in it nothing spectacular, and no pretense, or sham. No diseourteous act ever strained friendly relations with other schools. Dr. King made no enemies and no mistakes. He was ever taetful, poised, discreet, far-see- ing, winning men to the support of his wise and well-laid plans but never foreing their acceptance. The college itself is a monument to this successful business administration. For Cornell does not owe its success to any munificent gifts. Like John Harvard, W. W. Cornell and his brother left the college which perpet- mates their memories little more than a good name and a few good books. No donation of more than $25,000 was received until more than forty years of the history of the college had elapsed. Whatever excellence the college has attained is due to the skill and patience of its builders and not to any unlimited or even large funds at their disposal.
On the resignation of Dr. King, the presidency passed to his logieal suceessor. Dr. James Elliott Harlan, who had served as vice president of the college since 1881. He had long had the management and investment of the large funds of the college and the administration of the school in its immediate relations with the students. Just, sympathetic, patient, he had won the esteem of all connected with the college, and to him was largely due the exceptional tranquillity which the college had enjoyed in all its intimate relations. Dr. Harlan was graduated Trom Cornell College in 1869. For three years he was superintendent of the schools of Cedar Rapids, and for one year he held a similar place at Sterling. Ill. From here he was called to the alumni professorship of mathematies in Cornell College. The larger part of his life has thus been bound up inextricably with the school. He knows and is known and loved by all the alumni and old students. The first year of his administration was signalized by the erection of the new alumni gymnasium, and the second by the conditional gift by the general educational board of $100,000.00 to its endowment funds.
The dean of the college since 1902 has been Professor H. II. Freer, a graduate of the school of the class of 1869, and a member of the faculty since 1870. Dean Freer was one of the first men in Iowa to see the need of schools of education in connection with colleges and universities and was placed at the head of such a school - the normal department of Cornell - early in the '70s. As has recently
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REV. SAMUEL M. FELLOWS, A. M. First President Cornell College
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been said of him by Pres. II. H. Seerley, of Iowa Teachers College, "his connection with teacher education is probably unexcelled in Iowa educational history and no tribute that can be paid could do justice to his faithful endeavors." Dean Freer has been most intimately connected with the administration for many years. In 1873 he organized the alumni, with the help of Rev. Dr. J. B. Albrook, for the endowment of a professorship. At that time there were but 108 living graduates, forty-seven of whom were women. Of the men, only thirty-eight had been out of college more than three years. Yet this audacious enterprise was carried through to complete success and was followed by the endowment of a second alumni chair. In all of the great financial campaigns Dean Freer has been indis- pensible, and the moneys he has secured to the college amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. More than this, by his wide acquaintance throughout the state and by his eordial friendship with all old students, he has been one of the chief representatives of the college around whom its friends have ever rallied. Since 1887 he has been professor of political economy in the college, and now oe- cupies the David Joyce chair of economics and sociology.
THE FACULTY
Of the nearly 300 teachers who have been enrolled in the faculties of the college there is space for the mention of but few names: Dr. Alonzo Collin, who began by teaching all the sciences and mathematics in the young school in 1860, and resigned in 1906 as professor of physics; Dr. Hugh Boyd, professor of Latin from 1871 to 1906; Prof. S. N. Williams, head of the school of civil engineering since 1873; Prof. George O. Curme, professor of German from 1884 to 1897, now a member of the faculty of Northwestern University; Dr. W. S. Ebersole, pro- fessor of Greek since 1892; Dr. James A. James, professor of history from 1893 to 1897, now teaching in Northwestern University ; Prof. H. M. Kelley, professor of biology sinee 1894; Dr. Thomas Nicholson, professor of the English Bible from 1894 to 1904, now general educational secretary of the M. E. church; Dr. F. A. Wood, professor of German from 1897 to 1903, now member of the faculty of University of Chicago ; Prof. Mary Burr Norton, alumni professor of mathematics, whose connection with the faculty dates from 1877; Dr. H. C. Stanelift, professor of history since 1899; Dr. Nicholas Knight, professor of chemistry since 1899; Dr. George H. Betts, psychology, who entered the faculty in 1902; Prof. C. D. Stev- ens, English literature, since 1903; Prof. C. R. Keyes, German, since 1903; Miss Mary L. McLeod, dean of women, since 1900; Prof. John E. Stout, education, sinee 1903.
The continuity, the long terms of service of the administrative officers and the professors, can hardly be too strongly emphasized as a potent factor in the growth of the college. If the history of the school had seen a rapid succession of different presidents and frequent changes of faculty, if there had been changes in plans and purposes, factions and struggles, and the loss of friends which such struggles entail, if the power of the machinery had been wasted in internal friction we may be sure that the story of the college would have been far other than it is.
THE ALUMNI
The graduates of Cornell now number 1,446. This small army of educated men and women have scattered widely over all the states of the union and to many foreign countries. They have entered many voeations. The profession receiv- ing the largest number is teaching. Of the 1,139 graduates including the elass of 1905, reported in the catalog of 1908, ninety-seven have been engaged in teaching in colleges and universities, and 165 in secondary and normal schools. One hundred and forty-nine have entered the law, and 139 have entered the
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ministry. Business and banking were the employments of 113. Medicine has been the choice of forty-nine, and engineering and architecture of fifty-two. The foreign missionary field has claimed thirty-four, and social service in charity or- ganization societies, deaconess work, social settlements, and the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A have engaged twenty-six. Thirty-two have engaged in farming, and twenty-six in newspaper work. The women graduates of the school very largely have been induced to enter the profession of matrimony. Up to 1876, for example, ninety per cent of the alumnae had married. Of later years the larger opportunities for professional service, opening for women, and no doubt other general causes, have decreased the percentage, but of all women graduates up to the year 1900, seventy per cent have married. Of these forty-two per cent have married graduates of the college. The common error that college eduea- tion lessens the opportunities of woman for her natural vocation is disproved, at least so far as Cornell college is concerned. The marriages of the graduates of Cornell have been singularly fortunate. Among the more than 1,400 alumni, there has been so far as known but two divorces. Considering the high per- centages of divorce in the states of the Union, rising as high in some states as one divorce to every six marriages, the divorceless history of the Cornell alumni wit- nesses the sociologie value of the Christian co-educational college.
In numbers the graduating elasses have steadily increased. The first class, that of 1858, consisted of two members, Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Cavanaugh, of Iowa City. Classes remained small, never exceeding five, until the close of the Civil war when the young men who had entered the service of their country, and who survived the war, returned to school. In 1867 eleven were graduated, and in 1869 the elass numbered twenty-two. The last decade the graduating elass from the college of liberal arts has averaged sixty.
CORNELL AND THE WAR FOR THE UNION
President Charles W. Elliot, in one of his educational addresses, after enumer- ating what the community must do for the college, asks, "And what will the college do for the community? It will make rich returns of learning, of poetry, and of piety, and of that fine sense of eivie duty without which republies are impossible." That Cornell has made all these returns in ample measure is shown by the roster of the alumni with its many eminent names in the service of state and church. More than fifteen thousand young men and women have left the college halls carrying with them for the enrichment of the community stores of learning. poetie ideals of life, and vital piety. The fine sense of civic duty which the college breeds finds special illustration in the crisis of the Civil war, and here we may quote the eloquent words of Colonel Harry H. Rood in an address delivered at the Semi-Centennial of the college in 1904:
"The first seven and a half years in the history of this college was a period of struggle and embarrassment. The spring of 1861 seemed to be the beginning of brighter days. A railway had brought it in touch with the outer world. and the effects of the great financial panie of 1857 were passing, enabling the sons and daughters of the pioneers to enter its halls to secure the education they so greatly desired. The sky of hope was quickly overeast, and the storm cloud of the Civil war, which had been gathering for half a century, burst over the land. The students of Cornell were not surprised or alarmed. The winter preceding they had organized a mock congress with every state represented, in which all the issues of the coming conflict were fully discussed and understood. . The first regiment the young state sent out to preserve the Union had in its ranks a company from this county - one-third of the names upon its muster rolls were students from this school. The first full company to go from this township into
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the three years service had one-third of its membership from this college, and the second full company from the township, in 1862, also had an equal number of Cornell's patriotic sons. In the great crisis of 1864, when President Lincoln asked for men to relieve the veteran regiments and permit them to go to the front, almost a full company were college men. In the class of 1861 only two men were graduated and both entered the service. The record shows that from 1853 to 1871 fifty-four men were graduated from the college, and of these thirty had worn the blue."
During the war the college had much the aspect of a female seminary to which a few young boys and cripples had been admitted by courtesy. In 1863 but twelve male students were registered in college classes, and at the commencement of this year all upon the program were women except a delicate youth unfit for war and a boy of sixteen years. This commencement was unique in the history of the college. On commencement day the audience of peaceful folk seated in the grove quietly listening to the student orations was suddenly transformed to an infuriated mob, when one girl visitor attempted to snatch from another a copperhead pin she was wearing. So strong was the excitement, that the college buildings were guarded by night for some time afterward for fear that they might be burned in revenge by sympathisers with the south .*
Near the close of the war it was seen that many of the soldier students of the college would be unable to complete their education because of the sacrifices they had made in the service of their country. A fund of fourteen thousand dollars was therefore contributed by patriot friends at home and in part by Iowa regi- ments in the field for the education of disabled soldiers and soldiers' orphans. No gift to the school has ever been more useful than this foundation, which aided in the support of hundreds of the most worthy students of the college.
Two of the students of Cornell were enrolled in the armies of the Confederacy. Of these one became a lieutenant in a Texas regiment. At one time learning that one of his prisoners was a Cornell boy and a member of his own literary society, the Texas lieutenant found Cornell loyalty a stronger motive than official duty. He took his prisoner several miles from camp, gave him a horse and started him for the Union lines.
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
From the beginning Cornell college has been coeducational. In the earliest years of her history some concessions were made in the courses of study to the supposed weakness of woman's intellect, and "ornamental branches," such as "Grecian painting," which seems to have been a sort of transfer work, "orna- mental hair work and wax flowers" were grafted on the curriculum for her special benefit - branches which soon were pruned away.
Woman's presence seems to have been regarded in these early years as a menace to the social order, safely permitted only under the most rigorous restric- tions. So late as 1869 Rule Number Twelve appeared in the catalog - "The escorting of young ladies by young gentlemen is not allowed." This was a weak and degenerate offspring of the stern edict of President Keeler's administration : "Young ladies and gentlemen will not associate together in walking or rid- ing nor stand conversing together in the halls or public rooms of the buildings, but when necessary they can see the persons they desire by permission."
For many years these blue laws have been abrogated, and the only restrictions found needful are those ordinarily imposed by good society. The association
* During the melee a farmer from north of town gave a stentorian yell for Jeff Davis and was promptly knocked down by a federal soldier home on furlongh. The soldier was after- wards arrested for assault. On the day of the trial before Judge Preston of Marion some thirty Mount Vernon men were present armed with various weapons, including corn knives. The case was dismissed.
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and competition of young men and women in all college activities - an associa- tion necessarily devoid of all romance and glamour - has been found sane and helpful to both sexes, and no policy of segregation in any form has ever been as much as suggested.
The social life of the college has always been under the leadership of the liter- ary societies. They are now eight in number: The Amphietyon, Adelphian. Miltonian and Star for men and the Philomathean. Aesthesian. Alethean and Aonian for women. The students of the Academy also sustain four flourishing societies, the Irving and Gladstone. Chionian and King.
These societies meet in large and rather luxurionsly furnished halls in which they entertain their friends each week with literary and musical programs, fol- lowed by short socials. Business meetings offer thorough drill in parliamentary practice and often give place to impromptu debates which give facility in exten- poraneous speaking. The societies also give banquets and less formal receptions from time to time and in general have charge of the social life of the school. Members are chosen by election and the rushing of the incoming freshman class is a fast and furious campaign, occupying a week or so of the first half-year. However it may affect studies, it certainly develops friendships and promotes the rapid assimilation of the large number of new students in the body social of the school.
The societie have always been in effect fraternities and sororities so far as social advantages are concerned, and they have performed the function of the best fraternities in the intellectual and moral supervision which they have given their members. But the literary societies have been more than fraternities, and under their supervision the social life of the college has been lived on a dis- tinetly higher plane than had its organization been purely social and for recrea- tion only. They have also been markedly distinguished from fraternities in their democratie character. Instead of excluding fifty or even seventy or eighty per cent of the students from their privileges, they have given their inestimable social advantages to practically all who cared to join them. They have thus prevented the growth of a leisured class of students whose sole interest in college is found in its recreations and who have been allowed the control of the college social life. Indeed, so valuable in the history of the college has this social organization proved that students have suggested that it be extended to other colleges by means of affiliated chapters.
ENDOWMENTS
During the earlier years of its history the college received few notable gifts. It was largely sustained by innumerable small contributions to its current ex- penses and endowment funds made by devoted friends whose generosity and self sacrifice deserve the praise bestowed upon the widow who cast her mite into the treasury of the temple. The larger gifts which have been made in endowing chairs, with the amounts and dates of the foundation and names of the donors, are as follows:
1859 Hamline Professorship of Greek Language and Literature. $25,000, by Bishop L. L. Mamline.
1873 D. N. Cooley Professorship of Civil and Sanitary Engineering. $10,000. by Hon. D. N. Cooley. Dubuque, and Oliver Hoyt.
1873 Alumni Professorship of Mathematics, $50,000 by The Alumni.
1885 W. F. Johnston Professorship of Physics, $50.000, by Hon. W. F. John- ston, Toledo.
1902 Edgar Truman Brackett, Jr., Professorship of History and Politics. $30,000. by Hon. Edgar T. Brackett, Saratoga, N. Y.
1904 David Joyce Professorship of Political Economy and Sociology, $50,000, by David Joyce. Clinton.
COMMERCIAL HOTEL, CENTER POINT
BRIDGE OVER CEDAR RIVER AT CENTER POINT
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1904 Lney Hayes King Foundation, now in support of the presidency, by ex- president Wm. F. King, $50,000.
1910 Alumni Professorship of Geology, $50,000, by The Alumni.
Among the other notable gifts to the college must be mentioned that by the Hon. Andrew Carnegie, of $50,000 for the erection of the Carnegie library, dedi- cated in 1905.
The largest donations to the college have been those of its president emeritus, William Fletcher King. Most valuable of all have been the long years of service, but besides these he has given from time to time many finaneial gifts to meet current needs and near the end of his term of office, he erowned his benefactions not only with the endowment of the professorship just mentioned, but with the munificent gift of $100,000 to found 100 scholarships in memory of Margaret Fletcher King. At the unveiling of the bronze tablet in her memory, in 1904, Hon. L. M. Shaw spoke these fitting words: "It is my privilege to witness the unveiling of a tablet ereeted in memory of a saintly woman who came in bridal clothes and left in cerements, and who spent the entire thirty-eight years of her married life wedded as completely to Cornell college as to William F. King, and who served both with equal faithfulness and with unfaltering devotion. Words are inadequate to measure the influence of a Christian woman's life spent amid surroundings such as have existed here for a generation. Neither does bronze suffice to prophesy the lift toward righteousness and higher citizenship of what is here done by the bereaved husband in the name of Margaret MeKell King.
The tablet so thoughtfully erected to her memory and the endowment of scholarships so generously made by Dr. King guarantee the perpetuation of the sweet influence of a noble life and extend the benison of Christian education to one hundred students per annum, on and on, far beyond the ken of those who knew her and knowing loved her."
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