USA > Michigan > Calhoun County > History of Calhoun county, Michigan : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 18
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(IV.)-The Past Thirty-five Years.
Albion as Seminary, Female College and College of Liberal Arts has had nine principals and presidents as follows: Rev. Charles F. Stockwell, A. M .; Rev. Clark T. Hinman, D. D .; Hon. Ira Mayhew, LL. D., ex-superintendent of public instruction ; Rev. Thomas H. Sinex, D. D., during whose incumbency the school became a college; Rev. George B. Jocelyn, D. D .; Rev. J. L. G. Mckeown, D. D .; Rev. William B. Silber, Ph. D .; Rev. Lewis Ransom Fiske, D. D., LL. D., and Samuel Dickie, LL. D., the present president.
The present era in the history of Albion College may properly be said to begin with the incoming presidency of Dr. L. R. Fiske, who came to Albion in 1877. He knew the institution well, having filled the chair of natural science for three years after his graduation at Ann Arbor. Since that time he had ripened in culture, scholarship and experience by having filled a similar position for three years in the state normal school, the chair of chemistry in the Agricultural College, and by his work in the best pulpits in Michigan, including full terms in Jackson, Ann Arbor and Detroit. For three years Dr. Fiske was editor of the Michigan Christian Advocate, twelve years a trustee of the board of education of the M. E. church, six times member of the general confer- ence, a member of the ecumenical conference held in Washington in 1891. He held an honored place among the educational forces of the state and the church, having been president of the Michigan state teach- ers' association in 1889, and president of the college association of the Methodist church.
Dr. Fiske therefore seemed to be the logical choice of Michigan
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Methodism for the responsible task of advancing and strengthening the work and the influence of the college. He found a small faculty, all of whom were more or less tinged with discouragement regarding the future of the school. A courageous exception to this statement should be made in the ease of Rev. Rollin C. Welch, A. M., professor of Greek. There was also a painfully palpable lack of support on the part of the great church which had already spread over the commonwealth, and which in other directions was showing remarkable strength and vigor.
The important question which faced President Fiske at the beginning of his administration was to find the real source and reason for this lack
REV. LEWIS RANSOM FISKE
of support, and in a very heroie and altogether philosophie manner the suggestion was made that the school itself, in its course of study, its faculty and its equipment, was not worthy of the patronage of the church. The remedy for this lay in the hands of the faculty, and at this point the president manifested great wisdom in gradually surround- ing himself with a faculty of young men selected from the graduates of the best universities and colleges of the country, men having training and enthusiasm for their special lines of work and a determination to make of the college a school which should command the approval and patron- age of all who might seek a thorough and well rounded education. The
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selection of this faculty was the distinctive feature of the first third of President Fiske's administration.
During the year 1892-3 the faculty was constituted as follows: Lewis R. Fiske, president; Carl B. Scheffler, director of conservatory; Mrs. W. H. Skillman, preceptress; Washington Gardner, public lecturer ; Robert S. Avann, secretary; Rev. L. R. Fiske, D. D., LL. D., John Owen professor of intellectual and moral philosophy ; Delos Fall, M. S., David Preston professor of chemistry and biology; Carl B. Scheffler, piano, harmony, and counterpoint ; Samuel D. Barr, A. M., W. H. Brock- way professor of mathematics; Robert S. Avann, A. M., Ph. D., Latin language and literature; Frederick Lutz, A. M., modern languages; E. Josephine Clark, A. M., teacher of Latin; Charles E. Barr, A. M., Ezra Bostwick professor of astronomy and acting professor of biology; Rev. Washington Gardner, A. M., biblical history and literature; Dwight B. Waldo, A. M., Henry M. Loud, professor of history ; Rev. Frederick S. Goodrich, A. M., John Morrison Reid, professor of Greek language and literature; Jennie A. Worthington, piano and harmony; Francis C. Courter, drawing, perspective, and painting; Mrs. H. W. Mosher, decora- tive painting; Jennie M. Whitcomb, piano and history; Robert E. McNeill, voice culture; Cora Travis, piano and voice; Charles L. McClel- lan, principal of commercial department; John M. Pearson, piano and organ ; Jennie E. Lovejoy, A. B., teacher of German; Rose A. Ward, violin ; Mrs. Eva Steele, shorthand and typewriting; Smith Burnham, Ph. B., teacher of history ; Julia A. Herrick, A. B., teacher of English ; Carrie M. Bolster, piano; Rev. B. S. Taylor, M. D., librarian; Charles E. Barr, A. M., registrar.
The names of these young collegiates should be mentioned very modestly for the reason that some of them are still with the institution, having given the greater part of their lives in the service of the college and the church. Professor Samuel Dickie came to Albion the same year as Dr. Fiske from the superintendency of the schools at Hastings. He was then, as he is now, a most worthy and forceful son of the college, having graduated from Albion in 1872. That he is now the highly suc- cessful president is the natural sequence of having entered so vigorously into the life of his Alma Mater through all these years. The writer of these lines was the next recruit, coming in 1878 from the principalship of the Flint high school, a graduate of Michigan university, and at pres- ent professor of chemistry.
Who of all the long generations of students from 1871 to 1906 will ever forget Miss E. Josephine Clark, A. M., the strong, sturdy, noble woman who labored so long and devotedly for the institution ? Always on the right side of every question, her work as a teacher and the influence of her life as a Christian woman will endure forever. Other women who have labored with great efficiency but for shorter periods of time have been Mrs. Ella Iloag Brockway, Ph. M., Miss Rena A. Michaels, Ph. D., Miss Hernietta Ash Bancroft, Ph. D., and our present beloved dean of women, Mrs. Helen Knappen Scripps, M. A.
In the third year of President Fiske's administration, Fred M. Tay- lor, Ph. D., came to the institution fresh from graduation at North- western university and post graduate work at Ann Arbor, and all who
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have watched his career will agree that in forcefulness and versatility of suggestion, together with his untiring energy, his work in building courses of study and reforming and developing the methods of the school, he has never been excelled. He was strong in all the activities of the college, the church and the town as well. As a magnetic and inspiring teacher of history and economics, a resourceful and successful Sunday-school superintendent and a wise legislator in the city eonneil, his work will always fill a large and important place in the annals of the college.
Next eame the elder Barr, Samuel D., a graduate of Williams Col- lege, a former deputy superintendent of publie instruction of New York and a principal of the high school in Cleveland. Genial and warm-hearted, with a beautiful type of religion and a great love for young people and their symmetrical development, an accurate knowledge of all branches of mathematics and great enthusiasm in teaching, he quickly became a great favorite among the students and a powerful and influential member of the faculty. He had been elected to the chair of mathematies in his own Williams College, but chose to come to Albion. He died in 1904, sincerely mourned by every lover of the institution.
The name of Robert S. Avann, Ph. D., first appeared in the year-book in 1883, as professor of the Latin language and literature. Hle was a graduate of Boston university, and brought to the college the strength of a mind stored with the learning of the aneients. He was deeply and profoundly religious, and performed his work well in the building of a new and more enduring foundation for the school he loved so well. Ile died a sadly tragie death by the wasting away and gradual loss of his bodily powers; his mind, however, remaining strong and his faith un- swerving to the very end.
Some historian of the future will properly portray the important and lasting work of those who have been with the college for a long series of years, and who are still active and efficient members of the faculty-the scholarly Frederick Lutz, A. M., Litt. D., a graduate and former instructor in Harvard university, professor of the modern lan- gnages; the painstaking and accurate scientist, Charles E. Barr, A. M., a graduate of Williams College, and now professor of biology; the devoted scholar and preacher, Frederick Samnel Goodrich, A. M., D. D., professor of Greek and the English Bible, a graduate of the Wesleyan University of Middletown, Conn.
Early in 1897, at the close of a rounded ont twenty years of service as President of the College, full of honors and having the respect and esteem of all citizens of Michigan, Dr. L. R. Fiske gave notice of his retirement to private life and to the accomplishment of some literary tasks which he had long contemplated. Three notable books,-Today and Tomorrow, Choosing a Life-work and Man Building-were written and published and other work projected. In the winter of 1901 he made an extended visit to his son, visiting in Denver, and while there contracted au illness which caused his death. His contribution to the cause of education had been a large one and was duly appreciated by all his co-workers as well as by the State at large.
The school is still taking on the graduates of the famous universities.
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Besides those already mentioned, the faculty contains representatives of Wisconsin University, Chicago University, Columbia, Michigan, DePauw, and others. Of all this line of teachers it may truthfully be said that they have never ceased to be students either in sympathy with their students or in original investigations in their special subjects; all have sacrificed their hopes of preferment in higher and better places for their love of Albion.
During these years the college has steadily grown in its material equipment. The three buildings erected before this time were not adequate to carry on the work of the growing and expanding school, and there have been added five others: the astronomical observatory, containing a fine and complete equipment for practical astronomical work; a gymnasium building; a chemical and physical laboratory, erected through the generosity of the late lamented Senator James McMillan, and not excelled in appliances for thorough work anywhere in institutions of our grade; a library, the beautiful memorial building
LOTTIE L. CASSETTE MEMORIAL LIBRARY
erected by Mrs. Lottie Gassette in memory of her daughter; and Robin- inson Hall, the recent gift of our esteemed brother, George O. Robinson, containing ample recitation rooms and a modern biological laboratory.
More than a passing notice should be given to the generous gift of Senator James McMillan of twenty-five thousand dollars for the erection of a building for the housing of the chemical department. Through the influence of Hon. Washington Gardner, Mr. MeMillan had become inter- ested in the College. The letter which he wrote conveying the gift to the Board of Trustees is historically valuable in that it gives a vivid picture of the thought and method of a man in this and numerous other notable benefactions, who thereby showed himself to be a princely and at the same time a rational and considerate giver.
"Senate Chamber, Washington, D. C., June 17, 1892 .- Rev. Wash- ington Gardner, Albion College .- My Dear Sir: Replying to your letter of June 15, in which you suggest that I increase my subscription to Albion College from five thousand to twenty thousand dollars, the entire sum to be used to build a chemical laboratory, I would say that
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I have thot the matter over very carefully. The result is that I can not think of any way in which the sum you name could be spent to better advantage than the building of a laboratory at Albion College. The promotion of the study of physics and chemistry strongly commends itself to my judgment and besides I have a high opinion of the valuable work done by Albion College.
"It gives me pleasure, therefore, to authorize you to say to the Trus- tees at the meeting on Tuesday that they are at liberty to cause plans for a twenty thousand dollar building to be prepared during the coming autumn, the building to be completed during the year of 1893. I will provide the money as payments may be required.
"Very cordially yours, "JAMES MCMILLAN."
The above gift was subsequently increased to twenty-five thousand dollars.
McMILLAN LABORATORY
One other incident in connection with this gift is of interest. The money for the building was promptly furnished but at considerable embarrassment to the donor. It was during the height of the financial panic of 1893 when practically all of the money of the country was locked up in the vaults of banks and quite inaccessible even to the wealthiest of men. Mr. McMillan related the fact that to obtain the last ten thousand dollars he walked the floor at night, anxiously wonder- ing where the cash could be obtained. It was finally paid to the writer of these chronicles in two notes of five thousand dollars each, given by the Hocking Valley Railroad and endorsed by the Peninsula Car Co., and James McMillan. These notes were finally discounted and cashed by the Preston National Bank of Detroit, the final decisive consideration
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being that as Methodists they were sympathetically inclined toward the college.
One most essential phase of Dr. Fiske's work was done when these men and resources were brought together. The faculty must now work out the problem and make the proper readjustment to the new relations which the college should sustain to the rapidly moving nineteenth cen- tury and the most startling developments of the twentieth century. We must, therefore, once more traverse in our thought the past thirty years in order to discover the true spirit and genius of the school and to make a study of its aims and standards; we must make answer to the question as to the various factors which will correctly define the place and func- tion of the Christian college. What is or ought to be the character of Albion College ?
IDEAL CHARACTER OF COLLEGE
(1) Albion College demands the highest standard of admission and requirements for graduation and the best work done between these two points which the progress of knowledge and the art of education affords. To have a low standard is to invite defeat, to choose anything but the best in methods or in courses of study would be suicidal. It required some courage in an early day to bring our preparatory course up to the full measure of the courses in our best high schools, but the work was done.
(2) No college can be made worthy of the name unless there are provided resources and appliances comparable to those of the best of other institutions of equal rank. Colleges established by Christian peo- ple, if they ought to exist at all, ought to be as well or better endowed and equipped than those founded by the state. No college can be self- supporting. It is all wrong to expect men, however well trained, to do good work on a poor salary and poor equipment.
(3) Another indispensable necessity of Albion College is a clear and pronounced conviction that everything in and about it shall be con- trolled by religion. The institution must be saturated through and through with this force; teachers must be Christians with bright relig- ious experiences, not "pious," but frank, genuine, sincere, business-like, thus appealing to young people.
(4) A successful Christian college should have and foster a course of conduct in its students which is of the highest order, to the end that true and noble character may be developed. It is pleasant to record that so far as Albion College is concerned the days of hazing are gone ; lawless- ness no longer rules. A student senate has lately been organized for the purpose of maintaining a proper publie sentiment in this direction.
(5) Another condition which is indispensable to the success of such an institution is a conscientious, broad-minded and generous support of all the good work which is carried on in the college on the part of the community in the midst of which the college is placed. The fact is that Albion College is supported by the people of Albion. They have at different times given liberally to the finances of the school; they support public lecture courses, athletics and the like.
(6) No really successful school was ever made without genuine,
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generous and hearty enthusiasm on the part of all who are in any way connected with it. This must be true of faculty and students, patrons, ministers and conferences. Each must do his part-the teacher must teach, the student must study and grow; the patron must encourage, mainly by sending his sons and daughters to be educated; the church must pay. Examining each of these specifications it can be said that Albion College possesses as good teachers as can be found in any school ; a high order of scholarship is reached by our students; our natural constituency of patrons do not all encourage and the membership does not as a rule pay as it might. Ten cents per member in Michigan given to the college would mean an addition to its annual income of $10,000, which is equivalent to an addition to the endowment fund of $200,000.
(V.)-Products.
Continuing the inquiry already raised as to the reason why the college had not been better supported by the Methodist public, it may be urged that from the standpoint of a strong, aggressive faculty, the failure was not in the work done on the campus. A necessary corollary to this statement is one which the faculty and its aggressive president were obliged to face, namely, that an enlarged corps of instructors made necessary a greatly increased expenditure of money with the result that the institution was plunged into debt. However, Dr. Fiske's faith in the liberality of the members of the church was so great that he fearlessly continued to build up his faculty, increase the volumes in the library, build and equip laboratories and in every way strengthen the work which he saw was so necessary to be done. From the stand- point of every thoughtful, considerate lover of higher learning he was perfectly justified in doing as he did. It is doubtless true that much of sadness came into his later life by the fact that the public did not generously respond to his efforts. Some one else, other than the writer, should also enter into these records some appreciative word of the self- sacrifice of the faculty as they voluntarily agreed to a reduction of salar- jes by which the deficit was met.
No criticism, then, should be aimed at the debt or the acts which made it necessary. Dr. Fiske was successfully accomplishing his ap- pointed task. The institution was wonderfully quickened into new life and rapidly rose to the complete respect of all other colleges and univer- sities.
In 1881-2 the new faculty made some very radical changes in the course of study, bringing the school up to date in every respect. It made its bid for increased student patronage. The attendance that year was 199 in all departments, the preparatory classes greatly exceeding those of the college. The outcome of this new departure was looked for with great anxiety. The result was not disappointing. Students began to come in large numbers. The freshman class was no longer recruited from simply our own preparatory school, but from the best high schools. The increase was most marked in the college department, as it should be. In 1893-4 the attendance had risen to 629. The increase in the college itself was nearly 600 per cent. Albion was manifestly prosper-
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ing most satisfactorily in its internal management. The graduating classes were large and the students easily found their way into prom- inent positions.
Rev. John P. Ashley, D. D., served the college as its president from January 1, 1898 to February 1, 1901. During his term progress was made in certain directions : the athletic field was acquired ; a pipe organ purchased for the chapel; and steam heat was installed in the three main buildings.
Samuel Dickie, LL. D., was elected acting president in February, 1901, and was elected to the permanent presidency in June 1902. He has served most acceptably and successfully in that office from that time to the present writing. He was thoroughly conversant with the college in all phases of its life, having been intimately and officially connected with it for a long series of years-as student, member of the faculty, member of the Board of Trustees, and chairman of the endowment fund committee. The first important task which confronted him was the clearing away of the great debt which had been incurred through the previous administrations. Although no part of the endowment fund had been used for current expenses, it still remained that to care for the interest on a debt which now had grown to be one hundred thousand dollars, required the earning of a like amount of the permanent endow- ment fund. With great energy and tact, President Dickie aroused the interest of the friends of the institution, who responded promptly and liberally, with the result that on December 31 there was secured in cash and good securities the sum of $103,400 and the school was free from debt. Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that the payment of this debt had a marked effect in bringing the college and its natural constituency into closer and more harmonious relations than ever before.
The financial problem is one ever present in the management of any live, growing, and expanding institution of learning, and so it will ever be with Albion. Recognizing this fact, President Dickie has taken a second notable step in the present year of 1912. Mr. Andrew Carnegie had promised to give twenty thousand dollars when the college, through its friends, should show him eighty thousand additional, the entire sum to be placed in the permanent endowment fund. This has been most successfully accomplished, thus placing the school upon a much better financial foundation.
The best proof of the efficiency of a school of learning is to be found in the after life and influence of the graduates, and in this respect Albion challenges the most rigid scrutiny. In the very nature of the case there are many lines of activity towards which the typical graduate of Albion does not naturally tend. The characteristic atmosphere of a Christian college puts within the spirit and purpose of its student a consideration of those occupations which have as their predominating factor the thought of combining the highest degree of usefulness with that of the struggle for place and competence. An increasingly large number of the graduates become teachers in our public schools; several are college presidents; two of the four state normal schools of Michigan have graduates of Albion at their head, others are leading members in the faculties of a large number of normal schools; dean of the faculty of
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SAMUEL DICKIE, LL. D.
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science in the Illinois State University ; associate professor of astronomy in Chicago University; professor of education, Chicago University ; professor of geology in the Woman's College, Baltimore; instructor in astronomy in Indiana State University; professor of chemistry and another professor of biology in Denver University ; regent of the Univer- sity of Wisconsin; bursar of New York University; a large number of principals of high schools; a still greater number of successful city superintendents of schools.
Albion has a long and honorable record in the number of missionaries sent to foreign lands, South America, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Africa, the Philippines, Mexico, Bulgaria. Many are doing philan- thropie and charitable work in our large cities; some study medicine and others go into the law. Some of our graduates have amassed wealth and more of them could do so were they so inclined and had they not learned the spirit and blessedness of a life of sacrifice for others. Wherever they are located they are certain to be centers of influence, the leading and effective men and women in their respective communities. A fair proportion of every graduating class find their way into the ministry, and this in spite of the fact that Albion is in no sense a theological school. The writer once asked in a business session of the Michigan Conference that all those who were educated at the state university to rise to their feet. Three men responded to the invitation. He then asked that all who had had their training at Albion, in whole or in part, to do the same. A very large proportion of the conference rose in testimony of the power and influence of our church school And so time would fail mne to tell of Cole, Darling, Northup, Riddick, Stonex, Gillette, Mount, Ward, Whit- wam, Hallenbeck, Jones, Wilcox, Allman, Bancroft, Buell, George, Lau- bach, Hunsberger, Varion, Daniels, Taylor, Davids, Mosher, Desjardins, Carrier, John Buell, Loomis, McKoy, Jno. A. Bready, Chase, Healy, Moon, Wolfe, J. C. Cook, William T. Cook, Mather, MacCarthy, Scripps, Hipp, L. E. Lovejoy, Brown, Floody, Holmes, Weldon, Armstrong, Owen R. Lovejoy, Warren Palmatier, Dodds, Ellet, Williams, C. E. Allen, Camburn, Coffin, Crampton, S. B. Ford, Newman, Phelps, Whit- man, E. Allen, Deal, Griffin, Johns, Perrin, Colvin, Goodyear, Kendrick, Kobayashi, Leeson, Maywood, MacDonald, Seeley, Simmons, Burnett, Pearce, Tullar, Miner, Rondenbush, Simmons, Steward, Whitney, Foy, Gosling, Healey, Meader, Rhodes, Silverthorne, Cottrell, DeViney, T. H. Martin, McAndrew, Price, Cleaver, Hazard, Kyes, Lawrence, Pollok, Becker, Critchett, Norcross, Reusch, Day, Johnston, Merrill, Lancaster, Quant, Yinger, R. T. Baldwin, Field, Lescohier-these all and others, who through faith have subdned kingdoms, wrought righteousness, were valiant in fight and have obtained a good report. Those mentioned above are full gradnates of the college, and a multitude of others ought to be mentioned who did not graduate, but who are today the strength of our ministry.
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