USA > Ohio > Delaware County > Delaware > Fifty years of history of the Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio : 1844-1894 > Part 11
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bitious parents, who were anxious to have them under his care. Dr. Trimble was the son of a distinguished governor of Ohio, exceedingly popular as a pulpit orator, and widely known in his native State. Professor McCown was a most capable teacher, amiable in disposition and attractive in manner. The other teachers were competent, and the repu- tation of the college for some years was highly creditable to the Church whose patronage was pledged for its support.
Dr. Trimble left Augusta in about 1840, the faculty other- wise remaining about as it was, until 1841, when Morrison College, the literary branch of Transylvania University, at Lexington, was tendered to the Methodist Episcopal Church, through the Kentucky Conference. Dr. Bascom was an ar- dent advocate of acceptance; Dr. Tomlinson as ardently op- posed it, both before the committee to whom the matter was referred, and before the Conference; but the proposal was carried alinost unanimously. In the Fall of 1842, Dr. Bas- com retired from Augusta, and accepted the Presidency of Transylvania. McCown, Kemp, and Lynch, professors and teachers at Augusta, went with him, and accepted similar positions at Lexington. The opening at Lexington was brilliant, and high hopes were entertained that Transylvania would become the first institution of the South ; liopes des- tined, however, to be soon dissipated.
About this period (1841-2), the Ohio Wesleyan Univer- sity came into being under the joint control of the Ohio and Nortlı Ohio Conferences, and was put in operation in 1844. By this time the anti-slavery controversy liad become intense and threatening. It culminated in 1844, so far as the Methodist Episcopal Church was concerned, in the se- cession of the Southern Conferences, and the establishment of the Methodist Church, South.
Dr. Tomlinson continued faithful to Augusta. Herbert
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M. Johnson, a graduate of Wesleyan College, at Middletown, Connecticut, was appointed to one of the chairs made vacant by the desertion of Bascom and McCown, and Rev. E. N. Elliott was appointed to the chair of Mathematics. John- son, in 1844, left Augusta for the Ohio Wesleyan University, and Rev. Chandler Robbins took his place. Others, for brief periods, filled the places of teachers; but, with Tran- sylvania on the one side, and the Ohio Wesleyan University on the other, the one drawing off the students from the South, and the other from the North, and the anti-slavery controversy becoming constantly more and more a disturbing and dividing element both in Church and State, the condition of Augusta at the time is best described by the quaint lan- guage of the common law indictment for murder, in which the victim is said to have "languished, and languishing did live," until 1847, when, under the influence of the angry feeling of the times, the Kentucky Legislature repealed the charter, the college was suspended, and became a thing of the past. Its orphaned alumni were adopted by the Ohio Wesleyan University, and taken in out of the cold; but the students at Augusta never have forgotten the happy walks and shades of the quiet little village at the mouth of the Bracken, on the banks of the Ohio, nor the grace and beauty of its fair women, and the friendly association of the " fel- lows " in the college ; and can never repay the debt of grati- tude they owe to the professors and teachers of their dead but always " beautiful mother."
How interesting it would be to sketch the lives of its il- lustrious line of professors and teachers-Finley, Tomlinson, Durbin, Ruter, Bascom, McCown, Fielding, Trimble, John- son, Elliott-and others, and of its worthy and distinguished sons, such as Christie, Kavanaugh, Groesback, Longworth, Barrere, Marshall, and many others, of its earlier days; and
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later, of Carson, the two sons of Justice McLean, Thomas M. Key, Francis A. Morris, Joseph A. Soule, John W. Weak- ley, James L. Mathewson, John Miley, Randolph S. Foster, the McDowells, Boring, Fee, Locke, Wadsworth, Phister, and many others, who have adorned and honored, and given force and direction to many of the departments of profes- sional and business life ! But this grateful task is prohibited by the limitations of this occasion.
As I have reviewed the events of my own life, brought freshly to mind by recalling the history of the Augusta Col- lege, I have been forcibly struck by three prominent re- flections :
(1). The first is, that while I feel myself comparatively a young man, yet my life, brief as it is, covers a personal ac- quaintance with many of the pioneers of the West, who, as preachers, educators, lawyers, or statesmen, did so much toward the establishment of the religious, literary, and po- litical institutions of this broad land, and laid so strongly the foundations of the prosperity and happiness their chil- dren have enjoyed. I have met personally all the persons named as connected with the early history of Augusta Col- lege, except Finley, Davis, and Fielding, and some of the teachers in the preparatory school. In about the same pro- portion I have seen personally the great mnen of that time, both in Church and State, among them Bishops McKendree, George, and Roberts, Nathan Bangs, the Watermans, and many others, and Governors Tiffin, Worthington, Morrow, and McArthur, and many of the early senators and great lawyers. This personal knowledge was supplemented and extended by many talks with my elders, and by the news- papers which made their periodic entrance into my father's house. Truly there were, or seemed to be, giants in those days. The States they founded, the Churches they estab-
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lished, the schools and colleges they organized and endowed, attest their greatness.
(2). Not less remarkable is the fact that so brief a life should cover a period of such wonderful national progress and territorial extension, of such vast changes in our polit- ical and domestic institutions, and such a long series of the most astonishing discoveries and inventions, all adding im- mensely to the comforts and elegancies of civilized life. Within this period, Texas separated from Mexico, and be- came an independent republic, and, as such, subsequently came into our Union; the war with Mexico gave us Colo- rado and New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, Nevada and Up- per California ; and the purchase of Alaska gave us the far Northwest. A sweep of population, wide as the rolling sea, has spread over this vast area; cities rivaling the largest in the world have risen as if by miracle, by lake and river ; and the deserts have become cultivated fields.
The separation of the Presbyterian Church into the Old and New Schools, and their subsequent reunion ; the con- troversy as to the constitution and government of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church ; the secession of Snethen, Shinn, Stockton, Springer, and other radical leaders, and the for- mation of the Methodist Protestant Church; the great Church disruption of 1844, which gave us the Methodist Church, South; the admission of laymen to representation in the General Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church; the War of the Rebellion, and the abolition of slavery; the adoption of new State constitutions, and the supersedure of the tedious methods of common law proced- ure in the courts by the more simple and direct methods of the civil law; the emancipation of married women in the inatter of property rights; the building and operation of the first railroad in America, and the extension of like roads all
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over the land, so that our passage from place to place is swifter than the flight of birds, and making it possible to hold a World's Fair and a World's Congress of Religions in the very heart of the continent ; the advent of the daguerre- otype and photograph, the telegraph, the phonograph, the telephone, and the other wondrous uses to which electricity and magnetism have been applied in the arts and in all the avocations of trade and domestic life ; all these, and more, have sprung into being within a fraction of a life "whose days are but as a hand-breadth." Ah! my friends, what is it knowledge can not achieve, and where are the limitations of God's gracious favor ?
(3). The third forceful reflection emphasized by this pres- ence is that most of the men who figured conspicuously dur- ing the period to which I have referred, and indeed during the history of the world, gave signs of greatness in youth or early manhood, and achieved distinction long before middle age. Of those I have named, Tomlinson, Durbin, Ruter, Bascom, Trimble, Foster, and others, were preachers in their boyhood, and drew admiring crowds to hear themn. The founders of our State were mostly young men, whose ambition and courage drove them from older settlements to seek fortune and fame amid the dangers and hardships of border life. As we scan the pages of history from the days of that gallant Hebrew youth who slew the huge, uncircuin- cized, and defiant Phillistine, in the Valley of Elah, down to our own day, everywhere, on sea and land, the men of brilliant performance gave promise of it in their youth. Not that none others have risen or will rise to greatness-for what is it that persistent effort will not attain ?- but the youthful Timothy is not the only one to whom Paul might have said, " Let no man despise thy youth ; " for youth holds. the germs of success, whether the pursuit be of wealth, or
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place, or power, or the higher aims of patriotism and relig- ion. But remember, young men and young women, first, last, and all the time, the exhortation of Heinzelman : " Be, and continue, poor, while others grow rich by fraud and dis- loyalty ; be without place or power, while others beg their way upward ; bear the pains of disappointed hopes, while others gain the accomplishment of theirs by flattery ; forego the gracious pressure of the hand, for which others cringe and crawl. Wrap yourself in your own virtue, seek one syın- pathizing friend, and your daily bread. If you, in such a course, grow gray with unblemished honor, bless God, and die."
The address of Dr. McCabe, delivered at this celebration, appears elsewhere, while that by Doctor Williams has been expanded into the Historical Sketch with which this volume opens.
The Students' Semi-Centennial Celebration was held in Gray Chapel on the evening of Monday, June 18th, 1894. Mr. M. P. Shawkey, President of the class of '94, was in the chair. After some words of welcome by Mr. J. F. McCon- nell, class of '94, the address of the evening was delivered by Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks, class of '72, of Indianapolis, Indiana.
FORMER STUDENTS.
MR. CHAIRMAN AND FRIENDS : I wish to congratulate the undergraduates upon their loyalty to our great University, and upon their progressiveness, as manifested by their taking conspicuous part in the celebration of this Fiftieth Anniversary. It is peculiarly fitting that the undergraduates should be among the first to show their regard for the insti- tution that holds in pleasing bondage the love and admira-
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tion of those who knew it in its less prosperous days. Many of us have returned to join with you in this happy, golden jubilee, to renew old associations, to form new ones and to express our sense of obligation for the benefits and the pleasures we enjoyed here. Permit me to express my profound acknowledgments to the committee of arrangements for this agreeable assignment. I prefer to be in touch with the young men and women in whose keeping the future honor, and power, and glory of this University more especially rests. There is something infectious in their enthusiasm ; the trials and vexations of life have not inclined them to become misanthropic ; they behold nothing but the splendid bow of promise above them.
Former students cannot contemplate this scene without a sense of sadness; it is old, and still it is familiar to them. Many faces that were known to them are absent ; some are 'midst new scenes, new cares, and some are gone forever. But there are present the former joyous and happy numbers, the same flowers, the same ambitions, the same walks, the same benignant skies, the same fraternity, and society, and class rivalries, and so it will ever be.
Fifty years have passed since the Ohio Wesleyan Univer- sity sent Godman forth with her commission. Since then, there have been over twelve thousand students and twenty- two hundred graduates. They came from every walk of life, and they have gone out into the uttermost parts of the earth. The sun never sets upon students of this University, for they belt the globe.
It may be impossible for the psychologist to discover any distinctive mental characteristics of the students of this University that distinguish them from their fellows; in other words, it may be impossible to note any university-individu - ality in our graduates. Yet it has seemed to me that there
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has been a conspicuous absence of all tendency to aristoc- racy. We have been essentially democratic. The way to place and power has been impartially open to the rich and the poor; scholastic merit and individual worth have been the only passports to distinction in the University. A whole- some moral atmosphere has pervaded these halls, and the great majority who have gone forth have gone mentally and morally equipped for the highest and best duties of citizen- ship. To specify all of the influences contributing to this result were impossible; books and men were the chief agencies.
This University has been rich in conscientious, learned instructors. Our elder graduates admired the great Thomson -profound scholar, true teacher. His character was im- pressed upon the earlier students, and upon the University in its plastic days. He set the character of the latter in the high plane where it has continued to the present hour.
We who passed the half-way mark to this jubilee under the administration of Dr. Merrick, miss his sad and kindly face. Great, yet the elements of his greatness elude our touch ; well-rounded and complete in all the qualities that make a great president, a noble and instructive example.
Dr. Payne, the famed orator, the alert champion of every honorable cause, we have with us. The abundant fruit of his good deeds is about us everywhere.
Who does not admire President Bashford ? He has made captive the love of all former students who have studied and marked his splendid administration. It augurs well for the future that such a man shall lead us into the second half- century of our career. If good wishes were coin, he were richer than Crœsus to-night.
Two names are now in every heart and on every lip; like golden bands, they join all administrations and all years to-
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gether; their lives have gone into the University; the his- tory of one cannot be written without the other; Omnis- cience only can measure the limits of their influence upon former students by their exalted lives and their splendid scholarship. There is no graduate who is not a perpetual debtor to these devoted men, McCabe and Williams.
And there are Professors Whitlock, Perkins and Semans, who have toiled here for a third of a century with an ability and fidelity that is treasured in the grateful recollection of thousands who have come and gone. Later came Nelson, Grove, Davies, Parsons, Austin, Stevenson and many others, learned and loyal sons and daughters of their alma mater.
Not all the former students have won victory, not all have met defeat. The larger number have met life's demands with a sturdy determination to succeed, to make the world better. Most of them have been inspired by a lofty sense of their duty to their fellows ; and they have risen not upon, but with them. Many of them have become leaders, trusted and tested; they are at the front in the Church ; their names are upon the honored rolls of the missionaries beneath every sun. Thomson, Drees and LaFetra in South America, and their numerous and equally worthy brethren, stand for splen- did self-consecration to the well-being of others.
What pulpit has not felt the inspiration of some formner student? With what devotion many poor young mnen labored here that they might qualify themselves to lead others to a serener atmosphere! We used to make merry with some of our young aspirants for the cloth. I recall that once near the close of the year, when the grass upon the campus had been cut, that some jovial and irreverent students tied an un- offending mule to the pulpit in the old chapel; a month's supply of hay was carried in. Our most reverend young men felt that they could even then improve upon the pulpit.
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One of the followers of Wesley, being twitted upon his new colleague, frankly said there were some good points about him; in fact, he thought he could make himself heard.
Search the records of those that have presided and are presiding in courts of justice, and you will find the names of many who hold the commission of this University. Pro- found and just judges ; all honor to them !
At the bar are many of our alumni sustaining the credit of the institution by their ability, their strength and power.
We are not unmindful of our brethren who are conducting great secular and religious journals with a genius that chal- lenges the most generous admiration.
Visit many of our sister universities and public schools, where rich scholarship and liberal mental endowment are in request, and there you will find the students of the Ohio Wesleyan University as presidents, professors and teachers.
Go into the great banking, mercantile and manufacturing concerns of the country, and the old students are taking rank with the foremost; and, in short, search all the walks and avenues of usefulness, and you will find some repre- sentatives of the Ohio Wesleyan University who are honor- ably discharging the full measure of their responsibility.
Our contributions have not been made to the more peace- ful fields only for when the life of the government was in peril, former students drew their swords in its defense and won imperishable fame on the battlefields of the republic.
Many are the names we can recall with pride and exulta- tion ; many stand out conspicuously, having achieved place and power among our fellow men. Such we all delight to honor. We may humbly claim to be joint sharers in the glory they have won.
And what of the future? While our past achievements have been great, our future achievements shall be greater ;
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as our numbers increase, our influence broadens. Our am- bition is not satisfied, for it has caught but a glimpse of the possibilities that lie in the boundless future.
During the great tragedy at Gettysburg, when the life of the republic was the prize of battle, a color-bearer was struck down, and then another and another, and courage was put to the highest test. The colonel of the regiment called one of his trusted men to him and said: "Sergeant, take this flag, bear it aloft, do not surrender it in dishonor, return with it or report the reason why." The sergeant received the colors, and marched against the pitiless hail of war. The battle ceased; the gallant sergeant did not surrender, and he did not return, but God Almighty knew the reason why.
Take the flag of the Ohio Wesleyan University, bear it unsullied and without dishonor, or report the reason why.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1894-ALUMNI DAY.
The Alumni Semi-Centennial Celebration was held in Gray Chapel, at 9 A. M., Hon. J. D. Vandeman, President of the Alumnal Association, in the chair.
The first address of the day was to have been given by Rev. Wm. D. Godman, D. D., class of '46, of Winsted, La., the first graduate of the University. Dr. Godman started from his home in the far South to attend the Jubilee, but was overtaken by sickness in Cincinnati, while en route. He sent the following hurried note :
"It brings 111e great grief to relinquish the anticipated re- union at the Jubilee. But an uncontrollable sickness dooms 111e. I must content myself with the purely spiritual pres- ence.
"The Alma Mater stands to-day exalted with a golden crown of fifty glorious years. She has taken but a step in her triumphal marchi to immortality. She is in the bloom of
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youth. She will never grow old. The years will but add to the freshness and charm of her growing vitality.
"Some institutions feed their infantes on the husks of an antiquated philosophy called theology. When they have become alumni, they have a sorry time of it, trying to extract life from the dead stuff, or to impart a spark of life to it. Others have become enamored of athletics, and seem to have gone clear over to the bats. Still others have devoted themselves to natural sciences and to modern litera- ture. This is commercial. It pays. But the beloved Alma Mater hears the cry of sorrowing human hearts from all the lands; by ministering regiments she sends the Bread of Life to all the climes. She builds the eternal things. To her sons and daughters is committed the best work given to inortals. May they never grow weary !
"To his colleagues of the old faculty and to his brother alumni, the first graduate bids adieu with a glorious hope. With loving memories, W. D. GODMAN."
ALMA MATER.
By E. J. WHEELER, A. M., Class '79, Editor of The Voice. A mother smiled in pride, As close about her knee, In the glories of morning-tide, Clustered her children three.
She told them wonderful tales Of the sky, the earth, and the sea ;
The treasures of mountains and vales She gathered for thein to see.
She sang in melodious song Of the golden deeds of men ;
Their hearts beat quick and strong As they listened again and again.
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Their pulses throbbed with desire To dare and to do and to be, While the morning sun rose higher, And the brook babbled on to the sea.
The brook babbled on to the sea, And called to them o'er and o'er; With footsteps light and free They sprang through the open door.
The mother smiled at their glee, As she harked to their eager calls, And she cried to the children three: "Return ere the darkness falls!"
They wandered by diverse ways: One roamed to the mountain-side ; One entered the forest-maze ; One sought the rolling tide.
They searched for a trophy meet, In their journeyings far apart, To lay at the mother's feet, And gladden her loving heart.
The ways grew weary and long, At times, to the resolute feet ; Oft did the shadows throng, And storm-clouds over them meet.
But the tales of the mother anew Returned when the way seemed lone ; They remembered that God is true ; They knew that the sun still shone.
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The songs of the morning-tide Abode in their hearts all day, As the songs of the sea abide In the heart of the shell alway.
Back to the home they came, Bearing the trophies three, And the mother, ever the same, Gathered them 'round her knee.
A crystal was brought by one From high on the mountain-side ; "Behold what I have done ! I bring back fame!" he cried.
A fragrant herb one brought, Dug from its forest bed ; "Behold what I have wrought ! For this is learning," he said.
The third bore in his hand, From the shores of the restless sea, Some grains of yellow sand ; "I bring back wealth," said he.
The mother, as one impressed, Took each of the trinkets three, And said, indulging the jest : "What wonderful things they be !"
As soon o'er a weary world The coverlid night was spread, Three tired forms were curled At rest in a quiet bed.
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And, lo! as in sleep they lay, The luster of crystal and sand Departed, and withered away The herb from the forest-land.
Dear mother of fifty years, If the trophies we bring to thee, Achieved amid doubts and fears, Turn out mere baubles to be ;-
If or ever the night befall, Their luster and glory depart, Yet we know that they, one and all, Will be treasured within thy heart.
And we know that the purpose high Fades not as the bauble it wins ; That for it, in another sky, Another morning begins. PROHIBITION PARK, N. Y., June, 1894.
ALMA MATER.
MRS. O. F. BROWN (Ophelia Forward, Class of 1867), Los Angeles, Cal.
The Alumni of California to their Alma Mater, Greeting :
No voice in all this gracious land Were meet to sing her jubilee, Who holds us still with loving hand To larger hope and destiny.
Nay, scores of filial voices blend, From Coronado's outmost rill To Shasta's snows, and loyal send One note to swell the general hymn1.
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Then speed, O little song of mine! And on the wing grow heavenly sweet, Till thou art lost in strains divine That break in triumph at her feet.
And shall she know from out the West The strength that rears the mountain pine, The calm that rocks the storm to rest Along yon sunset ocean line.
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