USA > Ohio > Wayne County > History of Wayne County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 50
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"2. That said University confer on and grant to said synod the right to protect the property and funds of said University, in the event of the misuse or division of said property or funds by the board of trustees, or other person representing said board, in such legal manner and in the name of such person or corporation as said synod may direct by resolution, certified by its clerk, to any civil court, having jurisdiction over said University."
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This action, now of record in the office of the secretary of state, so thor- oughly thought out and so well-grounded in its historic foundation, would seem to have been another of the fortunate happenings in Wooster's history. Arising in a question of doubt, it settled everything to the complete satisfaction of all concerned. It clinched the nail already driven home by many declarations of the thirty past years and made absolute that "guarantee" so strongly insisted on by the first president, Doctor Lord, and so repeatedly mentioned by that in- defatigable and wise first president of the board of trustees, Dr. John Robin- son, and so constantly referred to in the catalogues. It seemed especially timely at the dawning of the new day of prosperity and expansion which had come to the University with the new administration.
The financial report of June, 1901, shows an increase of contributions from churches and individuals and almost the whole amount needed for the hand- some Memorial chapel in hand. Newly adopted rules are commended by the board. New buildings for science-extension are hoped for. A school of oratory is projected and schemes to meet enlarged expenses are discussed. The spirit of hopefulness has bloomed into confidence and larger things are expected.
But the enlargements came through previous destructions-a not unfa- miliar way of divine providence in producing the greater changes in human affairs. The fire of December 11, 1901, still a mystery as to its proximate cause, seems to have unfolded into a clear design to permit an apparent (and in some sense a real) calamity to become the open door into the coveted and expected larger life. The story of the loss may have its aspects of touching reminiscence. but the more important story is that of instant recovery from momentary depression; the development of almost unsuspected breadth and depth of attachment to the University ; the rising to the occasion of President Holden, carrying with him all the discouraged ones by his resourceful energy ; the co-operation of many warm hearts and willing hands; the actual self-de- nials of many ; the readiness with which aid from the outside met the great need and stimulated the inner and the innermost circle to greater effort and resistless enthusiasm. The story has been told, perhaps best told, by Professor Compton in a special number of the Wayne County Democrat issued in December, 1902, in connection with the dedication of the new buildings. The ruins were still smoking when we held the gymnasium meeting at ten A. M. of December 12th, when Doctor Hills eloquently reminded us that as the corner-stones had come through the fiery furnace uninjured and were "still there," so the old prin- ciples and purposes of the University were the guarantee of success. If built upon again as foundations we could not fail. The evening meeting called by
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the city's Board of Trade and enthused by the presence and courage of Presi- dent Holden who had been out of the city the previous night but had sent a heart-rousing telegram early in the day, proved how impossible it was to burn the University out of the hearts of Wooster's citizens. The people determined that, aided by the insurance-money (only sixty thousand dollars unfortu- nately), they would rebuild that which had been the nucleus of the whole enterprise in 1866. James Mullins put the heavy burden in motion by a sub- scription of five thousand dollars and was followed by his son Walter in a subscription of one thousand dollars, who was followed in turn by Mr. and Mrs. John McSweeney with one thousand dollars and these added to Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Frick's one thousand dollars and many smaller sums carried the amount to within about fifteen thousand dollars of the supposedly necessary forty thousand dollars. The subsequent ten days were scenes of ingenious division of labor among classes and alumni and citizens within and county men without and such responses were met as made certain a rehabilitation of the University, yet the size and style and proportion of that rehabilitation were still uncertain. But that uncertainty disappeared when the challenging gift of Andrew Carnegie-the one hundred thousand dollars on condition of two more within sixty days-followed by Louis H. Severance's pledge of a fifty thousand dollar science building (ultimately costing him seventy-five thousand) came to our knowledge. Now everybody hastened to have part in what was to be an assured magnificent advance. We all resolved that condi- tions should be met without fail. From far-off mission fields came donations redolent of affectionate self-denial. It was the writer's privilege to receive eight such contributions. But enough ; let us use Professor Compton's closing paragraphs. "The gifts came in so rapidly in the last few days that the inde- fatigable treasurer, Jesse McClellan, to whom large credit is due for the suc- cess of the canvass, could only record, not add. There were more than five thousand givers. The crisis was momentous, the victory glorious. It was a dramatic chapter. December II, 1901, the fire; December 22, the electrifying offer ; February 21, 1902, nearly four hundred thousand dollars raised and the ever memorable jubilee. December 11, 1902, the dedication of the new buildings and the realization of the New Wooster. It is too much to ascribe to man alone. God's hand is in it." The names of the citizens' com- mittee should find a place in this permanent record: Walter D. Foss (chair- man). Louis E. Holden, L. P. Ohliger, F. W. Miller, W. J. Mullins, I. N. Kinney, C. M. Gray, Albert Dix, George J. Swartz, J. S. E. Overholt, Robert C. Taylor, R. D. Firestone, A. Cunningham, David Myers, Prof. J. H. Dicka- son, Prof. J. O. Notestein, D. S. Firestone, David Nice, Will Long. John F.
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Barrett. The board of trustees, present at the dedication of Memorial chapel, passed the most appreciative resolutions, gratefully mentioning all classes of those who had helped the great consummation. The exercises of dedication on December 11, 1902, though much was still unfinished, were accompanied with genuine enthusiasm. President Moffatt incited our zeal by the assertion that "Presbyterian institutions have allowed themselves to be crowded back until today they occupy not the first but the fourth place in denominational schools. Presbyterians have not sustained what the fathers founded a century ago." Dr. S. S. Palmer, president of the board, in presenting the keys to the moderator of synod, reminded him of the increased responsibility which would devolve upon the synod in the maintenance of the larger university, as it accepted these buildings. That moderator (Dr. R. J. Thompson, of Lima, Ohio) emphasized the union of synod and university, and declared : "There is no stronger friend of education than the Presbyterian church." and the "Presbyterians of Ohio have finally realized what they have in the University of Wooster." The city was gay with decorations and full descriptions of the various buildings were published. The "white city on the hill" has attracted many descriptive pens, but none more intelligently appreciative than that of the Interior's editor-the well-known Christian layman, Nolan R. Best-in a sketch recently published in that widely-read journal : "Although people of a philosophic turn of mind are always ready to warn one against attributing perfection to anything mundane, it is impossible to suppress the instinct to call the Wooster college buildings perfect. What could be thought of that they want. The architecture is an example beyond criticism of that style which the world of art has agreed to set aside for the use of higher learning- the English collegiate Gothic-expressed as purely in each unit as it is har- moniously in the group. The buildings have been planned with such foresight of the particular uses for which each is designed that no convenience is missed. no necessity left unprovided for. Heating, lighting, ventilating and water- supply are taken care of in the latest methods known to practical science and all are supplied from the university's own powerhouse, which alone would win the university the admiration of any observer who appreciates the mechan- ical beauties of high-class machinery. But to patrons and students far more important is the generous modern equipment of the buildings.
Nothing is extravagant or pretentious, but there is absolutely no stint of ap- paratus. Everything that a teacher of undergraduates can need is there. * * To prepare young men for engineering there is a full working outfit of dynamos, motors, engines and electrical apparatus for the student's experi-
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mentation. So in the biological building, the young man preparing for medi- cine will find there the best microscopes and a vast variety of slides for ad- vanced work in anatomy and physiology. The library facilities are also of the most liberal. * * * In every way Wooster has put itself beyond the neces- sity of apologies for what it affords the young men and women under its care."
But it must not be supposed that the new administration found it all plain sailing after the buildings were completed. Then, indeed, came the struggle to meet inevitable deficits which always follow such extensions. President Porter many years ago begged the alumni of Yale to remember that whoever gave a new building and did not provide for the care and expense it entailed laid a new burden upon the management. It was not an easy thing to convince even the newly aroused generosity of Wooster's friends that a much greater endow- ment was needed to meet the budget entailed by the multiform facilities and the increasing faculty. It had to be explained that even a larger enrollment of students meant a larger expenditure, instead of creating a fund for other ex- penses. More books in the library and more apparatus in the laboratories and more privileges of all sorts for the student-use of all the advantages offered meant more income, or larger deficits. The situation became accented when the president reported in February of 1903 that the deficits of two years would amount to nearly forty thousand dollars, all of which ought to be in hand, if possible by the following June. Since the dedication in December, 1902, only five thousand three hundred dollars had been raised to meet this sum and five thousand dollars of that had come from one ever-generous friend of the university. In May a special board meeting was held and more ag- gressive efforts and appeals resolved upon. In June an improved situation, but twenty thousand dollars still to be raised and that in short order to secure two conditional pledges of five thousand dollars each. Special appeal was to be made to the synod in view of the "quickened spirit of the Presbyterian church in behalf of her schools of higher learning which found expression in the last general assembly." It was to be urged that the time had come "for binding this university more closely to the hearts and purse of the Presbyterians of Ohio," since "the university is the synod's educational creation, subject to its ownership and control and entitled to its abiding interest and its generous benefactions." The elaborate scheme resolved upon seems to have largely succeeded, and while there is some subsequent borrowing the effort was seri- ously considered early in 1904 to raise the endowment to one million dollars. President Holden thought it could be done, but would require many workers in the field and several years of labor.
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During these current years and on there were the constant evidences of the highest success in the internal life of the university. Without important exception, the annual reports show increased enrollment, departments better manned, excellent steadiness in the student-body, an encouraging general re- ligious life and constant annual quotas of those who were constrained by love of the Master to undertake his service at home and abroad. Library facilities were increased. Here and there a salary was raised, always within the sacred limit of one thousand five hundred dollars however, and the generous custom of the Sabbatic year was begun with the senior Prof. J. O. Notestein.
In 1906 the often-mentioned additional accommodations for the young women of the university was taken up in earnest. The cost was to be fifty thousand dollars, but the investigating tours, in which Doctor Holden visited the leading women's colleges of the country, changed the estimates. In the end the palatial building cost one hundred and ten thousand dollars. something more than half of which was the contribution of Louis H. Severance, who in- sisted that it should be called Holden Hall. Thus another angle was reached and passed on the toilful acclivity of the university's upward movement.
But the pressure for more endowment came now to be considered as im- perative. The budget of 1906-7 had been put down as eighty-one thousand four hundred and ninety-six dollars. That of 1907-8 was to be seventy-eight thousand six hundred thirty-six dollars and seventy-two dollars plus the first installment of the paving assessment. Deficits up to June, 1907, amounted to eighteen thousand one hundred and sixty-eight dollars and forty-seven cents. Courageously this burden was shouldered by the indomitable president, aided and abetted by faithful and laborious field-agents and stimulated by the good wishes of the growing multitude of Wooster's friends. The general educa- tion board. administering Mr. Rockefeller's bounty, thought it worth while to help an institution which had more than doubled its assets in five or six years- they had reached nearly one million and a quarter-and initiated the effort to raise five hundred thousand dollars by April 1, 1908, by a subscription of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars conditioned upon the whole amount by the date just mentioned and the extinguishment of all debt. Louis H. Severance added a like sum with similar conditions and Andrew Carnegie followed with fifty thousand dollars. Here then was an open way to the half million of fresh endowment if the two hundred eighteen thousand one hundred and sixty-eight dollars and forty-seven cents could be brought together. And this must necessarily be a harder task than the four hundred and twenty thous- and dollars of the rebuilding fund. There were no such commanding and
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heart-reaching circumstances. It was no longer life and death, but only life and a larger life. Besides, everybody had given over and over again and many quite recently, and the close of 1907 was wintry in the financial skies. But there could be no postponement and no relaxation of conditions. Since. then, it must be done, ways and means were found to do it. Again there was division of labor and responses from many quarters. Such an opportunity could not be lost. With much painstaking the triumph of the first trial was repeated and the completion of the subscription announced. Then another jubilee and a red-letter day was added to the Wooster calendar-March 31, 1908.
Throughout these recent efforts constant reference has been had to the "forward movement" of the synod of Ohio, responding to the enthusiastic call of the general assembly uttered in 1903. The objective point of that stir- ring summons was twelve million dollars to be raised by the entire denomina- tion "for the purpose of endowment of our Presbyterian colleges in the sev- eral states." Of this movement the board's report to synod in 1909 says : "Ohio's quota of that amount is one million two hundred thousand dollars. As goes Ohio so goes the country. The synod determined to do its full share -ten dollars per member. Thus far the effort has been a magnificent success. * It is with the deepest appreciation and gratitude that we acknowl- edge the earnest effort and large generosity of the entire Presbyterian church, and the friends of Christian education, to the extent of six hundred seventy- seven thousand five hundred and seven dollars and nineteen cents toward the million dollars of the new endowment, leaving but three hundred twenty-two thousand four hundred and two dollars and eighty-one cents to complete what you began in the synod of 1903."
The forward sweep of the university's financial progress becomes brilliant- ly visible in the following luminous statement :
The total assets of the University of Wooster May 31, 1899, were $452,551.87. Of this amount. $181,737.42 was credited to endowment. At the time of the fire December II, 1901, the total assets were reduced by the loss of the main building and its wings $184, 174.00. The university received $60,000 insurance on its loss. Crediting this amount, the total assets would stand December 12, 1901, the day after the fire, as $328.377.87. This may rightfully he said to be the financial foundation on which the present adminis- tration had to build, although in this amount the first half of the Library and the new Chapel are included.
At the close of business March 31, 1910, we had $755,368.52 in general
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and special endowment ; also outstanding pledges and annuities, which when paid will be credited for endowment, amounting to $229,911.II. If all these prove to be good we might say that we have $985,279.63 in line for the en- dowment. We have in addition to this our present plant ; land, building and equipment, which amount on our books to $871,970.20, or total assets of $1,857.249.83.
But, as Doctor Gause (first secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Aid -for Colleges) was accustomed to say : "Nothing is so hungry as a college." When current income and current expenditure had been, for the first time in the university history, equalized, the need of further development in various directions was perceived to be imperative. The largest of all the plans was. projected and an effort has been commenced to provide for a largely increased endowment and for at least two buildings-a dormitory for men and a much desired gymnasium with a possible chapel-extension, according to original plans, to make yet more attractive and effective the work of the Christian Associations of men and women. John R. Mott reports a friend ready to give two thousand dollars to commence this enterprise. No less an amount than six hundred thousand dollars is considered adequate to meet these needs. Of that sum the first three hundred thousand dollars has been subscribed-one-half by the general education board and the other by a friend of the university whose personality is as yet kept in reserve. The active canvass now in progress has secured up to this present writing (September Ist) three hundred and ninety- six thousand dollars-leaving two hundred and four thousand dollars to be sought for. The conditions are completion by the closing day of the current year ( 1910) and the extinguishment of all indebtedness. There will doubtless be another jubilee and another red-letter day in Wooster's calendar. Along with other enlargements, the university's campus has grown to dimensions which provide for the certain and undoubtedly rapid development of the future. From the original twenty acres the campus has now extended to a total area of sixty-three acres. Part of this is a recent addition separated by only a street's breadth from the main block-a most timely addendum as pre-empting what would have proven inaccessible within a very few years:
The constant increase of students during the present administration has kept pace with other phases of progress. During 1907-'08 the total enroll- ment without the summer-school students was seven hundred and thirty-three : with them, one thousand six hundred and twenty-one. For 1908-'09. the total reached eight hundred and twelve without the summer-school roll; with it,
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there were one thousand eight hundred and one. The largest freshman class in the university's experience-one hundred and sixty-came in the year just closed.
This growth has been accompanied by a gradual increase of the faculty until it now numbers, counting instructors and adjunct-professors, thirty-eight. The new department of history, long desired, opens with the college year just before us ( 1910-II).
An important change in the charter has been under consideration for more than a year. It contemplates the relinquishment by the synod of Ohio of the right to elect the trustees of the university, thus surrendering all control of the institution. The moving consideration for this change is the desire to acquire for the institution the benefits of the pension-fund of the Carnegie foundation. The matter was presented by the board of trustees to the synod at its meeting in October, 1909. A postponement until the meeting of 1910 was agreed upon. Meanwhile a careful study of the subject was to be made by a committee which will report at the approaching meeting.
The remarkable success of Wooster's president for the decade past has drawn upon him the atention of those who constitute the Board of Aid for Colleges in the denomination as a whole. Three or more times they have sought his services as secretary. The last attempt was but a few months ago. and the following resolution was unanimously passed by the board of trustees : "The flattering offer only accentuates the esteem and affection in which the board of trustees holds President Holden. It is the sense of this board that the services of President Holden for the present and for years to come are indispensable to the progress and development of the university of Wooster and that it would therefore be a calamity to the institution at this time to subtract from it his forceful personality. In saying this we have all the while in mind President Holden's good, together with the prosperity and destiny of the university which must be forever associated with his name, and which will remain a monument to his unselfish devotion and labor, for it is seldom given to one man to accomplish so much in eleven short years as the noble work he has accomplished during his administration.
"We are not unmindful that his services as associate-secretary would open great avenues for usefulness. Nevertheless the work to be done by Doc- tor Holden here must necessarily bring him in close and affectionate relations with young men and women which are in the highest sense personal and that personal relations and affectionate regard are the highest earthly rewards.
"The board therefore respectfully asks President Holden to remain with
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the University of Wooster and prays God that he may be permitted to give many years to the work to which he seems to have been divinely called." At the recent commencement the constant expressions of undisguised satisfaction on the part of all concerned for the welfare of the university-faculty, alumni, patrons, students and citizens-furnished ample evidence that the affectionate respect and devout wishes of the board of trustees awakened loyal echoes in all hearts.
VI .- THE FACULTY.
Now that the governing principles of the University have been discovered and described and the chronicle of events has been brought down to date, there remain many aspects of this multiform life which are best understood and estimated when treated separately. They vary, of course, in relative im- portance, but no one of them can be fairly omitted. And precisely for that reason each must be dealt with as briefly as may be at all consistent with the purposes of this historical sketch.
Faculty changes have been many, naturally, and it is impossible, though the material is at hand, to give even the names, dates, antecedents and char- acteristics of so large a number. The inner history of the teaching body has been, what it might have been expected to be for a body of men gathered to practice such definite principles for so noble an end, one of great harmony. Personal animosities have been unknown. Differences in religious convictions have led to but one resignation. Changes for inadequacy have been very few. Those who have gone to other fields of usefulness have entered upon them with warm commendations from the body they left. Many names are starred thus in the records, of which mention can be made only of two, Dr. Edgar W. Work, of New York, and Prof. Dr. James Wallace, of Macalester College. Some have been added to the faculty in later years who have received the warmest and most appreciative welcome, but none have seemed more worthy or competent than Wooster's own product, such as Notestein, who is the glory of our teaching force, and that ideal dean-Compton. Lecturers who gave their services gratuitously were Judge Welker (United States court), the Rev. Dr. Jeffers (while professor at Western Theological Seminary) and Prof. John De Witt ( while at Lane Seminary). The first faculty has been frequent- ly described and the pen of the present writer would be ready enough in linger- ing over their gifts and graces, since it has been his privilege to have personally known them all in one or another relation of life. But space forbids except to mention the exceptional ability as teacher and author of Dr. C. S. Gregory, whose forcefulness and analytic talent can never be forgotten and whose bow
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