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 BELOIT COLLEGE 
 
 QUARTER CENTEMIAL. 
 
 1847 — 1872. 
 
EXERCISES 
 
 AT THE 
 
 Ouarter-Centennial 
 
 Anniversary 
 
 of 
 
 BELOIT COLLEGE. 
 
 JULY 9, 18T2. 
 
 BELOIT : 
 1872. 
 
 Garret Veeder, Printer, Janetrllle, Wis. UNIVERSfTY OF 
 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 RT URBANA-CHAMPA1GN 
 
QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 13EL0IT COLLEGE 
 
 Quarter C enteimial. 
 
 In anticipation of the Twenty -fifth Anniversary of Beloit 
 College, the Board of Trustees, at their meeting in July 1871, 
 appointed a committee consisting of the President, L. G. Fisher, 
 Esq., Rev. G. S. F. Savage, D. D., and Rev. J. Collie, to 
 make arrangements for the celebration of that event, the fol 
 lowing year. 
 
 After conference with members of the Faculty and the 
 Alumni, it was determined that the afternoon and evening of 
 Tuesday, July 9th, 1872, should be occupied with the reading 
 of several brief memorial papers on designated topics by repre- 
 sentatives of the Trustees, the Faculty and the Alumni. 
 
 In accordance with this an-angement, in the afternoon of 
 the day named, a goodly number of Alumni and other friends 
 of the College gathered in the First Congregational Church. 
 Rev. J. Collie, of the first class graduated, was called to the 
 chair. The assembly joined in singing the doxology, "Praise 
 God from -whom all blessings flow." Rev. S. W. Eaton 
 led in prayer. Then followed words of welcome from the 
 President and the reading of the first six papers in order as 
 here presented. The last two papers were read in the evening, 
 after the Alumni Oration by Hon. C. W. Buckley of the class 
 of 1860, and the Poem by Prof. P. Hendrickson of the clasg 
 of 1867. 
 

 
 OF BELOIX COLLEGE. 
 
 PRESIDENT CHAPIN'S 
 
 WOMB 8 OF WELCOME, 
 
 I am charged with the pleasant duty on this happy anniver- 
 sary, which closes the first quarter century of the life of Beloit 
 College, to express her kindly greeting to her gathered sons 
 and friends. Alumni of Beloit, each and all receive the glad 
 welcome of Alma Mater, as you come back from your various 
 homes and spheres of duty and care, to the family hearth-stone. 
 You are here to honor this silver wedding-day, commemorative 
 of her espousal to Christ, the King, in the interest of truth and 
 right and sound learning, and the well-being of men, and the 
 glory of God. She looks fondly on your manly faces. Her 
 heart swells with worthy pride as she reviews the lives you 
 have been living since you went out from her charge ; and she 
 borrows the honors you have won, and wears them as jewels 
 for her adornment to day. Your presence fills her heart with 
 gladness and her face with smiles. 
 
 Be ye also glad. Make yourselves at home, as we sit down 
 together to revive the associations of the past. Speak all your 
 mind. As in sober conference we try to cast the future of the 
 college, under the grave responsibility of a character and repu- 
 tation already gained, give us the benefit of your observations 
 in the world without, and speak to us words of cheer which 
 shall animate our courage and inspire our endeavors to set this 
 beloved institution forward for greater and better things, from 
 this day forth. As you move again amid these classic halls and 
 academic shades familiar to you all, know one another as broth- 
 ers. Stand on no formalities of introduction, but let the com- 
 mon tie draw you freely and kindly to each other. So may you 
 all both give and get a blessing from this festive assembling. 
 
 We include in this hearty welcome, not only the regular 
 graduates, but all those who, in former years, have been for 
 some time under instruction here, and whom the college loves to 
 
4 QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 regard as her sons. We extend to you all a warm right-hand 
 of greeting and a cordial invitation to this goodly fellowship, 
 and we count as welcome friends also, all, whose interest in the 
 general cause of education, as well as in this particular agency 
 for it, has drawn them hither to-day. 
 
 Our arrangements are quite inadequate to fulfil all our de- 
 sire. Our words must be few and hurried, but Ave trust they 
 Will bring up pleasant memories of the past, and present a 
 bright and hopeful outlook for the future, and kindle in all our 
 souls a fresh enthusiasm, and inspire prayers fervent and strong, 
 to Him who has set the seal of his blessing on the college hith- 
 erto, and so prepare the way, under the continual guidance of 
 divine wisdom and the help of divine power, for the life so au- 
 spiciously begun, to go on unfolding gracefully and grandly and 
 more and more fruitfully to the end of the century, and on still 
 on, for centuries to come. Now the seed that was planted here 
 twenty-five years ago, was in its kind, like that of the Califor- 
 nia cedars, a germ of life for the centuries, nay more, it has 
 bound up in it, the power of an endless life. The plant that 
 sprung from it, though already fruitful, is yet in its infancy. 
 Friends, brothers, sons, let it have your loving regard, your fos- 
 tering care, your generous gifts, your prevailing prayers ; for 
 our aims and hopes for it are high and large. 
 
OF BELOIT ( OLLEGE. 
 
 .A. PAPER- 
 
 On Ike Acts aiid Aims of the Founders of Beloit 
 
 College. 
 
 BY REV. A. L. CI r A PIN, 1). 1). 
 
 PRESIDENT OF TIKCB COLLEQE. 
 
 It devolves on me now. to begin these memorial exercises by 
 presenting* in pencil sketch, as well as I may, some of the in- 
 itiatory steps taken for the founding of our college. The scene 
 of the first sketch is in the old stone church of Beloit, in the 
 Fall of 1843. The house was not quite finished, but when com- 
 pleted, a few weeks later, it stood the most stately and grand 
 house of christian worship then in Wisconsin. It was at the 
 •time, made comfortable for the meeting of the General Presby- 
 terian and Congregational Convention of Wisconsin, whose 
 members, at that fall session, numbered just twenty-eight, rep- 
 resenting all parts of the territory of Wisconsin, into which 
 christian civilization had then made its way. It was my first 
 introduction as a young pastor, to that body. I found those men 
 , then and there thinking on a college. They had been thinking 
 on it for a year or more. Less than ten years after Black Hawk 
 and his wild Indian troop had been chased by the Illinois vol- 
 unteers under Lincoln and his compeers, up through this Hock 
 River valley, those pioneers of Christ's army came in and had 
 entertained the thought of planting a college, on the colony 
 plan, away up by the beaver's dam on the head waters of this 
 clear stream. They surmised correctly that the land could not 
 be held in full posession by their king, till his power should be 
 entrenched in such a stronghold of sanctified learning. They 
 concluded to abandon that scheme, but the main thought was 
 cherished still. A college must be buill up and its life and 
 strength must be the spirit of simple, self-sacrificing devotion 
 to Christ's saving work. So much was clear and settled by 
 that first step, from which they drew back. 
 
 Let me take you next, a few months later, in the early sum^ 
 
6 QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 mer of 1844, to the door of a little state-room of the steamer 
 Chesapeake, moving over the waters of Lake Erie and bearing 
 as part of her freight, delegates returning from a great north- 
 western gathering of christian men and women, that had been 
 called at Cleaveland, to consider the general interests of Christ's 
 kingdom in the wide Mississippi valley. You may see seven of 
 us crowded together in that narrow room. Stephen Peet, to 
 whom belongs the honor of being foremost and chief of the 
 founders of Beloit College, is lying on the berth, ill in body, 
 but his fertile mind as active as ever in planning for the spirit- 
 ual interests of this region. By his side sits Theron Baldwin, 
 then just entering on his life-work. Miter, Gaston, Hicks, Bulk- 
 ley and myself are standing by, listening to their talk. The 
 Western College Society was fairly organized and Baldwin, its 
 Secretary and soul, unfolds its purpose and plans. There is 
 light and hope in what he says. A hand from the East will be 
 stretched out to help on the establishment of genuine christian 
 colleges, judiciously located here and there in the West. Peet 
 seizes on the gleam of encouragement, his uttered thoughts 
 kindle enthusiasm and hope in the rest. There is an earnest 
 consultation — there is a fervent prayer — there is a settled pur- 
 pose and Beloit College is a living conception. The seven there, 
 take on themselves the responsibility of calling a meeting of 
 the friends of christian education in the three adjoining states 
 of Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa for definite consultation on the 
 subject of providing institutions for liberal education under 
 christian influences, in this part of the country. The steamer 
 Chesapeake has long since gone to pieces, but of that conference 
 on her deck came the framing of this good ship whose ribs and 
 hull are wrought of eternal truths that know no decay, whose 
 motive power is gendered by the fire of Christ's love turning 
 into vital forces irrepressible, the latent energies of human souls, 
 whose course is laid to run for the ages, till all the ends of the 
 earth shall see the salvation of our God. 
 
 It was the 6th of August, 1844, when the meeting convened 
 in the same old stone church, of sacred memory. From Iowa 
 came four, from Illinois twenty-seven, from Wisconsin twenty 
 five — fifty-six in all. The honest, brave and good brother Kent, 
 was called to preside. For two days they talked and prayed 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 7 
 
 over the question before them, in a frank, earnest, independent 
 spirit, with some sharp collision of opinions but with harmoni- 
 ous results. They decided that a college ought immediately to 
 be established in Iowa, and that the exigences of northern 
 Illinois and Wisconsin required a college and a female Semina- 
 ry of the highest order to be established, each near the border 
 line. A committee of ten was appointed to consider the action 
 necessary to carry out the purpose and report to a future con- 
 vention. The second convention met in October of the same 
 year and was composed of fifty members, all from Wisconsin 
 and Illinois. They reaffirmed the previous decision, but know- 
 ing that the success of the enterprise must depend on the hearty 
 co-operation of the churches, definite action was still deferred 
 and measures were taken, through circulars and committees of 
 visitation, to give information and awaken interest more gener- 
 ally on the subject, A third convention, the largest of all, 
 numbering sixty-eight, assembled in May, 1845, and after ear- 
 nest and prayerful discussion, reviewing the whole subject, with 
 only one dissenting voice, located the college in Beloit. The 
 plans for the Female Seminary could not then be matured. 
 In October 1845, a fourth convention met and adopted a form 
 of charter and elected a Board of Trustees for the College, and 
 so the ship was launched. 
 
 The first meeting of the Board of Trustees can never be for- 
 gotten by those present. It was held October 23d, 1845, in 
 the basement of the old church, immediately after the last con- 
 vention adjourned. Eight of the fifteen were there, Kent and 
 Peet and Hickcox, whose work on earth is nowdone, and Clary 
 and Pearson and Fisher and Talcott and Chapin, still mem- 
 bers of the Board. They sat in silence for a while, looking in 
 each other's faces and trying to realize the responsibilities of 
 the trust imposed upon them. One said, at last, " Well, breth- 
 ren, what are we to do?" The ready answer came from brother 
 Kent, " Let us pray." The prayer that then went up to heaven, 
 warm and fervent from his lips, carrying the hearts of all, was 
 the first gasp of the new-born college for life. The breath of a 
 divine inspiration, we believe, came upon it then, and its history 
 since, has been the continued answer to that prayer. 
 
S QU Wl'WAI CENTENNIAL. 
 
 One more dale and one more scene demand notice in this 
 record of first steps. It was the 24th of June, 1845, "The 
 day, — a great day for Beloit and its infant college — was as 
 bright as ever dawned, and never did the green slopes of broad 
 prairies spread themselves in greater beauty to the eye of men 
 anywhere* than as seen that day from the college bluff." So 
 opens the newspaper report at the time. The people of the 
 village, and hundreds from the neighboring towns, and some 
 from remote parts of the land, were marshaled in formal pro- 
 cession under the direction of our honored and lamented fellow 
 citizen, John M. Keep, Esq., and proceeded to the chosen site. 
 There, an assembly estimated to number nearly two thousand 
 Avas gathered in the open air. Passages of Scripture were read 
 by Rev. M. Montague; a reverend brother from Connecticut 
 offered prayer, a choir of sweet voices made the grove resound 
 to the praise of God, as they sung one of David's psalms. A 
 historical sketch, (for the college had a history even then) was 
 read by your present speaker, and Rev. Mr. Peet stated that 
 resources secured for the enterprise, were the choice site of 
 ten acres on which they stood and a building begun by the 
 citizens of Beloit in fulfillment of their pledge ; a gift of 160 
 acres in Milwaukee County from an Eastern friend, and lands 
 valued at $10,000.00, donated by the Hon. T. W. Williams of 
 Connecticut as a foundation for the first professorship. There, 
 in place of one formal extended discourse expected from Prof. 
 Stowe, whom illness prevented from fulfilling his appointment, 
 the hour w^as filled up by brief, off-hand, pointed speeches from 
 some of our Western men called suddenly to meet the emer- 
 gency. First came our giant brother Montgomery, whose great 
 body and great soul were all aglow with enthusiasm as he 
 argued that Western minds should be educated on Western 
 soil and that the education of the West should be expanded, 
 liberal and democratic, a universally p>olished Westernism. 
 Next, Rev. T. M. Hopkins, of Racine, with pointed and force- 
 ful words set forth the importance of training mind to inde- 
 pendent thinking and the advantages for doing this here in the 
 far West. Then, Rev. F. Bascom, an early pioneer in this field, 
 met the practical question, u cui bono?'' " why so much expense 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE, ■> 
 
 on education f by a dear and impressive presentation of the 
 dependence of the practical arts on the researches of Bci 
 
 and the important influences which emanate from a true christian 
 college for the general intelligence and the moral purity and 
 health of the whole community. He was followed by Rev. 
 S. G. Spees, then of Cincinnati, whose imagination, kindled by 
 the scene, saw in the burr-oak openings of the bluff a veritable 
 grove of Parnassus, and in the clear water of Rock River, a 
 stream as good for inspiration as that which flowed from Cas- 
 talia's fount ; and out of these classic allusions in connection 
 with the occasion, he drew some good common sense 
 reasons for making the education imparted here, thorough. 
 Then all passed to the rising walls near by, and after a few 
 plain, fit words, Rev. Mr. Kent, the President of the Board, laid 
 in due form the corner-stone of the first building, and in fervent 
 prayer, consecrated anew the whole enterprise to Christ and 
 the service of his Kingdom. Thus Beloit College gained a 
 local habitation as well as a name. It was a good day of 
 blessed influences. Little boys who watched with childish curi- 
 osity the proceedings, caught there the impulse which, in due 
 time, brought them under the culture of the college. The faith 
 of the community in the ultimate success of the enterprise was 
 strengthened. New friends were enlisted. The hearts of the 
 trustees were encouraged and from this literal commencement. 
 the College started forward at once, for its legitimate work. 
 
 I can linger no longer on these early scenes, nor will I 
 attempt an elaborate exposition of the aims contemplated by 
 those who thus laid the foundations. They are sufficiently- 
 indicated by the sketches I have given. In these early coun- 
 sels, representatives of the Congregational and Presbyterian 
 churches, then in the region, mingled in about equal prop or 
 tions. They came together not with any sectarian zeal, but 
 as christian men, joined in heart and hand for a great and good 
 work. They regarded a positive, religious influence as essen- 
 tial to the completeness of a liberal education, and their aim was 
 defined to be, to make this college in all its teaching and influ- 
 ence, not narrowly denominational but broadly and purely and 
 positively evangelical,. They were swayed by no personal, no 
 local or sectional interests, but by thoughtful consideration on 
 
10 QUABUB ANTENOENIL 
 
 the needs of human society and the grand purpose of Gods t 
 redeeming providence and the obligation resting on all men of 
 christian culture to help on the civilization of the world and its 
 subjection to the Lord, Christ. Their aim was to establish an 
 institution to which young men from any part of the land or of 
 the world might come and prepare themselves to go out into 
 all parts of the world and labor for the well-being of men and 
 the glory of God. It was made a condition of the first donation 
 received from abroad, that the college should know no distinc- 
 tion of race and color. The condition was heartily accepted ; for 
 it was in full accord with the thought and aims of the founders. 
 On the roll of students are found representatives of the Anglo- 
 Saxon, the Keltic, the Kymric, the Gailic, the Teutonic, the 
 African, the aboriginal American, the Armenian, and the Japan- 
 ese races; and the sons of the college are already abroad labor- 
 ing for the advancement of nearly all these races on their native 
 soil. 
 
 And for its interior work, the detailed processes of culture, 
 the aim distinctly contemplated from the beginning is to make 
 thorough work with young men in the training part of a liberal, 
 christian education. The course of study prescribed aims at a 
 systematic, widely varied and precise drilling of all the powers 
 of the mind, by exercise in the leading departments of human 
 thought and learning. The end sought is a symmetrical devel- 
 cpement of all the faculties in a way to give the man full 
 command of those faculties for any purpose, and christian ele- 
 ments are made to pervade the whole process, that the relation 
 cf religious truth to all other forms of truth may be appre- 
 hended and that the perfect balance of the man in character 
 may be secured by the combined culture of mind and heart. 
 
 In the earnest prosecution of their aims, Beloit College has 
 been thus far administered and God has blessed it. For the 
 future, Ave ask only more wisdom, more steadiness of purpose 
 more whole-souled consecration to the same hio-h aims. 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 11 
 
 J&. :p^_:p:e]:r,: 
 
 On the Relation of Beloit College to the People of 
 Beloit and Its Vicinity, 
 
 BY REV. D. CLARY, 
 
 Secretary of the Board of Trustees, from the Beginning. 
 
 and I really wish that I had more time and ability to do it full 
 To me and to many others this is a topic of great interest, 
 
 justice. 
 
 This relation might be contemplated in various particulars, 
 the secular or financial, the legal, the ecclesiastical, the social, 
 educational, as well as the moral and religious ; but my remarks 
 will be confined, mainly, to the last, viz.: The moral and 
 religious. 
 
 Those of us who are well acquainted with this whole subject, 
 can easily trace the relation, in all its aspects, to the early set- 
 tlement of the place, just as those who are well informed 
 respecting the origin of the free institutions of our country, can 
 trace it to the early settlers of this country who first " placed 
 their feet on the wild New England shore." 
 
 Those institutions political and religious and their concomi- 
 tants existed in embryo in the principles and purposes which 
 brought them here; and we to-day, with all the people, yes, 
 (blessed be the God of our fathers,) all the people of all com- 
 plexions and all nationalities, enjoy the two hundred and more 
 years developement of those principles and those purposes. 
 
 So when a colony of christian families and christian individ- 
 uals, in 1837, from New England, located at Beloit, they had 
 it in their hearts to establish the institutions of religion and 
 religious education, and here, while most of them lived in 
 shanties and unfinished houses, they built a house for schools, 
 for religious meetings and for such other purposes as might be 
 for the best interests of the people. In that house the common 
 
IS QtTARTKtl CENTENNIAL 
 
 schools and religious meetings were, at once, established. 
 
 As soon as practicable (1842) they commenced to build a 
 house of worship. It was one of the first three in Wisconsin. 
 In the meantime a charter for an academy was obtained, and 
 as soon as the basement was sufficiently finished, the academy 
 was in operation there. 
 
 In August, 1844, a convention of christian ministers and 
 laymen from the churches of Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, 
 was held in the first Congregational churchy to consider the 
 subject of establishing a college. Trustees were appointed and 
 Beloit was selected as the most eligible location, and the citi- 
 zens, true to their moral and religious principles, made the 
 most liberal offer of means for the work, accompanied by a 
 pledge of continued aid and especially of earnest prayer for 
 God's blessing on the enterprise. 
 
 Already in the first laying out of the town plot, had the 
 street running North and South on the East side of the present 
 college site been named by a kind of prophetic instinct, College 
 Street. 
 
 Thus came into being this collegiate offspring of the early set- 
 tlers of Beloit, and when a college class was formed of five young 
 gentlemen, it was placed under the instruction of the Principal 
 of the academy. (And I shall be pardoned, I am sure, for say- 
 ing here, that it was our esteemed friend and fellow citizen Mr. 
 S. T. Merrill.) 
 
 Here we may see the origin of the relation of Beloit College 
 to Beloit people. 
 
 And with the growth of the college, and its progress toward 
 maturity, the reasons have multiplied for regarding the rela- 
 tion as one of great importance, one of mutual responsibility 
 and interest. On the part of the college, we have the moral and 
 religious influence of a large number of Professors and teachers, 
 all of them christians, and most of them ministers of the Gos- 
 pel. This influence, besides being given to the two hundred stu- 
 dents under their care, one-fifth of whom are from Beloit, is felt 
 in the place, generally, and in all departments of society. The 
 same is true, in measure, of the large number of earnest christian 
 students, with respect to their fellow students, and others also. 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 13 
 
 By them, for the most part, hare been gathered and sustained. 
 for many years past the twelve or fifteen sabbath Bchoole in the 
 
 near vicinity of the place. Morever. through the influence of the 
 college, many families are led to seek a residence here for the 
 purposes of education, and to enjoy the society. 
 
 And with reference to other schools from the primary upward, 
 it appears to me that all right minded persons see and feel that 
 not only is there no conflict of interests between them and the 
 college but that their interests are all in one direction, viz. that 
 of thorough education under healthful moral influence, and 
 therefore, that a true friend to one will be a true friend to all. 
 
 Thus much, and from necessity in brief, on the part of the 
 college ; and on the part of the people is it more than reason- 
 able to expect that they will aim to throw around the college 
 their influence for good? Is not this included in the pledge 
 given at the outset? Tis true that but very few of us were 
 there to unite in the pledge, nor were we present in that old 
 Hall in Philadelphia when the "life, fortune and sacred honor" 
 of the thirteen American colonies (by their representatives) were 
 pledged to make this a free country, but what friend to his 
 country refuses to come under that pledge? With it are handed 
 down the blessings. So the pledge and the benefits of this 
 college to this people, have come down together to us. 
 
 It was, in a great degree, owing to the fact that there was 
 a large number of christian families in the place that the college 
 was located here. Beloit was complimented, not long since, 
 by a leading christian gentleman of Milwaukee when he said 
 that " Beloit was the only place then in Wisconsin, where 
 there was religion enough to have a college." 
 
 This was intended in the true sense to be a christian college. 
 a school where the morals of the students might have special 
 care, and where those who desired it might be aided in prepar 
 ing for the ministry. Hence the original plan of the Founder* 
 was to have the students board in families so that they might 
 be under the daily influence of christian homes/ and that plan 
 was not given up while families in a sufficient number wen 
 open to them, and at such expense as they could afford to 
 meet. 
 
lJf. QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 In 9, company of two hundred (less or more) young men, not 
 all of them yet attained to manhood, is it not reasonable to expect 
 much difficulty in keeping them all, and always, under perfect 
 control ? Despite the best, the wisest and most judicious 
 efforts on the part of their instructors, irregularities amounting 
 some terms to outbreaks were to be expected. It is the expe- 
 rience of the oldest colleges in the land, and while it is fair to 
 attribute these, oftentimes, to impetuosity and vicious procliv- 
 ities of soma students, can it be truthfully denied that these 
 things are often traced and traceable to demoralizing influences 
 in the community? and is it uncharitable to believe that if there 
 were no intoxicating liquors sold, and no other places where 
 vice is nurtured, there would be less evils of the kind alluded 
 to? At any rate it appears to me that the experiment is well 
 worth a fair trial. 
 
 But to the churches, the professedly religious portion of this 
 people, the college looks for support in this direction, and to 
 christian churches of all denominations this appeal ought to be 
 confidently made. 
 
 The college is neither an ecclesiastical nor a sectarian institu- 
 tion. Students, in coming to it, are not questioned as to their 
 denominational preferences, except so far as may help them to 
 decide where they choose to attend church services. That 
 choice once made, they are encouraged to pay due attention to 
 the service chosen, but in all respects, the utmost religious free- 
 dom is enjoyed. 
 
 But I have already gone beyond the ten or twelve minutes of 
 time allotted. I must close in few words. While calling, as I 
 have done, on the people of Beloit, irrespective of creed or 
 denominational relations, to give their moral and religious 
 influence to the college, I readily offer, in behalf of the college, 
 the assurance that it has been the steady aim of its conductors 
 in time past to promote the best interests of the people, and I 
 have the fullest confidence that such will its aim be in the 
 future; — and may we not all unite in the hope and expectation 
 that, by the united exertions and earnest prayers of both the 
 college and the people, it will be, for long years, even ages to 
 com \ a blessing to the people here, and far away, to all people 
 and all nations on the Earth. 
 
 • 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 15 
 
 J± PAPER: 
 
 On the Inner Life of the College. 
 
 BY REV. J. COLLIE. 
 Class of 1851. 
 
 Life still remains an occult force which eludes analysis, a 
 " burning bush" beyond which the Creator does not permit 
 scientific investigation to approach Him. 
 
 A consideration of what we figuratively call the "inner life" 
 of a college, leads to deal with its most fundamental facts and 
 touches the roots of all its external relations. 
 
 Every college has a life, a spirit, a distinct form, yet breath- 
 ing through its government, its course of scholastic and scien- 
 tific study and the intercourse of the members of its community 
 and it is a far more vital question, what that spirit is, than, 
 what are the institution's facilities for mental discipline, for un- 
 less the spirit is right the training afforded must be inadequate 
 and wrong. 
 
 It is this " life" of the college which settles what shall be the 
 end at which students will aim and toward which they will 
 practically work. By this the character and measure of enthu- 
 siasm, in the pursuit of learning, will be decided. It is this 
 which will determine whether the training imparted shall lay 
 hold of every department of the immortal nature or whether it 
 shall ignore the broadest and most central part, and thus be 
 partial, unbalanced, and in some respects, positively injurious. 
 
 This "life" may be of very dissimilar character. Each insti- 
 tution has its own peculiar tone. The limited time assigned to 
 this paper permits to glance only at the general spirit of a 
 Christian College and then to attempt a comparision with what 
 we shall find that to be, of the actual life of this honored Insti- 
 tution, the young mother of some two hundred sons. 
 
16 QUARTER CENTENNIAL. 
 
 The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian edu- 
 cation, is not one of modes of instruction, of courses of study, 
 of arts and sciences taught, but a difference of underlying prin- 
 ciples, of aim and spirit. The two are more widely diverse 
 than the Ptolemaic and Copernican theories in Astronomy, for 
 these disagree as to whether one finite object or another is the 
 center of the solar system, while those differ on the question 
 whether an infinite or a finite being, God or man, shall be the 
 final end of education. 
 
 The real life of a Christian college does not lie in an earnest 
 defence and inculcation of the distinctive truth of revelation, 
 nor in the regular observance of the worship of God, nor even 
 in cultivating the spiritual capabilities of its students. Howev- 
 er important all these may be, it does not by itself afford the 
 vitality we seek. In order to secure that, we must begin with 
 the recognition of the fact that all true education proceeds from 
 God, and must do so in order to lead to Him. That it is not 
 something calculated to His Kingdom, being adjacent, yet not 
 of it, but one of that Kingdom's central forces, a power that is 
 kindred to God's creative energy, for it builds up the whole 
 being in the fair proportions of the divine ideal. We must 
 accept it as a part of His redemptive work in that it sets a 
 supremely worthy object of life and culture before the student 
 and gathers about him the most pure and potent incentives to 
 its attainment, thus lifting him to a broader and worthier life. 
 
 A Christian college then is a Fountain in which God, with 
 the gracious forethought of a Father for the want of his children, 
 has stored those facilities and influences needful to a compre- 
 hensive culture of mind and heart. If we admit that coal-beds 
 and springs of water, testify to the providential care of God 
 for the physical wants of man, surely the human agency em- 
 ployed in building up institutions for invigorating and purify- 
 ing immortal minds, does not warrant us in denying that they 
 too are ordained of God. 
 
 If then a College is to be Christian in spirit as well as in 
 name, its Faculty and Board of trust need first of all, to put 
 themselves into vital contact with Him who is the Light and 
 the Life of the world, that through them the college may root 
 
OP BELOIT COLLEGE. 17 
 
 itself in God, and being persuaded that their institution is from 
 God, they need to be firm in the purpose that it shall be for 
 Him, and this persuasion must be so deep and this purpose 
 so earnest that they shall be willing to venture the expenditure 
 of their own life and the success of their undertaking upon 
 them. 
 
 The sentiment that all true culture is of God and for God, 
 must glow in their life and be carried over with impressive 
 power to the minds of those whom they are treating. 
 
 And if this is to be done; if divine energy and blessing con 
 veyed by the college are to penetrate the life of its students, if 
 the college is to be a cosmos of noble aims, of clearer light and 
 worthier enthusiasm, if the instructors would wield the full force 
 of personal influence, so potent to stimulate and guide the 
 young, then they must not only be in vital connection with 
 Christ, but they must also win the hearts of the students. In 
 order to the highest results of even mental dicipline, the teacher 
 needs the hearts of his pupils, much more than to give that 
 harmonious training of mind and spirit which it is the province 
 of the Christian college to impart. 
 
 These sentiments are expressed with the greater confidence 
 because they correspond so nearly with those which have pro- 
 duced the actual history of this institution. 
 
 Beloit College is one of God's facts. He foreordained it. He 
 inspired those prayer-cries in the midst of which it had its 
 birth. His grace which quickens and purifies both intellect and 
 spirit has been its life. He awakened that prophet's voice in the 
 hearts of the early settlers of this region which gave them no 
 rest, till, from far over the prairies they met and covenanted to 
 prepare the way of the Lord as He came with the blessings of 
 learning and Heavenly wisdom to enrich and adorn the youth 
 of coming generations. 
 
 He wrought that self consecration in the noble men who, in 
 its early days, identified themselves with it when, as yet, it 
 was but a vision seen by the eye of faith. 
 
 From him came that courageous, persistent, self denying 
 spirit by which, through these years of wearing, poorly appre- 
 ciated labor, those men and others who have become associated 
 
IS QtJARTKK CENTENNIAL 
 
 with them, have worked on, '• by faith" " preparing" a college 
 "to the saving" of the people. As doing His bidding they 
 have been launching young men on that stream of Christian 
 culture which flows forever toward God, and blesses the world 
 through which it flows. Here the aim has been to present an 
 object of life not connected with an order of things which is 
 destined to vanish away, and which is ever crumbling under 
 our touch, but with an order, substantial and eternal. For why 
 should a soul train and develope itself, when as a matter of fact 
 it knows of no aim of life which, in the sober hour, is not felt 
 to be a shadow and a sorrow. Or in other words the aim has 
 been that the student might know himself, not only as a thinker 
 and a man of science, but as God's prophet, having cognizance 
 of things unseen as well as those visible to reason and sense. — 
 To hear and utter the voice of God within him as well as to 
 read the writing on the walls of the temple of science. 
 
 From the earliest days of Beloit its students have found min- 
 gled with the very atmosphere of this hill the sentiment that, 
 Faith in God, and Faith in the nature winch God has given us, 
 is necessary to the right understanding of the things, that are 
 seen, and they have been fortunate enough, here to be brought 
 under the influence of personal character which is a practical 
 embodiment and commendation of that Faith. 
 
 Amid the dissolving confidence of men in everything which 
 they themselves have not devised, which so largely characteri- 
 zes this generation, those who have been intrusted with the 
 administration of this institution have, while " keeping abreast 
 of the times' 7 retained their faith in the distinctive idea of the 
 American Christian College, an institution which specially 
 makes room for the presence and power of God in the unfolding 
 and molding of the minds which He has created. This faith 
 shaped the policy of the college irom the first, as is indicated by 
 the pledge of its first President, — happily its President to-day — 
 made at his inauguration twenty-two years ago, to give his 
 •'undivided energies to the building up of this college for the 
 service and glory of Him who is head over all," and that the 
 institution has not swerved from its early faith and purpose, in 
 this respect, is emphatically declared by the same writer in a 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 10 
 
 recent article, from which we quote, "to give the balance of 
 complete developement the praise of noblest manhood, Cliri<- 
 
 tian truth and morality need to be infused through all the edu- 
 cational process." 
 
 The indwelling life of the college has taken on a practical 
 embodiment in various ways. Members of the first class within 
 a year of its formation, organized and conducted two Sunday 
 schools in neighboring communities, not enjoying the privileges 
 of the sanctuary. By the third year, four such schools were 
 formed and the number has been increased in late years, and 
 on some of them the renewing- grace of God has been richly 
 bestowed. 
 
 But little more than two years of the college's existence had 
 passed, when the present Missionary Society was organized for 
 the twofold purpose of inquiring into the state and claims of 
 the work in the foreign field and for maintaining neighborhood 
 meetings and Sunday Schools in the vicinity of Beloit. 
 
 As one of the results of a marked revival in the college a few 
 years since the college prayer meeting which had been kept up 
 from the earliest years of the institution, became a daily meet- 
 ing which is still maintained, and this "inner life" which has 
 been rising higher and becoming more full from time to time, 
 in the history of the college, has been as heaven among the 
 favored youth who have been gathered here. That life which 
 is not capable of imparting itself is not of the highest type. 
 Beloit College has imparted her spirit to her sons. 
 
 Here the inspiration has been caught which has made young 
 hearts valiant to struggle and die for their country and human- 
 ity, and on this glad anniversary yon "Memorial Hall" carries 
 our minds back to the grand years of conflict for national exist- 
 ence, back to the grim or somber scenes amid which more than 
 forty young men from Beloit College laid down their lives for 
 the Republic. 
 
 Here that devotion to Christ has been kindled which has 
 borne some select spirits to the ends of the earth to carry to the 
 dying souls of men some measure of that "life" by which their 
 Alma Mater nourished them. 
 
 And so this "inner life" has broken forth, to pour itself in 
 
20 
 
 QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 streams of manifest blessing along this and succeeding ages. — 
 Our ears have heard the first gurgling of this outbursting life 
 as it leaps from the fountain, and we believe that we shall see 
 that stream grow broad and deep, sparkling in the light of that 
 day when the New Jerusalem shall descend from heaven. We 
 expect to hear the murmur of its flowing, blending with the 
 hosannas of a world redeemed, when the life of Christ poured 
 out upon the world and over the world, shall have made all 
 thin org new. 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 
 
 J± PAPER: 
 
 Reminiscences of Early Bays and the Financial 
 Affairs of the College. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR J. J. BUSHNELL. 
 
 There is perhaps, a kind of classic, Homeric propriety, in as- 
 signing to the oldest among the co-laborers here, the office of sto- 
 ry teller, — and there is a pleasant suggestion too, of modern 
 Yankee caution, in sandwiching the story in between the two 
 ends of fifteen minutes. I heartily accept the situation, howev- 
 er, in both its aspects and, as these reminiscences are to be per- 
 sonal, I shall be pardoned if they deal much with the first person, 
 singular number and nominative case. 
 
 On the 27th of -April, 1848, I csme in sight of Beloit, as the 
 lumbering vehicle called Frink & Walker's stage, rose over the 
 crest of the hill to the ncitheast of Bcecce. As we descended the 
 hill and drove through the street of that village, I saw, for the first 
 time, I think, this side of Cleveland, a diy street and solid road 
 bed of mingled gravel and sand, and my ear was greeted with 
 the unusual sound of pebbles grinding under the ccach wheels. 
 I shouted at once to the driver, "Is Beloit anything like this? 
 Do they have gravel there T "Yes, just like this," was the answer. 
 " Ah ! that is the place for a college, then," said I to myself. 
 
 My enthusiasm for gravel will be understood from the fact that 
 for five years I had been connected with a college in Ohio, con- 
 fessedly first in the West at that time, but which was located in 
 a region of pure clay ; rough and hard to the feet as rock under 
 the summer sun, giving an unknown depth of mud in the 
 winter and early spring, and slippery as soft soap in the drizzles 
 of spring and autumn ; and the crisp sound of the gravel under 
 the wheels was pleasantly suggestive of dry walking, and clean 
 boots, and pleasant excursions on Wednesday and Saturday af- 
 
%Z QUARTER CEXTEtfXIAL 
 
 ternoons, and all that free out door air and exercise which is so 
 conducive to the healthy life of a college; and there is no doubt, 
 I think, that the dry gravel streets, and pleasant walks over the 
 firm soil and gravel bluffs in this vicinity, did much to give Beloit 
 its early popularity as a place for educational institutions. It is in 
 these respects without equal among the small cities of the North- 
 west. 
 
 I landed from the stage at the old Rock River House, late in 
 the afternoon of April 27, 1848, and soon found my way to the 
 house of Rev. Mr. Clary, then, as now, the Secretary of the 
 Board of Trustees. The invitation which had brought me hith- 
 er was, to come and assist in the preliminary steps for the organ- 
 ization of the college. I knew nothing of what had been done ; 
 and the first thing therefore was, to know the ground, the means 
 to work, and the community to work for and upon. 
 
 It will perhaps be a marvel to the future historian, that Beloit 
 College began to be a college upon such slender means, and up- 
 on so narrow a pecuniary basis. A few inquiries brought out the 
 facts, that at the time of my arrival the College had no cash funds ; 
 that its only resources were a donation of lands from Maj. Thos. 
 W. Williams, of New London, Conn., from which it was expect- 
 ed that $10,030 would be realized, and another small tract of land, 
 sold soon after for $1,030. Besides these, the city of Beloit had 
 pledged a site, and the erection of the first building, and two 
 years before they had raised for the building a subscription of 
 $7,000, and given a site of^ten acres. Disaffection to the enter- 
 prise, had crept in, on the question of slavery or anti-slavery, and 
 the subscription of $7,000 had dwindled to $5,000. Of this sub- 
 scription, $4,030 had been collected and expended in the summer 
 of 1847, in putting up the bare brick walls of Middle college ; and 
 the remainder, $1,030, was not available, as it was subscribed in 
 labor m some form, which could not be used without money to 
 put with it. For six months preceding my arrival, the walls of 
 Middle College had stood floorless, windowless and roofless, with- 
 out any available means to finish it. 
 
 Still behind this enterprise, thus weak as it seemed, stood the 
 pledge of the Congregationalists and New School Presbyterians 
 of the region northwest of Chicago and east of the Mississippi 
 
OF BELOIT C()I.I-K<ii:. 23 
 
 River, unanimously expressed in several large conventions, to 
 unite in building, at Beloit, one strong institution, thus avoiding 
 the error, so fatal elsewhere, of wasting their energies and means 
 upon a number of rival or abortive projects. 
 
 But slender and inadequate as the means of the College were, 
 it had already made a beginning. Five young men had been fit- 
 ted for college in Beloit Seminary, under the instruction of Mr. 
 S. T. Merrill, and were organized into a Freshman class in 1847, 
 and continued under the charge of Mr. Merrill for the greater 
 part of the Freshman year. This was the beginning of Beloit 
 College. Mr. Merrill filled worthily, that year, the positions of 
 President and Professor, in all departments. Early in May, 1848, 
 Mr. Merrill transferred the instruction of this first class to me, and 
 it remained in my hands a few weeks, till the approaching meet- 
 ing of the Board of Trustees. On the 23d of May, 1848, Prof. Em- 
 erson reached Beloit, on the same errand which had brought my- 
 self hither four weeks before. He came directly to my room, and 
 almost his first question was, "Can we have a college here?" 
 Having had some experience in building up a college in Ohio, al- 
 ready twenty years old, and still in peril of failure, and a vivid 
 consciousness of our meager resources, I answered, "Yes — if we 
 will make it." How heartily my honored colleague accepted this 
 view, and set himself to the work of making & college here, may 
 be understood from the fact that mere than $50,000 of the pres- 
 ent funds of the College have come to us through the voluntary- 
 constant and watchful influence of the Fmerscn family. 
 
 On the next day, the 24th of May, 1848, was the meeting of the 
 Board of Trustees. After assigning to Mr. Emerson the depart- 
 ment of languages, and to myself that of mathematics, the press- 
 ing question of the time came up, — How can the college building 
 be finished ? It had become apparent that very considerable dis- 
 affection to the enterprise had been developed by jealousies and 
 party feeling, even in Beloit, that the friends of the College here 
 were somewhat discouraged, and felt that they had done all they 
 could ; and the weather beaten brick walls seemed to tell of a com- 
 munity that began to build, and were unable to finish. Still, the 
 answerto the inquiry came back from the Trustees resident abroad* 
 and from the new Professors: Beloit must fulfill its pledge, and 
 
2£ QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 build the first building. To this it was answered that Beloit had 
 virtually redeemed its pledge, for the site at first contemplated, 
 at the south end of Mr. Rood's farm, could have been bought for 
 $500, and the site selected was worth $3,000. What Beloit had 
 failed to give in a building,it had made up in giving a more eligi- 
 ble and expensive site. To this it was answered still, that Beloit 
 was pledged before the world to give the site and the first build- 
 ing ; that it was useless to go abroad for funds till that pledge 
 was redeemed, and that a new subscription in Beloit of at least 
 $2,000 was absolutely necessary. The Trustees resident here 
 knew well the discouraged state of feeling, and were with reason 
 somewhat faithless of success, but consented that the new profess- 
 ors, somewhat sanguine and self-confident young men, should un- 
 dertake the work. One of them therefore, took upon himself the 
 work of instruction of the college class, and the other, under the 
 guidance of the well remembered Deacon Hinman, the most po- 
 lite and pleasant gentleman in Beloit of that time, commenced a 
 thorough canvass of the city, man by man, not to solicit subscrip- 
 tions, but to talk College. This was followed up for three weeks? 
 till almost every man had been seen personally. Much of indif- 
 ference, some opposition to an abolition college, and still more 
 of discouragement, were at first encountered, but as the visitors 
 went on, from day to day, it was soon apparent that the ice was 
 broken : that some feeling, some curiosity, some hope were excit- 
 ed. The tide began to rise, and by the latter part of June the 
 way seemed to be prepared for a public meeting. The appoint- 
 ment was made, and the same method was pursued, of inviting all 
 to the meeting, man by man. 
 
 Of course some planning was necessary to make the meeting 
 successful, but so fearful were the resident Trustees that the peo- 
 ple of Beloit would feel that the matter was crowded upon them, 
 or that some " snap game" was " being come over" them, that 
 they refused to have any arrangements made to take advantage 
 of any rising excitement of the meeting, or ask for any subscrip- 
 tions on the spot. It was decided that two resolutions should be 
 offered, tte first declaring that it was expedient that Beloit should 
 raise $2,000 more to complete the College building ; the second, 
 that a committee should be appointed to solicit subscriptions for 
 that purpose. 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEOK. J." 
 
 The meeting came. The fruits of three weeks' canvassing 
 were visible in a house well filled with the best and ablest citizen-. 
 The young Professors made their maiden speeches in Beloit 
 Mr. Ha/en Cheney, in his timid, hesitating manner, moved the 
 rirst resolution, but followed it up with about one minute ofnuxt 
 effective speaking. He reminded the chairman that in subscrib- 
 ing $150 two years before, he gave at that time all he was worth : 
 but rather than have the enterprise fail, "I am ready," said he, 
 witli emphasis, "to give another hundred dollars." Good Deacon 
 Hobart, not being versed in the proper order of spontaneous 
 movements in public meetings, here rose to offer the second reso- 
 lution. The Chairman gently reminded him that his time was 
 not yet. The short speech of Mr. Cheney seemed to touch the 
 right chord, and his resolution was adopted by acclamation. The 
 Deacon then arose. All present knew that that large hearted 
 man. in subscribing $40) before, had given to the College a large 
 percentage of his property. After stating his motion, he remark- 
 ed that he supposed every one present would feel that he had 
 done all that could be expected of him ; but still, rather than see 
 a failure in this matter, if it were necessary to raise the sum re- 
 quired, he might be counted upon for another hundred dollars. 
 A third person immediately arose and pledged another $103. 
 The Chairman, Deacon Hinman, was the man for the occasion. 
 "Gentlemen," said he, " we mii3t not pass these things by. We 
 must have a secretary, and take down these pledges, and then let 
 this beginning be followed by short, pithy speeches, of like char- 
 acter, from all quarters. Let everybody be free to speak, and 
 speak to the point." The hint was taken. Persons rose suC< 
 ively in all parts of the house, pledging 810'), $75, $50 and $25. 
 Mr. 8. C. Field rose and said that he had no money, but he would 
 give 16 J acres of land. It proved the most important subscrip- 
 tion of the evening, and was sold almost immediately for $400 in 
 cash. The volunteer subscriptions of that evening to raise the 
 sum of $2,000, footed up about $2,400, and a thorough canvass of 
 the village soon carried the subscription up to $ 1,000. 
 
 But though the sum necessary for finishing the building had 
 been subscribed, it was not yet paid. The following winter and 
 spring of '48-9 was a time of scarcity of money, of which the last 
 
SO QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 two years, hard as we think they are, give us no conception. 
 Wheat was about "three shillings a bushel, and dressed pork on 
 the street lj cents per pound. The work of finishing the build- 
 ing went slowly and heavily on, and the workmen were paid 
 chiefly in orders on the stores. Except the $400 paid from the 
 land given by Mr. Field, scarcely $300 was collected in cash from 
 the whole subscription ; the remainder was paid by orders, labor, 
 and in every way which the ingenuity of the building agent could 
 devise, and in this expensive and tedious way the building final- 
 ly absorbed nearly the whole $4,000. 
 
 In some of the emergencies incident to the erection of the 
 building, the sum of $800 in cash, derived from the sale of Major 
 Williams' lands, and sacred to invested funds had been used and 
 gone into the building. In more euphonious language, the build- 
 ing fund was debtor to the invested fund $800. It was very evi- 
 dent that no such sum could be collected from the remnant of the 
 subscriptions for the building, for a large share of them was pay- 
 able only in labor or materials. Still, honesty to Major Williams, 
 the donor, required that his fund should be made good. In this 
 emergency, the bright idea struck the inquiring mind of the build- 
 ing agent, that he might build these subscriptions of labor and 
 materials into a dwelling-house which would be soon called for 
 by the increasing population ; sell it and from the proceeds replace 
 the malappropriated funds. The lot directly south of the college 
 grounds was at once purchased, I think for fifty dollars, and the 
 house now well known as the Hinman house was put forward im- 
 mediately. Boys were employed to gather the cobble stones 
 from the bed of Turtle Creek, all the broken brick about the col- 
 lege building were economized to fill in behind the face work, and 
 all labor which could be procured upon the subscription was 
 made available. Into that building was built with his own hands 
 a subscription of $100, from our old friend and citizen, Alex. 
 Douglass. There Mr. Chester Clark, one of the large family of 
 Clark brothers then resident here, worked out his subscription in 
 laying the cobble stone walls, employing therefor chiefly the skill- 
 ful masonry of the editor of "the Stumbling Stone." There the 
 Messrs. Gates, who are gone from us now, left an enduring me- 
 morial in the substantial cut stones which build up the corners of 
 the building. About $800 of subscriptions were thus worked in- 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE, 27 
 
 to the building; it cost with the ground $1475, — was sold for all 
 it cost, and a sunken college fund was replaced, — a thing, so far as 
 I know, not happening before or since. Would that we might 
 see such a phenomenon again in regard to the Memorial building. 
 
 The lapse of my appointed time admonishes that this rather 
 minute narrative should come to a close. I have limited myself 
 to the financial matters of the first year of my connection with 
 the college, because, although these transactions concerned but 
 trilling sums and small matters, compared with the ten thousands 
 and one hundred thousands subscribed for eastern colleges at the 
 present day, yet they were important to us. It has always seem- 
 ed to me, that if there has ever been a crisis in the history of this 
 college, it was at the time when Beloit raised her second subscrip - 
 tion of §4000, and the success with which that effort was carried 
 through, inspired courage and hope through all the time thereafter. 
 
 I cannot close this narrative, however, without briefly alluding 
 to one thing more in which the financial events of the years '48 
 and '49 culminated, settling the question of permanency of the 
 college, and making '48 to '50 the most successful period in that 
 respect, of our history. During these years, Mrs. S. W. Hale, cf 
 Xewburyport, Mass., a lady of large, liberal heart, and possessed 
 of resources which had already been felt in the building of Andover 
 Theological Seminary, and in every form of Christian benevolence, 
 had her attention directed to the needs of our infant institution. 
 
 As the result, Prof. Emerson placed in my hands the United 
 States patents for 5,000 acres of lands in Coles county, in eastern 
 Illinois, as the donation of Mrs. Hale. The college has received 
 and invested from them about $35,000. 
 
 And now in closing, permit us to record, with devout uprising 
 of heart to God, that the early instructors in this college were not 
 at any time called to endure those privations, — and harrassings 
 of debt, — and heart soreness of hopes deferred, which have enter- 
 ed into the early history of some Western Colleges. From the 
 outset, the salaries, though small, have been promptly paid, and 
 were sufficient for their present necessities, and the early work of 
 the college though laborious, was not trying. Under God's fa- 
 vor it was carried forward, with an elasticity of feeling, a buoy- 
 ancy of hope, a confidence of expectation, which made all labors 
 
28 
 
 QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 easy and every burden light. It was for us a harvest work from 
 the beginning, calling for faithful labor, but yielding its rewards 
 abundantly. Privations and sacrifices indeed there were, some 
 on our part, and much also on the part of others, whose names 
 are held in grateful remembrance. Among these we recall as 
 worthy of special honor those generous home missionaries, who 
 set apart from their small inadequate salaries, one hundred dol- 
 lars each, to found Beloit College. To such belong the dignity 
 and blessing of sacrifices, — ours was the pleasant lot and privilege 
 of joyous and successful work. 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 29 
 
 [Xote. — Peter MeVicar, D. D., of the cla^s of 1856, Pn sident of Washburn 
 College, Kansas, was requested to prepare a paper on the relation of the tol- 
 lege to Christian education. As his engagements lave e\er foilade h's 
 meeting the request, President J. W. Stiong consented to speak en th : s top- 
 ic, in connection with that assigned to him.] 
 
 .A. PAPER: 
 
 On the Relation of the College to the Church and 
 Kingdom of Christ ; and to Education. 
 
 BY KEV. J. W. STRONG, D. D. 
 
 Class of I81S. President of Carleton College. 
 
 A full discussion of these two broad themes is not now neces- 
 sary. The fitness of that culture which the Christian college se- 
 cures, for the work of evangelizing the world has been in con- 
 stant demonstration in this land, ever since our fathers founded 
 the first New England college, as its motto declared, "Christo et 
 ecclesice." I cannot speak of this culture as exemplified here, 
 without involving ideas fundamental to our whole American civ 
 ilization. It is a chief glory of that civilization that it began in 
 the religious instincts of man, — in the better part of our nature, 
 — and so it was not, nor has it ever been, narrow and selfish, 
 but, instead, broad and Christian in its aim; touching at eveiy 
 point, the church anel kingdom of Christ, involving individual 
 liberty and social elevation, and therefore, noble and far-reach- 
 ing in its results. To-day and here, are the fruits of that relig- 
 ious impulse manifest, — for New England is the real mother of 
 us all, and whether we look at our political theories, our educa- 
 tional systems, or our religious principles, we easily trace the fea- 
 tures of the mother's face. This likeness in character and in aim? 
 makes it worth our while to call distinctly to mind to-day, that 
 primal principle of the Pilgrims, which secured such fruits ; and 
 what was that? It was individualism; — freedom of the indi- 
 vidual conscience and opinion, — the right of private judgment, 
 
30 QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 without the dictation of Pope, bishop, priest, or king. And what 
 did this involve ! Plainly the necessity of individual culture, 
 the necessity of education for each and for all. These two ideas, 
 — individual freedom, and individual elevation, were not separ- 
 ated either in their theory or their practice. No sooner had 
 they erected the walls of their dwellings, than they began to lay 
 the foundations of the school house and the church. Education 
 and Religon Avent hand in hand. In their esteem, — and all our 
 history affirms the same, — these are the guardians of society, the 
 safeguards of the State. In their far-sighted wisdom they perceiv- 
 ed the need of something beyond the common school, and so, 
 early in their history, though in weakness and in great poverty, 
 — as we read, they " thought upon a college." There is nothing 
 in the early history of our land more heroic, more touching in its 
 story, than the record of the faith evinced and the sacrifices made 
 in founding the colleges of New England. We thank God that 
 their spirit did not die with them. Beloit College is as truly a 
 child of New England Puritanism as though its walls were stand- 
 ing on Plymouth Rock. It breathes the same spirit, and it has 
 the same aim that characterized the early colleges. It has inher- 
 ited not only their spirit, but also, what that is sure to secure, a 
 share in their sacrifices. As did their fathers before them, the 
 "poor wise men," of this new western colony have toiled and 
 prayed, giving of their best strength, and their scanty means to 
 build up a college "for Christ and the Church," and tho' often 
 weary, never discouraged ; though often hindered, never falter- 
 ing, until, as surely we may now justly claim, some fruits worthy 
 of their faith and of their effort, have been garnered. It could 
 not be otherwise than that a college so founded and built up in 
 prayer, so pervaded from its very beginning, w T ith religious ideas 
 and aims, should ally itself most closely with that work which is 
 the special care of the Christian church. This has ever been 
 manifest here. Though never a theological seminary, it has tak- 
 en special delight in fostering those influences which tend to fit 
 young men for the ministry and to bring them into it. It has 
 aimed to be distinctly and thoroughly Christian. Here has been 
 recognized as the grand aim of a true college, — the development 
 of a symmetrical manhood, that is, a Christian manhood ; that 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 31 
 
 which includes moral strength as well as intellectual vigor, — the 
 power of living the truth as well as expressing the truth. Here 
 the fact lias not been concealed that man has a moral nature as 
 well as a mental power, and both must be cultured, or at best, 
 the education is only partial. Intellectually, the effort has not 
 been to flood the mind with facts, — to pile upon it philosophic 
 theories, — to load it down with erudition, — but rather to arm it 
 with the weapons of truth, and to nerve it with power to wield 
 those weapons. Morally, the aim has never been to bind the soul 
 with the fetters of some religious formula ; to make it pronounce 
 the shibboleth of some sect or denomination, nay, but it has 
 been rather, while throwing around it a moral atmosphere ever 
 stimulating and developing, to bring it into communion with 
 those grand truths of matter and of mind, — of science and of rev- 
 elation, which teach us our true sphere of duty ; which kindle the 
 fires of the heroic soul ; which bring us out of self, and plant our 
 feet on this rock, — loyalty to truth, yea loyalty to Him who is 
 the Truth. This is the culture which the age imperatively de- 
 mands ! — the culture needed to counteract that sentiment, too 
 popular at this day, which w r ould divorce religion from education; 
 — w T hich. if it only could make a man an intellectual giant, would 
 gladly leave him a moral dwarf. Let it not be forgotten that 
 that institution of learning which ignores the moral part of man, 
 and cares only for the mental, can never do for society, what so- 
 ciety imperatively needs to have dene ; can never do for the 
 church, what the church must and ever will demand. 
 
 The mightiest human agency which the Divine Spirit ever em- 
 ploys on this earth, is mind educated and consecrated to Christ. 
 But how can this agency be secured without just such institutions 
 of learning, pervaded by the Christian spirit, as that planted in 
 this soil ? As Dr. Kirk once said : " There can be no perman- 
 ent Christian civilization without a thoroughly educated, godly 
 ministry, and there cannot be such a ministry without the Chris- 
 tian college." How else can be met the great, the pressing 
 want of the west, yea the want of the world, — the want of a thor- 
 ough liberal, Christian education? 
 
 For twenty five years Beloit College has been doing what she 
 could to meet this want. The extent and value of her work are 
 
32 QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 not indicated simply by statistics, showing how many of her sons 
 have entered the Christian ministry, for her influence has pervad- 
 ed every department of activity ; but since I speak particularly 
 of her relation to the work of Christian evangelization, let me 
 give you a few facts proving how true the aim of the college has 
 been to the religious design of her founders. From the first the 
 prayer-meeting has held an honored jDlace among her means of 
 securing a pervading religious atmosphere. Some of us well re- 
 member how, a score of years ago, each Tuesday and Saturday 
 night a little praying circle met, sometimes in a chamber above, 
 and sometimes in the chapel below ; and how, even then, the Col- 
 lege Missionary Society had begun to turn our thoughts toward 
 personal effort for both home and foreign evangelization, — organ- 
 izing us for the Sabbath School labor in the outlying country 
 districts. Not a single year has passed without evidence of the 
 Divine Spirit's special presence among the students ; not a year 
 without the commitment on the part of some of them to a relig- 
 ious life. The influence of one of those years, 1857-8, when w r as 
 organized " The Beloit College Christian Union," — whether now 
 felt within these college halls or not, is still abiding, as it ever 
 will abide, with many of the graduates. It is a remarkable fact, 
 I doubt whether it can be paralleled in the history of any other 
 college, at least in the west, that including those now studying 
 theology, considerably more than one third, — more precisely — 
 about forty-two one-hundredths of all the graduates have turned 
 toward the Christian ministry. This includes the whole of two 
 classes, the single graduate of '52, and the nine graduates of '59. 
 Of these, eight, including one congressman, two or three doctors, 
 two editors and two connected with colleges, have left the active 
 ministry for other vocations. Six have become foreign mission- 
 aries, and four have died. This does not at all include those 
 who left the college without completing the full course, but who 
 yet found their way into the ministry, and are honoring the col. 
 lege and the Master by their sincere devotion to it. One of 
 these, (Wells,) after faithfully serving and suffering for his coun- 
 try in the time of her need, became a missionary to India, where 
 he is now toiling. Another, (Harrison,) whose earnest Christian 
 spirit the class of 1858 will not soon forget, chose a peculiarly 
 self denying work, and is honored as the " church building mis- 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. S3 
 
 sionary 1 ' on the frontier, — having himself, while preaching, aided 
 with his own hands in erecting some thirteen different edifices ; 
 and now he is bravely leading a colony to a new pioneer work 
 in Nebraska. Another, (Johnson,) of the same class, in the first 
 half of its course, after preaching several years in Illinois and 
 California, entered the editorial corps and is now on the Pacific 
 slope doing manly service for the right. Such, — and there are 
 many others like them, — should now have special mention, be- 
 because not being among the graduates, they might not other- 
 wise be reckoned, as they really ought to be, among those w^ho 
 are adding to the fruits of the college in the work of the world's 
 evangelization. 
 
 Of the Alumni who have entered the ministry and who are 
 scattered throughout the Union, and some of them in foreign 
 lands, time forbids my speaking except in the briefest general re- 
 ference. From the oldest graduate, — honored among his minis- 
 terial brethren in this State, — to the youngest who has been com- 
 missioned to preach the gospel, they are a band of laborers that 
 any college in the land might rejoice to send into the vineyard 
 of the Lord. Their labors have not been fruitless. Our Alma 
 Mater may well, with gratitude, recognize the work which the 
 Kind Father of us all has permitted them to do. But especially 
 may she rejoice in her relation through her sons, to the work of 
 foreign missions. The last has been a notable year in her history, 
 and she may with profound gratitude record the fact that with- 
 in the past twelve months she has been permitted to send into 
 the foreign field more sons than any other two colleges in the 
 land. Surely Beloit College has not been founded in vain. 
 
 What, through the efforts of her sons, the college has accom- 
 plished in the cause of education in general, has been closely al- 
 lied to, — indeed a part of her work in behalf of the cause of 
 Christ The interests of religion and of education are in perfect 
 harmony, and the culture of mind and the culture of heart ought 
 never to be separated. Reforms in the church spring from edu- 
 cated men, as the examples of Huss and Wickliffe and Luther 
 and Calvin testify. Long ago Luther said truly, "It is a grave 
 and serious thing affecting the kingdom of Christ and all the 
 world, that we apply ourselves to the work of aiding and instruct- 
 
84 QUARTEH CENTENNIAL 
 
 ing the young." History teaches no lesson more plainly than 
 this, that whosoever would control the religion of a people, must 
 control their education. In Austria, at one time, the proportion 
 of Papists to Protestants was one to twenty-nine, and for years, 
 one writer affirms, "scarcely a man could be found to enter the 
 priesthood;" but in one generation she was lost to the Reforma- 
 tion and regained to the Papal hierarchy. And how was this 
 done? By permitting the Jesuits to obtain a controlling influ- 
 ence in the universities. So, too, was it in Poland. In the six- 
 teenth century the Polish diet was essentially Protestant, protect- 
 ed Protestants, printed Protestant works ; but in an evil hour a 
 Protestant king appointed a Jesuit " Minister of Instruction." 
 He filled the professors' chairs with Jesuits, and soon the scale 
 was turned. In the same way the Jesuits recovered to the Pa- 
 pacy the larger part of Europe when it seemed lost to them for- 
 ever. At one time they had nearly six hundred colleges under 
 their control. They were not so much a preaching order, as a 
 teaching order, and by educating minds they have governed com- 
 munities and nations. Such facts as these are worth a whole 
 volume of rhetoric. The sons of Beloit College have not been 
 blind to the importance of popular education, nor backward in 
 their efforts to promote it ; nor have they neglected the claims of 
 higher education. Our Alumni are represented by two of their 
 number in the Faculty of their own Alma Mater; by two also in 
 the State University at Madison. One is in the State Normal 
 School at Whitewater. Others are in four different state insti- 
 tutions for the deaf and dumb ; — one in Wisconsin, one in Illinois, 
 one in Michigan and one in Louisiana. Two are in medical fac- 
 ulties in Chicago, and two are connected with colleges in other 
 states, while seven others give their profession as that of the 
 teacher. One, now a member of Congress, organized for Alabama 
 after the war, her system of public education. Another, who 
 was expected on this occasion to present more fully the relation 
 of the college to education in general, was for six years State Su- 
 perintendent of Public Instruction for Kansas, and now worthi- 
 ly stands at the head of Washburn College at Topeka. Another, 
 (Alley,) is bravely leading off in a new college enterprise for Ne- 
 braska. In his earnest enthusiasm he says, "If I can do a little 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 
 
 towards patting an educational institution on a solid Christian ba- 
 sis, the embodiment of a living, active faith, to be a power for 
 truth and good, I will lift up my hands and heart and soul to 
 God witli profound gratitude/' Has not this the genuine ring 
 of Puritan gold ! .May we not confidently affirm that God's blc<< 
 ing will abide upon him? 
 
 But I may not further particularize. As we look back over 
 the past, and abroad over the field now held, we can but recog- 
 nize the fact, and rejoice together in view of it, that during these 
 twenty-five years there has been wrought a work not only for 
 the social welfare of men, but for the honor of God in the exten- 
 sion of Christ's Kingdom in the earth. Let these friends of 
 Christian learning who have toiled and counseled together for 
 these years gone by, gratefully thank God for what has been 
 achieved, and with increased faith and earnest zeal, go forward 
 to the work yet before them, ever looking upward, as in days 
 past, for the Divine guidance and blessing, assured that with 
 these, the fruits already garnered shall be but the beginning of 
 a harvest, — to be gathered as the generations come and pass 
 away, — which shall ever be increasing in the abundance and rich- 
 ness of its fruits, until the reapers are done, and seed time and har- 
 vest shall be no more. 
 
 
OF BKLOIT COLLEGE. 37 
 
 [In place of the paper from W. A. Montgomery, Esq., Professor Emerson 
 has furnished the following.] 
 
 J± PAPBB: 
 
 The Relation of the College to the State. 
 
 This theme was assigned to Captain W. A. Montgomery, of 
 the class of 1857. Unexpected and imperious business prevent 
 ed his presenting a subject, which he had already illustrated by 
 able and faithful service, both as a soldier and as a barrister. 
 The topic, however, is so essential both to the duty and to the 
 history of the college, that it cannot be wholly omitted. 
 
 While the college is intended to be a religious and literary in- 
 stitution, its object is not merely to educate clergymen, or men 
 of letters. Many of the Alumni are in the medical or legal pro- 
 fession. Some are legislators. A considerable number are ed- 
 itors; the same disposition, which has sustained the College 
 Monthly until it has completed its eighteenth volume and is sec- 
 ond in age only to the Yale Literary, has brought the sons of the 
 college into leading connection with journals of sectional and na- 
 tional as well as local influence. The same disposition which has sus- 
 tained the College Monthly, until it has completed its eighteenth 
 volume and is second in age only to the Yale Literary Magazine, 
 has brought the sons of the college into connection with leading 
 journals in the centres of influence in the State, the northwest and 
 the whole land. Neither should we forget those who, in unpro- 
 fessional life, are illustrating the value of culture united with the 
 practical activities of life. 
 
 The college would have been very untrue to the convictions 
 on which it was founded, and would have studied and taught the 
 lessons of the past to little purpose, if itself or its sons had been 
 indifferent to the great public events which have marked its time. 
 Those events have had a powerful influence upon the education 
 of the young men who have been here; and the college itself lias 
 contributed its quota to the great, perhaps the decisive, influence 
 of the American college system in the struggle which has made 
 liberty the law of the Republic. 
 
38 QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 The college began at the moment when the question of human 
 right became the leading question in the nation. The strife 
 opened in Kansas; and while it was in doubt, the sons of Beloit 
 were there with voice, vote, and rifle: and when that was past, 
 one of them was called to organize the system of public education 
 for the State, and now presides over her Puritan College, while 
 others are in positions of influence in conducting her destinies. 
 
 When the war spread across the land, the sons of Beloit, both 
 at the college and elsewhere, answered the call. Of perhaps sev- 
 en hundred and fifty who could bear arms, we have the names of 
 more than four hundred wh o were in the field, and of forty-six 
 who died in the service. Probably full reports would give more 
 than five hundred soldiers, and more than fifty who gave their 
 lives. They were good men ; more than half of those who lived 
 were made officers; more than half of those who died, died from 
 wounds. As their service was in devotion to the principles 
 which are the soul of the manhood which the college aims to 
 train, it has been fitly recognized by the erection in their honor 
 of a "Memorial Hall," which, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
 the college, was made complete by the tablet containing the roll 
 of martyrs. It now stands as an educator for their successors. 
 The enthusiams of the time were so in accord with the spirit of 
 the college that they could hardly be said to have interrupted its 
 work. Its instructions found rather enforcement than distraction 
 in the events passing without, and its order went right on with- 
 out interruption, except that one commencement was omitted be- 
 cause the graduates, with the professor of Rhetoric, were in camp 
 at Memphis. As each call came, men went to the field, and 
 when their service was over they returned to ihe college, not de- 
 moralized, but with a developed manhood, which invigorated and 
 ennobled the whole life of the institution. The year of return, 
 i 865, is marked by the commencement of the daily prayer meeting, 
 which has from that time been, not only the heart of the religious 
 life, but a mast important influence in all the life of the college, 
 securing harmony, order, study and general health and truth and 
 growth. The same character prepared them to do good service 
 to the country after the war. One was called to organize educa- 
 tion in Alabama, and now represents its capital district in Congress; 
 
or BELOIT COLLEGE. 
 
 39 
 
 while others, by teaching and oilier good work, are securing the 
 
 results for which their brothers died 
 
 The military record of the college illustrates its relation to all 
 the land. Its sons were found in the regiments of nineteen states, 
 and in nineteen states or territories they died for the common 
 country, and for what they esteemed the common cause of man 
 kind. In coming time, may the nation always be true to humani- 
 ty and to truth and may the college, in that cause, always be true 
 to the country. 
 
OF BEL0IT COLLEGE. Ill 
 
 _A_ PAPER: 
 
 On the Hearing of College Culture upon Profession- 
 al life. 
 
 BY II. P. MEKKLMAX. H. 1). 
 Of the Class of 1S62. 
 
 Only two weeks since, did I receive the presidents request to 
 prepare a paper for the present occasion ; consequently my 
 thoughts have been put together very hurriedly in the uncertain 
 intervals I could command. 
 
 The subject he gave me differs slightly from the one announced 
 in the circular. As I received it, it reads thus : " The bearing of 
 the college culture upon the after professional life of the student." 
 
 At the time of the first world's fair in London, critics said that 
 the only thing in which America surpassed all other nations was 
 in the "rugged utility" of the articles she presented. This seems 
 a marked American characteristic. We demand the useful in all 
 our institutions, and I believe American ideas would have long 
 since abandoned colleges altogether but for their exceeding use- 
 fulness. 
 
 Now and then a man is endowed by nature to such an unusual 
 degree that he grasps the foremost place in any profession as an 
 inherent right, because he possesses naturally not only the facul- 
 ties but the ability to use them, which the average man has to 
 develop and strengthen by a process of education. These are 
 the men we call great. I can imagine Hercules at the Olympic 
 games an easy conqueror in all the trials of strength without un- 
 dergoing a previous course of training to harden the muscles and 
 to increase the endurance; and in our own time a Lincoln, untu- 
 tored by the schools, steps easily to the foremost place as lawyer 
 and statesman, a recognized leader of the nation. As there was 
 only one Hercules, so these Herculean men are rare and the val- 
 ue of training is not lessened because a few are strong without it. 
 It benefits these more than the others, for they have more to build 
 upon. It is doubtful if education gives any new faculties, — it 
 gives not powers but power. 
 
4& QUARTEK CENTENNIAT, 
 
 The object of college culture as I understand it, is to develop 
 and strengthen the powers of the student and teach him their 
 use, thus making him a successful competitor of the man still bet- 
 ter endowed by nature but without the training. 
 
 Disciplining the mind has always been to me a very indefin- 
 ite expression. It can perhaps be analyzed w r ith advantage. 
 Probably every one can see how habits of industry and persever- 
 ance may be the result of the college discipline and how mathe- 
 matics may teach close thinking and exact reasoning. Upon these 
 two points I shall say nothing. The third point in the analysis is : 
 1. The college properly teaches a young man to be a good learner. 
 
 The thorough investigation of one subject, — it makes little 
 difference what one is chosen, — does more to form a habit of 
 thoroughness raid accuracy of inquiry, and to teach a man how 
 to learn for himself, than many times the study upon subjects 
 which he leaves unfinished. 
 
 This is a valuable point to make. The young man who can 
 take up a subject, be it in law, politics or religion, in science, his- 
 tory or medicine; — like, for example, the cause of the present su- 
 premacy of Prussia, or, the successes and failures of Louis Napol- 
 eon, — or, the prospects of Roman Catholicism in this country — 
 the young man, I say, who can take up any such subject and 
 carry it in mind for months, elucidating one difficulty after anoth- 
 er, as his reading or his thought throws more light upon it, un- 
 til at last he feels that he is master of it, — has gained a power 
 that w T ill be invaluable to him in any profession. Every one is 
 aware of the decided advantage a person has in learning a new 
 language, who has already mastered one besides his own. This 
 is because the faculties used in the' study of language become 
 trained, and not necessarily because of any close similarity between 
 the tw r o, for they may differ as much as possible. So the power 
 gained by thoroughly investigating one subject, enables a student 
 to grasp others and diverse ones successfully. In professional 
 life a man must beccme his own teacher in whatever department 
 of w r ork his lot may fall, — he has to choose his own subjects and 
 the best methods of mastering them. The untrained mind is be- 
 wildered under such circumstances, and looks one way and anoth- 
 er, seeking some escape and becomes very ready to lean upon 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. JfS 
 
 any help that may appear. How important then that he should 
 
 learn how to do this work before necessity compelled immediate 
 grappling with a subject in which his interests were vital. 
 When the need comes thus suddenly upon one all unprepared he 
 may attempt the work that lies before him but the result will be 
 crude and imperfect, a state of things which (however unimport- 
 ant in college,) he cannot afford in professional life where vital 
 interests attend his labors. Such experiments are too costly — 
 his early practice should be upon less expensive material. 
 
 I remember well the remark of a fellow student who had some 
 six months start of me in professional studies. We had been en 
 gaged separately in the investigation of the same subject and had 
 met to compare results. At the close of our comparison he said, 
 " I wish I had gone through college, it so splendidly helps to r/e f 
 at things. 
 
 The fourth point in this analysis is, the college teacl es to form 
 correct judgments. Throughout life the most incessant occupa- 
 tion for the thinker is the solving of doubts and the determining 
 of probabilities. Every one remembers the story of the Dutch 
 justice who said he never wanted to hear but one side of a case, 
 it was so much easier to decide then. We are all a little like 
 this justice, it is easy for us to determine when the evidence is 
 all on one side. Mathematical certainties are pleasant to deal in. 
 but the certainties of life are few. In all the professions and in 
 every avocation we shall find ourselves surrounded by uncertain- 
 ties which we must face, consider carefully and decide. We 
 must determine, for example, from the great mass of conflicting 
 opinion what we wall believe in religion; we must choose which 
 side we will take in the great public questions of the day ; which 
 in politics; — whether we' will vote for Grant or Greeley; and 
 then momentous questions of duty are continually arising. 
 
 The judge on the bench weighing evidence; the physician anx- 
 iously combating insidious disease ; the general before the bat- 
 tle contemplating its chances ; the lawyer at his desk eagerly 
 searching if he can turn the doubtful scale in favor of his client ; 
 the merchant calculating the probable changes in gold, grain or 
 goods; — all are balancing uncertainties and settling doubts. To 
 teach a young man to thus carefully discriminate bet ween various 
 
44- QTMMER CENTENNIAL 
 
 doubtful points and to come to correct conclusions, I should not 
 exercise him in mathematics, nor in any of the exact sciences, 
 which deal in certainties and give absolute proof, (I should expect 
 such studies rather to weaken him in this direction, — for when 
 one is taken from a realm of absolute knowledge into one of un- 
 certainties, he feels lost;) neither would I put him directly into 
 his profession, where he could not look coolly — without any self- 
 interest — upon the doubts that arise thick about him. Thus sit- 
 uated he would be in danger of tw r o things, — of becoming one 
 sided, unbalanced, a partisan, if a strong mind: and if not strong. 
 of making a complete failure. Scylla orCharybdis! Few escape. 
 
 The course I should adopt would be one where from neutral 
 ground, with no self-interest to bias him, he should be the judge 
 trying eases, commencing with easy ones. The classical and lit- 
 erary part of the college course supplies this need more perfect- 
 ly than any thing else I can conceive of. First in the dead lan- 
 guages to decide the probable meaning of the author in every 
 sentence; yes, to decide the best meaning for every word. When 
 familiar with these, then the Socratic thoughts — -the dealings 
 with the sophists. The various questions in history — in logic, 
 determining major and minor premises: besides these discussions 
 and preparation of papers, metaphysics, moral and social science, 
 all afford a progressive drill in weighing probabilities and decid- 
 ing uncertainties. 
 
 We come then naturally to the following conclusion: That 
 the college cultivates (a) habits of industry and perseverance. 
 In many instances where students of medicine have attracted the 
 attention of my associates and myself to their earnest working 
 power, we have been pleased to learn that they were college 
 graduates. It is in that way a young man should show that he 
 has cultivated powers. Some have erred in thinkii g their col- 
 lege course would save the necessity of continuous exertion in 
 their professional studies. This is a grand mistake. This course 
 is not intended to prepare for ease, but for efficient work. 
 
 The college cultivates, (b) Habits of close and exact reason- 
 ing, (c) The faculty of investigation, teaching how to be a good 
 learner, (d) A correct judgment upon the various affairs of life. 
 
 These are the faculties most requisite in every profession. 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. Jfi 
 
 Iii addition to these acquirements there is a certain variety of 
 accomplishments gained in college, which prove valuable accesor- 
 
 ies in professional life, a few of which only will I mention. 
 Some aesthetic culture ; a degree of literary polish ; a certain 
 knowledge of Latin and Greek. The little I knew, made our 
 medical vocabulary come very easy to me, — no slight help I as- 
 sure you, for it enabled me to understand lectures from the very 
 first. In this connection I may add that Dr. Crosby, chancellor 
 ot Xew York University, says that a new word learned is a new 
 idea even though it differ but slightly from those already known. 
 A rich fund of illustration also can be drawn from the classical 
 and scientific culture of the college, which any public speaker 
 will know how to appreciate. What a rich subject I have : broad 
 and fertile as our own prairies. I can but plow a little furrow. 
 Thus much for colleges in general, but they differ in particu- 
 lars. There is a noticeable tendency on the, part of students edu- 
 cated abroad — whether foreigners or our own countrymen, — to 
 allow authority to take the place of independent thought. " The 
 Professor said so," is with them an ultimatum. We see it con- 
 tinually in the practice of medicine, and for this reason even 
 learned German physicians rarely hold their own by the side of 
 ours, although they require a seven years' course of study 
 against our three. These doctors continually inquire what do the 
 books say this disease is ; or how would my old professor treat 
 this affection ? Imitation is a characteristic of European thought 
 more than of American, though I was recently informed that an 
 eminent professor at Yale announced himself as there to give in- 
 struction and not to answer questions. Dr. Lyman Beecher 
 used to encourage his sons in discussion with himself and would 
 rejoice wmen they had the best of the argument. Such training 
 helped to make the Beechers what they are. And such training is 
 what many of us remember to have received in these halls. May 
 it be long before intelligent inquiry is repressed at Beloit College. 
 
OF BELOiT COLLEGE. Jf7 
 
 -A_ PAPER: 
 
 On the Future of the College. 
 
 BY PROF. J. J. BLAISDELL. 
 
 The centre of that large and generous outlook, which caused 
 the fathers of the college to be so earnest in giving it being, was 
 the great moral conflict to be waged in these regions. They had 
 entered the northwest as champions of the Christian struggle, 
 and knowing, as all good men know, their own insufficiency and 
 that they must soon leave the field, they had it in their thought 
 to found here an institution for preparing men who should be 
 masters of mind in whatever of the occupations — the ministry 
 especially — there should be occasion for in the growing life of 
 society. Men for Christian service, with no lack of physical fit- 
 ness and intellectual training, especially brought to truth and 
 strength of character — something of this description was the 
 burden of the prayers and purposes in which the college originated. 
 
 Here then, presumptively at least, must be found an answer 
 to any inquiry respecting the Future of the college. Inconsist- 
 ent is it ever with the continuity of any organic structure, wheth- 
 er institution or human being, to alter the fundamental principle 
 of its life. If you make the change, as indeed you may, it is a 
 revolution so profound as to wrench the future away from the 
 past. and, as at that moment a new life begins, you must call the 
 new structure by another name. 
 
 Perhaps, however, from suspicion of failure adequately to ac- 
 complish such result may arise a thought that possibly the college 
 had better receive another aim. May it not be wise to omit in 
 part the downrightness of its Christian policy, and by losing 
 something of its explicitness save something of its life. In the 
 twenty-five years now closing, besides the very much larger 
 number who have received its less measurable influence, the col- 
 lege has graduated 175 young men ; of these, in the last seven 
 years, 86. Of these 175, it is not known that all of them have 
 
Jf.8 QUABTKB CENTENNIAL 
 
 not been true and effective in bringing into the control of socie- 
 ty those general principles which condition its welfare. Many 
 of them have been in circumstances where they have met the 
 pressure of heavy onset, have carried jthemselves with great 
 steadfastness in behalf of truth, and have largely contributed, 
 sometimes with their lives, to its triumphs. Out of these 175 
 graduates of the college, 135 have been avowedly Christian men, 
 and have gone into the field with the purpose of identifying 
 themselves with the interests of the highest truth. Of these 
 many are doing service in other professions, while seventy are 
 ministers of the gospel, and seven are already engaged in the 
 work of Foreign Missions. Certainly if it be desirable to be less 
 explicit as a Christian school hereafter, it must be for other reas- 
 ons than because satisfactory results have not attended the poli- 
 cy hitherto pursued. 
 
 But if not for lack of real success, perhaps for other reasons it 
 may be thought best to shape the policy of the institution more 
 nearly into conformity with general systems of education. In 
 short, will you make it less a school for training young men to 
 do telling Christian work 1 Will you cease to make Aeschylus 
 and Plato a point of departure for opening up to the young the 
 Desired of all nations 1 There are some plausible reasons for 
 this. There is a prevailing drift towards the neutralizing of these 
 Christian features. In certain circumstances it w r ould ensure 
 greater ostensible results. It would certainly disarm some preju- 
 dices. The change is not without noteworthy examples. 
 
 Here then, perhaps, is the most fitting place to say, that, ac- 
 cording to the view' taken by those who administer the college, 
 in this distinctively Christian work the college has its essential 
 significancy and value. Take out of the legend on its seal, "Sci- 
 entia vera cum fide pura" the last three words, .and the college 
 drops out of the peculiar desirableness of its mission and ceases 
 to answer the profoundest wants of this great West. 
 
 Far be it from any of us to place a low estimate upon the pub- 
 lic system of instruction, which, proceeding upon a compromise 
 of religious preferences, leaves to other agencies the office of re- 
 ligious instruction. But is it not of the alphabet of the responsi- 
 bility of Christian men and women, that the youth whom they 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. #* 
 
 can influence should have their mental culture wrought out upon 
 the revealed Christ as its informing principle, and that this can- 
 not be done but by Christian teachers in Christian schools? 
 How without a supply of men thus forged, can the truth be 
 brought into effective operation in society ! And has not the his 
 tory of society taught this at least to those who medicine its ills, 
 that without the inworking of Christ there can be for society no 
 ultimate recovery? What other inference do we reach than this 
 that there must be Christian colleges — colleges which are Chris- 
 tian — to furnish Christian workers ! 
 
 The conclusion in regard to our future is plain. We must re- 
 main a Christian school. As such we must look to the friends 
 of human good for pecuniary support and patronage. They 
 must cherish it, defend it, furnish to it their sons. When you 
 sent your sons to the war of liberty, it touched you to the quick 
 if you found that they were wanting for bread or arms or oppor- 
 tunity. You have sent this college to the front; maintain it in 
 the condition of effective battle. 
 
 There is no ambition concerning the college which would at 
 length recast it in the form of a university, in which instruction 
 should be furnished for the several professions. So vast are the 
 changes to take place in the coming hundred years of the Missis- 
 sippi Valley, that, no alteration of this kind is too great to be with- 
 in the range of possibility. Bat certainly no demands at present 
 existing furnish occasion for extending the collegiate basis or di- 
 recting energy to other objects. 
 
 The same principle suggests also what mast be the policy of 
 the institution in regard to allowing the student freedom in the 
 selection of his studies. Our humble and unpretending work is 
 to take into our midst youth unacquainted with themselves and 
 their ultimate .tastes and fitness, and by protracted trial evolve 
 their latent forces and proportions of intellect feeling and will, 
 until, we knowing them and they knowing themselves, they are 
 qualified to choose intelligently what they had better study and 
 what do. There are two distinct periods in life, the period of 
 youth and the period of manhood, the law of the first being ignor- 
 ance of self, that of the second self knowledge. It has been and 
 is the belief of the college that when a young man really knows 
 
60 QtAfcTEn cf&rf&RJrtAt 
 
 what studies he had better pursue, the time has come for him to 
 receive his diploma. 
 
 Perhaps it may be from a pardonable enthusiasm in pursuing 
 the single object chosen at the outset that the college has failed 
 to feci the force of reasons urged for combining the sexes in col- 
 legiate life. To train young men for service was the problem the 
 administrators of the college assumed. It has seemed to them 
 inclusive enough, noble enough, difficult enough, to task their ut- 
 most energies. The measure of success granted them has rein- 
 forced the belief in them that their work was legitimate and c;ood. 
 
 Be it understood we share in no antagonism with institutions 
 which pursue the policy mentioned. We honor the men who 
 conduct them as brothers in the one good work. Perhaps the ex- 
 periment may sei ve for good results. It is likely that for a cer- 
 tain kind of educational culture it may pass into a permanent 
 policy. But for us, assuredly it would widen the work of the 
 college and so make it less concentrated. It would complicate 
 the work if it would be discriminating. If it complicates the 
 work, it makes equal success more costly and doubtful. If it be 
 not discriminating and individualizing, it is of far less value. 
 Certainly it leaves — there is nothing in it so imperative as not to 
 leave — room for narrower and more concentrated work according 
 to our original conception. With a heart therefore open to the 
 efforts of all who make careful experiments in a different diree* 
 we may probably forecast the future of the college as not differ- 
 ing in the particular in question essentially from its past. 
 
 But we must not forget that a chief feature of the future of the 
 institution must be the continuance and perfecting of the relations 
 which existed in, the beginning. A body of instructors furnish 
 the mould of a policy and stand ready to apply the processes by 
 Which young minds are formed. But the good men and women 
 of Wisconsin, Illinois and New England, by supplying the need- 
 ed pecuniary means, by sending hither their sons and inducing 
 others to send theirs, by pouring in upon the college the flood of 
 their sympathy and by the mighty ministry of prayer have filled 
 the mould of that policy and have put under these waiting process- 
 es the material. Need we say that such embosomment of the 
 college in the faith of the churches must be the main element of 
 
OF BELOIT COTXEGB. 51 
 
 any future we contemplate. In respect to the past alumni ofthe 
 college at least we arc secure. It is not a thing to be feared that 
 they will ever lose their interest in the mother who cherished 
 
 them. The tokens of their affection are too many to admit of 
 this. The faces we meet to-day and their answers to our saluta- 
 tions confirm our confidence. We hasten to assure ourselves 
 that it will be the same with all: that with those who support the 
 college and with us who administer it, the future may be one of 
 confidence, of affection, of mutual intercourse, of interpenetrating 
 life. With a future such as this, a work mightier than we dream 
 of to-day will be our final record. 
 
 The other of the two features that must determine the desired 
 efficiency of the college is, that there be present to do the work 
 of education men possessed of highest personal attainment, intel- 
 lectual and moral, in the organic form of character; men of the 
 first excellence in science and literature, abundantly gifted with 
 the ability of engaging, quickening and guiding the young; such 
 teachers receiving out of their homes numerous youth, and by 
 their own mighty life evoking all the latent powers of good with- 
 in them; the fathers ot many sons, bearing the family likeness 
 
 sons of God. 
 
 Such is our view concerning the future of Beloit College. By 
 the steady application of forces already committed to the enter- 
 prise, the present number of students tripled or quadrupled, these 
 subjected to all the methods ofthe most vigorous and complete 
 collegiate culture, moving about amid the multiplying monuments 
 of a pure art, and all the excellent beauties of nature, especially where 
 virtue has her memorials and living exemplars, with the Spirit 
 of God continually brooding over them, growing deep and strong 
 and patient in the presence of great truths, learning at length 
 what they themselves are, their weakness, their strength, their 
 destiny and their duty— and then going out by classes of fifty, 
 year by year, into the field which is the world, to do what God 
 wishes them to do — in the ministry, in the law, in the place of 
 sieknes< and pain, in literature and art, by the press, in mechan- 
 ics, in agriculture, in statesmanship — such a future we contem- 
 plate. Of such a future we already have an earnest. Suchafu- 
 ture seems almost in our grasp. The age needs it for us. God 
 wishes it. Each one. true to his responsibility, we shall have it. 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 58 
 
 .A. PAPER: 
 
 The Mutual Relations Between the Colleges and the 
 Churches. 
 
 BY REV. LYMAN WHITING, D. D., 
 
 Of Janesville, Wis. 
 
 Mr. President: The terms in the title of the argument you 
 have assigned to me, go far in making the plea which ought to 
 be made, in this closing commemorative utterance. The"mutu- 
 al obligations," — may I term them? — are either, a great assump- 
 tion, or a great concession, as between the colleges and the 
 churches. Do the churches and the colleges confess the relations? 
 Does not our national history demonstrate that these "relations'" 
 have been vitalities between them, and so the "relations" have 
 become obligations? Permit me so to call them, the "mutual 
 obligations," as a definition of their "relations." Now mutual ob- 
 ligations have this peculiarity ; viz., a power of mutual enforce- 
 ment resides along with the obligation ; for neither claimant can 
 expect anything, until he has rendered something; because that 
 which he renders, is the foundation of the means to give that 
 which he claims ; and so, if either one gives nothing, no right in- 
 heres to claim anything. So then the relation or obligation 
 which is "mutual, "puts colleges and churches upon the same foot- 
 ing; both claimants upon each other; and to the same extent, 
 both debtors to each other. As these relations are moral, they 
 come at once into line with the glorious governmental plan of 
 the ever-blessed God. It is briefly this : getting good, is always 
 to come by doing good. This underlies the whole moral plan of 
 God for this w^orld. Getting, inseparably fastens to doing, — when 
 good is the coupler. Never can real good be gotten, unless real 
 good is done ; and in blessed converse, never is real good done, 
 but as real a good goes from it to the doer. No act with a good 
 issue to one alone is possible, to the actor alone, or to the receiv- 
 er of the action, alone. Reciprocity overspreads, infuses with 
 perpetual and inevitable commixture, the realm of moral acts. 
 That business or scheme, giving, good or profit to one person or 
 
5Jf, QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 party only (and such there are,) is a nefarious, an inevitably per- 
 nicious thing, (e. g. the liquor traffic in this country; thuggery 
 in India ; great and rapid gain to the dealers ; hideous death to 
 the victims.) That supreme good act of the moral universe, — 
 Jesus Christ's atonement, — has in it infinite reciprocity ; infinite 
 glory to the Godhead, and eternal glory to the redeemed. One 
 measures the other. 
 
 So the colleges, — this preeminently, as a child of the churches, 
 — gets as it gives, and gives as it gets, good from them. Trace it. 
 The churches first do the royal good work of founding it, — 
 giving it an existence, — a location ; a body through which to live, 
 move and have its being. Out of its very first class goes back 
 to the churches, a prepared gift of piety and of culture, worth 
 alone all costs up to this time, and which reminds one of the 
 mustard-seed, with branches for the birds, and seed-pods for re- 
 producing itself athwart the globe. Each soul that has been, or 
 shall be led to Christ in that life-time, is a return gift to the churches 
 for their service in giving the college an existence. Out of each 
 of the twenty-one other companies of educated youth, this church- 
 planted college has bestowed upon the world, have been gifts to 
 the churches of pastoral service for which we have no scale of es- 
 timation. What is one regenerated soul worth — even in this 
 world, — when it reproduces itself by the conversion of others, and 
 they in turn repeat their divine birth in growing numbers, and 
 these in ever swelling progression multiply the " sons of God," 
 until the final expansions are millions of regenerated souls, and 
 all the boundless benefits of their Christian life to every good 
 thing in society and the world, can be accredited to the one new- 
 born soul, in whom began the process Try the estimate upon 
 such college converts as Whitefield, the Wesleys, Jonathan Ed- 
 wards, Henry Martyn, Gordon Hall and hundreds like them, who, 
 if in less eminence, in no less distinctness, have begun careers in 
 college, which have made them to be like stars in the firmament. 
 Out of this college how many have already gone just like them 
 in spirit and in heroic labors 1 To visit them all, you must liter- 
 all v circumnavigate this globe. To calculate their worth to the 
 world, you need the computations of eternity. But first the 
 churches gave the means, and the sons to be educated. That giv- 
 ing must have been done, or the college could have returned no 
 
OF liELOIT COLLEGE. 55 
 
 such inestimable recompenses. Only as the churches bestow 
 means and men upon the college, can the college give back this 
 grand propagating, mental and spiritual manhood upon the 
 churches. Dry up either spring, and both streams are gone. 
 Churches never have lived and grown, without pastors ; and pas- 
 tors have never been found of any great use to the churches, un- 
 less there were schools to train and fit them for their work. The 
 schools have commonly found the best material in the churches, 
 and often out of the most unpromising stock, has schooling fash- 
 ioned the most powerful and valuable servants of the church. 
 
 You all have heard of, — some here have seen, — Mt, Athos, the 
 stately bulb of the Actean promontory, flinging its huge shadow 
 for leagues, 'tis said, across the hills of Lemnos on one side, and 
 over the iEgean's waves, on the other. When Alexander the 
 Great, wore the Persian and Median empires as his crown, and 
 the waves of his shining victories irradiated the outmost shores 
 of the known world ; a poetic architect named Stasicrates, pro- 
 posed, — as an embodiment of the demigod men thought the con- 
 queror to be,- — to carve this Mt. Athos into a magnificent statue 
 of Alexander, six thousand feet high, holding in its left hand a 
 city of ten thousand inhabitants, and pouring through a horn of 
 plenty in its right hand, a copious river into the sea at its feet ! 
 
 Was a more insane magnificence ever proposed 1 What a 
 master-piece of workmanship ; what an exaltation of human gen- 
 ius ; and what a majestic flattery that completed, would have 
 been ! But this college has done and waits to do, grander sculp- 
 ture than that had been. It takes the rugged, shapeless bulbs of 
 young manhood and carves them into " temples," such as the 
 Holy Ghost dwells in ; into better than statues, — living men, "full 
 of faith and of the Holy Ghost," and in place of a river from clas- 
 sic cornucopia, the " water of life springing up into eternal life," 
 flows through them to dying "myriads. 
 
 Such work this college, — all Christian colleges, — have done, 
 are still doing, and, if the churches will quarry the marbles, pro- 
 vide for and maintain the sculptors here at work, such will be the 
 
 products to the end of time. 
 
 Colleges and churches in mutual relations! Yes: together 
 they rise: they stand together, and together, if ever — they will 
 fall. Neither can exist alone, and each doing good to the other, 
 
56 
 
 QUARTER CENTENNIAL OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 
 
 i 
 
 gets a greater good to itself, and either sowing sparingly for the 
 other, will also reap sparingly from it ; but as God is true, and as 
 all history testifies, — each sowing bountifully to the other, shall 
 reap more bountifully that it has sown. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A 
 
 THE FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 At this stage in the history of the college, a brief and summary 
 statement of the sources from which the funds for its support and 
 endowment have been drawn and of its financial condition seems 
 appropriate. 
 
 Agreeably to, and indeed, beyond their first pledge, the citizens 
 of Beloit donated ten acres of land for a site and contributed about 
 $8,000.00 for the erection of the first building. The site has been, 
 by subsequent purchases, doubled so that it now embraces over 
 twenty acres. 
 
 The first donation from any one outside of Beloit was in 1845, the 
 gift of 160 acres of land by Rev, Henry Barber of Dutchess Co., N» 
 Y. This was given at the suggestion of Rev. S. Peet, through 
 whose agency, this with other lands in Wisconsin, had been saved 
 to the absent owner. A condition was attached to the gift that the 
 college should open its doors to students without distinction of race 
 or color. The land was sold for $1,000.00 and the avails appropri*- 
 ated to the enlargement of the site. There being, at che time, no 
 other source of income, the trustees contributed from their own 
 pockets to meet the taxes and expenses of sale. 
 
 The first foundation for a professorship was laid by Hon. T. W. 
 Williams of New London, Conn., in 1847. On a visit to his rela- 
 tive, Mrs. Peet, he became interested in the college enterprise and 
 gave lands lying in Wisconsin and Indiana which yielded nearly 
 $10, 000.00. By subsequent donations of Mr. Williams, this fund 
 has been increased to $12,000.00. 
 
 The nucleus of a library was gathered in 1848, chiefly by contri- 
 butions of books made by eastern friends to Prof. Bush n ell, who, 
 at the same time, secured the Saybrook scholarship of $500.00. the 
 first provision for the relief of indigent students. To this the Aus- 
 tin scholarship of $500.00 was added in 1850, through the agency ot 
 Rev. A. Kent. 
 
€8 QUARTER CEKTENNIAL 
 
 In 1849, Rev. David Root, then of Connecticut, began his contri- 
 butions towards endowing a second professorship, by transferring 
 lands and claims in the West. The whole amount brought into 
 the treasury, after a course of yeais, from this source is $10,000.00, 
 held on a condition similar to that of Mr. Barbels gift. 
 
 In that year also, Rev. S. Peet as agent, commenced canvassing 
 the West for means to meet the current expenses. His efforts, at 
 length, brought in something over $8,000.00, nearly one-half of 
 which was contributed by ministers, on this missionary field, out 
 of their scanty salaries. Friends in Milwaukee showed their good 
 will for the college and for their pastor, called to be its president, by 
 thegift of $2,300.00 to the permanent funds. Soon after, Prof. Bush - 
 nell collected in Chicago $3300.00 additional for permanent invest- 
 ment. 
 
 In 1850, Rev. M. P. Squier pledged for the endowment of the 
 chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy to which he had been elect- 
 ed , the sum of $10,000.00. The pledge was, at a later date, redeem- 
 ed by the transfer of property and claims which have realized the 
 full sum. 
 
 In the autumn of the same year, the largest donation from any 
 one person was made by Mrs. Sarah W. Hale of Newburyport, 
 Mass., in the form of deeds for over five thousand acres of land in 
 Illinois. The avails of this generous gift have amounted to $35,- 
 C00.00, of which $25,000.00 are set apart as an endowment for the 
 chair of mathematics and the remainder was,with the consent of the 
 donor, applied to sustain the life of the college in the crisis of the 
 late war. 
 
 In 1854, Rev. Dr. H. N. Brinsmade of Beloit, began his contri- 
 butions towards endowing the Latin Professorship for which he 
 has already paid into the treasury $7,000.00, with the expressed 
 purpose to add to it hereafter according to his means. During the 
 same year, the education fund for the aid of needy students was 
 raised to $4,000.00 by a bequest of $2,000.00 from Joseph Otis, Esq., 
 of Norwich , Conn. , an d $1 ,000.00 from Capt. John Emerson and his 
 heirs. 
 
 The large endowments came in a form such that some time was 
 requisite to convert them and make them productive. Meanwhile, 
 current expenses must be provided for. During eight successive 
 years beginning with 1849, the College Society from its collections 
 in the east, made annual appropriations for th is purpose, which av- 
 eraged $1,000.00 per annum. During the years 1853-4, Rev. S. 
 O. Powell, Rev. H. Lyman and the president were successively en- 
 gaged in special agencies to secure similar relief from the West. 
 The avails of these efforts, coming in through a series of years. 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. >'>■) 
 
 amounted to $15,000.00. For three years from 1858 to 1830, aid was 
 received from the Regents of the state normal fund, on account of 
 students preparing to be teachers, which amounted in the aggre- 
 gate to $3,300.00. These resources, with some incidental contribu- 
 tions from other quarters have sustained the operations of the in- 
 stitution, for the most part without debt or detriment to perman- 
 ent endowments. 
 
 In 1857, the bequest of Mrs. L. Colton of Beloit, whose watchful 
 regard for the college had been manifested, from time to time, in 
 gifts for specific objects to the amount of $1,000.00, seoured a per- 
 manent fund of 85,000.00 for the increase of the library. In the 
 year 1880, the name of R^v. Dr. Ralph Emerson was also identified 
 with the library through gifts from members of his family of prop- 
 erty, whose avails will ultimately amount to not less than $15,000. 
 
 In the year 1854-5, a building for the accommodation of students 
 was erected at an expense of $7,000.00, which was met by a tempo- 
 rary loan, subsequently paid up from funds received for general 
 purposes. In 1858, the citizens of Beloit made a special contribu- 
 tion of $3,000.00 jpr the erection of the chapel. Three-fifths of the 
 cost of the building was thus provided for. 
 
 In the year 1883, were commenced special efforts to strengthen 
 the foundations of the college financially, by agencits in both the 
 West and the East. Rev. P. C. Pettibone undertook this service 
 in the West. The burden of labor in the East devolved on the 
 President, under the auspices of the College Society. The effort in 
 the East, in connection with the results of previous, partial agen- 
 cies, realized the sum of $30,000.00 to be added to permanent endow- 
 ments. In this amount are included a gift of $10,003.00 from an 
 anonymous friend, one of $5,000X0 from WinthropS. Gil man, Esq., 
 of New York, and many other generous contributions ranging from 
 $50.00 to $1,000.00 each. Mr. Pettibone's service, continued for 
 nearly seven years, yielded good fruit in the addition of some SG0,- 
 000.00 to the resources. This includes $12,000.00, the avails of prop* 
 erty donated by O. Harwood, Esq., of Wauwatosa, to endow a pro- 
 fessorship, $1,500.00 realized from the bequest of Miss Nye of Fal- 
 mouth, Mass., and nearly $18,000.00 collected from hundreds of 
 alumni and friends all over this region, for the erection of Memo- 
 rial Hall. The remainder was given for general purposes, to a con- 
 siderable extent in the form of scholarships, in accordance with a 
 plan adopted some years before. The books of the college show fif- 
 teen permanent scholarships of $500.00 each and one hundred and 
 six individual scholarships of $100. 00 each, fully paid. Partial pay- 
 ments in other cases, swell the whole amount contributed in this 
 form to $20,000.00, This plan has been a means of Increasing the 
 
60 QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 number of students as well as the resources, with no serious embar- 
 rassment, ft is however, deemed advisable hereafter to suspend is- 
 suing individual scholarships, except as pledges have been already 
 given. 
 
 Among the miscellaneous donations which have come from un- 
 looked for sources to meet various exigencies, the gifts of $500.00 
 from Miss Elizabeth Davis of Boston, as a fund for the purchase 
 of books on English literature and of $500.00 from Mrs. Ripley of 
 Chicago, as a fund for providing chemicals &c, for the scientific 
 department, deserve a mention as those most recently received. 
 
 This review of the financial development of the college brings 
 freshly to mind the struggles and trials through which its growth 
 has been made. At the same time, it gives occasion for devout 
 gratitude to Almighty God, whose favor has so richly blessed the 
 enterprise and for hearty thanks to the many friends whose time- 
 ly benefactions have been divinely ordered tomeettheeverexpand- 
 ing wants of the institution. 
 
 The present resources of the college are exhibited in the follow- 
 ing concise statement: 
 
 PERMANENT FUNDS. 
 
 1. Professorships: Williams Professorship, $12,000.00 
 
 Hale do 25,000.00 
 
 Squier do 10.000.00 
 
 Root do 10,000.00 
 
 Brinsmade do 7,000.00 
 
 Harwood do 12,000.00 76,000.00 
 
 2. Endowments n'ot designated, - 30,000.00 
 
 3 Education Funds, 9,000.00 
 
 4. Library Funds, 15,000.00 
 
 5' Prize Funds, 600.00 
 
 Total invested funds, $130,600.00 
 
 UNPRODUCTIVE PROPERTY. 
 
 1. Site and Buildings, - - - 75,000.00 
 
 2. Library, Cabinet and Apparatus, 20,000.00 95,000.00 
 
 Total property of the college, $225,600.00 
 
 The current expenses of the college exceed the certain income by 
 from $2,000.00 to $3,000.00 each year. The deficiency has been thus 
 far met by miscellaneous subscriptions and the sale of scattered 
 pieces of land. This resource is nearly exhausted. Only one of 
 the professorships is more than half endowed. Meantime, there 
 is urgent pressure for the enlargement of the work involving an in- 
 creased scale of expenditure. Such enlargement seems imperative- 
 ly necessary to put the college forward in the future, as its prestige 
 in the past warrants and demands. 
 
OF BEI.OIT COLLEGE. 
 
 61 
 
 Means are now urgently needed 
 
 To increase endowments for the Department of Instruction, 
 
 To provide for the care of the Library, 
 
 To equip the Scientific Department, 
 
 To give a distinct establishment to the Preparatory School, 
 
 To improve the Grounds and Buildings, 
 
 To increase the Fund for aiding worthy young men, 
 
 To provide a Gymnasium, and 
 
 To secure a reliable income for Miscellaneous expenses, 
 
 Under the pressure of these wants, and with a view to the en- 
 laigement of the college that it may keep pace with the rapid de- 
 velopment of the great Interior in which it stands, the Trustees are 
 constrained to invite a general co-operation of those who appreci- 
 ate its importance in an immediate effort to raise the sum of $200,- 
 000.00 to be added to present resources. Shall they ask in vain ? 
 
 B. 
 
 THE FEMALE SEMINARY. 
 
 In estimating theresults of the plan instituted by the conventions 
 which established Beloit College, we should take into view also the 
 Female Seminary, which was an essential part of the same design. 
 Originating with the same conventions, and committed at first to 
 the same trustees, it was finally located at Rockford, Illinois, in 
 1850, and has since been carrying on its work parallel with that of 
 the college. With a view' to the best efficiency of each, the Boards 
 of Trustees have become somewhat distinct in their membership, 
 as they are in their legal relations; but they still represent the same 
 sympathies,and the results of the two institutions belong to the his- 
 tory of the common plan. 
 
 The seminary occupies a site of about twelve acres on the east- 
 ern bluffs of Rock River, within the city of Rockford, and yet re- 
 tired as well as healthful and beautiful. It has accommodations 
 for two hundred boarders, as well as for the various requirements 
 of a comprehensive course in literature, science and the fine arts. 
 Its collegiate course, like that of the college, extends through four 
 years. There are also preparatory and normal courses, each of two 
 years, as well as excellent facilities for instruction in music and oth- 
 er accomplishments. 
 
 The first Principal, Miss Anna P. Sill, is still at the head of the 
 school, supported by twelve competent teachers. 
 
O 4 QUARTER CENTENNIAL 
 
 It has sent forth nineteen classes, and two hundred and thirty- 
 nine graduates, two hundred and one from the full course and thir- 
 ty-eight from the normal course. More than three thousand pu- 
 pils have heen within its walls. 
 
 As the result of the religious influence continually present in the 
 institution, it is estimated that not less than five or si x hundred of 
 its pupils have been converted there; and of the two hundred and 
 one full graduates one hundred and ninety-one, and of the thirty- 
 eight normal graduates thirty-two went forth as Christians. Fif- 
 teen of the former teachers or pupils have become foreign mission- 
 aries, while those who remain at home are doing their part toward 
 the Christian culture of the land. 
 
 If the seminary did not, like the college, send four hundred sons 
 to the war, it was a centre of that living and efficient sympathy, 
 by which American women sustained and comforted those who 
 went. Its daughters also were found among those whose labors in 
 teaching secured the results of the work of war. 
 
 The seminary is now doing its work, with a fair provision as re- 
 gards accommodations, and some of the materiel of instruction. 
 It needs endowments ; and it needs the continuance and the con- 
 tinual renewal of the enlightened and Christian sympathy and co- 
 operation in which it originated, and by which it baa thus far been 
 cherished. 
 
 THE AGGREGATE RESULTS. 
 
 It will have been observed that the movement in which Beloifc 
 college originated, contemplated the co-operation of the friends of 
 Christian liberal education, especially of Congregattonalists and 
 Presbyterians, in the section lying between Lake Michigan and the 
 Mississippi, in building a college and a female seminary. Theo- 
 logical education has, as was natural, been provided by the sever- 
 al denominations at Chicago, the commercial focus of the region, 
 — leaving the college and the seminary to pursue, in the heart of 
 the country, their specific work, upon the common basis of evan- 
 gelic truth and sound learning. 
 
 We have, then, as the results of the movement, two institutions, 
 essentially collegiate in their character, one in sympathy and dif- 
 fering in location, administration and courses of study, with a view 
 t<> the highest efficiency of each in forming intelligent and Chris- 
 tian manhood and womanhood. Each presents a collegiate course 
 <>;* four years, supplied by a preparatory and supplemented by a 
 shorter course. Both have now been at work for a period of from 
 t venty to twenty-five years. Nearly five thousand pupils have 
 l»ien, for a longer or shorter time, connected with them, and are 
 u w diffusing their education as well in the thousand homes, as in 
 
OF BELOIT COLLEGE. 63 
 
 the colleges, schools and churches, public journals, legislativebod- 
 ies, or courts of justice and other public positions, in which they 
 preside or act. The young men from the college who have preach- 
 ed the gospel in more than twenty of our own states or territories, 
 and the former members of both institutions, who have gone to 
 many foreign peoples, illustrate the wide scope of the influence, 
 which goes from such centres to all the world and in all honorable 
 occupations. Four or five hundred are now in them year by year ; 
 they come from and go to all the world. 
 
 More than four hundred have completed the full courses of in- 
 struction, and, both by the positions which they fill in the world 
 and by the manner in which they fill them, are confirming the per- 
 suasion of the value of such a training, which lay at the root of the 
 whole design. 
 
 How have the two institutions realized the hopes of their found- 
 ers in their religious influence? It has been the continual effort 
 in each to present the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom 
 and the vital knowledge of God as the consummation of education. 
 It is to be thankfully recorded that scarcely a year, or even a term, 
 has passed in either without conversions. It is estimated, that not 
 less than eight or nine hundred have embraced the Christian hope 
 during their course. Of four hundred and twenty-seven graduates, 
 more than three hundred and fifty were professors of religion. 
 
 Beside those who are engaged in Christian work in all sections 
 of our land or in Canada and England, twenty-five of their form- 
 er members have gone on foreign missions, to stations almost en- 
 circling the globe— to the Dacotah and the Creek Indians, the Sand- 
 wich Islands and Micronesia, to Japan and China, to Burmah and 
 Hindoostan, to Egypt and Turkey, and home by the West Indies 
 and the American Indians who still remain in our eastern states. 
 These results of the period of infancy may encourage the hope 
 and prayer that the two institutions may , in their maturity, do their 
 part tow r ard the salvation of the world. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 On page 4th, line lGth, instead of " Xow,' 5 read For. 
 M " 10th, " 4th, " ""their," i« these. 
 M 4< 11th, transpose the first two lines of Mr. Clary's paper. 
 " " 29th, line 3d, instead of "have ever," read elsewhere. 
 " " 87th, lines 15th to 18th inclusive are superfluous. 
 " " 48th, line 22d, instead of " Desired," read Desire, 
 
BELOIT OOLLEOE. 
 BELOIT, WISCONSIN. 
 
 This is now a fully organized college, and aims to make a thor- 
 ough liberal education practicable for every young man of energy 
 and character, who is willing to exert himself to secure it. I or 
 this purpose it presents, 
 
 I. The College Coubse, which is under the charge of a Presi- 
 dent and seven Professors, and is intended to combine a thorough 
 pursuit of the studies embraced in the course of the best New 
 England colleges, with such discipline and influences as will aid 
 in forming a true and Christian manhood. 
 
 In order to secure the complete preparation needed for a sound 
 education, it provides also, 
 
 II. The Preparatory School, — Which is conducted by a 
 Principal and Assistant, with aid from the professors of the college 
 in their several departments. It gives a thorough three years' 
 course in the studies required for admission to college, viz., Lat- 
 in, Greek, and English grammar and composition ; Caesar, 
 Virgil, and Cicero's Orations; Xenophon's Analasis ; Arithmetic, 
 Algebra, Geography and United States History. 
 
 To meet the wants of those who cannot take the full course, 
 
 III. The English Course has been arranged, extending through 
 three years, and embracing the English studies preparatory for 
 college, Book Keeping, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Physi- 
 ology, Mineralogy and Geology, Geometry Trigonometry, Men- 
 tal and Moral Philosophy, Political Economy, Constitution of the 
 United States and General History, with Latin, French or Ger- 
 man if desired. 
 
 EXPENSES. 
 
 For tuition and incidentals in the College, per annum, $40.50 $40.50 
 
 The cost of board, without room, ranges from 80.00 to 160.00 
 
 The cost of room, fuel, lights and furniture 20(0 to £0.00 
 
 The cost of washing, ..' 12.00 to 25.00 
 
 The cost of text hooks ... 8.00 to 15.00 
 
 Total, $lf0 50to $290.00 
 
 The charge per annum lor tuition and incidentals in the Preparatory School is $29.(0. Other 
 expenses the same as above stated. 
 
 CALENDAR. 
 
 The year for botii the College and the Preparatory School is divided into three terms as 
 follows : 
 
 First Term from the first Wednesday of September to the Wednesday before Christmas. 
 Second Term from the first Wednesday of January to the first Wednesday of April. 
 Third Term from the third Wednesday of April to the Commencement. 
 The Commencement is held on the Wednesday before the 4th of July. 
 For catalogues or information, application may be made to Rev. A. L. CHAPIN, P. D., 
 President, or I. W. PETTIBONE, A. M., Principal of the Preparatory School. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0112110833206