c Clr X . OBERLIN COLLEGE. DEDICATION PETERS HALL. January 26, 1887. ORATION: The Essentials of a College, Ex-Chancellor E. B. FAIRFIELD. Published By tlie College. OBERLIN, OHIO: NEWS OFFICE BOOK AND JOB PRINT. 1887. ‘‘ Reprinted from the Advance of May 12 , 1887. Oberlin College. By President Jas. H. Fairchild. With the opening of our second half-century , we find ourselves in the midst of building enterprises not planned or contemplated at the time of our semi-centennial anniversary, in 1883. Six new buildings have arisen on the college grounds since that jubilee celebration, and in addition the college chapel has been improved by the addition of a new front, with tower and clock and bell and organ. Five of these new buildings are of the brown sandstone quarried in the neighborhood, and all are pleasing in their archi- tecture and commodious in their arrangements. Older buildings, which had served their generation, have given place to these, and others still must be retired in due time. Thus, in a brief period, the outward aspect of our college has greatly changed. It would have been pleasant, for the sake of old memories, to retain at least a portion of the older buildings, sacred in the associations of so many generations of students. But when a building ceases to be useful, it is better, at least it is necessary, that it should give place to others. No college can afford to transform its grounds into a historical museum. A few years more, and the new buildings will be enriched with associations as precious as the old, and the improved accommodations will all be gain. The new buildings, in the order of their appearance, are: Sturges Hall, a brick building of two stories, the first story presenting a beautiful assem- bly-room for the general gatherings of the ladies] department, and the sec- ond affording commodious rooms for the two ladies’ literary societies of the college; Warner Hall, of stone, three stories devoted to the use of the Con- servatory of Music, with two wings still to be added; Spear Library, of stone, two stories, the first devoted temporarily to the museum of natural history, with its lecture-room and biological laboratory, and the second to the libraries of the college and of the literary societies, admirably adapted to its uses, essentially a fire-proof building; Peters Hall, the largest of all our buildings, the first and second stories given up to recitation and lecture-rooms, with a spacious central court opening up through the two stories, and separating these lecture-rooms so that there is no communication of sound from one to the other. Eighteen rooms in all surround this court, above and below. In the third story there are three fine rooms for the literary societies of the col- lege, and an auditorium for the general uses of the college, seating five hundred persons. Altogether, Peters Hall is one of the finest buildings for college purposes to be found in the land. The burning of our Ladies’ Hall , in January, 1886, brought a new need, and two fine stone buildings now occupy the ground, Baldwin Cottage and Talcott Rail, the first affording rooms lor thirty or more young women, to be occupied in April; the second, with rooms for twice as many, to be opened probably in September. The buildings, as far as completed, are satisfactor- ily warmed and ventilated, and pleasantly furnished, in striking contrast with most of the rooms which have served the purposes of the college during the past fifty years. If the outcome for the next fifty years shall be richer in proportion to the improved facilities, it will be occasion of great satisfac- tion. On the cornei so long occupied by President Finney, there is room for another college building, to complete a row of five, four of which are already in place. Mr. F. N. Finney, of Milwaukee, has purchased this corner and given it to the college, and proposes to erect upon it a college building which shall bear his father’s name. When completed, this row, extending along the west side of Professor Street, a distance of eighty-four rods, and overlooking the college park, will present a very pleasing array of college architecture . The new buildings as now completed and in progress, involve an expendi- ture of more than a quarter of a million of dollars, mostly given by the persons whose names they bear. If the trustees had been advised with, they would doubtless have preferred that a portion of these gifts should have gone to endowment investments; but they could not decline a gift so desirable as a needed building. The older buildings of the college, seven in number, all of brick except a gymnasium, are still very useful, and will serve to keep in remembrance the earlier years — not the earliest, because the first generation of buildings, except Tappan Hall and the chemical laboratory, were all of wood and have long since disappeared. Our new buildings belong to the third generation, and, unless some catastrophe befalls them, it is scarcely conceivable that they can ever need to be replaced by others. Yet we have wants in the way of buildings still to be provided for. The present chemical laboratory, an old schoolhouse, crowding hard upon Peters Hall, must soon be retired. The two gymnasiums are inadequate to the de- mands made upon them, and gymnastic exercises are becoming indispensa- ble to a large and increasing number of our students. The rooms in our new library building devoted to the museum of natural science, lecture-room and biological laboratory, are already too strait, and we are hopefully wait- ing for a building devoted exclusively to natural science. Future years may bring the need of a new art building, but for the present we are provided with pleasant rooms for instruction in art, and there are large wall -spaces in Our buildings where works of art may be appropriately exhibited. A large picture of John Brown, of Ossawatomie, leaving his prison for the gal- lows, the gift of the artist, Mr, Louis Ransom, of Akron, 0., has been re- cently placed in the court of Peters Hall, waiting only for a suitable frame. Radical as Oberlin has been supposed to be in its origin and its history, it has maintained a decidedly conservative position in its educational ideas and work. New studies and methods have been hospitably entertained and introduced, from time to time, as they have proved their claim; but while many colleges East and West have adopted courses leading to a degree, without Greek and with little Latin, to this day no one has graduated at Oberlin without such attainments in both these languages as have been required in the leading American colleges. Certificates and diplomas have been granted in other courses, but no degree. The next commencement will probably witness a new departure in this respect. The degree of Ph. B. will probably be granted for a coarse in which French and German take the place of Greek. Our courses have been enriched, within the last few years, with a generous supply of electives, open to the student after the Freshman year. These electives are gathered about a line of required study extending through the entire course, and constituting its spinal column. Contrary to the traditional order in the land, Hebrew has been made elective in the .seminary. At the same time a year’s study of the Hebrew has been made •elective in the college course. The aim is to get a better result in the study — not less Hebrew, but more. Very prominent among the electives are the modern languages and the natural sciences, especially in connection with laboratory work. Labora- tories of chemistry, of mineralogy, of physics, and of biology are estab- lished, in which the student does practical work for himself under the eye of the professor. These arrangements have ail appeared within the last ten years, and have proved very attractive and apparently helpful. Better buildings and increased advantages in other rsspects suggest the danger of increased expense to the student, and the exclusion of some who have ability and worth, but little money. Wf hope to guard this point with jealous care. It would be a sad departure from the history and tradi- tions of the college, to permit such a calamity to befall us; for it would be a calamity more disastrous than the loss of buildings or endowments. To provide against the disaster, college fees are kept at ten dollars a term, and a boarding house is maintained without charge for rent, where young men can find comfortable board at two dollars a week, and young women board and room for the same amount. Some provision has been made, and more is needed, to help worthy students by means of scholarship endow- ments, so that with limited aid a course of study is made possible where otherwise it would be impossible. This fund at present amounts to nearly $30,000, the interest of which is thus applied. In addition we have a tuition fund furnishing three dollars a term to nearly a hundred students. This help is very slight, but it is often most welcome, and five times the amount could be used to great advantage. But the point of greatest interest is the maintenance of the spirit of ear- nest work and purpose which has characterized the school and the commu- nity from the early years. Will improved buildings and enlarged resources and extended facilities tend to induce a change in the spirit and aim of teach- ers and pupils? Will a purely intellectual spirit — the pursuit and inculca- tion of knowledge as an end rather than a means, creep in upon us, until we lose sight of the true aim of a Christian school? Will there be a chang’e in the character of the students drawn to us, to the extent that the public sentiment shall be changed, and a secular and worldly spirit take the place of earnest Christian purpose? The answer to these questions lies in the future. Thus far we have abundant cause for gratitude in the results attained. The present does not suffer in comparison with the past There are cases of disappointment, as there have always been ; but the great body of our students have shown themselves worthy of the improved advan- tages offered them. There has probably never been a time in the history of the college when Christian sentiment among the students was more pervading, or when there was a larger proportion of earnest souls looking reward to self-denying service for God and for mankind. That this may be our permanent possession, is our hope and prayer. During the past year 1322 students have been connected with the various departments, nearly one half coming from beyond the boundaries of Ohio, and representing fifty-seven States, Territories, and foreign countries. The Fall term of 1887 opens on September 13th, and the Winter term of 1888 on Jan- uary 3d. A catalogue will be sent to any address, or other information given on application to the Treasurer of Oberlin College. Editorial frorq The Advance. The joint founders of Oberlin College were two comparatively young men from Vermont, Rev. John J. Shipherd and Mr. Philo P. Stewart. Neither of them had been to any college. There was something of the pro- phetic instinct and strain about them. They had talked and prayed over what seemed to them to be the supreme want of the world, especially that of the “Mississippi Valley.” ‘ ‘Something must be done.” This “something” they undertook. They knew the voice of God, though they did not know whither it would lead them. Most of the original colonists also came from Vermont. College and colony were identical in their origin; the same bap- tism and the same nurture were for both. They have never grown apart. Neither would have been possible without the other. On the whole, this is the most distinctly original educational institution that has been established in this country. In its earlier years no institution was ever more absurdly misunderstood. The prejudices which prevailed against it now seem simply incredible. The glory of Oberlin has been, and is, as much in her daughters as in her sons. It was the. first college in the world to give the same educa- tional advantages to young women as to young men. The year 1833 dates a new epoch for women. There is nothing more noteworthy about Oberlin than that. Innumerable were the women whose souls at that time were be- ginning to ache, because of the unnatural educational restrictions imposed upon them. When the doors of this college opened alike to men andwomen, it may be said to have set ajar a door on golden hinges turning toward the light for the women of all the world. In the very first class half of them were women; now more than half. From the beginning, as the event has proved, Oberlin has been radically and progressively right on all the great main questions which have agitated the country. Oberlin had its birth in 1833; its second birth in 1835, in that remarkable accession from Lane Sem- inary, and especially in the coming to it of President Finney. Mr. Finney did perhaps his most important work for Oberlin before Oberlin had been thought of, by means of that mighty evangelistic movement, which, under God, he had been instrumental in starting in New York, New England and Old England. The providential hand of God is as clearly to be seen in Ober- lin’s history as in that of the children of Israel. No intelligent history can be written of the Anti-slavery struggle and of the way the Nation was saved to freedom, which does not make large account of the moral and spiritual forces which both centered at and radiated from Oberlin. There is some- thing positively amazing in the reproductive fruitfulness of this institution. Not only Secretary Strieby, but the American Missionary Association itself was the off-spring of Oberlin. A remarkably large proportion of the teach- ers in the schools of the Association in the South, were those who got their education and their inspiration there. A score of Christian colleges in the Northwest, in the Southwest and South, gratefully date their genesis from the same fruitful source. Oberlin College, though it puts on no airs about it, and would be the last to claim it, is in fact growing into a university. It has, at length, as President Fairchild shows in his article, attained to its “building era.” Said one of the earliest graduates, and he spoke for the rest: “I have but one rule to live by; the will of God.” Will the institu- tion be able to endure prosperity, without detriment to this mighty spirit of consecration which gave to it that which has made it so vital and so valua- ble? Doubtless there are those who fear. But as Professsor, now Secretary, Judson Smith said some four years ago, “We have our fight to fight as well as they.” Assuredly, Oberlin could have no more excuse now, than it would have had then, should it stumble blindly and dawdle listlessly over the pend- ing and insurgent issues of to-day. Happy the men — and the women, too— who, in whatever way, help to make and to keep such colleges true to their highest ideals. OBERLIN COLLEGE. DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. January 26, 1887. ORATION: The Essentials of a College, Ex-Chancellor E. B. FAIRFIELD. Publislied By tlie College. OBERLIN, OHIO: NEWS OFFICE BOOK AND JOB PRINT. 188 T. Peters Hall. OBERLIN COEEEGE. This spacious hall, pronounced by competent judges the most perfect college building in the United States, was dedicated on the afternoon of the Twenty-sixth op January, 1887. President Fairchild presided, Professor Churchill offered the invocation, and the Dedicatory Prayer was by Rev. James Brand. Choice selections were rendered by the Musical Union. At five o’clock the donors, the faculty, and some nine hundred invited guests, repaired to the Hall and spent a social hour, followed by refresh- ments and congratulatory remarks. General Nettleton presided here and called out happy responses from Professor Ellis, Rev. Anson Smythe, Hon. F. C. Sessions, Dr. L. C. Warner, and Mr. A. S. Root. Rev. R. G. Hutchins received hearty applause on men- tioning a new gymnasium as a necessity for the near future, and Mr. J. G. W. Cowles in behalf of the Trustees, reminded the company that the fine buildings and ample facilities now enjoyed would not make the college rich, but poor, unless speedily re-enforced by increased endowment. The History of the Building, the report of the Building Committee, and the Oration by Ex-Chancellor Fairfield upon The Essentials of a College , are given in the following pages. Note. — A fine crayon portrait of Captain Bradley, who began the build- ing, was presented by his family, and an oil painting of Mr. Peters, by Orchardson, of Chicago, has since been hung in the central court. history of the Building. BY PROFESSOR C. G. FAIRCHILD. * N these days of the study of heredity, the true history of a man, especially if one is asked to give this history on the day of his birth, begins with the history of his grandfather. Col- lege halls have transmitted tendencies, a real sort of personality. In fact Peters Hall has taken into its being the very frame-work of its predecessor, and like blood corpuscles, the red bricks of Tappan Hall have permeated every part of this new generation of building. The pilgrims to Oberlin fifty-three years ago, as they wound their way through the almost trackless forest, came at last to a small wooden structure, about thirty- five by forty in its dimen- sions, two stories in height, but surmounted by a sort of attic formed by raising the central part of the roof a little above the main roof, that a row of windows might be inserted. This one building contained, for more than a year, the college with all its operations — physical, mental and moral. In a basement room about fifteen feet square, lived Mr. Shipherd with all his family. The room above was his office, the center of all business for the college and colony. It also served as a study for the Principal of the school. Across the hall or corridor was the dining-room, and above was the school-room, chapel and church — all in one. Here were first heard the voices of Mahan and Finney and Morgan. It was a room perhaps eighteen feet by thirty-five, about half the size of the larger lecture rooms in the hall we dedicate to-day. The young women were closely quartered in this second story over against the chapel, while the young men were sent to the attic. H^re each couple of young men found a room eight feet square, fur- nished with a stove, table, two chairs and a bedstead. This furni- ture occupied the whole area of the room; but the bedstead was made to tilt up against the wall during the day, and then there 4 DEDICATION" OE PETERS HALL. was space to spare. In this attic, the students being seated in the doorways, so that they could look up and down the narrow passage, was organized the first of our college societies. The next of kin to Peters Hall, and its immediate predecessor, was Tappan Hall — commenced in 1835 and finished in 1836. It was a plain parallelopiped of brick, one hundred and twelve feet in length, forty-two feet in breadth, and four stories in height. The square windows, in long rows on either side, were uniformly interspaced with nearly equal areas of brick; the long quarter-pitch roof, with a gable at each end, was surmounted at the center with a square wooden tower. Originally there was built upon this primary tower, a similar, though smaller, secondary tower. But this presented too great a leverage for the west winds and was removed. Father Shipherd, too, favored the removal as bringing the building more nearly, as he expressed it, “to the pattern showm in the Mount.'” A hall eight feet wide, ran lengthwise through each of the stories. On the first floor there was a cross hall at the center of the building and four double-door entries were located, one at each end of these halls. The height of stories from floor to ceiling was eight and one-quarter feet. The larger recitation rooms were in the four corners of the lower story. For many years the main north and south walk through the park passed through this building, the long central corridor forming a section of the walk, and the monotony of recitation was relieved by the trundling of wheelbarrows and the rolling of baby wagons. The building provided rooms for about ninety young^hlen. ‘‘These rooms,” writes the President in his history, “were strikingly simple and uniform in their arrangements, being each sixteen feet by eight, with a door at one end and a window at the other. In one corner near the door was an open wardrobe and in the other a narrow bedstead. In a corner by the window was a stove, and on the other side of the window a table. This was the ultimate idea for the time, of comfort and convenience in a college dormitory, not only in Oberlin but in the country generally. Those were the favored ones who could establish a claim upon Tappan Hall.” P~~~~ fc The glory of those days has been handed down by tradition. The elder brethren among us have not alwa} r s seemed to relish DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. 0 the occasional slighting remarks made in late years about this structure. Let us take heed and seize our full measure of enjoy- ment in Peters Hall before our children come forward with their suggestions. Tappan Hall, in the early days, was the great college building of the West and it was a much greater building to the Oberlin of 1836 and the surrounding towns, than is Peters Hall to the Oberlin of 1887, and to the cities that have grown up in Northern Ohio in the last half century. But the building lacked proper footing stones, and cracked and seamed in many directions, it was felt for a score of years that its removal was only a question of time, and funds to replace it were sought in various directions. Nearly five years ago it was almost decided to start a popular subscription for a building to be erected in* the center of the Park, the building to provide not sim- ply lecture rooms, but space for library, museum, art gallery, etc. President Fairchild and Professor Ellis went as a committee to study the various college buildings, especially at the East. But the financial stress in every direction was something appalling, and men shrunk from the long and hazardous struggle.. It was deemed wise to see if individual donors might not be found who would, one by one, care for the building necessities. Over half a century ago two farmer boys, Alva Bradley and James Fairchild, attended together the same district school in the neighboring \illage of Brownhelm. These boys sat under the same teacher,, but they were cherishing different ideas. The one wrote upon the sill beam in his father's cellar, “Commenced Latin this day, July l*2th, 1830.’’ The other would lie for hours upon the Lake shore, watching the distant sails in their slow passage, and picturing to himself the remote possibility of some day being a master of a vessel. So the ways of the boys parted. The one followed the line of scholastic training. The other, with his worldly possessions in a bundle, shipped as a common sailor and lived to see himself first master of a vessel, and then the million- aire owner of a noble fleet. That these parted ways might be made to reunite in these latter years was of course a natural sug- gestion, and some three years ago President Fairchild in a letter laid before Captain Bradley this special building need of Oberlin College. The proposition was not wholly rejected, and some 6 DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. months later Captain Bradley cautiously suggested that perhaps some architect might be found who, on the chance of getting a job, might prepare some plans and these might help to interest some man able to furnish the money. The hint was sufficient, and plans were soon provided. But the lake business was wretched, and Captain Bradley waited until January, 1885, when he said he would give $20,000 that year, if the college would en- close the main part of the building. The work was entered upon. The walls of Tappan Hall were razed to the ground just fifty years from the time their foundations were laid. By November 1st the walls of the new structure were completed, and Captain Bradley had paid his $20,000. We then rested, not unwilling if the business of the coming year should at all justify it, that Cap- tain Bradley should go forward with the work. But while we stood with our hospitable doors wide open, and not unhopeful, other gates were unbarred, and after a brief illness, Captain Brad- ley passed away in the seventy-second year of his age. There rises vividly before some of us the somewhat bent form and clear-cut features of this remarkable man. His hands showed the labor and exposure of earlier years. He possessed a most attractive eye, clear, observant and kindly. Attentive to the thoughts of others, and painstaking in searching out facts from every source, his ultimate judgment was clear and definite. He was thoroughly self-reliant, though modest and retiring almost to the point of diffidence in the presence of company. His early education was meager and his book-keeping was of the simplest kind. He could not easily delegate to another, even routine work. Yet it is doubtful whether any business man in Cleveland held his affairs with a firmer gnisp. Large contracts, like the building of a steamboat, were entered into without a word of written specifi- cations or a scrap of paper to show that any such contract existed. Yet the outcome was just and satisfactory to all parties. He would half apologize for this and say it was not business-like. Integrity, the basic quantity of character, must have been absolute and unswerving to have made such direct, simplicity of dealing possi- ble. Oh, that our newspapers, that scour the globe for every pestilential germ of corrupt character, might oftener call our attention to such men as these! There is an inspiration far DEDICATION OP PETERS HALL. 7 loftier than that awakened by any lines of beauty carved upon marble, to see human fidelity thus stand forth undraped by any forms of law and half abashed at being discovered. Captain Bradley was especially reticent in his business affairs. His most intimate friend and partner in many large transactions, was accus- tomed to say that when the Captain was unusually quiet, he expected in time to discover some especially important work of his in some unusual place. He evidently enjoyed working in this way. He never saw the rising walls of the new building but once, and then he came without warning, and would only stay the hour and a half between trains. It would not be uncongenial to him to have his work in this great enterprise be like the unyielding footing stones of the new structure, half-hidden from human sight. He recognized, especially in later years, that the instinct of accumulation was strong upon him; but he also comprehended the beneficence of wisely conducted business enterprises. His hands were opened in a hundred kindly deeds, and he held himself accessible to the higher claims of society. He saw with more than usual distinctness the limitations of those about him, but his judgment was always charitable. In the intercourse of years one would not hear a word that might not be repeated anywhere. He was, in the highest sense, a gentleman. Pardon these words if they seem too many. They are inspired by the respect and affec- tion of a somewhat intimate acquaintance. And the world possesses nothing of higher value than a concrete example of the truth, that not unscrupulous shrewdness and noisy activity, but integrity, careful study, self-reliance and a kindly disposition form the basis of even a very unusual financial success. It is very pleasant for us all to welcome in our midst to-day Mrs. Bradley, and the son, Morris A. Bradley, testifying by their presence, as they have frequently done by word, their sympathy wiih the work of husband and father. It was of course necessary that all plans about this building be recast, and the burning of Ladies 1 Hall added greatly to the distraction of the situation. Weary weeks followed, lightened only by the feeblest hopes, and burdened with efforts that were utterlj 7 fruitless. Among the many friends thought of were Mr. and Mrs. R. Gr. Peters, of Manistee, Michigan. They had already 8 DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. given $5,000 to one professorship, and there was the impression that in due time they might do much more. But it was hardly felt that in the very midst of incomplete business enterprises of the largest magnitude, Mr. Peters would see his way clear to take this load upon him. Still, Professor Frost, who had preached one summer to the church in Manistee, felt some courage, and was commissioned to lay our cause before Mr. Peters. In two days there came back this somewhat enigmatical message: “With Giod all things are possible. The pine forests are His. Arthur Tappan still lives. Captain Bradley’s work completed.” When this was read at chapel prayers the best prophet among us failed to interpret it correctly — but mistakes are nothing, and joy is un- bounded when some headland appears to the shipwrecked mariner. The burst of enthusiastic applause from a thousand young hands but faintly echoed the feeling of those on whom the burden rested. The work on the building was then joyously as well as rapidly pushed forward under the general superintendence of Professor Ellis, who, as chairman of all our building committees, has shown such tireless vigilance in this remarkable building era of Oberlin College. Mr. and Mrs. Peters and other friends are with us to-day,, without whom we should hardly feel that we could dedicate this new structure to its uses. It is now a quarter of a century since- Mr. Peters was in Oberlin preparing for life in our Preparatory Department. Here, we understand, he studied arithmetic under Professor Ellis, and the quality of that teaching must have been something remarkable. We are informed that Mr. Peters has thereby figured out a great fortune from the pine trees of Michi- gan; that he has been his own engineer in laying out his railroad; that he has figured out large benefactions for Manistee, Chicago^ Seminary and Olivet College, and that it required but fifteen minutes to figure out $50,000 for Oberlin College. But Oberlin gave him a better thing than even such arithmetic — one of her daughters, to be a worthy help-meet in every high and noble pur- pose: a woman at the front of everv effort in behalf of temperance and Christian culture. We know this in Oberlin, for have we not sent literature from our homes for the lumbermen of Michigan,, and money to forward temperance work among them? And Mr. DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. 9 Peters will need her aid. We are informed that “Arthur Tappan still lives,” which means that Peters is to take the place of the name that has been upon our lips for fifty years, and which has been more valuable to us than the building which brought the name. This responsibility, though unsought and perhaps dreaded, cannot be escaped, and it is a glad indication of the age in which we live and of the work which Oberlin College has done for the world, that we expect two of you to share this burden equally. We proudly, as well as gratefully, welcome you to the ranks, not simply of the Tappans, but of the Warners and Spears, the Baldwins and the Talcotts, who, in the vigor of life, have thrown themselves with the full force of their financial, as well as other strength, into the problems of the generation. And we want, all of us, teachers, students and citizens, to stand with you in these ranks to-day, and in the presence of this noble structure, to dedi- cate ourselves anew to the up-building of the Kingdom of God upon the earth. At the conclusion of this address Professor Ellis presented Mr. and Mrs. Peters to the audience, and they were greeted with hearty applause. Mr. Peters made a few well chosen remarks upon the value of an education, and for the encouragement of students who were “making their own way,” which were highly appreciated. Report of the Buildipg Conmnttee. BY PROFESSOR J. M. ELLIS. At a meeting of the Prudential Committee March 3, 1885, it was voted that J, B. T. Marsh, J. M. Ellis, and R. Hatch be appointed a building committee for the new Recitation Hall. Messrs. Weary and Kramer, architects, together with different members of the Faculty, had already been engaged upon plans for some time. These were completed and accepted, and on April 20, 1885, a contract was made with Messrs. Doerzbach and Decker to erect the building and finish all but the west wing by May 1, 1887. Work was commenced at once and has been pushed as fast as materials would allow. After the generous donation by Mr. Peters, it was decided to finish the whole building, and this has 10 DEDICATION OP PETERS HALL. dow been done, four months earlier than called for by the con- tract. The only part remaining unfinished is the astronomical tower, which waits the gift of $10,000 to furnish a revolving dome and an eighteen-foot telescope. The work of the contractors has been performed with con- scientious fidelity throughout. From foundation to capstone, the committee believe, every stone and timber and door and casting- will bear inspection, and will be found to be as well executed as care and skill could make them. The heating and ventilating apparatus has been put in by Isaac D. Smead & Company, of Toledo, including their system of dry closets. Four large shafts carry up the foul air from the bottoms of the rooms, and warm fresh air is furnished by nine Rutan-Smead furnaces, set in five groups. The air in the recita- tion rooms can be changed in twenty minutes. The 2500 feet of blackboards have been put in by Mr. Lyon after his most improved methods. The building is being seated by A, H. Andrews & Co., Chicago. The building in its extreme dimensions is 130 by 142 feet, three stories of 14 feet in height, besides a nine-foot basement. It contains 13 recitation rooms varying in size from 20 by 25 to 30 by 45; a ladies’ waiting room, and faculty room, five professors’ studies, three large rooms for physical laboratories and apparatus; three ample rooms for college societies, each provided with a com- mittee room and closets; a large audience room on the third floor with a capacity for 500 or more; an astronomer’s room, telescope room, janitor’s quarters, an entrance court 40 by 50 feet, with the grand stairway and corridor reaching rooms on upper floors. The basement, besides furnace, fuel and cold air rooms, fur- nishes two large apartments for physical laboratories, two for dry closets, a workshop and store rooms. A freight elevator leads from the basement to the attic. Besides the telescope tower, 20 feet in diameter, with walls two feet thick, a large deck on the top of the building, easily accessible, furnishes a place for study of the geography of the heavens by an entire class. The aim has been to make the building ample and complete in all its provisions, and every part as perfect and permanent in structure as possible. The cost of the work thus far, exclusive of furniture, and DEDICATION' OF PETERS HALL. 11 some extra work not yet completed, is $68,000. The committee take pleasure in reporting to the officers of the College, and to the donors, whose generous aid has rendered the work possible, that Peters Hall is complete and ready for its uses. j FIRST FLOOR OF PETERS HALL. A — Prof. Ellis, Mental Philosophy and Logic. B — Prof, Monroe, Politi- cal Economy and History. C — Study. D — Prof. Hall, Latin and Greek. E — Ladies’ Waiting Room and Study. F — Faculty Room. G — Prof. King, Mathematics. H — Mrs. Johnston, History and Botany. I — Vestibule. K — Study. L — North Vestibule. M. — Prof. Shurtleff, College Latin. N — Tutor Peck, Preparatory Greek. LL — Grand Central Court. The second floor is like the first, having a broad balcony or corridor around the court, except that the rooms above G and H are thrown together into a semi-circular hall for the department of Elocution — Prof. Chamberlain. Over A, B and D is the Department of Physics, Prof. Churchill; over E, Preparatory Latin, Tutor Martin; over F, Modern Languages, Prof. Newton; over M, College Greek, Prof. Frost; over N, Senior Prep. Greek, Prof. White. The Third Floor contains Bradley Auditorium in the center, above the court, and apartments for . K. IT. Society in the east, $. A. in the west, and A. Z. in the north wing. She Essentials of a College. BY EX-CHAXCELLOB E. B. FAIRFIELD, OF MANISTEE, MICH. Mr. President and Friends : My discourse to you at this hour is of the Essentials of a Col- lege: and incidentally of the manner and degree in which this college has succeeded in meeting the true ideal. My purpose will be to present the subject fairly and without any undue bias of filial or friendly partiality; and, if such a discussion shall seem to be in any measure an exaltation of Ober- lin, as compared with any other college, it will not be the fault of the speaker; and certainly it will not be the fault of the college. A college is for the higher education of men and women. And the first prime essential is that there should be the true conception of what the education of a human being consists in. A failure here is fundamental and fatal. A training school for donkeys ought to have reference to the nature, capacity and design of the donkey. It ought to be organized with due regard to the endowments and possibilities of the donkey nature. A method of training that should take no account of the animal’s eyes, or ears, or nerves, but only of his bones and muscles, would be condemned as defective even by every donkey-boy in Egypt. On the other hand, one that should contemplate teaching the animal Elocution, the laws of ^Esthetics, the principles of Moral Philosophy, the nature of a future life, or the pros and cons of a future probation, would be rejected by every wise economist as, to say the least, a somewhat wasteful outlay of time and money. Pardon the simplicity of my illustration. For I want to make it so simple that it can be taken in by any professor in any uni- versity between the Atlantic and the Pacific — that the capacity of any being is the exact measure of the provisions that should be made for the education of that being. As a man has two arms, and but two, 3 r our apparatus in the gymnasium need not provide for three: but it must provide for two. Training of the intellect must recognize all the faculties of the intellect. Training of the complete human being must take into account every department of his nature. The young men DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. 13 and women in college are endowed with a moral and spiritual nature; and any true education must take knowledge of that fact. If any man, calling himself an educator, feels constrained by the circumstances of his environment, to ignore the highest depart- ments of the soul’s being — paying no regard to the most royal en- dowments of the young men and women committed to his charge; or above all, if he tells me that in following his own judgment he is not called to recognize in education either morals or religion — then he has mistaken his calling; he has no right to be in that busi- ness. As one claiming to be an educator of men and women it would not be undue severity to label him an impostor, or a charlatan. A conductor of a gymnasium, who should practice tying up the right arm of every boy committed to his charge, year after year, until that arm should become enervated and useless — at the same time announcing himself as a Master of Arts in physical training; or the teacher of logic who should declare that it was his business simply to hear his pupils recite the mnemonic lines, “Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferioque, prioris,” etc., and to pay no attention to the exercise of their reasoning faculties — neither of these would be any more of a fraud than the educator of a human being who ignores the very endowments of the spirit which made him human. Education must touch the man at every point — from the low- est to the highest, from the physical to the moral and the spiritual. It is bad enough to ignore the former; it is a capital crime to neglect the latter. And at that very period of life, too, when character is becom- ing established! Character — character — more than anything else the whole end and aim of all true education. It isn’t of half as much consequence what one knows when he comes to graduation from college, as what manner of man he is. Give us true lnan- hood and true womanhood first, and the best measures of mental discipline and of liberal learning afterwards. The fewer college graduates of the type of Aaron Burr the better — the better for the country and the better for the world. The ideal education is that which gives us ideal men— ^in every walk and sphere of life. And such are the men whose goodness is fhe crown of their greatness. 14 DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. But more: Even intellectual culture is maimed and halt and blind if it stops short of the ethical and spiritual. Nothing any- where — in any department of science or philosophy, is learned thoroughly — that is, through and through — without teaching God. There is no high thinking that doesn’t touch Heaven. There is no striking bottom anywhere without finding an Infinite Personality. There is no scientific inquiry that ever runs back to first principles without demanding that there should be a Great First Cause. “In the beginning, God!” is the last milestone set up on every highway which the foot of man can possibly retrace. “Proto-plasm and bio-plasm differentiated” are the words in the mouths of many men, who are ready to say in their hearts, “No God;” but if you press to know how and why this particular proto-plasm became bio- plasm, and the other not; or why this bio- plasm was differentiated into a whale, and that into an elephant, and the other into a crow — atheistic evolution is dumb, and must be. The only possible answer is, “In the beginning, God.” Or if the student turns in upon his own soul, he finds that he is himself a subject of obligation* and this means moral govern- ment; and a Moral Governor. And how should this Moral Governor be treated? is a question he is compelled to ask; and constrained to answer. He cannot by any possibility comprehend Mental Philosophy without finding God as the absolute and un- conditioned. He cannot know himself without finding that God is the Father of our Spirits, and the Governor of Souls. And must not a College teach the sciences? and' teach them clear through? Must it not teach Philosophy — and teach it from beginning to end? Must not every college teach Ethics, and teach it from bottom to top? If any college, or university, so-called, (especially any univer- sity) may not teach God’s existence — a necessary scientific and philosophical truth as it is — if it may not teach morals, and God’s rulership as a necessarily implied truth in every science of morals — then for one I deny its right to exist, and call itself a college. And I know of nothing that it can teach in a thorough and scientific way without involving first or last fundamental religious truth. For God has not anywhere left himself without a witness. The rocks give him their testimony. The heavens declare the DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. 15 Divine glory. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge of Him; that which may be known of God is manifest to all men; for the invisible things of Him from the cre- ation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even his eternal power and “Godhead.” The student of the things which are made must see — unless he shut his eyes — these marks of God’s handwriting. Woe then to the college professor who puts out the eyes of his students just when they most need the clearest vision! I might press this point farther; and show that no one can fairly and honestly teach even History in a college curriculum without recognizing the Christian religion as the most stubborn and controlling fact of history to be found in all the ages. And so a college education in a Christian country can scarce pretend to any reasonable completeness, if it does not embrace the study of Christian Evidences. There can be no true religion which is not Theistic. This ought to be understood. Agnosticism is unscientific. Atheism is idiocy. Only the fool hath ever said, th ere is no God. Christianity is not a religion — one of ten or more! It is the true religion. To us it has been made known. Nations that sit in darkness, to whom this light has not come, must give their youth the best education they can in respect to religion as in respect to other things. Just as they must teach them less of Astronomy, and of Electricity, and of Magnetism, if they know less than we do: so must they of morals, and religion. They can do no more than dispense the light which has come to them. But in a Christian land only the education which is Christian deserves the name. We would better far be fifty years behind the times in our teaching of science, than 2000 years behind the times in our teaching of the true morals and the true religion. Is it not a marvelous fact that nations dominated by false religions — religions full of superstition and absurdity, religions degrading to the intellect, debasing to the morals, corrupting to public and private virtue, religions full of all unrighteousness, lasciviousness, malignity and murder — make the teaching of their religion the great feature in all their systems of education ; while among us, with a religion that teaches only purity and right- 16 DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. eousness, that inculcates every thing that is noble, and true, and just, and lovely, and of good report, everything that contributes to good government and good society — the most persistent efforts, and in so many cases successful efforts, are made to abso- lutely shut out the teaching of it from every school, high or low, with which the State has anything to do? What does this mean, except that the kingdoms of this world are still under the dominion of Satan? “What will contribute most to build up manhood and womanhood?” is the central question. The answer to that is the true education. We may as well speak our thought freely. What is called “secular education” is well as far as it goes; but it doesn’t go far enough to make a great people. It doesn’t go far enough to build up strong, noble men and women. A college or a university that can go no farther than that, had better resign its charter, and hand over its endowments to somebody else that will do the work as it ought to be done. The Bible has been tabooed in the common school; religious services and Christian studies have been made elective in college; and those who elect chapel prayers and Christian Evidences and Ethics are in the minority; and the virtue of the people is growing flabby. It is time to call a halt. Let our colleges and our univer- sities return to the work of educating full-grown men; men that will measure large in morals; men who never make merchandise of principle; men who buy the truth, cost what it may, and sell it not, whatever price may be offered. More as the years roll by are we to reap the bitter fruits of our sowing, in giving way to the clamor for “secular education,” and consenting that our sons and daughters should act the play of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet omitted. “Righteousness exalteth a nation,” and nothing else; and from the first day in the common school to the last in college, God, and justice, and right, and duty, and personal obligation and individual responsibilty, and eternal destiny, are to be burned into the soul; and our young men and women are to be stalwart soldiers in God’s great host. Oberlin has done well in years gone bjL “ Made virtute !'* is the greeting of her sons and daughters, who have gone out into DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. 17 the great battle-field of life. Let the old college stand by its colors! An education that should not forget the body, that should give harmony to the intellect, and that should culminate in moral grandeur and spiritual beauty, was the ideal of forty years ago. I believe it is yet. And the world is groaning in bondage for lack of just such an education to-day. The second prime essential to a true college is to have true men in its Faculty; men having the true conception of educa- tion, and impersonating their own ideal. A teacher teaches even more by what he is, than by what he s&ys. And more depends upon the teacher than upon anything else — upon all things else, outside of the student himself. The college at Athens 400 years before Christ was one of great celebrity. Its buildings were not much; and its accommo- dations were in many respects inferior in quality, and limited in extent. The President’s house is the only building that is yet pointed out to travelers. This, if tradition correctly identifies it, was a very substantial structure of stone, of two rooms, cut out of the rock on the hill-side. It had one door, and no window. But the President was a great man, and a great teacher. I have never learned that there was anybody else in the Faculty beside the President. So the Faculty meetings were entirely harmoni- ous, I take it, except when the meeting chanced to be between the President and his wife, Xanthippe. Then we are told the meetings were sometimes rather inharmonious, and even slightly stormy. But the President was a most wonderful old man, 400 b. c. (He died, you remember, the next year, at the age of 70.) And they didn’t need much else to make a college. Socrates was him- self endowment enough for one of fair size. James A. Garfield is said to have remarked that a bench with President Hopkins on one end, and a student on the other, was enough to make a good sized college; and I incline to think, when that student was James A. Garfield, that he was about right. The true teacher is more than half the college, and the student is the other half. And if Garfield's remark was true, one could easily believe that with Socrates on the one end of the bench and his three renowned pupils Xenophon, Euclid, of Megara, and 18 DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. Plato, there was a full-grown college at Athens in these days. And if the President was not very handsome, and had a salary uncomfortably small, and if his wife’s temper had been spoiled because her husband so often forgot to bring home the beans for the porridge; and if the President did sometimes go barefooted through the streets of the city rather than go in debt for a pair of ten-cent sandals — despite all these disabilities I rather think you and I would have been proud to have been enrolled among his students, and to have transmitted to our children a diploma with his sign manual at the bottom of it, and to be able to tell to the generations following about our classmates Plato and Xenophon. And when in time his immortal pupil whose Phaedo you so enjoy reading — you seniors I mean — when he became the faculty of this College of Athens, with Aristotle in turn for his favorite pupil! What a renowned faculty! He was quite competent to fill all the chairs! Excuse the rhetoric: I remember that he didn’t have any chairs: but stood up and walked about, except when he sat on the garden wall or on the ground. What tuition would we not have been willing to pay to sit under the dropping of the Attic honey which fell from his lips as he discoursed to those that gathered ? That College was not open to women ; it did not provide so much as even an annex for the girls; but it is related that not a few nevertheless forced their way into it, disguised in men's attire. We have improved upon that since the days of Plato. The Teacher is the main factor in making a college. This implies, of course, that he has the right conception of his busi- ness; that he understands what education is — the evolution of character chiefly — the development of manhood and womanhood in their highest power. And to this end the teacher must him- self be what he would have the pupil become. The unconscious influence of his personality means more than any words that he can speak. A clear head, exact knowledge, mental honesty, apt- ness to teach, magnetic power to transfuse himself into those that hear; one who shall dominate the disciple, not because he suppresses his independence, but because he compels his confi- dence. And I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Oberlin has DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. 19 been richly endowed with such men in its various chairs of instruction; men who have been recognized as those who knew how to think; men loving the truth, be it new or old, more than they fostered any false pride of self-consistency; men confessing their ignorance when occasion demanded, and so much the more believed in when they announced their confident beliefs, or their assured knowledge; men whose souls were illuminated by a divine light that shone out in their teaching of all subjects, because with them as with Luther, tk to have prayed well was to have stud- ied well;” men who drank of “Siloah’s brook, that flowed Fast by the oracle of God;” men who were not unready to accept of any truth, though it were not in the catechism, and yet who were never carried away by any wind of doctrine simply because it swept from a new quarter of the heavens; men who proved all things, and yet held fast only to that which was good; men who, with all their ample and exact learning, nevertheless impressed their students more by what they were than by all they knew. The names of the revered and honored Finney, and Morgan, and Cowles, and Mead, and Dascomb and others who have gone before, will occur to all who knew them; but I rejoice that not all who have sat for the portrait I have outlined, are among the dead. Four years have not passed since 1 met President Mahan beyond the sea, approach- ing now his fourscore years and ten, and yet the same simple- hearted learner, and the same devout worshipper, as of old. I should shock the modesty of some who are present, if I should complete my list. So I forbear. The third prime essential for a college is students. Dr. Hop- kins on one end of the bench would be a potential college, were there nobody on the other end; but it is no college in operation till the other end is also occupied. And how much of a college there shall be depends upon the character and calibre and uplifting power of the party of the sec- ond part, as well as of the first. Every preacher knows that his congregation does half the preaching; and that sometimes is the reason it is of so poor quality. And every teacher knows that 20 DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. his teaching and lecturing depend largely upon those who occu- py the seats before him. As iron sharpeneth iron so the countenance of the pupil his professor. How much the full growth of Socrates depended upon such pupils as Xenophon and Plato and Euclid, of Megara; how much 'less brilliant Plato would have been, had Aristotle never sat among his disciples, the world will never know. The action and reaction of teacher and learner is seen in the larger growth of both. Oberlin has never lacked for students. I speak not now of their numbers; but of their quality as well. Students, keen, pene- trating, stimulating (sometimes perhaps exasperating); students, whose questionings have reached the center of things; students, whose appreciative attention has struck out from the Professor’s brains all the light and electricity that were hidden in them. When Hopkins sits on one end of the bench and Garfield on the other, the President feels that it is worth his while to be at his best. When Finney sat in the Professor’s chair and the Fair- childs and the Cochranes occupied the benches on the floor, it was no time for even our Homer to nod. The students in Oberlin used all to come here: I hear it said that lately a good many of them have been sent here; and I partly believe it. Such, as a rule, do little toward making a college. Hopkins might sit on one end of the bench; but with even three or four anthropoid apes hanging from the other end, the college would scarcely rise to the dignity of even a fourth-rate academy. These three things, then, are the prime essentials of every college: (1) the true conception of education. (2) Teachers grasp- ing it and embodying it. (3) Students to receive it. I call these prime essentials; because wherever there is a col- lege, in any country or climate, these three must be found; and I cannot think of a fourth that takes equal and universal rank. Buildings and library and apparatus are three other essen- tials to which we must therefore give a secondary place. The college of Athens, 400 b. c., had no buildings. They met in a grove, in a garden, or wherever it might chance. For a long time they had no apparatus; the heavens and the earth fur- DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. 21 nished their own illustrations. And as for books, when they wanted one they made it. Except always as they found 1 ‘Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. ” But in our time and country and latitude and longitude these last three are about as essential as the first three. Milton could sing of “The olive grove of Acadame, Plato’s retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long,” but when the bard himself went to college it was in rainy Eng- land, and in moist old Cambridge, where he was very glad to be sheltered from 300 storms a year, within the walls of Christ College. Even when Aristotle presided over the college of Athens he collected a cabinet, by no means of small extent or value, and he must have had buildings within which to stow it, and arrange it for use. So for all practical purposes buildings, apparatus and library are to-day and with us no less necessary than teachers and students to constitute a working college. The need of a larger library for Oberlin you have had set forth so lately, and in such an ample and impressive way, that I need take but little time to speak of it. Until you have crowded your beautiful Spear Hall to its utmost capacity, you will have no occasion to relax your zeal in that regard. And I venture to pre- dict that some of the young men who are here to-day will live to see another building of equal capacity demanded to accommodate the library of Oberlin College, forty years hende. Some of them, perhaps will live to endow the library with a million of dollars; not by bequest, for their heirs to quarrel over; but while, like the wise donors of Warner Hall, and Spear Hall, and Peters Hall, they can see their own will executed, and rejoice in the beneficent administration of their own estate. And in the way of apparatus, what do you not need? I am glad for the instrument that you are to place in the tower of Peters Hall; and have no doubt that hundreds of students will rejoice for what they will be able now to see through this glass darkly; but somebody is to bethink himself and hasten to seize the opportunity, ere it slip away from him, of investing $1,000,000 in an astronomical observatory, and instruments worthy of it. 22 DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. So I am glad of the apparatus (by no means contemptible), which you have in other departments; but somebody else — I can- not just now speak his name — is to build you a Laboratory (or several of them) worthy of this great company of students, wherein they can study Chemistry, Botany, Zoology and Biology, with the best possible advantages. $100,000, economically expended, would do it. And some other large-hearted man, with a bank account cor- responding to his generous impulses, is to consecrate half a million, more or less — I hope it may not be less — to the establish- ment and endowment of a Cabinet and Museum, for the illustra- tion of the wonderful works of God as they are seen beneath us and around us, in the great world in which we live. While still another — I may as well make my dream large and complete while I am about it — is to come back one of these days from the study of the Art Galleries beyond the sea, and lie awake of nights, meditating that u a thing of beauty is a joy forever,” and thinking how he can set some architect to work, planning a <$75,000 fire-proof building, and while it is in process of erection, how he can send some competent man hither and thither to expend the rest of a quarter of a million in furnishing it ! Did I ever allow myself to envy anybody, I should almost envy the men who are to do these things for Oberlin within the next 50 years— the satisfaction and the fame and the “well-done” of the Master, that are sure to come to them. Sturges Hall, and Warner Hall and Spear Hall, and now Peters Hall, Talcott Cot- tage and Baldwin Cottage — all these are the prophecy of the good time coming, as well as the proof of that which has come already. The contrast between what one sees in Oberlin to-day and what met my eyes the first time I entered the town in 1840, will abundantly justify the visions of the future. To my own faith and hope and charity, I should only do simple justice by striking out 50 years and inserting 30. For a long time you illustrated in your growth only Arith- metical Progression; latterly you have been working in Geomet- rical Progression — doubling each ten years. Practicing under that rule it will not take even thirty years to make good the ful- ness of my bright vision. DEDICATION OF PETERS HALL. 23 The three prime essentials of a college are things which no gold can buy. Men inspired to teach, possessed of the grand conception of what it is to bring out of human souls all that there is in them — and students inspired to respond to this call, and to rise up in the dignity of sons and daughters of the Most High, to be crowned kings and priests unto God — these are of Heaven, and not of men. Brother Peters couldn’t transmute his pine-trees into either teachers or students; or if he could, they wouldn’t be of the kind you are looking for. You have wooden men enough already, I take it, in this Buckeye State, without importing any of ours from Michigan. But he could transmute his pine-trees into comely walls of brick and stone, and iron, and beautiful woods; and there they stand, and fire and cyclone and earthquake excepted, they will still be standing and doing good service when the twentieth cen- tury shall strike its midnight hour. The highest hopes and best prayers, I am sure, of those whose contributions have entered into that building were, and are, that the Trustees and Faculty of the college may so be guided by the spirit of God and of a sound mind, that these brick and stone may be instrumen tally trans- figured into educated men and women fit for the crown of Immanuel when He shall come to make up his jewels.