UNIVERSITY CF IlllNOIS UWMW JUN 1 5 i9 15 lllsdale College Bulletin Vol. 8, No. 3 October 1913 Entered as Second-class Matter April 17, 1906, at the Post Office at Hillsdale, Michi" gran, under the Act of Congress of July 16, 1894 "Progress at Hillsdale" A Paper read by President Jos. W. Mauck, by assignment, before the Baptist State Convention, Pontiac, Michigan October 23, 1913 Published January, April, July and October by Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan HILLSDALE COLLEGE Department of Liberal Arts, Partial Preparatory Department. Christian Worker's Course. Student Bible and Mission Classes. Department of Music. Department of Fine Arts. Department of Expression. Department of Household Economics. Department of Business and Shorthand. Young Men's Christian Association. Young Women's Christian Association. Four Literary Societies. Men's Glee Club. Women's Glee Club. Gymnasium, Track, Ball and Tennis Grounds. Six Buildings and 25-acre Campus. c "PROGRESS AT HILLSDALE" Hillsdale has had its share in the general revival of in- terest in and patronage of colleges of its type. That revival began about ten years ago. During the first five years of the ten, roughly speaking progress at Hillsdale was most notice- able on the material side, in restoration of equipment, grounds and buildings, in which there had been a depreciation during a period of trial for most colleges of the kind. That restora- tion has been gratifying. It has necessitated extensive cor- respondence with and appeals to former students and other patrons, and those appeals have realifed friends and re- newed their tangible and helpful supporvin both finances and patronage. The number of annual and occasional gifts has steadily grown, and the standard of giving has been signally raised. For example, from 1844, when the college was first opened at Spring Arbor (nine years before removal to Hillsdale), down to 1910, the largest single donation was $15,000. Three years ago one of $30,000 was received, and we now have two other offers, each for $30,000, on condition of raising $30,000 additional in smaller sums. Meeting these, we could claim an additional $25,000 for which there is an offer not limited in time. These are in evidence that the college is attracting the attention of those who have comparatively large sums to give. During its entire history the college has had a rarely good record in protecting its endowment against encroachment for current expenses, and in safety of investments it invites com- parison with the best banking and loaning houses. The ad- ministration of its finances is praised by financial authorities, and no less a man than Mr. Carnegie has commended the condition of the funds of Hillsdale, even if they are much less in amount than we would desire. Confidence that gifts will be carefully administered, per- petuated, and if possible increased, has certainly had weight in winning these late favors. For example, two of the $30,000 gifts above named, one of which has already been made over, were from men who were attracted by the financial policy of the college which looks to increments of the principal through investments in carefully selected central business property in large cities, put under long-time leases with in- creasing income upon periodical revaluations. Within the last eight years parts of the funds have been withdrawn from farm loans which bring a moderate rate only, with no addition to the principal, and those parts have been invested in these business properties of certain and growing values. These in- vestments are made through a trust company and individuals who have long made them a specialty. Results have been highly satisfactory. For example, the first of these invest- ments, made eight years ago, and now in the second period of revaluation, brings to the college nearly 8 per cent net on the original investment. Figured on a 5 per cent basis, this is tantamount to raising a new endowment of more than half of that investment, or a third on a 6 per cent basis. Other investments of this kind are too recent to show what the increment would be, but that they will be profitable is assured by repeated offers to buy each of the properties at significant advances over the sum so invested. More briefly stated: the college in its material affairs is making substantial progress in buildings, grounds, equip- ment, current and permanent funds, and in the character of investments. These are mentioned first because they are the most tangible and visible side of the institution, and because their betterment was indispensable to the discharge of the peculiar functions of all such institutions. The es- sence of those functions is intellectual, moral, religious and social, and hence not so tangible. It may seem paradoxical to cite as progress a change which involved a loss in one part of the enrolment. The preparatory department, in early days the larger division of the institution, has almost disappeared with the rising ef- ficiency of public high schools. This loss in students nas, however, been more than offset by gains in the collegiate classes, which are now considerably the largest they have ever been, and are nearly three times as large as they were eight years ago. Within the same period, the courses have been both strengthened in quality and increased in number, the faculty enlarged, the instruction improved, and the standard salaries of professors advanced nearly a third. The salaries have always been, I believe, less than in any other college of the type in Michigan, with one possible exception. They have never been, and are not now, an index of the quality and amount of service rendered. The business policy of avoiding Invasion of endowment for current expenses has been honor- able, wise and commendable, but it has been applied at the expense of underpaid faculties. A pardonable pride has for- bidden free publicity of the salaries in the past, and they are not yet up to the point which prompts a statement to a public audience. The college goes farther than many others of its type in special or vocational subjects. Music and fine arts have long been given. A few years ago a department of house- hold economics or homemaking was added, and it commands the patronage of many of our best women students, who take a part or all of its course during their liberal-arts years. Five years ago a business and stenographic department was intro- duced, the full entrance requirements being equivalent to those for liberal-arts freshmen. Unlike many of the so-called business colleges or departments, it refuses admission to students unfitted to appropriate advantages commensurate with the fees they pay and the time spent. The full course requires a considerable number of liberal-arts subjects in addition to those of a distinctively business nature. The greater part of this course is credited on the departments of commerce in the universities. Some of the traditional dicta of pedagogy are opposed to affiliation of vocational and so-called cultural training, but few colleges strictly honor the dicta, and, between the two 6 kinds, lines are drawn somewhat arbitrarily by the local con- ditions and practice of each college. The authorities at Hills- dale believe, on both theory and experience, that the two may be given by the same school without loss to any students and with profit to many if not all, provided the subjects which are technical in each are taught in substantially separate departments, and provided further that classes in subjects common to vocational and liberal courses are carefully graded. The vocational student is liberalized by association with young people of more diversified education and varied inter- ests and purposes. Nor can we see how the culture which is fit for a bachelor of arts is vitiated by acquaintance with vocational students with whom he must be in contact after graduation. Furthermore, those bachelors will, to say the least, not be appreciably less cultured, and will be better fitted for life, if they leave the graduating platform with a knowledge, lacking in many, of the difference between a re- ceipt and a bill, or between a personal check and a bank draft, or the general theory of accounts, or the rudiments of the science and practice of home-making. In any event, there is a pressing and growing demand that colleges and universities supplement their cultural training with a measurable fitting of their young people for getting on in the world and serving it more immediately upon gradua- tion. A very high educational and Baptist authority has gone so far as to advise that Hillsdale College lay its principal emphasis upon vocational education under strong Christian influences, and has predicted that in taking that course it would be supplying a need that is both real and of large proportions. No action has yet been taken in line with his advice. The college has trained hundreds of men and women for the gospel ministry and many more for other religious activi- ties. The majority of these have been in the regular colleg- iate courses, but a considerable number have taken the more professional or formal theological course. The theological department suffered the decline in patronage which was the lot of many of the biblical seminaries, due in part to what is often termed a "dearth of ministers," but quite as much to the call for other lines of Christian service for which dis- tinctively theological courses were not deemed best suited. For the former theological courses, as such, another has been substituted, designed as well for ministers as for other Chris- tian workers. This course was prepared in the light of the truth that within the particular constituency of the college, and in this section of the country in general, are large numbers of rural and other churches of various communions which desire pastors who have been educated in environment akin to that of the churches themselves. The course is studiously in- tended to supply their needs by particular emphasis upon working forms of Bible study and other subjects of the most immediate application to the duties of pastors; formal theol- ogy and research being avowedly secondary. It is doubtless true that these churches would be better off with men highly educated in amply equipped theological seminaries, but the stubborn truth remains that they do not seek them, and in many cases do not desire them. They now need men edu- cated better than those whom they have, and who will bring them to an appreciation of the best. Many who desire to become pastors of such churches de- cide to enter the ministry somewhat late in life, without high school courses and with a general education too limited for entrance to the regular classes. Their entrance deficiencies in English and other subjects in secondary education are made up by private guidance and instruction of the profes- sors in charge of this Christan Workers' Course. By this plan they can make up their deficiencies in less time than would be required in the preparatory classes heretofore of- fered; and better still, they are from the start in close touch with the professors who are especially in sympathy with the aspirations of intending Christian workers. In addition to ministers of the gospel, the course is de- signed for the following ends: First, to meet the wants of those who intend to enter mis- sions, social service, Christian associations, and allied activi- ties other than pastorates; Second, to offer a larger number of Biblical and religious studies as eleetives to students in the regular collegiate or liberal-arts courses, so that they may become more efficient laymen in their churches and communities; Third, to increase the number of young people who will enter the Christian ministry and other spheres of religious and philanthropic service, by keeping the subject before all students of the college during the years in which they form their plans for life, and at the same time take them far enough in study along these lines to prepare them by predi- lections, tastes and formal study to enter theological semi- naries and other institutions which are equipped for more advanced instruction in their distinctive fields. The amount of study required for entrance is the same as that for a freshman in the liberal-arts study, but one may substitute Bible study and other subjects for some of ihe studies usually required in high schools. An appropriate degree will be conferred upon the comple- tion of the course as prescribed. As heretofore, one may take a partial course, choosing such studies as one may be fitted to pursue with profit. It is well known that many young people go to college and university with a purpose to fit themselves for the min- istry and other fields of religious activity, and are lured away from that purpose to so-called secular business by the sheer force of the majority who are fitting for the latter. From the above statements, it will be seen that the plan is designed to conserve and confirm decisions for religious work with which students enter college. Furthermore, the subjects of the new course are in the main elective in the liberal-arts course, and one of the groups of studies leading to the degree of Bachelor of Arts has Bible Study and Religious Education as the major, on an equality with the groups in which mathematics, history, science or other subject is the major. It is believed that the offering of religious subjects as of equal value with the so-called secular studies will erase the artificial line supposed to set 9 off religious workers into a peculiar class, and make the choice of careers in Christian service more a "matter of course" with students at large. The new course was put into effect at the late registra- tion and it is too early to know by experience how far it will attain the ends sought, but we already have a few can- didates for the liberal-arts degree who are "majoring" in Biblical Study and Religious Education who under former conditions would have made history, mathematics, science or other subjects a major. About a half of this new course is made up of regular liberal-arts studies, taught by the general professors of the college, in which again no distinction is made between the student who will be a lawyer, doctor or farmer, for example, and the one who is to be a pastor, missionary or social-ser- vice worker. Two professors give their whole time to the subjects which pertain particularly to Christian service. The two combined have less hours in the classes than the stand- ard for two liberal-arts professors, but they can amply make up - the difference in the counsel and instruction of students deficient in preparation, conservation and co-ordination of the activities of the student Christian associations, Bible study and mission groups of the college and the churches and Sunday schools of the city. In brief, they are super- visors of the religious and spiritual forces of the entire col- lege, with the hope that those forces will have as efficient oversight as that given to the physical side of the students by a competent director of physical education. The writer has for many years and on many occasions maintained that Christian colleges have neglected their peculiar function of religious culture. State schools which are supported by the public taxing power, and are by statutes, decisions and public sentiment barred from avowed religious instruction and religious advice, have laid down definitions of education and courses of study, mainly within their own appropriate civic, professional and technical lines, and those definitions have been accepted by the public quite generally. Many of the Christian colleges, with much less resources in 10 funds and equipment, have, with some exceptions, strained themselves to "compete" with those state institutions in their own field, and have professed in addition to give religious instruction.' The inevitable result is that, in the impossible attempts at competition in kind, religious instruction has suf- fered. We at Hillsdale favor the proposition that some sub- jects and practices from which the state institutions are properly barred are of equal educational value with those which they prescribe, and that larger emphasis on the re- ligious side may properly be required of Christian colleges, and is consistent with sound pedagogy. And let it be said in passing that this conception of the sphere of Christian colleges is heartily endorsed by many of the highest educa- tional authorities in the state schools which some critics of too limited discrimination are want to characterize as irre- ligious and immoral. With few, if any exceptions, educators concede a vital place to sanctions of religion in the moral training which public education would conserve, and the high educational value of religious influences of sane and tolerant sorts is heartily conceded. Some state university faculties cheerfully credit religious subjects taken in the college when the students of the latter apply for admission to the universi- ies, though the latter may not themselves offer classes in those subjects. The colleges may, by giving larger promi- nence to religious education, be more faithful to their peculiar trusts and at the same time supplement the service of the state educational institutions. Both state and Chris- tian education would be improved by a new emphasis on spiritual culture in the colleges. Note. — For a more detailed statement of the Christian Workers' Course, send for the College Bulletin for July, 1913. THE FIRST COLLEGE IN MICHIGAN To Organize under the General College Law of 1855 , To come under the new Law of 1911 To Admit Women on an Equality with Men To Graduate a Woman with a Degree To elect Women to its Board of Trustees To have a Degree-Conferring Theological School To erect a separate Gymnasium Of the non-state colleges to comply with the Law granting State Teachers' Certificates to its Graduates Of the non-state Colleges to introduce a Course in Home Economics HISTORICAL June, 1844, Resolution to found a College December 4, 1814, College opened at Spring Arbor July 4, 1853, Corner Stone laid at Hillsdale November 7, 1855, College opened at Hillsdale March 6, 1874, greater part of building burned August 18, 1874, Corner Stone in reconstruction laid July 4 and 5, 1 ( J03, Corner Stone Semi-Centennial June, 1905, Academic Semi-Centennial. For a statement of legal and denominational status, and for a Catalogue or other information, sent free, address, Secretary of Hillsdale College. Hillsdale, Michigan. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 3 0112 110190250