MacMurray College - Tartan / Illiwoco Yearbook (Jacksonville, IL)

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Keep the Homefires Burning They burned a bit too brightly, because during the next ten years a new west wing was completed, only to burn down a few years later. In the meantime Rev. Reuben Andrus and Rev. A. S. McCoy had both served as presidents in the Jail for Angels, as the late William Jennings Bryan was known to say. Rev. Charles Adams was president during the Civil War. Here we are reminded of the attention Illinois College fellows took, even in those bashful days. They were brave soldiers and deserved to get a few minutes to stop off on East State to say goodbye and enjoy some candy on the way to the station. Latin was rather neg- lected some of those evenings, we fear, but a race was emancipated. The years from 1862 to 1893 were full of discouragement and diffi- culty. In the first decade of that period there were three fires; one in 1861, one in 1870, and one in 1872. In the later years of the period the School had to contend with the rapid growth of High Schools and with the opening of the men ' s colleges to women. Many schools for women died in these years, and the Illinois Female College lived only because of the devotion and sacrifice of friends. Chief and deserving of special mention were, Dr. Wm. H. DeMotte, president from 1868 to 1875, and Dr. Wm. F. Short, president from 1875 to 1893, of whom an old student writes: I was but little more than a child when I saw him first. It was the occasion of my first formal entrance into the College and very formal, indeed, it seemed to me. My mother had taken my younger and smaller sister and myself over to inquire of our fitness for the Intermediate Department and I have never forgotten the gracious and courtly manner of our greeting. He was in the office and while we were sitting there Dr. Joseph R. Harker Mts. Short entered and with a smile asked, ' Mr. Short, can you let me have five cents? ' As I recollect it the change was needed in the settlement of some bill she held in her hand. With a twinkle of the eye he reached the small coin over to her, remark- ing, ' You are exceedingly modest in your demands this morning, my ear . In 1893 Dr. Joseph R. Harker was chosen president of what soon became Illinois Woman ' s College. Under the inspiration and guidance of his devoted leadership the College grew, and grew, and grew. The East wing was built, the West wing extended to the south, the front of old Main built out to the west, valuable grounds added to the campus — the Power House built. Music Hall, the Gymnasium and Harker Hal! came into being. Endowment was started and made into a foundation support for the college. Standards were being gradually raised; and the College granted her first Academic degree in 1908. [ 0 1

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Tales of the Long Ago There is a fascinating interest in the stories which alumnae of early years relate when they are with us on reunion occasions. We do not want to forget how the opening days of the College in 1848-49 and the fifties brought the students. In carriages and wagons, from places far and near, they came with their hair-covered trunks, boxes and home made candles, pretty poke bonnets in band boxes, and perhaps a feather bed, if a fond mother wished her daughter to have her accustomed comfort. It was necessary until the com- pletion of the first College building, with its stately columns reaching to the top of the third story, for board to be secured among the people of the town. There were no bathrooms, no running water anywhere, so the students provided them- selves with wooden wash tubs, which, when not in use, could be pushed under the bed, with the various devices used with it to provide a temporary privacy. It is hard to conceive what disorder the daily morning inspec- tion would have revealed had it not been for the stow-away place under the bed, concealed by the valance surrounding at least two sides of it. But for many years, whether living in the college dormitory or elsewhere, there were apt to be three or four girls in a room, and a little stove with wood for fuel was the commanding object at one side. A girl leaving the room on any errand was apt to be followed by calls from her room-mate to bring some wood up when you come back. A strip of molding with hooks or nails answered in place of a closet and held the modest wardrobes deemed suitable for school girl use. Gathered about the little table in the evening study hours, the girls labored over their compositions, or mastered the problems in Loomis ' Algebra in a way which we still hear made things hum in that most remarkable of class rooms. Room-mates took turns in furnishing a dozen candles which were burned one at a time, unless some especially dark and dismal task called for more light. Then they indulged themselves with a bril- liant illumination and recklessly burned two or three. In all times the years of learning have been the years of romance. The beautiful flower of youth so ordains it. No wonder that the con- vent system of seclusion, mistrust, and espionage brought forth its natural fruits. Clandestine breaking of rules and regulations had their episodes in midnight feasts with curtained transoms often followed by the panic of discovery. The play side of a young girl ' s life sixty and seventy years ago was given little thought after she had outgrown her doll. She was then supposed to be a lady, and such was her constant admonition. Ath- letic impulses were disgraceful and hoyden — to be suppressed at all times. 1 I ]

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How the Swimming Pool Got A Gym As told by Phyllis Wilkinson in 1917 Illiwoco. There was a big school in the State of Illinois, in a dreamy, sleepy old city; and the school grew and grew until it was big, big as a block, and like all well-regulated schools it always needed things. So the Man Who Says What ' s What said: We must have $180,000 or we ' ll grow little and narrow and disintegrate. And, that will never do because people came even from distant Egypt to grow big and broad and satisfy their curiosities. And when the girls heard the Man Who Says What ' s What (for it was a girls ' school you know) they wanted to begin to show their big broad interest at once so they met and decided to give up their sundaes and hamburgers and afternoon communion with Theda Bara and Mary Pickford. They sang, they yelled, they shouted Endow- ment ; they pledged $5,900 among themselves. And one time after the Man Who Says What ' s What had per- suaded a man who had $10,000 and more besides to give it to the College, the girls in the school had a torchlight parade late at night, all through the town in the snow. And they kept on getting money and more money until on June first they had all of the $ 1 80,000. But the man had to have even more money to have his school stay a standardized college. That means a college that could satisfy approved methods. And on Foun ders ' Day (that is a feast day among these peo- ple) the Man Who Says What ' s What started on a new campaign for $100,000. The girls worked this time, too, so that their satiable curiosity might continue to be satisfied after the approved methods. They sold things; one senior even offered to sell her senior privileges! Other girls closed windows in the morning, some served things to eat, sandwiches, tea, and chocolate. All for Endowment. And now comes the Almost-So Story, about the Gym. All the time they were talking about Endowment the Man was telling them they needed a new gymnasium too, so that their arms and legs and things could keep pace with their satiable curiosity, which was in their heads, and might topple them over when they wanted to go to the reel drama or the ten-cent store. Then, one day, this same Man Who Says What ' s What said that the girls in the school were going to have a new Gym and that it already had one part which would go to make up its internals; for some good, kind man had given it a Swimming Pool. Then all the little would-be mermaids in the school grew very, very enthusiastic, because you knew that meant that almost the most expensive part of the Gym was a sure ' nough sure-thing, and the rest of the Gym, which would only cost several thousand dollars would be a mere nothing. [ 21 ]