Ohio University - Athena Yearbook (Athens, OH)

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departments in The Wesleyan, Middletown, Conn.; Alle- gheny College, and Washington and Jefferson College, Penn. ; in the Ohio and in the Ohio Wesleyan Universities, and Cin- cinnati Wesleyan, Ohio ; in the State Universities of Indiana, Wisconsin and Missouri; in Vanderbilt University, Tenn.; in Illinois Wesleyan, Bloomington, 111.; in Cornell and Coe Colleges, Iowa ; in the Ohio and in the Miami Medical Colleges, Cincinnati, O., and in the Methodist schools of Utah and Nebraska. These are to day prominent institutions. In early days, however, there were other prominent colleges, which to- day are either not so well known, or have been absorbed by or combined with other schools. Many of these, and others which are to day of modest pretensions, have been served profession- ally by graduates frcm the old Attic college. Indeed, the greatest service which the sons of Cutler ' s university have given their generation has been given often in these humbler positions, where they meet the sons of the farmer and of the mechanic, and of others who can not send their boys to the more pretentious schools, and inspire them with love of learning and truly noble ideals. Thus no one can estimate the value of the service rendered by devoted sons of a noble school to the students of Madison College and Beaver College, Penn.; Wil- mington, Del.; Beverly, Willoughby and Xenia, Ohio; of the Theological Seminaries of Pnnce Edward, Va., and Louisville, Ky.; in Augusta College, Ky.; of Baton Rouge College, La., and Jasper College, Texas ; of Valparaiso College, Union Christian College, Ridgeville College, Ind.; Eureka College, 111.; Amity, Iowa, and College Mound, Mo. Alumni of the Ohio University have also left their impress on the public schools as teachers and principals in high schools, or as superintendents of education, in Athens, Chillicothe, Cleveland, Dayton, Eaton, Gallipolis, Georgetown, Jackson, Kenton, Lebanon, McArthur, Marion, Nelsonville, New Lex- ington, Ottawa, Pomeroy, Portsmouth, Shawnee, Springfield,

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and his followers, who were the actual founders of the uni- versity, Ex President K. B. Hayes once said: They were the best educated men the world ever knew. No wonder, then, that the college, organized under the direction and supervision of such men, soon became not only the center of culture and scholarship, but especially the fountain whence there flowed streams to nurture younger colleges which sprung up all around. Men trained in its halls have sat in the Gov- ernor ' s chair, on the judge ' s bench, in legislative halls of State and nation ; have filled presidential and professorial chairs in State and denominational schools, and have stood in the most important pulpits of Methodist and Presbyterian and of other congregations. In The Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Val- ley, W. H. Venable, LL.D. , says: Many of the graduates of the Ohio University rose to eminence in the professions of law and divinity; but the college is peculiarly distinguished for the large number of noted educators it has sent, and is sending forth, annually, from its famous pedagogical department. Among the teachers who were taught at Athens may be men- tioned Dr. Daniel Read, who, at the time of his death, was ' the oldest college teacher in continuous service in the United States, ' and whose professional services were enjoyed in turn by four State universities ; Dr. Elisha Ballantyne, of Indiana, who devoted fifty years to teaching in university and college ; Dr. Lorenzo Dow McCabc, distinguished as clergyman, pro fessor and author ; Dr. James M. Safford, the geologist ; Hon. Chas. Sheldon Smart, school commissioner of Ohio in 1874, and Dr. Wm. H. Scott, now president of the Ohio State University. Alumni of the Ohio University have filled the president ' s chair, also, in LaFayette College, Pa.; Ohio Universiiy and Rio Grande College, ().; State University, Ploomington, Ind., and Columbus, Mo.; Denver University, Denver, Col. They have also filled professorial chairs or principalship of preparatory

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Toledo, Wooster, Zanesville, and many other towns and cities in Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illi- nois and in other States. If we were to mention all the prominent places filled by alumni of the O U. in politics, in law and in the ministry, we should exceed the limits allotted. Suffice to say that through- out the Western country the great number of the eminent names winch in early days were those of judges, and attorneys, and barristers, Presbyterian bishops and Methodist elders, are found also in the catalogues of the students of the Ohio Uni- versity. In more recent years it is the Methodist Church that has been more especially served by the vigorous alumni ol this ' ' oldest institution. While many of these are known far and near in the Church, yet two are of especial prominence ; and it would be no disparagement to the others if we mention, by name, these two— par nobilc fratrum —who preside over the publishing interests of their Church in Cincinnati, O.; one the superintendent of the Methodist Publishing House, Rev. Earl Cranston, D.D.; and the other the editor of the Western Christian Advocate, Rev. 1). H. Moore, D. D. — both honored sons of the Ohio University. We must keep in mind, however, that the influence of a college is not limited to its alumni. Of twenty young people that begin the preparatory course of a college, not more than one will continue through the whole curriculum. In the smaller colleges of the Western States ten out of the twenty depart with the second year, never to return. Nevertheless, those who have plodded through Caesar and Euclid have ac- quired strength beyond their neighbors who have never gone to college or the academy ; and they exert greater influence on their associates and in their neighborhood. Who, then, can estimate the influence, as teachers and citizens for seventy-five years, that the thousands who have matriculated at the Ohio LO