Beloit College - Codex Yearbook (Beloit, WI)

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THE IJISTOA' Y OF BEL OIT COLLEGE. 23 For'the first three years there were, of course, no graduates, in 1851 the juniors made a substitute for Commencement by holding rhetorical exercises in the grove. Those out-door gatherings must have had a peculiar charm. The place was the natural amphitheater just opposite Prof. Porter's. Near the boundary-line and facing west, two stages were erected, one like that now used in the church, the other for the band. A canopy, tied from tree to tree, kept off the sun, but, unhappily, not the dust. The whole country came in and picnicked under the trees. It was really but not wholly a gain when the exercises were moved, in 1862, to the newly completed First Congregational church. The country lost interest and came in no more. The exercises in the grove were never rained upon, the first Commencement in the church was wet, and there have been many wet ones since. The history of the College buildings is concisely this: Middle College, - - 184.7-8, ' 810,000 00 . North College, - - 1854, 8,000 00 Chapel, - 1858, 6,000 00 Laboratory, - 1868 Qwar-pricesj, 5,000 00 Memorial Hall, - 1869 Qwar-pricesj, 26,000 00 Gymnasium, - - - 1874, 4,000 00 Observatory and equipment, 1881-3, 22,000 00 The Battell Clock was given in 1881. Oflicers. . 1 Of the older professors we may make this record: J. I. Bushnell, 1848-733 S. P. Lathrop, I849-543 M. P. Squier, 1850-66, F. W. Fisk, 1854-593 I. P. Fisk, 1856-71, H. B. Nason, 1858-665 H. L. Kelsey, 1860-635 E. P. Harris, 1866-685 I. H. Eaton, I868-773 I. W. Petti- bone, I87I-8I3PCf6I Hendrickson, 1870-843 T. C. Chamberlin, 1872-86. It would require a volume to trace the work of these men and estimate its worth. I Of living and present instructors, joseph Emerson, in his forty-nrst year of service, is now in Europe, enjoying well-earned and needed rest, but expecting to return to the harness 5 William Porter began workin Sep- tember, 1852, and is, therefore in his thirty-seventh year, J. I. Blaisdell began work in 18595 ex-President Chapin is at his home in Beloit, able, though an invalid, to aid with his counsel the College to which he has devoted his life, he resigned the presidency in 1886, but taught and labored, all too abundantly, for two years more. Rev. E. D. Eaton, having served live years as trustee, became President in 1886: it was a peculiar gratification to the Alumni that one of their own number should

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Q2 C ODZLY. enthusiasm with which a great work of devotion is begun. Only the teaching went on. ' The student of our beginnings must read for himself the history of the Hnancial campaign that ensued: Prof. Bushnell wrote it out for the twenty-hfth anniversary 5 it was printed in the quarter-century pamphlet, and it cannot well be abridged. No more help could be got from abroad till Middle College was finished by the people of Beloit. That promise must be redeemed. An active canvas to talk college was begun. The prejudice against an abolition-college began to soften, faith, at that time drooping or almost dead, began to revive. At length it was deemed best to call a public meeting, though few thought that it could succeed. The meeting rose to the best hopes of its promoters, and the needed amount was raised. Says Prof. Bushnell: It has always seemed to me that, if there has ever been a crisis in the history of this College, it was at the time when Beloit raised her second subscription of four thousand dollars, and the success with which that effort was carried through, inspired courage and hope through all the time thereafter. Thus the citizens of Beloit gave at the start a site valued at three thousand dol- lars and twelve thousand dollars in money or labor. From time to time since, they have aided nobly in efforts to erect other buildings or to broaden the work. Middle College was occupied in the autumn of 1848, and for six years was the only college-building, all public exercises, except Commencement, being held in what is now the geological room. Growth. In the fall of 1848, a preparatory school was opened, but in the expectation that high-schools and academies would soon be multiplied and built up throughout the region, it was then little thought that the preparatory school would last till now, be enlarged into an academy, and be to-day the principal feeder of the college-course. Yet, so the people of this region have willed. The time from 1848 to 1850 was the great harvest of funds, most notipeable being the gift, by Mrs. Hale, of land that was sold for thirty- nve thousand dollars. Rev. A. L. Chapin, then the pastor of a Presbyterian church in Mil- waukee, was elected President November zo, 1849, began work February 1, 1850, and was inaugurated in the grove july 24th of that year. He is the one living man who has seen and helped the whole life of the College from its inception on the Chesapeake to the present day.

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24 CODEX. be. thought worthy to succeed the founder. The younger professors, not here mentioned, can bide their time for the commemoration of their work. - Rev. Dexter Clary served as Secretary of the Trustees till his death in 1874, and was then succeeded by Rev. H. P. Higley. In humbler but not less truly important spheres and in not less faith- fulness and friendship to a great multitude of students have been the labors of Miss Ana T. Dewey, the matron of the college-club for all but about two of the twenty-five years between 1857 and 1882, and of john B. Pfeffer, the man-of-all-work for the last twenty-three years and over: their names open the springs of gratitude in many an old student's heart. The War. The part taken by the college in the war of the rebellion has been often stated, but must not be omitted here. More than 4oo, out of perhaps 750 who could bear arms, were in the Union army, and forty-six died in the service, the names of the latter are on a marble tablet in Memorial Hall. One Commencement was omitted because both the professor of rhetoric and the Senior class were in camp at Memphis, the daily prayer-meeting began with their return. The Catalogues. The hrst catalogue is dated H1849-5o, and is of great interest to those who care for the way in which good things have co'me to be. The names of the trustees are largely strange tolthose not familiar with the past. The Faculty of the College consists of five, the instructors in the Seminary are given, they are three of the live, and Miss Adaline Merrill and Miss Cornelia Bradley, A' Instructors in Ladies' Department. There are no Seniors, four Juniors, no Sophomores, four Freshmen, nine sub-Freshmen. The future prominence of Beloit in editorship is suggested by the fact that this roll of seventeen contains the names of S. D. Peet, J. M. Bundy, Horace White, and Harlan Page. The rest of the preparatory school number forty-one. The. Beloit Seminary is credited with eighty-hve gentlemen and hfty-nine ladies The requirements for admission and the course of study, though not so high as now, are high and worthy of great respect. The library is said to contain over a thousand volumes. The pages in this catalogue are sixteen. ' In the catalogue of 1850-51 the girls have disappeared, to return no more. There is a normal and English department of sixty-four