Beloit College - Codex Yearbook (Beloit, WI)

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. 20 When came the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of Dr. Emerson's professorship, it was an opportunity seized by many of his distinguished friends and by members of all the classes that have graduated from the College to express their gratitude to an honored teacher in warm written greetings from the world over. It may be doubted whether any other teacher ever received such a mass of letters telling just such a Beloit style of revering friendship, and, engraved in gold, from the Beloit Alumni came the words of Xenophon in Greek letters that they remembered: ' He made many to set their hearts upon true manlinessf' To the rare scholarly personality of the teacher is added always a quiet, business-like interest in the College's administration and nnance, so that it is heard, though it is never proclaimed, that 575,000 in various sums has been added to the resources through his influence. The College Library has had all its growth under Prof. Emerson as Librarian, and its present value proves his constant care in putting right books upon the shelves while funds were very limited. Such activities still mark the teacher's plannings for the good of the College, and hll his hopes of soon returning to loved tasks, where his Grecian vigor shall illustrate that The ripe old man ought to be as young as old-as old as young. U Prof. Emerson would only wish placed on record here his deep thankfulness for the privilege of being allowed to help on such a work, with such men and such material as the students of Beloit College have afforded, from which to make the men of the present and the future. V

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17 Joseph Emerson 'T was when our hrst two young professors came to start this College in the prairie li grass that Beloit's Prof. Emerson was born into a simple, rich career, interesting and appreciated enough, even if one turns no farther back than that era-making record. But this career had been already prophesied by the preceding student-life, the boyhood, and the ancestry of Beloit's Prof. Emerson. He was born in Norfolk, Conn., May 28, 1821. His parents, Rev. Ralph Emerson-and Eliza Rockwell, could each trace descent from the most stalwart of New England's eujm!rifz'1e. Indeed, Ralph Emerson's ancestry may be traced back through the Bulkley family to the times of William the Conqueror, yet the more inspiringly democratic part of the long genealogy lies, doubtless, at the Heroic Age of the Puritan immigrations, when Rev. Peter Bulkley left wealth and position to escape the persecutions of Charles I. and Archbishop Laud. In 1636 his family, separated in different ships and in disguise, started on that conscience-led style of pilgrimage westward which was, two hundred years later, to bring their descendant to Southern Wisconsin. It was a Rev. joseph Emerson of 1674 that, fleeing from destruction wrought by King Philip's Indians at Mendon, Mass., found at Concord, Mass., a home and a bride-Elizabeth Bulkley. Concord remained unharmed during King Philip's war, For, said the chief, Bulkley is there, the man of the big pray. From this time on men of the Emerson family appear in each generation with influence, as it were, of clerical or literary bishops over this heart- region of New England. At the time of the French and Indian war and of the Revolution we hnd representative Emersons filling patriotic pulpits at Concord-a town destined to be always proud in just this name, others we find as enthusiastic, 'intimate supporters of such makers of America as George Whitefield and Mary Lyon in their aggressive religious and educational work. Among the rare literary possessions of Prof. Emerson is Chaplain Daniel Emerson's journal of 1775, a valuable historical document, headed, 'K My Procedure with the Army to Crown Point. ' See frontispieee.

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