Bethany College - Bethanian Yearbook (Bethany, WV)

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be obtained for any purpose other than that for which it was intended. He urged his friends to give and was continually adding to the fund from his own pocket. The struggle was a long and hard one. i Ir. Cochran gave when he had to borrow to give. Each year Bethany seemed to come closer to his heart and each year it seemed that new difficulties beset the old institution. In the closing years of the last century it seemed that Bethany was doomed. She was unable to pay her professors, her debts continued to increase and her friends lost heart and many of them gave up. Not so Mr. Cochran. Each new difficulty seemed to make him more determined that Bethany should live. He stubbornly refused to allow them to close her doors. She was going to live, and he, Mark Mordecai Cochran was going to see to it that she did liv e. Finall} ' he obtained the right man to manage the affairs of the college. The first years of this century seemed to be little more than a continuation of the old struggle. To those who knew, however, it was evident that improvement was coming. The student body w-as growing, her endowment was increasing and at the end of the first decade of nineteen hundred Bethany was in good condition. She was tided over the period of danger and to the unquenchable courage of IM. M. Cochran belongs the credit. Mr. Cochran was not satisfied with this, however. He had faith in Bethany ' s ideals and tenets. Bethany should grow and spread them. He continued to add to the endowment; he built new equipment and improved living conditions; he did everything in his power to bring Bethany to the fore. The old college thrived and prospered and now she stands where few of like institutions can rival her. We, who are permitted to live in the light of her learning today, can little realize, perhaps the great travail through which she has passed, but nevertheless we experience a feeling of sincere gratefulness toward this man who has made it possible that she should live. Bethany men and Bethany women of future generations will revere the name of Mark IMordecai Cochran. His spirit of meek sincerity, his quiet unpretentiousness, his sincere loyalty, his indomitable courage, his great service and the love and Christian ideals that prompted it, will be come part and parcel of Bethany ' s rich heritage and centuries hence when students read of the early days of Bethany they will associate the names of Campbell and Cochran, the one the founder, the other the savior of Bethany.

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Mark Mordecai Cochran Too often we are prone to give to the institutions which claim rela- tionship with great men, the entire credit for their greatness. However, institutions are man made and Bethany is the great institution she is today because she has been touched by the lives of some great men. Bethany ' s noble ideals have always existed and yet in themselves they are impotent. They must be seen by the souls that can respond and realize their great- ness. Such a man is Mark Mordecai Cochran, one of Bethany ' s noblest sons. As Clark, Lamar, Odell, Oliver and a score of others have striven mightily in the political world and McLean, McGarvey, Power, Hall and Williams have left the stamp of their greatness upon the church; so has M. M. Cochran given to the cause of Christian education the best fruits of a long and successful life, as a token of his great spirit. He has provided Bethany ' s material needs, that she may go on producing great figures in church and state and rendering her humble service to mankind. It has often been said that to Miss Campbellina Pendleton and M. M. Cochran belong the credit for Bethany ' s existence today. These two souls had faith when the stoutest of hearts seemed to have deserted. Mr. Cochran was chosen in 1882, seven years after his graduation from col- lege to take the place on the l oard of Trustees made vacant by the untimely death of James A. Garfield. From that time on he has been a faithful worker. When he was elected, affairs which concerned Bethany College were in a chaotic condition. The endowment had been spent to complete the new building and for general expenses. With painstaking care j L M. Cochran went into the details of Bethany ' s troubles. He decided that she must have endowment. He began the fund with a gift of two thousand dollars which was placed in such a manner that it could never

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In M emoriam CHAMP CLARK A. McLEAN