Bradley University - Anaga Yearbook (Peoria, IL)

Page 14 text:

The vast number as well as the importance of his activities and the promise of future accomplishment render his untimely fate full of tragic pathos. Seldom has the sure coming of a lingering and painful death been met so manfully. The record of the past year has deepened our admiration and given new grounds for our esteem. When he found that he had but a year at most to live he did not yield to weak repining or even devote him- self to special preparation for death. He earnestly asked of himself and others How can I most profitably spend the time allotted to me? Shall I complete so far as I can the scholarly researches which I have under Way or shall I devote my energies to the problems of the University and its future? Tho in the grasp of mortal disease, he set himself calmly at the tasks which each day brought. His last days are an eloquent testimony to his strength of character, his simple faith in God. Bradley Institute in common with multitudes in this and foreign lands will mourn his loss and cherish his memory, but with deeper feeling than others, inasmuch as he was one of our very number.

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continuing his study of the Ancient Languages and Hebrew, he entered Yale and at the end of two years received the Doctor's degree. After a few years of teaching he became instructor in .Hebrew at the Theological Seminary at Morgan Park, lllinois. Here, and later at Yale, he did more than any single person has ever done to extend and popularize the study of Hebrew, and in these years also he displayed the qualities which caused him to be chosen President ofthe new University at the age ofthirty-five. What he accomplished in this position is befbre the eyes of all. Never before in the history of education has an institution been brought so quickly from nothing to a position in the first rank as a world University, never was a large institution so fully the work of a single man. He had the vision of great things and the will and ability to bring them to pass. By common acknowledgement his was the greatest executive ability connected with education in our country in this generation. The presidency of a great University in these days requires qualities of the very highest order. The successful administrator of this high oflice must possess business capacity and power of organization which might place him at the head of any of our largest business enterprises 3 he must be a man of culture, must have expert knowledge covering the whole field of education and be himself at least to some extent a scholar g he must possess the highest type of christ- ian character. He must be able to present his ideas in cogent and attractive form. All of these requisites Dr. Harper possessed in high degree. To the duties of his office, so exacting and varied, he brought a marvelous capacity for work and no less remarkable quickness and precision of judgment. What to others would seem a matter fbr long deliberation with protracted uncertainity, met with almost instant decision, but only after careful con- sideration. He was then ready to take up some new problem. It is as the magician who by his spells created a great University that he is re- membered in the popular mind. But contrary to general belief his executive duties were distasteful to him, undertaken only as the necessary means to his end. Scholarship seemed to him a higher interest and as a scholar he wished to be known and remembered. As he held in his hand his latest work on the Minor Prophets ofthe Old Testament a few days before his death he exclaimed to a friend, I would rather be the author of that work than to hold the Presidency for forty years. Much of his time and energy was devoted to the efforts to popularize the study of the Bible. This he accomplished through the Institute of Sacred Literature, the Religious Educational Association, and through books written or inspired by himself The work which he had inaugurated will be carried on by others. The importance of what he did can not be over- estimated.

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T0 THE PUBLIC HE constructors of this volume are perfectly aware that some of the readers of the obser- vations contained herein are going to get sore with a soreness that patent liniment will not banish. Of course we did not mean you when We Wrote you in the writing of these lines, so We have decided upon a plan Which strikes us as being all to the good. If it does not give you the hit that it did us, kindly let us know and We will change it. - Um' plan is z'fzz'r.'-W lf any person into Whose hands this treatise may fall should in any Way feel that he, she or it has been sandpapered and varnished violently, the authors will be most delighted to send the aforementioned him, her or it a Written apology if he, she or it will send to our publishers an affidavit to the effect that he, she or it has purchased at least ten copies of this book. We need the royalties.