Coe College - Acorn Yearbook (Cedar Rapids, IA)

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THE DEAN OF COLLEGE It is especially fitting this year that the ACORN should take a retrospective glance over the past history of Coe. In 1853, seventy-five years ago, a collegiate antecedent of Coe College was incorporated as Coe Collegiate Institute. Two years before that Williston Jones and his wife had started in their own home a school which had for its prime purpose to afford young men the opportunity to study for the ministry. In this project he interested Daniel Coe of New York and obtained from him the Hrst gift of money to foundan .institution of learning. Even earlier than this, that is, in 1850, Elizabeth Calder's t'Female Seminaryn was affording girls of Eastern Iowa the opportunity for an education. These various educational movements of more than three quarters of a century ago were some of the sources of the streams of influence that have converged in our splendid institution. In the early '50's of the nineteenth century there came to Iowa with the great tides of westward migration a body of people animated by the same ideals that inspired the Founders of Coe College. They were members of the United Brethren Church and through their con- ference they soon took steps to found a college within the state. They selected as a site a beautiful tract in the southwest corner of Linn County, believing confidently that the railroad soon to be built between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids would pass by their site. In this they were doomed to disappointment. Nevertheless they built their college and named it Western. The first baccalaureate degrees were conferred in 1864, twenty years before the first class graduated from Coe. Western College was later moved to Toledo, Iowa, its name changed to Leander Clark and finally merged with Coe. The streams of inliuence that rose in VVestern- Coe-Leander Clark have converged into a mighty river of blessing to the state and nation. S. W. Smarter Page 24

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TI-IE PRESIDENT HARRY MOREHOUSE GAGE Page 23

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THE DEAN OF MEN IVriie me down as a friend of man. Does the College man need a friend? If so what for? He is wont to think of the faculty as a body of people whose hands are against him. They are considered his sworn enemies. Of course he is mistaken but he does not realize it. As far as he is concerned to think it is all but as bad as to have it the fact. He comes here from away ,into a new and strange environment. He has to form new associa- tions and acquaintances. He finds it diflicult to adjust himself to these new surroundings. It takes time and at times causes heartaches to make these adiustments. He has his financial problems. College is much more expensive than he anticipated. He spends his money somewhat recklessly failing to count the cost. Some parents complain that every letter home contains at least one sentenceg Please send me a check. As time goes on he discovers financing an education an increasingly diliicnlt problem. He sooner or later finds himself in scholastic difficulty. Much of this is his own doing and often it is his undoing. He gets what he calls down and discovers it is not so easy to get up. Other problems too numerous to mention follow apace. Does the College man need a friend? I'll say he does. HARRY KREMERS Page Z5