Colorado College - Nugget Yearbook (Colorado Springs, CO)

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now on the southeast corner of Yampa and Nevada. This was, at that time, the far- thest house north; and is still standing, a relic of those early days. Coming home one evening about dusk I found the doors and windows barricaded with chairs, tables, and, in fact, about all the movable household furniture, Fffecting an entrance, I found my children in a terrible fright, caused by the appearance of some five hundred Indians, who were encamped a few hundred yards from the house. They were Utes, camping as is Indian custom, on the outskirts of the town, while they did their trading, buying of supplies, etc. This was the last visit of Indians in a body to the Springs. The place where they encamped is the site of the present Science Building. When the Colorado Springs townsite was laid out, it was agreed on the part of the projectors that they would do three things to make good homes for all comers. First, they should have a temperance community. This was assured by a clause in the sale of any land that it reverted to the Colorado Springs Company if saloons were erected on it. Second, they would beautify the town. Third, they would have an intelligent com- munity, and the very best educational privileges. When, therefore, the Association of Congregational Churches of Colorado instructed a committee with Prof. T. N. Haskell as chairman to ascertain what opportunities there were for founding a higher institution of learning in Colorado under Congregational aus- pices, the founders of Colorado Springs made them an offer, including a college site of twenty acres, with seventy acres of unsold lots within the corporation limits. Proposals had been received from Greeley and from several other places, but at the General Congregational Conference in Denver, January 20, 1874, it was decided without a dissenting vote to undertake at once the establishment of a Christian College in Colorado under Congregational auspices, having a board of trust not less than twelve, nor more than eighteen men, two-thirds of whom must be members of evangelical churches, and that Colorado Springs was the most suitable site for it. The need and purpose of such a college is spoken of in the first catalogue pub- lished. It was very natural that the General Conference should decide to undertake at once to establish a Christian college in Colorado. It is true that there are few Con- gregationalists in Colorado, and that they are not wealthy; but Congregationahsts were few and poor in Massachusetts when they founded Harvard, and fewer and poorer in Connecticut when they laid the foundation of Yale. The demand here is greater than it was in the colonies. Colorado had last year a school population of 1 6,000. It surely is not too soon to make provision for the liberal education of some of these youth. New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming with a combined population of about 400,000, need a college nearer than the distant Pacific coast. New Mexico needs common school teachers in great numbers to prepare her population for the duties of citizens. These teachers ought to be prepared for their work in an institution very near her borders. New Mexico will need, also, preachers of the gospel to save her people from the infidelity which so often succeeds release from the thralldom of superstition. 1 he College was under no ecclesiastical or political control. Members of different churches and of no church were on its Board of Trustees. Its Faculty was to be selected with no other limitations than that they should be Christian men, with special fitness to teach the studies of their department. Quoting from The Mecca of February 22, 1902: To be a Christian college, then, was the ideal originally proposed for it. The sense in which its founders understood the terms ' college ' and ' Christian ' is well indicated 16

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w O w O u o Q O -i o u

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eoloyafro Concur ITcarlloofe ll ugfjt-Sc cii in a sentence from their first announcement: ' The character which is most desired for this College is that of thorough scholarship and fervent piety, each assisting the other, and neither ever offered as a compensation for the defects of the other. ' The ideal of a Christian college is a large one. It is not attained in the first year. It is not attained in the twenty-eighth year. We do not know exactly how full an equip- ment, how universal an outlook upon science, the first builders pictured to themseives as the fulfillment of the desire of their hearts. Certainly it was larger than they saw in the actual institution of that time. Almost as certainly it was much smaller than has since been realized. But their ideal, like every noble ideal, expanded as they worked up into it. It will expand for hundreds of years to come. As the first in the state, in point of time, it received and still bears the name of Colorado College. The University of Colorado did not open until ' 77; the initial term of the State Agricultural College began in ' 79; while the University of Denver and the State School of Mines began in 1 880. Thus, in two rooms in the second floor of the Wanless building (now the First National Bank block) Colorado College was started under such auspices, and with such ideals as Bowdoin, Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, Williams and Amherst of New Eng- land, Oberlin of Ohio, Olivet of Michigan, Beloit and Ripan of Wisconsin, Carleton of Minnesota, Iowa at Grinnel, Oakland in California, Pacific University of Oregon, and many others, had already been founded. Prof. T. N. Haskell was financial agent; Rev. Jonathan Edwards was professor in charge; Prof. French of Chicago taught whatever he could not get others to teach; Mr. S. C. Robinson of Gunnison had a class in mathematics and another in physics, and the Rev. E. N. Bartlett was instructor in Latin. In the winter of ' 74 the College moved into their first school building, a two-room frame structure on the corner of Platte avenue and Tejon street, west of Acacia park, as it was then called. In 1875 Rev. Jas. G. Dougherty was made first president of Colo- rado College, succeeding Dr. Edwards, who had resigned. 1 he times were hard. It was a time of financial distress the whole country over. T he infant institution, but barely on its feet, fought its way from day to day, refusing to be downed. On every side was seen only discouragement and despair. Colorado Springs had no financial basis and never could have. Sneering, contemptuous words everywhere were heard about the idea of establishing a college here. There is no more chance of establishing an efficient college here than there is of establishing springs here, said one. Why, the idea of a college here is simply an outgrowth of a scheme to bunco people out of hard-earned money, a New England deacon is quoted as saying, of whom ' tis added, his daily prayer was to get money enough to carry him back to old Connecticut. Hundreds of people left ; other hundreds remained only because they could not get away. It was against such conditions that President Dougherty struggled. He k pt the College alive. No greater praise could be spoken of him. He planned wisely, worked faithfully and sacrificed much health, time and money to lay proper foundations. Under other circumstances his sacrifices and his labors would certainly have been more effective. He soon went East, however, and Prof. Jas. H. Kerr was left in charge. He had one assistant, Miss Mary C. Mackenzie, afterwards Mrs. Frederick E. Robinson. They gave their best of heart and time, to carrying on of the work. In 1876 Rev. E. P. Tenney was called to the presidency. When he came there 17