Colorado College - Nugget Yearbook (Colorado Springs, CO)

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Colorado College ¥cat ool; If Attflfjf-Scfrcu atory schools of the College. Prof. Strieby was preceptor of the Santa Fe Academy for the next two years, coming then to Colorado College to organize the department of Chemistry and Metallurgy, which he has been at the head of ever since. Beginning 1 880 these academies were turned over to the management of the New West Educational Commission. This year the College was divided into three terms, the tuition twenty-five dollars a year. In 1881, under Prof. Strieby, special courses in Assaying, Blow-piping and Chem- ical Analysis were offered for students who have not the time for a regular course in Mining Engineering. Sinc ' e 1876 instruction in Mining and Metallurgy and in related studies had been carried on under Prof. Kerr. Of this department the announcement reads: Students admitted at any time, and the period required for anyone to complete a course will de- pend entirely upon his capacity and energy. In 1880 the course of instruction included: ] — College course for degree of B. A. 2 — Preparatory School. 3 — Normal School. 4 — Mining, Metallurgy and winter scientific studies. . 5 — The Cutler Training School. The winter scientific studies embraced Chemistry, Geology, Surveying, Assaying, Blow-piping and Mineralogy and Physics. The session lasted six months, from Novem- ber 1 to May 1 . This course was well attended, many students coming in during the winter months to pick up a little schooling, then out again for the summer, prospecting, working in mines, on ranches and the like. The Cutler Training School was designed to fit pupils for special forms of Christian work in the new West. The instruction was adapted to the wants of the student, having reference to his previous mental discipline and attainments and his contemplated field of work. It was during this year the Rev. George N. Maiden came, as Professor of History, Political Science and Metaphysics. An interesting item is found in regard to making expenses. The work is usually farm labor in summer, and in the wcodyard in winter, wages 1 5 cents per hour. Prof. Tenney did everything in his power to help those who wished to earn their way. He built irrigating ditches, barbed wire fences, established a woodyard, ran a dairy, etc. The bulletin goes on: No incompetent persons, or those unwilling to earn what they receive, are employed. Idlers at once discharged! During the late seventies, active canvassing had been going on to secure money to aid in building Palmer Hall. Tradition tells an interesting anecdote in that connec- tion. Among the most energetic canvassers for the building fund was Helent Hunt Jackson (H. H.), who drove over the country among the ranches, soliciting subscrip- tions. At one place a ranchman ' s wife, having no money, contributed four pounds of butter from her morning ' s churning; and at a fair then being held for the benefit of the College, this butter netted one hundred and eighty dollars. On May 31, 1882, was dedicated Palmer (now Cutler) Hall; the first of the stone buildings on the Campus. It did not then have the two wings; they were added later. President Tenney had postponed his inaugural address until this occasion. 19

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Colorado College 3Tr r lloofc If attfttyt-Setoen was no property except some seven hundred dollars in a mortgaged budding and lot, and there were debts for services rendered, etc., equal at least to the value of the property. A general reorganization was effected. Certain Massachusetts gentlemen (Jas. G. Butt- rick, Samuel Crooks, Henry Cutler, A. A. Sweet, B. T. Thompson and E. H. Cutler) agreed upon the recommendation of the American College and Educational Society, which had adopted the College as one of its beneficiaries, to aid it so far as it should seem wise to do so. They pledged certain money to the endowment of the College, which made it possible for the work to be carried forward with renewed vigor. President Tenney was a worker. He had great faith in the high mission of the College. He had great plans for its future and did not spare himself in his efforts to bring them to realization. Quoting one who knew him and worked with him: God forbid that we should overlook, or fail to do justice to, that worker, who, in the late seventies, brought the first enduring strength to Colorado College, and who grandly organized the scattered philan- thropic forces east and west in the interest of practical learning When the books in which are recorded the acts of those who gave themselves to Colorado College are opened there will be found written in letters of gold, large enough to be read even by those who run, the name of one whose good deeds and noble motives will grow brighter with each rising of the sun, as long as Colorado College has an existence — the name of that prince of optimists, ex-President E. P. Tenney. As an insight into the devotion, the noble, heroic unselfishness of those in whose hands the life of the College was then entrusted, the following report speaks eloquently: In respect to the salaries of the instructors it is suitable to say that the President has, in three years (from ' 76 to ' 79) relinquished $1,740 of the amount legally due him from the College, and that his service for the College has put him to the loss of almost as much more; that he has subscribed to the endowment books, to be paid by bequest, a sum exceeding all that he has received from the College in three years ; that he has subscribed to the endowment as much as he has received in two years, to be paid within a given time from his salary, unless he finds some one else to pay it, and that he has insured his life for the benefit of the College to such an amount as to make it sure that the College will continue its work in case the Lord prefers to have him work else- where. ¥ Prof. Kerr has given to the College most valuable services without charge, and paid out for the College several hundred dollars. Prof. Loud has most generously denied himself in this work. It will require time, patience, hard work, unquestioning faith and abundant bless- ings of Providence to establish the College upon a sound basis. It is not perhaps too much to say that the outlook for the future of Colorado College is hopeful. Whether or not the ' fruit thereof shall be like Lebanon ' depends upon One who is able to make it grow, but it is certain that there is now a ' handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains. ' Have faith in God. According to your faith be it unto you. In 1877 the catalogue shows: 1 Sophomore, 2 Freshmen (College); 22, Prepar- atory School; 25, Normal School; 16, Special; 66, in all departments. In this catalogue appears the name of Frank H. Loud (Amherst), A. B., Pro ' , of Mathematics. The next year we find five students registered in the College proper. In July, 1878, Salt Lake Academy and Santa Fe Academy were opened in these respective cities, under the auspices of the College. They ranked, practically, as prepar- 18

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His address celebrated, then, both the dedication of the College building and his inauguration as president. He gave a splendid idea of the early life and difficulties of some of our now famous institutions of learning, showing that Colorado College might at least lay claim to as promising a beginning. I quote from it in part: Our graduation class of two is as many as Amherst began with; twice as many as the Yale first class, and one-third the number of the first graduates of Princeton. The first class of Harvard went forth six years after the first steps were taken to found the University; the same time that has now elapsed since the revival of our College. So that in these points our first Commencement is as honorable as the beginning of the fore- most colleges of the land. When Dartmouth College, beginning as an Indian charity school, was removed to its present location, the first exercises were held in a hut of logs about eighteen feet square, without stone, brick, glass or nail; in which was housed President Wheelock ' s family. Bowdoin, the alma mater of Longfellow, be- gan its work in a small building, and the first call for prayers or recitation was the pres- idential cane, rapping on the stairs. During more than a score of years at the begin- ning of Yale College, they not only had no building of their own, but the entire fac- ulty did not exceed three or four tutors and the president, who spent no small portion of his time in financiering, as if he had been in a Western college. When Harvard was one hundred and forty years old, the faculty consisted of the president, three professors and one tutor. Princeton, the log college of New Jersey, had only twelve thousand dollars of endowment at a time when she had sent forth twenty-seven hundred graduates. If, therefore, we have not been able, in these early years of Colorado College, to rival the great schools of the East in their maturity, we may, in the hour of their wealth and their fame, lay claim at least to a beginning as promising as they had. The dedication of the first permanent college building might well be taken as end- ing the first epoch in the history of the College. Over almost insurmountable obstacles it had triumphed thus far. It had been born in a spirit of faith and of prayer. The first motto had been, Nil Sine Christo, Nothing without Christ; after ' 76, changed to Nil Desperandum Christo Duce, Never de- spair with Christ for leader. From the first the fortunes of the College had been in the most unselfish and devoted hands. In their reports we find such words as these: And we pray every day that we may have no more money unless the Lord will also give us wisdom for using his money to advantage. In the face of every discouragement, through the darkest days, they worked on cheerfully, faithfully; giving time, health, money and all the enthusiasm of noble hearts consecrated to a great purpose. Well may we be proud of our College spirit! The Tiger spirit! It had its incep- tion in the lives of those who thus made it possible for our College to be what it is today. And when the old, old tingling wells up, throbbing through our veins in all its intensity, bringing the tears to our eyes, and a huskiness to our voices, we might well bare our heads to those early heroes who labored before the dawn with never a fear that the day was not coming. With the dedication of Palmer Hall then, the College entered upon its second era. The first was a struggle for the right to live, the second might be called a struggle to maintain this right. Efficiency, now, more than ever, was their ideal. From the first the founders had been jealous of their degrees. Preferring to give few, rather than give such as should be of low estimation. None were given under President Dougherty. Un- 20