Earlham College - Sargasso Yearbook (Richmond, IN)

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also, that a new voice was heard crying in that wilck-rncss: Give us a more advanced education, give us the means of culture, a chance at the refinements I ' f lite. When this voice of Jnhn the llaptist is heard crying in any wilderness, it is time for the governors to listen ; a new light has appeared, a new thirst has come, a new civilization is dawning, and the old regime and the old means will not suffice for it. Thus the idea for a higher, central institution of learning was born with the necessity for it, — the idea of a set of dormitories, class- rooms, study-rooms, laboratories, libraries ; the idea of a set of instructors of thorough education, wide knowledge, technical skill, inspiring. Christian character; the idea of an institution Tut (JLI) l ' ,n. l;l)l.M. Si IH that should be a home, where the youth nf the church might go. wear off their rusticity, lose their bail habits, develop their facul- ties, and return to be promoters of true work and true life in their respective localities. This idea of Indiana Yearly [Meeting to establish a central institution of learning at Richmond was nearly thirty years in developing and materializing in a college equipment. It assumed, very naturally, as a first fnrm, the idea of a hoarding school, after the manner of Ilavcrford, Westtown, and Providence, through which l- ' ricnds, east of die Alleghenies, had been succeeding so well in educating their children. The land for the site of the contemplated boarding school was a generous purchase. Want of money for the buildings was the delaying circumstance. All through the decade of ' 30 and the early years of ' 40. contribu- tions were coming in from friends of the [Meeting, from friends of the enter])rise in the eastern States, and from En- gland. Ireland and France, but universally in small amounts, so that the accoimts of the managing board always read — Hills payable. One wonders what kept that board in heart. They were staunch men. they belieyed in their cause, they l)elie e I in the meeting that stood back of them, they believed in the good Providence that over-shadowed the meeting. Perhajis, some of them knew the story of the founding of Tlarvard College

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Earlhdm College Semicentennial Conspectus TdiNT (II- ii;w l l)i, can a just estimate lie made t the wuith, vitality and tendencies of an insti- tution, as complex and as important in its functions, as a colleg-e, until a point in its life has heen reached, at which a retrospect of con- siderable breadth is attainable. Fifty years of a college-public will show three human generations, in such relation to one another and in such manifestation of qualities and tendencies, as to afford a fairly satisfactory basis, upon which to reckon worth and vitality. The first generation will still be objectively present, at its work, except the forward fringe of it, which has been melting away long enough to show something of the finish, it is making ; the second will be in the first lustrum of its chosen and established work ; while the third will be swarming over the walls of child- hood, showing its life and qualities to everv one. THE UKHv FORWARDS Earlham College is one, probably the most distinguished one, of the spiritual children of Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends. Early in the decade of 1830, this great body of religious people foimd by its annual reports that there were in its families between 6,000 and 7,000 children, of whom two-thirds were more or less deprived of the guarded religious education that has been the ideal of this church, ever since the days of its founder. It is true they had at the time the best private schools of the country, for they always planted those twin civilizers, the school house and the meeting house, among the first things they did, in every settlement they made. But the immigration from Caro- lina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Xew England had poured their families into the new country so rapidly that their Monthly Meeting Schools were incompetent to educate the children. There were not enough schools: there were not enough ((ualificd teachers for the schools that were. It was at this time.

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and took courage from it, — how it was a people ' s enterprise, as theirs was ; how every one contributed, but no one much. Was the wilderness speaking unto wilderness? Were the words of Massachusetts tellino- the story of faith to the woods of Indiana and Ohio? Whether these heroes knew the story of Harvard, or anv- thing of the philosophy of the growth of great and complex or- ganisms, or not, one can hardly doubt that they knew it is more blessed to give than to re- ceive, and took high pleasure in sacrificing themselves for their children ' s children, see- ing them in their future cul- ture and refinement, as we are seeing them in their present. No other construction will ac- count for those years. In 1847, when the west wing of Earlham Hall was completed, the boarding school was formally opened and In- diana Yearly Aleeting entered upon its work of higher edu- cation. The next step came in 1852 in the creation of an un- dying board of management for the institution, Twelve men and twelve women, divided into relays, the terms of service of which terminated in one, two, and three years, respectively. This board was the first abiding, organic unit of E arlham College. By virtue of its continuity in member- ship it came to see the logical outcome of the enteqirise that had been undertaken, and to direct its attention to the permanent features rather than the passing. Seven years later, the logical consequence transpired in the passing of the boarding school into the wider privileges and higher functions of the college. Out- wardly there was not much difference for some vears. Consti- tutionally there was a stability acquired, an honorable station, and a chance for unlimited growth. It was still a college in posse rather than in esse. Its chief asset was still faith, the sub- stance of things hoped for, rather than the things themselves. It had one substantial building; rudimentarv chemical and phys- ical laboratories, a few books, a small collection of minerals and fossils — a materia! equipment, very meager : simply a nucleus, a locality, a kind of Mark Hopkins ' log . But it had the spirit of Mark Hopkins at the faculty end of it and the spirit of the Mark Hopkins student at the student end of it. and therefore it was well founded as a college. THE LOOK B- CKW. RDS. » It would be impossible to enumerate the beneficiaries of the founding of a college. The} ' midtiply rapidly and they soon scatter over the world and into every honorable busi- ness and profession. The ' are not only the Alumni and body of students that have been in immediate contact widi the institu- tion and their children and children ' s children without limit, but. also, all those whose lives are touched by the light of the institution and its ideals reflected from the multiplying cen- ters established by the radiation of its influence. A college is not only a city set on a hill, which can not be hid, but a dif- fusing color, tinting the total of things, a musical tone, echoing