Earlham College - Sargasso Yearbook (Richmond, IN)

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Ihriiugh the wIkiIc coniposilinii and cnricliiiiy the harmony. witli its i i ' duth. licyoi Looking- Iwck over Earlham Colleije frmn this, its liftieth state and ennntrynien. anniversary, we can see more clearly than ever hel ' ore, what it is, in , and amither and an l appreciate more fidly what Stednian said uf the fuimding of sticli institutions: Whenever an educational foundation is estab- lished for the study of elemental matters — of scientific truth or human ideality — we return to the primary motive for educa- tion. The founders would restore a balance between arbi- trar - and fundamental education. The resulting; gain is not the overflow of collegiate resources, not the lu.xury of learning, not decoration, but the enhanced use, +.. jov, and worth of existence. such institutions are a fresh search for the verities, the inmo.st truth of things, inevitable in that they are the means for man ' s ad- vancement and for the conduct of life. F,. ce|)t in a conspectus of some kind, in which the later years of the college are seen against the earlier, one is not apt to see the enlargement of life and the uplift that have come from it. It was founded in a love of truth, and in its later years it loves iiipiiies it — not less, but seeks it more widely, and finds it more al)imdant- olence tl ly, in fields hardly known to its founders. It was founded on a h arlhaii love of church, and it has not departed from it, but the idea of uttered. church has widened with widening knowledge, and the brethren are rapidly becoming all men. It was founded on the fear of ( lod. and there it abides, steadfast, but the fear is less austere, more reverent, f.asi softening into a deep and comforting love. It was foundeil on s ni])athv and fellowship, and they have grown d the narrow lionndaries of clinreh ;ind The sentiment against war is still grow- a wider is springing u]) beside it. Per- haps the founders thought that the world was made for man — its forests, its flowers, its fruits, its animals, its birds, its fishes — all for man, alone, principally. If so, in the planting of Earlham they planted even better than they knew. That narrow and selfish conception is fast passing with the increasing light and the increas- ing appreciation of the cosmos of all things. When we look back over the fort -si.x colle.ge-.generations, the fifteen thousand to twenty thou- sand students, the eight hundred and more . lumni and . lumnje — lights — which the college has al- ready sent out, and find hardly an individual that has goin- wrong; and remember that a large |)ropor- tion of those lights have set up light plants of their own — on the Pacific Coast, in Mexico, in our eastern cities, in the .South and the Xorth, in the West Indies and the b ' ast Indies, in China, Japan, -Africa. Hawaii, the Phil- er their light shines their bencv- . lask, -and that wberi iws to all things both great and small. we can .see that is indi-ed an instance of the great tnUb that .Stednian ( r, in Whittier ' s terms: Nnt vainly tlic gift uf it-, f.uinclcrs «av iiunle ; Noi Praycrless the slmics of iis o.rreis were lai.l : Tlir l lessiii.. s ,,f Hill, wlii.ni in M-crct they souglil I Lis ..kiumI llu- K nil ..rl that tlic fathers have wionglit Wm N. TuflCllI.dOU.

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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

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Historical Sketch ITUATED on a tract of land of one Innidred and twenty acres, adjoining the western limits of the city of Rich- mond and overlooking the city and picturesque valley of the Whitewater River, is an institution which reaches, this year, the fiftieth anniversary of its history as a college and the sixty-second as an educational institu- tion. Plans for sucli an institution were begun as far back as the early thirties and by 1837 were well under way. Like the beginnings of all great movements, the progress was slow JK . and it was 1847 before the doors were thrown open for students. From the start, both sexes were admitted w ' ithout restriction or reserva- tion. The school was maintained as a board- ing school of advanced grade until 18. 9 when it was organized as Earlham College. Among the early contributors to the endowment of the col- lege was a prominent English banker, bv the name of T iseph John Gurney, a highly educated man and a prominent minister among Friends. His timely gift was later supplemented by a larger one which was contributed bv his widow and the college was given its name from Earlham ITall , the ancestral seat of the Gurneys, at Norfolk, England. The earliest officers and teachers of Earlham were largely men and women from New England, whose refinement, force of character and scholarship gave it from its beginning an enviable reputation throughout the Ohio valley ; a reputation which it has consistently -iiiai itained for half a century. Earlham College enjoys the distinction not only of being one of the first co-educational institutions in America, but of having been one of the foremost institutions in the West in pro- moting the advanced practical study of science. As early as 18.-i3, it took the lead in Indiana along the lines of Natural History, by starting a collection of materials for the study of Geology,