Elmhurst College - Elms Yearbook (Elmhurst, IL)

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President H. R. Niebuhr, Ph.D. 17

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THE FUTURE OF ELMHURST COLLEGE Elmhurst College has begun its career as a four year college of liberal arts at an auspicious moment. Never before has the small college been in such favor among educators and students as it is today and never has the demand for col- legiate education been greater. One of the most striking characteristics of the decade which has followed on the outbreak of the great war is the increased de- mand for education. High School enrollments have increased two and three hundred percent in many states. The well established colleges have been crowded by students and new colleges are being organized everywhere to meet the demand for higher education. The growth of Elmhurst Junior College in 1919 and of the Senior College in 1922-24 out of the old Proseminary are a part of this general movement in education and are, it must be assumed, the result of the demand within the constituency of this school for better educational facilities. The proportion of high school and college students in the Evangelical Synod, which Elmhurst College serves, has increased even more rapidly, it appears, than the proportion of such students in America in general. Moreover, the ability of the church to provide for its single college of liberal arts has kept pace with the increased demand. Under these circumstances Elmhurst College may look forward to an era of considerable expansion. The plans of the seminary board for the provision of an endowment of a million dollars and for the erection of buildings adequate for the housing and instruction of four hundred students represent a minimum rather than a maximum program of development. This goal can easily be realized by 1935. It would be rather surprising if it were not passed long before the expira- tion of the ten-year period. The tradition of -service during half a century which Elmhurst has established and its promise to continue that service to youth and the church in an ever more adequate manner as well as to a larger number en- titles it to the benevolent consideration of those who believe that an investment in human life is the best investment any man can make and that a Christian education is the best way in which such an investment can be made. Elmhurst needs friends who have gained this conviction, and it is assured that such friends will find it. The special contribution which Elmhurst College can make to the church which supports it and to the nation is not different in character from the con- tribution which it has made in the past. In the first place, that contribution is the education of leaders in the church and in civic life in general. The education which Elmhurst has sought to give and which it will continue to seek to give is a Christian education, — a thorough acquaintance with contemporary culture, a love of truth, an ability to deal independently with the problems of individual and social life in the light of thorough knowledge, and all of this shot through with the ideal of Jesus; for Elmhurst men share the conviction so widely expressed that the most urgent need of the present generation of men is light and warmth, the light of knowledge and the warmth of high idealism. A second contribution which Elmhurst College hopes to continue to make to its students and through them to an ever widening circle is the transmission of the best elements in that culture which its founders brought to America. German science, German literature, German philosophy, German music, and German re- ligious thought may fructify the soil of America as other national cultures have fructified it. While there is no doubt that the culture of America has been arid will remain dominantly English, the specific contribution which America will eventually make to history will arise out of the combination here of the various old-world ideals and appreciations which have been brought hither by the chil- dren of the nations. Elmhurst College will seek, therefore, to be ever more Amer- ican and to introduce its students to the contemporary life and science of the nation in which they live, but it will also seek to make its own specific contri- bution to that national culture by its transmission of the heritage it received from its fathers. 16

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When the class of 1925 is graduated from the academy this June it will have the distinction barring the unforeseen, of being the largest class graduated in the fifty-four years of the school ' s history. Until this year, the record was held by the class of 1912. In the same year, however, when it relinquishes the claim of being the largest class, 191 2 achieves the distinction of being the only class which has given both the president and a college professor to Llmhurst It re- mains for 1925 to make good at college, in seminary and professional school, the promise of its auspicious academy career. The faculty looks with hope and confidence to the class of 1925. , , , u j u,- It is a fitting coincidence that the largest class should come at what doubt- less is a definite turn in the history and policy of the school. 1925 is doubly a notable year, for it witnesses the graduation not only of the largest class in the history of the academy— and that is the history of the school— but also ot the first class in the college. No other year can have quite the same significance. From this year on, the future belongs to the college, while the past belongs to the academy. , , , , That is not to say, however, that the academy belongs to the past, it still has a work to do, and there is still a place for it on the campus with the college. So long as there are within the Evangelical Church young men and boys to whom it offers the best opportunity to prepare for college m anticipation of study at the theological seminary, the academy will perform a loyal and valuable service for the church. Until other academies arise to carry on its work and traditions, it dare not lay down its task. . Beginning with the autumn of 1925, the enrollment of the academy will b. limited for the first time in its history. One reason for this is the fact that unless the academy is limited to the capacity of Irion Hall, there will not be room enough for the college students. , . , j u» Perhaps this is the first step toward the removal of the academy to another place. It is, in any case, a logical outcome of the growth and expansion ot the college. So long as there was but a junior college at Elmhurst, it was possible to conceive the academy and junior college as one organic whole, a six-year school. The larger the academy, the larger the junior college. That is no longer the situation. There can be no eight-year institution. The college can no longer depend on the academy for its almost exclusive source of students. It must seek to draw classes, not of thirty or forty, but of a hundred or more, it must depend on the high schools for its students, and it can not, it must not, be ex- clusively a pretheological school. . , i- So that the college may wax, the academy must wane; but it need noi dis- appear. It will appeal to those who wish to go to college at Elmhurst, but have no good opportunity at home to prepare for college. That number is probably not larger than the present provisions for the academy. As it closes an epoch in its career, the academy has the proud conviction that without it, the greater Elmhurst of the future would not have been possible. It gives way to the col- lege, as the old St. Peter ' s Church gave way to the glorious new home ot wor- ship that growth in the old church had made both possible and inevitable, i he academy has been loyal to its purpose, not by remaimng merely what it was, but by laying the foundations of a greater institution. The college is now the pride of the academy. m — Paul N. Crusius.