Elmhurst College - Elms Yearbook (Elmhurst, IL)

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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.

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

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Principal Paul N. Crusius, A.M. 19