Elmhurst College - Elms Yearbook (Elmhurst, IL)

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Melanchthon Sem- inary should be transferred to the older and larger seminary at Mar- thasville, while the Proseminar was to be removed from Evansville to Elm- hurst. This arrangement was completed on August 30 at the Melanchthon Seminary. On December 6, 1871, President Kranz arrived with fourteen students of the Proseminar at Elmhurst, and be- fore long had established the school as comfortably as possible in the house that had been the home of the Melanchthon Seminary. The school year was completed in June, 1872, and two of the students were graduated, both as teachers. Melanchthon Seminary was first begun as a private institution at Long Grove, Illinois, then removed to Waukegan, and a little later still to Lake Zurich. Here it was in rented quarters, when, in 1865, it was taken over by the Synod of the Northwest. Looking about for a permanent home, the directors were acquainted with an opportunity to buy a tract of about twenty acres, with a large house, in Elmhurst, to which Mr. Thomas Bryan, a public-spirited citizen of Elmhurst, was willing to add as a gift ten adjoining acres. The offer was accepted, and Melanchthon Seminary was removed to the new home at Elmhurst in the fall of 1869. We have already noticed that Melanchthon Seminary gave place in 1871 to the Proseminar that was removed from Evansville. Melanchthon House, the first home of the Proseminar, stood on the site of the present Commons, from which it was removed in 1895 to make way for the Commons that was built in 1896 as the gift of the Evangelical Synod to Elmhurst on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary. Imagine the comforts which the old house af- forded fourteen students, besides President Kranz and his wife! The front room be- came the classroom, in which the students spent the greater part of the day, recit- ing by turns and studying at roughly made tables set before long benches. The professor ' s desk stood back of the double door leading into the rear room, which was a sort of a library and study for the professor. When a second teacher was called, the professors divided the time between them, since there was but one class- room. The students were given the room on the lower floor of the right wing as a study. The left wing was occupied by the kitchen and dining-room. On the second floor, two front rooms were the apartments of the president and his wife. The students slept in the attic, where the beds stood so close that you could get at them only from the foot. Making beds under such conditions was a difficult art which fell out of use. The windows were few and small, but the ventilation was excellent; in fact, the beds were frequently covered with several inches of snow blown through the cracks. If 14 students found Melanchthon House none too commodious, we may imagine the predicament of the president when the number rose to 24, and still more applicants sought admission. A new building became absolutely necessary, and what is now called the Old Hall (to be renamed Kranz Hall) was erected in 1873 at a cost of about $13,000. The number of students this at time was 34. Fully a dozen of these had lived for a year in a one-room shack that some of their number had built. Also 1873 saw the addition of a second teacher to the staff. Rev. Kranz had been the sole teacher as well as president the first year, and in the second year, 1872, Rev. F. Weygold was appointed as the first professor. This third instructor was placed in charge of the English department, which therefore may he considered the oldest separate department. 11

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1887 1946 THAT WHICH HISTORY CAN GIVE US BEST IS THE ENTHUSIASM IT RAISES IN OUR HEARTS . . . — Goethe Three dates, all in the year 1871, are im- portant in the history of Elmhurst College. They are the seventeenth of January, the thirteenth of August and the sixth of December. On January 17, 1871, the Proseminar of the Evangelical Synod of the West was opened at Evansville, Indiana, with the Rev. Karl Friedrich Kranz as president and sole teacher. The enrollment at the beginning was nine, to which six more students were added in the course of the next few months. The opening exercises were conducted at nine o ' clock in the morning, with the formal reception of nine students by the Board of Control. The board, accompanied by the president, the students, pastors, and members of Zion Church of Evansville and others nearby adjourned to the single class room for a service of worship. Addresses were delivered by Pastor C. A. Clausen, who installed 10 Based on source material from Dr. P. N. Crusius President Kranz, and by the new president, who chose for his text Psalm 60, 12: Through God we shall do valiantly. Within a few weeks, five more students entered the new school. In the summer of 1871, the officers of the Evangelical Synod of the West met the officers of the Evangelical Synod of the Northwest to draw up an instrument for the union of these synods, which was accepted by both bodies in 1872 at a general conference. There was so little doubt, however, that the synods would unite, that the officers of both proceeded at once to effect a merger of the only institutions possessed by each — the theological seminary at Marthasville, Missouri, and the Proseminar Indiana, of the Synod of the West, and the Melanchthon Theological Seminary at Elm- hurst, Illinois, of the Synod of the Northwest. It was arranged that the students of the

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The pioneer days were over with these additions, and when Presi- dent Kranz retired from office to take a church in Louis- ville in 1874, the enrollment stood at 52. Of Rev. Kranz, a young man of thirty-one and unmarried when he took office, we learn from historical records that he was a good teacher and administrator who carried the college through the difficult early years with great devotion and skill. The second president, Rev. Philip F. Meusch, was thirty-nine years old when he took over the direction of the college in 1875. Of him, the Anniversary History of 1921 says that he was a man of deep piety who understood the spiritual problems of young men and exerted an extraordinary influence on his students. He died in July, 1880, after only five and a half years in office. During his administration the enroll- ment grew until it reached nearly a hun- dred. Also two additional teachers were added to the faculty in 1876, one of them as instructor in music. The faculty then con- sisted of six instructors including the president and one assistant. To meet this increase in students and ex- pansion in curriculum, Old Main was begun and completed in 1878. During the next decade, though facilities had been expanded, the Proseminar at Elm- hurst showed no growth. The enrollment stood at the same figure, about one hundred, from 1878 to 1889. However, in 1882 Pro- fessor Brodt began his term of more than thirty years of service and the depart- ment of education was set up under his direction. Rev. Peter Goe- bel,a man respect- ed by all who knew him for his faithful self-effacing performance of duty, served during this period from 1880 to 1887. The fourth president was Dr. Daniel Irion, the first alumnus appointed to the office, who directed the affairs of the school from 1887 to 1919, and remained on the faculty as professor of Greek until the last year of his life. During his time the curriculum was expanded, and the institution received formal recognition from the University of Illinois and the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for four years of high school work and additional credit in Latin, Greek, and German. Plans were under way to reorganize the Pro- seminar as an Academy and Junior College, as the first step in the expansion toward full college work, when Dr. Irion resigned the presidency in 1919. During his administration the enrollment, after decreasing slightly, steadily increased until in 1914 one hundred sixty-nine students enrolled. Because of this, it became necessary to build Irion Hall in 1912. The Commons building had been built some years earlier in 1896. Professor Carl Bauer began his work at Elmhurst as the seventh member of the faculty in 1890. He served forty-nine years until in 1939 he died as the result of a fall. An eighth member was added to the faculty as a second instructor in music in 1892. In 1896 Professor Stanger came to Elmhurst. He has achieved the longest term of service and is completing his fiftieth year of teaching with his retirement in 1946. A new era begins under the fifth president, Dr. Herman J. Schick, like Dr. Irion a graduate of Elmhurst and Eden. The social sciences and the natural and physical sciences were now given a more prominent place in the cur- riculum and Old Main was remodeled to provide adequate labor- atories. The Library was built as a memorial to more than 900 Evan- gelical men who died in the service of their coun- try during the First World War. South Hall was erected to take care 12