Iowa Wesleyan College - Croaker Yearbook (Mount Pleasant, IA)

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“Bill, why arc College Trustees? “Search me, countered Bill, look like a bunch of mossbacks.” Mossbacks is correct, 1 muttered; “what do they know about college life?” That was in 1881 and we were freshmen in Wesleyan. Wonderful years, those. A new world was opened up to us. Then came June, 1884. Came a whole flock of Junes. Then the other day of letter from Croaker’s worthy editor asking a word of greeting from the Trustees. Students of Wesleyan, the Mossbacks salute you! We’re all for you and justly proud of you. Without you our college wouldn’t be worth more than a pile of old bricks. But with you—and the thousands that trod this campus before you, and the unnumbered thousands who in the long centuries will come after you, this pioneer college is worth more to Iowa and to the world than all the tall corn our glorious old State ever grew or ever can grow. Because we believe in you, we gladly carry heavy burdens and count it a high privilege. No other enterprise with which we will ever be connected will pay dividends as large or pay them for so long. We admit we were born several decades too soon. We envy you with a glowing envy. We congratulate you on your wonderful new day—and the still more wonderful days ahead. Gladly would we turn back the clock and go along with you. You will go farther than we can ever go. You will be greater leaders than we can ever be. Because of your greater loyalty and greater ability this old college is steadily coming into its own. After all, we are merely your trustees pro tern. In the deeper sense you are Wesleyan’s real trustees, always and forever. Carl S. Williams, President, Board of Trustees. Page 17

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For eighty-seven years Iowa Wesleyan College has sailed the seas of educational service. In these seas are flowing and ebbing tides, shifting sand-bars, and deadly rocks. Here are also a flotilla of nondescript, irregular, and irresponsible craft, and now and then a derelict driven with the winds and tossed. Many vessels have been lost since Iowa Wesleyan put out to sea but the captains and crews of this college have known and respected maritime law, have kept her gyroscopic compass from becoming magnetized by the iron of the vessel, have studied the stars and learned the use of the radio direction-finder, they have known charts and channels so that this vessel stands today fully equipped 'ith capacity and power and crew, with eighty-seven years of experience ready for further service to those who venture forth to the ports of Knowledge, Skill, and Character. This good ship has delivered to all ports of the world her precious cargo of trained young men and women. You will find them in South America, in many ports of I'urope, in far-off India and China; you will find them in nearly nil the states of the I nion. When, by a sharp, strange turn in history, the Philippine Islands came under the care of the Cnitcd States almost the first thing our government did was to send a shipload of American school teachers to those islands. Wesleyan graduates were on that ship and Wesleyan graduates to the number of two hundred and fifty are in the service of the schools of this country as teachers. Physicians, lawyers, journalists, ministers, social leaders, business and industrial leaders have sailed out to broad fields of usefulness over this line. Who arc now aboard? Look within this book for here are pictured their faces and here are reflected many of the happy and useful activities of the passengers and crew. Sometimes we sail on sunny seas and sometimes in raging storms but we’re sailing on, we trust, with something of the spirit of the navigators who have found new worlds and made possible new and happy homes for the children of men. Those who would sail with us for the ports of Knowledge, Skill and Character, all aboard! James K. Coons, President. Pane IS