John Brown University - Pioneer Yearbook (Siloam Springs, AR)

Page 18 text:

Signs of unusual activity are evident in John Brown's cornfield. Some- thing is being planted there besides corn. Those men are not using spades and hoes, they are wielding hammers and saws instead. The foundation is being laid for the first building of the college. The year is 1919, and the building under construction is the White Building. The completed structure is shown in the background in the picture of the first student body Lthree pages overj. It furnished classroom space, dormitory space, kitchen, dining room, and chapel. This was the nucleus of the structure erected to house the growing university.

Page 17 text:

There has been quite a crop harvested from this field. The picture will not reveal it, no matter how closely it is scrutinized. You have to be a person of vision if you are to get the full import of the statement above. This is the cornfield that was plowed under to serve as the site of the Southwestern Collegiate Institute, now John Brown University .... the spot John E. Brown visioned as a fertile field for turning out annual crops of the type this country needs. Men and women who know what they're about .... graduates who are well on the road to success by the time they leave the institution. It has produced well, this cornfield. John E. Brown and his co-laborers can well be happy in the increase God has granted.

Page 19 text:

Here, too, are pioneers. Dr. Brown needed men and women of spirit and courage to aid him in this new venture in education. It wasn't easy at first. Whoever thought of a college being so bold as to try to train the hearts and hands of its students as Well as their minds! Hard-shelled educators, used to the old idea of education, called the program prepos- terous: but far-sighted, Well-qualified teachers who believed in the idea of threefold education were sought out and invited to join in the venture. On this page you see the first faculty. I -v