Kenyon College - Reveille Yearbook (Gambier, OH)

Page 9 text:

The College Reawakening came with the peace. The war had changed the world and the minds of its men. Kenyon undergraduates returned to continue their work again. And her older men began a program to provide for her greater improve- ment. The Kenyon Development Program began to raise two and one-half million dollars for needed new buildings, higher sal- aries, and more scholarships. Temporary barracks went up on Harcourt Place to pro- vide for the unprecedented number of stu- dents. Barracks were extended to the fields behind Bexley Hall to provide for all the married men and their families. New men from throughout the free world came to Gambier; from Norway, France, England, and Iraq; from the ranks of the Under- ground and from Fascist prison camps. The College welcomed back all its men at a Victory Reunion in July, Again Ken- yon songs resounded between the three Halls. Generals Perrin, Allen, and LeMay were honored for their brilliant war work. In the autumn-colored park gathered the world guests of the Conference on the Heritage of the English-speaking Peoples. Professor Harold J. Laski of the University of London, Ananda Coomaraswamy of Boston and India, Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, Denis Brogan of Cambridge were a few of the distinguished men to attend this, the first of such significant conferences. While in these ways meeting the de- KENYOH

Page 8 text:

Out of Yesterday . . . came increasing world strife which burst on America in a flash of blood and hate at Pearl Harbor. Kenyon responded rapidly and in two months the accelerated program was effected to meet the needs of the men and the country. Kenyon men, one by one, joined to serve against two fanatic ideologies of evil. Many faculty members were called away to serve the country in various capacities. The school dwindled and the importance of lib- eral education seemed less in the face of the technological urgency of the moment. Again Kenyon opened its gates to the Army: to an Air Corps meteorology unit and later to Army language students in the ASTP. Stu- dent reservists drilled and trained and called themselves 'The Kenyon Commandos.” Marching songs were heard before sunrise and a new seriousness prevailed. Civilian enrollment dwindled to about fifty. Philo- mathesian, Nu Pi Kappa, IRC, Tau Kappa Alpha and other organizations were dormant. An Army obstacle course and calisthenics replaced track, lacrosse, baseball, polo, and tennis. Old Kenyon and Leonard Hall be- came barracks. Fraternities struggled to con- tinue. Some traditions were abandoned but the buildings seemed as noble, the campus as green; and the pastoral valley surrounding Kenyon's hill lay in quiet beauty, waiting. A thousand of Kenyon’s men were scat- tered all over the world; forty-one did not return.

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mancis of a changed world, Kenyon renewed her ties with tradition. Lord Kenyon, great- great-great-grandson of the College's orig- inal benefactor visited Gambier with his bride and reaffirmed traditional family in- terest. Fraternities grew stronger than before. Old clubs were revived; new clubs flourish. Lacrosse, track, tennis, and horsemanship returned. The curriculum expands. Sing- ing down the path is again a regular thing. The spirit has returned. And so the changes have come with his- tory. Thomas Jefferson died in the year Kenyon was founded. A war between Amer- icans sent nine Kenyon men south to face their northern friends in war. A world war which was never won ended to give Kenyon great expansion and yet led to the dark days of a second vast catastrophe. But from the new darkness and sorrow came a greater understanding of Kenyon's purpose. As the sun rises in the eastern, morning sky, all Kenyon men, her faithful friends, old and new, from the entire world feel that Kenyon is taking the place that the world demands of her.