Kenyon College - Reveille Yearbook (Gambier, OH)

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 The chapel occupies a prominent place in the daily life of a Kenyon student. Every day he passes by it time after time, and enters it at least once. He becomes familiar with the angles of its most unobtrusive windows. He knows the decorative inscriptions on its walls inside by- heart, he can even describe accurately the design of the pulpit and altar, and he even has a speaking acquaint- ance with the individual hymnals and prayerbooks.” - from the 1912 REVEILLE c. 1890 Chapel interior with photographer’s hat. c. 1905 The College chapel, the Church of the Holy Spirit, was begun in 1869 and consecrated in 1871. Like Ascension Hall, it was given to the College bv the members of New York’s Church of the Ascension. It was built as a tribute to their former rector, Gregory 'I'. Bedell, then assistant Bishop of Ohio, who in 1863 built Kokosing, the house on Kokosing Drive now occupied by Professor Crump. Ixmg-time residents of Gambier, Bishop and Mrs. Bedell carefully supervised the details of the new church, right down to the ivy which was ini| ortcd from England's Mel- rose Abbey. The illuminated texts on the walls were commissioned in 1874 and restored in 1940. For many years seating in the chapel followed a pre- scribed pattern, traces of which still survive in the seating habits of the congregation of Harcourt Parish. Around 19(H). when the other schools which once o|x rated in Gambier were in their heyday, the arrangement was as follows: Kenyon students occupied the nave pews facing each other across the center aisle. Each student was as- signed an individual seat to aid the proctors in enforcing the attendance requirement. The cadets of the Kenyon Military Academy sat on benches in the center aisle, which appear in the photograph above. The West tran- sept was occupied by Kenyon professors and their fami- lies, the front pews of the East transept by the faculty and students of Bexley Hall. The remaining East tran- sept pews were assignee! to Gambier townspeople, and the gallery was occupied by the girls of the Harcourt Place School. While the regulations were gradually relaxed over the year , chapel attendance in some form was required of Kenyon students until I960. In the days when daily at- tendance was the rule, a rather elaborate sort of point system was used. Absence, beyond a prescribed number of times |x?r semester was of course the most severe infrac- tion: lesser penalties were also provided for such minor offenses as coming in late or falling asleep during the sermon. c. 1935 ll

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Nu Pi Kappa. 1832 Philomathesian, 1827 Artist’s conception of Ascension Hall. 1859 Ascension Hall was built in 1859 and named for its principal donors, the members of the Church of the Ascension in New York City. The original plan pro- vided science labs and classrooms on the first floor of the center section, halls for the Philomathesian and Nu Pi Kappa literary societies on the second and third floors respectively, an astronomical obser- vatory in the tower, and student rooms in the wings. In 1927, after the science facilities were moved to the newly completed Samuel Mather Hall, the in- terior of Ascension was torn out and rebuilt in con- crete and steel. The original woodwork in the Phi- lomathesian and Nu Pi Kappa halls was removeri, numbered, and reinstalled; the woodwork in the rest of the renovated building was cut from timbers removed from the original interior. The Nu Pi Kappa hall was later partitioned off into faculty offices, but is still officially known by its original name, to the confusion of many incoming freshmen. The two literary societies were a central feature of the life of the College from its founding until fairly recently. The Philomathesian was founded in 1827, before the College mover! to Gambier. Nu Pi Kappa came into being in 1832 when a dispute between Philo members from free and slave-holding states led to a decision to divide the group. The question of which faction got to keep the original name was decided by the toss of a coin. North won. Physics lab in Middle Ascenion, 1916

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1885 1911 Kenyon’s first separate library building, Hubbard Hall, at upper left, was built in 1885, on the present site of Ransom Hall. In 1902 the completely fireproof Stephens Stack Room, now Stephens Hall, was added, and proved a godsend when Hubbard burned to the ground on New Year's Day of 1910. The loss included reference books, paintings, and valuable documents including some of Philander Chase's letters; but the bulk of the collection had fortunately been removed to Stephens, and survived unscathed. Hubbard was replaced by the Alumni Library, now Ransom Hall, shown above under construction. The handsome Norton Room, now the scene of nail-biting and thumb-twiddling by nervous pros- pective freshmen, was the main reading room of this library, opened in 1912. It served for fifty years, but had clearly become inadequate after thirty-five of them. In the late forties part of the collection was moved to a temporary, and highly flammable, frame building located immediately south of Rosse Hall, and plans for a new library were drawn, an artist’s conception of which ap| ears at left. This library would have been built on the site of the present one and might have been completed around 1953; but when Old Kenyon burned, its reconstruction of course, became the top priority, and the library proj- ect was postponed. Finally, on October 17.” 1962, students pitched in with the tremendous job of moving thousands of books; and the Gordon Keith Chalmers Memorial Library, named for Kenyon’s president from 1937 to 1956, became a reality. The Alumni Library was remodeled to house college offices, and renamed in 1964 to honor one of Ken- yon's most distinguished faculty members, poet John Crowe Ransom. 12 1946