Keuka College - Kiondaga Yearbook (Keuka Park, NY)

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THE COLLEGE RECORD. 1 1 only to sophistry. It is the spirit whicli is Leading lis to understand better and better the resources of our own dwell- ing place, this beneficent planet. FOUNDERS' DAY. HPHE twenty-second anniversary of the founding of Keuka College was celebrated Tuesday evening, December 10th. Members of the Board of Trustees and their families, ami, also, members of the Faculty aud their families took dinner with the students and regular boarders in the college dining room. It was an excellent manner to meet informally and to be prepared for the program which followed. The exercises of the evening were held in the chapel and were open to the public. Professor Mozealous presided at the organ, opening with a voluntary. Rev. Charles S. Emer- son, pastor of the Branchport Church, offered the invoca- tion. The address of the evening was delivered by Professor Charles D. Bean, of Geneva, who has recently been appoint- ed Professor of Law by Keuka, and his first appearance be- fore the student body was greeted by hearty enthusiasm. The trite subject, College Life, was handled in an original and interesting manner. It dealt , of course, with the experi- ences and incidents of undergraduate life, so familiar to every college graduate, but made clear that these are but secondary to the real purpose of an academic education. The deep purpose of every institution of higher learning was defined in the kind of a place its graduates fill in life. Pro- fessor Bean paid a fine tribute to the memory of Henry VI., who, founding Eaton College, endowed it with such a sum as to make its life secure so long as Windsor Castle stands. This noble school has contributed to the life of English students who have graced every walk of public se rvice. And it is but a type of the newer schools of this country, which, in their own time and way, will do no less for the Nation. After the address Professor Mozealous, accompanied by Miss Helen Space, sang. The historical paper for the occasion was written by Miss Ella J. Ball, and, on account of her absence, was read by

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10 THE COLLEGE RECORD. for science and the scientific spirit is that they are for- ward-looking, and the problem of literary studies is, it seems to me, how to teach them so that they may cultivate the forward-looking temper of mind. And I have tried to sug- gest how this may be done. To show that the masters of literature have been sensitive, observant, and thoughtful about human life and human prospects, not in the abstract, but in the dramatic present of their own day and country, is to set an example to every student, from which he will see for himself that it is his business to think about real things, effective things, that concern real things to-day. And to find that out for oneself, to possess it as one's own discovery, is, well, no student can do anything that is more stirring and that will do more to vitalize his college work. The student of literature must get the feeling for facts, for evidence and the contempt for sophistry. He has to guard against the disposition to fastidious preferences. No rule can be laid down for accomplishing these things. Every teacher must use his own intelligence and imagination as he best can. And if he is modern and progressive, he may know better what he wants to avoid than what he wants to accomplish. He should, it seems to me, seek to prevent the sluggish deference to tradition, that complacent blankness of imagination which supposes that the present can possibly be just like the past, or the future just like the present. He should make the philosophy of causalty not a living faith, but something clearly comprehended, because in this world things inevitably have consequences, and t he only way we can control the consequences is by controlling the conditions that produce them. And the only way to control the conditions is by knowing the resources, the instrumentalities with which Nature has provided us, and the systematic study of these is the patient labor of science, of sociology as well as physics, of morals as well as chemistry, of the science of curing and training souls as well as of curing and training bodies. The modern teacher, will, in a word, do his best to make his students look to science for the views of the facts and to the happiness of men on earth for their ideals. The spirit of science is not hostile to poetry; it is hostile

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12 THE COLLEGE RECORD. Prof. R. M. Barrus. It is the more interesting because it comes from the pen of the daughter of the late Dr. George H. Ball. A FOUNDER'S IDEAL, BY MISS JULIA A. BALL. In considering the facts that led to the founding of Keuka College, my point of view must necessarily be personal, as a daughter of the founder and a co-worker with him from the beginning. As far as this college is the expression of the mind and heart of the founder, it is in harmony with the spirit of his life, taken as a whole. The two purposes uppermost with him were — to make good men and women, as he often ex- pressed it, and to bring about a union of the Christian denominations to this end. The church in Buffalo founded by him when a young man, and of which he was pastor over thirty years, was an expression of the one consuming desire to make men better, and the establishing and editing of The Baptist Union in New York City was the outgrowth of his desire for co-operation among Christian churches. His hope was to make Keuka College an embodiment of these two ideals, and for twenty-three }rears this foundation has stood for the conviction that character should be the ultimate end of education and, furthermore, that it is the duty of the church to co-operate in keeping this truth well before the people. Nor, he believed, is the church justified in with- drawing from the educational field or even relaxing its hold on educational work so long as character building is but a secondary matter in our national system of schools, or, per- haps, entirely ignored. Then, too, there were contributory causes making this foundation possible in the personal and intimate relations of the founder's life. What availed his ideals, his power of initiative, his indomitable will, high moral courage, patience and perserverance in the midst of discouragements, if his wife had not been equally indifferent to the material side of life in her enthusiastic abandonment to good works and devo- tion to things of the spirit ! The relation, too, of his noble