Knox College - Gale Yearbook (Galesburg, IL)

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Tie 1935 ga Published by the Junior Class of KNOX COLLEGE Qafesgmrg, Cmkzzofs

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This tablet on Old Main, rommnnurating lb: , , H Y debale, was urwriled al the tbirly-eighth anni- versary celebration in 1896. OVQWOV ' In July, 1857, the corner stone was laid for a new building on the campus of Knox College. It was the first large building erected there and the largest building then and for many years after in the growing village of Galesburg. But it was only a building, new, unused, unmarked. On October 7, 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas met in the fifth of their joint debates on a platform erected against the east side of the building. That afternoon those new walls echoed words which are forever significant in the record of human freedom. From that day Old Main became increasingly a landmark, a monument, and a shrine. For more than thirty years it was Knox College and practically all there was of Knox College. Within its walls students recited, studied in the library, worked in the laboratories, went daily to prayers in the old chapel. Other buildings have been added to it, but Old Main is still the center, epitome of the past and guarantor of the future. Thar the crumbling walls have been replaced during the past year, thereby insuring its continuance for another century, is not only a material strengthening of the College, but a proof of the abiding faith in what is permanent here and an evidenceof the great hope that flowers here for the years to COITIC. To nothing else could this Gale be more Httingly inscribed than to Old Main and to no one else could praise and gratitude be offered more deservedly than to those who have made the restoration of Old Main possible, and particularly to that devoted woman, the great friend of the College, whose courage and faith have lighted the way.

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eclicaiion , In the year of che refinishing of Old Main's exterior, the Knox Gale can be dedi- cated to only one person. A man built Old Main, two men made history in a debate in the shelter of its bricks, men as teachers and presidents and trustees have proclaimed the important association of Qld Main with a central man and a central speech in American history .... But, as usual, a woman has had to carry the job through, a woman who needs no introduction to Knox students, new or old. janet Greig Post was a graduate of the Class of 1894, just before Dr. John H. Finley held the first cele- bration of the Lincoln-Douglas debate. She was the Dean of Women from 1896 to 1902, including the occasion of the second celebration. Then she was the wife of Judge Philip Sidney Post, a member of the Class of 1887 and a Trustee of the College from 1901 to 1920. Since 1925 Mrs. Post has carried forward her husband's work as a Trustee and has endowed a professorship in the College in his name. Now, in the face of one of the most severe periods of depression our country has ever experienced, this devoted woman ,has set herself with single-hearted courage to the redoubtable task of accomplishing the restoration of Old Main, that its significance for Knox and America may be as soundly, as beautifully, and as permanently ex- pressed in wood and brick and stone for the second century of Knox's life, as it was for the first. S A L U T A M U S guna! Cgreig Quai