Lake Forest College - Forester Yearbook (Lake Forest, IL)

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and Reminiscences of Their College Days Il Some of Our Most Prominent Alumni Nl-IWICLL IJXYIKQIIT llIl.l.lS, '84 For l.ake Forest to claim such a man as Ilr. Newell llwight Ilillis as an alumnus is a privilege that might rightly be envied by any college. llr. Hillis was a member of that class of '84 which has the distinction nf being the largest class up to its time. as well as containing such men as Theodore Starrett, Prof. Albert li. ,lack and Herbert II. Vlark. Ilr. Hillis' first pastoral charge was at lleoria. Ill.. later he became pastor of the Ven- tral Church. Chicago. and in 1891, took his present Charge of the l'lymouth Vhurch. llrook- lyn. N. Y. lfle has also been the author of several books some of which are: A Nlan's Value to Soci- ety 3 How the Inner I.ight lfailetlf' lforetokens of Immortality and The Quest of john than- man. Ilr. llillis has taken a deep interest in I.ake lforest since leaving it, evincing it by frequent lm. N,Qw,.iHA 1,w,.mT HM 1. visits. as well as being a charter and enthusiastic member ofthe New York .Xlumni Club. Pastor of I'lymoi1tli Church. Ili' 1:-klyn, N. X1 How IDR. Hn.1.is Acoi'AIN'1'Eiw Hurst-11.1-' XYITH 6.ooo Books Wnirrt .xr t'oi.i,EoR i'Of course the best education is that which one gives one's self. We must con- fess that great Ilr. Samuel Johnson was right when he said that nine-tenths of his culture came through reading. in solitude. after the day's work was done. Men are wiser teachers than books. but next to what we learn from men comes the knowl- edge we derive from the historians. the poets. the philosophers, the essayists, and the teachers of science. Iiooking backward, I cannot be too grateful that I grew up in the library, and the atmosphere of books. Not until I was seventeen. when I was suddenly thrown on my own resources. and went out into the world to make my fortune. did I realize how much I owed to the literary associations of my child- hood. I know what Cooper meant when he realized that death was near. and went slowly through his library. laying his hands on this book and that. and saying good- bye to his books. as he said farewell to old and dear friends. Later, when I was a freshman in I.ake Forest College. I became assistant librarian. for I worked my way through college. The hours in the library were from one to two in the afternoon. and seven to eight at night. There were some six thousand books ln the library. for the most part carefully selected. I determined that I would not read through the library. but look it through. I-leginning at the upper left hand corner, with Ilacon, 2 3

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H Our Alumni in General l.ake Forest College, in the 30 years of her history. has received within her doors about I,O5O students. Of all these. as far as we know, not one has been in jail, in high finance, or in the Senate. Some of the best have fallen Hwith wounds in front. the great majority are earning an honest living by hard work, a good proportion of these in fields where achievement is measured not so much by mate- rial gain as by influence. I.ake Forest is perhaps the first college to have made a systematic collection of information about non-graduates, though other institutions are now beginning to do this. A large proportion of these non-graduates have no other collegiate connections and look to Lake Forest with affection and loyalty. In none of her alumni does Lake Forest take more pride than in former students, not graduates. like Graham Lee, '89, who has done such noble work in Korea. 01' George I,ee, '99, whose recent record at Harvard is highly honourable. The facts given below about the Alumni hold in about the same proportions about the non-graduates. but cannot as yet be so accurately determined. lust 350. 110 uf them women. have received the bachelor's degree. But 20 have died, up to this time. The graduates are scattered through 55 states: a few are at work in China, India. South Africa and the Philippines, but curiously enough. none are in Europe. go live in the liastern States, II in New York City, IQ are in the three states on the llacilic Coast. only 6 south of the Ohio River. Of the 233 in the Middle-West. 14: are in Illinois, 446 in Chicagoil: Iowa comes next with 23. and Wisconsin with 21: there are ten in each of the three states of Minnesota, Nebraska and Indiana. Again, a rough classification by occupations shows that 80 are teachers, 68 clergymen, 48 in business, 30 lawyers, I3 journalists, I2 missionaries, I3 physicians. IO in graduate or professional study, 5 engineers. A few among those whose dis- tinction has been greatest, apart from those mentioned elsewhere in this volume, are President C. H. French i'88l of Huron College. by virtue of his patient and successful work in a pioneer college: Mrs. Josephine White Bates. Mrs. Hobart Chatlield-'l'aylor and Mrs. Anna Farwell delioven f'8o,l, quite the peers, in their own way, of their distinguished husbands: Anna F. Davies V89 5, the able head of a great college settlement in Philadelphia, the lamented .Alfred G. Welch V89 l. and Professors Vance and Nourse of I,ane and Hartford Seminaries. Of the IIO women graduated, but 40 have married, but the statistics really sig- nify only that I,ake Forest women take time for choosing among the candidates, for all of the first fifteen women graduated. in 1879-85, are married. To Elizabeth Gardner Halsey, '83, belongs the honor of first contributing a grandchild to Alma Mater. But many more are now on the Agnew student list, booked as far ahead as the class of 1921. 22

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I looked through all his works. essays, philosophy. hishiography and photographed forever on my memory the appearance of his books. The next day I spent two hours looking through Robert llurns. pulling out the good things by the hair of the head. lfor three years I continued that work, and one night I ended at the lower right hand corner. having handled and glanced through hurriedly six thousand vol- umes. I do not mean that I read these booksfl did not. There are two methods of reading one very slow and analyticalfand this is the method that I have found most useful: the other is rapid reading, and is born of necessity and the shortness of time. Read slowly if you can, analyzing as you close each chapter. Read rapidly if you must. Read every word in the book from title page to the end of the index. if possible. If you cannot read every page. read the important ones. If you cannot read the pages. read the table of contents. Handle the book. See what it looks like. If you cannot become a personal friend of the president. or the guXCl'1iU1', or dramatist. go to the public reception. and shake hands with him. For something is better than nothing. just as certainly as everything is better than some- thing. Remember that importation must go along with exportation. The preacher, the editor. the jurist, who is always exporting intellectual goods. will soon come to want, unless he is always importing material, through those events and argosies that convey the riches of civilization across the centuries. -From an address on 'iBooks and Reading. Newell llwight Hillis, 'S+ THICK JIM IRIS STA RRIETT. '84 Theodore Starrett of the class of '84 is one of the most prominent architectural engineers in the country. He is president of the Thomp- son-Starrett Construction Company which is the builder of many of the famous skyscrapers in our large cities, two of which. that are now being constructed are the Cnited States lix- press lluilding. New York, and The Northern Trust Building. Chicago. The home office of the firm is SI Wall St.. New York City. That Nlr. Starrett has always been an enthusiastic alumnus is shown by the fact that he is president of the New York Lake Forest College Alumni Association, and has done a great deal to make that organization what it is. Mit. S'i'.xRi4R'i r's Rmiixiscsxcics or Inks I-'oiuzsr lluring the first two years of my attend- ance at I.ake Forest College I lived at High- land Park and originally went up on the morning passenger train, which, if on time, enabled me to get into the first recitation about fifteen minutes before its close. I found later that there was a way freight train which went up sometimes as much as an hour ahead of the passenger train. and I used to go to the station at Highland l'ark very early to catch this freight train in case it came along first. My most pleasant recollections of l.ake Forest College are connected with riding on this freight train. I got to know the conductor very well and a great deal of the time I rode free, but I made up for it by working my passage, because I always helped luifoirolci- hixxirici-'i 1, ha l'rf:s. I liornrmrn-Narrert Coxrsiiwiciioii Co. 34