Latter Day Saints Business College - S Book Yearbook (Salt Lake City, UT)

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Thus far everything proved clear sailing. But there were breakers ahead. Hitherto the board had found their hands full in merely making the good ship go. Now they discovered their necks to be weighted down with the fatal albatros. That note to the bank and that note to the Ellerbecks proved a veritable nightmare to these public spirited men. Scarcely a meeting was held but the. interest centered chiefly in some- thing growing out of the new possessions, till one would have thought who knew no better that this was some tender morsel of educational gossip the board had met to roll under the tongue! Now they were notified that unless the interest on the Ellerbeck note were paid the mortgage would be foreclosed; now they were informed that unless the interest on the note at the bank were paid, suit would be entered against the institution; and now bills, long past due, were presented by Eastern supply houses for furniture and equipment purchased. In the end, however, the property was sold for twenty-five thousand dollars, and the albatross fell into the sea. And the school lived once more in a rented house! HOW THE SCHOOL CAME NEAR DYING. It is June, 1899, the thirteenth commencementethe thirteenth! Students and teach- ers with their friends are standing in front of the assembly hall, where the exercises are to be held, hesitating to go in, gathered in little knots here and there, greeting one an- OLD SEVENTEENTH WARD, 1895-97 other sad-faced, speaking whisperingly as at a funeralenot because it is the thirteenth, nor because the sun refuses to look from behind the thick, black clouds. Word has reached them that the Latter-day Saints College is dead! The president has resigned, most of the teachers have engaged elsewhere, no money for another years maintenance is in sight, the trustees are fagged out, so to speak, with the load they have had to carry, an inventory of the school property has been ordered, and the doors of the institution have been closed, it is thought, forever. Presently-half an hour after the exercises should have begun-the people muster up courage to enter the building. There was some music. There was a valedictory. There were graduation certificates to be givenethree. Some one explained why the school had to die. Everything was perfunctory till Dr. Maeser rose to speak. The Latter-day Saints, College is not dead! he cried in his earnest way. Nor is it going to die. On the contrary, its future will be more glorious than its past. That moment these prophetic words began to be fulfilled. The air was surcharged with hope. Faces immediately gladdened. Shouts rent the air. The very sun beamed in gracious benediction. And everybody went home to think and work. Perhaps no one felt more keenly the precarious situation of the College than Presi- dent Joseph E. Taylor. For one thing, his long paternal connection with the school, in one capacity or another, had won his affection. And for another, his own family, most of whom had been educated here, urged him not to let the school die. So he busied himself trying to save it. Between the close of school and the end of June, of this 'Nentyx

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now, when money could not be had for the asking. Nevertheless, out of those very yearnings and regrets, as always, came better things. It was at a board meeting in March, eighteen hundred ninety-one, that the general feeling over the situation reached a climax. Dr. James E. Talmage, who had been president since the second year told the board that he felt humiliated at finding himself visited by Eastern professors uin such miserable quarters. He wanted a good, first class building propeily titted up, and then one thousand dollars for scientific apparatus. This roused the spirit and local patriotism of the trustees. The discussion is not recorded, but we may judge of its nature by the abrupt and lively record of the secre- tarye v ttMoved by Elias Morris that we have a new building for next year. Carried! After that, motions trod on one anothefs heels; committees were appointed; money was distributed in prospective with lavish expenditure. All this, however, was more easily said than done. One wishes there had been a secretray to record the feelings of those homeegoing trustees when their ardor had had time to cool. But they were men who never went back on their word. For them to TEMPLETON BUILDING, 1898-1900 ttmoven that a new building be obtained, meant that it certainly should be obtained. However, there lay much of worry and labor and planning between the conception and the execution of such a1 task. And so they went resolutely to work. The entire board was made a committee ttto solicit subscriptions for endowments and maintev nancef, The first thought of the board seems to have been to erect a new building, but something presently changed the direction of this intention. Most likely, it was the difficulty of obtaining means to do so. At all events it was not long till negotiations were on foot to purchase the Ellerbeck property, on First North street. The price paid for the building and- grounds was ten thousand dollars in cash and a note for fifteen thousand dollars. The ten thousand dollars was borrowed at the bank, and drew interest at ten per cent, and the fifteen thousand dollar note called for interest at the rate of eight per cent. Meantime, President Talmage went to England, at the instance of the board, and purchased one thousand dollars worth of scientific apparatus. And so part of the next school year was spent by the College in its new quarters. Page Twenty-six

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BUSINESS COLLEGE INSIDE OF TABERNACLE critical year, he reported to the board that he had collected enough money to pay the debts of the institution, and that he had eight thousand dollars, including an appropria- tion of six thousand five hundred dollars from the Church, promised toward its expenses for the coming year. He therefore moved at this board meeting that ttthe Latter-day Saints, College be continued as a school as it had been theretofore, and the motion ttwas carried unanimously. The Templeton building was obtained as a temporary home; Dr. Joshua H. Paul was elected president; a faculty was engaged, and in September the school opened with a larger attendance than it had ever had. Presently the Business College building was erected on land which the Church had deeded over to the board of trustees; Mrs. Matilda Barratt gave twenty-six thousand dollars to build what is known as Barratt Hall; the heirs of President Brigham Young deeded to the institution the 01d Eighteenth Ward Square, for the erection of the Young Memorial building. Dr. Paul resigned his position as president in 1904, and was succeeded by Colonel Willard Young. During most of Colonel Youngts administration it was found necessary, on account of lack of room, to close the doors of the high school after the enrollment had reached six hundred. Attention was- therefore given during this time to internal growth. The courses of study were revised, with a View to eliminating non-essentials and to giving the pupils of the institution greater freedom of choice by greatly reducing the prescribed studies. In the suceeding administration-that of Guy C. Wilson, the present head of the schoolethe policy of limiting the number of students was abandoned, and as a result the enrollment shot up, in 1917-18, to more than two thousand, including night school and the missionary class; and as a result of this increased attendance a new building, one .of the most modern school buildings in the West, was erected, in 1918-19, and addi- tional land acquired by the school to the east of the buildings for a campus. The Latter- day Saintst University, therefore, now occupies eight buildings, including the Deseret Gymnasium. Special attention next year will be given the post-war necessities in edu- cation. All these later facts in the growth of the school go to prove the prophetic nature of Dr. Maeserts words, IVs future shall be more glorious than the past? rE-p-niisa-wpgaigzmlkwrs155' J ., i amerxsxmwgm r .195. m OUR SCHOOL TODAY Page Twerutyeetg 1',