Lincoln University - Lion Yearbook (Lincoln University, PA)

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Calvin to undergird the Calvinistic version of the Protestant Reformation. From 1350-1600 the Reformation, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, gave impetus to the idea of education for everyone; the authority of clericals as the sole interpreters of the Scrip- tures had been undermined. In Scotland, John Knox, disciple of Calvin, developed a system of universal education (1561) that gave his Presby- terian followers a veritable passion for higher education. The pastor must also be the teacher; for both functions he needed to be a university- trained man. John Miller Dickey, Lincoln’s Founder, a Presbyterian minister, had the pro- foundest Christian conviction of human brother- hood under God, and shared Knox's faith in higher education. A second religious strain was the humanitarian zeal among people called Quakers. The Founder married a Quaker woman, Sarah Emlen Cresson. The Quakers were first in America to condemn human slavery. Their Founder, George Fox (1624- 1691), denounced slavery in 1672. The Quaker Saint, John Woolman, succeeded in 1754 in per- suading the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to take a definitively strong stand against the peculiar institution.” A third important influence was the more secular scientific Enlightenment Philosophers”: Voltaire, in France; Adam Smith, in England; Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Ben- jamin Rush in America. They developed the revolutionary idea of the natural rights of man and helped precipitate revolutions in Europe and America. (1775-1793). Their theories of human equality and brotherhood were part of the con- verging forces and personalities that, in 1854, chartered Ashmun Institute, now Lincoln Uni- versity. II A staccato of great events accompanies the corporate history of Lincoln University. (In 1853 Perry opened Japan to the West; the Crimean Hr . - Old view from entrance to campus, showing Livingstone and University Halls and the Chapt-i. — Rendall Hall, Newest Dormitory. Ladies' Auxiliary and New Guest House, com- pleted in 1954.

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I Lincoln University is an intellectual, spiritual and social, as well as an educational institution. Its history, therefore, is a drama meaningless aside from historical backdrop against which the actors in this long drama have portrayed their respective roles. This account, therefore, parallels the history of the institution with significant dates in the majestic panorama of the civilizations of which it is the child. Lincoln University is in fact much older than 100 years. The oldest, and most persistent thread finally woven into its fabric, is the idea that there is but one God. (2000 B.C.: the Ancients, principally the Jews, develop a monotheistic reli- gious faith). This great idea accepted, a necessary corollary is that God is the Father of all Man- kind: all men are Brothers. If every Man is your Brother, you owe to him every mutuality of love and helpfulness. We owe Judaism eternal grati- tude for this majestic conception. But with them the idea never fully outgrew a restriction of its application to their own people, who came to be a specially chosen” people of God. Through the life and death of Jesus Christ (4 B.C.-29 A.D.), a Jew, the idea broadened to include men of every race and creed. All men who believed in Him as the Son of God, could by an Act of Faith become a Chosen People, whether Jew or Gentile, white, black, brown or yellow. In itself a simple Faith, competition with other religions, and Man's inveterate tendency to complicate his affairs, soon required the tech- nical apparatus of a philosophy, and Theology, to defend it against unbelievers. The early Chris- tians borrowed largely from Greek sources, mainly Aristotle and Plato. An important first systematize? was St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.). His theolog- ical system dominated the early Church, and were re-worked twelve hundred years later by John Houston Hall, Seminary Building.

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Four students admitted in 1873. before and after Baseball Team in 1912. graduation. The Class of 1934 with President William Hal lock Johnson and Prefessor Walter L. Wright. Convocation at Tindley Temple, Philadelphia. President Bond confers Honorary D.D. Degree upon Lt. Col. Elmer Gibson, '26.