Oberlin College - Hi-O-Hi Yearbook (Oberlin, OH)

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HF present year marks an epoch in Oberlinls history. It may justly be called the greatest year in her history. Physically, during the past twelve months, we have seen Ober- lin grow in greater measure than ever before. The completion of the Finney Memorial Chapel and the Carnegie Library is an event of which Oberlin has long dreamed. Aside from the indisputable advantages attendant on the daily use of these buildings, they mark the beginning of a period of extension which will ultimately place Oberlin in a class by itself as a type of the ideal American College. The projected Men's building, will, when secured, fill a distinct want in the interests of the men, and if the time ever comes, and we earnestly hope it may, when we can also see on our Campus an up-to-date Technical School, then we shall feel that Fortune has indeed smiled warmly on Oberlin. E The past year has witnessed some memorable changes in the personnel of our Faculty. Through, the happy medium of the Carnegie Foundation it has been possible to reward the faithful services of three of Oberlin's -most eminent Professors,-Dr. George Frederick Wright, Dr. Adelia A. F. Johnston, and Dr. Al- bert Henry Currier. For a period of iifty years Oberlin has grown in greatness and power through the influence of these three per- sons.v The whole world of education has broadened through their continued contributions ' to Scientific, Historical and Religious knowledge. - D A distinct loss was experienced when Dr. Charles E. St. John resigned his chair as Dean of the College' of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of Physics, to accept a position with the Pasadena, Cali- fornia branch of the Carnegie Foundation for original research. Dr. St. John has held a position of peculiar trust and influence in the life of Oberlin College' and town. ' However, allhas not been loss. The general Faculty has been increased in numbers and greatly strengthened by the addition of a number of men of rare ability and wide- experience. The de- partments heretofore of lesser prominence have been built up to the general high average, and 'a wholesome balance of ability and in- terest is now maintained. The student body and the Faculty alike received a rare com- pliment on the eighth of last November, when Oberlin was ad- mitted to membership in Phi Beta Kappa. It is ai distinct recogni- tion of the high standing of the Oberlin Student as among the stu- dents of other American Colleges and Universities, and places him ' 19 Sehentpzfihz wrt nf rngress

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QE-'berlin from the QE'ut5ilJz Zanme nf resihent :Finney every day-may be forgiven. Some other outsider could have said these things, and others, a great deal better, but not many eguld speak with a deeper sense of gratitude for what Oberlin stands for and what Oberlin has done in laying foundations for the City that is coming' down out of Heaven from God. Mares

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bebentpiihe years nf 1Brngre55 second to none in the matter of scholarship. It is hoped that this added honor may serve as a legitimate stimulus to increased effort along academic lines. Another field of interest in which Oberlin has made very marked gains is that of athletics. The College athletics are now on a higher plane of sportsmanship than ever before. A wholesome interest in athletics has been encouraged to a point of heathfulness which promises nothing but the best. The various teams have been uniformly successful, and have received much praise wherever they have been for the clean, virile, manly game they have played. Thus the year has been one of noteworthy achievement, of steady growth, of wholesome expansion. H And so it is that, as we come to the time set apart for the ob- servance of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of this great College, our thoughts turn back to those early days when conditions were not as they are now, back to that bright, sunny day in the Spring of 1833 when the doors of the little slab hall were thrown open to the world, and the first students in Oberlin Colle- giate Institute began their work. No one then dared dream that seventy-five years thence thousands of loyal, loving friends and Alumni would gather on the self-same spot to commemorate in fit- ting measure those deeds of bravery and self-sacrifice. The hardy pioneer fathers who hewed out a small section in that vast and swampy wilderness and built the first rough cabins from the logs felled by their own hands, little thought that their tiny clearing would some day become a beautiful College town, that those paths through the woods were the rude beginnings from which should grow long avenues of elms and maples, overarching broad, paved streets 5 that those log cabins were in future years to be succeeded by massive, ivy-covered stone buildings. No more did Father Shipherd and his littleqband of prayerful followers, met on that memorable night in- 183 5, realize that in their deliberations was weighed a cause which was later to shake the nation to its very foundations. But unpropi- tious as were the first beginnings, weary as were those long, toilsome days when the man with the ax was busy from morn till night, hum- ble as were those cabins when compared with our more modern and stately stone structures, few as were the students during the first infant days of our Alma Mater, those great principles, those long, weary, labor-laden hours, those humble cabins and those few, hardy freedom-loving men and women were the touchstone from which the modern Oberlin with all her glory was to spring. 20 he . won of 1 gat 26 I