Ohio Northern University - Northern Yearbook (Ada, OH)

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Field and Fiscal Secretary O. N. U., Ada, Ohio

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fe r • i i jyj| Ml p i L Jim j Senior’s JUpIiahet. He should be : Accurate Businesslike Conscientious Determined Energetic Fair-minded Gracious Helpful Intense Just Kind Lenient Modest Never-failing Open-hearted Persistent Quiet Resourceful Systematic Tactful Unbiased Vigorous Willing Xcellent Youthful Zealous. Kwotovoro’i »« «!

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Xi ' lrr JtfettuirtaL BOUT the time that Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) laid the foundations of his fame in “Innocense Abroad” and Wm. Dean Howells of Ohio was appealing to the emotional and imaginative through poetic strains, a young man of eagle eye, unclouded vision, and towering scholarly ambitions and attainments entered a little differentbut equally useful realm, that of an educator, in what was then Johnstown, now Ada, Hardin County, Ohio. This spare but all the more active young man was Henry Solomon Lehr, founder and President Emeritus of what is now the Ohio Northern University at Ada. It does not require much of a draught upon your imagination to see this suunny far seeing pedagogue standing near the old depot, like the prophet cf Horeb lifting up his eyes and looking Eastward and Westward, saw no school of great learning on this newly established trunk line between Chicago and Alliance. Looking Northward and Southward he could discover on a bee line but one college or University between the capitals of the Wolverine and Buckeye states. Said he to his friends. Geographically, this is a strategic point for an Institution cf learning. He further saw that although the country was flat and adjoined the marsh lands, the head waters of two noble rivers, the altitude was necessarily high, the water pure and through future drainage, this would become a rich agricultural district. Argument number two for a College location. The almost phenominal results have justified the wisdom of one of our country’s great and good men. For more than a third cf a century, like a perennial spring, his tact, latent and fatherly dilligence, titanic ideals, unselfish Christain manhood, flowed into the lives of more than 32,000 struggling young men and women who had both cisatlantic and transatlantic homes. As graduates and ex-students, they now constitute a very vital part of the enduring fiber of our varied civilization. It was only natural that some tangible response to Dr. Lehr’s great love for his “boys and girls” should be suggested by them. Fortunate was it that Dr. A. E. Smith’s unselfish devotion and far seeing insight, began the crystallization of these nebulous yet precious ideals, into a Lehr Memorial Building, 180x160, three stories high, to be built of buff brick trimmed with stone and used for college purposes. The services of Rev. A. A. Thomas, a graduate of the Institution, was secured to gather funds, and the progress has been so commendable that more than one third of the approximate cost, $100,000.00, has been secured. The subscriptions are born of an unquenchable love and loyalty to certain fundamental elements of the old regime together with the abundance and assurance of continued and increased prosperity under the present administration.