Ursinus College - Ruby Yearbook (Collegeville, PA)

Page 30 text:

GKNKRAI. VIKW OK HU COl.I.KGK HI II.DIN ;s.

Page 29 text:

LOOKING l P THK PKKKIOMEN

Page 31 text:

History of Ursinus College. 15V V HOBSON, lvSO. Build then the slotie l bronze to tell The whereby tlii . height she tro l The thousand years that chronicle The toil of until — Use Help of Go:l.”— Taylor. WITH the Commencement Kxercises for 1900, Ursinus College completes thirty years of academic work. It is next to the youngest college in Pennsylvania. In this brief period it has made rapid strides in every direction : its graduates arc pattered all over the Union, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, livery learned profession is represented by its Alumni. In scholarship it takes high rank among the colleges of the Commonwealth ; its location is ideal, its buildings ample, its Faculty learned, its Hoard of Direction active and progressive, its student-body, composed of gentlemen, studious and earnest. Organization.— Ursinus College owes its origin to the zeal of a number of ministers and elders of the Reformed Church in the United States, who viewed with fear certain innovations which had manifested themselves in their church. The rapid growth of ritualistic tendencies seemed to these devoted souls to be in conflict with the historic cultus of the Reformed Church. The church of their fathers was moving away from its ancient landmarks, and it was to check these dangerous tendencies that Ursinus College came into existence. The predominating idea of the founders was expressed at their first meeting in a resolution which read, “ Whereas, there is an increasing demand in the Reformed Church for educational facilities, and whereas we have no school in this section of onr Zion distinctively Reformed and adapted to the wants of our sons both intellectually and morally : therefore, resolved that we found and establish, at such a place as hereafter be determined, an institution of learning that shall afford young men the advantages of a collegiate education. Resolved, that the religious and moral teachings of such institution shall be positively based on the Heidelberg Catechism, the symbol of the Reformed Church.” This resolution was passed at a meeting at o. 308 Walnut street, Philadelphia, in November, 1868. The matter of a new college was agitated through the instrumentality of the Reformed Church Monthly, a publication established in iS6S by the Rev J. II. A. Boniberger, D.D. This first meeting was attended by Rev. J. H A Botnberger, Rev. II. II. W. Hibshman, John Wiest. A. Kline, A. W. Myers, and Mr. Graver. Mr. Kline is the only one of the original number still surviving. 29