Wartburg College - Fortress Yearbook (Waverly, IA)

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Mendota, 1875-8S The seminarY property included a rather spacious building which had served as a professor ' s residence,- this house was placed at the disposal of the College. The students, twenty to thirty in number, were all housed and instructed in this building,- for meals and daily chapel exercises they went over to the seminary. The College was at this time almost exclusively a preparatory school for the seminary. The curriculum was largely classical. Since there was a very close connection between the College and the seminary, it followed as a matter of course that the professors of the seminary served at the same time as professors of the College,- several other teachers, however, were - added to the College faculty. Waverly, 1885-94 In 1885 the College was moved from Mendota, Illinois, and combined with the Teachers ' Seminary at Waverly, Iowa. Professor G. Grossmann became president of the institution. The curriculum was still largely that of the German Gymnasium. The medium of instruction was German — even mathematics was taught in that language. In consequence of successive increases in the enrollment, the College building soon became too small. When the Church was unable to provide funds for physical expansion, a generous and noble friend of the institution, Mr. F. Schack, made possible the erection of a two-story structure north of the main building. Clinton, 1894-1935 By the beginning of the nineties Wartburg College and Wartburg Teachers ' Seminary were again crowding their common quarters. In April, 1893, the Church resolved to move Wartburg College to Clinton, Iowa. A ANNIVERSARY WAVERLY ' S OLD MAIN Page 5

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REMINISCING WHIBURG WARTBURG AT GALENA A HlSIOn OF OUR SCHOOL Galena, 1868-75 The Synod of Iowa and other States, established in 1854, had conducted a theological seminary from the year of its organization. In the course of time a pre-theological training school came to be felt as an urgent need, and a school for that purpose was established at Galena, Illinois, in 1868. An abandoned monastery, which had been purchased for a nominal sum, provided classrooms, dining hall, and living quarters for the students and for the rector and his family. In 1874 an additional structure was erected to serve as dining hall. The institution remained at Galena until the autumn of 1875, when it was removed to Mendota, Illinois, where the theological seminary had been relocated in the preceding year. Page 4

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College building was erected there at a cost of $45,913.50. In 1907 the generosity of a citizen of Clinton, Mrs. Emma Lamb, and the untiring solicitations of President Kraushaar made possible the erection of a gymnasium. A modern dormitory, the Cotta Haus, was erected in 1922-23. In the same year a central heating plant was added to the building complex. During its Clinton period of forty years Wartburg College was served by four presidents — the Rev. F. Richter, D.D., 1894-1900,- Prof. Otto Kraushaar, 1900-1907, the Rev. J. Fritschel, D.D., 1907-1919,- and the Rev. O. L. Proehl, 1919-1935. Synod had declared in 1893 and again in 1904 that Wartburg College was to be not merely a pre-theological institution but a liberal arts college giving special emphasis to pre-theological training. The transformation of Wartburg College from the one type of institution to the other was a very slow process, and was not achieved until the end of the third decade of our century. The freshman and sophomore years were accredited in 1928 and the two others in due time. No steps were taken, however, to raise an adequate endowment fund or to finance an adequate building program, and for two reasons. Since 1894, when Wartburg College had been moved to Clinton, the Teachers ' Seminary at Waverly had, under the leadership of President Aug. Engelbrecht, developed into an accred- ited junior college, with normal and also abbreviated pre-theological training . Various buildings had been erected on the Waverly campus. Besides, other academies and junior colleges had been established by the Church to serve out- lying districts more adequately. Eventually a program of retrenchment had been instituted, because it was felt that the Church could not properly maintain and develop all these educational institutions. Already in 1924 the Martin Luther Academy of Sterling, Nebraska, had been merged with Wartburg Normal College at Waverly. The question of again combining the Clinton and Waverly institutions gradually came to the fore. The issue was affected also by the contemplated and eventually consummated merger of the Synod of Iowa with the Joint Synod of Ohio and the Buffalo Synod. The opinion prevailed that the American Lutheran Church had too many educa- tional institutions. Page 6