Washington State University - Chinook Yearbook (Pullman, WA)

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has served in that capacity for eleven years with perfect satisfaction to the trustees, patrons and people at large. He took charge at a time when the prestige of the institution was not high, and when it was greatly in need of reorganization. Pro¬ fessor Bryan has really re-created the University and made it one of the foremost educational institutions in the state. He has been a tireless worker and displayed great powers of organization. As an instructor he is not surpassed in the state. His intelligent energy and high scholarship easily give him a place among the leading edu¬ cators of this state. He has been president of the State Teachers Association and of the College Association of Indiana. President Bryan was called from Vincennes to take up his work at this College on September 13, 1893. The life of the institution was at ebb tide. Nothing in the way of courses or text books were provided. The institution was in a state of disorganization. And, too, it was the time of the financial panic. Added to this was the failure of wheat crops in Washington. Indeed, the prospect was enough to discourage the strongest heart. At such a time many a man would have failed. In fact. Professor Lilly and Professor Heston, the two preceding presidents, had failed miserably. But President Bryan met the situation with a dauntless spirit, and opened the college year in a little old red wooden building known as College Hall, with a faculty of ten and a stu¬ dent body of twenty-three. However, if the first year was discouraging the follow¬ ing years were doubly so. The crop fail¬ ures continued. A period of general de¬ pression ensued. Yet, President Bryan never once wavered from his course. These inevitable circumstances only caused him to work with greater zeal and determi¬ nation. Moreover, his task was made incon¬ ceivably harder because of political and social opposition. For it was necessary for him to lobby with narrow-minded Pres. Bryan at Thirty-five politicians and explain the needs of such an institution, to postpone improvements until appropriations could be secured, to explain to the ignorant and uneducated, who knew nothing concerning the College, and cared less, to overcome the attacks of the Nine

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Our jpresident Our president holds a warm place in the heart of every student connected with the State College of Washington. We realize full well that the growth, the development of the State College has not been due to the natural outgrowth of the economic conditions of Washington, but rather that the magnificent buildings, the atmosphere of learning, the joys, the hopes, the memories, all, in fact, that make the institution dear to our hearts, have been brought about chiefly through the efforts of one man—Enoch Albert Bryan—that but for his untiring and persistent work the State College would stand today as it did fifteen or twenty years ago, an agricultural college in embryo, without organization, without equipment, and without support. Need¬ less to say, because of this great work, because he has spent a great share of his life in the upbuilding of this institution in order that we, as students, might reap the reward, President Bryan is fully de¬ serving of the fullest measure of g ratitude and love that we can offer. But not in our minds alone does Presi dent Bryan hold an important place, for he is generally recognized throughout the Pres. Bryan at Twenty-five West as one of its leading educators. It would be profitable indeed to review the details of a life so devoted to our interests; a life, the influence of which has been so great; however, it is only necessary to glance at his work and his characteristics as a man to determine why he has attained this position of prominence and gained the admiration of all who know him. His work, prior to the time of his coming to Washington, can best be explained by quoting from an edition of the “Commercial Vincennes,” of Vincennes, Ind., dated some twenty years ago. It reads as follows: “President E. A. Bryan has long been recognized as one of the leading educators of the State of Indiana. He is a graduate of Indiana University at Bloomington and Harvard University at Cambridge. After leaving school he taught for a while in the schools of Grayville, III. From thence he was called to the Presidency of the Vincennes University. He mm Eight i

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enemies of the school, who desired only to see its downfall, and withstand the mud- shnging of their paid newspapers. It has been necessary for our president to pass through all such conditions as these to realize his aim. How it has been possible for him to master such circumstances, to cope with such odds, and emerge victorious, few of us can tell. He alone knows. We might surmise his success due to persistency, keen judgment, strong will power, and organizing ability. In any case, those who are acquainted with Presi¬ dent Bryan will say that he has all of these qualities. The results that he has accomplished show that he has worked with an untiring energy, that his judgment Old College Hall has seldom erred, that he has ruled with an iron hand, and that his plans of organi¬ zation have developed until the State College stands today as a record of his con¬ structive ability, as a monument to his great work. Such achievements, such qualities as these, no doubt, explain why President Bryan is recognized to be so great an administrative genius; they explain why he has attained so high a position of prominence in the minds of those who have known him or felt his influence. But there is still another quality in his life that means more than any other to us as students who come in contact with him daily, and Ten