Western Kentucky University - Talisman Yearbook (Bowling Green, KY)

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THE COLLEGE

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,I SINIMIER F A L L

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A Rare Day in une T VVAS a rare day in june. Groups of descendants of settlers from Old Virginia and the Carolinas were assembled in the shady nooks of a public square. Some of them were lillkillg, others pitching horseshoes and playing checkers. No finer Anglo- Saxon stock ever settled and prospered than these cultured few of that inland town. No railroad disturbed their customs or their sleep. The o11ly route of travel leading out was a11 old, well-worn turnpike, but not milllj' had traveled tl1at to the big outside where tl1e wild geese stay. They had lived among themselves and k11ew everybody from Barren river to Bear VVallow, so when a tall, virile young man appeared among them, conversation lagged and the games grew less tense. Ambition, necessity and the self-confidence of the stranger, and thc educational needs of Glasgow, Kentucky, had brought him there to establish a school. Soon the more important of the several groups were listening to the animated plans of A. VV. Mell that rare june day in 1874. He wanted only a little, but he wanted that little very much and he got it. He had three or four dollars and borrowed a few more. He found an old abandoned structure. Then and there started the Southern Normal School and Business College with only dreams and schemes for its foundation and its future. It was an exemplification of Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a boy on the other except a good, fresh log would have been more inviting than the uncomforta- ble building. Then and there education was on a11 elective and selective basis with no thought of democratizing it. Such 11eeds! Such students! Such a teacher! These three remarkable factors produced transcendent results. In ten years a larger environment was imperative. Glas- gow failed to furnish it. Bowling Green did. So ill 1884, the faculty and student-body came to the Park City and found adequate shelter in a' building on College street. Mell and VVilliams were the proprietors. The reputation of the aggressive institution spread to Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and Arkan- sas. Faculty, courses and student-body grew in size and importance. Some of those educated here in tl1at early day were Peterman, the authorg McQuistian, the surgeon, Black, the lawyer, Norris, the governor, Hull, the' Congressman, Alexander, the teacher. But the two leaders sur- rendered their charge. lt became weak and straggling, as forlorn as the nest from whence the birds have departed. A worn building, an exhausted treasury Qthere never was onej, a di- minishing reputation-simply a shadow of former days. A marvelous thing occurred. Rather a marvelous man appeared. He came not as a prophet from another land, not even as a stranger with a stranger's power to impress, but he came from down the river, Illl ilOlll'lS journey or so. He came in a slow wagon, unheralded and unsung. But he came a11d he stayed and his coming marked an epoch in the life of Bowling Green and the educational history of the South. It was in 1892 when 27-year-old, moneyless H. I-I. Cherry started with the shadow of what had been a school, and in 1893 the second great money panic of the United States blighted the plans of men, great and small. The Bowling Green Business College and Literary Institute was a11 actuality in spite of panic, poverty or pessimism. Low spirit became high, proud spiritg poverty was not embarrassing, for all were poor together. In- spiring leadership and teachers who knew their work and loved it, and students who worked until one and two o'clock in the morning to ac last retire and dream the answer, all drew more stu- dents from North and South. YVhen the rooms were bursting with numbers, fire destroyed the main building and the stu- dents were assembled in the four corners of the city where vacant rooms might be had. Through weeks of deepest discouragement that ever passed over an institution, plans were made for ex- pansion and the building was restored and other buildings erected. Disaster became a blessing. Attendance surpassed former years. The Southern Normal School and Bowling Green Business University became the name of the two institutions under one management. Halls and rooms were crowded and another golden period was on. In 1906 there were occasional discussions about the establishment of training schools for Ken- tucky teachers. Interest grew. The General Assembly provided for two such institutions, one at I2