Westminster College - Argo Yearbook (New Wilmington, PA)

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From the first there was a full attendance upon the sessions of the new institution, the names of over 200 students appearing in the first catalogue. Seldom has the enrollment fallen much below the stand- ard thus set, while the present year marks the largest attendance in the history of the college, — over 300 being present. New Wilmington has always been the model town for a college that it is today. In the early catalogues it is described as small and free from those causes that might attract an idle or a vicious class of people. In or near the village were four churches : Associate, Associate Reformed, Presbyterian (Old School), and Methodist. It has always, too, been hard to get into and easy to stay in when once there. As we read of its being connected by stage-coach with Mercer and New Castle, and of a prospect, at some vague time in the future, of being connected within a few miles by rail with Pittsburg, the slow-lumbering Sharpsville seems luxury itself in comparison. Under such circumstances and amid such surroundings was West- minster College founded. Her history during the half century which has elapsed since then, has been one of continual, if slow, progress in the face of many difficulties. It is a history of peace, and as such is marked by no thrilling events, crises, or revolutions, which might tempt the pen of the historian and the interest of the reader. Westmin- ster ' s life has been largely connected with the lives of the men among her faculty and advisers, who have toiled for her and sacrificed them- selves in her interests. Of these we might name in the words of one of themselves, Dr. Patterson, for ten years President of the college ; Dr. Findley, first ' Prof . of Latin, and then financial agent, in whose heart I think if we could have seen it at his death, we should have found inscribed ' Westminster ' ; Dr. Black, the only member of the ' old ' faculty still living ; Dr. Mehard, the mention of whose name still brings tears to many eyes, as he was the last to leave us and the last to die ; Prof. Cummings, who established the science department that has been of such prodigious growth. Many a silent chapter in the history of Westminster may have been written in the hearts of Now dead. 2 1