Wilmington College - Wilmingtonian Yearbook (Wilmington, OH)

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sity was at that time on the semester system, and that, being the institution to which many of our students transfer, caused the faculty to decide on the semester plan. Ohio State later adopted | | the quarter plan. : | The Home Economics department and the Department of Education were first introduced by Samuel Hodgin. A summer session with 62 students was held in 1914. Dr. O. J. Thatch- er, a member of the college faculty, was a member of the Ohio Legislature at that time and was instrumental in getting Wilmington College approved for teacher training. Wil- mington was one of the first colleges in the state to receive this privilege. The two joint boards of the college, the Board of Managers and the Board of Trustees, were merged into a single Board of Trustees of nine members. A new charter was received by the college in 1914 changing the manage- ment of the college from Center, Miami, and Fairfield Quarterly meetings to that of the Wilmington Yearly Meeting, which had been organized snice 1892. President Hodgin started the idea of a Living Endowment in 1914, in which he had individuals pledge the interest on a given sum of money, rather than give the full amount of the principal sum. He left too soon afterward to give the plan a fair trial. This plan was later used suc- cessfully by Dr. S. A. Watson. ' The construction during this administration consisted of equipping a laboratory for the Home Economics Department, in the basement. of Bailey Hall and the addition of a cement veranda to Twin, Ash. Samuel Hodgin resided on North Lincoln Street. In the spring of 1915, he resigned to:take.over the management of a southern agency for the Farquhar Furnace Company. =| a J.‘ Edwin’ Jay Seventh President, 1915-1927 To succeed Samuel Hodgin, Edgar Lewellen, a prominent educator of Indiana, was employed. He came to commencement, was announced as president, but asked for one year of time to finish his contract as a school superintendent. John Edwin Jay was employed as acting president and field secretary for this period. Mr. Lewellen decided to remain in public school service, and Mr. Jay was made president with full authority in 1916. President Jay was a graduate of Earlham College and Yale University and was a former professor in Guilford College, North Carolina. The ad- ministration of President Jay was a fruitful one, with the college rising to a new level. He conducted two successful financial campaigns, one in 1917 and the other in 1923, which raised the endowment from $80,000 to $231,000. He possessed a rare ability for remodeling old structures and erect- ing new ones. He has an outstanding record for increasing the size of the oy fs

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home in Webster, Indiana. President Unthank lies buried in Sugar Grove Cemetery in Wilmington. Albert J. Brown Fifth President, 1903-1912 Albert J. Brown, a graduate of Leland Stanford University, and a prominent minister of the First Friends Meeting in Indianapolis, began his duties as president in the fall of 1903. He was a scholarly man and an able public speak-: er. He was a strong promoter and able to place the college before the public in a very forceful manner as. evidenced by two suc- cessful financial campaigns, one in 1904-06 and the other in 1910, bringing the endowment from $31,000 to $80,000. In the 1910 campaign, 510 subscriptions were received from individ- uals outside the Friends meeting. President Brown was a man with a mag- netic personality. He made friends easily and was loved and respected by his faculty, stu- dents, and hosts of friends. He was greatly in demand as a public speaker and carried the name of Wilmington College far and wide. During President Brown’s administration, many improvements were made in the physi- cal plant. The gymnasium was enlarged with modern toilets added. The athletic field was graded and a grand stand erected. Twin Ash Hall was purchased in 1904 from its private owners, and Bailey Hall of Science was erected in 1908-09. In the course of study, many improvements were made and new departments were added. One of his big achievements was the better- ment of public relations between the college and the community. President Brown lived in the home on West Main Street, now the residence of Dr. Kelley Hale. He drove a black horse to his work at the college. His daughter, Althea, and son, Sidney, were graduated from the college. He resigned in 1912 to accept a position with the Farquhar Furnace Company. Samuel Hodgin Sixth President, 1912-1915 Samuel Hodgin, a graduate of Harvard University and professor of English at Guilford College, became the sixth president in the fall of 1912. President Hodgin was at Wilmington only three years, but he accomplished much in the way of reorganization. His first task was to reorganize all the courses in the college with an attempt to standardize them so that they could be credited and evaluated for transcript purposes. The three-term plan, adhered to from the beginning of the college, was changed to the semester plan of the present day. The writer of this article regrets that the term plan—which was almost the quarter plan, with only a slight dif- ference—was not made into the quarter system. The Ohio State Univer- Say De

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physical plant and improving its appearance. The following additions and changes were made in the physical plant: The campus was improved in appearance by trimming the trees and removing many unnecessary ones. Twin Ash dormitory was remodeled and a third story added; Douglas Hall was purchased; Kathryn Denver Memorial Hall was built; the third floor auditorium of College Hall was made into its present form; the old study room was equipped with opera seats for chapel; the music building was pur- chased from Samuel Glass; the Yearly Meet- ing Auditorium was made into a gymnasium; Wright Cottage and the house next to it were given to the college by Ellen Wright; the three small houses to the south of South Hall on Whittier Place were purchased; the property at the southwest corner of Douglas Street and Whittier Place were purchased; the property at the southwest corner of Douglas Street and Whittier Place (now the home of Coach Shelly) together with two acres of land—now the athletic field—were purchased from Jacob G. Hunt; eight acres of land on which the Industrial Arts building is located were purchased from Domino Griffin; and the former frame gymnasium near College Hall was removed. It was in 1917 that Lebanon National Normal University was merged with Wilmington College. All the records of that school were brought to the latter school and have since been administered by Wilmington for the benefit of Lebanon students. No property except a few mounted birds and some books were received from that school. The merger of this normal school, together with new state laws which required more prepara- tion for teachers, caused an increased emphasis to be placed on teacher training. The summer school, which had an enrollment of 62 in 1914, had an attendance of 546 in 1927. President Jay purchased and remodeled a house on the corner of Ludovic Street and Fife Avenue and lived there until he purchased the large white brick building on Rombach Avenue, now known as Jay Hall. President Jay’s son, Howard, was graduated from the College. President Jay was a man of vision and purpose and did much for the college in his twelve years of service. | Henry G. Williams Eighth President, 1927-28 Henry G. Williams, a graduate of Lebanon National Normal Univer- sity and former Dean of Education at the Ohio University, came to the presidency in the summer of 1927. His ambition was to effect a per- panent and lasting merger between Wilmington College and Lebanon Na- tional Normal University. This he proposed to do by erecting a Holbrook Memorial on our. campus. Architectural plans were drawn up and the work laid for raising $150,000 for the building, but his untimely death in