History of Linn County Iowa Part 42

His successor, Rev. B. W. Smith, after leaving the school in 1857 became pastor of several of the largest churches in northern Indiana, and president of Valparaiso College.

Dr. David H. Wheeler, professor of languages in 1853-1854, and professor of Greek from 1857 to 1861, when he was appointed U. S.

consul to Genoa, was a brilliant and versatile man, author of a number of books, professor for eight years at Northwestern University, editor for eight years of the New York Methodist, and for nine years president of Allegheny College.

The brother of President Fellows, Dr. Stephen N. Fellows, has a large place in the educational history of Iowa. He a.s.sisted his brother in laying the foundation of Cornell College, being professor of mathematics from 1854 to 1860, and later occupied the chair of mental and moral science and didactics at the State University of Iowa for twenty years.

On account of her long connection with the college, from 1857 to 1890, Miss Harriette J. Cooke exerted a more potent influence on the inst.i.tution than any of her colleagues of the first decade. Miss Cooke came to Cornell from Hopkinton, Ma.s.sachusetts, and brought the best culture for women which New England then afforded, as well as an exceptionally forceful personality, and rare natural apt.i.tudes for her profession. From 1860 to the time of her resignation she was dean of women, and her influence for good on the thousands of young women under her care is incalculable. After long service as an instructor she was made a full professor in 1871, the first woman in America, it has been said, to be thus honored. Her chair for fifteen years was history and German, and after 1886 history and the science of government. On leaving the college she studied the methods of deaconess work in England, wrote a book upon the subject, and returning to her native land became one of the leaders in this new department of social service. For many years she has been closely connected with the University Settlement of Boston. On the recent celebration of her eightieth birthday she received hundreds of letters of loving congratulation from her former students of Cornell, and each of these letters was answered by her painstakingly and at length.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STREET SCENE IN MARION]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DANIELS HOTEL, MARION]

The first ten years of the inst.i.tution were marked by a singularly rapid growth, considering the fact that they included the darkest days of the Civil war, when nearly every male student was drawn from the college halls to the service of his country. At the end of the decade the faculty numbered eight professors and instructors, and 375 students were enrolled, fifty-one of whom were in college cla.s.ses, the largest enrollment of collegiate students in the state, unless at the State University. The a.s.sets of the inst.i.tution amounted to $50,000 in notes and pledges, a campus of fifteen acres, and two brick buildings which compared not unfavorably with other college buildings in the west and with the earlier halls of Harvard.

In a large measure this exceptional growth was due to Elder Bowman, to his initiative and wide and powerful influence. The chief problem then as now was one of sustenance, and as a college beggar Bowman was incomparable. He travelled over the settled portions of the state, winning men to his cause by a singular personal charm, and enticing even out of poverty money, promissory notes at alt.i.tudinous rates of interest, farm produce, live stock and poultry, household furniture and jewelry. His barnyard at Mount Vernon was continually stocked with horses, cattle, and chickens--votive offerings to the cause of higher education. A citizen of the town once told me how under some mesmeric influence he bought at high price from Elder Bowman an old book case and coal scuttle, begged somewhere for the school. This prince of college beggars once returned from Dubuque with a silver watch which he had plundered off the person of an eminent minister of that city.

FROM 1863 TO 1910--GROWTH IN RESOURCES

Nothing is so tame as the history of a college once the interesting period of its childhood is over, and the history of Cornell is exceptionally uneventful among colleges. No building has been destroyed by fire or tornado. No famous lawsuit against the school has been defended by some Webster among the alumni. None of the faculty has won notoriety by sensational speech or erratic morals.

The salient feature of the forty-seven years since 1863 is a marvelous growth unparalleled in some respects in the history of education. The campus has been enlarged by addition after addition until now it measures sixty acres, including the larger part of the long hill and wide athletic fields along its northern base. To the two first buildings, still used, one for the chemical, biological and physical laboratories and the other for cla.s.s rooms and society halls, there have been added South Hall, built in 1873 and now used for the engineering and geological laboratories; the Chapel, completed in 1882, a stately Gothic structure of stone, containing the auditorium, seating about 1,500, a smaller audience room, the museum, and several music rooms; Bowman Hall, built in 1885, as the well appointed home of ninety-two young women; the library dedicated in 1905, the gift of Andrew Carnegie; the alumni gymnasium in Ash Park, built in 1909, a n.o.ble structure, one of the largest of the kind in the state, besides several minor buildings used for allied schools and professors's residences.

The material equipment has made a phenomenal growth, until several of the scientific laboratories are reckoned among the best in the Central West, and the library, numbering 35,000 volumes, ranks as third in size among the university and college libraries in the state, and second to but one of the city libraries of Iowa. The museum includes several collections which rank among the largest in the west: the Kendig collection of minerals, the Norton collection of fossils, and the Powers collection in American anthropology.

GROWTH IN ATTENDANCE

From the beginning Cornell has been a relatively large school measured by the number of its students, and its growth the last decades forbids it longer to be called a small college. Indeed, for many years it has maintained its place as the largest denominational college, or among the two or three largest, in the United States west of the Great Lakes, reckoned by the number of students of collegiate rank. The attendance has steadily risen until, in 1909-1910, 741 students were enrolled, 450 of them being in the college of liberal arts. The steady growth in numbers of collegiate students evidences the satisfaction which the school has given to its patrons, and an ever widening influence and power. Moreover, it has increased the efficiency of the school by the inspiration of numbers and the intensity of compet.i.tion in all departments of college life. By bringing together students from all parts of the state and scores from other states, some with the polish of the city and others with the st.u.r.dy strength of the country, it has escaped the narrowness of the provincial and has attained something akin to cosmopolitanism.

To make Cornell an inst.i.tution state-wide in its patronage and influence was the evident purpose of its founders. Nothing was further from their minds than a local college for the students of a town or county, or one drawing its patronage from a few contiguous counties.

The trustees have been chosen widely over the state and the attendance from all parts of Iowa has been surprisingly large, considering the many excellent colleges the state supports. In an investigation made a few years since of the geographic distribution of the students it was found that 41 per cent of the collegiate students came from beyond the borders of the patronizing conference, and the counties west and south of the Des Moines river furnished 20 per cent of the students in attendance from the state. The college has thus grown to have a state-wide field.

THE STRATEGIC POSITION

In explaining the growth of Cornell college we must recognize, of course, that it has grown up with the country. We must relate the growth of the school directly to the material prosperity of this land of corn and swine, to the marvelously fertile soil and to the era of expansion in which our history falls. The fact remains, however, that the college has obtained somehow a good deal more than its due share in the general advance. While the population of the state increased 330 per cent from 1860 to 1900, the collegiate attendance at Cornell increased 720 per cent. The college has grown more than twice as fast as has the state, and that notwithstanding the numerous good schools which have sprung up to share its patronage.

We can not doubt that much of the success of the school has been due to its strategic position. It is located in a suburban town of the chief railway center of eastern Iowa. From Cedar Rapids long iron ways, like the spokes of a wheel, reach in all directions to the limits of the state and beyond, and bring every portion of the commonwealth and the adjacent parts of our neighboring states within a few hours ride of Cornell college. It is located also in east Central Iowa, an area of the state the first to be settled and developed, an area surpa.s.sed by none in the fertility of its soils, and the wealth which has been produced from them. To these geographic factors, advantages shared in like degree by none of the early compet.i.tors of the school, we may a.s.sign a place similar to that given such factors in explaining the growth of New York city and of Pittsburg.

While the college had thus had the city's advantages of communication and markets because of its nearness to Cedar Rapids, it has retained all the peculiar advantages which inhere in a location in a village.

Like Bowdoin, Dartmouth, and Oberlin, Cornell has found in the small town, rather than in the city, an ideal college environment. It has never permitted the presence of saloon or other haunt of vice. The citizens with whom the students have made their homes have been people of culture drawn to the town by its educational advantages. In all that makes for the intellectual life, in libraries and collections, in lectures and good music, and church privileges, Mount Vernon has had more to offer than perhaps any city of the state; while the temptations and distractions, the round of low amus.e.m.e.nts offered by the city, have been fortunately absent.

THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

More than geographic location, it is great men and great plans that make great schools. Let us give much credit therefore to the men who have administered the college as members of its board of trustees. Our debt to them is like that of Michigan University to its board of regents whose wise plans pushed it early to the fore among the state universities of the west and far in advance of the place to which geographic causes alone would have a.s.signed it. Some of these were pioneers of only local fame, such as Elijah D. Waln, Henry D. Albright, William Hayzlett, Jesse Holman, Noah McKean, and Dr. G. L. Carhart, men whose memory will ever be cherished in Mount Vernon. Others were men of note in the early history of the state, such as Hon. Hiram Price, of Davenport, Jesse Farley, of Dubuque, and A. P. Hosford and W. H. Lunt, of Clinton. Especially to be noted is the long service which the trustees have given to the school. Of the members of the executive committee Col. Robert Smyth, st.u.r.dy Scotch Presbyterian, was a member for twenty-eight years until his death in 1896. On the same committee Hon. W. F. Johnston, of Toledo, long president of the board, has already served for thirty-three years. Col. H. H. Rood, another of the members of the executive committee, has served continuously as trustee since 1867, and Capt. E. B. Soper, of Emmetsburg, since 1878. Captain Soper has long been one of the most influential members of the governing board, and it is to his initiative and faith that the alumni gymnasium is due. Dr. J. B. Allbrook has served since 1874. H. A.

Collin was treasurer of the college from 1860 to his death in 1892.

Hon. D. N. Cooley, of Dubuque, served as trustee for twenty-four years, and Hon. W. J. Young, of Clinton, for twenty-six years, their terms of office being terminated only by death. Of the present board of trustees there may be named as among those longest in service, F. H. Armstrong, of Chicago; Hon. W. C. Stuckslager, of Lisbon; E. J. Esgate, of Marion; Maj. E. B. Hayward, of Davenport; Hon. Eugene Secor, of Forest City; Dr. Edward T. Devine, of New York; T. J. B. Robinson, of Hampton; John H. Blair, of Des Moines; Rev. W. W. Carlton, of Mason City; Rev. E. J.

Lockwood and John H. Taft, of Cedar Rapids; Hon. Leslie M. Shaw, of Philadelphia; R. J. Alexander, of Waukon; E. B. Willix, of Mount Vernon; Senator Edgar T. Brackett, of Saratoga, N. Y.; O. P. Miller, of Rock Rapids; Rev. Homer C. Stuntz, of Madison, N. J. and N. G. Van Sant, of Sterling, Ill.

Among the eminent men who have served the college we must give special mention to Rev. Alpha J. Kynett, one of the pioneers of Methodism west of the Mississippi, who served on the board from 1865 to his death in 1899. Dr. Kynett was the founder of the great Church Extension society and for many years was its chief executive. In this capacity he probably built more churches than any man who has ever lived. For a third of a century he was a close friend and adviser of the college, and all his wide experience and his ability as an organizer and financier were always at its service.

THE ADMINISTRATION

In 1863 occurred the sad death of President Fellows, under whose superintendence the school had been organized. He was succeeded in office by William Fletcher King, a graduate of the Ohio Wesleyan University and a member of its faculty, who thus brought to Cornell an acquaintance with the scope and methods of one of the best colleges of the middle west. At the time of his election to the presidency Dr. King was professor of Latin and Greek at Cornell, and thus for the second time a president was chosen from the ranks of those actively engaged in the work of higher education rather than, as was then almost universally the custom, from those of another profession. In 1908 Dr.

King resigned his office after a term of service of forty-five years.

For a number of years he had thus been the oldest college president in the United States in the duration of his office. His administration was essentially a business administration, with little talk but much of doing. There was in it nothing spectacular, and no pretense, or sham.

No discourteous act ever strained friendly relations with other schools. Dr. King made no enemies and no mistakes. He was ever tactful, poised, discreet, far-seeing, winning men to the support of his wise and well-laid plans but never forcing their acceptance. The college itself is a monument to this successful business administration. For Cornell does not owe its success to any munificent gifts. Like John Harvard, W. W. Cornell and his brother left the college which perpetuates their memories little more than a good name and a few good books. No donation of more than $25,000 was received until more than forty years of the history of the college had elapsed. Whatever excellence the college has attained is due to the skill and patience of its builders and not to any unlimited or even large funds at their disposal.

On the resignation of Dr. King, the presidency pa.s.sed to his logical successor, Dr. James Elliott Harlan, who had served as vice president of the college since 1881. He had long had the management and investment of the large funds of the college and the administration of the school in its immediate relations with the students. Just, sympathetic, patient, he had won the esteem of all connected with the college, and to him was largely due the exceptional tranquillity which the college had enjoyed in all its intimate relations. Dr. Harlan was graduated from Cornell College in 1869. For three years he was superintendent of the schools of Cedar Rapids, and for one year he held a similar place at Sterling, Ill. From here he was called to the alumni professors.h.i.+p of mathematics in Cornell College. The larger part of his life has thus been bound up inextricably with the school. He knows and is known and loved by all the alumni and old students. The first year of his administration was signalized by the erection of the new alumni gymnasium, and the second by the conditional gift by the general educational board of $100,000.00 to its endowment funds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REV. SAMUEL M. FELLOWS, A. M. First President Cornell College]

The dean of the college since 1902 has been Professor H. H. Freer, a graduate of the school of the cla.s.s of 1869, and a member of the faculty since 1870. Dean Freer was one of the first men in Iowa to see the need of schools of education in connection with colleges and universities and was placed at the head of such a school--the normal department of Cornell--early in the '70s. As has recently been said of him by Pres. H. H. Seerley, of Iowa Teachers College, "his connection with teacher education is probably unexcelled in Iowa educational history and no tribute that can be paid could do justice to his faithful endeavors." Dean Freer has been most intimately connected with the administration for many years. In 1873 he organized the alumni, with the help of Rev. Dr. J. B. Albrook, for the endowment of a professors.h.i.+p. At that time there were but 108 living graduates, forty-seven of whom were women. Of the men, only thirty-eight had been out of college more than three years. Yet this audacious enterprise was carried through to complete success and was followed by the endowment of a second alumni chair. In all of the great financial campaigns Dean Freer has been indispensible, and the moneys he has secured to the college amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. More than this, by his wide acquaintance throughout the state and by his cordial friends.h.i.+p with all old students, he has been one of the chief representatives of the college around whom its friends have ever rallied. Since 1887 he has been professor of political economy in the college, and now occupies the David Joyce chair of economics and sociology.

THE FACULTY

Of the nearly 300 teachers who have been enrolled in the faculties of the college there is s.p.a.ce for the mention of but few names: Dr. Alonzo Collin, who began by teaching all the sciences and mathematics in the young school in 1860, and resigned in 1906 as professor of physics; Dr.

Hugh Boyd, professor of Latin from 1871 to 1906; Prof. S. N. Williams, head of the school of civil engineering since 1873; Prof. George O.

Curme, professor of German from 1884 to 1897, now a member of the faculty of Northwestern University; Dr. W. S. Ebersole, professor of Greek since 1892; Dr. James A. James, professor of history from 1893 to 1897, now teaching in Northwestern University; Prof. H. M. Kelley, professor of biology since 1894; Dr. Thomas Nicholson, professor of the English Bible from 1894 to 1904, now general educational secretary of the M. E. church; Dr. F. A. Wood, professor of German from 1897 to 1903, now member of the faculty of University of Chicago; Prof. Mary Burr Norton, alumni professor of mathematics, whose connection with the faculty dates from 1877; Dr. H. C. Stanclift, professor of history since 1899; Dr. Nicholas Knight, professor of chemistry since 1899; Dr.

George H. Betts, psychology, who entered the faculty in 1902; Prof. C.

D. Stevens, English literature, since 1903; Prof. C. R. Keyes, German, since 1903; Miss Mary L. McLeod, dean of women, since 1900; Prof. John E. Stout, education, since 1903.

The continuity, the long terms of service of the administrative officers and the professors, can hardly be too strongly emphasized as a potent factor in the growth of the college. If the history of the school had seen a rapid succession of different presidents and frequent changes of faculty, if there had been changes in plans and purposes, factions and struggles, and the loss of friends which such struggles entail, if the power of the machinery had been wasted in internal friction we may be sure that the story of the college would have been far other than it is.

THE ALUMNI

The graduates of Cornell now number 1,446. This small army of educated men and women have scattered widely over all the states of the union and to many foreign countries. They have entered many vocations. The profession receiving the largest number is teaching. Of the 1,139 graduates including the cla.s.s of 1905, reported in the catalog of 1908, ninety-seven have been engaged in teaching in colleges and universities, and 165 in secondary and normal schools. One hundred and forty-nine have entered the law, and 139 have entered the ministry.

Business and banking were the employments of 113. Medicine has been the choice of forty-nine, and engineering and architecture of fifty-two.

The foreign missionary field has claimed thirty-four, and social service in charity organization societies, deaconess work, social settlements, and the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. have engaged twenty-six. Thirty-two have engaged in farming, and twenty-six in newspaper work. The women graduates of the school very largely have been induced to enter the profession of matrimony. Up to 1876, for example, ninety per cent of the alumnae had married. Of later years the larger opportunities for professional service, opening for women, and no doubt other general causes, have decreased the percentage, but of all women graduates up to the year 1900, seventy per cent have married.

Of these forty-two per cent have married graduates of the college. The common error that college education lessens the opportunities of woman for her natural vocation is disproved, at least so far as Cornell college is concerned. The marriages of the graduates of Cornell have been singularly fortunate. Among the more than 1,400 alumni, there has been so far as known but two divorces. Considering the high percentages of divorce in the states of the Union, rising as high in some states as one divorce to every six marriages, the divorceless history of the Cornell alumni witnesses the sociologic value of the Christian co-educational college.

In numbers the graduating cla.s.ses have steadily increased. The first cla.s.s, that of 1858, consisted of two members, Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Cavanaugh, of Iowa City. Cla.s.ses remained small, never exceeding five, until the close of the Civil war when the young men who had entered the service of their country, and who survived the war, returned to school.

In 1867 eleven were graduated, and in 1869 the cla.s.s numbered twenty-two. The last decade the graduating cla.s.s from the college of liberal arts has averaged sixty.

CORNELL AND THE WAR FOR THE UNION

President Charles W. Elliot, in one of his educational addresses, after enumerating what the community must do for the college, asks, "And what will the college do for the community? It will make rich returns of learning, of poetry, and of piety, and of that fine sense of civic duty without which republics are impossible." That Cornell has made all these returns in ample measure is shown by the roster of the alumni with its many eminent names in the service of state and church. More than fifteen thousand young men and women have left the college halls carrying with them for the enrichment of the community stores of learning, poetic ideals of life, and vital piety. The fine sense of civic duty which the college breeds finds special ill.u.s.tration in the crisis of the Civil war, and here we may quote the eloquent words of Colonel Harry H. Rood in an address delivered at the Semi-Centennial of the college in 1904:

"The first seven and a half years in the history of this college was a period of struggle and embarra.s.sment. The spring of 1861 seemed to be the beginning of brighter days.

A railway had brought it in touch with the outer world, and the effects of the great financial panic of 1857 were pa.s.sing, enabling the sons and daughters of the pioneers to enter its halls to secure the education they so greatly desired. The sky of hope was quickly overcast, and the storm cloud of the Civil war, which had been gathering for half a century, burst over the land. The students of Cornell were not surprised or alarmed. The winter preceding they had organized a mock congress with every state represented, in which all the issues of the coming conflict were fully discussed and understood.... The first regiment the young state sent out to preserve the Union had in its ranks a company from this county--_one-third of the names upon its muster rolls were students from this school. The first full company to go from this towns.h.i.+p into the three years service had one-third of its members.h.i.+p from this college, and the second full company from the towns.h.i.+p, in 1862, also had an equal number of Cornell's patriotic sons._ In the great crisis of 1864, when President Lincoln asked for men to relieve the veteran regiments and permit them to go to the front, _almost a full company were college men_. In the cla.s.s of 1861 only two men were graduated and both entered the service.... The record shows that from 1853 to 1871 fifty-four men were graduated from the college, and of these thirty had worn the blue."

During the war the college had much the aspect of a female seminary to which a few young boys and cripples had been admitted by courtesy. In 1863 but twelve male students were registered in college cla.s.ses, and at the commencement of this year all upon the program were women except a delicate youth unfit for war and a boy of sixteen years. This commencement was unique in the history of the college. On commencement day the audience of peaceful folk seated in the grove quietly listening to the student orations was suddenly transformed to an infuriated mob, when one girl visitor attempted to s.n.a.t.c.h from another a copperhead pin she was wearing. So strong was the excitement, that the college buildings were guarded by night for some time afterward for fear that they might be burned in revenge by sympathisers with the south.[L]