Part 42 (1/2)

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.