CHAPTER XXI.

Grinnell University and Iowa College- Their building- Progress -Fire-Tornado Benefactors-Tribute to their Memory— Other Benefactors- Use of Trust Funds.

FROM a mass of material is gleaned what is most worthy of presentation, related to Grinnell University and Iowa College. The facts may be of service to the future historian of the college. A part is from the pen of President Carter, of Williams College, Dr. Magoun, and others, tributes to the early friends of education. After the losses by fire and the tornado, a visit to personal and business friends distant secured large sums from those outside the church, toward the erection of buildings; and for their liberality there is, if late, a becoming tribute.

There will be found neither a defense of my acts as trustee for thirty odd years nor a criticism of administration - rather a welding of the links in a providential chain, in keeping with an optimistic spirit that studied and looked for a rainbow, rather than the lightning's flash. If the task is a delicate one, the reader will ask no apology from the only living person who participated in all the events. I saw the string of oxen turning over the virgin sod, for a cornfield; later the imbedding of granite cornerstones for the first prairie edifice, the burning of which was the promise of one more comely; then, in the path of destruction by the tornado of 1882, there has risen from ashes the noble edifices, due to the generosity of friends and to the tasteful ministries of

art.

The pictures opposite represent only the buildings which immediately rose after the tornado, and are the delight of our citizens and visiting friends; their erection and use, with a mention of the benefactors by whose liberality they were reared, will be more than a study of local import and interest.

Our artists have not well represented the beautiful, natural campus, nor have they more than hinted the landscape features,

generously planned by Donald G. Mitchell, and supplemented by the grading and planning due to the elegant taste of Professor H. W. Parker. It is evident that so comely a group of edifices are the products of artists of the highest repute, with a view to utility as chapel, class-rooms, laboratories, library halls, and museumgalleries. More than $100,000 are placed in these walls, voiceless as to the benefactors whose names will here find a grateful mention, in the hope that students in temporary sojourn not less than graduates will appreciate those rare facilities in acquiring an education which were denied their fathers. There should be a mention of the devotion to sound learning of those who planned Iowa's first college on the banks of the Mississippi. The forecast and wisdom in its removal, with a hospitable generous welcome, to the prairies, will appear more than a mere incident, since all are interwoven with the most impressive evidences of Divine care in a history of seeming reverses, now read as blessings in the open book of God's providences.

I cheerfully comply with the request to write out some facts pertinent to the founding of Grinnell University and Iowa College. It is a delicate service, for I shall not attempt concealment of an early ambition to be allied with a good academy or university at my western home, when not anticipating so long and honorable an association with persons who were and are truly the devoted pioneers of the age.

IOWA COLLEGE.

In March, 1844, while Iowa was yet a territory, our college was planned at Denmark by the well-known Iowa Band, by the promptings of Rev. Asa Turner, Rev. Julius A. Reed and Seth Richards, Esq., since the generous founder of a professorship in Iowa College, and James Houghton, Esq. A committee was appointed on the location of the college, and in 1846 Davenport was selected as the site. Rev. Asa Turner was appointed in 1844 to go East as an agent to secure funds, and returned with little money but with a profusion of vague promises. A home subscription was started with a liberal response, and Rev. J. J. Hill, of the Iowa Band, put the first dollar in the treasury before the birth of his sons, three of whom have graduated at Iowa College. Of these sons, Dr. Gershom Hill, now a trustee, and Rev. J. L. Hill, pastor at Medford,

Mass., joined in giving rhetorical prizes; and the other, George H. Hill, I found emulating his father by making the first donation to the new college at Pomona, Cal. The portrait of Rev. J. J. Hill, whose father was an educator and member of Congress from Maine, greets you in welcome as you enter the college library in Goodnow Hall. It has an inspiration in a seeming smile of satisfaction on the growth of the institution, which found in him an early friend, and gains in rich and later benefactions by his children.

The particular gifts and early devotion of the Iowa Band with other friends, I need not detail, but as a trustee of the college for thirty years, I am a witness of their gifts to its treasury and their abounding service. Nor are the reasons for a removal from Davenport to Grinnell pertinent to my narration. I cannot forbear to make mention of professors Erastus Ripley, Daniel Lane and H. L. Bullen, with others, gone to their reward, who labored hard and lived on meagre salaries, laying a foundation for a happy blending of interests in a more central location and in the midst of congenial society. The gift of town property to education at Grinnell attracted a class of settlers of intelligence, having families in waiting for the formation of college classes, and able to furnish student homes in want of dormitories and commons.

The property held by the Literary Fund for Grinnell University was no chance-incident affair. It came by profits on land sold outside the town, and from donated lots rising in value, backed by the gift of a campus of twenty acres, and local subscription of about $5,000, gathered in the gloomiest period of our financial history. A comely brick building, spacious for that day, was not completed before the later union for want of time; not because of lack of courage, or money. It represented sacrifice in drawing the granite for the foundations from a distance, and night service by humble citizens, and ardent women holding candles for light in lathing the college. Their names may be forgotten, but their zeal was like a contagion; and the labor and gifts were the promise of a college, whether united with Iowa College or alone in sacrifice.

That cordial service rendered by Rev. S. L. Herrick and Rev. Julius A. Reed, and others, should have recognition, if without college record. Then, Prof. L. F. Parker and wife were laborious, cheerful and efficient in laying foundations, and on these they are still building with large material gifts and welcome professional

services. Well named the man of all work and professor, he gave the Latin address on behalf of the faculty as Carter Professor of Languages, commencing -"Plena momenti est vita", at the inauguration of the first president, Dr. George F. Magoun.

THE GRINNELL UNIVERSITY.

This is mentioned as the "so called" in later days. Was it not a reality? It had enlisted professors of rank, had a larger number of students than Iowa College, more property, and made an unreserved surrender of its charter, good will and building property, estimated on a low cash basis at $25,000. This was a larger sum in reality, not prospectively, than that of the college fund in Davenport, rising by actual sales and value of lands to $75,000. This gift must ever be in association not with one, but with a people joined in purpose while pioneers, many of them gone to their reward, yet who have left children with a friendship and unfaltering trust in the college which reflects the virtues of their fathers.

The union of Grinnell University and Iowa College was more than a sentiment. One of the parties, not a mythical character, the university president, gave the following address at the inauguration and nuptial ceremonies:

Mr. President:

It is a pleasant duty with which I am charged on this occasion, in formally recognizing a union now effected, which virtually secures the coalescence of Grinnell University in Iowa College.

Coming to you in our youth, wearing the simple blushes of a maiden on the occasion of marriage proposals, we make no apologies for the natural and coy advances of a yearning heart, nor for the seeming indulgence of leap-year privileges; for, so blissful is the union, that had you known more of us we know that earlier you would have taken us for better or worse".

66

Permit us, then (with a parenthesis, that we may be reassured of the consideration due to so unassuming a bride), to remind you that our contribution to this union was an untarnished reputation, two professors, a half hundred of students, the good-will of a community, and a considerable dowry of the value in college building, land and cash, of twenty-five thousand dollars.

Let these currents of influence- widening and deepening as they flow, with the products of common toil consecrated to sound learning-be one. The streamlet that was by the "Father of Waters", and shares the loves of the Alumni, welcomes, we know, this prairie rill that mingles with the glee of our youth to-day its murmurs in salutation to you, our pilot and president, in this conflux. Hundreds of churches, the guardians of our common schools and sagacious statesmen, indulge the hope that by this fountain of learning, the first made free to the poor and maimed of our gallant soldiery, there may grow the trees of knowledge whose gilded leaves, graceful boughs and golden fruit shall be at once an attraction and a

blessing to many generations dwelling on these "unshorn gardens". All is auspicious.

Let me, then, most heartily, in behalf of the founders of Grinnell University, her trustees, the beauty and virtue of her daughters, and the well-proven chivalry of her sons, surrender to your keeping her all.

The youth of our commonwealth we know are your pride. You have the ripe culture and the educational experience of one who may make his motto, Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, and God being your counsellor, we are confident of wide and glorious results.

The college has continued to flourish notwithstanding the decimation of numbers by the civil war, and the loss of its buildings, first by fire, again by tornado, and on both occasions, the destruction of library, apparatus and fine museums. I gave an address in June, 1882, amidst the crumbling walls of the first college, and in sight of the yet smoking ruins of the second and third. It was at the laying of the corner-stone of Alumni Hall, and I said our fallen trees would let in the light, the trimming of the clumps was thorough, if not artistic, and the wastes of the storm would awaken practical sympathy, causing statelier buildings to rise; the college would be better known, and stronger and larger in every desired proportion on account of seeming calamity. Prof. H. W. Parker recited a beautiful poem, and the words of our president were faith and supreme trust in Him who had sent but a temporary, blighting hope, for the clouds of adversity were now rising.

Our first president resigned, after having served above twenty years with ability and fidelity. So far as I am aware his opinions as to the accepting of faculty resignations and the filling of vacancies in the board of instruction were recognized and adopted. And I am reminded here that, when I first visited the West, the now venerable ex-president of Iowa College, Geo. F. Magoun, D.D., with the flush of youth and enthusiasm, was an academy principal at Plattville, and later was in Beloit at the founding of the college, to which institution my own first educational gift was made. Beloit College was then but a dream. At the corner-stone laying of its first building, I first became acquainted with Dr. Magoun; and it is an oft-repeated remark that this was the beginning of forty-six years of varied public and eventful service, more or less in co-operation. He has long been honored, not only as our presiding officer, but also as an Andover lecturer; a writer of masterly ability in reviews and other journals; the model biographer of our model pioneer and trustee, Father Turner; and as conspic