Butler University Digital Commons @ Butler University Butler Alumnal Quarterly University Special Collections 1926 Butler Alumnal Quarterly (1926) Butler University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/bualumnalquarterly Part of the Other History Commons Recommended Citation Butler University, "Butler Alumnal Quarterly (1926)" (1926). Butler Alumnal Quarterly. 14. https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/bualumnalquarterly/14 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the University Special Collections at Digital Commons @ Butler University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Butler Alumnal Quarterly by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Butler University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE BUTLER ALUMNAL QUARTERLY yjr ^'{ APRIL, 1926 INDIANAPOLIS Entered as second-class matter March 26, 1912, at the post office at Indianapolis, Ind., under the Act of March 3, 1879. CONTENTS The Beginnings of Butler College Lee Burns The Founders op Butler College Demarchus C. Brown Founders^ Day Dinner Talks Journalism at Butler College H. E. Birdsong The Modern College Professor Arthur G. Long The Divine Right of Alumni Monticello George A. Schumacher The Duffer's Hope—A poem Clarence L. Goodwin College News Harlan 0. Page From the City Office Athletics Recent College Affiliation Honored Students A Loved Landmark Moores' Lincoln Collection Butler Publications ''Butler Day" in Chicago Women's League Alumni Scholarships Commencement Class Reunions Butler DRIFT Personal Mention Marriages Births Deaths Notice Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2010 witii funding from Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/butleralumnalqua15butl BU I LER ALUMNAL QUARTERLY Vol. XV APRIL, 1926 No. 1 THE BEGINNINGS OF BUTI.ER COLLEGE By Lee Burns A characteristic of the American people has been their con- stant interest in the cause of education. In a record made in 1636 by the founders of Harvard, it was said: "One of the things we longed for and looked after was to advance posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches after our present ministry shall be in the dust." With the development of the territory west of the AUeghanies, the settlers soon realized the importance of providing educational facilities that would be accessible to their own people. They knew that successful self-government must be intelligent govern- ment and, although there was little wealth in the new settlements, efforts vvere soon made for the establishment of schools and col- leges. This work was carried on in most instances through the churches. Their leaders recognized the need of scholarly men in the ministry and also realized that they could make no greater gift to mankind than an opportunity for education. In Indiana the members of tlie Christian or Disciples Church took an early interest in the advancement of education. Alex- ander Campbell, the founder of the Church, had been an able advocate of good schools. In the Virginia Constitutional Con- vention he had urgrri a provision for free popular education; later he founded Bethany College, of which he was president of edu- until his death ; and his views in regard to the importance cational institutions had great influence. A definite movement for the establishment of a college in In- diana was made at a state meeting held at Flat Rock in 1848. 4 Butler Alumnal Quarterly At that time Hanover and Wabash had been founded by the Presbyterians, Depauw by the Methodists, and Franklin by the Baptists, and at this meeting it was resolved to be "the duty of the Christian Brotherhood in Indiana to proceed to found and endow a college." The educational facilities in Indiana at that time were meagre. The census of 1840 had shown that one-seventh of the adult popu- lation of the state were unable to read and write, and there was urgent need for schools, colleges, and well trained teachers. There was no uniform system of common schools, nor any general taxa- tion for their support, and the private schools and county semi- naries that had been established were good, bad, or indifferent, depending upon the ability of the individual teachers. Yet, it was a period of intellectual activity, and attempts were constantly being made to systematize and improve the schools. Such friends of education as Caleb Mills of Crawfordsville, Ovid Butler, and his law partner, Calvin Fletcher, of Indianapolis, and Daniel Reed, of Bloomington, had begun their great cam- paign for a public school system, and in 1847 there had been held in Indianapolis the first of a series of public meetings to provide for a general convention of the friends of education. The chair- man of this meeting was Ovid Butler, and among those active in the movement were such able men as Isaac Blackford and Henry Ward Beeeher. Ovid Butler at once took an active interest in the movement to establish a college under the auspices of the Christian Church, of which he was a member. He had lived in Indianapolis since the early thirties, had been connected with every forward move- ment of the little community, and was passionately devoted to the cause of education, to which he gave, freely and whole-heart- edly, the greater part of his life. The problem of a location for the proposed college was difficult to decide. Citizens of Rush county urged that it be located there, members of the Church at Bedford offered to subscribe $10,000 if the school were built within a mile of their public square, ' The Beginnings of Butler College 5 while others were in favor of a location nearer the center of the state. At the next annual meeting, the secretary reported that a can- vass of the churches had been taken which showed that they wanted a college and that a large majority preferred Indianapolis as a loca- ' tion. After some discussion it was resolved : ' That a Northwest- em Christian University be founded at Indianapolis, as soon as a sufficient amount of funds can be raised to commence it, and that a committee of seven be appointed to take preliminary steps in ref- erence to the founding and endowment of such an institution. ' Within a few months this committee, of which Ovid Butler was a member, had gone before the legislature and secured a special charter, whose broad and liberal provisions, that reflect the spirit of the founders of the school, have often been quoted. To found a college, and to endow and maintain it, are two very different things. Many ambitious educational projects that were started with fine enthusiasm have fallen by the wayside for lack of funds. However, the committee in charge of the new university began at once a campaign to raise by the sale of stock a minimum sum of $75,000, one-third of which, as provided in the charter, was to go into a building fund, and the balance was to be set aside as endowment. The interest on the stock was to be payable in tuition. John O'Kane, a man of energy and ability, was appointed spe- cial agent and by July, 1852, when the first Board of Directors was elected and the corporation formally organized, he was able to report that he had sold over $75,000 worth of stock. After a number of sites had been suggested and voted upon, the location chosen was one offered by Mr. Butler on a wooded tract of about twenty-five acres adjoining the Butler homestead near the edge of Indianapolis, at what is now the corner of Thirteenth street and College avenue. Plans for the college building were prepared by William Tinsley, an architect then living in Cincinnati. Mr. Tinsley had de- signed a number of important public buildings and was at one time president of the National Association of Architects. Christ ' 6 Butler Alumnal Quarterly Church, Indianapolis, is a surviving example of his work. Con- tracts were let for the west wing, the only portion of the original design that was ever built, and Mr. Tinsley moved to Indianapolis to superintend its construction. It was completed in 1855. There had been no free public schools in Indianapolis until the year 1853, when the first free schools were opened for a session of two months. There were a few private schools of varying degrees of merit, but in order to have the students properly prepared for a course in the new college, it was thought necessary to open a Preparatory school, and in May, 1853, this department of the col- lege began in the St. Mary's Seminary building, near the center of town with R. K. Krout, of Crawfordsville, as instructor. This pre- paratory department, which was enlarged from time to time, was continued for many years, until the development of adequate high schools rendered it unnecessary. The college itself was opened on the first day of November, 1855, and was dedicated with considerable ceremony. The principal ad- dress was made by Horace Mann, the great educational liberal, who had, two years before, been made the first president of Antioch College. Other addresses were made in the chapel by Allen R. Benton, John Young, and Samuel K. Hoshour, and special exercises were also held at Masonic Hall, as the college chapel was not large enough to hold the crowd of citizens and distingTiished visitors. Horace Mann was intensely interested in this new school, which represented so many of his own educational ideas. Three years later he was elected by the board of directors as president of the college, with which office was to be combined the duties of pro- fessor of ethics and moral philosophy. In a letter advising him of his selection, and urging his acceptance, Mr.