Butler Alumnal Quarterly University Special Collections

Butler University Digital Commons @ Butler University Butler Alumnal Quarterly University Special Collections 1916 Butler Alumnal Quarterly (1916) 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 (1916)" (1916). Butler Alumnal Quarterly. 6. https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/bualumnalquarterly/6 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]. 5<iSsSbji2^îS!7s^7dS7s®isSfe:S!7jiS^^ Shelf No. J « J 0, 4 i ^ Bl Accession No V^ jLsQ H" Bona Thompson Memorial BUTLER COLLEGE UBRARY K isyi r-5^ roi, jci. I'd—r^fi—Toi r^>i r»i-_f\n.J53..J3ij,a, Mumum Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/butleralumnalqua05butl 4 Butler OiiA Butl^ûmnal Quarterly rOUNDERtS DAY NUMBER APRIL, 19»6 Vol. V No. 1 INDIANAPOLIS BlitlRpjJrilyePs-^]') To THE Student : Have you determined what your vocation in life will be? Do you know how desirable the profession of dentistry is ? Would it not be well to investigate before making your final determination? Indiana Dental College has been successfully teach- ing dentistry for thirty-eight years. Our graduates are to be found in every State in the Union and nearly every foreign country. Our equipment is complete and our standing unex- celled. We offer a three-year course which will be increased to four years in 1917. Address the Secretary, 11 West North Street, Indi- anapolis, for booklet and catalog. THE INDIANA LAW SCHOOL Law Department— University of Indianapolis Season for 1915-1916 opened September 22. Two-years' course leading to the degree of LL. B. Graduation admits to State and Federal Courts. For further information address JAMES A. ROHBACH, A. M., LL. D. Dean 1117-1118 Law Building Indianapolis HY BE CONTENT with ordinary jewelry when you may have our special designs and high grade workmanship at no higher prices? It is human nature to admire the beautiful. To combine use and beauty is the highest art in craftsmanship. This is our aim in making jewelry. We want you to judge of the result by an examination of our stock. Our frat and school jewelry is of the same high quality and moderate price. C. B. DYER, JEWELER 234 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE Our things are different ûtlerUmvbfSityl Butler Alumnat Quarterly Vol. V INDIANAPOLIS, IND., APRIL, igi6 No. i FOUNDER'S DAY Ovid Butler [ The Indianapolis Journal oi July 13, 1881, contained the following notice:] A great man, because a pre-eminently good one, has gone from earth to heaven. He Hved in every year of this century but the first, therefore a contemporary of the wonderful events and changes occurring in the history of our own and other countries during that time. It cannot be expected that in a brief obituary notice full justice can be done to the life and character of such a man. Ovid Butler was born on the 7th of February, 1801, in Augusta, Oneida county, New York. His father removed to the State of Indiana in 1817 and settled first in Jennings county. He received only such an education as could be given in the common schools of that day. His life was like that of all other young men who came West with the pioneer father, and that father a preacher—a life of toil, of privation and self-sacrifice. Every spare hour, however, was given to such books as could be then had, and the knowledge thus obtained was treasured as the miser treasures his gold. In 1822 Mr. Butler went to Illinois and tried his hand at school teach- ing, but the fever and ague got the better of him and he returned to Vernon and sold goods for a short time. In 18-14 he studied law and was admitted to practice in one year. It was now that the strong qualities of his mind began to manifest themselves, and some of its moral qualities. He took high rank at once in his profession at Shelbyville, where he commenced its practice. He ran for the Legislature at one time, and at another for the count)- clerk- ship, and both times was defeated on account of his strong anti- 2 Butler Alumnal Quarterly slavery convictions, which he took no pains to conceal. In 1827 he married Cordelia Cole, a daughter of Judge Cole. In 1836 he came to Indianapolis and formed a partnership in the law with Calvin Fletcher, lasting for eleven years. The pleasant and profit- able relation thus formed was always alluded to by Mr. Butler in the kindest terms, he entertaining for Mr. Fletcher the warmest feelings of friendship, and the highest admiration for him as a man. Ill health compelled Mr. Butler, somewhat reluctantly, to retire from the profession which he loved and honored during his whole life. He regarded the careful study of its elementary principles as a splendid intellectual and moral discipline, and the prac- tical and just application of those principles as one of the noblest occupations of men. The peculiar qualities of Mr. Butler's mind made him most formidable as a chancery lawyer, and it was in this branch of the profession he most distinguished him.self. At the same time he possessed the rarest qualifications for all the business connected with his profession, as may be attested now by an examination of the many immense folios representing the business of the firm in which his handwriting largely pre- ponderates. When Mr. Butler retired from the practice of the law the anti- slavery agitation had commenced in earnest, and Mr. Butler, being in full sympathy with it, allied himself to the Freesoil party of 1848, on whose ticket he was a candidate for presidential elector. He took an active interest in the counsels of that party and subse- quent anti-slavery organizations, culminating in the Republican party of 1856. In 1854 he bought the Indianapolis Journal, giving the management of it to B. R. Sulgrove and Rawson Vaile. Three years later Mr. Sulgrove bought out Mr. Butler's interest, and about the same time the latter contributed generously to the estab- lishment of an anti-slavery paper at Cincinnati. He was no poli- tician in the ordinary sense of the word. He took sides, because of his intense conviction of right and his love of freedom. But the thought and enterprise that enlisted all his energy and devotion during those years, after he retired from his profession, was the founding and maintaining a university in the interest of an unsectarian Christianity, in which the Bible was to be the only Ovid Butler 3 bond of union. The North Western Christian University was the result of his care and study and labor. There were others connected with him in this enterprise who should justly share with him whatever of merits belonged to it, notably John O'Kane, lately deceased. But, without doubt, to his large benefactions, his un- ceasing care and vigilance, and his wise counsels, does the university owe its present prosperity and usefulness. The directors not long since changed its name to "Butler," to which Mr. Butler very reluctantly consented. The suggestion was in opposition to his innate dislike of ostentation. The subject of his latest anxiety and prayers was Butler University and the success of the grand idea suggested in the act of its incorporation, "the union of Christians upon the Bible," which was made and is now a textbook in the regular course of study. But no one can understand Mr. Butler's life, character, and labors who did not know the deep and earnest religious faith that suggested and guided his every thought and act. It controlled his politics. It impelled him to choose something to do for the public good that he might thus live for the good of others. Mr. Butler, in early manhood, was inclined to skepticism, but he could not long wander among the improbabilities and absurdities of unbelief. In 1833 he and his wife Cordelia joined the Christian Church, his father, Chauncy Butler, being then a preacher in that communion, and afterwards the first pastor of the church established in In- dianapolis. It is in this character we love best to contemplate our friend. In the family his religious devotion was always an ex- ample and incentive. Its strength and beauty won all who came within its influence. In the church of which he was a member his counsel sought, never intruded, always prevailed. His liberality and piety secured an influence always exercised for good. If dif- ferences ever did arise, a sacred regard for the rights of others, and kindly deference to their opinions, most frequently gained the adversary to his way. His prayers and exhortations in the public congregation were remarkable for their purity and depth of thought, their beauty of expression, and perfect appropriateness. He was profoundly read in the Old and New^ Testaments, and in his extreme old age could quote accurately any passage he had use for. 4 Butler Alumnal Quarterly Whatever he did was thoroughly done. Mr. Butler thought for himself—his individuality was intense. He formed his own con- clusions in politics, in religion, and in the conduct of life. He had no pride of opinion ; only when after careful study and reflection, he came to a conclusion, he held to it with the utmost tenacity.

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