1. Finley, John H. (hereafter cited as “JHF”), introductory remarks to Albion W. Small, “The University and the College,” in Exercises in Commemoration of the Founding of Knox College, Held in Galesburg, Illinois, Thursday, February the Fifteenth MDCCCXCIV (Galesburg: The Mail Publishing Co., 1894), p. 37.Google Scholar

2. On the founding and early history of Knox College, see Hermann R. Muelder, Fighters for Freedom: The History of Anti-Slavery Activities of Men and Women Associated With Knox College (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), chapters 1–6.Google Scholar

3. The college faculty, as well as the many surviving patriarchs and matriarchs, heartily approved JHF's action. See Knox College Faculty Record, II (February 5, 1894), 112 (Knox College Library, hereafter cited as “KCL”).Google Scholar

4. Galesburg Spectator, February 16, 1894 (clipping in JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 89).Google Scholar

5. Full proceedings of the day were published; see note 1, above.Google Scholar

6. Richard Watson Gilder to JHF, November 1, 1894 (KCL).Google Scholar

7. Knox Student, I (November 7, 1894), [1]; Coup d'état, XIV (November 1894), 42–43 (KCL; both of these were undergraduate publications). On the abolitionist connections of Knox College in the 1840s and 1850s, see Muelder, Fighters for Freedom. Google Scholar

8. Knox Student, IV (October 8, 1896), [1] (KCL).Google Scholar

9. Ibid. Google Scholar

10. Elmo Calkins, Earnest They Broke the Prairie: Being Some Account of the Settlement of the Upper Mississippi Valley …, Told In Terms of One City, Galesburg, and of One College, Knox (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937), pp. 405–07.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. JHF to Albert Shaw [October (?), 1896] (telegram in Albert Shaw Papers, New York Public Library).Google Scholar

12. Student, Knox VII (October 3, 10, 1899), 45–46, [541–58 (KCL).Google Scholar

13. Ibid., Ill (January 16, 1896), 4; V (January 20, 1898), 4; Martha Finley, “Memories of My Married Life” (1950), p. 8. Typescript supplied by Dr. Ellen Finley Kiser of Atlanta, Georgia.Google Scholar

14. JHF (Galesburg) to Jacob Riis, April 3, 1893 (Riis Papers, MSS. Division, Library of Congress [box 1, correspondence]). For the guest's own reminiscences, see Jacob A. Riis, The Making of An American (New York, 1901), pp. 385–86.Google Scholar

15. Calkins, They Broke the Prairie, pp. 405–06.Google Scholar

16. On the financial situation during JHF's presidency, see pp. 135–37 below.Google Scholar

17. Rudolph, Frederick The American College and University: A History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), pp. 417, 420–421, citing S. Willis Rudy, The College of the City of New York: A History, 1847–1947 (New York: The City College Press, 1949), p. 302.Google Scholar

18. See Marvin E. Gettleman, “John H. Finley's Illinois Education,” State Historical Society of Illinois Journal (Summer 1969).Google Scholar

19. Carman, Harry J. “John H. Finley,“ Dictionary of American Biography (22 vols.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928–1958), XXII, 185–87.Google Scholar

20. Some general reading in the history of higher education turned up only one example of a younger man in a comparable post. Joseph Caldwell became president of the University of North Carolina in 1799 at the age of 23. See Henry M. Wagstaff, Impressions of Men and Movements at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, N. C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1950), p. 9.Google Scholar

21. Galesburg Mail, March 23, 1892 (clipping in JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 89).Google Scholar

22. Knox College Faculty Record, II (September 14, 1891), 51 (KCL).Google Scholar

23. Knox College Trustees’ Minutes, June 9, 1891 (KCL). On the teaching of Moral Philosophy in the old-time college, see George P. Schmidt, The Liberal Arts College: A Chapter in American Cultural History (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1957), pp. 46–51; Rudolph, American College and University, pp. 140–41.Google Scholar

24. Coup d'état, IX (April 1892), 105 (KCL).Google Scholar

25. Ibid., XII (June 1893), 135 (KCL).Google Scholar

26. Knox College Trustees’ Minutes, March 22, 1892, pp. 353–55 (KCL).Google Scholar

27. Coup d'état, IX (April 1892), 105 (KCL).Google Scholar

28. Knox College Trustees’ Minutes, June 11, 1889, pp. 322–28 (KCL). On Pearsons, see Henry B. Fuller, “The Growth of Education, Art and Letters,” in The Modern Commonwealth, 1893–1918 (“The Centennial History of Illinois,” V, ed. Clarence W. Alvord [Springfield: Illinois Centennial Commission, 1922]), 38; Knox Alumnus Directory Number, XX (June 1937), 308; J[oseph] E[dwin] Roy (trustee of the college), “Changes at Knox College,” Boston Congregationalist, April 7, 1892 (clipping in JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 89).Google Scholar

29. Coup d'état, XI (June 1892), 136 (KCL).Google Scholar

30. Advance (Chicago Congregationalist periodical), March 1892, quoted in Coup d'état, April 1892), p. 105 (KCL).Google Scholar

31. As was the case with some benefactors of colleges, such as Amos Lawrence, who gave generously to Williams College. On these benefactions and their motivation, see Frederick Rudolph, Mark Hopkins and the Log: Williams College, 1836–1872 (Yale Historical Publications, Miscellany, 63 [New Haven: Yale University Press 1956)], pp. 178–79.Google Scholar

32. The table below is calculated from the Knox College Treasurers Journal (1891–1900), KCL: (Discussions with Mr. Matthew Cyrelson, an accountant of New York City, have helped clarify the meaning of these figures.)Google Scholar

33. Galesburg Mail, April 16, 1892 (clipping in JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 89).Google Scholar

34. Knox College Trustees’ Minutes, June 6, 1893, p. 367 (KCL).Google Scholar

35. JHF's obituary, The New York Times, March 8, 1940, p. 16:5.Google Scholar

36. Coup d'état, XIV (December 1894), 65 (KCL); Knox College Trustees’ Minutes, June 12, 1895, pp. 394, 401 (KCL).Google Scholar

37. Thé[rèse] Bentzon, “La condition de la femme aux Etats-Unis (la co-éducation—Galesburg),” Revue des Deux Mondes, CXXV (October 15, 1894), 885–95.Google Scholar

38. Madame “Blanc,” “A Prairie College: An Eminent Frenchwoman's Study of Co-Education in America,” McClure's, IV (May 1895), [541]-48 (I can find no apparent reason for the use of the pseudonym).Google Scholar

39. Knox College Trustees’ Minutes, June 13, 1895, p. 402 (KCL).Google Scholar

40. Covering letter by JHF, July 12, 1895 (KCL).Google Scholar

41. See table in note 32 above. A ledger entry containing college building and grounds expenses from August 6, 1895, to November 8, 1899, totals only $49.60. Similar expenses for the seminary (i.e., the girls’ dormitory) buildings were cut too.Google Scholar

42. Knox College Trustees’ Minutes, June 11, 1896, pp. 416–17 (KCL).Google Scholar

43. Ibid., February 15, 1897, pp. 423, 435 (KCL).Google Scholar

44. Table in note 32, above; Knox College Trustees’ Minutes, June 9, 1897, p. 430 (KCL).Google Scholar

45. Ibid., February 15, 1897, p. 422 (KCL); Knox College Faculty Record, II (January 9, 1899), 217 (KCL).Google Scholar

46. Albert Perry [Galesburg] to JHF, December 18, 1902 (JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 5).Google Scholar

47. See the table in note 32, above; JHF [Galesburg] to Herbert Baxter Adams, December 1, 1898 (Adams Papers, The Johns Hopkins University Library).Google Scholar

48. Evidence of this sense of guilt appears in William E. Simonds [Galesburg] to JHF, November 1, 1900, and Frank H. Sisson [Galesburg] to JHF (Princeton, N.J.), January 9, 10, 1902. In 1900 he obtained a handsome donation from Andrew Carnegie for a Knox College library, and in 1916 a crucial $75,000 gift from Mrs. Russell Sage, enabling the college to qualify for a General Education Board matching grant. See JHF to Frank A. Vanderlip, June 16, 1916. Letters from JHF Papers, New York Public Library, boxes 1, 3, 31.Google Scholar

49. See above, pp. 129–32.Google Scholar

50. See above, p. 133.Google Scholar

51. Gettleman, See “John Finley's Illinois Education.“Google Scholar

52. See Knox College Catalogue, (1886–1887), and (1893–1894). The natural philosophy (Physics) text was Denison Olmsted, An Introduction to Natural Philosophy; Designed as a Text-book for the Use of Students in College (3d rev. ed., by Rodney G. Kimball [New York: Collins & Brother, 1882]). This popular text, first published in New Haven in 1831–1832, went through a half-dozen editions by the 1890s.Google Scholar

53. Knox College Catalogue, (1893–1894), 35–37. It is possible that there was some retrogression in the study of English literature. In 1886–1887 students were exposed in the senior year to a half-term of Chaucer and whole terms were devoted to “Spenser and Shakespeare,” and “Milton to Wordsworth” (ibid., LI [1886–1887], 30). But in 1893–1894 the offerings in English included only Anglo-Saxon, “English Masterpieces,” and Shakespeare (ibid., LVII [1893–1894], 37, 44–45).Google Scholar

54. Ibid., (1895–1896), pp. 38, 40.Google Scholar

55. Ibid., (1899–1900), pp. 22–23.Google Scholar

56. Knox College Faculty Record, II (March 1, 1897; March 11, June 20, 1898; March 6, 22, 1899), pp. 182, 189, 208, 219–221 (KCL.)Google Scholar

57. JHF helped carry out a similar curricular revision when he was president of the College of the City of New York. See Rudy, The College of the City of New York, pp. 320–23.Google Scholar

58. Knox College Catalogue, (1899–1900), p. 15.Google Scholar

59. Ibid., pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

60. Gettleman, See “John Finley's Illinois Education.“Google Scholar

61. See above, pp. 129–32.Google Scholar

62. See above, pp. 139, 140, 144 and 145.Google Scholar

63. Statistical data demonstrate this point more convincingly. The following table compares college graduates’ career choices during the years when JHF was connected with Knox College. The figures are percentages of total number of graduates: These figures are compiled from Knox Alumnus Directory number, XX (June 1937), passim, and Bailey B. Burritt, “Professional Distribution of College and University Graduates,” U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 19 (1912), p. 144. The figures in the two right-hand columns probably reflect depression conditions in the 1880s and ‘90s.Google Scholar

64. See on this, Hugh Hawkins, Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University, 1874–1889 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1960).Google Scholar

65. Knox College Catalogue, (1893–1894), pp. 7–8. Exceptions to this generalization about the parochial faculty at old-time Knox College were Jeremiah W. Jenks, who came to Galesburg in 1886, just after he took a Ph.D. in economics at Halle. Jenks did not stay at Knox long. See P[ercy] W. B[idewell], “Jeremiah W. Jenks,” Dictionary of American Biography, X, 52–53. There was also English Professor William E. Simonds, who graduated from Brown, took a Ph.D. at Strasbourg, and joined the Knox faculty in 1889. See Knox Alumnus Directory Number, XX (June 1937), 304. John W. Burgess had taught at Knox in 1869–1873, but this was before the distinguished political scientist had taken his advanced degrees in Germany. See Burgess, Reminiscences of an American Scholar … (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934), pp. 77–84.Google Scholar

66. JHF's reminiscences in Knox Student, November 1, 1906 (clipping in JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 90).Google Scholar

67. See Knox College Catalogue (1897–1898), pp. 11–12. By that year the faculty had grown to 33, four of whom taught in the widely known Knox College Conservatory of Music.Google Scholar

68. Knox College Faculty Record, II, 165 (April 7, 1896) (KCL).Google Scholar

69. JHF (Galesburg) to Nicholas Murray Butler [New York City], October 4, 1898 (Butler Papers, Low Library, Columbia University; used by permission of Professor Lindsay Rogers).Google Scholar

70. No listing before in Minerva: Jahrbuch der gelehrten Welt, 1899–1900, IX (Strasbourg, 1900), 297. Another leadng German reference work a few years earlier had also taken notice of what it called Galesburg's “blooming” college: K[arl] Baedecker, Nordamerika: die vereinigten Staaten … (Leipzig: K. Baedecker, 1893), p. 357.Google Scholar

71. Gettleman, See “John Finley's Illinois Education.“ The unit of admission credit was “one regularly prepared forty minute recitation per week for a term of at least 12 weeks.” Knox College Catalogue, (1899–1900), p. 16. In formalizing these entrance requirements, Knox was merely conforming to the national pressures described in Edward Cornelius Broome, A Historical and Critical Discussion of College Admission Requirements (Teachers College, Columbia University, Contributions to … Education, 11 [New York: Teachers College, 1903]), pp. 126–46. But at Knox College these formal measurements were qualified by the requirement that students display their proficiency in grammar, and their ability to compose literary essays on such topics as: Burke on Conciliation, Macbeth, Last of the Mohicans, etc.Google Scholar

72. Knox College Catalogue, (1899–1900), pp. 15, 19–21. On the general growth of more or less rational organization in modern colleges, see Rudolph, American College and University, pp. 436–39.Google Scholar

73. Gettleman, “John Finley's Illinois Education.“Google Scholar

74. But JHF also admitted that he was not able to say “with any nicety of assessment” just what the value of the classics was. See his address before the classical section of the New York State Teachers’ Association, November 24, 1914 (JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 83); JHF, Our Need of the Classics (address before the National Classical Conference, Milwaukee, July 3, 1919 (Princeton, 1919), also reprinted as The Fallow (n.p., 1919). On the way in which classical study infused itself through a (changing) old-time college, see Thomas LeDuc, Piety and Intellect at Amherst College, 1865–1912 (Columbia University, Studies in American Culture, 16 [New York: Columbia University Press, 1946]), chap. V.Google Scholar

75. JHF, notes for a speech, c. 1900 (JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 6).Google Scholar

76. See the table in note 63, above.Google Scholar

77. Knox College catalogues during this period invariably begin with references to the wholesome piety of the institution. Of course, “images” often serve to obscure the reality behind them. On this latter phenomenon, see Daniel J. Boorstin's brilliant and provocative The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).Google Scholar

78. Coup d'état, XIII (November 1893), 46 (KCL) commented editorially on the somewhat contrived nature of the revival of that year, hinting ironically that the editorial staff might be so “overwhelmed with religious zeal” that they might forget to publish. The blasé editors predicted that while the Spirit was abroad in the college, students would do nothing but attend meetings, to the detriment of their studies. Many Knox students worked at the World's Fair in the summer of 1893.Google Scholar

79. On the decline of revivalism generally, see Rudolph, American College and University, pp. 84–85.Google Scholar

80. Bateman's salary of $1,000 a year was obtained from New York journalist Charles A. Dana by Knox trustee S. S. McClure (Knox College Trustees’ Minutes [February 15, 1897], p. 423 [KCL]).Google Scholar

81. It was emphatically insisted that this scheme had not been suggested by Harvard's well-known system of College Preachers. Knox Student, IV (October 22, 1896), [1] (KCL).Google Scholar

82. In commenting on this address, which was considered one of JHF's most stirring at Knox College, student journalists wryly perceived that during class recitations “rather than banks guiding the swiftly flowing liquid truth, the faculty played the part of a suction pump that managed to draw by great effort now and then a drop of truth from a reservoir in which the crystal liquid did not seem to be very deep.” Ibid. (December 10, 1896), p. 4.Google Scholar

83. JHF, chapel talk at Knox College “Concerning the conjugation of the verb ‘to live',” printed in The Baptist Union, V (November 7, 1896).Google Scholar

84. Knox Student, V (April 14, 1898), [1]-2 (KCL).Google Scholar

85. On this phenomenon, see Merrimon Cuninggum, The College Seeks Religion (Yale University, Studies in Religious Education, 20 [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947]).Google Scholar

86. Wabeke, John M. [Peoria, Ill.] to JHF, July 9, 1900 (JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 1).Google Scholar

87. On extracurricular life in the prefootball era, see Gettleman, “John Finley's Illinois Education,” and “A History of Football [at Knox],” Knox Student, V (October 21, 1897), [1] (KCL). Envy for Eastern ways is expressed by “I.C.” in Coup d'état, IX (September 1889), 5 (KCL). On the rise of college football generally, see Rudolph, American College and University, chap. 18.Google Scholar

88. Knox College Faculty Record, I (February 18, 1895), 145 (KCL). Interest may have been heightened by the revenue the college possibly drew from football games, but there is no surviving evidence of this.Google Scholar

89. Ibid. (September 30, 1895), p. 157 (KCL).Google Scholar

90. Not at Knox, but as a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University in 1888–1889. See Johns Hopkins University Circulars, VII (April 1888), 253, and the University Yearbook, Debutante ([Baltimore, 1889]), p. 69, in The Johns Hopkins University Library.Google Scholar

91. Coup d'état, XV (September 1895), 7 (KCL).Google Scholar

92. Knox Student, III (April 23, 1896), 4 (KCL).Google Scholar

93. Ibid. (1896–1899), passim; IV (October 22, 1896), [1] (KCL), containing the story of Knox's 10–6 defeat at the hands of Iowa Wesleyan.Google Scholar

94. Knox College Trustees’ Minutes (June 10, 1896), p. 412 (KCL).Google Scholar

95. On the continuing problem of professionalism, see Knox Student, V (December 9, 1897), 4; VII (December 12, 1899), 172; Knox College Faculty Record, II (February 17, 1898), 199 (KCL); William Edward Simonds [Galesburg] to JHF, December 4, 1902 (JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 3). The Trustees’ decision is recorded in Knox College Trustees’ Minutes (June 14, 1899), pp. 461–64 (KCL).Google Scholar

96. Perry, Albert J. [Galesburg] to JHF, December 18, 1902 (JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 5).Google Scholar

97. Report of Col. E. W. Heyle [Inspector General's Office, U. S. Army, Division of the Missouri] to the Inspector General of the Army [Washington, D.C.], November 10, 1887 (National Archives, Washington, D.C.).Google Scholar

98. Knox Student, V (March 10, 1898), 4 (April 28, 1898), 4; VI (October 18, 1898), 60–61 (KCL).Google Scholar

99. Report of Major E. L. Huggins, June 2, 1900 (Knox College Inspection Reports, Records of the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Army, group 159, National Archives, Washington, D.C.).Google Scholar

100. See JHF's articles, “The Political Beginnings in Porto Rico,” Review of Reviews, XXII (November 1900), [571]-72; JHF, “Our Last Day in Cuba,” Harper's Weekly, XLVI (June 7, 1902), 720–21; “Our Account With Cuba,” ibid. (July 5, 1902), pp. 865–66; “The Isle of Pines,” Scribner's Magazine, XXXIII (February 1903), [174]-81; and an undated address on expansion that may be assigned by internal evidence to 1903 (JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 85).Google Scholar

101. JHF [Galesburg] to Charles S. Fairchild, February 28, 1893 (Fairchild Papers, New York Historical Society); JHF, ed., The Public Treatment of Pauperism (International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago 1893, Proceedings, Vol. II [Baltimore; Johns Hopkins Press, 1894]).Google Scholar

102. See above, p. 131.Google Scholar

103. JHF was second choice. Herbert Baxter Adams of Johns Hopkins was not able to accept the speaking engagement, and may have suggested JHF as a replacement. JHF admitted to Adams that he had never spoken before so distinguished a group. “I feel something of the elation of the man who has been playing on the sidelines and on account of the disability of one of the regular players has been called into the game.” JHF [Galesburg] to Herbert B. Adams, November 30, 1897 (Adams Papers, The Johns Hopkins University Library).Google Scholar

104. Benjamin Harrison [Old Forge, N.Y.] to JHF [Galesburg], August 1, 1898 (KCL). JHF's address itself, “The Soldier and the Student,” appears in Exercises in Commemoration of the Birthday of Washington, February 22, 1898 (Chicago, [1898]) (copy in JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 6).Google Scholar

105. JHF [Galesburg] to Herbert Baxter Adams, November 15, 1897; January 28, 1899 (Adams Papers, The Johns Hopkins University Library); Adams [Baltimore] to JHF [February ?, 1899] (JHF Papers, New York Public Library, box 6).Google Scholar

106. On JHF's later career in education and journalism, see Harry J. Carman, “John H. Finley,” Dictionary of American Biography, XXII, 185–87.Google Scholar