Though relatively unknown today, Homer Caldwell Corry (1887-1955) was a hero of Antioch College in many ways. A member of the class of 1910, he grew up in nearby Clark County, was a star baseball pitcher when Antioch still had intercollegiate athletics and a leading member of the student literary society The Adelphian Union.

Homer C. Corry (at right) about to make remarks accepting the gift of the Horace Mann Statue from Hugh Taylor Birch, October 1936.

After a brief career as a high school principal in both Enon and Yellow Springs, he studied law at The University of Chicago and Ohio State where he was also briefly a member of the law school faculty. Corry enlisted in the military during the first world war, where he rose from infantry private to an officer in the Judge Advocate General’s office. After the war he joined a law firm in Springfield that was for many years the primary legal representative of Antioch. The firm exists to this day. Corry served the first of many terms on the Antioch Board of Trustees beginning in 1917, and spent the rest of his career pursuing financial security for the College so that its president could concentrate on the real business at hand, the education of young people.

At the dedication ceremony for the statue of Horace Mann in Glen Helen, held in 1936, Corry followed the remarks made by Hugh Taylor Birch, reprinted in the preceding Songs From The Stacks. In contrast to Birch’s lofty, devotional speech about his hero Horace Mann, Corry delivered a straight, factual recounting of Mann’s life and career. He also describes the setting for the original Mann statue outside the Massachusetts Statehouse, and gives perhaps the most useful description to be found for the statue’s rather remote location. Based on the address reprinted below, Corry had clearly done his homework as any good lawyer would do.

from Educating For Democracy: A Symposium, Antioch Press, 1937.

Horace Mann, Pioneer in Education
HOMER C. CORRY

IT IS with a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude that I accept on behalf of Antioch College this beautiful and appropriate gift. It is appropriate, not only because it is a magnificent statue of the first President of Antioch College, but also because of the one who gives it.

        Hugh Taylor Birch is an alumnus of the College, and his associations with it and its first President are most cherished. They unite in a vivid and very real way Horace Mann’s life with the national commemoration of his work which begins here today.

        Mr. Birch is the son of Erasmus Mitchell Birch who as a young teacher in eastern New York knew Horace Mann. He was an early Trustee of the College, and gave to it large tracts of land, assistance which materially sustained and encouraged Horace Mann in his difficult financial problems.

        In 1856, at Mann’s invitation, Erasmus Birch moved to Yellow Springs. Hugh, his youngest son, soon became the playmate of Benny Mann, and the youthful comrade of Horace Mann. He knew and shared the friendly life of the President’s home. He furnishes to us today tangible evidence of Horace Mann’s inspiration and influence, which the simplicity and usefulness and nobility of his own life exemplify.

        The history of this statue is notable. It is the only replica of the original which was modeled by Emma Stebbins in Rome and cast in bronze in Munich. Here, after the passage of years, the model was rediscovered by Mr. Birch, and upon his order, it was reproduced in bronze in the same foundry, by the son of the man who had cast the original.

        When one approaches the front entrance of the Massachusetts State House, one sees on either side the statues of two illustrious sons of Massachusetts—Daniel Webster and Horace Mann. There they stand, facing the historic Boston Common and the St. Gaudens statue of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the colored 54th Regiment of Massachusetts infantry. One might well imagine Horace Mann reading from the lines on that statue by St. Gaudens,

With heart that beat a charge, he fell forward as fits a man,
But the high soul burns on to light mens feet,
Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet.

        These lines fitly describe the dedication of his own life to the cause of human freedom, not only freedom of the black man from the bondage of slavery, but freedom of all men from the bondage of ignorance and prejudice.

        It is appropriate that this statue should be located here, on what is now part of the Antioch campus and was formerly a farm owned by Horace Mann, In this quiet and beautiful spot he doubtless intended to live when his active responsibility with the College should have ended. Here his statue stands looking across beautiful Glen Helen to the College to which he gave his last full measure of devotion and in which his spirit and achievements still live.

        Its location here upon the highest point in the county, above the tranquil and varied country extending to far horizons, is symbolic of the almost unlimited outreach of his own hope for the advancement of humanity. Here one may literally follow his injunction, “Orient yourself,” and find one’s bearings anew in a confused and troubled world.

        Its location here, high and seemingly alone, is like much of his work for humanity. There is an inevitable loneliness in genius, and because such a one lives above and beyond his day, he ofttimes lacks the full measure of understanding which should be his.

        Its location here is symbolic of his own appraisal of the West and of its boundless opportunities. Mrs. Mann said of him, “The poetry of the broad prairies, which to other hearts spoke only of desolation, was to his exalted state of mind, as he passed over them, freedom—freedom from all that fettered or darkened the human soul through the agency of man.”

        Events ofttimes find their source in incidents seemingly far removed in time and circumstances. As I have already suggested, one might trace one source of today’s event to an afternoon in the fall of 1856, when a tall and distinguished gentleman met a little boy on one of the unpaved streets of Yellow Springs. His kindly interest soon put the boy at ease and began a comradeship which ripened with the years and inspired a lifetime devotion for the man and his ideals. One might trace another source of today’s event to a more remote time and place. On May 4, 1796, Horace Mann was born in the town of Franklin, Massachusetts. His parents were plain, but of superior mental attainments and with the strength of character so characteristic of the New Englanders of that day. Here Horace Mann lived the then hard and simple life of a farm boy, ennobled by the high conceptions of life of that Puritan environment.

        When he was thirteen his father died, and through the discipline of poverty and toil he came to know the priceless value to youth of education. During these early years of struggle, there was already forming in his character the predominant aspiration of his life. Mr. Mann once said of himself to a friend, “All of my boyish castles in the air had reference to doing something for the benefit of mankind, and I had a conviction that knowledge was my needed instrument.” Soon opportunity came to him in the form of a skilled teacher of the classics, and he accepted this opportunity with such fervor that in six months he had prepared himself for the sophomore class at Brown University.

        This larger opportunity he again accepted, with the surpassing ability that was to mark him for distinctive achievement. Here, too, the altruistic aspirations of his life took more definite form, as is indicated by his commencement oration, which was on the advancement of the human race.

        During his years at Brown University, Horace Mann gave deep thought to his choice of vocation. It was natural that in a new republic the profession of law should be of high importance. The theory of constitutional government, the application of the principles of self-government, and the practice of democracy were new things and gave vivid promise for the betterment of mankind.

        He chose to become a lawyer, therefore, and after two years as a tutor in Latin and Greek at Brown University he entered upon the study of law at Litchfield, which was the first and then the most famous law school in America. As he had taken first honors in college, so did he here. The law, its order and philosophy, its purposes of justice, and its relation to government and society enlisted the deepest interest of his brilliant mind.

        In 1823 he entered the practice of law at Dedham, Massachusetts. He was not only devoted to the law, but he had a keen sense of civic duty. His standing was soon established as a lawyer of the highest quality. He devoted himself to the mastery of legal principles, and his practice was controlled and guided by a most conscientious intellectual honesty.

        The years at Dedham were the happiest of his life. While here he married Charlotte Messer, the daughter of the president of Brown University. But the bright years ended on the last night of July, 1832, when her life came to its close. Darkness and despair came over him, and it was only through the sympathy and understanding of friends that he was brought back to a proportioned sense of life and duty.

        Through the invitation of his friend and classmate, E. G. Loring, he entered the practice of law in Boston. Here he boarded at the home of Mrs. Clark, where were also Jared Sparks, the historian; Miss Elizabeth Peabody, who became noted for her work in the establishment of kindergartens; Miss Sophia Peabody, afterwards the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne; and Miss Mary Peabody, whom Horace Mann later married.

        From 1823 to 1837 Mann had an active and distinguished career as a lawyer and as a member of the state legislature and senate, of which he was president for two years. His passion for liberty, and the application of his great ability to the interests of humanity, were soon apparent. His first speech in the legislature was on behalf of religious liberty; his second was on behalf of railroads and was the first speech on that subject in any legislative assembly in America.

        One of his most significant achievements was the establishment of the first hospital in the United States for the insane. Prior to that time mental defectives had been harbored in prisons and poorhouses. He instituted the principle of kindly and intelligent treatment

        for mental defectives. The education of the blind likewise enlisted his efforts. He was a leader in the temperance movement, and in the forefront of the opposition to slavery. Above all he gave unrestrained devotion to the cause of education.

        At the age of forty-one, with a career of certain fame and distinction before him as a lawyer, he turned from it to accept the newly created position of secretary to the Massachusetts Board of Education. In accepting this offer, he wrote to Governor Everett, “So long as I hold this office, I shall devote myself to the supremest welfare of mankind on earth.”

        I shall not tell the story of that struggle and victory. He did more than promote and improve the common schools of America and establish “the absolute right to an education of every human being that comes into the world.” He lifted the ideals and practice of democracy itself.

        For twelve years he served no other client than his state and the cause of education. In 1848, however, he yielded to the insistent demand of his friends and entered Congress to fill out the unexpired term of John Quincy Adams. John Quincy Adams had given himself to the cause of freedom in his battle for the right of petition. Horace Mann had already dedicated his life to the cause of human liberty. He was an eloquent opponent of human slavery in all its social and political implications. He was not an abolitionist. He was not in accord with Wendell Phillips or William Lloyd Garrison, nor was he in accord with Webster, and those who were willing to compromise with the issue of human slavery and its extension.

        For a generation Daniel Webster had been the great apostle of political liberty, and of a united nation under constitutional government. But ofttimes under the constant impact of circumstance, the consecration of men to their ideals becomes dulled. Daniel Webster at this time will always stand as one of the tragic figures of America history. Perhaps his vision may have been clouded by his still living but oft-thwarted ambition to be president. His fears were perhaps real that a break in the Union was imminent. In the midst of the dangerous crosscurrents of national life, facing the possibility that the Union to which he had been so signally devoted would be disunited, he made his famous seventh of March speech advocating compromise upon the extension of slavery.

        Horace Mann, controlled by moral purpose, with perhaps a clearer vision of the future and with a courage that knew no limitations of time or occasion or ambition, felt the duty of answering Webster. This he did. He incurred Webster’s enmity and the opposition of the Whigs in Massachusetts, and these form the background of his return to the cause of education.
In 1852 Mann was nominated by the Free Soil Party for the governorship of Massachusetts, but there had come another call—to the presidency of Antioch College. For him there came again the necessary choice between political preferment and the cause of education. His choice is known.

        Recurring again as the dominating motives of his decision are his intense interest in humanity and the supremacy of his moral nature. These furnish the key to his life and his achievements.

        On September 13,1853, as he left Massachusetts, he addressed the Free Soil Convention at Fitchburg. His closing words were as follows: “It rejoices me to think in giving you a sad, though kind farewell, that the last three words I shall utter before a Massachusetts audience are the three words—temperance, education, freedom.”

        As an experienced man of affairs, an able lawyer, an eminent statesman, and a great educator, Horace Mann came to Antioch College. He came also as an idealist, the controlling passion of whose life was the improvement of mankind. These last three words were more than a key to his philosophy—they are the essential formula for the advancement of humanity. Freedom can come only through the enlightenment of mankind. It can be useful only as it is directed to right purposes through education and moral discipline. He came to establish a college as broad in its principles as these three words—a college devoted to the cause of universal education. Here men and women were to have equal opportunity. Antioch was open to those of any color or creed or class. Merit was the only condition of admission.

        He planned to do more. He would elevate science from a position of obscurity to its rightful proportion in the educational scheme. Art and music with their cultural influences were to be essential. Physiology was to be taught and health was to be emphasized as fundamental to achievement through life. Teachers were to be instructed in the art of their vocation. Here there were united in one system education and character. To him education without religion was worse than no education at all. The diploma was more than a certificate of work done—it was a certificate of character. Education in all of its aspects was to have an immediate relationship to its practical social value. These ideals he expressed in his inaugural address when he dedicated the College to two great objects “which can never be rightly separated, the honor of God and the service of man.”

        Antioch College was launched under the auspices of the Christian Church, with lofty ideals of freedom and service which gave promise that the hopes of Horace Mann would ripen into achievement. I believe that his hopes have been so fulfilled, but only because he conquered difficulties that were not foreseen and which hastened his death.

        When Mr. and Mrs. Mann arrived at Antioch, the buildings were not completed, and the campus was wholly undeveloped. There were many discomforts and annoyances, but they were incidental and gave Horace Mann slight concern. There were other fundamental weaknesses, however: a divided authority and a bankrupt institution. From these and other causes, Antioch was sold on April 20, 1859, at auction. It was purchased by friends of Horace Mann and of the College, and turned over to a new Board free from debt, with a new workable charter, which, with the amendments since that time, is still the charter of the College.

        The future of the institution now seem assured, but these troubles had enlisted the most strenuous efforts of Horace Mann for months prior to that time. The Commencement of 1859 was a time of rejoicing, but the strain had been too great; he was too tired to rest. Told, as the end approached, that he had but a few hours to live, he said, “I have work to do”; and he called to him his family, and in beautiful converse they reviewed their lives together. Then one after another the students came. With each he talked and to each he gave some personal message.

        The spirit of Horace Mann is immortal. His personality became a part of every work and every life that he touched. In the truest sense it is embodied in this institution and its principles. His pioneering spirit, his devotion to truth, his moral fervor, his insistence upon the social purposes of education and its necessity in a democracy are still incorporated in the Antioch of this day.

        Engraved upon another monument to him which stands upon another part of the campus are the words of his last address: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” They are the story of his life; but they are more. They are the very spirit and purpose of education. They have become a controlling motive, not only in the lives of students and graduates of this institution, but through the universal opportunity of education they have been transfused into the lives of unnumbered citizens.

        I should like to close with the eloquent words of John D. Philbrick, superintendent of the public schools of Boston, from an address delivered at the dedication of the monument in 1865.

“To my mind this figure symbolizes, and will ever symbolize, as often as my eyes rest upon it, the grand and inspiring idea of Progress—that idea which was at once the faith and inspiration of Horace Mann. He believed in, and therefore he labored for, the progress of mankind—the progress of the individual in intellectual, moral and physical excellence, and consequently in happiness and usefulness; the progress of the state in freedom and justice, and consequently in national prosperity and power. Universal education he regarded as the divinely appointed means—education sanctified by religion—of realising this grand idea, and therefore as the essential instrument of political improvement and social advancement.”

Hugh Taylor Birch, class of 1869, enjoyed many big moments in his long, eventful life. October 16th, 1936 was one such moment: when he dedicated a statue of Horace Mann in the Glen he named for his deceased daughter Helen and gave to Antioch College. That day kicked off a year-long observance of the centennial of public education in America, marked by Mann’s entry into the field when he accepted the appointment of first ever Secretary to the first ever State Board of Education in US history. The one hundred year celebration originated with Birch in the first place, and he donated funds and gave both inspiration and impetus to the National Education Association to make it a national event. Birch had Mann’s annual reports on education reprinted and a bust of Mann sculpted by William Rimmer mass produced, and hundreds of public schools were renamed for Mann across the country. At Antioch, where Birch first encountered the College’s first president, he installed a statue cast from the same mold that produced the original one by Emma Stebbins erected in Boston in 1865. Birch’s dedicatory remarks follow.

The dedication was part of a symposium called “The Function of Education in a Democracy” featuring some of the most prominent educational minds of the time, including the president of MIT, Karl Compton, and famed professor and philosopher John Dewey of Columbia University. The weekend’s events also included the debut of a play about Mann and Antioch called Testament of Faith written by the College faculty and starring Arthur Lithgow (class of 1938). The symposium proceedings were published by the old Antioch Press in a volume entitled Educating For Democracy in 1937.

Presentation of the Horace Mann Monument
HUGH TAYLOR BIRCH

        My good friends: It is a delight to see you here today. This is one of my happy days. I have lived quite long and have had many of them, but today is a culmination of them all. I want to say to you, in a few words, what may surprise you. I knew Horace Mann. Eighty years ago this summer I was coming up one of the streets of Yellow Springs and met Horace Mann face to face. He held out his hand to me and I reached up and took it. And I want you to remember that in that handshake, that small boy of nine years received a thrill which in these eighty years since has not left me.

        That is one reason I am here today. I had an inspiration from Horace Mann, and in all these eighty years that have passed, I have never forgotten that I owe to Horace Mann a deep debt of gratitude. I inquired, in every way that I knew how, to find out what was in that master spirit. He seemed to me to be above the rest. I as a boy fell in love with him, we might say, and in all the years and struggles that I passed through I have never forgotten him. Today we meet here face to face.

        Horace Mann’s soul is in this statue, and I have brought it here for the benefit of the people of Ohio as well as the people connected with Antioch College. And I want it to inspire you, one and all, to some great deed in life, because Horace Mann believed in performance rather than in expression. He wanted everyone to be upright and honest and true, and to impress that upon his fellow men.

        Eighty years have passed, and five or six years ago I came to Antioch a lone man. I had lost all my immediate family. The last one to go was my daughter, Helen; and when I saw Antioch and inquired about it, they said it was without ownership of the property in front of it. They had a few scattered acres, but had no place for the students to walk and play and be near to nature, so I conceived the idea of giving them a campus. That has been accomplished. They have a campus. Not only all of Antioch but all the people living in the vicinity have a great park that they are free to come and go in.

        All institutions should have an inspiration from a great source; and I conceived the idea of giving such an inspiration to Antioch College after having been in Boston where I saw the original of Horace Mann’s statue brought from Munich in Germany. I conceived the idea of bringing to Antioch, where the spirit of Horace Mann was still lingering, a statue of Horace Mann; and with the help of my son-in-law, Frederick Clay Bartlett, we got in touch with the great foundry that made the first casting of Horace Mann’s statue, the one that is in Boston.

        In the short correspondence, with the help of my son-in-law, we arranged to have the statue founded, and here it is today. I want you all to feel that humanity has been uplifted by the presence of this monument in this State. I want you all to reverence it, and I believe that Horace Mann will live again among you, and his great spirit will give you life to go on and do great things in the world.

        Now, I am going to present to you this statue through my dear friend Mr. Corry. It belongs to Antioch College, the Village of Yellow Springs, and the State of Ohio. I believe that in Horace Mann, whose statue stands before you, the students of Antioch will have a patron saint to guide them along through life. I believe that his soul will rest here.

        Mr. Corry, I have the greatest pleasure in the world, and the great honor, to give you the deed of this plot of ground and this beautiful statue for the benefit of Antioch College, its students, and its officers. I thank you.

From the Department of Variation-on-a-Theme, suppose they gave a Commencement and no one commenced. Antioch College did just that in 1880, having no graduates that year, though it may not have been for lack of Seniors. According to the following article reprinted from the July 1880 issue of The Antiochian, only students that pursued the Bachelor of Arts degree could be regarded as actual College graduates. Antiochians who primarily studied the Sciences—Geology, Botany, Astronomy, Zoology, and Physics all had a place in the 19th century curriculum—could complete their coursework and apparently not be considered graduates. The course catalogs of the period have little to say on this, though the 1877-78 issue does delineate between Antioch “undergraduates” (12) and “students pursuing college studies” (11).

Practically every notable identified below is a member of the Board of Trustees, who traditionally held their annual meeting at Commencement time. Perhaps the exercises were put on for their benefit, for the article identifies much speech-making on the part of Board members. Reverend John H. Heywood, who gave the Commencement Address, “The Small End of Great Problems,” had been a Trustee of the College since 1871. Brooke Herford had joined the Board just three days before delivering his discourse on “The Great Ages.” Dr. Amos Duncan, a former Army surgeon and future Professor of Physiology, who in 1880 directed care of buildings and grounds, had also served on the Board since 1871 and was responsible for the “viands” served that evening. Even Samuel Derby, College President since 1877, was a Trustee.

The action reported by Trustee General J. Warren Keifer, an Antiochian of the 1850s whose career in US Congress was made possible by his service in the US Civil War, had been taken at the meeting held on June 21. They had decided to sell all property the College owned outside the state of Ohio to (so the minutes say) restore the endowment “to the original amount,” which was $100,000. Antioch College was in historically difficult financial straits at that time (even for Antioch College), and the day before the Board had engaged in informal discussion about closing down entirely, an eventuality that came to fruition following the 1880-81 school year.

from The Antiochian, July 1880

COMMENCEMENT WEEK.

Commencement week this year was like “the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out.” It was a commencement with no graduates to commence. Nevertheless we had a very interesting play, even without the Hamlet. In lieu of the graduating essays, on Commencement day, we had a lecture from Rev. Brooke Herford of Chicago, on “The Small End of Great Problems.” This was so happy and good, that the omission of the parts of the graduating class was forgotten, and again all went home congratulating themselves and one another on the good time they had had.

Yellow Springs enjoyed the privilege of a visit from one of the Trustees, Rev. J. H. Heywood, formerly of Louisville, Ky., for ten days prior to Commencement day. Mr. Heywood is one of the most intelligent and wise of our very able Board of Trustees and one of those who has the interests of Antioch most sincerely at heart. His visit here gave him an opportunity to mingle with the citizens of the place, the students, and the Faculty, and to see for himself, and learn from all parties what was the work of the school. He preached a sermon of rare ability and excellence, at the Christian Church, on Sunday, June 13, and again at the College, on the Sunday preceding Commencement, June 20. The sermon at the College was on “The Grandeur, Power, and Necessity of Faith in Christ,” from the text, “That ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name”—John 21:31. It was an able and eloquent defense of Christianity, presenting the Christ of the New Testament, his life, and the life of faith in him, as the necessary element in forming all true individual life, and in doing any true work for the world. This faith was commended with a convincing sincerity and an earnestness of persuasion which could not fail to move every one who heard it, the young and the old. We have not space for an abstract of it, and if we had, it would fail to do justice to the sermon and the force with which it was presented. The opportunity given by this visit of Mr. Heywood to see more of the inside life of the College than our Trustees have been accustomed to have, was valuable as a basis of their action at their annual meeting.

The Term’s work was completed, and reports given out on Saturday before. The Alumni decided to have no public meeting on Tuesday evening, and the Literary Society took it for their anniversary. This left Monday and Tuesday forenoon free to get ready for the meeting to follow.

COMMENCEMENT DAY.

Wednesday, June 23.—As said before, this was a commencement day without anybody to commence. Antioch never considers any as graduates except those who take the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Other colleges have Scientific courses, Philosophical courses, Literary courses, and others, on the completion of which a diploma is given, the graduates in them appearing in public parts. Even graduates from Normal courses are sometimes assigned parts for Commencement day, and the students swell the number of annual graduates. Every year students leave Antioch who have here pursued the higher college studies for several years, and who in many other colleges would graduate from some one of the courses. At Antioch they are not counted as graduates. Thus the number of annual graduates is always comparatively small. This year there were none. Still it was Commencement day.

The day was charming. The names of the orators drew together an appreciative audience, but not so large as on some former occasions. As had been done for two years before by necessity, so now by design, the Lecture before the Literary Society was appointed for Commencement day. The lecturer was Rev. J. H. Heywood. In place of the graduating essays the Faculty secured a lecture from Rev. Brooke Herford, of Chicago. These were the leading exercises of the day. No band of music was employed, but music of rare excellence was gratuitously tendered.

The exercises commenced at 10:30. First were those of the Society. They were introduced with a Piano Solo, by Miss Patti Linn, of Springfield, who showed herself a performer of superior taste and skill. Prayer was offered by Rev. Adams Ayer, of Boston. Then followed a Solo, Haydn’s “With Verdure Clad,” by the celebrated soloist, Mrs. Edmund Dexter, of Cincinnati. Mr. Heywood then gave his address before the society: Its subject was “Humanity’s Great Age; its Coming the Inspiration of American Education.”

The lecturer first spoke of two of the “Great Ages,” the “Periclean Age,” when the Grecian genius bloomed out in all its richness, making the country glorious beyond all that the world has known in the development of art, the unfolding of grace and beauty; and of England’s “Elizabethan Age,” when so many master minds gathered around the throne of the great Queen—Shakespeare, Bacon, Spenser, Ben. Johnson, Sir Philip Sydney, the soul of honor and chivalry, whom Coleridge, with rare felicity of language, characterizes as “the star of serenest brilliance in the glorious constellation of Elizabeth’s court, who held high converse with Spenser on the ideal of supersensual beauty.” From these “Great Ages” the speaker passed on to a consideration of the world’s truly “Golden Age” which is yet to come; to be made such, not by the inestimable treasures of California or Nevada mines, but by the mental and moral wealth of a civilization infinitely rich in privileges and opportunities of generous culture for all minds and all hearts. Of this “Humanity’s Great Age,” our age, with its idea and purpose of universal education, is the prophet and the pioneer. In development of this thought, the speaker referred to the influence respectively exerted by the large universities and the smaller colleges and academies. Immeasurably important is it to have the great light-houses at Cambridge, New Haven, Charlottesville, Ann Arbor, Baltimore, with brilliant lights burning in their lofty towers, and throwing their radiance far and wide; but surely not less important is it to have the many smaller light-houses, with towers less lofty indeed, and with reflectors less powerful, but whose lamps, fed with purest oil, though lighting singly but small districts, unitedly illume the country. It is this pervasive and continuing illumination, it is this enlightening of the common mind, this developing and expanding of the general intelligence, which is the distinguishing characteristic of our age, and its glory. This it is which, above all things, makes it the forerunner of “Humanity’s Golden Age,” and the assured coming of that age is the mighty inspiration of American Education.

The address was delivered in Mr. Heywood’s happy style, and was greatly enjoyed by the audience.

After the address Mrs. Dexter sung another Solo: Rodeos “Aria Variation.” This was enthusiastically received, applauded and heartily encored. Mrs. Dexter responded by singing a charming Scotch ballad. She was interrupted in this by the scream of the 12 o’clock whistle of the saw-mill, which prolonged its screech, much to the amusement of both Mrs. Dexter and the audience, as if it was determined that she should not resume her song.

At the end of the Society’s exercises an intermission was given, when the exercises of the College succeeded. These were opened by a Piano and Violin Duet, “Selections from II Trovatore,” arranged by Singlee, by Anna D. McNair, of Yellow Springs, and Elmer E. Paine, of Xenia. Then came the lecture of Rev. Brooke Herford, of Chicago, on “The Small End of Great Problems.” No sketch can give an adequate idea of the freshness, the wit and humor, and the eloquence with which the practical sound sense of the lecture was given. It held the audience in the happiest mood to the end. He, too, like Mrs. Dexter, was interrupted by the envious steam whistle screaming for 1 p. m., which screeched on and on, as if noise and not work was the order of the day. Mr. Hereford sat down and waited till it was through. The speaker said:

“I want to give you a practical hint towards simplifying the problems of life: it is to take hold of them by the smaller end. Every man is, as it were, in the center of a universe, every section of which, I though a point where we stand, stretches off into infinity. Right about us everything is plain, but as the distance from us increases things become mysterious. The mistake is in wishing to understand the distant and mysterious, off towards the large part of the section, before making ourselves acquainted with what is plain at the small end close by us; and thus we get dazed with the vastness of the problems and think we never can solve them, when beginning at the smaller end we would find easy work.

The old philosophers made this mistake. They tried to begin at the large end and find out what the universe was made of. The old theologies bothered themselves about the eternal plans and decrees of God, and had little idea of what He is doing here and now. Here lies the greatness of the science of the present day. The science of the ancients contented itself with ‘essences;’ the science of to-day grapples with the facts about us. Newton observes an apple and finds out gravitation. Franklin gets a little lightning between his knuckles and finds out electricity.

In the moral world men are beginning to take hold of problems at the smaller end. This is due to Christianity. The place to grapple with sin is not with the action, but the thought. This was the method of Christ. He brought moral problems down from the clouds to the practical question of what is best for to-day. When one said to him, ‘Lord, are there few men that be saved?’ Jesus would not touch the question, but told him to get saved himself. ‘Strive to enter in at the straight gate’ yourself. So with all moral problems: do the duty that is near the best you can, and the far on will gradually open out to you.

So in application to thought. The problems of God, and eternity and free-will will press upon you, and if you begin at the large end and attempt to solve them at once, you will be lost—the I mind becomes dazed; but I come to the nearer end of it. I go into the field and see a leaf or flower. I take it into my hand, and I can not think it made itself. Take man, what is he? Where is he going? Take it at the larger end and you are puzzled. The question of free-will perplexes you. But when it comes to the question at night whether you shall go to bed or sit up a half hour longer, it is plain that your will is free.

Youth is prone to be impatient, anxious to solve large problems to get into large business, to attain great wealth and high position at once. The true way is to begin at the smaller end. It is enough for youth to be active; the rest will come by and by. Begin at the smaller end and work outward. If you want to become great and to do great work, do the small duties of to-day. Be very tolerant and patient and appreciative of things and persons about you. There is more in man than we can know here, but there is light enough to lead us ever to what is more.”

The lessons of that lecture will never be forgotten and its impressions will never be effaced. In the satisfaction it gave we forgot the absence of a graduating class.

Gen. J. Warren Keifer, for the Trustees, reported the action which they had taken, as given elsewhere, and gave a hopeful view of the situation.

The usual closing hymn, “Antioch,” was sung to the words “Joy to the world!” all the congregation joining, and the audience dispersed to the

COMMENCEMENT DINNER.

This was furnished by Dr. Duncan. Substantial viands were provided at fifty cents a ticket. President Derby presided, and speeches by Rev’s. Heywood, Wendte, Ayer, Coan, Herford, Robert Hosea, G. W. Hufford, and others, enlivened the occasion.

The President’s Reception in the evening was fully attended, affording a pleasant reunion to many who came to meet old friends and to make the acquaintance of new ones, and to congratulate each other on the good time the day had given them.

Margaret Fuller (also illustrated in header image)

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was a formidable intellectual presence whose life, although brief, defies encapsulation. Once considered the most widely read person in New England, she was the first editor of the Transcendentalist periodical The Dial established by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1839 and later the first full-time book reviewer in American journalism for Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune as well as its first foreign correspondent. Her most famous book, Woman of the Nineteenth Century, published in 1845, is considered a seminal work in American feminist thinking, which 10 years later prompted the novelist George Eliot to write a comparative essay about Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft.

Elizabeth Palmer Peabody

Beginning in 1839, both as a way to edify women with little access to higher education and as a source of revenue, she began to hold her now famous “conversations.” Though she probably borrowed the term from her friend Bronson Alcott’s Conversations with Children on the Gospels, as Megan Marshall wrote in her monumental 2006 triple biography The Peabody Sisters: “Such was the force of Fuller’s personality that, as with anything else she appropriated from others, the term ‘Conversations’ would afterward always be associated with her.” Fuller hoped to facilitate discussions between equals in which she would serve primarily as a “nucleus of conversation,” but she was just too accomplished and forceful a personality to do anything other than lead. As Elizabeth Peabody, who recorded the proceedings for posterity, wrote many years later: “I think no one attended that course who did not pronounce [Fuller’s] initial statements and occasional bursts of eloquence the most splendid exhibitions of conversational talent, not only that they ever heard, but that they ever heard of.”

Here reprinted from Antiochiana’s collection of Peabody Sisters Letters are some of those proceedings taken down by Elizabeth, though recopied by her sister Mary. By the time of this session, Fuller had moved on to Greek mythology, a subject with which members had at least some familiarity. She had hoped to answer the more difficult questions facing the women of her time, as she had written in a letter to a friend the previous summer: “What were we born to do? How shall we do it? Which so few ever propose to themselves ‘til their best years are gone by.” 

Undated (Fall 1840?) (Comments on Margaret Fuller’s Conversations, in hand of Miss Mary Peabody)

     At first we took up the subject of Grecian mythology of which I told you. The second conversation was upon Apollo. Having stated him as the embodiment of the element of genius we proceeded to the various fables in which he figures, & traced through them the Greek idea of respecting the element of the human mind, its characteristics, its actions, its destiny, & the conversation ended with the questions how far the possession of genius was compatible with—or assistant to happiness & virtue— & though these great questions were not settled it was useful to discuss them. Venus was taken up next—not as the Goddess of Love but as the Goddess of Beauty—her birth in the eye of the Greek from the graceful foam of the ocean, &c—but this subject was not pushed through the fables. It went into the abstract question of what is beauty—on which almost all wrote essays attempting to define it. Two or three gave some admirable definitions of it (as far as the immortal essence, spiritual beauty, may be defined) & the rest wrote little poems (in prose) upon where beauty was to be found.

     The next conversation was upon the fable of Cupid & Psyche—but I cannot do justice to that in a letter. In the first place, Miss Fuller told the story with a grace & beauty that was of itself an exquisite delight to hear. It was immediately taken up as the Greek attempt to set forth the universal fact of the trial of the soul on the earth, its purification by means of the sufferings its own mistakes bring upon it, & its final redemption and immortality. The question of how much analysis should enter into our dealings with our own and others’ souls—how much was inevitable, how much was desirable, what was excessive—also occupied us.

     The 6th conversation was on wisdom under the head of Minerva, and the mechanical part of art under the head of Vulcan.

     The 7th conversation we had a criticism on our essays on beauty, & Miss Fuller read an answer to them she had written herself. It embodies and admirably arranges all the best ideas of our essays.

     In the 8th conversation Miss F. proposed to leave the subject of Grecian mythology—for tho’ we had only touched the superficies of this great subject (which embodies the highest intellectual action of the most cultivated nation on earth, & is therefore commensurate with the thoughts of Genius) yet we had gone enough into it to indicate in what point of view it was to be studied—so as to avoid that unhappy vulgarity of association to which I suppose the ignorance and consequently the grovelling imagination of the uncultivated have condemned not only themselves, but many of whom better things were to be expected.  She proposed that we should ask ourselves what is the radical difference between poetry & prose—, as an introductory step to seeking out some sound principles of criticism. That day was taken up in defining that in nature which it was the object of poetry and the fine arts to manifest—that which Coleridge calls “Poesie”; & in discriminating it from prose.

     The next conversation was upon the difference between the fine arts, including Poetry, as one, ending with a definition of poetry. The next conversation was upon the classifications of poetry into Lyric—Epic—dramatic &c, & a question as to the comparative advantage of these forms for expressing poesie, & what admixture of prose was necessary in order to bring them to human capacity—also whether satire was poesie—how much of a satire was that element & how much prose. 

     The next conversation was upon Burns & Midsummer Night’s Dream—but endeavouring to remark upon these we came across two other questions of suffering to the intellectual as well as the moral character, & the other the definition  of the two words imagination & fancy. We found ourselves so vague in the use of these words, that Miss F. proposed we should write upon them, and bring our essays the next time. Accordingly last Wednesday we carried about a dozen which she read aloud and commented upon, we all of us also making our comments.

(Probably copied from a letter written by Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody.)

Header image source

Nina Hamilton (left) and Mari Sabusawa (class of 1945) as Antioch College undergraduates. Also, saddle shoes!

The November 1946 meeting of the Antioch College Board of Trustees was in many ways a typical one. As usual, finances (and lack thereof) dominated the conversation. But when Algo Henderson was president, to make sure that the proceedings would not be limited to discussions of dollars, he would schedule for the Trustees “programs which give glimpses of particular elements of the Antioch plan of education.” The topic, so the minutes say, was “the educational program in race relations,” and was led by the inimitable Jessie Cambron Treichler, whose introductory remarks are reprinted below. Mrs. Treichler’s name is well known to Antiochians, or at least it should be, as the greatest individual force for integration in the College’s history. As founder and chair of the Race Relations Committee, she led the way in recruiting Black students (and perhaps, more importantly, found the necessary tuition money as well), beginning in the 1940s. Coretta Scott King, her sister Edythe, and A. Leon Higginbotham are among the luminescent people made Antiochians largely by her efforts.

These program-related presentations to the Board were most effectively communicated by the students themselves. Three were on the schedule that day, including Nina Hamilton Anthony, whose presentation follows. Nina never finished college, nor did her famous sister, the novelist Virginia Hamilton, but they were practically raised on campus and personally educated by her father on concepts of race and equality. He was the remarkable Kenny Hamilton, longtime manager of many a student waiter in the old Antioch Tearoom. His soulful visage stands at the center of a mural of the Tearoom in Antiochiana done by one of his former employees, Ann Parker, a student in the 1930s.

The first student speaker today is Mrs. Nina Hamilton Anthony, junior student at Antioch. Her father, Mr. Kenneth Hamilton, is Head Waiter at the Tearoom with instructor’s status, because he has probably had to train more Antioch students than any other employer, and probably knows more of them better than most of the faculty. Nina entered Antioch in the fall of 1943. A local girl, she was valedictorian of her class at Bryan High School in 1943, and was awarded the two-year Bryan High School Scholarship, which is given each year by Antioch to the top-ranking graduate of Bryan. Nina is journalism major. She has had work experience as a mimeograph operator for the College Service Department, as secretary to Mr. Vernet of Vernay Laboratories, as secretary at the Cleveland Urban League, as cub reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier in Detroit. Last summer she married the young man, David Anthony, to whom she had been engaged since high school days. She is working at present as secretary to the Assistant Dean of Students. I asked her to try to think in racial terms, something she seldom does, and try to estimate the values of Antioch’s educational system as a Negro student participating in it.

**********

Growing up in mixed neighborhoods, going to mixed elementary and high schools, and then going to college at a mixed Antioch has helped to develop me along the lines of symmetry, for which Antioch still strives, perhaps to a greater degree than any other single factor in my background. Segregated environments I have since learned, through some of my work experiences at Antioch, are unrealistic doges of actuality, breeding fear, prejudice, suspicion and hate. I have been fortunate enough to escape this kind of situation through fifteen years of formal schooling.

I have been fortunate enough also to understand that, first of all, as a human being, and secondly, as a Negro, I cannot face the world and the problems which are a part of it by turning my back to the problems or burying my head in the sand when I choose to live in a segregated environment, learn in segregated schools or teach in segregated schools.

I have been fortunate enough to understand that I can’t as a human being and a white person sit in Congress and pass laws which will affect people the world over, of all religious and political beliefs, with varying degrees of skin pigmentation when the only contact I’ve had with any people is from a pedestal of lily-white supremacy.

All of this may seem a little far afield from Antioch and the educational experiences I have found here, but when I came to Antioch, I wouldn’t even have known how to say the things I’ve said already, because I wouldn’t have understood them. And if I had understood them, self-consciousness would have prevented me from saying them.

I graduated from a mixed high school valedictorian of my class and won a two-year scholarship to Antioch. To a naive graduate of the local high school, native of an Ohio village, daughter of normal, poor, conservative parents, Antioch seemed to me the epitomy of liberalism and good in the world. True, I’d always lived in a mixed situation. But something happens when you leave elementary school and enter high school. You suddenly stop seeing your friends and classmates as individuals and start seeing them as members of whatever group their color, their religion, their nationality, or their economic class obligates them to in society. You start feeling and living the superficialities of society when you pass elementary level—a peculiar phenomenon of our society, but hardly an inevitable one. It is heartbreaking when you think what a little straightforward guidance on the part of parents and teachers could do. Antioch, in contrast, did seem to be “the guiding light.”

Students at Antioch were different, I was sure. Believing this perhaps lead to one of my greatest disappointments (though this disappointment did change to understanding gradually) because I found many Antiochians who were typical of the kinds I’d left behind in high school. As I continued living in the Antioch community, joining various committees and at one time being unanimously elected to the presidency of my hall, my disappointment grew less and understanding took its place. The reason? The same reason which makes the Antioch program vitally different from other college programs and which makes it a progressive program. At Antioch, all beliefs and ideas are challenged at some time or another, in some way or another—perhaps in a classroom—perhaps in a New York subway. All beliefs and ideas are subject to change when new facts and scientific proofs reveal that the old beliefs and ideas are invalid. This kind of flexibility of thought is necessary for social progress, just as it is necessary for scientific progress. This is the kind of flexibility of thought which was needed in my high school and other high schools, colleges and universities.

When I recall my work experiences at Antioch, I find a verification in actual circumstances of many of the things I’ve done some generalizing about here. The job that did the most to co-ordinate the ideas I’d gathered with real living and working was my job at the Vernay Patents Company, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Here Negroes, Nisei, whites, Jews, and Gentiles, about 20 in all, worked together, belonged to a union together, went to union meetings together and shop parties together with no degenerating results—we won the much coveted [Army-Navy] E-Award [for excellence in production of war equipment]. Quite a contrast to an incident on another job I had, this time in a large industrial city where racial lines were so strict that they ripped apart a few years back causing deaths and injuries to members of both races. People who had lived through the riot told me that an amazing thing had happened. Those neighborhoods of an inter-racial composition went unharmed! Perhaps amazing, but it also should have been a lesson in living. The superficiality of segregation was proved further when the outstanding Negroes and the outstanding white people of the city met together in an inter-racial dinner. The dinner appeared to be a flop and a show of mutual distrust to me when all the Negroes sat together and all the white people sat together. But, how could they feel natural when the only time they see each other is once a year at an inter-racial dinner.

These have been the outstanding of my experiences at Antioch. I have learned much and have seen my white friends and classmates learn just as much. It’s a gradual, thorough process. Antioch doesn’t change you from a reactionary to a radical, or vice versa, but it can change you from a reactionary or radical to a realist.

Nina Anthony

Happy New Year, Antiochians! What follows appeared in the very first issue of the earliest College publication in Antiochiana, not to mention the earliest known account of an Antioch Christmas break. Though unattributed, the article has the literary stamp of a member of the class of 1870, Ellen A. Cox. “Nellie” as she was known, was an exceptional student, a leading figure in the women’s Crescent Literary Society, and a member of the editorial staff in The Antiochian’s first year of existence. A modest but magnificent collection of Nellie’s letters was given to Antiochiana by a descendant, Caroline Shaw Sherer, in 1959. To quote Sherer: “With all her seriousness Ellen had much fun in her nature,” as evidenced by her lively correspondence and a few other items of note, particularly an unpublished satirical magazine, the “Emersonian Scientific and Literary Journal, devoted to sense, nonsense, and general intelligence” and a delightful story called “History of a Pair of Shoes.” 

From The Antiochian, vol. 1, #1, 1 April 1869

HOW WE SPEND THE VACATIONS AT ANTIOCH

     Never having spent a vacation at Antioch, during my course here, I concluded to stay last winter, and never shall be sorry, for I am sure that I could not have spent the holidays more agreeably anywhere else. Just about a sufficient number of young ladies and gentlemen remained to form a pleasant and agreeable circle—a family over which the matron presided with becoming dignity.

     For the first two or three days of the vacation she took the “family” skating, to the river, about two miles from the college, where they gave vent to their young joyous spirits. There were some good skaters among them, some not so good, some just beginning to learn, and some who would not venture upon skates at all, strictly adhering to the old advice of their mothers “never to go on ice until they learned to skate.” It is always fun to watch new beginners on skates, and so it was here—to see the graceful movements, the bows and scrapes which were necessary to keep them on their feet—to see them tumble down and mark the earnestness with which they would “up and at it” again, one could almost read in the face with broken nose, the expression of determination which seemed to say: “It’s hard work, but it’s fun, it’s fashionable, and I’ll learn it if it kills me.”

     The great difficulty with beginners in skating, as in dancing, is to get both feet to “go off” alike; they try to do all the striking with one foot and all the sliding with the other. The ice was splendid, and the opportunity was well improved, until the sun made a mistake, bringing spring in winter, and spoiled this source of fun, so we were obliged to turn our attention in another direction.

     The “Squibobs” were the next object of engrossing interest after the ice failed. A description of this peculiar, mysterious society in full would render my subject voluminous, but it is so completely connected with all the scenes of hilarity and enjoyment of a winter vacation, that the subject would be incomplete without some mention of its working, in this connection. It has for its object fun, and improvement in nonsense. Each member assumes a fictitious name. It meets only in vacation. Its constitution is written only in the memory of its members, and the principal clause in that constitution is that each member shall be perfectly independent, do as he pleases, but shall always vote in the affirmative of every question which is put; in fact the negative is never put. Anybody can become a member if he can get his name proposed. The exercises are of no definite character. Anything literary, musi-dramatic, aesthetic &c., is appropriate. Even the menagerie and circus are brought within its limits.

     There were five or six meetings of the “Squibs” during this vacation, at the last of which the family appeared in full dress according to their several characters. The audience were kept in a perpetual roar of laughter while these characters were being introduced, one after the other. A description of each would render our story too long. We will leave it to the imagination to picture the appearance of this company as they entered. The principle exercises of the evening were: the Letter of Mr. Wilkins Micawber, stating his embarrassed circumstances; “Criticisms” on the previous meeting by “Sam Slick of Slickville down East;” “Instructions in Etiquette,” by the “Hub;” Mrs. Spriggins’ “Candle Lecture” to Mr. Spriggins, concerning domestic economy; “Old Dog Bowser,” by “Jim for Short” and Agness and a song, the “Antioch Worthies” by “Jim for Short” and the “Hub,” assisted by a full chorus. The remainder of the evening was spent in playing charades and dispatching the oyster supper which had been ordered for the troupe by one of the good professors. Besides the Squibobs there were many other sources of amusement, not least among which we may mention the “taffy pulling” which took place one evening in the dining hall. Here literary figures pulled wax until it was white, and scattered pop corn and molasses all over the floor; here “hide and seek” was entered into with juvenile earnestness by those who aspire to literary fame and diplomas. Thus, with many other similar amusements, the vacation passed, and tapping of the “old familiar bell” aroused us to the stern reality of the fact that the term had begun, and that earnest work must take the place of play.