As a child the Bible intrigued Jonathan Blanchard. He would carry one to school to read enough times that he soon was given the name “Bible Blanchard.” (Minority Of One, p. 20) In his latter years, Jonathan lamented the secularization of the American educational system. He said that “the ‘modern method’ of education is constantly cropping out. So far as we understand it, the modern method means no Bible and no religion of Christ.” The champions of the new method divorced “education from God and His Word …. Christianity speaks now in whispers in common school associations and state universities.” (Minority of One, p. 200). The influence of Jonathan Blanchard’s view of the Bible can be seen in a Wheaton College student’s response to one of his assignments when he wrote “What has made America? … We answer in a word–the Bible. . . . Yes; it is the Bible that gives America her greatness.” (Christian Cynosure, May 1, 1873.)
Charles Blanchard shared his father’s perspective on the Bible in education. He commented on the place of the Scriptures within Wheaton’s education system when he said “Our College is not an experiment …. The Bible is not only considered the ultimate authority in morals and religion, but is taught as a branch of learning, needful to all well-educated persons.” (Fire on the Prairie, p104-5) In his book, Getting Things from God, Charles wrote that “An age or land in which the Bible is neglected will be a time when, or a country where, all sorts of evils prevail.” (p. 145) Jonathan Blanchard said that “the principles of the Bible are justice and righteousness.” (A debate on Slavery, p. 328)
Today, November 18th, is the anniversary of the birth of Louis Daguerre. Born in 1787, Daguerre desired to capture the life and people around him in permanent form. He began to do this with dioramas, which he invented, in the 1820s. By 1826 he had learned how to do this using an early form of photography. Partnering with Joseph Niepce, Daguerre was able to hone the skills he learned in order to greatly speed up the photographic process. Because of this daguerratype photographs became quite desirable and all the rage. This is exhibited several ways within the holdings of the Archives & Special Collections.
David Maas wrote in Marching to the Drumbeat of Abolitionism how Civil War soldiers treasured the images they received from loved ones. He said, “Photography was a novelty and soldiers loved to carry tintypes or daguerreotypes in their Bibles. Wheatonite Webster Moses wrote, ‘I still have your picture, which is next to my Bible. Should you have any photographs taken please send me one.’ Luther Hiatt’s letters were full of incessant pleas for his fiancee to have her photograph taken and send it to him. ‘Tira I should have got a picture of myself yesterday taken in Murfreesboro, but I did not have time. If ever I do go to a place where I can get one taken I will do it. I am still looking very anxiously for yours, if you don’t hurry and send it I shall forget how you look.’ When the photograph finally came he was overjoyed: ‘I received your photograph….I was very much pleased to receive it and I kissed it more than once just as I should do if I were to be with you. ‘”
The Jonathan Blanchard letters show several instances of a similar desire to possess these fixed images that Daguerre helped bring to the average person. In 1855 Jonathan Blanchard wrote to his daughter, Mary, who was away at school, asking for a daguerreotype of her. Also, Mary Blanchard’s mother, Catherine Avery Bent wrote to her in 1860 that she was having daguerreotypes taken of her parents’ portraits. Very quickly individuals saw the usefulness of recording information, in this case painted portraits, using the photographic medium.
The stocky lady in the long black dress, striding confidently on short legs from class to class, was Dr. Elsie Dow, authority on Shakespeare and Browning. Born in Sycamore, Illinois in 1859, she graduated from Wheaton College in 1881. After employment in high schools and academies, she returned to Wheaton in 1889 as Professor of English Language and Literature. In addition to teaching Classics, History, Mathematics and English, she also served as registrar. Dow studied at Harvard, and in 1922, because of her outstanding achievements in literature, Lawrence College conferred upon her the Doctor of Letters degree. Popular on campus, she was in demand off campus, as well, as reader and speaker.
At the 1937 Homecoming chapel Dr. Buswell presided over the unveling of a portrait of Dow done by Frederick Mizen of Chicago. Herman Fischer accepted the painting for the college. After Elsie Dow spoke, Mignon Bollman McKenzie sang a special number composed for the occasion by Marion Downey and Corinne Smith. The piece was a musical setting of Miss Dow’s poem, “Whatsoever Things are Lovely.” The service was concluded with a benediction by Darien Straw.
For the 1941 inauguration of V. Raymond Edman she wrote:
My word of greeting to our new president is a very sincere welcome from the old to the new. I have been on this campus long enough to have been under the administration of each of our four presidents, and Wheaton has been to me in turn — President Jonathan Blanchard, President Charles Blanchard, President J. Oliver Buswell, Jr. — as it is to me in days to come, President Edman…I see the picture clearly, it is the heroic type. Wheaton will not be Wheaton if it ever loses that type as its head.
Upon her retirement in 1942 Darien Straw wrote:
When Miss Dow began teaching here she was an experienced teacher. Teachers were invited for reasons. I do not know that they ever applied for the job. Schedules were thirty hours a week. Salaries were low and pro-rated, so that the College was kept out of debt by paying all bills, and what was left was apportioned among the teachers with the understanding that accounts were closed at the end of each year. I doubt whether she ever had a written contract for salary yet. She taught all around the curriculum; if a department was short, she could substitute. It is rare for a woman to take a man’s chair and hold it for more than half a century. She did it. Always poised, always sedate, a thousand abstract Christian virtues embodied in the concrete; a walking literary library, with no slang version; among her pupils admired, among her students loved, wherever known and respected; Doctor Dow is thus held in high esteem by the trustees and carries with her ever their benediction and felicitation.
In 1944 100 friends honored Dow on her 85th birthday, visiting her home at 527 Kenilworth. Two outstanding features of the decorated dining room were the large centerpieces of red roses and two two-tier cakes; the latter were brought from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Miss Julia Blanchard assisted with refreshments during the afternoon. Friends and alumni, ranging throughout her 50-year teaching career, offered congratulations. Miss Dow received cards, flowers and gifts from those who could not attend. Special verse messages by Darien Straw and Judge Frank Herrick were read.
Orrin E. Tiffany was born March 27, 1868 to DeWitt and Lidia Parker Tiffany and grew up in Havana, Minnesota. After the death of his first wife of twenty-five years, Grace English, Dr. Tiffany married Kathrine Bellanger MacDonald in 1925. Dr. Tiffany came to Wheaton College in 1929 as Chairman of the Department of History and Social Sciences, and was Professor of American and Recent World History until his retirement in 1945. Among his students and faculty colleagues he was well known for his interest in world affairs; former graduates of the department frequently wrote to him for his views on international developments. Tiffany earned his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Michigan, and was among the first recipients for the Phi Beta Kappa honor shortly after it was offered. In 1945, Seattle Pacific College conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Before coming to Wheaton College, Dr. Tiffany held professorships and administrative posts at Greenville, Western Maryland, Seattle Pacific, and Whitworth College. In 1945 he attended the United Nations Conference on international organization in San Francisco. His most important contribution to scholarly writing was The Relations of the United States to the Canadian Rebellion of 1837-1838, published by the Buffalo Historical Society, and considered by recent historians as still “the most detailed study” and “the most satisfactory treatment of the subject.” Tiffany died February 2, 1950.
The Tiffany Memorial Lectures were established nearly fifty years ago in 1952 at Wheaton College in honor of the late Dr. Orrin Edward Tiffany. The aim of the Tiffany Memorial Lecture on Foreign Affairs is to foster interest in and understanding of international affairs on the college campus. Past speakers include Kenneth Landon, Robert McNamara, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mark Hatfield, John Lewis Gaddis, Robert Pastor, Anthony Lake, Robert Seiple, and James Turner Johnson.
The Orrin Tiffany Papers are available to researchers at Wheaton College. The collection contains general biographical information on Dr. Tiffany, including information regarding his activity at Greenville College, Seattle Pacific College, Whitworth College, and Wheaton College. There are materials related to his book, Canadian Rebellion, and a series devoted to the Tiffany Memorial Lectures at Wheaton College. The materials relating to the Tiffany Lectures comprise the bulk of the collection.
In recent years much has been happening in the world of unions, collective rights and strikes. April 1st marks the anniversary of what has been called the longest strike in history. What makes the story of this strike amazing, along with its length, was who the strikers were. On April 1, 1914 the dismissal of the teachers of the local school in Burston, Norfolk, England took effect. Kitty and Tom Higdon were relieved of their duties. In response to this 66 of the school’s 72 children went on strike and marched about the village demanding the return of their teachers. Officially, the strike never ended.
In 1902 Parliament passed the Education Bill that stated that working-class children were entitled to an education. In places like Burston that education prepared students for little more than work in the factories, fields or domestic service. Christian educators like Tom and Kitty Higdon believed that that all children should have a better education than what many districts offered. They saw that education was an opportunity for a better life. In 1902 the Higdons began teaching near Aylsham, thirty-some miles from Burston. It was here, in this highly agricultural area, that they organized an agricultural workers union and help local workers make their way onto the local education committee. These committees were often dominated by farm owners who sought to be sure that students were educated sufficiently to work on local farms but not much more. With such limited education workers and their children often lived in squalid conditions and they often took children out of school whenever seasonal cheap labor was needed, thus hampering their education further.
By 1911 the Higdon’s work created a rift in the local community and they were dismissed. It was at this time that they moved south to Burston. In Burston the Higdons arrived and took up the posts of School Mistress and Assistant Master. Tom also served as a Methodist lay preacher. In this part of rural Norfolk the squires and farmers ruled and held sway over the workers, who were expected to work for very low wages–often barely enough to live on with both pay and living conditions at an appalling level. Housing was atrocious and people died because of conditions. The local rector’s salary was 15 times that of the average local worker.
Like Aylsham, the Higdon’s encouraged the workers to take matters into their own hands, especially through changing the Parish Council. It was the Parish Council that set the rates of pay for field workers. In 1914 the local workers were able to assume full control of the council after a full slate of local hands were elected. In response to their agitation the Higdons were removed as teachers by the local school council, a council still under the control of the farm owners. It was their removal that sparked the school strike. The school children marched to express their frustrations. The Higdons continued to teach the children on the local village green. To quell the defiance the school board took parents to court and fined them for failing maintain the enrollment of their children in school. When this didn’t succeed workers were evicted from their homes. The rector evicted workers from the land they rented to grow vegetables. Even the local Methodist minister was censured for aiding the students and their families. Eventually the students and teachers moved into local workshops and a “free” school was built and opened in 1917. It remained a “school of freedom” until 1939 when Tom Higdon’s death in 1939 when Kitty could no longer keep the school open.
The story of the strike is told in the 1985 film The Burston Rebellion directed by Norman Stone, whose papers are housed in the Special Collections.
Over the past ten years the accomplishments of the Archives & Special Collections could not have been achieved without the diligence and hard work of its student worker staff. Over seventy-five undergraduates, graduate students, volunteers, and interns have logged countless hours and performed a myriad of duties processing, inventorying, scanning, and serving in numerous capacities throughout the department. In honor of their often unsung behind-the-scenes activities, we present the following mosaic of Jonathan Blanchard, Wheaton’s founding president composed of the portraits of this generation of student workers. We celebrate their faithful efforts and rich contributions to the ongoing work of Special Collections. Thank you!
The mosaic was created using an open source mosaic tool. AndreaMosaic is a freeware graphic art software developed and published by Andrea Denzler that specializes in the creation of photographic mosaic images. Click on the above image to see a high-resolution image from the original photos.
Among its artifacts, departmental records and multitudinous holdings, Wheaton College Archives and Special Collections also maintains thousands of photographs. A name often seen on the bottom of many shots featuring school staff or local residents is “Orlin Kohli.”
Kohli began his education at Wheaton College, completing three years before transferring to the University of Colorado, where he graduated in 1924. He briefly taught school in Ft. Lewis, Colorado and Hammond, Indiana, before discovering his passion for photography. Opening his first studio in 1926 in the Smith Building, he stayed until 1936 when he relocated to 212 North Hale. Through the years his portraiture won national as well as community recognition. In 1953 the Professional Photographers of American honored him with the Master of Photography degree, recognizing excellence in photographic technique. In 1966 they again honored him with an award banquet for distinguished service to the profession, inviting him to exhibit 20 prints made throughout the years. Kohli in 1968 was honored as the official photographer by the city council and Mayor Karl F. Heimke, who stated, “Only once before has the city honored a specialist in his field in this manner and that was when another honored citizen (Frank Herrick) was named poet laureate for the city.”
Kohli was also a member of the Illinois Association of Photographers, serving as president from 1948 to 1949. When not creating portraiture in his studio, he served for 12 years on the Wheaton Public Library board, including a term as president. Kohli served two terms on the school board for District 95 and was active in YMCA work.
In addition, he was a charter member of the Geneva Road Baptist church. He died in 1972 at age 74, leaving a widow and three children.
Arthur Frank Holmes, author and professor, died on October 8, 2011. He was born March 15, 1924 in Dover, England. His father was a school teacher and Baptist lay preacher. Holmes received his education from Wheaton College, graduating with a B.A. in 1950. He followed this with his Masters in Theology in 1952 and finally his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Northwestern University in 1957. In 1949 he married his wife, Alice, and together raised two children.
Holmes was notable for his contributions to the idea and practices of the integration of faith and learning, an idea he championed for the entirety of his career of over forty years. Starting in 1951, Holmes taught at Wheaton College in what would be a lengthy and influential career of over forty years. During this time, he was the Chair of the Philosophy Department between 1969 and 1994.
Holmes was the author of several books including All Truth is Gods Truth (1977), The Idea of a Christian College (1975), and Building the Christian Academy (2001). His works are characterized by a centralized idea of the integration of faith and learning. While Holmes is most known for his work in Christian higher-education, he also wrote about the need for a continuous education of Christians at an early age.
Throughout his writings and career, Holmes emphasized that, indeed, “all truth is God’s truth.” His desire was for Christians to not shy away from the difficult questions that may arise from whatever subject of academic study they choose. With a firm belief that any truth they find can be reconciled with their faith, Holmes challenged educators and Christians in academia to grapple with what they are interested in, noting that a strong faith can handle some turbulence while coming to a better understanding of God’s creation.
In reflection on his career, it is obvious he accomplished the goals he set forth for himself as a young teacher: he encouraged faith and learning in students, he countered the anti-intellectualism he found in the American church, and he helped prepare a great many students and Christian intellectuals for the various ranks of academia.
A previous featured Dr. Holmes reflecting on the nature of morality in today’s culture.
The Archives & Special Collections also highlighted on of Dr. Holmes’ more memorable chapel addresses, (Ists, isms, and anti-ism-ists), via its Facebook page.
The Arthur F. Holmes Papers are housed in the Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections.
“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.
A synopsis of the book is found on the publisher’s website: “Unfortunately, in today’s world many people fail to experience the freedom and healing power of God’s grace. Even Christians too often experience judgement, rather than the love that is the vital essence of Christian life. A visionary guide in the spirit of Celebration of Discipline, Embracing the Love of God calls Christians back to the basics — to understanding the promise of God’s love to transform our most important relationships and fulfill our deepest spiritual needs. Here James Bryan Smith launches readers on a revitalizing spiritual journey. He distills the basic principles of Christian love and provides a new model for relationship with God, self, and others that is based not on fear and judgement, but rather on acceptance and care. Smith’s moving insights illuminate the gentle nature of God’s love and teach readers how to continue on the path of love by embracing it day by day. For both new Christians and those desiring renewal, Embracing the Love of God offers hope, peace, and guidance for spiritual growth.”
James Bryan Smith (M.Div., Yale University Divinity School, D.Min., Fuller Seminary) is a theology professor at Friends University in Wichita, KS and a writer and speaker in the area of Christian spiritual formation. He also serves as the director of the Aprentis Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation at Friends University. A founding member of Richard J. Foster’s spiritual renewal ministry, Renovare, Smith is an ordained United Methodist Church minister and has served in various capacities in local churches. In addition to Embracing the Love of God, Smith is also the author of A Spiritual Formation Workbook, Devotional Classics (with Richard Foster), Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven and Room of Marvels.
As the newly-appointed director of the Marshall Space Flight Center at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Dr. Wernher von Braun was invited by the Wheaton College Student Union as its final guest for the 1960-61 Lyceum season. Scheduled to speak at 8:00 on June 3, 1961, in the newly-constructed Edman Chapel, Dr. von Braun delivered his lecture, entitled “Why We Must Conquer Space” to a capacity crowd. His talk was accompanied by a Disney-animated film, featuring the various stages of rocket deployment as the piloted craft thundered toward the stars. From 1947 to 1976, he presented approximately 500 speeches, speaking on topics ranging from education and religion to the Cold War and space travel.
l to r: Dr. Stanley Parmerter, chairman of Division of Science, Wheaton College; Dr. Wernher von Braun; William C. Wood, chairman of Lyceum Union; Capt. Bart J. Slattery, Jr., chief of information, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama.
A former member of the Nazi party and decorated war hero, Dr. von Braun during WW II supervised the development of German V-2 rockets, a deadly new weapon employed by Hitler to blitz London. After the war, von Braun and his colleagues surrendered to the Allies and were brought to the the U.S., where they were stationed at White Sands Proving Grounds in Alamogordo, New Mexico, continuing their research on intermediate range ballistic missiles. As rocket technology matured, von Braun and his team were incorporated as the visionary nucleus of NASA, lending their expertise to its stated goal of space exploration. Later operating from his lab in Huntsville, Alabama, he developed the Saturn V booster, which propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon in 1969.
According to W. Albert Wilson, a former NASA employee and Gideon Society member, in 1962 a troubled-looking von Braun requested a private session after hearing Wilson present the Gideon ministry to a church in Alabama. “When I left the office, I knew that he had become a Christian,” recalled Wilson. Strengthening his faith, von Braun attended a Lutheran church and often read from the Gideon Bible Wilson had presented to him.
Scattered throughout von Braun’s lectures are intriguing remarks about God and faith:
We do not expect to find, through the exploration of space, tangible proof of the existence of God. But as scientists we cannot but admire His handiwork more deeply as we learn more about creation. And indirectly we learn more about the Creator…For spiritual comfort I find assurance in the concept of the Fatherhood of God. For ethical guidance I rely on the corollary concept of the brotherhood of man. Huntsville Ministerial Association, St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Nov. 13, 1962.
Although I know of no reference to Christ ever commenting on scientific work, I do know He said: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Thus I am certain that, were He among us today, Christ would encourage scientific research as modern man’s most noble striving to comprehend and admire His Father’s handiwork. Religious Implications of Space Exploration: A Personal View, Belmont Abbey College, North Carolina, November 22, 1971.
In 1976 von Braun was invited by the Lutheran Church of America to present a paper at its synod. Confined to a hospital for cancer treatment, von Braun worked on his presentation for months, but was finally unable to read it when the date arrived. He died on June 16, 1977, at age 65.
In this reaching of the new millennium through faith in the words of Jesus Christ, science can be a valuable tool rather than an impediment. The universe as revealed through scientific inquiry is the living witness that God had indeed been at work. Understanding the nature of the creation provides a substantive basis for the faith by which we attempt to know the nature of the Creator. Responsible Scientific Investigation and Application: A Talk Presented to the Lutheran Church of America, Philadelphia, October 29, 1976.
As a child the Bible intrigued Jonathan Blanchard. He would carry one to school to read enough times that he soon was given the name “Bible Blanchard.” (Minority Of One, p. 20) In his latter years, Jonathan lamented the secularization of the American educational system. He said that “the ‘modern method’ of education is constantly cropping out. So far as we understand it, the modern method means no Bible and no religion of Christ.” The champions of the new method divorced “education from God and His Word …. Christianity speaks now in whispers in common school associations and state universities.” (Minority of One, p. 200). The influence of Jonathan Blanchard’s view of the Bible can be seen in a Wheaton College student’s response to one of his assignments when he wrote “What has made America? … We answer in a word–the Bible. . . . Yes; it is the Bible that gives America her greatness.” (Christian Cynosure, May 1, 1873.)
