THE TEMPLE COLLEGE
The Night Temple College Was Born. Its Simple Beginning and Rapid
Growth. Building the College. How the Money was Raised. The Branches
it Teaches. Instances of Its Helpfulness. Planning for greater Things.
In a letter written to a member of his family, from which we quote the
following, Dr. Conwell tells how the idea of Temple College was born
in his mind one wintry night.
"A woman, ragged, with an old shawl over her head, met me in an alley
in Philadelphia late one night. She saw the basket on my arm, and
looked in my face wistfully, as a dog looks up beside the dinner
table. She was hungry, and was coming in empty. I shook my head, and
with a peculiarly sad glance she turned down the dark passage. I
had found several families hungry, and yet I felt like a hypocrite,
standing there with an empty basket, and a woman, perhaps a mother, so
pale for lack of decent food.
"On the corner was a church, stately and architecturally beautiful by
day, but after midnight it looked like a glowering ogre, and looked so
like Newgate Prison, in London, that I felt its chilly shadow. Half
a million cost the cemented pile, and under its side arch lay two
newsboys or boot-blacks asleep on the step.
"What is the use? We cannot feed these people. Give all you have, and
an army of the poor will still have nothing; and those to whom you do
give bread and clothes to-day will be starving and naked to-morrow.
If you care for the few, the many will curse you for your partiality.
While I stood meditating, the police patrol drove along the street,
and I could see by the corner street lamp that there were two women,
one little girl and a drunken old man in the conveyance, going to
jail! I could do nothing for them.
"At my door I found a man dressed in costly fashion, who had waited for
me outside, as he had been told that I would come soon, and the family
had retired. He said his dying father had sent for me. So I left the
basket in a side yard and went with the messenger. The house was a
mansion on Spring Garden Street. The house was inelegantly overloaded
with luxurious furniture, money wasted by some inartistic purchasers.
The paintings were rare and rich. The owners were shoddy. The family
of seven or eight gathered by the bedside when I prayed for the dying
old man. They were grief-stricken and begged me to stay until his soul
departed. It was daylight before I left the bedside, and as the dying
still showed that the soul was delaying his journey, I went into the
spacious, handsome library. Seeing a rare book in costly binding among
the volumes on a lower shelf, I opened the door and took it out My
hands were black with dust. I glanced then along the rows and rows of
valuable books, and noticed the dust of months or years. The family
were not students or readers. One son was in the Albany Penitentiary;
another a fugitive in Canada. At the funeral, afterwards, the wife
and daughter from Newport were present, and their tears made furrows
through the paint. Those rich people were strangely poor, and a book
on a side table on the 'Abolition of Poverty' seemed to be in the
right place.
"That night was conceived the Temple College idea. It was no new
truth, no original invention, but merely a simpler combination of old
ideas. There was but one general remedy for all these ills of poor and
rich, and that could only be found in a more useful education. Poverty
seemed to me to be wholly that of the mind. Want of food, or clothing,
or home, or friends, or morals, or religion, seemed to be the lack of
the right instruction and proper discipline. The truly wise man need
not lack the necessities of life, the wisely educated man or woman
will get out of the dirty alley and will not get drunk or go to
jail. It seemed to me then that the only great charity was in giving
instruction.
"The first class to be considered was the destitute poor. Not one in a
thousand of those living in rags on crusts would remain in poverty if
he had education enough of the right kind to earn a better living by
making himself more useful. He is poor because he does not know any
better. Knowledge is both wealth and power.
"The next class who stand in need of the assistance love wishes to
give is the great mass of industrious people of all grades, who are
earning something, who are not cold or hungry, but who should earn
more in order to secure the greater necessities of life in order to be
happy. They could be so much more useful if they knew how. To learn
how to do more work in the same time, or how to do much better work,
is the only true road to riches which the owner can enjoy.
[Illustration: THE SAMARITAN HOSPITAL Showing the houses in which it
was originally located, and part of the new building]
"To help a man to help himself is the wisest effort of human love. To
have wealth and to have honestly earned it all, by labor, skill or
wisdom, is an object of ambition worthy of the highest and best.
Hence, to do the most good to the great classes, rich or poor, we must
labor industriously. The lover of his kind must furnish them with the
means of gaining knowledge while they work.
"Then there was a third class of mankind, starving, with their tables
breaking with luscious foods, cold in warehouses of ready-made
clothing of the most costly fabrics; seeing not in the moon-light, and
restless to distraction on beds of eiderdown. They do not know the
use or value of things. They are harassed with plenty they cannot
appropriate. They are doubly poor. They need education. The library
is a care, an expense and a disgrace to the owner who cannot read. To
give education to those in the possession of property which they might
use for the help of humanity and which they might enjoy, is as clear a
duty and charity as it is to help the beggar. And, indeed, indirectly
the education of the unwise wealthy to become useful may be the most
practical way of raising the poor. There is a need for every dollar of
the nation's property, and it should be invested by men whose minds
and hearts have been trained to see the human need and to love to
satisfy it.
"The thought that in education of the best quality was to be found the
remedy for hunger, loneliness, crime and weakness was most clearly
emphasized to my mind by the coming of two young men who had felt the
need from the under side. They had received but little instruction;
they were over twenty years of age, and they wished to enter the
ministry. Was there any way open for a poor, industrious laborer to
get the highest education while he supported his mother, sister and
himself? I urged them to try it for the good of many who would
follow them if they made it a clear success. I was elated almost to
uncontrollable enthusiasm the night they came to my study to begin
their course. They brought five with them, and all proved themselves
noble men. One is not, for God took him. But the others are moulding
and inspiring their world."
Thus was conceived the idea of the institution that is now educating
annually three thousand men and women. The need for it has been
plainly proven. Rev. Forest Dager, at one time Dean of Temple College,
said in regard to the people who in later life crave opportunities for
study:
"That the Temple College idea of educating working men and working
women, at an expense just sufficient to give them an appreciation of
the work of the Institution, covers a wide and long-neglected field
of educational effort, is at once apparent to a thoughtful mind.
Remembering that out of a total enrollment in the schools of our land
of all grades, public and private, of 14,512,778 pupils, 96-1/2 per
cent are reported as receiving elementary instruction only; that not
more than 35 in 1,000 attend school after they are fourteen years of
age; that 25 of these drop out during the next four years of their
life; that less than 10 in 1,000 pass on to enjoy the superior
instruction of a college or some equivalent grade of work, we begin
to see the unlimited field before an Institution like this. Thousands
upon thousands of those who have left school quite early in life,
either because they did not appreciate the advantages of a liberal
education, or because the stress of circumstances compelled them to
assist in the maintenance of home, awake a few years later to the
realization that a good education is more than one-half the struggle
for existence and position. Their time through the day is fully
occupied; their evenings are free. At once they turn to the evening
college, and grasping the opportunities for instruction, convert those
hours which to many are the pathway to vice and ruin, into stepping
stones to a higher and more useful career ... An illustration of the
wide-reaching influence of the College work is the significant fact
that during one year there were personally known to the president,
no less than ninety-three persons pursuing their studies in various
universities of our country, who received their first impulses toward
a higher education and a wider usefulness in Temple College."
In 1893, in an address on the Institutional church, delivered before
the Baptist Ministers' Conference in Philadelphia, Dr. Conwell said:
"At the present time there are in this city hundreds of thousands--to
speak conservatively, (I should say at least five hundred thousand
people) who have not the education they certainly wish they had
obtained before leaving school. There are at least one hundred
thousand people in this city willing to sacrifice their evenings and
some of their sleep to get an education, if they can get it without
the humiliation of being put into classes with boys and girls six
years old. They are in every city. There is a large class of young
people who have reached that age where they find they have made a
mistake in not getting a better education. If they could obtain one
now, in a proper way, they would. The university does not furnish such
an opportunity. The public school does not.
"The churches must institute schools for those whom the public does
not educate, and must educate them along the lines they cannot reach
in the public schools.
"We are not to withdraw our support from, nor to antagonize, the
public schools; they are the foundations of liberty in the nation. But
the public schools do not teach many things which young men and young
women need. I believe every church should institute classes for the
education of such people, and I believe the Institutional church will
require it. I believe every evening in the week should be given to
some particular kind of intellectual training along some educational
line; that this training should begin with the more evident needs of
the young people in each congregation, and then be adjusted as the
matter grows, to the wants of each."
So, because one poor boy struggled so bitterly for an education,
because a man, keen-eyed, saw others' needs, reading the signs by the
light of his own bitter experience, a great College for busy men and
women has grown, to give them freely the education which is very bread
and meat to their minds.
Most people use for their own benefit the lessons they have learned in
the hard school of experience. They have paid for them dearly. They
endeavor to get out of them what profit they can. Not so Dr. Conwell.
He uses his dearly bought experiences for the good of others, turning
the bitterness which he endured, into sweetness for their refreshment.
The Temple College was founded, as was stated in its first catalogue,
for the purpose "of opening to the burdened and circumscribed manual
laborer, the doors through which he may, if he will, reach the fields
of profitable and influential professional life.
"Of enabling the working man, whose labor has been largely with his
muscles, to double his skill through the helpful suggestions of a
cultivated mind.
"Of providing such instruction as shall be best adapted to the higher
education of those who are compelled to labor at their trades while
engaged in study, or who desire while studying to remain under the
influence of their home or church.
"Of awakening in the character of young laboring men and women a
strong and determined ambition to be useful to their fellowmen.
"Of cultivating such a taste for the higher and most useful branches
of learning as shall compel the students, after they have left the
college, to continue to pursue the best and most practical branches
of learning to the very highest walks of mental and scientific
achievement."
A broad, humanitarian purpose it is, one that grew out of the heart of
a man who loved humanity, who believed in the practical application of
the teachings of Christ, who knew a cause would succeed if it filled a
need.
Dr. Conwell's own experience, his observations of life had told
him that this great need existed, but it was brought home to him
practically in 1884, when these two young men of whom he speaks in
the letter quoted came to him and said they wanted to study for the
ministry but had no money. His mind leaped the years to those boyhood
days when he longed for an education but had no money. He fixed an
evening and told them he would teach them himself. When the night
came, the two had become seven. The third evening, the seven had grown
to forty. It was in the days when pastor and people were working hard
for their new church and his hands were full. But he did not shirk
this new task that came to him. Forty people eager to study, anxious
to broaden their mental vision, to make their lives more useful, could
not be disappointed, most assuredly not by a man who had known this
hunger of the mind. Teachers were secured who gave their services
free, the lower parts of the church where they were then worshipping
at Berks and Mervine streets were used as class rooms and the work
went forward with vigor.
The first catalogue was issued in 1887, and the institution chartered
in 1888, at which time there were five hundred and ninety students.
The College overflowed the basement of the church into two adjoining
houses. When The Temple was completed the College occupied the whole
building. When that was filled it moved into two large houses on Park
Avenue. Still growing, it rented two large halls.
The news that The Temple College had enlarged quarters in these halls
brought such a flood of students that almost from the start applicants
were turned away. Nothing was to be done but to build. It was a
serious problem. The church itself had but just been completed and a
heavy debt of $250,000 hung over it. To add the cost of a college to
this burden of debt required faith of the highest order, work of the
hardest. But God had shown them their work and they could not shirk it.
"For seven years I have felt a firm conviction that the great work,
the special duty of our church, is to establish the College," said Dr.
Conwell, in speaking of the matter to his congregation. "We are now
face to face with it. How distinctly we have been led of God to this
point! Never before in the history of this nation have a people had
committed to them a movement more important for the welfare of mankind
than that which is now committed to your trust in connection with the
permanent establishment of The Temple College. We step now over the
brink. Our feet are already in the water, and God says, 'Go on, it
shall be dryshod for you yet'; and I say that the success of this
institution means others like it in every town of five thousand
inhabitants in the United States."
"One thing we have demonstrated--those who work for a living have time
to study. Some splendid specimens of scholarship have been
developed in our work. And there are others, splendid geniuses, yet
undiscovered, but The Temple College will bring them to the light, and
the world will be the richer for it. By the use of spare hours--hours
usually running to waste--great things can be done. The commendation
of these successful students will do more for the college than any
number of rich friends can do. It will make friends; it will bring
money; it will win honor; it will secure success."
An investment fund was created and once more the people made their
offerings. The same self-sacrificing spirit was evident as in the
building of the church. One boy brought to the pastor fifty cents, the
first money he had ever earned; a woman sent to the treasury a gold
ring, the only gift she could make, which bore interest in the
suggestion that all who chose might offer similar gifts as did the
women in the day of Moses. A business man hearing of this said, "If a
day is appointed, I will on that day give to the College all the gold
and silver that comes into my store for purchases." Every organization
of Grace Church contributed time, work, money, and prayer to the
building of the College. Small wonder then that obligations were met
and payments made promptly.
One of the most successful methods by which money was raised for
the College was the "Penny Talent" effort in 1893. Burdette, in his
"Temple and Templars" has made a most painstaking record of the
various ways in which the talent was used. He says:
"Each worker was given a penny, no more. Four thousand were given out
at one service. One man put his penny in a neat box, took it to his
office, and exhibited his 'talent' at a nickel a 'peep.' He gained
$1.70 the first day of his 'show,' A woman bought a 'job lot' of
molasses with her penny, made it into molasses candy, sold it in
square inch cakes, after telling the customer her story; payments were
generous and she netted $1.80. Then the man who sold her the molasses
returned her penny. Another sister established a 'cooky' business,
which grew rapidly. One boy kept his penny and went to work, earned 50
cents, the first money he ever earned in his life. It was a big penny,
but he was bubbling over with enthusiasm and in it all went; he
brought it straight to his pastor. One worker collected autographs
and sold them. A boy sold toothpicks. One young man made silver
buttonhooks and a young lady sold them. A woman traded her penny up
to a dollar, made aprons from that time on until she earned $10. One
class of seven girls in the Sunday-school united its capital and gave
a supper at the Park and netted $50. The Young Men's Bible Class
constructed a model of the College building, which they exhibited. The
children gave a supper in the Lower Temple, which added $100 to the
College fund. There came into the treasury $1.00 'saved on carfares';
'whitewashing a cellar' brought $3. Thrice, somebody walked from
Germantown to The Temple and back, saving 75 cents; a wife saved $20
from household allowances. A little girl of seven years went into a
lively brokerage business with her penny, and took several 'flyers'
that netted her handsome margins. Here is her report--
"'Sold the "talent penny" to Aunt Libby for seven cents; sold the
seven cents to Mamma for 25 cents; sold the 25 cents to Papa for 50
cents. Aunt Caddie, 10 cents; Uncle Gilman, 5 cents; Cousin Walter, 4
cents; cash, 25 cents,--$1.04 and the penny talent returned.'
"'Pinching the market-basket' sent in $2.50; 'all the pennies and
nickels received in four months, $12.70'; 'walking instead of riding,
$6.50'; 'singing and making plaster plaques, $7.' A dentist bought of
a fellow dentist one cent's worth of cement filling-material; this he
used, giving his labor, and earned 50 cents; with this he bought 50
cents' worth of better filling, part of which he used, again giving
his labor, and the College gained $3.00. A boy sold his penny to a
physician for a dollar. The physician sold the 'talent penny' for 10
cents, which he exchanged at the Mint for bright new pennies. These he
took to business friends and got a dollar apiece for them; added $5.00
of his own and turned in $15.00. Donations of one cent each were
received through Mr. William P. Harding, from Governor Tillman of
South Carolina, Governor McKinley of Ohio, Governor Russell of
Massachusetts. From Governor Fuller of Vermont--a rare old copper
cent, 1782, coined by Vermont before she was admitted to the Union;
the governors' letters were sold to the highest bidders. Everybody who
worked, everybody who traded with the penny, did something, and every
penny was blessed, so lovingly and so zealously was the trading done.
It was the Master's talent which they were working with. All the
little things that went into the treasury; lead pencils, tacks, $3.00
in one case and $5.00 in another; 'beefs liver, $14.00'--think of
that! How tired the boarders must have grown of liver away out on
Broad Street--stick pins, hairpins, and the common kind that you bend
and lose; candy, pretzels, and cookies; 'old tin cans,' wooden spoons,
pies; one man sent $50.00 as a gift because he said 'his penny had
brought him luck'; another found 16 pennies, which good fortune he
ascribed to the penny in his pocket.
"So in October the workers who had received their pennies in April
came together to show what they had done. Four thousand pennies had
been given out; $6,000 came directly from the returns, and indirectly
about $8,000 more.
"The 'Feast of Tithes,' held in December of the same year, was a great
fair, extending through seven week days. The displays of goods and the
refreshment booths were in the Lower Temple, while fine concerts and
other entertainments were given in the auditorium. The Feast of Tithes
netted $5,500 for the College fund."
Thus the work progressed. No one could give large amounts, but many
gave a little, and stone by stone the building grew. In August, 1893,
the corner stone of the College building was laid. Taking up the
silver trowel which had been used in laying the corner stone of The
Temple, in 1889, Dr. Conwell said:
"Friends, to-day we do something more than simply lay the corner stone
of a college building. We do an act here very simply that shows to the
world, and will go on testifying after we have gone to our long rest,
that the church of Jesus Christ is not only an institution of theory,
but an institution of practice. It will stand here upon this great
and broad street and say through the coming years to all passersby,
'Christianity means something for the good of humanity; Christianity
means not only a belief in things that are good and pure and
righteous, but it also means an activity that shall bless those who
need the assistance of others.' It shall say to the rich man, 'Give
thou of thy surplus to those who have not.' It shall say to the poor
man, 'Make thou the most of thy opportunities and thou shalt be the
equal of the rich.'
"Now, in the name of the people who have given for this enterprise,
in the name of the many Christians who have prayed, and who are now
sending up their prayers to heaven, I lay this corner stone."
The work went on. In May, 1894, a great congregation thronged The
Temple to attend the dedication services of "Temple College," for it
was in its new home; a handsome building, presenting with The Temple a
beautiful stone front of two hundred feet on the broad avenue which it
faces. Robert E. Pattison, governor of Pennsylvania, presided, saying,
in his introductory remarks, "Around this noble city many institutions
have arisen in the cause of education, but I doubt whether any of them
will possess a greater influence for good than Temple College." Bishop
Foss, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, offered prayer. The orator
was Honorable Charles Emory Smith, of Philadelphia, ex-minister
to Russia. Mr. James Johnson, the builder, gave the keys to the
architect, Mr. Thomas P. Lonsdale, who delivered them to the pastor of
Grace Church and president of Temple College, remarking that "it was
well these keys should be in the hands of those who already held the
keys to the inner temple of knowledge."
President Conwell, receiving the keys, said that, "by united effort,
penny by penny, and dollar by dollar, every note had been paid, every
financial obligation promptly met. It is a demonstration of what
people can do when thoroughly in earnest in a great enterprise."
Academies were also started in distant parts of the city for the
benefit of those who could not reach the college in time for classes.
Unfortunately these academies were compelled to close on account of
lack of funds. Many pitiful letters were received at the college
from those who were thus shut out of educational advantages. One in
particular, poorly spelled but breathing its bitter disappointment,
said that the writer (a woman) was just beginning to hope she would
get her head above water some day. But that now she must sink again. A
little light had begun to glimmer for her through the blackness, but
that light had been taken away. She was going down again into the
depth of hopeless ignorance with no one to lend a helping hand--the
tragedy of which Carlyle wrote when he penned "That there should
be one man die ignorant who is capable of knowledge, this I call a
tragedy."
The College at first was entirely free, but as the attendance
increased, it was found necessary to charge a nominal tuition fee in
order to keep out those who had no serious desire to study, but came
irregularly "just for the fun of the thing." When it was decided to
charge five dollars a year for the privilege of attending the evening
classes, the announcement was received with the unanimous approbation
of the students who honestly wished to study, and who more than any
others were hindered by the aimless element.
Not only did the poor and those who were employed during the day come,
but before long the sons and daughters of the well-to-do were knocking
at the doors, not for admission to the evening classes but for day
study. So the day department was opened. Not only has it proved
most successful in its work, but it has helped the College to meet
expenses.
The curriculum of the College is broad. A child just able to walk can
enter the kindergarten class in the day department and receive his
entire schooling under the one roof, graduating with a college degree,
taking a special university course, or fitting himself for business.
Four university courses are given--theology, law, medicine, pharmacy.
The Medical and Theological Departments take students to their
graduation and upon presentation of their diploma before the State
Board they are admitted to the State Examination. The Theological
Course, of course, graduates a man the same as any other theological
seminary.
Post-graduate courses are also given.
The college courses include--arts, science, elocution and oratory,
business, music, civil engineering, physical education. The graduates
of the college course are admitted to the post-graduate courses of
Pennsylvania, Yale, Princeton and Harvard on their diplomas. Students
pass from any year's work of the college course to the corresponding
course of other Institutions.
The preparatory courses are college preparatory, medical preparatory,
scientific preparatory, law preparatory, an English course and a
business preparatory course. Thus, if one is not ready to enter one of
the higher courses, he can prepare here by night study for them.
The Business Course includes a commercial course, shorthand course,
secretarial course, conveyancing course, telegraphy course,
advertisement writing and proofreading.
There are normal courses for kindergarteners and elementary teachers,
and in household science, physical training, music, millinery,
dressmaking, elocution and oratory.
Special courses are given in civil engineering, chemistry, elocution
and oratory, painting and drawing, sign writing, mechanical and
architectural drawing, music, physical training, dressmaking,
millinery, cooking, embroidery, and nursing, the last being given at
the Samaritan Hospital.
All of these courses, excepting the Normal Kindergarten, can be
studied day or evening, as best suits the student.
The kindergarten and model schools cover the work of the public
schools from the kindergarten to the highest grammar grades, fitting
the student to enter the first year of the preparatory department.
These classes are held in the daytime only.
The power to confer degrees was granted in 1891. The teaching force
has been greatly enlarged until at present there are one hundred
and thirty-five teachers and an average of more than three thousand
regular students yearly.
The number of students instructed at Temple College in proportion to
money expended and buildings used is altogether out of proportion
to any other college in America. Some idea of the breadth of study
presented at Temple College may be had from a comparison with
Harvard. Harvard has more than five thousand students, four hundred
instructors, and presents five hundred courses of study. Its growth
since 1860 has been wonderful. In 1860, while one man might not have
been able in four years to master all the subjects offered, he could
have done so in six. It was estimated in 1899 that the courses
of study offered were so varied that sixty years would have been
required. It would take one student ninety-six years to take all the
courses presented by the Temple College.
From the time of the opening of Temple College up to the closing
exercises of 1905, its students have numbered 55,656. If an answer is
desired to the question, "Is such an institution needed," that number
answers is most emphatically. That more than fifty thousand people,
the majority of them wording men and women, will give their nights
after a day of toil, to study, proves that the institution that gives
them the opportunity to study is sorely needed.
The life story of men and women who have studied here and gone on to
lives of usefulness would make interesting reading. One young girl who
lived in the mill district of Kensington was earning $2.50 a week,
folding circulars, addressing envelopes and doing such work. Her
parents were poor. She had the most meagre education, and the outlook
for her to earn more was dark. Some one advised her to go to Temple
College at night and study bookkeeping. A few years after, her
well-wisher saw her one evening at the college, bright, happy, a
different girl in both dress and deportment She had a position as
bookkeeper at $10 a week and was going on now and taking other
courses.
That is the ordinary story of the work Temple College does, multiplied
in thousands of lives. Others are not so ordinary. One of the early
students was a poor man earning $6.00 a week. To-day he is earning
$6,000 a year in a government position at Washington, his rise in
life due entirely to the opportunities of study offered him at Temple
College. A lady who had been brought up in refined and cultured
society was compelled to support herself, her husband and child
through his complete physical breakdown. She took the normal course
in dressmaking and millinery, and has this year been appointed the
Director of the Domestic Science work in a large institution at a very
good salary, being able to keep herself and family in comfort. One of
the present college students was a weaver without any education at
all, getting not only his elementary education and his preparatory
education here, but will next year graduate from the college
department. He has been entirely self-supporting in the meantime, and
will make a fine teacher of mathematics. He has been teaching extra
classes in the evening department of the College for several years.
One of the students who entered the classes in 1886 was a poor boy
of thirteen. For nineteen long years he has studied persistently at
night, passing from one grade to another until this summer (1905) his
long schooling was crowned with success and he was admitted to the
bar. All these weary years he has worked hard during the day, for
there were others depending upon him, and at night despite his
physical weariness, has faithfully pursued his studies. He deserves
his success and the greater success that will come to him, for such a
man in those long years has stored away experiences that will make him
a power.
Another student in the early days of the college was a poor boy who
had no education whatever, having been compelled to help earn the
family living as soon as he was able, his father being a drunkard. For
fifteen years he studied, passing from one grade to another until in
1899, he had the great joy of being ordained to the ministry, six of
his ministerial brethren gathering around him in the great Temple and
laying on his head the hands of ordination, feeling they were setting
apart to the struggles and hardships of the Gospel ministry one who
had shown himself worthy of his exalted calling.
One of the official stenographers connected with the Panama Canal
Commission was a breaker boy who came to Philadelphia from the mining
district poor and ignorant, and studied in Temple College at night,
working during the day to earn his living.
Such records would fill a book. They prove better even than numbers
the worth of such an institution. If only one such man or woman is
lifted to a happier, more useful life, the work is worth while.
Such an institution can do much for the purification of politics.
Before the students are ever held high ideals of right living, of
honesty, of purity. All the associations of the College are conducive
to clean character and high ideals. As the largest number of the
students are men and women from active business life, they are keenly
alive to the questions of the day. They know the responsibility for
honest government rests with each voter, that to have clean politics
every man and woman must individually do his share to uphold high
standards in political and social life, that only men whose characters
are above reproach should be elected to office. That the President of
their college shares these views and knows also what a power lies in
their hands, is shown by the following letter:
"Fraternal Greetings: The near approach of an important election leads
me to suggest to you the following:
"First. There being now in this city over seven thousand voters who
have been students in the Temple College, you have by your votes
and your influence, either by combination or as individuals, a
considerable political power. You should use it for the good of your
city, state, and nation.
"Second. In city affairs I urge you to think first of the poor. The
rich do not need your care. Vote only for such city candidates as will
most speedily secure for the more needy classes pure water, clean
streets, cheaper homes, cheaper and more useful education, healthier
environment, cheap and quick transportation, the development of the
labor-giving improvements, and the increase of sea-going and inland
commerce. Select large-hearted, cool-headed men for city officers,
regardless of national parties.
"Third. Let no man or party purchase your patriotic birthright for a
fifty-cent tax bill or any other sum.
"Fourth. In selecting your candidates for state offices remember the
needs of the people. Favor the granting to the submerged poor a more
favorable opportunity to help themselves. Move in the most reasonable
and direct way toward the ultimate abolition of the sale of
intoxicating liquors as a beverage, and for the increase of hospital
and college privileges for the afflicted and the ignorant.
"Fifth. In national politics, remember that both parties have a
measure of truth in their principles, and the need of the time is
noble, conscientious lovers of humanity, who will not be led by party
enthusiasm into any wild schemes in either direction which would
result in the destruction of business and the degradation of national
honor. Think independently, vote considerately, stand unflinchingly
against any measure that is wrong, and vigorously in favor of every
movement that is right. This is an opportunity to do a great, good
deed. Quit you like men. With endearing affection,
"RUSSELL H. CONWELL."
Even now the press of students is so great the trustees are planning
larger things. The "Philadelphia Press,' speaking of the new work to
be undertaken, said:
"A city university, with a capacity of seven thousand students, more
than are attending any other one seat of learning in the United
States, is to be built in Philadelphia. It will be the university of
the Temple College and will stand on the site of the old Broad Street
Baptist Church at the southeast corner of Broad and Brown Streets,
and the lot adjoining the church property on the south side on Broad
Street.
"The new structure will cost $225,000, while the ground on which it
will be built is worth $165,000, making the total value of the new
institution $390,000.
"Rev. Russell H. Conwell, D.D., pastor of the Grace Baptist Church,
at Broad and Berks Streets, and President of Temple College, said
yesterday that the new university will be completed and ready for
occupancy by September, 1906. In the twenty years of its existence
Temple College has grown as have few educational institutions in
America, until now it has more than three thousand students enrolled
yearly.
"With the erection of the university building the institution will
have facilities for educating four thousand more students, or a total
of seven thousand.
"Some idea of how the other great universities of the country compare
with regard to the number of students attending them with this new
university of Philadelphia is shown by the following table:
Name. Number of Students,
Temple University 7,000
Harvard 5,393
Yale 2,995
Pennsylvania 2,692
Princeton 1,373
"The Temple University building will be eight stories high, at
least that is the plan the trustees have in mind at present, but the
structure will be so built that a height of two stories may be added
at any time. It will have a frontage of 129 feet on Broad Street and
140 feet on Brown Street. The corner property was deeded as a gift to
Temple College by the Broad and Brown Streets Church and the College
then purchased the adjoining property on Broad Street. In appreciation
of the gift the College has offered the use of the university chapel,
which will be built in the building, to the Broad and Brown Streets
Church congregation for a place of worship.
"The university will be built of stone, and while not an elaborate
structure, it will be substantial and suitable in every respect and
imposing in its very simplicity.
"In addition to the university offices there will be a large
gymnasium, a free dispensary, departments of medicine, theology, law,
engineering, sciences, and, in fact, all the branches of learning that
are taught in any of the great universities. There will be a library
and lecture room for every department, pathological and chemical
laboratories and a sufficient number of classrooms to preclude
crowding of students for the next ten or fifteen years.
"There are now one hundred and thirty-five instructors in Temple
College, but when the university is opened this number will be
increased to three hundred.
"The present college building, which adjoins the Baptist Temple, will
continue to be used, but only for the normal classes and lower grade
of work. The building will be remodeled. The dwelling adjoining the
college which has been occupied as the theological department will be
vacated when the university is completed.
"Dr. Conwell, the father of Temple College and who in years to come
will be spoken of as the father of Temple University, said yesterday:
"'It will be a university for busy people, the same as the college has
been a college for busy people. Our institution reaches and benefits
a class--in some respects the greatest class--of persons who want
to study and enlarge their education, but cannot attend the other
universities and colleges for financial reasons and because of their
business.
"'There's many a man and woman, young and middle-aged, who is not
satisfied with himself--he wants to go on farther, he wants to learn
more. But his daily work won't allow him to complete his education
because of the inconvenient hours of the classes and lectures in
other colleges. And he comes to Temple, as there classes are held
practically all day and for several hours at night. The terms of the
course at Temple College are reasonable, and thus many young men or
women may prepare themselves for higher and more remunerative work,
whereas they would not feel that they could afford to pay the tuition
fee at some other institution. The Temple University will be similar
to the London University, a city university for busy persons.'"
Thus Temple College grows because it is needed. And such an
institution is needed in other cities as well as in Philadelphia. This
is but the pioneer. It can have sister institutions wherever people
want to study and Christian hearts want to help.
It grows also because in the heart of one man, its founder, is the
bitter knowledge of how sorely such an institution is needed by those
who want to study, and who himself works hand, heart and soul so that
it shall never fail those who need it.
Says James M. Beck, the noted lawyer: "There have been very wealthy
men who, out of the abundance of their resources, have founded
colleges, but I can hardly recall a case where a man, without abundant
means, by mere force of character and intellectual energy, has both
created and maintained an institution of this size and character,'"
Far back in the dim light of the centuries, Confucius wrote, "Give
instruction unto those who cannot obtain it for themselves." This is
the great and useful work the Temple College is doing and doing it
nobly, a work that will count for untold good on future generations.