[Illustration: {uncaptioned}]
If you drive in a long slow arc from southernmost to northernmost
Lincoln, veering to the right as you drive, you will pass thru the parts
of the city which were not the result of growth of the original town but
sprang up a distance away from some special urge or circumstance. There
were five of them, like the isolated fingertip prints of a cupped hand.
As Lincoln spread the tiny towns spread also, until they finally all
met, embraced and became one.
Driving from one to the other thru these originally diverse sections we
feel subtle changes. It may be that thoughts and processes,
personalities of those once dominating each, are in some way imprinted
on each section. Or it may be only that we happen to know local history.
To the south is College View, its nucleus Union college (Seventh Day
Adventist). Next in the arc is Bethany, originally the background of
Cotner college (Christian) and next its sister, University Place, home
of Nebraska Wesleyan (Methodist.); Havelock, a little to the north, was
born of the Burlington shops. Last in the arc is Belmont, planned as a
beautiful city 50 years ago but now fallen from that high estate. Its
woolen mills burned down, the railroad came in the wrong way.
Above is the ivy covered main building of Wesleyan, an institution which
has stood sturdily for over 50 years, battling drouths and depressions
with one hand and serving the Lord and Methodism with the other.
Attesting the educational soundness of its program was a recent national
survey showing Wesleyan with a rank of 22 among 339 liberal arts college
in the proportion (36 percent) of its students going into graduate study
thruout the country. A greater proportion of graduates has gone from its
classrooms into theological seminaries than from any liberal arts
college in America.