The Life of Dr. D. K. Pearsons, friend of the small college and of missions

THE UNIVERSITY

OF ILLINOIS

LIBRARY

B

fetor-leal Survey

THE LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEABSONS, FRIEND

OF THE SMALL COLLEGE AND

OF MISSIONS

DR. D. K. PEARSONS

THE LIFE OF DR. D. K.
PEARSONS, FRIEND OF
THE SMALL COLLEGE
AND OF MISSIONS : : : :

BY

EDWARD F. WILLIAMS

THE PILGRIM PRESS

NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO

Copyright, 1911

EDWARD F. WILLIAMS

V

THE RUMFORD PRESS
CONCORD • N • H • U • S • A-

/-:

^ft
5

. \*sf»4~

£

MRS. MARIETTA CHAPIN PEARSONS
OP

WIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS, HELPER IN THE ACQUISITION OF HIS

FORTUNE, SYMPATHIZER WITH HIM IN ITS DISTRIBUTION, A LOVING

^ COMPANION AND A WISE COUNCILLOR FOR NEARLY SIXTY YEARS, THIS

0) ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF HER HUSBAND IS DEDICATED

PREFACE

THIS book has been written to stimulate and
encourage those into whose hands wealth
has come, to make, while yet alive such dis-
tribution of it as they would wish others to make of
it after their decease. The story of what Dr.
Pearsons has done is full of stimulus and hope for
ambitious young men, even if born poor. It bears
testimony to the value of principle, earnest purpose,
and devotion to a single object while that object is
pursued. It shows what a change in public senti-
ment, gifts wisely made and scattered over a series
of years, can produce in reference to such institutions
of learning as our small colleges. If the State Uni-
versities and the marvellous work they have done,
owe their existence to the Morrill Act, the sugges-
tion of a Vermont man, the small colleges and the
thousands of young people who attend them owe
the work they are doing and the regard in which
they are held to the gifts of another Vermont man,
the man whose life and deeds it is the purpose of this
book to relate.

It should be said that the responsibility for the
appearance of the book rests wholly upon its author
and not all upon Dr. Pearsons, who has not even
suggested that any record of what he has done for
higher education be made public.

Vll

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PACK

I. BIRTH, ANCESTRY, EDUCATION, EARLY
LIFE. PROFESSIONAL LIFE IN CHICOPEE,

MASS. 3

II. PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO . . 15

III. CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER .... 27

IV. BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO .... 37
V. BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO — CONTINUED 49

VI. BEGINNING OF A GREAT BENEVOLENT
CAREER. GIFTS TO CHICAGO INSTITU-
TIONS. DECISION TO AID COLLEGES . 67
VII. CONDITION OF THE DENOMINATIONAL COL-
LEGES WHEN DR. PEARSONS MADE His
FIRST GIFTS TO THEM. PRINCIPLES
UPON WHICH THESE GIFTS HAVE BEEN

MADE 89

VIII. GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS . . . 101
IX. GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS EAST OF CHICAGO 115
X. GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE .... 131
XI. GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES THAN

BELOIT 145

XII. AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE 167

XIII. AID FOR OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES THAN

BEREA 183

XIV. AID FOR COLLEGES ON THE PACIFIC COAST 199
XV. GIFTS TO MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY COL-
LEGES £23

ix

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XVI. APPRECIATIVE WORDS. . . . . . . 239

XVII. RETROSPECT 255

INDEX 273

APPENDICES

I. An Address by Dr. Pearsons at Battle Creek

or a Lesson in Practical Philanthropy . 281

II. Address to the Public on the Ninety-first

Anniversary of his Birth, announcing the
end of his career as a Philanthropist . 294
III. Minute written by Dr. Simeon Gilbert, for-
mer editor of The Advance, and adopted
by the Congregational Club in recogni-
tion of the Ninety-first Birthday of Dr.
Pearsons 304

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

DR. D. K. PEARSONS .... Frontispiece

THE HOME AT HINSDALE 56

MRS. D. K. PEARSONS 193

DR. D. K. PEARSONS AT NINETY 262

BIRTH, ANCESTRY, EDUCATION, EARLY LIFE
PROFESSIONAL LIFE IN CHICOPEE, MASS.

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

BIRTH, ANCESTRY, EDUCATION, EARLY LIFE
PROFESSIONAL LIFE IN CHICOPEE, MASS.

DANIEL KIMBALL PEARSONS was born
April 14, 1820, on a farm two and one half
miles distant from the center of the town of
Bradford, Vermont. There were seven children in
the family, six sons and one daughter. Two of the
sons, Charles and Arthur, died in infancy. The
daughter, Elizabeth, the youngest of the family,
married Dr. A. M. Gushing of Springfield, Massa-
chusetts, where she died June 17, 1880, leaving two
sons, one of whom is a lawyer in New York City,
and the other principal of the New Haven (Conn.)
High School. John Alonzo, the eldest son, was the
first settler in Evanston, Illinois. In 1854, the year
of his arrival at Evanston, there was but one house
on the more than three hundred acres of land which
the newly organized university had purchased.
This house Mr. Pearsons and his wife occupied. For
several years he ran an express wagon between the
suburban village and the city of Chicago; later he
engaged in the lumber business. His house was

3

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

headquarters for Methodist ministers and for every-
thing that pertained to the interests of Methodism
in Evanston. Throughout life he and Mrs. Pearsons
took a deep interest in the welfare of their Church
and University. One of the Ladies' Halls is known
as the Mrs. John A. Pearsons Hall. Mr. Pearsons
died January 25, 1902, honored and loved by all
who knew him. William Baron Chapin, the third
son, was born at Fairlee, Vermont, in 1814. He died
at Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1897. He was edu-
cated in the common schools and academies of his
native state, but studied law in the Harvard Law
School, graduating in 1849. He settled very soon
thereafter in Holyoke, Massachusetts, making, as
he used to say, the thirteenth lawyer seeking a living
in that then rather small village. His reputation
for honesty and ability, his urbanity and public
spirit led to his appointment by the Governor of
the State, as Judge in the Police Court, a position he
filled to the satisfaction of the public and retained
until his death. He was an ardent lover of music,
and through his efforts made it possible for the citi-
zens of Holyoke to listen frequently to the best
music of the times. He served the city three times
as its mayor and never failed on any occasion to do
whatever he could to advance its interests. After
the death of his father, and until the mother had a
house of her own built for her by her second son,
she lived in his family. She died in 1885 at the age
of ninety-one years and four months. George, the
fourth son, who became a business man at an early

4

BIRTH, ANCESTRY AND EDUCATION

age, made his home in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Here he
acquired a competent fortune, and was recognized
as a man of sterling integrity and a leader in public
affairs. He was interested in the building of rail-
roads, the draining of swamps, and in whatever
concerned the welfare of the state. He was three
times chosen mayor of his adopted city, and from
1885 to 1888 was Indian Inspector, to the great
advantage of his wards. He died in July, 1904, aged
74, leaving three sons and a daughter, who became
the wife of the late Senator Dolliver of Iowa. Mr.
Pearsons began his business life in connection with the
Vermont Central Railroad . In 1 868 he moved to Fort
Dodge, Iowa, where he spent the remainder of his
days. The brothers differed from each other in
temperament and personal appearance, but were
alike in their high standards of duty and in their
genuine patriotism. Above the ordinary size, wher-
ever they went, they impressed people by their mag-
nificent physique and their courtly manners.

The parents were of Puritan stock and trained
their children carefully in the principles of their
faith. Of John Pearsons, the father, his son, the
Doctor, says, "He was the honestest man I ever
knew." A Vermont farmer, a descendant of a fam-
ily which, though with Scotch blood in its veins, had
resided in the state about one hundred years, by
strict economy he obtained a good living from
his land, and at his death left his children an
honored name and a character in which they could
not detect a flaw. The mother, Hannah Putnam, a

5

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

distant relative of the famous Israel Putnam, was
distinguished for her mental gifts and her personal
beauty. Her sparkling black eyes and her keen
wit have descended to her second son, who resem-
bles her more than any of her other children. John
Pearsons and his wife were members of the Metho-
dist Church of Bradford, and in it the children
acquired their church-going habit. Dr. Pearsons
has often referred to the long walks he took with
his mother Sunday mornings to attend Sunday
school. The grandparents on the father's side were
Congregationalists. To each of these churches the
Doctor has given a fund of five thousand dol-
lars on condition that the Methodists care for
the graves of the father and mother, and the Congre-
gationalists for the graves of the grandparents.
He has also provided a library for his native town.
In the winter the children attended the district
school, and in the summer worked on the farm.
Early in his life Daniel determined to get an educa-
tion and make a place for himself in the world. His
mother encouraged him and his father was ready to
assist him as far as his means allowed. He studied
in the Bradford Academy and in the Montpelier
Conference (then Newbury) Seminary, where he
prepared for Dartmouth College, and where he was
converted. To this seminary he has given fifty
thousand dollars, as part of its endowment. Lack
of money compelled him to leave college at the end
of the first year. He had lived on less than a dollar
a week, had boarded himself, and like many another

6

BIRTH, ANCESTRY AND EDUCATION

young man eager for an education, he taught school
for several winters in Vermont and Massachusetts.
Although he began to teach when only sixteen he
was very successful. During these formative years
an incident occurred which illustrates what he has
always called the care of "a kind providence."
When about eighteen or nineteen he decided to go
to Boston, find a place in a store and become a mer-
chant. For days he walked the streets unsuccess-
fully. No one wanted him. With his money nearly
gone, he went down to the market, near Faneuil
Hall, met a man with a truck wagon, who hired him
at once and took him out on the wagon to his home
in Brookline where he had a dairy and a small farm.
At the end of the season his employer, an earnest
Baptist, advised him to attend the Manual Labor
School which his denomination had established at
Worcester, Massachusetts, where he could earn his
way without interfering with his studies. He took
the advice and at the close of the term a committee
from a school in the suburbs came to the Academy
for a teacher, and after interviewing several of the
young men who had been recommended, insisted
on seeing "that young man from Vermont, who
had paid his way by his work," and the only one
in the school who had done so. A brief consul-
tation with him led to his employment as the teacher
of a school in which his experiences have been cher-
ished in memory as among the pleasantest of his
life. With the money saved from his Brookline
engagement and from his winter's service he was

7

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

able to continue his preparation for college. In his
later years Dr. Pearsons spoke very often of the
pleasure he had in teaching, especially in helping
earnest students to overcome what to them seemed
at times insurmountable difficulties. In one of his
five schools he had an encounter with a bully, larger
than himself, whom he had whipped thoroughly to
the great joy of the school and of the entire neigh-
borhood. In the lawsuit which followed he was
triumphantly acquitted. The expense of this suit
was met by the people, and in the dismissal of the
case, which was for assault and battery, the judge
said that evidently the "young man had made the
assault and the teacher had applied the battery."

In 1841 Dr. Pearsons began his professional
studies at Woodstock, Vermont, at that time one
of the best medical schools in New England. Its
professors were men of distinction in their profession
and did not fail to arouse the ambition of their
students. When Dr. Alonzo Clark, one of these
professors, and a physician of large practise in the
city of New York, learned that Mr. Pearsons had
decided to defer graduation a year in order that he
might earn money for his necessary expenses, he
offered to loan the hundred dollars needed, provided
he would remain and take his diploma. He con-
sented, and not long after graduation settled in
Chicopee, Massachusetts, where as partner with a
successful doctor, he earned the first year about
eighteen hundred dollars, paid off his indebtedness
and laid something by for future use. This partner-

8

BIRTH, ANCESTRY AND EDUCATION

ship continued for three years, when he bought a
house, married Miss Marietta Chapin, daughter of
Deacon Giles Chapin of Chicopee, and began prac-
tise by himself. This practise became large and
profitable. With a wife of unusual beauty of per-
son and singular charm of manner, a member of one
of the old families of the state, educated in Miss
Willard's Seminary at Troy, New York, and inter-
ested in everything that interested her husband or
promoted the welfare of the community or the
world, the young physician could hardly fail to
become a leading figure in the growing manufactur-
ing town. He was appointed health officer, made
superintendent of schools, and as a leading citizen
arranged a course of lectures under the auspices of
the Cabot Institute in which such men as Dr. J. B.
C. Smith of Boston, Dr. E. H. Chapin of New York,
Horace Greeley, Elihu Burritt, Theodore Parker
and President Hitchcock of Amherst College took
part. The fee paid was ten dollars a night and
expenses. The profits from these lecture courses,
which continued until the lecturers began to demand
larger pay, were turned over to a Library Associ-
ation and laid the foundation of the Chicopee Pub-
lic Library, one of the best of its kind in the state.
It was during the late thirties and the early forties
that Mary Lyon was trying to establish a school for
girls at South Hadley. One of the homes in which
she was a welcome visitor, and where she received
sympathy and aid, was that of Deacon Chapin.
Dr. Pearsons was deeply interested in her efforts,

9

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

in the woman herself, in the character and aim of •
her school, which he frequently visited, and decided
that if he were ever able he would do what he could to
aid such schools as hers. Neither he nor Miss Lyon
at that time dreamed of the great institution which
has grown up in that little country village, or that
the country physician would put hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars into its buildings and its endow-
ment. In the early and middle forties "Pa Hawks,"
as he was called, a retired minister, a unique per-
sonality, drove from town to town in an old wagon
drawn by a slow-moving horse, begging bedding,
dishes, corn, potatoes, almost anything for the girls
in the new school. It was the sacrifice, the heroism,
and the enthusiasm of the founders of what is now
Mount Holyoke College that deepened and made
permanent Dr. Pearsons' interest in the educa-
tion of poor boys and girls.

In love with his profession, satisfied with the posi-
tion he held in the community, at home in the best
social circles, it was with genuine surprise, as he has
told the story, that one day he listened to his wife's
question, "Why don't we sell out and go West?"

"What?" said I. "Give up this fine practise
and begin again ?" "Yes," said she. "I have heard
you talk with that man from Oregon" (his name was
Thurston, he represented Oregon in Congress, and
used to spend some of his vacations in and about
Chicopee), "and I have made up my mind that you
were made for a business man." "Whatever I am,
I owe to my wife," asserts the doctor. "She inter-

10

BIRTH, ANCESTRY AND EDUCATION

ested me in everything good. To her belongs the
credit for all that I have done. I trusted her judg-
ment, I never knew it to fail. I always told her
everything and always followed her advice. Within
three days a man came along and wanted to buy
my practise. I sold it to him as quickly as you can
snap your thumb. My wife's friends were greatly
disturbed. They thought it was a foolish move.
But my wife was firm. We broke up housekeeping.
I sold our house and we spent six months in visiting
Europe. It was our first trip abroad. My wife
loved travel. This trip did both of us a great deal
of good. In 1851 we made our first visit to the
West. We went as far as Janesville, where an uncle
and aunt lived. The Railway stopped at Elgin.
The rest of the way we went by stage. The roads
were poor and muddy and sometimes we forded the
rivers. One of our fellow-passengers from Beloit
to Janesville was a loud-talking swearing sort of
a man, who found fault with everybody and every-
thing. At Beloit I saw a building on the hill above
the river and I asked what that building was. 'Oh,'
said he, * that is a college which some cranks from the
East are trying to build.' All the way to Janesville
he kept talking against the colleges and I defended
them. When we reached our destination I went up
to him, shook my fist in his face, and said I am coming
out West, and am going to become a very rich man and
give money to just such colleges as this." And Dr.
Pearsons always adds, "I have kept my promise."
It is not surprising that one of his first gifts to

11

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

colleges should have been to Beloit. It is surprising
that it should have been one hundred thousand
dollars, that it should have been made without
solicitation and without the knowledge of any one
connected with the institution. At that time the
college was small, hardly able to meet its bills, with
no prospect of the rapid expansion which has brought
it into a leading position among the colleges of the
country. If the offer of one hundred thousand dol-
lars by an unknown man from Chicago, came as an
overwhelming surprise to the friends of Beloit, there
was hardly less surprise that the gift was made on
condition that its trustees and friends raise another
hundred thousand dollars in about seven weeks to
match it. Impossible as it seemed to many to meet
those conditions, they were met, and the college
placed on a fair financial foundation. There was
only one man on the Board of Trustees who at that
time had any personal acquaintance with Dr.
Pearsons, and to enquirers who wondered if the
generous stranger would be able to make good his
promises, he was permitted to give assurances which
removed every doubt. From that day to this the
relations between Dr. Pearsons and Beloit have
been of the most intimate character, and his gifts
to the college instead of stopping with one hundred
thousand dollars in buildings and endowments have
nearly or quite reached the sum of six hundred thou-
sand dollars. Thus has his promise to give money
to the college which Eastern cranks were building
on the hill been redeemed.

12

II

PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO

IN THE period between the sale of his practise in
Chicopee and his settlement in Chicago, from
1851 to 1860, Dr. Pearsons was preparing
himself, consciously or unconsciously, for his busi-
ness career in the city on Lake Michigan. These
preparatory years, as Dr. Pearsons always calls
them, were business years also, and strenuous years
as well. They were years spent in travel, in lectur-
ing, in the purchase and sale of wood, timber and
land, and in study not only of the special subjects
upon which he addressed the people, but of condi-
tions, moral, educational and financial, prevailing
in different sections of the country.

On his return from Europe, a trip at that time
not often made by persons in his circumstances,
Dr. Calvin Cutter of Boston, famous as a physician
and as an author of text-books on physiology, anat-
omy and hygiene, persuaded him to go South and
introduce his books into the schools and higher
institutions of learning in that section of the country.
It was arranged that he should lecture on the topics
treated in the books he had to sell wherever he could

15

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

find an opportunity. With headquarters at Nash-
ville, Tennessee, Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons spent the
winters of 1852 and 1853 in traveling over Tennessee,
Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia, the Doctor speak-
ing in nearly all of the colleges in those states. So
successful were these two winters in the South that
he devoted the winters of 1854 and 1855 to lecturing
in the State of Maine on his own account, without
regard to the sale of books. In these lectures he
sought to do good and to disseminate knowledge.
He had brought home a fine manikin from Europe,
and with his charts possessed an apparatus which
could not fail to attract attention. To these lec-
tures he has often referred as furnishing an eminently
satisfactory experience in his life. In the winter
of 1856 lectures were given in the West, and in 1857
a course was given in Lawrence University, Apple-
ton, Wisconsin, one of the institutions which years
afterward received aid from the Doctor's purse.

Nowhere had he any difficulty in securing an
audience. Those who have heard him speak from
college platforms can easily understand how attrac-
tive he must have been as a lecturer. His subject
was comparatively new. It was presented as one
of great importance, as one that concerned the
health, efficiency and comfort of every living being.
It was fully illustrated. The lecturer had the fac-
ulty, inborn and carefully cultivated, of saying in
simple terse language what he wanted to say and
no more, and of saying what his audience apparently
wished him to say. A plain man, like Brutus, he

16

PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO

spoke straight on, and used words which no one had
any difficulty in understanding. At the end of every
lecture those who had heard him felt that they had
learned something worth knowing, had listened to
a man who had said something for them to remem-
ber. He was attractive in personal appearance,
with a clear penetrating voice, absolute master of
himself, with a fine command of the language of
common life and a power to employ technical terms
so that common people could catch their meaning.
With a native wit which burst forth spontaneously
in nearly every sentence and illuminated every sub-
ject upon which he touched, it is only what we
might have anticipated that he should be as success-
ful as a lecturer as he had been as a physician, or as
in later years he would prove himself to be as a man
of business. During these years he made lecturing
a business, and took care not to fail in it.

It was no easy matter, even after the decision had
been made to go West, to find just the place for a
permanent home. A visit to Janesville, Wiscon-
sin, had made it clear that northern Illinois offered
more attractions for business enterprise than any
other point in the Middle West. But the decision
to settle in Chicago was not reached for several
years. While studying the country and making
several trips a year between the East and West, the
Doctor purchased a farm in Vermont on which there
was a fine lot of wood with a large amount of timber
on it ready for marketing. He knew that the rail-
road wanted both timber and wood and that, as the
2 17

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

way to the railroad station was down hill, it would
be easy to haul them to the station. He knew that
he could secure Frenchmen at a reasonable price to
get the wood ready for him, and he persuaded him-
self that after disposing of the wood and timber he
could sell the farm and its buildings for all they cost
him. His father, with whom he was staying at the
time of his purchase of the farm (for which he paid
cash), was much surprised at what his venturesome
son had done, and wondered a little what he would
do next. The father protested, mildly, against the
desecration which would be wrought by cutting down
"those beautiful trees" which had stood so long
and were so dear to the people who lived in the
neighborhood. The protest did little good. The
son persisted and in the course of three or four years
sold his timber and four thousand cords of wood,
obtained the money for it and then disposed of the
farm and the buildings on it, for what he had paid
in the beginning. He was led to undertake this
experiment while waiting for a business to which
he could devote his life, partly to show a younger
brother what could be done in this direction and to
encourage him to go into business himself. That
brother was an apt pupil and made good use of the
instruction he received.

But four years of lecturing as a business seemed to
the Doctor a sufficiently long period for that kind
of life. True, he had made it profitable. He saw
that he could secure an independent fortune were
he to follow it. But with all of its attractions it did

18

PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO

not satisfy him, and although he continued to lec-
ture occasionally for two years longer, here and there,
and especially in the West, he ceased to look upon
lecturing as an occupation to be followed through
life.

One day, when in Springfield, Massachusetts, the
owner of 14,000 acres of land in Champaign and
Livingston Counties, Illinois, met him on the street,
and asked him if he would undertake the sale of
these lands on a five per cent commission. The
offer had come as if by chance and was accepted.
Mrs. Pearsons and her husband now felt that the
time had come for them to settle permanently in
the West; just where, they left the future to decide,
but somewhere in Illinois. For more than a year
their headquarters were at Rochelle, Ogle County.
Here the Doctor owned a farm of several hundred
acres from which in a single season he cut one hun-
dred and fifty tons of hay and on it fed seventy head
of cattle through the winter. But his heart was
not in farming; rather in selling land for others to
occupy.

First of all he sought to discover the best way to
secure a perfect title to land that had been sold,
perhaps more than once, for taxes. Very often this
was a difficult task, for land titles had become very
complicated. Many who held them would not give
them up on reasonable terms. There were land
sharpers in those days in Illinois. It took the Doc-
tor more than a year to learn their crooked ways;
but nature had endowed him with keenness of per-

19

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

ception and with a shrewdness which the sharpers
failed to take into account. In a little while they
soon discovered that in dealing with the people he
was more than their match. He dealt honestly.
The people trusted his word. The titles he gave
proved to be good. There was less and less business
for men who did not intend to keep their word.
Such men hated him, as a matter of course. They
spoke against him. He paid no attention to them,
but went quietly on disposing of the land already
entrusted to him, and becoming agent for the sale
of other large tracts of land and even of small ones,
if asked to do so.

Pleasantly situated, as he had been in Rochelle,
living sometimes with a private family, sometimes
on his farm, he saw that with the increase in his
business, it would be for his advantage to be in
Chicago. Some idea of the extent of that business
soon after his settlement in that city, may be ob-
tained from the fact that Michael Sullivan, "the
land king," made him his agent for the sale of 40,000
acres and Solomon Sturgis entrusted him with the
agency for the sale of 20,000 more. Nor were these
the only tracts of land for which he was agent; his
growing reputation as a land broker and his extraor-
dinary success in selling lands where others had
failed and the confidence which the people in various
sections of the state had in him led the authorities
of the Illinois Central Railroad Company to offer
him the agency for the disposal of their lands. These
lands they wished to sell to actual settlers. They

20

PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO

were on each side of their right of way and embraced
every alternate section and extended out for several
miles. Favorably situated, as we now see they
were, they were then a drug on the market. Exten-
sive advertising had done little good. People pre-
ferred to settle near the rivers, in regions already
partially occupied. Many of those who had bought
near the Road were complaining of its unhealthful-
ness. They suffered from fever, ague and discour-
agement, and were more ready to offer their own
lands for sale than to persuade others to purchase
near them. Furthermore, it was rumored that the
title to the railroad lands was not good. In such
circumstances there was little encouragement for a
man like Dr. Pearsons, whose reputation was already
made, and who had a large and growing business, to
become an agent for their sale. He appreciated the
difficulties which stood in his way, but did not shrink
from them. He knew he could overcome them.
Having satisfied himself that these railroad titles
were flawless, and having brought capitalists in the
East to his way of thinking, he offered these lands
for sale, and as he did so, expressed his willingness
to loan money to their purchasers rather than to
purchasers of the lands at their side. He knew that
with the settlement of the country the suffering from
fever and ague and from homesickness would cease.
His frank, open ways with the people, his reputation
as a man who always did as he agreed, who was ready
to relieve a man from his land if its buyer found it
too much of a burden for him to carry, rendered it

21

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

easy for him to succeed where many others had
failed. To him, more than anyone else in his gen-
eration, is the disposal of these lands due, and their
occupation, by industrious, intelligent and prosper-
ous communities.

If we have somewhat anticipated later events in
Dr. Pearsons' life, it has been in order to bring out
more clearly the nature of that preparation through
which he passed before entering upon a business
career in Chicago, which in less than three decades
made him several times a millionaire.

When he came to the City his reputation as a
dealer in land was fairly well established. Out in
the State he was better known than by business men
of Chicago. There the people trusted him implicitly.
Men in the East controlling large capital had given
him their complete confidence. The ^Etna Life
Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut, had
deemed itself fortunate in securing such a man to
handle its funds. With a business as large as his
and a reputation for honesty which had never been
questioned, he was soon reckoned as one of the solid
men of the city. He had mastered the details of
the business he had chosen to follow. His accounts
at the banks were never overdrawn. Bills were al-
ways paid as soon as presented. He had few, if any,
confidants, but it was noticed that his transactions
were large and that he was always able to carry them
out.

For such a man with such a training, with such
capitalists behind him and success already won, it

22

PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO

is easy to see that in spite of the political unrest in
the country, it would be easy to win a competency,
and even a large fortune in Chicago. He himself
has always said that everything worked for his advan-
tage. He had met with nothing to discourage him.
Everything that he had touched turned into money.
True his personal capital was small, but in mental
power, in business ability he was rich. He was per-
sistent also. Never for a moment did he doubt
his complete success. He did not undertake to do
many things, but the one thing to which he gave his
mind he made sufficiently important to tax all his
energies.

The good Providence, which had led him hitherto,
and had brought him to Chicago, he felt sure would
not forsake him there.

A great blessing had come to him in his wife. She
never doubted the wisdom of any of his movements.
They had in fact counselled together in regard to
them all. She was the silent partner in all her hus-
band's undertakings. From the day when he sold
his practise in Massachusetts and they had turned
their back on its delightful social life, through years
of patient waiting, she had cheered him with her
presence and strengthened him by her approval.
In that early period of their life they were one in
thought and aim, as they continued to be, until for
her the end came, and she was taken home to enjoy
her well-earned rest. But for the wife, the husband
might not have been able to do what he has done for
the benefit of his fellowmen. To her wisdom, her

23

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

sympathy, her love and her support in weariness and
disappointment, he could turn for refuge and strength.
In her clear vision, he never failed to see light. "To
her," he has said again and again, "I owe everything
that I have become. The fortune which I have
distributed was as much hers as mine. She helped
me to earn it and while she lived she helped me to
distribute it."

Ill

CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER

Ill

CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER

THE Census of 1860 gave Chicago a population
slightly in excess of 112,000. At that time
the three divisions of the city, North, West
and South, were well marked. The North Side was
the aristocratic side. It had been first settled, and
by excellent and prosperous families. On or near
the shore of the lake dwelt such men as the Honorable
Isaac N. Arnold, member of Congress, and Author
of a Life of Lincoln, Ezra McCagg, Judge Mark
Skinner, Mahlon D. Ogden, William B. Ogden, by
common consent, the ablest, most prominent and
influential citizen of Chicago, E. H. Sheldon, Walter
L. Newberry, the founder of the Newberry Library,
E. B. Washburn, Minister of the United States to
France, Gurdon S. Hubbard, the Indian Trader, and
E. W. Blatchford, interested in every plan formed
for the benefit of the city. Such a group of men —
and associated with them were many others whose
names cannot be here mentioned — it would have
been difficult at that time to have found in any other
city of its size in the country. The residence quar-
ter on the North Side was very attractive. Though

27

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

the houses were nearly all of wood, they stood back
from the street in the midst of ample grounds and
were surrounded by trees which furnished abundant
shade. Houses similar to these, though less costly,
were scattered along the Lake Shore, beyond what
is now Lincoln Park, out into Lake View, on whose
open fields the German contingent in the city was
wont to make merry on Sundays and holidays.

Then, as now, there were more people on the West
Side than on the other two sides combined. But
beyond Ashland Boulevard, then Reuben Street,
and south of Adams Street, the houses were few and
widely scattered. Here and there manufacturing
establishments had begun to spring up. The popu-
lation was chiefly of the industrial class. It was
intelligent, energetic and frugal. Not a few men of
wealth belonged to it and lived in its midst. Be-
yond Twenty-second Street on the South Side, with
the exception of a few houses on Cottage Grove
Avenue, the territory was largely unoccupied. The
Stock Yards were about one half mile west of Camp
Douglass, where Confederate prisoners were kept
during the war. This camp was at the corner of
Thirty-first Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. In
1860 and for some years afterward, Chicago pre-
sented the appearance, to a stranger, of an over-
grown country village, with here and there a street
which reminded one of a city.

Among the dealers in real estate Peter Page and
the Bowen Brothers were prominent. Potter Palmer
with Marshall Field and L. Z. Leiter, as partners,

28

CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER

C. B. and J. V. Farwell, controlled the dry-goods
business. J. W. Doane, G. S. Hubbard, E. W.
Blatchford, Cyrus H. McCormick, T. W. Harvey
and scores of others hardly less prominent in different
lines of business, were building up fortunes for them-
selves, and at the same time doing what they could
to build up the city. Among the physicians, Dr.
N. S. Davis was a leader; Emory A. Storrs stood at
the head of the Bar. Solomon Smith, W. F. Cool-
baugh, Chauncy M. Blair and George Smith, who
died in London only a few years ago leaving a very
large fortune, were leading bankers. The late Chief
Justice Melville W. Fuller was a rising young lawyer.
Van H. Higgins, Norman B. Judd, Jerome Beecher,
Jacob Beidler, Peter Schuttler, the wagon maker,
B. W. Raymond, L. D. Boone, T. M. Avery, H. Z.
Culver, Deacon Philo Carpenter, Deacon William
Bross, afterwards Lieutenant Governor of Illinois,
in addition to those above mentioned, were some of
the men with whom during his early years in Chicago,
Dr. Pearsons was brought into contact. To say
that in ability, he compared favorably with the best
of them, is not going beyond the truth. For a young
city the pulpit, too, had fully its share of fame. Dr.
W. W. Everts of the First Baptist Church, Dr. Z. M.
Humphrey of the First Presbyterian Church, Dr.
R. W. Patterson of the Second Presbyterian Church,
Drs. T. M. Eddy and I. H. Tiffany of the Methodist
Church, Dr. W. W. Patton of the First Congrega-
tional Church, Dr. W. H. Ryder of St. Paul's Uni-
versalist Church, Dr. Robert Collyer of Unity Church

29

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

were men who were able to fill any pulpit in the land.
Without exception they were staunch defenders of
the Union and throughout the war were untiring in
their efforts to support the government and provide
for the wants of the soldiers. Not less outspoken
than they or less earnest in their service were Dr.
Robert H. Clarkson of St. James' Episcopal Church
and Father Dennis Dunne of the Roman Catholic
Church. From his own minister, Dr. Humphrey,
and from each of the others, as he listened to them
from time to time, Dr. Pearsons heard words which
could not fail to deepen his sense of the value of an
education and his conviction that opportunities for
acquiring it should be open to the children of the
poorest families in the country.

The leading newspaper was The Tribune, owned in
part but edited and controlled by Joseph Medill,
whose instinct for journalism was inborn, and whose
great ability was always used for what he conceived
to be right. Its competitor, The Times, brilliant
and somewhat unscrupulous, was edited and owned
by William F. Story, a man of rare talent, and greatly
loved by those who knew him intimately. During
the war this paper was not always loyal to the Gov-
ernment. The evening journals were of less impor-
tance, though they filled a large place in the estima-
tion of the public. Outside their respective denom-
inations, the religious papers were little known and
their circulation was small. The business of the
city was ranged around the Court House, which
stood on the present site of the City Hall, and occu-

30

CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER

pied an entire block. It was not till after the war,
although the city rapidly increased in size during
the period of hostilities, that a new and better Chi-
cago began to show itself. This new Chicago, which
the Census of 1870 reported as having a population
of 293,000, was in its business section, as well as in
its North Side residence quarter, almost wholly
swept away by the fire of 1871. In the new Chicago,
which gradually took the place of the one which had
been destroyed, its builders had commendable pride,
though many years passed before all the marks
which the tornado of fire had left were removed.
That third Chicago is now giving place to a city
whose hotels, immense stores, sky-scrapers, office
buildings, railway-stations and palatial homes call
forth the admiration of every visitor. That a retail
store, and a dry-goods store at that, should occupy
in the first decade of the new century, the entire
front on State Street, between Washington and
Randolph Streets and nearly as much space on the
Wabash Avenue front had hardly entered the mind
of Marshall Field, the great merchant, or of any of
his partners in the seventies or the eighties. Nor
had William Deering or Cyrus H. McCormick or
P. D. Armour or Gustavus A. Swift dreamed of a
business like that which their successors now control.
But even then the stress of business was severe and
the problems which were daily coming up for solu-
tion were perplexing. That so many of them were
solved satisfactorily may well excite wonder.

Lake Street was the center of the dry-goods trade

31

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

of the city. Dearborn Street, between Lake and
Madison Streets, was the center of the banking
business. Until 1864, the Second Baptist Church
worshipped in a building which stood on the South
East corner of La Salle and Washington Street, a
corner afterwards occupied by the Board of Trade.
The Second Presbyterian Church was at the corner
of Wabash Avenue and Randolph Street, and the
First Baptist Church and the First Presbyterian
Church were not far from each other on Wabash
Avenue near Van Buren Street.

Where the Auditorium Hotel now stands was a
row of marble fronts, three stories in height, with
a basement for kitchen and dining room, known as
the Marble Terrace, in which Tuthill King, S. C.
Griggs, J. W. Peck, J. W. Scammon and ex-Governor
Bross had their homes. This row of houses was
destroyed in the fire of 1871 and was never fully
rebuilt.

Important as Chicago was in 1860 as a business
center, it was then yet little more than a straggling
western town. Since the panic of 1857 there had
not been much building. The prevailing architec-
ture, save in a few residence quarters, was unattrac-
tive. The hotels were the most imposing buildings
in the city. As houses of entertainment, few better
could be found anywhere. Among them the Sher-
man House, Tremont, Richmond and Metropolitan
deserve mention.

The Wigwam, in which Abraham Lincoln was
nominated for the Presidency, stood on Market

32

CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER

Street between Randolph and Washington Streets.
In it the Honorable W. M. Evarts of New York City,
presented as a candidate for the Presidency the name
of the Honorable William H. Seward of New York,
whose nomination the East had taken for granted.
He was followed by the Honorable Norman B. Judd
of Chicago, who presented the name of Abraham Lin-
coln of Illinois. There were no nominating speeches
like those to which we are now accustomed. But
feeling was intense and often very bitter. Outside
his own state Lincoln was little known, while Seward
was known and honored throughout the whole coun-
try. The nomination of Lincoln added to the inter-
est which the East had begun to take in Chicago,
and drew attention to it as a new center for the
creation and expression of public opinion. Through-
out the war Chicago was faithful to the cause of the
Union, not only in the raising and equipment of sol-
diers, but in providing for their comfort in field and
hospital. It was in this city that immense fairs were
held in the interest of the Sanitary Commission, in
which such women as Mrs. M. D. Hoge and Mrs.
Mary Livermore were prominent and movements
originated which contributed not a little to the
efficiency of our armies.

But while outwardly patriotic and apparently
ready to submit to any sacrifice for the honor of the
flag, the city as early as 1859 was divided into parties
which took opposite sides on the questions which
led to the Civil War. Native Americans, coming
from places north of Mason and Dixon's Line, were
3 33

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

for freedom and the Union, at whatever cost. Sym-
pathizing with them were the Germans and the
Scandinavians, an important element in the city,
and a majority of the Irish. Men born and educated
in the South, and the number was quite large, fa-
vored slavery and the doctrine of States Rights, and
were willing to permit secession as a last resort.
These honest differences of opinion and the discus-
sions to which they gave rise, help to make Chicago
an interesting place in which to live, even if its busi-
ness interests were sometimes threatened.

IV
BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

IV

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

IT WAS a rainy morning in April, 1860, when Dr.
and Mrs. Pearsons came to Chicago to live.
They had no home of their own to which they
might go. There were no friends or relatives to bid
them welcome. Their entrance into the city excited
little interest, either on the part of men of wealth or
of the general public. As capital, the Doctor brought
five thousand dollars in cash in his handbag and
deeds to farms he owned out in the state.

A slight acquaintance with Mr. William H. Carter,
who kept a boarding-house at 46 Van Buren Street,
led him thither. Here board was secured for him-
self and wife at ten dollars a week. Here for several
years they had their home. A desk for business
was hired in the office of Harvey B. Hurd and Henry
Booth, 116 Randolph Street, for twenty-five dollars
a year. The second year the rent was doubled, and
the third, on the ground of the Doctor's growing
business, it was trebled. The Doctor decided that
if he must pay seventy-five dollars a year for a desk
in an office not his own, it would be better for him
to have an office which he could control. One was

37

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

found at a moderate rent not far from the one he had
occupied. It was in the Methodist Church Block.
This office he cared for himself and remained in it
for several years. It was always in good order.

When Mr. Carter, following the example of
Messrs. Hurd and Booth, raised the price of board
beyond what Dr. Pearsons deemed a reasonable
figure, he determined to have a house and home of
his own. He found no difficulty in exchanging land
in the country for 48 Van Buren Street, where he
lived many years. The house was well situated. It
was not far from the business center of the city, not
far from the First Presbyterian Church, at which
Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons were constant attendants.
As the city grew, however, this house became less
and less desirable as a place of residence; and after
disposing of it, its occupants went to the Palmer
House, where they continued to reside for sixteen
or seventeen years, or until their removal in 1885
to Hinsdale, a suburb sixteen miles from the city.

From a business point of view to most men the
outlook in 1860 would not have appeared altogether
promising. At that time few would have thought it
possible to lay the foundations of a large fortune by
the sale of land in neglected sections of the state.

Hay, when delivered, was bringing one dollar and
fifty cents a ton. Oats were selling at twelve and
one half cents a bushel. Corn brought only ten
cents a bushel. What inducement could there be to
buy land in Illinois? Neither farming nor stock-
raising at prevailing prices offered any great attrac-

38

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

tion to settlers. With an energy that seemed inex-
haustible, and an optimism that discouragements
could not weaken, Dr. Pearsons began and continued
to persuade men and women from the East, native
Americans, not a few of whom were of Scotch, Irish
or German descent, to make their homes in Illinois.
Of failure there was no thought. Sales of land were
made in lots of forty, eighty, one hundred and
twenty, one hundred and sixty acres, one quarter
of the price in cash, the remainder in one, two, three
years with interest at six per cent although the
regular rate was ten per cent or more. Usually he
was ready to loan money on favorable terms for
improvements, and thus was able to secure one fee
for the sale of the land, and another for lending
money with which to improve it.

When he settled in Chicago he was forty years old.
His faculties were well developed and thoroughly
disciplined. Rugged strength and a tenacious pur-
pose had come to him through his early struggles
and continued self-denials for an education. As a
physician he had studied people and learned some-
thing of the motives by which they are influenced.
Interest in Mary Lyon and her work for young
women, as well as personal efforts to improve the
sanitary, the intellectual and the moral conditions
of the village in which he had lived, had introduced
an altruistic element into his character which years
afterward became masterful. Travel abroad had
given him a glimpse of old-world conditions, and
travel in his own country had prepared him for the

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

business career upon which he was now entering.
He knew men East and West, North and South.
Tall, straight as an arrow, with no superfluous flesh,
with a keen black eye, which seemed to penetrate
to the depths of one's nature at a glance, with a
dignity of movement and manner which indicated
complete confidence in himself, with a frankness and
even bluntness of expression which spoke of honesty
of purpose and a determination to deal fairly with
all who came to him, he began in Chicago that
struggle for wealth which in thirty years brought
about results with which the world is familiar.

Whatever others may have thought, the man and
the times, were suited to each other. The oppor-
tunities for business which the city and state afforded
with the difficulties connected with them, were just
what a person with Dr. Pearsons' temperament and
character needed to stimulate him in the highest
degree and to bring out all that was best in him. To
his credit it should be said that if the money-making
instinct was strong in him, equally strong was the
purpose that the gains which came to him should
sometime be devoted to the cause of Christian
education.

The years were strenuous, the earlier ones in par-
ticular. For months at a time, Monday morning
would find the Doctor at a railway station, carpet-
bag in hand, ready for a trip to the country. He
had carefully arranged his route. He knew where
he would stop at night, where he would get each
meal. It was not at every house one would care to

40

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

sleep or eat. Ordinarily the Doctor would take
from four to six men with him to see the land he
was offering for sale. These men were all prospec-
tive buyers. But the Doctor did not care to sell
until purchasers had been on the land he wished
them to buy. While looking over the different
tracts of land, one would say, "I will take this sec-
tion, or a part of it," another would choose another
section, and a third and a fourth each, another,
till the entire tract, sometimes containing several
thousand acres, was sold. On one of the best of
these days more than five thousand acres passed
through his hands. In this way the foundations of
many villages were laid, which afterwards grew into
large and prosperous towns. Was this kind of work
profitable? Ask the Doctor, and he will tell you that
his five per cent commission on the sale of land
brought him very large returns. Did all of this
remain in his hands? By no means. Some of it
was expended in order that more might be made.
Apart from the cost of selling, which was deducted
from his profits, he was constantly asked for special
gifts. Men would say, "We are Methodists," or,
"We are Baptists" or " Presbyterians, and we must
settle where we can have schoolhouses or a church,
where we can feel at home, or a library," and then
the Doctor would reply, "Get together just such a
company as you want, select the place where you
want to live, and I will furnish the land at so much
an acre. I will loan you so much on it and I will
give one hundred, two hundred, perhaps three hun-

41

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

dred dollars for your schoolhouse, church or library."
Though the Doctor believed in being generous with
the people who bought his land, he disclaimed any
idea of benevolence in gifts like those just men-
tioned. They were investments from which he looked
for large returns in money. All the same, they were
gifts, and their frequency, and their amount had a
share in preparing him for the time when the making
of money would cease and the distribution of it
became the business of his life.

It was in the eastern part of the state or a little
to the east of the center that the larger portion of
the land Dr. Pearsons had for sale was located.
Prior to his coming to Illinois settlers had shunned,
as undesirable, lands very far east of the line of the
Illinois Central Railroad, or even adjoining it. The
Doctor saw very soon that if he would succeed in his
business, he must convince people that just as good
homes could be made on the lands he had for sale as
those already occupied farther West. With the re-
sources at his command he soon effected an entire
change of feeling in the minds of incoming settlers.

Sundays were spent in Chicago. They were
happy, restful days. Mornings and evenings, Dr.
and Mrs. Pearsons would be in their pew in the First
Presbyterian Church. At home the Doctor would
learn from his wife what the women of the church were
trying to do for the needy, and through her, money
would find its way to them in ever-enlarging streams
of benevolence. The first year of his life in Chicago
saw him a teacher in the Railroad Mission established

42

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

by Father Kent, and under the care of the First Pres-
byterian Church; he was soon deeply interested
in it and glad to give both time and money to its
support. Patriotic as a man born in Vermont and
living so long in Massachusetts could hardly fail to
be, in spite of the political excitement of the times,
he gave himself wholly to business. Perhaps, like
many others, he doubted at first if the South would
take up arms against the North. Were war to
break out, he could not believe it would be serious
or last long. He felt, too, that in bringing the right
kind of men into the State as permanent residents, he
was adding strength to the cause of freedom.

More and more his office became the center of
important money transactions. Profits from his
regular business and from increasingly large invest-
ments drew the attention of moneyed men to him.
As has been said, he not only sold land, but also
loaned money on it after its sale. For many years
hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid out by
him for first mortgages and in a majority of instances
on land which he himself had sold. Nor need any-
one be surprised at the amount of the loans he made,
for he sold not less than two hundred thousand
acres of land in Illinois alone. In the decade from
1860 to 1870 Dr. Pearsons became a rich man. He
was recognized as such in banking circles and in the
commercial circles of the city. His advice was
sought in matters pertaining to the city as the
advice of one of its leading citizens. When a new
bank was formed, it was a good advertisement for

43

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

it, if the name of Dr. D. K. Pearsons could be found
in the list of its stockholders. It was equally valu-
able for the Company which was seeking to develop
the South Side City Railway System. A man of
the strictest integrity, of unusual force of charac-
ter, of rare judgment in all financial matters, he
easily had found a place among the financial leaders
of the city.

It was in the late sixties that Dr. Pearsons began
to buy pine lands in Michigan. Business friends
shook their heads, warned him against the risks he
was taking, said that there was timber enough in
Michigan to last five hundred years, and that any
man buying these lands would surely lose all of the
money he put into them. The Doctor persisted, as
he usually did when he made up his mind to do any-
thing, and kept on buying and paying cash for his
purchases, until he had become the owner of six-
teen thousand acres of some of the best timber land
in the state. He, himself, superintended the cutting
of the logs, and often sold them himself. The Fire
of 1871 increased the demand for timber, and it was
fortunate for him, that when twelve of his houses
on the North Side were burned, he could exchange
his lumber for their reconstruction. The fire
brought him his share of loss, although he suffered
less than many others, for the larger part of his
houses were on the South Side. But he was one of
the men who with courage went through those terri-
ble days of devastation and suffering, and gave him-
self earnestly and enthusiastically to the work of

44

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

reconstruction. From him no expression of doubt
was ever heard as to the power of the city to rise
from its ashes with new strength and a more pros-
perous business life than it had yet seen.

A broker in land, a lender of money, director in
several banks, director in the South Side City Rail-
way Company, representative of the ^Etna Life
Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut, and
of other men's interests till 1877, in that year he
laid aside the obligations he had hitherto assumed
for others, and gave himself wholly to his own inter-
ests. The business which he had built up, he turned
over to two of his clerks, Mr. H. A. Pearsons, a
nephew, and Mr. O. B. Taft, young men of fine
business ability who first, as Pearsons and Taft,
and later as the Pearsons-Taft Land Credit Com-
pany, have continued and enlarged that business,
until it is now one of the most prominent and sound-
est land companies in the United States.

V

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO— Continued

V

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO— Continued

FOR the twelve years following 1877, Dr. Pear-
sons continued in business for himself only.
He bought and sold in his own name, land,
houses, wood, timber. A large depositor in the
banks, he rarely or never borrowed from them or
did anything that in any way could shake his credit.
A great deal of his property was in such shape that
he could get its value in cash at short notice. Such
bankers as Solomon Smith and Chauncy Blair were
his close friends. Daniel A. Jones of the Board of
Trade was another man with whom, in the church
as well as in business, he was intimately associated,
and of whose estate of four million dollars, he was
one of the executors. From this estate he secured
one hundred thousand dollars for the Presbyterian
Hospital, which under the influence of Drs. J. P.
Ross and E. A. Hamill he had been instrumental in
founding. To this hospital he himself has given not
far from another hundred thousand dollars, in addi-
tion to personal service the value of which cannot
be estimated. Without this service it is doubtful
if the hospital could have been established as early
4 49

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

as 1873, certainly not with anything like its finan-
cial strength and magnificent equipment.

Many of the men with whom he was associated
in the management of the South Side Railway were
men of very strong personality. S. B. Cobb, Jerome
Beecher, whose names are borne by some of the
buildings on the campus of the University of Chi-
cago, Jacob Rosenberg, S. W. Allerton, were men of
wealth and of decided convictions as to the way
in which business should be conducted. Dr. Pear-
sons was equally strong in his convictions. These
were the men who advocated the use of the cable in
place of horses, and later were willing to replace
the cable with electricity. Conservative as they
all were, they did not hesitate to spend money for
improvements which would reduce the cost of oper-
ation, furnish better service to the public and increase
their own profits.

As a large owner of real estate Dr. Pearsons was
brought in close relations with real estate men, and
from them learned at first hand when to buy and
when to sell. But neither he nor any of the men in
whose judgment he confided, had any true idea of
the changes which would take place in the values
of land within the city limits, or in its outlying
districts. They failed to perceive the full extent
of the change which would be wrought in trans-
portation by the use of electricity instead of the
cable, by the building of elevated roads or by increas-
ing facilities for suburban travel. They knew that
the changes wrought by these means would be

50

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

very great and of immense importance, but their
full significance when they were made, no one seems
to have grasped. They would have scouted the
idea that land would ever bring within the loop the
price now asked for it. Nor did they foresee the
demand which would be made and continue to be
made for land for great business establishments
within or near the limits of the city.

Though not in competition with any of the
real estate men of the city, at the head of a busi-
ness whose interests were out in the state rather
than in the city, he was yet brought by the force of
his character and by the success of the business
which he managed into close relations with the lead-
ing business-men of the city, and as a man of wealth
was associated with them by the public. That he
was influenced by the remarkable men whose names
have been given in the preceding chapter and that
in his turn he influenced them, is certainly true. In
any other city and among other men he might not
have become the man he was or have attained the
prominence he did, as one of the leaders in the finan-
cial affairs of the city.

Great as were the interests of the later years of
his business life, Dr. Pearsons did not allow himself,
under the pressure of the surprising changes then
going forward, to forget the social, intellectual and
refining interests of the city. He had a share, and
no small one, in organizing the Society of the Sons
of Vermont, was a constant attendant at its meet-
ings, over which he sometimes presided and not

51

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

infrequently addressed. He was interested also
in the work of the Historical Society, the Academy
of Sciences and the Art Institute. He was one of
the men to whom it was possible to go for advice
and aid in anything which really concerned the wel-
fare of the city.

As Chairman for fifteen years of the Board of
Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church, he took
the lead with such able helpers as Messrs. Swift
and Sherwood in paying the debt of eighty-two
thousand dollars resting on the Society. Toward
that debt, first and last, he himself contributed not
less than fifteen thousand dollars to say nothing of
the time spent in visiting persons in order to obtain
their subscriptions. Those who were present can
never forget the surprise they felt when one Sunday
morning Dr. Arthur Mitchell, the pastor, stopped
in the midst of his sermon and asked Dr. Pearsons
to come forward and address the people. The con-
gregation was large. Men of wealth were there in
goodly numbers. Rather more than forty thousand
dollars were still to be pledged if the debt was paid.
The trustees had said that sum could not be secured
and so thought the pastor. Dr. Pearsons was con-
fident that it could be. His first words were words
of cheer. "This debt is going to be paid this morn-
ing. We can pay it and we will pay it. It only
means that those who have given one thousand
dollars must give two thousand. I have given
five thousand dollars and I am going to give five
thousand more." Then the tellers, carefully selected

52

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

by Dr. Pearsons beforehand, went round to receive
pledges. Thirty thousand dollars came in. Ten
thousand were left. "Who will provide for this
little remnant of debt in blocks of two hundred and
fifty dollars each?" In a few minutes the blocks
were taken and so ended this debt-paying affair
which meant so much to this important church,
but which Dr. Pearsons used to say was not worth
mentioning. Its success was due to the generosity,
the wisdom, the patience and the persistency of
the man who has done so much for the colleges of
our country.

In 1873, while living at the Palmer House, in the
First Ward, Dr. Pearsons was nominated as an alder-
man to represent that ward in the common council.
It was an independent nomination, but was promptly
accepted by both parties, so that the election was
practically unanimous. He served in the council
for three years and to the duties which came to him
as alderman, gave almost undivided attention.
Speaking of the time required for the discharge of
these duties he has said again and again, it cost him
not less than fifty thousand dollars a year to serve
the Ward while he represented it. Mayor Heath
made him chairman of the finance committee which
included such men as S. H. McCrea, once President
of the Board of Trade, Jacob Rosenberg and J. B.
Briggs. The city had suffered very greatly from the
fire of October 9, 1871. Taxes had been collected
with difficulty. Even those of 1873 and 1874 were
delinquent. It was a part of the duty of the finance

53

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

committee to discover some way to collect them.
Meanwhile the credit of the city was at a low ebb.
In fact it was as nearly bankrupt as a city could be
and preserve the semblance of credit. It was pay-
ing its bills in scrip which was selling at a discount.
Through a New York bank, five hundred thousand
dollars worth of bonds had been sold. Interest on
them was overdue and the creditors were demanding
their money. Mayor Heath and the other members
of the finance committee urged Dr. Pearsons to go
to New York, pacify these bondholders by explain-
ing the situation, and persuade them to give the city
a little more time to meet its obligations. The
president of the bank through which the bonds had
been sold gave Dr. Pearsons a hearty welcome and
set aside a room for him in which to meet the dis-
appointed and clamoring creditors.

There was something in Dr. Pearsons' appear-
ance that created a favorable feeling toward him on
their part, from the very first. In reporting that
meeting he said that as these creditors gathered,
they had little to say about what was due them,
but a great deal about what the city had suffered
from the fire. Although no money was paid them
at the time, they went away satisfied that the city
would finally, as it did, meet all of its obligations.
There was a single exception. One man came into
the room where Dr. Pearsons was conferring with
the creditors, saying in a loud voice and waving a
piece of paper, "Where is that man from Chicago?
I want my money, and I want it now."

54

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

" Do you want the principal as well as the interest?"

"Can I have it?" he asked.

"Certainly," replied Dr. Pearsons. "Wait until
I telegraph to Chicago; I have money in the bank.
I will pay you myself. The credit of the city is
good. I will advance you the money."

"Do you mean that you will pay this money
yourself, and do you say that the credit of the city
is good?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, then," said the man, in a different tone of
voice, "if I can have my money when I want it, I
do not care for it now," and putting his paper in his
pocket he quietly withdrew. This was one of the
men who had given the President of the Bank a
great deal of trouble by his unreasonable demands
for his money. It was the manner of Dr. Pearsons,
his tact in dealing with men, his ability and when
necessary, as in the case just mentioned, his willing-
ness to pledge his own fortune to save the credit of
the city, that rendered this visit to New York at this
critical period in its history, so important and so
memorable. Without the aid and the firmness of
such Mayors as Monroe Heath and Thomas Hoyne,
backed by such men as formed their Finance Com-
mittee, the scrip which had been issued to meet
current expenses would have been repudiated. For
on some technical ground the court pronounced its
issue illegal. The Finance Committee refused to
take advantage of the creditors of the city, even with
a decision of a court behind them. In time the scrip

55

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

was taken up at its full value. It is doubtful if any
three years of Dr. Pearsons' life have ever been more
useful than the three years in which he served Chi-
cago as alderman from the First Ward.

In 1889 the public was startled by the announce-
ment that Dr. D. K. Pearsons had retired from busi-
ness, that having acquired a fortune he saw no
reason for increasing it, that as he had no children
to provide for, no relatives dependent upon him for
support, he could see no reason why he should not
devote the remainder of his days to travel and to the
employment of the means which God had entrusted
to him for the welfare of others. But the announce-
ment made it clear that it would do no good to
solicit gifts from him, that having acquired his for-
tune through his own efforts he would dispose of it
without asking advice from any one.

Some years before reaching this decision Dr.
Pearsons had purchased a ten-acre tract of land in
Hinsdale, a suburb on the Burlington Road, sixteen
miles from the city of Chicago. The land was
slightly rolling, well covered with noble trees, and
within a short walk from the railway station. Almost
in the center of this beautiful tract, the Doctor
erected a large and comfortable house and furnished
it in accordance with his wife's wishes and in deference
to her taste. In this delightful home they lived
together until 1906, when Mrs. Pearsons, after a
long illness, passed on to her eternal rest. Lovers
of the beautiful, not indifferent to what is known as
good living, with no pleasure in the gaieties of life,

56

I

s

uur

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

rarely entering into society, caring nothing for
fashion, above the temptation to spend money for
show, they were satisfied to dwell apart from the
strife of the business world, and to consider in what
way they could most wisely invest the means God
had given them for the permanent advantage of the
youth of the nation. At Hinsdale they resumed the
simple life in which they had taken such pleasure
at 48 Van Buren Street, and still earlier, in Chicopee,
Massachusetts. They enjoyed the visits of con-
genial friends and the freedom of abundant space
and pure air, and with daily rides in an attractive
country they renewed their strength and deepened
their interest in the welfare of mankind.

Free from business obligations, Dr. and Mrs.
Pearsons were at liberty to go where they pleased,
whether in their own country or in other countries.
Both were very fond of travel, fond of meeting intel-
ligent people with views somewhat different from
their own. Three times they crossed the Atlantic
and extended their visits East. They made them-
selves familiar with the Pacific Coast from Southern
California to Alaska. Winters they spent wholly,
or in part, at the South, sometimes visiting again the
places they had visited in the early years of their
business life. Summers often found them in New
England with friends or at quiet resorts where they
met people with whom it was a pleasure to associate.

A very important member of the Hinsdale family
was a sister of Mrs. Pearsons, Miss Julia A. Chapin,
who had cared for her mother in the East till her

57

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

death, and who afterwards made her home in Hins-
dale. She was a brilliant woman, intellectually and
socially, very benevolent, and heartily in sympathy
with her brother and sister in their plans of dispos-
ing of their wealth. At her death in 1904, the Wom-
an's Board of Foreign Missions for the Interior,
received a bequest from her of more than $23,000.00
as an endowment. To this home there came visitors
from every section of the country, and even from
abroad, seeking for such aid as its inmates were giv-
ing and confirming them in the wisdom of the plans
they had determined to follow. Here were discussed
those methods of giving which have placed so many
of our colleges on a good financial basis and have made
a higher education possible even for poor boys and
girls. Nor were these discussions confined to the
United States alone. The interests and needs of the
foreign field were not forgotten. Anatolia College
in Turkey received large and timely aid, and through
Mrs. Pearsons the Presbyterians were enabled to
keep at least two women steadily at work in the
fields under their care. Young women from the
South, chiefly from Berea, born among the moun-
tains, uncultured and untrained as they were, were
received into the home, and while employed as serv-
ants were treated as friends and companions; after
receiving instructions from Mrs. Pearsons in the
mysteries and duties of housekeeping and the usages
of good society, they returned to the college to finish
their studies, or to their homes, from which others
were sent away for an education.

58

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

Here we may pause to ask how it was possible for
a man forty years of age, without influential friends,
in less than thirty years to acquire a fortune of sev-
eral millions of dollars in a city like Chicago? Most
people would say it was because of his rare business
capacity, the singleness of his aim, of his power to
read men at a glance, his honesty in all his transac-
tions, and his evident interest in the welfare of the
men with whom he dealt. The Doctor's answer to
this question always has been, "Through a kind
Providence all things worked together for my advan-
tage. All my plans succeeded." True, they were
well-laid plans. They were carefully thought out,
and only those followed which promised immediate
success. Few risks were taken. One object was kept
in mind, the making of money. Expenses were kept
at the lowest point possible, consistent with com-
fortable living. Nothing was paid out for costly
entertainments. No money was wasted on theatres
or operas. With household expenses never exceed-
ing two or three thousand dollars a year, and per-
sonal expenses reduced to a minimum, it is not diffi-
cult to see that with an income that often averaged
three thousand dollars a week, money would accum-
ulate rapidly. The gains were all invested with
great care and were soon adding large sums to the
yearly income. Opportunities for investment were
constant and promising. Bank stock was pur-
chased at its lowest price. This stock was never
sold. Its dividends were invested in stock in other
banks at or near par, and as this stock was con-

59

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

stantly rising in value, the gain on it alone in the
course of a generation would produce a fortune.
For many years houses and land in different parts
of the city rapidly increased in value. The pine
lands in Michigan yielded large returns. But with
the same opportunities another man might not have
obtained the wealth which seemed to flow so natur-
ally into Dr. Pearsons' hands. His success was
certainly due to the good Providence of God, but
with that Providence he cooperated. He was care-
ful to keep his character good. He looked after his
health. He dressed with scrupulous care, though
inexpensively. If his diet was simple, it was as
nourishing as possible. He never failed to give him-
self sufficient sleep, or to sleep where he would have
an abundance of fresh air. Nor did he hesitate to
spend money generously when necessary to secure
more business. He advertised extensively. He
gave money to churches, schools, libraries in order
to persuade people to buy his land. He cultivated
the acquaintance of leading men who lived in the
region where his lands were situated. He took
pains to have good stories to tell when he met farm-
ers and business men out in the state. Whenever he
made a sale of land he did his best to make the pur-
chaser feel that he had obtained the worth of his
money. In various ways he sought and succeeded
in winning the confidence of people, so that when
immigrants came from the East their friends would
refer them to him as a man who would treat them
honestly and befriend them to the best of his ability.

60

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

True, he held people to their agreements. They were
expected to meet their obligations promptly, but
no more was ever exacted than was due, and no land
title which passed through his hands was found
imperfect.

He never complained. Disappointed at times he
may have been, but of these disappointments he
said nothing. He was cheerful in the homes where
he stopped for a night for food. He was optimistic
in the darkest period of our history. Were the times
hard? He knew they would be better. He could
give reasons for his belief, and often won many
others over to his way of thinking.

As a business man he trusted his own judgment.
He did not ask advice of other men, however suc-
cessful they may have been. Yet he did not over-
look the fact that the methods they had pursued,
might be the methods he ought to pursue. But he
did not follow them, until after careful investiga-
tion, he had convinced himself of their value.
He did nothing hastily, yet at times his decisions
seemed to be made on the spur of the moment. In
reality they were the result of years of experience
and study. Having made himself master of all
the facts connected with the transactions he had in
hand, he was, naturally, equal to any emergency
that might arise with regard to any one of them.
In his case there was not much chance for emer-
gencies. He had prepared for them so carefully that
they did not arise, or if now and then one met him,
he was ready for it. He was careful not to be taken

61

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

off his guard, or to be tempted into speech or action
he might afterwards regret. In his later business
years as the result of long experience, he could say
almost immediately whether he would or would not
consider a proposed trade. He learned to know
men. His clerk used to say of him, that he would
look a man through as soon as he came into his
office, and that his judgment of him was nearly
always correct. This gift was of value to him not
only in his business life, but in that more strenuous
period devoted to the distribution of his property. It
enabled him to detect beggars who came to him as
gentlemen, but whose object was personal gain.
Not many of these beggars of the first rank were
likely to call upon him a second time. His refusal
to grant their request did not need to be repeated.
He was equally quick to detect merit, and many a
man who entered his office in fear went away with
courage, for he had seen a man who sympathized
with him, realized what burdens he was carrying
and had promised him help.

One of the rules which he followed and commended
to a company of young men seeking his advice in his
own language is as follows: "Keep cool, don't
overload the stomach, breathe pure air, and lots of
it, eat a vegetable diet, don't eat late suppers, go to
bed early, don't fret, don't go where you will get
excited, and when you grow older, don't forget to
take a nap after dinner. Old age depends upon
heredity, common sense and a good stomach." In
a speech at Beloit in reply to the question, "How

62

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO

did I make my money?" he said: "I'll tell you
boys a secret. I did it by keeping my character
clean. That's the only thing I had to start with,
and it is the best thing any man can have. With-
out it you are not worth a picayune. " In an address to
the Sons of Vermont, at one of their annual dinners,
he said, "It is not easy to give the secret of success.
It cannot be described. It is inborn." And yet he
was always careful to say that he never lost sight
of his determination when in business life to make
money, to put aside anything and everything that
interfered with it; that he never spent money fool-
ishly, or for anything not absolutely necessary,
nothing for theatres or operas, or base-ball or foot-
ball exhibitions, nothing for simple pleasure unless
in travel; that he practised the utmost economy, was
frugal from the first and intended to be until the end
of his life, that he never did any business on borrowed
capital or entered into speculations of any sort. He
kept his resources so completely under his control
that he could turn them into cash at an hour's
notice.

It is not strange that such men as he should suc-
ceed. It would have been stranger if he had failed.
For to clearness of vision, a cheerful and optimistic
disposition, a judgment of men that rarely failed to
be correct, native endowments of a very high order,
a business ability that seemed to thrive on difficulties,
and singleness of aim, there were added a persis-
tency of purpose which nothing could turn aside, a
willingness to endure hardship and continuance of

63

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

toil which would have broken down almost any other
man, a combination of qualities which won success
almost as soon as they were brought into exercise
and rendered failure well-nigh impossible.

VI

BEGINNING OF A GREAT BENEVOLENT CAREER.
GIFTS TO CHICAGO INSTITUTIONS. DECI-
SION TO AID COLLEGES

VI

BEGINNING OF A GREAT BENEVOLENT CAREER.
GIFTS TO CHICAGO INSTITUTIONS. DECI-
SION TO AID COLLEGES

PREVIOUS chapters have shown that Dr.
Pearsons was looked upon as a generous man
long before colleges became the chief object
of his bounty. Until his removal to Hinsdale in
1885, he was a steady attendant at the First Presby-
terian Church, of which his wife was a member, one
of its staunchest and most liberal supporters, and
a willing contributor to its many charities. As has
been said he was a teacher in its Railroad Mission,
founded by Rev. Aratus Kent, in hearty sympathy
with its work and ready always to bear his full
share of its expenses.

After his removal to Hinsdale in 1885, at a largely
attended meeting of its Society, the church put on
record its appreciation of the service he had rendered
it while acting as Chairman of its Board of Trustees.
It was through his initiative, by his personal efforts
in connection with such men as the late Messrs.
Sherwood and Swift and by his own gifts of more
than ten thousand dollars that its debt was paid.

67

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

The Resolution, which reads: "Resolved: that
hearty thanks be given to Dr. D. K. Pearsons for his
faithful and devoted service, wise counsel and liberal
gifts, especially during the financial distress of this
church," was unanimously adopted and with expres-
sions of sorrow that he had found it necessary to
remove from the city and establish his home in one
of its suburbs.

Interested from its organization in the work of
the Y. M. C. A., to which from the first to the last
he has given very large sums, in October, 1887, he
turned over to its President, J. V. Farwell, Jr.,
property valued at $30,000.00. In 1908 the Asso-
ciation received from him $20,000.00 in cash and in
1909 $20,000.00 more. For the LaSalle Street
Building he gave $10,000.00. That the Association
appreciates his interest in it, is shown in the follow-
ing statement by its Secretary, L. Wilbur Messer.

"Dr. Pearsons has made four substantial gifts to
The Young Men's Christian Association of Chicago.
His first gift was a piece of property on Cottage
Grove Avenue, then valued at $30,000.00. In that
period of the Association's history this gift was
most significant in its amount, and in the recogni-
tion by Dr. Pearsons of the need of permanent
endowment for the future development of the Asso-
ciation work. The amount realized by the sale of
this property was invested in the endowment por-
tion of the LaSalle Street Building.

" The second gift of Dr. Pearsons was to the amount
of $10,000.00 in cash for the LaSalle Street Building.

68

DECISION TO AID COLLEGES

This additional gift was most timely in showing the
continued interest of Dr. Pearsons in the welfare of
the Association and in binding conditional sub-
scriptions.

"The third gift of Dr. Pearsons was the amount of
$20,000.00, made in the early stage of the canvass
for the Fiftieth Anniversary Million Dollar Fund.
This fund was dependent on securing the larger
portion of the substantial gifts from representative
citizens. The generous cooperation of Dr. Pearsons
assisted us in closing large conditional subscriptions
and in securing the cooperation of many others.

"The fourth gift was for the sum of $20,000.00 at
the time of the twelve-day canvass for the comple-
tion of the million dollar fund. The Association
had raised $831,000.00 toward its million dollar
fund in subscriptions from less than three hundred
persons. The twelve-day canvass was then inaugu-
rated to raise $350,000.00 which would not only com-
plete the Anniversary Fund, but would make pos-
sible the building improvements not contemplated
when that fund was started. Toward the close of
this campaign Dr. Pearsons really saved the situ-
ation by this, his second subscription of $20,000.00,
to the anniversary fund. This gift was the more
significant in view of the fact that the Doctor had
said that he would make no other gifts except to
colleges which had already been included among
his beneficiaries. The work of this Association so
appealed to him, however, and his former interest
having continued, he made his gift consistent by

69

LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS

stating that he had adopted The Young Men's
Christian Association of Chicago as one of his
family.

"Even more significant than the gifts already men-
tioned was the generous and spontaneous offer from
Dr. Pearsons on the last day of the canvass that he
would pay any amount that was needed at the close
of that day to complete the fund of $350,000.00.
The Association needed $18,000.00 at the time this
offer was telephoned to our office, with only four
hours to raise that amount. The public response
was so prompt and generous, however, as to com-
plete the fund without calling on Dr. Pearsons to
make up any deficit. The gratitude of the Associa-
tion was expressed at that time in a resolution,
which was personally presented to Dr. Pearsons, at
his home, by the President and the General Secre-
tary of the Association.

"This statement will show that Dr. Pearsons has
been a most important factor in the broad develop-
ment of the life of The Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciation of Chicago and in the wise provision for
adequate endowment to safeguard its many in-
terests."

The Resolution of which Mr. Messer writes, as
passed by the officers and friends of the Y. M. C. A.
and presented to Dr. Pearsons in person, is as follows:

"The five hundred officers, members and friends
of The Young Men's Christian Association who
have successfully promoted the campaign for $350,-
000.00 in twelve days, send hearty congratulations

70

DECISION TO AID COLLEGES

and greetings to you as you approach your ninetieth
birthday on Thursday of this week.

"Your generous subscription of $20,000.00 at a
critical point in the campaign, in addition to your
former subscription of $20,000.00 for the anniver-
sary fund, and your further offer by telephone this
afternoon to make a further subscription of the
amount needed to complete the fund at 6 P. M.,
have cheered every worker and have been largely
responsible for the final success of the undertaking.

" The Young Men's Christian Association is proud
to be numbered with the many institutions whose
work has been extended and strengthened by your
generous benefactions. It is our sincere wish that
you may enjoy many years of unmeasured happiness
in realizing the results of your practical philan-
thropy."

No hospital is better known in Chicago or has
done better work than the Presbyterian. As already
said this hospital grew out of the efforts of Dr.
Pearsons in connection with those of Drs. E. A.
Hamill and J. P. Ross. It was the personal gifts of
Dr. Pearsons at the very beginning of the life of the
hospital, and his personal interest in it and work for
it that secured its early prominence and success.
He was President of its Board of Managers from
December, 1883 to April, 1884; from April, 1885 to
April, 1889; from April, 1899 to December, 1900,
about seven years in all.

His gifts to the hospital as reported by its Super-
intendent, Mr. Asa Bacon, have been as follows:

71

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

August 31, 1885 $10,000.00

January 20, 1887 5,000 . 00

November 10, 1888 10,000.00

January 24, 1889 5,000. 00

April 10, 1889 30,149 . 00

April, 1907 5,000.00

Other gifts were made from time to time of which no
account is here made. Through his efforts, in 1888
for example, the books show that at least $5,000.00
came to the hospital. Many large gifts are traceable
to his influence. As to the effect of his gifts and his
personal interest reference may be made to the
dedicatory address, dated April 22, 1889, of Dr.
John Henry Barrows, then Pastor of the First Pres-
byterian Church. His words are: "It would be
unjust not to mention, even in his presence, the
incalculable services which have been rendered by
the gifts, the active interest, and the sleepless labor
of him who for years has been the President of this
institution, Dr. D. K. Pearsons. The debt which
the hospital owes to him can never be fully under-
stood, except by those who have so faithfully worked
with him."

Ernest A. Hamill, in his report to the Board of
Managers, April 8, 1901, said: "Our esteemed
President, Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons, retired Decem-
ber 17, 1900, from the presidency of the Board of
Managers, owing to the many demands made upon
his time and strength by his philanthropic work.
One of the hospital's earliest friends, Dr. Pearsons
gave generously in money and encouragement when

72

DECISION TO AID COLLEGES

both necessities came slowly, and for many years
his interest in the hospital has been active and
practical." That interest continued unbroken to
the last days of his life, and was as deep as his inter-
est in any one of the colleges he had aided.

In the Historical Society, The Academy of Science
and more recently in the Orchestra Association, he
had an interest which found expression in substan-
tial gifts. What a single gift has accomplished for
the Art Institute we know from its highly hon-
ored Director, Mr. W. M. R. French, who
writes:

"From the foundation of the Art Institute in
1879, I had longed for a collection of Braun and
Company's reproductions of standard works of art.
I had a list of about 500 carefully prepared, hoping
to be able to buy them. About 1892 an agent of
Braun and Company visited Chicago, and I took
him to Mr. Hutchinson. (Mr. Hutchinson has been
one of the men who has put time, money and thought
into the Institute, and done more than any other
person, apart from the Director, to secure its suc-
cess.) I remember the Artist, Mr. Childe Hassam,
was here and went along with me to interpret the
agent's French. Mr. Hutchinson promptly asked
the agent to ascertain from his House at what price
they would sell their whole publication, amounting
to 16,000 or more autotypes. The Columbian Expo-
sition was coming on, and the House of Braun and
Company was anxious to have its works put before
the people. The Art Institute Building was used for

73

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

the World's Congress. The whole collection, I sup-
pose, at the retail price, would be worth $40,000 or
$50,000. The result of it all was that they offered
to sell the whole collection, excepting a few which
were virtually duplicates, or otherwise undesirable,
for $15,000.00. The photographs we actually
received numbered a little above 16,000. We have
not added more than 500 since. Mr. Hutchinson
went to Dr. Pearsons and proposed to him to pay
for half the collection, the Art Institute to pay for
the other half. To this Dr. Pearsons assented. The
next day he came in and told Mr. Hutchinson that
when he told his wife what he had done, she said he
ought not to be doing things by halves that way;
and he would pay for the whole. So the collection
was named the 'Mrs. D. K. Pearsons Collection of
Carbon Photographs.' It is the largest of its kind
in America, the second being in the Public Library
in Portland, Oregon, the third in the Athenaeum
Library in Boston. In the Art Institute it forms a
wonderful basis for the study of art. It is entirely
accessible to students at all times, and is really open
to the public on the free days of the Art Institute,
Wednesday and Saturday. It has suffered little
from its free use for sixteen or seventeen years. We
always show it to our visitors as one of the remark-
able features of the library."

The gift was made in 1892 and was without con-
ditions. This gift emphasizes a remark frequently
made by Dr. Pearsons. "It is surprising how much
good a little money will do if given wisely at the

74

DECISION TO AID COLLEGES

right time and to persons who know how to use it
for the benefit of others."

In 1887 he conveyed property worth $50,-
000.00 to the Trustees of the McCormick Theo-
logical Seminary (Presbyterian), the income to be
used as scholarships for needy young men prepar-
ing themselves for the ministry. The President of
this Seminary, Rev. Dr. James G. K. McClure,
writes :

"As to the gift made by Dr. Pearsons and his wife
to the Scholarship Endowment Fund of the Mc-
Cormick Theological Seminary, 'out of glad and
willing hearts, in the hope that it will prove to the
glory of God in the education of young men in the
Gospel Ministry,' I cannot speak with too high appre-
ciation. It came at a time when it was absolutely
necessary for the continuance of the work of the
Seminary. Without it there would have been no
sufficient provisions for the needs of the students
and the students would have been obliged either to
give up studying for the ministry or to seek some
other institution which could properly care for them.
The income from this gift has been applied care-
fully to the assistance of young men whose means
are not sufficient to carry them through the Semi-
nary course. The men who have been thus assisted
have gone into every part of the world, living and
preaching the gospel. I can well believe that no
gift Dr. Pearsons has ever made tends to bring him
larger comfort of heart than this gift to the Scholar-

75

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

ship Fund on October 25th, 1887, of McCormick
Theological Seminary."

Two days later, October 27th, as a joint gift from
himself and Mrs. Pearsons, he conveyed property
valued at $20,000.00 to the officers of the Woman's
Foreign Missionary Board of the Presbyterian
Church of the Northwest, so much of the income as
might be required to be set aside for the support of
two women as missionaries in the fields under the
care of this Board and the remainder to be used for
current expenses.

October 24, 1887, he invited Professors Fisk and
Boardman, Curtiss and Scott of the Chicago Theo-
logical Seminary (Congregational) to meet him in
his office, and after asking a few questions and
affirming his interest in the Seminary, he put into
their hands deeds to seven houses, then renting for
$4,000.00 a year and valued by experts at $50,000.00,
the income to be used as scholarships for students
in the Foreign Departments of the Seminary.

Since that first gift, Dr. Pearsons has made other
gifts amounting to more than $350,000.00, which,
coming at critical periods and for special objects,
have not only added to the efficiency of the Semi-
nary, but, as Dr. G. S. F. Savage, for so many years
its financial secretary, and one of its wisest leaders,
and most devoted friends, says, saved it from extinc-
tion. These gifts came to it when professors and
directors and friends were despondent, and inspired
new hopes in them, and stimulated them to renewed
and successful efforts in its behalf.

76

DECISION TO AID COLLEGES

In a statement concerning the results of these
gifts to the Seminary, Dr. O. S. Davis, its President,
writes:

"It is somewhat difficult to measure by any con-
crete standards the practical results of generous
donations toward the endowment of an institution.
The practical issues are seen in so many different
ways that only the record of the entire service of the
institution to civilization can adequately measure
the result of those means by which such a service
has been made possible. Therefore, since it is not
too much to say that the entire service of Chicago
Theological Seminary has depended essentially upon
the gifts of Dr. Pearsons, the first result is seen in
the total service of the Seminary to the Kingdom of
God from the day when his first gift was received.

There are, however, certain definite lines of serv-
ice in which the gifts of Dr. Pearsons have borne
peculiar fruit. Chicago Seminary has had under its
instruction nearly two thousand students. Its
unique contribution to the Kingdom and Church of
Christ has been in the establishment of three Insti-
tutes for the training of Germans, Norwegians and
Swedes ; and from these Institutes have been sent out
almost five hundred men, who have gathered over
three hundred and twenty-five churches of their
own speech. There has been no other institution
which has made an experiment of this kind, but
Chicago Seminary has spent over a hundred thou-
sand dollars in this enterprise. It is needless to say
that the donations of Dr. Pearsons have rendered

77

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

possible through their income the pursuit of this
unique work.

"In its regular departments, however, Chicago
Seminary has furnished an opportunity for techni-
cal training to the graduates of the colleges of the
Central West, and has given them the privilege of
studying in the city of Chicago, where there is to a
pre-eminent degree the one especial field in which
men may be adequately prepared for service in the
interior states. There is a freedom and democracy
in the cosmopolitan city of Chicago which is scarcely
to be found elsewhere, and the permanence of Chi-
cago Seminary in this field is essentially important
to the life of our Congregational churches in the
Middle West. While the service of our New Eng-
land Seminaries to our Congregational churches
has been efficient beyond any criticism, it is still
true that a Seminary in Chicago is logically and
essentially necessary to our Congregationalism. It
is not too much to say that without the gifts of Dr.
Pearsons the work of the Chicago Seminary could
not have been successfully maintained and its future
service could scarcely be anticipated."

From 1887 to 1911 Dr. Pearsons' interest in the
Seminary has continued. He has watched its work
and its development carefully, and, as his last gift
of $100,000.00 made without conditions shows, its
welfare has been on his heart as that of one of his
own children. Nor can anyone doubt that his con-
ditional gifts have largely increased the constituency
and friends of the Seminary. They were made at

78

DECISION TO AID COLLEGES

critical periods in its history and in such a way as
put courage and enthusiasm into the hearts of its
professors and directors.

A gift to the training school for young women as
pastor's assistants of $25,000.00 has secured a home
for teachers and students and through the affilia-
tion of the school with the seminary, made it possible
for the professors in the seminary to furnish, with-
out cost, a large part of the instruction they require.
During its short life it has already accomplished
very much good and laid foundations for future
service, the value of which can hardly be estimated.

But no gifts that Dr. Pearsons has made have
been more useful than those to the Chicago City
Missionary Society. This Society was organized
by the Congregational Churches of Chicago twenty-
nine years ago as an agency through which the larger
and more prosperous churches might aid those that
were weak and establish churches and mission schools
in places where they were needed. While aiding
churches which gave promise of speedily or in course
of a few years being able to care for themselves, its
main efforts were from the first and have continued
to be directed to purely mission fields to work with
our foreign population, or with churches which,
while doing earnest and aggressive work, give small
promise of self-support. It was to the work in this
needy field, with the poorer classes of our popula-
tion, with laboring men and women, with the chil-
dren of parents who had left their native land in the
hope of bettering their condition, that the attention

79

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

of Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons was called. With this
kind of Christian service they were both in deep
sympathy, and very early in the history of the Society
they contributed liberally to its funds. An effort of
the Society in 1904 to increase its endowment to
$150,000 met his hearty approval, and he promised,
on considering what had been accomplished and what
might be accomplished with larger means at its dis-
posal, to add to previous gifts enough to bring them
up to $50,000.00 as soon as the friends of the Society
would raise $100,000.00 more. The offer was grate-
fully accepted and the money obtained. Two or three
years ago Dr. Pearsons added another $50,000.00 to
his gifts without any conditions, except that the
work already carried on should be made more and
more efficient, and that still greater care be taken to
reach that vast class in the city which needs nothing
so much as the Christian education imparted by
churches, Sunday schools, Endeavor Societies and
the agencies connected with them or growing out of
them. Only the income of the somewhat more than
$200,000.00 endowment fund of the Society can be
used each year. But with this income grounds for
new work can be secured, aid furnished in the erec-
tion of buildings or in needed repairs, in the payment
of taxes and for such enlargement of work already
begun as otherwise would be impossible. To the
invaluable aid furnished by Dr. Pearsons the officers,
directors and friends of the Society have repeatedly
given emphatic testimony.

The honored and efficient Superintendent, who

80

DECISION TO AID COLLEGES

has been with the Society from its organization, Dr.
J. C. Armstrong, writes: "I am glad to bear testi-
mony to the indebtedness of the Chicago City Mis-
sionary Society to Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons. More
than 25,000 members have been gathered into its
churches in twenty-eight years, and there are now
(November, 1910) in the Sunday schools it has
aided and is sustaining more than 20,000 children
and young people. Unborn generations will share
in the benefits of Dr. Pearsons' princely gifts. He
has made himself a great name among the benefac-
tors of our fellow-men. His splendid insight and
unfaltering purpose to help his fellow-men at the
point where Christian education is sure to be of the
greatest possible benefit, will be an example for
years to come which men and women of wealth will
certainly follow."

It is doubtful if any gift he has ever made has
been or will continue to be through the years to
come more fruitful than the $100,000.00 thus far
entrusted to the City Missionary Society. It will
restrain crime, promote good works, encourage vir-
tuous conduct and develop Christian character in
circles which without it would hardly have been
reached.

These early gifts to institutions in or near Chicago
stimulated and confirmed a purpose long cherished
by Dr. Pearsons of retiring from business at the age
of seventy and devoting the remaining years of his
life to the giving away, or rather of investing, as he
has preferred to call it, the fortune which thirty
« 81

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

years of economy, strenuous effort and prudent use
of early savings had brought him. He desired to be
his own executor. He refused to be called benevo-
lent, denied that he had any benevolence in his
nature. He gave, so he affirmed, because he could
not take his money with him beyond the grave,
because he wished to invest it himself, and invest
it where it would do good long after he had left the
world. He also wanted the privilege of watching
the outcome of his investments; and this privilege
he has enjoyed to the full.

At the outset he determined to be independent in
his giving, to give as he himself and Mrs. Pearsons,
his only and his constant adviser, should think best.
Not a few people who felt that they knew better
than its possessor where the money ought to go
were at first inclined to call in question his wisdom.
To criticisms for refusal to contribute to certain
objects he replied: "If I choose to give away what
I do not want, I rather think I have the right. I
give where I have the largest satisfaction in the
knowledge that it is doing good, instead of leaving
my money to be quarrelled over when I am gone."

Soon after he began his benefactions to colleges,
he made it known that he was disposing of his prop-
erty under a deep sense of responsibility to God.
" Giving is my only occupation. I am working hard
at it. I kept getting rich until I was seventy, and
then I started to give away the fortune that had
been placed in my hands. There is more responsi-
bility in giving away money than in making it. I

DECISION TO AID COLLEGES

am responsible for the just distribution of the great
wealth to the Providence under which it came to
me." In making these gifts he was influenced a
very great deal by his sympathy with the laboring
classes, with the boys and girls who are born into
the families of working people. In announcing a gift
of $50,000 to the Chicago City Missionary Society
he made this the chief reason for the gift. He had
studied its work, had seen how constantly and suc-
cessfully its representatives had ministered to the
poorer classes of the city, with what wisdom they
were trying to give moral instruction to children
who might otherwise be left to roam the streets, and
foresaw the almost unlimited influence for good
which this Society properly supported might exert.
In deciding to devote the larger portion of his
fortune to educational purposes he had in mind the
needs of the country as a whole. These needs he
believed would be more fully met by aiding the
smaller colleges scattered over the country than by
concentrating his gifts upon a few institutions here
and there, or by increasing the endowment of some
great eastern university. The smaller colleges, he
saw, were training a large class of young people who
could not afford the expense of an education in one
of the prominent colleges of the East. This was a
good reason, he thought, for aiding those colleges
in the West and South which had proved their right
to live, but which might find it difficult to survive
without his help. " Common schools excepted," he
said, after he had given the subject a great deal of

83

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

study, "the so-called fresh- water college is the
greatest educational institution in America." Hence
his determination to use his fortune to develop these
colleges, and so far as possible secure for them
an adequate equipment. In these colleges, he clearly
saw, were gathered the young people from whose
ranks must come the future leaders of the country,
in education, religion and patriotic service. Insen-
sibly as the years passed, the students in these col-
leges won a warm place in his heart. He began to
look upon them as his own children and to consider
how he could treat them as such. His thought finds
expression in one of his addresses in the following
words: "I've got the smartest set of boys in the
world. Flaxen-haired boys from the sod houses of
the mountains and the prairie, poor boys who will
appreciate an education because they know how
hard it is to get. They can't go down east to college
and I am trying to build up colleges where they can
go. My boys are the very smartest." For girls
when occasion called for it, he had an equally strong
word.

With all his love for the small college and his
conviction that in certain sections of the country
new colleges should be established, he has never
founded a college or suffered one to be called after
his name. He felt, indeed, that the country has too
many colleges, that no inconsiderable number of
them would do well to become academies. He was
struck by the fact that too many of the states had
become "college graveyards." Hence the rule from

84

DECISION TO AID COLLEGES

which there was no deviation, to promise no aid to
an institution till either he himself or those in whose
wisdom and experience he had full confidence, had
thoroughly investigated its condition. The location
of the college, its proximity to other colleges, the
character of the work done, the standing of the
faculty, the promise of future growth, were always
carefully considered.

Decision to aid, or to refuse aid, was slowly reached,
but once made, it was rarely reversed. In order to
test the real strength of a college, the Doctor almost
always made his gifts conditional. To live and be
useful a college must have a constituency to which
whenever need for increased funds arises, it may
appeal. To obtain his gifts the friends of a college
by a certain date must therefore themselves furnish
a certain sum of money, a sum large enough in gen-
eral to tax their liberality and determine their loyalty
to the institution which had asked assistance. Diffi-
cult as these conditions have sometimes been to
meet, experience has proved their wisdom, for in
addition to the money received in its campaigns for
funds the college has created or deepened an interest
in its affairs in many communities, which is of more
value, if the future be considered, than the aid
immediately obtained.

85

VII

CONDITION OF THE DENOMINATIONAL COL-
LEGES WHEN DR. PEARSONS MADE HIS
FIRST GIFTS TO THEM. PRINCIPLES UPON
WHICH THESE GIFTS HAVE BEEN MADE

vn

CONDITION OF THE DENOMINATIONAL COL-
LEGES WHEN DR. PEARSONS MADE HIS
FIRST GIFTS TO THEM. PRINCIPLES UPON
WHICH THESE GIFTS HAVE BEEN MADE

IT IS within the truth to say that during the
eighties, the decade from 1880 to 1890, nearly all
the colleges in the West and South which had
been founded by the various Christian denominations
were financially weak. If a few of the elder of these
colleges came to the end of the year without debt, it
was rarely done without aid from the churches or
wealthy friends. For the majority of these denomina-
tional institutions the close of the year increased the
burden resting upon them at its beginning. Debts
were steadily becoming larger. Nor was there any
prospect that means would be found for their payment.
To a few of these small Christian colleges, compara-
tively large gifts had come, from broad-minded men of
wealth; Congregationalists had been favored by Mrs.
Valeria Stone, in the distribution of the fortune which
her husband's death placed at her disposal. Yet even
from the most promising point of view the situation
was discouraging. As the decade drew to an end,

89

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

conditions in many instances were becoming more
and more desperate. The rate of interest on endow-
ments was steadily declining. Many of the older
professors in the colleges had passed their prime.
There was money at command neither for their
retirement on well-earned pensions, nor for the sup-
port of younger men to take their places. Nor did
trustees see any way to provide for those new pro-
fessorships which the times called for, or for the labo-
ratories without which science could not be success-
fully taught.

To make matters worse for the small college, the
state, under the provisions of the Morrill Act had
begun to lay the foundations of those universities
which have had such rapid growth, have done such
admirable work, and which now occupy such a prom-
inent place in the educational world. How could an
institution with an endowment rarely exceeding two
hundred thousand dollars, more frequently with less
than that amount, with inadequate buildings, with
little scientific apparatus, with few or no men in the
faculty able to teach science had facilities for teach-
ing it been present, compete with institutions having
the wealth of a state behind them, and ungrudgingly
placed at their disposal ? The wonder is that the small
college did not at once give up in despair. Many of
the friends of the state institution said that the small
college had outlived its usefulness, that as the high
school was so generally taking the place of the acad-
emy, or of privately endowed preparatory schools,
it might wisely be encouraged to extend its course of

90

DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES

study so as to embrace subjects usually taught in
the freshman and sophomore years in college and then
send the young men and the young women thus
trained directly to the state university. Or if these
smaller colleges are not at once given up, let them
voluntarily cease to call themselves colleges, and take
the rank of secondary schools and do such work as
may be called for by those students to whom the high
school in the cities and larger towns is not accessible.
It is not strange that to many of its warmest
friends the outlook for the small college seemed des-
perate. They saw clearly that even if Christian,
and favored by the denomination whose name it bore
it would not long survive, unless well endowed, and
so well equipped with facilities for elementary scien-
tific study at least, as to be able to furnish as good
or even better instruction than the state university.
To be sure professors in the small college would be
brought into closer relations with the student than
would be possible in the larger institution. More
emphasis would be laid on morals and Christian
character in the small college than in the university.
But it was replied, there are no charges for tuition in
the state universities. Nor is there any prejudice
there against religion. The views of the different
denominations are tolerated, so that there is no good
reason why Christian character should not be culti-
vated in the larger as well as in the smaller school.
Many were ready to go further and demand the
extinction of the small college altogether. They
said it would be a waste of funds to contribute to its

91

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

support. Nor can there be any doubt of the sincer-
ity with which many of these objections to the
continued life of the institution which had done so
much for the country and had filled such a prominent
place in the intellectual development of the West
and the South were brought forward. A new day had
come. With it had come a demand for a new educa-
tion, for a kind of training along practical lines which
the college of the earlier time had overlooked or had
failed to see. Young people must be prepared for
their life work. Theory must give place to reality;
idealism to the pressure of practical life.

Before making his first gift to a Christian college
Dr. Pearsons saw three things clearly : First that the
small Christian denominational college had filled
and was filling a place in our educational system as
important to the welfare of the country as the common
school. This conviction had come to him as the
result of long-continued observation and careful
study. He saw, further, that to do its work well this
small college must be amply endowed and furnished
with such facilities in the way of buildings and equip-
ment as the education and training it was seeking
to give might demand. He saw also that in order to
save the college from future disaster, its endowment
must be obtained in such a way as to create for it a
constituency of graduates and lovers of learning upon
which it could depend in the future. Hence, the con-
ditions upon which he made his offers of help. If at
the beginning they seemed onerous, it soon became
apparent that in meeting them the college was making

92

DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES

for itself more permanent gains than in securing the
money it sought.

Probably even Dr. Pearsons did not foresee the
significance and full extent of the service he would
render in his deliberate effort to save the small
Christian college from extinction.

With an accurate knowledge of the educational
situation at the end of the eighties, and in the begin-
ning of the nineties, he began that careful investiga-
tion of the condition of the colleges, seminaries and
high schools in the different states of the Union and
that special study either in person or through trusted
agents of each particular institution desiring aid,
which here marked his career as the founder of the
Christian college. Comparatively few of the colleges
applying to him for help received it. He gave only
to institutions which had in them the promise of life
and growth, and were so situated as through their stu-
dents to minister to a wide extent of territory. He
was careful not to give to any large number of colleges
in any single state. A glance at the list at the end of
Chapter XV indicates the location of the schools, sem-
inaries and colleges which have been aided by him,
and shows how large a portion of the country in the
distribution of his fortune he has sought to reach.

When satisfied that his money would be wisely
used and would bring swift return, no man has ever
been more ready to give than he. Thus he writes
the Eaton Brothers, who were trying to establish an
institution for higher education and for practical
training in Montana. "I have been waiting for

93

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

Montana for years: if I give $25,000.00 toward an
endowment for $100,000.00, can you secure $75,-
000.00?" To this question an affirmative answer was
returned and the money soon obtained. Such per-
sons as Mrs. Cyrus McCormick of Chicago, the late
John H. Converse of Philadelphia, F. August Heinze
of Pittsburgh, Senator Clark of Montana, Andrew
Carnegie of New York, and many others seemed to
take delight in furnishing it. The college has made
rapid strides, has a large and promising body of
students, several good buildings, a fine faculty, a
growing endowment and a bright outlook for the
future. It is under the care of the Presbyterians, but
is free from anything like sectarianism. It is not
strange that in following the mission of that gift of
$25,000.00 Dr. Pearsons has had great pleasure.

It would be surprising if he had not sometimes been
disappointed in the results of his giving. "The
greatest sorrow, I recall," he once said, "was when I
advanced a large amount of money to put a brilliant
young man through college. He promised to pay
me back, in fact, gave me his note. But I found
that he never intended to pay me. It doesn't pay
to help young men through college that way. I have
tried it dozens of times. I help them through college
with my money, but they do not pay me back; they
don't try to pay. It is little to me, but it is bad for
them. It is a calamity. It destroys the initiative.
The boy or girl who is determined to get through
college cannot be restrained by any difficulty. Such
people will work their way through untold hardships."

94

DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES

Let a leaf be taken out of his own experience. In re-
counting it he says: "For five years I boarded myself,
baked my own Johnnie cake, cooked my own pota-
toes, fried my own meat. For five years I depended
upon myself entirely and during that time I waxed
fat in the doing of it, and was well and hearty at all
times."

The kind of personal aid the Doctor enjoyed giv-
ing is indicated in words uttered in the parlor of
his house in Hinsdale. "Up-stairs in my sitting-
room are two young girls from Berea. They came
here last week, and I am paying them good wages
to do my housework. Two others who had earned
$150.00 each, left here a few days ago to go back and
finish out their course at the college. When the two
that are here have earned enough, they will return
also, and two others will come to take their places.
That's the kind of help I believe in giving. It lifts
up. It lets the sun shine into my own heart and
theirs too, and it is sending out into the world men
and women who will take rank with the best of us."
It was indeed a rare privilege to live in a home like that
of Dr. Pearsons and to be under the influence of a
woman like Mrs. Pearsons, who spared no pains to
give such instruction in housekeeping as was needed
and who in every way took the place of a mother to
the girls who lived with her, and in her quiet and
refined way imparted to them a goodly share of her
own beautiful character.

And yet the Doctor could say and say it truth-
fully: "I do not believe in charity. It destroys self-

05

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

respect and does no good. My principle is to give
other people an opportunity. I have hundreds of
applications for mere charity, but I pay no attention
to them. My work is merely a business proposition.
It is the investment out of which I get the best
returns." This statement was made when the Doctor
was eighty-five years of age. For this reason he was
never willing to be called a benevolent man. He gave,
he said, as an investment whose returns were to be
looked for in the moral and intellectual training of
poor young men and women.

"Benevolent? Do you call me benevolent?
Look at me. I am the most close-fisted, economical
man you ever set eyes on. I never wasted twenty dol-
lars in my life. I never went to a theatre but once
in my life, and then I was ashamed of myself. I
never went to a horse race, nor a base-ball game, nor
a foot-ball game. I live simply, frugally. I shall
live longer and better and more happily by living
simply. And if I choose to give away what I do
not want, I rather think I have the right. I give
where I have the largest satisfaction in the knowl-
edge that it is doing good, instead of leaving my
money to be quarrelled over when I am dead. Do
you call that benevolence?" A great many would,
and taking all things into account, would not be far
out of the way in doing so. At any rate, the more
men there are who imitate Dr. Pearsons in the way he
has taken to settle his own estate, the better will it be
for the world. On his eightieth birthday he said,
"I believe my plan of bestowing what I have to give

96

DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES

before my death will be adopted by those who have
money to give. It is the simplest and best way. I
flatter myself that I was the first to commence the
plan. Anyway I have found it the best method,
and I am satisfied."

In the distribution of his fortune the Doctor has
displayed the same remarkable business ability and
self-restraint which were so prominent in his business
life and contributed so much to his success. He did
not undertake to meet all the demands, which appar-
ently with reason might be made upon him. As a
rule he gave little heed to many of them. He
knew what he could do, and to the doing of that
one thing he confined his thought. "When I began
this enterprise of giving away money, I made up
my mind that I would have but one string to my
bow. I said to myself that the churches and the socie-
ties should care for their own. For my part I would
save souls by developing brains. This is my text."
To this rule Dr. Pearsons invariably adhered. Ap-
peals to break away from it did no good. Temp-
tations to do so, to which many a man would have
yielded, he steadily resisted. In this way he was
able to continue his gifts through a period of more
than twenty-two years, and in every instance to
put his money where he had ample reason to believe
it would do the most good. Where he knew others
would help, or had abundant means for doing so,
he declined to give. Where personal interests were
chiefly concerned, or institutions were in rivalry
with one another, he declined aid.
7 97

VIII
GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS

FOR some time before he had begun to make
the distribution of his fortune the business
of his life, Dr. Pearsons built four houses,
and turned them over to the Woman's Educa-
tional Aid Association of Evanston for the sup-
port of young women who were seeking an educa-
tion at the Northwestern University. Before doing
this, the Doctor had paid for the support of seven
young girls, but had tired of providing the money
in installments every year, and as he had discov-
ered, as he thought, the ability of the members of
the Association to manage property entrusted to
them, he proposed at first to build two houses,
provided the site could be secured and then two more,
the women to collect the rent, keep the houses in
good repair and out of the profits meet the expenses
of as many young women as possible. The plan
was entirely successful, and in every way satisfac-
tory. Many years afterwards representatives of
this association came to him for further aid and as
one of the reasons for their appeal, gave the history
of some of the more than one hundred girls who had

101

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

been aided through the income from his previous
gifts. Surprised at the story, deeply interested in
it, he replied that he thought he was receiving credit
which did not belong to him, as he had no recollec-
tion of having made any gift to the women of Evans-
ton. They said they could not be mistaken, and
left the Doctor with a promise from him that he would
consider their appeal. After a careful search through
note-books long before laid aside, entries were found
here and there referring to houses in Evanston, built
for the Woman's Education Aid Association. It
was not difficult to persuade him to spend thirty
thousand dollars more for a Hall, which he named
Chapin Hall, after Miss Julia A. Chapin, the sister
of Mrs. Pearsons. This Hall is always full and has
been of great service in furnishing a home to young
women who find it necessary to economize to obtain
an education. The Doctor was present at the dedi-
cation of the building and was greatly pleased with
its appearance, and its promise of usefulness. The
motto of the Association:

"Opportunity for service is our greatest blessing,
and to improve that opportunity will make for our
best development," is a motto whose meaning Dr.
Pearsons has himself strikingly illustrated.

In 1889 Dr. Pearsons gave Lake Forest Univer-
sity the sum of $100,000.00 on condition that $400,-
000.00 more be raised, as an endowment, and that
one half of the money he gave should be used as a
loan fund for needy students, no one of them to re-
ceive more than $100.00 a year, and the whole to be

102

GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS

paid back within a reasonable time after graduation.
The remainder of the gift was to be set aside for the
support of a professorhip. That loan fund increased
by gifts to other institutions to about $150,000.00,
has produced very gratifying results. Not many
young men have failed to meet their obligations, and
as a small interest has been charged, the fund has
steadily increased. The suggestion of such a fund
came to Dr. Pearsons from his own experience as a
medical student, when a small loan enabled him to
graduate.

The prominence of this University, now called
Lake Forest College, justifies the taking of space
to present in full a report of the effect of Dr. Pearsons'
gifts as made by Dr. J. G. R. McClure, then its Pres-
ident. This account shows what these gifts have
done for other colleges of the country, as well as Lake
Forest, not only in the amount they have added to
their funds, but in bringing to them other and larger
gifts. Dr. McClure writes:

" GIFTS OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS TO LAKE FOREST
UNIVERSITY.

" 1889. $100,000.00. Property Endowment, consist-
ing of six brick and stone houses, No's
1215, 1217, 1219, 1221, 1223, and 1225
North State Street, and a six apartment
flat building, No's 5, 7, and 9 Scott Street,
Chicago. Lake Forest University still
owns this property intact and in good
condition.

103

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

" 1901. $25,000.00 Cash. Incorporated with the per-
manent endowment of Lake Forest Uni-
versity.

"Conditions attached to the gift of $100,000.00 in

1889:

"I. That half the amount be used for a foundation
of a Professorship of Political Economy and Social
Science, and the income from the other half be loaned
to students needing aid in their collegiate course, at
3% interest, the total loans for one year not to exceed
$3,000.00. These conditions have been met: First,
in the establishment, by action of the Trustees of
Lake Forest University on June 25, 1889, of the
'D. K. Pearsons Chair of Political and Social
Science' ;

" Second : in the continuous operation since 1889 of
the Pearsons 'Loan Fund,' from which loans have
been granted to worthy students in sums not exceed-
ing $100 for one student in any year.

" IT. That a total of $400,000.00 new endowment be
raised, in addition to Dr. Pearsons' gift. This con-
dition was also met.

** The effects produced by this gift were, immediately,
to assure the success of the first great effort for the
permanent endowment of Lake Forest University;
and, subsequently, to endow the chair held by Pro-
fessor John J. Halsey, who has given the longest and
most distinguished service on the Faculty of Lake
Forest College in its history; and to aid 252 worthy
students from 1889 to 1910 in the gaming of an edu-

104

GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS

cation. Up to September 30, 1910, these students
had borrowed a total of $40,439.50 from the income
of the Pearsons Fund, and repaid $18,378.20 of prin-
cipal and $6,294.19 of interest. Loans to the amount
of $21,986.30 (one note only surrendered) are still
outstanding, in the form of notes, upon which interest
is being paid. During the twenty years of the opera-
tion of the Pearsons Loan Fund, no application from
a worthy student for aid has ever been refused. The
maximum amount loaned in one year was $2,750.00.
Condition attached to the gift of $25,000.00 in 1911:

"That a total of $100,000.00 of new endowment
be raised in addition to the gift. This condition
was met.

" The effect of this gift was to stimulate the friends
of Lake Forest to the completion of an important
addition to the permanent endowment."

It should here be said that this gift of $25,000.00
on condition that $100,000.00 more be raised was
promised to Dr. McClure, personally, and that the
sum was secured almost entirely by his personal
solicitation. "A happier man than he," he writes,
"when the sum required was subscribed, has never
been known." It was this addition of $125,000.00
to the endowment of Lake Forest, which secured
permanency to its life and made possible the develop-
ments which followed.

A very timely gift of $20,000.00 was made to the
Grand Prairie Seminary, Onarga, Illinois, in 1900,
The Honorable W. A. Rankin had offered $25,000.00
for endowment provided $100,000.00 were obtained.

105

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

President Frost says that undoubtedly the effort
would have failed but for Dr. Pearsons' gift. That
endowment the President thinks was "the saving of
the school for larger usefulness. It is quite a question
whether it would have been open for work today had
not that endowment been obtained. At present the
school has an endowment of nearly a quarter of a
million in sight, and bids fair to become a permanent
institution for secondary work." This Seminary is
one of the best Methodist Schools in the State.

Illinois College has received $50,000.00 from Dr.
Pearsons. Some of the friends of the college thought
the conditions upon which the gift was secured were
rather severe, but they admit that the money-raising
campaign enlarged its constituency. President Ram-
melskamp is sure that "Dr. Pearsons has done a
great work for the small colleges. He was a pioneer
in the movement in favor of them. No man did more
to combat the notion that the day of the small college
was over than Dr. Pearsons. His gifts aided the
colleges and at the same time drew public attention
to the work they were doing and to the important
place they fill in our system of education."

Dr. John F. Harmon, President of McKendree
College (Methodist) at Lebanon, Illinois, declares
that he has no language at command to set forth the
service which Dr. Pearsons has rendered that insti-
tution. "Founded in 1828, and therefore one of the
oldest colleges in the State, until Dr. Pearsons came
to the rescue, it struggled along with great difficulty,
wholly unable to rise to her opportunities, in spite

106

GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS

of the fact that it has graduated men of national
fame."

September 20, 1905, Dr. Pearsons gave the college
$20,000.00, which, with $80,000.00 secured as a
condition of receiving this sum of money, made an
endowment of $100,000.00. That was the beginning
of a new day for the college. Many new friends were
found, and new hopes were inspired. July 23, 1906,
Dr. Pearsons wrote: "I will give you $10,000.00 as
soon as you get $75,000.00. You need a dormitory
and also a building for poor boys and girls to board
themselves." The college failed to raise the money
within the year allowed, but in October, 1909, the
offer was renewed and over $90,000.00 were obtained,
so that April 10, 1910, the Doctor sent $10,000.00 to
the President of the College. Other friends added a
little later, $3,000.00 more, so that three modern
up-to-date brick buildings are now standing on the
campus. Governor Deneen, by his personal gifts
has added twenty acres to the campus, and a St.
Louis friend has added six acres more for field sports.
With several new buildings, and the old ones reno-
vated, the college is now enjoying an era of great pros-
perity. A spirit of enthusiasm unlike any previously
existing is showing itself among the students, whose
numbers have been greatly increased. A finance
committee, of which Governor Deneen is Chair-
man, has been organized in every county in the South-
ern section of the State, in order to obtain still more
money. But the President writes, — "Dr. Pearsons
has saved the college. The good which he has done

107

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

in helping McKendree will last through the ages.
We do not know how to thank him enough. His
gift was made at the right time and under conditions
which could be met, but which called for an amount of
effort and personal sacrifice which endeared the col-
lege to its old friends, and created for it a multitude
of new friends."

To this College the Doctor added, in response
to a request from Governor Deneen, a gift of ten
thousand dollars just before his ninety-first birth-
day.

The proposal to give Knox College $50,000.00 in
1889 marks the change which afterwards took place
in the conditions made in this one of the earliest
gifts to the college and those which followed in later
years. The proposal was read by Dr. Robert W.
Patterson, one of the Trustees of the college and for
more than a generation Pastor of the Second Presby-
terian Church of Chicago. Evidently the proposal
was presented in language which indicated a desire
to preserve the denominational character of the
college. The proposal read as follows:

" CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, May 27, 1889.
"To the Trustees of Knox College,

Galesburg, Illinois.

"I intend to give an income-paying property in
Chicago, valued at $50,000.00, to your Knox College,
the income to be used:

"First: In endowing a professorship in Latin or
some other.

108

GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS

"Second: To furnish a fund to be loaned to poor
and worthy students at the rate of One Hundred Dol-
lars a year during the regular classical course of four
years at three per cent interest annually, no student
to receive help unless he pursues a regular college
course.

"It is herein provided, however, that the following
conditions must be strictly observed and fulfilled by
the Trustees of Knox College, and that in case they
are not observed and fulfilled, the property aforesaid,
or the avails from the sale thereof, shall revert to the
donor, his heirs or assigns, and shall no longer be
held or in any manner controlled by said Board of
Trustees, to wit:

" 1st : Not less than two-thirds of said Trustees shall
be members of some evangelical church or churches.

" 2nd : The Board shall embrace a number of mem-
bers of the Presbyterian Church in the United States
of America, at least equal to that of any one denomi-
nation connected with it, excepting in the case of
vacancies occurring in said number by death, removal
from the State or other cause, which vacancies must
be rilled so as to meet the requirements of this condi-
tion at or before the next annual meeting of the Board
after such vacancies have become known to the
Board.

"3rd: Neither of the foregoing conditions shall be
changed without the written consent and approval
of at least two-thirds of the members of the Board.

" 4th : Before the actual conveyance of the property
aforesaid to the Board of Trustees of Knox College

109

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

by the donor, the Board shall at a regular meeting
signify its acceptance of the property on the condi-
tions herein defined and approved, and shall cause
this acceptance with the conditions to be placed on
its permanent records.

DANIEL K. PEARSONS.
"Addendum.

In case any portion of said income should not be
desired by the students on the terms aforesaid, the
Trustees may apply same for any year in the purchase
of additional apparatus, or for the enlargement of the
college library, but in no case shall this be used for
other purposes if it is needed by promising students.

DANIEL K. PEARSONS."

The proposition of Dr. Pearsons was presented to
the Board at its annual meeting June 11, 1889, and
the following resolution was passed with reference
to it:

"Be it resolved, by the Board of Trustees of Knox
College in regular annual session assembled:

" First, that the gift of Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons of
Chicago, Illinois, contained in his proposition of
May 27, 1889, be and the same is hereby accepted
on the terms and conditions therein contained, and

"Second, that the Board unanimously express to
the generous donor of this most timely gift their
heartfelt thanks and high appreciation of the gift
and the giver;

"Third, that these resolutions be spread upon the
records of the Board.

110

GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS

"On motion the resolutions were unanimously
adopted."

President McClelland writes that so far as the
records show, no conditions requiring a contingent
to be raised were attached to this offer.

June 9, 1892, the minutes show the reception of an
additional proposition from Dr. Pearsons. "The
Board of Trustees had met on the platform to listen
to the closing exercises of the graduating classes,
and the exercises having been satisfactory, the de-
grees were conferred as voted. Dr. D. K. Pearsons
of Chicago was present and made a written proposi-
tion to endow Knox College with Fifty Thousand
Dollars in Chicago Real Estate, providing Knox
College raises Two Hundred Thousand Dollars ($200,-
000.00) additional to go with it, and he gives the
College two years to secure the $200,000.00. The
proposition was received with cheers, and it was voted :

" ' Resolved that the noble gift of $50,000.00 tendered
by Dr. D. K. Pearsons of Chicago, Illinois, be and is
hereby accepted with sincere thanks and with feelings
of profound gratitude, and that we hereby pledge
our utmost efforts to the complete fulfillment of
every condition of his offer.' '

Owing to the financial conditions prevailing in the
country, it was found impossible to meet these con-
ditions. The offer was renewed and the time ex-
tended, and when one hundred thousand dollars had
been obtained Dr. Pearsons gave the college twenty-
five thousand dollars, thus making his gifts to it
seventy-five thousand dollars in all.

Ill

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

"It is hard to see," writes the President, "how the
Institution could have maintained itself, but for the
timely and generous assistance which Dr. Pearsons
gave it."

To Knox as to many other colleges, the offers he
made furnished the impulse needed to encourage
Trustees and Professors to put forth the effort re-
quired to increase the endowment, and when the
money was obtained, they felt that the college not
only had friends, whose generosity it had not fully
appreciated, but that they were under a new and
greater obligation than ever to make the college
worthy of the support of the men and women who
had come to its rescue.

Several deserving colleges in the State have failed
to receive aid from the Doctor, not because he did
not recognize their claims for consideration, but
because he had determined to give aid to only two
colleges in a state. Having made an exception of
Illinois, and aided five colleges, one secondary school,
and two Theological Seminaries within its bounds,
he felt that in justice to other states he could not
extend the list. His example, however, has led others
to take some of these needy colleges on their hearts
and to exert themselves successfully to procure the
funds which have enlarged their endowment and
increased their efficiency.

112

IX
GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS EAST OF CHICAGO

IX
GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS EAST OF CHICAGO

WHEN Dr. Pearsons began his gifts to colleges
he had decided to confine them to schools
and colleges in Illinois, or in states west
of it. He felt that the East was able to care for
itself, and that his mission was to provide, so
far as his means would permit, for those centers of
learning which, having sprung up in a new country,
had been unable to establish themselves upon a self-
supporting basis. For several years he remained
firm in his decision to give no money to any insti-
tution east of Chicago, but appeals from points in
Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts and Vermont became
so pressing that he could not refuse to consider them.

OLIVET COLLEGE, MICHIGAN

Olivet College is the only Congregational college
in Michigan. From the pine forests of the state he
had obtained a goodly portion of his fortune. Presi-
dent Sperry, then at the head of Olivet College,
asked him if having taken so much money away from
Michigan he did not feel that he would be justified

115

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

in sending a little of it back to help in the endowment
of one of its prosperous, yet very needy colleges.
After studying the situation carefully, the location of
the college, its relation to other institutions of similar
grade in the state, the number and character of its
students, the ability and self-denying work of its
faculty, he saw clearly that it would be quite in
accordance with his original plan of distributing his
fortune where it would do the most good to aid in the
strenuous effort the college was making to add $100,-
000.00 to its modest endowment. Hence his pledge
of $25,000.00, provided $75,000.00 more were secured
within a year. The effort was successful and the col-
lege placed on its feet. In reference to this gift from
Dr. Pearsons, President Lancaster, under date of
November 15, 1910, writes: "the money was invested
as an endowment fund and has benefited us to
the amount of six per cent on that amount since he
gave it, and will continue to do so for all time, the
rate of interest only changing possibly. The college
could not exist without the hundred thousand dollar
endowment, which was completed at that time.
It means, then, that Dr. Pearsons practically saved
the life of the institution."

Olivet has grown steadily, and although a small
college, and connected with a denomination, it has
shown that notwithstanding the overpowering influ-
ence of the University of Michigan, there is a demand
for its work and for other colleges of similar standing
in the state. Olivet has always been an earnestly
Christian, but never a sectarian college. It has main-

116

GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS

tained a high standard of scholarship, has sought
to develop character in its students, and has been
content to remain and fill the place of a small college.

MARIETTA COLLEGE, OHIO

It was with more than usual difficulty that Dr.
Pearsons convinced himself that he ought to give
$25,000.00 to Marietta College. Why should one of
the oldest colleges in the rich state of Ohio come to him
for assistance? A college with such a number of
distinguished men on its list of graduates, and with
history running back almost to the settlement of the
little city whose name it bears, ought, it seemed to
him, to care for itself. Nor did he look favorably on
the fact that it was in debt, had in fact rarely closed
a year without adding to its deficit. But at last,
considering its relation to Western Virginia, and to
the region south of the Ohio River, and its own
local constituency, and recalling the fact that here
one of the first settlements, if not the very first settle-
ment was made in that great tract of land conse-
crated to liberty, education and religion, under the
ordinance of 1787, and honoring the memory of Dr.
Israel W. Andrews, so long at the head of the college,
he promised $25,000.00, if its friends would pay
all its debts and raise $75,000.00 additional. That
gift was magical in its influence. The debts were
paid; the money for endowment secured and the era
of the New Marietta began. Mr. W. W. Mills, a grad-
uate of the college, one of its trustees, its treasurer,

117

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

one of its most generous friends, President of the
First National Bank of Marietta, says, "The gift
of Dr. Pearsons was most timely, as it enabled the
college to pay its debts and to secure a substantial
addition to its endowment funds. I have no doubt
the offer of Dr. Pearsons influenced many to give to
the college at that time, and enlarged its constitu-
ency. The gift enabled the college to liquidate a
debt which had existed practically ever since the
foundation of the institution, and to lay the founda-
tion of an endowment which has been considerably
increased. There is no doubt about the great value
of the effect of Dr. Pearsons' gift upon the present
and future of Marietta College."

It has brought it an increased number of students,
encouraged its friends and its faculty, and made it
possible for it to maintain that high rank in scholar-
ship which the Secretary of the General Board of
Education has given it. One who visits the Marietta
of today, and looks upon the noble buildings which
surround and adorn its campus, or enters the building
furnished by Mr. Carnegie in which are stored many
of the rarest documents relating to early American
History, can hardly realize through what straits the
college has passed, or in what financial distress it
found itself only a few years ago. Out of these
difficulties the timely gift of Dr. Pearsons extricated
it, put new life into all its friends, and secured for it
a future of large and ever enlarging usefulness.

118

GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS

MONTPELIER CONFERENCE SEMINARY, VERMONT

When Dr. Pearsons made up his mind to help
Montpelier Conference Seminary to secure an endow-
ment which would perpetuate its usefulness and en-
able it to do its work without anxiety as to its sup-
port, he wrote to one of the leading Methodists of the
state to ask if a gift from him of $50,000.00 would
bring $150,000.00 from eastern friends. The Seminary
was on the point of disbanding. Its credit was gone.
It owed $50,000.00 and had only $18,000.00 produc-
tive endowment. Impossible as it seemed to meet
the conditions, answer was returned to Chicago that
they should be met. At times many were discour-
aged but a few would never give up. Again and
again the time for meeting the conditions was
extended till at length after four years of struggle
it was possible to inform the Doctor that he might
send the money. No one had done more toward
creating the spirit which triumphed in the face of
great difficulties than the Doctor himself. When
he learned that the friends of the Seminary were
almost ready to confess defeat, and vote to close the
Seminary, he wrote letters to the President of the
Seminary, and through him sent words of greeting
to all its friends assuring them of success if they
would only pull all together and keep on giving
until the money was obtained. No one rejoiced in
the success of the money-raising campaign more than
the man who had started it. No wonder President

119

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

Bishop says "The Doctor saved the school. Bless-
ings on him."

There were special reasons for Dr. Pearsons'
interest in this Seminary. When it was known as
Newbury Seminary he had prepared for college in it.
Here he had a teacher whose influence upon him was
profound and of whom he never ceased to speak
with gratitude. Here he was converted and began
that Christian life in which he rejoiced during the
years of his strenuous business career and which fur-
nished the principles by which he was guided in the
distribution of his millions. In that old Seminary
apart from the aid he received from home, he lived
on forty cents a week and this money and what was
needed for tuition, books and clothing he earned as
he went along. It was in Vermont that he was born
and this name was dear to him. How could he be
content to do nothing when a school of which he had
so many memories and to which he felt so much
indebtedness was about to die? There is pathos in
the letter which accompanied the check sent to
President Bishop. It is full of clear vision of the
future. To understand it one must read between
the lines. It is the message of a prophet, and if its
words seem inspired, we must remember whose
words they are, and dwell for a moment on the
seventy and more years which lay between their
utterance and the student of seventeen years. They
were years of ambition, ambition which had been
realized; years of professional success, of business tri-
umph, of ability in old age to repay the debt which

120

GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS

he owed the institution by saving its life and fitting
it for a larger usefulness than it had ever known.
Though often printed, that letter should always
have a prominent place in any account of what Dr.
Pearsons has done. In it we get a hint of the motives
by which he was governed, and the vigor of his mind
at ninety.

"Fifty Thousand Dollars, farewell! You have
been in my keeping for many years, and you have been
a faithful servant. Your earnings have helped to
educate many young men and women who have
helped make the world better. You came to me from
the grand old white pine forests of Michigan, and now
you are going into the hands of other stewards in the
State of Vermont. There you are to become a part
of a perpetual endowment fund of $150,000 for Mont-
pelier Seminary, $100,000 of which sum has been
given by the people of Vermont. When you arrive
in Montpelier you will go into the keeping of good
business men, and you will be safe; as I expect that
every dollar of this perpetual endowment fund will
be kept intact and actively doing good for five hun-
dred years.

"Over one hundred years ago a good man gave
$50,000 for mission work. The interest on this fund
has educated more than a hundred good men for the
mission field, and is still being used for training men
for the business of brightening the world and mak-
ing it better.

"In Denmark there is an endowment fund
founded over nine hundred years ago, and not one
cent has been lost or wasted. I expect the same
fidelity in managing this endowment fund.

" I left Vermont in 1840. This gift, added to other

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

gifts, makes $90,000.00 which I have been privi-
leged to contribute to the betterment of the dear old
State.

"Now Fifty Thousand Dollars, farewell! Go into
the keeping of younger men, and God's blessing go
with you! Do your duty and give the poor boys
and girls of Vermont a fair chance.

D. K. PEARSONS."

MlDDLEBURY COLLEGE, VERMONT

The value of Dr. Pearsons' twenty-five thousand
dollars to this old college and the immediate effect
of his offer cannot be described more vividly, or in
more emphatic langage than in a letter from its
President, John M. Thomas, who is, as Dr. Pearsons
repeatedly declared, a man after his own heart.

"NOVEMBER 14th, 1910.

"I was elected to the Presidency of Middlebury
College in October, 1908. The college had then 200
students, and its numbers had increased steadily
for a number of years, but its endowment was alto-
gether insufficient and there were not enough build-
ings. Only two buildings had been erected since
1861, and the endowment had remained practically
stationary for a number of years. There was special
need of a building for girls, who were scattered in
homes all over the village.

" Something needed to be done to arouse the loyalty
of the Alumni and to stir interest throughout the
State of Vermont. I appealed unsuccessfully to
the General Education Board and other benevolent
organizations and individuals. The feeling seemed
to be that our college was too small to need help and

122

GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS

that we had not been making sufficient progress.
Then I wrote Doctor Pearsons and asked him for
$50,000.00 for a building for girls. His reply was
'Can you raise $100,000.00 in Vermont or other
places? Are you a good beggar? It takes a smart
man to raise money.' I answered that I thought I
was a fairly good beggar and proposed to raise a good
deal more than $100,000 before I got through. He
answered right away, 'You need $100,000.00 to do
the work right. I will give you $25,000.00 when you
raise $75,000.00. I have only one style of doing
business.'

" That was my first gleam of real hope in my work
as a college president. It was a very little thing, as
many of our great colleges and universities count
benefactions, but for me, it meant a chance to get
started on my life-work. With all my heart I
thanked God for Doctor Pearsons and my gratitude
to him will continue as long as I live.

"I announced the conditional offer of $25,000.00
on my inauguration day. While the people were
still applauding one man put his hand on my shoulder
with a pledge of $5,000.00. Before night I had
$22,100.00 and a $10.00 bill from a school teacher —
the first actual cash to meet Doctor Pearsons' offer.
In just one year to a day from the date of his offer,
I had the $75,000.00 in hand and the Doctor was
writing his check.

"The campaign thus initiated was incalculable to
our institution. It rallied our Alumni and won new
attention to our College all over this region of country.
The class received the following autumn was the larg-
est Middlebury had ever known. In two years the
attendance has increased from 203 to 275, and the
income from tuition is $10,000.00 greater. A suc-
cessful summer school has been inaugurated. The

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LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS

General Education Board, which earlier would not
consider our appeal, has given us a conditional
grant of $50,000.00 towards a fund of $200,000 and
all but $62,000 of that is now pledged. The Vermont
Legislature has made us an appropriation of $6,000.00
a year and established a Department of Pedagogy
for the training of high-school teachers. The col-
lege has really started upon a new era of expansion
and usefulness, and no one can question that the
beginning of the movement was the offer of Doctor
Pearsons and his 'one style of doing business.'

(signed) JOHN M. THOMAS."

The real reason for this gift as Dr. Pearsons has
said again and again is not only his love for Vermont
and her schools, but his wish that poor girls, espe-
cially, living in the state and unable to attend large
and wealthy colleges, may have a place near their
homes, where at a comparatively small expenditure of
money they may go and receive an education as
good as that furnished at Wellesley or Smith or
Mount Holyoke.

MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE, MASSACHUSETTS

It has already been stated that very early in his
professional career in Chicopee, Dr. Pearsons had
been interested in Mount Holyoke College. It
was a seminary then, and very small, for it was at
the beginning of its great history. His wife, who had
been trained under Miss Emma Willard in Troy,
believed fully in the higher education for women.
The members of her family shared in her belief.

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GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS

Her father's house was one of the places to which
Mary Lyon could always come and be sure of a
welcome. Her whole family sympathized with Miss
Lyon in her purposes and in her plans. It is only
natural that the husband of one of the daughters in
such a home should be interested in Mary Lyon also,
and that with his love for learning and his sympathy
with those who obtain it with great difficulty, he
should frequently visit it and resolve that if ever he
were able he would assist just such schools as this
one at South Hadley. Years passed — all or nearly
all of the early friends of the school had died. The
school had grown into a college. Still, although
there were many teachers now, the spirit was the
spirit of Mary Lyon. The prosperity of the institu-
tion had increased its burdens till they could no
longer be borne. Young women were knocking for
admittance at doors which could not open to them.
The graduates of the old seminary saw that something
must be done. In all parts of the country meetings
of these graduates were held to consider the situation
and to devise plans to meet the crisis. Dr. Pearsons
was at once interested in the movement and having
broken his rule to make no gifts for any institution
east of Chicago, he found it easy to persuade himself
that money set aside for a college which had trained
girls like those who had gone out into the world from
Mount Holyoke, would be well invested.

"In January, 1896," reports Mr. A. L. Williston,
the Treasurer of the college, "Dr. Pearsons offered
to give $50,000.00 for endowment, if its friends would

125

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

raise $150,000.00, and as he wrote that he was sure
we would get it, he gave us $25,000.00 at once. After
the great fire in September Dr. Pearsons telegraphed
from the South where he was then resting, while
the embers were still burning, '40,000.00 to rebuild
Mt. Holyoke'; in July, 1897, he sent the $40.000.00
in cash. In March of the same year he gave $10,-
000.00 toward the sum which the New York Alumnae
were raising for the Mary Brigham Hall. In June,
1898, the college had raised $150,000.00 for endow-
ment, and the Doctor sent the $25,000.00 remaining
unpaid on his pledge of $50,000.00. So well pleased
was he at what he saw and heard on a visit to the
college, that he agreed to continue his offer of one
dollar for every three dollars others would raise for
the college during another year. This cost him
$50,000.00 more, and when he sent it, it was with the
conviction that no money had ever been better ex-
pended than that which he had given for the educa-
tion of girls in Mount Holyoke. It was a home insti-
tution to which he was contributing, an institution
founded by a woman whose memory he revered, and
whose example he was praying that many others
would follow."

Miss Woolley, the President, says "We cannot
overestimate the value of Dr. Pearsons' gifts from
the point of view, both of the material assistance
rendered at a very critical time in the history of the
college, and also of 'moral support' and stimulus to
other gifts. I think I am right in saying that with
the exception of the 'Todd bequest,' about two

126

GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS

hundred thousand dollars, Doctor Pearsons has given
more than any other single giver, and we are very
grateful to him. The good work which he started
by his gifts for endowment we are now trying to con-
tinue in an attempt to add at least half a million
dollars to that endowment before our seventy-fifth
anniversary in nineteen hundred and twelve, — an
addition which is imperative for the raising of our low
salaries. Dr. Pearsons is one of the comparatively
few people who appreciate the necessity for endow-
ments, and the academic world should be grateful
to him for his influence hi that direction, as well as
for many other reasons."

127

X

GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE

X

GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE

DR. PEARSONS was drawn toward Beloit by
many reasons in addition to its proximity to
Chicago, the promising character of its field
and the excellence of its work. He recalled the fact
that in 1835 his interest in the locality of the college
had been aroused by seeing four wagons pass his
father's house in Vermont with people and their
baggage from northern New Hampshire on the way
west to settle in a place afterwards called Beloit.
On his first visit to the West in 1851 with Mrs.
Pearsons he forded the Rock River and stopped at
the place of which he had first heard, when a boy of
fifteen. As previously stated, on starting for Janes-
ville he asked a man who entered the stage at Beloit
what that building was which was going up on the hill
and received as an answer, "Oh, that is a college
which some eastern cranks are trying to build."
"During the ride to Janesville," says the Doctor, "he
and I discussed the value of colleges, he attacking
them, I defending them, till at parting I told him
I was going to help such colleges as that when I
had become rich." Dr. Pearsons did not forget his

131

LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS

promise although nearly forty years had passed
before he was in a condition to redeem it.

One morning in May, 1889, a letter was put into
the hands of President Eaton, from a man he had
never met, of whom he knew nothing. It contained
these words: "President Eaton. If I give Beloit
$100,000.00, can you raise $100,000.00 by July 1?
I mean business.

Truly,

D. K. PEARSONS."

Could the challenge be met? At any rate the at-
tempt must be made. The result was that the $100,-
000.00 was obtained in the short space of seven weeks
and the college put into possession of what then
seemed to be the large sum of $200,000.00. That
was the beginning of a series of gifts which have
brought the college into the rank of the strong col-
leges of the country. The conditions of an offer in
1895 of $50,000.00 if three times that amount were
raised were not met till 1898. In 1901 $200,000.00
were offered the college if $150,000 were added to it.
This condition was met. In 1908 $25,000.00 more
were given toward the $200,000 the Trustees were
trying to add to the college endowment. Mean-
while the Doctor had given large sums for much-
needed buildings. For the erection of Chapin Hall
$25,000 were provided in 1891. The next year $60,-
000.00 went into the Pearsons Science Hall and in
1897 $30,000 were expended for the building of
Emerson Hall, the home of the college girls. Dr.

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GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE

Pearsons' gifts to Beloit thus amount to more than
a half million dollars, to say nothing of the constit-
uency he has helped to create for the college and the
stimulus he has imparted to its faculty and its friends.

The value of these gifts and the effect they have
had on the fortunes of the college no one can set
forth so well as Dr. E. D. Eaton, the president of
the college when the gifts in money were made and
the buildings erected. Slightly modified and con-
densed, his words are as follows:

"In 1889, Beloit College, with a splendid record
of over forty years of devotion to high ideals, was
struggling to obtain resources for its development
along the lines of the new education. Its equip-
ment was meager, its faculty few in number. On
the tenth of May in that year the President received
a letter which read as follows: 'President Eaton:
If I give Beloit College $100,000.00 can you raise
$100,000.00 more by July 1? I mean business.
Truly, D. K. Pearsons.' The effect was electric.
Citizens of Beloit, Trustees and Faculty, Alumni and
friends of the College bent to the task, and in less
than seven weeks the money was obtained and the
new Beloit was born. Commencement that year
was a time of great rejoicing. Dr. Pearsons then
made his first visit to Beloit College. As he walked
over the campus, he exclaimed 'This is New England.'
He was now redeeming the promise he had made so
long ago, and was helping the college on the hill.
On the platform on Commencement Day, he made
the first of a series of addresses, keen, witty, elo-

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LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS

quent, with thought and feeling, which have become
historic in the annals of Beloit. That autumn the
foundation of a new building was laid, the first of
ten buildings which these years of swift development
have brought the college."

At that time the pressure of two urgent problems
had begun to be increasingly felt: One, the
want of an adequate building and equipment for
teaching physical sciences; the other the demand
for a commodious dormitory. Under the guidance
of Professors Chamberlain and Saulsbury, of the
University of Chicago, then members of the
faculty of Beloit, foundations had been laid
for exceptionally good work in science in the
college, but accommodations and apparatus for
teaching were woefully lacking. Growth in the
number of students had increased the rent for rooms
in the village, and thus laid a burden on the shoulders
of poor students which they were finding hard to
bear. Dr. Pearsons was deeply interested in the
situation. He expressed his willingness to give
$30,000 for a Science Building, if others would give
as much, Soon afterwards he had decided to give
$25,000.00 for the building of a dormitory, the Pres-
ident alone knowing from whom the gift came. It
pleased the Doctor to pay for the building in cash,
rather than by check, so that the President had the
experience of going from Chicago to Beloit with his
pockets full of bills for the payment of the contractor.
In the meantime the Doctor told the President that
he decided to withdraw his offer of $30,000.00 for a

134

GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE

Science Building and put a part of that money into
a dormitory instead. The President was greatly
disturbed, but said nothing. Commencement night
1892, Dr. Pearsons made it known, from the plat-
form that he was the giver of the dormitory, and
named it Chapin Hall, in honor of the revered first
President of the College. During the applause that
followed he took from his pocket a letter, turned to
President Eaton and said, "You have shown that
you can keep a secret but I would have you know that
I can keep one, also. I have one of my own of which
you know nothing. I have put it into a letter which,"
he roguishly added, "I have brought with me from
Chicago to save a postage stamp. Here it is and
you must read it to the audience." The astonished
and almost overpowered President read aloud as
follows: "I will give Beloit $60,000.00 for a Science
Hall, if the Trustees will raise $120,000 to equip and
endow it." Little wonder that at the close of the
exercises the college boys laid hold of Dr. Pearsons
and in spite of his protests put him into a carriage
and drew him to the place where the Commencement
dinner was to be served. Toward meeting the con-
ditions imposed at this time Mr. William E. Hale
of Chicago, one of the Trustees gave $60,000.00 and
the other $60,000.00 was raised among other friends
of the college. During the autumn of that year
the building took shape on the campus, and since
has been a prominent and determining factor in the
life of the college.

When, in 1895, it was determined that young

135

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

ladies should share in the advantages of the college,
Dr. Pearsons at Commencement promised $50,000
if $150,000.00 more were raised. At the semi-centen-
nial celebration of the opening of the college in June,
1897, he declared his purpose to put $30,000.00 into
a building for young women, which he afterwards
named Emerson Hall, in honor of one of Beloit's
oldest and most honored professors. The speech
in which that gift was announced is so character-
istic of other addresses made at Beloit and at sqme
other colleges, that it is here given entire.

"I had a college president come to my office a few
days ago. He sat down by me, looked me in the
eye. I did not know but what he was going to take
hold of me by the collar, — and he said, 'Why do you
give to Beloit so much? Why don't you give to the
rest of us?' I did not tell him that it was none of
his business. No, because I treat all college presi-
dents and college professors with the greatest consid-
eration. Are there any men in the world who can
compare with the self-sacrificing college presidents
and professors? They work for small pay, they
work for God and humanity. Therefore under all
circumstances I treat them with the utmost kindness.
And I receive them from every portion of the coun-
try. I have an interview with college presidents
nearly every day.

"Now I am going to answer the question about
Beloit. That is a fair question. It is my duty to
answer it. The first college I helped . . . and
I have helped sixteen, was Beloit College. I did
not make any mistake. No, I think it shows that
I am a pretty shrewd man. I will tell you why.

136

GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE

Beloit College from top to bottom is thoroughly
honest. You never have deceived me, you never
have tried to terrify me in any shape or manner. I
wish I could say the same of all colleges. You have
been frank and honest. Everything you have agreed
to do, you have done.

" I could say a great deal more, but I am coming
to the point now which I am greatly interested in.
A good gentleman and lady, Mr. and Mrs. Stowell,
have given this college a beautiful block and build-
ing costing $30,000.00, which they have paid for
outright. There it stands. What are the young
ladies that come to Beloit to have in the future?
Those young ladies who come to Beloit in the future
ought to have a beautiful building, a charming build-
ing, where they can have a real nice family home and
be under the direction of a grand and good matron.
And I propose to build that building. That build-
ing will cost $30,000.00. It will be taller than Cha-
pin Hall, a little longer and a little wider. It will be
a beauty. Now I say to you gentlemen of the
trustees board, go on and build your building. As
fast as you build call for your money and you will
get it. When you get it built, you will get every
dollar in money, not a check, but right out in money.
Build it economically. I intend that that $30,000.00
shall build a superb building, and shall put in heat-
ing apparatus and a radiator in every room. I will
tell you why. You can build thirty per cent cheaper
now than you did when you built Chapin Hall. You
know that, every one of you. There are men idle
who want work. Now is the time to pitch in and
build.

"I am not going to dictate to the Trustees about
that building. I have got business enough of my
own. I do not run a risk though in telling these

137

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

gentlemen to go on. I confine them with certain
limits. That is business. But if you look back
eight years and see what these gentlemen have done
in building you will see that they can be depended
upon to do anything in that line. Look at Scoville
Hall, the Chapel, Science Hall, the finest in the
world. There is one thing more I would have.
That beautiful building has got to be furnished. Do
not any of you gentlemen rise up and say, I will
furnish it. You are not going to have anything to
do with it. The ladies of the North West will fur-
nish that building. You and I, ladies, are working
together now. The building is going to be furnished,
and it will cost about $4,000.00. When you go back
to your homes in Janesville and all around, ladies,
at the very next meeting of your ladies' association
just tell them that you are going to furnish a room
in what, — I will tell you what it is, — in Emerson
Hall. It is not often you name a building before it
is built, but Dr. Emerson, it is your hall.

"Now I want to tell you one thing. You know I
feel perfectly at home in this audience. I have been
here four times. I have talked to you in a form that
I would not talk in under ordinary circumstances.
I have never given to a liberal institution, as they
term it, — I never will. Never. I do not believe in
giving to an institution that uses the prayer-room as
a dancing-hall, or Shakespeare for the Bible.

"Now I am not coming here again until you get
your endowment raised. Then I will come up.
You might as well go about raising that endowment
now for your prosperity adds to your expense. When
you write that you have got it all, I will come up
and bring the $50,000.00 in clean cash. I will not
give you a check, but the money itself. When you
write me that the endowment is raised, I will come,

138

GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE

and not before. I have very good reasons why I
have given to Beloit. I will help you as much in
the future as I have in the past."

One of the exercises at the commencement in 1898
was the dedication of Emerson Hall. Mr. Hale of Chi-
cago represented Dr. Pearsons, who could not leave
Chicago, and Professor Emerson spoke for the college
and the young women for whom it had been erected.
At that time Dr. Pearsons gave the college a check for
$51,000.00, the extra thousand dollars being for
Mrs. Pearsons, to help meet the conditions imposed
by her husband when his pledge was made.

When the health of the President was seriously
impaired in 1901, Dr. Pearsons came forward with
an offer of $200,000.00 if the Trustees would raise
$150,000 and the President would remain with the
college and return to his work, after taking suitable
rest. These conditions were speedily met, and Be-
loit College became as strong a college financially as
it long had been in its faculty and in the character
of its work.

Four years later the President found a change of
occupation so absolutely necessary that he reluc-
tantly accepted a call to the pastorate of a New Eng-
land church whence, two years later he was persuaded
to return to Beloit. But before consenting to fill
his old position he took the lead in a campaign which
increased the endowment of the college $200,000.00,
toward which Dr. Pearsons contributed $25,000.00.
"For twenty years now," says President Eaton, "Dr.

139

LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS

Pearsons has been the dynamic of Beloit's new life;
at every critical point in the history of the college his
moulding and energizing spirit has been embodied in
the development which has characterized the epoch."
Generous and valuable as Dr. Pearsons' gifts to
the college have been, it ought not to be forgotten that
the conditions upon which they were offered could
never have been met, save for the unflagging inter-
est in the college on the part of its trustees, and the
liberal way in which they themselves contributed.
They were leaders in the money-seeking campaigns.
Nor did they grow weary or discouraged when many
said, "The conditions cannot be met." They said,
"We must meet them, and we will." And they did.
In the earlier campaigns, or till he became President
of Wooster University, Ohio, they had the invaluable
assistance of Rev. Lewis E. Holden, then financial
agent of the college. Mr. Holden had a genius for
raising money. He could obtain it where every one
else would fail. And he obtained it because he loved
the college from which he had graduated, in which
he was a professor and in whose present and future
work he believed with all his heart. His enthusiasm
never failed nor did he ever shrink from any task,
however distasteful, provided it promised something
for his Alma Mater. To him should be accorded
as it is by those who know what he accomplished,
the credit for no small share in securing the victory
in the earlier campaigns for the money called for to
meet the conditions upon which the offers of Dr.
Pearsons were made.

140

GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE

Dr. Pearsons has admired the college for its Chris-
tian character and for the devotion to its interests
on the part of its trustees, its graduates, and more
than all, of its faculty. He has never tired of speak-
ing of the noble work of President Chapin, Professors
Emerson, Blaisdell and Porter, who literally gave
their lives for the college, and for the larger share
of their pay were content to look upon the character
of their students and the place they filled in the
world. Such an institution he felt ought to live,
be fully equipped for all the work demanded of it,
and its influence perpetuated through an endowment
he could help it secure.

141

XI

GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES THAN
BELOIT

XI

GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES THAN
BELOIT

PARK College, Parkville, Missouri, is one of
the colleges in which Dr. Pearsons has
been especially interested. It is the out-
growth of the devotion of a single family, father and
sons, the McAfees. Thoroughly Christian in its
spirit, Presbyterian in its denominational prefer-
ence, yet absolutely tolerant, furnishing opportun-
ities for self-support so abundant that no one who
really desires an education need hesitate to seek
it, it could not fail to win the respect and sympathy
of a man like Dr. Pearsons, who has always sought
to invest his money where it would return the larg-
est dividends.

It has a large plant and is entirely out of debt.
Its endowment is small, for an institution of its size,
though it is steadily increasing. Its President, Dr.
Lowell M. McAfee, says, "I can assure you most
unqualifiedly that few gifts have come to Park at
a time when they were more timely and more help-
ful than that of Dr. Pearsons. For some years we
had made no appreciable advance in our endowment.
10 145

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

We needed just the impetus that his gift of $25,000.00
afforded. I cannot speak too highly of our apprecia-
tion of his kindness and helpfulness in placing his
seal of approval on the work of the institution."

There are thirty or more buildings on the campus,
unpretentious all of them, but suited to the purpose
for which they were erected. Parkville is not far
from Kansas City and is in the center of a region
where the work the college is trying to do, and has
been successful in doing, is greatly needed.

Dr. Pearsons has made no large gifts to any of the
Iowa Colleges. He has felt that a state with the
wealth of Iowa, and the appreciation the people in
general have of the value of an education, might
wisely be left to provide for its own institutions.

To Coe College, a small college at Cedar Rapids,
he has, however, given a thousand dollars, and at a
time when this sum was very much needed.

Tabor College also received about one thousand
dollars from him, without any conditions attached
to it. The gift was of very great value, as without
it, it would have been well-nigh impossible to com-
plete a building greatly needed in the college work.
The sympathy expressed in the gift, and the approval
thus given the college were worth more than the
money, indispensable as that seemed to be. Tabor,
as is well known, occupies a field entirely its own and
is furnishing opportunities for higher education to
a class of students very eager to accept them.

Hastings College, Nebraska, has received $10,000
from Dr. Pearsons. Though a small college, its

146

GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES

history has been creditable, and its future is prom-
ising.

Doane College in southern Nebraska, so called
after its most generous benefactor, has done for
nearly a generation, fine work with a very scanty
equipment. Its graduates have distinguished them-
selves in almost every rank of life. As a child of
the Congregational churches of the state, it has again
and again received their willing aid in adding to its
endowment. This year, 1911, it has received from
them, notwithstanding recent gifts which taxed their
capacity to the utmost, seventy-five thousand dol-
lars, for the twenty-five promised and paid over by
Dr. Pearsons. The college has a campus of great
beauty, one which the oldest and richest university
in the country might well covet. President Perry
has given his life to the college, and with the assist-
ance of able professors, has brought it into the first
rank of the smaller colleges.

The fact that Washburn College, situated as it is
at the capital of the State, has been able to attract
the attention of wealthy men in the east, and has
received large gifts from them, has led Dr. Pearsons
to feel that it would be wiser for him to give to col-
leges with fewer resources open to them than the
college at Topeka. He has, however, taken a deep
interest in Washburn, has watched its growth care-
fully, and years ago presented it with a thousand
dollars. To this gift he makes no reference when
speaking of the institutions he has aided.

Fairmount College, Wichita, in Southern Kansas,
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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

is one of the rapidly growing institutions of that
great state. The city in which it is located has all
the push and enterprise of the north and west, but
in social life is characterized by much of the charm
and refinement of the south. Many of the leading
citizens of Wichita, and not a few of the best friends
of the college are southern born. The majority of
the students at Fairmount are from Kansas, though
a few are from states further south. To the appeals
of Fairmount for aid, Dr. Pearsons has responded
with gifts aggregating $40,000.00. These gifts have
drawn the attention of many friends of learning to
this college, and to such a degree that its enthusiastic
and very able President, Rev. Henry E. Thayer,
is now inaugurating a campaign for a very consid-
erable increase in the endowment of the college, the
erection of new buildings and an increase in the
faculty. Fairmount has demonstrated its right to
live, and its value to the large constituency which
geographically belongs to it. That the present
campaign for an increase of funds will be entirely
successful, those who are acquainted with President
Thayer and his Board of Trustees do not for a mo-
ment doubt.

Colorado College at Colorado Springs, is one of
the institutions which has received substantial aid
from the Doctor's purse. Years ago when on a visit
to the Springs during a summer vacation, he declared
his purpose to a friend to assist the college at some
future time. The friend was dubious. He had
heard wealthy men talk before. He made an entry

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GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES

in his note-book that Dr. Pearsons of Chicago has
said that sometime he was going to aid the little
struggling college at Colorado Springs, and added
that he was going to see how the promise was kept.
No man was more surprised than he, when he
learned that the Doctor had come to the rescue of
the college, had encouraged its President to under-
take a money-raising campaign, in which he had
little hope of success, but which, pushed with un-
wearied energy and carefully planned, brought the
college its first large endowment, and fifty thousand
dollars from the man who long before had promised
to aid the college. That college is now the leading
institution in the state, has more students than it
can accommodate, and is suffering from a demand
for special instruction in departments not yet estab-
lished. In appreciation of what Dr. Pearsons has
done for Colorado and other colleges, President
Slocum writes:

"It is not easy to place a just estimate upon the
value of the beneficence of Dr. D. K. Pearsons.
Without doubt Mr. Andrew Carnegie was right
when he said that there never had been in the his-
tory of America a case of giving which had accom-
plished as much of value to the whole country as
the gifts of Dr. D. K. Pearsons to the colleges of the
West. It is of very distinct advantage that these
gifts are the result of painstaking and business-like
investigations. No set of institutions in the coun-
try has done more for moral, as well as intellectual
leadership, than have these colleges, which are dis-
tinctly religious in their influence. It is the recog-

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

nition of this fact, which has placed such high value
upon the discriminating benevolence of Dr. Pear-
sons. He has recognized that there are certain
strategic points in the West, where colleges should
be established and developed, and with the far-sight-
edness of a man well acquainted with this section of
the country, he had poured his millions into these
institutions and made it possible in many cases for
them to go on with their beneficent work.

" It is remarkable that he has been able to give such
a large amount of time to a study of these colleges,
visiting them, making careful examination of their
curriculums, and especially of their business methods,
and watching their growth with an interest that has
been keen as well as sympathetic.

"The result has been that not only have his dona-
tions been wisely placed, but he has set an example
to others which has resulted in doubling or even
trebling the value of his own gifts.

"Aside, however, from the great financial worth of
his munificence, the greatest value of his gifts has
been, that by means of them he has set on their way
moral and religious influences, which are the hope
of America. No one can study keenly such tenden-
cies throughout the West, without realizing how
these influences are largely centered in the type of
college which he is supporting; colleges which are
constantly sending into the world a stream of young
men and women who are taking places of leadership
in all that makes for the highest good of the coun-
try. It is this which has made Dr. Pearsons' gen-
erosity of such national importance. As the years
go on, it will be recognized more and more that it
is this which constitutes the inestimable value of the
gifts of this great and wise philanthropist, whose
memory will be cherished not only by the institu-

150

GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES

tions which he has helped, but by the thousands of
earnest, high-minded, self-reliant young people who
received college training because of his generosity
and who are rendering service throughout the world,
which is one of the highest value."

To the College of Idaho, at Caldwell, Dr. Pearsons
gave $25,000.00 in 1909. This with $75,000.00
obtained from other sources provided an endowment
of $100,000.00, which has been increased through
the stimulus created by the interest taken in the col-
lege by Dr. Pearsons, to $160,000.00. President Boon
says, "The College can never forget that Dr. Pear-
sons led the way to financial success, or that its Vice
President, Miss Julia V. Finney, one of its faithful
teachers, was the agent through whom his interest
in the college was aroused." The field which the
college occupies is full of promise and as it has the
moral and financial support of the Presbyterian
Church of the whole country, it can hardly fail
to become a large and important institution of
learning.

In the College of Montana at Deer Lodge, Dr.
Pearsons was interested when he first heard that its
establishment was proposed. His promise of $25,-
000.00, made as soon as there was any prospect that-
additional funds could be secured, "was," writes
the President, "undoubtedly the means of securing
our endowment. It made possible the work since
done and the high degree of efficiency and success
since reached." With a large body of students in
attendance, the state rapidly increasing in popula-

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

tion, an able faculty and the Presbyterian Church
interested in it, its future is assured.

Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, has
received $50,000.00 from Dr. Pearsons. It was prom-
ised to Dr. J. W. Strong, then President of the college,
on condition that double the sum be raised in addi-
tion, for endowment. He promised also to pay one
half of the amount whenever fifty thousand dollars
were secured. May 19, 1900, the college received
$25,000.00 and January 8, 1901, $25,000.00. The
gift was of great service to the college in itself and in
the influence it had in creating confidence in its
character and worth.

Lawrence University, under Methodist control,
and located at Appleton, Wisconsin, one of the
institutions in which Dr. Pearsons lectured when he
represented Dr. Calvin Cutter in the West and in
the South, in the late fifties, received from him five
thousand dollars, toward the erection of Science
Hall. President Plantz says: "This gift was of
the greatest importance to us, since it gave a start
to a needed enterprise and helped stimulate General
Isaac Stephenson to make a large gift for the same
cause. I doubt if we would have been able to erect
the Science Hall at the time we did if Dr. Pearsons'
gift had not given us a valuable start. Its erection
marks the beginning of the recent prosperity of our
college both in attendance and in the development
of our resources."

Toward the erection of Ingram Hall, which is a
Science Hall, for Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin,

152

GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES

Dr. Pearsons gave five thousand dollars. The
money came at a critical time and made it possible
to secure a building which was an absolute necessity,
and has served its purpose with increasing efficiency.
President Merrill, then at the head of the college,
wrote the Doctor that he believed him to be the
wisest giver he had ever known. His gifts were not
always made on conditions hard to meet. Nor did
he always care to have it known that money came
from him for any special object. He often concealed
his gifts under the name of another. He was thus
true to his purpose of investing his money where he
was persuaded it would do the most good.

For Northland College, Ashland, Wisconsin, Dr.
Pearsons has invested $10,000.00 in an endowment
which as yet is very small. This college is the child
of missions and as a frontier college, with a field from
two to five hundred miles in extent in different direc-
tions, has an opportunity rarely equalled for Chris-
tian and educational influence. "It is the leading
agency," says Rev. E. P. Wheeler, "to mould and
unify and raise up leaders for the virile races of
Northern Europe, beginning the struggle among the
stump lands of the Lake Superior region." The
college is in its infancy, but the children of heroic
German and Scandinavian settlers, and of "the
equally heroic but defeated peasantry of Finland,
Poland and Russia" are showing themselves eager
to embrace the opportunities it offers them for an
education.

To Huron College, Huron, South Dakota, $15,000
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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

have been given. This gift was the beginning of a
permanent endowment. As to its value, President
French writes, "This money from Dr. Pearsons
was the first money given to us as general endow-
ment funds. Because of his reputation for wisdom
as well as generosity in his giving, it has been of great
value to us, to be known as one of his children.
Our college is an especially good example of the
kind of institution in which he believes and which
he desires to help. His pioneer work in helping the
small western Christian college, I consider of the
utmost importance to the country at large. On
patriotic as well as on Christian grounds he could
have done nothing wiser or more far-reaching for
good with his money." This Presbyterian College
has made a good name for itself, and in a few
years, with a more ample endowment, will become
one of the important educational institutions of the
state.

Yankton College, Yankton, South Dakota, has
received generous aid from Dr. Pearsons. He
greatly admired the character and work of Rev.
Joseph Ward, founder of the college, pastor of the
First Congregational Church of the city, friend
and promoter of all the religious interests of the state,
whose service as educator and Christian minister
was cut short by his death in 1889. Two years
later he offered the college $50,000.00 on condition
that $150,000.00 more were raised. If buildings
and campus were worth at that time a little less
than $50,000, and the debt was hardly less than that

154

GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES

sum, it would seem as if hope of success in meeting
these conditions were slight indeed. But through
the efforts of the Rev. W. B. D. Gray, seconded by
the untiring zeal and self -sacrificing service of Mrs.
Ward, so much was secured that part of the pledge
was redeemed in 1893 and the remainder at Com-
mencement in June, 1895. The panic of 1893, the
fact that many of the contributors were unable to
pay what they had promised and the general decrease
in the price of land, greatly reduced the actual value
of the subscription. But the debt was paid, and
Ward Science Hall was erected and dedicated with-
out incurring any new obligations. In 1895 the
Doctor urged President Warren, then at the head
of a College in Utah, to leave the college he was then
serving, and if called to Yankton, as he was very
shortly afterward, to accept the call, difficult as the
position would be to fill. Almost the first advice
he gave the new President was to reduce expenses.
This was done, both in 1898 and 1899, able men put
upon a salary of $800 a year, an amount upon which
it was very hard to live.

In the spring of 1900 the Doctor offered the Presi-
dent $50,000.00 if the debt, which in spite of every
effort had been increasing until it had reached the
sum of $30,000.00, was paid by March 1st. The
money was raised chiefly in small gifts, though one
gift of $5,000.00 from a gentleman in the East, whose
name was concealed, changed doubt and despair into
cheer and certainty. By June, 1906, $90,000.00
had been secured for buildings and endowment, and

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

to this sum Dr. Pearsons added $30,000. In speak-
ing of his "princely generosity," Dr. Warren writes
"He stretched forth a generous hand to feeble begin-
nings which other great givers refuse to consider,
and by his benefactions made early and large success
possible. Childless, himself, the colleges and the
young people in them are his children. In them
are thousands of teachers and students who not
only now while he is still with us, but to the last day
of their lives will rise up and call him blessed."

It is not too much to say that if Dr. Pearsons
had failed to come to the rescue, the college could not
have survived the pressure of continued deficit and
the panic of 1893. It was the timeliness of his gift
as well as its size which gave confidence, as well as
relieving the college from burdens almost unbear-
able. The college is now well established, though
as a flourishing institution it demands far larger
means than at present are at its disposal. The
President and Trustees are now seeking to obtain,
for buildings and further endowment not less than
$250,000.00 by the end of the present college year.
If this aim is not realized at the coming Commence-
ment, the effort will doubtless be continued till that
greatly needed sum is secured, and the college brought
into a condition where it will be better able to do
the work which a growing and prosperous state
requires.

Fargo College, Fargo, North Dakota, has also
received a large sum from Dr. Pearsons. He had
believed in its mission from the first. He sympa-

156

GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES

thized with the aim and efforts of its first President,
Rev. H. C. Simmons, whose sudden death was caused
by his devotion to Christian education, and the reli-
gious interests of the state. But for a gift of $50,-
000.00 from Dr. Pearsons that first endowment of
$200,000.00 could not have been obtained. His
later gift of $20,000.00 for the completion of Dill
Hall was equally important and valuable. "The
first gift came," says Dr. Cragin, the President of
the College, "at a time when discouragement was so
great that the Trustees were nearly ready so give
up the institution. That gift saved its life and ren-
dered its future growth possible. No wonder that
he is spoken of by the Trustees, as our great friend.
If he could see," adds Dr. Cragin, "the institution
at the present time, with the Carnegie Library, a
beautiful building almost ready for use; with our
splendid faculty representing some eighteen univer-
sities and colleges, including Harvard, Columbia,
Oxford, Leipzig, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oberlin
and Beloit; with our fine body of students, an in-
crease of fifty per cent as compared with last year;
if he could know of the large number of students
who are earning their own way, he would feel that
he has never made a better investment." That this
is nearly always said by the President and friend of
every institution he has aided is proof of the wisdom
of his beneficence and of the care with which it has
been bestowed.

Rev. E. H. Stickney, one of the Trustees of the
college and connected with it from its organization

157

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

and active in all efforts for its development, writes,
"Dr. Pearsons' gift of one thousand dollars to cur-
rent funds at a time when all were feeling the burden
very much and were ready to give up, was providen-
tial. Two out of five members of the Executive
Committee had voted to close the doors of the col-
lege. Then came the offer of $50,000.00 if $150,000
more were raised for endowment. Impossible as it
seemed to do this the close of 1902 saw the money
in hand. A later gift of $20,000.00 completed Dill
Hall, a building greatly needed for administration
and scientific purposes. These gifts were the means
of saving the college. They came at a time to remove
discouragement and to lay the foundations upon
which a great institution can safely and surely be
built."

Similar testimony is given by George E. Pearley,
Esq., one of the most faithful of the Trustees, and
one who often consulted with Dr. Pearsons, and
who, if he felt at first that the conditions of his gifts
were severe, came afterwards to look upon them as
"the severity of kindness and of high wisdom."
With an endowment of $200,000.00 well invested,
it would seem as if a college with a goodly number of
students, in the commercial center of a rapidly
growing state like North Dakota, need never again
be in a critical condition. But hard times and ina-
bility to secure any considerable sum of money from
the friends of the college in the state made it diffi-
cult five years later, and well nigh out of the ques-
tion to complete the Administrative Building. The

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GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES

walls were up, windows and doors were boarded up.
The unfinished structure seemed to be saying to all
who saw it, "You perceive the weakness of the insti-
tution. It is about to die." At this crisis Dr.
Pearsons wrote, "Finish Dill Hall. I enclose a
check for $4,000.00. More will be sent as needed,
till you have the $20,000.00 you ask for." That
gift ended the era of doubt for Fargo College.

The financial outlook for Drury College in the
years 1892 and 1893 was gloomy and discouraging.
Competing schools had laid upon the college the
necessity of an extended Curriculum and additions
to her Faculty. And further a $20,000.00 debt and
increasing annual deficits seemed to preclude a for-
ward movement. The continual call upon the
friends of the College for gifts to meet annual deficits
had become burdensome and disheartening. The
friends of the College felt that light must break in
and early relief must come or twenty years' work
be jeopardized. "Letters, prayers and calls were
sent everywhere — seeking some Moses who should
lead us over the Red Sea of our difficulties. It
was at this time the college turned its hope toward
Dr. D. K. Pearsons of Chicago, and our faith in his
wise judgment and benevolent heart was not con-
founded."

When "our necessities and opportunities were laid
before him" by Dr. H. T. Fuller, then the President,
Dr. Pearsons surprised him by saying promptly,
"I will give the college $50,000.00 if the friends of
college will give $100,000.00 more. Or I will cover

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

this amount in two pledges — giving $25,000.00, if
you will raise $50,000.00. This generous pledge
brought comfort and hope and some trembling to
the college, and the campaign was opened with an
effort to meet the first conditional offer, and the
amount was raised by January 1st, 1894. Dr. Pear-
sons sent forward his check for $25,000.00 and it
looked wonderfully good to the college. Again the
friends of the institution rallied with determination
to meet the second conditional gift of $25,000.00,
and it was met January 1st, 1895, and Dr. Pearsons
forwarded his second check for $25,000.00 more.

None except those upon the ground could under-
stand the new joy and hope these gifts of Dr. Pearsons
inspired. The future of Drury College was felt to
be secure. New gifts would come easier since future
donors would be assured their gifts would not be
lost.

This royal help of Dr. Pearsons made his name a
household word in the whole Southwest, and led
many schools and even individuals to write to this
benefactor for aid. The college and city now desired
to have this great donor visit the Southwest and
the Faculty and the City Council extended to him
a pressing invitation to come; finally, in April, 1901,
Dr. Pearsons and his beloved wife found it conven-
ient to visit Springfield while on their journey to
Eureka Springs for a brief rest. Great preparations
were made to make their visit notable and the whole
body of the faculty and students went to the depot
to welcome them and escort them to the college.

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GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES

A carriage was decorated with college colors and the
two higher classes planned to draw them to the col-
lege grounds. But the unpretentious benefactor
declined this offer with thanks and desired to drive
down in "his own hired carriage." He was driven
down to the grounds and halted before the splen-
did edifice that had been made possible by his gift,
and he greatly admired it, and told his companions
that it made him very happy to see it. After prom-
ising to be at morning Chapel exercises they retired
to the hotel for the night.

The visitors were on hand early, and the faculty,
students and many from the city were present to
greet them. All saw Dr. Pearsons and his wife and
heard his unique speech. The following are a few
excerpts from his address.

"Faculty, Students and Citizens, if my tongue
were tipped with eloquence, I would throw the tip
away, for I wish to talk a little plain common-sense.
. I am intensely interested in young men
and women. I want to give the poor boy a chance.
I have a little fund of $150,000.00 which I loan to
young men and women through college treasuries,
and I have never lost a dollar. . . . I was
introduced at Beloit College as Dr. Pearsons, C. B.
(College Builder). At another place as holding the
degree of P. E. (Professor of Endowments). I made
my money by strict economy. I never spent a
dollar foolishly. I never saw a horse race. I never
saw a ball game. I never went to a theatre.

"Some say I am close fisted; I am. Some call
11 161

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

me an old Puritan. I am proud of it. My habits
are simple. I rise early. I attend strictly to busi-
ness. I have made my money honestly, I take
advantage of no man.

"I advise rich men to put their money in
colleges out west, Christian colleges. ... A
friend of mine lately told me that he was building
a monument for himself and family in the cemetery
that would cost him $40,000.00. I told him I was
building a monument for myself and wife that would
cost over $5,000,000.00, and this monument is
associated with the Christian colleges in the land.

"Young men, if you amount to anything in this
world you must hustle. Young men and women,
the promised land is before you. You must hustle
to obtain it. ...

"Grit makes the man, the lack of it, the chump,
Therefore young man take hold, hang on and hump."

In honor of this visit the college gave a holiday
to its students and the visitors looked over all the
college buildings and in the afternoon the President
gave a reception to the visitors and many citizens
of Springfield called and paid their sincere respects.

In 1908 Dr. Pearsons again came to the help of
Drury College, with the handsome gift of $20,000.00,
making a total in gifts of $70,000.00.

In the present hopeful outlook for Drury College
Dr. D. K. Pearsons is regarded as the man and sol-
dier who "stood in the breach," and his large gifts,
which were accumulated honestly, will continually
bless the work of Drury College.

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GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES

The success of a later campaign for $250,000.00
depended very largely upon the judgment of Dr.
Pearsons. A number of people, friendly to the
college, hesitated about additional gifts. Dr. J. H.
George, the President, consulted with the Doctor
and received from him, not only a contribution for
the fund, but also his unqualified and hearty endorse-
ment of the proposition in the interests of Christian
education. This opinion of Dr. Pearsons was much
quoted in satisfying liberal friends of Education
that an investment in cash in Drury College would
yield ample and satisfactory returns in the way of
fitting young men and women for their life work.
Drury regards the Doctor as the one man who has
stood firm, strong and hearty in favor of the insti-
tution, and has created a sentiment of confidence,
among the generous patrons of education through-
out the country, so that it is now confidently under-
taking to increase the endowment by half a million
dollars, to meet the growing needs of the Institution.

163

XII
AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE

xn

AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE

BEREA College was founded in 1855. It was
located in the Village of Berea, Kentucky,
which is about one hundred and thirty-one
miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the Louis-
ville and Nashville Railway. Rev. John G. Fee, one
of its founders, said of it, "It is a dreary place," but
prayer, consecration and untiring effort have built
up here one of the most remarkable and useful educa-
tional institutions in America. In 1910 it had 1400
students, over 1000 of them living in buildings or
barracks on the campus. It owns over 170 acres of
farming land and 4000 acres of forest land, purchased
in order that students may have practical lessons in
forestry. It has a system of water works which cost
$50,000.00 to install. Several of its buildings have
been erected almost entirely by student labor. This
is true of the chapel which seats more than 1500 peo-
ple. The brick was burned on the farm and the tim-
ber obtained from the mountains. The annual bud-
get, which is on a very economic scale, in 1910 was
$89,000.00. Over and above the income from $900,-
000.00 endowment, a large deficit has to be raised

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

every year. This budget provides the kind of edu-
cation which the mountain people especially need.
These people have been belated in their development
by living in comparative isolation for two centuries,
and need domestic, agricultural and economic train-
ing, as well as that which fits one to be a school-
teacher or to follow a profession. There are depart-
ments for instruction in nursing, domestic science, in
printing, brick-making, mountain farming, carpenter-
ing, blacksmithing, the selection and care of stock. In
these departments students are trained for the practi-
cal work of life. Board is furnished at cost and
tuition is low. Students are encouraged to earn
their way by their work. From 1859 the school
was for a time suspended on account of the feeling
of hostility in the state which had arisen against it,
and during the Civil War it was twice interrupted
by the presence of armies. In 1866 it admitted the
first colored students, obtained a charter as Berea
College, and until 1904 youth of both sexes, white
and colored, profited from its instructions. In
that year the legislature of Kentucky, yielding to a
growing pressure from many sections of the South,
passed a law requiring the separation of the races in
all the schools of the state. The law was obeyed,
and when its legality was upheld by the Supreme
Court, the Trustees of the College promptly set aside
$200,000 of its then scanty endowment, for the sup-
port of its colored students in institutions like Fisk
University, Nashville, Tennessee, where at one time
141 were taught. A campaign for $200,000 more

168

AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE

was immediately begun and when the money was
secured, a site between Louisville and Lexington
was purchased: there under the name of the Lincoln
Institute of Kentucky, a new and separate school
was started on its independent career. This move-
ment left Berea free to devote itself with greater
consecration to the cultivation of the special field
open to it, the training of the young people of the
mountains. For this work increased endowment
has been sought and obtained, but more and better
buildings are still greatly needed. In confining its
efforts to this, at first seemingly more limited field
the friends of the college have received sympathy
and aid from many of the most influential and far-
seeing people in America. As an example of this,
one may point to the great meeting held on Lincoln's
birthday, February 11, 1911, in Carnegie Hall,
New York, at which such men as the Hon. Seth
Low of New York, and Governor Woodrow Wilson
of New Jersey were present, and in which they took
a prominent part. At that meeting a letter from
President Taft was read in which he said, "Berea
is doing a great work in educating the mountaineers
of the South."

Governor Wilson of Kentucky wrote, "No school
has done, or can do so much for this Appalachian
Region as Berea."

Justice Harlan, as one familiar with the moun-
taineers of the South, wrote — "What these moun-
taineers need, who are by nature manly Americans
is opportunity. Give them churches, and school-

169

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

houses, and financial aid, and great results for the
country will follow."

As one of the speakers at that meeting, President
Frost of Berea called attention to the fact that these
mountaineers are living in a state of society not
unlike that of the time of Alfred the Great of England,
that they are of the best possible stock with many
noble traditions, the finest traits of character, and
eager for a training that will make their mountains
a better place in which be to born and to live.

Governor Wilson, of New Jersey, himself a south-
erner, and acquainted with the mountain region of
the South from boyhood, said — "When you are asked
to subscribe for Berea you are asked to subscribe
for a renewal of the life of the country at its sources.

"These people, living as they do, remote from the
great routes of travel, in the pockets of the mountains,
on their slopes, amid their forests, are of an old
stock, Scotch-Irish, are conservative by nature, yet
thoughtful as well as imaginative, are the kind of
people out of whom the best kind of American citi-
zens can be developed. President Lincoln was of
them. He knew them, honored them because he
knew them, and trusted them, and they did not
disappoint him in the trying times of the Civil War.
There are three million of these southern whites
living in the mountains which belong to the ends of
seven states, grouped around East Tennessee, to be
educated."

The Charter of Berea reads : "In order to promote
the cause of Christ, primarily by contributing to

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AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE

the spiritual and material welfare of the mountain
region of the South, affording to young people of
character and promise a thorough Christian educa-
tion, elementary, industrial, secondary, normal and
collegiate with opportunities for manual labor as an
assistance in self-support."

The school was begun by slaveholders, who did
not believe in slavery, who hoped that through
education its gradual abolition might be brought
about. Although slavery has gone, the purpose for
which the school was founded, the education of the
children of the sturdy people of the mountain regions
of the South, remains . . . They need a different
training from that furnished in northern academies,
or in the high schools and colleges of the South.
All that is best in their traditions and habits should
be preserved. They should be encouraged to con-
tinue their fireside industries, weaving and the like.
As not all of the young people can attend school and
none of the older people, efforts are made to reach
them in the summer by going among them and living
among them in tents and giving instruction in house-
keeping, improvement in the management of farms,
the raising of stock, and exciting interest in these
and kindred subjects by the use of the stereopticon.
Travelling libraries are kept constantly in circulation.
Coming thus into close touch with the people in their
homes, a desire is created to attend the school at
Berea, even at the great sacrifice which must often
be made to do so. That Berea is doing something
toward helping these mountaineers into a new and

171

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

larger life, while yet encouraging them to remain in
their mountain homes is evident from the fact that
every year many more students apply for admission
to its privileges than can find shelter in its buildings.
Dr. Pearsons was interested in Berea by a visit
from its President, W. G. Frost, in 1895. At first
he declined to put it on his list of college benefici-
aries, but he agreed to go to Berea for Commence-
ment and after thorough investigation said in public
that as soon as Berea would raise $150,000.00 he
would add $50,000.00 to that amount. He made no
limitation as to time. At the end of four years the
money was in the treasury and Dr. Pearsons sent
his check for the amount he had promised. Another
pledge of $50,000.00 made on the same conditions
was paid in July, 1900. Then in 1904 he paid as
called for $50,000.00 for a system to bring water
to the college campus and thus render the hygienic
conditions of the college what they should be. This
gift, Dr. Pearsons regards as the best gift he has ever
made to any institution or to any object. On his
89th birthday writing from Pasadena, he promised
$25,000.00 for a dormitory for boys and sent the
money in a month. To this no conditions were
attached. During that year he promised $100,-
000.00 as soon as four times that sum was secured,
and the pledge was redeemed in January, 1911.

Writing November 16, 1910, President Frost says:
"I went to Chicago to see Dr. Pearsons in January
or February, 1895, and had an interview with him
in his office in the usual form. I was introduced by

AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE

Dr. Simeon Gilbert, former editor of the The Advance.
The Doctor asked me a great many questions, and
then said that he was powerless to do anything for a
year or more at least, and waved me out of the office.
Being in Chicago, I took the time to call upon a num-
ber of leading men, in order to make them acquainted
with Berea's work and opportunity. Shortly after
I left the city, it seems Dr. Pearsons called a little
conference of advisers as to Berea, and among them
several of the gentlemen whom I had just seen and
'posted.'

"The result was that a few weeks later Dr. Pearsons
wrote me saying that if Dr. Fifield would attend the
next Commencement at Berea to give the address,
he would come with him and visit the college. He
came and was entertained at our house. He investi-
gated the institution from the library to the kitchen,
and took great delight in the stalwart mountaineers
who filled our Tabernacle on Commencement Day.
At the close of the exercises, he made a speech which
was much appreciated and at the end gave us our
first pledge. Realizing that Berea did not have an
Alumni and constituency like other schools he waived
the time limit: 'Whenever Berea College will raise
$150,000.00 for additional endowment, I will add $50,-
000.00 to it.'

"This pledge was an immediate introduction to
people of means and patriotism everywhere. We
had the double burden of raising money for current
expenses at the same time we were working for the
new endowment. It took us four years, but in 1899
when we completed this endowment we had a list
of friends.

" The whole endowment had drawn attention to the
mountain region as nothing before, and Dr. Pearsons
received many letters of congratulation from public

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

men all over the country. In a few months, he re-
peated the offer of $50,000.00 on condition of our
raising $150,000.00 more. This time the task was
completed in a year.

"Berea then entered upon a course of internal
development, adapting its methods more carefully
to the peculiar conditions of its mountain field. The
number of students increased rapidly. The new
friends who had been enlisted for the Pearsons'
endowment helped us in the construction of the
industrial building and in other improvements.
Some of these friends interested themselves in helping
us to buy a considerable forest reserve.

"The project of piping water from certain springs
on this forest reserve to the college grounds in Berea
was kept in mind as we purchased land, and plans
and specifications were laid before Dr. Pearsons in
1902, and in 1903 he made his pledge to Dr. Barton
of $40,000.00 for these water works, and an
additional $10,000.00 for sewers and plumbing.
This, at once, put Berea on an hygienic basis. We
had not realized what risks and deprivations were
involved in our limited water supply.

"Then came the gift of $25,000.00 for Pearsons
Hall, a dormitory for young men. Our only men's
dormitory was Howard Hall, built by the Freed-
man's Bureau right after the war, a building whose
very floors had been trodden through by honest wear.
The majority of our young men were living in tem-
porary quarters in the upper stories of the Industrial
Buildings or in barracks of cheap construction. This
gift of Pearsons Hall was particularly cheering, com-
ing as it did, when we were in the agony of raising
the 'Adjustment Fund.'

"The offer under which we are now working,
November, 1910, and which was made successful by

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AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE

gifts from more than eighty people, is for $100,000.00,
conditioned upon our securing $400,000.00 more by
the end of this calendar year. This offer came at a
time when I was just breaking down from too eager
and incessant work, and the whole movement had
to wait for my recovery. Perhaps, we should have
despaired had it not been for a $50,000 bequest from
John S. Kennedy of New York; following this, our
Trustees during my absence secured other important
pledges.

"Dr. Pearsons has done far more than any other
man for Berea and for the entire mountain region.
He has given us the things that were most needed,
and at the time when they were needed, and he has
given them in such a way as to enlist a multitude of
other friends in the cause of Berea and in the general
cause of mountain uplift. He has right to a happy
old age."

Rev. William E. Barton, D. D., of Oak Park,
Illinois, a graduate and one of the Trustees of the
College, in describing the installation of the Water
Supply and the efforts to obtain it says:

"It is difficult to speak in terms other than super-
lative of Dr. Pearsons' gifts to Berea College. Twice
in succession he gave to it conditional gifts of $50,-
000.00, each, requiring the raising of $150.000.00
more, and now has pending an offer of $100,000.00
upon the condition of the securing of $400,000.00
additional, making a total of $900,000.00 Endow-
ment secured to the Institution under the leverage
of his conditional offers. His gift of $25,000.00 for
Pearsons' Hall, secured the erection of the first modern
building for men, and his interest in the Institution
has been alert, continuous and helpful.

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

"But, of all his benefactions to this important
institution, his gift of the Water Works stands out as
perhaps the most unique and interesting gift ever
made to an American College.

"Berea College, admirably located for the varied
work which it has to do, stood subject to great incon-
venience in the lack of an adequate water supply.
Rev. John G. Fee, himself, told of the dreariness of
the place when he first visited it, and of the rebuke
that came to him through the word of a bystander
living in the neighborhood. 'It is a dreary place,'
said Mr. Fee, and Mr. Rawlins replied in the words
of the hymn, 'Prisons would palaces prove, if Jesus
abides with us there.' 'There is no water,' said
Mr. Fee; 'Moses smote the rock and water gushed
out,' answered the neighbor. 'Dig a well where
we stand,' said Mr. Fee, and the well was dug.

"In the early years that and other wells supplied
the school, but the time came when another smiting
of the rock was necessary. The great growth of the
institution rendered the water supply dangerously
inadequate. There was peril from fire and pestilence,
for the town extended far beyond all adequate water
resources and contaminated the surface springs.
Epidemics of typhoid fever were annual and fire-
insurance premiums rose to an almost prohibitive rate.

"The problem of securing water was not easy to
solve. No sufficient supply was within five miles
and the springs were widely scattered over a large
area. Through the wise foresight of President Frost
a large domain had been secured as a forest preserve
and this was extended so as to include a number of
pure flowing springs. A right of way also was ar-
ranged for and a series of surveys and testings extend-
ing over many months gradually brought the plan to
a point of feasibility.

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AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE

"At this stage of the proceeding, a Chicago Trustee
took the plans of the survey to Dr. Pearsons, and by
appointment carried them to his home where he went
carefully over them with Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons.
Every important point in the situation was canvassed
and at length the promise was made of $50,000.00 to
install a complete and permanent water system for
Berea College.

"There were ten large springs, five in each of the
two valleys. The ground plan of the reservoir
position looked like two arms of a man spread out
and with five fingers on the end of each and a spring
at the end of every finger tip. Ten large stone
reservoirs were built and pipes laid from each to
junction points, from which the water was conveyed
down the two valleys to another junction, thence
carried in a single pipe across the valley and over a
gap 200 feet high to the College Campus five miles
away. It was a great engineering feat, embracing
very many practical difficulties, and when it was
finally completed and water was successfully piped
to the campus with sufficient pressure to carry it to
the tops of the buildings, a new chapter in the develop-
ment of Berea College began. Health, cleanliness,
security from fire, all took on new promise, and again,
as of old, the rock had been smitten and abundant
streams of water gushed forth.

"Dr. Pearsons has repeatedly said that no gift ever
made by him gave him such satisfaction as this.
He has said of it that he regarded it as a definite
inspiration and impulse from God, and profoundly
believed that in doing this he was obeying a distinct
divine command. Perhaps no gift ever made to an
American college is so fitted to appeal to the imagina-
tion or so visibly fitted to supply a great, imperative
and permanent need. Buildings may be destroyed,

12 177

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

endowments may be squandered, trusts may be
betrayed, but so long as human beings need water,
Berea will need this gift, and so long as water flows
down hill, the plans on which these Water Works
were constructed will continue to be of service to the
great and growing institution at Berea."

While a believer in higher education for those who
are prepared for it, Dr. Pearsons as a practical
man has believed thoroughly in providing for the
people of mountains the kind of instruction best
fitted for their wants. He has confidence in their
ability and in their desire to make the most of them-
selves. He is in deep sympathy with them. "I
am a mountain man. I was once as poor as they are,
and as ignorant." Hence when he had become
familiar with the work which Berea has been raised
up to do, he devoted large sums for its enlargement.

That these gifts have been appreciated is indicated
by letters like the following from Rev. J. A. Rogers,
Woodstock, Illinois, dated June 18, 1904. Mr.
Rogers was one of the founders of Berea and wrote
as one who had knowledge. His letter was addressed
to Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons, as the latter was as much
interested in the gift as her husband. The letter
is given in full and reads as follows:

"Dr. and Mrs. D. K. PEARSONS

Dear Friends: I call you friends for you have
shown yourselves such devoted friends that any one
who loves Berea College as I have loved it for fifty
years, though now absent, can but look upon you as
dear and choice friends. I think if you knew the

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AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE

joy your last gift to Berea of the Water Works has
caused your hearts would sing for joy. It is not easy
to express the gratitude we all feel, and we rejoice
not only in the present blessing through this gift of
yours by which God's gift is brought to men, but
generations unborn will receive help through this flow
of the pure stream of life-giving water. As the oldest
living trustee and one who helped lay the foundations
of Berea College in a little shanty of a schoolhouse, I
give you for us all, our grateful thanks. May the
God of all blessings bless you most abundantly.

Your grateful friend,

J. A. ROGERS."

As other gifts from Dr. Pearsons were announced
from time to time, letters of approval and congratu-
lation came from Governor Bradley of Kentucky
and ex-President Roosevelt, then Governor of New
York. The wonderful development of the institution
and its widely extended influence are proof that no
mistake has been made in providing so generously
for its endowment and its buildings. But no one
has been able to appreciate the importance and value
of these gifts so well as President Frost, who has been
at the front in all the money-raising campaigns.

When a check for $25,000.00 for the Dormitory
was received, he wrote, May 4, 1909:

"You are the most astounding man, and the only
man I know who can do something more remarkable
than D. K. Pearsons ever did before. Here comes
your check for the entire amount of our new building.
You meant to shock us, and we were shocked. Treas-
urer Osborne hardly knows what to do with his
responsibilities. But all of us are swept away by a

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

great wave of love and gratitude for the friend who has
been so much to the institution and to each one of us
no w for sixteen years . You ha ve a right to be happy ."

In another letter of later date he uses these same
words, "You have a right to be happy," and adds
to them, "I believe you are happy."

At this time Berea students sent this telegram: —

"Berea students and workers send you hearty
thanks. We pledge ourselves to follow your example
in unselfish devotion to the things which make the
world better."

In approval of the method of conditional giving
followed so largely by Dr. Pearsons and criticized
by many, Dr. Frost wrote, as late as March 1, 1911:

"I wish to go on record every time I can as com-
mending the specific plan of conditional gifts which
Dr. Pearsons has pursued so consistently. In fact if
he did not invent the plan, he has given currency to it
beyond any other giver, so that many others must
be considered as following in the line of his example.

"There are always those who complain against this
form of giving, alleging that it distresses the institu-
tion and seems ungenerous on the part of the giver.
It is my sincere conviction that the only way in
which rich men can give large gifts without doing
ultimate harm by weakening the hold of institutions
on the general public and drying up the spirit of
benevolence among those of more moderate means is
to make their gifts conditional. The offer of a large
sum on such conditions always compels attention
on the part of wealthy people, it raises sympathy, it
advertises the cause and it finally develops a wide
circle of friends and supporters."

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XIII

AID FOR SOUTHERN COLLEGES OTHER THAN
BEREA

XIII

AID FOR SOUTHERN COLLEGES OTHER THAN
BEREA

NEARLY all the institutions which Dr. Pearsons
has assisted in the South had established
a name for themselves before he interested
himself in their welfare. He recognized fully
the need of the South for the kind of education
in which he believed long before he did anything to
promote it. But he did not see his way clear to
furnish the help the colleges in the South seemed to
demand until he had been aiding colleges in the
North nearly or quite ten years. Yet in spite of the
difficulties with which they contended many of them
had done and were doing heroic work and every year
were sending out into the world a large army of
well-trained young men and women. Let J. Henry
Harms, President of Newberry College, Newberry,
S. C., a Lutheran Institution founded in 1856, tell
the story of what was done for it. It is too well
told to justify the omission of any part of it.

"DECEMBER 14, 1910.

"Dr. Pearsons came to the help of our college in
1906. The college was preparing to celebrate its

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

fiftieth anniversary. Its endowment was sadly
insufficient, the opportunities tremendous. Under
the able leadership of Dr. James A. B. Scherer, at
that time President, an effort was begun to raise
money for the institution. Dr. Pearsons was ap-
pealed to for aid in the undertaking. In his own
wise and thorough way he inquired into the merits
of the appeal, and decided to give us $25,000.00
provided our people would raise the sum of $50,000.00
to make a fund of $75,000.00 for endowment. His
offer was accepted. The conditions were met. And
the fund was raised.

"In the first place this offer of Dr. Pearsons was a
compliment to the college. It was an endorsement
that the people needed. It renewed their faith in the
institution. They argued that if a wise, judicious
giver like Dr. Pearsons gave his money to their col-
lege, then their college must be more worth while
than even they imagined. It charmed the people.
They had pride in their institution. But it was the
oratorical sort of pride that says nice things on holi-
days and commencement. Dr. Pearsons' offer put
their pride to work. That is one of the best things
he has done for us. He made the college bigger in
the estimation of its friends.

"In the next place Dr. Pearsons' gifts tirred the
people up to give. We had a small constituency.
We were weak financially. It looked impossible for
such a handful of poor Lutherans to raise the sum of
$50,000.00. But Dr. Pearsons had flung a challenge
at them. And they said that if 'an old abolition-
ist/ as he calls himself, thinks enough of our college
to give it $25,000.00, surely we who know the college
and know its value to the South, can raise at least
twice as much. And they did. Dr. Pearsons
proved to be the right sort of an 'abolitionist.'

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OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES

He 'abolished' the slavery of hundreds of white
people in this state — their slavery to limited notions
of themselves, their money and their college. In a
few months after the offer was made the campaign
wound up with all conditions met. It was an epoch-
maker in our history. Hundreds of people gave the
college money who never gave money to it before.
After fifty years the college was born again. And I
think the story of the man behind the gift helped as
much as anything. The story of Dr. Pearsons' life
stirred the people everywhere. The spectacle of a
man deliberately setting himself to give away a
fortune simply captured the imaginations of our
warm-hearted Southern people. It stirred their
deepest benevolent emotions. The short of it is:
Dr. Pearsons is our benefactor, not so much because
he gave us money, as because he made our people
give it. And the beauty of it is they like to give,
as he likes to give. They caught his secret, the secret
he received from the Man who gave himself and said
Tt is more blessed to give than to receive.'

"Then again Dr. Pearsons helped to enlarge the
scope of our college work. Our particular business
in the South is to help the poor boy get an education.
Our college aims to help the boy who is willing to
help himself. We want to put the price of education
down within the reach of the poorest farmer's son.
We find hundreds of boys back in the country who
are hungry to go to college, but cannot quite afford
it. There are hundreds of young men in our cotton-
mill villages who need help and need it badly. We
want to help these farmers' sons and 'factory'
boys. To get these boys into a Christian college
is the biggest moral and social problem in our state.
And that was what we were after when Dr. Pearsons'
offer came. There are thousands waiting yet.

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

We could have twice our enrollment if we had the
money to get more teachers and accommodations.
We have done well with Dr. Pearsons' money.
Invested at eight per cent, we have used the proceeds
to employ three new teachers and enlarge our dormi-
tories, laboratories and lecture rooms. We have
boys here who are working their way. We have
forty-one in this session who are being helped with
scholarships. We give some of them employment at
the college. Located in the center of the state, we
are in the very midst of ripe and ripening opportuni-
ties. With our reputation for thoroughness and econ-
omy we have no trouble getting students. Our
only trouble is that we cannot make room for all
who want to come.

"I may conclude by saying that Dr. Pearsons has
helped us to grow in every way. He helped to put
us in the front rank of southern colleges. He showed
us our possibilities. With an endowment of little
over $102,000.00 we are maintaining a plant of ten
buildings and a teaching force of fifteen. It takes
strict economy to pull through. Dr. Pearsons has
made us realize our need of more endowment. We
are still very poor but most ambitious to be of service.
Dr. Pearsons has been our partner in the manufac-
ture of intelligent Christian manhood — the greatest
business in the world.

"We like Dr. Pearsons down here. On May 6,
1909, he sent us $10,000.00. This made a total of
$35,000.00 which he has invested in Newberry Col-
lege. I have hung a fine portrait of him in our
Chapel. The students shout his name in their
college yells. In further recognition of what we owe
to him we are at work raising a fund of $75,000.00
to be called after the name of his sainted wife.

"I regard Dr. Pearsons as one of the greatest men

186

OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES

in the country. He is a most remarkable character,
and his life is a benediction to Newberry College
and other colleges."

President Carl G. Doney of the West Virginia
Wesleyan College located at Buckhannon, gives Dr.
Pearsons credit for saving the institution of which
he is the head. His words are:

"Dr. Pearsons has made two gifts to this College:
one of $25,000.00 and the other of $10,000.00. The
first gift was made during the progress of 'The
Twentieth Century Thank-Offering Movement' and
was given on condition that this college should
secure an additional sum two or three times as great.
The second gift of $10,000.00 was made after our main
building was consumed by fire February, 1905. No
one can adequately estimate the far-reaching good
of these benefactions. It would seem that Dr.
Pearsons almost literally saved this college. These
gifts have encouraged and stimulated the friends of the
institution so that they have given for the school more
than they would otherwise have done. This college
is located in the center of the state and exclusively
serves a great constituency. I know of no place in
all Christendom where money produces such large
results in Christian, scholarly character as it does
here. The school is a great center sending out strong
men and women to all parts of the state in all lines
of activity. West Virginia would be impoverished
without the college and the college would have been
apparently impossible without Dr. Pearsons."

President John H. Race of the University of Chat-
tanooga, Tennessee, writes under date of November
10, 1910:

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

"This Institution, which is a successor to Grant
University, recognizes in Doctor Daniel K. Pearsons
'The Father of Our Endowment.' His conditional
offer of $50,000.00 was made April 1st, 1906. It was
given with the understanding that $150,000.00 addi-
tional should be secured in cash or bankable notes
toward the permanent endowment fund. This con-
dition was met. Doctor Pearsons rendered this
institution a great service at an opportune period in
its history. We are exceedingly grateful to him for
his interest in us."

The University is under Methodist control, has
prospered greatly, and is now seeking to add half a
million dollars to its endowment. This will place it
on its feet. The fact that Dr. Pearsons in 1911 freed
the institution from its obligation to pay him a
small annuity on a portion of his gifts is an essential
addition to its income. He did the same for each
one of the eight colleges which up to this time had
been sending him an annuity upon the gifts received
from him. Dr. Race's letter expresses his personal
feeling for the relief which Chattanooga University
has received.

'.' MARCH 18, 1911.
"Dear Doctor Pearsons:

" Thank you very much, indeed, for your kind letter
that has just reached me. It is certainly most gra-
cious of you to make the rebate on the annuity pledge.
I rejoice with you in being able to pay all your pledges.
What a fine service you have rendered this college!

"If I can 'round up' the present campaign for
one-half million dollars we shall then begin to be on
a sure foundation. It is a terrific strain. It simply
must be done, though.

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OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES

"If it is at all within the possible I want to greet
you personally on your ninety-first birthday. May
heaven's richest blessings be yours.

With high personal esteem, believe me,
Faithfully yours,

(signed) JOHN H. RACE."

To Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons, Hinsdale, 111.

Washington and Tusculum College, the oldest
college west of the Alleghanies, was founded by the
Presbyterians in 1794. It is located at Greenville,
East Tennessee, and has made for itself an enviable
record. It has sent one hundred and fifty-five men
into the ministry and fourteen into the foreign field ;
it has graduated seventy-nine lawyers and three
governors; it has the names of seventeen judges,
twenty-eight members of Congress and twenty-two
college Presidents on its roll of honor; fifty-three
physicans have been trained within its walls, thirteen
editors, three railroads presidents and three civil
engineers ; it has one Admiral of the United States
Navy to its credit, a chaplain in Congress and two
hundred and fifty-nine teachers. It has done its
work on almost no endowment, in a few buildings,
with a small faculty and with charges for tuition
even now which seem ridiculously low. Expenses
for the year are reported today at a minimum of $100
a year and a maximum of $140. Its holdings are ten
college buildings, six dwelling-houses, a farm of three
hundred and fifty acres and an endowment of only
$100,000.00. No wonder that its history and need
appealed strongly to a man like Dr. Pearsons who

189

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

never fails to appreciate good work and large oppor-
tunities.

Under date of November 10, 1910, President C. O.
Gray writes:

"Three years ago Dr. Pearsons offered to give
$25,000.00 on endowment, on condition that $100,-
000.00 be raised. The amount was raised, and now
totals a little over $101,000.00. Dr. Pearsons
very kindly and generously sent us his check for
$25,000.00.

"This was the first endowment money our college
had ever had, and it had a most stimulating and
healthful effect. Nothing in the history of the insti-
tution has done it more good. I find it much easier
to raise money for the college now, because of this
endowment, and I anticipate that we can raise $200-
000.00 more endowment next year (as we contem-
plate doing) much more easily because of this first
amount secured.

"We are under lasting gratitude to Dr. Pearsons.
He was the originator of it all. God bless him."

Guilford College, located at Guilford, N. C., is a
prosperous institution cared for by the Friends or
Quakers. Its student body has always been of the
finest material. For special reasons Dr. Pearsons
has taken a deep interest in its welfare. That inter-
est found expression in a generous gift of money.
The President of the college, L. L. Hobbs, writes :

"JANUARY 7, 1911.

"Dr. Pearsons' gift of $25,000.00 was made in 1905.
It was conditioned upon our raising $75,000.00,
which we did. The effect was to increase our endow-

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OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES

ment at a very needful time. The gift is in memory
of Dr. Oliver Woodson Nixon, who was born in
Guilford County, North Carolina. I have no doubt
Dr. Pearsons' donation stimulated other friends of
Guilford and we regard his contribution as most
helpful and a great favor to Guilford College."

Piedmont College, Demorest, Georgia, is one of the
youngest colleges of the state. It was established
and aided from the first by the American Missionary
Association (Congregational) with headquarters in
New York. The college now has an endowment of
$100,000.00, a few serviceable buildings and a reason-
able hope of being able very soon to care for itself.
Dr. Pearsons offered to give $25,000.00 toward an
endowment as soon as its friends would add $75,-
000.00 to this sum. After a somewhat protracted
and very strenuous campaign the conditions were met
and in October a check was sent for the amount
promised.

Rev. Henry C. Newell, Vice-President and Dean
of the College, writes:

"Concerning our sense of the value of his gift, it
may be fair to say that it was worth to us much
more than the mere money value, because of the fact
that in raising the amount which was required to
secure Dr. Pearsons' gift, the College was necessarily
brought before the public to an extent which perhaps
might not otherwise have been the case in so short a
time, and there can be no question but that the con-
ditions imposed were a stimulus to giving on the
part of other people and to energetic effort on the
part of the College authorities."

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

Kingfisher College, Kingfisher, Oklahoma, the
only Congregational College in the State, is in the
center of a fine agricultural region and is easily
accessible to a very large population. Toward the
nearly, or quite $200,000.00 endowment of the col-
lege, Dr. Pearsons has given $50,000.00, $25,000.00
in January, 1905, and $25,000.00 in July, 1907. Each
gift was on the condition that it be supplemented by
a gift of $75,000.00. The early years of the college
under the Presidency of Rev. J. T. House, were years
of struggle and self-sacrifice. But the eagerness of
the students and the appreciation of the work which
the President and Faculty with such inadequate
means at command were doing was sufficient reward.

The outlook was so promising and success already
gained so great that Mr. House found the effort to
secure something like an adequate endowment less
difficult than might have been anticipated. It was
the confidence that people had in Dr. Pearsons which
led scores and hundreds of people in all sections of the
country, and especially in the East, to respond
favorably to the appeals of this new college. Nor
was Dr. Pearsons mistaken in his estimate of the
need of Oklahoma, of just such an institution as King-
fisher was designed to be. Rev. Calvin B. Moody,
now President, is doing everything in his power to
realize the ideals of its founders, and with the aid so
freely extended to him from many directions, there
is no reason why this college should not be the larg-
est and most important in the state. Its influence is
felt far to the South, and the fact that some of its

192

Of Ittf

Mus. 1). K. PEARSONS

OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES

graduates have been chosen after severe examination
to represent the state among the Rhodes Scholars
in Oxford, is proof, if any were needed, of the high
grade of work its faculty has sought to do.

Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, in spite of
its youth, has made excellent progress and is now
one of the strongest institutions of the state. Under
date of April 1, 1911, President Blackman writes:

" Dr. Pearsons made two prolonged visits at Rollins
College, the first during the winter of 1902-03, when
he was accompanied by his wife, and the second
during the winter of 1906-07. Mrs. Pearsons, alas,
was no longer with him on the occasion of this second
visit, when he spent four months in my home, his
reverence for her memory, the tenderness and grati-
tude with which he always spoke of her, and the fine
courage with which he bore his grief and loneliness,
being very touching.

"Rollins College was founded in 1885. When Dr.
Pearsons first visited it, the college was recovering
from the effects of the Great Freeze, which had pros-
trated and bewildered the whole state. It had no
endowment whatever; it was struggling under a very
heavy debt; and its buildings and equipment were
inadequate. A new President had recently under-
taken the management of its affairs, and was not yet
inaugurated. Dr. Pearsons devoted several weeks
of study to the college and its field; visiting class-
rooms, interviewing trustees, instructors, pupils,
janitors, the cook, the people of the village; appearing
unannounced in the dining-hall and the kitchen;
asking questions, scrutinizing conditions, criticizing
this and approving that; and at the meeting of the
Board of Trustees held in February, in a note charac-

13 193

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

teristically direct and laconic, he agreed to give the
institution the sum of $50,000.00, on condition that
the further sum of $150,000.00 be raised within a year,
the whole amount to constitute an endowment fund,
no part of which should ever be expended. The con-
ditions which this offer imposed seemed to the trus-
tees and friends of the college almost impossible of
fulfillment. The proposal, however, was accepted,
and on April 5th, at my inauguration as President,
Dr. Pearsons made a speech, pungent, humorous,
and enthusiastic, in which he suggested that on his
eighty-fourth birthday, April 14, 1904, he and his
hearers should meet on the Rollins campus to par-
take of a plum-pudding containing $200,000.00.

"Unhappily, Dr. Pearsons was unable to be with us,
at the proposed banquet, but the plum-pudding was
there, and it contained a considerable sum in excess
of the $200,000.00 which it had been proposed to
raise.

"Dr. Pearsons' gift and the threefold greater gift
which it elicited, placed the institution on a solid
footing. For the first time in its history, it was no
longer compelled to live solely 'from hand to mouth,'
uncertain whether it was to survive permanently or
not. The Endowment Fund provided an income,
not sufficient indeed to meet the yearly expenses, but
enough to guarantee the future, and make easier the
raising of the remaining necessary amounts. It did
more than this, it imparted to the trustees and faculty
of the college a sense of solidity, of dignity, of per-
manency, of strength, and of self-respect, which had
been wanting in some measure heretofore; it gave to
it a recognized position among the institutions of
the state and the country; and it made possible the
further financial and material growth which has fol-
lowed. Other friends, moved no doubt in some meas-

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OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES

ure by Dr. Pearsons' example, came to its aid —
among them Mr. Andrew Carnegie — so that now its
endowment fund has increased to nearly a quarter
of a million dollars, while four very substantial and
beautiful buildings, and other valuable and costly
equipment, have been added to the plant. For one
use or another, some $420,000.00, including Dr.
Pearsons' contribution, have been raised for the col-
lege since his offer was made and accepted.

"It is hardly too much to say that Dr. Pearsons is
the savior of the institution.

"I recall his second visit at Winter Park with even
greater interest than the first. For four months I
knew him in the daily intimacies of my home, and his
vivid and commanding personality, the atmosphere
of power, almost genius, which enswathed him, the
extraordinary vivacity of his mind, his unfailing
optimism, the shrewd opinions on all sorts of subjects
which he was wont to express in the raciest of Eng-
lish, the memories of a long and eventful life which he
loved to recount, his sparkling wit, his tall, spare,
unbent form, the ancient hat which adorned his head,
indoors and out, his piercing eye, the heavy eyebrows,
now scowling, now arched, which were as expressive
as his speech, his singular personal habits, and, above
all, the tender sympathy which underlay his abrupt
and sometimes gruff manner, made on all the house-
hold, old and young, an impression which can never
be effaced.

"I shall always think of Dr. Pearsons as a veritable
seer, one of the greatest prophets of our day; and I
shall love him and cherish his memory as a friend
and a comrade."

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XIV
AID FOR COLLEGES ON THE PACIFIC COAST

XIV

AID FOR COLLEGES ON THE PACIFIC COAST

THERE were many reasons for the interest
which Dr. Pearsons in the early nineties
manifested in Whitman College, Walla Walla,
Washington. His friend Dr. O. W. Nixon of the
Inter-Ocean had spent many years in what was
then the territory of Oregon. He knew the pos-
sibilities of the country and believed in its rapid
development. He was familiar with the efforts of
the missionaries to establish a college in memory of
Marcus Whitman, who had been murdered by the
Indians, whom he had sought to benefit. He was
familiar with the details of the journey which, in the
depth of winter, by a route rarely traveled, that
heroic missionary made to Washington, D. C., in
order to save by testimony he could give, the vast
territory of the far Northwest to the country.
When the life of Whitman, written by Dr. Nixon,
was put into Dr. Pearsons' hands, he read it with
unflagging interest and rose from its perusal with the
determination to do everything in his power to secure
a worthy memorial to the self-sacrificing missionary.
If Dr. Pearsons should have the credit of refound-

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

ing and developing Whitman College, the part which
Dr. Nixon had in it must not be overlooked. It was
through him that the labors of Miss Virginia Dox, a
very gifted young woman, were secured to present
its interests wherever in New England she could
obtain a hearing. The amount of money which
through her came into the treasury of the college was
in the aggregate quite large, sufficient in fact to enable
the college to carry on its work until an endowment
placed it upon a solid financial foundation. But there
were years cf waiting. The college was far away from
those centers of civilization in which givers to educa-
tional institutions reside. It was difficult to make
them feel the need of a college in a territory so thinly
populated. The gifts of Dr. Pearsons, the publica-
tion of the Life of Marcus Whitman by Dr. Nixon,
the labors of Miss Dox and Rev. Mr. Maile of the
Education Society, gradually drew the attention of
benevolently inclined persons to the college and led
them to listen favorably to appeals on its behalf.
The fact that Dr. Pearsons had expressed his confi-
dence in it by large gifts awakened confidence in
others and rendered the campaigns in its interest suc-
cessful. These campaigns were planned and largely
directed by Dr. Nixon. But the story of the
reestablishment of the College is best told by its
enthusiastic President, Rev. S. B. L. Penrose, whose
life has been devoted to its interests.

£00

AID FOR COLLEGES

"THE GIFTS OF DR. PEARSONS TO
WHITMAN COLLEGE

"When I became President of Whitman College in
1894, 1 found the institution at death's door. It had
a debt of $12,500.00, no endowment, and three
wooden buildings on a campus of six acres and a
half. Attendance had run down so low that at
the opening of the fall term only thirty-four students
altogether appeared. A little group of faithful
teachers was all that remained to keep the institution
alive. In these distressing conditions the one ray of
light was an unexpected offer which had been made
the previous March by Dr. D. K. Pearsons, who, with-
out solicitation on the part of the college, had volun-
tarily written, offering $50,000.00 on condition that
$150,000.00 would be raised for the endowment of
the institution. At the time, this had come like
lightning out of a clear sky, but nothing had been
done even to acknowledge the offer or any steps taken
to meet the conditions of the gift. The first work
of my Presidency was to take active steps to meet
Dr. Pearsons' conditions, and I may say that the
work of doing this, though carried on with great
difficulty during the darkest financial period of our
country's history, from 1894 to 1896, was of incal-
culable benefit to the college, entirely apart from the
value of the money itself, which was at last secured.
Our first effort was to arouse local people to support-
ing Whitman College, for we felt that it was unrea-
sonable to ask people elsewhere to give, unless at
least one-third of the whole amount was raised locally.
We secured over $50,000.00 in local subscriptions
before we extended the campaign to the East. Dur-
ing the next two years, through the indefatigable and
brilliant labors of Miss Virginia Dox and Rev. John L.

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

Maile, and the invaluable help of Dr. O. W. Nixon,
Editor of the Chicago Inter-Ocean, we formed an
army of friends of the College scattered all over the
country, whose gifts from small to large put the Col-
lege upon a firm financial foundation and guaranteed
its permanency. I consider these two benefits to be
inseparable from Dr. Pearsons' method of conditional
giving, namely, the development of local support
and the development of a large number of outside
friends and benefactors.

"But before we had succeeded in meeting his condi-
tions Dr. Pearsons had given a characteristic illustra-
tion of his generosity to the College. When I went
East for the first time in the fall of 1894 and stopped in
Chicago to see the great Dr. Pearsons, my mind was
heavy with the burden of the $12,500.00 of indebted-
ness which was crushing the college, drawing interest
at ten per cent. When I told him that I hoped to
find some person in the East who would lend me the
money at six per cent in order that we might save
the excessive rate of interest, the Doctor at once
retorted with what seemed to me shocking brusque-
ness, 'You can't do it. Nobody would lend the
money on such terms.' Then, after a few moments,
when I had expressed my sense of the grave need and
my determination to try and secure the loan, he sud-
denly said: 'I'll lend you the money. Sit down and
make me out a note.' I sat down and made out a
note for $12,500.00 at six per cent, signing it with my
own name as President of the College. I took the
action upon my personal initiative without consulting
the Trustees, and years afterward found to my
amusement and surprise that Dr. Pearsons had con-
sidered my prompt action as creditable to me in
being willing to borrow money for the college in my
own name. As I considered my name as worth noth-

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AID FOR COLLEGES

ing from the financial point of view, I viewed the
incident as wholly complimentary to Dr. Pearsons'
generosity. At the end of the year we sent him a
check for the interest, $750.00, which he returned to
the Treasurer of the College, and on my marriage
presented the unendorsed note to Mrs. Penrose as a
wedding present, and thus wiped out the indebted-
ness. His method of doing this generous act was
characteristically peculiar, but indicated to my mind
not only his large-heartedness but also his modesty
in apparently concealing the fact that he had given
$13,250.00 to the College in this way.

"His other gifts to the College have indicated his
close watch over college development and his readi-
ness to respond to its need. In 1899 he gave $50,-
000.00 for a Whitman Memorial Building in honor
of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, and this was the first
permanent building which the college possessed, the
beginning of the new Whitman. In 1902 he again
inaugurated a new era in the college development by
giving $50,000.00 for endowment, upon condition that
we secure funds for a girls' dormitory, which was
done. Again in 1909 he gave $50,000.00 for the en-
dowment of Pearsons Academy, the preparatory
department of the institution which with his consent
we had named for him. This was the only gift he
made without conditions, a departure from his usual
wise custom, and as I took it an indication of his
confidence in the way in which the college was devel-
oping and the friendships which it had already
formed.

"After sixteen years of close association with Dr.
Pearsons I have formed not only a deep affection and
admiration for him personally, but a thorough belief
in the statesmanlike character of his plan of giving.
It would undoubtedly have been easier for us in our

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

dark days to have received $50,000.00 given without
conditions, but it would not have meant one-tenth
of what it ultimately did mean to the College. We
were obliged to struggle heroically for existence, to
appeal to our local constituency and to develop
friends throughout the United States. An ever-
increasing stream of benevolence and bequests has
been flowing to Whitman College as a result of that
initial campaign. This canny shrewdness on Dr.
Pearsons' part has meant, therefore, vastly more
than his own gifts, large as they have been. He has
given to Whitman College in all $213,250.00, for which
the College will be ever grateful. In addition to this
amount his friendship has meant much to the college
as an expression of his confidence in its development.
Many people have given because the institution had,
to this degree, his commendation. He had selected
it as being located at a strategic point and being
destined, by history and tradition, to reach a great
future. He spoke of it on many occasions with affec-
tion and assurance. When, at our Educational
Congress in 1908, a great dinner was given in his
honor, the cheering hundreds of banqueters who arose
to their feet and waved their napkins as he stood up
to speak indicated but faintly the deep sense of grati-
tude and admiration which filled their hearts. Whit-
man College would, in all probability, be now merely
a name if it had not been for the far-seeing eye and
the generously helpful hand of Dr. Daniel Kimball
Pearsons."

When on January 1, 1902, President Penrose
received a check for fifty thousand dollars on the
successful termination of an effort to raise an endow-
ment of $200,000.00 in his own name and that of
many others he telegraphed Dr. Pearsons ....

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"We are deeply grateful to you. This whole region
blesses your name. Trustees, faculty and students
unite in one song of thankgiving."

From time to time other large gifts were made, and
an administration building erected. Dr. Pearsons
was present at Commencement in 1908 to see what
his money had accomplished and to receive the wel-
come which awaited him from the officers and instruc-
tors in the college, the citizens of Walla Walla and
from distinguished men from every part of the new
Northwest. It was at that time that endorsement
was given to a campaign to secure means to enable
the college to furnish the practical and technical
education the country needs in addition to that fur-
nished in a regular college course. That there will be
a new Whitman resting on the foundations already
laid, can no more be doubted than that a present
Whitman exists.

PACIFIC UNIVERSITY

The history of Pacific University, Forest Grove,
Oregon, quiet and unpretentious as its life has been,
reads like a romance. It is the story of the service
and self-sacrifice of heroic men and women. A little
more than sixty-three years ago its foundations were
laid in faith, when there were few people residing
in Oregon, when there was no money in sight for its
support, when the journey thither from Boston was
via Cape Horn and the Sandwich Islands.

Mrs. Tabitha Moffet Brown, daughter of a minis-
ter in Brimfield, Massachusetts, when nearly seventy,

205

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

coming to the new region in 1847 with the family of
her son, sought and found occupation for herself in
providing a school for orphan children, and built a
log house for them on a site in what is now Forest
Grove. This school afterwards became the Tualtin
Academy or the Preparatory Department of the later
college. Her efforts attracted the attention, awak-
ened the sympathy and secured the aid of Harvey
Clark who went from Vermont to Oregon, as an inde-
pendent missionary to the Indians, who purchased
land now the site of Forest Grove and gave two hun-
dred acres of it toward an endowment for the college,
with other land for scholarships. In 1848 Rev.
George H. Atkinson began his work as home mission-
ary on the Pacific Coast and entered heartily into
the plans for the founding of the new college. More
than once he visited the East, and never in vain, on
its behalf. From the Education Society he secured
a grant of $600 a year toward its support. Sidney
Harper Marsh, at 28 years of age, amid much dis-
couragement, but with a brave heart, at this early
period began his labor for the college. For 25 years
he was its devoted president. He was the grandson
of Eleazer Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College,
and son of James Marsh, President of the University
of Vermont, where he, himself graduated. To his
aid in later years came Rev. Gushing Eells, founder
of Whitman College, and his brother, the honored
and dearly loved Professor Marsh. It is fitting that
the noblest building on the campus should be named
Marsh Memorial Hall.

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The college has been fortunate in its presidents,
no one of whom has held the office from any other
motive than that of service. It is fortunate now in
the man at its head, Dr. W. F. Ferrin, for twenty
years its professor of mathematics, as it was fortunate
in his predecessor, Dr. Thomas McClelland, now
President of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. It
was during his administration that Marsh Hall was
erected and $150,000.00 added to its endowment.
At his suggestion and under his direction more than
five hundred persons, members of the National Con-
gregational Council held in Portland, spent part of
July 9, 1898, at Forest Grove as guests of the college
and participants in services connected with its fiftieth
anniversary. More than one thousand persons sat
down together at the tables, spread under the oaks
and firs of the beautiful village, and were bountifully
fed by gracious ladies to whose hospitality there were
apparently no bounds.

It was at this gathering that President McClelland
held up a check from Dr. Pearsons for $35,000.00
the final payment of his pledge of fifty thousand dol-
lars toward the endowment at that time completed.
An interesting feature of the day was the report of
the growth of several small gifts made in early days
of the college, which had been carefully invested and
reinvested till in a comparatively short time each of
them will furnish support for a professor. What can
be said of few colleges can be said of Pacific Univer-
sity. None of its investments have been lost, and
not a dollar has been taken from endowment funds

207

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

to meet current expenses. Nor has it ever run into
debt.

If its work has been quiet it has been of the highest
order. Its graduates have filled important positions
wherever they have lived. One of the members of the
first class it graduated, Mr. Harvey Scott, one of its
staunchest friends, was the founder and till his death
editor of The Oregonian, one of the ablest journals
published on the Pacific Coast. Standards of scholar-
ship have been those of eastern colleges. Growth
has been slow, but steady and constant. Christian
character has been formed, high ideals cherished
under the inspiration of which hundreds of men and
women who have enjoyed the advantages of the
college have gone out to their work in the world
with consciousness of power which has done not a
little toward securing that success in life which has
come to nearly all of them. It is no matter for sur-
prise that Dr. Pearsons should have pride in this
small Christian college, humble though it has been
content to be, though ambitious to do honest work
and to train those entrusting themselves to its care
for usefulness in their generation. With such a record
behind it no one can doubt that it will have a great
and commanding future.

It is a privilege to have a report of circumstances
which led to Dr. Pearsons' gift and of the service
which it rendered. Letters which follow from Presi-
dent McClelland will be of interest.

"For the $50,000.00 which Dr. Pearsons gave to
Pacific University I can say it came in a most oppor-

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tune time for the college. At the very time his offer
was made, February 28, 1894, we were just reaching
the worst period of the financial crisis from which the
whole country was then suffering. Its depressing
effects were especially severe on the Pacific Coast.
In the case of the institution our income from
invested funds was very largely cut off because
of the inability of people to pay the interest due
us from loans or tue rents from a number of build-
ings which we owned in Portland. Just before
this crisis I had secured subscriptions for a new and
much needed college building, amounting to
$17,000.00. In addition to this we had $8,000.00
in the bank which had been secured for this
purpose. We needed $15,000.00 more to pay
for this building according to the plans and
estimates secured. Under the financial conditions
it was impossible to go further in the way of
securing subscriptions and the danger was that we
should lose those we had already secured. In this
emergency I wrote Dr. Pearsons fully, telling him the
exact situation, with comparatively little hope that
he would respond favorably. To my surprise and
extreme gratification I received from him a letter,
a copy of which I am enclosing. I had only asked
him for the $15,000.00 to complete the building, but
in response to this he made me the larger offer indi-
cated in his letter. This offer put new heart into the
management and friends of the institution, and al-
though the effort to secure the contingent sum of
$100,000.00 was difficult and slow on account of the
14 209

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

financial stringency, his offer of $15,000.00 to com-
plete the building saved that project and enabled us
to begin preparations for the construction of the build-
ing immediately. The securing of subscriptions to
complete the $100,000.00 was pushed as rapidly as
the financial conditions of the country would admit,
and we were finally successful, although the effort cost
four years of hard and oftentimes discouraging work.
The National Council which met in Portland in July
of 1898 adjourned one afternoon, as planned for on
the program, and went out to Forest Grove to join us
in celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding
of the institution. It was a great satisfaction to me
to be able to exhibit from the platform a check for
$35,000.00 which Dr. Pearsons had sent me just pre-
viously to complete his gift of $50,000.00.

"I think it hardly too much to say that this timely
offer of Dr. Pearsons to give to Pacific University
$50,000.00 on condition that we should raise an addi-
tional $100,000.00 saved the institution and put it on
a permanent basis for continuing with greater success
the splendid work it had been doing for Oregon and
the North Pacific Coast for the previous fifty years."

" LITHIA SPRINGS, GA., Feb. 28, 1894.
"PREST. MCCLELLAND:

"My rule is to give $50,000.00 to a college if the
friends of the college will give $150,000.00. Now
I shall make this offer to you: If you will get the
friends of Pacific University to give $100,000.00 I
will give you $50,000.00, and I will give you one year
to collect the $100,000.00: or it would be better to

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AID FOR COLLEGES

make the time shorter, and I will say, as soon as you
get yours, I will give mine.

Truly' D. K. PEARSONS."

(The following was added as a sort of postscript.)

"PRIVATE

No. 2.

" You say that you have $17,000.00 and $8,000.00
— $25,000.00. Now you go on and build the building
and I will send you the $15,000.00 to complete the
building. As you say that the $17,000.00 was given
recently by your friends, we will call that $17,000.00
a part of the $100,000.00 I ask you to get, so that
you will have to get $84,000.00 fresh money.

"I will send you three checks of $5,000.00 each,
say one in June, one in July and one in August, or
sooner, if you like: but recollect my money is to do
the last work on the building."

At the anniversary gathering President McClelland
read a letter received only two days before from Dr.
Pearsons.

"President McClelland: I enclose check for $35,-
000.00. I want you to hold this check till the llth of
July and then give it to your Treasurer. The $50,-
000.00 I have now given you belongs to the Vermont
contingency. Atkinson was a schoolmate of mine
and Marsh was an old friend. Please give me a full
account of your endowment, so that I can file it
away with others. I am pleased with your work
and hope that you will keep the endowment sacred.
You have worked hard to get it, and I hope it will
go into perpetuity and do good to the coming

generations. Truly,

D. K. PEARSONS."

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

The following resolution prepared by Dr. W. E.
Barton representing the Education Society was read
by him at this visit of the Council and was promptly
and heartily adopted.

"Resolved, That the delegates and attendants
of the National Council, gathered at Forest Grove
on this day when the receipt of a check from Dr. D. K.
Pearsons completes the $150,000.00 endowment of
Pacific Unversity, desire to express our gratification
and that of the churches and schools which we repre-
sent, in the success of this protracted and heroic
effort, and our thanks to Dr. Pearsons for this worthy
and generous gift; and we rejoice with him in the
rare privilege which he is enjoying of building his
own large effort into so many of the institutions
which are to rule the future."

POMONA COLLEGE, CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA

This is the youngest of three colleges which Dr.
Pearsons has aided on the Pacific Coast. Its growth
has been more rapid than that of either of the other
two. This is due to the rapid increase of population
in Southern California, and to the character of that
population. Its standards of education are of the
highly educated communities of the East, so that no
institutions of lower rank than those to which they
have been accustomed will satisfy them. It is to
the credit of a college not yet a quarter of a century
old that it to so great a degree has won their confi-
dence. This is due to the fact that its professors
have been thoroughly educated men and women,
and have been willing and happy to render a service

212

AID FOR COLLEGES

for which the payment has been very largely in seeing
what could be done for young people who but for
their service might never enjoy the advantages of a
higher education. Its Presidents have been men
of rare gifts. President Ferguson was a business
man of unusual ability and foresight. He was skill-
ful and wise in the selection of his helpers. It was to
the great advantage of the college that Dr. George
A. Gates, the well-known and for many years the
successful President of Iowa College, stood at its
head for so long a time. For Rev. Dr. James A.
Blaisdell, recently of Beloit College, son of a college
professor, brought up in a college atmosphere, yet
with not a little experience outside of it, who is
now filling the President's chair, the college has every
reason to be grateful. In the short time he has been
President, he has won hosts of friends for the college
and developed a new spirit among students, faculty
and trustees. The growth of the college, as the state-
ment of Professor Sumner, which follows, indicates,
can be hindered only by lack of buildings and endow-
ment. That these will come, and before very long
there is every reason for believing. In aiding this
college Dr. Pearsons feels that he has done some of
his best work. It is true here, as in so many other
instances, that his gifts have saved the college. It is
the wisdom with which he has distributed his money,
the timeliness of its gift, its frequent repetition that
have rendered it so valuable and stimulating. In
the prosperity of no one of his college children has he

213

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

more reason for rejoicing than in that of his youngest
child on the Western Coast.

In appreciation of what Dr. Pearsons has done for
Pomona, President Blaisdell writes:

"OCT. 19, 1910.

"Though a new-comer here, it has been impos-
sible for me not to appreciate the fact that Dr.
Pearsons' gifts have been of the most vital impor-
tance to the life of the institution. They have fur-
nished absolutely indispensable equipment to the
institution and have come at strategic and critical
moments. As in so many cases among the colleges,
these gifts also have been significant in bringing
other gifts and thus of starting tides of helpfulness
which, to all human eyes, could not have come with-
out his generosity. In my judgment Dr. Pearsons'
gifts have been nothing less than epoch making in the
history of American education. They have per-
petuated and amplified the ministry of the small
college in American education. Whatever the out-
put of these colleges shall be in future years, it will be
in no small sense the result of the life work and serv-
ices of Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons."

The following statement by Professor C. B. Sum-
ner, one of the oldest professors in the college and
a man whose life has been devoted to its interests,
in regard to Dr. D. K. Pearsons' connection with
Pomona College is testimony of the first order.

"An occasional caller at Dr. Pearsons' office could
not helping getting some impression of the interest
he took in the institutions he had helped. Such a one,
if representing some college, soon learned that he had

214

AID FOR COLLEGES

sought every possible contributary source of informa-
tion and possibly knew more in some directions than
the representative. It did not take long to realize,
too, how searching and far reaching his questions
might be. A representative of Pomona well remem-
bers what a sensation it was to him that a man who
had never been to Claremont could know so much
about the college and the country.

"It was Pomona's tenth year before Dr. Pearsons
gave her his first check. In the first years of the
boom in Southern California he had been to Los
Angeles and Pasadena, and most likely he was wait-
ing to be convinced that the college was not mixed up
in a land speculation. He must first be convinced
that there was a place for the college, an actual need
of it before he was willing to help it. Whoever heard
of a hasty or inconsiderate gift of his to any institu-
tion!

"Another marked characteristic of his giving was
its strategic value. Undoubtedly his whole scheme
of giving was planned with reference to influencing
other large givers, and each particular gift was in-
tended to call out other gifts to the same object. In
spite of the criticisms of his conditional gifts there
are few thoughtful persons who will not admit that
very often, if not always, they have been productive
of a two-fold good, one to the object, the other to
givers.

"But Dr. Pearsons' strategy went still farther. In
each particular case, frequently at least, there was
something in the time or place or method which

215

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

indicates a thoughtful reference to its particular
effectiveness. This will appear as the gifts to
Pomona College are enumerated.

"The first was in the shape of a $20,000.00 check to
help on a State canvass for $75,000.00, which was nec-
essary to meet a conditional proposition. It came at
a time and in a way greatly to enhance its value. The
check was exhibited and wonderfully encouraged and
stimulated the friends of the college so that the con-
ditions were speedily met. But this was not all. It
is not easy to overestimate the full effect of the added
confidence given to a struggling institution, squarely
meeting the conditions of a large proposition in its
favor. The subjective feeling of power may be as it
was in the above case, more helpful by far than the
object obtained.

"This strategic gift was soon followed by one
equally timely, viz., $25,000.00 for a Science Hall.
The money was judiciously spent and the effect was
magical. Up to that time only the crudest, most
cramped and most inconvenient facilities for scien-
tific work had been possible. The new Science Hall, an
elegant classical structure of white pressed brick with
partitions of steel wire and alpine plaster and all the
modern departmental conveniences, lifted the college
at once into self respect and made it appeal to a wide
class of students. The money was no measure of the
good done.

"Three years later came the proposition from him
to give $50,000.00 to endowment, provided the large
accumulated indebtedness could be all wiped out.

216

AID FOR COLLEGES

"This indebtedness had not been bonded but was
scattered hither and thither. A note calling for
payment, now from this direction, now from that,
kept the college always on the anxious seat. It had
become an incubus. Dr. Pearsons' proposition wak-
ened the utmost enthusiasm in the Board of Trustees,
which quickly spread to the Alumni and amongst
the churches. The speedy success of the campaign
was a surprise even to the experienced college presi-
dents who were on the ground.

"There followed this movement a period of growth
wholly unprecedented even in the phenomenal his-
tory of Pomona. The very rapidity ol this growth
led to a steadily increasing embarrassment which
it was difficult for Dr. Pearsons and even for the
Trustees to understand. Prosperity was likely to
ruin the college. The college is passing through the
same experience now, just after having added $300,-
000.00 to its assets. The pressure was never greater
than it is today, and this increasing embarrassment
must inevitably continue until the college has what
the Carnegie standard proclaims the least normal
endowment — viz., one million dollars. The explana-
tion is found in part in the college constituency,
although the great change in college standards has
something to do with it. This constituency is so
largely made up of families who have come from
Eastern homes in the vicinity and under the influ-
ence of the best Eastern educational institutions and
such a proportion are graduates that only the best
institutions and the highest standards satisfy them.

217

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

California high schools are reputed the best in the
country. These patrons have the spirit of the new
country and are willing to endure crudities only for
a short time, as a makeshift. Every advance of the
college brings in a larger proportion of this class and
their demands are inexorable. Then, too, the com-
petitive institutions, especially the University of
California and Leland Stanford University set the
pace for the highest standards. Yielding just as
gradually as possible to this imperious demand, the
crisis came about three years ago when it was abso-
lutely necessary to make another forward movement.
The Trustees were led to feel it strongly and Mr.
Andrew Carnegie was induced to offer $50,000.00
towards a fund of $250,000.00 for buildings and
endowment. Dr. Pearsons was in Claremont for the
winter at the time, saw the need and promptly sub-
scribed to this end the sum of $25,000.00. After
studying the situation he felt very strongly the neces-
sity of a boys' dormitory, and applied his subscription
to that object. The urgency of the need grew upon
him day by day until by reason of his insistent pres-
sure the dormitory, a reinforced concrete building,
fireproof, for the accommodation of about seventy
students was ready for occupancy at the commence-
ment of the next fall term. Whether the money
given, Dr. Pearsons' hearty interest in the campaign,
or the dormitory in actual use was the most important
factor in that canvass may be doubted. Certain it
is that the canvass was completed, partly under
President Gates and partly under President Blaisdell,

218

AID FOR COLLEGES

netting the College not only $25,000.00 but more than
$300,000.00.

"This large sum should be a great relief to a strug-
gling college; but as intimated above, it leaves the
college still embarrassed. The truth is the officers
of the college realized at the outset that the actual
need was twice the amount secured, but they were
obliged to content themselves for a time with the
smaller sum, looking to the future for another for-
ward movement.

"When Dr. Pearsons took up Pomona College it was
very weak, having hardly a hundred college students,
and less than $100,000.00 endowment, with only two
buildings and a small campus. The college constit-
uency was poor, mostly in debt and small at best. A
strong friend was indispensable to give it a start and
tide it over till Southern California should in some
measure come to its own. Dr. Pearsons' careful
fostering up to the present time has been invaluable.
One cannot see how existence would have been pos-
sible without it. While his gifts have not been so
large as to some other institutions, they have been
timely and inspiring. Not yet is the college on a
permanent self-sustaining basis, and as intimated,
the present demand is more urgent than at any past
time. Still there has been great advancement.
Students in the college department number three
hundred and twenty-six; the productive endowment
funds are more than half a million dollars; the campus
and parks, while needing a few additions to complete
the unity, are spacious, one hundred acres, and of

219

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

rare fitness, convenience and attractiveness. The
nine buildings, all are doing excellent service, several
of them are perfect of their kind. The possibilities
of growth and the need of expansion are very great.
The endowment fund should be doubled. The build-
ings, good or bad, are utterly inadequate to funda-
mental necessities, with the exception of the Library
Building, which is elegant, commanding, up-to-date,
and fire-proof; Science Hall is equally satisfactory,
but is occupied every hour of the day and evening
and insufferably crowded at that. Dormitories for
young women and young men, halls for Y. W. C. A.
and Y. M. C. A.'s, a gymnasium for young women, a
Music Hall and an Art Building are badly needed.

"Southern California is making rapid progress as
the census report shows and the college constituency
is increasing and better able to contribute to its funds,
but its resources have not yet caught up with the
demands and growth of the college. No one familiar
with the country questions that the period of such
adequacy and the intelligence to devote these re-
sources to such a purpose, are in the near future. Dr.
Pearsons has certainly hastened the coming of that
period and is held in high esteem at Pomona."

220

XV

XV

GIFTS TO MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY
COLLEGES

PERHAPS nothing indicates more clearly the
wide outlook of Dr. Pearsons and his intelli-
gent sympathy with the effort to evangelize
the world than his gifts to missions. He became
interested in them very early in his business career
through his wife, who was an earnest supporter of
the Woman's Board of Missions of the Presbyterian
Church, and after their removal to Hinsdale, of the
Woman's Board of Missions connected with the
Congregational churches. As representing his wife
and himself, in 1887 he gave the Presbyterian Women
twenty thousand dollars of which so much of the
income was to be used as would be required to sup-
port two missionaries in the fields under the care of
the Board, and the remainder as necessities might
arise. Through their influence, in part at least,
and with their approval, Miss Julia A. Chapin, a
sister of Mrs. Pearsons, who had lived with them for
many years, at her death left the Congregational
Woman's Board of the Interior more than twenty
thousand dollars as an endowment, and when the

223

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

demand for buildings for Anatolia College in Mar-
sovan, Turkey, could no longer be put off, gifts from
Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons secured their erection. This
was -in eighteen ninety-two. As to the timeliness
of this gift, officials of the American Board as well
as the faculty of the college have given repeated and
gratifying testimony. When the Board was hold-
ing a special meeting in Chicago in 1905, Dr. Pear-
sons sent to Secretary Patton a letter promising the
Board fifty thousand dollars toward the endowment
of the college. He did this because he knew and
admired its President, Rev. Dr. Tracy, and because
he felt that any money entrusted to the care of the
Board would be wisely invested. He had carefully
studied the field from which the college was drawing
its students and foresaw the influence which edu-
cated Christian men and women would have on the
future of Turkey. But he did not dream of its
attracting students, as it has done, from Greece or
Egypt, or the Soudan or Albania, though he did
think its situation favorable for some influence in
Russia. What the college with its preparatory
department, its theological department and its
hospital has accomplished since its opening in 1886
under a charter from Massachusetts, and is now
accomplishing, is told in the following letter from
one of its Professors, the Rev. G. E. White.

224

GIFTS TO MISSIONS
"GRINNELL, IOWA, Sept. 29, 1910.

"Rev. J. L. BARTON, D.D.
Sec. A. B. C. F. M., Boston.

"My dear Mr. Barton: —

"Your favor of the 19th inst. has come to hand,
and though we are rather busy in arranging to leave
again for Turkey next week, it is a pleasure to respond
to your request for an estimate of the value of Dr.
Pearsons' great gift to Anatolia College.

"That gift of $50,000.00 provided about one-fifth
of the endowment needed to carry on the institution
for its present work. We had about an equal amount
in the endowment fund before, and this is aside from
the need for buildings, which is being partially pro-
vided for at the present time, from other sources.

"In 22 years, from 1886 to 1908, the College grew
from the status of the high school, which was
merged into it at the foundation, to the character of
a real college, incorporated under the laws of Massa-
chusetts, and with its diploma recognized by leading
universities and professional schools in the Xlnited
States and Europe. The original building was
repeatedly enlarged to accommodate the growing
needs, and Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons gave over $20,000.00
to building and other purposes before the great
gift to the endowment. The Faculty increased to
23 men, of whom 8 were Americans (most of us
being missionaries largely occupied with other
duties) one Swiss and 14 natives of the country,
Armenian or Greek gentlemen. Of these last, 8
had taken special post-graduate study to fit them
for their positions, having taken their advanced
courses in Carleton College, Yale University (both
men receiving the degree of Ph. D.), New College,
Edinburgh, the University of Berlin, the University

15 225

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

of Athens, the Imperial Law School, Constantinople,
The Royal Conservatory of Music, Stuttgart, and
the Academy in Paris. These men together make
a strong Faculty, influential among their people
outside the college as they are with the students
within.

"During these 22 years 224 young men graduated
of whom 17 are now deceased, while 207 survive.
There are now 21 preachers, about 10% of the whole
number; 52 teachers, about 25%, 48 medical men,
about 25% and 86 in business, about 40%. I can
count 47 in America, of whom about one-third
are settled in business, one-third are the various
professions, and one-third are students. Many of
these will go back to their native lands later, and
each is a force among his people in the old country.
Foreign countries have drawn others: England, 6;
France, 2; Egypt, 4; the Soudan, 1; Greece, 4;
Bulgaria, 1. These are mostly in business, but some
are professional men; all seem to keep up an interest
in the land of their nativity. Many support students
in the college, or support schools among their home
communities. Where the people are poor as they
are in general in Turkey, and where churches, schools
and all the institutions of society are yet to be built
up for the most part, as is also the case, one cannot
but be glad that there are young men going into
business to develop the resources of the country,
benefit the impoverished communities, and foot the
bills for the improved conditions that are to be.
One may be glad, too, that with the ordinary tricky
character of business in the Orient a class of capable
young men is rising who have high ideals of integrity
and honor. The market of Marsovan has the repu-
tation of doing more business and more honest busi-
ness, than the market of any similar city in the

226

GIFTS TO MISSIONS

region, and this is undoubtedly due to the Protestant
Church and the college. Besides the graduates
classified above, more than 1000 other young men
were for a time students in the institution, but left
for the usual various reasons without completing
the course.

"Meanwhile on July 24, 1908, the Constitution
and New Regime were proclaimed, and now the
opportunity before the college was doubled in a day.
We had the pleasure of hearing Turks addressing
Turkish audiences, express public thanks for the
American assistance they had received: thanks for
such ideas as those of Liberty, the Emancipation of
Women, Progress for the People, Common School
Education, and the like. An Ottoman Freedom
and Progress Club was organized in our town, as
elsewhere, to form and direct public sentiment, and
of the administrative council of twelve men, three
were graduates of Anatolia College, a fourth had
been for some time a student, and a fifth, like some
others, was a Protestant. That brought us mis-
sionaries into very close relations with that body
which more than any other controlled public opinion
and events, and we were cordially and frequently
invited to attend the Club and share in the discus-
sions.

"Meanwhile the field of the college has been widen-
ing. Half of the 29 provinces of the Ottoman Em-
pire are habitually represented among the students,
and they come from beyond. Greece always sends
a small contingent: there are several Albanians:
Egypt has a part in the student body: now it is the
turn of Russia. Three years ago two students
strayed over from across the Black Sea. The next
year when they came back they brought six more;
this last year there were twenty; and the end is not

227

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

yet. This year for the first time there is instruction
provided in Russian, and it seems there is a great
work opening before us for those people who are at
our doors to the north, and who are looking about
for light and leading.

"There are some advantages in our location which
we have been slow to find out. The Turkish popu-
lation of the region is among the best to be found.
They are in general well-disposed and friendly.
Some have begun to send their sons to the college,
and more are considering the question. We have
an admirable climate, and fine premises, just on the
edge of the city. Back of the campus the moun-
tains rise to a height of 6000 feet. The population
about are largely of the middle class, being neither
very rich, nor sunk in helpless poverty. We have
the advantage of being near the Black Sea, yet free
from certain disadvantages of an actual coast town
in the Levant. There is no institution that could
be called a rival near in any direction, while the
local communities are making strenuous efforts to
improve their institutions in order to retain their
constituents.

"Our students get a good use of the English lan-
guage, and take their advanced lessons through
this medium. They are in general studious, cour-
teous and tractable. They come because they and
their parents believe in the moral character of the
institution. The Bible is taught as regularly as any
other lesson, and receives reverent attention. Preach-
ing services are maintained on Sundays, as well as the
Sunday school, and the Y. M. C. A. is active and
helpful. Most of the students belong by birth to
one or another of the Oriental Churches, though
from one-fourth to one-third are Protestants. It
is only a question of time and method when these

228

GIFTS TO MISSIONS

Oriental Churches are to follow the State through
a period of Reformation, or they cannot hold their
congregations. Many of our young men who can-
not bring themselves to break away from their
Mother Church, look forward with ardor to the time
when they will have an opportunity to share in move-
ments for reform from within.

"College charges are kept as low as possible, —
$66.00 per year, for tuition, board, lodging, laundry,
fuel and bath. Some, however, cannot meet even
these low figures, and a Self Help Department is
maintained accordingly, whereby about one-third
of the students are enabled to earn some part of
their school dues. They work in the large carpenter
shop, or the book bindery, or wait on table or sweep
the floors. The impoverishing or pauperizing of the
young men themselves is thus avoided, the dignity
of labor maintained, and useful trades are mastered.

"It would be easy to take individual students, or
graduates, and dwell on the meaning of their educa-
tion, but space is limited. Here is a college professor,
there is a pastor of a large congregation, yonder a
pioneer evangelist; one is a doctor, laying the foun-
dations of medical science among people who have
confused medicine and magic hitherto; another has
an American education as a dentist; another is a
silk manufacturer; one is in the employ of an Amer-
ican wholesale farm implement house; another is a
graduate in engineering; another has quietly applied
chemistry to the old crude methods of dyeing and
is at the same time a leader in all work pertaining
to the church. There are failures among our young
friends but the percentage of success, as such things
are reckoned by the best standards, is remarkably
high. The joy of it is, that fraternal effort from
America is met fully half way, and that we may

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

cooperate on the basis of the Gospel of Jesus with
the best people and the best efforts of the country,
where everybody is breaking with his past, and is
seeking for something worthy in life.

"The question is often asked whether the Young
Turk Movement can last. The best answer is, that
it has passed safely through three periods of stress
already. The first was in July, 1908, when the
Revolution was effected; the second came in April,
1909, when the forces of Reaction were met and over-
come; the third was in the Spring of 1910 when
Rebellion within, as led by the untutored Albanians,
was suppressed. Every day that the New Regime
holds is a day to the good.

"The College Seal and Motto represent the actual
scene from the front door, the sun rising over a moun-
tain chain, with the words, which are suggested by
the name Anatolia, The Morning Cometh.

"Perhaps I should have dwelt more specifically on
what Dr. Pearsons' gift accomplished. But it really
fitted into what was already being done, relieved
the Board in part and is hardly to be distinguished
in its use from the other funds and resources of the
College, though of course these funds were swelled
by the annual interest from the gift. We are glad
such funds are held by the Board for safety of invest-
ment, and the interest employed with the other

resources. a. ,

Sincerely yours,

G. E. WHITE."

Anatolia College is situated on a plain about 2500
feet above sea-level. It is seventy-five miles south
of Samsoun, its sea port on the Black Sea, and is 350
miles east of Constantinople. It is the only college
of high grade in a region of 80,000 square miles and

230

GIFTS TO MISSIONS

containing hardly less than ten million people. The
population of the city of Marsovan is about 30,000,
and yet the expense for board and tuition is less than
seventy dollars a year. The department of Self
Help renders it possible for any young person anxious
for an education to attend the college and meet his
expenses. Yet in spite of the low price charged for
tuition and board nearly or quite two-thirds of the
income of the college is obtained from this source.
The growth of the college has been gradual but
satisfactory and the outlook leads one to believe
that its motto, "The Morning cometh" has been
well chosen.

So well pleased was the Doctor with his gifts to
missions that he determined that his last hundred
thousand dollars should be set aside for the support
of the educational department of the American Board.
He had been thinking of doing this for many months,
but only a few weeks before the centennial meeting
in Boston, decided finally to make the gift. When
the telegram to Secretary Barton was read announc-
ing his decision, the audience could not restrain its
applause. Dr. Barton himself reports the scene and
the effect of the gift, in a letter to Dr. Pearsons,
which is full of the spirit of the occasion, and is too
good to be abbreviated.

«n T\ TT T> "OCTOBER 17, 1910.

DR. D. K. PEARSONS,

Hinsdale, Illinois.
"My dear Dr. Pearsons: —

"We have been so tied up with our Anniversary
services that I have been unable to write any letters.

231

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

My correspondence has been by telegram. We did
get an opportunity to send you a telegram expressing
our great joy and satisfaction at your telegram which
came on Monday. Your letter came also in due
time and was, of course, presented to the great
Assembly. I wish you could have been present
and seen them almost raise the roof. The whole
audience rose when your telegram was read and
sang 'All Hail The Power of Jesus' Name.5 It
was necessary for them in some way to express the
gratitude and appreciation which they felt to you
for this great and noble gift to the American Board.
It is already opening channels of approach to others,
and as I wired you, I believe that we shall be able
to match your hundred thousand with twenty other
sums of equal amount before many months have
passed. You will never know the extent of the
influence of this gift, and while it is not conditioned
we are going to make that money earn more than
any hundred thousand dollars you ever gave. It
is a great thing to be the recipient of your last great
gift, and I assure you that we appreciate it. The
Lord raised you up for one of the greatest services
that it has been permitted men to perform in this
world !

"I want to take violent exception to a statement
in your letter that 'On my next birthday I shall
close up my work/ Do you suppose that you can
ever close up your work? You may give away all
that which you have earned, but you will not close
up your work! Your work is going on in the colleges
of this country and in the colleges abroad for a thou-
sand years and more, — multiplying in momentum and
power. But more than this your work is going on
here in this country. You have established a new
principle of giving, set up a new standard, and many

GIFTS TO MISSIONS

of whom you have never seen and of whom you will
never hear, are taking their inspiration from your
magnificent example and are giving liberally and
with an abandon which they never would have done,
had they not had before them your twenty-one
years of princely giving. That is your work that
is going on and is to go on forever, and you cannot
stop it. So please do not think of closing up your
work. You cannot do it if you would. You would
not do it if you could.

"How can I find words to express the gratitude
which we of the American Board feel that you have
thus helped on the education of the growing mind
of the East as it is struggling out into the world
influence and power! This money will go as far
in bringing to those young people of the East the
fundamental principles of Western education and
Christian civilization as a million dollars would go
in this country for the same number. We shall
not fail to pray that your life may be greatly pro-
longed to see the fruit of the splendid work you have
started.

I remain,

Very sincerely yours,
JAMES L. BAKTON."

In thus putting nearly or quite two hundred
thousand dollars, from first to last, into the work of
Foreign Missions, without any other conditions than
that the income of the money be used for educational
purposes and as the officers of the Boards having it
in charge shall direct, Dr. Pearsons has shown his
confidence in the wisdom of these officers and his
belief in the work they are trying to do. Through

233

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

his last gift he will have a share in the training of
young people in nearly every part of the world, and
become almost as well known in the mission fields
of the American Board as he now is in the United
States.

234

LIST OF COLLEGES AIDED BY DR. PEARSONS

Anatolia, Marsovan, Turkey.
Berea, Ky.

Bethany, West Virginia.
Carleton, Northfield, Minn.
Coe, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Deer Lodge, Montana.
Doane, Crete, Neb.
Drury, Springfield, Mo.
Fairmount, Wichita, Kansas.
Fargo, N. Dakota.
German, Dubuque, Iowa.
Grant University, Chattanooga,

Tenn.

Guilford, N. C.
Hastings, Neb.
Huron, S. Dakota.
Illinois, Jacksonville, 111.
Kingfisher, Okla.
Knox, Galesburg, 111,
Lake Forest, 111.
Lawrence University, Appleton,

Wis.
Marietta, Ohio.

Marysville, Tenn.

McKendree, Lebanon, 111.

Middlebury. Vt.

Mt. Holyoke, South Hadley, Mass.

Newberry, S. C.

Northwestern University, Evans-
ton, 111.

Olivet, Michigan.

Pacific University, Forest Grove,
Oregon.

Park College, Parkville, Mo.

Piedmont, Demorest, Ga.

Pomona, Claremont, Cal.

Ripon, Wis.

Rollins, Winter Park, Fla.

Sheridan, Wyoming.

Tahoe, Caldwell, Idaho.

Tabor, Iowa.

Washington and Tusculum, Wash-
ington County, Tenn.

Washburn, Topeka, Kansas.

Whitman, Walla Walla, Washing-
ton.

Yankton, S. Dakota.

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES AIDED
Chicago, 111. McCormick, Chicago, 111.

SECONDARY SCHOOLS AIDED

Montpelier Seminary, Vt.
Onarga, 111.

Westminster School, Vt.
West Virginia Conference Semi-
nary, Buckhannon, W. Va.

235

XVI
APPRECIATIVE WORDS

XVI
APPRECIATIVE WORDS

FOR expressions of thanks Dr. Pearsons has
never looked. He has not been indifferent to
them, has been grateful when they have come,
but has not sought them. He has distributed his
fortune with a sense of responsibility to "that
good Providence" from which he says it came.
With the approval of his own conscience and the
consciousness that he has carried out, so far as he
could, the will of God he has been satisfied. Yet
people who have received gifts from his generous
hand, and those who are deeply interested in the
causes to which he has devoted his fortune, have
not failed to express in manifold ways their appre-
ciation of the work he has accomplished during a
period of more than a score of years.

The words that follow are taken from letters
written at different times, and from resolutions
passed by different bodies on various occasions.
They are only samples of hundreds, perhaps thou-
sands, which might be given.

Mr. Andrew Carnegie writes : —
239

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

"You cannot say anything too good of Pearsons.'*
Of his charity, its forms and conditions, he adds,
"It is the best line of benevolence ever made in
America."

Secretary J. L. Barton of the American Board
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in sending
congratulations on Dr. Pearsons' eighty-eighth
birthday says, "We appreciate the wonderful
things you have done, and are doing. That a man
88 years young should have an interest in great
movements as you have, is a marvel indeed"; yet
no marvel, if we remember that to him every morn-
ing the mail was bringing from one hundred to two
hundred letters, with information from all parts of
the world.

President J. A. B. Scherer of Newberry College,
S. C., a Lutheran, writes: "His gifts are the
most profitable investments in the world. He is
more deeply interested in the cause of Christian
education than any other man I ever saw. He
is the happiest old man I ever saw, and his
happiness is not a whit sanctimonious. He be-
lieves that to turn unprofitable men into profit-
able manhood is the . best investment in the
world. One of the finest things in this strong and
noble life is the way in which it has influenced
others."

Similar testimony is borne by President Lewis
E. Holden of Wooster University, for a long
time the financial agent of Beloit College, and a
man to whose enthusiastic, self-denying service

240

APPRECIATIVE WORDS

in gathering funds to meet the conditions imposed
by Dr. Pearsons, that college is deeply indebted.
He writes from Beloit itself, on commencement
day, June 11, 1908. . . . "You have certainly
done a great work. Your life is going to tell cen-
turies after you have gone to your everlasting
reward. . . . All our hearts go out to you in
thanksgiving for what you have so wisely done for
our own alma mater."

President James of the University of Illinois,
June 28, 1909, writes: "You have certainly
built a great monument to yourself and your family
while doing a great service to the people of your
country."

A characteristic letter from the Hon. John Eaton,
under date of April 8, 1900, then Commissioner of
Education may be given entire.

"FATHER OF COLLEGES.

My dear Doctor: — Yours of the 7th came duly at
hand. I thank you heartily. Would that all the
money given to colleges were given with the care
that yours is. My 16 years of service as U. S.
Commissioner of Education has given me special
familiarity with the localities and enterprises which
you have aided, and aside from other merits there
is a strategic bearing in them which I also admire."

Following one of his large gifts to Berea College

in April, 1899, Governor Bradley of Kentucky,

wrote: "I cannot refrain from writing to thank

you from the bottom of my heart. Berea is doing

16 241

LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS

a great work among a section of our people which
needs the work, and which will respond to it
a hundred fold, for the mountain whites have
splendid stuff in them." The same month ex-
President Roosevelt, then Governor of New York,
wrote in similar vein. In fact this gift called
forth expressions of grateful appreciation from
almost every section of the country. It was
about this time that in reviewing the work of Dr.
Pearsons an editorial writer in the New York World
said, "For a level-headed philanthropist commend
me to Dr. Pearsons of Chicago, who not only makes
his benefactions to the cause of education during
his lifetime, but who lays down the rule that his
money is not to go to the rich colleges, which do not
need it, but to the poor struggling institutions which
are just as valuable as the wealthy schools. Dr.
Pearsons is as wise and judicious as he is generous
and unselfish."

In March, 1900, the representatives of South Da-
kota in Washington, D. C., sent Dr. Pearsons a
letter of hearty thanks for what he had done for
Yankton College.

On receipt of a check for $5,000.00 for Ripon
College, Wisconsin, President Merrill wrote, Febru-
ary 24, 1900, "I actually believe you have been the
wisest large giver I ever knew, or ever heard of.
You have made what you have given tell for the
most at the very centers of moral and intellectual
force, and you have put your money where it will

242

APPRECIATIVE WORDS

be working for long generations after we who are
now living have passed away."

At the end of a severe and protracted struggle to
meet the conditions upon which Dr. Pearsons gave
Drury College, Springfield, Missouri, $25,000.00,
Dr. Homer T. Fuller, then President, wrote:
"Yours with enclosed check for $25,000.00 was
received this morning just before chapel exercises.
After these were over I announced the receipt of
the sum which was the culmination of our efforts
for this endowment. The applause was followed
by a rising vote of thanks to you and the college
cheer. May God bless you and grant you many
years more to see the fruitage of your labors and
of your royal benevolence." It was during the
Presidency of Dr. Fuller that the foundations of
Drury were greatly strengthened and the interest
of Dr. Pearsons through him and Dr. Henry Hopkins
then of Kansas City, later President of Williams
College, Massachusetts, aroused in its behalf. The
reception which he and Mrs. Pearsons received on
their visit to the college brought forth from the Doc-
tor one of his most eloquent and effective addresses
and gave him an experience of which he often speaks
as one of the happiest and most satisfying of his
life.

It was when on a visit to some of the colleges he
had aided, that on April 5, 1902, he stopped over at
Springfield, Illinois, and made his way into the
State House. He was quickly discovered and taken
into the Hall of Representatives and introduced

243

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

to its members by Speaker Sherman, after which
the following resolution was read and unanimously
adopted amid great enthusiasm:

"Whereas we have with us a visitor on the floor
of this House this morning, Dr. D. K. Pearsons of
Chicago, the distinguished philanthropist and lib-
eral patron of education, than whom no other Amer-
ican has done greater or more practical work for
the advancement of education, particularly in the
way of aiding the worthy smaller institutions, whose
peculiar province is to make possible the education
and training of the young people who struggle
against poverty and adverse conditions, and who
after heroic struggle make the staunchest warp and
woof of the social fabric . . . and

"Whereas we recognize that in the munificent
practical benefactions of Doctor Pearsons a work
has been accomplished which will make mightily
for the uplifting of humanity for all time to come.

"Therefore Be it resolved by this House that in
appreciation of the great life work of this distin-
guished benefactor we honor his presence here this
morning by the adoption of this resolution by a
rising vote."

This was quickly done and the Doctor was then
conducted to the rostrum by the Chaplain, where
among other things in an impromptu but very
effective address he said:

"You have passed a resolution today that does
me more good than anything I ever had done for
me before. I made my money in the State of Illinois,
honestly and squarely. I am using that money while
I am alive. I don't want any inheritance tax on

244

APPRECIATIVE WORDS

my property when I am gone. I am using the money
instead to educate and bring up poor boys and girls.
I am for the boy behind the plow. That is the boy
I am after. And I say to you gentlemen of this
assembly that there is no business a man ever en-
gaged in that will compare with the business I am
doing, and to be approved by you gives me great
satisfaction.

"Gentlemen, I sincerely and heartily thank you,
and I shall keep right on in the way I am doing,
lifting up the poor. I never give to the rich. I am
for the poor boys and girls. The smartest girl in
the curriculum of the colleges I am helping is a day-
laborer's daughter, the smartest boy is a teamster's
boy. I want to give those boys and girls a chance.
Gentlemen, I thank you."

A letter from Mr. Wallace Butterick, Secretary
of the Rockefeller Fund of General Education
Board, sets forth in fitting terms the appreciation in
which Dr. Pearsons is held by thoughtful men. He
writes from New York, under date of April 10, 1911 :

"I share the high appreciation which all thought-
ful people entertain for the character and work of
Dr. Pearsons. He has given us a noble example
of how best to employ one's means for the promo-
tion of the public welfare and the enhancing of
personal happiness. I met him one day at Hinsdale,
and it seemed to me that I never met a happier man.

"I believe in State Universities and that they have
rendered noble service in many of our states. I
believe also in the privately endowed college. The
several Christian communions of our country have
rendered service of incalculable value in founding
and maintaining, as they have done, most of our

245

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

leading colleges. It is greatly to the honor of Dr.
Pearsons that he long ago recognized that fact and
has contributed so largely to the prosperity of so
many of these institutions."

That Dr. Pearsons was thankful for the apprecia-
tion which these representatives of the state expressed
admits of no doubt, for while he never sought public-
ity in his gifts, and cared little for notoriety, he
would have been more than human not to take
pleasure in the approval of his fellow-men.

As a type of resolutions passed by many of the
colleges aided by Dr. Pearsons one adopted by
Beloit College on the Doctor's ninetieth birthday,
and one that touched him deeply, may here be
given. It is dated Beloit, Wisconsin, April 19,1910.

"The ninetieth birthday of Dr. D. K. Pearsons,
celebrated five days ago, is one of those events which
erect beacons on the shores of human life, to illumi-
nate and guide. It is fitting that we, to whom are
committed the interests of an institution which
has shared so richly in his gifts, should put on record
our appreciation of Dr. Pearsons' wide benefactions
and our gratitude for what he has done for Beloit.
As we review his extraordinary contributions to the
welfare of humanity we are impressed by the fol-
lowing elements in his personality and his career.

"Dr. Pearsons' profound conviction of the impor-
tance in a republic of the right training of mind and
character.

"Dr. Pearsons' recognition that the moral and
246

APPRECIATIVE WORDS

religious elements in education are its essential and
permanent factors.

"Dr. Pearsons' catholic spirit, superior to the
claims of any sect or denomination.

"Dr. Pearsons' 'discovery of making large benefac-
tions so conditioned as to stimulate instead of dimin-
ishing the efforts of those responsible for an institu-
tion, and to multiply instead of lessening the number
of its cooperating friends. 'No one man college'
has been his consistent attitude. Mr. Carnegie
and the General Education Board have acknowledged
his wisdom and followed his lead. Dr. Pearsons,
it is hardly too much to say, has assured the future
of the American college. Concerning it, President
Lowell of Harvard says: 'It has a great work to do
for American people. For that work Dr. Pearsons
has reanimated it and re-impowered it.'

"Dr. Pearsons has set a new standard and pace of
giving, and has been the means of securing from
others several times the number of millions which
he has himself contributed to the institutions so near
his heart, besides stimulating unmeasured gifts to
other objects.

"Dr. Pearsons has been an inspiring genius of
Beloit College, and its second founder. By his
aid it has been lifted to a commanding position of
reputation and influence. When we think back to
Beloit, as it was when he first put his strong hand
to its helm, and remember his share in its every
forward movement, we are deeply impressed with
what we owe to his wisdom and his benefactions,

247

LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS

the results of which, already so notable will widen
with the ages yet to be.

"Dr. Pearsons' personal qualities have fitted him
in eminent degree for leadership in the great cause
to which he has devoted himself. Severe, but
never unfeeling, critical, but never failing in high
enthusiasm; his feet on the ground of hard fact,
but his imagination at home in worlds unrealized,
scorning pretence, but honoring honest effort, and
an almost passionate friend of the struggling poor;
of imperious will, but believing in men of will as
resolute as his own; abhorring cant and religious
pretenses, but loving to discern a Providential
guidance in the events of life; as unmoved by en-
treaty as is the headland by the wave that beats
against it, yet giving himself like the reserves of an
army to save a hard fought day, he is greeted as a
general in the campaign of more than a score of
years, where victory has meant uplift, progress,
enlightenment and faith in God and man.

"It is a marvellous thing that one man's life should
have included such opportunities, of such service
and such wealth of achievement. May future
years bring to our honored friend ever richer results
from his benefactions and ever fuller joy.

"(Signed on behalf of the Board of Trustees of
Beloit College, by its President Edward D. Eaton
and its Secretary, E. B. Kilbourn.)"

Gifts to other colleges have been not less timely
or valuable than those to Beloit and from them

248

APPRECIATIVE WORDS

similar resolutions of appreciation and gratitude
have not failed to come. To one who can look back
over the years to the conditions described in an
earlier chapter, the changes brought about in the
state of feeling toward the small Christian college
seems well-nigh revolutionary.

Colleges would have been glad to honor him with
titles but for the most part have refrained from
heaping them upon him. With the exception of
an LL. D. from Rollins College, Florida, no peculiar
college distinctions have been conferred upon him.
He has been called C. B. (College Builder), C. F.
(College Founder), and in these titles he has had
real pleasure. In another he would be equally well
pleased were there a suitable term for it, — Teacher
of the Sacredness of Endowments. The three letters
T. S. E. would suit him quite as well as the three
which indicate that he is Doctor of Laws.

But no better illustration of the regard which is
felt for Dr. Pearsons in or about Chicago and in
many other parts of the country, can be given than
is furnished by the gathering at Hinsdale Sanitarium,
Hinsdale, Illinois, April 14, 1911, in recognition of
his ninety -first birthday. The gathering was ar-
ranged by Dr. W. E. Barton of Oak Park, in confer-
ence with Dr. Paulson of the Sanitarium. Many peo-
ple from the village as well as from the city were pres-
ent at the informal gathering in the parlors of the
Sanitarium which followed the lunch which a few
intimate friends had taken as guests of the Doctor.
One of the more than eighty telegrams which up to

249

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

noon of that day had been received, was from John
D. Rockefeller, and reads thus: "Dr. D. K. Pear-
sons, Hinsdale. I rejoice in all of your good deeds.
The world is made better by your beautiful ex-
ample of giving so generously of your substance
for the benefit of your fellow men. I congratulate
you on your ninety-first birthday and wish you
many happy returns of the same. The Lord bless
you and keep you in health and happiness." There
were telegrams from Governor Deneen of Illinois,
and many other very distinguished men. The let-
ters were full of personal expressions of esteem and
affection. Congratulations in one way or another
came from the President of every college which
had been aided, and from a representative of every
association to which he had made gifts. The ad-
dresses at the public gathering were necessarily few
and brief. Dr. F. A. Noble, so many years pastor
of Union Park, Dr. J. C. Armstrong, Secretary of
the City Missionary Society, Dr. A. N. Hitchcock,
Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions, to whom was handed a check
for one hundred thousand dollars for the educational
work of the Board, Dr. O. S. Davis, President of
the Chicago Theological Seminary, President W. G.
Frost of Berea College, Kentucky, had part in these
exercises, Dr. Simeon Gilbert spoke briefly and ten-
derly, and presented a minute which he had pre-
pared, and which had been accepted as an expression
of the feeling of the members of the Congregational
Club, Dr. Paulson, owner and manager of the Sani-

250

APPRECIATIVE WORDS

tarium, welcomed the visitors to its hospitality
and Rev. E. F. Williams was permitted to say that
he counted it one of the chief privileges of his life
to have known Dr. Pearsons and to have been hon-
ored with his friendship. In introducing the dif-
ferent speakers Dr. Barton spoke several times and
with great felicity. But the climax came when Dr.
Pearsons himself rose to reply and to express his
appreciation of the sympathy he had received from
such an army of friends, and his gratitude to the
Press for the assistance it had given him from the
beginning without whose aid he doubted if he could
have accomplished his work. He said that he had
prepared an address for the public and now that he
had completed the task he had set before him, and
had no more money to give away, he would retire
to private life and enjoy the quiet and repose which
he so much needed. The words of farewell which
were spoken as one and another took the hand of the
venerable philanthropist were tender and affection-
ate. Such a day as this is a rare experience in the
life of any one, rarer still when it comes after
twenty-two years of as strenuous effort rightly to
dispose of property as had been put forth in acquir-
ing it.

In his tribute to his wife, Dr. Pearsons said:

"As I look back on the last twenty-two years, I
realize that none of my gifts would have been possi-
ble without my wife. It was she who taught me
how to make the money and endued me with the
spirit of philanthropy. To her I owe everything,

251

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

and my advice would be to every young man who
wants to start on the road to fortune and wealth, to
marry."

The last gift which Dr. Pearsons made was in
some respects his best gift. It was the transfer of
the house in which he had lived for nearly thirty
years, together with the extensive grounds by which
it is surrounded, to his fellow-citizens in Hinsdale
for a Library. It was his first thought that the
house could be used for a library building as its
rooms are large and high, and its foundations very
strong. In that case the building in which books
and pictures and objects of art were stored would
have been a perpetual reminder of Dr. and Mrs.
Pearsons. But as the house is rather too far from
the center of the village for easy access it was deemed
best that the property should be sold and its pro-
ceeds devoted to library purposes. A suitable build-
ing will be erected on a central site and the proceeds
obtained from the sale of the Pearsons home used
for the library as the committee in charge shall
deem best. The gift is highly appreciated by the
people of Hinsdale.

252

XVII
RETROSPECT

XVII
RETROSPECT

NO ONE can deny, and Dr. Pearsons himself
cannot fail to recognize the fact, that his
life has been a peculiar and a very remarkably
useful life. Each section of it presents prominent
characteristics. Self-denying efforts which devel-
oped a strong will were manifest while struggling
for an education. The half dozen years of profes-
sional life, while full of ambition for success as a
physician, an ambition more than gratified, were
years in which efforts were made to stimulate the
intellectual and moral life of the community in
which he lived. Then came the business period,
thirty years of it, from 40 to 70 spent in Chicago, in
which the one aim was to make money. Since
reaching three score and ten the all controlling pur-
pose has been wisely to distribute the fortune which
an over-ruling Providence had permitted this earn-
est business man to acquire. Thus each period of
his life has had its ruling purpose. In each period
there has been a clear and definite aim from which
no deviation has been allowed. If it is with the
last period of this life that the public is most f amil-

255

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

iar, it is worth while to remember that the founda-
tions of the character of the man those who know him
so much honor, were laid in young manhood, strength-
ened in professional and business life and thus made
ready for the superstructure which has been reared
upon them during these later years.

Few men, however great their anxiety to do so,
have had the privilege granted to Dr. Pearsons,
of distributing their fortune in their own lifetime.
Still more rare is this privilege when that fortune
is counted by millions rather than by thousands,
and when as much care is exercised in its distribu-
tion as was required for its acquisition. For twenty-
two years Dr. Pearsons has devoted himself wholly
to a consideration of the needs of the educational
field of America. True he has given large sums
to objects not generally classed as educational, yet
it will be seen when closely scrutinized that even
these objects exert an educational influence on the
people. This is certainly the case with gifts to the
Y. M. C. A., to the Historical Society, the Academy
of Science, the Orchestra Association, the Art Insti-
tute of Chicago, and to the Presbyterian Hospital
to which he has made large contributions and in
which he has provided free beds for needy theologi-
cal students.

For a man who gives conscientiously, with a sense
of responsibility to God, in comparatively small
sums, and under conditions designed in part to test
the worthiness of the object to receive aid, the dis-
tribution of a fortune of several millions calls for a

256

RETROSPECT

great deal of wisdom. The difficulty is in placing
money where it will really do the most good, where
it is most needed, even if the results hoped for be
long in appearing. That Dr. Pearsons has recog-
nized this difficulty and has successfully met it,
not many will deny. That some colleges, and
objects of charity worthy in themselves, have been
refused aid is true. But the refusal has come from
no prejudice against them, but from the conviction
that money would be better invested elsewhere.
To set aside these appeals, made as they have been
by some of the most eminent men in the country,
has called for a firmness of will not many possess.
To give wisely is a science. The principles of this
science can be applied only after careful study,
prolonged meditation, much correspondence, and
not a little travel. Dr. Pearsons has never given
hastily. Nor has he spared himself the labor, men-
tal and physical which almost daily requests for
aid have made necessary. His years of philan-
thropy have been his busiest years. More difficult
problems have been presented to him for solution
since he began to dispense his fortune, than in all
the years of his previous life. The conditions on
which his gifts have been made have called for care-
ful thought in nearly every instance. Not infre-
quently the time granted for their fulfillment has
been extended, and sometimes efforts have been
made at his suggestion through the press and by
individuals to create a public sentiment in favor of
meeting these conditions. Patience, persistency,
17 257

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

courage, hopefulness, have not been wanting on
the part of the giver, when he saw that without these
qualities his conditions would not be met. The
pledges he made he looked upon as debts which it
would be a privilege to pay. A good example of
his desire to have his conditions met is furnished in
the history of Montpelier Conference Seminary.

Gifts have never been made for the sake of noto-
riety. If Dr. Pearsons has been willing that the
public should know how much he has given, and
under what conditions, it has been from the con-
viction that men and women of wealth would learn
through these reports what he was doing, and might
be led to follow his example, and while yet living,
invest some of their money where it cannot fail to
be permanently useful. Testimony has come to
him again and again that in this respect his wishes
have been met. The gifts of Dr. Pearsons have all
had reference to the future as well as to the present.
A feeble college in a field already occupied, or under
unfortunate management has appealed to him in
vain. In fashionable or money-making institutions
he has taken no interest. But no matter how small
the college, if it has been wisely managed, is well
located, has a Christian atmosphere and a reasonable
promise of growth, he has willingly aided. For in
such colleges, strong, manly, patriotic, Christian
character can be developed. Absolutely tolerant,
one might say, almost indifferent so far as denomi-
nation is concerned, Dr. Pearsons has not felt
himself at liberty to aid a college where the Bible

258

RETROSPECT

finds no place in the curriculum, or where the pro-
fessors fail to inculcate the principles of the New
Testament in their classrooms.

A glance at the list will show the wisdom with
which he has made his gifts to colleges. Three on
the western coast, Whitman, Pacific University,
Pomona, are making their influence felt in the three
great states of Washington, Oregon and California.
Mark well the location of the colleges aided in the
Middle West, in the region between the Rockies
and embracing Oklahoma. Special reasons have
called for help for a college in Michigan, one in
Ohio, one in Massachusetts, and for two institutions
in the giver's native state, Vermont. In the South,
institutions in the Carolinas, Western Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida have
profited from his benevolence. In every instance
these gifts have met pressing necessities, and nearly
always, have not only saved the college, but given
it an impulse which has proved to be the beginning
of a new era in its history. To scatter gifts thus
widely, in proper sums, under conditions which
could be met and which when met would prove as
valuable as the money secured, has called for execu-
tive or administrative ability of the highest order.

It may be asked, if at the beginning of his philan-
thropic career, Dr. Pearsons had in mind the wide,
all-embracing plan he has since followed. To this
question a negative answer must be returned. Dr.
Pearsons did not at first realize the importance of
the work he had begun. Its importance grew upon

259

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

him year by year. Year by year his knowledge of
the value of Christian colleges to the country in-
creased till he finally saw that they had filled a great
place in its educational system, and that with the
aid he could give them and secure for them, their
power for good would in the future be far greater
than in the past. But this knowledge came grad-
ually. It came to him as it would come to any
other man with an open mind. He gave to a single
college, not knowing that he would ever give to
another college. He gave because he saw that his
gift was indispensable, and would do good. Then
he saw another college as needy and with promise
of usefulness as great as the one he had just assisted.
Thus the field of benevolence opened before him
till it extended from ocean to ocean, and from the
far North to the extreme South.

With a mind free from prejudice and a heart full
of sympathy for the poor and ignorant everywhere,
it was only natural that somewhat early in his
benevolent life his attention should be called to the
mission field, and that because of the interest which
Mrs. Pearsons had in foreign work, he himself should
be led to consider its claims. It is doubtful, indeed,
if he has ever felt more satisfaction in any other gift
he has made than in the large sums he has sent to
Anatolia College in Turkey. Once aroused, his
interest in the Christian training of the youth in
Mission Schools could not fail to increase, till it
culminated in the last great gift in his power to
make, a hundred thousand dollars for the support

260

RETROSPECT

of the institutions of learning under the care of the
American Board of Foreign Missions. He now feels
that through these gifts he is doing something to
banish ignorance and develop Christian character
in the far East as well as in the United States of
America.

Following such a plan of benevolence as his, it
would have been impossible to prevent an expansion
of outlook year by year. Constant reading, exten-
sive travel in many countries, association with
broad-minded, well-informed, consecrated persons
have given Dr. Pearsons a knowledge of the educa-
tional needs of his own and of other lands wider
and more exact than most of his friends suspect.
His habit of asking questions of those who are able
to answer them intelligently, a strong memory, great
keenness in detecting fraud or self-interest on the
part of a visitor, have brought him a fund of informa-
tion from which he has always been able to draw,
and of which he has never failed to make good use.

Yet he says he would not care to go back twenty
years and dispense another fortune as large as the
one he has now dispensed. These years have been
his busiest years, but they have been the happiest
years of his life. Were he to live them over, he
could not exercise more care in giving than he has
done. He doubts if on the whole he could give to
better advantage. He sees great fields of need,
rare opportunities for the investment of money in
the promotion of Christian education, but he feels
that his special mission has been accomplished.

261

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

Others must take up his work, enlarge it, perfect
it. As a pioneer he has led the way. If the fields are
white unto the harvest and the laborers few, he
believes the laborers will increase' and that the
time is not far distant when every poor boy and
girl who has the wish will find it possible to obtain
such an education as may be required for the great-
est usefulness in life.

At his advanced age Dr. Pearsons misses the
friends of earlier years. Sometimes the days are
lonely. For more than five years he has mourned
the loss of the counsellor and friend who for nearly
sixty years walked by his side. Her society was
a perpetual solace. Her advice was always welcome,
and to her husband's mind infallible. Others, too,
whom he loved to meet and with whom he delighted
to talk, have gone. Those to whom the knowledge
of what he has done, would have brought comfort
and happiness, are no longer here. A very lonely
man is left? — far from it. The thought of more
than fifty institutions with fully a thousand teachers
in them and many thousands of students, constantly
discharging their daily duties, brings with it abun-
dant cheer. The life of these institutions is to con-
tinue, he says to himself, after his has reached its
limit, their influence for good is to have no end.
Sleepless nights are full of precious memories. A
vivid and well-trained imagination creates inspiring
visions of the future. Now that his task has been
accomplished he looks back over his life, thinks of
it as if his life were the life of another, is amazed

DR. D. K. PEARSONS AT NINETY

,

RETROSPECT

oftentimes at what he has been permitted to do,
declares himself the happiest of men, and wishes
that every rich man might know as he knows, the
joy there is in giving.

Dr. Pearsons has always taken the part of the
common people. He has lived near them in thought
and affection. In all his gifts he has sought their
interest. He has sympathized with men of wealth
also. His associations in business have been with
them chiefly. He has admired their enterprise and
looked upon their gains as legitimate. With Social-
ists he has had no sympathy nor with reformers whose
amunition for attack upon those more fortunate
than themselves in the possession of this world's
goods, has been drawn from jealousy and misap-
prehension, and who have not hesitated to accuse
them of almost every crime of which one can con-
ceive, yet his constant aim has been to minister to
the welfare of the people of the poorer classes. On
the basis of justice and merit he has sought to render
it possible for poor boys and girls to obtain an educa-
tion equal to that open to the children of the rich,
or the well-to-do. With people who work with
their hands or live on small salaries he has been in
hearty sympathy. He has lived and felt as if he
were a laboring man himself. To the poor whites
he once said, "I was a poor white myself, as poor as
any one of you." But with wealth as such he has
had no quarrel, only with its use. By his own exam-
ple he has shown the world how he believes it may be
honestly acquired and in what way its possessor

263

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

may employ it for the good of mankind. In no
case would he have so much given as to remove or
lessen the necessities of toil and self-sacrifice on the
part of those who receive, but in such a way as to
render it possible for them to become fellow-workers
with the man who has entrusted a portion of his
wealth to their keeping. It is in the laboring classes
that he has seen the promise of the continued pros-
perity of the Republic. From them are to come
the Lincolns and the Garfields of the future, as well
as the patriotic citizens who are the hope of the
country. And they are to be taught in such schools
as Berea, Drury, Park, Piedmont, Rollins, Guilford
and Middlebury, to say nothing of the other schools
he has aided. In his daily meditation, he has put
himself by the side of poor young men and women
in these schools, made them his companions, felt
the weight of their burdens on his own shoulders,
sought to encourage them in their ambitions and
to assure them of victory in their struggle with
ignorance and poverty.

As a Christian man Dr. Pearsons has not felt
inclined to make any very large gifts to any but
Christian institutions. He has not cared for denom-
inationalism. With a broad, tolerant, genuinely
Christian spirit he has been satisfied. A steady
attendant at church services, either at a Congrega-
tional or a Presbyterian Church, in full sympathy
with their methods of benevolence, he has yet felt
that his money could be used to better advantage
if confined for the most part to the educational

264

RETROSPECT

field than if expended under the direction of church
boards. In work among the poorer classes in cities
like Chicago he has had genuine interest. To the
Chicago City Missionary Society he has given more
than two hundred thousand dollars because he has
believed in the churches established by it, in the
Sunday schools and other organizations growing
out of these churches as agencies for the develop-
ment of moral character for the lessening of tempta-
tion, the diminution of crime, the developing of good
citizenship and stimulating youth to make the best
possible use of their opportunities.

In all that he has done he has felt as if God were
with him and were guiding him. He has felt that
his responsibility was to God, not to men, and while
not indifferent to what men might think of him,
has yet sought to do what he has believed God has
wished him to do, what under his blessing would
best promote the interests of his kingdom and fit
men to live in that kingdom. He has believed that
a man can be what he desires to be, that God has
given him endowments and opportunities to use,
and that if in early life, a person is brought under
proper influences he will, in all probability, become
a patriotic Christian man, a blessing to his genera-
tion and to his country. But the moving impulse
of this life must be Christian, or the chances of its
usefulness in society are greatly lessened. Hence
the emphasis which he has laid upon Christian
training, upon principle, duty and the example of
Jesus Christ.

265

LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS

Although in his ninety-second year and with
growing infirmities of the flesh, Dr. Pearsons is
young in thought and full of confidence in the future.
There has never been anything like pessimism in
his nature. In early life he determined to succeed.
In his professional career he allowed no thoughts
of failure to hinder his progress.

As a business man, where others predicted failure
or hard times, he saw prosperity and rarely or never
failed to reach it. Experience has taught him that
men can be trusted; for this reason he has been
willing to put large sums of money into the hands of
others to invest for work to be done after he shall
have passed away. With a breadth of vision and
a spirit of toleration that few men so old as he mani-
fest, like one of the old prophets, though with more
confidence than they sometimes exhibited in their
countrymen, he sees the world continually becom-
ing better, as class after class of well-trained youth
pass out from under the influence of teachers in the
Christian schools which he has done so much to
establish and perpetuate. If he has loved money
it has not been because he cared to exercise the
power which its possession sometimes gives, nor
because he has taken pleasure in the luxuries it
could furnish him, or the woman who stood by his
side in his strenuous years, and who encouraged
him as he began the distribution of his wealth, but
because he saw and felt that God had given him
the privilege of wealth that he might employ it for
the benefit of those to whom it had not come. In

266

RETROSPECT

long wakeful nights he thinks over the history of
the institutions, whose financial distress he allevi-
ated and in whose prosperity he has so large a share,
and looking into the future he thinks of the contri-
butions which the men and women educated in
these institutions will make to the welfare of the
generations in which they may live and of the grati-
tude many of them will feel toward the man who,
far back in the history of their college or seminary,
preserved its life and gave it an impulse which has
made it a power for good in the country and the
world. A lonely man he cannot be, for his mind
is filled with precious memories, and with a feeling
of satisfaction over the use he has made of his fac-
ulties, and of the fortune which the use of these facul-
ties had given him. He is a happy man because he
has thought not of himself alone or chiefly, but of
the children of the unfortunate, the immigrant, the
belated mountaineer, the day-laborer, and has made
it possible for them to obtain an education; a happy
man, too, because of his faith that in a few years
more he will be again with the wife of his youth, and
with her review his life on earth and enter into the
service open to them both in heaven.

Dr. Pearsons has lived in his own age. He has
never been full of praise for old times or neglectful
of present duties. He has done with his might
whatever his hands have found to <lo. He has
believed that the days in which he has been living
were the best for him and for his generation and has
had complete confidence in a future better than the

267

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

present. But he has done his work in sympathy
with his time and has entered into all the enter-
prises of that time with enthusiam and hope. He
has grown in mental power with his time, and having
had a share in the developments in every direction
of the century in which he has lived, has shown the
effect of these developments in his own enlarged
visions and in sympathies which encircle the world.
With all that has been wrought through the discov-
ery of steam, or electricity as applied to transporta-
tion and the mechanical arts, he has been made
familiar. Nor has he allowed himself to doubt that
progress will be as marked in all that concerns the
physical welfare of men as well in the twentieth
century as in the century which has closed. With
the improvements in surgery and in the treatment
and prevention of disease he has kept in touch.
Unlike some nonagenarians he has had no prejudice
against the new education or rather the new methods
employed in education. If he has believed in the
old, he has not been unwilling to accept the new
wherever the new has shown itself to be better
than the old. Living in the spirit of his time he
has kept himself young in spite of increasing years.
With the press he has been in hearty sympathy.
Not indifferent to its faults he has found it a con-
stant helper. He has welcomed its representatives.
He has talked with them freely. They have never
disabused his confidence, have treated him with
unfailing courtesy, and not infrequently have aided
him in creating a sentiment in a given community

268

RETROSPECT

which has brought success in the effort to meet the
conditions which his gifts imposed. They have met
the criticisms which some who would avoid personal
responsibility have expressed of the conditions upon
which his gifts have depended. Personally indif-
ferent to criticism, he has yet known that the
complete success of that method of giving which
he has deemed the wisest could not be secured
without the help of the press. For the courtesy
it has extended to him he has not failed to express
his thanks.

Who shall say that a life like this is not worth
living? That in each one of its distinct and widely
differing periods it has not been a useful life, bring-
ing gains to its possessor, happiness and comfort to
others? These last years spent in considering the
needs of others, and in striving to meet them in such
ways as will be effective now and in the future, how
rich they have been through the joy of giving and
the consciousness of rendering assistance to self-
sacrificing men and women who consecrate them-
selves to the work of training youth for high and
useful positions in society.

Enjoying a life prolonged by divine favor more
than two decades beyond the ordinary threescore
and ten, these last years have been rich years, for
they have witnessed the execution of plans dimly
formed in early manhood but requiring time and
experience for their realization. "Tins ONE THING
I DO," forgetting the strenuous efforts put forth in
the getting of money, he has made efforts not a

269

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

whit less strenuous in putting it where it will pro-
duce fruit in well-developed character in the youth
of our own time and of years to come. With eye
undimmed, interest in the present unabated, in the
tenth decade of his earthly life, having invested his
millions where he believes they will do the most good
in making Christian patriots, Dr. Pearsons awaits
calmly, and with full confidence in the promises of
the Christian religion, the time of his departure.
Yet he loves life and is in no hurry to leave it.

Those who know him best pray sincerely that he
may abide with them till he has celebrated his
hundredth birthday, their teacher and example in
the principles of a true and far-reaching system of
benevolence, a friend whose advice is always help-
ful, and whose companionship is as inspiring as it
is delightful.

270

INDEX

INDEX

A.

Academy, Paris, 226.

Aetna Life Insurance Company,

22, 45.

Alfred the Great, 170.
AUerton, S. W., 50.
American Board, 224, 231-234,

250.
American Missionary Association,

191.

Amherst College, 9.
Anatolia College, 58, 224-234, 260.
Andrews, S. W., 117.
Appleton, Wis., 16, 152.
Armour, P. D., 81.
Armstrong, J. C., 81, 250.
Arnold, I. N., 27.
Ashland, Wis., 153.
Athens, University of, 226.
Atkinson, G. H., 206, 211.
Avery, T. M., 29.

B.

Bacon, Asa, 71.

Barrows, J. H., 72.

Barton, J. L., 225, 231-233, 240,

251.

Barton, W. E., 174-175, 212, 249.
Battle Creek, Mich., 281.
Beecher, Jerome, 29, 50.
Beidler, Jacob, 29.
Beloit College, 12, 62, 131-141,

161, 240, 246-248, 283-285, 296-

297.

Beloit, Wis., 11, 241.
Berea College, 167-180, 241, 264,

290, 302.

Berea, Ky., 58, 95, 167, 250.

Berlin, University of, 225.

Bishop, Pres., 120.

Blackman, Pres., 193-195.

Blair, C. M., 29, 49.

Blaisdell, J. A., 141, 213-214, 218.

Blatchford, E. W., 27, 29.

Boardman, Prof., 76.

Boon, Pres., 151.

Boone, L. D., 29.

Booth, Henry, 37-38.

Boston, Mass., 7, 15, 205.

Bowen Bros., 28.

Bradford Academy, 6.

Bradford, Vt., 3, 6.

Bradley, Gov., 179, 241.

Braun and Company, 73.

Briggs, J. B., 53.

Brigham Hall., Mary, 126.

Brookline, Mass., 7.

Bross, William, 29, 32.

Brown, Mrs. T. B., 205-206.

Brutus, 16.

Buckhannon, W. Va., 187.

Burritt, Elihu, 9.

Butterick, Wallace, 245.

C.

Cabot Institute, 9.
California, University of, 218.
Carleton College, 152, 225.
Carnegie, Andrew, 94, 118, 149,

195, 217-218, 239-240, 247.
Carnegie Hall, 169.
Carpenter, Philo, 29.
Carter, William H., 37-38.
Cedar Rapids, la., 146.
Chamberlain, Prof., 134.

18

273

INDEX

Chapin, Deacon Giles, 9.

Chapin, E. H., 9.

Chapin Hall, Beloit, 135, 137.

Chapin Hall, Evanston, 102.

Chapin, Julia A., 57, 102, 223.

Chapin, Marietta A., 9, see also
Pearsons, Marietta Chapin.

Chapin, Prof., 141.

Chattanooga, Term., 187.

Chattanooga, Tenn., University
of, 187-189.

Chicopee, Mass., 8-10 15, 57.

Chicago, 111., 3, 12, 15, 17, 20, 22-
23; Art Institute, 73-74; busi-
ness life in, 37-34; City Mis-
sionary Society, 79-81, 83, 265;
in 1860, 27-34; institutions,
gifts to, 67-85, 111, 131, Times,
30; Theological Seminary, 76-
79; Tribune, 30; University of,
50; Y. M. C. A., 68-71.

Cincinnati, O., 167.

Claremont, CaL, 212, 215, 218.

Clark, Alonzo, 8.

Clark, Harvey, 206.

Clark, Senator, 94.

Clarkson, R. H., 30.

Cobb, S. B.. 50.

Collyer, Robert, 29.

Colorado College, 148-150, 286.

Colorado Springs, Colo., 148-149.

Constantinople, 230.

Converse, J. H., 94.

Coe College, 146.

Coolbaugh, W. F., 29.

Cragin, Pres., 156.

Culver, H. Z., 29.

Curtiss, Prof., 76.

Cushing, A. M.f 3.

Cutter, Calvin, 15, 152.

D.

Dartmouth College, 6, 206.
Davis, N. S., 29.
Davis, O. S., 77, 250
Deer Lodge, Mont., 151.
Deering, William, 31.
Demorest, Ga., 191.

Deneen, Gov., 107, 250.

Doane College, 147.

Doane, J. W., 29

Dolliver, Senator, 5.

Doney, C. G., 187.

Douglass, Camp, 28.

Dox, Virginia, 200-201.

Drury College, 159-163, 243, 264,

285.
Dunne, Father, 30.

E.

Eaton Brothers, 93.

Eaton, E. D., 132-239, 248.

Eaton, Hon. John, 241.

Eddy, T. M., 29.

Education Society, 212.

Eells, Cushing, 206.

Elgin, 111., 11.

Emerson Hall, Beloit, 136, 138-

139.

Emerson, Prof., 136, 138-139, 141.
Europe, 11.

Evanston, 111., 3-4, 101-102.
Evarts, W. M.. 33.
Everts, W. W., 29.

F.

Fairlee, Vt., 4.

Fairmount College, 147-148.

Faneuil Hall, 7.

Fargo College, 156-158.

Fargo, N. D., 156.

Farwell, C. B., 29.

Farwell, J. V., 29, 68.

Fee, John G., 167.

Ferguson, Pres., 213.

Ferrin, W. F., 207.

Field, Marshall, 28, 31.

Fifield, Dr., 173.

Finney, Julia V., 151.

Fisk, Prof., 76.

Fisk University, 168.

Forest Grove, Oreg., 205-207, 210,

212.
Fort Dodge, la., 5.

274

INDEX

French, Pres., 154.

French, W. M. R., 73.

Frost, Pres., 106.

Frost, W. G., 170, 172-176, 179-

180, 250.

Fuller, H. T., 159, 243.
Fuller, M. W., 29.

G.

Galesburg, 111., 207.

Gates, G. A., 213, 218.

George, J. H., 163.

Gilbert, Simeon, 173, 250.

Grand Prairie Seminary, 105-106.

Grant University, 188.

Gray, C. O., 190.

Gray, W. B. D., 155.

Greeley, Horace, 9.

Greenville, East Term., 189.

Griggs, S. C., 32.

Guilford College, 190-191, 264.

Guilford, N. C., 190.

Holden, L. E., 140, 240.
Holyoke, Mass., 4.
Hopkins, Henry, 243.
House, J. T., 192.
Howard Hall, 174.
Hoyne, Thomas, 55.
Hubbard, G. S., 27, 29.
Humphrey, Z. M., 29-30.
Kurd, Henry, 37-38.
Huron College, 153.
Huron, S. D., 153-154.
Hutchinson, 73-74.

I.

Idaho, College of, 151.
Illinois Central R. R., 20, 42.
Illinois College, 106.
Illinois, University of, 241.
Imperial Law School, Constanti-
nople, 226.
Ingram Hall, 152.
Iowa College, 213

H.

Hale, W. E., 135, 139.

Halsey, J. J., 104.

Hamill, E. A., 49, 71-72.

Harlan, Justice, 169.

Harmon, J. F., 106-107.

Harms, J. H., 183-187.

Hartford, Conn., 22, 45.

Harvard Law School, 4.

Harvey, T. W., 29.

Hassam, Childe, 73.

Hastings College, 146.

"Hawks, Pa," 10.

Heath, Mayor, 53-55.

Heinze, F. A., 94.

Higgins, V. H., 29.

Hinsdale, 111., 38, 56-58, 67, 95,

245, 249, 252.
Hinsdale Sanitarium, 249.
Hitchcock, A. N., 250.
Hitchcock, Pres., 9.
Hobbs, L. L., 190-191.
Hoge, Mrs. M. D., 33.

J.

James, Pres., 241.
Janesville, Wis., 11, 17, 131.
Jones, D. A., 49.
Judd, N. B., 29.

K.

Kansas City, Mo., 146, 243.
Kennedy, J. S., 175.
Kent, Aratus, 43, 67.
Kilbourn, E. B., 248.
King, Tuthill, 32.
Kingfisher College, 192-193.
Kingfisher, Okla., 192.
Knox College, 108-112, 207.

Lake Forest University, 102-105.
Lancaster, Pres., 116.

275

INDEX

Lawrence University, 16, 152.

Lebanon, 111., 106.

Leiter, L. Z., 28.

Leland Stanford University, 218.

Lexington, Ky., 169.

Lincoln, 32-33, 169-170.

Lincoln Institute, 169.

Livermore, Mrs. Mary, 33.

Los Angeles, Cal., 215.

LouisvUle and Nashville R. R.,

167.

Louisville, Ky., 169.
Low, Seth, 169.
Lowell, Pres., 247.
Lyon, Mary, 9-10, 39, 125.

M.

Maile, J. L., 200, 202.

Manual Labor School, 7.

Marietta College, 117-118.

Marsh, James, 206.

Marsh Memorial Hall, 206-207.

Marsh, Professor, 206, 211.

Marsh, S. H., 206.

Marsovan, Turkey, 224, 226, 231.

McAfee, L. M., 145.

McCagg, Ezra, 27.

McClelland, Pres., 111-112, 207-

211.

McClure, J. G. K., 75, 103, 105.
McCormick, C. H., 29, 31.
McCormick, Mrs., 94.
McCormick Theological Seminary,

75.

McCrea, S. H., 53.
McKendree College, 106-108.
Medill, Joseph, 30.
Merrill, Pres., 153, 242.
Messer, L. W., 68, 70.
Michigan, Lake, 15.
Michigan, University of, 116.
Middlebury College, 122-124, 264.
Mills, W. W., 117.
Mitchell, Arthur, 52.
Montana. College of, 151.
Montpelier Conference Seminary,

6, 119-122, 258.
Moody, C. B., 192.

Morrill Act, vii, 90.
Mt. Holyoke College, 10, 124-127,
291-293, 301, 305.

N.

Nashville, Tenn., 16, 168.
Newberry College, 183-186, 240.
Newberry, S. C., 183.
Newberry, W. L., 27.
Newbury Seminary, 6, 120.
New College, Edinburgh, 225.
Newell, H. C., 191.
New Haven, Conn., 3.
New York City, 3, 8.
Nixon, O. W., 191, 199-200.
Noble, F. A., 250.
Northfield, Minn., 152.
Northland College, 153.
Northwestern University, 101.

O.

Oak Park, 111., 175.
Ogden, M. D., 27.
Ogden, W. B., 27.
Olivet College, 115, 283.
Onarga, 111., 105.
Osborne, Tenn., 179.

P.

Pacific University, 205-212, 286.
Page, Peter, 28.
Palmer, Potter, 28.
Park College, 145, 264.
Parker, Theodore, 9.
Parkville, Mo., 145.
Pasadena, Cal., 172, 215.
Patterson, R. W., 29, 108.
Patton, C. H., 224.
Patton, W. W., 29.
Paulson, Dr., 249-250.
Pearley, George E., 158.
Pearsons, Arthur, 3.
Pearsons, Charles, 3.
Pearsons, Elizabeth, 3.

276

INDEX

Pearsons, Daniel Kimball, birth
and ancestry, 3-6; early life and
education, 6-8; 95; marriage, 9;
practise in Chicopee, 8-10;
decision to go West, 10; gifts to
Beloit, 11-12; preparation for
life in Chicago, 15-21; lectures,
15-18; land agent, 19-23; life in
Chicago, 37-64; personal appear-
ance, 40; alderman, 53-56;
advice to young nlen, 62-63;
principles of giving, 83-85;
gifts to denominational col-
leges, 89-97; to 111. institutions,
101-112; 115-127; to Beloit,
131-141; to other Western Col-
leges, 145-163; to Berea, 167-
180; to other Southern Colleges,
183-195; to Pacific Coast, 199-
220; to Missions, 223-234; ap-
preciations of, 239-252; retro-
spect, 255-270; addresses etc.;
Appendix, 281-304; Greeting of
Congregational Club, 305-308.

Pearsons, George, 4-5.

Pearsons, H. A., 45.

Pearsons, Hall, Mrs. John A., 4.

Pearsons, Hannah P., 5-6.

Pearsons, John, 5-6.

Pearsons, J. A., 3-4.

Pearsons, Marietta C., 10, 23-24,
42, 56, 57, 74, 80, 95, 160, 193,
243, 251, 300, 305, 308. (See
also Chapin, M. A., and Pear-
sons, D. K.)

Pearsons-Taft Land Credit Co., 45.

Pearsons, W. B. C., 4.

Peck, J. W., 32.

Penrose, S. B. L., 200-205.

Penrose, Mrs. S. B. L., 203.

Perry, Pres., 147.

Piedmont College, 191, 264.

Plantz, Pres., 152.

Pomona College, 212-220.

Porter, Prof., 141.

Portland, Ore., 210.

Presbyterian Church, Chicago,
First, 32, 42, 43, 52, 67-68, 72.

Presbyterian Hospital, 49, 71, 256.

Putnam, Israel, 6.

R.

Race, J. H., 187-189.

Railroad Mission, 42, 67.

Rammelskamp, Pres., 106.

Rankin, W. A., 105.

Rawlins, Mr., 176.

Raymond, B. W., 29.

Ripon College, 152, 242.

Ripon, Wis., 152, 153.

Rochelle, 111., 19-20.

Rockefeller, J. D., 250.

Rogers, J. A., 178-179.

Rollins College, 193-195, 249, 264.

Roosevelt, ex-Pres., 179, 242.

Rosenberg, Jacob, 50, 53.

Ross, J. P., 49, 71.

Royal Conservatory of Music,

Stuttgart, 226.
Ryder, W. H., 29.

St. Louis, Mo., 107.

Samsoun, Turkey, 230.

Saulsbury, Prof., 134.

Savage, G. S. F., 76.

Scammon, J. W., 32.

Scherer, J. A. B., 184, 240.

Schuttler, Peter, 29.

Scott, Harvey, 208.

Scott, Prof., 76.

Seward, W. H., 33.

Sheldon, E. H., 27.

Sherman, Speaker, 244.

Sherwood, Mr., 52, 67.

Skinner, Judge M., 27.

Slocum, Pres., 149.

Smith, Dr. J. B. C., 9.

Smith, George, 29.

Smith, Solomon, 29, 49.

South Hadley, Mass., 9.

South Side City Railway System,

44-45, 50.

Sperry, Pres., 115-117.
Springfield, 111., 243.
Springfield, Mass., 3, 19.
Springfield, Mo., 162, 243.
Stephenson, Isaac, 152.

277

INDEX

Stickney, E. H., 157-158.
Stone, Mrs. Valeria, 89.
Storrs, E. A., 29.
Story, W. F., 30.
Stowell, Mr. and Mrs., 136.
Strong, J. W., 152.
Sturgis, Solomon, 20.
Sullivan, Michael, 20.
Sumner, C. B., 213-220.
Swift, G. A., 31, 52, 67.

T.

Tabor College, 146.
Taft, O. B., 45.
Taft, Pres., 169.
Thayer, H. E., 148.
Thomas, J. M., 122-124.
Thurston, 10.
Tiffany, I. H., 29.
Topeka, Kans., 147.
Tracy, Pres., 224.
Troy, N. Y., 9, 124.
Tualtin Academy, 206.

V.

Vermont Central R. E,., 5.
Vermont, Society of the Sons of,

51, 63.
Vermont, University of, 206.

Washburn College, 147.

Washburn, E. B., 27.

Washington and Tusculum Col-
lege, 189-190.

Washington, D. C., 199, 242.

Wesleyan College, W. Va., 187.

Wheeler, E. P., 153.

Wheelock, Eleazar, 206.

White, G. E., 224.

Whitman College, 199-205, 287-
289.

Whitman, Marcus, 199, 203.

Whitman, Memorial Building, 203.

Whitman, Mrs. Marcus, 203.

Wichita, Kans., 147-148.

Willard's Seminary, Miss., 9, 124.

Williams College, 243.

Williams, E. F., 251.

Williston, A. L., 125.

Wilson, Gov. Woodrow, 169-170.

Wilson, Gov., 169.

Winter Park, Fla., 193, 195.

Woman's Board of Foreign Mis-
sions, 58, 223.

Woman's Educational Aid Asso-
ciation, 101-102.

Woman's Foreign Missionary
Board, Presbyterian, 76, 223.

Woodstock, 111., 178.

Woodstock, Vt., 8.

Woolley, Pres., 126.

Wooster University, 240.

Worcester, Mass., 7.

W.

Walla Walla, Wash., 199, 205.
Ward, Rev. Joseph, 154.
Ward, Mrs. Joseph, 155.
Warren, Pres., 155-156.

Y.

Yale University, 225.

Yankton College, 154-156.

Yankton, S. D., 154.

Y. M. C. A., Chicago, 68-71, 256.

278

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1

A LESSON IN PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPY

AN ADRESS DELIVERED BY DR. D. K. PEARSONS BEFORE
THE Civic -PHILANTHROPIC CONFERENCE AT BATTLE
CREEK, MICH., OCTOBER 18-23, 1898.

I shall talk to you tonight in plain language. I am about to
say some things that I have never before mentioned in the pres-
ence of an audience. In other words, I propose to be very frank,
very plain. My subject is: —

"WHAT TO Do WITH MONEY — How TO USE IT"

In order to illustrate my subject so that you may clearly
understand it, I shall introduce several object lessons. I am
going to take you on a long journey to see the places where we
make use of money. I shall also bring in a little history incident
to the places we are to visit. I shall be under the necessity of
frequently using the pronoun "I." An old man has the right to
make himself the hero of every story he tells. In the young
man this would not be admissible, but an old man, approaching
fourscore years, has a right to tell what he has done. I like to
hear old men tell what they have done, and I am going to tell
you what I have done, for a particular object; not because I am
proud of it or vain about it, neither do I pose as a benevolent
man — remember that. I am a thrifty and frugal old man. I
have labored nearly eighty years to make money, and I have
made it, and honestly, too.

The statement may seem very strange to you, that I do not

281

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

pose as a benevolent man. I have no benevolence in me, not
a particle. I am the most economical, close-fisted man you ever
put your eyes on. You can see it in my face — it is there. I do
not think I ever foolishly spent twenty dollars in my life. I never
went to a theater but once in my life, and then I was ashamed of
myself. I never went to a horse-race, or a football game, or a
baseball game, over which our students all over the country are
making such consummate fools of themselves, and by allowing
which the presidents and faculties are making idiots of them-
selves.

I am doing all that I am doing on business principles. After
working hard and practising rigid economy for seventy years
to lay up money, I said to myself: "What am I going to do with
this? I can not carry it out of the world in my dead hands.
Coffins were not made to carry money in. I have got to leave it;
that's the way to look at it. Now, what shall I do with it?"

I looked around Chicago, and helped to build a hospital;
helped two theological seminaries with three or four hundred
thousand dollars; helped the Young Men's Christian Association
and the City Missionary Society, and other institutions. But
that did not satisfy me. I wanted to help the poor boys and
girls of our country. I wanted to lay up something for them to
live on while getting an education. I had been deprived of a
college education through poverty, and I wanted to fix it so that
these boys and girls, the sons and daughters of wage-earners,
could have the privilege of a college close to them, so that they
could get a liberal education.

For this purpose I turned my attention to sixteen different
colleges. I did not start a single one, and I never will; we have
enough of them. All we need to do is to build up what we have.
There are but two places in America where they have need of a
college today, — one is Montana and the other is Oklahoma, and
sometime they will have them, too. We want to make the colleges
we have better; give them an endowment, so that they can
enlarge their curriculum, pay their teachers, and meet the exi-
gencies of the time.

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APPENDIX 1

So I looked around, and traveled some, too. Mind you, this
was business, no benevolence in it at all. What shall I do with
that money? — Find places for it where it will elevate, where it
will be used for God and humanity.

OLIVET COLLEGE

Now I will take you on the journeys that I made. Let us
begin right here in Michigan.. I received a letter from President
Sperry of Olivet College, twelve pages long. Sperry is a good
fellow — what did he say? That letter was a declaration in equity;
it was a regular "leader." It ran about as follows: —

"You came into Michigan a few years ago, and bought 16,000
acres of timber land, and you paid for it. You took that mag-
nificent pine timber out of Michigan, and converted it into money,
and you left nothing behind but the bare, white, sand dunes,
that will produce only such things as choke-cherries. Timber
will never grow there again. Now in equity return some of that
money to Michigan."

I replied: "You raise $75,000 in Michigan, — you can not go
all over the world to raise it, but raise it here in Michigan, — and
I will give you $25,000," and he said, "It is a bargain."

He was in my office the other day, and said he had it all except
$20,000. Thus Olivet College is about to stand up $100,000
better off; and with this endowment the efficiency of the college
will be greatly increased. Nothing will give me more pleasure
than to make out that check for $25,000 for President Sperry.

BELOIT COLLEGE

But before we start out on our long journey, let me, by way of
reminiscence, mention one incident from personal experience.
In 1851 my wife and I took our first trip to the West. Our des-
tination was Janesville, Wis. We passed through Michigan on
a strap rail, and traveled to Elgin, 111., which was the terminus
of the railroad, and there we took a muck wagon to our desti-
nation, passing through Beloit. We traveled through cold and

283

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

mud, — rich mud, too, — but on reaching Beloit found there was
a river. Our horses had to swim the river, and we had to stand
on the seats to get over. We stopped at a little wooden tavern
to rest. Beloit was but a small hamlet then. When we started
on for Janesville, one of those big, burly fellows who always
get into a new country, climbed into the wagon for a ride.

As we drove along, we saw a brick building going up, and I
asked the man, "What are they doing here?" "Why, there are
some Yankee cranks building a college," he answered. That
rather hit me. When they call me a Yankee, I take off my hat
and bow; and when they call me an old Puritan, I make three
bows. On the way to Janesville that man cursed everything that
was good, and I stood up for Christian education the best I knew
how. When we got to Janesville, I shook my fist in his face,
and said, "Old fellow, I am going West, and in a few years I am
going to get rich, and when I do, I am going to help lift up these
colleges that these 'Yankee cranks' are building up." I had
my eye on Beloit at that time.

Time went on, and my seventy years rolled by, and nine years
ago I began. The first proposition I made to Beloit College
was this: "I will give you $100,000 if you will raise $100,000."
(I make everybody work a little, and that is the right way to
do it.) In six weeks they raised that $100,000, and I had to
draw my check. I was so well pleased, and the institution was
such a grand character-building institution, that I went to work
and built them a science hall, the finest in the West. It cost
me $60,000 in cash. But I wasn't quite satisfied with that
so the next year, seeing that the boys had to pay from $3.50
to $4 for their board, I built them a dormitory costing $25,000.
Now the boys can live on $1.50 a week. I wasn't quite satisfied
with that, for they were good fellows. So I said, "Look here;
you haven't got quite money enough; you want more endowment
you want better professors. Now you raise $150,000 and I
will give you another $50,000." So last commencement Presi-
dent Eaton stepped in and said, "Here is $150,000 cash, — not
Kansas mortgages, no sand dunes, no swamp lands, but

284

APPENDIX 1

cash." So I gave him my check for $50,000, and that closed
that deal.

They established coeducation, and that pleased me. They
were going to have the girls come in, but they had no cage to
put them in. I said, "Get to work and build the finest building
you can for seventy-five girls, and be sure you get a good many
Mary Lyons and Frances Willards among them." So I gave
them $30,000 for a beautiful dormitory, and it is now occupied
by sixty-five young ladies. That was a very pleasant thing to
do, and I am rather proud of it. You needn't tell me I am a good
fellow — I know I am.

Nine years ago there were about sixty students in Beloit College
and about one hundred in the academy; now they have more than
eighty in the freshman class, and more than two hundred each
in the college and the academy. That is the difference between
the situation then and now.

DRURY COLLEGE

Now, let us go down into Missouri. There is a college down
there called Drury College, situated in Springfield, in the Ozark
Mountains. Missouri was a slave state a few years ago, and they
were not awake to the subject of education. They have waked up
now. Drury College was started by a missionary named Drury
from Olivet. They struggled along for a few years, in debt,
begging, their teachers not paid, and all that. I said to them
"You raise $150,000 for endowment (I make all do something)
and I will add $50,000 to that sum." They went to work, and
raised it quite readily. Now, the college is full to overflowing.
So I told them the other day: "You go to work now and put up
a college building. Build a good one, with some rooms for the
sciences separate from the others. Build it to cost $50,000.
You put in $25,000, and I will cover it with another $25,000."
The president is working on the proposition now.

285

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

COLORADO SPRINGS COLLEGE

Now let us travel one thousand miles to Colorado Springs.
About thirty years ago I camped one summer with the Ute In-
dians, where there was nothing but a little hamlet. A missionary
started an academy and college there, and he worked and dug
and toiled, but they didn't get along well. By and by there
came along the right fellow, a bright, smart young fellow by the
name of Slocum, and I had a confidence in that young man. I
believed that he could make that college worth something. I
said to hun, "Slocum, you raise $150,000, and I will pay you
$50,000 down." He thought a while, and finally said he couldn't
do it. There were rich men all around there — twelve million-
aires on one street in Colorado Springs! What are they saving
their money for? — Saving it to ruin their boys and girls, and carry
them to destruction. I said to them, "Work three years if neces-
sary, to raise $150,000."

They sent me a bound book, and in that book there were 1,000
names, — the names of all the individuals who had contributed
toward that $150,000. I have it now. I always require such
a list. And then I required from the three best business men of
Colorado Springs evidence that they had raised the $150,000,
and had the money in hand. No getting around it. Everybody
must come right up to the business mark. Now what have
they? — They have a crowd of students. They come three hun-
dred miles with their packs on their backs from the mountains
and the plains, and they crowd in there, eager for an education —
and they get it.

PACIFIC UNIVERSITY

Now, let us go about six hundred miles farther. Let us go
to the Pacific coast, about twenty miles from Portland, to a
place called Forest Grove, where George Atkinson, an old school-
mate of mine in Vermont, went fifty years ago. He traveled
around by Cape Horn, and was six months in getting there. As

APPENDIX 1

soon as he was properly settled, he started an academy, and in
a few years a college, and that has had the same trouble all the
way through, — in debt, teachers not paid, people sick of being
begged for the college. I wrote to President McLelland and said,
"In memory of George Atkinson, my old schoolmate, and in
memory of Mr. Marsh, who was president for many years, and
died there, I will give you $50,000 if you will raise $100,000."
They undertook to erect a college building, and they got it about
so far and then stopped. I said, "How much money will it take
to complete that building?" They replied, "$15,000." I
sent them a check for $15,000, and they put that building in fine
shape. They held a jubilee in July, and I have a detailed ac-
count of what took place there. They are about the happiest
people on the face of the earth.

Now is that not a good way to use money? If you can find
any better, I should like to have you tell me about it. But we
must hasten on.

WHITMAN COLLEGE

Let us go three hundred miles east, and we come to Walla
Walla. What is the history of that college? — Marcus Whitman,
one of the greatest missionaries and one of the noblest men that
ever walked the earth, went there in 1842 with his wife. Theirs
was the first wagon that ever crossed the mountains. They
settled there among the Indians. He had an Indian school,
and it was prosperous and flourishing. It was no man's land
at that time. No one knew whether the British or the Americans
owned it. There was a magnificent empire up there, compris-
ing Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and that shrewd and patri-
otic Marcus Whitman saw that it was a country of great value,
with its mighty forests, its fertile plains, its lofty mountains, its
mineral treasures.

In the dead of winter he, with his pack-mule and guide, traveled
four thousand miles to Washington, D. C. When he got there,
his hands and face were frosted, but his head was all right. He
went before President Tyler, and found that Webster was about

287

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

trading the whole country off for some fisheries off the coast of
Nova Scotia.

Whitman said: "I am not here for office; I am here to tell you
that that is a magnificent country, and it belongs to the United
States, and we must hold it."

"Oh," replied Webster, "it can never be settled; there is not
even a wagon trail."

"I have taken a wagon over the mountains, and I took my wife
along with me, so I know what I am talking about. I came here
for the purpose of saving that country," said Whitman.

The next spring he took more than one thousand people from
St. Louis, Mo., and Illinois, and one thousand cattle with him
over the mountains, to settle in that beautiful country.

The enemies of civilization were jealous of that smart man,
and they incited the Indians to kill him. They did kill him,
but he left another good missionary behind — a man by the
name of Eels. The best monument to be erected to Marcus
Whitman was to build a college in his name, and such a college
was built, costing $16,000, a very ordinary building.

After struggling along for a few years, they were completely
stranded — mortgaged for $15,000. I had written them that I
would give them $50,000 if they would raise $150,000. They
did not make a move. A man came into my office one day, and
said his name was Penrose, the president of Whitman College.
He said they were $13,500 in debt, and that there was a mortgage
on the building, and that he didn't see how it was possible for
them to raise $150,000. "And," said he, "we can't live without
it." I then sat down and wrote a check for $13,500. "Now,"
said I, "send that out and pay the teachers and clean it all up."

That was four years ago last June. They had then about
forty pupils. Now what are they doing? — They have ten capa-
ble young men who are professors. They have one young man,
a professor of elocution and oratory, who eight years ago was a
sheep-herder on the plains of Utah. His father and mother were
Mormons. He came to Illinois and educated himself, and took
the first prize in the interstate oratorical contest, a $100 prize.

288

APPENDIX 1

You will also be glad to know that they have the $200,000
endowment, and are getting seven per cent, for it there. They
have gathered in about two hundred and fifty young men and
women, some from Idaho and some from Montana. Yet they
are poor, they must be educated, and they must have a home
where they can live very cheaply. I believe students can live,
with a good dormitory, on a dollar and a half a week, or about
that amount. Yet they need more buildings. The good people
of Washington built a monument of granite to Marcus Whitman
on the ground where they buried him. Now I propose to build a
monument. I shall put up a building 180 feet long and 60 feet
wide, and two stories high, with all the appliances and appur-
tenances of a first-class college, as a monument to Marcus Whit-
man. Now, do not suppose I am going to build that building
without those rich fellows out there doing something. They
have got to contribute. The condition is that they must build
the dormitory for these poor boys who come in from the moun-
tains and plains, where they can live cheaply, and they must
do this before I begin the monument. And they will do it, for
they have noble men and women in that fair State, and it is going
to add five per cent, of value to every acre of property to have
that monument right there in the center of Walla Walla. Now,
do you suppose I am going to let those rich old fellows hug their
money, and let the poor boys and girls starve while acquiring
an education? — No; they must do their part and become the
constituency of the college.

I should like to say a great deal more about Whitman College.
I like it. I like it because it is educating a class of boys and girls
who could not be educated without it. They could not get the
money to go off to college, so they need it right there. These boys
and girls are going to be the bone and sinew of America by and by.

If you would know more of this old Christian hero, Marcus
Whitman, and the grand work he did for the cause of Christian-
ity and patriotism, read Dr. Nixon's book, "How Marcus Whit-
man Saved Oregon." It will incite and encourage young Ameri-
cans along the best lines of thought.

19 289

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

BEBEA COLLEGE

Now let us go down to Berea, Ky., among the foothills of the
Cumberland Mountains. In this region of the South there are
five or six million mountain whites, of Scotch-Irish blood, — grand,
good blood, — noble men and women, although ignorant, with large
families of children growing up in ignorance and idleness. Berea
College was started many years ago. I went down there to the
commencement four years ago, and was never so much interested
in all my life; I will guarantee that there were three thousand
horses hitched on the campus, and five thousand people there
from the mountains. They are mountain whites — I am a moun-
tain white, and I was once as poor as they are, and as ignorant.
I am from the mountains away up in Vermont, where they have
to shovel snow about five months in the year.

When I announced that I would give them $50,000 if they would
raise $150,000, I never saw anything like it. Those old moun-
taineers wept, they were so happy.

There is something to these hardy old mountaineers! Do you
know that they turned the tide of battle in the Civil War?
They stood like a wall of adamant, in the midst of the conflict
between the North and the South, and all their sympathy and
bravery were on the side of the North. Do you know that the
men who planted the flag on Lookout Mountain were these
very mountaineers? They were. They are brave people.

SCHOOLS IN THE SOUTH

I took a trip last winter to Asheville, N. C., and looked over the
educational situation in the South. I want to tell you something,
and I would tell Mason if he were here. The colored people
of the South today are better cared for in the matter of edu-
cation than are the mountain whites. They have excellent
schools, and they are making great progress. And now I will
tell you one thing more, and that is that during the next twenty
years you will hear appeals for the mountain whites of Kentucky

290

APPENDIX 1

and Virginia ringing out from the pulpit and the press. They
deserve an education. They deserve much from us for whom
they have done so much. This is a subject that is going to be
agitated for the next twenty years, and I am going to do all I
can for those brave mountaineers.

But let us not lose sight of that endowment for Berea College.
I got a letter from President Frost the other day, and he said
"I now have within $20,000 of the $150,000." He is going to get
that, and I am going to give him a check for $50,000 about the
1st of January. He is going to get it, because those old anti-
slavery men are not all dead, and they have money to put in
that very institution that is equally for the mountain whites
and the blacks together.

MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE

Let us now journey to the northeast a thousand miles. I am
only going to speak of one more of the sixteen colleges in which
I am personally interested. These are samples, and the rest are
like them.

We are now to stop at a beautiful place, Mount Holyoke,
Mass. Here was founded the first female college ever erected
in this country, one that has done more good and had a wider
influence in the world than any other like institution under the
sun. Holyoke has circled the globe with women's colleges.

About a hundred years ago, Mary Lyon was born in an obscure
town in Western Massachusetts, of poor parents. Most men and
women of worth and influence come from poor parents, — from
wage-earners, from poverty. Poverty is a blessing in disguise.
Standing here today, I am thankful that I was born in poverty,
and that I had to hustle, while the chilly winds of adversity blew
around me.

Hustle — that is what makes men. It is not pampering them*
Take two dogs that are brothers, and put one in a rich man's
family, where he has a soft cushion to lie on, and is fed highly
seasoned food. That dog grows up a great big lumber-headed
dog with a cirrhotic liver. The other dog is given to a poor

291

LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

boy over in Podunk. There are a lot of boys in that family,
and every boy gives the dog a kick. That dog grows up a splen-
did dog, with good muscle and a good eye, and is able to take
care of himself. Now bring him alongside of his brother raised
in luxury, and he will lick him. That dog raised in Podunk
can lick a dozen dogs like his brother. The pampered dog is good
for nothing, while the dog that had to fight for an existence is
a splendid specimen.

Just so it is with boys. Put two boys in equally different
environments, and one will turn out smart, for he has had to
hustle; while the other, if he is fed well and coddled, may be a
good-natured fellow, but that is about all.

You might ask the question, "Are there not too many colleges,
too many men going to college?" — No, there are not too many
colleges, nor too many men going to college, nor too many women
either.

Mary Lyon's parents died, and she was left alone. She then
did housework for her brother, who lived on a farm. She spun
and wove and made coverlets and sold them, and got enough
to go to Ashfield Academy. That girl had visions, but she
was not visionary — not a bit of it. She saw through the mist
and clouds that overhung the grandest country in the world,
and the noblest people in the world. The mist was that a female
should not be educated. I knew Mary Lyon; I saw her at work
laying the first foundation of her magnificent institution. I
once asked an old man why he did not help Mary Lyon. " Why,"
said the old man, "it is of no use sending girls to college, it will
spoil them for servants; they won't be worth a cent for servants
if they go to school."

That darkness, that mist, hung over New England like a pall,
and Mary Lyon was the heroine who could look through it and
see the stars beyond. This century has not produced another
woman like Mary Lyon. There have been many great women,
but Mary Lyon stood far above them all. What did she want? —
She wanted an institution where the daughters of poor men could
get an education on a very small amount of money. She went to

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work. She begged the lumber and the brick. She went among
the farmers. I was practising medicine within five miles of her,
and I used to meet her in her travels around, and sometimes
she was disheartened, and although I was poor as Job's turkey
then, I said to myself: "If I ever get anything ahead in the world,
the first thing I take up will be such work as Mary Lyon is doing."

Mary Lyon is dead, but the college she founded still lives.
They were without any endowment four years ago, and I wrote
them, "I will give you $50,000 if you will raise $150,000," and
they went to work and got half of it. Two years ago last
September that building that Mary Lyon built to accommodate
four hundred girls took fire and burned up, turning the girls
into the street. Out of those four hundred girls only five went
home. The farmers and the people there said, "We will take
care of you," and they did take care of them, and they kept the
school intact.

That building was consumed, and while its embers were still
red-hot, I telegraphed to Williston, the Treasurer: "Fifty thou-
sand dollars to build up Mount Holyoke." What a turn that was !
They had sunk into despair and despondency ,when all at once
light flashed upon them. That was the old institution founded
by Mary Lyon, and it has risen again. Now, Holyoke has five
of the finest dormitories in the country, and the most magnifi-
cent administration building as a memorial of Mary Lyon. I
got a letter today from the treasurer, saying, "We are now
going to have, in addition to the building, a new gymnasium."
At the last commencement I sent my check, and they have now
$200,000. They are going to be the best and the grandest
institution in this country.

I have tried to illustrate my subject, "What to Do with
Money." I have given you a few pages of personal history to
show you what one man of long experience believes is the right
way to use money. I have faith in this method of doing good.
I shall continue to prove my faith by my works. I hope many
will do likewise.

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APPENDIX 2

ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC BY DR. D. K. PEARSONS,
ON HIS NINETY-FIRST BIRTHDAY

From The Tribune of April 15, 1911

It has seemed to some of my friends that I ought not to retire
from activity without publishing some statement of the work I
have attempted and my purpose henceforth.

One year ago, on my ninetieth birthday, I made or renewed
conditional pledges aggregating approximately $300,000, limited
in time to one year. At that time I made a statement that these
were my last pledges, and that when they were fully paid I should
retire from the field of public service and seek that quiet which has
been denied me in recent years.

The conditions of my gifts have practically all been met. I
lie down to sleep tonight, free from debt. I owe no man any-
thing, and no college, institution, or individual has any outstand-
ing claim against me. This is a great relief, and it is to be per-
manent. Henceforth I make no pledges and no gifts. I have
given practically $5,000,000 to various charities. These gifts
resulted in the raising of at least $10,000,000 more. This is the
end.

HAS No MORE MONEY TO GIVE AWAY

I wish to make this very emphatic. I want all my friends to
help me to make it perfectly plain. I will receive no more solici-
tors and will read no more letters soliciting gifts. What money I
now have is fully provided for. I have no more money to give
away.

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APPENDIX 2

I must ask relief and insist upon it. This is the announcement
I wish to make upon my ninety-first birthday.

The promises which I made a year ago I have kept. I
have no more money to be given away. Please stop writing
me letters which I cannot read nor answer. They burden
me, and must disappoint the writers.

But I cannot terminate so active and interesting a career without
a further word concerning the experiences of these ninety-one
years, and especially the last twenty-two, which have been devo-
ted exclusively to what my friends have been pleased to call
" philanthropies."

I used to deny that I was a philanthropist. I was accustomed
to say that I had no benevolence in me. But if philanthropy
means loving one's fellow-men, then perhaps I am entitled to the
term. But I still maintain that if I had chosen my course with a
simple view to selfish pleasure, I could not have chosen better
than I did, for these twenty-two years have been years of constant
joy. I had a good time making my money, but have had a better
time spending it.

NEVER CARED TO WASTE MONEY

I have never denied myself anything that I have needed or
greatly cared for. If I have been criticised, it has been because
I did not spend money for things I did not want. I have had all
the food I needed and all the clothes that I could wear. I have
had a good home, good books, and every reasonable comfort.

I never cared for theaters. I never went to but one, and then I
was ashamed of myself. I never went to a horse race or a foot-
ball game. I have not cared to waste my money on things that
would only increase my responsibility and cause me discomfort.
I have not cared to hoard money for people to quarrel over after
I was dead.

If I had chosen selfishly I could have chosen nothing more
pleasant than that which I have chosen. This is what I have
meant when I have said I am not a philanthropist. This was my
meaning when I called myself a close-fisted old man.

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

And yet I want to make a confession. This course which I
chose for myself has been an education to me. I did not map it all
out in advance. I blundered into it, and I must say with some
satisfaction that I have blundered to very good advantage.

VALUABLE LESSONS LEARNED

I do not regret any of the blunders I have made, but these
twenty-two years have been years of growth in method, years in
which I have learned valuable lessons in the distribution of
wealth. I do not want to live them over. I do not want my
money back to give it away again.

But I have learned a great deal which I did not know when I
began. I am something more of a philanthropist now than I was
when I began. I have a better understanding of the use of
these gifts and a better idea of the use which they will be to the
world.

My friends used to talk to me about the good I was doing, and
I laughed at them and said:

"I am just an economical old man investing my money in the
most careful way I know how."

But I have begun to think my friends were right. I see in the
more than forty colleges which I have helped a wider range of
usefulness than I ever dreamed of when I began this work.

RECALLS THE PIONEER DATS

I did not begin with a ready made plan. In 1851 my wife and
I took our first trip to the west. Our destination was Janesville.
Wis., and we passed through Elgin, which was then the terminus
of the railroad. From there we took wagons to our destination,
passing through Beloit. We passed through a good deal of mud,
and it was rich mud. When we reached Beloit we had to ford the
Rock River, and our horses swam the river. We had to stand up
on the seats to keep our feet from getting wet. We stopped at a
little tavern to rest. Beloit was a small hamlet.

When we started on a big burly fellow climbed into the wagon

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APPENDIX 2

for a ride. I noticed a brick building going up and asked him

what was being done. He answered:

"There are some Yankee cranks building a college."

That interested me, for I was just out of New England and a

thorough Yankee and proud of it. If anybody calls me a Yankee,

I take off my hat and bow. If he calls me an "old Puritan" I

make three bows.

RECORDS AN EARLY Vow

On the way to Janesville that man cursed everything that was
good. I tried to argue with him and to stand up for a Christian
education the best I knew how. When we got to Janesville I
shook my fist in his face and I said: "Young man, I am going
west, and I am going to get rich, and when I do I am coming back
to lift up these colleges that Yankee cranks are founding."

I prospered in the new country to which I had come. I gave up
for a time my vision of being a philanthropist, and devoted myself
to getting money. Other men trusted me with their investments
and the money I invested for them proved profitable for them and
for me. For a great many years my money was tied up in active
business propositions. I lived modestly, but well. I drove hard
bargains, but I never drove a dishonest one.

On the approach of my seventieth birthday my eye was not
dim nor my natural force abated. I retired from active business
life. I placed my investments where they would require little of
my time or attention; all the time I remembered my talk with the
man about the little college in Beloit.

A former resident of Beloit was a relative of my wife and I
started there. I went to Beloit College on commencement day.
Not many people knew me. I sat on the platform. I never had
been regarded as a speechmaker, but the time came for me to
make a speech. I stood up and said: "I will give Beloit college
$100,000 if the college will raise $100,000 additional." That was
the beginning of my oratory and it was a success.

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

RAISING DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR

Then I found out this : That colleges could raise more than dol-
lar for dollar, and that it was to their advantage to do it. Gener-
ally they could raise three dollars for one, among their friends.
People often asked me: "Why do you not give your money out-
right? Why do you compel colleges to raise money to meet your
pledges?" My answer is, "Because I have tried that way and
it works well."

In the first place it tests the college and shows whether it has
any natural constituency of its own. In the next place it rallies
its friends to the support of the college, and it makes for it new
friends. In the third place, it keeps my gift from stopping some
other man's gift, and compels the other gift to be made. Finally,
it multiplies my gift by two, or three, or four.

It has made my $5,000,000 yield $15,000,000. It makes three
blades of grass grow where there had been one. I have not
always insisted on the same proportion. Sometimes I have
accepted dollar for dollar.

Other times I have taken two to one, and still more frequently
three to one. Repeatedly I have offered $50,000 to a college if
it would raise $150,000 additional. Sometimes they have thought
me a little hard-hearted in the conditions I made, but I thought I
was doing right. I compelled them to make friends, and com-
pelled their friends to prove then- friendship.

EYE ON COLLEGE FINANCES

I did more than this. I kept a financial report of practically
every college in the country. I studied these reports. I knew
which colleges had been careless in the investment of their endow-
ments. I knew which colleges had borrowed from one fund to
help out another. When they came to me for help I told them
they had been dishonest.

I talked to them in plain language. They did not like it very
well, but they went home and adopted a new system of book-

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APPENDIX 2

keeping. They separated their current expense money from their
endowment money. They employed competent auditors to go
over their accounts. They used new balance sheets, with certifi-
cates sworn to by good public accountants.

I compelled them to become business-like. I believe this thing
itself was a larger gift to the colleges than all the money I could
give them. The day of hit or miss bookkeeping in college offices
has gone by, and I was able to push it a little as it was going.

Naturally they thought me hard-hearted in all this. Some-
times they said that I was not very ladylike in my language to
them. If a board of trustees took endowment to pay current
expenses, and then sent a committee to me to ask me to make it
up, and I told them they ought to be in jail, they thought I was
not very ladylike.

SHOW CLEAN BALANCE SHEETS

But they hustled around among their friends and got money to
replace what had been taken, and started in a new method. And
a year or two later they would come to me and show a clean
balance sheet; then I would say:

" Gentlemen, you have done very well. Your funds are in good
condition, but you need more. I will give $50,000 if you will raise
$150,000 more."

Then they would go out and raise it, and when they had got it
raised they would go out and invest it.

The average board of trustees is a safer, more business-like body
than it was twenty-two years ago. The average college treasurer
is a much more business-like man. I know this, for I have
watched it, and in part I have caused it. I simply made up my
mind not to give my money where it was going to be frittered
away. And this policy bore fruit.

I have given some money to educational work through the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. I
began this through the interest of my wife in this work. The
first guests we had in our home were some Chinese from a Sunday-

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

school class in which she was interested. The first foreign mis-
sion gift that we made was to Dr. Tracy of Turkey for his college.

HELPING FOREIGN MISSIONS

I have not felt called upon to give money to the general work
of foreign missions. My field has been the field of education.
But when the American board undertook to raise $2,000,000 for
endowment of its foreign missionary colleges, I believed that to
be directly in line with my work. I believed that whatever
money I gave there would be well invested and rightly used.
One of the things I am going to do now is to give $100,000 to
this cause. It is a gift that I am proud to make.

I have given $1,000,000 to the city of Chicago. That is where
I made my money. But Chicago does not need money for small
colleges, so I have given money to the City Missionary Society,
the Young Men's Christian Association, and Chicago Theological
Seminary, to the Presbyterian Hospital, and other agencies which
I believe to be most nearly in line with the work I have tried to do.

The man who is to give away money must choose the field in
which he is to do it. If I had had a thousand times as much as I
had I could not have answered all the requests that have been
made of me.

PATS TRIBUTE TO MRS. PEARSONS

I have no criticism to pass on any one else who chooses a differ-
ent method, but I believed that my own money would go farthest
and do most good if I invested it in the young manhood and
young womanhood of our country. So my wife and I chose
twenty-two years ago to invest in Christian education.

For eighteen years I had her companionship and constant help.
In the last four years I have continued this work which she and
I so long enjoyed together. The choice we made was a beautiful
one, and a happy one. I cannot tell how much joy there has been
in it for us both. I can only be glad that we were led to do as
we have done.

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APPENDIX 2

I have not said much about the spirit which has been behind
these gifts. I am a plain business man, and I talk in plain lan-
guage, the language of commerce and of common sense. But I
want to say more earnestly than I have ever said before that I
believe I have been guided in this work. I do not think it has
all been of my own choosing or planning.

NEVEK HAS BEEN A HYPOCRITE

Whatever people have said of me they have never called me an
old hypocrite. I do not care to say more than I am now saying
about the spirit which has guided these gifts, but I should be false
to myself if I said less than this.

I have never been a sectarian. For good reasons considerable
of my work has been done for Congregational institutions, and
next to that Presbyterians claim my interest. But I have done
this in no sectarian spirit. Among the colleges that I have
helped are Methodist, Baptist, Quaker, and nonsectarian insti-
tutions.

But I have emphasized the Christian idea, because I believe
that education is of little value without character, and may be
even harmful. I have tried to make my gifts a contribution to
the work of God and the welfare of mankind.

I got some idea of the value of Christian education in my early
association with Mary Lyon, the founder of Mount Holyoke Col-
lege. That noble woman used to come to my house and when I
began the practise of medicine I was near her college. I have
been able to befriend it since. I gave it a building and some
money for endowment. I do not believe there is in New England,
or in all the country for that matter, a better college for women
than Mount Holyoke. It stands in my mind for an ideal of Chris-
tian womanhood, and I believe in Christian womanhood, and
Christian manhood.

Some of my gifts seem to me almost to have been taken out of
the sphere of my own planning. There is one of them that I
think of which seems to me to have been a direct inspiration. I
refer to the $50,000 which I gave to establish the water works for

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LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS

Berea college. That was the most beautiful gift I ever made.
When I think of the way that came about and all the good that
has been done I consider that gift an inspiration.

I have the greatest joy in my colleges. They are my children.
They are my only children. They are good children and growing
children. No father was ever more proud of his family than I
am of these colleges. I have nurtured them, loved them, scolded
them sometimes, but I have watched them with more affection
than they have always realized. And they are my joy and crown.
I have no more money for them, but all the affection which I ever
had for them I still treasure.

I like to think of them, from old Vermont, where I was born,
across the continent to Pacific University in Oregon, and all the
way from Ashland, in the pine woods of Wisconsin, to Rollins in
Florida, and to Pomona in southern California. Then* names are
precious to me, and their prosperity brings me great joy.

PRAISE FOR THE NEWSPAPERS

I wish I could send greeting on this birthday to all my friends
near and far. I should like to answer all the letters and send mes-
sages to all the institutions which send their greetings to me. I
cannot send individual messages to all of them, but I send a hearty
word of appreciation through the medium of the public press.

I want to say a word to the newspapers. They have always
been my friends. They have advertised my efforts, and have
encouraged colleges to meet my conditions. In some cases the
effort would entirely have failed if it had not been for the hearty
support of the press. I have not sought newspaper notoriety.
I have been careless what they have said about my methods, but
I want at this time to express my appreciation of the courtesy
and helpfulness of the press throughout the country.

I hope that I shall live to be 100. The conditions of my general
health are such that that does not seem impossible. But I cannot
live nine more years as strenuous as the last have been. I have
lived in the joy of achievement, and with the strain of sympathy
with the institutions I have been helping.

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LOOKS BACK WITH THANKFULNESS

I have taken upon myself more of their burden than they could
realize. I cannot do thislonger. What time may remain for me
must be spent in quiet. What money I have is fully provided for.
I look back with great thankfulness over the ninety-one years of
my life, and especially over the last twenty-two.

If these years seem remarkable to my friends, they seem noth-
ing less than wonderful to me.

I send this final message to the colleges I have helped. Guard
faithfully your endowment funds. Use careful business methods
in placing the funds of the college. But even more carefully
guard your students. Keep them from harm, for the hope of the
country is in the young people you are training.

I should like to give a word of advice also to prosperous men.
Do not put off your benefactions till you are too old to enjoy
them. Do not leave your money to people to quarrel over. Do
not shorten your lives by extravagances. Find some good thing
which ought to be done, and begin to do it.

Take that field of philanthropy and make it your own. Put in
your work in such a way that you come to be known as a friend
of the cause to which you give your efforts. And the experiences
that that course will bring will cause you greater joy than any
other in life.

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APPENDIX 3

NINETY-FIRST BIRTHDAY: GREETING OF THE CHI-
CAGO CONGREGATIONAL CLUB TO DOCTOR
D. K. PEARSONS APRIL 14, 1911

WRITTEN BY REV. DR. SIMEON GILBERT

April 14 has come to be a cherished red-letter day with us, as
well as with you; and we, the members of our Congregational
Club, are all of one mind and one heart tonight as we turn to
think of you. And, as you must already know, our thought is
full of love, of admiration, of gratefulness as we offer heartfelt
congratulation on this your Ninety-first birthday.

Ninety-one years; and what years they have been — these years
of discoveries and inventions, modern miracles at which all men
wonder, necessitating perpetual crises, evolutions and revolutions
so many of them taking place within the measure of your own life !
No doubt you have reached the period where there is no resent-
ment at having Shakespeare's word applied to you:

"Oh, sir, you are old,
Nature in you stands at the very verge of her confine."

Even sunsets, it is said you know, "do take a sober coloring
from an eye that hath kept watch o'er man's mortality"; but
what we are thinking is of the gracious quality, the meaning, the
culminating issues and beneficent outcome of this long life that
has been given you. And so we unite in thanking God for what
during all these years, he has been doing for you, and has been
doing through you, for our country and the world. Surely it
were not possible, now, to think of it all, the acute timeliness, the
largeness, the varied scope and self-perpetuating beneficence of
all this sagacious planning and doing, and doing and giving on
behalf of these near-fifty Colleges which you so fondly love to

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APPENDIX 3

speak of as "my children," without having wakened in one's
mind a feeling akin to awe, as if somehow taken up into partner-
ship with God himself.

It was a beginning of good fortune for you — as some of us also
have fine reasons for believing — that you were given birth and
early training up in Vermont. Fortunate, too, perhaps, that
you were not allowed to stay there too long! Then how often,
oh, how often you must have blessed the good Hand of Provi-
dence which led you, while in your early prime, down the valley
of the Connecticut, loveliest of river valleys, in sight of old
Mount Tom and the classic Mount Holyoke, and opened the way
for you to the gracious home of Deacon Chap in, and, quite as
important, to that of Miss Chapin — foreordained to be evermore
the good genius of your own home, the chiefest boon in your life.
Moreover, of like far-reaching good fortune was it that there, as
you drove your Doctor's gig up and down among those pictur-
esque hills and valleys you came to know also, that inspired woman,
one of the most prophetic spirits of her time, Mary Lyon; and that
just at the time when she was not only founding and making
Mt. Holyoke Seminary, but was beginning to make that great
new epoch in modern educational history for women, the world
over. And we suspect that nobody ever learned a greater lesson
from that inspired educator and college builder, than did the
young doctor in his gig, as he began dreaming for himself the
new scheme of life; and ever after was not disobedient to the far-
vision. Of course little enough, at the time, did he know what
it all meant. At any rate, he had been confronted by his "Burn-
ing Bush" in the desert, and began to heed the imperativeness of
the Inner Voice.

And now, as from this happy point of view you look back over
the long way in which you have been so graciously led, how timely
it must seem to you, the time when you were led to come west, to
come here to Chicago. Not a day too soon, nor a day too late.
It was exactly the time for you, in your way, to make here your
fortune, as we call it.

Then, when some twenty-five years later, now some twenty-

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LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS

two years ago, the same gracious Hand struck the hour, the
moment for the grand, new task to be taken up, there was, as we
love to recall, no paltering, no divided counsels. And today, as
we glance over this last and most unique period in your life, the
great educational and college-building era of it, there seems to
us nothing more strikingly worthy of note, than its supreme
timeliness.

It was a just remark of Professor Dexter of Yale, that if the
founding of Harvard College had been delayed twenty-five years,
the whole course of New England history would have been differ-
ent. No doubt of it. But here we have in mind not one college,
but fifty such cooperant factors in American life; colleges which
had indeed been founded some years before, but which, by reason
of the scantiness and extreme uncertainty of then- provisions and
equipment, were utterly inadequate to cope with the new educa-
tional conditions and necessities.

Think of it, how tremendously different the case of the higher
educational problem in our country would have been today, had
not somebody in the all-seeing Providence of God been raised up
to take the timely initiative, and with contagious consecration
and courage set going this majestic educational movement. The
very stones would have cried out.

Let those of us realize it who can, the sinister drift in American
character and life had the man chosen of God for this new-century
educational movement been disobedient to the heavenly vision;
had he, instead of consecrating himself to his mission, been only
half -hearted about it and in some paltering evasion trifled with it
and sought to bargain with his conscience in putting off the mat-
ter, and putting it over to the "dead hand" of some last will and
testament, which might or might not have been made good.

What if all these half-a-hundred Colleges, east and west, north
and south, Beloit and Berea, Carleton and Colorado, and the
rest, and, especially, our own Chicago Theological Seminary —
in its way the sacred capital of them all — had been in shiftless
abandonment left in their poverty and utter inadequacy of endow-
ment and support to drag along at a poor dying rate their losing

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competition with the non-Christian schools; where would we be
today?

Nor in this connection should mention be omitted either of
certain beginnings of large educational endowments through the
American Board in mission lands, or of gifts made to vital inter-
ests in our own City, including besides the Chicago Theological
Seminary, the McCormick Theological Seminary, the Presby-
terian Hospital, the Art Institute, the Young Men's Christian
Association, and specially the Chicago City Missionary Society;
gifts amounting to over a million dollars, all in addition to the
four or five millions given elsewhere — all destined to have effects
of incalculable importance, "ages on ages telling."

Never, never will men of the illumined apprehension fail to
appreciate the "thrice and four times" valued gifts thus early
made, when most they were needed.

And then, one other thing; it must be a satisfaction to you,
Dr. Pearsons, as it is to us, to think of the number of other more
or less illustrious educational givers, some of them with indeed
many times more millions than you have been entrusted with —
who have graciously acknowledged their indebtedness to you,
your precedent, example and way of making your gifts; the con-
ditioning way, which has won so many thousands of others into
the same widening and inspiring fellowship of educationalists and
timely helpers.

There is a Scripture, you know, which speaks of a time when
one should chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight.
Unspeakable is the felicity of our own time when one individual,
starting in the nick of time, may be worth a thousand men; when
one may touch a button and set enormous systems of activity into
correlated motion and power; when one may pitch the tune and
thousands of voices shall roll on the glorious symphony.

Let Homer sing as he may in deathless verse of proud Troy
and the heroes and battles that surge about its falling walls; let
the Latin Poet more prophetic in his spirit sing of "arms and the
man" and celebrate the far-visioned epic of the kingdom that
was to be, the "kingdom bounded by the ocean, the fame of it by

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the stars." But this new educational epoch, which is so directly
to help on "the happy history," not for our America only but for
all the world, this will call for a new kind of epic for its fitting
celebration, should some one ever appear competent for its
portrayal.

Meanwhile, our dear Dr. Pearsons, grateful as we are to him
who is the giver of every perfect gift and of all good giving, be
assured that we all join with profound affection in thanking you
for all that you these so many years have been doing, and in
fervent prayer and hope that this later portion of your life may be
enriched with the divinest comforting and good cheer, and. that
the continuing history and ever-increasing output of these fifty
Colleges and of this our Seminary may more and more illuminate
the wisdom of what has been so opportunely and worthily done
for them.

In that mystical Scripture of one of the Prophets, reference, you
remember, is made to a "window opened in heaven"; exactly
what is meant by it we may not know, but in view of the ineffable
satisfactions and strange gladness of spirit in this Christly busi-
ness for others, which you — you and she who was, and still is,
your wisest and closest partner hi it all — have experienced, do we
not seem to see at least a glimpse of its meaning? A window
opened in Heaven.

( SIMEON GILBERT.

Signed — COMMITTEE OF THE CLUB < OZOBA S. DAVIS.

( THOMAS C. McMiLLAN.

308

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1-26 net

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA

?HPE3UF%F DR. O.K. PEARSONS, FRIEND 0