PERMANENT FUNDS. 1. Held by the general synod in trust: Original amount... Since added Total....... 2. Received by the council: Original donation for endowment.... Donations and legacies for aiding students for the ministry. Total..... $18,346.93 52,204.82 70, 551.75 30,000.00 32, 030.33 8,325,00 74, 424.00 144, 779. 33 3. The "Ebenezer fund," held by a "board of benevolence," $36,573, only part of which is invested. The property has depreciated, and some endowment "notes" have been lost. As yet the college has never been self-supporting, but has yearly depended on contingent donations, which have been very liberally bestowed. No burdensome debts rest on the council, and financial agents are now soliciting an addition of $80,000 to the endowment. GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS. The campus has been enlarged to 18 acres, and five new buildings have been erected, among them the president's house. The gymnasium has been turned into a neat and commodious chapel. The council is striving to secure a recitation hall and a library. The number of bound volumes on hand has reached 7,000. Hope College being the only incorporated college on the east shore of Lake Michigan will, if properly encouraged and developed, become an incalculable blessing to this growing section of the Peninsular State. ALMA COLLEGE, ALMA, MICHIGAN. Prepared in December, 1889, by Rev. GEORGE T. HUNTING, D. D., President of Alma College. This institution is the outgrowth of a feeling among the Presbyterians of Michigan that they must have an institution of learning distinctively their own and equal to the best. While it was founded by and is under the care of the Synod of Michigan, it is not with any narrow meaning a sectarian school, but in the broadest sense consistent with high moral and religious culture, a Christian college. A paragraph or two from its first records will suf ficiently explain how the college came to be. At a meeting of the Synod of Michigan held in Grand Rapids, Otober 14, 1886, the following resolution was adopted: Resolved, That in view of all the facts brought before us, we will with God's help establish and endow a college within our bounds. A board of fifteen trustees was at this time elected, to whom the power was given to fill vacancies until the meeting of Synod, and of adding to its number not to exceed five persons. The number of trustees is now twenty. Two notable gifts decided the matter of estab lishing a college and fixing its location; the first of $50,000 from Alexander Folsom, esq., of Bay City, and the second of laud and buildings valued at $40,000, situated near the village of Alma, Gratiot County, Mich., the gift of Mr. A. W. Wright, and the people of Alma. The doors of the college were opened for the admission of students on the 14th day of September, 1887. There were present at the opening 35 students, a freshman class of 2 young ladies, and the remainder divided between the several classes of a 3 years' preparatory course. The preparatory course has since been extended to 4 years, and at the opening of the year, September 11, 1889, there were present 142 stu dents; a Junior class of 2, a Sophomore class of 4, and a Freshman class of 10. During the year 1888, funds to a considerable amount were added to the permanent endowment of the institution. The more important items are, a bequest of $30,000 by the late Alexander Folsom, and a pledge of $10,000 to the library by A. W. Wright. The income from the entire gift of Mr. Folsom, $80,000, is devoted to the endowment of the chairs of the president and two professors. Three other chairs are endowed for a limited number of years by the generosity of J. M. Longyear, of Marquette, and Messrs. Wells, Stone, and Davis, of Saginaw. Liberal gifts from Hon. Thomas Merrill, Hon. N. B. Bradley, Hon. F. W. Wheeler, T. F. Richards, H. P. Christy, and others have enabled the college to meet current expenses, and the institution is in a flourishing condition. Rev. J. Pierson, D. D., has been engaged to serve as librarian, and is now at his post busily engaged in the purchase and arrangement of books, and the promise of a good working library in the near future is very encouraging. The friends of this new educational enterprise are fully aware that a college is not the growth of a day, but they are hopeful, and indeed well persuaded that the success of Alma College, so far as man may forecast the future, is assured. Toward such success they labor, and for it expectant wait. HISTORY OF DETROIT COLLEGE. By Prof. B. J. OTTING. To those who know the importance attached by Catholics to the union of a strictly Catholic training with secular education, it may appear matter of wonder that no Catholic college for young men existed in so old a Catholic center as Detroit until very recent years, when the institution which is the subject of this brief sketch was established. There were various reasons for this delay. Men of means, who for a long period formed but a small minority of the Catholic body, sent their boys to other Catholic centers of learning. Their brethren in the faith fully appreciated the advantages of a thorough education, but individually they were too poor to send their children abroad and collectively they were too few to support a college of their own. Compelled by conscientious motives to build and maintain their own common schools, their slender means forbade all thought of further outlay. But the rapid increase of their numbers and the improvement of their condition gradually removed this obstacle. The question which now remained to be solved was, "Whence shall we secure a competent body of educators?" Not Detroit alone, but the whole great West as well as the older East, had seen Catholic communities spring up, grow, and flourish with a rapidity which taxed all the resources of the church to meet even the most pressing wants. Though the various religious orders whose special object is the education of the young developed with almost unprecedented rapidity, they found it difficult to keep pace with the rapid onward march of the church's organization throughout the land. Hence the serious question of Detroit's Catholic population, "Whence shall we secure our educators?" The late Bishop Borgess, with his usual energy, set to work to solve this question. In 1877 his efforts were crowned with success. In the spring of that year the Society of Jesus took charge of the then cathedral parish, as a preparatory step to the opening of a college. Preliminary measures were at once taken to begin classes in the following September. No small enterprise this, without a single cent of endowment. But courage and perseverance bridged over the difficulties, and God's blessing was upon the work. |