8. College Days

What my college days lacked the most of, during my nine years on the Wittenberg campus, was firm, constructive discipline. There should have been a mature man, socially knowledgeable, to supervise our behavior; for the large majority of us were from the country and stood in need of coaching in the amenities of gracious living.

The old dormitory was certainly no place for an ambitious youngster who dreamed of making something of himself. Our table manners were quite dreadful. Many of the upper classmen were good enough to counsel the preps and freshmen on matters of morality, but even they, after graduation from the Seminary, would probably be baffled when confronting two forks and three spoons in the place set before them in the home of their most generous parishioner.

It was indeed fortunate for me that I had been brought up in a clergyman’s home. I was familiar with such pastoral services as weddings and funerals. My classmates, who had come from homes of lay families, had to learn by experience. Not a word was spoken about these ministerial acts by any of the three elderly professors in our Seminary.

Our Seminary had a shorter year than the College. We closed early and opened in mid-October. This was to give the theologues a little longer time to serve as supply preachers, usually in country churches not very far away.

As vacation neared, at the end of my second year, I was approached by one of our professors who had heard from the minister of our best church in Des Moines, Iowa, asking for a student to take over some of the pastoral chores, such as the visitation of the sick, hinting that if the youngster liked the job he might stay on. (I gathered that the Reverend Doctor Wirt didn’t think it mattered much whether one had two years or three of our Seminary’s instruction.) Professor Bauslin asked me if I might like to go, and I said yes, and went. My first night in a sleeping car was spent en route to Des Moines.

Doctor Wirt and two sons, college students at Drake University, met me. It was a beautiful morning.

The good Doctor was an incorrigible “joiner.” He not only belonged to a half-dozen or more secret societies but was much interested in them and I think that the many friendships made through these organizations were at least partly responsible for the popularity he enjoyed. Des Moines was the mecca for one of these lodges, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. There was certain liturgical work in the upper brackets of this institution which was carried on only in the Des Moines Temple. At the time of my arrival in the city they were looking for an organist to play for their ritualistic exercises. Doctor Wirt, knowing of my experience with the organ, suggested my name and I was promptly elected to the position which was very lucrative. So this income, added to the salary I received as assistant pastor and preacher during Doctor Wirt’s extended vacation, made it possible for me to go back to school with more money in my pocket than I had ever earned until then. This windfall, supplemented by the money I earned as organist of the Presbyterian church in Springfield, carried me to the end of my Seminary course without resorting to manual labor.

There were three elderly men on the Seminary faculty. The professor who taught Hebrew specialized in Hebrew grammar. I do not recall that he ever had anything to say about the Hebrew people. The professor who taught preaching and pastoral care was not himself a well-known preacher. The third professor, Doctor Samuel A. Ort, was an intellectual giant but lived in a world far over our heads, discussing the logic of various doctrines in which I, personally, had no interest whatsoever, my belief being that in that field one man’s guess was about as good as another.

We would have been glad to get a little better acquainted with our professors outside of the classroom, but we were never asked into their homes. Times have changed. Teachers and their students are friends and co-workers now; this, I think, being as it should be.