First Impressions of Walla Walla College
By C. C. Lewis
AFTER five days of wearisome travel and vexatious delay, I arrived at the Pendleton camp ground on the morning of May 25, the last day of the meeting, in time to speak once upon the subject of Christian education, and to form the acquaintance of many of the brethren and sisters of the Upper Columbia Conference. I also met quite a number of old friends whom I had known as students and fellow teachers of former days. The next day I went to College Place, and spent a day with the business manager, Brother C. D. Hobbs, looking over Walla Walla College, the scene of my future labors for some time. And it gives me pleasure to report that I am highly pleased with all that I have seen. I am acquainted with the buildings and equipment of all but one of our larger educational institutions in the United States, and can speak understandingly when I say that Walla Walla College compares favorably with the best equipped of them all. The convenient and beautiful main building, comprising dormitories, offices, and recitation rooms under one roof; the abundant supply of pure, cold spring water, conveyed in iron pipes from its source two miles away, and forced by hydraulic rams into tanks which command every needful point of kitchen, laundry, boilers, sewer, lawn, dairy, and farmyard, with a copious overflow passing on to gladden the orchard and garden below; the sleek, well-kept road and draft horses; the dairy of Jersey and Holstein cows, supported by fifty acres of sweet-scented alfalfa meadow, just blossoming now for the first cutting; the shops and appliances for practically pursuing various useful industrial studies; the pretty village, with its watered gardens and irrigating streams, nestling at a friendly yet respectful distance from the college hill; and the Walla Walla valley, made joyous by many swiftly running streams, as its name indicates (Walla Walla, water, water), with its wheat fields stretching away to the beautiful Blue Mountains in the distance,—all these elements combine to form an ideal retreat for the student. And the writer must be pardoned for saying that the scene causes chords long silent to vibrate once more in the heart of one whose boyhood days were spent within sight of the Adirondack region of northern New York, where hills were wooded and green, and rivers abundant and clear, and who could never quite forget his native surroundings, nor become entirely reconciled to the monotonous prairies and muddy, or waterless, rivers of the Middle West. But enough of sentiment. I find Walla Walla College well equipped for aggressive work in Christian education. It has an efficient faculty of earnest, Christian men and women. It offers scientific, literary, ministerial, normal, musical, medical preparatory, commercial, and industrial courses of study. It has in practical operation farming, gardening, fruit growing, dairying, poultry raising, bee keeping, broom making, blacksmithing, printing, and health food making; and it expects to introduce house painting, shoemaking, dressmaking, tailoring, tentmaking, and carpentry as soon as suitable persons can be found to take charge of these industries. If any know of good, reliable Seventh-day Adventists who are skilled workmen in these industries, and who desire to attend school a few years, or have children to educate, they will confer a favor upon the managers of the college by writing them the particulars. In short, Walla Walla College is established in this great Northwestern country, and has ample facilities for training laborers in every department of the work to carry the gospel message into the farthest corner of its territory. It has four organized conferences and three mission fields to support it. In its territory are hundreds, if not thousands, of young people who should be obtaining its benefits. It has accommodations for rooming and boarding one hundred and fifty students, and for instructing as many more. Will not the friends of the institution unitedly work and pray for its prosperity? And shall not the coming term find the school filled with an earnest, God-fearing class of men and women who can be trained into efficient laborers in the Master's vineyard? All who are interested are invited to write for calendars and for our new, supplementary circular containing important announcements concerning matters decided upon since the calendar was issued; and they should please remember that the address of all connected with Walla Walla College is College Place, Wash., not Walla Walla.