MRS. LAVINIA PIERCE.

This lady was of Cummington, Mass., and twenty years ago gave $1,000 for a ladies' educational fund, from which has flowed a rill refreshing the spirit and smoothing the way for indigent but worthy lady students.

MRS. WILLIAM E. Dodge.

This generous benefactor has supplemented the $10,000 given by her husband in the sum of $1200, the income of which is appropriated to students of promise.

MRS. R. D. STEPHENS.

The widow of an honored trustee, to whose place she was elected, she, with the same spirit, has made repeated and liberal gifts. Her home is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

MRS. HARRIET B. SCOTT,

the wife of one of our early pioneers, and now at an advanced age, has seen great good flowing from the early generosity of herself and her husband, Mr. Anor Scott, and has made the college a gift of several thousand dollars.

In concluding the names of our noble friends, there is one, a character whose name, if I were permitted to write it, has a sacred designation in doing more than they all". The long roll given mainly represents those who have given of their abundance, while the founder of the Ellwood fund gave of his living. But who is he? His name and benefactions must be unknown until the ear is deaf to human praise. Bowed with years and trembling, he leans on a staff. In the circle of prayer he is heard in broken emotional accents. Copious tears flow on the mention of good news for the college. He waits patiently to end his pilgrimage, following his family to the home beyond. His large gifts came almost without suggestion, and in the reflection that a feeble old man had long rested on a Divine arm, and that home bereavement made it possible in the exercise of faith to link the departed Ellwood with those who should preach that gospel which for more than a half century had been the giver's solace and trust. This is the Christian

mechanic whose poverty compels frugality, and whose threadbare clothing hides the heart of a nobleman, never weary in the mention of the love of Christ, nor fearful of hunger though made poor by pecuniary sacrifices which in the education of others may bring delight to him and honor to his Saviour.

OUR RELATIONS TO THE STATE UNIVERSITY.

As the oldest collegiate institution this side of the Mississippi, Iowa College has a right to exist, and independently; and it will so continue. There is room for the State University, with post graduate and special courses, in accord with the popular ideas. There is, also, a field large enough for denominational colleges. It has been cultivated without unseemly rivalry and friction. With these advantages, tax-payers are restive under their indirect burdens in educating lawyers, now too numerous, and in support of certain schools of medicine, when the public demand may be met without state aid. The present policy savors of favoritism and cannot in reason long survive the edicts of popular opinion.

Then there has emanated, from those enjoying state patronage, an unseemly decrying of the colleges, with a proposition to mass all in an overshadowing university to lessen cost and gain the fame of an Oxford. Without questioning the motives of the agitators, I deprecated the scheme as utopian, using this language:

"It must be only a wild and chimerical scheme, the bringing of four thousand students together, involving an appropriation of a million of dollars for buildings, and tens of thousands annually for instructors, which could find no advocates save in a locality, or by those depreciating the scholarship in the colleges and indifferent save in the advocacy of a scheme where there should be no religious basis.

"The suggestion is at once chimerical and revolting. Fathers and mothers ask not how cheap is the college, but what strength will it bring; how high a standard in morals, and what perils will be escaped. Iowa colleges are founded in the philosophy of the fathers, and have been and will be cherished with the devotion of Christian patriots. As a rule the attractions of education have secured electic affinities, the localizing of families whose virtuous. execration, joined with instincts of self preservation, have made the saloon and correlated infamies to share the fate of hated

exotics. No, no, owls and bats shall never occupy our vacated college halls at the behest of jealously false economy, or the dictation of pedantry and shallow statecraft. Founders, who watched college growth with a devotion kindred to that felt for their children, shall not live to witness such perversity, nor will the vandalism toppling the shafts in the cemetery and defaming the names of our honored dead, be imitated by even grosser acts of sacrilege in razing the college walls made vocal with the grateful praise of occupants, fitted and schooled therein for life's toils by the generous founders of professorships, whose fame and fortune. can never be clouded and absorbed in a state pool.

"But this is the crowning consideration and fatal to the scheme. You cannot hide the deformity of the old lie, that there can be the highest and completest education without a thoroughly religious influence. Sectarianism,' often unjustly charged upon Christian colleges, is another thing, and has been carefully avoided by Iowa College."

A COLLEGE TRUST.

I may be somewhat singular in the views I here offer, but it is more than a conviction; it is a fact that ninety-nine hundredths of our funds came from the adherents of a national protective policy, who believed that their prosperity was due to it. What trustee, remembering this, can be indifferent to a palpable, implied obligation? Where can be found a real excuse for a divergence until there is an essential change in our commercial relations? What else would it be than a grave dereliction and reproach to the dead, and an offense to their kindred.

It does not meet the case to say, "There is a toleration of the silent patrons and we give all sides". No! he that is not for is against, in a sharp issue. Certainly there has been no doubt as to the instruction in political economy in Iowa College in the past; it must have been a great controlling fact in the minds of some of our benefactors. Strict fidelity, then, in the use of trust funds will not overlook the known wishes of testator and friend, though not written. There will be more than respect for the prudent and sagacious patrons who, if permitted to speak, would execrate a departure for which there is no excuse found in radical and changed economical relations.

CHAPTER XXII.

The Tornado of 1882- Descriptive Incidents-Relation to the Town - Visit to Princely Givers — Personals.

REMINISCENCES of the Grinnell tornado may be prefaced with one of the most vivid descriptions, of which there were hundreds, of this direful storm. It is from the pen of Rev. David O. Mears D. D., of Worcester, Mass. He, as the Iowa college orator for that year, was on the ground, and not only witnessed the desolation, but stimulated the courage of those who were enlisted in the work of restoration.

THE TORNADO.

"The 17th of June, 1882, in Grinnell, was a day of terror and of death. All through the sunshine the sky seemed a curtain, above which the intolerable heat could not find a vent. Not a breath of air moved even the topmost leaves of the highest trees. The grass, parched by the burning heat, rustled like silk, beneath the tread of men who ventured upon their errands. Even the children gave way to the oppressiveness of the day, and waited for the sun to set. The cattle sought the shade of the trees, but panted for breath, as if between them and the sun there was no foliage. They sniffed the air in fear of what men did not see. The birds winged a hurried flight before the storm-clouds for safety.

"The evening gave no rest. From an hour before sunset, hurrying clouds banked the western sky. These clouds, colored with green and yellow and crimson, swayed to and fro in malignant shape, arresting attention through their fantastic changes. As if to keep company with such furies, a rising gale swept the heated streets and homes. At eight o'clock, after the sunset, the huge clouds put on their deepest black, as of mourning for what was to

come. Following a fierce thunder-gust of rain, and a brief, deathly calm, at a quarter past eight, the black funnel-shaped cloud was seen making its awful course. Within its sable folds the caged lightnings were at their horrid play. Almost in a moment of time there was the fearful terror of blackness and the deadly roar-and all was still as if the shrill whistling train of death were passed.

"There was only death and ruin left in its track, save where people had hidden in cellars, some of whom were yet prisoners beneath the debris. Buildings had been tossed like egg shells from their foundations. Freight trains with many cars had been seized by the fiery hands and tossed off the track. The ponderous locomotive had been lifted from its standing place as children toss their toys. Trees within its track were twisted from their roots, some one way, and some another, by the electric forces in their havoc and play. The spokes of wheels were twisted from their hubs by a process no man has discovered. Carriages were lifted from the street and lodged in the tops of trees. Human beings were seized by the terrible blast and carried away hundreds of feet, and left among the ruins that had covered from sight the streets and gardens. Huge timbers were driven deep into the earth as no ponderous hammers could drive them. The college. buildings of stone and brick were crumbled under the crunching hand of destruction. For the width of a quarter of a mile, the prostrated ruins were a monument of death. Thirty-two dead bodies were left as its evidences, while nearly a hundred persons more were seriously wounded. Soldiers, who had seen the field after the battle, declared the tornado an avenger even above war itself. The City Hall, as a morgue, revealed a power putting the pestilence as mortally slow."

Never was destruction so met by sympathy from all sources. The position of the city upon the question of morals and education, was a reason for quickening the responses for help the country over. Nearly a quarter of a million dollars was given in funds to relieve the town and the college.

The dead were not buried when the founder of the town started out for assistance. City and college were on his heart. Before the boards of trade in Chicago and New York he made his plea for the people whose interests seemed his own. Among the prominent churches of the land, he plead their cause. He was