Listen Here
Sarah Fedirka, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair of English, Religious Studies, and Philosophy
Fedirka@Findlay.edu
This column is the first in a series that will publish each week in the Pulse for the rest of the semester from the Watterson Institute for Ethical Leadership working group members.
Spring is a favorite season of poets. In “Lines Written in Early Spring,” Wordsworth imagines how “The budding twigs spread out their fan,” and in Sonnet 98, Shakespeare describes “proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim.” It’s easy to become dazzled by “this conflagration/Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth” (D.H. Lawrence). So much so that we forget spring begins deep underground. All winter, we step on and over roots hidden in the earth, heedless of their role in the process of rebirth and renewal that is spring. We can’t even count on the poets to remind us. Few pen odes “to the hidden life/that breaks forth underneath” (Christina Rossetti).
Taking a metaphorical turn, so, too, I find it is with colleges, where we measure time through cycles of renewal–a new year, a next semester, a spring graduation. However, with eyes always drawn toward the future, there is a tendency in higher education to overlook our roots. This is a mistake. Knowing our roots, our history, helps us to understand our present and gives a sense of direction to our future.
Despite having worked at University of Findlay for fourteen years, only recently have I come to learn more deeply about our roots.
Founded in 1882, Findlay College opened for classes September 1, 1886. The College’s dedication and the inauguration of its first president, Rev. John R. H. Latchaw didn’t occur, however, until June 20, 1888, having been postponed for financial reasons. Latchaw, a professor of ethics and psychology, was described as “a man of high moral character,” someone whose actions were “dictated by conscience.” In his inaugural address, Latchaw shared his vision for Findlay College, a vision that included a sweeping statement of who should attend.
Latchaw told his audience “that in its aims, its methods and its character […], this College is to be as broad as the interests of truth and humanity; that its hands are extended alike to all, irrespective of mere social rank or distinction, sex or color, who desire the benefits of Christian education and culture.” He insisted that “from these halls and yonder tower [Old Main] shall be heard the voice of wisdom” and “that everyone who hears that voice may have just reason to believe that it means [them].” Latchaw then again reiterates, “the invitation is extended alike” to whites as well as to blacks and Native Americans, to the children of the rich as well as to “the sons and daughters of poverty and toil.”
But Latchaw doesn’t stop there. His invitation to attend Findlay College goes beyond America. According to Latchaw, Findlay, like any “American College,” should “be a place of refuge, a hospitable inn, where the worthy fugitive from tyranny and oppression of other lands, may find protection for [their] body and food for [their] soul.” He even offers his “humble judgment” that “it is not so wise a policy for us to attempt to close our [nation’s] gates by restrictive immigration laws,” believing that God “has opened the gates of this continent” with no intention “for them to be shut.”
These are bold claims in 1888. For context, America was only 23 years removed from the Civil War, 12 years past the Battle of Little Bighorn, and six years past passage of the Immigration Act of 1882 and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Women won’t receive the right to vote for another 32 years.
Yet in 1888, in a corner of Northwest Ohio, President Latchaw opened-wide the doors to Findlay College, believing in the promise of a Findlay education. With the hyperbolic language of a 19th century preacher-professor, Latchaw is “buoyed up on the wings of hope,” expectant that in body and soul, Findlay College will thrive and flourish. And in a metaphor that returns us to spring, Latchaw prophesizes that from “the wild uncultivated forest of youth annually springing up” shall blossom “the precious fruit of a sanctified education.”
This spring, as you walk on campus, particularly near Old Main, thinking perhaps, “Nothing is so beautiful as Spring/When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush” (Hopkins), I invite you to remember these roots, this history. This is our history. These are our roots. Strong roots, which for 143 years, have nourished the ever-renewing spirit of this place.
