WHITMAN An Unfinished Story MARCUS WHITMAN FOREWORD This book is a story, not a history. It chooses to follow the com paratively straight and narrow path of narration rather than the broader and more devious way of history which undertakes to set down all that its author knows, and to give with exactitude the original sources of all statements of fact. I could not adopt the latter method because I have neither the taste nor the training of - an historian, and because for the last ten years I have been totally blind. It has been impossible for me to verify all quotations or to trace the sources of my information collected during many years. In the first chapter, At Waiilatpu I am chiefly indebted to Rev. Myron Eells, son of the founder of Whitman College, for the information concerning Dr. and Mrs. Whitman contained in the book, Marcus Whitman, Pathfinder and Patriot. I have read all available material on the subject but believe that Myron Eells knew more of the facts at first hand and was more careful in his statements than anyone else whose writings I have read. In the second chapter, Interlude I have depended largely on The Life of Governor Isaacs Ingalls Stevens, by his son, General Hazard Stevens. The chapter on the life of Gushing Eells is largely drawn from the book, Father Eells, by his son, Myron. I make these acknowledgments because I cannot be sure that quotation marks have always been used to mark literal borrowings from these sources. The later chapters of the book largely comprise my own personal recollections and insights. I came to the scene in 1890 as a member of the Yale-Washington Band, six graduates of Yale Divinity School, who selected the state of Washington fortheir new experi ment in co-operative home missionary work, and I immediately became acquainted with Whitman College and President A. J. Anderson. During the following administration of President Eaton, I frequently spoke at the College and was, for a time, Secretary of the board of trustees. When I returned in September, 1894, from a summer in the Hawaiian Islands, I found that I had been elected President of the College, then at the point of death. Since then I have had the administration of its affairs and have helped to direct its development while continuously maintaining the work of teaching philosophy, in which I have been chiefly vi FOREWORD interested. I have not tried to write down all the details of this long acquaintance with the institution, but rather to point out the sig nificant things in its development. If there were not such sig nificant things of real importance in the development of American education this book would not have been written. It would have been impossible for me to have written this story if it had not been for the tireless devotion and patient helpfulness of my wife who has taken down in longhand much of the material which I have dictated and to whom, for invaluable assistance in collecting and arranging material, I am deeply indebted. As one follows the story of Whitman and Whitman College during the century that has elapsed since the first American home on the Pacific Coast was built at Waiilatpu in 1836, and realizes how the lost cause of 1847 was transformed into a living force for the perpetual benefit of mankind the feeling grows that this suc cession of events was not accidental, but that the golden thread of a divine purpose runs through theyears and gives unity and meaning to the tale. STEPHEN B. L. PENROSE Oct. 15, 1934 CONTENTS Foreword v List of Illustrations ix I. At Waiilatpu 1 II. Interlude 25 III. The Growth of a Western Town 37 IV. The Founder 53 V. The Beginning 75 VI. Miracle 92 VII. Transition 117 VIII. Growth 141 IX. Growth and Unrest 167 X. Sunshine and Shadow 193 XL Organization 214 XII. Achievement 223 XIII. Alki 238 Appendix A. Statistical History 242 B. Charters and Constitution 243 Index 251 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS By ERNEST RALPH NORLING FRONTISPIECE Ideal Portrait of Dr...