As We Set Forth

As We Set Forthis the story of the men and women who founded, in Battle Creek, the first Seventh-day Adventist institution of higher learning in 1874. Battle Creek College was established so that, as Ellen G. White said, “...youth...may be so educated as to exert an influence for God in the world.”

This is the story of the board of trustees, who met for five unbearably hot days in July of 1901 on the banks of the St. Joseph River in Berrien Springs, to decide the future of Battle Creek College. They affirmed their ideals and principles in the name they chose for the new school in the new place—Emmanuel Missionary College, “God with Us.”

This is also the story of the administrators and teachers who, in 1901, took the courageous step of moving everything Battle Creek College owned in sixteen boxcars to Berrien Springs in search of a wholesome, rural location where the school could put down permanent roots and expand. Their ideals drove them to set forth in faith.

The students who set out for Battle Creek College and Emmanuel Missionary College brought with them their aspirations. Here we find their story—who they were, what they studied, how they lived, how they worked and played, how they worshiped, and how they fulfilled their dreams.

As We Set Forth draws from the testimonies left behind by the founders, trustees, faculty, and students of Battle Creek College and Emmanuel Missionary College: faculty and board minutes, college bulletins, student diaries and letters, student newspapers, and yearbooks. Many alumni have contributed reminiscences and revealed the character and mission of the school through their recollections.

Andrews University remembers, during the school year of 2001–2002, the first school year of Emmanuel Missionary College in Berrien Springs, 1901–1902. As We Set Forth commemorates “A Century of Place and Purpose” with a history of the university's origins in Battle Creek College and Emmanuel Missionary College. The title echoes the prayer of the scholar and missionary whose name the university bears, J. N. Andrews: “And now, as we set forth, we commit ourselves to the merciful protection of God, and we especially ask the prayers of the people of God that His blessing may attend us in this sacred work.”

The history of an educational institution does not consist of the history of its magnificent buildings, its capacious halls, its voluminous libraries, its costly furniture, or its elaborate scientific equipment, however valuable these may be, nor even of a long list of salaried teachers, nor of the enrollment of a large number of advanced students. It consists rather of the ideals, the principles, and the character of its founders, of its boards of trustees, of its faculties, of its students, of its alumni, and of all those who go out from its halls into the great school of life. It consists in the amount of consecration and thoroughness of the work done by the pupils and teachers.

About the Author

Meredith Jones Gray, professor emerita of English at Andrews University, has lived in Berrien Springs almost all her life. Her father, Harold T. Jones, taught mathematics at Emmanuel Missionary College and then Andrews University for forty years. Jones Gray’s first official matriculation at EMC came in Alice Marsh’s child study lab or “nursery school.” She subsequently attended the campus elementary school and Andrews Academy and received a BA in French followed by an MA in English from Andrews University. Her short sojourns away from Berrien Springs include two years in France, a year in Germany, and four years in Ann Arbor.

Jones Gray earned her doctorate in English language and literature from the University of Michigan in 1985. Her area of specialization is medieval literature. She has studied medieval manuscripts at libraries in London, Oxford, and Cambridge.

Jones Gray enjoyed growing up in the secure, “family” atmosphere of the last years of EMC, but has appreciated equally well living in the stimulating, diverse environment that Andrews University has become. She joined the faculty of her alma mater in 1982 and taught at Andrews for over 40 years.

Jones Gray still lives in Berrien Springs with her husband Gary R. Gray, who also taught in the English department. They have one adult son, Jeremy.

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Dedication
Acknowledgments
Preface

God Sent a Man of His Choosing: Goodloe Harper Bell and the Founding of Battle Creek College
George Royal Avery: Student of the “Old College”
Sparking at the College
W. W. Prescott: The Leading Educational Man
Edward A. Sutherland: Earnest Agitator for Change
Mae McChesney and the Rest: Pretty Good Boys and Girls of 1901–1925
O. J. Graf: Turning Over a New Leaf at EMC
Flossie and Cecil of EMC’s Missionary Army, 1925–1940
From College Boys to Marching Men: The College Grows Up
Here We Teach People: Daniel Augsburger—His Colleagues and His Students

Endnotes
Index

Title: As We Set Forth
Author: Meredith Jones Gray
ISBN-13: 0-9719791-0-3
Year: 2002
Pages: 370