Abstract
One of the immediate ramifications of the creation of an intercollegiate YMCA movement between 1877 and 1888 was the development of a standardized program for local chapters across the country. Of course, the number and variety of such groups nationwide, representing a wide array of institutional types and religious proclivities, militated against complete homogenization. Volunteer organizations had to be attentive to campus concerns and traditions, and the appeal to student initiative could be satisfied only by allowing for some decision-making power to be exercised at the local level. While Wishard saw wisdom in permitting variety based upon local need, however, there was also a desire to construct a generalized set of guidelines that would represent a broad national curriculum. One of the essential flaws of the earlier religious societies, according to Wishard, was their fragmented localism, resulting in scattered efforts, diffused energy, and a paucity of standardized thinking about college ministry nationwide. One of his major tasks, then, was to cast a clear and replicable vision for these clubs so as to fashion a cohesive movement. “The success of the college work,” Wishard suggested, was dependent upon “uniformity of method.”1
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Notes
Wishard, “College YMCA Constitution,” CB 3, no. 6 (March 1881): 2. See also “The Organization of the College YMCA,” CB 2, no. 5 (January 1880): 1–2.
Wishard, “Continual Service,” CB 4, no. 4 (February 1882): 1.
Wishard, “The College Problem,” CB 1, no. 6 (April 1879): 2. See also “The Great Fact in the Religious Life of Our Colleges Today,” 2. JRMP, Box 143, Folder 2365.
Wishard, “Day of Prayer for Students,” CB 3, no. 4 (January 1881): 1.
Wishard, “The Work of the Past Year,” CB 4, no. 6 (April 1882): 1.
Wishard, “Now or Never,” CB 1, no. 6 (April 1879): 4. See also “Day of Prayer for Colleges,” CB 1, no. 3 (January 1879): 1; “College Revivals,” CB 5, no. 2 (November 1882): 3.
Wishard, “New Converts,” CB 6, no. 5 (February 1884): 1.
C.K. Ober, “Advantages of Union with the International Organization,” CB 4, no. 3 (January 1882): 2.
Wishard, “Why You Should Have a College Association,” CB 2, no. 5 (November 1880): 3. See also Wishard, “An Outline of the Work of the College Young Men’s Christian Association,” 5–6.
Wishard, “The Intercollegiate Young Men’s Christian Association Movement,” CB 1, no. 1 (November 1878): 2. See also Ober, Exploring a Continent, 70.
Wishard, “The Outlook,” CB 7, no. 4 (February 1885): 1; Ober, Luther Wishard, 43;
Wishard, “Much Land Yet to be Possessed,” Int 10, no. 2 (November 1887): 13.
Wishard, CB 6, no. 1 (October 1883): 2.
Wishard, CB 7, no. 1 (November 1884): 2;
Wishard, “First Decade of the Intercollegiate Work,” Int 10, no. 1 (September 1887): 5; “Much Land Yet to be Possessed,” 13.
Wishard, “Day of Prayer for Students,” CB 3, no. 4 (January 1881): 1. See also Shedd, Two Centuries, 165;
Wishard, “Day of Prayer for Colleges,” CB 2, no. 5 (January 1880): 1.
Wishard, “Day of Prayer for Colleges,” CB 2, no. 5 (January 1880): 1; “Rhode Island,” CB2, no. 5 (January 1879): 2; “Virginia,” CB2, no. 5 (February 1879): 4.
Wishard, “Methods of Bible Study,” CB 3, no. 3 (December 1880): 2; “Bible Study,” CB 7, no. 4 (February 1885): 2; “The College Association Bible Class,” CB 2, no. 4 (December 1879): 1.
Wishard, “Bible Study at Amherst,” CB 5, no. 3 (December 1882): 3.
Wishard, “The Bible Training Class,” CB 8, no. 1 (October 1885): 2.
Wishard, “The Association Room,” CB 3, no. 5 (February 1881): 3.
APJRM, 18. See Wishard, “Day and Week of Prayer for Young Men,” CB 6, no. 1 (October 1883): 3.
George Adam Smith, The Life of Henry Drummond (New York: Doubleday and McClure, 1898), 140–145, 152.
“Scotch University Men in the American Colleges,” Int 10, no. 1 (September 1887): 6–7; George Taylor, “The Knox College Movement,” Int 12, no. 6 (March 1890): 91. Amherst followed a similar pattern. “Correspondence, January 16, 1888,” The Philadelphian (January 1888): 220. SCARP, Box 13, Folder 4.
T.J. Shanks, ed. A College of Colleges (Chicago: Fleming Revell, 1887), 12–14; Ober, Luther Wishard, 44.
Shanks, ed. A College of Colleges, 12–13; Wishard, “A Word Concerning Missions,” CB 1, no. 5 (March 1879): 4.
Wishard, “The College Missionary Meeting,” CB 3, no. 2 (November 1880): 2. See also “Missionary Revival,” CB 3, no. 2 (November 1880): 1.
Wishard, “A Visitor from England,” CB 8, no. 2 (November 1885): 3.
Wishard, “How to Promote Missionary Spirit in College,” CB 1, no. 5 (March 1879): 2.
See Wishard, “Missionary Meeting Topics,” CB 3, no. 5 (February 1881): 2; “The Monthly Missionary Meeting,” CB 2, no. 6 (February 1880): 2.
Wishard, “Work among Chicago Medical Students,” CB 3, no. 6 (March 1881): 3. See also “Medical Students’ Missionary Conference,” CB 5, no. 5 (February 1883): 1; “Medical Students’ Reception in Chicago,” CB 5, no. 3 (December 1882): 3.
Wishard, “Inter-Collegiate Correspondence,” CB 2, no. 7 (March 1880): 2.
Ibid., 2; Wishard, “Inter-Collegiate Work,” CB 6, no. 3 (December 1883): 2–3.
In the first year it was issued, nearly 2,000 students purchased tickets. Ober, “The College Vacation Ticket,” CB 5, no. 3 (December 1882): 1; “The College Vacation Ticket,” CB 6, no. 7 (April 1884): 4.
Wishard, “Third College Conference,” CB 4, no. 1 (November 1881): 1; “Fourth International Conference of Students,” CB 5, no. 7 (April 1883): 3.
Mott, “The Influence of Dwight L. Moody on the Student Movement,” Int 22, no. 4 (January 1900): 87–88;
Wishard, “Work in Oxford University,” CB 5, no. 4 (January 1883): 1–2; “Mr. Moody at Harvard,” Int 9, no. 1 (January 1887): 5;
John R. Mott, “The Greatness of Moody,” Association Men 25, no. 5 (February 1900): 151.
Wishard, The Beginning of the Student’s Era, 146. Moody had perhaps four years of formal schooling. See Lyle W Dorsett, A Passion for Souls: The Life of D.L. Moody (Chicago: Moody Press, 1997), 35.
“Delegations,” Philadelphian Bulletin 1, no. 4 (February 1892): 1; “College Students’ Encampment,” Int 9, no. 3 (May 1887): 20–21; “Tents at Northfield,” Int 10, no. 5 (May 1888): 34. See also James F. Findlay, Dwight L. Moody: American Evangelist, 1837–1899 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 352.
Shanks, ed. College Students at Northfield, or A College of Colleges, no. 2 (New York: Revell, 1888).
Timothy C. Wallstrom, The Creation of a Student Movement to Evangelize the World (Pasadena: William Carey International University Press, 1980), 33–36; Robert P. Wilder, The Great Commission: The Missionary Response of the Student Volunteer Movements in North American and Europe (London: Oliphants, Ltd., n.d.), 13–18;
Dwayne G. Ramsey, “College Evangelists and Foreign Missions: The Student Volunteer Movement, 1886–1920” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, 1988), 5–7.
Hopkins, History of the YMCA, 304. See also Wishard, “Students in Conventions,” Int 10, no. 4 (March 1888): 28.
C. Howard Hopkins, John R. Mott, 1865–1955: A Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 304.
Suzanne de Dietrich, Fifty Years of History: The World Student Christian Federation (Geneva: World’s Student Christian Federation, 1995), 17.
As J. David Hoeveler has maintained, the revivalist fervor in antebellum colleges was often accompanied by reformist zeal. Hoeveler, “The University and the Social Gospel: The Intellectual Origins of the ‘Wisconsin Idea,’” in Goodchild and Wechsler, eds. The History of Higher Education, 2nd ed., 235; Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 64.
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© 2007 David P. Setran
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Setran, D.P. (2007). Saving Collegians to Save the World. In: The College “Y”. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230603387_3
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