M. B. Mason, Principal Meadville Public Schools, to Mrs. Carr: "We intend to celebrate Whittier's birthday with suitable entertainment. Will you please send some suggestions regarding arrangements, program, etc?"
Mrs. Maria Jameson to Mrs. Carr, November 1: "Ever since our parting, I have purposed writing to express the pleasure given me by an increased acquaintance with you. During our recent convention, I learned to feel constantly that I had an able ally, quick to see what was needed in an emergency, and able to act intelligently and promptly. I wish you would write occasionally to me during the year; so many new sides of things are evolved by talking them over. My daughter and son-in-law are back from their trip abroad, and, of course, I have not had time for much, besides talking to them; but in a short time my thoughts will be turned to our work. With the help and blessing of God, I will do everything in my power this year for its development. Let 'For Christ's sake' be our motto, and in his blessed name we shall do many wonderful things. Pray always with me, and for me, my dear sister, that we may prove faithful until the end."
Enough has been said about Mr. Carr's work as State Evangelist—his work of several years,—to suggest the arduous nature of that labor. Passing by any further details, we turn for a moment to the Biography, which did, after all, find its way into cloth and Morocco, in 1885, under the title, "Memorial of J. K. Rogers and History of Christian College."
The book is divided into three parts: the first, of about 200 pages, is devoted to the Life, Letters and Addresses of J. K. Rogers; the second, of some 30 pages, is called "History of Christian College"; while the third of about 100 pages, bears the title—"Some Essays and Poems of Pupils of Christian College, Edited by Mrs. O. A. Carr, Principal of the Ladies Department of the University of the State of Missouri."
This Part Third of the Memorial, is the only work left by Mrs. Carr, in book form. As we have seen, she undertook the editorship of the collection of essays and poems of the Alumnae, at the request of her husband, in order to hasten the publication of the book.
Joseph Kirtley Rogers was born in Fayette County, Kentucky, in 1828. When he was two years of age, his parents left Lexington on a thirty days' journey to the wild and Indian-infested West, pitching their tent finally about twelve miles west of Palmyra, Missouri. Here they lived in their log cabin. "Game was abundant," says the Memorial; "panthers screamed, wolves howled; bears roamed the thick woods; deer were a common sight, and wild turkeys hovered in the tree tops." It was near the birthplace and boyhood scenes of Mark Twain, and the author of "Tom Sawyer" had no need to go outside of Marion County to find the original of his "Colonel Mulberry Sellers."
When William Muldrow with others, borrowed $20,000 to establish "a great college"—Marion College—on the western prairie, purchasing therewith 4,969 acres, and confidently expecting a future hay crop to reimburse the teachers, he fathered a scheme that the "colonel" might have joyfully laid out with his toothpick upon his tablecloth. To this college Rogers went,—until it died; then he attended the University at Columbia.
Christian College was the first institution for the collegiate education of Protestant women to receive a charter from the Legislature of Missouri. The enterprise was largely due to the work of D. P. Henderson, minister of the Christian Church at Columbia, and Dr. Samuel Hatch and Prof. Henry H. White of Bacon College, Harrodsburg, Ky. When Jas. Shannon of Bacon College, was elected to the presidency of Missouri University, he recommended a former pupil for the presidency of the contemplated college. This pupil, John Augustus Williams, held the position from the opening of Christian College until 1856, when he resigned to establish Daughters College at Harrodsburg. It is an odd coincidence that Williams should have gone from Columbia to Harrodsburg in time to shape the educational life and ideals of Mrs. Carr, and that Mrs. Carr should, in the course of years, have come from Harrodsburg to Columbia, to act as associate principal in the college inaugurated by her favorite teacher.
John Augustus Williams was succeeded at Christian College by L. B. Wilkes. During the latter's administration, J. K. Rogers from Marion County, Mo., acted as instructor; at the close of President Wilkes' second year, Rogers became the third president of the institution; a position which he occupied for nearly twenty years, and which only a fatal disease compelled him to relinquish. During his administration there were 174 graduates, and it was the difficulty of hearing from so many, that delayed the Memorial.
George S. Bryant was the fourth president,—from 1877 to 1884. His successor, W. A. Oldham, had scarcely finished his first year, when the Memorial was published. The book is true to its title; it is rather a Memorial than a biography, the work of a friend, who prefers to quote such men as G. W. Longan, J. W. McGarvey, etc., rather than to substitute words of his own.