Brown and White Vol. 6 no. 27

              wednesday jan 25 — term ex aminations begin sunday jan.22 — meeting of chris tian association in christmas hall at 6.15 p m wednesday feb 1 — term exam inations end thursdajr feb 2 — second terra opens working miners and the like or such of them as desired and were capable of more education than the district school could give to help them up and on and perhaps to lehigh — where several of them came a nobler enterprise in that region could hardly be mr coxe said to me at the time " i want it understood that the credit for that concern belongs to john wagner of course the • company stood be hind him and furnished what financial aid was needed but the idea was his and he has carried it out " long before this he had paid back by installments as he was able every dollar that had been advanced to carry him through college ; but beyond that he wished to pass on to others the benefits he had received to do as he had been done by surely this is the sort of result and this was the sort of student judge packer had in mind and i think the founder would be glad to have the name of this beneficiary and benefactor associated with his own for wagner was a benefac tor in his degree to the full meas ure of his power and opportunity others have given their money having little of that he gave his time his mind his heart a large portion of his life his untimely death is a wide misfortune ; for he was a man whom prosperity would not spoil and the larger things which were coming to him would have brought larger fields for beneficence but he has left us the memory of an earnest and unsullied jite of a spirit as kindly and as nearly blameless as any of us are likely to meet were we to live to twice his years in a peculiar sense and more than most of her alumni he was the product of lehigh ; and le high may well be proud of the record and the personality of this her elect and honored son feederic m bird at the meeting of the football team held in the gymnasium on friday at 2 p m morrow cham berlain 1900 of chattanooga term was re-elected captain of the team for 1899 chamberlain has played on the team three years during the first as substitute half during the second as left end and last season as left hali back this election will meet with general approval from the student body john r wagner on the morning of jan 21st at drifton luzerne county a very noble life was cut short and a career of grent usefulness and still greater promise ended the purposes of the founder of lehigh university have never been more completely illustrated and fulfilled than in the case of john r w»gner it is unlikely that any student was ever admitted to its courses more heavily handi capped it is certain than none of its graduates has done greater credit to his alma mater his early advantages were of the smallest ; his preparation was gained in a machine shop when he ap plied for admission in 1881 he met another older than he in the same condition these two said we know something of machines and of mathematics but nothing of history geography and grammar we cannot enter an examination in these so they asked to be allowed a special course in which those deficiencies might not be counted against them that was not possible under the rules but the faculty seeing that they were earnest and capable men granted them extraordinarily long time to make up their entrance conditions it was the only case of the kind in my time and perhaps in the history of the college the other man not at all by his own fault — he had everybody's sympathy and respect in his effort to accomplish the impossible broke down before thanksgiving and left broken-hearted fancying himself disgraced he was an emotional fellow weighted with an undue sense of the kindness that had been shown him and of the unworthy return he was making for it it was the most pathetic incident that came within my ken in over five years of college life wagner was by no means lack ing in gratitute or feeling but he had himself then and always — well in hand he did not break down nor did he complain he went quietly on his way learning all that his classmates learned and some things besides which most of them did not so much need to learn but of which he a little earlier had known nothing he passed off his impossible conditions in good season gained a high position in his class and the respect of his teachers who found him honest docile thorough and blameless and graduated with honor in 85 being by no means the worst speaker at commencement yet nobody ever called him a brilliant man he had no phenomenal quickness of acquisition : whatever he got he worked for of course his college career showed ability ; out it was largely the ability of character — conscience persistence staying power plus a solid level planning and calculating intelligence he at once became secretary to in the fulness of his powers learning and growing with every month always developing but never changing in character the beauty of that character had to be seen near and long to be appreciated its purity its gentleness its steadfastness its quiet and latent strength you could not think of unkind words of mean motives of dishonorable or ungenerous actions in connection with john wag ner he was as far as pos sible from the vulgar vices which we associate in thought with self made men and those who have risen from humble be ginnings push and brag and pretense and self-assertion were impossible to him speaking once in the gentlest way of people who cultivate those by whom they may gain a step he said simply l could not do that his modesty asked nothing of you ; it was a virtue so rare in this degree that in a sense he might be called his own worst enem , for in our age of adver tising he was no self-advertiser persons whose moral perceptions were not acute might live next door to him for years and see noth ing uncommon in him yet he had no lack of intellectual keen nees he knew how to estimate himself and others but his spirit was so sweet so calm so charitably contented it was natural to him just to do his work quietly and keep most of himself in reserve it was there if you cared to look for it but he forced it on nobody yet in one respect he could and did assert himself open new paths and take the initiative he cared as little as a man might for the location of his house for social position even for annual in come ; but he cared a great deal for helping others as he was helped when he needed it i had occasion more than once or twice at inter vals of years to see how his sun days were spent after morning service he had about time for lunch and then drove with a colleague to an adjoining town originally a tough place,to be mended by such volunteer efforts where they con ducted an overflowing sunday school which i suppose they had founded out of it has since grown a mission then they drove back arriving just in time to take their classes in the parish sunday school at home after all that john might be entitled to rest but he never missed the evening service all this time he was working hard through the week as was his nature with a man's full mental occupations most of us at this rate would prefer to spend our evenings at home but he gave two or three of them weekly to a night school which grew into the mining and mechanical institute at freeland organized march _ 16 1893 and incorported july 31 1894 with john e wagner as principal and some 150 students this was intended for the sons of the late eckley b cox and took charge of the latter's splendid technical library at drifton — the finest on this side the water in every thing bearing on coal and now a part of the lehigh university library here he had to read the german french and other scien tific periodicals to note and report to his employer every new process or discovery relating to the hand ling of coal and often to try ex periments : thus he gained the skill in testing of which he made much use later the ten years thus employed he regarded as a continuous post-graduate educa tion : yet beyond this it seemed to lead to nothing for it brought him into little contact with men and things beyond the library building at drifton and the adjoining mines and it gave him no reputation ex cept as a student and possible expert in one peculiar field his relations with his employer were close and cordial founded on mutual respect and regard mr coxe appreciated his faithful and affectionate service ; and wagner was fully able to estimate the high character powerful mind and wide attainments of one of the foremost men of pennsylvania a warning which he uttered many years ago he regarded it as a liberty at a time when mr coxe was carrying too many varied interests to the manifest injury of his health may have been the means of prolonging a most valuable life mr coxe's sudden and lamented death in the fall of 1895 meant much to wagner,as to man v others the library was closed the experi ments stopped : his occupation was gone the path he had been follow ing was blocked but discourage ments and difficulties were scarcely such to him he had merely to ransack certain back shelves of his mind to call on acquirements hith erto little used to turn his well trained faculties in anew direction he would not leave drifton ; his loyalty to mr coxe was trans ferred or rather continued to the company of which mr coxe had been so long the head this com pany owned a railroad and had its shops and offices his plans were almost immediately laid and pres ently carried out in a short time he was superintendent of motive power on the railroad as also of the company's tests he was now in a way to be better known more than a year ago he declined an offer from an adjoining estate and another at nearly thrice the salary he then received from the far west if he had lived longer we would have heard more of him within the next few years he had his manly and honorable ambitions and would almost certainly have at tained larger place repute and use fulness the only thing to regret about his life is that its thread was snapped so soon he was but thirty-seven lehigh university south bethlehem pa tuesday january 24 1899 vol vi the brown and white calendar no 27