The Life of Dwight L. Moody Chapter 29. Mount Hermon Schools No sooner was the seminary underway than a correspondence school for boys suggested itself. Mount Hermon School for Young Men was therefore started on similar principles. The first purchase of property was made in November 1879 when a farm of 175 acres was secured by Mr. Moody. When, a little later, Mr. Hiram Camp of New Haven, Connecticut, agreed to contribute $25,000, some adjoining land was bought and the school started with an estate of about 275 acres and two farmhouses. At Mr. Camp's suggestion, the name Mount Hermon was adopted. For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. Psalms 133, verse 3. The first boys arrived at school on May 4th, 1881. At that time, the ages varied from 8 to 12 years. Mr. Moody's aim being to give them home life and help, of which they knew little. But before long, a change in this direction was adopted. Applications began to pour in from young men whose early education had, for various reasons, been meager. Three years later, believing that younger boys had more opportunities to secure schooling elsewhere than the older class of applicants, and realizing that too wide a range in age would not be feasible from the viewpoint of discipline, the age limit was raised and it was decided to accept no applicants under the age of 16. Mr. Moody had not mere charity in view. Hence, the schools do not offer their privileges gratuitously. But he knew that raw material of the most promising kind is often to be found among people of little or no educational attainment, who cannot afford the usual expense of academic life, and in order to open the doors to such, the annual fee of the Northfield School was fixed at $100 a year, or about half the cost of board and tuition. In other words, Mr. Moody proposed to give tuition and training free to such as would provide their own living expenses. The system of manual labor common to all Mr. Moody's institutions is best developed at Mount Hermon. Here, there is no aristocracy. Every student, big or little, senior or preparatory, must do a certain amount of manual labor every day, the work being adapted to his physical ability, but entirely regardless of any social standing. This alone is enough to keep away that class of young men who go to school for fun and not for work, and the proportion of those who have already a strong purpose in life, and who really mean business, is correspondently large. Each student is marked according to his faithfulness and efficiency in this department. Thus a basis for the estimation of character is afforded, which Mr. Moody and the teachers have regarded as valuable as that of the classroom. that there is little chance the loafers may be judged by a glance at a sample of the daily program. which is toiled out by the bells, which remind the students of the remorseless flight of time and opportunity. 6 a.m. Rising bell rings. 6.15. The officer at the floor, a student, makes a tour of the rooms to make sure that no one has forgotten to get up. 6.30 to 6.50. Silent time for private devotions. 7 o'clock. Breakfast, after which beds are made, rooms are cleaned, etc. 7.40 to 11.50. study, and recreation period. 11.55, chapel exercises last about half an hour. 12.30, dinner. 1.20 to 3.20, work time. 3.20 to 4.30, study or other school duties. 4.30 to 6, recreation. 6. Supper. Evening devotions being held just before the meal. 7-9.30. Study hours. 9.30-10. Evening saturn time. 10. Lights out and inspection by the floor officer. The school remains in continuous session, the calendar year being divided into three terms of four months each. Under this system, the school plant is in use in the summer when expenses are at a minimum. The regular intellectual routine of schoolwork is adapted in an extraordinary degree to the individual needs of the pupil. Some who have had early advantages prepare for college, or take a thorough course in English branches, adding in each case a course in Bible study. Other men, well on in years, who have been deprived of early advantages and have a large knowledge of life and wider acquaintances with the Scriptures, struggle with the multiplication table and nip their brows over the grammatical structure of simple sentences. The preparatory course provides instruction in the elementary branches. The classical course of four years gives adequate preparation for admission to any college, and the school certificate admits without examination to many well-known colleges. The scientific course affords preparation for the best schools of technology or secure a good practical education. for those who go to no higher institution. An elective course is offered to those whose circumstances demand more freedom in the choice of studies than the other courses allow. Three societies have been organized for the purpose of debating and other literary work. Friendly rivalry runs high between these societies in the context of numerous prizes offered by the school. Great importance is attached to the spiritual discipline of the student. And in this, the home life and the various dormitories is a most important factor. Intercourse with others teaches them to live peaceably and unselfishly. Angulatories of character are smooth and softened, and lessons and forbearance and patience are daily learned. Lessons not noted in the catalogs, but as important as mental culture in the preparation of a useful career. at Northfield and Mount Hermon Chapel and Silent Time are part of the day's program. Mr. Moody said often that no infidel had any right to partake in the advantage of the school, knowing that it declared purpose as Christian. Though many who are not Christians are accepted as students, a sincere effort is made to lead them on to Christ, and a very small percentage leaves unconverted. But forcing in this matter is never allowed. One immediate result of this happy life is a happy, contented feeling among the students. Visitors are constantly impressed with the evident unity and cheerfulness of the school. The Mount Hermon Church directs the Christian activities of the students. This church is homed in Memorial Chapel. The last building added to the school plant before Mr. Moody's decease. The chapel is built upon a prominence that he playfully called Temptation Hill, hinting that some friend might be tempted to give the money necessary to erect the chapel. As the hand had not been taken, the 60th anniversary of his birthday, 1897, was made the occasion of an effort to provide this much-needed building, which it was presumed would give him as much happiness as any present made to him personally. Accordingly, the funds necessary were raised in England and America by the volunteer contribution of friends who wished to share in this tribute of love and gratitude. Reverend F.B. Meyer of London and H.M. Moore of Boston were responsible for this suggestion and its consummation. This commodity's chapel has seating capacity for 1,000. Although built expressly as a memorial to Mr. Moody's 60th birthday, he would not allow this fact to be mentioned on the bronze tablet in the vestibule which reads as follows. This chapel was erected by the united contributions of Christian friends of Great Britain and the United States. for the glory of God and to be the perpetual witness to the unity and the service of Christ. In both these Norfield schools, the end in view has been to impart knowledge, not so much as an accomplishment, but as a means of making men and women more serviceable to society. While the common and even the advanced courses of academic work have all received, through recognition, it is the Bible that takes preeminence as the real source of spiritual education. Every course includes Bible training, and in both the Northfield Seminary for Young Women and the Mount Hermon School for Young Men, each of the 800 students receive Bible instruction twice a week. In the 20th year that has elapsed since these two schools were first established, nearly 6,000 students have felt the influence of the work, and hundreds have given their time and talent to the proclamation of the gospel they heard at Northfield. Others have entered various occupations, where their quiet influence is doubtlessly felt at home or in business. Rev. Alexander McCuffin of Brooklyn, a former student in the school, thus writes of the spirit of the place, which he terms Hermology. I went to Mount Hermon as a mere boy without any particular aim in life or any serious religious convictions. There I came upon as pieces of Christianity altogether new to me, and an educational training tempered by an earnest religious spirit. One did not study merely for learning's sake, nor was one religious merely for religion's sake. A great purpose was constantly held up, towards which we boy learners were to struggle. and pure motives were incalculable as the ever-present power of our lives. We were taught that the present was the means, and the future the end, that in the future dwelt God and humanity, and that our work would have to do with them. The great need of the Eternal One was the cry of His heart for the world, and the great need of man was his undefined longing for God. The italicized words in the vocabulary of God, we were taught are the world and redemption. There is a divine voice, they told us at Mount Hermon, a divine voice speaking in divine language from heaven, a message to man, and a human voice speaking in human language, disconnected and wandering, uttering incoherent cries, the cravings of the soul. We were to be the mediators who could hear the voice from heaven, could understand the divine language, and could repeat the message over again in words that man might catch, in tones that would reach his heart. This was to be the practical religion and constant duty of every one of us, whatever our advocation in the world. We might not all preach in the regular way, but we could preach in the irregular way, as Mr. Moody said. We could learn to understand the two languages and be interpreters thereof to men. This is a sublime mission in the world, and one which was constantly presented to us at Mount Hermon. All our training, educational and religious, was intended to fit us for this work. Our religious life, as I look back upon it now, seems to me to have approached, in its spirit and activity, nearer to the New Testament time than any I have since seen. In the various spheres in which we move, One does not often have the privilege of witnessing such a combined and consistent exhibition of this kind of Christianity, as could be seen at Mount Hermon. After years of absence and further training, one's heart often turns back to those days of smaller knowledge and higher living. Indeed, it was easy to be a Christian at Mount Hermon, and though the life there had its own temptations, yet for some of us the struggle for existence has come later, and no surer anchor did we find than the truths and convictions which embedded themselves in our hearts during those earnest years. It was no mean training in itself apart from the daily instruction and practice which we received by meeting the eminent leaders of religious thought and activity who so frequently visited the school and addressed the students. It gave us insights such as no reading of books or personal effort could possibly have given us in the same time or with greater power. As experience has come to us in these after years, the counsel of those days has remained as the touchstone of good and evil, and without it we might easily have erred. Indeed, I cannot see how anyone who has spent from two to four years at Mount Hermon as a sincere seeker after religious truth could ever be permanently diverted from the lines of evangelical and aggressive Christianity. There such a one may temporarily be so blinded as to lose the proportion of things when thinking out for himself the early beliefs of his boyhood, yet I believe and know that, sooner or later, He will turn again to the living truths, twas and testified to. Edmund Herman, as a man, staggered and most cynical by the mysteries of life, turns again to the love of his mother. I know that what I say has been true of some, and that others, just as candid and thorough in their dealing with science, falsely so called, find themselves still walking in the old paths, the shadows dispelled and the light shining brighter and brighter still. of the men whom I know to be in darkness and doubt today. The majority of them are those who never have been rightly instructed, or who have never seen the religion of Jesus rightly lived. No one can have been a student of Mount Hermon, and have missed either. I speak feelingly, and I speak with knowledge. Mount Hermon was the gateway of heaven for me, and never did it let go its grip. until I was able to stand upon my feet and fight my own religious battles. It helped me to cherish every lofty desire. It inspired me with courage against every evil tendency. It placed before me a holy ambition, and when it launched my little craft out into deep water, there was a compass and pilot aboard, and I have not yet run aground. I have said nothing thus far of the education value It is certainly unique, after seven years' study since leaving the school, I can sincerely say that the best teacher I have ever had was she with whom I began my studies in Greek. For thoroughness, painstaking care and inspiration, I have never met her equal. Her teaching like that of all the others was characterized by an earnestness of purpose and purity of motive which I have seen in only a few instances since. Teaching was regarded at Mount Hermon as a sacred privilege and was pursued in that spirit which marks sincere religious service, it is my own opinion that more good students are made at Mount Hermon than at most institutions of secondary education. It was not a matter of surprise to those who knew the school, though it was astonishing to some who did not know it, that two of its graduates were the only members of a freshman class in one of the three great colleges of the East who were the first-honored men in every subject. Nor does it seem strange that three other students had embedded at Mount Hermon such a love for learning that during the greater part of their college career, they lived on a dollar and a quarter or less each per week, cooking their own food in an attic room. One of them declined in bodily vigor. I saw the change. But lately, he entered a Western theological school, the winner of a Hebrew prize and a victor over circumstances. Two of our men from the same class at Hermann have been valedictorians of their respective classes at college, while a third was the holder of a historic fellowship at another university. These are a few instances of winning work of which I have personal knowledge. There are many others in and out of college of which I am ignorant. If I were beginning my education again, and in view of what I now know of preparatory institutions had to choose a school, I would select Mount Hermon. There is one other characteristic of the school which must not be forgotten. It is what might be called the man-making quality. This is an indescribable something distinct from the religious and educational training. There is a sturdiness cultivated there which one feels every day and which soon works itself into the fiber of every student who enters into the spirit of the place. There is a democratic independency rampant which is bound to affect the most indolent. This school is not for rich men's sons. They have no right there. There can be no aristocratic of wealth. Every student knows that he must carve out of his own future and that the other fellow is doing the same. This produces a feeling of brotherhood which tones down and Christianizes the struggle for life. The only dependency recognizes interdependency. The only qualities which give leadership are goodness, grit, and skill. Words do not account but accomplishment. The past has perished. The present is all-important. Thus would I indicate what seems to me to be the manliness of the life at Hermit, the spirit that asks only for a fair chance and no odds, believing that he who does right will do well. The four years spent at Mount Hermon were very happy years, the most critical and formative of my life as I have since learned. For what they mean to me, nothing that I can now imagine could compensate, and if life were to be lived over again, I would not like to have those four years left out.