Saline County, Missouri - Chapter 25: Missouri Valley College, 1910

Chapter 25: Missouri Valley College

This institution was originally established and incorporated in June, 1888, and described by the secretary of state in his certificate of its incorporation as the "Articles of Association of the Educational Commission of the McAdow, Missouri, Ozark and Missouri Valley Synods of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church."

The location of this college was made the subject of sharp competition, the location to be governed by the most liberal offers of donation. Marshall finally gained it by a donation of one hundred and thirty-eight thousand dollars in cash and land.

A board of trusteees being named and designated in the articles of incorporation, this body proceeded to construct the college buildings, the first meeting of the board of trustees being held at Marshall on the 13th of June, 1888. ^

At a meeting of the board on October 15, 1888, the contract for the buildings was awarded, the buildings to be completed in time for its occupancy in the fall of 1889, when the school was put in operation.

In the last annual report of the trustees of Missouri Valley College, it is asserted that "the twenty years of the history of the institution, and of the services of the board of trustees, many of whom have been in the office from the beginning, have been eventful and successful years. Some years the success had been greater than others, but at no time since the beginning has there been discouragement on account of conditions in the faculty or the student body or among the patrons of the college."

The smallest attendance of the college was its first year, when it had an enrollment of one hundred and fifty-three. The largest attendance was in its fourteenth year, when it had three hundred and thirteen students. The total attendance for twenty years has been four thousand, eight hundred and twelve. Of these, two thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine have been men, and two thousand, three hundred and thirteen have been women. Of the number of these students, six hundred and twenty-eight have been candidates for the ministry, which is one-fourth of the young men. More than

The Missouri Valley College is one of the charter members of the College Union, composed of the ten leading colleges and universities of the state, and it is said to have had no little influence in raising the standard of work in the various colleges of the state, as w'ell as being very potential in raising the standard of work and multiplying the number of high schools in the state.

This college has met with fair success since its establishment, and would doubtless ultimately become a well established and patronized sectarian school but from the fact that the church under whose auspices it was established and built has itself become involved in dispute and division, which must necessarily hamper the prosperity of the college. The institution enjoys an income of about twenty-five thousand dollars a year. The following table shows the assets of the college at the present time ; that is, the endowment fund :

Equipment Real Estate

The following" constitutes the faculty of Missouri Valley College: William Henry Black, president of the college and professor of English Bible.