Freedom in 1949

J. Howard Pew was one of the College's most outspoken advocates of freedom. Pew was a 1900 graduate of the College and served on its board of trustees from 1912 -1971. He was president of that board for forty years and president of the Sun Oil Company from 1912 - 1947. Pew gave many speeches throughout the country each year. Frequent topics were the origin of freedom, the history of freedom, and the benefits of freedom to individuals, institutions, economies and nations.

In the following 1949 speech, delivered in Pittsburgh, Pew provides insight into Grove City College's historical commitment to preserving its freedom.

Sixty miles north of Pittsburgh, adjoining the village of Pine Grove, in the year 1876, Dr. Isaac C. Ketler established a small academy. A few years later the academy was converted into a college and was thereafter known as Grove City College. Dr. Isaac C. Ketler served as the president of this College until his death in 1913. Dr. Ormond was then elected to the presidency and served until his death. In 1916 the son of the founder, Dr. Weir C. Ketler, at the age of 30, became president and has continued to serve in that capacity these last 34 years.

For 27 years now the College has taken in sufficient money from the students in the form of tuition, board and room to pay all expenses, and yet all these services are today provided at a cost of just over $700 per year. It is difficult to appraise the corollary advantages that accrued to a college that has a balanced budget, earned as a result of its own operations; but they are far greater than is commonly realized.

First of all, the faculty and staff become an enterprise group. They develop a sense of responsibility, a feeling of independence and a fine morale, which is truly remarkable. Men like that don't believe in government planning for the other fellow. They spurn all social measures designed to carry us into a collectivist state and know that one of the most vicious of these measures is federal aid to education. The faculty of Grove City College do a real day's work themselves and expect everyone else to do likewise. They are God-fearing men and women and their influence produces a morale and a Christian atmosphere in the student body the like of which I have never found in any other college or university.

Like most of you here today, I deplore the headlong plunge that our country is taking toward a totalitarian state. Most of my time, energy and money is devoted to devising ways and means by which this trend can be arrested and reversed, because I realize that life in such a state would not be worth the living. All history teaches us that.

It seems to me that the least we can do is to support such institutions as will inculcate in the minds and hearts of our youth an appreciation of what liberty is and how it can best be preserved. This great objective was succinctly expressed by John Philpot Curran, the great Irish patriot, who in 1790 said, in one of his great speeches to his constituency:

"The condition under which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

That beautiful bit of English but expresses in another way that we must first have faith in God before we can enjoy the blessings of liberty, for God is the author of liberty; and then that our failure to fight for the preservation of that liberty is a crime, the punishment of which is servitude.

Now, John Philpot Curran was not the inventor of this idea. He undoubtedly obtained this from Saint Paul's letter to the Galatians, in which he said:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

For 150 years liberty has been the keystone of American citizenship. Grove City College has long believed that it matters little how expertly students may be trained in the arts and sciences, unless they first learn an appreciation of the responsibilities as well as the privileges of American citizenship. I believe that the peace, prosperity and security of this nation depend more on our colleges and universities than on any other agency. I doubt that any alien forces can upset our national security without first undermining our spiritual, moral and intellectual foundations.

There is now being waged in this country a battle of ideas. On the one side are lined up those subversive groups who believe in an all-powerful state - they would give to the individual a status little more than that of the serf. On the other side are lined up those who believe in the dignity of the individual - they are determined to preserve those American traditions which have made this country great. It is to this latter group that the College owes its allegiance.

Our colleges must be kept strong, for they are our outposts. At Grove City College we stress the value of religious, political and economic liberty.Our priceless liberty is recognized as the very cornerstone of American civilization. It is our most precious heritage. The education of our youth to a full appreciation of our heritage is the only safeguard against the destruction of our American institutions. To teach this appreciation of our liberty and the recognition of the forces that threaten it, will always be the foremost mission of this College.

In the 1949 speech above, Pew stated: "We must first have faith in God before we can enjoy the blessings of liberty, for God is the author of liberty."

Pew in 1966

The following excerpt from Pew's address to the Class of 1966 demonstrated his belief that students should have a knowledge of the Christian principles upon which our nation's freedom relies.

Grove City is a Christian college, with the emphasis on Christian. Dr. Isaac C. Ketler, the founder of the College, and his board of trustees, believed that a college failed in its mission if it did not inculcate in the minds and hearts of its students those Christian, moral and ethical principles without which neither a college nor our country could long endure.

I am sure that I speak for the board of trustees when I state that it is determined that the College should literally adhere to those principles and purposes laid down by its founder.

Daniel Webster once said, and I quote: "If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble to dust; but if we work upon men's immortal minds, if we imbue them with high principles, with just fear of God and love of their fellow man, we engrave on these tablets something which no time can efface and which will brighten and brighten to eternity."

The purpose of this College is to work upon men's minds and spirits and to imbue them with high principles. If we consider the words of Webster in connection with the teaching of Jesus, we realize what a tremendous responsibility has been laid upon the College.