Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-06-15
KENTS MIL.

A writer in lions Herald, who attended
commencement at Kents Hill, says
And so went up to Kent's Hill, and from
its high green summit looked abroad over the
wide landscape of rolling hills and sparkling
lakes below, trimmed afar with mountains
tinct of amethyst. What poet was he who
first chose this noble spot as the site of a
noble school! Perpetual thanks to him for
the perpetual inspiration this scene has fur
nshed to thousands of youthful minds. What
wonder that Maine Wesleyan Seminary has
given their first high bent to lives sublime, to
several of the foremost spirits oftheir time, at
least in Maine and Methodism.
And her friends of half century will be
glad to know that Maine Wesleyan was never
SO young, never SO fair, never SO fertile as
now. During the past year the institution
has taught over six hundred students. Its
real estate is now worth one hundred thou.
sand dollars, and its productive endowment
reaches fifty thousand, giving AN appreciable
income besides the term fees. Its buildings,
built of brick, are substantial and command
ing, and in Bearce Hall, the recent gift of him
whose name it honors, and upon whose
scarcely closed grave l had the mournful
honor of dropping a fgurative chaplet, it has
one of the best college edifices in Maine. Its
CORPS Vi lUStTuCtOTS are WUTkeTS mo lONe anu
honor their work, and therefore their work
honors them. Its students are an earnest
band of youths and maidens, who study with
purpose Of their own, conscious of the worth
of existence.
The aIdor of commencement-tide was some
what dampened by the absence of President
Jersey, who, recuperated by his sojourn in
Florida, was detained on his homeward way
by the dangerous illness of a travelling COM
panion, whom duty forbade him to forsake.
Indeed, DR.. Torsey is not the man to abandon
friend in trouble or peril A few winters
ago he swan many rods out into the lake be-
low the college, breaking the ice before him
with stout heart and vigorous arm, and tri-
umphantly rescued a drowning student whose
skates had cut through the thin ice that would
not bear his heroic deiverer. The spirit that
does such deeds is the spirit that makes its
possessor the hero of his students, and makes
heroes of them in turn. "Mr. Bird" of DIR.
Hollands 'Arthur Bonnicastle," magnifed to
the proportions of a college president, would
find one of his best living realzations in Doc
tor Jersey. He is the master genius of his
realm, as he is likewise of play ground and
partridge and pickerel. The honor of half
holiday fishing with "Prex" is the proudest
reward of the diligent student, and has often
inspired and remoulded the idle and refrac-
tory one. Since 1zaak Walton's day, phil
osophy and fishing were never better blended
than in Jersey. ! can speak er-cathedra Of
the fishing. for did we not string fifty pounds
of superb pike-Americans will call the adult
after the name of the baby-when last before
| saw kent's Hill? But the mighty Pan of
those lakes and hills was away yesterday,
and how should lesser Faun or Hamadryad
guide me where his feet had led before? You
see am back to nature again, though / had
a college on hand!