Life and Letters of Rev. Aratus Kent Introduction

Aratus Kent's contributions to education were numerous, and he made his mark on institutions at all instructional levels and in many geographic localities. Ironically, his first endeavor in education, shortly after his arrival in Galena, almost caused him to be run out of town. Winter in remote frontier out posts was often a contentious time. Certainly the records of the military at places like Mackinac, Green Bay and Prairie du Chien are replete with Court Martial proceedings over seemingly trivial disputes. Civilian populations also found that the familiarity forced by isolation bred contempt. He told the story to his mentor, Dr. Peters:^143[143]

"I had looked forward for some time to the last Sat. when I hoped to have leisure to write you somewhat that would be cheering, but alas! It was a day of sorrow and “rebuke”. And furnished occasion to those who have been seeking occasion against me. An although this event, as well as the report that I have been caught at card playing, may be construed as a token for good and as evidence that the adversary is alarmed, yet the immediate effect will be to fix odium on me that will not soon be forgotten.

My associate^144[144] in the day school and I were summoned by warrant before the magistrate for “assault and battery” on the body of a child, and tho we were acquitted yet it appeared in evidence that the chastisement was too severe and some marks were left on the child. The crime was telling a lie, and the occasion was whispering in time of prayer. And the severity resulted from the passiveness of the child, which led my companion to strike harder than he ought from the impression that the force of the blows were broken by a jacket or corset intervening. And although we were perfectly dispassionate, and entirely innocent, yet you can easily imagine what will be made of it by such men as would draw up a caricature and send off for the clergyman to come in great haste to the man in his dying moments. True the messenger was arrested before he reached me, but he set out on that errand and the circumstance was quite recent.

In relation to this last affray the parents are very sorry, hence sent their children to school again, and state that the child is remarkable for insensibility under the rod and that they should not have taken such a course but they were urged on by others.

The people of intelligence and influence manifest a great deal of sympathy for me. And I can forgive and pity and forget for those that have injured me, but I cannot help feeling keenly when I think that ever after my name must be associated with the ideas of barbarity and tyranny.

From the testimony given in, I supposed there were some 10 or 15 marks 12 inches long, but my companion called 30 hours after the punishment was inflicted and found 3 marks 1 1/2 inches long. And by the time such a story has traveled 100 miles the child’s back will be all skinned."

In spite of his fears, Kent's reputation survived his brush with the authorities over his role in the punishment of the young girl. Many years later Henry Boss reported in his History of Ogle County: "As evidence that the former animosities have died away, Mr. K. says that he was recently called upon to perform the marriage ceremony for the same girl and her lover."^145[145] The irony of this affair is that Aratus Kent contributed more to female education that any other man of his generation in Northern Illinois, as will be seen later. Kent's sense of personal guilt stemming from this episode could not have detracted from his later zeal in the pursuit of female education.

Kent continued to be a strict disciplinarian, even after the experience of being indicted for child abuse. His Puritan heritage thoroughly embraced the traditional Presbyterian antipathy for foolishness, such as card playing, and proudly he reported to New York: "...playing cards are a contraband article in our day and Sabbath schools!"^146[146]

Kent explained his reasons for engaging in the school business to his superiors in New York:

"My reasons for engaging in this school were: 1) the great need for such a school; 2) there seemed to be little encouragement to itinerate during the winter months; 3) I wished to gain access to a mass of people that were inaccessible at all other points; 4) I thought by this measure I should eventually promote the Sabbath school; 5) I wished to establish a precedent for introducing the scriptures and prayer into the school. "^147[147]

He also explained something of his pedagogical technique, and offered an explanation for his association with a Baptist in the enterprise:

"I found that the school were miserable spellers and had no ambition to excel. I offered as premium to those who were at the head at night an apple or tract (an apple costs 2 cents here). They all prefer the tract and then I send out 2 tracts a day under most favorable circumstances (besides a tract to each scholar once in 4 weeks). My companion is a Baptist but a young man of great worth and coincides with me in everything. Are not my reasons for the day school satisfactory? It was a popular measure to offer to teach gratuitously."^148[148]

While contributing “gratuitously” his own time to the day school, just a few months later he was complaining about the lack of promised support for his associate, Samuel Smith: "I am owing about 130 dol. for board and horse keeping which are cash accounts, but the school keeper can get no cash for his winter's work... I assist in opening the school daily and hear the class in Testament and preach little sermons to them frequently. There is but little to encourage one here except this interesting group of youth." Yet keeping company with this Samuel Smith and his brother Orrin was an early source of moral sustenance for Kent, as when his weekly prayer meeting was "...attended by the teacher, his brother and 2 little boys of 5 and 8 years. It was a pleasant evening and we a good meeting."^149[149]

By July, 1830, Kent came to realize that he could not continue to devote so much time to the actual running of the day school, and still accomplish his holy mission, even though such a course might provide for his living. He wrote to Dr. Peters: "I could get through the coming year by devoting myself 5 days out of 7 to a school with comparatively little expense but I presume that if you were here to judge of the case in all its bearings you would not advise that course."^150[150]

Kent’s faith in education and its connection to his evangelical mission were summarized in a letter to Dr. Badger in 1845: “If we look only at the salvation of the present generation the preaching of the gospel is the great means on which, under God, we should rely. But when we look to ultimate and far reaching results the great desideratum toward which we should bend our utmost efforts is to establish and sustain a system of thorough Christian Education, and render it acceptable to all. And to effect this, we must have local agents stationed at all points in the great field. But all history shows that there are no agents so efficient in promoting Christian educations as Evangelical Ministers. Hence, we are conducted obviously to the conclusion that Home Missionaries should be multiplied to meet the demand. And perhaps in the Western country where so little interest is felt in the cause, they should be especially instructed to carry this point but using every means within their reach : such as lecturing in education, visiting schools, procuring competent teachers, and using their influence to establish primary schools and academies.”^151[151]

Kent participated, if indirectly, in the establishment of several “academies,” such as the one at Henry, Illinois, by defending the role of the missionaries who devoted time and energy to secular education. Again, Kent supported female education:

“Br. Pendleton's achievements astonish me. I spent 3 days with him and looked carefully into his operations. How one little man & poor and withal a missionary preaching every Sabbath and providing for a family could within 2 years have projected, gathered on a naked prairie all the materials and all the labourers and finished a tasteful & commodious building 40 feet square and containing 21 rooms all well arranged and could have more over filled it in every nook and corner with the sons & daughters and serve at an expense of $3000 is to me a mystery."

Kent assured the Secretaries in New York that he was ensuring that Pendleton did not shirk his pastoral responsibilities:

"I had much pleasant conversation and endeavored to be faithful in guarding him against worldly mindedness. The church at Milo is small and poor and can raise bit $25 and he hopes to receive the same amount from individuals at Henry. And he asks 250 (i.e. 125 for Milo and 125 for preaching at the Academy.) His school of 60 together with those that come from the village make a congregation of 75. He has a very pleasant chapel and recitation room in the attic and a more interesting congregation than usually falls to the lot of Home Miss. to address. Nor is his preaching without effect for he reckons 10 as the converts of last winter, several of whom incidentally came in my way.”

Rev. H.G. Pendleton was a graduate of the Lane Theological Seminary who became the preacher of the Granville Presbyterian Church at its inception in 1839. In August, 1844, a resolution of the Church was as follows: “Resolved, That Br. H.G. Pendleton having served four years as stated supply, and at the end of the fourth year it was decided by a large majority that he was not satisfactory to the Church on account of his pro-slavery sentiments,^152[152] a portion of the church deeply sympathize with him, and he had proved himself a laborious and faithful minister.” Pendleton served other churches in the same central Illinois region, for example he was at Henry and Providence in 1848. The Henry Female Seminary was founded on the efforts of Rev. Pendleton, and Kent was very impressed with Pendleton’s energy. Teachers for the Seminary were brought west from the Holyoke (Mass.) Female Seminary. The Henry school flourished until the financial collapse of 1857, after which the rise of public education supplanted the need for such schools.^153[153]

Kent played at least a permissive role in the rapid establishment of sound schools in DuPage County, Illinois, where the A.H.M.S. missionary Rev. Hope Brown was for many years (1849-1856) superintendent of schools. Kent encouraged Brown’s work, and supported his applications for continued missionary aid.^154[154] Kent proudly reported in 1858: “It [Dupage County] has been a small territory. In it there are 66 school districts, of 60 have builded [sic] good houses of brick or stone and employ good teachers. This result has been reached in part at least by means of earnest efforts of Br. H. Brown, who was for several years the County Superintendent.”^155[155]

In 1828 Rev. Lyman Beecher asked, through a series of articles, whether the salvation of children should not be the concern of all good Calvinists.^156[156] Yale's Nathaniel Taylor, an influential Calvinist revisionist of the 1820s and 1830s, modified the doctrine of sin in general to accommodate a more benevolent view of unregenerate children's sinfulness. Taylor, who served as President of the Connecticut Sunday School Union during the 1820s, believed that individuals sinned only when they voluntarily committed sinful acts. Orthodox Calvinism held that whenever they did anything while they remained unregenerate, they sinned. Taylor's theology assumed that as long as children remained without a sense of right or wrong, God did not hold them accountable for their acts. Once in possession of a moral sense, however, children were inclined by nature to sin (because they possessed the depraved nature common to all descendants of Adam) and needed regeneration.^157[157]

Taylor's revisionist ideas, like Beecher's liberal views, generated controversy within the Presbyterian church, and played a role in its split into Old and New School factions. In 1833 the Old School Presbyterian minister Gardiner Spring attacked Taylor for his "novel speculations" and "errors" regarding the doctrine of human depravity. Defending the view that sin was an "inclination of the mind" as well as a characteristic of individual acts, Spring stated that the child was a sinner from birth, "the perfect miniature of fallen, sinning man," and "a moral and accountable being."

Distinguishing between the intellectual and moral faculties of the soul, Spring argued that original sin tainted children's moral dispositions (their "hearts") just as it did adults'; one needed only look for evidence of children's "moral depravity" in their "impatience, obstinacy, pride, self will." He went on to ask: "Where do you discover that supreme selfishness, which is the essence and substance of all sin, if not in a little child?" Despite their disagreements, Taylor's and Spring's arguments led in the same direction: toward early religious education. Without early training, in Spring's view, children would grow up “slave[s] of ignorance and passion," unaware of their alienation from God. If Taylor saw religious education as a means of shortening the period during which children were alienated from God, Spring saw it as a way of making them aware how deep that alienation was. Either way, children needed early and regular training.^158[158]

Just where Kent stood in this ideological controversy, he did not record. But he wasted no time. A scant four months after his arrival, Kent reported: "The most interesting fact is the present appearance of our embryo Sabbath School..."^159[159] Pragmatist that he was, he often collaborated with his Baptist and Methodist brethren in the formation of Sabbath schools. But the responsibility was taxing for a young minister working in isolation. He reported: "The Sabbath School is very laborious under our embarrassing circumstances. And I have been sick these 2 weeks past."^160[160] A few months later, the situation had not improved: "The Sabbath school maintains its onward way and numbers 67 but it is burdensome for want of help in teaching which prevents all efforts to enlarge it, for those who attend sometimes go away without being taught. Last Sabbath was our first public examination when we gave out 52 books (bibles, testaments, tracts & hymn books) and took up a collection of $5 from scholars & teachers & $6 from spectators. Our library of 130 vol. and tracts doing their work."^161[161] A year later, progress in establishing Christian education could be reported: "We have two Sabbath Schools with libraries in the country and the school in Galena is still prosperous and exacting a healthful influence on society."^162[162]

Kent's pedagogical technique was simple, but he reported that it was successful: "Allow me to remark on the plan of rewarding children for Committing scriptures. In my next tour I expect to hear from 40 or 50 repeating the 23 psalm. And I must be permitted to express the opinion that it is one of the happiest methods of doing good in such fields of labor. Every child who commits the 10 commandments becomes a preacher to the whole family, for they are brought under a necessity to hear the law of God daily rehearsed in their ears. This exercise brings the child to maturity...."^163[163]

Kent must have felt the part of a one armed paper hanger. As he scurried about the country side giving birth to churches and nurturing fledgling flocks, some of his earlier hard won gains began to unravel. In 1834 he noted: "Since I have spent every third Sabbath in the country I have been obliged to give up the superintendency of the Sabbath school, and it has declined until it was almost broken up. I felt it my duty to resume the place I had occupied, and judged myself to be here every Sabbath this Winter, and now our Sabbath School is a very pleasant one and numbers 50 besides 25 drawn off to the Methodist School... If my family is expensive, it is also useful, furnishing 4 teachers for the Sabbath School, an infant school teacher, and is the main support of the female prayer meeting, and a weekly benevolent society. Besides great assistance is realized in visiting the people and conversing on religious subjects."^164[164] He thus personally addressed the manpower shortage by marrying Caroline Corning, who became a legendary Galena Sunday School teacher, and bringing other young people from the east to live in what he always called his "family."

"He has also taken a deep interest in the Children, and has established Sabbath Schools in different parts of the district. The school at Galena consists of twelve teachers & eighty scholars," is how Dr. Horatio Newhall described Brother Kent's ministerial efforts in 1836.^165[165] "Our Sabbath School is increasing in numbers and interest. Our celebration on the 4th was attended by 130 children. They were furnished by their teachers with an address and each a good piece of cake, a bunch of raisins and a flagon of water," is how Kent described the July 4th festivities that year.^166[166]

Chicagoan Edwin O. Gale recalled his brief tenure at a Northern Illinois evangelical Calvinist Sabbath School during the 1830s. His jaundiced adult eye visualized "those small religious books of early days, with water paper covers of somber hue," [as he remembered their contents_"most melancholy biographies of inconceivably goody goody boys" who invariably died young. Gale could not connect "those sickly examples" with the "robust, rollicking, roguish little rascal full of animal spirits" that he had been. However he felt in later life, it was clear that the books and the lessons they represented had had their effect on him in childhood. The Sunday school, he remembered, "made a painful impression upon my sensitive nature. My frightened, rather than guilty, conscience left no doubt in my mind that I was in danger of . . . terrible doom." Sundays "became days of torture" to him as he returned home with "red, swollen eyes and [a] dejected countenance." Eventually his father, a Unitarian, forbade his further attendance, and young Edwin returned to Sunday school only when a Unitarian school was established. Like Gale's father, evangelical parents also objected on occasion to the methods employed in Sunday schools.^167[167]

By early 1837 Kent summarized his 7 year career as a Home Missionary (his support would thereafter come wholly from the First Presbyterian Church of Galena), and he found the Sabbath School a highlight: "We have had during the whole time an interesting Sabbath School and men are now scattered over the country who were once under our influence. Last fall I met in one day at a distance of 300 miles 3 of its earliest pupils, two were merchants, and one a mechanic, 2 hope they are Christians and all, so far as I can learn, sustain a good moral character amidst the crowds of vicious people with whom they are in daily and hourly mingling."^168[168] He never ceased to emphasize the importance of Sabbath schools when he later became the agent of the A.H.M.S. In 1854 alone, Kent visited 110 Sabbath Schools in his role as agent.^169[169]

Higher education actually preceded the establishment of a system of lower schools in Illinois. The early stream of settlement into southern and central Illinois came mainly from the southeast and south by way of the Ohio, Mississippi, and Illinois rivers. These pioneers, bred in the tidewater tradition that education was a personal and not a public affair, evidenced little interest in the establishment of a common school system, or even in the creation of institutions of higher education. Not until long after Illinois had attained statehood was a system of public schools formed, and then the impetus came from the influx of New Englanders who arrived via the lakes and the Erie Canal which opened in 1825.

In Illinois, schools and colleges were established on a hit or miss basis according to the wishes of local groups, sometimes in opposition to the opinion of most of the inhabitants of the state, but more often with the majority indifferent to things educational. Such was not the case in the lake states whose early settlers came directly from New England. There an educational system was set up at once. In Michigan the territorial legislature had provided for an institution of higher learning. Upon attaining statehood, the legislature provided in its first session for a unified public school system with a state university as its capstone, and all private colleges were prohibited. Similar action was taken in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The impulse leading to the founding of colleges in Illinois came from organized religion. Ministers and laymen were concerned over the future of their respective denominations, and to each group it seemed that part of the answer was to set up a center of learning. So it was that the Methodists established a seminary at Lebanon in 1828. In March, 1830, the name was changed from Lebanon Seminary to McKendree College, though instruction of a collegiate grade was not offered until 1835, and no degrees were granted before 1841.^170[170] Even before the seminary was established at Lebanon, the Baptists had started a school at Rock Spring in 1827. Discontinued in 1832, a successor was founded at Upper Alton. Instruction there on the college level began in 1833. The first students were graduated in 1837.^171[171]

The Reverend John Millot Ellis proposed that the Presbyterians establish a college, and succeeded in interesting a group of seven Congregational theological students at Yale in the project. This alliance resulted in the foundation of Illinois College in 1829. Actual instruction began in January, 1830. Since none of the students were sufficiently prepared for college level study, instruction on a collegiate level did not begin until 1831, and the first class graduated in 1835.^172[172] Aratus Kent was an early visitor to Jacksonville, and he became acquainted with the founders of Illinois College, since they were fellow graduates of Yale.^173[173] On October 26, 1829, Kent, while on his way back from Synod..."Walked out to the elegant site of Illinois College. Called on Mrs. Ellis and rode to Springfield [and] spent the night."

A few years later Kent again visited Jacksonville and sought the advice of the faculty on educational issues:"My visit to Jacksonville was very pleasant and I obtained a promise of a visit this fall from Prof. [Edward] Beecher [Lyman Beecher’s brother] and also from Mr. Baldwin to attend a protracted meeting and to inquire into the prospects of education."^174[174]

The early colleges faced an up hill battle in securing charters from the state legislature. The legislature was suspicious of the college movement. One legislator proudly proclaimed he was "born in a briar thicket, rocked in a hog trough and had never had his genius cramped by the pestilential air of a college."^175[175] As a result, it was only after considerable effort and difficulty that the first college charters were secured on February 19, 1835. By this act, McKendree, Shurtleff, and Illinois Colleges were granted legal recognition simultaneously. Three stringent restrictions in the charters showed the fears of the legislature. The establishment of theological departments was prohibited, no college was to be permitted to hold more than 640 acres of land, and the profession of any particular religious faith could not be required for admission. The first two named provisions were repealed on February 26, 1841.^176[176]

McDonough College, located at Macomb, (the town was named for the army commander of the victorious War of 1812 American forces at Plattsburgh, and the college named for the spectacularly successful naval commander on adjacent Lake Champlain) was incorporated by interested citizens in 1836. Instruction began on a preparatory level in 1837, but a full college course was not given until 1851. The Presbyterians were solicited to take the sponsorship of the college, but when this did not materialize, the local Masonic lodge purchased it in conformity with a plan to establish an Illinois Masonic College. The Grand Lodge of Illinois declined the offer, and it then became a high school under direction of the Schuyler Presbytery. A new charter was secured, and collegiate instruction began in 1851, but the college was closed in 1855 due to a lack of the expected support from the Presbyterian church.^177[177]

Most interesting of the non surviving institutions was Jubilee College, located near Peoria. Here Bishop Philander Chase had been planning for the college through the late Thirties. The first class was graduated in 1847, and the charter was secured in January of the same year.^178[178]

The colleges that survived and grew were not only related to some religious organization, but also had associated with them one or more strong personalities to carry them through the trying formative years. Aratus Kent was one of those strong personalities, and he carried Beloit College and Rockford Female Seminary (ultimately Rockford College) to stable maturity. He could not know that his casual acquaintance, John Addams, of nearby Cedarville, would send a promising daughter, Jane (who wanted to go east to Smith), to Rockford Female Seminary, and that she would become a world renowned humanitarian and sociologist.^179[179]

Not surprisingly, the most important of the questions that were faced by the founders of these early lllinois colleges was that of finance. In the case of each of the surviving institutions, the first step was to circulate a local subscription list. As a rule very little cash was pledged; land, labor, and materials formed the bulk of the donations. Funds for the actual operation were expected from the East until the West could become self-supporting. A common procedure was to elect a president who then journeyed to Illinois to look over the scene of his future labors, and returned to the seaboard to seek funds from friends and religious philanthropists. This is illustrated by a letter from John Mason Peck, financial agent of Shurtleff, written to Dr. Haskell, treasurer of the college in Alton, in the fall of 1835, announcing that he had succeeded in raising more money in Boston than Edward Beecher, president of Illinois College, who was in the city at the same time on the same mission.^180[180] By 1843 the pleas for funds from the East became so numerous that the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West was organized to co-ordinate the fund drives of those institutions having a Presbyterian or Congregational background.

Aratus Kent, like Beecher and Peck, did his share of Eastern fund raising. He reported to the Secretaries, in apology for a short trip away from his post: "I accomplished something for the time I was out of my field being but 2 Sabbaths out of the State, having obtained subscriptions to Rockford Female Sem. to a considerable amount."^181[181]

The men (and women, in the case of Rockford) who comprised the faculties of those early colleges were devoted to the cause of education. They survived on small salaries, and even those were usually in arrears. At Illinois College in 1837, President Edward Beecher received $1,100 and quarters, Julian M. Sturtevant, first instructor, $750 and quarters, while two others were paid $900, but had to supply their own houses. One professor received $1,000 without housing, but in 1840 all but one were raised to $1,100.^182[182] At McKendree College the president's salary in 1834 was $600, although in that year it was raised to $700.^183[183] With all the difficulties which they faced, they had need of the strong religious convictions which sustained them through the painful and poverty-stricken years. In each of the early institutions the majority of the faculty was composed of ordained ministers, or men who were using teaching as a stopping point on the way toward ordination. As might have been expected, most of these came from New England.^184[184] The faculties were small, and their personalities had a deep influence on the students entrusted to their care. William H. Herndon (Lincoln's law partner), for example, infected by the virus of antislavery at Illinois College, was withdrawn by his father for this reason.^185[185]

Commencement was the high point of the college year for both students and faculty. Originally this was held late in the summer, but by the early Forties all these colleges had changed to June. The exercises were all-day affairs. Each member of the graduating class delivered an oration and suitable musical numbers were rendered. Prizes and honors were conferred. As though there had not been enough speaking, members of the lower classes were often placed on the program for additional orations and essays. Not only was this a gala day for the graduates but also for the community. People came from miles around to spend the entire day, or, if from a distance, to spend the nights before and after, in the college town.^186[186] Kent enjoyed attending these affairs, as he reported in 1855.

“But we have much also to be thankful for. God has prospered the feeble efforts put forth to plant and sustain literary and religious institutions. Last evening I listened with interest to a solemn and searching address to the Society of Inquiry on Missions in Rockford Female Sem. by Rev. Mr. Colis 1st graduate of Beloit College, preaching the duty of entire consecration to Christ. Tomorrow is commencement here.”^187[187]

Slavery must be mentioned when the early Illinois colleges are discussed, for it was a pressing issue. Going from southern to northern Illinois, abolitionist sentiment increased. McKendree, at Lebanon, was less antislavery than the others. Two years after the death of the A.H.M.S. missionary Elijah Lovejoy, her board took formal action demanding that persons expressing abolition sentiments sever their connection with the college. Shurtleff, at Alton (where Lovejoy was martyred), was also anti abolitionist in order to keep her connections with possible students from Missouri. Illinois College, at Jacksonville near Springfield, never took a formal stand as a college but the faculty, including President Edward Beecher, who had unsuccessfully helped to guard Lovejoy's press, were outstanding abolitionists, and were so known throughout the state. Knox, at Galesburg, and its President Blanchard, were out-and-out abolitionist. With the characters of the founders, and their previous connections, none of the colleges could have stood otherwise than they did. Founded, nurtured, and molded as they were by men of strong character and public spirit, the question remained one of the engrossing subjects of discussion, as well as action, until it was settled by the tragedy of war.

In June 1844, the lake steamer Chesapeake, churned westward through the waters of Lake Erie from Cleveland, Ohio, carrying seven men home from the Western Convention of Presbyterian and Congregational Ministers. There three hundred delegates from eleven states had met to discuss the religious needs of the Mississippi Valley. They had heard an appeal for church unity, and they made resolutions against the evils of dancing and slavery. But what had seized their imaginations was the announcement of a voluntary agency called the Western Educational Society. According to its secretary, the Reverend Theron Baldwin, the newly-established society had been formed so that struggling collegiate institutions on the frontier would not have to compete in their bids for financial aid from the East. The society would endorse and even raise money for a limited number of fledgling western colleges.^188[188]

In a narrow stateroom seven delegates discussed the possibility of establishing colleges in Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Among them was Theron Baldwin. His friend, the Reverend Stephen Peet,^189[189] was the Wisconsin agent for the American Home Missionary Society. Lying ill on a berth, Peet was nevertheless full of enthusiasm. For years he had been dreaming of founding a Christian college.

In 1839 Peet had toured nearly 575 miles of territory south of the Wisconsin River. He found rapidly growing settlements but only one minister within 150 miles. To the secretary of the Society he wrote, "Send us ministers-send us good ministers- send them now." The problem was that most ministers were trained in the East, and the ones who volunteered for frontier missionary service often were restless, inefficient, or unable to endure hardships. As agent, Peet, Like Arartus Kent, was responsible for organizing churches, helping them secure pastors, advising missionaries arriving in the field, raising money and keeping alive interest in missions. Repeatedly he urged (again like Kent) the Society secretaries not to make Wisconsin a dumping ground for inept ministers (in return, Peet was undeservedly dumped by the Society.) He was sure that a college planted in southern Wisconsin would solve the problem. Young men who studied there would be accustomed to frontier conditions and would understand the people.^190[190]

A college would bring other benefits as well. An educational institution established early would draw "the kind of population most desirable who are intelligent and willing to patronise [sic] and support such institutions." Religion would be promoted as a collateral benefit. "I have never seen good order and well-regulated society to exist," he wrote, "without the influence of religion." A college would also provide many needed teachers for the common schools, a goal dear to the hearts of both Peet and Arartus Kent.^191[191]

Doubtless, Peet expressed these cherished ideas to the men crowded together on the Chesapeake. Theron Baldwin repeated the promise given at the convention, that "a hand from the East" would "be stretched out to help on the establishment of genuine Christian colleges, judiciously located here and there in the West." Standing nearby was the Reverend A. L. Chapin a Yale and Union Theological Seminary graduate returning to his Milwaukee pastorate. More than twenty-five years later he recalled,

"Peet seizes on the gleam of encouragement, his uttered thoughts kindle enthusiasm and hope in the rest. There is an earnest consultation- there is a fervent prayer- there is a settled purpose and Beloit College is a living conception."^192[192]

From this shipboard meeting emerged three collegiate institutions in three midwestern states. Yet the man who would lead the group toward a broader, more liberal educational plan was not on board the Chesapeake. He was the Reverend Aratus Kent, often called the "Father of Rockford Female Seminary." On 6th, August 1844, a little more than a decade after Rockford had been founded by Aratus Kent's brother Germanicus, among others, fifty-four church leaders from three states traveled to a convention in Beloit, a tiny village on the southern edge of Wisconsin. Their meeting place was an imposing Congregational church, one of the first three Protestant church buildings in the territory. From its tower hung the first bell in the Rock River Valley, and in its basement the Beloit Seminary met for instruction.^193[193]

The group called themselves "friends of Christian education in Northern Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa." They asked Aratus Kent to preside. For two days they prayed, argued and planned. A.L. Chapin, long time President of Beloit College, recalled Aratus Kent's contribution.

"Beloit College like every good enterprise, owes its birth and nurture to a few men of foresight, broad views and earnest self sacrificing devotion. Among these few men, a prominent place must be assigned to the Rev. Aratus Kent. He was a member of each and was made chairman of the first, of the four conventions of the friends of Christian education, whose deliberations determined the time and place and character of the College. The last convention appointed him one of its original trustees. He continued a member of the board to the time of his death, being very rarely absent from its meetings till the infirmities of old age began to lay some check upon his activity. He was elected the first president of the Board of trustees and by successive elections was kept in that position for nearly three years, till on the appointment of a President of the College, the two offices were merged. Thenceforward, he was, each year, regularly and unanimously elected vice president. of the board. His interests, and counsels, and prayers have thus been from the outset, identified with the institution, and he has from time to time made liberal contributions to its resources. It is appropriate therefore, that the pages of the Monthly should present some fit memorial of what this man, so near and dear to us, did in this and other relations of life, and of what he really was."^194[194]

Chapin and Kent shared a long association. When Chapin was inducted into the Presidency of the newly formed Beloit College on July 24, 1850, it was Kent who gave the discourse.^195[195]

When Lord Nelson would electrify his soldiers [sic], in the hour of battle, he exclaimed, "England expects every man to do his duty." Sir, Yale, expects every man to do his duty. You and I, brother, as sons of Yale, have enjoyed singular advantages, and it behooves us to do what we can to transmit these blessings to succeeding generations...The College, the Female Seminary, and the rail car:the progress of science and society will not wait for the plodding course of older institutions.

You and I are sons of Yale, and I know not how better to magnetize you to a high standard of excellence than to point to the portraiture of your old President and mine. As I sat musing in my study, anticipating the exercises of this say, my eye met the searching glance of the venerable ex-president Day and the sainted Dwight. They seemed to be looking down from the wall where they hung and came to my aid, just in time to administer the oath of office..."

The convention passed two proposals: to establish a "Collegiate Institution for Iowa"; and to establish a "Collegiate and Female Seminary of highest order, one in northern Illinois near Wisconsin and the other in Wisconsin close to Illinois." To clarify their educational priorities to the churches represented, they also resolved:

1. that fundamental to the evangelization of the West is the establishment of collegiate and theological institutions where "orthodox" and "pious" ministers might be trained;

2. that parents should consecrate their sons to the ministry;

3. that churches should help promising young men educate themselves for the ministry;

4. that the churchmen of the West should cooperate with the Western Education Society; and

5. that "permanent Female Seminaries of the highest order for the education of American women should have a prominent place in our educational system."^196[196]

The fifth proposal was novel. Women's education had not, until then, been even a low priority : it had no priority at all. Aratus Kent was became its champion. A charter for the Female Seminary was granted by the State of Illinois on Feb. 25, 1847, but that was the easiest part.^197[197] Twenty-five years later, a Rockford Female Seminary board member, and Kent's long time friend, Rev. Joseph Emerson recalled:

"He [Kent] was there to plead for the education of women.... As he went up and down sowing the word of life upon the prairies, the conviction deepened more and more in his soul that this great inland had no greater need than that of educated and sanctified womanhood in the school and in the house."^198[198]

Kent’s practical nature is exemplified by his plan of action for founding the Female Seminary. He indicated his willingness to sell the “prize” to this highest bidding community.

"It sees to me that in view of the present posture of affairs and indeed in view of our own past action, we are compelled to throw our Female Seminary into the market and to give it to the highest bidder.

There are, it is true, some restrictions. Its location must be in Ill., and it must be contiguous to the state line, and it should be in a healthy atmosphere both physical and moral. We ought (other things being equal) to prefer a location where we have reason to believe that it would be not only patronized by the community, but where there is that high tone of moral and religious influence which would satisfy the most scrupulous parent.

Considerations of this kind should not be lost sight of nor should we disregard the anticipations cherished by Rockford people, nor the noble efforts of those at Rockton. But after all, I think there is no way for us to get out of the labyrinth of difficulties which beset is on every hand but to make the whole thing turn upon the largest and best subscription. We are more completely tied up to this now at this second effort then we were at first."^199[199]

Despite the promises of the “Western Society,” funding from the east was not forthcoming. Yet Aratus Kent was determined to pursue the project. He wrote: “....the committee ought to act and act promptly if there no prospect of light from the east, as we had anticipated....In fact, we cannot foresee what and how many and how great rivals may appear on the field of honorable competition for the tempting prize.”^200[200]

Kent drafted a request for proposals and caused it to be circulated:^201[201]

Comm. of Trustees of Beloit College

Feb. 7, 1850

The undersigned as a committee of the Board of Trustees of Beloit College are instructed to receive propositions for the location of a Female Seminary in Northern Illinois according to the original understanding upon which the college was founded.

They accordingly invite proposals upon the following basis:

I. That the Board of Trustees of the Seminary will be legally & perhaps in part personally distinct from that of Beloit College.

II. That the seminary shall be under the immediate charge of an Executive Committee residing principally in the vicinity of the institution.

III. That this committee do not feel authorized to determine details as to permanent plan of management, precise site, or any other matters which can remain open for consideration of the trustees of the Seminary though the establishment of the school upon a temporary basis is contemplated as soon as practical after determining the location.

IV. That subscriptions to be applied to the erection of buildings & other expenses necessarily incidental to the commencement of the undertaking be made in the form of promissory notes, made payable in such installments that the necessary buildings shall be ready for use by the first of Sept. , 1852.

The committee deem it proper for them to state that after taking into account religious, moral & social influences their recommendation to the board will depend principally upon the position of places which may compete as being central, healthful, accessible & pleasant.-

And especially- upon the amount of subscriptions. This is regarded as important not only as furnishing means for the commencement of the enterprise but ever more so, as indicating the interest of the people in the plan and in order to meet the just expectations and claim the support of other places of the object in other quarters.

The committee understand that the desire and to the extent of their ability the purpose of the originators of this two fold enterprise is that the contemplated institution shall not be inferior in grade, importance or usefulness to the college.

Propositions addressed to Rev. A.L. Chapin, President of Beloit College will be received until the first of June next.

A. Kent

Wait Talcott

Joseph Emerson

Almost from the beginning, Kent was pressured to assume personal direction of the Female Seminary and move his family to Rockford:

At Rockford I spent a day on business pertaining to the Female Sem. located there, and was urged by the other members of the Ex. Comm. to remove my family to Rockford. I have been so officious from the first in gathering up that Institution that they seem determined to put me on all the business committees. The gentlemen composing that Comm. stated distinctly they did not intend to throw the labour on me, but they wished me nearer for consultation. It would be vastly better to be at R. as a center of Home Miss. operations, provided that I should be continued in that service. But then on the other hand, I feel no little reluctance at leaving “my old stamping ground”, and I have no idea at present what decision will be arrived at on the subject. But I allude to it that my counselors at 150 Nassau St. may express their wishes, if they choose. There is a good deal of variety (which is “the spice of life”) in my present employment and I often think of Paul’s experience and moral elevation. Phil. 4:11-13. But amidst the storms and sloughs, the diurnal and nocturnal annoyances incident to constant traveling, my heavenly father affords me many soft Indian Summer days, many smooth roads and enchanting passages and in his Providence gives me an introduction to many excellent families, where I have every substantial comfort that the most princely hospitality could furnish and what is more than all, I am daily thrown into circumstances the very best I could have to exert a personal influence in favor of the Religion I profess to love.^202[202]

Clearly, Kent was a bit tempted to assume the superintendency. But he was interested only if he could do the job on the side, while continuing as agent for the A.H.M.S. He probably correctly sensed that if he moved to Rockford he would be consumed by the needs of the Seminary. Fortunately for Kent, fate (through the offices of his colleague Rev. Loss) brought Kent just the person he needed to save himself from a job he knew he was not equipped to perform. That person, Anna Peck Sill, was perfectly suited to the task, if she had some one like the practical and tolerant Kent to lean upon.

Anna Peck Sill arrived in Rockford in the spring of 1849 to teach school. She began in an abandoned court house and finished her Rockford career by pushing the Rockford Female Seminary into the ranks of the nations colleges. Few such frontier female seminaries survived even a few decades, and almost none provided the nidus for the formation of a college. Anna’s grandfather, Jedidiah Peck was a farmer, preacher, carpenter, mill builder, and judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Otsego Township on the frontier of Western New York. He served in the New York State house and senate, where he introduced bills to abolish slavery. Perhaps his greatest contributions came as a champion of public education. Anna received a public education, and was an avid reader.

Following the dictums of Catherine Beecher, a champion of the concept that single women should take up the profession of teaching, Anna went in 1836 to live with her brother on his homestead in far western New York, and began to teach. During vacations she attended Albion Female Seminary, where she ultimately became a teacher for several years.

She remained single, and her views of marriage are perhaps best revealed during a conversation with a student’s mother:

[The student’s mother], as happily married women often are, was concerned about Miss Sill’s spinster state, and said to her with some feeling, “Anna Sill, you should marry. Your should accept one of these good chances.”

Quickly as a flash came the answer, “Emily Robinson, I’m not looking for a chance, I’m looking for an opportunity.”

But Anna did not wait for opportunity, she seized it. To a family friend who was an A.H.M.S. minister in Racine, Wisconsin, [Hiram Foote] she wrote:

I have thought perhaps I might be useful as a teacher and if possibly establish a female seminary in some of the western states. Pecuniary considerations would have but little influence on such an undertaking. My principal object is to do good.

From Rev. L.H. Loss Anna learned that Aratus Kent and others were interested in establishing a college at Beloit and a female seminary in northern Illinois. Loss offered no promises, no salary, and only could hold forth the rent free use of an abandoned court house as a inducement for Anna to head west. It was enough.

Sill had a long battle to become principal. Twice the Executive Committee of the trustees, with Kent as chairman, recommended Sill’s appointment, but the board was slow to act. They still hoped to recruit a prominent male educator from the east.

But Anna Sill built the Rockford Female Seminary into a successful institution. Once Aratus Kent became satisfied of Ms. Sill’s piety and evangelistic zeal, he gave her great freedom in running the school. He attended board meetings regularly, and most of the important ceremonial occasions, but he remained a strong back ground support for Ms. Sill. Others might criticize her for her blunt assertiveness, but he always referred to her as “the excellent principal.”^203[203]

To Kent, Sill was principal almost immediately. For example, as early as 1851 he wrote to the Secretaries: "In a recent conversation with our excellent and devoted Principal of the “Rockford Female Seminary” Miss Anna P. Sill, she expressed a wish that she might have the “Home Missionary” to use in her monthly missionary meeting. I said certainly you shall have it.^204[204] A bit latter he acknowledged Ms. Sill's Presidency, when he wrote: “Miss Anna P. Sill, President of the Rockford Female Sem., expressed a wish that a set of Dwight Theology might be given to their library to stand by the side of Channings works. I though that if you would give men the name of the donors I would write them on the subject.”^205[205] Kent’s philanthropy was not confined to raising funds from others. In one year alone he donated 1/4 of his total salary to the cause when he turned “...$150 over to Rockford Female Sem to meet a larger subscription which I made to provoke others to good works^206[206]

For years after Ms. Sill’s arrival, pressure was kept on Kent to assume a more direct role in overseeing the Rockford Female Seminary. Anna Sill even went herself to Galena to urge Kent to come to Rockford. In 1856, he wrote:

Accompanying this you will see the action of a Com. consisting of Br. A.L. Chapin of Beloit, Wm. H. Brown of Chicago and T.D. Robertson of Rockford, appointed to inquire into the expediency of creating a new office and to define the duties of the incumbent.

The committee are to report at an adjourned meeting to be held on the 14th of Oct. or immediately after the meeting of Synod.

Having been repeatedly solicited before I have some reason to presume the Board of Trustees will adopt this report, if they have any reason to expect that it will open a way for relief from their pecuniary embarrassments which are very serious, and yet the institution has acquired a high character and is doing great good. The principal reports 25 hopeful conversions this year.

I have never given them any encouragement for a consciousness of my utter incompetency has led me to shrink from it. But the matter is pressed upon me now in a way that I cannot dismiss it without consideration.

It is true that I am in one corner of my field and obliged to be absent from home much longer at a time than if I resided in some more central position.

And such are now the facilities for rapid traveling that an agent of your society could occupy the whole state as his field without being absent more than 2 or 3 weeks at a time. And there are parts of the state which (unless another agent is employed) will suffer unless you have an efficient agent who possesses a sort of ubiquity which at my age I do not feel willing to assume.

The field I occupy is now better supplied than it was 10 years ago and to a considerable extent, things have assumed their type and an exploring agent for this district is not as much needed as formerly. But on the other hand, I have a great repugnance to undertake that difficult work of Superintendent of Rockford Female Sem.,^207[207] and am not adapted to any part of it, while I am familiar with Home Miss. Agency. Old men do not easily adapt themselves to new business. We do not feel disposed to exchange Galena for a new home and we think that our extensive acquaintance affords us some facilities for usefulness that we should forfeit by a removal. I have thus spread out this matter before you, for I did not feel at liberty to move on it without your knowledge. Please return this paper soon.

Please return the enclosed document soon, as it is the property of Miss Sill who has been spending some days with us, according to the request of Br. Chapin.

Kent never had any major differences with Ms. Sill (though she had her share of strife with J. Emerson and others), but he had major concerns over the direction that Beloit College was headed. He worried that Beloit was going over too far in the direction of Congregationalism, and that the result would be the necessity for the Presbyterians to form their own institution

It was stated at the meeting of the directors (of which I am one, because I did not feel at liberty to decline) that all the colleges in this vicinity are under Cong. influence. With regard to Beloit it is maintained that while half the directors are nominally Presb. yet the Ex. Com. all sympathize with Cong. The resident professors are all Congregationals. The (and the students with few exceptions) attend the Cong. Ch., i.e., that the Home Influence are all on one side and that there is more danger in College than in the Seminary of their being biased because in the latter they have more maturity and are prepared to examine for themselves. Hence the conclusion was reached that we must have a College too or lose our students in these says of sectarian strife.^208[208]

President Chapin penned a very long and detailed response to Kent’s concerns. Chapin reassured Kent that he personally was committed to preventing any sectarian strife within the Beloit faculty or trustees, and defended past actions.^209[209]

I can sympathize with you fully in the feeling you express respecting your position between Presbyterianism & Congregationalism, those forces once accordant & cooperative now bristling with a show at least of antagonism towards each other...The feeling is a real one with me personally & stronger still in my identification with the College. My chief anxiety respecting this institution come from the fact that the partisan leaders seem to mining off with Congregationalists & Presbyterians & leaving us who cannot follow such lead either way to feel deserted.

Kent was almost apologetic in his inquiries of Chapin, but his concern was rising, as was his frustration over his position with the A.H.M.S., as that organization steadily fell from favor in northern Illinois.^210[210]

I have ever been treated by you and your coadjutors with great kindness and consideration and you may well suppose that after our long and very pleasant intercourse it was exceedingly painful to give you pain by seeming to take a position adverse to Beloit. I have not taken that position. But I am in the predicament of Orphan & Ruth : a position in which I shall be obliged to take sides or be left alone. I have ever maintained the doctrine of cooperation and I take to myself none of the guilt of “causing divisions”. But such is the excitement now that I see not what can be done by N.S. Presb. but quietly to go by ourselves or cease to be. I have looked on for many months (and even for a year or two) and altogether held my peace while the O.S. Presb. and the Cong. are absorbing us, and we have been trying to cooperate and I have an array of facts on my own to field to confirm this statement.

I am greatly troubled and have been for a long time. I cannot be a Cong. of the type it is assuming at the West (as I understand it), I could get along well with Connecticut Cong., but absolute independency is unscriptural and intolerable (to my mind.) Give me your views on that subject and in addition to the questions asked in my former letter, I will ask one other, Is it desirable that the N[ew].S[chool]. Presb. Ch. should be obliterated or have they a distinct mission to fulfill?

I write with great freedom to you as to an old friend but I do not want this correspondence to be published to the world, for I have an invincible dread of such notoriety.

By 1857, the Rockford Female Seminary had 330 young ladies enrolled. They came mostly from northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin and eastern Iowa, but some came from as far away as New York and Vermont. Tuition was $6 per quarter of 10 weeks, but there was a $7 fee for oil painting and $8 for “music on the piano, melodian or guitar.” Board was $70 per school year of 40 weeks. ^211[211] Kent’s adopted daughter, Mary King, was in the preparatory class that year.