HENRY KIMBALL WARREN

A MODEST MAN

"I have never consented to collect detailed data concerning myself, when requests like yours, have come in. If others wish to do it, that is their privilege."

The quotation above is the solid shot that was fired through our hull, in the region of our boiler-room, and came within a hair's breadth of exploding our think-tank, just as we were clearing our literary deck for action. But, after consideration, finding that we had not sustained any permanent injury, that no man's life is a closed secret, that others who actually forbade us to write them up in this department, wrote and thanked us for our kindly sentiments after reading the retrospect of their lives —we decided to weigh anchor, steam out in the deep-blue, transparent. literary sea, whirl around and train our "Who's Who" telescope upon him who fired the shot—Henry Kimball Warren, president of Yankton Ccllege.

We offer no complaint about President Warren's reply. It is inimical of the reservation of the man. Almost any other reply, unless the rebuke should have been still more severe, would have lessened our admiration for hirn. Such replies only whet our determination. If the writer, in the construction of this series of articles, had passed up every person who denied him "private" information, he should have been "licked to a frazzle" long ago. (This slang is all right—Mr. Roosevelt once used it.) Have you never read the story of the giant Ab, who kept on chasing the active Flee-Foot through the mighty forest, with his great muscles vibrating all over him, until at last, through endurance and determination, he finally caught her and carried her back to his cave, a captive, to become his wife?

Well, President Warren's reply only brought out the best there was in us, and stimulated us to look up his past life in Michigan, in Nebraska, in Utah, and in South Dakota, and review it much more thoroughly than we could have done from any brief notes which he might have prepared.

SCHOLASTIC PREPARATION

Athough born at Cresco, Iowa, President Warren got his early education in the common schools at Portland, Michigan. Later he was graduated from Olivet College, Olivet, Michigan. In 1882 his Alma Mater presented him with his Master's degree, and ten years. later conferred upon him his LL. D.

A former member of President Warren's faculty, when he was engaged in public school work at Hannibal, Michigan, who now resides in Chicago, has this to say of his work: "About two years after taking his degree from Olivet College, Michigan, in the year 1884, Mr. H. K. Warren was elected by the board of education to fill the office of superintendent of the public schools of Hannibal. "The position was not a sinecure. For many years the school had been conducted without a superintendent, affairs educational being directed by a corps of capable principals. As a result of this old order of things there was a division of opinion in the community as to the real need for filling the office of superintendent.

HENRY KIMBALL WARREN

"With barriers to be broken down, obstacles to be surmounted,, the forceful, determined, decisive man, Mr. H. K. Warren, soon made himself master of the situation in Hannibal and accomplished his work with eminent success and to the great satisfaction of an appreciative community.

"One secret of his wide influence lay in his ability to draw out the most and the best from each pupil, teacher or citizen,, with whom he was actively associated in work.

"His high ideals, his definite plans, his resolute purpose, his readiness to recognize merit, his eagerness to encourage those who were seeking the best, were unfailing sources of inspiration. "Soon after assuming the management of the Hannibal public schools, Mr. H. K. Warren was married to Miss Lily Hamilton of Michigan, a woman of unusual intellectual and spiritual power, an uplifting force in domestic, social and church circles.

"Six years did Mr. Warren, this man of powerful physique, remarkable energy, indefatigable power of endurance, masterful mind, labor in laying the solid foundation of the school system which exists today in Hannibal—a lasting monument to his rare executive power and forceful intellect. Truly he was a 'tower of strength' in the midst of the little city."

Another party, written to at Salt Lake, Utah, had this to say of him:

"Dear Sir: Answering yours of November 23, and December 13, asking about work of Prof. H. K. Warren, for the year he spent here as president of Salt Lake College, would say the word `college' in connection with our school was for the future. We only had the preparatory department. It has been called Salt Lake Academy. But we wanted a college and changed the name and secured the services of Prof. Warren, and during his stay with us the school made decided progress towards being worthy of the name. His work with us was eminently successful and satisfactory, but the constituency out of which to build a college was small and scattered, and the growth was bound to be slow. There was much competition in the field, of other colleges trying to start here. Therefore, while it was a grievous disappointment to us when at the end of a year he announced that he had decided that he thought it his duty to leave us and go to Yankton, we could not blame him. We remember his work here with pleasure, but also with regret that he did not stay with us. Whe have not yet been able to find anyone to fill the place, efficiently, that was left vacant when he went away."

The report on his work in Nebraska as president of Gates College, at Neligh, was equally favorable. One of his admiring friends, among many other beautiful things, says: "I feel incapable of doing justice to his splendid work."

But, enough of this. We are more interested in what he is doing and has done in South Dakota.

First of all let it be said that President Warren is a born organizer. He has demonstrated this in every field of work in which he has been engaged—particularly so at Yankton. Again, he is a good "money getter," and this element dare never be lacking any man selected for the head of a denominational school. A few years since we picked up a Sioux City Journal on the train and noted where this man Warren had just pulled the leg of Dr. Pearson of Chicago for $34,000; and at another time we saw where he had hit Andrew Carnegie for an even half as much; and we have a faint recollection that on another occasion he tapped a wealthy New Yorker for $100,000. The big "gifts" mean a lot to any school. It costs a large per cent of the small contributions to collect them.

Since Warren was chosen president of Yankton College in 1892, the presidents of all other colleges in the state have been changed from two to four times apiece. (We are now writng about colleges, not normal schools.) He is a "stayer" since he got into the proper field.

In addition to his presidential work, he has been for years one of the institute conductors and instructors of the state. Each year he also delivers a large number of commencement addresses throughout the state. We recall having heard one of these addresses in 1904, and it had in it more "meat" than any similar address to which we have ever listened.

President Warren has large plans for the future of the school, over which he has so ably presided for the past fifteen years. Just now he is in the midst of a campaign to raise an additional endowment fund of $250,000. He got half of the amount pledged from "big fish" before he attacked the "small fries." Of course he will win —he never knew defeat and he never will. He isn't built that way.

HOME LIFE

No matter what position a man may occupy, if his home life is not pleasant, he is a failure. Any man is foolish to close his eyes and select a companion who is going to handicap him for life. The English girls who were brought to America away back in the seventeenth century and bartered as wives to the Jamestown colonists for so many pounds, each, of tobacco, made better helpmeets than lots of girls selected nowadays after a brief courtship.

Warren went slow on this vital proposition. When Don Cupid got to arousing the palpitations of his heart he centered his affection on an accomplished lady who had been severely tested, Miss Lillian Elizabeth Hamilton, a graduate of Mt. Holyoke seminary, and at the time of her marriage perceptress of the Sturgis, Michigan, schools.

President and Mrs. Warren are the happy parents of three, strong, promising children. The eldest son, Howard Hamilton Warren, graduated from Yankton College in 1907, and the same year he won the interstate oratorical contest. He is now a senior in the Harvard law school. President Warren is building great hopes on this boy's future, and no doubt they will be realized, if not surpassed. The two younger children, Robert and Ruth, are now academy students.