“Dear Bro Merrill,

               …I have had four hours teaching to do for the last few weeks on account of the teachers department. Besides this, every fair day, which has been every day nearly for a fortnight, I have spent the whole afternoon with squads of Sophomores or 2d yr Ladies in the field with surveying instruments…Our endowment is progressing. Mr. [Stricklin?] finally entered upon it two weeks since and in a few days raised $25000. I have not heard what he has done since…A gentleman in Mass. has given $4000 to add $200 to every man’s salary for the year! Quite a Providential succor...”

             Founded in the 1830s, Oberlin College was nationally famous for its support of progressive causes, including anti-slavery and higher education for women. Charles H. Churchill began teaching there in 1858 as Professor of Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy until his retirement in 1897. One of his notable students was African-American Nathan B. Young, who remembered his mentor as a “versatile profound scholar” whose “laboratory was a workshop in which many a students found guidance and inspiration to become a scientist.” More renowned, but less laudatory was student Robert Millikan, the later Nobel Physicist, who graduated from Oberlin in 1891. He found Churchill’s classes “worthless”, but regarded the Professor as ”an excellent personal model for young men.” E.H. Merrill was President of Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he taught “Mental and Moral Science”