Venture of Faith

In Waterville, Me., an old gentleman of 82 sat gazing out of his window and smiling. The sight that pleased him so much was what he could see of the 21 big new Georgian buildings that are Colby College. People in Waterville have become used to the old man's smile. "Every time I look up there," says he, "I just bubble over."

When Franklin W. Johnson became president of Colby in 1929, the old grey college campus was down in the center of town, hemmed in by railroad tracks and factories, choked by smoke. With hardly an extra penny in the bank, Johnson persuaded the trustees that the only way to keep the college up to par was to pull up stakes and move.

Some Waterville citizens and some alumni called the whole project "Johnson's Folly." Johnson himself thought of it as a "venture of faith . . . Anything that ought to be done," he kept saying, "can be done."

He summoned an architect to draw plans, and eventually Waterville gave him the money for a 650-acre site. At the very bottom of the depression, he launched a fund-raising campaign. On the day of his opening dinner in Boston, President Roosevelt closed the nation's banks.

For four years the trickle of money was just enough to start clearing the site. But by 1937 Johnson's work began to bring results. George Horace Lorimer, '98, editor of the Saturday Evening Post, gave $200,000 for a new chapel. A group of alumni raised $300,000 more for a student union. One man sent $20,000, merely because he had once passed old Colby on the train and thought that "some day the trustees must do something about it."

At last the new campus began to take shape. But Franklin Johnson's troubles were not over. Some of his biggest pledges never materialized (one man died the day after promising a new building), and World War II put a full stop to construction. When Johnson retired in 1942, not a nail was being hammered on silent Mayflower Hill.

Under his successor, Philosopher J. Seelye Bixler, Johnson went right on campaigning. One day he appeared on the campus to give $96,000 to the cause--almost all the money he had earned as president ("I've made some prudent investments"). He made scores of speeches, sent out reams of personal letters. Once again the money began to flow in. All told, Colby raised $7,000,000.

Last week, with the last brick laid, the new campus was ready. After 23 years of effort, Franklin Johnson, gazing out his window, was able to say: "I have not only seen my heart's desire. I have actually entered the promised land."

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