INTRODUCTION The Mennonites have generally been far more concerned about a life of service than the recording of their beneficent deeds. Especially is this true of them during the first century or more of their life in America. We look in vain today for records of their conferences during the eighteenth century; only now and then do we have the opportunity to bring from some hitherto inaccessible source information enlightening us on their dealings concerning the religious and educational life among them in colonial times. History associates them with the first to voice their protest against human slavery in America; the largest book printed in colonial times deals with the violence done their forebears through more than one century of horrible persecutions inflicted in the name of Christian faith. For more than two hundred and twenty-five years they have quietly but consistently endeavored to render relief to their less fortunate brethren driven through many lands. Until the very present they have striven to perform a service for humanity that compares favorably with the very best. Their contributions to civilization are of the highest, whether performed in the field of religion, of education, of science, or in the splendor of their morality exhibited in the homes and in the communities where they reside. Among other things they have given America the values of a Christopher Dock; they have had among them men by the name of Rittenhouse, names too well known to need further comment. From out of the endeavors of more or less silent decades there emerged a desire among them to promote the interests of higher education. This desire became nation-wide among the several groups of this people in the western world, culminating in achievements involving courageous initiative and unstinted sacrifice. The pages which follow recount the development of an educational system heroic and noble in its way of progress. President John E. Hartzler is eminently fitted to write a book of this kind. Both on account of his sympathetic spirit and his intel |