Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/557

Rh special subjects, ranging from elementary branches of education up to practical science and mechanical trades, as well as all departments of practical bookkeeping and business routine, are here taught at a minimum of cost to the pupil member of the association. Of this, however, the history has not been favored with details.

The original incorporators of this useful institution, were: Edward Quackenbush, president; W. H. Watkins, vice president; James Steel, treasurer; F. K. Arnold, corresponding secretary; Frank S. Aiken, recording secretary; and of these Messrs. Quackenbush, Steel and Aiken are still active business men.

The general statement of the secretary is, that the several departments have trained specialists and committees directing their activities. Two hundred and sixty-seven men live in the building. There are from sixty to one hundred class meetings and gatherings each week day and night during the season held in the building. In the physical department about 1,500 men and boys participate in the work; in the educational department about 1,100 different students have been enrolled in the various classes this season. A faculty of forty teachers is employed to give instructions in this class work. The emphasis is placed on vocational and trade classes, though a large work is done in college preparatory, commercial and culture classes as well.

The present acting officers and directors are: R. Livingstone, vice president; F. McKercher, treasurer; H. W. Stone, general secretary; F. C. Knapp, I. H. Amos, A. M. Smith, R. F. Barnes, David Pattulo, Philip Buehner, Maurice Walton, E. C. Bronaugh, W. A. Goss, W. Y. Masters, Fletcher Linn, Frank Dayton, Thomas Roberts, Dr. J. L. Hewitt, Dr. S. A. Brown, James F. Failing, E. B. McNaughton.

At the annual opening for the year of 1910-11, General Secretary Stone stated the general objects of the institute to be; "One important object that the Y. M. C. A. always has in mind is to make the students creators of wealth." "The professions are overcrowded today; there are too many people who live without creating anything. The Y. M. C. A. believes in fitting men to make things.

"We are also advising men to build on the experience that they have. If a man is a successful carpenter, we advise him to study along that line; to fit himself to become a contractor. He would be making a great mistake by casting aside his experience and learning to be a stenographer or a clerk. But of more value than the studies themselves are the opportunities for character building that are open here. The upbuilding of true manhood is the real object of the Y. M. C. A."

Rev. Hiram W. Foulkes, added to the above statement as follows:

"This is the greatest enterprise in the city of Portland," he said. "It is not because the largest sum of money is invested in it, for, although generous gifts have made possible this building, there are many other enterprises with more money invested. Neither is it because of the large financial returns that come to the stockholders of this enterprise. There is not a cigar store in the city that does not return its owner more in financial dividends in a month than this great enterprise returns to its stockholders in a year. This is none the less the greatest enterprise in the city because of the value of its finished product. Every other great commercial or industrial enterprise turns out, for its finished product, a material commodity that can be bought and sold. This great factory is a maker of men. The method of this enterprise is a process. Character is not made in an hour. It takes a long process to make so simple a thing as a pin; much more to develop a human character. There is this difference between the worldly enterprise and this one: In the former the process goes on one thing at a time; in the latter the whole process goes on at once.

"It is impossible to make men by making them physically strong first, then intellectually keen, then morally right. The whole process goes on all the