SPALDING'S 43 YEARS OLD.
Commercial College Celebrates Its
Long Period of Success Here.
In the presence of an audience of over 600, exercises were held at the auditorium of Spalding's Business college last night commemorating its forty-third anniversary. This institution was started in 1865 by James F. Spalding. A small room at Second and Main streets was sufficiently large for the seven pupils he then had. One of these, Bernard L. Ganz, is still living. Since that time, over 23,000 young people have entered the college, of whom more than 4,000 are in business or in positions in Kansas City.
In introducing the programme last night, Mr. Spalding, still president of that college, said: "I am very glad to state that the present school year is prosperous; that the attendance is larger than ever before. I am equally as happy to say that many new additions and valuable improvements have been made to the course of study in order to more fully meet the ever increasing and exacting demands of the business world, and thus put our graduates in better condition to cope with them. The grade of our scholarship has been advanced. The demand for our graduates is often far in excess of the supply, yet we deem it necessary to fully equip a student for any emergency before sending him or her out. Another note of gratification to me is that in the college now are many students whose parents before them attended the Spalding school."
A most excellent musical programme and an address by Professor J. M. Greenwood constituted the set programme. In the musical numbers were piano solos by Miss Adeline Nentwig and Miss Clara Blakeslee; vocal solo by Miss Hazel Kirk, with violin obligato by Dale Hartmann; cornet solo by Walter M. Eby, and violin solo by Miss Phebe Brooks. Besides these, there were readings by Miss Maude Edris Speer and Everett Elliott.
As souvenirs of the occasion the college distributed booklets containing half tone views of the school, also fifty-two views of the prominent buildings and places of the city. An edition of 50,000 of these booklets has been printed in the college's own printing office.
