JAMES WALLACE OF MACALESTER

Macalester is Minnesota's Presbyterian college founded in 1885 and for many years under the presidency of James Wallace, a Scot and a Greek scholar who came there as a professor in 1887 from his home in Ohio. Undoubtedly he was a man of parts: a long battle against bankruptcy was only one of his struggles when he look his position at the helm of the young college. But unfortunately Mr. Kagin has relied more on the repetition of cliches than any biographical acumen to impress his readers with the virtue, stamina and intelligence of his central figure. Too often we are reminded of how gloriously and with what courage he abandoned the comforts of economic security to pioneer against the apathy and the acts of God that nearly saw Macalester College out of existence at the end of the last century. Only reflectively are we able to conclude that Dr. Wallace was a man whose unswerving devotion to the ideals of Christian education deservedly led him to a position of prominence among midwestern educators, of some interest to school and church reading markets this will also bid for a place in the general market through De Witt Wallace, James Wallace's son and the founder of The Reader's Digest. But even with this connection it should not go very far except as a passing note on the more exalted aspects of American culture and their calculated propagation.