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Passion, Purpose & Power

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    26. Percy T. Magan

    Making Adventists rather than cornflakesPPP 142.1

    Circumstances surrounding Magan’s decision to decline W. K. Kellogg’s offer to take charge of stock sales for his new cornflakes company.PPP 142.2

    Pioneering efforts are rarely easy and such was the case at the time Emmanuel Missionary College (now Andrews University) was relocated in Berrien Springs, Michigan, in 1901 from its former location in Battle Creek. It was a real struggle to get the fledgling institution established. Conditions were primitive. Classes were first held in twenty renovated former jail cells in the old abandoned court house. In fact, Dean Percy T. Magan found that his office had been the former county sheriff’s! Students were lodged in a nearby hotel.PPP 142.3

    Besides attempting to build permanent buildings for the school, the administrators of the institution were also trying to carry out reforms in the curriculum. Students were expected to work as part of the program. Because it was a missionary school, the Bible was to be central to each class and degrees were not granted when one graduated. Some on the board felt that the reforms were being carried too far.PPP 142.4

    Matters came to a head in 1904. Both Dean Magan and President Edward A. Sutherland941865-1955. resigned. Less than a week earlier, Percy Magan’s wife95Ida May (Bauer) Magan (1869-1904). had died. Though the two men were re-elected by the board, the situation was such that a short time later they both resigned again and went south where they started Madison College in Tennessee.PPP 143.1

    In 1930 Dr. Magan wrote to Elder William A. Spicer961865-1952. who was president of the General Conference at the time. Now, early in the depression and over a quarter of a century after that eventful time back in 1904, Magan wrote to his longtime friend:PPP 143.2

    “I often think of the times when my first wife died at Berrien Springs in 1904. . . .W. K. [Kellogg] 971860-1951. came to me . . . and begged me to quit work and join him in the cornflakes company which at that moment was in the process of organization. He offered me a block of stock, ten thousand dollars worth at par value. He wanted me to take charge of stock sales and offered me a commission on all I sold with a permanent place in the company when this work was done. That ten thousand dollars of stock would be worth today somewhere in the neighborhood of one million dollars, and of course trading on that I could have made it probably three or four million. The offer in a way was tempting. But I remember well spending the greater part of a night under a maple tree at old Berrien, then in the process of its own birth, and talking the whole matter over with the Master. And as the morning light broke I had decided that in spite of all difficulties with brethren I must stick to this Message and give whatever time and talent I had to the making of Adventists rather than to the making of cornflakes.” [P. T. Magan letter to W. A. Spicer, April 21, 1930, p. 3.]—Paul A. Gordon and James R. Nix, Laughter and Tears of the Pioneers, 1989, pp. 26, 27.PPP 143.3

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