This Week in Texas Methodist History April `10 King Vivion Announces Building Fund for Student Work at A&M April 10, 1922 The relationship between Methodism and higher education is one of the most important threads to follow in the history of the denomination. Methodism originated on a university campus (Oxford), but when it came to America, there was resistance to an educated clergy, and the early decades of Methodism never considered constructing universities like Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterians did. When the first Methodist college in America in Abingdon. Maryland, burned on Dec. 4, 1795 burned, some considered it a sign that God did not intend for Methodists to have colleges. Of course, Methodists did found colleges, seminaries, etc and decided to focus on general education rather than narrow theological studies. By the 1830s when Methodism official came to Texas, Methodism had a host of schools. As you remember from last week’s post, the head of the mission to Texas, Martin Ruter, resigned from a college presidency to lead the mission. With the exception of Virginia and North Carolina, the southern states were slow to develop public institutions of higher education. Texas did not do so until after the Civil War when it could take advantage of the Morrill Act provisions for establishing so called land grant colleges. Basically the ruling planter elite did not wish to tax themselves to support public education because they hired private tutors or sent their children to northern universities, Princeton being by far the favorite “Ivy” of the southern oligarchs. Although Texas was slow to fund public universities, it eventually did so, adding the University of Texas to complement the land grant A&M’s (at College Station and Prairie View) and an array of regional institutions called Normals to train teachers for the schools. Those Normals transitioned to State Teacher’s Colleges and now are all universities. Methodists wanted to supply spiritual guidance to students attending the public institutions, and a variety of methods were employed. A Methodist dormitory was constructed in Denton. A Bible Chair was funded in Austin with the director teaching classes for credit. In College Station a student pastor was appointed to the church who was directed to spend time with the young men attending A&M. In 1922 that pastor was King Viviion (James King Vivion 1896-1969) who had been holding evening services in the electrical engineering building at A&M sincve his arrival in 1919 from studies at SMU. In April 1922 he announced that he had raised $604 toward the cost of construction of a wooden building estimated to cost between $2500 and $4000 so that the ministry could have its own space. Vivion was success in completing the structure. Today the Wesley Foundation at A&M, a successor to that program is widely recognized as one of the top college student ministries in the entire UMC. In 1924 Vivion was appointed to Jacksonville (another college town) and then to First Galveston. In 1928 he assumed the presidency of Southwestern University in spite of his youth. Unfortunately Southwestern was hit by the impact of the Great Depression and his work as president was impeded by economics. Personal note: I never met King Vivion, but his younger brother, Monroe Vivion (1902-1978) was a prominent member of the Texas Conference in my childhood and youth.