Education: John Brown’s Boy

In an Arkansas cornfield in 1919, Evangelist John Elward Brown planted an interdenominational college to spread his gospel of “God, honest toil and motherhood.” Last week, at 69, President John Brown of John Brown University decided that the Lord needed him back on the evangelist’s trail. He turned over his chair to son John Elward Jr., a J.B.U. graduate (’42) and ex-Navy officer. That made “Beddie” Brown, at 26, probably the youngest university head in the U.S.

John Brown U.’s 450 students spend half the time in class, the other half learning a trade in workshops, on the farm, at the airport, printshop or radio station. As in 1919, the Bible is still the book J.B.U. students know best, and drinking and dancing are forbidden on College Hill.