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In his undergraduate days, Parson Faunce was undistinguished. No gridiron hero he, no baseball, track, basketball contender. But he sang bass in the Glee Club. And as his share of athletic glory, he rubbed the tired biceps of his famed roommate, Southpaw Pitcher Richmond.
His room, Hope College 12, had two closets, one for clothes, the other for coal. Coal & clothes were sometimes mixed and perhaps, sitting on the chaste Grecian steps of Manning Hall discussing the lectures of loved Latin Professor John L. Lincoln with his classmate & fraternity brother, Charles Evans Hughes, he would absently pluck a bit of black dust from waistcoat pocket. No. 12 Hope College is now inhabited by blackamoors, being in the heart of Brown's Harlem.
Post graduate work brought Parson Faunce an A. M. in 1883, D. D. in 1897, LL.D. from Baylor in 1904. During all this time he held many jobs—but all within cloistered quads or the protecting arms of the Church. He taught mathematics at Brown, led erring sinners back to the Baptist fold in Springfield, Mass., New York, and Harvard. In 1899 he became Presi- dent of Brown & Professor of Moral & Intellectual Philosophy. His classes in Moral & Intellectual Philosophy were small but his Presidency was adequate.
Mathematician, theologian, philosopher, preacher, author, trustee and president, Doctor William Herbert Perry Faunce has glorified his Alma Mater. As he walks down College Street next June he may call to mind his own words, "Human progress is not a delusion."