129 years later, founder might hate us
Pseudo M.D. favored zany diet, Godliness, historians say
Gabrielle Dunn
Issue date: 11/19/09 Section: News
"I have not built this school," declared Charles Wesley Emerson, upon the college's opening. "...God has built it. It is His."
Emerson, who founded the college in 1880, was an intensely religious man who lived by a strict diet of his own invention.
Today, his college is the fifth least religious college in the nation, according to the Princeton Review. And religion isn't the only deviance probably making ol' C.W.E. turn in his grave. Imagine for a second that our namesake's apparition visited our hallowed halls. He'd absolutely hate it.
Though as eccentric as the students who now roam Boylston Street, Emerson-who is of no relation to Ralph Waldo, as many erroneously believe-didn't show it with ironic scarves or by smoking Gauloises.
The shrewd and quirky Emerson was a "doctor" who got his "medical" degree from a mail order diploma mill for $25 in 1879, according to Emerson historian and former professor John Coffee. Emerson felt he needed the degree to seem prestigious enough to found his own school.
Interesting side note: the college library's Web site lists Emerson as "Dr." claiming he attended medical school in Philadelphia. The library's Executive Director Robert Fleming compiled the dubious timeline when he served as college archivist.
Fleming said he stands by his statement that Emerson studied medicine and vagued up the details on whether he actually graduated.
"Bottom line, given the nature of the institution from which he received his M.D. degree, let's just be happy that he founded an institution of higher education and not a hospital!" Fleming wrote in an e-mail to The Beacon.
He said referring to Emerson as "Dr." is not a reflection of the M.D. degree that he paid for, but instead of the honorary degrees that he received after founding the school, similar to how Doctors Love, Octopus and Dre received their titles.
Ethical quandries aside, Emerson's quirks don't end there.
Sugar was the devil's sweetener in Emerson's mind, according to Coffee's book on Emerson's history, titled "A Century of Eloquence." In Emerson's own book "Physical Culture," our loquacious leader asserts that sugar "induces derangement of the stomach and fermentation in the blood." Just ignore all those Twix bars in the C-Store, Emmy baby.
Emerson, who founded the college in 1880, was an intensely religious man who lived by a strict diet of his own invention.
Today, his college is the fifth least religious college in the nation, according to the Princeton Review. And religion isn't the only deviance probably making ol' C.W.E. turn in his grave. Imagine for a second that our namesake's apparition visited our hallowed halls. He'd absolutely hate it.
Though as eccentric as the students who now roam Boylston Street, Emerson-who is of no relation to Ralph Waldo, as many erroneously believe-didn't show it with ironic scarves or by smoking Gauloises.
The shrewd and quirky Emerson was a "doctor" who got his "medical" degree from a mail order diploma mill for $25 in 1879, according to Emerson historian and former professor John Coffee. Emerson felt he needed the degree to seem prestigious enough to found his own school.
Interesting side note: the college library's Web site lists Emerson as "Dr." claiming he attended medical school in Philadelphia. The library's Executive Director Robert Fleming compiled the dubious timeline when he served as college archivist.
Fleming said he stands by his statement that Emerson studied medicine and vagued up the details on whether he actually graduated.
"Bottom line, given the nature of the institution from which he received his M.D. degree, let's just be happy that he founded an institution of higher education and not a hospital!" Fleming wrote in an e-mail to The Beacon.
He said referring to Emerson as "Dr." is not a reflection of the M.D. degree that he paid for, but instead of the honorary degrees that he received after founding the school, similar to how Doctors Love, Octopus and Dre received their titles.
Ethical quandries aside, Emerson's quirks don't end there.
Sugar was the devil's sweetener in Emerson's mind, according to Coffee's book on Emerson's history, titled "A Century of Eloquence." In Emerson's own book "Physical Culture," our loquacious leader asserts that sugar "induces derangement of the stomach and fermentation in the blood." Just ignore all those Twix bars in the C-Store, Emmy baby.
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