J. Lewie Harman - Hilltopper Heritage

Citation: "Concerning," The Elevator, Vol. VII, No.3, December 1915, pp. 68-73. The Elevator is a student publication and copies are available to researchers in University Archives record group 37.

Oil and water won’t mix. For a long stretch that statement has been relayed down the long stretches of time. The Greeks and Romans used it instead of “now is the time for all good men to come to the aid, etc.” The Sanskrits, whenever they used it, always apologized for being old-fashioned in their use of language. Maybe, it dates back to the Rhetoricians of the Garden of Eden. Anyhow, it is awfully old, and as shy of truth, as the aforesaid “now is the time for all good men.”

It has various applications, ranging from social sets to Standard Oil stock. The writer was once lolling back in his easy office chair, in the official discharge of his duty as Principal. Glancing, indolently, out of the window, he beheld approaching a lady whom he at once classified as figurative minded; that is, likely to indulge in metaphors, analogies, and things. She had in tow a tow-headed youngers who at first glance appeared to be a sort of by-product of laundries, manicure parlors, lace factories and other allied systems of culture. “Good Awfternoon,” spoke the figurative-minded lady. “I brought my Little Fauntleroy to place under the tutelage of your instructors. It is a step which I take with grave misgivings. Fauntleroy is a deah, sweet child, so trustful and free of guile. He has bene taught by a puffectly chawming governess, but nothing will do his papaw but for him to be brought here.” – A shrug at this juncture indicated that Fauntleroy’s “papaw” could not possibly rank higher than a second-rate Philistine. – “I have grave misgivings,” reiterated the figurative-minded lady, “for I hear the boys at this school are rough and untutored, and oil and water won’t mix, donchoknow.”

I had a vague sort of idea at the time that the figurative-minded lady was wrong, and so, at recess, I was not surprised to find the drop of oil, as I suppose the figurative-minded lady would have represented Fauntleroy, surrounded by several rough, untutored drops of water. There was something about the several constituents that suggested that they would “mix” presently, which they did.

Something in the nature of the affair operated against immediate interference, and so, I directly turned my gaze in the oposite [sic] direction for the space of a few seconds. Then I took up the business of resolving the mixture back to its component parts. It was hopeless; the mixing process had been thorough. Oil was in a bad way. A fodder shredding machine would have been kinder to his hat and knickerbockers, and his stiff spreading white collar was no more. His face was battered but beaming. Also, his opponents were scratched and serene. The figurative-minded lady was wrong. Democracy had had its way. Oil and water had mixed.

There is another application which the credulous ones like to make of the axiom under discussion. Oil and water won’t mix, they say, meaning business and romance, poetry and prices, troubadours and trial balances. There is somewhat of truth in the contention. I can imagine that if, back in 1850, poetry had suddenly gone out of fashion, leaving Tennyson stranded high and dry, he wouldn’t have done very well as a floorwalker, or as a house-to-house canvasser for Smellem’s Aromatic Perfumery – save-the-wrappers-and-get-a-ornamental-hot-water-bottle-stopper-free-of-charge. Sometimes poetic oil and prosaic water, or the reverse, won’t mix very mixfully, but there are instances. I know the Vice President of a Business College who can recite more poetry than a self-winding clock could listen to; poetry of the highest order, too. And, what is more to the point, poetry that he feels and lives, poetry that has gone into his life and made him a better Vice President of the Bowling Green Business University. He has as much poetry in him as anyone I happen to know, and as much business. In his composition, oil and water are sociable elements. Business, naturally, is the majro course of his personal curriculum, but poetry is a strong elective. Every lesson Mr. J. Lewie Harman teaches, every letter he writes is fragrant with poetry. He never in all of his life dictated that old favorite of the slaves of commercialism: “Yours of the 23d received. In reply will say, etc.”

Suppose Mr. Harman hears that Lige Scruggs of Mount Parsnip, Utah, is a-weary of rural pursuits, and yearns to respond to the lure of the ledger; the chances are that he will write him something like this: “My dear Elijah: There is pleasure in the trackless wood; there is solace in the sandy desert; there’s culture in the cornfield, but do these things exalt to the highest the divine impulse of your being? Do you long for the busy marts of trade? Do you long to check up and audit cargoes from Castile and Chicago? Do you burn to sit at the feet of law-makers and transcribe their burning words? etc.” When Lige regains consciousness he finds himself seated at a B.G.B.U. typewriter pecking away on Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. Later, Lige is elected cashier of a bank down in Mississippi, or he becomes a minion of the West Virginia coal trust, and lives happily on a lucrative salary ever afterwards.

Let us go back to the beginning where all good things ultimately originate. Mr. Harman was born June 18, 1874, in a one-room log cabin on Barren River, near what is now Meador, Allen County, Ky. Up until he was eighteen he acted just like an ordinary mortal; farmed, went to school, and hung around sorghum mills. At the age of eighteen he carpetbagged it over to Bowling Green and entered the Southern Normal School. He was a student there for six years, being out long enough to teach three schools back up in Allen. The seventh year, he spent in the B.G.B.U. frustrating the elements of commercialism into the native poesy of his soul. I suspect that these were seven lean years in a sense of leanness with which the vast majority of my readers can heartily sympathize. In the matter of growth and appreciation they were exceedingly sleek years. At the expiration of this period of training he became an employee of his alma mater, his duties being those of teacher, traveling silicitor, [sic] and general helper, the general help being meeting trains, securing boarding places, and speaking in rotund tones and big numbers whenever he mentioned the enrollment.

In 1911, Mr. Harman’s professorial field was extended so as to include the teaching of History in the Southern Normal School, and commercial branches in the Business University, the two institutions being at that time jointly under the management of Mr. H.H. Cherry.
January, 1907, Mr. Harman, together with Mr. J.S. Dickey and Mr. W.S. Ashby, purchased the University. In the deal, Mr. Harman was made Vice President, which position he still holds.

It is not good for man to be alone and lonesome. You know what is coming when you see that quotation misquoted, don’t you? Well, on a helpful, happy, halcyon day in August, 1900, Miss Nettie Kimberlin, of Springfield, Ky., promised to be for him an everlasting antidote for the ills of single loneliness. They have been very happy ever since. They live in a beautiful little home up on Pedagogical Row. There, he eats her cooking and she listens to his rhymes, and the hours pass on poetic pinions.

Mr. Harman is a Methodist steward, a Democratic committeeman, and a prominent member and ex-President of the E.Q.B. Club. He is an excellent public speaker, and is usually docketed well ahead for educational addresses. His speeches are substantial and wholesome, and in striking contrast to the dusty dissertations of the educational vivisectionists who can give you the mental measurements of the pupils of Keokuk, Iowa, but couldn’t for their lives recite the first verse of The Village Blacksmith, or Lord Ullin’s Daughter.

Mr. Harman never loses track of one of his old pupils. Once MY pupil, always MY pupil is his principle. Of the thousands who have been under his care, it is pretty safe to say that he has not let one pass from his memory. Nor is there one in whose welfare he has lost concern. If one of his innumerable progeny is elected to the School Board back in his native or adopted hamlet, or delegated to give the welcome address to the visiting W.C.T.U.’s, Mr. Harman sits right down and indites a sympathetic, poetic effusion to the one so favored, claiming that he knew all along that Genius inhabited his make-up. It is one of the nicest, sincerest, most poetical, most inspirational letters that the recipient of honors ever received, and straightway he moves the goal of his ambition onward a few leagues.

I have mentioned that Mr. Harman is from Allen County. The same thing can be said of a host of other celebrities, and, in a sense, that is the sad part of it as far as Allen County is concerned; they are from there. If all the doctors, and lawyers, and preachers, and teachers that are from Allen should be brought back to reside permanently in their native bailiwick, a community would result that would make Boston look like Ellis Island. Of all the Who’s Who’s who have joined in this exodus, I think that to J. Lewie Harman may be attributed the very great honor of having exerted the influence that has reached farthest and wrought most.

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