Celebrating the sesquicentennial of Illi­nois College--"Old Illinois," the oldest college in Illinois--this perceptive his­tory provides an account to which stu­dents will turn for the light it casts on the growth of higher education in the Middle West and the development of high ideals of Christian education al­luded to in the book's title.

Illinois College is fortunate indeed in having its history so ably written, first by Charles H. Rammelkamp, the Col­lege's fifth president (1905-32), on whose centennial history Charles E. Frank, a longtime faculty member, here builds. Brilliantly abridging Rammel­kamp's earlier work, which forms the first part of this book, Dr. Frank pro­ceeds systematically to recount and evaluate the College's eventful past fifty years.

Recalling Evangelist's charge to Christian in Pilgrim's Progress--"keepthe light in your eye, and go up directly thereto"--Dr. Frank sympathetically but resolutely interprets the history of this small college in the Mississippi Val­ley. His is, however, a pilgrimage of ideas, and his account, though of growth and of buildings, never loses sight of the College's beginnings or of its progress.