Remnants of history

Ivy Tech students get to touch works that shaped America

by Steve Hinnefeld
331-4374 | shinnefeld@heraldt.com
August 9, 2006

Students at Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington will have an opportunity this fall to learn firsthand about the writings that shaped the values of America's founders.

They will study early editions of almost 50 documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, the proceedings of the Continental Congress and works of philosophy and literature that influenced the birth of the United States.

"The thing I'm excited about is we have documents that the founding generation of our country would have read," said Donn Hall, chairman of the Ivy Tech history program.

The materials were delivered last week by the Remnant Trust, an Indiana-based nonprofit group whose mission is to put into the hands of the public seminal writings about liberty and dignity.

Hall said it's remarkable they will be on display at Ivy Tech, but even more amazing that students will get to handle them, just as the nation's founders would have done.

"They're not just sitting in a case," he said. "You can take them out, hold them and use them."

The Remnant Trust, based in Hagerstown but soon to move to Jeffersonville, was started by Brian Bex, a former Bloomington resident known for his television and radio political commentaries from the 1960s to 1980s.

It began collecting first editions and early printings about 15 years ago and started lending them to colleges in 1997, advised by former Indiana University President John Ryan and other experts. The priceless collection has grown to 850 volumes.

"We like to talk about the value of these based on the content, not based on the cost," said Kris Bex, the trust's president and Brian Bex's son. "That's what our focus is: to get people talking about these ideas."

In addition to documents related to early U.S. history, the collection includes early English editions of Greek and Roman classics, political philosophy and literature.

Materials at Ivy Tech include a leaf from a Gutenberg Bible, John Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," John Wilkes' "The North Briton," a first American printing of the Quran and works by de Tocqueville, Machiavelli, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine and Frederick Douglass.

"We've got basically a time line of intellectual history," said Hall, the Ivy Tech history chairman.

The documents will be the centerpiece of a series of classes in English composition, U.S. history and government that 20 Ivy Tech students will take this fall. Other classes will use the materials, and the college plans to share them with the public as well.

They are now in the Ivy Tech library and will be displayed in the Student Commons starting Aug. 21, when classes start for the fall.

"We're going to shine the light of day on them and invite our community to come in and look and get excited about them," said Ivy Tech Chancellor John Whikehart, who will teach a government class using the documents,

Kris Bex, the Remnant Trust president, said it's as important to share the materials with a two-year community college such as Ivy Tech as with a four-year university with graduate programs in history, literature and philosophy.

"For us, we're happy to be putting them in the hands of people who are interested in them," he said.

Remnant Trust documents

Religious documents

• Leaf from Gutenberg Bible, 1455.

• John Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," 1610.

• First U.S. printing of the Quran, 1810.

Philosophers

• John Locke, "Collected Works," 1727.

• Jean Jacques Rousseau, "Social Compact," 1797.

• Adam Smith, "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," 1776.

Influences on America

• James Harrington, "Oceana," 1737.

• Algernon Sydney, "Discourses Concerning Government," 1763.

• John Wilkes, "The North Briton," 1769.

American Revolution

• Proceedings of the First Continental Congress, 1775.

• Federalist Papers, 1788.

• The Bill of Rights, 1789.

National Period

• Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America," 1838 third edition.

• Lewis and Clark, "Travels to the Source of the Missouri River," 1814.

Slavery/Civil War

• "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," 1846.

• Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, first book-form publication from 1863.

Symposium planned

Ivy-Tech Bloomington will host an academic symposium Sept. 14 on the Remnant Trust document collection. Speakers will include:

• Sarah Knott, an Indiana University history professor.

• Oyedabe Oyerinde, an instructor at Ivy Tech.

• The Rev. Boniface Hardin, founder and president of Martin University in Indianapolis.

Also planned are two October presentations by Heather Calloway, a document preservation specialist from Washington, D.C.