John Frederick Oberlin Explained

Forgotten in the day-to-day excitement between DeCafé and King is a six foot tall monument that for most students virtually blends into the environment of Wilder Bowl. Made of marble and bearing a dedication to the College's namesake, John Frederick Oberlin, the edifice carries something of note other than its inscription, an optical device created by Oberlin that he used in advising people.

Are you involved in a lover's quarrel? Maybe you and a friend can't seem to agree if the Backstreet Boys are talented or not? Then take a minute, bring your friend and look at the monument together, each of you on opposite sides. You'll find that what you see depends upon your perspective. Egad!

John Frederick Oberlin based his entire life around an ethos of tolerance and acceptance. Born in 1740, he lived in an era marked by religious hostility and bitterness, but when he became pastor for Waldersbach in the Ban de la Roche in France in 1767, he accepted Jews into his community and gave communion to Protestants and Catholics alike. When a young Catholic family entered his community, he led them through the main street, past the suspicious eyes of the Protestant citizens, and helped them settle them into their home.

Even more than a pastor, Oberlin was a one-man government, a teacher, a carpenter, an advisor and a farmer, a man who devoted his life to creating a viable, thriving community out of an underdeveloped, thriftless band of villages. He established the first kindergarten ever with the help of two women, built churches and homes for five villages and three hamlets and established a loan fund to help citizens start businesses and shops. When no one else would, he volunteered himself to construct roads, laboring for hours in the middle of the town while embarrassed citizens stood by their houses and stared. Along with his other duties, he acted as the community doctor.

Despite his religious convictions, Oberlin always maintained a sense for the practical, an appreciation of the basic needs of living. "Looking at things" became a large part of his instruction, a practice of observation devoid of all generalization and significance, based solely on objective and accurate description. He happily married his parishioners, as long as they planted a fruit tree in their front lawn. Near the end of his life, he gave up coffee with sugar because of the abuse of black women and children who had to gather it. On his deathbed, he drank it under the insistence of doctors.

In Europe Oberlin remains a lasting presence as a thinker and model citizen. Strasbourg has a bookstore and school named after him. Friedrich Lienhard made him the subject of the enormously popular novel around the beginning of the last century, Oberlin: A Novel of Revolution in Alsace. And not surprisingly, he had a profound influence on Charles Finney and John Jay Shipherd.

Most Oberlin students have never had the chance to learn anything about the man other than from the oft-ignored monument in front of Wilder. Sophomore Manfred Elfstrom helps build homes around Cleveland every other Saturday with Habitat For Humanity. When asked what he knew about J.F. Oberlin, he said, "that optical thing in front of Wilder." How could Elfstrom have known that he is involved in a history dating back to Oberlin's namesake? Of course, he and the many other students, whether volunteering in public schools or working at food shelters, who unknowingly carry on Oberlin's tradition probably don't need to know how historic their civic duties are. However, Oberlin, the man, had a lot more going for him than that optical thing in front of Wilder.