office, but made it obvious that he did not feel the action of the Cedarville trustees was enough: I trust it will not seem presumptuous if I add that in my judgment the tenor of your letter indicates that your trustees have been misin– formed concerning the scope of this board's work. We are authorized to cooperate not with institutions that may have a certain number of Presbyterians on the Board of Conference but with Presbyterian institutions whose COnnec– tion with the denomination is maintained through representatives appointed by some ec– clesiastical body. I do not understand from the action of your trustees that you are proposing that Cedarville College shall become a Presby– terian institution in any real sense. Such a move would involve more readjustments than the election of three trustees by Synod. 16 When he returned to his office, Stockwell addressed a letter to Wright indicating that he fully endorsed Hill's position. He repeated the September 20 decision of the General Board of Education and instructed Wright: From this action you will see that there is no cooperation possible in the affairs of Cedarville College on the part of the Board unless the institution comes partly under the control of the Presbyterian Church through an official ac– tion initiated by the denomination with which Cedarville College is connected, followed up by an action on the part of the trustee of the said college. 17 Responding to an inquiry from W.R. Graham, Stockwell claimed that Cedarville College was not a "Presbyterian institution" because "it does not belong to the Presbyterian Church in the U.s.A."I8 He further advised Graham that the only way Cedarville could become a part of the Presbyterian Church in the U.s.A. was through an official action of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America as a denomination "through its highest court" seeking "cooperative management."19 For the next several months, McChesney worked with representatives of the Reformed Presbyterian Church General Synod to accomplish the requirements Stockwell had outlined. The Reformed Presbyterians, though they had supported Cedarville from its inception, had continued to decline in numbers. They were becoming too weak to provide the financial support the college desperately needed. Consequently, at their meeting in Philadelphia in the spring of 1922, the General Synod unanimously passed a resolution requesting that the General Board of Education and the Presbyterian Church in the u.s.A. "become a partronizing body according to the state laws of Ohio which provide fully for such cooperation." McChesney immediately informed Stockwell of the official denominational request, adding to it the request of the Cedarville College Board to the same effect. Included with this formal request was a seven-page, single-spaced outline of the history of Cedarville College. The report also described the decline of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. 20 This time Stockwell's reply to McChesney was much more positive. He reported that the College Department Committee of the General Board had met on June 13 and expressed "much interest in the work of Cedarville College."21 He said the committee would seek additional information from various interested Presbyterian groups in Ohio, and assured McChesney he would get back with him as soon as possible. McChesney immediately responded to the good news from Stockwell with a letter indicating his pleasure. 22 Little was done through the summer of 1922 with Cedarville's request. In the fall, however, Stockwell received several letters on behalf of Cedarville College. On September 21, Rev. William Wallace Iliffe, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Erie, Pennsylvania, wrote as a Cedarville College graduate urging that the Board begin building a "relationship" with the school. On October 2, John Alden Orr, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh and member of the Cedarville Board of Trustees, addressed a letter to Stockwell on behalf of the college. On October 9, W.R. Graham, though no longer a Board member at the college, urged Stockwell to support Cedarville. 23 In November Stockwell addressed letters to Dr. W.W. Boyd of the Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, and to Dr. C.F. Wishart, president of Wooster College. He asked both men to give their candid views on the Cedarville College matter. Boyd's reply was immediate and decisive. He began with these words: I have your letter regarding Cedarville Col– lege. I agree with you that Dr. McChesney is a highclass man. I think we ought to annex him to the Presbyterian Church. I am not inclined, however, to feel it would be wise for the Ohio Synod to assume any responsibility for Cedar– ville College. 24 Boyd pointed out that Cedarville was not a member of the Ohio College Association and urged the denomination to do more for Wooster rather than add Cedarville: "The better plan it seems to me, would be to fortify what is already established, rather than to Chapter VIII/65