The Intelligencer June 15, 1917 (page 1)
“Rev. Dr. Baker Says Close the College. ‘Let us close the college if necessary and let all our boys go to the war; for the main thing to do is to win the war,’ declared Rev. Dr. E. N. Baker, principal of Albert College, Belleville, to the Toronto Methodist Conference yesterday afternoon.
‘We have sent from Albert College 200 young men. Ten of them have been killed. And we have sent ten of our girls as nurses.’ Conference cheered his suggestion that the colleges should be closed if the crisis demanded it.
Albert College needed a quarter of a million for a new site and buildings, and another quarter of a million for an endowment. He was confident they would get it. ‘God will do whatever He wants done—if He gets a chance.’ He said that his aim was that no young man should be barred out of Albert College for lack of money. … He told the conference to pray for him and the college, to give to it, and to ‘put a codicil in your wills to help us.’ “
First World War Belleville 