Knox College (Illinois)

Knox College is a four-year coeducational private liberal arts college located in Galesburg, Illinois. Knox is classified as a more selective institution by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and is ranked 75th among liberal arts colleges by the 2011 edition of America's Best Colleges in U.S. News & World Report. It is one of 40 schools featured in Loren Pope's Colleges That Change Lives.

History

Knox College was founded in 1837 by anti-slavery social reformers, led by George Washington Gale. One founder, the Rev. Samuel Wright, actively supported the Underground Railroad. The original name for the school was Knox Manual Labor College, but it has been known by its present name since 1857.

The college's name came about through a compromise among its founders. Though founded by a colony of Presbyterians and Congregationalists, the county in which the college is located was already named Knox County, after Henry Knox, the first United States Secretary of War. Arguments have been made that the college was named for Calvinist leader John Knox, but it is not certain for which Knox it was named (if not both). George Candee Gale, a (great-)great-grandson of two of the founders, explains that "contrary to general belief, Knox was not named for either General Knox or the Scottish Presbyterian Knox, according to my father ... Some wanted the college...
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