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Academic Philosophy

For John Brown Sr., a solid academic core at the university he founded was vital. His dedication to scholarship survived at tremendous odds; Family circumstances had forced him to abandon school at age eleven to work.

But Brown's diligence allowed him to keep up his studies, and he soon proved himself to be a brilliant administrator and scholar. At age twenty-two, he was appointed president of Scaritt Institute in Neosho, Missouri. At that time, he was the youngest college president in the United States.

Brown was determined to give other financially disadvantaged young people the educational opportunities he had been denied. In 1919, he founded Southwestern Collegiate Institute, later to be called John Brown University, where youth could receive a quality Christian education at no monetary cost.

During his lifetime, Brown also founded several high schools, including two boys' military academies in California known to rival West Point.

Today, long after many schools Brown founded have closed, the University and the thousands of alumni around the globe whose lives have been successfully enriched by a quality education stand as a monument of John Brown's dedication to academic excellence.