Spiritual Life & Legacy of Wheaton Academy
Wheaton Rechartered
When Jonathan Blanchard became president of the Illinois Institute in 1860, he rechartered the school as Wheaton College and changed the composition of the Board of Trustees to move the majority control from the Wesleyans to the Congregationalists—his own denomination—with the intention that "the instruction and influence of the institution shall bear decidedly against all forms of error and sin. The testimony of God's Word against slave-holding, secret societies, and their spurious worships, against intemperance, human inventions in church government, war, and whatever else shall clearly appear to contravene the kingdom and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is to be kept good."
