told him stories about the university's graduates; some were governors, some were poets, some were ministers, some were farmers, and some were merchants. Oglethorpe University, named for British General James Edward Oglethorpe the founder of the colony of Georgia and the first governor of the state of Georgia, was chartered a Presbyterian institution in 1835. The college had been closed during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Jacobs started the religious publication Westminster Magazine in 1911 which promoted the reestablishing of Oglethorpe University as a college again. Jacobs reopened the school of higher education and reestablished it from 1913 to 1916. He restored and rebuilt the old college from a fund he raised of $500,000 (). He became its president on January 21, 1915, and continued in that position for nearly 30 years until 1944. As a salesman, Jacobs was able to get financial backers for Oglethorpe University like J.T. Lupton, a Chattanooga Coca-Cola bottling businessman, who gave $100,000 for the hall that bears his name at the university. Jacobs was able to get newspaper czar William Randolph Hearst to give a quarter of a million dollars cash and other donations to the university. According to Judson C. Ward, historian and vice president of Emory University, Jacobs was an outstanding salesman, master showman, and man of ideas with a flair for attracting publicity. Educational experiment In 1939, Jacobs set up an Exceptional Educational Experiment training for an 11-man "brain team" at Oglethorpe University. He selected young men from the top 10 percent of recent high school graduates for his intense university program. In the unique educational experiment, team members were to stay in college six years and do two to three times as much work as an average student. Jacobs predicted that they would learn at least four times as much as other students. He theorized that his students would go through the sum of available human knowledge much sooner, finding the task no harder than ordinary studies to ordinary students. It was anticipated the students would have a half dozen ways to make a living with above-average wages. There was a 21-year-old assistant coach by the name of Frederick Goss who had the leader title of Don as a person of distinction. Jacobs raised funds to finance the students through the six years involved. The team's daily routine was to start classes at 7 am and attend until 1:30 pm.