The Rev. William Harkness Sampson, co-founder and first principal (he refused the title president) of the college, was also the designer, in 1850, of the corporation seal for Lawrence University of Wisconsin. Still in use today on official university documents and in other formal contexts, Sampson's seal (left) contains the English words "Light! More light!," followed by the Latin phrase Veritas est lux (Truth is light), a choice Sampson explained in this letter to the college's benefactor, Amos Lawrence:
"Light! More light!" were the last words of Goethe, to which "veritas est lux" is the response; the book is placed in a cloud representing the darkness of the human mind, from which the light emanates and disperses the darkness.
Coincidentally, light also plays a role in the symbolism of Milwaukee-Downer College, which joined with Lawrence College in 1964 to form Lawrence University. The Milwaukee-Downer corporate seal (below), circa 1910, contains the Latin motto Sit Lux: Let there be light.
