Oak Street UNCLASSIFIED Volume One OCTOBER, 1914 Number One Published by Randolph-Macon Woman’s College Issued Quarterly BULLETIN OF RANDOLPH - MACON WOMANS COLLEGE INAUGURATION OF WILLIAM ALEXANDER WEBB AS PRESIDENT Application for admission as second Class matter made October 1, 1914, at the Posi Office, College Park, Virginia, under Act of July 16, 1894. THE INAUGURATION OF William Alexander Webb AS PRESIDENT Randolph - Macon Woman’s College June 1st, 1914 PUBLISHED FOR THE COLLEGE LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA DULANEY-BOATWRIGHT COMPANY College Printing Lynchburg, Virginia Table of Contents Page Inauguration of President Webb by Meta Glass, Ph. D. 5 The Inauguration 8 Judge E. D. Newman, President of the Board of Trustees, Presiding Invocation Rev. J. B. Dunn, D. D. 8 Charge to the Incoming President, President W. P. Few, Ph. D., LL. D., of Trinity College 9 Inaugural Address 14 Address of Welcome to the Guests on Behalf of the Randolph-Macon System President R. E. Blackwell, LL. D. 25 Greetings from Johns Hopkins University Dr. J. H. Latane 27 University of Virginia Prof. W. M. Forrest 29 Barnard College, Columbia University Dean Virginia C. Gildersleeve, Ph. D. 32 Vanderbilt University Dr. H. M. Henry, of Emory and Henry College 34 Central College, Missouri Dr. II. T. Kerlin, Ph. D., of the Virginia Military Institute 37 State Department of Education Hon. R. C. Stearnes, A. M., 39 Superintendent of Public Instruction The Patronizing Conferences Rev. F. J. Prettyman, D. D., Chaplain United States Senate 42 The Methodist Church Bishop Collins Denny, D. D. 45 Letters of Greetings Read by Dr. H. C. Lipscomb 48 President Woodrow Wilson Hon. David F. Houston, Ph. D., LL. D. Secretary of Agriculture Hon. P. P. Claxton, Litt. D. Commissioner of Education Governor Henry C. Stuart President Ellen F. Pendleton, Litt. D., LL. D. Of Wellesley College President A. Ross Hill, Ph. D., LL. D. Of the University of Missouri Principal George Adam Smith Aberdeen University Greetings from 52 The Faculty Dean N. A. Pattillo, Ph. D. The Alumnae Miss Nellie V. Powell, A. M., President of the Lynchburg Chapter The Students Miss Luella Hefley, President of the Student Committee Benediction Rev. W. T. Palmer, D. D. Banquet at the Virginian Hotel Mr. Edward F. Sheffey, Toastmaster 55 Prof. J. D. M. Armistead 55 Professor Marian P. Whitney 56 Miss Emma Lear 58 Professor R. H. Hudnall 59 Rev. Ritchie Ware 60 Dr. Harry D. Campbell 60 Miss Laura Drake Gill, D. C. L 62 Delegates from Other Institutions 63 PROGRAM OF THE TWENTY-FIRST COMMENCEMENT MAY 29th to JUNE 2d, 1914 FRIDAY, MAY 29th RIVER DAY— Y. M. C. A. ISLAND 3:30 p. m. — Tennis Tournament, Tea 6:30 p. m. — A Pageant of Virginia History. 8;30 p. m. — Open Session of the Franklin and Jefferson Literary Socie- ties, College Chapel. SATURDAY, MAY 30th CLASS DAY 10 :00 a. m. — Class Day Exercises, Campus. 6:30 p. m. — Class Play, Campus. SUNDAY, MAY 31st 11:00 a. m. — Sermon to the Graduating Class, Bishop Eugene Russell Hendrix, LL. D. 6:30 p. m. — Vespers, Bishop Walter R. Lambuth, D. D. MONDAY, JUNE 1st INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT WILLIAM ALEXANDER WEBB 9 :30 a. m. — Assembly of Delegates from Educational Institutions, East Hall. 10:00 A. m. — Inauguration of President William Alexander Webb, Judge E. D. Newman, President of the Board of Trustees, Pre- siding, The Chapel. 3:00 p. m. — Sophocles’ Electra, Presented by the Department of Greek, The Campus. 9:00 p. m. — Reception, The Gymnasium. TUESDAY, JUNE 2d COLLEGE DAY 10 :00 a. m. — Address to the Graduating Class, Hon. William Robert Webb, Former Senator from Ten- nessee, College Chapel. Announcement of Certificates. Conferring of Degrees. Inauguration of President Webb Meta Glass, Ph. D. The inauguration of William Alexander Webb, as President of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, on June the first, was the occasion for the gathering of many educators and for the utter- ance of many significant facts and promises for woman’s educa- tion, and of many felicitations to Randolph-Macon on her marked success under her able founder and guide, the late William Waugh Smith, and on her fair prospects under the guidance of his worthy successor. The inaugural exercises took place in the College Chapel at ten o’clock after the academic procession had formed at East Hall and marched across the campus, where many spectators watched the line marked by the brilliancy of the insignia of various degrees and schools. Judge E. D. Newman, president of the board of trustees, presided, and the invocation was offered by the Rev. J. B. Dunn, D. D., of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church. President W. P. Few, of Trinity College, delivered the charge to the incoming president, holding before him the ideals that might be wrought into a college by the inspiration of the human- ities, and something of the joy of being a college president that looms even above the responsibilities of such a position. This was immediately followed by the inaugural address. Since the Woman’s College is one of the system of colleges and preparatory schools under the Randolph-Macon trustees, President R. E. Blackwell, of the college for men at Ashland, delivered some words of welcome in behalf of the other institu- tions of the system, telling of the founding of the academies and of the Woman’s College, and welcoming the friends of the college, who had come to assist in installing a man, as her presi- dent, who will not let the vision that his predecessor showed the people of Virginia fade, but will make the people of Lynchburg realize that when that vision fades the city will perish. There were greetings from Johns Hopkins University borne by Dr. John H. Latane, who spoke of the close connection and 6 Inauguration of the President ready co-operation that had long existed between Randolph- Macon College for men and Johns Hopkins, of the many Hop- kins men that are upon the faculty of the Woman’s College, and he begged to remind the young women that Johns Hopkins had recently opened her doors to women graduate students, and would now welcome the Randolph-Macon girls as they had long welcomed the Randolph-Macon boys. Prof. W. M. Forrest bore the cordial good wishes and greetings of the University of Virginia, who wished to give all honor to Randolph-Macon for her pioneer work for the higher education of the women of Virginia, at a time when the State felt that she could not provide for them, and to assure the College of unfailing cordiality and sisterly feeling, whatever might be the development in the State’s action with regard to the public education of her daughters. In behalf of Barnard College, Columbia University, and the women’s colleges of the north in general, Dean Virginia C. Gildersleeve tendered greetings and congratulations. Dr. H. M. Henry, of Emory and Henry College, bore the congratulations of Vanderbilt University, the alma mater of President Webb, and Dr. R. T. Kerlin, of the Virginia Military Institute, an alumnus of Central College, whence Dr. Webb came to Randolph- Macon, commended Virginia for seeking her college presidents in Missouri, where the pioneers on their way west had estab- lished a college or university on every available site not occupied by a church, so that Missouri had become a veritable training school for college presidents. On behalf of Central College, Dr. Kerlin felt obliged to speak regretfully of the occasion that had taken Dr. Webb from Missouri, but as an adopted son of Virginia and a fellow educator here, he rejoiced at the good fortune that had brought Dr. Webb to Randolph-Macon. In behalf of the State Department of Education, Hon. R. C. Stearnes tendered congratulations and good wishes, emphasizing the oneness of aim of the private and public institutions of learn- ing in the state, and pledging their cordial loyalty. The Rev. F. J. Prettyman, Chaplain of the United States Senate, repre- senting the Virginia and Baltimore Conferences of the Methodist Church, spoke of the sympathy and support that the conferences had given Randolph-Macon and would continue to give her, Randolph-Macon Woman's College 7 looking to this college as a center from which there should go forth the finished product of Christian training. He was fol- lowed by Bishop Collins Denny, as a distinguished representative of the church, and then several letters of greeting were read from President Woodrow Wilson, Hon. P. P. Claxton, Governor Henry C. Stuart, President Ellen F. Pendleton, of Wellesley College, and President A. Ross Hill of the University of Mis- souri. Representing the faculty, Dean N. A. Pattillo pledged their co-operation in the high plans President Webb had conceived, mentioning as a great factor in the College’s success the keen personal tone of the relation between faculty and students, in the sincere hope that this might always characterize the College. Miss Nellie V. Powell brought the greetings of the alumnae, greetings saturated with loyalty and vitalized with hope and confidence, and she asked of the College, from the President, women fitted to show forth the eternal feminine, which is no crystallized idea, no fossil in an outworn shell, but a living con- ception, ever varying to meet the needs of a changing world, an eternal feminine, whose only constant is the power to perceive truth and to live it with unfaltering fidelity. From the student body, Miss Luella Hefley, President of the Student Committee, brought a message of personal love and trust, from the students, and high hopes for all that they desired for Alma Mater. “God bless you, Randolph-Macon,” and the benediction pro- nounced by the Rev. W. T. Palmer closed the inaugural exercises. On the same day the guests of the college were invited to wit- ness the “Electra” of Sophocles, presented by the Greek depart- ment in the afternoon, and a dinner for the guests from a dis- tance, followed by a reception to President and Mrs. Webb at night, completed the festivities of this interesting occasion in the annals of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. From Christian Advocate, Nashville, Tenn., June 19, 1914. THE INAUGURATION IN COLLEGE CHAPEL JUDGE E. D. NEWMAN President of the Board of Trustees, Presiding Invocation Rev. J. B. Dunn, D. D. Almighty God, the Fountain of all wisdom, who grantest lib- erally to all that ask of Thee, we beseech Thee to grant to this, Thy servant, the teaching light of Thy Holy Spirit. May Thy guiding hand lead him through the coming days ; may the breath of that mighty Being winnow out of his life the chaff of haste and careless thinking, and may the fruitage of careful days and patient toil furnish the bread of life to those committed to his keeping, and choice seed for planting in the life of many far beyond the limits of the husbandman’s daily task. Add to his weakness Thy strength, and give to him Thy choicest gift — the power to be the master of his strength. May justice, sympathy, gentleness, patience and truth be the fingers of the hand he lays upon the life that he must mould into the full statue of woman- hood. Strip his life of every vanity, and teach him that he alone is free who serves the truth. May Thy approving presence stand sentinel at the door of his heart and his mind, to guard his loyalty, and keep his soul informed. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen. Charge to the Incoming President President W. P. Few, Ph. D., LL. D., of Trinity College President Webb, you have already been tried in the hard experiences of educational administration. I do not need, there- fore, to remind you of the tasks that make up the responsibility of the office which you are this day formally assuming. My own experience in the same sort of work leads me to emphasize not so much the hardships as the inspiring opportunities that await you. For the business of education is an inspiring one. Its supreme function is nothing less than to keep and to transmit, bettered by each generation, the precious heritage of truth that comes to humanity out of the past. We are ourselves living in a confused age, clamorous with warring voices; and it is unusually difficult for education to estimate properly our inheritance from the past and all that it holds for us. We are threatened with confusion of mind and consequent loss of much of that which all experience has proved to be highest and most real and most worth while. A half cen- tury ago one of the most promising poets of his generation in England abandoned the writing of poetry and gave as his reason that his age had fallen upon a time of unsettlement and specu- lative thinking that fitted it for analysis and criticism rather than for creative work of any kind. Eighteen hundred years earlier the foremost prophet of the Christian centuries had sounded a note of warning against the coming of confused and perilous times when men would be ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Was Matthew Arnold right in his belief that a bustling intellectualism, keen and erudite though it be, may nevertheless disturb that poise and silence which must precede all creation ; and was St. Paul right in his inspired intui- tion that a man may learn and learn and yet never be able to come to a knowledge of the truth; and are there any indications that we have fallen upon these “last times” foreshadowed in the words of the great apostle and discerned in the keen analysis of the shrewd English critic? 10 Inauguration of the President I have no railing accusation to bring against our age as com- pared with other ages. Despite frequent lapses and despite that turbid ebb and flow which men have observed in all human history, I am persuaded that the main stream of tendency and taste is forward and onward forever. Yet if the sons of Martha with the careful soul and the troubled heart may be so cumbered about much serving that they fail to choose “that good part;” if there is now a peculiar danger that the mind of man may be so careful and troubled about the many unessential things that it fails to find rest in ultimate principles ; if, in short, men can be so pre- occupied with getting facts as to leave them no leisure to seek the truth, then this circumstance ought to be brought to the attention of all thoughtful people, especially of educational leaders, who like you, face a time of seriousness and high en- deavor, but also of extraordinary confusion. The importance of keeping clear this distinction between the essential and the unessential, between truth and fact, I shall seek to enforce with familiar illustrations that, I hope, will be appropriate to an occasion like this. Perhaps the principle can be most easily illustrated by reference to well known pieces of literature. For example, Keats’s sonnet on first looking into Chapman’s Homer, gives a fine expression to the feeling that one has when one really learns something or accomplishes some- thing — the feeling of “some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken and this is one of the noblest English sonnets, in spite of the fact that the poet in it makes “stout Cortez” and not Balboa the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean : “Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific — and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise — Silent, upon a peak in Darien.” We have no better example than these lines of that wonderful wizardry, that natural magic, which characterizes English poetry at it highest. And yet, to a mind of a too literal bent, this histori- cal inaccuracy would ruin the effect of the sonnet, while to a sin- cere and sensible student of poetry it makes the least possible dif- ference. The point I wish to make is that this error as to fact does not affect the truth of the poem — its truth to art or its truth to life. Randolph-Macon Woman's College ii Again, Hamlet is an idealized and universalized world tragedy. It may not be, and is not, true to the facts of Danish history of the twelfth or thirteenth century. The scene of it, as Lowell has said, is laid in a Denmark that has no dates. But it embodies a phase of human enterprise that will always be true to human nature. It is thereby lifted into the domain of the universal ; and so becomes suggestive and interesting to men of all generations. It transcends the world of fact and reaches up into that of uni- versal truth. Those who have the best to say naturally have the best way of saying it; and this universal truth in Hamlet is expressed in a final, felicitous, adequate, and enduring form. And for these reasons Hamlet will probably stand as a master work among men forever, while its errors of fact are and will be only matters of interest to the curious and the learned. So too the Iliad lies beyond the ken of history. But it dallies with the innocence of life in the old age so sincerely, it sees with a plainness so near and flashing, it sets forth the doings of men and gods on the sounding plains of Troy with so simple a beauty and so much fidelity to universal experience that its words echo still. The Iliad comes to us out of a far, forgotten past, and is an abiding proof of the triumph of universal truth over historical fact. Whether there be knowledge it shall pass away. It is never the material but the ideal that abides and commands. I am not seeking to lead you away from actuality. All great poetry like all great art, like great deeds and great characters, must rest upon a true view of life. The poet must see life truly, must understand himself and things in general, must have a deep knowledge of life as it is. There can be nothing great or beauti- ful in poetry or art or life or character that is not ultimately based upon the truth. Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. The beautiful includes the true, it is the true made perfect. This ‘‘true made perfect” is what great poetry everywhere gives us ; and it is with the purpose to find this rather than with an in- quisitorial yearning for facts that we should always approach the study of poetry. 12 Inauguration of the President In reading literature it is always relevant to ask “is it true?” but often impertinent to ask “is it a fact?” And the higher we go in the scale of values the more earnestly need we to give heed to this distinction. In the parable of Lazarus and Dives, or the Book of Job, it is of course a thousand times more useful to get the kernel of truth they contain rather than to enquire if they are founded in actual historical circumstances. Indeed, the bane of Biblical scholarship today is just this centering of the main interest in the pursuit of facts ; in the study of sources, the comparing of analogues, and the indulgence in unsupported in- ferences, to the neglect of the fundamental duty to find the plain meaning of the Bible and to partake of the spiritual vitality and energy that beat there with the divine pulse of its original. These are but illustrations; the same sort of confusion has been at work in the field of modern scholarship in general. It grows increasingly difficult to master facts and to find one’s way to the truth. A comparatively small body of truth is adequate for the guidance of any man’s life. But there is now more uncer- tainty as to what these truths are. There results a Babel of warring voices and universal confusion of life. The details of knowledge have become so extensive that it requires more grasp of mind to comprehend them. It is easier to be a sort of expert in a limited field of knowledge, but more difficult to be a master of one’s subject. The college therefore has increasing difficulty in finding for its teachers true masters of learning, men of ideas and power rather than technical experts in the several branches of scholarship. The flux of ideas regarding true educational values has led to a lack of solidarity in college curricula and administration that is producing a widespread feeling, whether just or unjust, that the college of today does not make so surely for moral and intel- lectual efficiency as did the college of other days. The college has certainly in some ways gained, and perhaps in others it has lost ground. The old curriculum with its fixed studies and severe disciplines has been liberalized and enriched. American colleges have grown and have improved their facilities for edu- cation until, in the matter of educational opportunities, the best of them are perhaps unexcelled in the world. But it is becoming Randolph-Macon Woman's College 13 increasingly clear that it is not enough for the college to provide the richest of opportunities for its students, and then uncon- cernedly leave them to use or neglect the opportunities as they may see fit. Ways and means must be found to make education take effect. The educational appliances must somehow be brought into live connection with undergraduate callowness. I have not time now to follow this discussion into the field of social and political reform where we are apt to rely on shift- ing expedience rather than trust to tried and guiding principles, or into an inquiry into the chief aims of our whole national endeavor, where we overstress the value of deeds, of achieve- ments, of comfort and physical well-being, or into the whole trend of our life, which is to put fact above truth, the temporal and the local above the abiding and universal, the material above the ideal, the mind above the spirit, and so everywhere bigness above greatness. I merely suggest to you how these tendencies must effect colleges and college administration. I charge you above all else to hold your institution to the main things, to develop in your women the power to know the truth and the will to live it. Vocational and industrial education is to be valued, not primarily because it will make wage earners and increase the wealth of nations, but because it may be used to develop efficiency and character. Scientific studies are of little educational value if they end in a knowledge of the laws of nature, and not in such a fashioning of the affections and the will as to make us live in loving obedience to those laws. In historical, economic, philosophical, social investigations an earn- est, even reverent, search for the truth is not high enough motive, but the rule of righteousness in the world. Art should be prized, as Whitman has said, in proportion to the radiation through art of the ultimate truths of conscience and of conduct. And books for educational uses should be rated in accordance with their for- mative and sustaining power. Education will begin to fulfill its great meaning and mission when it learns that intellect itself is a function of personality. It must find and control the motives that lie at the basis of all character. The emotions and affections, 14 Inauguration of the President and that strange precipitation of them which we call the will; admiration, faith, hope, love — these make mankind. And to reach these is the great aim of education. This institution which this day is formally put into your hands is a great gift from the past to the present. Keep it, cherish it, improve it, and hand it on from the age that is past to the ages that are waiting before. The Inaugural Address of President Webb THE TASK OF THE COLLEGE In formally assuming the duties and responsibilities of Presi- dent of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, I desire to state in a brief and concise manner some of the educational principles which I believe should be the controlling factors in the manage- ment of an institution of this character. If a recital of my edu- cational creed shall seem somewhat trite and commonplace, please remember that the college has, from its inception, enjoyed the tuition of men and women whose culture and scholarship repre- sented the finest ideals of this country and abroad, and from the nature of the case I shall be able to add little to that solid body of educational theory and practice which has become the warp and woof of the Woman’s College. From the past it has inher- ited its devotion to the humanities, its cordial attitude toward the natural, political and social sciences, its cosmopolitan atmos- phere, its broadly tolerant spirit, and its deeply religious charac- ter. It was built on the theory that young women, having received as good a preparation as their brothers, were entitled to enjoy as good collegiate advantages as they. The plan did not contemplate so much an identity in courses of instruction, as it did an equality of privilege and opportunity for high think- ing and serious endeavor. Its faculty believed that young women under like conditions were capable of doing as thorough work as young men, and their confidence has been abundantly justified. Standards of scholarship have been as high, entrance requirements have been as rigid, and methods of instruction have Randolph-Macon Woman's College 15 been as good as those given in the best colleges for men in the land. Not only have the graduates finished the courses with credit to themselves and with distinction to their Alma Mater, but their work has received the seal of approval from the great universities, and all has been accomplished without the loss or diminution of those gracious qualities of mind and heart which represent the flower of Southern womanhood — a living monu- ment to the faith and fortitude of its first President and founder, Dr. William Waugh Smith. If, as most of us are glad to believe, home-building and mother- hood are to be the chief functions of the majority of our daughters, it is essential that the college give them an opportunity for obtaining the largest and sanest preparation for the discharge of these grave and responsible duties ; and that preparation is to be found, we believe, not so much in the pursuit of those subjects which are immediately utilitarian and vocational, as in those which frankly make their appeal to more remote ends and find their justification in developing the culture of the mind and heart which is inseparably connected with the ideals of a liberal edu- cation. As Miss Thomas has forcibly pointed out, college-bred women who are to bear and rear children cannot “conceivably be given an education too broad, too high, or too deep, to fit them to become the educated mothers of the future race of men and women to be born of educated parents.” To such mothers the choicest gifts of the college will not come amiss, and they will find ample use for the stored up wisdom of the past in teaching their offspring to think wisely, judge sanely, and worship rever- ently. This would be sufficient argument, if argument were needed, for offering to women the advantages of higher educa- tion. But women, like men, to quote Miss Thomas once more, “are quickened and inspired by the same study of the great tra- ditions of their race, by the same love of learning, the same love of science, the same love of abstract truth,” and the conclusion is inevitable — they should have the privilege of receiving the same kind of college education. They have won the right to study what they please, and where they please, and have shown their ability and their willingness to work as hard for their 16 Inauguration of the President degrees as their brothers do. They scorn to accept any standards of excellence short of the best, and they ask no consideration on account of their sex. Judged by all the known standards of scholarship, they have given a good account of themselves; and it matters not whether these tests have been made in the hurly- burly of the class-room, in the strain and stress of competitive examinations, in the number of Phi Beta Kappa keys won, or in the hard and persistent grind of the graduate schools. Let us examine, then, the task which the college, solemnly dedi- cated to the advancement of women’s education, sets itself and the instruments it proposes to use in accomplishing its purpose. Incidentally it may be well to recall that the American college has lately been through a searching fire of criticism, and has come out not altogether unscathed. The discussions, which have varied from the extremely unfair statements of the prejudiced critics to the chastened deliverances of the colleges’ best friends, have tended to draw the attention of the general public rather to the excresences of college life than to the fundamental and en- during elements which give permanency to the one institution which is America’s most distinctive contribution to the cause of education. But out of the confused Babel has come a persistent purpose on the part of the college authorities to meet in a brave and courageous way the various problems of college administra- tion. The public may rest assured that college faculties and col- lege trustees are not unmindful of their duties and responsibil- ities, and as a result of these searchings of heart the modern college gives promise of becoming an even more potential factor in developing the mind and heart of the rising generation than it has ever been before. To make men and women is the business of the college. A recent writer has summed up the matter as follows: “The col- lege prepares for life by introducing the student in some detail to that knowledge of human history and human achievement which is the necessary background for the broadest and happiest living; and in so doing it trains him to that keenness of mind which will enable him to judge surely and readily of the great issues of life.” And to accomplish this purpose it claims as the object of its tuition the whole range of man’s intellectual and Randolph-Macon Woman's College 17 moral activities, so far as they affect the life of the spirit. The content of the college curriculum may vary from time to time, but so long as the college proposes to chasten the judgment, to illumi- nate the understanding, and to quicken the moral sensibilities of its students, it will lean heavily toward the humanistic studies ; that is, toward studies that stress the ideal and spiritual elements of life. Please do not misunderstand me. I have no quarrel with those institutions which are trying to accomplish similar purposes by other means. Our own task has been, and is, to supply our students with those disciplinary and cultural studies which are supposed to constitute the backbone of the college of liberal arts, our own belief being that the best possible preparation for life that the college can give is just that attitude of mind and culture of heart which represent the re-action of four years of intimate association of college students with college professors in the study of those things which make for sound learning and purposeful living. If the structure of things is at heart spiritual, and who will deny it? does it not follow that every discipline which helps us to see things in their spiritual significance is practical and worth while? “Philosophy,” says Novalis, “bakes no bread; but it finds for us God, freedom, and immortality.” The modern college, therefore, gladly welcomes all subjects, whether old or new, that promise to give discipline to the intel- lect, grace to the body, and understanding to the heart of man. The new sciences, both natural and political, as well as the modern languages, have won their right to equal consideration in appraising the value of the modern curriculum. But while we readily recognize the value and significance of the modern subjects of study, and willingly grant them a high place in the synagogue of learning, we are compelled to question whether a discipline of studies has yet been found that will quite take the place of the classics as a means of enriching the minds and sweet- ening the souls of those who are willing to pay the price of mas- tering the languages in which they are written. Many elements enter into the intellectual make-up of a broadly educated man or woman. But with all our modern learning and with all the extensive courses of study offered in the present day curriculum, where shall we find a satisfactory sub- 18 Inauguration of the President stitute for that vitality of thought, perfection of power, and abiding sense of beauty which are enshrined in the literature of Greece and Rome? Professor Jebb is literally correct when he says that the achievement of the Greek mind is our one permanent possession which no lapse of time can make obso- lete, and which no multiplication of interests can make super- fluous. There is no occasion for conflict or acrimonious debate between the friends of the classics and of the modern subjects of study. There is abundance of room for all. However rich and varied a program the college curriculum may offer, and how- ever popular the new subjects may be, there will always be some choice souls among the students and faculty who will turn back with great satisfaction of spirit to that small but incomparably precious deposit of thought which comes down to us from the great Greek poets and philosophers and whose power of inspi- ration is in no way diminished. And what is true of Great literature is largely true of the other great literatures of the Western world. Here one finds enshrined the noblest thoughts of the noblest souls ; and by the strange alchemy of the spirit-world, these thoughts possess the power of transmuting the rainbow visions of youth into the minted gold of mental achievment and moral culture. To the young women, even perhaps more than to the young men, the call of great literature is insistent, and above all else it is incumbent upon the woman’s college to make ample provis- ion for furnishing strong and satisfying courses in both ancient and modern literature. The methods of instruction must be vital, inspiring, uplifting. Large opportunity must be given for exploring the hidden by-paths, the leafy dells, the flowery nooks, as well as the broadly beaten highways of literature. Linguistic studies will receive more attention, but with a difference. Some- thing more than a smattering of grammar and an ability to read and speak the language of the shop is desirable. Is it too much to expect that our students of languages shall gain a friend- ly acquaintance with the great masters of modern literature? The wise teacher will not forget that, in the noble language of Milton, “the main skill and groundwork will be to temper them such lectures and explanations upon every opportunity as may Randolph-Macon Woman's College 19 lead and draw them in willing obedience, influenced with the study of learning and admiration of virtue, stirred with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages.” To those “Who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spoke; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held,” no apology is needed for the statement that our own English literature is, of all cultural studies now included in the college curriculum, the one peculiarly adapted for quickening the intel- lect, strengthening the moral fiber, and opening the windows of the soul. This is the reason why our great poets are the supreme teachers of youth. When they are at their best they catch the ‘‘breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, the impassioned ex- pression of all science,” and in the magic of their lines they enrich the capacities and humanize the emotions of those about to assume the duties and responsibilities of manhood and woman- hood. Closely allied to the record of man’s best thoughts, as found in the great literatures of the world, is the record of man’s great deeds, which constitutes the history of the cultural nations of the earth. At times the page is blurred with the account of “man’s inhumanity to man,” but the chronicle is not complete until it has recorded the story of the immortal achievements of the human mind in its persistent struggle with superstition, ignor- ance, and prejudice. The study of history is an incentive to culture not merely because it acquaints the individual with the story of man’s slow progress from age to age, but much more because it emphasizes the necessity of searching out the causes of things, and cultivates that tolerance of mind which is insepa- rable from a wide knowledge of facts and a willingness to see things in their right relationship. “History,” says Lord Acton, “compels us to fasten on abiding issues, and rescues us from the temporary and the transient.” Deeply interested in the things of the past, the college also touches in a very vital way the life of the present. The political, sociological, and economic movements of the day furnish abund- 20 Inauguration of the President ant material for mental discipline, and in the careful investiga- tion of those phenomena the students have an opportunity of acquiring that habit of thought and temperament of spirit which will enable them to play an intelligent part in the community life of the present. This comes close home to us when we consider the rapid changes now taking place in many sections of our country with reference to woman’s attitude toward governmental questions. We cannot blink the fact if we would, that many students of this institution when they return to their homes will be called upon to take up the responsibilities of citizenship in a very practical way ; and the college would be gravely remiss if it did not furnish them an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the facts of government, and thus equip them for perform- ing these, as it tries to teach them to perform all other duties, in a thoroughly sane and conscientious manner. But while the college is busily engaged in giving its students a vantage ground where they may enjoy the spiritual possessions of the past and profit by the racial experiences of the present, it must not fail to give them an opportunity of understanding and appreciating in some large way the world of nature in which they live, and move, and have their physical being. Some knowl- edge of the sciences obtained at first hand in the patient, pains- taking, and systematic work of the laboratory forms an integral part of the mental equipment of the well educated person. “Pure science,” says President Hibben, “is a liberal study. It belongs utterly to the humanities, for it not merely gives knowledge of the facts, it does more. It is a training in habits of precision, in accuracy of observation, in closely articulated modes of reasoning.” A study of the natural sciences and mathematics cul- tivates clearness of statement and directness of expression, and thus helps the individual to see things in their true perspective. It is no accident that many of the great mathematicians and scientists have also been idealists ; men with deep spiritual yearn- ings and mystic longings. It would indeed be carrying coals to Newcastle to offer any extended reasons for including philosophical subjects in the list of studies pertaining to a liberal education. Where else save in the study of “divine philosophy” are we to find the means of Randolph-Macon Woman's College 21 bringing the human mind in touch with “that truth which is at once the keystone of knowledge and the pole star of conduct?” And psychology, ethics, and education are no less valuable in quickening the faculties and strengthening the muscles of the mind. Ample provision will also be made in the college curriculum for the care and culture of the body, which reaches its perfec- tion when it becomes the fair dwelling place of a soul made luminous by beauty, truth, and goodness. “For of the soii!e the bodie forme doth take; For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.” These are some of the more important subjects which when properly grouped and co-ordinated constitute the essential ele- ments of a well balanced college curriculum. Compassing as they do the arts, the sciences, and the ever expanding record of man’s advancing civilization, they are supposed to stimulate intel- ligence and culture and to promote spiritual insight and sympathy, to the end that our college graduates may render large and effi- cient service to God and humanity. Hitherto, we have not been inclined to think seriously of woman’s education in terms of creative and productive scholar- ship. In fact, for long we were even disposed to question whether she had the right to knock for admission at the door which guarded the mysteries of graduate work and scholarly research. But surely the age which has crowned Sonya Kova- levsky with the highest honors of the French Academy, and has recognized Madame Curie as the greatest living physicist, will not deny to woman the right to work in the thin, dry air of pure scholarship, if she so desires. If an enthusiasm for work, a will- ingness to undergo hardship, a zeal for extending the boundaries of human knowledge and enlarging the sphere of human en- deavor, signify anything, then the college women of this genera- tion have qualified for citizenship in the Republic of Letters. They have eagerly availed themselves of the open doors of oppor- tunity granted them, and have made genuine returns for courte- sies extended. 22 Inauguration of the President In 1911, 30 per cent of the graduate students of the United States were women, and during the same year they received 28 per cent of all the master’s degrees granted by American univer- sities, and one in every ten receiving a doctor’s degree was a woman. These conditions make it imperative that the women’s colleges foster a spirit of scholarship if they are to meet the demands of the present. It is neither essential nor desirable that university methods should be introduced into college classes, but it is desir- able that the spirit of research, of investigation, be encouraged as far as practicable. I know of no better way of keeping up standards of teaching, of encouraging promising students to pursue their studies in universities, of keying the whole insti- tution up to its highest state of efficiency, than by securing and retaining on the faculty men and women who may be classed as productive scholars. For this reason the college will make easy the path leading from its doors to the graduate departments of the great universities. But after all, teaching is the supreme task of the college in- structor, and the college is the one institution where teaching should have her perfect work. For this some erudition is neces- sary, some originality of thought essential. “But,” as Professor Gilbert Murray says, “the main and the most testing duty that is laid upon us is that of living again in understanding and imagi- nation the great hours that have once been lived ; to live them again, and so to comprehend and to interpret. The greatest possessions of the world are all of them always in danger of death. They die when there is no one to care for them or under- stand them most. When one reflects what a frail and fugitive thing the essential quality of high poetry or great thinking nat- urally is, how easily crushed out by the common pressure of life, or even destroyed by the mere effort of forcing it into a fixed groove in education, one begins to see where the normal work of a true scholar really lies. Not necessarily in original research, not necessarily in new ideas or vast accumulations of learning. It lies in keeping alive great things of the spirit which would otherwise die, and in maintaining in his generation some stand- Randolph-Macon Woman's College 23 ard of sensitiveness by which their greatness can be felt and judged.”* To induct students into the world of ideas, to teach them the fine art of adjusting themselves to the sweet and wholesome atmosphere of culture and refinement, to encourage them to taste for themselves the sheer joy of thinking true and straight upon the problems of human existence, these are the tasks which give zest to the work of the college. Physical beauty, intellectual discipline, moral enlightenment, these are the goals which college teachers must keep before their minds if they would make their contribution toward perfected womanhood. “I call that a school perfectly fulfilling its mission,” declared Bishop Comenius, ‘‘which is a place for the building up of a genuine manhood ; where the spirit of the learner is baptized into the glory of knowledge and wisdom, quick to understand all things secret and revealed ; where all the emotions of the soul are brought into full harmony with all the virtues, the heart so won by the love of God and filled with it, that it is possible for all who are entrusted to the school to be led into true wisdom, and to become accustomed even here on earth to lead a heaven- like life.” There is no higher duty resting upon the college than to create an atmosphere in which the moral and volitional powers may expand into well rounded manhood and womanhood. The men- tal and spiritual are so closely allied that it is impossible for the one to be developed at the expense of the other without harm to both. In reality, the spiritual nature of man embraces thought and feeling and will, the whole man in his indivisible and com- plete unity. In order, then, that the intellectual and moral nature of the student rnay reach full fruition, it is essential that the college should be saturated with a deep spirit of reverence and religion. “Religion,” says Eucken, “more than anything else, makes a whole out of life, relates it to the universe as a whole, and directs it to the ultimate ends.” Themselves keenly sensitive to the tides of religious emotion which flow round the college, its officers and teachers must deeply *Educational Review, May, 1911. 24 Inauguration of the President feel the responsibility of guiding and shaping the moral and religious development of the young life entrusted to their care. They must understand that religion is largely a matter of con- tact; something that must be caught, not merely taught, cer- tainly not in a perfunctory way. Not inclined to be demonstrative in her religious life, the modern college student is, nevertheless, impulsive by nature, eager to try the new paths of knowledge, quick to detect the difference between the real and the sham; and ready to give whole-souled allegiance to those who are able to interpret to her the higher things of life. Perhaps nowhere else in the world will one find idealism so regnant as in the halls of a modern college; nowhere else do spiritual leaders of the race find such responsive audiences as here; nowhere else do the poets, and philosophers, and sturdy men of action receive such adulation as here. The college community believes in the things of the mind, and pins its faith to the conviction that this world of ours is saturated with spiritual significance. This idealism shows itself in the belief that things sacred and things secular are not antagonistic, but friendly, and that the canopy of heaven bends over all and envelopes all. The marts of trade and the busy centers of industry may suffer from the dry rot of dead material- ism, but in the quiet shadows of academic halls spiritual monism reigns supreme. Here the mind of youth is stayed on truth ; here the true teacher makes the hearts of his followers burn within them as he unfolds to them the treasures of literature, music and art, the secrets of science, the beauties of nature, and the verities of religion. This is why the four years of college life may become the most precious experience in the life of the youth ready to enjoy such privileges. Here it is the college finds its true mission in interpreting the things of the mind to the youth who enter its halls. It dispels cynicism and spiritual ennui, and puts in their place the joyous confidence in the orderly progress of human history. In one of Keats’s letters there occurs a significant passage in which he protests against calling this world of ours a “vale of tears.” “What a little circumscribed, straitened notion! Call the world if you please ‘The Vale of Soul-making!’ Then you Randolph-Macon Woman's College 25 will find out the use of the world.” This passage, it seems to me, may not inappropriately be applied to college life. The supreme task of the college is soul-making. Its highest privilege and func- tion is to give to its students an opportunity of becoming souls; not mere intelligences, not mere identities, but individual person- alities, living souls, fashioned after a divine pattern in harmony with the eternal purposes of the living God. Address of Welcome to the Guests on Behalf of the Randolph-Macon President R. E. Blackwell, LL. D. of Randolph-Macon College. With my audience before me and the guests behind me, I am called upon to exercise what is said to be the art of every good president of a college — the art of facing both ways. Physically it is hard to do, but I will do my best. The Virginia colleges are afflicted as are no other colleges in the land. They are burdened with double names. It was not unnatural that our first college should be called “William and Mary,” but if the mind of man were capable of much originality the next college to be founded would not have been named Hampden-Sidney, and the next Randolph-Macon. The amount of originality involved in leaving out the “and” in these names was considered too daring by the founders of the next college, and they went back to the first form and named their college “Emory and Henry.” Thus most of our Virginia colleges are burdened with these double names, but it was left to us to add mystery to the bungling nomenclature by calling ourselves the “Randolph-Macon System.” Why System? Twenty-five years ago one of those brain storms that periodi- cally rage among business men swept over Virginia. We got it into our heads that all the inhabitants in the United States were going to settle in Virginia. The only method that we had for getting ready for this influx was to lay out large portions 26 Inauguration of the President of the State in town lots and build a hotel for each of these prospective cities. This Virginia “bubble” burst after a few years, but even now bird hunters constantly stumble over the remains of these great cities miles beyond where any human beings are found. I undertook to find out what became of the money spent dur- ing this “boom.” During the investigation I asked a shrewd business man for his opinion. He began, “All the money that the trustees of Randolph-Macon college did not get” — and then he went on with his explanation. There happened to be at the head of Randolph-Macon College a man with some originality, who could think of something else which might attract people to a community besides a hotel. He was an experienced teacher, who knew that what Virginia needed was not hotels, but second- ary schools. He went to some of these promoters and urged upon them the superiority of a school over a hotel as a permanent asset for a community. They were convinced by his argument, first the people of Bedford City, then those of Front Royal. Thus the two great academies arose in different parts of the State. Having strengthened our school system at its weakest point by establishing these two connecting links between the common schools and the colleges, Dr. Smith, as the “boom” was still on and money still going to waste, turned his attention to still further building substantial and abiding monuments out of the stuff that business men’s dreams are made of. He went before the land companies of Lynchburg, told them of the one great need in Virginia of a woman’s college of the first rank and showed them what such a college would mean to this community, and with that power of his of making others see with his eyes, he painted to them all the life and activity of a college community and what that would mean in “booming” their property. He made them see with the eye of the imagination what you and I behold this day with the natural eye. They caught his enthusiasm; and Randolph-Macon Woman’s College stands as the result. Later the feeder to the Woman’s College, the Institute at Danville, was added to the series of schools. Thus came into being “The Randolph-Macon System of Col- Randolph-Macon Woman's College 27 leges and Academies,” but that is too much of a name even for Virginians accustomed to unwieldly educational nomenclature. We therefore leave off one half of our name, and call ourselves “The Randolph-Macon System.” In behalf of this System we welcome you here today to take part in the inauguration of a man who we believe will be a worthy successor of Dr. Smith, who will not let the vision that Dr. Smith twenty years ago conjured before the citizens of Lynchburg fade into the light of common day, but will make them realize that if that vision fades, the city perishes. We wel- come you here to this one of our five homes — where most of our beauty dwells. Greetings Johns Hopkins University Dr. J. H. Latane Friends of Randolph-Macon, it is a great pleasure to me to return to these familiar scenes, for I am here in a two-fold capacity. I am here as an official bearer of greetings from Johns Hopkins University, and also as a former member of the faculty of this institution. The relations between Johns Hopkins University and Ran- dolph-Macon have been very close, and I don’t know that there has been a time since this College was founded that there have not been Hopkins men in the faculty; and there are at least five of our Doctors of Philosophy in this faculty today. The rela- tions between Randolph-Macon at Ashland, and Hopkins, are equally as close, and Randolph-Macon College at Ashland sends a very large number of students every year to Johns Hopkins University. I found the other day that there were fourteen men from Randolph-Macon College at Ashland, pursuing medical courses at Johns Hopkins this year — in fact, I think that Yale 28 Inauguration of the President and Princeton furnish the largest number of students at Hop- kins, with Washington and Lee and Randolph-Macon standing next. Now, while as a rule I do not advise all young women to pur- sue graduate courses, if these be the fields of conquest to which your ambition directs you, I wish to remind you that Johns Hopkins University has opened its doors to women pursuing graduate and medical courses. Sixteen years ago I started my professorial career in this College, and I spent four very busy and active years here. In looking back over that period I have been almost convinced of the fact that those young women who were students in this institution at that time taught me a great deal more than I taught them; so that I feel that in a sense I can claim this as one of my alma maters. Randolph-Macon was then in its infancy. It had no traditions, and I realized that it was a very good thing to be in an institution that was young. I had come from a young institution myself — Johns Hopkins — but there were no traditions to hamper us here. In fact, the only traditions in the South were the traditions of the female seminary, and this college was never hampered with those traditions. Dr Smith started out with a great vision, or idea, of establishing a great college, and he succeeded in founding the first college for women in the South that could give them equal opportunities with the best colleges for men. Dr. Smith was singularly wise in his deal- ings with his faculty. He believed in putting the right per- son in charge of a department, and letting him go ahead and work out his own salvation. I never worked under a man who was more sympathetic, more ready to accept a new idea and to give you an opportunity to put it into effect, than was Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith had all the enthusiasm and fire of a cru- sader, and the crusade in which he led this city and the South was for the education of women. If a man ever devoted bound- less, unfaltering devotion to a cause, that man was Dr. Smith, and that cause was Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. For this foundation he sacrificed everything that a man can of time, energy, great ability, and his own means, and finally his own strength and his own life, and he did it with a large faith in Randolph-Macon Woman's College 29 the future which, Mr. President, I believe will continue to be realized in greater and greater degree as the years go by. I believe that Dr. Smith’s great spirit is hovering over this scene today, and, Mr. President, his benediction rests upon you in the great work which you are undertaking. Dr. Smith did not complete the work he set out to do. Dr. Smith was the last man in the world to regard any work as being complete. He was never satisfied with present achievement; he was always press- ing on to something larger and greater and nobler. And so, sir, you have undertaken a work which, measured by the life of colleges and universities, is still in its infancy. You have a great task before you. As you said, women have demon- strated their ability to receive the same kind of education that men receive. Now, to my mind, the great problem which pre- sents itself to the College today is the question as to whether the same kind of education which men receive is best fitted for women. Its chief function is to fit women for the great task of life, for life is becoming more and more complex, and frequently its most difficult problems fall to woman’s share. I congratulate you, sir, on succeeding to this great opportunity — the greatest, I think, in the South, and the South today is developing in a way that no other section of the country is. We are living through a period of competitive growth, and I con- gratulate you on assuming this great task, and I want to assure you that all the friends of Randolph-Macon wish you God-speed in your work. University of Virginia Prof. W. M. Forrest In presenting her greetings today the University of Virginia has but one regret, and that very sincere regret that her own President, Dr. Edward A. Alderman, is unable to be here to greet you in person, on account of his absence in Europe. But the congratulations of the University to-day, which we desire to ex- 30 Inauguration of the President tend to this institution and its incoming president, are not on that account the less sincere, and it is a privilege to be able to mingle our voices with the many who to-day are wishing you God- speed in taking up the tasks that were laid down by your great predecessor, who called this institution into being, and guided it so wisely for nearly a quarter of a century. It is peculiarly fitting that the University of Virginia should be among the first to offer felicitations today, standing as it does at the head of the public system of education in this State. For we all well know that the work that the Woman’s College is doing makes it not the less a part of our system of public educa- tion because it is supported by private generosity, and not at the expense of the public treasury. Indeed, Virginia has reason for peculiar pride in this institution, that has done so much for the womanhood of the State, and has reflected glory upon the name of this State by calling here so many daughters from afar, bidding them drink of the fountains unsealed that here flow. The State has not, so far, been able to provide from the public purse those higher educational advantages for women that it has long afforded to men. It is, therefore, with more earnestness that we can to-day congratulate this institution on its success, realizing that its contributions to the wellfare of the State have been so unselfishly given. No State can achieve the ultimate educational knowledge without giving its womanhood opportuni- ties of learning as high as those afforded to its men ; and the University of Virginia is glad today to acknowledge its debt to this institution and to every institution that is making it possible for the young men who throng its halls to have educated mothers and sisters, as well as educated fathers and brothers ; and what- ever the future may offer in the way of atonement for the State’s lack in making contribution to the higher education of women, there are two things of which the Randolph-Macon Woman’s College may rest assured: the first is, that Virginia will ever be profoundly grateful to the Woman’s College for the service rendered to womanhood ; and the second is that no matter how fully the University of Virginia may come in the future to realize its somewhat tardy, but none the less sincere ambition to provide higher education for women as well as men, the University of Randolph-Macon Woman's College 3i Virginia can never assume the attitude of a rival, but simply as a colaborer in the great field, where this institution has been send- ing distinguished memorials for now so many years. Mr. President, the future which beckons you on is one that is full of big problems for us all, and for none are those problems larger than for those like yourself who are called upon to direct the education of women. It is but yesterday that all the pleasant paths of higher learning were hopelessly blocked before women, and now that the forces of Democracy and Christianity have torn those barriers down, many are walking in those paths with eager feet; and as the years go by, in increasing numbers from all lands on this globe will they continue to walk in those high- ways of the soul. Nor is it strange that with the new vision and new strength that have come from this opportunity, women are today beginning to demand entrance upon other avenues that through the long ages have been denied to them. The men of the future cannot have those ways to self-expression and service closed on the march of womanhood. As impossible would it be for men of days to come to expel women from those ways as it was impossible for those in the immediate past to shut them out from the paths of higher learning. We know not just what the future may be ; we only know that the hand which writes its task moves inexorably on. We cannot recall either the ways or the men of the past; there is no turning back of the shadow on the dial, and even the present lies beyond the power of any intrepid Joshua bidding the sun of our day stay its course down the Western skies. We must move forward. New days will bring to this institution, as to us all, new problems and new perplexities. To those who would linger in the present, those who stand look- ing with unutterable longing back to the past, there is just one clear call from out the future, and that the stern command: “On ! on!” Mr President, when your predecessor in his day heard that selfsame call, and laid his hand courageously to the task of opening the ways of higher learning to the women of Virginia and of the South, there were some who feared that all who en- tered might bid farewell forever to those elements of gentleness and grace that have been the chief adornment of the womanhood 32 Inauguration of the President of the South and of the South’s civilization; but so wisely did he go before the young women who came to these halls, guiding them into the paths that he would have them walk, that long before his days were done those fears had been laid to rest for- ever. What the future may bring to womanhood in the way of new duties of citizenship to which you have referred in speaking of the task of this College and its duty to young womanhood, it is not within the power of any who are here fully to see or to foretell; but this we know, that it is impossible for any to wish to you a higher and nobler achievement than to teach new gen- erations of students here to discharge whatever new duties, new claims, may be laid upon them, in such fashion that there shall be no loss to the chief glory of womanhood — her gentleness and her grace. Barnard College, Columbia University Dean Virginia C. Gildersleeve, Ph. D. President Webb, ladies, gentlemen, to the Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and to her new President I bring most cordial congratulations and greetings from Barnard and from Columbia, the University of which Barnard is proud to be a part; and in a wider sense I come to bear felicitations to you from all the women’s colleges of the North. Barnard is perhaps not an inappropriate missioner from North to South. We have in New York many bonds with the South. We have many Southerners there — many Southerners upon our faculty. Indeed, perhaps the most distinguished of our faculty is a native of this great State. Thousands of students from the South look to New York for education and for inspiration. I have known them in the undergraduate course at Barnard; I have known many more among the six hundred women graduate students, who at Columbia are pursuing the studies begun at the Southern colleges which have sent them to us. Most of all I know the Southern students at our summer session, where next Randolph-Macon Woman's College 33 month there will be several thousands from the South, many of them teachers spending their holiday seeking inspiration in Uni- versity work, that they may spread this inspiration later among their tens of thousands of pupils in all the states of the South. The deep respect which I have felt for all these Southern women makes me very glad to return their visit, so to speak, and to come here today from the college women up North. You take your office, Mr. President, at a moment which seems to me significant to the education of women. Every month I find new calls to us to send women into new fields of work. In the research laboratory, in the great field of preventive medicine, in business offices, in factories, in department stores, in the varied activities of municipal, state and governmental work, women are being called upon today to take up those responsibili- ties and to guide affairs with that enthusiasm and care which heretofore they have exercised only in the home and in the school- room. There is a great demand for trained women in these new fields. This has naturally led — and rightly — to a demand for vocational and technical training in these new fields of work. Women who are trained as stenographers, in laboratory work, in medicine, in the technique of new lines like salesmanship, journalism, in a hundred and one new fields, are being asked to come equipped with vocational, technical knowledge. We all in the college must sympathize with this demand, and we must insist that all graduates fit themselves technically for all lines of work — stenography, housekeeping, or teaching. But it seems to me that at this moment it is the mission of women’s colleges to uphold the old idea of a liberal education, which you have expressed this morning; to impress on the minds of the community that a higher education tends to make the best teachers, the best positions, the best homemakers. You cannot take a mere piece of human clay to begin with; you need a finer material, a more highly developed type of humanity before you superimpose the greatest and highest responsibilities of present day life. It seems to me, then that it is our duty today that we, of the women’s colleges, insist upon the necessity of a liberal training that makes the mind think straight and see the high ideals that all professions should aim at. 34 Inauguration of the President In carrying on this great work here at Randolph-Macon you have many advantages : its beautiful location, the high ideals of its founder, the personality of the new President, and most of all, perhaps, the human material with which you have to deal; for in hearing these demands for workers in many fields I am im- pressed by the supreme importance of personality. And through- out the country the Southern woman is famed for her personality, for her social tact, for her graciousness, for her gentle and win- ning manners. From the graduates of your institution, Mr. President, I expect, therefore, not only that they shall be keen in intellect and sound in judgment, but that they shall show those graces and social tact and gentleness and personality that make the women of the South, and especially of Virginia, famed throughout the North. The bond of sisterhood that unites all the women’s colleges of this country makes good wishes go out to you today, I know, from all the institutions of the North — from Vassar in the Hud- son Valley, from Smith, Mt. Holyoke among the hills of the Connecticut Valley, from Radclifife, from Cornell, from Welles- ley, where she rises with fresh stride from the ashes of her col- lege hall by her lovely lake; from Bryn Mawr; from my own Barnard on the Heights where the proud Hudson mingles its waters with the sea; from that point that I might think of as the outpost of the army where we uphold as well as we can the standards of professional knowledge — from all these, and from many other institutions, I bring from the college women of the North congratulations to Randolph-Macon’s new President, and to the President, most cordial good wishes for an administration long, prosperous, and happy. Vanderbilt University Prof. H. M. Henry, Ph. D., of Emory and Henry College. As friends of higher education we rejoice to-day, not only in the occasion that brings us together, but in gatherings of this Randolph-Macon Woman's College 35 kind, representative as they are of our institutions of higher learning, we are given a renewed interest in a common cause, the cause of the better training of the young manhood and woman- hood of our Southland. To one phase of this I wish to refer, the maintenance of a high standard as to the character of our col- lege work. Perhaps in no part of America has greater progress in higher education been made recently than in our own section. This progress has not come about by the multiplication of col- leges and universities. Indeed, numerically the colleges of the South would not suffer greatly by comparison with those of other sections of the country more favorably situated in this respect. In fact, thoughtful educators have not infrequently debated in their own minds whether growth in numbers is always an indica- tion of wholesome progress. But this advance in higher education in our own section has come about by recognizing certain standards as to the content and intent of college education. The tendency has been to en- courage the better equipped and more favorably situated col- leges to raise their entrance requirements and intensify their col- lege work, while others, which by circumstances and surround- ings have had better opportunity to do work of a lower grade — a labor none the less important, but different — were discouraged in giving courses and conferring degrees more pretentious. This movement to standardize the curricula of the colleges has resulted not so much in relegating institutions long regarded as colleges to lower rank, as it has contributed to a mighty effort on the part of all our colleges to raise their requirements. While, as was to be expected in some individual cases, this advance has appeared for the most part on paper, still in the majority of instances the trend upward has been genuine. Organized influences both within and without have been brought to bear in this direction. Various local associations and educational commissions have studied the matter, attempted to define college education and classify our institutions. Men whose contributions to higher learning have been considerable in amount are known to be in sympathy with such a movement. Their efforts have taken ex- pression in the formation of boards to study the needs and possi- bilities of each community, and to aid accordingly. The time is 36 Inauguration of the President coming, if, indeed, it has not already come, when a Bachelor’s degree will have a definite meaning. But some time before these stimuli were so freely available it affords us pleasure to recall that the Randolph-Macon Woman’s College had already caught a vision of a leadership in this develop- ment when it should come. And when the young women of the South were looking for educational opportunities substantially equal to those enjoyed by their brothers, their eyes turned to this institution as one that met their needs. Today Vanderbilt University rejoices with the Randolph- Macon Woman’s College and her friends in the prestige she has won by encouraging and maintaining this high standard. I have been especially requested by the Chancellor of Vanderbilt Uni- versity to bring to you the greetings of my alma mater and Mr. Webb’s. Today Vanderbilt feels honored in that you have called to the headship of this college one of her sons. In her work for Southern education Vanderbilt is proud of the men who have been trained within her walls and have gone out to other institu- tions of learning to aid in molding the young manhood and womanhood of the future. Not only so, but the Randolph- Macon College for men so closely connected with this institution, has sent many of her graduates to the theological department of the University. Again, I am reminded that for many years the former presi- dent of this college and the present chancellor of Vanderbilt were closely associated in educational work. Thus the ties official and personal which bind the two institutions so closely together are many; and we shall watch the career of President Webb with confidence and with hope, sure that the success that has crowned his work in the past will follow him still, and that the principles of thorough education illustrated in his work will guide and control him in his new position. Today Randolph- Macon and Vanderbilt, so alike in their ideals and hopes, join hands in hearty greeting and friendship. Central College, Missouri Prof. R. T. Kerlin, Ph. D., of the Virginia Military Institute. Ladies and gentlemen, Virginia has done well to get a Mis- sourian for a college president. Most of them are descendants of Virginia, and the spacious West has not dwarfed their inherited virtues. Besides, the educational debt which Missouri owes to Virginia, large as it is, is one that she is glad, as far as she is able, to pay on the installment plan. Central College was practically founded by Virginians. One of her presidents, at least — and it is very likely that more than one — was a Virginian. I say more than one because Virginia has a way of producing Presidents, and planting them in various localities. My professor of Greek was a Virginian; of English was Virginian, and I have a suspicion that several others were Virginians, though it hardly seems reasonable to harbor such a suspicion, for if they had been there would have been no doubt about it! I used to sit in Central College chapel during morning prayers, and read a mural tablet to the memory of Wm. A. Smith, once president of Central College. I don't recall just what his partic- ular virtues were, but I don’t think that particularly matters — there were none that he did not possess — he was a Virginian ! In fact, when I reflect upon it now, it was unnecessary to cover all that space with his virtues ; it was enough to say “He was a Vir- ginian.” The standards of Central College were established, her lines were determined, her ideals shaped, by Virginians; therefore it would be the height of ingratitude for us to refuse to acknowl- edge this record of obligations to Virginia, for the same is true of practically all of the eleven colleges of the Missouri College Union, which also I have the honor to represent on this occasion. You may smile at the paucity of colleges constituting the Mis- souri College Union, but let me remind you of a few facts. 33 Inauguration of the President First, there are three times this many colleges in Missouri — these are leading colleges; second, six times this many have perished ; and third, this does not include the twenty odd leading colleges for young ladies. There was a stage in the advance of the vast train of immigrants from Virginia to Kentucky when, on beholding the beautiful landscape, they said, ‘'This will be a fine site for a college, or university — preferably a university.” That accounts for the fact that Missouri has been a training school for college presidents — for other states! I congratulate the Board of Trustees on their having secured a man in whom sound judgment and lofty idealism are his counterpoise; I congratulate the ladies of this college on their having at their head a president who is a scholar and not merely a business manager; I congratulate the student body on their good fortune in having a man — I got the idea of that sentence from Shakespeare! There is nothing needed further; but I know his virtues so well that I may just enlarge a little bit. He will be firm, but he will be consistent; he will be authoritative, but he will be inspiring ; he will be cruel, of course, but he will be sympathetic; he is able to dream dreams and to see visions, but he will not forget how dreams are brought true, and how visions are converted into solid facts; he will be a friend whose counsels are kind, and whose demands will be just what the weak, the wayward, and the wicked need. As a Missourian and as an alumnus of Central College I cannot refrain from expressing regret that you have called Dr. Webb from that State and that institution, but as an adopted Virginian I join with my fellow educators in welcoming him this side of the Alleghanies. I also represent another institution — my speech is not in pro- portion to the number of institutions I represent — I represent the Virginia Military Institute. I regret to say that I cannot use the language of some of my predecessors upon this platform in declaring how beautiful and friendly the relations between “these two institutions” have been, because it is not a relation of rivalry, and it is certainly not one of hostility on our part, although we are military. I am exceedingly glad to meet you here in old Virginia and welcome you to the presidency of this honored college. State Department of Education Hon. R. C. Stearnes, A. M., Superintendent of Public Instruction. Any greeting on behalf of the public school system to the President of this college naturally suggests two questions : first, how far shall evangelical truth affect public instruction? and second, what is the function of a college privately supported in the great scheme of educating all the people ? Can men “win God out of knowledge,” as Lanier believed? or, conversely, is education of any value at all if it despises and contemns the religious element? I use the word religious in con- tradistinction to the word sectarian. The lamented founder of this school said to me on one occa- sion : “The denominational college starts with religion in edu- cation and then through endowment strives to make education free; you public school men,” said he, “have started with free education through State endowment and must make it religious.” That in Dr. Smith’s thought was the top of the mound that we were approaching from different sides, and therefore from dif- ferent points of view. It is in fact a common ground, a high ground, on which the twentieth century American may stand without distrust of his fellowmen of other communions and without anxiety about his offspring’s spiritual growth. Education must concern itself with the soul of man as well as his body and mind, and the general religious views of a people are just as certain to be represented in their public schools as men and women holding those views are certain to be employed as teachers. There is very little trouble about the matter since sectarian influences never obtrude themselves in the best spiritual training of our day. As in moral education we say, do not moralize, so in religious education we say, do not dogmatize. Hence the man who describes the public school as being God- less is about as far wrong, I am persuaded, as the unfortunate 40 Inauguration of the President soul who thinks the world is sunless because either into his dun- geon or his darkened eyes there comes no ray of light. Formerly in our religious convocations we heard from the delegate, who must make his presence felt, hasty words of antag- onism because the public schools were not under what he was pleased to term positive religious influences , and I have even heard of private boarding schools which were willing to snatch children away from good homes at the tender ages of twelve and fourteen on the same theory. But now the better thought, to quote the report of a recent religious gathering, “emphasizes the importance of denominational schools without antagonism to the State system of schools.” And every social worker knows that notwithstanding the great orphanages and institutional homes which God’s children have builded in His name, and notwith- standing the immense service they are rendering and have ren- dered, there is still no place like the traditional home which God himself founded for rearing children. Therefore, the logical conclusion of the “positive religious thinking” of our day is the public school, elementary and secondary grades, within conven- ient reach of every child until after the stormiest part of the adolescent period has passed, so that the control of fathers and the love of mothers may check frivolity and anticipate rashness. Speaking also from the public school standpoint I proceed, in the second place, to inquire how and where the work of an institution like Randolph-Macon Woman’s College functions in a state or national system of education ? The inquiry is aided by the fact that this school led all the other Virginia schools in giving our girls the real curriculum of a woman’s college. Pretty soon the graduates of this school found their way into our high school faculties, and I simply confess the truth when I say that my first question as a State school official was not: “What is the college doing?” but “Whence came this teacher?” I was de- lightfully surprised, if not startled, by the work some of your graduates were doing, and I said: “Where were these young women trained?” From that day to this I have desired to see every high school teacher in Virginia no less worthily trained than might be briefly indicated by the right to place the letters B. A. after his or her name. Randolph-Macon Woman's College 4i But I go one step further and declare that the training of teachers is only part of the work of foundations like Randolph- Macon Woman’s College, Sweet Briar, Hollins, Vassar, and schools of their order, aspirations and solemn purpose. They train not teachers alone, nor missionaries alone, nor school workers alone, nor the occasional business leader alone; they train women. Notwithstanding the Augustan age, or the age of Pericles, or the ages of Solomon and Homer, one must maintain that ours is the golden age because woman is now making herself so splendidly influential in the life of growing commonwealths like the Virginia of 1914. And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of the Young Women’s Christian Association, of the Feder- ation of Women’s Clubs, of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and above all of the noble army of mothers, all doing work accepted and honored in every section of our State and country and by every school of thought. What is it that these women have not done through faith and education? We have all seen them subdue kingdoms and stop the mouths of lions, particularly in debates on moral and social questions. They have wrought righteousness, and not only obtained promises, as the Scriptures put it, but also the redemption of these promises. Out of weakness they have been made strong, have waxed valiant in fight, and have turned to flight the armies of sin and ignorance. Therefore, Mr. President, coming as the representative of 491 high schools and 6,200 elementary schools, of 11,336 teachers and 616,168 children, I greet you as the head of an instution which ministers to the public school system of the State in a real and vital way; I greet you as the head of an institution whose graduates are granted one of the highest teachers’ certif- icates we issue; I greet you as the head of an institution which must be accounted as part of the public movement whose broad foundation we find in the common school. The Patronizing Conferences Rev. F. J. Prettyman, D. D., Chaplain United States Senate. The moral subsoil out of which this great institution has grown is the Christian Church, and the section of the Church that has immediately given it its distinct being is the Methodist Episco- pal Church, South. The board of trustees as the legal entity that holds the title of the physical property is composed now, and has been composed for many years, of members of that Church. It is fitting therefore that upon this occasion of the inauguration of its new president there should be uttered amid the general acclaim of satisfaction and hope, one word especi- ally in behalf of that Church. I have not the slightest doubt but that if opportunity had afforded, the Baltimore Confer- ence would have delegated one of its members to bear its felic- itations to the President-elect, and to express its congratulations to the Trustees and Faculty and student body upon so auspicious an occasion. This great College stands the monument to the most marvelous genius that the South has produced in all of its history in the field of education. It can never be forgotten that a- mid conditions most restricted, and with resources limited to the verge of despair, the great first Chancellor dreamed his dream of success; and then with courage born out of the heroic sixties, and faith in the leadership of the unseen hand of his divine Lord, he brought into being, as from a formless void, this great temple dedicated to Christian womanhood. I once heard the richest man in America say, at the time of the opening of a library that was to enjoy his generous philan- thropy, that the praise of the work accomplished was not due to him who had more money than he knew how to give away, but to those men who through the patient toil of years had wrought their very life into the public benefaction. But if it is difficult to create a great institution of public ministry out of such ample means, it is a miracle of creative power to bring this great institution to its wide and blessed uses. It may be Randolph-Macon Woman's College 43 pointed out, however, that the measure of the success of Dr. W. W. Smith can never be told without considering the high partnership of prayer and spiritual interest which he had with him in the preachers of the Virginia and Baltimore Conferences. We saw him put God to the test as to what God can do with a consecrated man, and many of us, though limited in material resources, at least sought to support him with tears and prayers and blessings. How much of prayer has been wrought into the brick and stone of these splendid buildings will never be known on earth, but we may be sure that they would never have come to this great day of rejoicing without them. Speaking for myself, yet I think that I voice the wish and hope of my brethren in the ministry, it is my ideal that this great school shall maintain an individual character among the other like Colleges in this country. Education is the passion of the hour. An Englishman recently lecturing in this country has expressed his amazement at the universal desire for educa- tion in this nation by the following story. He called at the home of a Professor of Harvard College, and was met at the door by a servant girl who told him that the Professor was not in, but if he would go diagonally across the campus to a certain building he would find him. Then said the lecturer, “If you can find an English servant girl who can tell you the meaning of either ‘ diagonally' or * campus' I’ll eat her.” It is true that today enormous sums of money are being spent for education, and thousands of eager pupils from every walk in life are pursuing the ideals of intellectual attainment with the passion of an early knight for the Holy Grail. What part the Church has had in this great awakening it may not be easy to tell, but we may be sure that without the hospitality of the Church to the idea of general education, such a movement as we see about us today would be an impossibility. I am such a believer in the preeminence of our Lord Jesus Christ that I feel certain that no movement that pushes back the boundaries of ignorance or helps to lift the burdens of the unbearable ever attains its real success without His sanction or without the support of His Church, which is His body, the ful- ness of Him who filleth all things. 44 Inauguration of the President But the vision of the Christian educator is not realized in the mere extension of education to the general public, unless this education discovers that center of truth within us all where truth in fullness abides. Our Lord is the King of Truth. The supreme challenge of His authority in this realm was made be- fore Pilate’s judgment throne, and the initial interpretation of its sweep and power was given when Paul laid down the axioms of Christian truth before the Athenian altar erected to the Un- known God. Here is God, creator, preserver, immanent, right- eous. Thus far Plato had reasoned, and Aristotle had taught. But amid this reason unsatisfied, feeling in the dark if haply they might find God, this Christian thinker opened the portals of the inner sanctuary of truth and led the way to its eternal King. It is of the highest importance, therefore, that our ideal shall not be contained in that form of knowledge that bakes and butters the bread of the twentieth century, but that we awaken the faith and lead the mind to know its Lord. A Methodist Conference and a school may be mother and daughter, or twin sisters if you like, but Christianity and education are in a union which is one and inseparable. “The object of scholarship,” said President Wilson the other day, “the object of all knowledge is to understand, is to compre- hend, is to know what the need of mankind is. That is the reason why scholarship has usually been more fruitful when associated with religion; and scholarship has never, so far as I can at this moment recollect, been associated with any religion except the religion of Jesus Christ. The religion of humanity and the com- prehension of humanity are of the same breed and kind, and they go together.” To use another sentence from the President’s speech, “There is always an inspiration in every new venture of mind.” One who does not feel the thrill and excitement of it on such an occasion as this is surely devoid of that quality of great- ness which has been said is the capacity to be inspired. In your vast undertaking you will expect, and you will have a right to demand, the sympathy and support of the patronizing conferences. This must be given ungrudgingly. We shall feel that here is the center from which is to go forth the finished product of Christian training. We can work with you only as Randolph-Macon Woman's College 45 our ideals are the same. But your work will be more intensive in its character, and even more far-reaching in its results, because you will here prepare the master spirits for a richer and fuller service. What, then, have we a right to expect from you? An institu- tion for the training of Christian womanhood. I know of no two words of fuller content: Christian Womanhood. Here is a vision that tempts yet defies any definition or measurement. It is somewhat new from the standpoint of scholarship, but its promise gleams afar down the twentieth century. Womanhood still hold- ing to its divinely appointed function in the social and profess- ional and religious world, but emancipated from the bondage of a cramped or starved personality, will find through the training of this great school an ampler field for self knowledge, for self determination, and for self expression. This last reserve of the Almighty is the promise of the final victory “when the whole round world will be bound in every way by golden chains about the feet of God. ,, The Methodist Church Bishop Collins Denny It is perhaps not unfit, as one of the chief pastors of the great Methodist Church, that I should stand here to give greetings to the incoming President as he takes charge of the great work of which he is to have the care. In this he is continuing the work of John Wesley. Though the many that Wesley gathered about him were for the most part men lacking in learning, he, the greatest scholar of his time in the English speaking world, led them on to an appreciation of what education could do, and what should be done if the working Church should be properly con- ducted. Even in this country the man who laid the foundation of the Methodist Church provided in the conference in which it was 46 Inauguration of the President organized, for a college, and laid upon the hearts of the men whom he had put in leadership the responsibility of collecting from men, after the terrors of the Revolution, a sufficient sum to put that educational work upon its feet, and a great work it did. Some of you know of the period of the Church in 1820, when strife was abroad, when it looked as if the Church was to be divided. At that time provision was made for each annual conference to open an educational institution of higher grade, and out of that grew Randolph-Macon. Hezekiah G. Leigh, a native I belive of this very city, was at the foundation of that great movement, and so the great work of progress in education has been moving on, until we have founded in Virginia this system of schools and colleges, which we hope is only a prophecy of what may be before us in time to come. I mention this because it is not a strange thing for the Church to have part in education. Indeed, the Church can never lay down the work of education that has been laid upon it. And for one, I am very glad to see the closer relationship between the institutions that may be called secular, and those that are most closely united and bound with the Church. There is no such thing as sectarian Latin, and there is no such thing as sectarian Greek. John Stewart Mill declares that he can conceive that in another world twice two will be five. I doubt his ability in that direction, and I think he must have been for the moment subject to a slight aberration when he made that statement. You cannot leave out the religious element. I have never forgotten that one of my own honored teachers in this State so ground into my mind the truth and importance and very language of the Bill of Rights of this State, that I never pass through the Capital Square that I do not lift my hat to George Mason ; and if you had ever sat at the feet of John B. Minor, and heard him repeat the statement which Mason first enunciated, it would have become for you, as it is for me, a part of the fibre of your being. No free government nor the blessing of liberty can be preserved by any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. If the men who won this country for American civilization, if the Randolph-Macon Woman's College 47 men whom we are privileged to call our fathers, knew anything whatever of the fundamental ground upon which government was to be erected, it was a government which must be based upon these homely morals, which cannot be left out either of the State or the Church. Now, having heard so much upon Christian womanhood and manhood, I should be false to my mother’s training if I did not say, in looking back to the Virginia home in which I was reared, and to the quiet and pleasant home in which I grew, and to the saintly mother who guided my early steps, that whatever other attainments the world may have offered me, whatever ideals pre- sented before me, I have never yet reached the height of her great lesson as to full manhood that every man ought to live. I have never been able to live out the idea that she sought to place upon me, that in my earliest infancy she led my steps toward the goal of highest service, and taught me to look upon the world not simply as a place for selfish opportunities, but to regard all as gifts from God, as so many resourses that could be turned loose for the benefit of humanity ; and I sincerely hope and pray that in this Woman’s College there may be such ideals of larger service to be rendered — it may be the service of which Milton speaks when he represents himself as ready to open the door though no one approaches. God only knows what service is rendered by those who stand and wait. I feel that it is quite fit today that I should say a word of welcome to the son of a Methodist parson. Your President came out of a Methodist parsonage, and I am sure that he learned there lessons of loyalty and high duty that he can never forget. I have no doubt that the prayers that were poured out in his infancy can never be forgotten, and the hopes of how many will follow, nay, precede him in all the long vista of years in this field to which in the Providence of God he has been called, it will be impossible to tell. And here in a Christian institution it is proper to call attention to those great words of the Apostle: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, what- soever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.” 48 Inauguration of the President Hold them before you as the ideal that you are to pursue, imitate them, and move on with the recognition of the fact that the living God still rules the world and that through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, we hope also to bring the Kingdom of the living God, not only into the minds of men, but into their characters as well, so as to make the knowledge that they may gather, a knowledge useful to the uplift of humanity in this and the future time. Letters of Greeting From the large number of letters received the following were selected and read by Prof. H. C. Lipscomb, Ph. D. The White House Washington May 13, 1914. My dear Mr. Webb: I wish with all my heart that I could free myself for a visit to Randolph-Macon on the first of June, but it is literally impossible for me to do so consistently with the proper performance of my duties here. I have denied myself all pleasures of this sort and can only send you my warmest con- gratulations and my most sincere best wishes. Cordially and sincerely yours, Woodrow Wilson. Mr. William A. Webb, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, College Park, Lynchburg, Va. Department of Agriculture Washington April 29, 1914. My dear President Webb: It will be a pleasure to be of service in connection with your installation, but my engagements Randolph-Macon Woman's College 49 at that time will be such as to prevent me from being present. I am sorry you left Missouri, but am glad that the Virginia College and the State of Virginia are to have your services. With best wishes, Sincerely yours, D. F. Houston, Secretary President Wiliam A. Webb, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, Lynchburg, Va. Department of the Interior Bureau of Education Washington June i, 1914. The Bureau of Education of the United States sends greet- ing to the Board of Trustees of the Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and its good wishes to President William Alexander Webb on the occasion of his formal installation. The congratu- lations of this Office on the beginning of a new administration of the affairs of the college are joined with the hope and con- fidence that the institution will go forward to new and larger service in the age that lies before it. Official Seal. Philander P. Claxton, Commissioner of Education of the United States Commonwealth of Virginia Governor's Office Richmond May 19, 1914. Dr. William A. Webb, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, Va. My dear Doctor Webb: — I highly appreciate your personal invitation to attend your installation as President of the Ran- 50 Inauguration of the President dolph-Macon Woman’s College on Monday morning, June first, and 1 regret very much that official engagements will prevent my attendance. Wishing you every measure of success, and congratulating both the college and yourself upon this event, I am Very truly yours, H. C. Stuart, Governor. Office of the President Wellesley College Wellesley, Mass. President William Alexander Webb, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg , Virginia. May 12, 1914. My dear President Webb: May I express my great regret that it is impossible for me to attend your inauguration on the first of June? Wellesley College will be represented by one of our Alumnae, Miss Katherine P. Terry, of Lynchburg. May I extend to you at this time my warm good wishes for the success of your administration and congratulations to Randolph- Macon Woman’s College on the occasion of your inauguration? I am, Most sincerely yours, Ellen F. Pendleton. University of Missouri Columbia Office of the President May 19, 1914. Professor Herbert C. Lipscomb, Lynchburg, Virginia. Dear Sir: Permit me to acknowledge the receipt of an invi- tation from the Board of Trustees of Randolph-Macon Woman’s Randolph-Macon Woman's College 5i College to be present at the inauguration of Dr. William A. Webb as President of the College on June 1, 1914. As that date falls in commencement week of the University of Missouri it will not be possible for me to attend nor for me to send any member of the faculty, for we are this year celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the University of Missouri at commencement time. While declining your kind invitation with regret I wish to extend both personally and on behalf of the University of Mis- souri our warm congratulations on the good fortune of Randolph- Macon College in being able to install as President so fine a scholar, educator and character as Dr. William A. Webb. He rendered very unusual services to the State of Missouri in his work as President of Central College, and it is our hope and belief that his administration of Randolph-Macon College will bring satisfaction to the College and the friends of education generally. With best wishes for the College and President Webb, I have the honor to be Very sincerely yours, A. Ross Hill. The University Aberdeen May 23. Dear Mr. Webb: The official invitation to your inauguration as President of Randolph-Macon College on June 1st, and your own cordial letter have reached me only today. You will there- fore understand how impossible it is for me to be present. I send you my warm wishes for a long and happy occupancy of your new post. Every prosperity attend you and the College. Yours sincerely, George Adam Smith. Greetings From the Faculty Dean N. A. Pattillo, Ph. D. Mr. President — our President — in behalf of the Faculty of this College I congratulate you on the unusual opportunity for service placed before you by your acceptance of this trust. I know of your optimism and high hopes for the future of this institution. Though the President of a college may plan great things and have lofty purposes, these may avail but little without the hearty co-operation of the teaching staff. A large measure of the past success of the College was due probably to the relation which exists here between Faculty and students, service being the dominant idea. Guided by the wise leader who founded the College, there has been here a personal interest in each student, a sympathy in her difficulties, and a joy in her successes. Possibly to this is due somewhat the unusual college spirit and the intense loyalty and devotion of students and alumnae, one of the most valuable assets of any institution of learning. But we cannot live in the past, however praiseworthy that may have been. If the contemplation of the past stimulates us to our best efforts, it is a profitable reflection; if it causes inactivity, the result may be fatal. Only by co-operation of Faculty and students in doing good work according to the highest standards can any college attain the greatest success. I trust it may ever be our ideal to inspire with such enthusiasm each student who enters here that she may make the best possible use of all her opportunities and talents, that she may be helped to form that steadfastness of purpose which would enable her to see the invisible, to do the impossible, and to hear the voice of Him who spoke as never man spake. Mr. President, we rejoice in being co-laborers with you in this high and divine calling, in helping to bring Christian womanhood to the highest enjoyment. From the Alumnae Miss Nellie V. Powell, A. M., President of the Lynchburg Chapter. Mr. President, as the representative of the Alumnae of Ran- dolph-Macon Woman’s College, as one of the old girls, I bring you greetings and a message. Our greetings are saturated with loyalty and vitalized with hope and confidence. Our message concerns the “eternal feminine,” and the relation of College edu cation to the present ideals of womanhood. The ( ‘Ewig Weibliche ” is to us no crystallized idea, no fossil in an outworn shell ; but a living conception ever varying to meet the needs of a changing world. The only constant in the eternal womanhood is an immediate quality of the soul, which is the power to perceive truth in the personal relations and to live it with unfaltering fidelity. To this soul quality the modern world has added the element of free- dom, the need on the part of women for a positive self-realiza- tion through action, through glorified service for humanity. We believe, as did that very womanly woman, Alice Freeman Palmer, that our chief concern should be to put aside artificial limitations, to make ourselves fit for the larger usefulness to the state and to the country. For such equipment, Mr. President, we turn primarily to our colleges. Lest we take advantage of freedom to live idle and frivolous lives, lest our passion for social service dissipate itself in the shallows of a sentimental cocksure- ness, give our young women harmonious and full development. Train them to be efficient and resourceful, give them a sense of values, enable them to realize the potentiality of the human spirit, and to live in the presence of the great realities of life. From the Students Miss Luella Hefley President of the Student Committee. Dr. Webb, I can’t claim the honor of bringing greetings from a distant university or college, but just as a member of your own student body of Randolph-Macon, on behalf of all the other members of the student body, I want to welcome you as our new President. We have been closely associated with you for these past nine months, and have this advantage over the other universities or colleges that have greeted you; for we can speak from experience of what you are to us. When you first came last fall, you made the remark that you were accustomed to boys, but would have to learn the ways of girls, and for us to be patient. We have found that you under- stand us too. The educational world needs you, the College Trustees, Faculty and Alumnae need you, but we have the biggest need of all. We have a place which no one else can fill — we welcome you to that place. We are proud of you as President of our College, honor you as President of the Faculty, but we love you as friend of the Student Body. And so, with this greeting which I bring you this morning, won’t you accept the pride, honor, and the love which comes from your own girls, the Students? Benediction by Rev. W. T. Palmer, D. D. Banquet at the Virginian Hotel 6:30 to 8:30 P. M. Mr. Edward F. Sheffey, Chairman of the Executive Committee, Toastmaster. The first person that I would present to you tonight is a former citizen of Lynchburg and a friend of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, Dr. J. D. M. Armistead, Professor of English, Agnes Scott College. Professor J. D. M. Armistead Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen. A friend of mine was placed in the same position that I am placed in tonight, without even ten seconds notice. This friend of mind, an artist, was en- gaged to paint a picture of Daniel in the lions’ den. He painted the group, and when he finished the picture the lions were all right, the setting very fine — all was good except Daniel, who had a broad grin on his face, and the artist was asked why Daniel looked so hilarious ? He replied that was because he knew there would be no after-dinner speeches. I am peculiarly grateful for this opportunity, however, of extending to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College the congratula- tions of Agnes Scott College upon this notable occasion, when you are formally inducting into office the distinguished President who has already served the College with such marked success as leaves no room for doubt as to his future achievement. Personally, I have known Randolph-Macon Woman’s College since the first brick was laid, and as a native Virginian I have followed always with the keenest interest and pride its wonder- ful growth and its successive educational triumphs throughout the past twenty years and more. But it is not only as a loyal Virginian that I have watched the advance of Randolph-Macon. All of us who are interested in educational work in the South owe a very real debt to this Col- lege. There is surely no Southern college for women which has not profited by the fight that Ranodlph-Macon has made and 56 Inauguration of the President won for higher education. And I believe that no other institu- tion realizes this so clearly as does Agnes Scott College. As I listened this morning to the very able address of Presi- dent Webb, I was especially impressed with the fact that your educational aims are one with ours, and that our problems are therefore essentially the same. No other institution in the South knows so well as does Agnes Scott the meaning of the battle this College has waged for standards, and no other institution has received from you a greater inspiration. On more than one occasion when we have been face to face with problems seemingly past solution, has the remark been made : “Randolph-Macon has done this, and so may we,” and with renewed faith and courage we have pressed forward. And so, Mr. Toastmaster, I bring to you the greeting of Agnes Scott College, with a very special significance. And I pledge to you, President Webb, the hearty sympathy and earnest co-opera- tion of Agnes Scott in all your efforts for the future. Agnes Scott wishes you God-speed, and has the utmost faith in the con- tinued success of Randolph-Macon in the great struggle in which we too are engaged, the holding up of true collegiate standards before the young women of the South. Toastmaster: Randolph-Macon College has been glad to be an inspiration to Agnes Scott College. Now, we turn from the sunny South to that pioneer of educa- tion, Vassar College, which is represented by Miss Marian P. Whitney, Professor of German at Vassar College. Professor Marian P. Whitney It is quite impossible for me in the five minutes alloted me to express the smallest part of the interest and good-will which I have always felt for Randolph-Macon College, and of the pleas- ure that I have had in being allowed to share in today’s most interesting exercises. I am here as the representative of the Faculty of Vassar College, to bring you their congratulations as you enter upon this new phase of your history and development, to assure you of their respect for what you have already done for the education of women in the South, and of their continued Randolph-Macon Woman's College 57 interest and sympathy for what you are doing and planning to do in that great field where we are all working together. The bonds between Vassar and the South have always been close. From the time that she opened her doors as the first insti- tution which ever tried to offer to women educational opportuni- ties and to maintain for them educational standards fully equal to those of the best colleges for men, Southern women have been found eager to take advantage of these opportunities, and also to meet these standards. All through the South our graduates are proving by their work in school and college, in social and civic life, in business and in the home, the value of what Vassar has given them and are helping to knit more closely the ties which bind together these two great sections of our country. And now I should like to give you a message from Vassar, a bit of the experience that fifty years of work in the higher educa- tion of women has brought her, and which may help you in your work here. In all the addresses this morning full as they were of pride in the past of Randolph-Macon, of hope for its future and for the future of all women’s colleges of the South, there was apparent a slight note of anxiety, of fear lest in fully cultivat- ing the minds of your Southern girls, you should endanger those virtues and graces which are theirs by nature, lest in becoming wise they should cease to be womanly. We heard this morning much of the fine and noble qualities of your first President, much that interested and impressed me greatly. I am sure he was a wise and good man and that the College and the student body owe to him more than can ever be expressed in words. But when one of the speakers informs us that it was owing to the watchful care and guidance of President Smith, to the manner in which he di- rected their steps to certain paths and barred them from others, that the students of your College have remained womanly, then I must say frankly that I do not believe it. I do not believe that any man can teach any woman to be womanly ! He may help to train and to enrich her mind, to make her wiser and more intelli- gent, but he must leave to Nature and to her own instincts the task of keeping her womanly. And he may safely do so. This is what Vassar has learned through fifty years of experience, for in our early days we too were troubled by the fears that still beset you. 58 Inauguration of the President But we now know that they were unnecessary. We do not feed our daughters on cake to keep them sweet, or our sons on wolf’s flesh to make them brave, though I believe that the latter method has been tried among certain peoples; we set before all our chil- dren the best and most nourishing food that we can provide, and we know that each will draw from it what he needs for strength and growth, and that all the girls will still become women, and all the boys men. So do not be afraid to set before your students the ripest fruits of learning, the highest truths of science, the deepest problems of life and of humanity. Trust them, and believe that, if you give them the best that is in you, they will make of it the best use they can. Your Southern girls will remain womanly however strong and wise they may become. So give them not only your care and devotion but your full confidence and remem- ber that not what men think women ought to do, but what the noblest and wisest women do is womanly. Miss Emma Lear, President of the Alumnae Society Mr. Toastmaster, our President, and friends: As I come before you tonight on behalf of the Alumnae of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, to speak on the subject of alumnae loyalty, I feel very much like the little boy, who, being allowed the privi- lege of selecting the subject for his composition, modestly chose as his topic, “The Universe;” and who, when advised by the teacher that such a subject needed to be limited, very grudgingly conceded that he’d change it to “The World and all that in it is.” That’s alumnae loyalty. It can mean so much. We are learning this year that there are many things we can do for our Alma Mater. We know that there are more we can do for the world because of our Alma Mater. Surely we have re- ceived much and surely we shall not be loyal daughters unless we give much. There is work to be done. “The world voice calls : we hear, we heed,” and with hands outstretched in loving service “we follow on.” But alumnae loyalty means more than this. To us, the children of yesterday, it means as we return once more to our mother College, that we come with tears and hearts bowed down with grief for the friend we find no more. It means that we come Randolph-Macon Woman's College 59 with a smile of greeting and a hand clasp for our new President, in pledge of our allegiance to his administration just begun. It means, dear Faculty, that now at last, we come to do you the honor that is your due. We acknowledge your wise guidance; we thank you for your inspiration and for the ideals you ever held before us. And yes, now, we’re even grateful for the mid- night oil you burned for us ; for all the red ink you spilled over us; and for those times when it seemed you would have annihi- lated us — but didn’t. It means that as we come once more under the shelter of our loving mother, that we’ve come for renewed strength, higher ideals, greater inspiration, yes, and for the joy of seeing the old friends and of reviewing college days too; but most of all, it means that we have come because we want to be here, we can’t help it, we love it all. So much does alumnae loyalty mean : the service of Martha, the love of Mary; but more than either of these, the life of Him who was Master of both Martha and Mary. Our Alma Mater has showered rich gifts upon us, and we have a debt of gratitude to pay. But she asks no return to herself for all she has bestowed. We are her products; we are her children, and it is enough if our lives are the richer, the fuller for having come in contact with her. But we acknowledge the debt; we would be worthy of this mother of ours, and as we wish to pay in the largest manner, I know no better way of expressing it than in the words I quote: “Small souls show their gratitude by what they do; large souls by what they are And so, tonight, as each of you present holds some Alma Mater dear, as through your lives you still feel the strength of her inspiration, and deep in your hearts you feel and would repay the debt you owe, I ask you, with the memory of that Alma Mater of yours fresh before you, to pledge with me “Alumnae Loyalty.” The next speaker was Professor R. H. Hudnall, Ph. D., of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, of Virginia. Professor Hudnall was a class-mate of President Webb’s at the University of Leipsic, and spoke in a very intimate and affectionate way of 6o Inauguration of the President their friendship and of his high regard for President Webb’s qualifications for the position to which he had been called. At the special request of the President and with the consent of Dr. Hudnall the stenographic report of his address is omitted. Rev. Ritchie Ware, Representing Virginia Christian College, and Speaking for the Ministers of the City. Mr. Chairman, it is always quite embarrassing to me to speak to the girls at the Woman’s College. I remember the first time I ever went there. I had prepared several good jokes, but the occasion was such a solemn one, and I didn’t know Dr. Smith as well then as I knew him afterwards, and so I did not tell my jokes. But I have since learned that there is a great deal of humanity in the girls of that College. As Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Virginia Chris- tian College, I want to bear greetings to the Randolph-Macon College. We hold you as an ideal, and I trust that as the years come and go, on the other side of the City of Lynchburg there may be another institution whose fame may be as great as our well beloved Randolph-Macon. On behalf of the ministers of Lynchburg I want to say that there is nothing of which we are more proud when we go away than to say that we have a college second to none. And I trust that it may be the pleasure of the citizens of Lynchburg in the future, as in the past, to help and co-operate in every way to make the city loyal to the institution, for there will be in the coming years, as in the past, no greater asset to this municipality than the Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. Dr. Harry D. Campbell, Dean of Washington and Lee University, and Representative of the University of Pittsburgh. I shall have to introduce myself to this audience in order to explain the tenor of my remarks. I have never occupied a pro- fessor’s chair but, according to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, I have occupied a settee. It would seem to make little difference Randolph-Macon Woman's College 6i as to the title just so it is long enough. Upon a recent Com- mencement occasion I was introduced as Dean and Professor of Geology and Biology of Washington and Lee University; but in the newspapers next day I appeared as Dean and Professor of Sociology and Biography. The significance of my connection with “Biography” has oc- curred to me for the first time tonight. Leave of absence is granted to students from my office, and they are expected to state on their application cards the reasons for wanting to leave town. I wonder if you have any idea of the number of sisters or cousins or friends these cards indicate that the Washington and Lee boys have at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College? As I came out from luncheon today I recognized under the trees on the lawn two of Washington and Lee’s best students enjoying the companionship of two of Randolph-Macon’s sympathetic kindred souls. I want to say in this connection that in the opinion of our students a collegiate education does not detract from the womanly charms of the girls of Randolph-Macon. President Smith asked me several days ago whether I knew anybody at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. I said : “There is scarcely anybody there I don’t know; the professors at Ran- dolph-Macon are known all over the State, and many of them all over the Country.” He said, “Would you mind going down there and representing me? I can’t go.” I said: “I shall be glad to go if I don’t have to make a speech.” He replied : “Oh, you won’t have to make a speech. They invited me because I am from North Carolina.” It rather seems to me that it is the day of the North Caro- linian. But it takes Virginians to recognize the true worth of North Carolinians; Virginians called Dr. Alderman to the State University ; Dr. Barringer to V. P. I. ; Dr. Smith to Washington and Lee, and Dr. Webb to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. Nothing has been said today about Dr. Webb’s being a North Carolinian. One speaker told of his com- ing from Missouri, another claimed him for Tennessee, but in my role as Professor of Biography, I declare that he is a native of North Carolina. As a Virginian I have the pleasure of bear- ing greetings and welcome in the name of President Smith and 62 Inauguration of the President the Faculty of Washington and Lee to the North Carolinian President W. A. Webb. I have also the honor of bearing the personal greetings to the incoming president from Chancellor S. B. McCormick of the University of Pittsburgh. Miss Laura Drake Gill, D. C. L., President of the Proposed College for Women University of the South. Mr. President, and Friends of Randolph-Macon College for Women: They tell the story of an old professor at Andover Theological Seminary who gave permission for any special priv- ilege to the students some sixty years ago. One day a young man appeared before him asking authority for driving seven miles on the following Sunday to and from a town in which he was to preach. For some reason the usual procedure of going on Sat- urday and returning on Monday was impracticable. The old man was satisfied after prolonged questioning that it was a necessary violation of Sabbath customs, and gave his con- sent in these cautious terms: “Yes, yes, drive, drive, since you must. But drive gently. Drive gently.” In the very few moments allowed me to-night, I wish to plead for a different tenor in the permission so recently given to women for a fuller education. The world recognizes evidently that the freedom for intellectual development must be given; but it is too often given in the deprecatory and cautious way of the old professor. I beg that this new freedom be given unreservedly and in full faith that women will make of it a finer avenue of service. Of course individual women may turn their liberty into license during the first flush of eagerness. But that will be in small per- centage to the wise use by the many of larger privilege, and even that will decrease rapidly. So I beg for a full faith in women’s wisdom to use their new powers, and for such a cordial blessing upon their way as your new President seems ready to extend. Randolph-Macon Woman's College 63 Mr. President, and friends of Randolph-Macon College, I con- gratulate you heartily upon the high attainment of the past, and wish for you yet better things in the years to come. Delegates from Other Institutions WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY Bishop E. R. Hendrix, A. B., LL. D. Alumnus. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Bishop Collins Denny, A. M., LL. D. Alumnus. VASSAR COLLEGE Miss Marian P. Whitney, Ph. D. Professor of German. HARVARD UNIVERSITY William Marshall Black, M. A. Principal of the Lynchburg High School. NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Lydia Howell La Baum, M. D. Alumna. MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE Miss Margaret Booth WELLESLEY COLLEGE Miss Katherine Pryor Terry, B. A. Alumna. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY John H. Latane, Ph. D., LL. D. Professor of American History and Director of Department of History. GEORGE PEABODY COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS Bruce R. Payne, M. A., Ph. D. President. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Miss Virginia C. Gildersleeve, A. M., Ph. D. Dean of Barnard College. UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Harry D. Campbell, Ph. D., Sc. D. Professor of Geology, Washington and Lee University. 6 4 Inauguration of the President WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY G. G. Laubscher, A. B., Ph. D. Professor of Romance Languages, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY Mrs. Bertha Robinson Ramsey, B. A. Alumna. HAMPDEN-SIDNEY COLLEGE Don P. Halsey, A. B. Alumnus. WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY Harry D. Campbell, Ph. D., Sc. D. Dean. TRINITY COLLEGE W. P. Few, A. M., Ph. D. President. RICHMOND COLLEGE D. R. Anderson, A. M., Ph. D. Professor of History and Political Science. R. C. Stearnes, M. A. State Superintendent of Public Instruction. HOLLINS COLLEGE A. V. Bishop, A. M., Ph. D.. Professor of Latin and Greek. UNION COLLEGE William S. Royall, B. A. Alumnus. CENTRAL COLLEGE Robert T. Kerlin, A. M., Ph. D. Professor of English, Virginia Military Institute. ROANOKE COLLEGE John Alfred Morehead, A. M., D. D. President. RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE Robert E. Blackwell, A. M., LL. D. President. AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE J. D. M. Armistead, Ph. D. Professor of English. GREENSBORO COLLEGE FOR WOMEN S. B. Turrentine, A. M., D. D. President. Randolph-Macon Woman's College 65 DAVENPORT COLLEGE FOR YOUNG WOMEN J. B. Craven President. SOUTHERN SEMINARY E. H. Rowe, D. D. Principal. ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE (Annapolis) Charles G. Eidson, B. S., E.E., M. A. Professor of Physics and Drawing. Rev. F. J. Prettyman, A. B., D. D. Chaplain United States Senate. UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH Miss Laura Drake Gill, A. M., D. C. L. President of the proposed College for Women. UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA William Mentzel Forrest, B. A. Professor of Biblical Literature. UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA Frank Nathaniel Bacon, B. A. Alumnus. RUTGERS COLLEGE Horace Sterling Hawes, A. B. Alumnus. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY William Spencer Currell, Ph. D. Professor of English, Washington and Lee University. MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE Eugene C. Bingham, B. A., Ph. D. Professor of Chemistry, Richmond College. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY H. M. Henry, M. A., Ph. D. Professor in Emory and Henry College. CLARK COLLEGE Haven D. Brackett, A. M., Ph. D. Professor of Greek. EARLHAM COLLEGE Miss H. Louise Osborne Dean of Guilford College. UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND Charles G. Eidson, B. S., E. E., M. A. Professor of Physics and Drawing, St. John’s College. 66 Inauguration of the President UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS Albert Lefevre, Ph. D., LL. D. Professor of Philosophy, University of Virginia. VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE R. H. Hudnall, M. A., Ph. D. Professor of English. EMORY AND HENRY COLLEGE A. G. Sanders, B. A. Professor of Greek. VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE Robert T. Kerlin, A. M., Ph. D. Professor of English. WEBB SCHOOL Former Senator W. R. Webb, A. M. Principal. PUBLIC SCHOOLS, CONCORD, N. C. A. S. Webb, A. B. Superintendent. RANDOLPH-MACON ACADEMY E. Sumter Smith Principal. FERRUM TRAINING SCHOOL Rev. B. M. Beckham, A. M. Principal. PUBLIC SCHOOLS, LYNCHBURG, VA. E. C. Glass Superintendent.