“Martha Washington College
“ABINGDON, VA., May 30 1877.
“MY DEAR OLD COLLEGE FRIEND: I have forgotten the name of the artist, a rising young man in New York, who copied it from a painting belonging to a wealthy gentleman of that city. Dr. Olin was on a visit to New York, and we put the matter in his hands. The artist was very highly recommended to him by good judges. His price was $600, but when informed by Dr. Olin that it was for a college literary society, he agreed to deduct one half. The frame, I think, cost $60, and freight about $20, making a total of $380.
“Dr. Olin scolded us for our extravagance, but when the portrait was finished, moderated his wrath. The amount was raised by subscription, altogether, among the members of the society—we numbered then over sixty members, as well as I can recollect. I. C. Croft and myself were on the committee, with one other, probably, J. O. Wingfield.
“When the portrait arrived and was placed in the hall, old John Blackwell, with his horse-collar legs (as Croft called them) was appointed to unveil it and make a speech. This he did in his peculiar style; and I think Old George was pleased with the eulogy delivered on him.
“Yours truly,
“WARREN DU PRE.”
Rev. John Early, who had been appointed to visit the Baltimore Annual Conference of the M. E. Church, reported to the Board that the Conference had declined to cooperate in the College enterprise, with kind expressions of interest in it. Dickinson College had recently been made a Methodist College, and the Conference preferred to patronize that, it being more accessible to their people.
The charter of the College having been amended, so that a president of the Board could be elected by that body, Rev. John Early was elected President.
The following resolution was unanimously adopted by the Board:
“The Board take great pleasure in giving a cordial expression of their thanks to the Faculty of this institution for the very able and faithful manner in which they have discharged the duties of their several stations. We consider them as having acted on the great principles on which the College was founded, and upon the continuance of which its prosperity in the future depends; and we have full confidence in their ability and disposition to support these principles in their future administration, and they are therefore worthy of the same confidence from the numerous friends and patrons of the College and the warm affection of the young gentlemen who may be placed under their care.
“It is the pleasure of the Board that these resolutions be read to the students of the College.”
The second session of the College opened September 4, 1833, under favorable circumstances. A laboratory and library had been purchased, and the latter had been increased by donations. Bishop J. O. Andrew had donated forty-three volumes, and Judge A. B. Longstreet thirty.
A few days after the session opened another literary society was formed. It was first styled the Union Literary Society, but on the 7th of September, at the next meeting, the name was changed to Franklin. At the organization George Stewart, of Georgia, presided, and William C. Knight, of Virginia, acted as secretary. The following constituted its first regular organization:
President, JAMES L. BROWN, Virginia. Vice-President, JOHN A. TALLEY, Virginia. Secretary, GEORGE STEWART, Georgia. Treasurer, THOMAS S. JACOCKS, North Carolina. Collector, JOSEPH B. PANNILL, Virginia. Censor, FRANCIS W. BOYD, Virginia.
Members.
BATTE, W. C.,...... Va.
BETTS, WILLIAM S.,... Va.
BLAKE, CHARLES H.,... Va.
BLAND, WILLIAM R.,... Va.
BLUNT, WALTER F.,.... Va.
BOISSEAU, GEORGE F.,.. Va.
CARROLL, JAMES..... Va.
CLAIBORNE, FIELD,.... Va.
CLEGG, BAXTER,..... N. C.
CLEMMONS, JUNIUS L.,.. N. C.
DAVIS, ARTHUR,..... Va.
DORTCH, ISAAC F.,.... N. C.
DRINKARD, WILLIAM R.,.. Va.
EVANS, AUGUSTUS C.,... N. C.
HICKS, BENJAMIN L.,... Va.
HITE, BENJAMIN W.,... Va.
JEFFRESS, LUTHER C.,.. Va.
JONES, ALBERT C.,.... Va.
JONES, AMOS W.,..... N. C.
JONES, JOHN J.,..... N. C.
JONES, JOSEPH S.,.... N. C.
KNIGHT, WILLIAM C.,... Va.
MULLEN, FRANCES N.,... N. C.
OLDS, LEWIS P.,..... N. C.
PERKINS, NATHAN,.... N. C.
ROSE, GARLAND,..... Va.
STEDMAN, EDWARD,.... N. C.
STOCKWELL, JOHN M.,... Va.
TILLETT, JOHN,..... N. C.
WILLIAMS, SOLOMON P.,.. N. C.
The Franklin Hall was immediately under the Washington, on the third story. The rivalry between these societies was from the first strong, but regulated by conventional rules. The membership took in every student in the College at the beginning and for many years afterwards. There was only one from Georgia for many years a member of the Washington Society, and no one from South Carolina was ever a member of the Franklin. Students from the other States were divided about equally. Robert E. Cutler, of Virginia, gave tone to the oratorical style of the Washington, and William F. Samford, of Georgia, to the Franklin. The difference was thought to be observable for thirty years, until the year the societies were temporarily disbanded.
No catalogue of students was published in the early years of the College. The only publication made was “The Charter and Laws of Randolph-Macon College, with the Names of the Trustees and Faculty, and the Course of Studies. Richmond: Printed by Nesbitt & Walker. 1833.” This prescribed four courses in the College, viz., Languages (Latin and Greek), Mathematics, Natural Science, and Ethics. Upon the completion of these four courses the degree of Bachelor of Arts was conferred by the Trustees, on the recommendation of the Faculty. No A. M. degree course was prescribed, but all A. B. men could claim A. M. degrees who could show that they had continued their studies or pursued courses of professional study for three years.
Dr. Stephen Olin, president-elect, gave up his place at Franklin College, Georgia, December, 1833, and made his preparations to take the presidency at Randolph-Macon. Of this move he wrote Bishop I. O. Andrew:
“Upon the whole, I trust the hand of God is in these indications, and that our church will see and obey it. My vocation may have given a wrong bias to my views, but I must regard the subject of education as the highest after the living ministry; nor do I believe it possible for our church to maintain its ground, to say nothing of its fulfilling its high obligation to Christ and the world, without a great and immediate reformation. I was never so convinced that we must educate our own youth in our own schools, and there is no work to which I so desire to consecrate myself.” On his way to Virginia he visited the South Carolina Conference at Charleston. Here he ably advocated the College and secured a pledge from the Conference to endow a professorship, the first we hear of endowment. The whole journey was made in his private carriage, his wife accompanying him. To her he dictated his “Inaugural Address,” which she wrote out. Reaching the College after a long and tedious journey, he delivered the address in the College chapel. This address produced a profound impression on those who heard and on those who read it. It was published in the journals of the day, and was highly praised. Governor Tazewell said he had “never heard or read any similar address of equal ability so well suited to such an occasion.” It is well worthy of republication in this history, but space will not permit. To show its chief point, the following extracts are given:
“In proportion as virtue is more valuable than knowledge, pure and enlightened morality will be regarded by every considerate father the highest recommendation of a literary institution. The youth is withdrawn from the salutary restraints of parental influence and authority and committed to other guardians at a time of life most decisive of his prospects and destinies. The period devoted to education usually impresses its own character upon all his future history. Vigilant supervision, employment and seclusion from all facilities and temptations to vice are the ordinary and essential securities which every institution of learning is bound to provide for the sacred interests which are committed to its charge. But safeguards and negative provisions are not sufficient. The tendencies of our nature are retrograde, and they call for the interposition of positive remedial influences. The most perfect human society speedily degenerates if the active agencies which were employed in its elevation are once withdrawn or suspended. What, then, can be expected of inexperienced youth sent forth from the atmosphere of domestic piety and left to the single support of its own untested and unsettled principles in the midst of circumstances which often prove fatal to the most practiced virtue! I frankly confess that I see no safety but in the preaching of the cross and in a clear and unfaltering exhibition of the doctrines and sanctions of Christianity…. Christianity is our birthright. It is the richest inheritance bequeathed us by our noble fathers. Are the guardians of public education alone ‘halting between two opinions’? Do they think that, in fact and for practical purposes, the truth of Christianity is still a debatable question? Is it still a question whether the generations yet to rise up and occupy the wide domain of this great empire, to be representatives of our name, our freedom, and our glory before the nations of the earth, shall be a Christian or infidel people? Can wise and practical men, who are engaged in rearing up a temple of learning to form the character and destinies of their posterity, for a moment hesitate to make ‘Jesus Christ the chief corner-stone’?”
When President Olin took charge of the College he found the system of departments somewhat elective. This was changed on his recommendation, to a curriculum of four classes, by the unanimous vote of the Faculty.
At the annual meeting of the Board, June, 1834, an additional college building was ordered to be built, a four story brick one, to contain thirty-two dormitories, adjacent to the main building. This was to supply rooms for the increased number of students.
The salaries of full professors was fixed at $1,000. The following resolution was adopted:
“That whereas the South Carolina and Georgia Conferences have manifested a deep interest in the permanent establishment of Randolph-Macon College by each agreeing to raise a sum sufficient to endow a professorship, and in consideration of which professorships they ask the privilege of sending, perpetually, the former Conference five and the latter seven students, to be educated free of tuition fees; and whereas we highly appreciate the generous spirit of said Conferences, therefore we hereby agree to receive ten from each of these Conferences free of tuition fees.”
As further evidence of the interest felt by these Conferences, it was noted that Rev. W. M. Wightman, of South Carolina, and Dr. Lovick Pierce and Mr. E. Sinclair, of Georgia, attended the meeting of the Board at this session.
At the annual meeting held June, 1835, Professor E. D. Sims was granted leave to visit Europe to prosecute the study of Modern Languages, and particularly Anglo-Saxon and Gothic, preparatory to the more thorough teaching of the English language. This, so far as we know, was the first move made by any college in America, and marks an epoch in that department. Prof. J. B. Henneman, in the Sewanee Review, in a sketch of the teaching of English, in American colleges, gives the credit of inaugurating the English course to Randolph-Macon College.
A distinct and special effort was made at this meeting of the Board to endow a professorship, and the President of the Board made a subscription towards it of two hundred dollars. This was to be called the Virginia Conference Scholarship.
To fill the vacancy caused by Prof. Sims’ absence in Europe, Rev. George F. Pierce, of Georgia, was elected Professor of Languages.
At this commencement the first degree of A. B. was conferred. The recipient was John C. Blackwell, of Lunenburg county. He was a typical alumnus, the leader of a great host that followed him, who lived to bless the world by their example and teaching. Beginning his active life after graduation as a tutor in Randolph-Macon College, he continued to teach until he became enfeebled by age. He founded the “Hinton Hill Academy” in his native county, and taught there for nine years. He was then, in 1848, elected President of the “Buckingham Female Institute,” a school for girls, founded by the Virginia Annual Conference, one of the best, as it was the first, built by the church, in the State. He was, after this school was broken up by the war, made President of the Petersburg Female College. This, too, was broken up by the war. After the war he was elected Professor of Chemistry in Randolph-Macon College, just prior to the removal of the College to Ashland. He closed a long and useful life as President of the “Danville School for Young Ladies.” During all his active life he was a local minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, and preached as he had opportunity. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from his Alma Mater. The number of young people brought into the church through his instruinentality have been counted by the hundred. The first to receive a degree, he was the first alumnus to have a son and a grandson to receive the same. He died February 1, 1885. He was elected tutor in the College June, 1835.
Changes had occurred during the year. Fisher A. Foster had been elected Principal of the Preparatory School in place of Lorenzo Lea. Rev. Jno. A. Miller and Rev. John Kerr had been elected assistant agents in place of Rev. W. A. Smith and Rev. Thos. Crowder. The Treasurer, John W. Lewis, had died during the year: Beverly Sydnor was elected in his place. Bishop J. O. Andrew was elected a Trustee in place of Major Speer, of South Carolina: Hugh A. Harland in place of J. W. Lewis, deceased, and M. M. Dance in place of Green Penn, resigned.