Florida State University - Renegade / Tally Ho Yearbook (Tallahassee, FL)

Page 9 text:

opportunities to better themselves for the duties of life, and without a dissenting voice, the standards for entrance and the same broad and general scope of instruction were laid out for the College and the University. In recognition of the worth of educated womanhood to the State, the Board of Control provided that attendance upon the college should involve in expenses nothing more than the ordinary cost of living. It was therefore arranged that any young woman in this State could attend the Florida State College for Women, practically at the cost of cloth- ing, board, and books. The faculty was composed, for the most part, of able men and women who had assisted in bringing the old Florida State College up to its highest efficiency before its abolishment. This faculty possessed broad scholarship and generous culture. They were true and loyal, kind and sympathetic. I think it can be safely said that no college for women in this section of the country could lay claim to a more able and successful class of teachers than that which the Beard selected for this new institution of learning. Indeed, the College has won the respect and good will of the people of this Commonwealth by retaining on its faculty only men and women of the best training and the highest culture and refinement that can be secured. The scope and purpose of the College having been determined and the faculty selected, enorts were directed towards a campaign of advertising the new institutions. Notwithstanding the shortness of time in which to bring this new enterprise to the know- ledge of those who had daughters to educate, and the advance requirements which barred a number of young ladies who applied for admission, the first session began with 1 1 4 students and closed with 204. The second year the College began with 141 and closed with 220. The third opened with 1 46 the first day and closed with 240. The fourth year began with 164 and ended with 257. At the opening of the present session 200 students registered on the first day. These figures indicate a healthy and encouraging growth of the Institution. The College began operation in the buildings of the old Florida State College. To make room for the various departments of instruction, dormitory rooms were converted into Domestic Science Laboratories and into Studios for the teachers of Music and Art. Two frame buildings were bought and in these were placed the Kindergarten Training School, the Practice School, the gymnasium, natatorium, and studio for the teacher of physical culture and oratory. During the past years, therefore, it has been necessary on account of limited dormitory space for many students to find accomodation in private homes in the city.

Page 8 text:

tstorj? of tfte Jflori a §5tate College for ISHomen The State College for Women was established by the State of Florida in May, 1905, and its management vested in a Board of Control consisting of five members. In July, 1905, this board and the State Board of Education, in joint session, located the College in Tallahassee. The four years of the College history have shown a steady growth in number of students, in the scope and efficiency of the college work, and in all else that makes for the upbuilding of a reputable educational institution. No man is born into the world but his work is born with him says Lowell, and it may be said that no college is born into the world but it is born with a mission to per- form. Seeking the deeper meaning of education, the Board of Control felt that the State College for Women was created to be a source of warmth and light, of hopefulness and good cheer to the young women of Florida. Its highest mission was felt to be the infusion of the young women of the Commonwealth with such light and warmth that they should become lamps, trimmed and burning with perennial flame, radiating the spirit of helpfulness, usefulness and good will in every neighborhood of this State; to be a place where young women might come for intellectual light and spiritual quickening and warmth, a place where all noble ambitions should be awakened, where the best that is in human character should be brought to the light, and where love to God, love to humanity and love to country should be made a ruling passion. With such ideals in mind, the Board of Control began its work of selecting officers of administration and instruction, and by laying out the widest possible curriculum to meet the utmost needs of ithe young women of the State. In their desire to meet the demands of the present day, this Board took into consideration that education which has a direct bearing on utility and on the practical affairs of life. So it was provided that the college should offer a wide variety of courses both theoretical and practical, in domestic science, domestic art, elementary agriculture, horticulture and pedagogy, music, art, and express- ion, in addition to the more standard courses of general literature, liberal arts, and sciences. The Board fully recognized that by every consideration of wisdom, policy, and justice, Florida women should have equal recognition with their broithers in advantages, and

Page 10 text:

During the Christmas holidays of 1 906, West Hall, which was used as a dormitory and for music and art studios, and domestic science laboratories, was burned. The difficulties arising therefrom seemed well night insuperable. But by the prompt action of the Board of Control, a number of private residences near the campus were rented for the accommodation of the students and teachers. Notwithstanding this disaster, every student but two remained and the college opened after the holidays without the loss of a day. The College was not to suffer this handicap long, for the legislature of 1907 appropriated the present spacious new dormitory, completed August 1, 1908 and named for our late and lamented Senator, W. J. Bryan of Jacksonville. While this building provided room for I 60 young women, it has already become inadequate. The rapidly increasing attendance has again rendered it necessary for students to secure board in private homes in the city. The new academic building, whose corner stone was laid on March 8, was provided for by the same act of the legislature which made the appropriation for Bryan Hall. This building will meet a long felt and vital necessity of the College. The present administration building has, from the very beginning, been painfully inadequate for the demands of this new educational enterprise. It is gratifying to the friends of the College that the most conspicuous and crying need of the Institution is so soon to be fully supplied. While the buildings were insufficient, the State College for Women inherited some invaluable equipment from the Florida State College. The library which was so carefully selected by the faculty committee, of which Dr. S. M. Tucker was chairman, includes about seven thousand volumes covering every field of human knowledge. It has less dead wood, and contains more excellent and useful volumes, than any college library in proportion to its size that I have ever known. 1 he physical, chemical and biological laboratories were, also, well equipped with useful apparatus necessary for the courses offered in the new institution ; and, like the library, they have been indispensible factors in the education of our young women. After my appointment to succeed Dr. Andrew Sledd as president of the University of Florida, April, 1 909, the Board of Control elected Dr. Edward Conradi, then of the St. Petersburg Normal and Industrial School, Florida, as president of the College. President Conradi is a man of wide experience and broad scholarship, having received his pre- limenary college training and the Master ' s Degree from the University of Indiana and the degree of Ph. D. from Clark University of Massachusetts. Mr. Conradi has adapted himself to the administrative work of the Institution with admirable tact, and