Vanderbilt University - Commodore Yearbook (Nashville, TN)

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CHANCELLOR JAMES HAMPTON KIRKLAND OF TODAY As Chancellor, Dr. Kirkland laced a two-fold problem; he had to provide the material equipment for a great university situated in a region too impoverished to offer anything but modest assistance from its own resources; and he had to grapple with the elusive problem ol creating high academic standards at a time when the social confusions and enthusiasms of the 'New South too often encouraged makeshift. How firmly and courageously Chancellor Kirkland met and solved these two problems is the glory of Vanderbilt today—and of the South. Others had founded. Chancellor Kirkland raised the structure upon the foundation, enlisting, in the long years of vision and struggle, the aid of an able and loyal faculty, of generations of students drawn from the rising South, of philanthropic alumni and friends. 1 he Vanderbilt of today, the composite work of churchmen, of two great chancellors, oi faculty, alumni, and friends, is a noble building. It remains for us to use it nobly and to remember it well, as one thing that abides whi e generations come and go. TPTWJUWW

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Vanderbilt of today was bom in tlie heart» and convictions of the Methodist Episcopal Giurch, South. It took shape under the leadership of the church. The genius and j r- severance of a great churchman. Bishop Holland N. McTyeire, brought the plan for a university to the point of foundation. The g.nerous gift o? Commodore Vanderbilt made the foundation possible, and it is altogether fitting that the university should hear his name. Vanderbilt opened its doors October J, 18 5, with an enrollment of $0 ' students. I he faculty, though small in number, were devoted to thnr calling. The policies of the instttu non were wisely moulded bv the first Chancellor, Landon ( alvll Garland, of Virginia, who served until 1895. He was succeeded bv a gentleman from South Carolina, at that time professor of I.atin on the Vanderbilt faculty, James Hampton Kirkland, who has served as Chancellor continuously since 189$.

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