Wofford College - Bohemian Yearbook (Spartanburg, SC)

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Prof. Carlisle, tall, imposing, modest, in the vigor of thirty years of youth, followed, as a hearer expressed it, in one of his own happy efforts, at once profound, simple, delightful. The subject matter was moral and philosophical, at times thrill- ing, we can easily believe. A distinct contrast, a contrast which he felt without throwing into prominence — was presented in his close with a portion of the address of President Wightman. He extended a fraternal hand to all similar institutions, and paid a tribute to the South Carolina College — in some sort the mother of us all said the orator, and hoped that when Wofford College should be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, as the State college is doing this year, that institution, still flourishing and vigorous, might be celebrating it ' s one hundredth. This noble spirit of liberality, joined with the deepest piety in its author, has been of immense value in the after educational history of South Carolina. Prof. Warren DuPre delivered his inaugural at the second commencement. It was an address on Science, and was noted at the time as of marked ability. The original curriculum was composed of a good deal of mathematics, a large quantity of Greek and Latin, what would now be considered an infinitesimal amount of English and that based on the study of Karnes ' Elements of Criticism, two years of Science, and some general history. For the first year there was no Professor of English, that work being done by the Presi- dent. Dr. Whitefoord Smith came at the beginning of the second year as Professor of English Literature. Though collateral reading was not required in those days, an examination of the older portions of our library, as well as personal inquiries, proves that there was a great deal of good reading done, in the best existing fiction and a very excellent quality of history, especially in the works of the great historians who made the period famous by their writings. When the War of Secession opened the college classes contained seventy-nine students. The struggle had not continued many months when the bulk of the maturer men were drawn by their enthusiasm into the army. In 1863-4 only eighteen were enrolled and two graduated. In 1864-5 only boys remained and Professors Duncan and Carlisle taught a high school in the col- lege building. Prof. DuPre was engaged in supervising the public salt works at Mt. Pleasant, S. C, Prof Smith served the church in the town, and President Shipp took a year of rest which his state of health made very acceptable. One spring day in 1865 a message came that the Federal soldiers were coming. As Prof. Carlisle dismissed his boys, he told them to go straight home, as there might be confusion on the streets. Waddy Thompson was the last to leave the room, and as he departed he said, I hope the Yankees will be good to you if they catch you, Prof. Carlisle. Waddy knew, perhaps, of the apprehension on the part of Prof. Carlisle ' s friends that his part in the Secession Convention would endanger his safety or liberty if he should fall into the hands of the Federals. He was unmolested, however. The endowment of the college, after the erection and equipment of the buildings, amounted to $50,000. To this the Conference added the Centenary Educational Fund, $11,000, various friends gave $4,000, and Geo. W. Williams gave $S,ooo, the income from which last was to be used in aiding young men looking to the ministry. Almost immediately after its opening, there- fore, the college lacked only two thousand dollars of having the same endowment which it had in 1903. In the six months begin- ning with November, 1863, President Shipp raised the endowment to over $200,000. Simpson Bobo started the subscription with a gift of $30,000 in Confederate bonds, and Rev. A. H. Lester (afterwards Professor in the college) and his brothers, William and George, owners all three of the Buena Vista cotton factory, where Pelham now is, gave jointly about the same sum. AH 23

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No Methodist in America and none, it is believed in the world, had at the time of Mr. Wofford ' s bequest given so large a sum for any philanthropic purpose. It was so large, indeed, judged by the standards of that time as to attract national atten- tion, and it has since been equalled only twice in South Carolina, namely, by the gifts of Mr. D. E. Converse to the institution bearing his name, and by the $166,000 donation of Mr. Ephraim Baynard to the College of Charleston. The Clemson bequest of $8o?ooo and 800 acres of land, ranking almost as high, can be made to equal it only by the appreciation in the value of the real estate. The thirteen trustees named in the will were Rev. W. M. Wightman, H. Bass, W. A. Gamewell, W. Barrmger, H. A. C. Walker, John Porter, David Derrick, Maj. Harvey Wofford, H. H. Thomson, Joseph W. Tucker, Clough Beard and Doct. Benj. Wofford. The duty of this board was solely to buy land and erect buildings and hand the property over to a board of thirteen trustees elected for two years by the Conference. A charter was obtained from the legislature December 16, 1851, without opposi- tion, contrary to the experience of Erskine, the first denominational , college in the State, in 1839.. and on August i, 1854, exercises began. The active faculty consisted of Rev. W. M. Wightman, D. D.. President and Professor of Mental and Moral Science, David Duncan, A. M., Professor of Ancient Languages, and James H. Carlisle, A. M., Professor of Mathematics. Though Prof. War- ren DuPre, A. M.,Professor of Natural Science, was elected with the original faculty by the Board at the Conference in New- berry in the fall of 1853, he did not teach the first year, as there were no classes needing his services, but spent this time studying in the laboratories of Yale University with Prof. Silliman, one of the most distinguished of American scientists, and in collect- ing apparatus and speciments. Rev. Albert M. Shipp, elected with the original faculty Professor of English Literature, continued to each in the University of North Carolina and at the end of a year definitively declined the election to Wofford. When Presi- dent Wightman resigned, July 12, 1859, to take the presidency of the new Methodist college in Alabama, Dr Shipp was elected to the presidency of Wofford and accepted. The teaching force consisted, therefore, of three professors the first year. Only two classes were represented, the Freshman and Sophomore, and the total enrollment reached twenty-four. About twenty besides were enrolled in the preparatory department. Commencement was held notwithstanding, June 24 and 25, 1855, and a very interesting commencement it was. On Sun- day, the 24th, the chapel was dedicated. President Wightman preached an eloquent sermon, rich in historical illustration and spiritual power, from the first verse of the 8oth Psalm. The next morning a procession was formed in front of the Palmetto Hotel, on the northeast corner of Church and Main streets, and marched to the college. There being no graduates or other stu- dent speakers, the faculty delivered inaugural addresses of about fifty minutes each. President Wightman spoke of the mission of the college and defended the denominational college idea with some warmth, alluding to the complete lack of representation of Methodists on the faculty of the State college and pointing out the peculiar advantages offered by Wofford. Prof. Duncan, a ripe scholar of sixty-four year, spoke upon the nobility and value of the classics in an address learned and scholarly and at places finely spiced with his keen native wit. This address and that of Gov. D. H. Cham- berlain along the same lines at a commencement many years later presented as excellently as ever heard at Wofford, in both ar- gument and example, the claims of the classical ideal of education. 22

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these funds, though valuable at the time, vanished with the Confederacy on whose existence they depended. With enthusiastic pa- triotism, the $70,000 substantial endowment in existence at the outbreak of the war was converted into confederate bonds with the result of its total loss. Besides the loss of the endowment was the arrest of the growing prosperity of the college, which had been increasing finely in the patronage an d in the affections of the people. The necessities of many who would have become students forced them into self-supporting pursuits. Not until 1869 did the enrollment reach that of 1861, and so late as 1871-2 it was only ninety-four. There were no graduates in 1866 and but eighteen students ; two received diplomas in 1867. The earnestness of the students of those trying days is attested by the unusually large proportion of the graduates to the total enrollment. The number of students in the college classes in 1866 was 18; in 1870, 94; in 1875, 92; in 1880, 84; in 1885, 72; in 1891, 138; in 1S95. 144; in 1900, 143; in 1904, 196. Counting the 137 Fitting School students, there were 333 students on the campus in 1904. But there was one feature of the years from 1865 to about 1880 that made for fine, manly tone in college life and excel- lence in certain departments of college work, namely, the unusually high average age of the students. Many men who sat in these class rooms in the late sixties and early seventies had marched across the bloody fields of Virginia and Tennessee or had fought back the invaders along the Carolina coast. In some respects the college life of those days is not likely ever again to be equaled. A new point of departure in the history of the college may be fixed at (say) 1875. Three years before the movement which was eventually to create the present endowment had been set on foot, and the spirit manifested in the movers and the response among the people showed that a brighter day was about to dawn. In June. 1875, Dr. James H. Carlisle was made Presi- dent, Dr. Shipp having accepted a professorship in the theological department of the newlv organized Vanderbilt University, Rev. W W. Duncan, of Virginia, was given the work in Mental and Mora l Philosophy formerly taught by the President and was shortly charged with the work of financial agent, Charles Forster Smith was made Assistant Professor of Greek and Ger- man, the latter subject being then introduced, and D. A. DuPre was elected Assistant Professor, though without assignment of work until his return from the University of Edinburgh in the spring of 1877. What might be called the young faculty was further increased ni 1876 by the election of W. M. Baskervill as Professor of Latin and English. Professor Baskervill, just re- turned from his first residence in Germany, introduced the study of English Language and Anglo-Saxon in addition to the old course in literature, in which latter he also introduced the new methods of teaching more by use of the authors ' works instead of depending so largely on compends. In 1878 Jas. H. Kirkland became Tutor in Languages, thus presenting the simultane- ous employment at Wofford, of which we shall always be proud, of three of the most distinguished men who later simultaneously served Vanderbilt LIniversity. The addition of these five younger men to the splendid body of conservative and cultured gentle- men identified with the college since its foundation meant that Wofford, while losing nothing of the ideals of the past, was to keep in touch with the expanding needs and progressive thought of modern education. Happy is that people whose history is brief, expresses a truth applicable to the mutual relations of trustees, faculty and students. The remarkable harmony which has always characterized the workings of these three constituent members of the col- lege body politic is due to the wisdom, moderation and liberality of no one of them above another, except in so far as an excep- 24