Wofford College - Bohemian Yearbook (Spartanburg, SC)

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hammered in with a vengeance. It was not at all uncommon for an examination to last from six to eight hours. Each room in the Main Building of that day was heated via the pot-bellied stove and the old-fashioned fireplace which gave cheerful Ught from its glowing embers but Uttle heat. The Wofford student of that day arose before dawn and was frequently forced out into the biting cold of a winter ' s morning in search of firewood or water from a nearby well located not far from the site of what is today the John B. Cleveland Hall of Science. Classes lasted from dawn to dusk with few holidays and less recreation. The Wofford of that day was located in a rural area in the midst of an almost untouched wilderness. A dusty wagon road following roughly the track of present-day Church Street led into Spartanburg, then a sleepy Httle village composed of a few frame houses clustered around Morgan Square in nondescript fashion. During the administration of Dr. James H. Carlisle who succeeded Shipp, a startling period of growth set in, commencing in 1880 with the erection of Alumni Hall, a brick structure beautifully ornamented by ornated porticoes and white-washed wooden columns, which towered high above the surrounding landscape and seemed to touch the clouds. Within a few years Snyder Hall, today a freshman dormitory, had risen adjacent to Alumni and was situated near the ravine. These two structures were soon to compose the old Wofford Fitting School where young men deficient in scholastic training were prepared for college. These are only a few of the many and vast improve- ments inaugurated by the genious and driving vitality of Dr. Carlisle, who more than any other individual deserves to be called the father of Wofford College. This great man whose portrait is mounted with quiet dignity above the chapel rostrum was one of the foremost educators of his time, and loved Wof- ford with a passion such as only men of intellect and concern for humanity can muster. He found her poor and impoverished, struggling with desperation to make ends meet, and left it a flourishing institution of higher learning, well able to make its own way in the academic world. His administration saw also the construction of the Whiteford Smith Library, the John B. Alumni Hall and Snyder at the turn of the century. Wofford-P.C. football gome in 1927. Cleveland Hall of Science and other monuments to a genius which can never die. Tired and full of years Carlisle retired in 1909 and soon found his way to the land beyond the shadow. He was succeeded by Dr. Henry Nelson Snyder, at that time professor of English on the faculty of the college he was to serve so well in after years. Snyder, in whom many of his stu- dents saw a marked resemblance to Shakespeare in appearance, continued during his administration on the work so well begun by Carlisle. It was during the administration of the former that Carhsle Memorial Hall was erected to the memory of one of the bright lights of Southern education. Snyder, author of An Educational Odyssey, stood at the helm during the stormy days of World War I, the hectic era of the roaring twenties, and the hard and bitter years of the thirties which are best forgotten but never can be. The advent of World War II brought with it one of the severest crises in the history of the college. With Pearl Harbor came an ever-shrinking student body as one by one men marched to join the colors to fight and die in the name of God, country and liberty. The armed forces were quick to requisition the physical plant of the college for mili- tary training program. Soon the tramp of marching feet added something new to the magnificent panorama of Wofford his- tory. The students that remained upon the scene, a pitiful remnant of what once had been, attended Converse and the Spartanburg Junior College. With peace came revival and a new president. Snyder retired after well over four decades of service and was succeeded by Dr. Walter K. Greene who was destined to become for a time President of both Wofford and Columbia colleges simultaneously. Greene ' s administration saw new monu- ments to education rise one by one to crown the lands cape with majestic splendor. Nowhere in the annals of the college is there a record of so much being accomplished in so short a time. Ill health forced Greene ' s retirement after an all too short tenure of office. After a brief interval of a year, during which Dr. C. C. Nor- ton doubled as President and Dean of Administration, Dr. Francis Pendleton Gaines, Jr., Dean of Students at Southern Methodist University, was inaugurated amid elaborate cere- monies as the sixth President of Wofford College — a ceremony which was destined to be a superb keynote to commence a cen- tury of progress. 7