Athens State College - Columns Yearbook (Athens, AL)

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i MAID OF ATHENS 1924- ' . ' -« ' ' «W »-» ' •» MIS3 OLIVIA NELSON DORMAN Dean J :J

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■ ' ..■■■■ MAID OF ATHENS 1924- | REV. BENJAMIN BASCOM GLASGOW President - A

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■ - ■ - ■ - ■ - ■ - ' - ' ...f tU!9fe 3 .... MAID OF ATHENS 1924- YP - 0: ATHENS COLLEGE— LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD This is not intended to be a history of Athens College, which dates its corporate existence back to January 9, 1843. At this date the Legislature of Alabama granted a charter to certain trustees to establish and maintain a Fe- male Institute of the Tennessee Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, located at Athens, Alabama. This was one year before the division of the Methodist Church. It was two years before the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church. South, and twenty-seven years before the organization of the North Alabama Con- ference, to which belongs the Female Institute ' now grown to be an ' .A Grade college. There has been much history since that eventful day 8 I years ago. The War Between the States has been fought. The great issues, economic and social, that caused that fratricidal conflict have been settled. The bitterness engenderd by that awful struggle has passed away. The Spanish-American War and the World War have been fought. In each of these Alabama played no insignificant part. They have left their impress upon the life and character of our citizenship. The commonwealth from being an almost exclusively agri- cultural state, has become one of the great manufacturing states of the union. In the midst of these great changes, Athens College has not been un- affected. It, like the nation and the state has had its history. But simply to detail its history would be to compile a lot of more or less dry statistics, that would prove of little interest to the general reader, and would be for- gotten almost as soon as read. What is intended is rather by a backward glance to get some conception of the spirit and purpose of its founders; and to ascertain if that spirit still exists, and if that purpose is still being carried out. The evident purpose of the founders was to build up the character of the womanhood of the country by giving to them the advantage of the best education consistent with the ideals then prevailing, and to give that educa- tion under Christian teachers and amidst Christian influences. When the Institute was founded the field of womanly activities was cir- cumscribed. Outside of the Church and the school there was little demand and little opportunity for woman in business and professional life. Her sphere was limited largely to the home and the social life of the community in which she lived. Even in this limited circle there was much room for a well trained intellect, but the emphasis was placed not so much on scientific attainments as on accomplishments, such as music, art and elocution; and the cultivation of such graces as enabled a woman to make the home life and the