Chicora College for Women - Nods and Becks Yearbook (Columbia, SC)

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izMtond Like It, E, the Senior Class of Chicora College, in placing in your hands, kind friends, this sixth volume of The Clarion, do ask your sympathy for our work, and your indulgence and pardon for what¬ ever faults you may find herein. As Rosalind says, in “As You ‘Good wine needs no bush; neither does a good play need an epilogue, but good wine does have bushes, and good plays do have epilogues,” so we may say to you, that although a good book needs no introduction, we write this with the hope of arousing in you an appreciation for and an interest in our efforts. Since last year our College has come under the control of the Presbyterian Church of South Carolina. Thereby great fields have been opened to her labors, and soon we believe that she will be recognized as one of the foremost institutions of learning in our Dixie land. It is hoping these great things of her, and wishing her all possible success, that the Class of Nineteen Seven leaves its dear Alma Mater. May she have a lasting and a glorious influence on the womanhood of the South. And now to you, our honored President, and to you, our esteemed Faculty, and to you, our dear schoolmates who have still to reach that climax of college life, the Senior year, to all of you, we bid an affectionate farewell. May you prosper much in the coming years, and at last may you rest in peace. “Vale, vale, vale.”

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EDITORIAL STAFF 18

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A Sritwt? O GIRL who has ever been a student at Chicora can forget that face as she first saw it when leaving the car that had brought her to Greenville. Bright and genial, it towered above the crowd, and just so will the man who bore it always stand higher among men in the minds and lives of his girls. For such they were, never to him “the girls,” but always “my girls.” Dr. Samuel Rhea Preston, endowed by God with a wonderfully bright mind and indomitable will and courage, lost no opportunity to use these gifts to the glory of Him who gave them. It was in 1895 that he took charge of Chicora College, and one needs but compare it as it was then with what it was when he left it to see and know that it has been wisely and prayerfully controlled. As a financial manager bis success has been wonderful. During the past twelve years, the College has grown from a rented wooden building on McBee Avenue to a handsome brick structure on McBee Terrace; from three boarding pupils, to nearly a hundred. Dr. Preston recognized in woman the greatest force for the upbuilding of the home, the community, and the nation. It was his mission to better fit, by proper training, the young girls for this work, and no better man could have been found. His school was a home, and his girls trusted him and believed in him as though he were their father. No trouble was too small, no complaint too trivial for him to stop his work and listen to. Nothing caused him more sorrow than to see that some girl in his care was not making the best use of her talents. Not alone in the schoolroom did lie ask for highest endeavor, but be quickly saw what her influence and force in the college home, the literary and Christian organizations, were, and urged her to use these to the best advantage. And just so great was his joy to see one turn her back on the things of this world and press forward, with her face set toward higher things. Many a girl who, since leaving school, has been interested in all that is good and noble, can look back and see “Doctor’s” hand in it. How earnestly he plead with, how earnestly he prayed for every girl—not only for the student body as a whole, but for each soul individually! Personal sacrifice, wise management, and clear foresight on the part of its President contributed much to the success of Chicora. Let us who were once under his care, honor him by honoring the fruits of his labors, by doing all we can toward making it what he would have it be—a school for the training of young women to a fuller and richer life. One of ’01. 20