Cumberland University - Phoenix Yearbook (Lebanon, TN)

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fl BOX SeflT FOR orary numerdll in 1931 United ranked think he ts has the privilege oi ciainiin Iniiii. Names of its graduates have appeartc 3h le (Ilo ii-t, and other divisions of the national ih Cumperland ' s most distinguished graduate is ui e Cordell Hull. Mr. Hull, whose home is near urnbelrland University School of Law in 1891 ' ; ee of Doctor of Laws from the LIniversity in (io$itipni of the government, he was elected to the ■ie lyears later he arose to the high office of Secreta ■; ti; , nd Ihe remained in this ofllice until 1944. Sever ambng the first six of our great Secretaries of State. It is a priviTbge tt Cordell Hull, who greatest. je dicate the 1950 edition of the PHOENI ves the highest honor Cumberland LIniv i4+«rTiyEU im

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fari GYMNASIUM PRESIDENT ' S HOME, LOCATED ON UNIVERSITY AVENUE J? ' - §F m 1 i .-i . . --. if Imilmiilii I ' lil iiiiMiniiirtiiiiiliin K yriiStei«.i

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fflii iHi Pin Cumberland University, nurturing mother of men and of colleges! Like nearly every female, matron or maid, she docs not publicly claim her full age. One hundred and eight years — that is what she says. There are those who intimate that it ought to be 124. But it is known — no matter, for the moment, how — that she is actually 165 years old. The date celebrated as her birthday is really the anniversary of her second marriage. So says the venerable sage of her present faculty, Dixon Merritt. On a May morning in 1748 Dr. Thomas Walker, with his company of hunters and explorers, came into the head of Powell valley and was charmed by the rugged and picturesque range of mountains to the west and named the country Cumberland in honor of William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland — third son of George II. It is a country which, in its full extent, stretches roughly from Cumberland, Md., to Gadsden, Alabama, but the name is commonly applied to that portion which lies in Tennessee and Kentucky. The Cumberland country was, in no great while, settled and there had to be an institu- tion of higher learning for it. Such an institution was established, mainly by church people, in 1785 at Nashville with the name of Davidson Academy. About 20 years later the institu- tion was rechartered as Cumberland College. Under that name for another 20 years it was the pioneer college for all the Old Southwest. In 1826, when Cumberland College was rechartered as the University of Nashville, some of her supporters refused to go along with this change and withdrew to a farm and some log buildings just out of Princeton, Kentucky and continued as Cumberland College. After about fifteen years the pressure to bring Cumberland back home became too strong. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church now supported it and the bulk of the church ' s strength was in Middle Tennessee. While locations were being considered, Lebanon offered to put up $10,000 in cash for the purpose of erecting a building. Lebanon was a city of settled and seasoned culture. Cumberland LIniversity was opened in Lebanon, chartered by the State of Tennessee in 1842. Among her trustees were such Lebanon stalwarts as James Chamberlain Jones, Gov- ernor of Tennessee; Robert L. Caruthers, Congressman from the district; and Nathan Green, Justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. Classes were begun in September in a little old church building on North Cumberland Street — a building still standing and in use. It took until 1044 to put up the new building. The munificent $10,000 which Lebanon had provided was by no means enough to do it, but more money came. And the building, when completed, was among the largest and handsomest educational structures in the South. Before 1860 Cumberland had more alumni than either Harvard or the University of Vir- ginia in the Congress of the U. S. and on the benches of federal and state courts. Its other departments vere equally eminent. Then the great crimson flower of war burst into bloom over the land. Cumberland ' s magnificent building was not destined to stand the shock. Before the end, it lay in ashes. By whom it vas burned nobody seems to know for sure. But it was gone. Endowment securities were wiped out. When the war ended Cumberland had only its name and its debts. Yet, curiously, nearly all its faculty returned — not to salaries but to work. Among the first to get back was an alumnus who stood among the ashes of his Alma Mater, a single Corinthian colunm of which was standing. Sorrowful but not despondent, he picked up a piece of charred wood and wrote upon the column the single Latin word, resurgam — in translation, ' T shall arise. That word became the voice of faith crying amid the desolation, and Cumberland did arise. That phrase stands yet on the L ' niversity seal in its rexased form, E. Cineribus Resurgo. Then followed about four decades of Cumberland ' s richest history. But her travail was not yet over. Her second major calamity came in the early years of the 20th century. In the so-called union between the Cumberland Presbyterians and the Presbyterians U. S. A., Cumberland University was the little birdie in a badminton game, battered about from one to the other. Squeezed between conflicting court decision she suffered loss from which she never fully recovered under Presbyterian auspices. Another great chapter in Cumberland ' s remarkable history began in 1946. The self- perpetuating board of trustees, who had administered the aflairs of Cumberland under Pres- byterian auspices for more than a century, gave (he L ' niversity, lock, stock, barrel and breech-pin, to the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Lovely Tennessee College for Women was tenderly lifted from her withered nest and made to live nnew on Cumberland ' s spacious campus. The heritages of these two schools are welded together and now make up the flourishing new Cumberland. She moves on her upward path with new life, new hope and new joy. Her faculty and students enjoy a happy Christian cultural life together and maintain a cordial relationship with the connnunity.