Davidson College - Quips and Cranks Yearbook (Davidson, NC)

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various buildings; and only those who have spent four years under the dear old trees, have worked and dreamed in the rich atmosphere of the old College, can have learn- ed to love its campus as one of the dearest spots on earth for them. But though nature, under man ' s directing hand, has done so much to make our college home a pleasant one, it has been reserved for recent years to bring about such changes and additions in our buildings as to make them worthy of their beautiful situation. With a view to a better housing for students and equipments, by the beneficence of ex-President J. B. Shearer, the Old Chapel was remodeled in 1901 ; and from a primitive sort of structure was converted into a thoroughly convenient, modern college building, with larger and more comfortable auditorium for chapel exercises and better equipped recitation rooms. In this building is now located the new read- ing room, which is so far superior to the old one as hardly to bear comparison with it. The new room has been fitted out with the best upholstered chairs, and in other ways made much more comfortable than before. The latest magazines and papers are always to be found on the racks, and these are accessible to the students at all hours of the day. At the same time that the Old Chapel was remodeled, a time- honored eye-sore in the shape of a little dormitory building, known as Tammany, was removed from the campus, and now Elm Row and Oak Row and the two Lit- erary Society halls are the only remains of the College as it stood in 1837. Probably one of the most useful of the improvements made within recent years on our campus is the Martin Chemical Laboratory. It is a thoroughly modern structure in every d-etail, and is one of the finest laboratories of its kind in the South. It has done a great deal towards popularizing the study of Chemistry, and, by its complete equipment of materials, apparatus, etc., it has been able to give to the students a course unexcelled by any college curriculum. In an issue of the College Bulletin, issued since the Class of 1904 entered as Freshmen, it was stated that, in consequence of the growing size of the student- body, a number of improvements were in the highest degree desirable, if not abso- lutely necessary. Among other things were mentioned: larger rooms for the Phys- ical and Mineralogical laboratories, a remodeled commencement hall, an enlargement of the church, and an additional dormitory building. Before this year ' s Senior Class graduates, some of them will have profited by the increased facilities offered by the new Physical laboratories; quite a number will have enjoyed the comforts of the new dormitory building, and all of them will have shared in the advantages offered by the enlarged church. The new dormitory is thoroughly up-to-date in every detail; it is well ventilated, heated by steam, and provided with bath rooms, furnishing hot and 20

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Natural Sciences. With a student-body of sixty-six members, and with three pro- fessors in its faculty, Davidson College commenced its career sixty-seven years ago, and from that day to this has never closed its doors. Even in the troublous times of the Civil War it continued its sessions, though its few students were, for the most part, boys too young to defend the cause of the South at the front. The princely donation of a quarter of a million dollars made to its endowment fund in 1855 by Maxwell Chambers, enabled the College to employ a larger and more efficient corps of instructors and to purchase a more adequate equipment for the laboratories of the Natural Science departments. Like many another of the South ' s fortunes, the endowment of Davidson College was all but swept away by the ravages of the Civil War. Since the war the institution has had to struggle against poverty, which, for a long time, threatened its very existence ; and it has been only by the noble devotion of its constituents that it has been enabled, slowly, to raise its endowment to $100,000, to expend $50,000 for laboratories, apparatus, and other improvements, and with this new equipment to carry on its work of train- ing the young men of the South for usefulness in Church and State. After a look at Davidson ' s past history, we may be justified in our desire to know in what degree she is measuring up to the high ideals of the past ; in what way she is fulfilling her mission of usefulness to the Church and to the section whose zeal for the cause of truth and enlightenment brought her into being. Probably the growing prosperity of the College cannot be better shown than by referring to the numerous improvements which have been made on its campus within the last few years. And just here, and first of all, it is proper to call attention to the work and influence of the College Y. M. C. A., whose building, the first of its kind erected on a Southern campus, contains, in addition to the assembly hall and parlor on the second floor, a gymnasium and bath rooms, which occupy the whole of the lower story. In its gymnasium a number of the students take their exercise, and its bath rooms are used by a large majority of the men in College. As a moral agency on the campus, as one of the religious factors of life at Davidson, and as a training school for Christian workers, the value and influence of the Y. M. C. A. cannot be overrated. The Association here is now in a flourishing condition, and promises to fulfill its high mission of usefulness to the work of the College. Davidson has always boasted of her beautiful campus, unsurpassed by that of any institution in the South. Only those who have had the privilege of seeing for themselves can appreciate the inadequacy of photographs and word descriptions to set forth the beauty of its wide stretches of luxuriant lawns, shaded by magnifi- cent trees, and traversed here and there by well-kept walks leading to and from the 19

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cold showers at any time of the day; and the renovated church, with its handsome new pipe organ, offers quite a pleasing contrast to the old building from the point of view of additional comfort and increased seating capacity. These improvements, which only a few years ago were hardly more than dreams, are now among the most useful realities of the College equipment. A mere mention of the other recent improvements will be sufficient. Within the last few years the faculty has been enlarged to the extent of one Professor, an Associate Professor, a Gymnasium Director, and several assistants in various depart- ments. The library is steadily increasing in size and value by the additions which are being made from time to time. The efficiency of the work done by the students in the Chemical and Physical laboratories has been greatly augmented by the contin- uous-additions to their plants in the way of materials, apparatus, etc. Under these conditions, life is going forward at Davidson today. With a larger student body and a larger faculty than ever before in her history ; with better equip- ment in the way of buildings, libraries, laboratories, etc., it may be said that she is now doing more effective work and rendering more efficient service to the country than she has done in all the years that are gone, however glorious her past history may be. Life on the Davidson campus at the present day is far different from what it was when the fathers and grandfathers of the present students conned their text- books in Latin, Greek and Mathematics beneath these classic shades. The advan- tages of a more flexible curriculum have increased the number of electives, thus giving greater play of selection to the individual student. Although the part David- son has taken in intercollegiate athletics within late years has caused some of the older and, for aught we know, wiser alumni to shake their heads in disapproval, it can be said to the honor of Davidson College that her record on the gridiron, on the diamond, and in every other form of manly sport, has been as clean and irreproach- able as her standards of intellectual discipline have been high and unimpeachable. Standing as she does for the development of the whole man, Davidson has seen fit to endeavor to give her students every advantage available for the cultivation of bodily strength and activity. It is now becoming clear that in order for her sons to win in the battle of life, they must be equipped with bodies which can withstand the attacks of disease and sustain the fatigues of active life as well as with well-trained minds and clean moral characters with which to gain the love and respect of their fellowmen. It is a characteristic fact that one of the most note-worthy improvements to be made at Davidson in the near future is in pursuance of this very idea. A generous