Furman University - Bonhomie Yearbook (Greenville, SC)

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will Ik puiciiascd by tin- I.unity, alter consultation with library committees throughout the country as rapidly as the funds will allow. Several classes of Alumni have already sent m contributions tor the purchase of books. Yheic is no more direct way in which the Alumni can help the institution just now than in gathering class contributions for the purchase of books. In December. 1907. the South Carolina Baptist State Convention at Orangeburg projected a campaign for the erection of a new building to be known as the “James ('. Furman Hall of Science''. At the end of the year 1908. subscriptions were in hand amounting to $. 0,000 for this purpose. $25,000 of which was subscribed by Mr. Andrew Carnegie. Also in 1908 a commodious dormitory was built for the Fitting School. On December 31. 1909. largely through the efforts of Rev. K. F. Easterling. Financial Agent, all the conditions in reference to the James C. Furman Hall of Science were met. The work of erecting the new building was begun in the year 1910. and it was formally opened with appropriate exercises on January 18. 1912. It contains a Museum of Natural History with a well arranged display of many specimens, a laboratory for Physics, another for Chemistry, another for Biology, another for Psychology, besides private laboratories for the Professors, and several recitation rooms, stock rooms, etc., beside a finely equipped general lecture room with gas. water, electricity, projection lantern equipment, etc., and seating capacity on highly inclined floor for one hundred and fifty. FOLK LINKS OF EXPANSION There are four lines of expansion which lie before us, calling us to increased devotion to the largest single enterprise conducted in common by the Baptists of South Carolina. These arc, viz.. 1st. Endowment; 2nd. Loan Fund; 3rd. Course of Study; 1th. New Buildings. Of course expansion in these lines will be ac- companied by a steady, but we hope not too rapid increase in the number of students. The present endowment amounts to $225,000 and it is urgently necessary for us to press on with the endowment of the institution as rapidly as possible to the $500,000 mark. With the increase of the student body which this material expansion will certainly secure.'it will be increasingly necessary to provide aid for worthy young men who have brains and pluck but no money. At present our available loan fund for others than ministerial students, amounts to $1,000 and only the interest of some of this money can be distributed. The ideal plan for the aiding of young men is to lend them without interest sufficient money to put them through college.

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clear sight of origins is essential to full comprehension of the growth of an institution. And in what has now been said it will he seen that Furman University is the heir and depository of the finest sentiments and insights and enthusiasms of as noble a pioneer as ever breathed. Richard Furman died without seeing the fruition of his far-sighted plans. But two years after his death. 1827. the Baptist State Convention opened The Furman Academy and Theological Institution at F.dgeville. S. (’.. buildings and land having been offered conditionally by the citizens of the village. It is not necessary to detail here the checkered years from 1827 to 1852; the annals are printed year by year in the Catalogue. But it is impossible, to read the story and not see and feel that truly great men were put to the test again and again and were kept on the strain well-nigh to the limit of their powers to preserve the institution. Only a supreme purpose, with sources, like the great rivers, in the far heights, where God dwells, could have held them to their task. Furman University comes to us of the present generation freighted with the devotion and prayers and consecrated by the tears and toil of men of whom the world was not worthy. EXPANSION At the commencement in June 1907. an alumnus who had not visited the institution for a number of years said: Things do not look as they did when- I was a student here. Then he proceeded to remark. “We had only this old building, and the boys lived in boarding houses off the Campus. At the end of the Civil War. Captain Patrick taught a preparatory department in the large room under the tower; and l)r. Furman and his three or four professors taught college classes in the other rooms of the main building. They could not foresee the development of the succeeding forty years. Indeed there was almost no expansion until 1883. when bv the successful agency of R. II. Griffith, a considerable Endowment Fund was raised. In 1888 the first additional building (Judson Cottage) was put up. and a short while after this Griffith Hall, which for several years was the heme of the Fitting School boarding students. Today there are sixteen buildings on the Campus, including several small cottages, and nine of those are in constant use in the work of the University. Since 1897 six important buildings have been erected. The new Library building was opened for inspection on June 3. 1907. It represents in cost and endowment an addition of ‘88.000 to our plant. It has been much admired by all who have seen it. In interior finish and general appointments for library purposes, it is probably unsurpassed in South Carolina. Its one remaining need is books! books! books! These

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the loans to hear interest from the date of their graduation. In this way a considerable capital could he invested in the best of securities, viz., manhood. A sum of .$20,000 could he administered by the Faculty in this way in the very noblest service of the Kingdom of Christ SOME DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI. This extended enlargement of the material equipment does not necessarily ensure better work than was done in the earlier days. A glance at the list of the Alumni will show that from the beginning Furman University has maintained an exalted ideal of scholarship. The very first class to graduate gave to Southern Haptists their veteran hero missionary. Rev. J. B. Hartwell, and to the South Carolina brotherhood the incomparable John CL Williams. It will not be considered invidious to name these men. or others who from the earlier days by their achievements and general worth have added to the luster of Furman's name. The class of 1856 gave to us Col. R. B. Watson, of Ridge Springs. S. C., the apostle of sunshine, and the pioneer peach grower of South Carolina; Jas. N. Nash, attorney and teacher, of Atlanta, Gn., and V. II. Perry, who represented his district in Congress. Space will not allow us to comment upon the classes year by year, but it will be news to many among us to know that Furman University has furnished professors to Cornell, Rutgers, Chicago University, Johns Hopkins University. Richmond College, Wake Forest College, Clcmson College, the State Normal School of Washington, Mercer University (including a president), Judson College (a president), Howard College, Liberty College (a president), Baylor University, and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Probably the foremost Sanskrit scholar is an alumnus of Furman University—Maurice Bloomfield of Johns Hopkins University; while another alumnus, John M. Manly, of Chicago University stands at the head of English scholarship in the United States. Editors, lawyers, physicians, missionaries, teachers, preachers, legislators, civil engineers, merchants, and planters the time would fail us to appraise the value of the contribution in manhood which Furman University has made to the good of the State, the nation, and the world. THE PRESENT DAY OBLIGATION. The splendid record of the past enjoins upon us, as no mere exhortation could do. the obligation of maintaining in tin enlarged Furman of today the ideals and the spirit of the earlier years. Who are the men upon whom this responsibility rests? The present Faculty of course; and we wish we could introduce these men one by one to all our people. In their special training for the positions which