Furman University - Bonhomie Yearbook (Greenville, SC)

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scribed 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. E. 1 . Easterling, Financial Agent, all the conditions in reference to the James (’. 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 of Physics, another for Chemistry, another for Biology, another for Psychology, besides private laboratories for the Professors, and several recitation rooms, etc., besides a finely equipped lecture room with gas. water, electricity, projection lantern equipment, etc., and seating capacity on highly inclined floor for one hundred and fifty. FOI R LINES 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 are. viz.. 1st. Endowment: 2nd. Loan Fund: 3rd. Courses of Study; 4th, New Buildings. Of course expansion in these lines will be accompanied by a steady, but we hope not too rapid increase in the number of students. The present endowment amounts to $225,000 and il 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 $4,000 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, the loans to bear interest from the date of their graduation. In this way considerable capital could be invested in the befit of securities, viz., manhood. A sum of $20,000 could be administered by the Faculty in this way in the very noblest service of the Kingdom of Christ. SOME DISTI NtH'lSHEl) ALCMNI 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 Baptists their veteran hero missionary, Rev. .1. B. Hartwell, and to the South Carolina brotherhood the incomparable John 1. Williams. It will not he con- Page Twelve

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man Academy and Theological Institution” at Edgefield, 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 hv year in the catalog. Hut 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 t » the limit of their powers to preserve the institution. Only a supreme purpose, with sources, like the great rivers, iu 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 ami toil of men of whom the world was not worthy. EXPANSION. At the commencement in dune, 1907, an alumnus who had not visited the institution for a number of years, said: “Things do not look as they did when T was a student here.” Then he proceeded to remark, “We had only this old building, and the I toys lived in hoarding 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 Dr. Furman and his three or four pro-lessors 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 1885, when by the successful agency of l». 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 home of the Fitting School boarding students. Today there are sixteen buildings on the campus, including several small cottages, and nine of these are in constant use in the work ol' the University. Since 1897 six important buildings have been erected. The new library building was opened for inspection on .June 5, 1907. It. represents in cost and endowment an addition of $38,000 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 will he purchased l v the Faculty, after consultation with library committees throughout flu country as rapidly as the funds will allow. Several classes of Alumni have already sent in contributions for the purchase of books. There is no more direct way in which the Alumni can help the institution just now than in gathering class contributions for the purchase of hooks. 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 $50,000 for this purpose. $25,000 of which was sub- Pagc Eleven

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sidere l invidious to name these men, or others who from the earlier (lays by their achievements and general worth have added to the lustre of Furman's name. The class of 1856 gave to us Col. It. B. Watson, of Ridge Springs, S. C., the apostle of sunshine, and the pioneer peach grower of South Carolina; Jas. X. Nash, attorney and teacher, of Atlanta, (la.; and W. 11. 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, Clemson College, the State Normal School of Washington, Mercer University (including a president), Judson College (a president), Baylor University, and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Probably the most famous 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 the 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 they occupy they represent Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Colby, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in this country; and Cambridge (England), Paris (France), Leipzig and Berlin (Germany), abroad. It will he seen that these men are fully competent to maintain the standards set by Furman, Judson, Reynolds, and Edwards. The Arts degrees offered by Furman University today are standard and represent a sound liberal education. A CALL AND A CHALLENGE The facts here brought together constitute a call and a challenge. The South Carolina Baptist State Convention has here a great enterprise on its hands, a great and growing and quite incalculably useful enterprise of a fundamental and essential importance to the progress of our people. It enshrines as no other enterprise does or can ever do the traditions and spirit of our history in this state; the great names of that history arc forever linked with Furman University. These great Page Thirtren