Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

Page 22 text:

the women of Baltimore, the educational key position for the whole south and a region where the higher education of women was taboo. College edu- cation prepared women to teach, and a Southern lady, as you know, my dear, a Southern lady never teaches , said a horriiied post-secession war starving maiden lady to her niece, who, to relieve the misery of their situation, had made the proposition to enter the vocation of a teacher. This was, then, to be a college to break down the prejudice against higher education for women among women of Baltimore. Hence, The Womanis College of Baltimore. Finally, the college was planned to do work of such a high character, that for all times to come, it was to be The Womanls College of Baltimore. The college seal consisted of a triangle inscribed in a circle. The legend within the triangle said UI Thess. V: 23 . From this legend rays of light radiated against the circle. Verse 23, referred to, reads: uAnd the God of Peace sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be pre- served entire, Without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The triangle represented the three natures in man: mind, soul and body. These, enlightenedein collegeeby the Scripture and by education, should in turn radiate their gain upon the universe. This was the symbolism. Today, the legend has been changed to verse 21 of the same Epistle and chapter. It reads: HProve all things, hold fast that which is good . The seal and legend were changed during the Presidency of Dr Eugene Allen Noble, third President of Goucher College, in 1910. THE FORMAL OPENING Goucher Hall was not yet completed. and the first faculty meetings, the first classes. were held in the Sunday School Rooms of First Church. I see myself, a German Swiss, almost ignorant of English, beginning to teach my French classes mainly through the French. Gradually room after room in Goucher Hall became available. The lirst day Mrs. Froelicher and I entered Goucher, Mr. Gustav Kahn, superintendent of the building, showed us the building and gave us the choice of class rooms and offlce. And the selection remained permanent. At the formal opening of Goucher, President Gilman of J. H. U. gave the main address on the subject: HWhat Constitutes a Liberal Education? We marched in solemn procession from Goucher Hall to First Church, our faculty paired with members of the J. H. U. faculty. THE FACULTY The first Goucher faculty consisted of young men and women or of such as were in early middle age. It was inspiring to be part of it. Each one was bent on doing his best, on making his department the best in the college. Teachers were exacting in demands on their students, but they were equally exacting in their demands on themselves. Out of this ambition arose, of course, the danger of overworking the students, and from time to time we had to come to terms with each other and learn to respect each others claims on UN

Page 21 text:

Wecoyectz'ons W By DR. HANS FROELICHER HEN the building of Goucher Hall was started, the area on which it now stands belonged to Baltimore County. North Avenue was then called Boundary Avenue. But before the building was completed the territory ex- tending to what is now University Parkway was incorporated into the city proper. At the time there was a toll-gate at the corner of Charles Street and University Parkway, the original name of which was Merrymanls lane. Dr. Goucher told me of his being criticized when he built First Church for building ua cathedral in the corn fields. As a matter of fact, there were very few houses beyond what is now Twenty-flfth Street, and was then Huntingdon Avenue. We could take our children out into the country where the cows were pastur- ing by going two blocks beyond Goucher Hall. Dr. Goucher's idea in choosing the style of architecture for First Church and College rested on the symbolism it suggested. Strong, rugged and plain in externals, of the highest refinement and beauty within, thus the buildings were to be, and they were to serve as a pattern to those who lived and worked in them. And, indeed, there could have been in those days few buildings in this country which carried out this idea so consistently and so successfully. The chapel, which was finished with a Byzantine effect, evoked, in its lldim, re- ligious twilight, both the spiritual and aesthetic sentiment. Today, alas, the chapel is very sadly altered. THE WOMANts COLLEGE The name of the college was something new and challenging. Why was this college called by so odd a name as The Woman's College of Baltimore? Some years later Dr. Goucher himself explained. It was, in the first place, to break down all the prejudice against the word woman in a part of the country where all ufemales above childhood age, colored included, were called ladies or females, and where the region teemed with llLadies' Academies , or Female Seminariesl', or HLadies' Finishing Schools . Woman, so he said, was the sweetest, finest term by which the sex could be known. Furthermore. in the days when colleges for women closely followed the Johns Hopkins curriculum, on the principle that there should be no difference in the education of the two sexes, this was to be, not a college for women parading in menls attire, but a college for women as women. Woman, it was argued, had her particular and exclusive place in creation, and as her vocation in life was different, so should also be her preparation for her particular vocation; as wife, mother and ministering angel. Hence, the Womanls College. It was, moreover, not to be an uacademy , or HLyceum , or UFinishing School nor strut about under the pretentious title of university as so many half-baked high schools did, but it was to be a college in the true sense. It was to be first of all, a college for E231

Page 23 text:

the time and vitality of our students. Serious danger to the cause was over- come by successive schedules of intensive rather than extensive curricula, courses being scheduled at one time for five hours weekly, later for four hours weekly in each subject. This meant that a student could not take more than three courses each semester while the schedule consisted of five hour courses, or at most, four when it consisted of four hour courses. It was a narrower, but a deeper channel through which they sailed, and it seemed to us very healthy. At first the Chair of Hygiene and Physical Training, and the position of Medical Director of the College seemed to be doomed to dis-continuity. Dr. Alice Hall, after three years in the position, was married; Dr. Mary Mitchell served for about three years, and likewise married. It was then that Dr. Lillian Welsh was appointed to What The Sun termed the Matrimonial Chair at Goucher. She broke the ban. For thirty years her brilliant mind. her deeply scientilic spirit, her strong personality, her pungent wit, her frank criticism of foibles of women and menU, her ceaseless labor, her sympathetic nature, built up one of the great departments of Goucher College or of any college. What she meant to Goucher, to its women, to the cause of woman's education and emancipation has only been touched upon in her own record in Thirty Years in Baltimore. It remains to be said by others who will give her the credit that is her due. Among the champions of the cause of woman she has made herself one of the outstanding figures of her time. THE FIRST APPLICANTS Among the iirst applicants for admission to College in 1888 was a little girl, who, in filling out her llblank in answer to the question: llWhat is your object in coming to college? stated: To become wise and good. Another came with an apron neatly fastened to her shoulders and two braids hanging down her neck. One of these today is a dignified matron, the other a successful business woman. Another of the youngsters who had an afternoon class in French with me at two o'clock, told me that I would have to change the hour, as she always took luncheon with her grandmother on that day at that hour! THE FIRST FUNERAL PYRE Professor Frank Roscoe Butler, first head of the English department. was a man of high intellect, a scholar trained both at Boston University and at European Universities, a man of line taste in literature, widely and deeply read, a thorough scholar, exacting upon himself and upon his students. They groaned under the burden of work and occasionally grumbled. But his was the influence that went deep and proved enduring in the college at large and among his students in particular. He left the Womanls College a generation ago, but his influence still survives, Once, however, he overstrained the bow. It was when he introduced the study of the works of Professor Lounsbury, the distinguished English scholar. The students sighed, groaned, mutely protested, to no avail. When however, Lounsbury had been exhausted and the UH