Goucher College - Donnybrook Fair Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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Daviol Allan Rohertson N a pre-Ware issue of Kalends, newspaper and literary magazine combined, appears the following account: HAt the formal opening of the college in November, 1888, the procession formed in Goucher Hall and marched to the First Church; the mayor of the city, the president of Johns Hopkins University and some of his associates, then our own facultyea little group of perhaps ten or twelve men and women., the trustees, students and friends of the college. No academic robes, just the simple christening of the infant Whose future was so uncertain. Twenty-flve years later the Hinfant had discarded its swaddling clothes and taken several quite manly strides toward maturityt A burdensome debt had been wiped out, an endowment assured and a new charter adjusted, to changed conditions, granted. There had been elected to the presidency of Goucher C01- Twenty

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FACULTY

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lege a man who was Ha scholar, a man of culture, an organizer, a tried execu- tive, plain, practical, approachable, progressive in education and independent in action. William Wesley Guth was inaugurated in academic grandeur Which, in its contrast with that earlier, simpler service. indicated the growth of Goucher's prestige during the twenty-five active years which intervened. Yet not once did the administrators and trustees of the college consider their work in any way completed or even pause to indulge in justiliable self-congratulation. Their thoughts were directed always toward the future. Dr. Guth in his inaugural address expressed the constant attitude of those in whose lives the history of Goucher is written. ilThe college has twenty-five years of honorable history to its credit: let us not forget it. But what is more important it has many years of new life before it in which to make history let us look forward. Every phase of Goucher's development, every aspect of its being today is derived from the dynamic dreams, the far-sighted actions of earlier builders. The greatness of their work lay in its very incompleteness; its significance, not in What was accomplished but in what might be accomplished. Their plans wene not encompassed by the limitations of a single life time or the abilities of a single individual. For fullillment they looked to the distant future and sought the talents of many. Thus when they passed they left a work greater than themselves, a growing heritage. The man to whom such a heritage is entrusted rnust indeed be a great leader. We expect to lind in him a competent organizer with much more than a dash of business acumen. It is well that he possess valuable connections, both business and social; that he be blessed with poise and personal charm; that the Hgift of prophecy be his, to enthrall an audience; that he inspire loyalty in his associates. Scholarly interests and intellectuality are also greatly to be desired. Yet we look for something further in a great leader, something which may be a sum of all these things and yet is quite different from any one of them. It is a quality which unmistakably distinguishes a leader from men of commoner clay. This quality, the essence of leadership, is indefinable. It is a certain intangible force, a spiritual energy which communicates itself to other men, penetrates and pervades every held of activity in the community. Evidence of it is found in unexpressed but warmly felt enthusiasm for a great purpose generally agreed upon. Under real leadership life is efhcient, smooth, well ordered; more than that, it is meaningful and colorful through contact with a fine personality. Goucher College has found a great leader. At commencement in June of 1930 a letter was read whose concluding words were these: liWith conlidence in the experience, vision and energy of the trustees, the cooperation and wisdom of the members of the faculty, the loyalty of alumnae and students and the friendship of Baltimore, I accept the presidency of Goucher College, Almost a year later, in April, 1931, David Allan Robert- son was inaugurated as president of Goucher College. The inauguration of Goucherls hfth president will remain always one Of the most memorable events in the history of the college. Representatives from more than two hundred foreign and American universities, among them a num- ber of college presidents and deans, gathered to honor Goucher College and President Robertson. The academic procession was brilliant and impressive. Twenty-one