Guilford College - Quaker Yearbook (Greensboro, NC)

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THE ( UAlhCELR, department of the Romance Languages at Johns Hopkins University, holding a professor- ship from the opening of the University until his death. The growth of the school from 1878 to 1888 is worthy of note. The Trustees at the last named date decided to change the school to a college. Francis T. King, of Baltimore, whose interest in education in North Carolina for many years gave his judgment great weight with North Carolina Friends, favored the change, and suggested the name Guil- ford College. The yearly meeting gave the yearly meeting house for a school building. The necessary changes were made in the large brick house which stood nearly on the site of the present Library, there being space enough for class rooms and study hall on the first floor and for dormitories for young men on the second floor. In 1884 President Joseph Moore, of Earlham College, had been called to the princi- palship of the school, who succeeded for a period of four years L. Lyndon Hobbs, who had been principal since 1878. In 1885 this large building, named King fdall, was destroyed by fire, and, as a conse- quence, Archdale Hall was built and a new King Hall was erected on the site of the one destroyed. In 1888 President Joseph Moore resigned and returned to Earlham College. His work at the school and in the yearly meeting, both as a teacher and as a preacher, cannot be too highly praised. His scientific ability, his gentlemanliness in every walk of life and his marked success as a teacher made his work in North Carolina distinctly valuable. Lewis Lyndon Hobbs was chosen President of the college and served continuously to the close of the year ending June L 1915. In this long period great changes were made in the buildings and equipments, in the faculty, in endowment and in the development of the courses of study and in the recognition of Guilford ' s place in the institutions of the State. In 1897 James B. and B. N. Duke, of Durham, gave the college ten thousand dollars to construct Memorial Hall, this being in memory of their sister, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Lyon. Subsequently they gave fifteen thousand dollars on endowment. They and their sister were at one time students in the school. In 1907 New Garden Hall was built for girls who might desire to lessen the e.xpense of living at the college, thus reducing the cost of an education and gaining an opportunity to obtain a college training and an academic degree which otherwise in many instances would have been missed. This was the enterprise of the women of North Carolina Yearly Meeting, and the we ll furnished substantial brick building stands as a monument to the noble work made possible by this arrangement.

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THE ( U AK.E FL |[ History of Guilford College The Friends arose in England about the micfdle of the seventeenth century, and they were one of many protests in that turbulent and riotous age against formalism and dead- ening effect of a purely ritualistic worship, and they formed a part of the forward move- ment known as the English Reformation. They were among the earliest religious bodies to organize in North Carolina. Their records of annual meetings embrace a period of two hundred and seventeen years. An English Friend, John Archdale, was Governor of the Colony of North and South Caro- Ima m 1696-16%. George Fox, the founder of the Friends Church, spent a short time m North Carolina in 1672 and was received by the colonial officials with great cordiality. We find among the Friends of our State that attention was given, in the early days of the yearly meeting, to the problem of education. In 1833 a definite proposition to found a Boarding School was before the yearly meeting. The eloquent Jeremiah Hubbard pleaded for the cause, and the distinguished preacher, Nathan Hunt, gave the subject his whole-hearted support. His appeals in behalf of a central school, made in New England and in other yearly meetings, aroused a deep interest in the cause. Notably was this so m the case of George Howland, of New Bedford, Mass., who in 1833 contributed liberally towards the building of Founders Hall. On the 1st of August, 1837, the school was opened, there being present the first term fifty students, twenty-five boys and twenty-five girls, and the institution has been in con- tinuous operation since that date. In the beginning the purpose was to put in charge teachers of marked scholarship and firmness of character. During the fifty-two years which was the limit of the existence of the Boarding School, there were in the faculty both as principals and assistants several men and women who won distinction as teachers and eminence in scholarship. Among these Dr. Nereus Men- denhall, Pendleton R. King, Professor A. Marshall Elliott and Mary E. Harris deserve mention. The first named taught nine years in the school, and his marked ability as a teacher and his great depth as well as breadth of scholarship made a lasting impression on students and on the public mind. A. Marshall Elliott became an authority m the

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THE GLU AlbCEL ]F In 1913 a new dormitory for boys, Cox Hall, was erected, accommodations in which have added much to the comfort of young men who have lived in this building. In 1909, through a contribution of nine thousand dollars by Andrew Carnegie, a new Library was erected. The same year a new building was erected for class rooms and a physics laboratory, both these being made necessary in consequence of the second fire, this destroying a second building on the same site. The year before Founders Hall was renewed, steam heat was introduced and the old building, being almost recreated, was made fit for another long term of service. Electric lights had been introduced into the buildings several years before. The increase of endowment, bringing the permanent fund up to o ne hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars, has been a source of greatly increased power centered in the institution. The added requirements for admission and the development of the de- partments of instruction made possible by the endowment have given the college standing in the eyes of educated people, and there has long been at Guilford an atmosphere of scholarship and solid work and worth.