Hampden Sydney College - Kaleidoscope Yearbook (Hampden Sydney, VA)

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HAMPDEN-SYDN EY INSTALLS ROBERT Sir Percy Spender Speaker at Ceremony for Virginia College's l7th President By TILLBIAN DIRDIN 51-ri-itil ln thi- Xiu' Xt-rk lun.-c HAIXIPDENSYDNEY. Ya., hlarch 23- Dr. joseph C. Robert was installed as the seventeenth president of ISO' year'old HampdenfSydncy College here today. Sir Percy Spendcr. Australian Anifl bassador to the Llnitcd States. was the principal speaker at inaugural cere monies attended by more than Slilll guests and members of the college com' munity. Delegates of lil! universities, colleges and learned societies fr.-ni all parts of the country were PYCQCIII. Sir Percy stressed the special respon- sibilities of academic in-titutions for safeguarding liberties of thought .ind expression. He said the pressures asainst individual freedoms had been growing constantly. He vvarned that the concept of the state had led little by little ti thc uvvhittling axvay of human libertiesf' Envoy Praises College The Australian envoy stated: The pressures of the totalitariar philosophies have forced the democratit communities to diminish imperceptibly in detail but greatly in total freedoms long established. revered by custom and accepted or declared by convention or constitution. 'The often valid excuse has been the need to secure the state against the threat of external aggression, Sir Percy Spender :- N s i. gems Maj Dr. Joseph Clarke Robert Sir Percy praised the long record of Hampden'Sydncy as an institution up' holding freedom. He told its new presi- dent and its faculty and student body that they must ever be prepared to defend it no matter what opprobrium the discharge of this moral duty may earn. The ambassador emphasized, how! ,ever that defense of freedom must be l b d wit .in the lavv of your country an subject to your prime and overriding duties of loyalty to your country. Dr. Frank Stoddart ohns. chairman l . I lol the HampdenfSydney trustees. ad ministered the oath to Dr, Rs. bert and presented him vvith a copy of the charter of the college, granted in 1783. In his acceptance speech the new president stressed his resolve to ad- minister the college in accordance with its traditional concepts that combine religious faith with educational en' lightenment.. A Graduate of Furman Dr. Robert, a 49fyearfold Mississipf pian, is a graduate of Furman Uni' versity in Greenville, S. C. He did l l i l doctorate vvork at Duke and Harvard Universities and for fourteen years taught at Duke, xvhere he eventually became Professor of History and associ' :ite dean of the graduate school. Dr, Robert came to HanipdenfSydney from a position as president of Coker College in Hartsville, S. C. He is a specialist in the history of the southeast United States and has written several books on this area. An undergraduate liberal arts college for men. Hampden'Sydney was founded in 1776, six months before the Declaraf tion of Independence. The school ac' knovvledgcs only the College of William and Mary as more venerable than itself in Virginia and the South. An academic procession preceded the inaugural speeches today. Justice Archibald Chapman Buchanan of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia introduced Sir Percy. Dr, Colgate Vdhitehead Darden, -lr., president of the University of Virginia, and Dr. Francis Pendleton Gaines, president of VN'ashington and Lee Uni' versity, were among the guests at the inauguration.

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