Haverford College - Record Yearbook (Haverford, PA)

Page 11 text:

Co 3saac harpkss cljolar, JVbmintstrator, anh iTrienb fnho ga c to aberforb that l]ta[hest of 2tll gtfts- himself, anb jI]Ose tbcals l]a6e stcabil brcomc afeerforb ' s tbcals, foe hehtcatc thts bol- umc, fulig conscious that tt can be but an tnabequate expression of our respect axxb esteem

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Ki)t poart Editor-in-Chief John William Spaeth, Jr. Associate Editors William Henry Chamberlin Robert Gibson William Clark Little Hugh Exton McKinstry Edmund Taber Price Colby Dorr VanDam Business Manager Charles Farwell Brown Assistant Managers William Lloyd Baily, Jr. Weston Howland Maris Alexander Laverty Edward Roland Snader, Jr. Loring VanDam Edward Mitchell Weston Record Photographer Thomas Barclay Whitson

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fliiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiii!iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiii[ii:iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin 1917 HAVERFORD 1917 Ssaac fjarplegsi President of Haverford College, 1887-1917 NO single event has ever caused more general regret among Haverfordians than the announcement by President Sharpless of his intention to retire at the end of the present college year. To separate his name from that of Haverford seemed impossible — the two had in forty years become almost synonymous; and the college, its campus and buildings, its educational methods, its aims and ideals — all seem like a direct expression of this one man ' s personality. To quote from a member of the faculty: His greatest work has been the creation of a self-governing student body into which he has put the breath of his own physical life; and the gathering together of a group of powerful men on his faculty, so imbued with a sense of their responsibility for the students that there has grown up an intimacy between these two bodies of men unique among the colleges of the country. Not a student passes through Haverford College without learning to love and look up to President Sharpless as he would to a father. Isaac Sharpless was born in Birmingham Township, Chester County, December 16, 1848, and received his early education at Westtown School, where he was graduated in 1867. One day, soon after this, he was engaged in plowing on his father ' s farm when a delegation from the Westtown School Committee appeared and told him that they had decided to offer him a position as teacher. This was the beginning of President Sharpless ' s career as an educator. He left his position at Westtown to study at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University, where he received the degree of B.S. in 1873. Two years later he came to Haverford as instructor in mathematics, and in 1879 was made professor of astronomy. Through his efforts the equipment in that department was greatly increased, so that Haverford had at the time one of the best-equipped college observatories in the country. He was made dean of the college in 1884, in which position his tactful disciplinary methods and gradual introduction of self-government did much toward promoting advantageous relations between students and faculty. In his executive capacity as dean his superior business ability gave the college an increased financial prosperity. In April, 1887, he was unanimously selected president of Haverford, which he has since succeeded in placing in the little list of the best small colleges. In 1889 he was honored with the degree of LL.D. from Swarthmore College. When a second degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Harvard University in 1915, President Abbott Lawrence Lowell described him thus: Isaac Sharpless, President of Haverford College, who has put aside the lure of expansion and made the college eminent for sound learning, scholarship and character. 4