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Page 13 text:
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2)e6icaUon I ' Cistor A gloomy pall possessed the hearts of the dear ones of Lucretia Bowers Fritz in the wintry Spring of ' 69. Her health was poor and a maternal hour was drawing near. On the second of February she went down into the valley of the shadow of death and gave to the world a son, lin- gered in the vale seven days, and then passed calmly and peacefully out through death ' s dark door mto the pearly gates of Eternal Love. Thinking the child dead at birth, skilled phy- sicians and loving hands bent all their energy to save the mother. After her needs were attended, the child received their services, when, to the sur- prise of all, a bubble arose from the basin in which the child was placed. He lived, and some days later was carried on a pillow to the home of an uncle eight miles away. So frnil and delicate was he that the journey was made on foot. Several times he was thought to be dying on the trip. One can scarcely believe that the lusty and vigorous President of Lenoir College was once this tmy and delicate child. But it is true. Robert Lindsay Fritz, son of William and Lucretia Fritz, was born on the second of February, 1 869, near Holly Grove, Davidson county. North Carolina. Seven days later he lost his mother and a mother ' s love, and was reared in the home of his grand- parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Bowers, near Lake, North Carolina. At the age of five he was put in school, but at the close of the session he knew no more in his books than he did when he first started, failing to learn the alphabet, even. But in the second winter circumstances changed. A new school-house had been erected and a new teacher employed. In these new surroundings he quickly showed his men- tal strength. On the first day he mastered his let- ters and took leading rank in all his work. At the age of fourteen, with little more than three months schooling each year, he had mastered the common school course and was taking algebra in advance. This fact made it difficult for the district committee- men to secure a teacher for the term of his fifteenth year, due to the fact that his advanced studies ter- rified the average teacher of that section at that time. After searching long and to no avail some- one suggested the idea of having this boy teach the school himself. Acting on the suggestion they at once looked him up and prevailed upon him to stand the examination and undertake the work. He left the woods where he was chopping and sought the Superintendent of Public Instruction at once. He stood the test, obtained a second grade certifi- cate, and spent the winter of his fifteenth year teach- ing his first school and has remained in the school teacher ' s chair almost every year since. About this time Rev. W. P. Cline became pastor of the Holly Grove Parish. He saw the possibil- ities of a good school in that section, and realized the good it would accomplish. In the Fall of 1 894 he opened Holly Grove Academy and successfully operated it for a number of years, doing a service for that community which will never be fully tabu- lated or accurately known. Into this school came Robert hritz at the close of his school term in the spring of 1885. He remained a pupil and tutor until he left the Academy to enter Roanoke College in the spring of I 888, entering the Sophomore class one-half advanced. In the fall of I 889 he yielded to the wishes of friends and entered the newly or- ganized college at Conover. Here he remained regularly and finished the course in 1891 — tnc year in which the rupture came and the College was moved from Conover to Hickory. This rupt- ure broke up the commencement for that year and President Fritz did not get his diploma until the commencement in I 892. On the removal of the college from Conover, he cast his lot with the Hickory school, helped clear the thicket where Lenoir College now stands, and did regular work as a teacher in the session of I 89 I - ' 92. In the fall of 1892 he entered John Hopkins University and specialized in Mathemat- ics, Physics, and Astronomy. He returned to Lenoir College in the fall of 1893 and taught regularly for three years. In the summer of I 896 he received and accepted a call to the newly or- ganized Elizabeth College, Charlotte, North Caro-
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Page 14 text:
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1 1) li fei-! y,n lina, where he taught most successfully for five years, being given the guarantee by the Board of Trustees that his Professorship was a permanent position. But in the year of 1901 he received a call from the Board of Trustees to return to Lenoir College and accept the Presidency of the College. After due consideration he accepted the call, though at a financial sacrifice to himself, and enter- ed upon his duties as President in the summer of 1901. He is, therefore, roundmg out his tenth year as President of Lenoir College with the closmg of this school year. During this administration he has had the assistance of an aggressive Board of Trustees and a loyal Faculty, and there are many evidences of successful management during his term ot service. Within these years the new dormitories for both girls and boys have been erected, as well as the new St. Andrew ' s church ; and there has been added much equipment for the College plant. Also within this peroid the College has become the abso- lute property of the Tennessee Synod, managed and controlled by her Board of Trustees. The courses of study have been raised in all departments and the College has attained State recognition as an in- stitution of first rank. Much of this broadened horizon for Lenoir ' s usefulness is due to President Fritz ' s wise management, and we heartily concur in the action of the Board of Trustees in declin- ing to accept his resignation on the expiration of his ten year ' s service. Had the poet been writing of President Fritz concretely, he could not have expressed a truth more accurately than when he declared, There ' s a destiny which shapes our end, Rough-hew it how we may. From early life there burned within him a desire to become a Gospel Minister. With this aim in view he bent his energy for full preparation for this noble work, yet the guiding of destiny has caused him to serve in another work. Early in his college course temptations came alluring to swerve him from his clear-cut goal. Two uncles, one a boon com- panion, the other a wealthy railroad owner and operator in Texas desired him to study medicine and become a railroad physician and surgeon in the Lone Star State. To attain their purpose they offer- ed him, with outstretched hands, all funds for col- lege, university, and medical instruction, the best the world affords. All this came at a time when he was working and paying his own way through school. teaching during vacation and tutoring during the term. But this alluring offer did not in the least swerve him from his life-object. He struggled on, unaided, and turned to good account the know- ledge acquired in the school-teaching art, earning enough to keep his expenses paid and laying by a sum sufficient for his university expenses when his college work was done. His teaching ability did not pass unnoticed by his instructors, and when he completed his college course he was induced to ac- cept a professor ' s chair in Lenoir, in spite of the fact that he had the ministry in mind as his goal. Thus it happened that destiny vsTought more successfully than relatives or his own desires. He is what might be termed a born teacher. His mind is both mathematic and analytic. As a child it was his keenest delight to make and operate flutter-wheel machinery on the stream which ran near his home. The greatest disappointment, pos- sibly, his boyish heart ever experienced came when a generous friend gave him a set of discarded water- wheels, one of which he had not the strength to carry home after lugging it more than a mile. While his desire to serve in the ministry has not been fully realized, yet his life-work will, in all probability, affect more lives through the professor ' s chair than had his early desires been achieved. From childhood he has made and held legions of friends. No boy ever grew up in the Holly Grove community who left it a richer legacy of boyish pranks and wholesome fun. Gifted with a keen eye for seeing the ludicrous as well as the serious side of life, he came into his full share of all in- nocent fun, fortunate in being reared in a section where grotesque characters thrived. But back of this happy-hearted boy stood a loving grandmother Mary Conrad Bowers, who guided wisely the go- ing and coming of his youthful days. In the midst of a crooked generation and a perverse world, she saved him, pure in body and soul, for his life-work. In heart he has ever remained young, fully realiz- ing and understanding the joys and sorrows of youthful life; sympathizing with them in their troubles, sharing to the full their joys. In years still young, although he has spent twenty-six in the teacher ' s chair, he is well prepared to see all things through student ' s eyes. Ever ready to give a helping hand to those in need of aid, he lives the philosophy of the Scriptural proverb, There is that scattereth, end yet increaseth. Following this
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