Meredith College - Oak Leaves Yearbook (Raleigh, NC)

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Thomas Meredith HOMAS MEREDITH, the oldest of ten children, was bom in Ptninsylvania, probably in 1795, His father was John Meredith, whose ancestor, Simon Meredith, emigrated to this country from Wales, in 1707, and settled in Chester County, Pennsyl- vania. The Merediths in England appear to have Ijeen people of considerable social and in tellectual standing. Their coat- of-arms, now in pos.se.ssion of Thomas Meredith ' s grandson, was a gaunt lion on a shield. John Meredith, a pronounced Episcopalian, married Charlotte Hough, a Quakeress, who became the mother of Thomas Meredith. Mrs. Meredith is saiil to have been a woman of exceptional mental ability and accomplishments, speaking several languages. Of Thomas as a lad, his teacher said he feasted on Latin. In 1812 he entered the University of Pennsylvania and took the degree of A.M. from that institution in 181G. While at the University he seems also to have taken a course in law, although there was then no regular law school in that institution. Mr. Meredith became an accomplished scholar, being able to converse in several languages, proficient in music and a writer of verse. Though greatly impressed by his mother ' s religious life, and by her death, he seems not to have been con- verted until he entered the University, which was some time after her death. After his conversion an independent study of the Bible brought him to the Baptist faith, and he consecratetl his life to the ministry, in spite of the persuasions of his law teacher, who urged him to follow tliat profession. At the age of twenty-four, he came to Edenton, N. C. Not long after his arrival there, he married Miss Georgia Sears, who, he said, was the only perfectly beautiful woman that he ever saw. His character, culture, and masterly leadership soon set him in the front rank of North Carolina Baptists. He was among the fourteen fathers wlio founded the Baptist State Convention in 1830, antl he wrote the constitution of that body. At the recjuest of the convention he wrote an address to the Baptists of the State, then a feeble, ignorant and disorganizeil botlj-, many of whom openly antagonizetl the new movement; this service he performed in so masterly a paper that the reading of it thrills one to this day. In 1833 he established the Baptist Interpreter, a religious journal which in 1835 became the Biblical Recorder, and of which he remained editor until his tleath. In 1835, and again in 1836, he was one of a conmiittee of three appointed b} ' the State Convention on the feasibility of establishing in Raleigh a Seminary of high grade for women. In 1838, lie was chairman of the third committee on this subject, and presented an extenilcd report strongly urging the establishment of such a school and outlining its work and policj ' . But the project failed because the Convention felt that with the burden of Wake forest on them, to build and ecjuip another college at that time would have crippled and probablj- have des- troyed both institutions. Strong, decideil, scholarly, and fearless, he was foremost and powerful in the controversies of the period, and easily maintained the primacj ' among his brethren until his ileath in his fiftv-sixtli vear. Page 7

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Officers of Instruction and Administration t Richard Tilman Vann, A.B., Wake Forest; S. B. T. Seminary; D.D., Funnan University. President. I. School of Arts, Philosophy and Science Larkin Douglass Watson, Jr., A.B., University of Georgia; Harvanl University. Dean — Professor of Mathematics. Elizabeth Delia Dixon-Carroll, M.D., Woman ' .s Medical College of the N. Y. Infirmary. Professor of Physiology. Susan Elizabeth Young, A.M., Brownsville Female College; Leipzig anil Berlin. Professor of Modern Languages. J. Gregory Boomhour, A.B., Colgate University; A.M., University of Chicago. Professor of Natural Science. Alice Whittier Meserve, A.B., Vassar College. Professor of Latin. Mary Katharine Applewhite, Graduate of the State Normal College; B.S., Teachers College, Columljia University. Professor of Education and Psychology. E. Freeman Thompson, Ph.B., Boston Universitj ; Newton Theological Insti- tution; Ph.D., University of Chicago. Professor of Bible and Ethics. Elizabeth Avery Colton, B.S., Teachers College; A.] I., Columt)ia University. Professor of English. Mary Sh. nnon Smith, Radcliffe College; A.B., Leland Stanford Junior Uni- versity. Professor of History. Sarah Morris, A.B., A.M., Vassar; Columbia University. Acting Professor of Latin. Julia Brent Minor, A.B., Trinity. Instructor in Languages. Rebecca Locke Mixner, A.B., Mount Holyoke (College. Instructor in English. S. Elizabeth Davis, A.B., Shorter College; University of Va. Instructor in English. LouLA Estelle Howard, A.B., Meredith College. Assistant in Science. fArranged, with the oxcriitinii of the I ' resiileiil, in onier of :ip|)oiiitmcnt in each Sciiool. 0n leave of absence at Cliieago University for the year. Fagi: f)