Mississippi College - Tribesman Yearbook (Clinton, MS)

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JiUTitwrii X F, far in the distant future, after fate has carried each his way, these pages shall echo the comradeship and joy of our college life and bring back pleasant memories of our by-gone Choctaw days, then this book will be one of memory’s dearest possessions, and our work will not have been in vain. When we approach the winter of life, and as time is quickly fleeting, we take down from the old shelf this book, dusty, tattered and torn, there in the dull glow of the dying embers may we be united and live again in meditation those gloriously happy days at dear old M. C.

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HJtflataatppt (Unllrgr (Erntnttttal A. J. Aven Verified is the fact that in childhood are found The embryonic traits which in manhood abound ; That as bent the young twig, so the tree will incline: Is nature’s reaction to action divine. Just a little gray streak is the herald of day, When Phoebus Apollo in purple array, In his oriel rich from his moon-lit berth, In splendor appears to illumine the earth; The Seasons, the Day, and the Month, and the Year Are his retinue kingly befitting his sphere; The stars are his jewels, the clouds are his robe, The dew-drop, his mirror, his journey, the globe; His paeans of victory and triumphs in fight Are synonomous terms of his beauty and light, For he conquers the darkness in heaven’s blue dome, And kindly caresses the ocean’s white foam; The pilgrims rejoice in the brightness of day, And whisper his praises in the w armth of his ray. In a cave of Cyllene, at peep of the morn, Was inventor of musical harmony born; The son of a nymph, and his father, a god, Many wonders he w rought with his magical rod. At the door of the cave, on a tortoise he fell, And the lyre he invented by stringing the shell. The voice and the lyre now united in tune Made a melody perfect, humanity’s boon. See the plant with the lapse of a century grown, Now crowned in its age with an honor its own! The brighter the hues for the passing of time, Its glory, a fragrance and beauty sublime. No flower like this in the bright coral woods Perfuming the streams to the ocean’s deep floods. Hyperborians dwelling in regions of bliss Had no blossom so fair gentle breezes to kiss. From its fountain of strength — with the passing of years — Its nature triumphant in glory appears. Just a century ago, just a century ago, When the minds of a few with spirits aglow, Would establish a school in the love of mankind, For the strength of the body, the spirit, the mind. Its beginning was little, but fertile its soil, And its culture w as true and responsive to toil ; Like the myth of Apollo, divine in its source, But never a blot nor cause of remorse. As the glory and worth of the century bloom Are woven of the air in a heavenly loom, So the worth of the school in the century gone Is the worth of the men with a vision reborn; As the deeds heroic by Mercury done, Were worthy the fame of Jupiter’s son, So is woven the fabric of service begun Of the warp and the woof which the founders had spun. All hail to our College an hundred years crowned, Defender of Faith and in Truth renowned!

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f 3 , (o The Legend of the Choctaw Trihe, 1826-1926 H ROM time immemorial epic poets have sung of men and heroes, the beginning of nations and races. Greece had her Iliad and Odeyssey, wherein Homer immortalized the memories of deeds and deities, gods and demigods. Rome had her Aenead wherein Virgil commemorated the founding and early tribulations of the former mistress of the world. Our ancestral Norsemen chanted the deeds of their forbears and compeers in the Sagas of the northern woods. In like manner the Tribe of the Mississippi College Choc- taws has its legend also. As the year of 1926 unfolds itself, a full century of her glorious history is completed. The institution plumes herself, as with pride she points to the accomplishments of a century well spent. Her deeds have not been glorified in the heroic meter of the epic nor praised in light Pindaric odes, but in the silent tribute of a state and nation well served is she immortalized. But as on this, the hundredth anniversary of her inception, we attempt to chronicle her legend, we feel that the subject and its possibilities are worthy of a far mightier pen than ours, aye, worthy of the mightiest the ages have produced. Yet we beg of you to bear with us as we attempt to do justice thereto. As far back into the dim antiquities of the past as history throws its illuminating beams, edu- cation has existed. Every human being who has learned to express by any means a single idea has been to that extent, educated. But education in its highest form had its beginning in 1826 when the citizens of what was at that time the most prosperous town in the State of Mississippi, seeing the need for a high type education for her youth, established in their midst an institution of learning, which they called Hampstead Academy. Thus, most opportunely, just nine years after the grand old commonwealth of Mississippi embarked upon her uncertain career of statehood, was established near her center an institution which was ultimately to prove to be a most potent influ- ence in her history, the source of her life’s blood, for men such as Mississippi College turns out comprise the life’s blood of any state or nation. Thus, Mississippi College had her beginning, as all things must have a beginning, as Hamp- stead Academy. Soon, however, the name was changed to Mississippi Academy, and later to Mississippi College and such she has remained till this good day. In the beginning she was a public institution. In 1842, however, the citizens of Clinton committed the school to the Presby- terians, who conducted it as a denominational school. But it was foreordained from the beginning that it’ should be a Baptist denominational College. Hence the Presbyterians became unable to continue their operations of the school, and returned it to the citizens of the community. They in turn, offered it free of debt to the Baptist Denomination of Mississippi. In 1850 it was accepted. Mississippi College became a Baptist Denominational College, and thus also she has remained until today. Most inauspiciously did Mississippi College begin her career as a Baptist institution, com- mencing operations with a faculty of one teacher, a student body of fourteen youngsters, a plant valued at eleven thousand dollars, and not one dollar of endowment. In 1858 the faculty had been increased to five and the student body to one hundred thirty, an endowment of one hundred thousand dollars had been raised, and two years later a magnificent chapel building of brick had been erected at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars. Thus, under the administration of Presi- dent Urner, the college in i860 found itself in a most flourishing condition, for those times. Just as Mississippi College was beginning to take her rightful and appointed place in the affairs of men and nations, that political catacysm, the Civil war, swept the country, and the grand old institution of the Choctaws became involved in the maelstrom of war that eventually de- vastated our fair Southland. The pick of the student body and three of the faculty formed them- selves into a volunteer company called the Mississippi Rifles, donned the gray, and marched forth to do or die in defense of Dixie’s fair domain. However, the college continued to operate, in face of almost unsurmountable obstacles, for the duration of the war. When the war clouds had cleared away, and an inventory of the situation had been taken by the college, she found herselt with buildings dilapidated, in debt for running expenses during the war, and her endowment swept away by the war. Such was the situation that faced Dr. Walter Hillman when he was elected President of Mississippi College in 1867. By the efforts of President Hillman, Rev. E. C. Eager, Rev. A. A.