Mississippi State University - Reveille Yearbook (Starkville, MS)

Page 18 text:

heritage . . was fraternities. They did, however, exist sub rosa for a few years until 1892, when fourteen members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon were dismissed. Next year, by taking a solemn oath to desist, the culprits were forgiven. One of these was William Flowers Hand, later to be the Chemistry Department head, state chemist, dean of the School of Science and vice president of the institution! As the century prepared to turn, former governor John M. Stone was chosen as president. He had been governor when the college was founded. However, Stone died less than a year later, in March, 1900. Suc- ceeding Stone was a thirty-six year old Jackson school superintendent, John Crumpton Hardy. Hardy came into the presidency at the same time that the legislature decided to set up a new school — the Textile School, thanks to a booming interest of the state ' s leadership in attracting new industry with promises of tax exemp- tions. The Textile Building, which still stands, was com- pleted in the summer of 1901. At first there was a rush of students, but in a few years enrollment declined, thanks to Governor James K. Vardaman ' s successful attack on industrial tax exemptions that kept mills from coming to the state; so the textile boom was doomed. In desperation old Colonel Montgomery made his daugh- ter enroll in the textile program, but the cause was hopeless. Finally, in 1914 the school was abolished. Its building is now occupied by the Industrial and Agricul- tural Education departments. It was President Hardy who began the practice of designating the several academic training programs on the campus as schools. In 1902, the mechanical course became the School of Engineering. In 1903, the School of Agriculture was so designated. Another school, the School of Industrial Pedagogy (Education, that is), was established in 1909, thanks to the rapid growth of a pedagogy department set up in 1904. The next move was the creation of a general science course in 1911, which became the province of a School of Gen- eral Science. Hardy was undoubtedly a builder. As a professional educator familiar with the ways of academe, he did much to turn the institution into a college that would ultimately become a university. Yet, he had his trou- bles. Among these was a row with the University doctor and a student revolt generated by the military comman- dant, whom Hardy summarily fired. The president, with Governor Noel ' s support, won out in a board investigation, but the damage was done. When a new governor. Earl Brewer, came into office in 1912, Hardy Academic building where Lee Hall now stands. resigned and went to Baylor, at Belton, Texas, where he redoubled his profession educational activities at dou- ble his Mississippi salary. In the years that followed Hardy ' s twelve year reign, political interference in the affairs of the school increased. Presidents and governors went in together and out together. Under Governor Earl Brewer, it was an outstanding farm leader, George R. Hightower, who served as president. Four years later came Governor Theodore G. Bilbo, under whom Hightower was replaced by William Hall ( Corn Club ) Smith, the father of school consolidation in Mississippi and at the time of his appointment the elected state superintend- ent of education. When Lee Russell became governor in 10

Page 17 text:

Tennessee and Georgia, and would in 1890 receive one from Clemson; so he had the clout he needed. The result was a salary increase which resulted in a decision to stay put. The political bug began to buzz again in 1895, when the legislature was threatening a cut in appropriations. Once again Lee decided to stay put, and the politicians began to breathe more easily. He did finally decide to resign in 1899, whereupon he was promptly placed on the Board of Trustees, where he could keep a watchful eye on things. The alumni of the first two decades of the institu- tion ' s existence had something more to remember than their professional training in agriculture or engineering. They remembered dates with the local girls of the area and after the W came into existence in 1884 under the outlandish name of the Industrial Institute and Col- lege, they began to make frequent visits to Columbus. There were frequent problems having to do with drink- ing and gambling, thanks, in part, to the generated boredom of students who went home not every week- end but at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and maybe Easter. Of course, drinking and gambling sent some home on other than feast days. Theoretically, liquor could be obtained only by prescription at the druggists. There was, however, a quaint but surely a dead letter legis- lative decree in 1880 that any professor of the Agricul- tural and Mechanical College may, when occasion requires, give such liquors to any student ... to be used medicinally. Another item under the official ban Lee Guard was one of the groups who later became a Greek fraternity

Page 19 text:

i I % LEFT: President Hardy. TOP: 1907 staff. 1920 a financial crisis generated by World War I facili- tated the departure of Smith. Politics and strikes notwithstanding, the college sur- vived both politics and the twentieth century teens and teenagers. It also survived a world war. Actually, some excellent progress was made. There was, for example, the creation of Mississippi ' s first collegiate school of business. Its dean, James V. Bowen, came to the college to teach foreign languages, but found few takers; so he decided to appeal to the students on the grounds of American involvement in foreign trade by offering commercial foreign language courses. When these proved insufficiently attractive, he simply scuttled the languages in the course titles and salvaged the com- mercial. The result was the creation in 1915 of a com- mercial program that became the School of Business. Meanwhile, in 1914, the Smith Lever Act provided the college with a full-scale cooperative extension program. In 1917, under the Smith Hughes Act, which provided funds for collegiate vocational programs for agricultural high schools, the college became the state training school for this program. As for student life in the first two decades of the n