Randolph Macon College - Helianthus Yearbook (Lynchburg, VA)

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©n tl)f Campus N this article we hope to integrate what follows in our annual, for, although pictures and names are illuminating and ex- pressive, they are at best disjointed. It is true, the students here can bind them together from their own experiences, but we propose for our annual to have a universal rather than a mere college appeal ; the questions of mothers and fathers rising from their deep interest, the numberless queries of relatives about “the school Mary goes to,” the mild interest of summer callers, the eager inquiries of prospective students may perhaps find a general answer in this article, which will lightly touch the surface of the life and institutions of our college. Dr. William Waugh Smith was both originator and founder of Ran- dolph-Macon Woman ' s College, for not only did he visualize an institution that would open a new realm of education to the women Founder. of the South, but realized in his own lifetime the vision. He must have been forced to keep his eyes straight fixed on his ideal in order to have seen in the plain little building that extended on one side to where our reading-room is now and on the other to the side porch by the literary society hall the germ of a successful college. Dr. Smith real- ized that an institution, like all vital things, like religion, like a plant, like man, must grow from a living organism within. This living organism in his college was student government in which each individual obtains highest liberty by obeying laws for the common good. Its code of ethics is a sealed book the spirit of which exists Student in the air but cannot be resolved into definition. This Government. student government is made practical by the Executive Board and the Student Committee, a circle within a circle. The Executive Board with the student body president at its head is comprised of the four house presidents, the chairman of censorship com- mittee, the secretary and treasurer of the Student Committee. This inner circle first receives and assimilates matters of importance and prepares them 11

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3 . ROBERT WINFREE TREASURER OTHER OFFICERS A. W. TERRELL, M. D. COLLEGE PHYSICIAN L. G. FORBES MRS. T. B. JENNINGS LIBRARIAN CALALOGLTER ELIZABETH HUNDLEY, MURIEL NEVIN, DOROTHY SEAY, ELEANOR SYDNOR, ADA WORSHAM LIBRARY ASSISTANTS JOSEPHINE YEATMAN REGISTRAR BLANCHE WITHERS SECRETARY TO TREASURER LEAH DANIEL LYNN SECRETARY TO PRESIDENT MARY REVELEY CASHIER MRS. JOHN D. BLACKWELL, MRS. GUY M. LANGHORNE, MRS. E. B. CROOKS, MRS. W. M. STROTHER MATRONS MRS. W. W. SMITH CHAPERON META GLASS, MRS. G. M. LANGHORNE ASSOCIATE CHAPERONS IDA BRAMBLE HEAD OF DOMESTIC DEPARTMENT ANNIE BRAMBLE ASSISTANT IN CHARGE OF EAST HALL ELLA DOWNES ASSISTANT IN CHARGE OF WEST HALL CLARA B. LEVICK ASSISTANT IN CHARGE OF NEW HALL 10

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for presentation before the Student Committee, which body is made up of twenty seniors, ten juniors, five sophomores, three freshmen, two irregulars and one representative from the day students chosen by their respective classes. A business meeting is held every month when reports are made on the order in the halls, on the welfare of all branches of government, and proposed amendments and rules discussed. These meetings are tedious and wrangling at times, but always fire eloquence, especially in the seniors, who feel no more experienced minds, listening with mild tolerance to their cher- ished ideas. It was refreshing to find last year one subject on which every voter nodded in unison, that of dancing in college. But when every prospect was pleasing, only man was disagreeable, and the hand that had taught the child to walk alone checked it abruptly when it started walking with a glide. There also rests upon the Student Committee the serious function of meting out justice to those who violate the higher laws of the college society. At such times the responsibility rests like a leaden weight on mind and heart of those who must make what is perhaps their first decision to affect the life of another. The decision of the undergraduate tribunal is usually conclusive, although the faculty stands as a higher court of appeal. The foundations 32