Randolph Macon College - Helianthus Yearbook (Lynchburg, VA)

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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

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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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of this judicial department is the honor sys- tem, the heart of our college, upon which rests the deepest hope of its future. “I lie terrarum mi hi prater omnis angulus ridet. ' The smile of Horace’s Italy is no sun- nier than that corner of Virginia where Ran- dolph-Macon rears her Topography. tall buildings. T o stand at the entrance gate and look at the long buildings stretched out in a line to face a broad campus, their towers outlined against the sky like cathe- dral spires ever pointing upward, brings a surge of emotion enriched by memories that people the scene. Yet her beauty does not exert its spell only on those who hold a key to her inner wealth ; every passing visitor remarks on the dignity of the dull red, ivy-covered walls and on the tree- lined walk that leads to the entrance. Smith Hall is placed directly in the center of the campus, the Mother Hall, to whose kindly roof all roads lead. East and West Halls stand on either side like right and left hands joined to the arms made by the corridors. They are alike in their dignified Gothic columns and broad white steps, yet widely different in character: West — noisy, sometimes called rowdy; East — quiet, sometimes termed slow. New Hall stands aloof and disjointed to the right of West, boasting her walls are whiter and her porcelain uncracked, but there, too, feet are wetter on rainy days from cross-campus tramping. A graveled pathway leads from the side of West down a slope past the gymnasium and on through “the Pines,” which in spring looks like one of Spencer’s sylvan glades and in winter is a white close where an erl king might live. The eight fraternity houses stand in a row along this pathway. They are attractive little houses built for the most part in bungalow style, each consisting of a long living-room, a dining-room, a kitchen and a few secret corners. An open fire, a shaded lamp and a victrola, too, seem to be consid- ered necessary touches to their coziness. The gymnasium is a substantial l: