Randolph Macon College - Helianthus Yearbook (Lynchburg, VA)

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We - Perhaps 1t would be more modest and seemly to wait until I had passed f. beyond and let others tell my tale. Biographers however, are divided into Hlbp Qtzachers MAKE no apology whatever for committing to paper fragments of my life. U , two classes, those who don't know much about you and those who know too much. And then, too, one isn't always sure of being 'cbiographedf' For these reasons I deem it safer to write it myself. . Skipping hurriedly over those years when I was neither a joy nor comfort to either parents or teacher, I pass to that momentous period in my life when I met Dr. Smith and through him established an alliance with Randolph-Macon, my adopted foster-mother. This alliance was not hard to enter upon on my part, but there was some doubt as to my years of discretion and experience on Dr. Smith's side. There was one deciding factor in the conclusion of this attachment, and it was a strange one. It turned for me what I had considered my chief liability into an asset. My early memories had never lead me to believe that red hair was a desirable possession. There was always associated with it vegetable nicknames like 'ccarrotsn or radish or even such stinging epithets as 'Lbrick-top or lemon. But Dr. Smith first revealed its value to me, for he passed by my tender years and inex- perience with the somewhat doubtful compliment, Well, you have red hair. My wife has red hair, and no one ever got the better of her. With a college diploma and a professional certificate in my hand I left Cambridge lMass.J secure in the thought that my education was completed and that now I, in turn, would take my place as a pedagogue. Let me say here that it was not to be in any spirit of retaliation, although I must confess that there had been times when I had muttered, '4Wait until I get to be a teacherf' but with a prevailing spirit of kindness and gentleness would I do my 'work. My knowledge of udisciplinei' was largeg I had gained it through real experience. Thus equipped I entered Randolph-Macon, and joined that infamous band of people called uteachersf, It was here after a year's experience that a great truth dawned upon me. I had believed, and you still believe, that colleges and college faculties exist for the education of youthg but alas! it is not so, but a contraire. It is youth that educates and age that is taught: The real accomplishment of a college is the education of its faculty. To be sure, the method of education of the faculty differs from that by which college students are supposed to be taught. For the faculty there is nothing so shamelessly open and blatant as the age old curriculum, 17 .V ..-N. 97 -4- -tt f--B+' 4-Weiss'--M s ., -6 -s

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and there are no electives nor required subjects, but in a much more subtle and ingenious manner the faculty are subjected to a constantly increasing reconstruction of experience. Youth's I'f1E:tIll1C1'S, youth's dress, youth's language, youth's beliefs, youth,s ideals are continually undermining those established and comfortable con- victions of the right and proper ways of life to which age has attained. Separation from these settled beliefs is a slow and painful process in which youth, the teacher, must 'exercise patience. For instance, those kaleidoscopic changes in manner of dress which require of youth merely physical adaptation, demand of age mental adjustments which must be made much more slowly. The education of a faculty is a much longer process than that of a student. The student mind is virgin soil upon which no seeds have hitherto been sown, but the faculty mind has already grown its crop and, as in the case of intensive cultivation, the former must be removed before a second may be sown. As a member of the Randolph-Macon College faculty, I entered upon my real education. It was here, in contact with a living people whose heritage of ideals and character is of the best in the world, that I began to know and appreciate the good things of life. Southern people are born to a culture utterly different from that acquired in our ordinary institutions of learning. It is the result not only of a good biologic inheritance, but of the somewhat unhurried life which they have lived for generations-a life in which the business of getting on, gathering gear, as Stevenson puts it, has been subordinated to the more humanistic matter of living. It is a life in which the cultural products are innate and form an atmosphere of refinement, a background of manners, against which the training of a college like Randolph-Macon creates a fine type of modern womanhood. To you, students of Randolph-Macon, my teachers,'l offer the tribute of honest appreciation. The things which you have are not purchasahle with money, but in this very material world they must be marked '6Perishable.,' Enshrine them in your hearts, let no one deceive you as to their valueg and may the heritage of your children and your children,s children be that of an antiquity of learning, the old South plus a Randolph-Macon training. Loyalty to you is a blessing, not a sacrifice, because loyalty to you is loyalty to the best. And so l would commit to your care all friends of mine who 'would know what a real education is. .ia