Swarthmore College - Halcyon Yearbook (Swarthmore, PA)

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It was also stated that Latin might be substituted for English Grammar at the request of parents or guardians. At a meeting of the Managers the present year a communication was received from the Alumni requesting their attention to the representation of the Alumni in the Board of Manage- ment. The Managers expressed their satisfaction at this evidence of interest in the College on the part of the Alumni, but the way did not open to grant their request at this time. It may now be stated that since that time, as the College has grown older (having now entered upon its 2 8lh year), the Alumni have been very satisfactorily represented, not only on the Board of Management, but also in the Faculty, to the great advantage of the College, as none could better understand its needs than those who have received their education here. It was mentioned by the Managers in their report for this year as a very promising indication of the progress of the College that the entire Junior Cla-s of last year, who were pursuing a regular course, had now returned to graduate. This has gradually become the regular practice since that time. At the close of this the most successful year of the College thus far, the Managers used the following language in their annual report to the stock- holders ; language which cannot be too deeply impressed upon the minds of all friends of the College : It has ever been the hope of the Managers that Swarthmore may more and more inculcate and exemplify those principles and that simplicity to which Friends bear testimony. Great sacrifices have been made to found and establish this institution of learning. It has been from the first a labor of love and devotion. The effort was in harmony with — it was the out- growth of — principles which it is the mission of our Religious Society to cherish and promulgate; namely, the devotion of our means not to display, 15

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this year numbered 13. The whole number of students in the College classes this year numbered 105, of whom 16 were in the Senior Class, and now, for the first time, the four sections — Classical, Modern Classical, En- gineering, and Chemical — were represented in this class. It will be of interest to our Students and Alumni to find here a reference to the First Fall Contests of the Athletic Association of Swarthmore College, which were held on Swarthmore grounds on the loth of Eleventh month of the present year, 1877. The officers of the Athletic Association at that time were : President and Treasurer, Lesley Hopper, ' 79. Vice-President, William P. Holcomb, ' 78. Recording Secretary, William P. Fender, ' 79. Assistant Secretary, Isaac R. Coles, ' 79. The difficult and responsible position of Matron of the College (since more appropriately named Dean), after the early resignation of Helen G. Longstreth, had now been very successfully filled for several years by Phebe W. Foulke, who resigned the position at the close of the past year, and her place was filled at the reopening in the Fall of 1877 by the appointment of Caroline S. Wood. The elective system, which had been applied more or less from the beginning to the college classes, especially in the Junior and Senior years, was not applied to any considerable extent in the Preparatory School, as will be obvious from the following note which appeared in the catalogue issued at this time : The only elective studies in the Preparatory School are as follows : Natural History (Lectures), elective in all the classes ; Latin and French, elective in Class C. 14

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but to real good, and the exercise of a judicious care that we may provide liberally for all those things which contribute to the moral and intellectual advancement of coming generations. Although the outward and material establishment of Swarthmore is well-nigh finished, the great work under- taken by its far-sighted founders is scarcely begun, and unless it is to be dwarfed and hindered of its hoped-for perfection, others must continually take up and carry on the work in the same broad spirit of liberality in which it was conceived. A certain grade and class of schools are self-sustaining, but higher education has ever been and must continue to be the self sacri- ficing contribution of the present to the future. 1 6