Swarthmore College - Halcyon Yearbook (Swarthmore, PA)

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Swattbmore CoUcgc llts ©rigin anb Some IRotes ' Clpon Its Earl Ibistors 3BB EJiwar Ibicfts agfll, %%. 2). CHAPTER XL HE TWENTY-SECOND YEAR, 1890-91. — These notes having now covered a period of twenty- one years, we have reached, at length, the near approach of the time so long aimed at, when the College would be entirely free from the added care and burden of a large Preparatory School. In this twenty-second year the whole number of students was 206, with 41 of these still unpre- pared for Freshman work, but they constituted no longer classes of a Preparatory School, but were called a Sub-Collegiate class, with the hope and expectation (long since realized at this writing), that the College would not, very much longer, be crippled in its work by the incubus of a large Preparatory School, which the educational conditions among us made a necessity in our earlier years. The President of the College having now returned from his year of absence spent in foreign travel and in the study of the best educational methods abroad, entered upon his work as Professor of the French Language and Literature, and Professor William Hyde Appleton, who had taken his place as Acting President in his ab- sence, was now offered the position of President, but preferred the duties of his professorship. He, however, accepted the position, with the understanding that he should retain it only until a permanent successor could be appointed. During this twenty-second year of the College the Friends ' Historical Library (founded by Anson Lapham, soon after the opening of the College) was materially increased by a gift of Dillwyn Parrish, Jr., of London; and through the efforts of Albert A. Merritt, of New York, and the liberality of interested friends there and else- where, money was raised to purchase the library of a deceased English Friend, a collection rich in many volumes that we did not before possess. This library has each year become a more important aid to the students of Friends ' principles, and the history of the Society, and is now the largest collection of Friends ' books in this country. The following quotation from the annual report of the Board of Managers to the stockholders, in the Twelfth month, 1890, is of interest, as being not only applicable at that time, but never out of place in the history of an 12

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educational institution. They say ; As a rule, all institutions ceasing to have needs cease to grow ; we therefore call attention to the pressing demand for increased library facilities, first of which is a fund for the purchase of more books for each department, and hardly to be classed as second, a Library Hall, the present accommodations being altogether inadequate. Nearly fifteen years have passed since this earnest appeal was sent out, and the need referred to, and grow- ing each year more imperative, is still unsupplied. There were no changes in the membership of the Faculty during the twenty-second year, indicating a sta- bility in the organization of the College very creditable and encouraging after its brief existence of but little more than two decades. Twenty-Third Year, 1891-92. — In the opening of our twenty-third year the College met with a great and seemingly irreparable loss in the death of three of our active managers, Martha G. McIIvain, Edward Hoopes, and Isaac Stephens, the first two dying within a few weeks of each other, and the last about three months later. Martha G. McIIvain had been, from the very beginning of the College, one of the most efficient members of the Board, and was an excellent helper, organizer, and counsellor in the College household. Edward Hoopes had withdrawn from the management a fevv ' months before, in consecjuence of ill health, but he had served the College most faithfully from the first, and been an active and deeply interested member of several of the most im- portant committees. Isaac Stephens, too, was one whose active mind and sympathizing heart fitted him in an especial manner for the duties of a manager. Through failing health he had laid aside the burden a short time before his death. This twenty-third year opened under a new President, Charles De Garmo, Ph. D., who came to the work after serving as Professor of Pedagogics in the Illinois State University, and fresh from three years of later study abroad in the Universities of Jena and Halle in Germany, having taken his degree of Ph. D. in Halle a short time before his return; and he entered with zeal at once upon the work which Swarthmore presented. He was not a Friend, but of a Friends family, and came to our work fully aware of the designs of the founders of the College, and resolved to carry out those designs to the letter; a resolve of which his successful labor with us was an abundant proof. His first report to the Board shows clearly his high ideal of what such an institution as Swarthmore can and should accomplish. His theory of the proper government of college students he set forth clearly in these words: The college student is much nearer manhood than boyhood, although his frequent lack of appreciation of what is manly seems to point the other way. At all events, one of the best ways rapidly to 13