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Page 17 text:
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THE HALCYON OF NINETEEN SEVENTEEN T Swarthmore College A Reminiscent History HE GERMINAL idea of a school where both sexes might have equal advantages in higher education was in the minds of certain members of the Society of Friends for some years before it took definite shape in the founding of Swarthmore Col- lege. The first movement in the real beginning of the college came largely through the activities of Martha Tyson, of Baltimore, and Benjamin Hallowell, then living at Alexandria, Virginia. A Joint Committee of Friends from New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, was appointed, and this Committee issued an address in 1861, setting forth the desirability of establishing a boarding school for Friends children and for the education of teachers. One hundred and fifty thousand dollarswas named for the purchase of a farm and the erection of suitable build- ings, and a Board of Managers was elected when one-half of the aforesaid sum was sub- scribed. This was the founda- tion of Swarthmore College. On the tenth of May, 1866, the cornerstone was laid, and at the suggestion of Benjamin Hal- lowell ' s wife the college was GEORGE FOX ' S RESIDENCE called Swarthmore, from Swarthmore Hall, the home of George Fox, near Ulverstone, in the County of West- moreland, England. (The name is properly Swarthmoor, a much more beautiful and appropriate name than the existing meaningless termination. If a society should ever be organized for the re-establishment of the rightful names of places, this will probably receive attention). Three and a half years after this event, on the eighth day of November, 1869, the college was opened, with about one hundred and seventy students and a faculty of four members. A notable fact is that the instructor in Pure Mathematics this first year was Miss Susan J. Cunningham, who subsequently became full professor, retiring a few years ago. As Friends from New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, were all equally inter- ested in the founding and future of the college, the selection of the site of Swarthmore was possibly a geographical one, from its central position in relation to the t hree cities. It is a wonderful location on an upland terrace overlooking the valley of the Delaware. Page Eleven
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Page 18 text:
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THE HALCYON OF NINETEEN SEVENTEEN Immediately to the west of the college is the heavily wooded slope of the Crum valley, and to the back there stretches a rolling farm country with much fine woodland. The Swarthmore campus is almost unique in the natural beauty of its expansive slope and sur- rounding rural landscape. A piece of land adjoining the original college property was later purchased, and by this the college acquired not merely more land but an interest in old colonial history and in the his- tory of art, for on this piece of land stood the house in which Benjamin West was born. In the old days (long before our time) the Chester Road ran just to the north of it, coming across what is now the campus from a southwest direction to join the THE BENJAMIN WEST HOUSE king ' s Highway (the present Baltimore Pike). Cedar Lane is the northern part of this old road to-day. Just where it passed the West House there is still to be seen an ancient stone horse block. The pres- ent site of the girls ' tennis courts and hockey field was for many years a piece of fallow that sloped gently up toward the college, and here, about the time of spring vacation, a great many daffodils bloomed — escapes no doubt from an old dooryard garden, for all we know possibly from some old English bulbs. Dean Bond later had them all dug up and replanted in the flower beds, where you m ay still find them taking the winds of March with beauty. Benjamin ' s birth in the old house was a somewhat haphazard circumstance (a bit fortuitous for Swarthmoreans) , for his family moved there temporarily from Chester at the time the great yellow fever epidemic. When the railroad was run through from Philadelphia to West Chester in 1858, a station was built just west of the present road crossing and on this side of the track, and called Westdale. The old willows that stood so long at the lower end of the campus (the last one was cut down this past fall) are said to mark the site of a springhouse about which they grew. Edward Parrish was the first President of Swarthmore, and his memory is com- memorated in Parrish Hall. He was succeeded by Edward H. Magill, who was President from 1871 to 1889. Doctor Magill was a master of the old school, and Swarthmore will ever remain his debtor. To him belongs the credit of all those early years of the college life — years when it was growing from the boarding school toward the college ideal. I was fortunate enough to come to Swarthmore before Doctor Magill ' s d Pa c Tzvelve
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