University of Tennessee Knoxville - Volunteer Yearbook (Knoxville, TN)

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F mm 1894 to 1897, in addition to being President of the University of Tennessee, Dr. Dabney was Assistant Sec- retary of Agriculture, and in 1897 he was appointed Special Agent of Scientific Investigations for the Department of Agriculture. The people of the South are thoroughly acquainted with his work as a member of the Southern Education Board, and also with the part which he has played in the development of the Summer School of the South. Dr. Dabney is a member of numerous societies and organizations throughout the country, and is a trustee of the Washington Memorial Institution. He is a member of Phi Gamma Delta, and was one of the leaders of the movement which led to the estab- lishment of the honorary fraternity of Phi Kappa Phi. In recognition of these manifold services to science and educa- tion, in 1901 the degree LL. D. was conferred upon Dr. Dabney by Yale and John Hopkins Universities. As Dr. Dabneyis connection with the University is of especial local interest, let us look at some of the facts of this connection. Some idea of the growth of the University of Tennessee under Dr. Dabney's administration may be gained from a statement of the increase in the number and value of its buildings and equipment. There are at present nearly three times as many buildings on the Hill and 8 F arm 8 as there were in 1888, and their value has increased seven.- fold. Furthermore, the income of the University has been more than doubled. This statement has all the more significance when it is recalled that all these improvements and building have been obtained without one dollar of appropriation from the State. No institution in the country can show a greater productiveness in proportion to the amount of its funds than the University of Tennessee, and when we consider the vastness of the undertaking and the necessity of increasing the expenditures to maintain the work in a respectable manner, the results appear truly remarkable. The development of the University from other points of view has been equally gratifying. Beginning with a corps of eight professors and seven instructors in 1887-88, the faculty has steadily increased until it now includes forty-iive members, twenty-three of whom are professors. Moreover, the Experiment Station, which commenced with a corps of seven, now has a staff of thirteen experts and assistants, and the development in its work has been not less remarkable than what has already been noted in the case of the University. It has been very favorably mentioned in the reports of the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Station is now regarded as one of the foremost in the country. After sixteen years of faithful and devoted service, Dr. Dabney leaves the University of Tennessee, with our sincerest regret, to labor in a new field for the cause he loves so well; and we do not doubt but that he will soon develop the efficiency and influence of the University of Cincinnati quite as rapidly as he has done in the case of the University of Tennessee.

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CHARLES WILLIAM DABNEY. MON G the many men who have aided in the industrial and intellectual activity of the South during the past two decades, no one is more widely known than Dr. Charles William Dabney, President of the University of Ten- nessee, and President-elect of the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Dabney entered Hampden-Sidney College, Virginia, in 1869, at the age of fourteen; and having graduated there in 1873, he continued his academic work at the University of Virginia. While in the latter institution, he applied himself to the study of chemistry and related subjects. After finishing his course in the University of Virginia and subsequently spending a year as professor of chemistry in Emory and Henry College, Virginia, Dr. Dabney deter- mined to study in Germany, where he felt that he could obtain the most thorough and inspiring scientific training. Accordingly, going abroad in 1878, he worked both at Goettingen and Berlin, and received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Goettingen in 1880 ' Since his return to America in 1880, Dr. Dabney has been untiring: in his labors for the furtherance of education in the South. For a short while in the year of his return he was professor of chemistry in the University of North Carolina, but resigned to accept the directorship of the Agricultural Experiment Station of that State. His work in North Carolina was of very great importance, for as State Chemist and head of the Experiment Station, he immediately organized an eiiicient force of co-laborers, built laboratories, and inaugurated a thorough and scientific investigation of soils, fertilizers and crops. Indeed, he was largely instrumental in creating the enthusiasm which produced the State Exposition in' 1883, an event which marked the beginning of the present industrial progress of North Carolina. It may be added that later on he also organized the exhibits of the State at the Atlanta, Boston and New Orleans Expositions. This work, however, only prepared the way for a still larger usefulness. In 1887 he was elected director of the Tennessee Experiment Station, and a year later was made President of the University of Tennessee. During his presidency the University has grown from a small college of one hundred and twenty-iive students to a university numbering from six to eight hundred. Here Dr. Dabney has been able to realize in large measure his ideal of educa- tion as a union of classical culture and scientific training. He has succeeded in building up a University that is known throughout the South ; one which furnishes trained men to develop the resources of our section of the country in every line-agricultural, scientific, literary and professional.

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BOARD OF TRUSTEES 3 LEGAL TITLE : His Excellency, the Governor of Tennessee . The Secretary of State The Superintendent of Public Instruction . T. F. P. ALLISON, Nashville JOHN M. BOYD, Knoxville HARRIS BROWN, Gallatin JOSHUA W. CALDWELL, Knoxville CHALMERS DEADERICK,Knoxville Z. W. EWING, Pulaski JAMES B. FRAZIER, Chattanooga JAMES M. GREEN, Memphis THOMAS E. HARWOOD, Trenton J. B, KILLEBREW, Nashville HUGH G. KYLE, Rogersville SAMUEL B. LUTTRELL, Knoxville W. B. LOCKETT, Knoxville JAMES MAYNARD. Knoxville 3 TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE . . . . .Eaaojicio . E,1'-017?cio . Ex-Ojia'o SAMUEL MCKINNEY, Knoxville HU L. MCCLUNG, Knoxville THOMAS R. MYERS, Shelbyville W. W. OGILVIE, Nashville JAMES PARK, Knoxville JAMES D. PORTER, Nashville WILLIAM RULE, Knoxville EDWARD T. SANFORD, Knoxville FRANK A. R. SCOTT, Knoxville W. C. TATOM, Nashville OLIVER P. TEMPLE, Knoxville SPENCER F. THOMAS, Brownville MAKYE B. TREZEVANT, Memphis XENOPHON WHEELER, Cha ttanooga MOSES WHITE. Knoxville 33 OFFICERS OF THE BOARD CHARLES W. DABNEY . JAMES MAYNARD . . President . Treasurer