University of the South - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Sewanee, TN)

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I -» ?: tf On July 4, 1858, the Board of Trustees of the University of the South held its first meeting. It is from this date that Sewanee ' s anniversaries are marked. This year, 1982, marks the 125th anniversary of the founding of Sewanee. The three principle founders of this university were clergymen as well as educators, joined by laymen and bishops of several southern dioceses. Led by Leonidas Polk, these men sought to establish a liberal arts institu- tion in which religion and education were of equal empha- sis. Religion, they believed, was a strong foundation from which to educate men. With the laying of the cornerstone in 1860, the Universi- ty of the South began to take shape. But over the next three years, Federal armies marched through the South and the beginnings at Sewanee were destroyed, even down to the cornerstone. Resolved to establish what they be- lieved to be the ideal university in the ideal location, the founders began rebuilding. With a total enrollment of only nine students, the university opened on schedule on Sep- tember 18, 1868. Since then, the physical appearance of the campus has changed a great deal with the addition and renovation of various buildings. The atmosphere has also changed to some extent; the words of Moultrie Guerry, Sewanee was founded to make men now pertain also to women since the admittance of women in 1969. But the ideals of the founders have not been altered. The University of the South is still a seat of higher education whose foundation is a faith in the lasting value of religion. The spirit of Sewanee has also remained stable over the years. It is doubtful that any of the members of today ' s faculty would challenge the appropriateness of the toast made by Reverend Dr. Shoup many years ago: To Sewanee, where people of eminent respectibility dwell together in cheerful poverty. Neither is the abundance of dogs on campus anything new. As early as 1872, and in accounts of years shortly following, students and faculty alike noted that dogs were frequent visitors to the chapel. And the following tongue-in-cheek description of gownsmen in the spring written by the editor of the 1881 Cap and Gown amuses with familiarity today as it must have then: It is a pleas- ant and refreshing sight to see a Gownsman in the spring of the year . . . gracefully go down in the slush and mud The beauty of the University domain has remained, as Edward McCrady described it, a princely domain of 10,000 acres . . . richly endowed with virtually inexhaust- ible supplies of building stone, sand, clay, and timb er ... Leonidas Polk described the University land as seen from a summit as an area with just enough undulation to make it picturesque . . . From the summit the visitor is delighted with scenes of unsurpassed beauty, with points of the mountain running in fantastical shapes into the valley ... Those sights related by Polk are of a landscape that looks much the same for today ' s viewer as it did for one of Polk ' s time. It is significant that the University ' s anniversary is cele- brated from the date on which the Trustees first met, rather than from the opening proper of Sewanee. It is a prevalent part of the essence of the liberal arts education that though things physical pass away, knowledge and religion endure. Continued on page 14 INTRODUCTION 9

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MY GLORIOUS MOTHER EVER BE! 8 INTR0DUCTI0N

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10 INTRODUCTION