Wofford College - From The Archives

The good men do

2009-10-30T09:55:48-04:00

A few weeks ago, I found a copy of a founder's day talk given in 1964 by Dean of the College Philip Covington. I wrote about Dean Covington last month. From what I understand, this talk is quite characteristic of Covington, and of a generation of Wofford faculty members in its combination of wit (both razor sharp and dry) and in its insight into the human condition. I share it here for your continuing enjoyment, and because I missed making any mention of Founder's Day a few weeks ago.

And also because I wish I could write like this.

I understand that the section down in front is reserved for seniors. I notice that quite a few of them are not present, but I'll forgive them since most of them have heard this speech for three or four years. And have heard me make it that many times.

Today is Founder's Day. For 110 years now this College has paid tribute to its founder, Benjamin Wofford. I am sure that on this very same platform very many people have made some very fine speeches about Benjamin Wofford...in fact, I have made some of them myself. As a matter of fact, it seems to be my privilege and duty (we always say) to do this in recent years. I hope that in the next world it will be his time and he can talk about me.

At the end of this sermon this morning, Pete Berry, the President of our Student Body, is going to lead us in the singing of the Alma Hater. As soon as he has finished and you have regained control of yourselves, and the thunderous applause has died away, please give Pete enough time to make a break for the door first.

Actually, my remarks are rather difficult to arrive at since I have talked on this subject so many times it is hard to think of a new approach to the same subject. I feel very much like a preacher Dr. Wilson told me about who had the same problem of preaching a different sermon each Sunday morning. He finally preached on the parable of the Prodigal Son — from the point of view of the fatted calf.

I rather feel that way, and that my remarks today are worthy of the title, "The Bones of Benjamin Wofford.” I think I have talked about practically everything else.

In Shakespeare's famous play, "Julius Caesar," Mark Anthony, in his funeral oration, says, referring to the dead Caesar, "The evils that men do live after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." Such is the magic of Shakespeare's eloquence that it was years after reading this, before it dawned on me that, while this is a beautiful and arresting statement, it simply is not so, and I have a feeling that Shakespeare and Mark Anthony both knew it at the time.

The Lord be thanked, things being as they are, that the exact reverse of this is true, or this world would be much worse than it is. Take comfort, my friends, when we die and they take us out, dig an appropriate hole, and bury us in it, people will even say nice things about us. They will forget completely what stinkers we were. But if we have ever, even inadvertently, done one good thing, that thing will be remembered and will go on, reproducing itself even until the very end of time.

The real problem is not the problem of evil, that is, how to account for the existence of evil in the world; the real philosophical problem that confronts man as he looks about him is this: "How does one account for the existence and the continuation of good in this world?"

Old Benjamin Wofford was, as Time magazine would probably put it, "No pretty boy, he." I would like for you to take a look at the portrait of our Founding Father which is out in the vestibule. Take a good look. I enjoy looking at it, because it is always very comforting to me. Take a look at the frost-bitten, hawk-like nose, the sunken eyes, partially hidden behind dark glasses as if he feared the light of day, the cadaverous cheeks, the sharp and jutting chin...on which a razor might cut itself. No matter how you look, my friends, you still look better than old Benjamin.

Now I don't know whether in his long life he ever did a really bad thing. Knowing his miserly ways, I think I can assure you that he never indulged in any expensive evil! But what has been remembered about this man? The fact that he was a failure as a preacher, and went into the business of what we would probably call a "loan shark"? That he was a stingy skin-flint who carefully saved rusty old nails? No, these things are not remembered about our founding father. As a matter of fact, the thing which is remembered about him is the thing which we are talking about today - the College which bears his name and which he called into being — but more than that, we remember the good - both the known good and the larger unknown good which has flowed from this College for 110 years, and also all the greater good yet to come. That he certainly never lived to see — the far greater good that you and I also will never live to see, because we celebrate here a living, continuing thing.

In my front yard, where I live here on the campus, there are two huge hemlock trees - very slow-growing trees. Some years ago I saw an old daguerreotype taken from the road in front of the house. Heaven only knows how long ago it was taken, but there on the front porch was Dr. James Carlisle, one of the original faculty members in 1854. He is a fine figure of a bearded young man, with his wife and young children about him. And there in the foreground were two tiny hemlock trees. I have seen another picture of him taken sometime since - same identical spot - years later, about the turn of the century. And there again was the memorable Dr. Carlisle, much, much older now, and this time standing all alone, looking out toward the College, and there in the foreground this time are two fine hemlock trees.

Now, I sometimes stand where he stood and look out between the two huge hemlock trees and I wonder who, long after me, will stand there. I wonder what the College will be like that he looks out upon, and I get a feeling of being a small part of a great and continuing good, long since begun, to which all of us may contribute, and that is, at least, the little good which may be in us. The good is interred with their bones? I think not. I think that anyone who stands out there today at Wofford's tomb and looks about him is compelled to say, "The good that men do lives after them," -- and for this, let us be grateful.

October is the cruelest month

2009-10-21T10:06:57-04:00

I think T. S. Eliot was off by a few months.

Well, October isn't really cruel, but it sure is busy. That's why I've been more than a little sloppy in keeping up with the blog.

In the three weeks (oops!) since I last posted, I've traveled to Austin, Texas to represent Wofford's Phi Beta Kappa chapter at the society's triennial council, where we transacted business, elected Phi Beta Kappa senators, and granted four new chapters to universities in different parts of the country. When I got back to Spartanburg, I had to work on a talk to the Laurens County Genealogical Society, then I had to work on another Homecoming history-sermon. Last Sunday, I visited the nice people at Main Street United Methodist Church in Columbia for their annual homecoming Sunday. I talked about our connected heritage as Methodists.

In between all of that, I've been answering questions, trying to clean up in the archives a bit, keeping my two very competent student assistants busy, and trying to get back to some long-delayed processing work. This morning, I'm sending copies of obituaries from the Southern Christian Advocate to some researchers who found our website and requested copies from the index.

As I glanced over one of the obituaries, a phrase caught my eye, and I stopped to read the entire paragraph. The notice came from 1854, the deceased was named Jane Wofford. Perhaps a distant relative of Benjamin (whose 229th birthday passed largely unheralded this week), she died in 1854, the year that Wofford opened. In fact, she died on August 5, just 4 days after the college that shared her name opened.

What struck me in the obituary was the choice of words and how the meaning of some words has evolved over 150 years. From looking at so many 19th century obituaries, I know that some of these expressions were common then, but have fallen out of use since. One is the reference to someone's spouse as their "consort." The obituary begins, "Jane Wofford, consort of Joseph Wofford, Esq., died 5th Aug. in hope of the crown of life. She was in her 65th year; having become a Methodist and a professor of religionabout 30 years ago."

Wait - a professor of religion? Of course, the obituary writer meant that she was one who professed religion, not that she held a college faculty appointment.

The obituary went on to describe her as a "diffident, but untiring Christian." Diffident - I've never seen that one in an obituary before. It means lacking self-confidence, timid, or shy. Perhaps the writer really meant that she was a reserved, quiet person.

Finally, the obituary praised her, saying "Sister W. was a devoted wife, an affectionate mother, a good mistress, kind to the poor, and attentive to all her duties as a Christian." A devoted wife AND a good mistress?

This is but one of some 57,000 obituaries in the Southern Christian Advocate in its 170 years, and but one of innumerable articles in that publication. It's a periodical worth exploring some time if you're in the archives - to get a flavor of life among South Carolina's Methodists in years past.

A busy October, yes, but I'd rather be busy than not.

Methodism in Saluda

2009-09-30T12:07:22-04:00

Last Sunday, I traveled down to the small town of Saluda, SC to speak as part of St. Paul United Methodist Church's homecoming celebration. I'm not ordained, so I'm not sure if I can legally call what I did preaching, but my address took the place of the sermon. I like to refer to these kind of addresses as "history sermons." I was invited to do one of these a few years ago, so it did not feel quite so odd this time.

In my sermon, I talked about the church's history, the history of Methodism, and why I think we ought to preserve history. St. Paul in Saluda is about 111 years old. Saluda County was created in 1895, and the town of Saluda established as the county seat soon thereafter. The church was built not long after the town was built, and they have been on their same site all this time. Their first church was a frame structure, but in the early 1910s, they had grown to the point that they needed a new building.

A lot of South Carolina's small towns experienced a burst of prosperity around 1910. So much of the state had been economically devastated by the Civil War that only an upswing in the price of cotton in the early 20th century brought a measure of wealth back into the state. Several towns like Saluda built a number of nicer public buildings, churches, railroad hotels, and the like in the decade before World War I. The agricultural recession after that war, followed by the Great Depression, put a halt to a lot of new building, and so you often find small towns that still have a little of the early 20th century flavor. A lot of them were too poor to remodel or tear down those buildings. Unfortunately, a lot of these towns seem to be on hard times today.

What Saluda's economy is like I can't say, but St. Paul UMC is very much alive. They're a station appointment - that is, they support their own full-time minister, Dr. Tom Norrell. Dr. Norrell and I have known each other for a good number of years, as I was a student assistant in the archives when he was doing graduate school research. The church has about 350 members, and it has been beautifully maintained. The membership seemed to be a good mixture of younger and older members, with long-time and newer members to boot. They felt very much alive.

Each congregation in its own way makes a contribution to its community and to Methodism in the state. Many of St. Paul's former ministers have gone on to significant posts in the conference. They've also sent out a few ministers from their membership. Their members have served on conference boards. That's all important. But, just as importantly, they stand in that town as a symbol of the United Methodist Church and all it represents, and they carry the church's mission out into their community. And if all they do is represent our connection, then they are serving their purpose.

I told the congregation last Sunday that they had a proud history and they have done a great deal to preserve it. They've got a story to share with their community. I hope they keep sharing it.

Dean Covington

2009-09-22T15:44:05-04:00

Can anything good come out of Moultrie?

If you know anything about Dean Philip Stanhope Sheffield Covington, you don’t have to ask.

Born in Moultrie, Georgia, Philip Covington graduated from Emory University in 1934 and embarked upon the study of law. He practiced law for three years in Georgia before deciding to pursue teaching and graduate study in English. After he earned a master’s degree in English at Duke University, he taught in Florida and in Charleston, SC before becoming associate professor of English at Wofford in 1947.

Three years later, he took on the thankless job of dean of students, and in 1953, new president Pendleton Gaines named him dean of the college. When President Gaines resigned abruptly in 1957, the trustees turned to Dean Covington, naming him acting president until they could bring Dr. Charles Marsh to campus in 1958. As chief academic officer from 1953 to 1969, Phil Covington hired a generation of faculty members, all of whom are now retired. He had a particular knack for picking professors, and most famously, hired geologist John Harrington after sitting next to him on an airplane.

Phil Covington was more than an administrator and teacher, he was a lover of tradition, skillful in the use of words, and by all accounts, a clever and engaging member of the community. Though he respected tradition and later in life said he wanted nothing about Wofford to change, he could poke fun at tradition and never took himself or his office too seriously. The stories of him are numerous and humorous, and according to Dr. Lewis Jones “not more than a third of them are apocryphal.” One of my favorites is the oft-repeated tale of how he was asked how he determined faculty salaries, and after staring out the window for a moment, he replied that he observed the flights of birds. Another favorite is the story about low enrollment in one particular department – he was overheard to say, as he looked out his office window, “I wonder what Dan Olds and his physics student are doing today.” Most of those stories, unfortunately, were never written down.

He created a few euphemisms that remain with us today. “The Wofford Way” is attributed to him. He meant it not entirely as a compliment. He meant it in sort of an English way of “muddling through.” His founder’s day addresses were the stuff of legend. He once gave a talk about Benjamin Wofford’s bones. A Shakespearean scholar, naturally he chose Mark Antony’s funeral oration in Julius Caesar as his text. (Keep an eye out, in a few weeks I’ll post the talk on Founder’s Day this year.) Despite poking fun at Old Ben every now and then, he had a great respect for the college’s founder, saying that his “very action in founding this college was a profession of faith in the eternal verities.”

At Dean Covington’s funeral in 1988, Dr. Lewis Jones quoted a 1951 Old Gold and Black story that began, “’On November 28, 1912, the population of Moultrie, Georgia was increased, for better or worse, by one.’ We know now—it was for better.”

If you have a Covington story or quote, why not share it with me? Leave a comment about Dean Covington so others can enjoy.

The Faculty, the late 2000s version

2009-09-18T09:09:54-04:00

Last week, I posted the oldest faculty photo in the collection. Today, I'm posting the newest one. This photo was taken by college photographer extraordinare Mark Olencki '75 before opening convocation on Thursday, Sept. 10.

I haven't been able to determine exactly when our faculty began to wear academic regalia, but I think it was in the 1920s. I've seen photos of Commencement in the 1930s where the faculty are in caps and gowns, and I've seen references in President Henry N. Snyder's correspondence to graduates who were receiving master's degrees that they needed to obtain a proper gown.

Many people ask about the varying types of gown and the meaning of the hoods. The hood is the multi-colored piece of cloth that is worn over the shoulders, for those of you who don't know what it's called. The hood's trim and lining are a code - they will tell the observer where the wearer got his or her degree, whether it was a master's or doctoral degree, and in what field the degree was awarded. In this picture, you see a lot of deep blue - that's the color for the PhD - the degree awarded for original research in the arts and sciences. You may see some white - the color for some doctoral degrees in the humanities and for the master of arts - and you'll see some golden yellow - the color for some PhD degrees awarded in the natural sciences and for the degree of master of science (Master's hoods are thinner). Several of the librarians wear hoods with yellow trim for the master of library and information science degree. Degree holders in education are light blue, in theology are scarlet, and law are purple. Some business degree hoods are copper, fine arts are brown, music is a shade of pink. Traditionally, gowns are black, but many universities have adopted official gowns in their school colors, so you can see President Dunlap's Harvard crimson gown on the front row.

The Faculty, the late 1860s version

2009-09-11T15:30:47-04:00

One of the rituals surrounding the start of each academic year is opening convocation. For a good number of years, this has been a full-dress convocation, with faculty, librarians, and administrators processing in academic regalia.

One of the rituals that we have observed in more years than not is the annual photo on the steps of Main Building. The tradition of taking a photo of the faculty is a fairly old one. Below, I'm sharing the oldest faculty photo in our collection.

Pictured, from left to right: Whitefoord Smith, professor of English, 1855-93; James H. Carlisle, professor of mathematics, 1854-1875 and president of the college, 1875-1902; David Duncan, professor of ancient languages, 1854-1881; A. H. Lester, professor of history and Biblical literature, 1866-1873; Warren DuPre, professor of natural science, 1854-1875; and A. M. Shipp, president of the college and professor of mental and moral philosophy, 1859-1875. Click on the photo for a larger version in a pop-up window.) This group served together for an extended period of time; in fact, with the exception of Lester, they were together from 1859 to 1875. Three of them were elected to the original faculty.

The modern faculty is considerably larger and more diverse than this group, with 118 full-time professors teaching at the college this fall.

Another opening, another show

2009-09-07T11:48:26-04:00

Today is Labor Day, which at Wofford means that the school year starts today.

The library is already full of students. You can feel the very abrupt change in the atmosphere on campus and in the building. Last week, the freshmen arrived on Wednesday, the pre-session faculty and staff meetings were Thursday, so there have been people around for the past week. We had students back earlier than that, actually, with at least three teams, the resident assistants, orientation staff members, and all sorts of other people getting ready for the start of the academic year. But they weren't in the building. Today, with the start of classes, the students have returned to the library.

Why do we start on Labor Day? You might think the archivist's short answer would be, "we've always done it that way." And there's some truth to that. The more correct answer is that our fall semester, counting exams, usually runs fifteen calendar weeks. If you count back from the week in December when fall semester exams are given, you usually wind up starting on the week of Labor Day.

Throughout the 1990s, classes typically started on Tuesday after Labor Day, though in a few years, we actually started the week before Labor Day. Monday, Labor Day, would be move-in day for upperclassmen. I always thought that made sense, since so many of our parents help their children move back to campus, they didn't have to take a day off of work to help with moving. The Monday of the first week of each semester was reserved for registration, for fixing scheduling problems, and (for faculty) for hurriedly completing their syllabi. With the advent of computerized registration, that day suddenly became un-necessary, so the first Monday of the semester became a class day.

Here are a few examples of the start of the fall semester from old college catalogues:

1966 - before the college established the Interim - classes started on Saturday, Sept. 17. Yes, a Saturday. The freshmen had reported for orientation on Sunday, Sept. 11 and the upperclassmen had returned on Thursday, Sept. 15. Fall semester exams didn't happen until January 19-26.

1967 - the first year of the Interim - classes started on Thursday, Sept. 7. Freshmen had reported on Sept. 3, and final exams ended on December 20.

1970 - classes started on Thursday, Sept. 3, with exams ending on Dec. 17.

1980 - classes started on Wednesday, Sept. 10, with exams ending on Dec. 19.

1990 - classes began Tuesday, Sept. 4, with exams ending on Dec. 14.

1998 - classes began on Tuesday, Sept. 1

1999 - classes began on Monday, Sept. 6, and ever since then, have started on Monday.

In any event, everyone is here. Over the next few weeks, I hope to get back to twice-weekly blog posts. It's been a busy summer in the archives, and thanks to my ever-helpful student assistants, we've got a lot of photographs scanned and ready to share in one place or another. I hope to send a trivia question your way over on the Facebook page every now and then, to write about some important historical figures on campus - both alumni and faculty - and anything else you want me to talk about.

Early Commencement Program

2009-08-19T09:21:35-04:00

I've been away for a few days at a conference of archivists - the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists - to borrow a phrase, where people like me go to feel normal. Of course, coming home, I found a few reference requests that had piled up in my absence, and in answering one, I had to look in the old college catalogues.

When people ask me what I like about being an archivist, my standard (and truthful) answer is that I learn something new every day. Even after 10 1/2 years here, I am still finding documents that I've never seen before, and very often, I find them simply by stumbling across them as I look for something else. This morning, as I looked in the bound volume of old catalogues, I found a printed program for a senior exhibition from May 1857, along with a printed program from the 1857 Commencement exercises. I'm not quite sure how I had missed those in the past, but perhaps I had been looking in another bound volume of these books that didn't have these programs.

In any event, I scanned them both, and am sharing them here. Someone has written the date of the 1857 Commencement on the program, but they've also written that this was the "first" Commencement, and that's not quite true. It was actually the third, and the second one with graduates. It was, however, the first commencement with a significant number of graduates, most of whom had been studying together for three years.

Click on the images for a larger view...

The top image is from Commencement, the bottom is from the May exercise.

Leonard Auditorium

2009-08-06T15:52:43-04:00

For whom was Leonard Auditorium named?

That's a strange question to ask. After all, Leonard Auditorium is undoubtedly the most important room on the Wofford campus. It's the site of all campus convocations, the place where the portraits of former presidents hang, the auditorium for major concerts, for events that bring the community together. And yet nobody gives much thought to who "Leonard" was.

It was this fellow, the Rev. George Clark Leonard, class of 1895.

And how did Rev. Leonard get the auditorium named for him?

George Leonard arrived at Wofford in 1891 as a 25-year old freshman. He graduated four years later and the following year, became a Methodist minister in South Carolina. In 1914, he became a member of Wofford's board of trustees, where he served for some 31 years. During his ministry, he was twice a district superintendent. He was on close terms with Wofford President Henry N. Snyder, both as a fellow churchman and as a trustee during most of Snyder's presidency. Snyder would have been the younger man's professor in the early 1890s as well. Snyder wrote Leonard's obituary in the Annual Conference minutes in 1945.

On his death, he made a bequest to the college's postwar capital campaign. In February 1946, the board of trustees voted to name the renovated chapel in Main Building, which had never been known as anything but the chapel, in his honor. Since 1946, the primary auditorium on campus has borne the name "the Leonard Auditorium" out of respect for the long service of an alumnus, clergyman, and trustee.

Student Body 1891-92

2009-07-27T14:48:34-04:00

Student Body 1891-92
Originally uploaded by Wofford Archives

This photo from the winter of 1891-92 shows the students in front of Main Building. Notice how many of them are wearing hats. You can see a few students sitting on the steps or in one of the doors to the building.

Click on the image to see a larger view over on my Flickr page. When you get over to Flickr, click on the "all sizes" button, just above the photo, to see a larger version of the image.