Wofford College - From The Archives

The good men do

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.        

The Faculty, the late 2000s version

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.  

Another opening, another show

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

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.  

Commencement

Last spring, I wrote several blog posts about various Commencements at Wofford and the traditions that had grown up around this highlight of the academic year.  Rather than re-write some of those entries, I'm going to refer you back to a few of them.  

In one entry, I talked about the assorted traditions of walking through the gates, of the Commencement Bibles, and of the ceremony itself.  

In another post, I talked about "Commencement Season" - all of the events that surround the actual graduation ceremony.  In years gone by, Commencement lasted four or five days.

And in another, I shared a selection from a radio interview with President Henry Nelson Snyder where he talked about the American college commencement.  

Next week, I'll talk about a few other Commencement-related items - including a retrospective on what Commencement was like in 1959, and perhaps 1859 and 1909 as well.  Stay tuned!

And, if you will permit a moment of personal privilege, I will note that my classmates and I from the class of 1994 graduated from Wofford fifteen years ago today.  

John G. Clinkscales: The Mathematician-Politician

Say, did you hear the one about the math professor who ran for governor?  

That sounds like a joke, but in the case of Dr. John G. Clinkscales, it’s a true story.  In 1914, running on a platform of compulsory public education, Clinkscales won some 40,000 votes and placed fourth in the race.  That may not sound like much of an achievement, but every one of the three men who finished ahead of him at some point served as the Palmetto state’s governor. 

Born in Abbeville County in 1855, John George Clinkscales came to Wofford as a student in 1872.  He graduated in 1876, and in 1889, returned to take a master of arts degree.  He continued his education with further study at Cornell and Johns Hopkins.  Before he came to Wofford in 1899, he taught at Clemson for five years, at Columbia College for four, and at Williamston Female College for one.  The latter two colleges were both Methodist-related, and the latter has since become Lander University.  Before he began his college teaching career, he taught in the public schools of Spartanburg County, and for four years, he was the superintendent of education in Anderson County.  In 1912, Erskine College awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree. 

He became a popular professor of mathematics and astronomy in 1899, probably taking many of the classes previously taught by President James H. Carlisle.  However, one of the reasons he was brought to Wofford was his speaking ability.  Dr. Carlisle did not want to undertake the public relations aspects of the presidency, so over the course of his administration, several faculty members undertook these duties.  Clinkscales became a popular figure on the lecture circuit, speaking in churches and civic groups around the state.  On top of his teaching responsibilities, he was for a quarter century one of Wofford’s “field representatives” – traveling the state as an ambassador of the college – a task he continued even when Henry Nelson Snyder became president and took to the circuit himself.  No doubt this involved a mixture of student recruitment, alumni relations, fund-raising, and otherwise showing Wofford’s colors throughout the state.  It also probably put him in touch with Wofford alumni, Methodists, and other citizens around the state and helped him immensely in his subsequent campaign for governor. 

Clinkscales was also something of a writer.  From one of his personal experiences came his first book, How Zach Came to College, published in 1904.  The book tells the story an uneducated young man who came from a Western North Carolina valley to attend Wofford in the 1870s.  In fact, the story is somewhat fictionalized as there were actually two brothers, Zachary T. Whiteside and his brother, Andrew S. “Zeb” Whiteside, who were both part of the Class of 1877.  Zach and Zeb did not have much money, and as such they lived in spare rooms in Main Building, cooking their meals.  Soon other students joined them, and from that the college’s first dining hall emerged.  Dr. Clinkscales would have been a student at the same time as these two, and I would not be surprised if their story made its way into his speeches, and eventually into a book. 

As a lifelong advocate for public education, Clinkscales entered the 1914 race for governor not because he thought he could win, but because he thought somebody should speak for education.  In those days, all of the candidates for statewide office traveled the state together for a stump meeting in each county, and each had an opportunity to speak.  Clinkscales was tired of the level of anti-progressive demagoguery that he had been hearing for years in state politics, and told friends that if someone wouldn’t run on behalf of compulsory education, then he would.  He kept his word.  His platform was fairly advanced for the day, and the two leading progressive candidates had much better political organizations.  In defeat, his campaign had more influence than many other losing efforts in that at its next session, the legislature approved and the governor signed a bill enacting compulsory school attendance. 

Clinkscales continued to be an active speaker, Methodist layman, and advocate of education in the state.  He gave up his field work in the late 1920s, and declining health forced him to stop teaching in the late 1930s.  He continued to live in his campus home – now called the Kilgo-Clinkscales House – until his death on January 1, 1942.  

Photos: Clinkscales' portrait, presently on display in the Daniel Building, a photo of Clinkscales taken by Herbert Hucks '34 at Commencement in the late 1930s.

Little-known facts and factoids

My predecessor, Herbert Hucks Jr., of the class of 1934, served as a librarian and archivist at Wofford from 1947 to 1998, including 20 years as a part-time retired archivist.  He compiled a list of various "little-known facts" about Wofford.  I'll try to drop a few in every now and then, in the midst of various stories about Wofford people and events.  Many of these facts come from the D. D. Wallace History of Wofford College, published in 1951. 

On Wofford and the Civil War:  "The first martyr in the Southern cause was William Maxwell Martin, a Wofford graduate of 1857, who had developed into a gifted poet as well as orator.  His graduation speech, The Calico Flag, it was said, 'produced a sensation in its way beyond anything in the annals of the college.'  He died February 21, 1861, of illness contracted from exposure on duty at Fort Moultrie, standing by his canon through the cold damp night." 

Martin's father was a well-known South Carolina Methodist minister and Wofford trustee. 

On the Confederate bonds:  "The securities owned by the college at the close of the Civil War included $85,897 of Confederate bonds and certificates, $1,297 in Confederate money, and bank stocks of $17,525 par value, all of which was ruined by the war... It is correct, therefore, to say that the endowment was swept away by the war, although it was not all invested in Confederate bonds."

"At least 35 Wofford alumni died in the Civil War."

As Wofford is presently in a pattern of enrollment and faculty growth, it's interesting to note other times when the faculty grew.  On the faculty's recommendation, in 1866, the trustees created a chair of history and Biblical literature, and elected A. H. Lester to serve as professor of history and Biblical Literature.  They also voted to establish a divinity school to be conducted by Professors A. M. Shipp, Whitefoord Smith, and A. H. Lester.  Apparently it continued only a few years and amounted to little except specializing in a few religious subjects.  The point is interesting, however, that Wofford briefly had a divinity school.

Photo, above, of (left to right) Professors Whitefoord Smith, James Carlisle, David Duncan, A. H. Lester, Warren DuPre, and A. M. Shipp.  This is the oldest faculty group photograph that I've found in the collection. 

A Wofford diploma, in Latin

This being Commencement weekend, I thought today would be a good day to share an older Wofford diploma.  This one was actually never issued, as it isn't dated or signed by all of the college's officers.  I found the diploma in President Snyder's 1930s files.  The archives has other diplomas - some older, some much older.  I am still trying to determine when the college switched from Latin to English, but I think it was by the early 1950s. 

The Latin translation is provided by Chris Strauber, reference and web services librarian here at Wofford. 

The President and Trustees

of Wofford College 

established under the laws of the state of South Carolina

Greetings in God to all and to each reader of this

Be it known that we have decided to grant Cecil Guy Nichols, a young man of blameless character and versed in humane letters, after an open examination in the arts by the faculty and distinguished trustees of the College, the title of Bachelor of Science; and we grant to him the power to enjoy all the privileges and honors which anywhere pertain to that degree. Of which let this document and our names be the public evidence.

Granted on campus [ ] in the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and [ ] 

[ ], Chairman, H.N. Snyder, President
[ ], Secretary, [ ], Secretary

Snyder-The American College Commencement

In this radio talk, Dr. Henry Nelson Snyder, who was Wofford’s president from 1902 to 1942, talks with WSPA-AM’s Jane Dalton about the American College Commencement.  This segment is a portion of his longer radio talk from May 28, 1948.  Jane Dalton tells Dr. Snyder that she was invited to give a commencement address at Tucapau, which is known today as Startex, a small town in western Spartanburg County.  Dr. Snyder did not give any commencement addresses that year, but while he was president, he was always in demand to give high school and college graduation addresses. 

If you are reading this blog entry through a feed reader and you don't see a link to the sound file, you may need to click through to the from the archives site to actually get to the sound file.  The sound clip runs about four and a half minutes. 

Commencement Season - a multi-day affair

I found a letter recently, while processing President Henry Nelson Snyder’s papers, in which he declined a speaking invitation because of the pressures of “commencement season.” I thought it was an interesting expression, because today, we think of commencement as being simply the two days of events, or even simply the graduation ceremony itself.

However, Commencement in the 19^th and early 20^th century was a multi-day affair. A series of elaborate programs staged over 3 or 4 days, the festivities included debates, speeches, receptions, and the traditional baccalaureate and graduation exercises themselves.

The 1889 ceremonies saw sixteen students graduate – many of whom went on to achieve prominence in their careers. One became a long-serving United States Senator, another a Methodist bishop, and one was the president of Duke University. Theirs was the largest class in thirteen years. The program lists all of their speeches, which I suspect were actually quite short since they were delivered at the graduation ceremony. Before they graduated, they would have heard a Baccalaureate sermon on Sunday morning, an address before the literary societies on Monday morning, a debate between members of the Calhoun and Preston societies on the question, “That the organization of a Prohibition Party would be detrimental to the Nation” on Monday night, and a reception following the debate from 10 PM to 1 AM. I’m surprised they stayed up that late! Tuesday was the day of graduation, and was followed by the annual alumni address at 8:30, given by the Honorable Richard W. Simpson of Pendleton, and finally by an alumni banquet. Goodness only knows how long that lasted.

Even as late as the 1920s, the time of which Snyder spoke, Commencement season could go for 5 days, again beginning with an assortment of debates and speeches before the literary societies. By the 1920s, Class Day had become an institution at Commencement, usually happening on the Saturday before graduation. This consisted of the annual meeting of the alumni association, a banquet with the alumni, seniors, and faculty in attendance, and class reunions. Sunday was reserved for Baccalaureate in the morning and the annual address by President Snyder in the evening. Graduation itself was on Monday. This pattern – of class day, baccalaureate day, and commencement generally continued up into the 1960s.

Of course, I guess you could call the series of events that happen today at Wofford leading up to the actual Commencement ceremony a season of sorts. Between class receptions, Honors Day, Phi Beta Kappa day, sports banquets and fraternity and sorority events, students and faculty members are quite busy in late April and early May. 

Next week, I hope to share a word from Henry Nelson Snyder about the American College Commencement.

Images: the invitation from 1893 Commencement, a program, including the senior speeches, from 1889, and the cover of the program and the toasts from the 1889 alumni banquet.