Volume 66 NOVEMBER NumberS

1911

BULLETIN OF THE

LAGRANGE GOLLEGE

Established 1833 Chartered 1846

CONTENTS:

Report of the President to the North Georgia Conference

Points to be Remembered about the LaGrange College

Published Four Times a Year, in May, July, November and

February

Entered as Second-Class matter June 2, 1910, at the Post-Office at t,aGranjre. Georgia,
under Act of July 16. 1S94

/

Report of the LaG range Female College to
The North Georgia Conference
1911

The Church School is essential to the growth and the success
of the Church. The Christian College is the nursery from
which the Church secures her best workers at home and abroad.
Educated Christian mothers in the home and Christian teach-
ers in the school afford the best helps to the Church in her mis-
sion to mankind. Without a knowledge and a practice of the
precepts of the Bible, no home and no school can be properly-
conducted. The common-school law of the State neither en-
joins nor forbids the use of the Bible in the public schools.
These schools decide this question for themselves, and the de-
cision is generally left to the teachers in charge.

There is a constantly increasing demand for teachers in our
common schools, and two-thirds of these teachers are women.
How important for them to be educated Christian women such
as go out annually from this institution! For many years the
majority of our graduates have gone out to teach, and with
scarcely an exception they have been Christian women. The
good they have done the Church and the State cannot be estima-
ted in dollars and cents.

The curriculum of the College has been kept up to the stand-
ard required by the Church. The Board of Education at its
last session classified LaGrange College as one of the eight col-
leges in Southern Methodism doing collegiate work.

In its moral and religious history the College has kept even
pace with its educational advantages. In 1888, Reverend A. J.
Jarrell, who was then the pastor at LaGrange, wrote the follow-
ing in the Way of Life: "I want to say to the people of
Georgia and adjoining states that LaGrange Female College is
the best school for girls I ever saw. I am not advertising the
College; I am telling the truth. More than this, it is the most
religious school I know, male or female."

In 1894, in their report to the trustees of the College, the Ex-
amining Committee said, "We cannot refrain from unreservedly
commending the chasteness and propriety of everything coming
to our notice." The same year the Visiting Committee from
the Conference had this to say: "No female college in the South

LaGrange College 3

is more worthy of patronage, and no faculty is more competent
or conscientious."

In 1899, at the Oxford District Conference, a preacher said on
the Conference floor, "I do not see how I could succeed in my
charge if it were not for the help given me by the graduates of
LaGrange Female College. They are always ready and efficient
in every good work of the Lord." Similar testimonials could
be given down to date.

Christian women educated and trained for religious work are
the best citizens any community can have. Such women an-
nually go out from LaGrange College, and add their influence
to the moral uplift of the State. Not only at home, but in China,
Brazil, and Cuba, our Church is enriched by the labors of these
graduates. Students from foreign fields are now here attending
the College, and others are expected to enter next session.
These students, as well as others from our home land, are pre-
paring for missionary work. Such fruits of the work of the Col-
lege can be accounted for only on the ground that here the Bi-
ble is a text-book whose precepts are studied and practiced by
teachers and pupils. As a natural result, good deportment and
faithful work in all departments can generally be reported.

The past session is not an exception or a discount on reports
of former years. Since it has been under the present manage-
ment, the College has given free instruction to 200 daughters of
ministers, has aided 125 students with its Loan Fund, and has
helped half as many more by its own liberality. Moreover, the
President has spent personally more than $40,000 on the mater-
ial improvement of this property. The College has enjoyed the
blessing of giving, to the full limit of its ability. Meager sal-
aries for teachers, lower cost of living in former years, along
with annual help from your body and occasional small gifts,
have all combined to make the above-given history possible.

But conditions have changed; and, for the past two years,
your help has barely enabled the College to struggle through
its financial obligations. The cost of living has greatly in-
creased. There are eight other colleges within the bounds of
your Conference. Some of these colleges have more liberal help
and more loyal patrons than your own Church College enjoys;

4 LaGrange College

and sheltered under their roof are many lambs that might, with
due loyalty, have been gathered into your own fold.

Sharp competition and the exacting requirements of our
Church curriculum make chances of financial success more dif-
ficult each year. The best results to our colleges, and through
them to the Church, will be achieved when every member of our
Church cooperates in their support. This cooperation is neces-
sary to our success during the coming year.

During the present session the College has better equipped its
Music Department, placed a hot-water heater in the Harriet
Hawkes Building, put in a new hot-water heater and made
other improvements in College Home, greatly improved the
seatings in the Auditorium and the Home Chapel, not to men-
tion many minor betterments that it would be tedious and use-
less to name. These are necessary and permanent assets of the
College, and a minimum estimate of their cost is $1,500. In ad-
dition to the last-named amount, $1,000 has been paid out for
insurance and interest on bonds, making in all $2,500 above
and outside of our usual current incidentals.

1911 marks a new era in the history of LaGrange College.
The Harriet Hawkes Building has been completed, and it sup-
plies many long-needed wants. Its gymnasium, spacious and
well-equipped, gives joyous recreation and healthful exercise to
the college girls. Its library and reading-room, supplied with
reference books on the various branches of study, is an inval-
uable aid to teachers and students.

The Harriet Hawkes Building was constructed of the best
material and in modern style, at a cost of about $48,000. Too
much praise cannot be awarded the Building Committee, who
assumed and met all financial obligations to the contractors, and
carried on the work to its completion. Unpaid and undue sub-
scriptions have left on their shoulders the burden and responsi-
bility of borrowed money with its accruing interest. They
should be reimbursed as soon as possible. In behalf of the
College, we thank the Committee for their valuable help; Dr.
Walker Lewis for his sedulous efforts, sacrifices, and commendable
success, considering the many competing interests of the Church;
and all other friends who have contributed to the Harriet

LaGrange College 5

Hawkes Building. The building itself is a better monument to
their memory than any words of praise that we might bestow.

But there is more work that needs to be done, and there must
be no halting now. $25,000 should be raised at once. This
amount is necessary to meet outstanding obligations and to do
work needed on the other college buildings. An additional
amount is also needed to improve the grounds, and to complete
the work contemplated in the beginning of the campaign for
Greater LaGrange College.

We ask your most serious consideration and cooperation in
devising large things for the College. Other colleges are seek-
ing and obtaining large donations for their endowments. La-
Grange College is pleading only for needed improvements, and
for help to enable it to throw off the burden of debt which,
having hung so long and so heavily upon the institution and its
President, has hindered the College in its work.

The College will need $3,000 during the coming year to enable
it to meet its increased current expenses. Half of that amount
is now due, and needed to meet expenses incurred in furnishing
and equipping the Harriet Hawkes Building. Is the College
worth while to the Church? Does its past history show that it
deserves support? Then help it as, in your judgment, you think
it needs and deserves.

Respectfully submitted,

RUFUS W. SMITH, President.
LaGrange, Ga., Nov. 15, 1911.

LaGrange College

Points to be Remembered About LaGrange College

Note the faculty all of them experienced, well trained teachers.

Note the curriculum well arranged and of standard grade.

Note the corps of music teachers all graduates and with expe-
rience.

Note the course of study in music the oldest high graded course
in the State.

Note the course in harmony unequalled by any college in the
State.

Note the advantages in sight-singing, free-hand drawing, re-
views in grammar, arithmetic, geography none similar in
in the State.

Note the course in pedagogy in an institution where the stu-
dent has the best collegiate advantages.

Note that the college has unequalled advantages in voice culture.

Note that the rate of tuition is lower than any of the colleges of
similar grade in the State.

Note that we do not call our music department a conservatory
there are no conservatories, in the true sense of the word,
in the South. This is the best graded music school.

Note that LaGrange has one of the largest Pipe Organs in the
State with a highly competent teacher.

Note that LaGrange has 971 alumnae, of whom 533 graduated
under the Presidency of Rufus W. Smith, during the last
twenty-six years.

Note that a majority of these graduates of the last twenty-six
years have engaged in teaching, and that the demand for
them is greater than the supply.

Note that LaGrange was the first college in the south to abolish
the old system of "honors."

Note that LaGrange was the pioneer in introducing a simple
uniform dress in fact, the first to adopt any uniform for
girls the cheapest and best (see catalogue).

LaGrange College 7

Note that LaGrange has the oldest loan fund of any college for
women in this section.

Note that since June, 1903, when the standard curriculum went
into full effect, LaGrange classes herself as second to no
college, male or female, in this State.

Xote that LaGrange has pure water, free from limestone, im-
pregnated with the carbonates and the sulphide of iron.

Xote that LaGrange has three railroads, the Atlanta & West
Point, the Macon & Birmingham and the Atlanta, Birming-
ham & Atlantic, which give immediate connections to all
points of the compass. LaGrange is easily accessible.

Note that LaGrange is one of the eight recognized Colleges for
Women of the M. E. Church, South, out of thirty-one which
grant degrees. LaGrange requires fourteen units for ad-
mission to the Freshman Class. That means the completion
of a eleven graded high school.

Xote that LaGrange allows no "clubs" nor sororities, which are
both an item of expense and are opposed to the democratic
spirit of college life.

X"ote that LaGrange College has never had but one epidemic of
sickness and that many testimonials can be given that stu-
dents leave here in greatly improved health.

X'ote that LaGrange is 25 miles by rail to the celebrated Warm
Springs, to Chalybeate Springs and the newly equipped
Meriwether White Sulphur Springs.

Xote that the city of LaGrange has a sanatorium managed by
one of the leading specialists of the south, where young
women, boarding at a low rate at the College Home, can
get the best treatment for the eyes, nose, throat, etc.

Xote that LaGrange has a number of doctors of medicine and
dentistry unexcelled in the State.

Xote that LaGrange is on one of the most southern reaches of
the Piedmont Plateau, with the Pine Mountain in plain view
25 miles to the south, and is the most accessible college thus
situated in this section. Lacks the extreme cold of the
mountains in winter, yet equally healthful.

8 LaGrange College

Note that LaGrange has 6 literary society debates and 18 musical
and expression recitals last year, which were so arranged as
not to interfere at all with the regular work of the students,
all these recitals by teachers and students of the College.

Note the religious atmosphere. Rev. A. J. Jarrell, in the Way
of Life, December 5, 1888, says: "The LaGrange Female
College is the best school for girls I ever saw. More than
this, it is the most religious college I know." Rev. W. F.
Quillian wrote on July 19, 1907: "The rule has been, with
few exceptions, that all who enter school here, become
Christians, members of the church, and go out active
workers in the Lord's vineyard." Rev. R. F. Eakes writes
in July, 1902: "I do not think President Smith and his
faculty would be satisfied with the attainments of any pupil,
unless she was or came to be religious while under their
tuition." This same record still prevails. LaGrange has
furnished more missionaries in proportion to attendance
than any college for women in this section.
Respectfully,

RUFUS W. SMITH, President.