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.