The
HISTORY
of
GOUCHER
COLLEGE
Published in connection with the
Fiftieth Anniversary of the College
(JOL'CHKK HAI.I.
THE HISTORY
of
GOUCHER COLLEGE
By
ANNA HEUBECK KNIPP
Member of the Class of 1892
Secretary of the Board of Trustees
of Gaucher College
and
THADDEUS P. THOMAS
Late Professor of Economics and Sociology
in Goucher College
GOUCHER COLLEGE
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
1938
Copyright, 1938
GOUCHER COLLEGE
Made in the United States of America
To
President and Mrs. David Allan Robertson
Preface
THE personality of a college is the product of the intelli-
gent and generous loyalty of its members and friends.
Balliol, Harvard, Yale, Vassar, Smith each has a
personality resultant from such contributions of thought and
act. When we think of Balliol College we think of scholarship
and not just of John of Balliol. When Harvard is mentioned
we think of that university which is prominent in learning as
in American educational history and not only of John Harvard
and Charles W. Eliot. When Yale is named we think not just
of the name Elihu but of the great twentieth century institu-
tion and all it stands for. Vassar now connotes the college by
the Hudson and all that it has become since Matthew Vassar
founded it. Smith means a great college for women and not
only one individual of an innumerable clan. The story of the
efforts of many devoted persons forms the history of the in-
stitution, the tale of how its personality developed.
Goucher has a personality. From its beginning as the
Woman's College of Baltimore it has been affectionately and
intelligently served by a noble host— trustees, members of the
faculty and staff, students, alumnae, and friends. From time
to time changes come. For the most part these are superficial
such as changes in costume or social custom, always interesting
to the student of educational history and frequently amusing.
Always there has persisted a splendid spirit. That, I hope,
will be made clear to readers of this book.
Personal and contemporary observation recorded in letters
and diaries forms the very foundation for the work of the ul-
timate historian. One of the authors of this volume, Anna
Heubeck Knipp, entered the College as a freshman when the
doors were opened and has been closely associated with it ever
since as an active leader of the alumnae and as a member, and
VI PREFACE
secretary, of the Board of Trustees. The other, the late
Professor Thaddeus P. Thomas, likewise had opportunity to
observe the growth of the College, for he joined the faculty in
1892 and retired in 1934. At my request these two jointly
undertook the preparation of this history. First hand ob-
servation has been theirs, for of the making of Goucher they
have been a great part. To them all members of the College
must ever be grateful as will be future historians of higher
education in America.
David Allan Robertson,
President.
Acknowledgments
FOR the writing of this history, President Robertson put at
the disposal of the authors all the records and facilities
of the College. The first measure of thanks must there-
fore go to him as well as to those in the various offices who have
aided generously in making these helps available.
Special appreciation is due, likewise, to those who have
lived with the history and assisted the authors by daily en-
couragement and advice, to Anna Andrews Thomas (Mrs. T. P.
Thomas) and to George Walter Knipp.
The list of people who have aided by furnishing material is a
long one. All of them are, and have been, remembered grate-
fully, but a few merit special mention: Janet Goucher, 'oi
(Mrs. Henry C. Miller), and Johnetta Van Meter, '94, for
valuable clippings, diaries, and notebooks from the early days;
the Reverend Frank G. Porter for important materials relating
to the Baltimore Conference and to Dr. Goucher.
The authors were grateful to the late Stella A. McCarty of
the Class of 1892, professor of education, member of the Gou-
cher faculty, 1 91 6-1 936, for her work in writing the chapter on
"The Development of the Curriculum."
For early suggestions as to the form and arrangement of the
material, thanks are due to Ella Lonn and Eugene N. Curtis,
professors of history at Goucher College.
For valuable criticism based upon a reading of the whole
manuscript grateful thanks are tendered to Eugene N. Curtis,
to Carrie Mae Probst, '04, and especially to President Robert-
son and Elizabeth Nitchie, professor of English, who have fol-
lowed the work from its beginning.
A. H. K.
July 18, 1938.
Contents
CHAPTER I
The Beginnings i
CHAPTER II
The Administration of President William Hersey Hopkins,
1886-1890 21
CHAPTER III
The Administration of President John Franklin Goucher,
1 890-1908 37
CHAPTER IV
The Administration of President Eugene Allen Noble, 1908-
19" 134
CHAPTER V
The Administration of Acting President John Blackford Van
Meter, 1911-1913 168
CHAPTER VI
The Administration of President William Westley Guth, 1913-
1929 216
CHAPTER VII
The Administrations of Acting President Hans Froelicher and
of Acting President Dorothy Stimson, 1929-1930 301
CHAPTER VIII
The Administration of President David Allan Robertson,
1930— 323
CHAPTER IX
The Development of the Curriculum, 1888-1936 400
ix
X CONTENTS
CHAPTER X
Student Life, i 888-1938 436
Appendix A. Articles of Incorporation of 1885 and The Present
Charter 557
Appendix B. The Faculty, i 888-1938 569
Notes and References 583
Index 639
Illustrations
FACING
PAGE
GoucHER Hall {Frontispiece) Title
President William Hersey Hopkins 21
Bennett Hall 34
President John Franklin Goucher 37
Mary Cecilia Goucher 44
Alto Dale 56
Goucher House and Hunner House loa
President Eugene Allen Noble 134
Catherine Hooper Hall 1 54
Dean John Blackford Van Meter 168
President William Westley Guth 216
Professor Hans Froelicher 301
Dean Dorothy Stimson 312
President David Allan Robertson 323
May Day Pageant on Campus 483
chapter I
THE BEGINNINGS
Prejudices against the higher education of women — Success of some
of the earlier colleges for women — Special difficulties faced by the
founders of the Woman's College of Baltimore — Beginning of the
movement to found the College — Relation of Dr. Goucher and
Dr. Van Meter to it — Letter from Dr. Goucher offering to give,
conditionally, a piece of ground upon which to erect the first college
building — Organization and activities of the Women's Educational
Association — First gift of money — Work of the Baltimore Methodist
— One hundredth session of the Baltimore Annual Conference and
the decision to found a "female college" — Meeting May 12, 1884
in Academy of Music — Incorporation, January 26, 1885 — Rally
March 5, 1885 when final funds were secured — Resolutions of
Baltimore Annual Conference commending Dr. Goucher and Dr.
Van Meter — Five indispensable elements involved in the founding
of the College.
Higher Education of Women Before 1885
To THOSE who know the records made by college women
and college men, the denials of mental equality in the
nineteenth century seem amusing. In i860 there was
an article in the Saturday Review which proved the inferiority
of women's minds by the following bit of logic: "The great
argument against the existence of this equality of intellect in
women is, that it does not exist. If that proof does not satisfy
a female philosopher, we have no better to give."^ Even
after women proved their mental capacity, the conviction per-
sisted. Professor Harry Thurston Peck of Columbia said that
the reason women receive high marks in college is that the pro-
fessors feel sorry for them. 2
Some of the conservatives claimed that women did not have
the physical strength to take a college degree. One learned
man prophesied that all educated women would become som-
2 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
nambulists. Another declared that the perilous track to
higher education would be strewn with wrecks.^ Other con-
servatives were impressed with the idea that every woman lived
in a "sphere" and that the college would take her out of it.
One conservative, a woman of unusual culture for those times,
said of Vassar in 1 865 : "The very fact that it is called a college
for women is enough to condemn it. Of one thing we may be
sure — no refined Christian mother will ever send her daughter
to Vassar College!"
The higher education of women seemed slightly less ridicu-
lous by 1885, when Goucher College received its first charter
under the title of "The Woman's College of Baltimore City."*
The diminution in ridicule was due partly to the academic
success of the earliest women's schools of college rank.
These, in the order of their opening, were Wesleyan College in
Macon, Georgia (1836), Mary Sharp College in Winchester,
Tennessee (1851), Vassar (1865), Wells (1870), Smith and
Wellesley (1875), Radcliffe (1879), Bryn Mawr (1885), Mt.
Holyoke as a seminary (1837), as a seminary and college (1888),
as a college only (1893). The date of the opening of the
Woman's College of Baltimore City for instruction was 1888.
Barnard was opened in 1889 and Randolph-Macon in 1893.5
The earlier colleges shattered the fallacy that women are lack-
ing in mental and physical capacity. The only thing the con-
servatives had proved was the truth of the statement of James
Russell Lowell that "History has shown herself to be humor-
ously careless of the reputation of prophets."
Special Difficulties of the Founders
If there is an element of humor about the founding of a new
college for women, there is usually also an element of potential
tragedy, owing to the financial hardships which it must face.
The hands which held the purse-strings in Baltimore kept
them tight, with some noble exceptions, for the first quarter
of a century after the College was opened. Perhaps some
THE BEGINNINGS 3
feared that the new college would be narrowly sectarian, though
it never was. Moreover, there were really strong arguments
against the possibility that it would attain success. To men-
tion only two, the college education of women was not favored
in the South; and also there was not one school in Maryland
and very few in all the South that could prepare young women
to enter a first-class college. Evidently, the difficulties were
so great that the faith and courage of the men who were
warned of the danger and yet went dauntlessly forward to
hard won and long delayed success deserve admiration.
The faith and courage of the Baltimore Annual Conference
of the Methodist Episcopal Church in founding a new college
for women seems astonishing in view of the fact that it had
made two previous attempts to establish a denominational
college, both of which failed financially. The first of these
was the Baltimore Female College, which was opened in 1848
and was the first institution in Maryland for the higher educa-
tion of women. It became non-denominational in 1868. It
began its existence on lower St. Paul Street, was later moved
to Park Avenue and Wilson Street, and after 1882 it occupied
a large house on the corner of Park Avenue and McMechen
Street." As early as 1881 it could boast that it had sent
forth one hundred and eighty-two teachers. The legislature
began to appropriate money for the college in i860 but ceased
to do so in 1890 with the consequence that it closed its doors
in that year.'^
In 1866 there was an unsuccessful attempt to found "The
Mount Washington Female College of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church" to be located in the suburbs of Baltimore. The
college was never organized. It was not possible to secure the
funds to pay for the property purchased, which had been
bought from the trustees of a former institution. The Mount
Washington Female College, chartered in 1856 and closed in
1 861. The property was sold to the Roman Catholic Church
in 1867.8
4 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The third attempt was successful and resulted in founding
The Woman's College of Baltimore City in 1885. The name
was changed to The Woman's College of Baltimore in 1890
and to Goucher College in 1910.
Beginning of the Movement
The first noteworthy impulse toward the founding of the
College came in 1880 at the meeting in Cincinnati of the
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in
America, which was first organized on Christmas Day, 1784,
in Baltimore, in the Lovely Lane Chapel. The organization
of the Church had been commemorated by the founding of a
college for boys at Abingdon, Maryland — Cokesbury College^ —
and it was therefore natural that the Board of Bishops in 1880
should suggest to the Conferences that the centennial be ob-
served by the raising of funds for education. Of course each
Annual Conference was free to carry out the suggestion in its
own way.^"
The following year (1881) at the session of the Baltimore
Annual Conference at Martinsburg, West Virginia, a resolu-
tion was made and adopted on March 15, "that a Committee
of five ministers and five laymen be appointed whose duty it
shall be to consider the subject of establishing a conference
Seminary; and if the same shall be found practicable, to inaugu-
rate such measures as may be necessary to accomplish the
same, provided that no financial obligation assumed by said
committee shall be binding on the Conference until reported
to and approved by the same."^^ The members of the com-
mittee were: J. H. Dashiell, C. H. Richardson, D. H. Carroll,
T. Daugherty, J. F. Goucher, C. W. Slagle, G. S. Grape,
A. H. Greenfield, W. J. Hooper, and P. Hanson Hiss, the first
five being ministers. ^^ Xhe minutes of the Conference of 1882
merely state that "The Committee appointed on Conference
Seminary last year, was, on motion of C. W. Baldwin, con-
tinued.""
At the next Annual Conference (1883) in Winchester, Vir-
THE BEGINNINGS ^
ginia, there were reports from two committees which dealt
with the question of a conference seminary, and both of them
were adopted. The centennial committee recommended three
objects of educational beneficence: (i) the work of establishing
on a firm and liberal basis a Baltimore Conference Seminary;
(2) a generous and thorough endowment of Dickinson College
(a Methodist college for men at Carlisle, Pennsylvania); (3) the
endowment of Centenary Biblical Institute in Baltimore,
afterwards called Morgan College. ^^ The committee on semi-
naries reported that "the approaching centennial of the M. E.
Church organized, as it was, in the City of Baltimore, furnishes
a most fitting hour for the founding of the needed institution.
That we may hasten this important work, we recommend the
appointment of the following committee, which shall devise a
plan for the establishment of a Baltimore Conference Semi-
nary; J. B. Van Meter, J. H. Dashiell, A. M. Courtenay, J. J.
G. Webster, C. W. Baldwin, Alcaeus Hooper, George S. Grape,
W. J. Sibley, Owen Hitchens.''^^ It was John F. Goucher who
proposed the appointment of this committee with John B.
Van Meter as chairman. These two men were fitted both
mentally and temperamentally for cooperation. In 1885 they
both had positions of strategic advantage in their great contest
with educational conservatism. Mr. and Mrs. Goucher had
wealth which they were willing to use for the higher education
of women and other good purposes. Dr. Van Meter was
editor of the Baltimore Methodist in addition to his duties
as a minister, and was made chairman of the Committee on
Ways and Means to which the Conference entrusted its spe-
cial centennial projects. In other words, Mr. Goucher was
in a position to give, and Dr. Van Meter was in a position to
persuade others to give. These facts proved to be important.
Gift of Land
Quiet work went on for some time after the Conference
adjourned, and then something of vital importance happened
at a meeting of the committee at the Book Depository of the
6 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
M. E. Church, i68 West Baltimore Street, December 27, 1883.
The following letter from Mr. Goucher was read. It is the
first important document in the history of the College.
Dr. J. B. Van Meter et al.
"Comm. to devise a plan for
the Establishment of a
Baltimore Conf. Seminary."
Dear Brethren,
Appreciating in a measure the urgent demand for some adequate provi-
sion whereby the daughters of Christian parents may have an opportunity
to secure higher Education in an Institution positively Christian in its
influence and thoroughly first class in all its appointments, . . .
I desire to tender to you and through you to the Baltimore Annual Con-
ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church a tract of ground situated on the
West Side of St. Paul Street extended, between the piece recently purchased
by the First M. E. Church of Baltimore upon which to erect their new
church buildings, and 4th Street, being One Hundred and Sixty Two feet
by One Hundred and Eighty Four feet Four inches, and containing somewhat
over Two Thirds of an acre, which I will grade, pave and deed in fee to a
Board of Control when incorporated under the direction of the Baltimore
Annual Conference for the use of such an Institution. — Provided
1. The Baltimore Annual Conference will at its coming Session accept
of such tender for said purpose.
2. The said Conference will secure in cash or bona fide subscriptions
during the Conference year i884-'85 the sum of One Hundred and
Seventy Five Thousand dollars to be used in buildings and as the
nucleus of an endowment for such an Institution.
Cordially and Fraternally,
Jno. F. Goucher
Baltimore
Dec. 2, 1883
Mr. Goucher was present at the meeting of the committee
and offered to give either the lot valued at $25,000 or that
much money. The committee, after investigation, decided to
accept the lot.^^ This property on Saint Paul Street adjoined
the land on which the building of the First Methodist Episcopal
Church was in process of construction. This church was the
THE BEGINNINGS
lineal descendant of the original organization formed in Lovely-
Lane Chapel, and the Reverend John F. Goucher was its
pastor. Its new building, designed by Stanford White on the
general model of San Vitale in Ravenna, was in the Etruscan
style of architecture." When the committee accepted the gift
of the adjoining land, it was probable that they had in mind the
erection of the main building of the College in architectural
harmony with First Church, and this plan was carried out.
The land was then in the suburbs of the city. In fact, when
First Church was built in 1884, a friend of Mr. Goucher said,
"Why do you erect a cathedral in a cornfield?"
Women's Educational Association
This gift of land was a signal to the women of the Methodist
Episcopal Church to become active. In about two weeks after
the land was given, Mrs. Francis A. Crook invited some friends
to consider the formation of an association of the women of
the Conference to aid in the founding of a seminary. At that
small meeting they planned to have a larger meeting in the
old First Church (Fayette and Charles Streets) Tuesday,
January 22, 1884. It is surprising that, on a week-day and
in the morning, they brought together over a thousand people.
The Reverend John F. Goucher presided and made a brief
address, followed by longer addresses by Bishops Simpson and
Andrews, who were astonished at the size and enthusiasm of
the audience.
Bishop Andrews made this significant statement in his ad-
dress: "I would not give a fig for a weakling little thing of a
seminary. We want such a school, so ample in its provisions,
of such dignity in its buildings, so fully provided with the
best apparatus, that it shall draw to itself the eyes of the com-
munity and that young people shall feel it an honor to be
enrolled among its students." Who first used the word "col-
lege" in this connection is not known, but it appears in the
supplement to the Baltimore Methodist of March i, 1884,
8 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
written entirely by women, which had an article on "Baltimore
City as an Advantageous Location for a Female College."
At the mass-meeting in the old First Church in January,
resolutions written by the women were adopted, one of which
was "That our earnest thanks are due and are hereby tendered
to the Rev. John F. Goucher for the generous offer he has made
towards this object and that we hereby pledge to the Confer-
ence our heartiest cooperation in rendering it effective, and
undertake to secure for this purpose during the year 1884 an
average centennial offering of five dollars per female member. "^^
A similar meeting, in behalf not of the seminary specifically
but of Methodist education in general, was held in Washington
about the same time in McKendree Church, which was
crowded. Notice was given of a meeting to be held the next
morning (January 30) at Foundry Church, Washington, to
consider the subject of starting a seminary. At the meeting
at Foundry Church, the Reverend John F. Goucher made an
address and was followed by Bishop Simpson. At the close
of the meeting, "a woman of humble means (Mrs. Mary
Bangs)" advanced to the altar and said to Miss Isabel Hart,
"For years I have been hoping and praying for some such
movement as this." She then placed in Miss Hart's hand a
five dollar gold piece as her offering. This was the first cash
received for what became The Woman's College of Baltimore. ^^
The women of the Baltimore Conference formed an organiza-
tion in January 1884. In that Victorian age women were
rarely called "women," usually "females" or "ladies." But
the year 1884 marks the beginning of a change in this respect
on the part of a few women in Baltimore, as is indicated by the
fact that the organization was first called "The Female Educa-
tion Aid Association" and a few weeks later "The Women's
Educational Association." It was organized with Mrs.
Francis A. Crook as president, Miss Isabel Hart as correspond-
ing secretary, and Mrs. P. Hanson Hiss as treasurer. Its
THE BEGINNINGS 9
chief function was informational and inspirational. The size
of the mass-meetings of 1884 and 1885 was partly due to
the women. They collected money from the women and chil-
dren of the Conference, necessarily a small amount, ^7,295
by February 1885.2" They held meetings regularly, most of
which were addressed by both Mr. Goucher and Dr. Van
Meter, who seemed to vie with each other and with the women
in zeal for the cause. At one of the earliest meetings in
February 1884, the exact date of which is not given in the
minutes, it is stated that "Revs. J. B. Van Meter and J. F.
Goucher reported a meeting held at Cumberland as very
encouraging." At this meeting of the Association Miss Isabel
Hart moved that a committee be appointed to memorialize
the approaching session of the Baltimore Conference in March
with reference to the founding of the new institution. 21 This
was done, and the document was read to the Conference by
Dr. Van Meter.
Dr. Van Meter said in an editorial in the Baltimore Methodist
of February 8, 1884: "We shall issue during centennial year
such supplements to our regular columns as the interests of
this great enterprise demand. We feel that it deserves the
enthusiastic cooperation and generous support of every minis-
ter of our conference and every member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church within its bounds. . . . Forthcoming supple-
ments will be devoted to the statement of facts, the answering
of objections, the urging of appeals in reference to the seminary
project. They will also contain information about the work-
ing of the Women's Educational Association, and treat of
everything of interest and importance connected with the
enterprise." Many copies of the paper were given to the
ministers of the Conference to distribute where they would be
of most use. The Women's Educational Association wrote and
published at its own expense the supplement to the Baltimore
Methodist of March i, 1884. One article gives high praise to
lO THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Dickinson College, but, in another, there is a vigorous protest
against inequality, expressed in these words printed in large
type:
"One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars Held by
THE Education Board of the Baltimore Conference for
Benefit of Its Sons and not One Cent for Its Daughters.
Is That Fair? Is That Wise? Not That We Love Our
Sons Less or Our Daughters More, But Let Us Give
Them Equal Advantages in the Business of Life."
Decision of March 8, 1884
Having secured a site for the main building of the proposed
institution and having carried on a preliminary campaign for
enlightenment, the committee was now ready for the crisis
confronting it. In McKendree Church, Washington, at the
one hundredth session of the Baltimore Conference (1884),
there was a great debate, lasting for parts of three days, which
determined whether the proposed institution should be a semi-
nary or a college. On Friday, March 7, Dr. Van Meter read
the report of the committee and addressed the Conference
on the first recommendation it contained, which, in brief, was
"That the Conference make the foundation and endowment of
a Female College the single object of its organized effort."
There was some objection to a college for women. There was
also objection to the word "single" on the part of friends of
other educational institutions. On Saturday, March 8, when
the debate was resumed. Dr. Van Meter with the approval of
the committee asked permission to substitute the word "spe-
cial" for "single" and to omit the word "organized," which
was allowed. These and other changes diminished the oppo-
sition." Two other important recommendations were as
follows :
That the Bishop be requested to appoint a committee of twelve preachers
and twelve laymen, who shall be authorized to take such steps towards the
THE BEGINNINGS II
accomplishment of this project as may be from time to time demanded,
provided that they do not create or assume any financial obligations for the
Conference.
That if during the year the Committee so appointed shall deem it expe-
dient, they may associate with themselves, as ex-officio chairman, the Bishop
of the M. E. Church residing within the Conference bounds, and proceed
to incorporate themselves as a Board of Trustees. . . ."
The concise minutes do not record the discussion which
followed, and the surviving members of this session of the
Conference who have been interviewed give few details. The
Conference voted on the first recommendation on Saturday,
March 8, 1884, and passed it without a dissenting voice. On
the following Monday the other recommendations were
adopted and also the report as a whole. The individual mem-
bers of the Conference added to this creditable record by sub-
scribing nearly $12,000, which was later raised to |2o,ooo.
The Conference also passed resolutions expressing their "high
appreciation of Mr. Goucher's generous proposition" and
stating that, in their opinion, "the project is feasible and ought
to be undertaken as the chief object of centennial effort-''^-* The
committee of twenty-four, to be enlarged later to twenty-five
by inclusion of the resident bishop, was as follows: Clerical —
J.' F. Goucher, L. F. Morgan, J. B. Van Meter, J. H. Dashiell,
J. A. McCauley, A. M. Courtenay, C. W. Baldwin, J. J. G.
Webster, R. W. Black, A. H. Ames, D. H. Carroll, C. H. Rich-
ardson; Lay— G. H. Hunt, F. A. Crook, B. F. Parlett, W. J.
Hooper, S. Baldwin, N. M. Smith, B. H. Stinemetz, S. S.
Henkle, Owen Hitchens, George S. Grape, Charles E. Hill,
H. S. Hiss."
The history of the College up to this point could be condensed
into a sentence: A committee was appointed which recom-
mended the appointment of a second committee, which in turn
secured a site for the main building of the College, obtained the
cooperation of the women, and then recommended the appoint-
ment of a third committee with the power to incorporate and
to start a college when they deemed it expedient. The third
12 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
committee of twenty-four organized on March 28, 1884, ^y
electing Francis A. Crook president, John F. Goucher and
S. S. Henkle vice presidents, German H. Hunt treasurer, and
J. B. Van Meter secretary. The minutes, written in the con-
cise style which characterized Dr. Van Meter, state further
that "A Committee on Ways and Means was constituted:
Messrs. Van Meter, Ames, Baldwin, Courtenay. A Committee
on Charter was formed: Messrs. Goucher, Hill, Richardson."
Also, "The Committee on Ways and Means was directed
to co-operate with the Women's Educational Association.""
One result of this cooperation was a "grand demonstration"
in the Academy of Music on the night of May 1 2, 1 884, planned
by the women. The building was crowded and over a thou-
sand people were turned away from the doors. The meeting
was addressed by Bishop Warren, General Fisk, and Chaplain
McCabe, the last being a specialist in raising money. The
earnestness of the women who were working for the founding
of the College is vividly revealed by their account of what
followed.
Ten thousand dollar subscriptions were asked for to begin with. Sonne
of us held our breath and hoped. Oh! 'd some of those rich men would only
come down with |io,ooo apiece how the wheels of our enterprise would
spin along the road to success! But we waited in vain. Silence! Silence!
Silence! — everywhere Silence!
"Will anyone give five thousand dollars?" the Chaplain asked. Yes!
thank God! Francis A. Crook— ^5,000. The audience broke into appre-
ciative applause. Wm. J. Hooper — ^5,000. Again applause. Did not
some one else want to merit that applause? John F. Goucher — ^5,000.
Applause once more and never better merited.
We confess to a feeling of vexation at that last subscription. We think
Mr. Goucher has done his part towards the founding of this College. He
may not thank us for saying what we do about it. He knows nothing more
about the contents of this supplement than does any other of its readers,
and he has no control over what goes into it, or this allusion would be stricken
out by him. His subscriptions had already run up to ^30,000. It ought to
be remembered, too, that this is only one of many objects of his beneficence
to all of which he has given and is giving largely. When it is remembered
THE BEGINNINGS IJ
how wealthy men usually employ their means, his wide and carefully con-
sidered liberality deserves the admiration of his brethren, ministerial and
lay. It deserves more. It deserves the emulation of those who, like him-
self, are able to do great things for the church. Is there no one to follow his
example and by LARGE GIFTS added to his promote this great interest?
We cannot believe that there is not one. We wait in confidence that some
one will step up and match Mr. Goucher's gift with another of the same value.
Many small subscriptions were given, ranging all the way from one
thousand dollars to five. We know some of the subscribers of smaller
amounts. We know that it is going to be no easy task for them to make their
payments. They will have to deny themselves some pleasures and some
comforts that they would otherwise be able to enjoy. Thank God for
these subscriptions and these subscribers! They count on the heavenward
side of giving!
It was announced that thirty-two thousand dollars had been subscribed
at this meeting. This was no mean evening's work. ...'*'
Some members of the Women's Educational Association
collected money by going from door to door; the children of
the Sunday Schools gave $9,300, and received for each dollar
contributed a medal celebrating the centennial.
The following paragraphs show the existence of "college
spirit" before the first of the college buildings was erected.
They are from an "Address of the Women's Educational Asso-
ciation," October 4, 1884.
In the month of September there met in Philadelphia an association com-
posed of the alumnae of all the higher colleges opened to females throughout
the country. New England sent her representatives from our Boston Uni-
versity and Wesleyan, from her Institute of Technology and Smith and
Wellesley — the Empire State was there with her Cornell and Syracuse and
Vassar graduates and the great growing West in those from Oberlin and
Michigan and Wisconsin and Northwestern, and brave young Kansas —
but not one from the south of Mason and Dixon's line — all the great expanse
between here and the Gulf without a representative or a college to be repre-
sented. Naturally, geographically, is not Maryland the State soon to lead
off in this movement and is not Methodism the organization that by its
numbers, its influence, its vitality, its spirit of adaptation to times and
circumstances, shall assume the lead? Has she not a responsibility for this
with her membership of 40,000 and her constituency of 200,000?
14 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
May she not crown herself with honor and gird herself with power by thus
availing herself of the situation and seizing the opportunity, and supplying
the need? It is the grand chance of any church wise enough to see and
noble enough to do it, to obtain the controlling power over the controlling
element of our modern civilization — its women. Shall we prove worthy of
our opportunity? Just such a high grade college seems to be the chief
thing lacking to make Baltimore a great educational centre. Our Johns
Hopkins has attracted to our city general attention from educationalists or
those seeking to become such; our Peabody Library is unsurpassed in works
of special value for reference and research; our Pratt Library will supply the
popular want; our Conservatory of Music and Lecture Course in connection
with the Peabody will furnish the highest order of instruction for the smallest
amount of money. The missing link, the one thing needful is the Woman's
College that shall stand in living, practical relation to all these — the college
whose advantages scores and hundreds of our own women crave with an
avidity as for the bread of life. A teacher in the Eastern Female High
School stated that every year a score of young women graduate thence who
wanted and were worthy of this advanced culture, while by actual count this
year twenty-two graduates in the Washington High School expressed their
desire and readiness at once to enter such an institution. Probably an ex-
amination of other schools would show a similar percentage of earnest, as-
piring, noble young women, bound to make their mark in the world, but that
would make it deeper, higher, stronger and purer if we give them the rich,
full, thoroughly Christian culture proposed. Let us but mould them and
they will mould the community.
The Committee on Ways and Means planned a series of
meetings, the first of which was held at Madison Avenue
Church, Baltimore, on Tuesday night, October 14, and was
addressed by Dr. Tifl^any of New York and Dr. Van Meter.
The second meeting was held at South Baltimore Church on
November 7, and the first speaker was Mrs. Winchell of Min-
neapolis. The Reverend A. M. Courtenay "followed with a
forcible address demonstrating the need for the institution
contemplated.''^^ He was one of its earliest and strongest
champions. Other meetings were also held and a circular
letter was sent to every preacher in the Conference calling
attention to the fact that October had been specified as the
suitable month for centennial services and collections. The
letter, apparently written by Dr. Van Meter, was a clarion
THE BEGINNINGS I5
call to action. It said: "The success of this undertaking
depends upon the preachers of the Conference. They are the
instructors and leaders of their people. Their power to mold
the sympathies and direct the beneficence of their congrega-
tions is all but limitless. A hundred years are looking down
upon you expecting some deed worthy of the occasion. The
centuries to come are looking up to you and asking at your hand
suitable equipment for their work. By your own gifts you
have done what you could in that direction. Will you do all
that is possible to be done in inducing your people to follow
your example?"
Incorporation
By January 1885, nearly $140,000 had been subscribed and
the committee of twenty-four resolved on January 15 that it
was expedient to incorporate. The absent members of the
committee were notified that a charter had been agreed upon,
drawn up by Charles E. Hill, and that it was awaiting their
signatures. In accordance with the instructions of the Con-
ference, the committee had associated with it Bishop Edward
G. Andrews, who presided at the meeting and was one of the
twelve trustees who were elected, this being the largest number
allowed by the laws of the state. These are the names of the
first trustees, as given in the charter: Edward G. Andrews,
John F. Goucher, Lyttleton F. Morgan, Francis A. Crook,
John B. Van Meter, David H. Carroll, Henry S. Hiss, William
J. Hooper, Robert W. Black, German H. Hunt, Saul S. Henkle
and George S. Grape.
The Woman's College of Baltimore City came into legal
existence on January 26, 1885, when its charter was obtained.
The charter was filed for record on February 3. In 1890, by
an amendment to the charter, the word "City" was dropped
from its name.
The most important clause of the charter states that the
corporation is "for the purpose of creating and maintaining a
lb THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
College for the higher education of women; that new and addi-
tional members of said corporation may be elected in such
manner as may be prescribed by the by-laws hereafter adopted
by said corporation; provided, however, that such election
shall be submitted to the Baltimore Annual Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church for approval or rejection; and
provided further that the total membership of said corporation
shall not at any one time exceed the number of twenty-five."
The text of the charter will be found in the "Appendix."
The first meeting of the "Corporators" was held on Febru-
ary 5, 1885. Mr. Francis A. Crook was called to the chair
and Dr. John B. Van Meter was made secretary. "Mr.
Goucher, from the committee on the charter, presented a
report saying that the charter had been signed by all but five
members of the Conference committee" and incorporation had
taken place. Five new members were elected to fill the vacan-
cies, making twenty-five men in all, who were usually called
"Corporators," but sometimes "Incorporators." The new
members were the Reverend J. A. McCauley, Alexander Shaw,
A. R. Cathcart, Henry M. Wilson, and the Reverend Luther
T. Widerman. Those who were not trustees seemed to exercise
all the privileges of the twelve trustees, and three of them were
on the first Executive Committee, which was composed of
John F. Goucher, George S. Grape, J. H. Dashiell, J. B. Van
Meter, Charles E. Hill, S. S. Henkle, and A. M. Courtenay.
The first officers of the Board of Corporators were as follows:
president, Bishop Andrews; vice president, William J. Hooper;
secretary, the Reverend C. H. Richardson; treasurer, German
H. Hunt. At this same meeting Mr. Goucher, representing
the committee on the charter, suggested some by-laws, which
were amended and then adopted. One of these provided that
"the Bishop of the M. E. Church, who may be a member of
the Corporation, shall be ex-officio President." The duties of
all the officers are named, and it is stated that new members of
the corporation may be elected at any regular meeting or at
any special meeting called therefor and must be elected by
THE BEGINNINGS 17
ballot. At this meeting a committee on investments was
appointed: F. A. Crook, D. H. Carroll, German H. Hunt.
About a month after securing the charter, on the evening of
the first day of the Annual Conference, March 5, 1885, a rally
was held at Eutaw Street Methodist Church, Baltimore.
Bishop Foster presided and introduced Dr. James M. Buckley,
the talented editor of The Christian Advocate (New York),
who made the main address. He was followed by the Rev-
erend John F. Goucher, who stated that $140,000 had been
subscribed conditionally for the proposed college and that
|6o,ooo more was needed. He said that the original contribu-
tion of $25,000 had been increased by the donor to $50,000.
Mr. Henry Shirk, who had subscribed $40,000, then increased
his subscription to $50,000. Mr. Francis A. Crook and Mr.
William J. Hooper increased their subscriptions from $5,000
to $10,000 each. Smaller subscriptions, many of them pledges
by pastors for their churches, amounted to $5,000. Mr.
Goucher increased his amount to $70,000. The Reverend
D. H. Carroll subscribed $5,000. Other subscriptions raised
the amount to over $200,000; there was a general burst of
applause "and the doxology was sung with a will."^^
Relation of John F. Goucher and John B. Van Meter
TO the Founding
Two resolutions were adopted by the Baltimore Conference
on March 12, 1885, commending two men:
Resolved, That the Baltimore Annual Conference hereby expresses its
high appreciation of the munificent donation of the Rev. John F. Goucher to
the Woman's College of Baltimore City, ensuring its successful foundation,
and making memorable the centennial year of Methodism, and suggests to
the trustees of the College the propriety of recognizing this great liberality
in the name of the institution.
Resolved, That we hereby express our very high appreciation of the valu-
able work of the Rev. J. B. Van Meter on behalf of the Woman's College
enterprise, and testify our opinion that its success is due in good degree to his
self-sacrificing, unremitting, and judicious labors.^"
le THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Not only did the Conference recognize the value of the
services of these two men, but each recognized that the
services of the other were necessary for the success of the
enterprise. Dr. Goucher once said to Dr. Van Meter: "If it
had not been for you, there would not have been any Woman's
College. "3^ Dr. Van Meter once said to one of the authors of
this history, in reply to an inquiry, "I could not have succeeded
without Dr. Goucher and he could not have succeeded without
me. We worked together."
The Conference committee of twenty-five reported to the
Conference that incorporation had taken place and that
pledges for ^200,000 had been secured. Their recommendation
was adopted that the thanks of the Conference should be
tendered "to all who by gifts or work aided in the promotion
of this enterprise"; also "that the thanks of the Baltimore
Conference are especially tendered to the Women's Educational
Association for its devoted and efficient assistance, and that
we suggest to this Association the propriety of prolonging its
existence and continuing its labors on behalf of the College, as
future circumstances may permit."^^
The report of the committee on the Woman's College was
adopted on March 12, 1885. It began with these words: "The
Conference at its session last year appointed a committee of
twelve laymen and twelve preachers, and authorized it to take
such steps towards founding and endowing a Woman's College
as might be, from time to time, demanded." An account of
what had been done follows, and then this statement: "Your
committee is therefore enabled to congratulate you on the
successful issue of the enterprise adopted by you as the chief
object of your Centennial effort. "^^
As to the exact date of the founding of the College, there
is a choice of three — all in the year 1885: January 26, when
the charter was obtained and the College came into legal
existence; March 5, when the required funds were obtained;
March 12, when the committee of the Conference charged with
THE BEGINNINGS I9
the task of founding it, after reporting back to the Conference
that their work of securing the charter and the necessary-
funds was completed, was dismissed. Dr. Goucher preferred
the second date; Dr. Van Meter, the third.
Five Indispensable Elements
The facts in regard to the founding of the College, may be
summarized by saying that there were five indispensable ele-
ments involved in that process: the services of two men who
were outstanding, John F. Goucher and John B. Van Meter;
the services of other members of the Conference committee
and of other men and women, particularly (according to the
Conference) "the devotion and efficiency" of the Women's
Educational Association; the liberal and well-timed donations
of Mr. and Mrs. Goucher, who showed their faith by their
deeds and inspired others to follow their example; the large
aggregate donations of many other men and women; and,
finally, the most indispensable element of all, the committee
of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, which coordinated these services and donations for the
purpose of establishing a memorial of the centennial of Ameri-
can Methodism. It was the Baltimore Annual Conference
which founded the College by means of the committee ap-
pointed for that purpose.
While the Conference founded the College, it is well to
remember the merits of the two most prominent agents of
the Conference, Dr. Van Meter and Dr. Goucher — how bravely
they undertook their difficult task, how they worked together
for two long years without a single blunder to mar their record,
how wisely they secured the cooperation of enthusiastic and
energetic women, how they either made generous donations or
successfully persuaded others to give, how judiciously and
tactfully they disarmed opposition in the prolonged and
animated debate on the floor of the Conference, and how great
was their victory in securing unanimous agreement to found a
20 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
college instead of a seminary. On account of their pioneering
courage, unwavering faith, wisdom, zealous activity, and skill-
ful leadership, these two men deserved and received the hearty
loyalty of the trustees, faculty, and alumnae.
At a meeting of the Corporators on May i, 1885, "J. B. Van
Meter nominated J. F. Goucher for president; the nomination
was earnestly and positively declined." The subject of the
election of a president was then referred to the Executive
Committee with instructions to report to the Corporators.^^
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J
PRKSlDKXr WILLIAM HKKSKV HOPKINS
chapter II
THE ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT WILLIAM
HERSEY HOPKINS
1 886-1 890
Biographical sketch of Dr. Hopkins— Laying of the cornerstone of
Goucher Hall — Dr. and Mrs. Goucher donate the first building —
Prospectus of 1888 — Academic merits and defects — The first faculty
— The first students — Inauguration Day — The Women's Edu-
cational Association — Physical Training — College Day, 1889— The
opening of Bennett Hall — Financial difficulties — Resignation of
President Hopkins — His principal achievements.
Biographical Sketch
W''iLLiAM Hersey Hopkins, Ph.D., acting president of
St. John's College in Annapolis, was unanimously
chosen president of the Woman's College of Balti-
more City at a meeting of the Corporators on June 29, 1886.
After some consideration, he accepted the difficult task of
starting a new college for women under disadvantageous cir-
cumstances. The first two years of his administration (1886-
1888) were spent in planning and preparation, and the last
two in conducting the affairs of the College after its opening
in 1888. The training he had received as a preparation for
his task is nowhere better described than in an article in the
Goucher Alumnae Quarterly for May 1931, written by his
granddaughter, Elizabeth Billingslea Peebles, who was a stu-
dent at Goucher College during the years 1922-24. Mrs.
Peebles obtained many of the facts in her article from her
mother, Elsie Hopkins Billingslea, who was Dr. Hopkins'
only daughter and who was graduated from the Woman's
College in 1896. The following are extracts from Mrs. Peebles'
account:
22 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Dr. Hopkins was born in Greensborough, Maryland, December lo,
1841. His father, James Hopkins, was a descendant of a Puritan family
that settled on the Eastern Shore of Maryland before the Revolution. His
mother, Elizabeth Clarke Lyden, was the daughter of a mariner who was
lost while she was in her infancy. The boy's inheritance, therefore, fitted
him for a life that held duty and loyalty uppermost and gave him a nature
compounded of austerity and gentleness that made him many friends but
also removed him from the interests of the average group of human beings.
Even as a child he played games that called upon his mental resources and
spent long hours reading when other children of his age were playing.
In 1852, the family moved to Annapolis, where in his eleventh year he
entered the preparatory school of St. John's College, which was at that time
known as King William's School. At once the boy's scholarly tastes became
apparent and in three years he was advanced to the collegiate department.
He carried the regular classical course which established his love for the
Greek and Latin languages and his appreciation for their literature.
Throughout his college career he held a leading place in his classes. In his
junior year he received a gold medal as first prize man. He took first senior
prize for excellence in general scholarship and was valedictorian of his class.
These honors represented a great deal of work and genuine eflFort on his
part, for in spite of his desire for knowledge he was not a brilliant man. He
used to say that of himself, not with modesty so much as with sincerity.
Immediately upon his graduation in 1859 he was offered and accepted a po-
sition as instructor in the preparatory school. He entered into this position
with some feeling of diffidence for he was a very young man, a boy really,
not much older than some of those he was to teach. He soon became an
excellent disciplinarian. Shortly after his appointment the Civil War tem-
porarily closed the College and Mr. Hopkins became the private teacher
and then principal of Anne Arundel County Academy. He held this posi-
tion until 1866 when his Alma Mater was reorganized as St. John's College.
He returned there as an instructor but was at once given the title of Pro-
fessor of Greek and German. Later in his life he was known mostly as a
scholar of Greek and Latin, but his enthusiasm for German was equally as
great and he understood and appreciated the tremendous German influence
in literature and science. When he traveled in Germany and Switzerland it
was said of him that he spoke German like a native son.
In 1 88 1, Professor Hopkins became the Vice President of the College
under President Leavitt. In 1884 upon the resignation of President Leavitt
he was elected to the position of Acting President. And now, while still a
young man, he had a great responsibility upon his shoulders, as St. John's
had never been a wealthy school. It had a fine tradition of scholarship
and a reputation justly merited for the high moral integrity of its faculty
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT HOPKINS 23
and administration, but there was no financial security. The state had
gradually withdrawn all support not specifically called for in the constitu-
tion. At the time of Mr. Hopkins' presidency matters were at their lowest
ebb, and the new President had the disheartening sight of an ever decreasing
number of students. During these two years he conducted a policy that
gradually built up public confidence in the College. Economy was rigidly
practiced, discipline upheld, and at the same time President Hopkins never
lost sight of his high standard of scholarship, a difficult one to maintain at a
time when a college might easily have relaxed its intellectual aims in order
to enlarge a much needed enrollment. One measure that was adopted to
increase both funds and the student body was the establishment of a mili-
tary department, a measure which has been of great value to the College
both then and in later years.
These years of financial worry and strain were carried through success-
fully at the expense of the President's health. He was, as his friends and
family recognized, fundamentally a teacher, but his sense of duty and loyalty
made him throw himself into executive work with all his strength and mind.
And although he was usually in good health he had never been very robust.
He fell ill and as he was recovering from the weakening effects of this illness
an important decision was put before him. He was asked to become the
organizer and president of a new college to be known as the Woman's College
of Baltimore, an institution to be established under the auspices of the
Methodist Episcopal Church.
For many reasons he hesitated. His work and his loyalty had long been
with St. John's. Then, too, in the year 1870 he had married an Annapolis
girl, Eliza Brook Brady. Her friends and relatives were Annapolis people
and their three children, a daughter and two sons, were already growing up
in the little town in the very shadow of the halls of St. John's College. Here,
he was surrounded by warm and understanding friends. One of these friends
successfully organized the plan that caused Dickinson College in Pennsyl-
vania to confer the degree of Doctor of Philosophy upon him. . . .
Thus his warmest feelings were involved in his desire to stay where he
was and where he had the unique distinction of being the only student in
the entire history of St. John's College to have been graduated from its
halls and to have been called to fill, in turn, offices of every grade of instruc-
tion and administration from tutor to president in the service of his Alma
Mater. His friends, however, finally persuaded him to accept this new
offer in which they saw a larger field for his many abilities. . . .
As a tribute to him I shall quote from a letter written by one of his life-
long companions, and treasured by my mother as one of her most valued
possessions: "If I should speak of Professor Hopkins as I really feel my
words would seem extravagant to those who do not know him. He is a
24 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
scholar, a Christian, and a gentleman in the highest sense of the word.
His modesty is such that I do not think it would be possible for him to pre-
tend to what he does not thoroughly know. He is so truly honorable and
honest that whatever he undertakes he does profoundly and thoroughly.
He is a thinker and a worker, too. He has wide and varied knowledge. In
whatever he has made his study he is accurate, thorough and reliable.
"His moral character is fully the equal of his intellectual ability and the
impression he has made on the Church, on the community in which he has
lived and on his students has been of the most permanent and elevating
character."
It was the desire of the Executive Committee that, since
Dr. Hopkins was already familiar with educational systems in
this country, he should spend some time in Europe studying
the latest methods. He gladly carried out this plan while the
first building of the College was being erected, visiting educa-
tional institutions in England and on the Continent and secur-
ing a promise of the services of some of the best instructors
who ever taught in the College. He was in Europe a little
more than a year, from October 1886 to November 1887.
GoucHER Hall
In the mean time the foundations of the first building had
been laid and a thousand people gathered in the First Metho-
dist Episcopal Church to attend the exercises preliminary to
laying its cornerstone on October 5, 1886. Bishop Andrews
presided and introduced Charles J. Little, professor of history
at Syracuse University, who made the main address. Dr.
Goucher, the chairman of the Executive Committee and also
of the Building Committee, laid the cornerstone. In the box
were placed a copy of the Bible, the charter of the College, a
list of the subscribers to the enterprise, the register of Johns
Hopkins University, educational reports from Baltimore City
and the state of Maryland, copies of the Baltimore papers,
copies of The Christian Advocate and Baltimore Methodist, and
a directory of public school teachers of Baltimore.^
Funds, however, were lacking for the completion of the
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT HOPKINS 25
Structure, and the next important event was a conditional
gift by Dr. and Mrs. Goucher for this main building. The
offer was made by Dr. Goucher at a meeting of the Board
of Corporators on October 27, 1887, and was accepted with
thanks by a standing vote. On January 5, 1886, the Board
had resolved that the sum of $100,000 of the paid-in subscrip-
tions be preserved as the nucleus of an endowment fund. The
treasurer's report made at the meeting on October 27, 1887,
showed that only about $148,000 of the subscriptions had been
paid at that time, much of it in the form of building lots. Con-
sequently there was not enough money to erect a suitable
building without using part of the endowment fund. The
offer of Dr. Goucher stated that a lot of ground and $45,000
in cash had already been given to the Trustees, that the $45,000
was to be used toward the erection of a building, and that the
money would be advanced to pay for all material and labor
needed for its completion, not including the furnishing. This
was to be done on condition that the Corporators should have
funds amounting to $100,000 by January i, 1890.
The Corporators afterward named the main building
"Goucher Hall." It was erected one hundred feet back from
the street so as to leave room for a "campus. "^ The comple-
tion of the building was delayed by labor strikes, but it was
almost ready for use when the College opened in the fall of 1 888.
Dr. Frank G. Porter, who wrote a memoir of Dr. Goucher for
the Baltimore Conference, furnishes additional information
on the motives back of this great and much-needed donation.
Dr. and Mrs. Goucher "gave as a memorial of a daughter,
Eleanor, lost by death, Goucher Hall, built in the shape of the
letter E, which stands for Eleanor."^ It is a three story Ro-
manesque structure erected at a cost of $130,000.'*
In order to raise the amount necessary to secure the title
to the main building — about $32,000 — Dr. Lyttleton F. Mor-
gan, an influential minister who was also a corporator, volun-
teered to become the financial agent of the College and was
26 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
appointed by the Bishop. Without any personal reward or
the cost of one dollar to the College, he raised about $40,000
by January i, 1890, and soon afterward the legal papers were
signed by which the property was turned over to the College.*^
This is the greatest single donation made by Dr. and Mrs.
Goucher to the College. Their gifts were at one time nearly
half of the total, and would have grown to more than half if
it had not been for new and large donations from other members
of the Conference in 1888, 1889, and 1890. Moreover, Dr. and
Mrs. Goucher frequently made up financial deficits during the
first twenty-five years and were the outstanding individual
benefactors of the College through all the early years.
Prospectus of 1888
The Executive Committee, in collaboration with President
Hopkins, determined to set and maintain high standards for
admission and graduation. As far back as 1886 a subcommit-
tee consisting of John F. Goucher, George S. Grape, and John
B. Van Meter had been appointed to draw up a schedule of
studies.^ In 1888 a prospectus, which was written by Presi-
dent Hopkins and approved by the Executive Committee, was
published in order to give information to possible students.
The standards were intended to be practically the same as
those maintained at the Johns Hopkins University, with its
famous "group system." Students at the College could choose
one of four courses: classical, modern language, natural sci-
ence, or mathematical, with variations, such as Latin-scientific
or Latin-English. There were also courses in art (drawing and
painting), music, and elocution, but students who specialized
in these were expected to take more than four years for the
degree. It was stated in the prospectus that the curriculum
would not be limited to any definite period, "nor will the old
class system, with its traditional names and its fixed date for
graduation, be adhered to in this college."^
administration of president hopkins 27
Merits and Defects of the New College
From the purely academic point of view, there were at least
four merits and four defects which characterized the new col-
lege. One of its merits, a high standard for admission and
graduation, has been mentioned. Another was a strong fac-
ulty, described by one of its members, Dr. Hans Froelicher, as
"the most earnest, ambitious and idealistic group of pioneers
a new enterprise ever had."^ A third merit of the College
was the earnestness and diligence of the students, shown by
the fact that many of them took more than the sixty year-
hours required for graduation, and many did additional work
in connection with the various departmental clubs. ^ A fourth
merit was the comradeship between students and faculty which
has always been a marked characteristic of the College.
On the other hand, it was one of the defects of the new
college that it was partly a preparatory school. The same
thing was true of Vassar and some other pioneer colleges for
women when they first opened, because a heterogeneous group
of students, almost incapable of classification, presented them-
selves for admission, many of whom were subfreshmen in one
or more studies. Dr. Raymond, the first president of Vassar,
said, "It was not until the close of its third year that the Insti-
tution fully attained a collegiate character."^" A step toward
the goal was taken by the Board of Corporators of the Woman's
College of Baltimore, when, at the close of the second year,
they provided for the segregation of subcollegiate students,
who were transferred to the second floor of Goucher Hall.^^
Another defect of the new college was the lack of differentia-
tion of departments. There was an associate professor of
natural science who had charge of physics, chemistry, and
biology. Again, one professor, Dr. Van Meter, taught psy-
chology, philosophy, logic, and Biblical literature, and, at the
beginning, was acting professor of history. All such condi-
tions were eventually eliminated.
28 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The fact that at the beginning the College offered courses in
elocution, music, and art was regarded by some as a defect.
Such courses were not given in men's colleges, and, since
women's colleges felt compelled to prove that women could do
exactly the same work as men, these courses were gradually
abolished. Times have changed and the brains of women are
no longer under suspicion and Goucher now recognizes that
art and music are essential in a well-rounded education.
The objections to art and music in the early years of the
College were connected with the fourth academic defect — the
large proportion of special students who took only one or two
courses and who were often incapable of taking the entrance
examinations. In 1888-89 these specials formed 43 percent
of all students, and they had specialized chiefly in art, music,
and elocution. 12 Eventually the College refused to have any
special students. But that caused the pendulum to swing too
far in the direction of exclusiveness, for it has been proved that
colleges and universities can perform a valuable service to the
general public by admitting carefully selected special students
and yet not lower their standards. The faculty of Goucher
College has altered its policy and decided to admit as special
students persons accepted by the committee on admissions.
First Faculty
The first faculty consisted of eight members, with a ninth
who came later in the first year. At the head of the list, as
given in the minutes of the Faculty, was John B. Van Meter,
A.M., D.D. He had been nominated by President Hopkins
to the Executive Committee, which approved the nomination
"with heartiness and unanimity," and the appointment was
made by the Board of Corporators on April 4, 1888. He was
the first person of full professorial rank to be appointed. He
had the chair of ethics, psychology, and logic. Frank R.
Butler, A.B., S.T.B., a graduate of Boston University, both
in the College of Liberal Arts and the School of Theology, and
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT HOPKINS 1g
a Student at the Universities of Gottingen, Berlin, and Strass-
burg, was professor of the EngHsh language and literature.
A. Sager Hall, Ph.D., who took his bachelor's and doctor's
degrees at the University of Michigan and who had been pro-
fessor of natural science at St. John's College, Maryland, was
associate professor of natural science in the Woman's College.
Miss Alice Goddard, associate professor of Latin and Greek,
took her A.B. and A.M. degrees at Cornell University and had
studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, England, and at the
University of Zurich. W. C. L. Gorton, A.B., Johns Hopkins
University, was associate professor of mathematics and as-
tronomy. He was the first member of the faculty whose nomi-
nation was confirmed by the Corporators (Feb. 17, 1888). He
took his Ph.D. degree at the Johns Hopkins University in 1889.
Hans Froelicher, Ph.D. University of Zurich, was associate
professor of the French language and literature. Mrs. Frances
Mitchell Froelicher, Ph.D. University of Zurich, was associate
professor of the German language and literature. Miss
Martha D. Woodward was instructor in drawing and painting.
Miss Edith V. Hedges, who was appointed several months
later than the others, was instructor in elocution. Mrs. M. H.
Billingslea, a sister of Dr. Hopkins, was registrar. The
registrar at that time was not counted as a member of the
faculty. The chair of physical training and hygiene and the
chair of history were not filled at the beginning.
The chief task which confronted the new faculty is described
by Dr. Hans Froelicher:
There were many difficulties to overcome, but fortunately the elements in
the faculty were, on the whole, homogeneous. For the most part we were
young and just starting upon our life's career; some were in the prime of
life; none had settled into ruts and set ways. We were open to new views
and tolerant of each other's views. We met to discuss informally college
ideals, college curricula, and college methods. Individual views, widely
divergent at times, were expressed and discussed with great freedom. There
was a truly vital interest in the welfare of the College and a strong feeling of
solidarity among the faculty.
30 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The result of it all was a sane curriculum, which contemplated the most
careful attention to the scope of work properly belonging to the college grade,
guarding rigidly the entrances to it and the exits from it and excluding once
for all any pretentions to sham postgraduate courses, such as figured rather
conspicuously in some college catalogues at the time. The administration
granted to the various departments that precious freedom of determining
upon their own several courses within the general scheme which is hardly
equalled in any other institution. Hence each department was ambitious
to bring its work to the highest point of efficiency.^^
During the whole half-century of its life the College has
taken just pride in the character of its faculty, in their academic
preparation, their zeal for research, their teaching ability, and
their whole-hearted personal devotion to the students under
them. It was through the care with which the first faculty
was chosen that these qualities have become traditional ever
since.
First Students
The College was opened for the registration of students on
Thursday, September 13, and for assignment to classes on
Monday, September 17, 1888. The students numbered about
50 during the first week and 130 before Christmas." Later it
was found that only ten of those who entered in this first year
were of freshman grade. Five of these constituted the first
graduating class in 1892. The tuition charge for the year was
only |ioo, but it must be remembered that the purchasing
power of money was greater then than now. There was no
residence hall, and it was not intended to have any, as it was
believed that private homes and boarding houses in Baltimore
afforded ample facilities for housing the students. The de-
mand of parents, however, for residence for their daughters
under the protection of the College became so great during the
first year that a residence hall was planned.^^ Dr. Goucher
reported to the Executive Committee on April 29, 1889, that
"the sub-committee had purchased from Mr. James E. Hooper
the lot at the north-west corner of Calvert and 4th Streets^' for
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT HOPKINS 3I
the dormitory building at a cost of $4,000. Mr. Hooper gen-
erously donated $1,000 to the College, making the amount
actually paid $3,000. The chairman also stated that the
excavation for the building had already commenced."" It was
occupied after the Christmas vacation of the second academic
year.
Inauguration Day
Since no formal exercises had been held when the College
was opened, September 13, 1888, it was deemed appropriate
to signalize the advent of the new institution by a public
ceremony. November 13 was chosen as "Inauguration Day."
On the evening of that date, in the First Methodist Episcopal
Church, Daniel C. Oilman, the first president of the Johns
Hopkins University, which had been playing the part of a
considerate and helpful elder brother to the Woman's College,
was the first speaker for this occasion. The second speaker
was Bishop Warren of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Both
speakers dealt with different phases of the same topic — the
nature of genuine culture.
Final Work of the Women's Educational Association
The Women's Educational Association, which had suspended
its work while the main building was being erected, became
active again when the College was opened. The committee
of the Baltimore Conference on the Woman's College, whose
chairman was Dr. Ooucher, said in its report to the Conference
in 1889: "The Committee cannot close its report without com-
mending the excellent work of the Women's Educational Asso-
ciation. The ladies who constitute this Association have
undertaken to raise $5,000 towards furnishing the main build-
ing. They have already secured a considerable part of this
sum and are making strenuous efforts to secure the whole.
The thanks of this Conference are hereby tendered the Asso-
32 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
ciation. We give them the assurance of our hearty good will
and assistance in their noble endeavors. "^^ The Association
went out of existence in 1889.^® One of the most important
services rendered by these women was their resolution of
June 1885; "That we request that the permanent charter to
be provided for the Woman's College recognize the eligibility
of women as Trustees." One woman opposed this as being
"too advanced," but nevertheless it was "adopted heartily."
The Board of Corporators and the Executive Committee both
approved of this action, and, as soon as there were three
vacancies on the Board, they elected Miss Isabel Hart, Mrs.
Francis A. Crook, and Mrs. E. G. Stevens as trustees. These
were the first women to serve in that capacity. Moreover,
Miss Hart, a little later, was elected to the Executive Com-
mittee.
Physical Training
The Woman's College planned from the beginning to put
unusual emphasis upon physical training for women. There
was great need in the Victorian era for such a stress, because,
partly on account of long skirts and hourglass waists, the
women took little exercise. It is told that Mr. Durant, the
founder of Wellesley, sent to England for a tennis set, as none
could be procured in America, "but had some difficulty in per-
suading many of the students to take such very violent exer-
cise."^** Such conditions as are illustrated by this story caused
the authorities of the Woman's College to put physical training
in charge of a competent physician with the rank of professor
and a place on the faculty and also on the Board of Control
when that was organized in 1891. For many years the physi-
cian was the only woman on the Board of Control.
The first physician on the faculty was Dr. Alice T. Hall.
She was appointed during the first academic year, but was
studying in Europe, and, by arrangement with the Executive
Committee, did not come to the College till the beginning of
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT HOPKINS 23
the second academic year. Her title was "Professor of Physi-
cal Training and Hygiene, Lecturer on Human Anatomy and
Physiology, and Director of the Gymnasium." Her A.B.
degree was taken at Wellesley and her M.D. degree at the
Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. She had studied
in Vienna, Stockholm, Berlin, Zurich, and Paris. The course
she gave in human anatomy and physiology was only a lecture
course of one hour a week. Dr. Lilian Welsh tells us that
Dr. Hall "advised that the College adopt the Swedish system
of educational gymnastics and the employment of teachers
trained in the Royal Central Institute in Stockholm. The
early students will remember the various Swedes who presided
over their required gymnasium work. Miss Oberg, Miss Palm-
quist. Miss Kellman, Miss Erickson. They possibly never
knew that these teachers looked upon the /American girls as
'soft' in the sense that they were obliged to give them very
mild exercises compared to what their country women de-
manded. It was difficult for these teachers to learn that they
must make many concessions to the prejudices of the American
girl and not require her adherence to rigid rules or ask her to
undertake really vigorous exercise. "^^
College Day
The first "College Day," on December lo, 1889, was a big
event in the history of the department of physical training.
College Day was a day when the trustees met, and official visi-
tors from various Methodist Conferences inspected the College
and made a report on its work. The first one was memorable
because of the opening of Bennett Hall, considered at that time
to be the finest gymnasium for women in the world. It was the
gift of Mr. Benjamin F. Bennett, a trustee of the College who
was the contractor and builder of Goucher Hall and other col-
lege buildings and was also treasurer of the College. He gave
Bennett Hall in memory of his wife, Mrs. Eleanor A. Bennett.
The gymnasium had a swimming pool and also the famous
34 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
and costly Zander machines to build up the weaker parts of
the body. These machines have ceased to be used, chiefly
because, as Miss Eline von Borries (the present director of
physical education) has explained, they did not suit the Ameri-
can temperament and less irksome methods were found for
accomplishing their purpose. The following is a lively descrip-
tion of the first inspection of the building by the public:
The new Bennett Memorial Hall for physical training was also to be seen,
with its costly apparatus in place and everything ready for straightening out
lovely woman's spine and building up her biceps. Streams of visitors
poured through the tall arched doorways all day and examined the ample
halls or cozy recitation rooms. As the institution is for the use and improve-
ment of women alone, fully three-fourths of those who called belonged to
that sex. Their gay dresses and hats, and the color which the crisp air
brought to their cheeks made a pretty picture as they moved from place to
place and tried to find out everything all at once. . . .
The curiosity and interest of the visitors centered in the interior of Ben-
nett Hall. Many of them had no idea that the strength and health of women
could be built up and developed all around by scientific processes, and what
they saw there surprised them. Dr. Alice T. Hall, the gymnastic director,
tried her best all the morning to make things clear to the callers, and in the
afternoon her place was taken by Mathilda Wallin, a Swedish lady, the
practical gymnastic instructor at the institution. The system of producing
muscle and health at the College comes from Sweden, and Miss Wallin is a
good example of its effects upon the female form divine. Many persons
looked at her inquisitively. Her clothing was simple and roomy enough for
breath and motion, her figure was erect and elastic, and her cheeks bright
with tints of health. When she raised her arm the sleeve of her dress ex-
panded visibly, and timid mortals got out of the way. . . .
Up in a gallery above the second floor the Zander machines for developing
special parts of the body attracted wondering crowds. They are queer
and rather mysterious-looking instruments, something like the pictures of
medieval torture machines, but a brief explanation of each is sufficient to
explain its utility and harmlessness. Nothing of the sort is made on this
side of the water, and the Zander machines had to come from far-away
Sweden to find their place in the college. . . .
Mr. B. F. Bennett, who gave Bennett Hall to the institution in memory of
his wife, went the rounds in the afternoon in company with Miss Kate
Bennett, his sister, and other relatives. He had a cheery smile and a strong
grasp of the hand for every acquaintance he met.^^ ....
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT HOPKINS ^^
The evening of College Day was celebrated by two addresses
in the First Methodist Episcopal Church, the first one being
given by Dr. H. C. Wood, clinical professor in the University
of Pennsylvania, on hygiene. The second was given by Presi-
dent Hopkins on "The Aims of the Woman's College." He
said, among other things, "We feel that we have abundant
reason for congratulation and encouragement in view of the
healthy growth of an enterprise whose initial steps were taken
amid circumstances that certainly called for the exercise of no
little faith and courage.""
Resignation of President Hopkins
There was a deficit of |i 8,000 the first year after the College
opened. There were deficits every year (with one possible
exception) during the administrations of President Hopkins
and his first two successors. This was not due to bad financial
management but was the natural result of small endowment
and small enrolment of students in a section where the higher
education of women had not yet become popular. The kind
of president most needed in those days was one who would be
away from the College frequently, visiting various Conferences
and raising funds. President Hopkins did not have aptitude
for this sort of work. The only criticism of his administration
is the one which, with manly candor, he himself has made.
In resigning his office as president of the College toward the
end of his second year. Dr. Hopkins said that he realized that a
large increase in the material resources of the College was
needed and that "this great work could not be thoroughly done
without that wider and more public presentation of the claims
of the College, for which neither taste nor talents nor previous
training had adapted me."^'* There were other reasons for his
resignation. "He wanted first of all to teach, and he felt that
the important task of raising money for the College should be
in other hands. He had felt again the warning signals that
told him his health could not stand the strain of his ceaseless
^6 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
duties, duties that no college president of today would dream
of undertaking without a staff of helpers.""
His resignation was accepted by the Board of Corporators
on May 27, 1890. He was appointed professor of Latin and
Greek and was acting president during the larger part of
another year until his successor could take up the duties of
the office. The Board appointed a committee to convey to
Dr. Hopkins the assurance of their appreciation of his success-
ful labors in organizing the college work.
The success of his administration is shown by stating his
principal achievements. He had chosen an energetic and pro-
gressive faculty. With their aid he had organized a miscel-
laneous aggregation of students and was ready to separate the
subcollegiate from the collegiate and place them under a dif-
ferent staff of instructors. The total number of students had
doubled during the second academic year, rising from 140
to 283. The first residence hall was completed and filled to
overflowing. The high standards and excellent equipment of
the College aroused the pride and enthusiasm of the Methodist
Church, as is shown by the report of the Board of Visitors for
1890. The College also received the approval of the federal
Commissioner of Education,who, in his report fori 889-90 placed
it in the first rank (called Division A) of colleges for women,
together with thirteen other colleges. ^^ The conscientious and
intelligent efforts of President Hopkins, the trustees, and the
faculty had given the College an excellent start.
PRKSIDKXr JOHN 1"KANK1.I\ (iOlCHKR
Chapter III
THE ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN
FRANKLIN GOUCHER
1 890-1 908
Dr. Goucher's election — Biographical sketch — Better classification
of students through the organization of the Girls' Latin School,
limitation of the number of special students, and the elimination of
the departments of elocution, art, and music — The first commence-
ment — Other commencements — College Days — Organization of the
Board of Control and Board of Instruction — Creation of position of
dean and election of Dr. Van Meter to deanship — Development
of office of registrar — Publication of the ^w/Zd-Z/n— Representation
on College Entrance Examination Board — Beginning of the Bureau
of Appointments and Vocational Guidance — Organization of the
Alumnae Association and subsequent formation of Alumnae Chap-
ters — Over-work of students — A.M. degree — Fellowships created —
Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa established — Pioneering work in physi-
cal education and in sociology — The chapel service — Lectures —
Interest of the students in suflFrage — Effect of the Spanish-American
war— Necrology: Dr. Gorton, Dr. Morgan, Professor Shelley, Mrs.
Goucher — Memorial windows — Expansion in number of students
and number of buildings — Gift of Dr. Goucher's residence — Memo-
rials in Goucher Hall — Friendly relations with other educational
institutions — Recognition of educational standards — Financial
difficulties — Campaign to free the College from debt — President
Goucher's resignation — Summary.
Election of Dr. Goucher
THE search for the first president of the College lasted
for more than a year; to secure the second president
the Board of Corporators moved with great speed.
There was just one man to whom they wished to turn, and they
feared that he might elude them a second time as he had the
first. It may be remembered that Dr. John F. Goucher had
been nominated for this position by Dr. Van Meter as far back
37
2% THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
as 1885 but "earnestly and positively declined."^ His reason
was that he had already consecrated his time and money to
world-wide Christian education, especially at strategic points
in the Orient, and he did not want to be drawn aside from this
larger venture into a narrower one. He wanted to remain in
the ministry, where he could more easily carry out his ideal.
This time, five years later, when the Board of Corporators
wished to secure him, they proceeded by a different method.
At a special meeting of the Board of Corporators on May 27,
1890, after the resignation of Dr. Hopkins as president had been
accepted and his appointment to the chair of Latin and Greek
confirmed, Dr. Goucher withdrew from the room, and "on
motion of J. J. G. Webster, it was determined to proceed to
the election of a President of the College by ballot without
nomination. . . . The ballot resulted as follows: J. F. Goucher,
D.D., 13; he having received the vote of all present was
declared unanimously elected." After considerable hesitation
he accepted, subject to the appointment of the Bishops at the
next Conference and with the condition that he was not to
enter upon the duties of the office until after he should be
released from the pastorate of the First Methodist Episcopal
Church. The Board of Corporators did not define the require-
ments of his work but left the duties of the president to the
"discretion of the President," and they requested Dr. Hopkins
to act as president until Dr. Goucher should be able to take
the work. 2 The Official Board of his church relieved him of
some of his pastoral duties, and by September 1890, he was
able to assume partial direction of the College. In March
1 891, the Baltimore Conference released him entirely from the
First Methodist Episcopal Church and assigned him to the
presidency of the Woman's College of Baltimore.^
Biographical Sketch
John Franklin Goucher, son of John Goucher, M.D., and
Eleanor Townsend, was born at Waynesburg, in southwestern
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 39
Pennsylvania, on June 7, 1845. ^^^ ancestors on his father's
side were originally from Brittany, and settled in this country
previous to 1750. Those on his mother's side came from Eng-
land in 1 680. His great-grandfather was a soldier in the Revo-
lutionary War, and both his maternal and paternal grandfathers
fought in the War of 1 8 1 2.'» He was the youngest of four chil-
dren, three boys and a girl. He was a frail child; pictures of
him show a thin face with deep-set eyes and a thick shock of
red-brown curls. He was very close to his mother, to whom
he was especially devoted. Many years later, in 1869, on
the anniversary of her death seven years before, he recorded in
his diary on July 21 his feeling of loneliness at her going, and
the comfort that he had as he "steadily viewed the almost if
not entirely perfect life which she lived in Christ Jesus." His
lack of physical vigor kept him from many of the more strenu-
ous activities of boyhood and made him a special companion
of his sister.
His parents were devout Methodists. In his early youth he
had a profound religious experience: of the "commissions," of
which he often spoke in later years, two came to him at this
time — the first to be a Christian and the second to enter the
ministry. He made his response to these calls in the words
which he often repeated through his life, "Whatever you ask,
I'll do with the greatest pleasure," To this deep inner awaken-
ing there was added an external stimulus. The parson who
lived behind the Goucher garden frequently saluted him:
"Well, John, what have you been doing for the Kingdom
today?" Thus the idea of working, doing, was kept before
the mind of the boy in his formative years. Perhaps these
objective and subjective experiences laid the foundation for
his life of joyful world-wide activity.
An interesting story of his boyhood was related by Dr.
Goucher many years later:
Lincoln passed through Pittsburgh and stayed at the old Monongahela
House on his way to Washington for his first inauguration. Of course, all
40 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
the boys in the town vied with each other as to who could get nearest the
President-elect. I was just a little fellow at the time. . . . My older brothers
got permission of my father at the breakfast table to go up to the hotel and
see if they could get a glimpse of Lincoln.
Of course, when I knew they were going I had to go — but they wouldn't
let me. My eldest brother said I was too little and might get trampled by
the crowds. My father just smiled and didn't say anything. I knew by
his smile that he intended taking me himself. But I didn't want to go with
him. He was a leisurely gentleman of the old school and I was afraid I
wouldn't see anything. So I persuaded him to let me go alone.
When I got to the hotel there was a big crowd around it. The mayor
and city councilmen were marching in to pay their respects to the President-
elect. That was what I had come for, and I didn't see any reason why
I should not pay my respect when they did. So I joined the procession,
and as I was small, the man ahead thought I belonged to the man behind,
and the man behind thought I belonged to the man ahead. No one stopped
me. After the officials had had their speech and greeted Lincoln he retired
to an inner room, and the men filed out — and then I stepped to the door
of the inner room. Lincoln looked around, and, seeing a little child, his
face softened marvelously. I stuck out my hand as I had seen the council-
men do and said as I had heard them say, 'It is a great pleasure to shake
hands with you Mr. President.' His smile was like benevolent sunshine.
He took my hand with both his warm big ones and looking down into my
face said, 'God bless you, my son; love God, obey your parents, serve your
country and the world will never forget you.' For the rest of my life
Lincoln was one of my greatest heroes.^
His father gave him the blessing of a happy home and the
advantages of a good education. In Pittsburgh, where he
spent his boyhood, he prepared at the high school for admis-
sion to Dickinson College, from which he was graduated in
1868.
While at college he had a great struggle with rationalism.
In speaking of this to his friend. Dr. Frank G, Porter, he said:
"I had to relay the foundations of belief. I was true to my
doubts, and perfectly true to my beliefs. I saw no right to
practice my doubts, but every obligation to live my beliefs."
Dr. Porter comments: "He so appropriated the words of
Charles Deems that many thought they were his own: 'Believe
your beliefs and doubt your doubts.'"
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 4I
His Alma Mater gave to him in 1872 the Master of Arts
degree, in 1885 that of Doctor of Divinity, and in 1889 that
of Doctor of Laws.
The year of 1869 was a very important one in his hfe, for it
marked the beginning of his ministry in the denomination
which he served so ably for fifty-three years, as well as his
meeting with a young girl who was to be for him an ideal wife.
Fortunately he liked to keep a diary, and the one for this year
is of unusual interest. Of his starting out from the family
home in Alliance, Ohio, he made the following record:
Feb. 18-1869-1:40 P.M. I said good-bye to my father's home this
afternoon to go to Washington, D. C. to join the Baltimore Conference of
the Methodist Episcopal Church. Father has been a wise, kind, and de-
voted parent, often sacrificing that I might have every needed facility to
prepare for my life work. He was very desirous I should enter the office
as his partner in the practice of medicine, and proposed sending me to medi-
cal college and then to Paris for the study of surgery. It was a great dis-
appointment when I declined his proposition, but ... I explained it was
not from want of love for him, nor . . . appreciation of his generous offer,
but solely a matter of conscience, and, that too, with a feeling of sacrifice,
and only because I felt "woe is me, if I preach not the gospel." He promptly
offered to send me to a theological school to further my preparation for the
church. This I declined also. He had spent a great deal of money on my
education so far, I was twenty-four years of age, and it was time I made my
own living and, more particularly, I preferred to serve three or four years in
the ministry that I might have a practical basis for appreciation of the op-
portunities to be found in such an institution. This was agreed to, he say-
ing, "get your horse, harness, and buggy if you should need them and send
me the bill, and if at any time you need anything let me know, and if you get
sick or specially tired come right home, and we will care for you."
The first charge of John F. Goucher was in Baltimore County
in the beautiful rolling country near the historic Garrison
Forest. He made his home with John Lester Turner, one of
the founders of the firm of Griffith and Turner, Baltimore, on
a farm "nine miles from Reisterstown and eight miles from
Baltimore." In his diary he writes, "This is a very pretty
place ... on a little hill. A large stone house roughcoated
\1 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
with a sort of cream color, large orchards and pleasant grounds,
a goodly number of flowers in the house, and very pleasant
people. Truly the Lord has been good to me to cast my lot
in so pleasant a family and place." He had eight churches
and several Sunday Schools on his circuit, and he ministered
to two each Sunday. For the visit to the more distant ones
he was often away from home from Friday until Monday or
Tuesday. It was a strenuous life. In November he records:
"With today my ninth round or third quarter ends, and the
work in the Baltimore circuit so far is — times preached, 88;
Sunday Schools addressed, 41; other extra services, 109; visits
made, 557; miles ridden, 2439." "There were long days in
the open as he went from charge to charge, and all who remem-
ber Dr. Goucher's love for the broad fields and open country
of Baltimore County will always associate the breadth of vision,
the quiet strength, the mental and spiritual poise that char-
acterised the years as they unfolded with those early years of
reflection and preparation as he travelled the country ways."®
When he was at the Turner Farm he rose at six, breakfasted
at seven, and walked until quarter to nine, frequently, when
it was growing time, hunting for new wild flowers, mosses, and
ferns. He became so interested that he took up the study of
botany in a systematic way. All through the diary can be seen
his eagerness to learn of new things. In Pittsburgh he visited
flint glass works, cotton mills, a candy factory, iron works
where he carefully observed the new pig-iron process, also
noting with care the wages of the workmen and the method
of paying them. These wide interests, which were begun in
early life and continued unabated, made possible in later years
Dr. J. N. Buckley's comment, "Dr. Goucher knew more about
more things than any man I ever met."^
Part of his time he spent, of course, in ministerial studies,
and, according to his diary, in these early days he enjoyed "the
quiet study more than any other part of the work."
When we think of Dr. Goucher's great friendhness and his
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 43
success in mingling with people of all sorts we are rather sur-
prised to read, under date of April 2, "I find the calling about
the hardest part of the worlc. I am naturally sociable at home,
but I dislike to go away. However, as Channing says, *A
house-going minister makes a church-going people,' and, as I
am not seeking my own comfort, but Christ's kingdom, I
shall try to cultivate a disposition of friendliness and sociability,
and I will try to make a few calls tomorrow afternoon." And,
true to his resolution, on April 3: "I . . . called on . . . Dr.
Fisher. The doctor is as fine a Christian character, I think,
as I ever met, wealthy, but very pious and devout, he spends
his time and money in the service of God."
This was Dr. Goucher's first call at Alto Dale, the beautiful
estate not far from the Turner Farm, where Dr. Fisher and his
family lived. Among the churches in the Baltimore County
circuit was Stone Chapel, within sight of the house at Alto Dale
and not far from the entrance gate. It is one of the oldest
and most historic places of Methodist worship in America,
having been erected in 1786. Its m.embership has always
been comprised of prominent families in the Green Spring
Valley. Of this church Dr. Fisher was the leading member and
the superintendent of the Sunday School. Many were the
meetings between him and Dr. Goucher relative to its work
and the larger interests of the denomination.
One evening Mary Cecilia Fisher came to supper at Mrs.
Turner's and there she met the young minister. Her beauty
of face, her graciousness and charm, her deep spirituality, and
her practical interest in the Sunday School at Stone Chapel
immediately attracted him. Their acquaintance ripened into
friendship and their friendship into their marriage eight years
later.
When Dr. Fisher was asked for his daughter's hand in mar-
riage he implied that the young minister wanted her money
rather than herself, for she already had a fortune of her own
given her by her father and her bachelor uncle. *T want her
44 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
for her own sake, but I think I could do a great deal of good
with the money too," was Dr. Goucher's reply, which so pleased
Dr. Fisher that he gave his consent to their union. Their
wedding was planned for February 1878, but three days before
Christmas, in 1877, Mary Fisher's father died. On Christmas
eve 1877, Mary Fisher and John F. Goucher were married.
The ceremony was simple, and the young couple did not have
a wedding journey. The many trips they took together after-
wards, however, they always spoke of as their delayed honey-
moon.*
At the time of their marriage, Dr. Goucher was thirty-two
years old and was pastor of the Huntingdon Avenue Church
in Baltimore.
Mrs. Goucher's ancestors on both her father's and her
mother's side came from England, and for more than a century
and a half had resided in Maryland.^ She was born in Cecil
County, March 22, 1850, and in 1853, along with her family,
moved to Alto Dale,^° a farm consisting of one hundred and
eighty-seven and a half acres not far from Pikesville, in Balti-
more County. Both her father. Dr. John Fisher, and her
bachelor uncle. Dr. William Fisher, were physicians, though
Dr. John Fisher did not practice after leaving Cecil County.
His brother did some excellent work in promoting the kindly
care of the insane. Dr. Fisher was determined that his two
daughters should be as well educated as was possible at that
time. Mrs. Goucher read French almost as well as English.
In 1868 she joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. In its
varied activities she took the deepest interest, aiding them with
her time as well as with her money. She was an ideal wife for
Dr. Goucher, entering with perfect sympathy into all of his
varied work, supporting him with her clear judgment, and
giving with unstinted liberality to the causes which he was
furthering. Together they interested themselves in the higher
education of women, in the evangelization of the world, and in
all good work which appealed to them for sympathy and help.^'
MAKV CKCII.iA (iorCm.R
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 45
To Dr. and Mrs. Goucher five children were born, three of
whom grew to womanhood: Janet, who married Henry C.
Miller of Baltimore, Eleanor, and Elizabeth. The latter
taught for some years at Ginling College, China, and then be-
came the wife of a foreign missionary, B. Burgoyne Chapman,
an Englishman.
Mrs. Goucher held various positions in the Woman's Foreign
Missionary Society. She was on the Board of Managers of
the Home for the Aged, vice president of the Association for the
Extension of University Education among Women, member
of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, of the Arundel
Club, and others. But probably her greatest service outside
of her personal home Hfe was to Goucher College. A man who
had sent his daughter to the College, upon being asked what in
its standards or curriculum had led him to that decision, replied
that he had known nothing of those matters beforehand, but
he had met Mrs. Goucher, and he wanted his daughter to be
where she was.^^ She was the embodiment of her ideals, and
through her beautiful life she helped the students to know what
a Goucher woman should stand for. She was greatly beloved
by the students, all of whom she knew by name. "They felt
that she took a personal interest in each of them and so loved
her, not for her broad culture or extensive charities, but just
for her sweet friendliness."'^
Of what Mrs. Goucher meant to one class Anna Edmunds,
'01 (Mrs. Carl C. Rutledge) writes:
To the class of 1901 fell the great honor of having Mary C. Goucher as
their honorary member, and as her eldest daughter, Janet, was in our class
and an efficient leader of it always, we naturally had more frequent and in-
timate contacts with the wife of our College President than most of the
students. . . .
No one better understood the heart of the pre-adult girl (which is really
what the college girl is) than Mrs. Goucher. Not only did she know how to
help the timid and retiring to self-expression and self-esteem but she in-
variably inspired to higher standards and achievements the purposeful
aggressive girl. Her influence was preeminently spiritualizing. Neverthe-
46 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
less she was intuitively mundane at times in her methods — as when she
served to a group of student leaders visiting for luncheon the then rare and
utterly unexperienced delicacy of strawberries and rich country ice cream in
the snowy month of March! Those strawberries bound us to her and her
ideals for us and she knew they would!
After the return of Dr. and Mrs. Goucher from a trip to
Egypt in 1896, the President delighted the students by telling
of something that happened to Mrs. Goucher:
Bravely she entered the tombs of the old Egyptian kings. She was alone,
and the scene was a gloomy one; but in answer to the "You 'fraid?" of her
Arabian guide she shook her small head scornfully.
While she was enjoying with an experienced traveler's eye these monu-
ments of Egyptian glory, the Sheik drew near, sat down at her feet, and be-
gan in a most offensive manner to chew tobacco. This little woman, ac-
customed to the respect of all men, could not and did not look kindly on
this deed, even though the great Sheik was the offender. She requested
the guide to ask him to leave. But that dark-faced one shook his head, and,
showing all his white teeth, said: "No, no; he Sheik." For a few minutes
longer she ignored the presence of the noble neighbor; then, drawing up her
small height haughtily, she made to the high and mighty Sheik a gesture
that he could not mistake. "Go away," she demanded — and sullenly but
surely he went. She turned to her guide just in time to hear him say in an
awed tone to his companions: "She Sheik herself."^'*
In the Baltimore Conference, Dr. Goucher was known as the
"Builder of Churches." In his college days this trait showed
itself; from a Sunday School, organized while he was an under-
graduate, a church developed which he helped to dedicate the
year after he was out of college. On March 21, 1869, he began
his preaching in his circuit, and by April 8 he was planning for
the rebuilding of a church. Later he evidently felt that this
was proceeding too slowly, for on May 12 he writes in his diary:
"There has been talk and trouble enough about the church so
far to build two or three churches, growing in great part out of
the extreme cautiousness of some of the members." This is
an interesting record when we consider his own daring in build-
ing in later years.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 47
Of Dr. Goucher's ministry in the Methodist Episcopal
Church the Baltimore Conference minutes say: "Entering the
Baltimore Conference in 1869, he held the effective relation
during his full ministry of 53 years, having given twenty-one
years of remarkable pastoral service, excelling in work among
the young people, rejoicing in hundreds of conversions, and
building fifteen churches, among them the first Harlem Park,
Strawbridge, and notably First Church, Baltimore ... a mag-
nificent edifice erected at the cost of a quarter of a million
dollars."^*
Dr. Goucher was pastor of the old First Church at Charles
and Fayette Streets in 1883 when it had to be torn down in
order to widen Fayette Street. He saw the importance of a
new location and the renewed career that would be possible
to First Church on Saint Paul Street. He started with this
one church of less than 100 members, and by 1890 had First
Church and its three branches united in "City Station" with
a total membership of 1200 and property worth $300,000.^*
The list of his pastorates is as follows: 1869-71, Baltimore
Circuit; 1872-74, Catonsville; 1875-77, Huntingdon Avenue;
1876-80, Gilmor Street; 1881-82, Strawbridge; 1 883-1 891,
First Church." To his close friend. Dr. Frank G. Porter, he
said one day in August 1921, "I have had six definite and dis-
tinct calls. First to be a Christian. Second, almost imme-
diately, to be a minister. Then, third, as clear and definite,
to minister to young people. Fourth for missionary work.
Fifth for Christian Education in all lands. Sixth, a clear call to
work for the Unification of Methodism. Definite as were these
calls, sometimes one was largely involved in another, as mis-
sions and education, but each work was large and had its own
characteristics and its providences. I have had especial ex-
periences and leadings with each that prove it was from God."
"With six clear calls," Dr. Porter comments, "his several com-
missions ran side by side, as he did the work of many men, and
a recorder is bewildered by the variety of his swift activities. "^^
48 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
However varied his interests were, there was one dominating
purpose in his life, the spread of Christianity through the
promotion of schools and colleges for Christian education. In
his own words: "Evangelism without education faces fanati-
cism and reaction. Christian education is the most productive,
the most prominent and far reaching form of evangelism. "^^
Thus motivated by religious zeal, he bent his energies toward
promoting educational opportunities in foreign lands through
Christian schools and colleges and at home through Morgan
College and the Woman's College of Baltimore.
As a young minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church,
Dr. Goucher offered himself to his Foreign Board and asked
to be sent to India as a worker. Six or seven years later he
and Mrs. Goucher volunteered for foreign work. Each time
the church dechned the offer on the ground that more could be
done for the cause of missions if such a man remained in
America, using his talents and means for furthering the work
all over the world, than if he devoted himself to a single field. 2"
About 1880 the missionary secretaries of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in New York began to receive letters from
this young Baltimore minister pointing out special opportuni-
ties in Japan, China, and Korea, and offering property and
support if they would furnish the workers. ^^ The annual
missionary reports for a generation show scores of Goucher
gifts, and, in addition, others were made directly on the field."
About 1900, Bishop C. C. McCabe stated before the Baltimore
Conference that for a number of years Dr. Goucher gave to the
general work of the Methodist Foreign Board ^10,000 annually.
Dr. and Mrs. Goucher financed the field inspection and the early
work in Korea and West China, and in a real sense were the
founders of these two missions, for it was Dr. Goucher's vision,
foresight, enterprise, and underwriting that were the occasion
of the opening of Methodist Episcopal mission work in these
fields." Elmer Ellsworth Brown, chancellor of New York
University, writing of Dr. Goucher as "one of the foremost
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 49
leaders of the foreign mission activities of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church," said that his view of these activities was "in
the highest degree statesmanlike and comprehensive. "^^
One of the missionary projects nearest to the heart of Dr.
and Mrs. Goucher was in India, where, through a system of
vernacular schools in the district around Moradabad, they
carried on an experiment, interesting socially and educationally
as well as religiously. In every case a school for girls paralleled
one for boys. The best of the primary students were sent on
to middle schools and then to high schools, and from there the
most promising were sent to normal school, college, or theo-
logical seminary. The schools in India maintained by this
Goucher fund at one time numbered one hundred and twenty,
with a daily attendance of more than three thousand. The
experiment was continued for about twenty years with an
expenditure of about |^ 100,000. In far away Baltimore, Dr.
Goucher received stated reports of the progress of every child
in every school. The project was given up because Dr.
Goucher realized the apparent administrative impracticability
of maintaining on the field the conditions essential to a really
scientific experiment. He had wanted to make an exact
demonstration of the possibilities of Christian education in
social transformation. However, these schools furnished one
third of the Methodist pastors in North India and many
pastors' wives, as well as teachers and business men in the
Christian community. Children of the third generation are
now winning honors at colleges." "It was just the impetus
needed to save the planting of our missionary fathers," say
the missionaries of today. '^^
Not only was Dr. Goucher active in promoting the work of
the Methodist Episcopal Church abroad, but he was a pioneer
in realizing the advantages of union enterprises on the foreign
field. Of his work along this line Anna Hoffman, '99 (Mrs.
Francis J. Hall) who shared in some of the discussions of the
early union work in Peking, writes:
50 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Though always loyal to his own denomination, Dr. Goucher was more
than a leader in the Methodist Church, he was a Christian statesman, and
as such he minimized the difficulties and emphasized the advantages of union
of denominational forces in the foreign field. In Japan, Korea, and China,
he pointed out the advantages, directed the policy, and contributed largely
to the development of one strong Christian institution of higher learning
in the student center of each nation. ... In the East, he early saw the possi-
bilities of united effort by Christian forces and urged the church to seize
the strategic hilltops of higher education against the day of her greater op-
portunity. That day of opportunity has now come, and if Christian educa-
tion does its part in the training of national leadership in two great nations,
it will in no small measure be due to Dr. Goucher.^^
At the home base he was also a tireless worker, both in his
own denomination and in interdenominational activities. Dr.
Goucher was a member of the Board of Foreign Missions of the
Methodist Episcopal Church from 1884 to the time of his
death. Beginning with 1888 he was elected to nine General
Conferences, and he was three times chairman of the committee
on missions. From 191 2 to 1920 he was a member of the Joint
Commission on the Unification of American Methodism. ^s
He was also a leader in interdenominational missionary work.
He was the presiding officer at the meeting on higher education
at the Ecumenical Missionary Conference in New York in 1900.
He was a constructive force during the early years of the Young
People's Missionary Movement, now the Missionary Educa-
tion Movement. He was a member of the Commission on
Christian Education of the World Missionary Conference at
Edinburgh in 1910. He was made chairman of the American
section of the Committee on Christian Education in the Mis-
sion Field for the Continuation Committee of the Edinburgh
Conference. To this work he devoted himself almost exclu-
sively during the last twelve years of his life. Thus for forty
years he was a directing force in the missionary work of his
own church and for twenty-five a leader in interdenominational
agencies. ^^
In 1904, Dr. John R. Mott published a list of the great con-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 5I
tributors to missions. In this list Dr. Goucher's name appears
as having given at least $250,000.='° In later years Dr. Goucher
made an estimate of not less than half a million as the amount
that he and Mrs. Goucher had contributed to this cause.
In appreciation of Dr. Goucher's services, on November 12,
1 91 9, the Emperor of Japan, by a unanimous vote of the Cabi-
net, conferred upon him the insignia of the third degree of the
Order of the Rising Sun— the highest distinction that govern-
ment can bestow upon a civilian, either foreign or native. '^ On
March 5, 1921, by a special mandate, the President of China
conferred the insignia and decoration of the third degree of the
Order of Chia Ho, which is also the highest decoration that can
be bestowed upon a civilian, either native or foreign. This
honor was received through the American Consul at Peking,
July 18, 1921.32 The wording of the Chinese honor is of in-
terest: "Dr. J. F. Goucher 3rd Class Decoration of the Fine
Harvest ('Golden Grain'). The President of the RepubHc of
China presents President J. F. Goucher with the above decora-
tion in recognition of his friendly esteem. Hsu Shih Chang.
March 5, 1921."
And so his work was known and recognized by the highest
people in two of the Oriental lands. It also received grateful
appreciation from multitudes of humble folk in the Orient."
In the prosecution of his work as administrator and coun-
selor, at his own expense he journeyed to the ends of the earth.
Of this phase of his life Charles H. Fahs, director of the Mis-
sionary Research Library in New York, writes:
He was a tireless traveler. Five hundred times he made the trip from
Baltimore to New York City for attendance upon administrative bodies and
committee meetings; twenty-five times he crossed the Atlantic; eight times
he crossed the Pacific; three times he passed through the Suez Canal; twice
he made the journey across Asia on the Trans-Siberian railway. When he
was seventy-six years of age he made for the third time the long and some-
what hazardous journey to West China. At every mission station where he
called his presence was a blessing and a benediction."
52 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
As a traveler Dr. Goucher was noted for his courage and
calmness in the face of danger. On his way to a great mis-
sionary conference, he was a passenger on the S. S. Republic,
which was in collision with the S. S. Florida, June 24, 1909, and
sank while being towed back to New York. When the shock
came the whole electric system of the ship was deranged, and
the boat was in total darkness. Using the pocket flash-light,
without which he never journeyed, he guided passengers from
their staterooms to the upper deck, from which they were
rescued. After he had aided many by his calmness and good
cheer, he went below to recover a woman's jewels left in her
stateroom, and then, says Bishop Cranston, "from the same
provident hand bag from which he had taken his flash light,
he got tea and brewed it for the hysterical. "^^ He was the
last person to leave the vessel save officers and crew. Taking
everything as a matter of course, he returned to Baltimore,
packed another gripsack, and two days later was again on his
way to Scotland. ^^
On another occasion, when he was about to take the Sinai
trip, he had definite information that he and his whole caravan
were to be massacred by hostile Arabs. His only defense or
preparation for this journey was to wait for two days, and then
he set out "as if he were going into Baltimore county to gather
daisies. No harm befell him or his train.""
Though his mind was filled with large afl^airs, he could think
of gracious small things too. He was planning to reach home
from one of his long journeys to the Orient, just a few days
before Alto Dale Day, and, as he passed through Smyrna, he
added to his luggage a supply of "Turkish Delight" for the
collation on the lawn. His guests were happy to have a piece
of the then little known confection resting on their block of
ice cream.
Although his missionary activities took him around the
world, Dr. Goucher was not unmindful of the needs of colored
boys and girls close at home. For forty-three years he was a
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 53
member of the Board of Trustees of Morgan College, and for
thirty-nine president of the Board. Under his leadership the
school grew from a small group of pupils with two teachers
occupying an ordinary dweUing on East Saratoga Street to an
institution giving to its pupils first grade collegiate work and
located on a beautiful campus of eighty-five acres in a desirable
section of Baltimore City. In addition, he was the projector
and chief benefactor of Princess Anne Training School, for
negroes, located at Princess Anne, Maryland, and afterwards
a junior college. John V. Spencer, president of Morgan Col-
lege, in an "In Memoriam" booklet issued by the College,
said: "An aristocrat in the best sense, he was a democrat in
opportunity to all. He believed in giving the negro a fair
chance with the unfaltering belief that many would avail them-
selves of the opportunity, and thus demonstrate the value of
Christian leadership." This pamphlet also includes, as part
of a resolution prepared by the faculty, this tribute: "Among
the fearless men who, in spite of determined opposition, urged
the cause of the higher education for colored boys and girls,
gave largely of their means for the development of an institu-
tion with such an aim, and continued to be its trusted and
devoted friend through all the years, there was none who sur-
passed in devotion the late Dr. John F. Goucher."!**
No doubt this interest in the education of colored students
in the city and state laid the foundation for the unusually
happy relation between Goucher College and the colored people
who have worked for it. Some of them have been college
graduates, who in the book store, the physics department, the
chemistry department, and the biology department have served
the College in large and important ways. Two of them have
been bank runners absolutely faithful to the trust imposed upon
them. Others in the residence halls, the laundries, the social
buildings, the library, and in miscellaneous posts have rendered
efficient service. They have been and are a self-respecting,
loyal group, proud of their connection with Goucher.
54 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
In addition to his large interests, Dr. Goucher had a number
of minor ones. He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and
the Sigma Chi fraternities and of the Sons of the American
Revolution. For thirteen years he was president of the Mary-
land Bible Society; for twenty-five years he was president of
the American Methodist Historical Society, and was the lead-
ing authority on early Methodist history, possessing one of the
largest collections of Methodist antiquities, manuscripts, and
rare books in the world.^^
He was a collector of idols, rare gems, stones, flints, and
butterflies. His houses at Alto Dale and on St. Paul Street
were veritable museums of choice possessions, and he took the
greatest delight in showing his treasures to sympathetic guests.
Dr. Welch said that at one time he even ofi^ered to unwrap one
of the Egyptian mummies for her.
Dr. and Mrs. Goucher spent their winters at the lovely home
at 2313 St. Paul Street, which, like Alto Dale, was noted for its
gracious hospitality to students and visitors to the College.
Dr. Goucher's reputation as a host was far famed. A student
asking Dr. Welsh and Dr. Sherwood what they remembered of
Dr. Goucher received the reply, "He could carve a turkey
better than anybody I ever saw." He was a charming con-
versationalist, and was ready at any time to tell a story or a
joke. His comments had a clever turn. Once when he was
told a certain man was "thinking things over," he replied,
according to his daughter, Janet, "Oh, no, he is not thinking
things over, he is just rearranging his prejudices." He was
equally at ease as a host or presiding at a meeting or making an
address or travelling around the world in the interest of his
various educational enterprises.
In the midst of his busy life Dr. Goucher wrote several books,
among which are: Young People and Missions (Eaton and
Mains, New York, 1903); Adjustment for Sovereignty (Young
People's Missionary Movement, 1906); Christianity and the
United States (Eaton and Mains, 1908); Growth of the Mis-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 55
sionary Concept (Eaton and Mains, 1911). These were pub-
lished after they had been given wholly or in part as lectures.
Growth of the Missionary Concept consisted of five lectures
delivered on the Nathan Graves Foundation before Syracuse
University.
It seems remarkable that a man not particularly robust or
strong should have been able to do so many things. His
unusual religious life was for him a tower of strength. He
believed literally that God guided him day by day; he had an
implicit childlike faith. In that diary of his first year in the
ministry he had an illuminating statement for one Saturday:
"I am and have been so tired today that I cannot think. I
cannot read, nor anything but sleep. And this evening I have
no sermon ready for tomorrow. But the Lord, in whose
service I am so worn down, will provide for the morrow when
it comes. So good night. "^^ He was provided for in the emer-
gency. The next morning he awoke to the sound of pouring
rain, and according to the custom of his circuit neither minister
nor people went to church at such times.
Commenting on this same faith and trust. Bishop Cranston
writes: "Without guile or cant, he was so utterly and con-
sciously God's man that he could instantly disentangle self
from any untoward event in the outcome of his plans. *It
is God's work and he will take care of it' — that was the quiet
dismissal of the matter."'*^
And he was always happy in his service. "When a person
is busy trying to do good, life is a pleasure," he says in his
diary. Dr. and Mrs. Goucher were able to contribute so much
to Christian education because, in the first place, they them-
selves lived very simply. It was noted of Mrs. Goucher, who
had great wealth at her command, that her dress was as simple
as that of the poorest who attended the churches to which her
husband ministered." Dr. Goucher himself dressed in quiet
costume, and the only observable and invariable feature was
a broad-brimmed light felt hat. He kept no valet and no
56 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
private secretary. And further, they were careful stewards
of their wealth. One who knew them said, "Dr. and Mrs.
Goucher budgeted their accounts annually in the days before
budgeting became common. They did not have enough to
meet all the requests that came in, so together they planned in
advance what could be given each year to each form of
service. "^^ But, however simple their own life may have been,
they entertained royally. Their handsome house in Baltimore
was built especially for hospitality, and, from 1892 on, one of
the great days in the life of the College was Alto Dale Day.
Of what this meant to faculty, students, and alumnae Dr.
Froelicher wrote many years later in Donnybrook Fair, 1929:
Alto Dale Day was the red letter day for seniors, "hall girls," and faculty,
usually about Decoration Day in May. It was the day when Dr. and Mrs.
Goucher entertained their visitors at their country estate, Alto Dale, beyond
Pikesville. The mansion is set against lofty trees of ancient woods. Di-
rectly in front of the house is a lawn, and beyond, broad acres of cultivated
lands and farm buildings. In the early days. Dr. Goucher arranged for a
special train which took the whole party from Union Station to Chattolanee.
There Dr. Goucher would be expecting us, broad rimmed hat on his head,
a tall English walking cane in his hand, and a courteous, winning smile, and
a kind word for some, witty remarks for each and all. The walk through
almost primeval woods brought us presently to the mansion past the three
little Goucher girls' play house and to the vast verandah where Mrs. Goucher,
as hostess, welcomed us. Wraps and hats once deposited, there were walks
through a perfectly lovely old rose garden, or through the untouched woods,
or by a winding path down to the spring where the three little girls acted as
Hebes to us mortals. There were even swings and hammocks. We had
races down the sloped lawn — until, the sun coursing westward, the mansion
began to cast its shadows upon the lawn. Then we would all settle down on
the lawn, in groups, as mutual affinites or chance was apt to form them, and
Mr. Hughes, the caterer, went into action.
On Alto Dale Day President Goucher moved with a natural ease and grace
among his guests, from group to group, from individual to individual. For
each he had a word of kindness or an interesting observation. This one he
took to see a rare plant, the other some rare book he had, a third one some odd
ivory or bronze he had collected on his travels, for the fourth he had a good
story or made a jocose remark with an unanswerable quick, witty repartee.
I once remarked that I had never seen in this country my favorite flower,
^^l
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 57
the moss rose. He at once invited me to the rose garden — Mrs. Goucher
graciously accompanying us — and took me to the spot where Mrs. Goucher
was raising moss roses, these being also among her favorites. She picked one
for me to put in my buttonhole. Who, of those blessed days, does not re-
member the paths between the boxwood hedges, and the genial, happy at-
mosphere?
As evening came on, we sang songs. Some were improvised. I remem-
ber Professor Butler jotting down a number of stanzas to a familiar tune, the
solo being the meat of the song, the refrain being enthusiastically sung by
the entire company. As darkness came, the year number of the graduation
class would flash up from torches previously arranged at the bottom of the
sloping lawn, and with a final song, the time for farewell had come.
Dr. Goucher's great monument in this country is the college
which bears his name. In the first chapter he is mentioned as
one of the original incorporators, chairman of the Executive
Committee and of the Building Committee, and the largest
individual donor. In the fall of 1890 he began part-time
service as president of the College, taking the chair for the
first time at the faculty meeting on September 30 and attend-
ing the first chapel as its presiding officer on October 3."*^ His
full time service began in March 1891, The eighteen years of
his presidency was a period of rapid growth for the College,
which developed in organization, in curriculum, in the number
of its students and its buildings, and in its recognition by the
academic world. A successful solution was found for its com-
plex problems, save only one. Not until a later administration
was the College put on a firm financial foundation.
Improved Classification of Students
When the College opened for its third year, the classification
of students became more accurate. By that time it was known
that five or six young women were in the third collegiate class
and might be graduated in two years. Because of the difficulty
in securing well prepared students, the irregularities in the
work of those who had been admitted, and the "embarrassment
58 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
in arranging for the proper discipline of the scholars" since
the collegiate and subcollegiate departments were using the
same rooms,^* the College was forced to organize a preparatory-
school, to which was given the name "The Girls' Latin School
of Baltimore" in view of its emphasis upon Latin as a founda-
tion study. It was the first of its kind in the city and state,
and among the first in the South. ^^
In a statement made in the Baltimore Evening Sun, March
15, 1913, when the College faced another difficult time. Dr.
Goucher referred to the problems of this period leading to the
organization of a separate preparatory school:
Near the close of the academic year 1 889-1 890 the College faced a great
crisis — the severest crisis in its history except, perhaps, the one it is facing
now. It, like the present one, threatened the life of the institution. . . .
There were five or six schools for girls in Baltimore, some of which had
existed for many years, and all of which had a patronage widely scattered
throughout the South. Each of these was personally visited and urged to
broaden and strengthen its work, so that those who might desire could be
prepared to enter the freshman class of the College. With uniform courtesy,
they all expressed high appreciation of the proposed work of the College, but
without exception declined to undertake such an adjustment because of the
financial risk involved.
The principals of the Eastern and Western Female High Schools were con-
sulted, and the School Commissioners of the City urged to arrange a schedule
of the studies to conform to the standards of the best high schools North and
West; but this was treated first with indifference and afterwards peremptor-
ily declined.
Therefore the College was compelled to do one of three things — to make
provision for the preparation of those who might desire to enter its freshman
class, seriously to lower its entrance requirements, or go without students.
At this stage of its development the College had 10 freshmen and 5 sopho-
mores, with more than a hundred others of serious purpose but with all
degrees of irregular subcollege work. Even if the institution had been doing
full work in four regularly organized classes, no allowance would have been
accorded it for its peculiar environment and exceptional difficulties and it
could not have had recognition from any first-class institution as a college
while preparatory and college students were taught by the same faculty or
were associated together in the same building.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 59
So, in order to provide properly for the preparation of its freshmen, the
College was compelled to provide a separate faculty, a separate organization,
and a separate building.
Not only was a building for instruction required but also a
residence hall. Procuring the funds for this need was a serious
problem for the already financially embarrassed institution.
The Executive Committee first authorized the establishment
of a system of annuities.*^ A few months later, when this
apparently was not successful, they tried to raise the money
by issuing 300 bonds: 200 of ^1,000 each, and 100 of $500, at
five percent. To secure the payment of the principal and
interest on these bonds, they were willing to mortgage the
ground and improvements on the lot where Goucher Hall
stands and several other lots which they owned.^^ But this
bond issue did not find purchasers.** The next spring another
effort was made to secure the money by life annuities and
gifts,^" without success except in one instance. °^ At this crisis,
on April 20, 1892, Mr. Alcaeus C. Hooper paid to the Wom-
an's College of Baltimore the sum of $100,000, the College
agreeing to pay him an annuity of $5,000 per annum during
the term of his natural life. On the same day Mr. Hooper
paid to the College another sum of $100,000 in consideration
of which the College agreed to pay him $6,000 a year during
his lifetime, and after his death to pay his wife an annuity of
$3,000 during the remainder of her natural life, and after the
death of both Mr. and Mrs. Hooper to pay $1,000 a year to
each of their three children during the natural life of each.
In a statement to the Baltimore Evening Sun, March 15, 1913,
Dr. Goucher announced that the Trustees would use the pro-
ceeds to erect two buildings — a science building for the Col-
lege, to be used temporarily as need might be to house the
Girls' Latin School, and a college home. He declared that this
assistance prevented the threatened disaster of closing the
institution and was considered providential."
6o THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
This fund was known as the Hooper Annuity. The building
was named Catherine Hooper Hall, in honor of Mr, Hooper's
mother."
The Corporators decided, however, in May 1890, before the
money was obtained, to make the venture of separating the
collegiates and subcollegiates. The first step was taken in
the fall of 1890: the Girls' Latin School was organized with a
separate faculty, and Professor William H. Shelley, who had
previously taught Latin and mathematics in Albion College
and been superintendent of Public Instruction at York, Penn-
sylvania, was made principal. According to a ruling of the
Corporators, May 27, 1890, Professor Shelley had the right to
"sit with the college faculty and have a vote on all matters of
general interest to the Institution and in all matters pertaining
to the relation of the College and the subcollegiate departments,
but not in matters pertaining exclusively to the operations of
the College."
In October 1890, the faculty voted that in all actions in which
the College and the Latin School must be considered together
the distinction between the two be strongly emphasized. The
second floor of Goucher Hall was assigned to the preparatory
school, and here it remained for three years — until the fall of
1893. Its students were permitted to use only the north stair-
way and were not allowed to use the college reading room."
By the fall of 1893 the building at the corner of St. Paul and
Twenty-fourth Streets, Catherine Hooper Hall, was completed,
and the Girls' Latin School moved to this new structure to
remain there until 1909, in the administration of President
Noble. Further, since Home B, the residence hall, was ready
for students in the fall of 1893, it was devoted to the use of col-
lege students and the first residence hall, Home A, was given
to the subcollegiates. Thus the process of complete separation
between the College and the preparatory school was advanced
another step. The Trustees accepted President Goucher's
recommendation made in his Annual Report, November 1902,
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 6l
that the two institutions be absolutely segregated. Students
attending the Woman's College were not allowed to make up
conditions or requirements in the Girls' Latin School but were
required to make them up under a tutor at their own expense.
No students of the Girls' Latin School were permitted to take
advanced work in the College or reside in a college residence
hall. The Middle States Association of Colleges and Second-
ary Schools, formed in 1888, had set up standards, and accord-
ing to its ruling at this time, colleges were required to be com-
pletely separated from all college preparatory instruction.
From the first, the Girls' Latin School was popular, and
students crowded into it. At commencement in June 1906,
President Goucher stated that it had had an aggregate attend-
ance of 1,235 and that seventy-eight percent of its graduates
had attended the Woman's College. In the year 1902-03, for
example, of the 133 entering students, 32 had come from the
Girls' Latin School and loi from 84 other schools.^^ It had
assisted in preparing one third of all the students who had been
graduated from the Woman's College. President Goucher also
asserted in the same address that, according to the Report of
the United States Commissioner of Education, "Of all private
schools for girls in the United States which prepare exclusively
or largely for the leading colleges for women. The Girls' Latin
School of Baltimore represents the largest resources devoted
to that purpose, enrolls the largest number who are preparing
for College, and graduates each year the largest number who
enter College."
During the first year of Dr. Goucher's presidency a further
move toward better academic standing was made by attempt-
mg to check the number of special students and to influence
entering students to take the regular work. In accordance
with a faculty ruling in September 1890, the two questions:
I^Do you enter for a degree course, or for a select course.?" and
"If the latter what studies do you especially wish to take.?"
were omitted from the appHcation blanks, and in place of these
62 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
two questions the following question was put: "Which one of
the four regular courses (Classical, Modern Language, Natural
Science, Mathematical) do you intend to pursue?" About the
same time, it was decided to give the scholarships thereafter
only to regular, not to partial, students.
The following year, 1891-92, the policy in regard to classi-
fication and admission was made stricter. Special students
were required not only to satisfy the full entrance requirements
in those subjects which they desired to study, but also to
satisfy the entrance requirements in English and mathematics.
The sole exception to this ruling was in the case of special stu-
dents in Latin and Greek. ^^ The following fall. President
Goucher reported to the Trustees: "The degree students are 95,
full matriculates 60, conditioned 25y special students 26; one
course students 3. This shows a complete reversion in the
relative number of degree and special students, and a most
gratifying advance in the number of full matriculates. Every
special student is now taking at least ten hours of regular
academic work."^^
In 1892-93 the students began to exert their influence toward
reducing the number of specials by excluding them from the
class organizations.*^ This action caused the special students
to form an organization of their own, about equal in size to the
freshman class. Their number, however, was diminishing,
"many having become degree students who last year did special
work."*® The greater strictness of requirements for entrance
of special students gave great satisfaction to the undergradu-
ates, who felt that those who claimed credit for years of study
they had never done "by announcing that they are attending
the Woman's College, when they are only in a class of the Latin
School or taking a few hours of college work" not only led
the public to believe that the College was "a very inferior sort
of institution," but also detracted from the value of its diploma,
and was an injustice to its regular students.^"
A further step in exclusion was taken in 1896 with the adop-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 6^
tion of the ruling: "Requirements for admission to the fresh-
man class are the same for all groups and beginning with Sep-
tember, 1896, will be the same for all candidates whether for
regular or for special work.""
The careful insistence on uniform entrance requirements for
all students, whether special or degree, had accomplished its
purpose of excluding from the College poorly prepared students,
but it was realized by 1898 that it was also excluding a few
whom the College should endeavor to help. Dean Van Meter
thought the College should be more liberal in the admission of
special students, especially of teachers who wished to pursue
a few courses. The matter was discussed in the Board of Con-
trol, which finally ruled:
That under exceptional circumstances, persons of serious purpose and
suitable age, who may desire to pursue special courses without reference to
obtaining a degree, may be admitted without fulfilling the whole requirement
in other departments than the one in which they wish to study; such stu-
dents to be registered as non-matriculate specials, and to receive testimonials
from the individual instructors under whom they work, but no general cer-
tificate from the College.®^
And so the problem of the special student, which had been
such a serious one in the early days of the College, was happily
solved.
Other modifications were started which further strengthened
the academic standing at this time. In the year 1893 there
were great changes in the three special departments of art,
music, and elocution.^' The first to be given up was elocution.
For the first five years elocution was a required course. But
in the fall of 1893 the department was discontinued, and in its
place, for a few years, there was a required course in voice
training," which, under the department of hygiene and physical
training, taught "pure breathing, natural vocalization, and
abdominal gymnastics. "^^ But this course, too, was soon aban-
doned. In his report to the Trustees in 1895, Dean Van Meter
said: "The effort to maintain in the College regular and effi-
64 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
cient instruction in voice training does not seem to meet with
success. ... It is only where the student is herself interested
in the work that it is likely to be of any use to her. I have come
to the conclusion that the money and time spent upon voice
training are both wasted and I recommend that the instruction
be finally abandoned in the College."
The School of Art, which had carried on its work on the top
floor of Goucher Hall, moved in 1893 to studios in Catherine
Hooper Hall. Of these Anna Andrews Thomas, instructor in
Art, 1894-01, writes: "The entire north and northwest side of
the third floor of Catherine Hooper Hall was devoted to the
art studios, all well-lighted by north or top hght, and there was
added later the entire loft over the third floor which had an
admirably adapted skylight. The studios were abundantly
supplied with artistic objects and models, casts, draperies, and
other appliances. Annual art exhibitions were held, and these
were high lights in the collegiate and artistic communities. . . .
There were other exhibitions from outside artists, and if the
art department had continued, it had been planned to make
these more and more events of art importance in the city."®^
For the first three years of the College, the School of Music,
also, had rooms on the top floor of Goucher Hall. In Septem-
ber 1890, the music department had grown to such an extent
that the constant use of eight or more pianos in the College
Home and in Goucher Hall was a great annoyance, and also
it occupied valuable rooms in both buildings which were re-
quired for other purposes.®^ A house to which the School
could be moved, however, could not be financed until the next
year, when the Trustees were able to secure the building on the
southwest corner of Calvert and Twenty-third Streets. To
this, called the Music Annex, the department moved in the
fall of 1 891 .^^ The number of students in this School increased
so rapidly that another house. Music Annex Number Two, had
to be added."
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 6^
Both the art and music departments did excellent work, for
their faculties were of the first rank in their respective fields,
but their lack of any academic requirement for admission made
the standing of their students out of harmony with that of the
collegiates. In one of the early college papers we find the fol-
lowing questions and answers, showing how the students felt
about the matter: "First Girl — Are you in the Latin School?
Second Girl — No; I am collegiate in everything. First Girl —
What do you study? Second Girl — oh! I take art."^" Action
of the Board of Control in January 1893, requiring students in
art and music to matriculate in full and pursue work in one col-
lege course as well, brought the work up to full collegiate stand-
ing and gave general satisfaction.
In the annual program for 1893, the statement was made
that the departments of art and music were intended only for
regular students who wished to add these subjects to their
other studies; according to a previous ruling, such students
were required to take five years to obtain their degrees. ^^ The
general art course in the School of Art was arranged for degree
and special students, who could take it without additional
charge and were strongly recommended to do so.^- Certain
other courses in the schools of art and music could be credited
toward the degree."
The schools of music and art continued until 1902-1903. In
the fifteenth annual program, 1 902-1 903, appeared the state-
ment: "Courses in music and art will no longer be offered.
Resident students who may wish to pursue these subjects will
be directed to suitable instructors, but all arrangements must
first receive the approval of the Dean."
Happily, a few years before the special school of art was
given up the study of art in a different way came permanently
into the regular curriculum of the College: in 1895 there was
introduced a required course, counting toward the degree, in
art appreciation and art criticism, in charge of Dr. Froelicher.
66 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
In Kalends, October 1896, the students expressed their satis-
faction :
The demand for such a course indicates in the student body a growing
desire for broader culture and the developing appreciation of the power of
art.
We are very fortunate in being in a city where we can hear the music and
can study the paintings of the most celebrated artists, with the Peabody
Conservatory and Walter's Art Gallery at our command; especially are we
fortunate in having as our lecturer Professor Hans Froelicher.
The oft expressed desire of the students for work of similar
standing in music had to wait many years for its gratification;
it was not until the administration of President Robertson
that courses in the history and appreciation of music were
introduced.''*
First Commencement
Four years after the College opened, the first class was ready
to be graduated, June 1892, and the approach of the time for
the first commencement brought decisions on several subjects
that had been under consideration.
Caps and gowns had been talked about in 1890-91, and the
students were eager for their adoption. The college authori-
ties were considering it: "A report on the cap and gown ques-
tion was received from a member of the students' committee.
It was voted: That we write to Girton and Newnham Colleges
to ask what kind of a gown, if any, the undergraduates of these
colleges wear, and that we request that a cap and gown of the
approved order be sent over for our benefit. The Dean was
appointed to undertake this business. "^^ There is no record
of what happened in relation to the models from Cambridge,
but on May 5 it was moved that the graduates be allowed to
wear the A.B. gown,^^ and on June 7 it was decided by vote
that the gown for the undergraduates be that usually worn by
a bachelor of art, that the bachelor's hood have a cowl lined
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 67
with dark blue and edged with gold, that the A.M. gown be
the regular Oxford gown with the hood lined with dark blue
and edged with gold."
The Class of 1892 was graduated in caps and gowns but they
had not used them in their undergraduate days. They were
made by a local clothing firm, "But for some reason did not
arrive until the procession was entering the church and the
organ playing the appropriate march. Dean Van Meter, with
quick thought, seized the box and the graduates, and hurried
us into a small room somewhere near the entrance. Gowns
were soon put on, but what to do with the caps. The Dean
focused directions upon me as to bows, tassel, and more bows
(five in all), as I was to receive the first diploma and the others
could follow me. ... I did not stumble up the steps, nor bow
to the wrong personages, nor lose my cap coming down the
steps, so I suppose I did what the Dean told me to do.''^^
For that first diploma a seal had to be decided on. On legal
documents the College had used a seal devoid of symbolism
and of motto. In November and December 1891, the Board
of Control had been concerned with the matter of a distinctive
seal and a motto for the College, but had made no headway.
Dr. Goucher, on one of his numerous trips to New York,
worked on the question of a seal as he journeyed. As he was
fond of thinking of the triple powers to be trained by educa-
tion — body, mind, and soul — he selected the triangle to embody
them; as he was a firm believer in passing on to others any bless-
ings that were received, he placed rays of light emanating from
the three sides of the triangle as indicative of service rendered
through education. Finally, he chose for the seal a motto: I
Thessalonians, Chap. 5, V. 23.^9 The date when the charter
wasobtained, i885,wasplacedupontheseal. Thereis no record
when the design for the seal was finally completed; it was,
however, in readiness for the diplomas of the first class, to
which the seals were attached "without a ribbon. "so
In May, the Board of Control decided that the diplomas were
68 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
to be of parchment, thirteen by sixteen inches in size, the word-
ing was to be in English, and Professor Butler and Professor
Hopkins were appointed to prepare a formula for the conferring
of degrees. It was further ruled that the faculty present the
candidates for this year, and Dr. Alice Hall Chapman was
chosen to represent the faculty. On May 27 the five candi-
dates for the first degree were voted on, and it was ruled, at
the suggestion of Professor Butler, that they should receive
their degrees in the order of their matriculation and not alpha-
betically. Since the first student to enroll was Mabel Carter,
a non-graduate, the second, Harriet Stratton Ellis of the Class
of '92, according to this ruling, was the first woman to receive
her degree from the College.
The commencement events, apart from the activities of the
graduating class, presented considerable variety. On May 31,
the music pupils of Miss Cecilia Gaul gave a creditable recital
in the chapel; on Friday, June 3, the chemical and biological
departments united in giving a reception and exhibition to their
friends; on Saturday, June 4, came the first Alto Dale Day;
on Tuesday, June 7, at five o'clock, in the First Methodist
Episcopal Church, certificates were given to seven students
who had completed a four-year course of instruction in the
School of Art and to sixteen who had finished the two years of
work in the department of elocution. In the evening a recep-
tion was given by the art students, an interesting feature of
which was a private view of the work done in the studio in the
last year.^i There was none to receive a diploma in the School
of Music.
The baccalaureate sermon was preached by President
Goucher on Sunday, June 5. On Monday evening a reception
was given to the seniors by the juniors in the Music Annex on
the corner of Calvert and Twenty-third Streets.
Wednesday, Class Day, brought the customary exercises,
though they were the first in the history of the Woman's Col-
lege. The president of 1 892, Anna Heubeck, made the opening
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 69
address. Harriet S. Ellis was prophet, Stella McCarty his-
torian, and Anna L. Cole the poet. After the exercises a sprig
of ivy from the plant brought by President Goucher from the
grave of John Wesley was planted by the seniors on the lawn
by the side of the president's office. The oration was given
by Katherine Haven HiUiard.
On Thursday, June 9, commencement was held in the First
Methodist Episcopal Church at eleven o'clock. The faculty
and students assembled in Goucher Hall and marched from
there to the church, the undergraduates in double file leading
the way. Before entering the church the sophomores and
freshmen separated to form a long avenue through which the
candidates for the degree walked, preceded by the juniors as a
guard of honor. After the candidates came President Goucher
and Dean Van Meter, the visitors who were to take part in the
exercises, and lastly, the faculty. The candidates "wore for
the first time the flowing black gown and carried in their hands
the regulation A.B. mortar-board caps, which were not to be
donned until they had been invested with the coveted title. "^^
The orator of the day was Bishop Charles H. Fowler. The
opening prayer was offered by Bishop Cyrus D. Foss.^^ He
was followed by President Goucher, who made a statement of
the growth, material equipment, and needs of the College.
"This occasion," he said, "marks for the Woman's College
the beginning of years. Hitherto it has promised to be.
Today it is. . . . We offer as testimony that the aim of the Col-
lege is quality and not quantity the fact that with nearly 400
students and four years of decided success we admit today but
five to the degree of A.B. "^^
In the evening, the commencement events closed with a
faculty reception in Goucher Hall to the graduates.
In a Baltimore paper of the period, some comments on the
commencement exercises are in lighter vein:
Seated on the platform were Dr. Alice Hall . . ., President Goucher, and
the faculty. To the left was stationed Jungnickel's orchestra, which with
yo THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
waltz and polka kept the students' feet in motion as they marked time to
the sweet strains. The college girls, who were attired for the most part in
light summer silks and pancake hats, occupied the center section of the
church, while around the outside was filled with friends and relatives. . . .
(The graduates) were not burdened with flowers as is generally the case at
commencements, but no doubt would have received wagon loads had not
these A.B.'s put their feet squarely down and said "No flowers" — sensible
girls.
The commencement exercises continued to be held in the
First Methodist Episcopal Church until 1897, when, the growth
of the institution requiring a larger place, they were held on
three successive years in the Lyceum Theatre on North Charles
Street. In 1900 the ceremonies were held in the Mt. Vernon
Place Methodist Episcopal Church. Ini90ibegan the custom of
holding the commencement in the Lyric,^^ which has continued
to the present time. On a few occasions, however, circum-
stances made it necessary to use another place. *^ The program
has always been simple, consisting of an address by a speaker
of distinction, the conferring of degrees, and a statement by the
president.
President Goucher's commencement statements described
the progress which the College had made during the year and
set forth its opportunities and necessities. Usually the latter
consisted of a plea for funds. His address in 1897 furnishes an
example of the methods he used in trying to secure gifts from
groups. He said:
This may be the time and place to correct a serious misapprehension con-
cerning the Woman's College, the prevalence of which has interfered with
our growth. Because the College has not been compelled to make repeated
appeals for emergency funds to relieve threatened embarrassment, it is
assumed to be rich, able to carry on its work, and provide for the necessary
enlargement for its growing attendance without special assistance. This
is a great mistake. The College, like many a maiden fair, is well connected
and respectable, but poor. She maintains correct style, but practices rigid
economy, and often times she has to deny herself what seem to be the neces-
sities of institutional life. She has never obtruded her necessities upon her
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 7I
admirers and kinsfolk, preferring their generous impulses should anticipate
her wants rather than seeking relief through importunity. . . .
College Day
In the early days, in addition to the pubHc ceremony at
commencement time, the College had also one other special
celebration each year, usually in November and commemora-
tive of the formal opening — College Day. The program often
occupied two days and included meetings of the Board of
Trustees, visits to classes and buildings by representatives of
several conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, social
functions, an address by a distinguished visitor, and on some
occasions the laying of a cornerstone or the dedication of a new
building. Started in the administration of President Hopkins,
this custom was continued until 1898.
In the first year of Dr. Goucher's administration the College
Day exercises on October 28, 1890, were held at noon in the
First Methodist Episcopal Church. There was a statement
regarding the College and its needs, made by Dr. Goucher, and
an address on "The Influence of the Women's Colleges on
Society and the Home," by Alice Freeman Palmer. The
ceremony was followed by a dinner at the Boarding Hall to
trustees, guests, and delegates from the faculty. There had
been no formal inauguration ceremony when Dr. Goucher
became president, but in the evening of this College Day there
was a reception in his honor given by the Trustees to the
Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church (then in session
in Baltimore), to citizens, and to conference visitors. For the
reception five hundred invitations were issued.*^
The strong impression made upon the students is reflected
in the account of the occasion published in the November
issue of Kalends:
College day was a great success . . . never before have we seen so much
college spirit in our institution. ... Six collegiate students acted as ushers,
72 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
and wearing the college colors in a graceful rosette with streamers, courte-
ously showed the guests to comfortable seats. . . . Mrs. Palmer said "I have
come to bring the greetings from all the older colleges to our youngest sister,
and to congratulate you on your wonderful success during the past three
years. . . ."
The pride of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the College
is seen in the report prepared by Frank Mason North for the
sixteen conference visitors representing several conferences at
this College Day celebration. Dr. North, writing to Dr.
Goucher, December ii, 1890, says, "It was a satisfaction ... to
find that our great church was able to be great in the direction
of the Woman's College."
The student account in Kalends of the College Day exer-
cises of November i, 1894, is as follows:
In the evening exercises were held in First Church, to which our friends
were invited and which we attended in a body. At the conclusion of the
scholarly address on "College Environments," delivered by Dr. Lester
Ward, Paleontologist of the Smithsonian Institution, Dr. Goucher announced
that we would retire to the Biological Laboratory, the gift of Mr. Bennett,
to witness its dedication by Bishop Warren. Church doors passed, the
pent-up enthusiasm of the girls vented itself in yells — college and class —
ending with three re-echoing cheers for Mr. Bennett. After the dedicatory
prayer we were free to inspect the new building and the collection of fossils,
about which Dr. Ward in his lecture had spoken as rare and interesting —
the collection made by Mr. Bibbins, curator of our museum. ^^
In addition to the address by Dr. Ward at the evening meet-
ing, brief talks were given by Governor Patterson of Pennsyl-
vania, a member of the Board of Trustees, and by Dr. Charles
B. Mitchell and Dr. Charles H. Smith.
Other College Day exercises were made memorable by
addresses by W. T. Harris,^^ Commissioner of Education of
the United States, and President Eliot of Harvard University,
who spoke on "The Happy Life.''^" The last College Day
exercises with an outside speaker were held on November 17,
1898, when an address on "Success in Life" was made by Mr.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 73
Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal.^^
Subsequently, the Trustees decided to discontinue this ex-
pense. ^^
Important Changes in Organization
There were important changes in the internal organization
of the College during President Goucher's administration. In
1 891 the Corporators (trustees), in place of the one organiza-
tion of the faculty, created two boards: the Board of Control
and the Board of Instruction, the first consisting of the presi-
dent and full professors of the College, with the principal of
the Latin School; the Board of Instruction, of the president,
professors, assistant professors, instructors, and lecturers of
the College and the principal and, for a year, the teachers of the
Girls' Latin School.^^ The last meeting of the faculty as a
whole was held on May 12, 1891, and the first meeting of the
Board of Control on April 18, 1891.5'' The Board of Instruc-
tion was the deliberative body of the faculty, and the Board of
Control the legislative and administrative.
Two important administrative decisions were made early
in 1 891-92. President Goucher was planning several journeys.
Consequently, at an Executive Committee meeting on Septem-
ber 7, 1 891, the President was authorized to call on or delegate
Dr. J. B. Van Meter to perform any work appertaining to his
office during his absence or otherwise. ^^ Thus Dr. Van Meter
became virtually the vice president of the College, though the
title was not bestowed upon him. Many times and on many
occasions during the subsequent years he exercised such au-
thority. Another important office was bestowed upon him at
the annual meeting of the Trustees, November 4, 1891, when
they acted favorably on the recommendation contained in the
president's report that the position of dean of the College be
created and that Dr. Van Meter be elected to the position.
Dr. Van Meter set up his office and began his deanship January
I, 1892.
While the President was struggling with financial problems,
74 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Dean Van Meter was giving wise guidance to the development
of the internal administration of the College. His apprecia-
tion of its need is shown in his report to President Goucher,
dated October 31, 1895, in which he said:
The time has arrived in the growth of the institution when careful or-
ganization is absolutely necessary to its healthful growth, and for the com-
fort of those who are working therein. A condition of things in which each
member of an institution holds himself in readiness to do whatever he can do
or is called on to do for the benefit of the institution is ideally perfect, but,
like most ideals, beyond reach. The attempt to realize it brings about col-
lisions, frictions, loss of time and temper and results in the less conscientious
shirking their duties, while the more conscientious are burdened. Practi-
cally, a close organization with carefully differentiated spheres of responsi-
bility, to be observed by the subordinate and respected by the superior, is
most promotive of the welfare of the institution and the efficiency and happi-
ness of co-laborers. This has never been brought about in this institution.
It has drifted largely with its officers scarcely knowing what was expected of
them until requirements have been made, and then they were often doubtful
whether what has been required ought to be demanded. I suggest that steps
be taken to remedy this defect.
One of the departments of the College becoming well or-
ganized was the office of the registrar, of which Dr. Van Meter
says:
Some valuable work has been accomplished during the past year in the
registration department. A new system of preserving and presenting the
records of the work accomplished by the students has been put into effect.
Charts upon the new system have been prepared for the college as it is now
constituted, and it is purposed to present the work of former students in the
same manner, as far as it may be found practicable, and as soon as the time
can be spared for it from more pressing matters. I take this opportunity
of saying that the work of registration with its inescapable accessories has
reached proportions which seem to require the individual attention of a
competent person.
Until 1903, however, the position of registrar was more a secre-
tarial than an executive one. The registrar did secretarial
and stenographic work for the dean, while carrying on the
routine work of the registrar. But when Dr. Maltbie was
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER
75
made registrar in 1903, he effected an organization independent
of the dean's office, also introducing modern methods of record
keeping and office procedure. During his incumbency the
position was recognized as an administrative one, and the
registrar as an administrative officer of the College. In 1907
Dr. Maltbie resigned, and Carrie Mae Probst, '04, who had
been assistant registrar, was appointed to succeed him. Upon
the excellent foundation laid by Dr. Maltbie, she expanded
and developed the work to meet the changing needs of the
College. 9«
In the registrar's office a monthly publication of the College,
Bulletin of the Woman's College of Baltimore, was started in
January 1905. The Executive Committee of the Board of
Trustees decided to spend five hundred dollars to try the
experiment for one year.^^ It met with success and was con-
tinued until October 1906, under the able editorship of Dr.
William H. Maltbie. The first number contained statements
about entrance requirements, expenses, college life, and the
value of college training. The Bulletin was sent to seniors in a
large number of secondary schools, and many institutions asked
for copies of it. The circulation of this publication amounted
to about five thousand copies. In January 1907, the title of
"Bulletin" was adopted as that under which all official publica-
tions of the College were issued.
Another move toward better organization was made when
Dean Van Meter, at the meeting of the Board of Control in
October 1899, proposed that a committee be appointed to draw
up a plan for organizing the boards of the College, especially
the Board of Control, with reference to standing committees.
In accordance with this recommendation there were set up four
standing committees with carefully defined duties: on admis-
sions; on awarding fellowships, scholarships, and the second
degree; on public functions and social occasions; on the library.
In 1 901 the standing committees were increased to eight.
In 1900, Dean Van Meter represented the College at a meet-
ing at Columbia University for the establishment of a Joint
76 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
College Admission Board of the Middle States and Mary-
land and later he met with the subcommittee of the College
Entrance Examination Board, which had been organized that
year. The Board of Control accepted the plan of organization
of the College Entrance Examination Board, agreed to send
a representative to its meetings, and consented to accept its
definitions but not to use its examinations as the only basis
of admission. ^^ By 1905, this College Entrance Examination
Board consisted of representatives from preparatory schools
and from twenty-seven colleges, of which the Woman's College
was one.^^
In 1896-97 the first small beginning was made of what is now
a well organized department of the college — the Bureau of
Appointments and Vocational Guidance. At this time Dean
Van Meter suggested the advisability of the establishment of a
Bureau of Information in connection with the College by which
graduates could be brought into relation with applicants for
teachers, and to this end he moved in the Board of Control
that "in the interest of our graduates we undertake to corre-
spond with schools that may be in need of teachers."^"" For
a number of years a Teachers' Bureau was maintained by the
Dean and Registrar to assist the alumnae in every possible way
in securing positions. ^"^
Toward the close of President Goucher's administration some
of the strict regulations of the residence halls were beginning
to be relaxed. That Dr. Van Meter was working toward this
end can be seen in his report to the President in 1904, when he
made a plea for changes in the rules regulating the hours for
retiring and for closing the halls."-
During this administration also, important beginnings were
made in the organization of the alumnae. In the spring of
1893, Dr. Goucher told the president of the first class that
he wanted the alumnae to be represented on the Board of
Trustees. Steps were immediately taken to form an alumnae
association.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER
77
At the close of the commencement exercises of the second
class, Tuesday, June 13, 1893, the Class of '92 entertained
President Goucher, Professor Boyesen of Columbia University,
the commencement orator, who had spoken on "George Eliot,"
and the Class of '93 at a luncheon in Room 14, Goucher Hall.
After the luncheon the fifteen graduates of the two classes held
a brief meeting at which the Alumnae Association of the
Woman's College of Baltimore was organized, its constitution
adopted, its officers elected, and one of its number, Anna Heu-
beck, nominated for membership on the Board of Trustees.
A motion had been passed recommending the Trustees to
nominate each year from the alumnae of the College a new
trustee.io^ Thus was President Goucher's idea carried out,
and the alumnae had bestowed upon them a privilege for which
the women in some other colleges had to work through many
years.
Not only was there the general organization of the alumnae,
but on May 16, 1899, the Baltimore Chapter was formed, and
by the end of Dr. Goucher's administration there were chapters
in Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and
Chicago. In 1938 there were thirty-four local organizations of
the alumnae, known as Goucher Clubs.
Academic Changes
The minutes of the Faculty and of the Board of Control
show that much time during the last three months of the year
1890-91 was given to the discussion of a new study scheme with
the problems of electives and of the requirements in Latin,
mathematics, science, and modern languages occupying an
important place. At first, the scholastic year was divided
mto three terms, and there were many examinations, though
without a formal examination week. Great care in the over-
sight of students was observed; instructors filed with the
Dean a written report of the progress of each of their stu-
dents at Christmas, at Easter vacation, and at the end of
78 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
the year;^"^ and increasing strictness in classification was
observed. It was ruled that students were not matriculated
until their deficiencies in meeting the entrance requirements
were made up, and no student was allowed to carry more than
one condition, except in the less important studies. The prob-
lem of the overwork of the students was often discussed by the
faculty members. At one time President Goucher suggested
that it might be well to consider a five-year course rather than
a four-year one. Before the end of 1890-91, in order to aid
the students, it was decided that each student should select
an adviser from the members of the faculty, the choice to be
approved by the President. If she failed to do this, an adviser
should be appointed by the President. ^"^ The students were
very serious in these early days and eager to take up heavy
schedules to supplement their inadequate preparation and to
satisfy their craving for knowledge. A student commented:
If there were any characteristic features of our college life which are
worthy of admiration, we cannot do any harm, and might revive our poor
drooping college spirit, by considering them. There is one which is es-
pecially noticeable, because it is not a common feature in either American or
foreign colleges. This is the amount of hard work that is done by all the
students. There is no differentiation into the "fast set" and the "digs."
The general atmosphere is studious, of course, but the atmosphere in which
each student moves is also studious. There is not by any means a dead
level either of dullness or brilliancy, but every one, dull or brilliant, studies.^"®
At the meeting of the Board of Control in October 1893, the
questions of overcrowded schedules were considered. Dr.
Froelicher wrote many years later:
The first Goucher faculty consisted of young men and women or of such
as were in early middle age. It was inspiring to be part of it. Each one
was bent on doing his best, on making his department the best in the Col-
lege. Teachers were exacting in demands on their students, but they were
equally exacting in their demands on themselves. Out of this ambition
arose, of course, the danger of overworking the students, and from time to
time we had to come to terms with each other and learn to respect each
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 79
Others' claims on the time and vitality of our students. Serious danger to
the cause was overcome by successive schedules of intensive rather than
extensive curricula, courses being scheduled at one time for five hours weekly,
later for four hours weekly in each subject. This meant that a student could
not take more than three courses each semester while the schedule consisted
of five hour courses, or at most, four when it consisted of four hour courses. ^"^
By 1901-02 the three terms with which the Woman's College
started were changed to two semesters, and soon the inevitable
semi-annual examinations began. In 1904, for the first time,
a week was set aside for mid-year examinations.^"^ There was,
of course, no lack of comment among the students.^"'
Since the degree of A.M. was to be awarded by the College
for the first time in 1894, certain regulations were made in
reference to it. It was resolved that this degree should not
be given to any except graduates of the Woman's College
unless they spent a year in residence. ^^° Professor Hopkins
was appointed to draw a plan for the A.M. diploma. The
graduate students were to be distinguished from the under-
graduates by wearing a blue tassel on their caps.^^"^
The first student to receive the A.M. degree was Anna Lewis
Cole of the Class of 1892. There were never many students
working for this degree. In 1894 it was received by one stu-
dent; in 1895, two; in 1893, one; in 1899, two; in 1901, one;
in 1903, two; in 1904, one; in 1906, one; in 1907, one; in 1908,
one — thirteen in all. Of these, twelve were graduates of the
Woman's College. In June 1908, the granting of this degree
was discontinued on the ground that, since the candidates for
the degree took the same courses as undergraduates, they were
not pursuing work of a graduate character.^^^
A valuable privilege for the students was obtained during
1893-94. At the February meeting of the Executive Commit-
tee, the President was authorized to procure a student's table
in the Biological Laboratory at Wood's Hole, Massachusetts.
In March, Dr. Goucher reported to the Board of Control that
two tables had been secured, and the Board appointed Lydia
8o THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Van Meter, a special student, and Mary Owen Dean, a junior,
for the places.
At the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees on Novem-
ber 5, 1896, an important decision was made in the creation of
two fellowships for foreign study, each having a cash value of
$500, the first to be awarded in June 1898. This award was
made to Waunda Hartshorn, '98. In 1899, ^°t^ fellowships
were awarded by the College, one to an alumna and the other
to a member of the senior class. ^^^ This plan was followed for
some years, until the financial difficulties of the College neces-
sitated changes. Soon after the establishment of the fellow-
ships, a standing committee on fellowships was appointed con-
sisting of President Goucher, Dr. Welsh, and Dr. Froelicher.
The last year of President Goucher's administration, the
Alumnae Association began its award of the Dean Van Meter
Alumnae Fellov/ship.^^^
The year 1904-05 is notable for the establishment in the
Woman's College of a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. At the
triennial council of the United Chapters of the Phi Beta
Kappa Society held at Saratoga Springs in September 1904,
a charter was granted to the Woman's College of Balti-
more.^i^ Dr. Maltbie conducted the negotiations relative to
the application for the chapter.^^^ The organization of the
local chapter was in the hands of the Phi Beta Kappa members
of the college faculty — President Goucher, Dr. Hodell, Dr.
Metcalf, Dr. Maltbie, and Dr. Gates.^" These charter mem-
bers announced the election of thirty-two original members
from the list of five hundred and fifty-two alumnae, almost all
of whom had pursued graduate work since leaving the College.
From the senior class of 1905 with seventy members, nine
were chosen. The chapter, known as the Beta of Maryland
was installed on May 18, 1905. An address on "Ideals in a
Commercial Age" was delivered by Dr. Hamilton Wright
Mabie.^^8 In the years since the establishment of the chap-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER bl
ter many distinguished men and women have come to the
College as Phi Beta Kappa orators.
In one pioneer department, that of physical training, the
College took special pride. It is reflected in the report of the
conference visitors of 1891, in an address of President Goucher,
and in the college catalogue in which there is the following
statement: "The effects of this training upon students of the
Woman's College has been gratifying and sometimes surprising.
Its benefits appear very quickly in a more graceful poise, a
more erect carriage, a firmer and more elastic step, and a freer
movement. Students who in former years have been unable
to continue their studies through a whole year consecutively,
find themselves now able to do so with ease. In some cases
serious spinal curvature has rapidly yielded to proper treat-
ment and accompanying deformities have been corrected."^^^
Not only was the department appreciated within the college
circle, but as soon as the gymnasium opened it obtained the
favorable attention of educators. In a signed article in the
Baltimore Sun^ Dr. E. M. Hartwell, professor in physical
training and director of the gymnasium of the Johns Hop-
kins University, said, "The best equipped and organized gym-
nasium for girls and women in the entire country, so far as I
can learn, is the . . . gymnasium of the Woman's College. "^20
It was through this department also that the College had
its first intercollegiate contact. At what was considered the
most important meeting of its kind ever held in this country —
the Conference on Physical Training held in Boston at Thanks-
giving, 1889, at which Dr. W. T. Harris, United States Com-
missioner of Education, presided — the Woman's College of
Baltimore was represented, and Dr. Alice T. Hall, the head
of the department, made one of the addresses, explaining the
reasons why she had chosen the Swedish system as the basis
for gymnastic work.^^i
The effect of the Swedish system, which laid its stress upon
82 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
the development of the respiratory and circulatory systems,
rather than upon the muscular, fully justified the wisdom of
her choice, not only in the improved physical well-being of the
students, but also in the favorable effect on their work. In
those earliest days there was the same relation between excel-
lence in athletic work and academic standing that has obtained
since. President Goucher commented that an excellent idea
of the general standing of a student in the College could be
gained by a glance at her record in the gymnasium. ^22 ^^d
in quite recent years, among those who obtained honors for
sports, there were four who were elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
The rule making physical training obligatory was strictly
enforced, the Board of Control in 1891 ruHng that no student
be excused from gymnasium work. It was applied even to
students in music, and when there was a conflict between
music and physical training, the music had to give way.
The public interest in the excellent facilities for this work led
to constant application for instruction in the Swedish system
of gymnastics and of measurements. To meet this demand a
two-year normal course for teachers was arranged in 1893-94.
It was intended that the course would offer the same instruc-
tion as could be found at the Royal Central Institute at Stock-
holm. ^23 This, one of the few efforts of the College to offer
extension courses, did not meet with much success and was
soon given up.
In 1894, Dr. Lilian Welsh came to the College as professor
of physiology and hygiene and medical adviser. Previous to
her coming, this department had had various vicissitudes.
Dr. Alice J. Hall took charge in 1889. In 1891, she married
Dr. Chapman of the mathematics department of the Johns
Hopkins, but she remained at the College for one more year.
Dr. Mary V. Mitchell came in 1 892 and stayed until 1 894, when
she too was married. Dr. Froelicher wrote in Donnybrook
Fair, 1929: "It was then that Dr. Lilian Welsh was appointed
to what the Sun termed the Matrimonial Chair at Goucher.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 83
She broke the ban. For thirty years her brilliant mind, her
deeply scientific spirit, her strong personality, her pungent
wit, her frank criticism of the foibles of women (and men!),
her ceaseless labor, her sympathetic nature, built up one of the
great departments of Goucher College or of any College."
Dr. Welsh inaugurated at the Woman's College the first
unified department of physical education under which physical
training, together with scientific instruction in anatomy, physi-
ology, and hygiene were required of every student. Her work
along this line was pioneer work of which the College is justly
proud. Twenty years after her coming Dr. Welsh wrote as
follows of the department: "Goucher College at the time of
its organization took advanced ground in the teaching of hy-
giene and the relation of the College to the health of its stu-
dents. In other women's colleges, at that period, women
physicians were attached to the administration mainly for the
purpose of providing care for sick girls. Teaching was limited
to one hour a week in the freshman year — a few lectures on
personal hygiene. At the Woman's College, a woman physi-
cian was made head of a department of hygiene and this depart-
ment was made coordinate with other departments of the
College, its head having the rank and emoluments of a full
professor. The care of sick girls was made secondary to pre-
ventive work along educational and practical lines. The suc-
cess of this policy has never been seriously questioned, and
today other women's colleges are adopting some similar
plan."i24
The solicitude of the College in caring for the physical well-
being of the students led to an enviable record for health.
In 1908 the statement was made that "no contagious or infec-
tious disease has ever gained headway among the resident
students. Only two deaths have occurred among residents,
and in both these cases the student came from her home
with the sickness that terminated fatally."i25 The fact that
among the 596 alumnae of the College in 1906 there had been
84 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
only six deaths is further testimony to the wise attitude taken
by the institution toward the physical training of its students
and is also a refutation of the idea that four years of college
work has a tendency to impair the health of the student. ^^e
In reporting to the Trustees in 1900, President Goucher stated
that about 98 percent of the students improve in health from
the time of their entrance to that of graduation.
In another department also, the College did pioneering work.
In his report to the Trustees in 1893, President Goucher called
attention to the fact that the Woman's College of Baltimore
was the first college for women to provide through the year a
four-hour required course in political and social science. The
first undergraduate course on the subject of the family was
also given at Goucher College in 1917.^27 These courses,
taught by Professor T. P. Thomas, are among the important
"firsts" to which the College points with pride.
Student Interests
Of the student life of the nineties Professor Butler wrote:
The student life of the College reveals the presence of high ideals, power-
fully felt, and striven after earnestly. The spirit animating the students is
one of industry and progress. The College is pre-eminently a college for
work, a place in which serious women engage in arduous intellectual pursuits.
But while the college work stands first in the minds of all, the students make
it their own constant endeavor, by individual and organized effort, to
broaden out the college life and to enrich it in as many ways as possible.
The Social Science Club, the Young Women's Christian Association, The
College Settlements Association, the Biological Club, the Chemical Associa-
tion, the Art Club, the Schiller Kranzchen, the Glee Club, and other societies,
literary, athletic, and social (not to mention flourishing chapters of Greek-
letter fraternities) multiply opportunities for enjoyment and diversified
effort. The chief literary expression given to the life of the College is found
in the monthly paper, Kalends^ and in the college annual, Donnybrook Fair}"^^
In the chapter on "Student Life" a detailed account will
be found of the students' activities, organizations, and tradi-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 8C
tions, many of which began in President Goucher's administra-
tion. In the present chapter may be included a few items of
special interest to the students, though not originated by
them.
An important aspect of student interest in the early times
centered in the chapel service, which until 1899 was com-
pulsory.129 Since the College in those days had no place
for its own morning services, they were held in the Chapel
of the First Methodist Episcopal Church. A covered bridge
of wood connected Goucher Hall with that building. There
lectures, concerts, and other entertainments were likewise
given. Indeed it was only after the erection of Catherine
Hooper Hall in 1893 that the College possessed any other
auditorium. Chapel services continued in the First Methodist
building until the construction of the present chapel in Dr.
Guth's administration, but after 1893 the more secular events
were held in the auditorium of Catherine Hooper Hall, then
the Girls' Latin School. This was much smaller and less
attractive than the room into which it was remodeled in
1916.
For the first four years, the college chapel began at 8:45,130
but in September 1892, the time was changed to ten o'clock
for the convenience of students who Hved at a distance. In
the earliest years the most careful record of chapel attendance
was kept in the office. During one of the first years a student
proctor, stationed at the chapel door, had large cards on which
the matriculation numbers of all students were arranged in
due order. As each one came in, she called out her matricu-
lation number, which was duly checked. To this day one
of the students remembers her number in order of entrance
to the College because day after day she reported it to the
proctor.
In 1899, when attendance at chapel was made optional,
the Board of Control ruled that a college choir should be
formed, the earlier one having disbanded. This was done
86 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
under the leadership of Mrs. Shefloe. A choir has been
maintained to the present time.^^^ Various efforts to stimu-
late attendance at the chapel service were made by the
Y. W. C. A./32 by the Students' Organization, which instructed
the proctors to "speak to any one not found in chapel during
chapel hours,"^'^ and further by the Dean himself, of whom
Donnybrook Fair said: "Attendance upon chapel exercises is
not compulsory at the Woman's College, but the Dean some-
times encourages a few delinquents towards the better things,
as he takes a morning constitutional down the main hall."^34
An effort was made to induce not only the students to attend,
but also the faculty. When the President notified the mem-
bers of the faculty of their reelection he informed them that
they were expected to attend chapel regularly. ^^^
On their side, the students suggested ways in which the serv-
ice might be made more interesting — by music for entrance
and exit, by responsive readings, and by brief addresses by
the faculty or some noted person living in or near Baltimore.^^^
Through the Students' Organization they urged their mem-
bers to be less talkative and more reverent.^" They recorded
one month their pleasure in being addressed at chapel by the
Reverend John Timothy Stone, Dr. Curtis Lee Laws, and
Dr. Howard A. Kelly. "These services have become a real
pleasure to all, as new life is infused into them by the pro-
cessional and recessional music and the hearty singing of the
Glee Club."^^^ In 1906 the Students' Organization ruled
that students should wear academic costume to chapel every
Friday and that they should proceed to chapel by classes, the
seniors leading. During all of Dr. Goucher's administration
the hymn sung at the opening chapel each fall, as well as the
one always included in the commencement exercises, was
"Holy, Holy, Holy." It is associated with President Goucher,
as "Lead on, O King Eternal" is with President Guth.
In the fall of 1891, the names of the classes were changed
from first, second, third, and fourth collegiate to the more
usual freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. The attitude of
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 87
the Students toward this is reflected in an editorial in the
November Kalends: "Why should we not adopt the old ac-
cepted way of the world, since eccentricity is not here a virtue,
for we have no principle at stake but seemingly eccentricity
for its own sake alone." It is reported that the drooping
spirits of this season's entering collegiate class at being as-
signed seats in chapel that they did not like were somewhat
revived by having Dr. Van Meter address the class of '95
as the "Freshman Class." There was practically no dis-
tinction between classes until a well remembered day in
June 1 891, when Dr. Van Meter announced the names of the
five who would be the real seniors in rank.^^^ When the Col-
lege opened in 1888 it offered the studies of the freshman year
only. With each succeeding year the advanced studies were
added, until in 1891-92 it was giving the full college course
of four years. ^^^
Interesting lecturers came to the College during the first
year of Dr. Goucher's presidency. Professor R. G. Moulton,
who later taught at the University of Chicago, spoke twice
on the "Literary Study of the Bible." Professor R, N. Rogers
of Dickinson College gave two lectures on "Assyrian and
Babylonian Archaeology," and Dr. James M. Buckley of
New York lectured twice on "Practical Hints for Mental
Culture. "^^^ The public lectures were especially appreciated
by the students of this early period because they had few or-
ganizations and few extracurriculum activities. They also
served a useful purpose in interesting the people of Baltimore
in the new college. They were usually held in the late after-
noon, and were well attended.
Indeed, all through Dr. Goucher's administration, the col-
lege community was stimulated by the visits of lecturers from
outside. Some years later — in 1901-02 — a student com-
mented on them:
We value very highly among our privileges our unusual number of fine
lectures. Among the varied subjects, literary, biological, sociological,
everyone finds what is of special interest or special aid in her chosen work.
88 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
But all are certainly interesting and instructive, and this is realized by the
students more than ever before, it seems, by the good, indeed crowded,
attendance upon each lecture. This broadening element of a college course
is quite as important, we must rightly know, as the regular daily work, and
usual outside club and society interests.^^^
The students also enjoyed lectures given by members of the
faculty — Dean Van Meter, Professor Butler, Professor Froe-
licher, and Professor Shefloe in the early times. In 1903-04 two
courses of public lectures given by members of the faculty
attracted the attention of the outside world as well as of the
college community. With a series on "The History of Art,"
Dr. Froelicher began wielding an influence which, throughout
the rest of his life, was to be important in fostering the interest
of the people of Baltimore in that subject. The other course
of lectures on "The Theory of Organic Evolution" was given
by Dr. Metcalf in such form as to appeal not only to students
of science but also to those whose primary bent was in other
directions. ^^^ Dr. Metcalf's lectures, together with his book.
An Outline of the 'Theory of Organic Evolution, led to a storm
of popular criticism and much newspaper controversy.^**
But the administration stood firmly for the principle of aca-
demic freedom in this department as well as in that for the
study of the Bible, which also incurred its share of outside
censure. The students were further stimulated by hearing
of the experiences of faculty members who travelled. Dr.
Charles C. Blackshear, professor of chemistry, gave talks il-
lustrated by his own photographs of oriental architecture.— a
subject that later entirely absorbed him. President Goucher
frequently shared with the students his intimate knowledge of
conditions in Mexico, the Near East, and the Orient, gained
through his extensive travels. On his return from Mexico
the students "listened to a charming little talk by our Presi-
dent. ... So real were the pictures he reproduced for us from
his own recollections of that country, that we would fain
treasure up for future enjoyment this 'yarrow' of un visited
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 89
delights. "^"^ In 1895, ^^^er spending two months in Egypt,
he lectured on the Near East, exhibiting at the same time a
beautiful collection of photographs which he had brought home
with him.i''s From these two trips President Goucher brought
back valuable additions to the college museum which, on
the second floor of Goucher Hall, had begun to grow and to
attract the attention of the students. From the trip to
Egypt he secured many things of historical interest at great
trouble and expense. A contemporary paper gives the fol-
lowing account:
The Woman's College has come into possession of two mummies secured
by President Goucher during last winter's visit to Egypt. They were taken
from the tombs at Fayum on the Nile and are identified with the Ptolemaic
era. One of them is a full-grown woman of the plainer class, coffined after
ancient Egyptian custom. The other is that of a girl, supposed from the
decorations upon it, to be connected with some early royal family . . . The
two speciments were obtained by President Goucher through the assistance
of Brugsch Bey, director of the museum at Gizeh near the pyramids, the
repository of the most important Egyptian relics gathered during the years
1885-1895.1*7
Subsequently, the royal mummy was identified as a princess
of the 2 1st dynasty and the other as a middle class woman
of the Ptolemaic period.
On Dr. Goucher's return from his oriental trip in 1897-98
and again in 1906-07 he lectured to the college community
and brought back valuable and interesting objects for the
museum, including some ancient manuscripts, coins, and
armor, as well as shells, sponges, and corals.^^^ And as a
result of his meeting with Lord Elgin, with whom he had spent
a morning discussing educational matters, the library was
presented with a collection of rare works on India.
One of the subjects of interest to the students of the nineties
was woman's sufl^rage. Faculty champions were to be found
on both sides. Two centers of discussion were the sophomore
class in physiology and hygiene and the class in sociology.
90 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The following account of a class debate shows what deep
feeling there was:
The professor of sociology at the Woman's College created unusual ex-
citement among the students yesterday by announcing that the subject of
debate for a certain hour would be "Woman Suffrage."
The members of the sociological class were the only ones supposed to
participate in the debate, and they alone were entitled to vote on the ques-
tion. But their excitement over the debate kindled the interest of the other
girls, who crowded into the classroom and eagerly took in the proceedings.
Each girl of the class was allowed a two-minute speech, but each one felt
that she could speak for hours and endeavored to crowd into the two minutes
an appalling amount of condensed eloquence. The auditors applauded or
murmured disapproval, and at one time broke into a resounding hiss at the
expression of opinion on the part of a mild maiden, who said she coincided
with a popular belief that "women are guided by sentiment, not reason."
This was too much for the rest of the cap-and-gown sisterhood at large, and
their excitement reached the boiling point.
The girls who did not favor woman suffrage spoke of "woman's sphere,"
of the possibility of participation in politics destroying womanliness, and of
the fear that the voting woman would not look after her husband's comfort
sufficiently. They argued that with woman suffrage the home would be
neglected and the children left to wash their own faces, that women in general
were not educated up to politics, and that the best women would not be
voters.
The advocates of woman suffrage swooped down on their opponents with
an avalanche of arguments.
"What is this talk about sphere?" cried they. "What is this sickly sen-
timentality about sentiment and reason? Woman's sphere is not fixed
immutably. A thousand years ago it was wholly different from the sphere
of today. Then it was not consistent with woman's sphere to learn to read
and write. A thousand years from now there will be another sphere. The
proper sphere of woman is in doing what is right. When you say that
women are not fit to vote and that men are, you admit that we are inferior
to Coxey's raiders. We are not educated up to it, you say? Well, let us
educate ourselves. You say that the good women will not vote. Nonsense!
The good women will be the ones to see the advantages of suffrage, and even
if illiterate women join in, are there no illiterate men voters? As to the
home, a visit to the polls will not be any more an interruption of duties
there than it is to the business men."
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 9I
And so the debate continued, pro and con, until when the vote was taken
a tie was the result.
After the class-hour the students continued the discussion in the corridors,
and the excitement was greater than it had been since the day of President
Cleveland's election, when the girls voted on the tickets."^
Some years later, when the Woman's National Suffrage
convention met in Baltimore, a request was presented to the
Board of Control that the students of the College, attired in
cap and gown, be permitted to act as ushers on College Eve-
ning. The request was granted.i^o At the time. Dr. Goucher
was away on one of his trips, and Dr. Van Meter was in
charge of the College. Of what happened at a subsequent
meeting of the Board, Dr. Welsh tells the following story:
After the business of the meeting had been transacted, Dr. Goucher took
from the table what I recognized as an advance program of the suffrage
convention. He was not in sympathy with the suffrage movement, and his
views were shared by the majority of the professors . . . Very quietly but
with evidence of some feeling he said: "I have in my hand a program of the
suffrage convention to be held in Baltimore which states that on Wednesday
evening students of the College will act as ushers in cap and gown. I should
like to know who is responsible for this statement." For a minute there was
a tense silence, then Dr. Van Meter said: "I am responsible. This will be
an important occasion for college women. Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Smith,
Mount Holyoke will be represented on the program by prominent members
of their respective faculties. The Woman's College of Baltimore should
have a place on this program and I have taken the liberty of selecting a
representative group of our students to act as ushers." The deed was
done, and the unwisdom of withdrawing permission was so obvious that no
action was taken. Not only did the students turn out in a body on college
evening, but Dr. Van Meter was on the platform to deliver the invocation
with which the meeting opened.^^^
In the spring of 1898 and through 1898-99, the life of the
College was somewhat influenced by the Spanish-American
War. The students wore silk flag badges or buttons, dis-
cussed war reports between classes and in the residence halls,
and sang patriotic songs. Some of them protested against
pi THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
the Spanish flag "that still holds its place among the flags
of all nations as a decoration of the language classroom."
In a chapel talk Dean Van Meter said:
Our country's flag is afloat to denote our loyalty, but the attitude of the
College is one of regret that the government considers war as a necessity.
For myself I do not consider war a necessity, and feel that it is to be deplored
that in these days of advanced ethical ideas and means for the adjustment of
social problems, instead of arbitration, the nations resort to the methods
of primitive civilization to settle national disputes. So we continue to teach
Spanish in our College but are loyal and not demonstratively warlike.'^"
At another time Dean Van Meter, having learned that some
of the students were anxious about their safety in Baltimore
during the war, "allayed their fears by some wise and witty
remarks at chapel. . . . President Goucher followed with a few
remarks regarding the safety of Baltimore. "^^^
Interest in the war awakened in the students a desire for a
larger knowledge of current events, and this found expression
in the setting up of a new bulletin board, upon which was
displayed a digest of news of the world. ^^^ And on Class
Day 1899, the president of the seniors, Elizabeth Freeman
Barrows, spoke thus of the influence of the conflict:
Stirring national events have marked our course and the distant clash
of arms has awakened sympathetic echoes in our little secluded world.
Whether we believe in territorial expansion or not, discussions of these
questions have expanded our knowledge of men and countries little known
before, have given us an insight into international relations, and have taught
us something of the meaning of the "White Man's Burden."
It is interesting to note that the Woman's College joined
with the rest of the world in marking the death of Queen
Victoria, and on January 29, 1901, a memorial service arranged
by a committee of the Dean, Dr. Hodell, and Dr. Thomas was
held in the chapel, which was crowded with faculty and stu-
dents. Addresses were made on "Historical Aspects of Queen
Victoria's Reign," on "Victoria the Woman," on "Literature
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 93
of the Victorian Period," and on "Social Aspects of Queen
Victoria's Reign." The College Glee Club sang Kipling's
"Recessional," and the president of the Class of 1904, Ten-
nyson's "Crossing the Bar."
Necrology
Shortly after College Day 1894, a great loss came to the
College in the death, on November 8, of Professor William
Curns Lawrence Gorton. This was the first death among the
faculty since the College opened in 1888. There is a bio-
graphical sketch of Dr. Gorton, written by Professor Butler,
in Donnybrook Fair, 1896. Dr. Gorton, in addition to his
work as professor of mathematics and astronomy, served the
College in other ways, especially in helping to organize it in
the days when there was no dean. The last thing he did for
the College was to serve as acting dean during the illness of
Dean Van Meter in 1894. The affection and esteem in which
he was held by the students is expressed in the tribute paid
to him in Dr. Butler's article. On February 3, 1895, a por-
trait of Dr. Gorton was presented to the College by the fac-
ulty, and it has hung in the mathematics room. The alumnae
also showed their esteem for Professor Gorton by establish-
ing the Gorton Memorial Fund, the income of which was to
be used for books, periodicals, or equipment for the depart-
ment of mathematics and astronomy. This gift, completed
in 1901 and amounting to ^1065.10, marked the first effort of
the Alumnae Association to contribute money to the College
for a fixed purpose. Year after year the use of the income is
reported to the Association by the chairman of the mathe-
matics department. In the long stretch of the years it has
been of genuine use to the department.
Later in the same year, 1894-95, the College suffered
another loss in the death, on February 28, 1895, °^ ^^- Lyttle-
ton F. Morgan, the president of the Board of Trustees for
94 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
five years and one of the most devoted friends of the College.
By the terms of the will of Dr. Morgan, the Woman's College
was the principal legatee.^" This legacy gave the College its
first endowed chair, which was known as the Morgan Pro-
fessorship for the Promotion of the Study of the Bible in the
English Version and was devised by Dr. Morgan as a memorial
to his deceased wife, Susan Dallam Morgan to whom he was
tenderly attached. This bequest, added to the other gifts
made during his lifetime, made a total endowment of sixty
thousand dollars. Dean Van Meter, in an address made
November 1899, at the time of the presentation of Dr. Mor-
gan's portrait to the College referred thus to the way in which
the money for this first endowment had been accumulated:
Dr. Morgan possessed the peculiar business traits which favor the amas-
sing of money and Mrs. Morgan's assistance and inspiration were helpful
here as in the matter of his studies. Down to the time of the Civil War,
while he had occupied some of the most conspicuous pulpits of the Confer-
ence, he had never received a salary exceeding $900 a year. He lived simply
but comfortably; he was generous to those in need; he moved in good society;
he contributed systematically and even largely, for his circumstances, to
all the benevolences of the church in which he was interested. Yet by the
time he had reached three score and ten he had gathered a modest compe-
tence of about eighty thousand dollars.
During the later part of the summer of 1900, the college
community lost a valued member in the sudden death on
August 9 of Professor William H. Shelley, principal of the
Girls' Latin School from the time of its organization in 1890
until his death and member of the Board of Control of the
College during his principalship. With his death, the repre-
sentation of the Girls' Latin School on the Board ceased.
President Goucher, in his report to the Trustees, paid this
tribute to Professor Shelley: "He had completed forty years
of successful work as an educator, was a man of excellent
qualities, and greatly beloved. The imprint of his influence
will abide in the minds of thousands who have been under
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 95
his instruction." In his will Professor Shelley left a bequest
to the College of $10,000 for the endowment of four scholar-
ships.
In the early part of 1902-03, we find in the report of the
Dean and of the Board of Trustees intimations of a great
sorrow that was to come to the College. Dr. Van Meter
closed his report to the President with a sentence referring
to the "circumstances that hamper your activity and cloud
your happiness at the beginning of this session, . . . and . . .
asking too, as a favor, that you will let me lighten your
burdens wherever I can."
The Trustees took the following action:
The Board of Trustees desire to place on record its profound appreciation
of Dr. Goucher's great services to the Woman's College and to the church,
and profound regret at his illness and that of his devoted wife. The Board
earnestly hopes for the full and speedy recovery of both, and to this end gives
the President entire freedom from services and duties so far as he can se-
cure it.
For several years Mrs. Goucher had been in failing health,
but only a few of the many who loved and admired her knew
that her life was nearing its end. To many of the members
of the Woman's College it came as a great shock when Dean
Van Meter at chapel, on December 19, 1902, the day before
the holidays, brought the sad announcement of Mrs. Goucher's
death.166 Her funeral service at Alto Dale was simple and
impressive, and in Druid Ridge Cemetery, which had once
been a part of the Turner Farm, her body was laid to rest,
near the spot where many years before she had first met Dr.
Goucher.
Of the many loving tributes paid to her memory we may
select one from Kalends:
One of the best loved friends of the College has passed into the Peace
beyond all earthly dignities.
In the sorrow felt by everyone in the College who was ever associated
with Mrs. Goucher there is an unusual uplifting element, for with the full
g6 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
realization of our loss there comes a deepened consciousness of the privilege
that has been ours in having felt the inspiring influence of her gentle pres-
ence among us.
The art of right-living is always difficult, for it demands so much that to
those of us who are blessed with bodily strength it seems little short of a
miracle to find ill health no bar to a soul in its great task of happiness. And
although Mrs. Goucher was never very strong physically, yet her spirit was
brave enough to rise above the limitations of weakness, and she lent to others
only strength and healthfulness, which in its proper sense, has been suggested
as another word for holiness.
Her kindly hospitality and sweet womanliness made her home-life ideal,
and her doors were always open to receive those whose interests or affections
were in any way bound up with those of her family or the College.
Seldom does the wife of a college president come in such close contact
with the college life as Mrs. Goucher did, and those who knew her cannot
but feel that her life has been, and always will be, one of the molding influ-
ences in the history of our college, for the memory of one so steadfast in
faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity cannot fail to be an enduring
power for good throughout the years to come.
She was one of those who "have worked well, who have won love by lov-
ing, who have been brave and true, and she lives on in power, lives on in
all those who remember her, and will bring forth fruit in them." There is
nothing lost of such a life. We believe the clear conception of every good
gift as an eternal force to be one of the greatest thoughts that has ever come
into men's minds, and a most inspiring part of the creed of the modern
thinker, and we cannot enter upon the new year without a feeling of solemn
thankfulness for the example of a woman who has added so much to "the
impetus that is bearing humanity onward toward a richer life and higher
character."^ ^^
After Mrs. Goucher's death the Alumnae Association laid
aside the work on which it was engaged and sought to com-
memorate her Hfe and what it had meant to them. They
asked that their memorial for her be set up in the central
pavilion of Goucher Hall, opposite the main entrance, the
place which is, more than any other, the center of the life of
the College. There the classes of 1892 to 1903, in loving re-
membrance of their "exemplar and friend," placed three win-
dows. With simple ceremonies at commencement time,
June 5, 1905, the windows were unveiled.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 97
Their design is an original conception of Mr. Frederick Wilson of the
Tiffany Studios whose reputation as an artist on windows is second to none
in this country or Europe. It was executed under the immediate supervision
of Mr. Louis C. Tiffany. Through the invention of favrile glass Mr. Tiffany
had added to the stained-glass craft a means of obtaining effects of coloring
heretofore unknown and considered impossible, and in these windows much
of the delicacy of effect and many rare tones are attributable to that factor.
The windows are not of one size, but consist of a center opening, broad
and slightly arched, and a narrower but much taller opening on either side
of this.
In the center is a noble figure, blindfolded, bearing a graceful scroll in-
scribed with the confession. Credo. On each side of this figure and on the
same panel is a child angel holding a torch in one hand symbolizing the light
of the Spirit, and in the other a shield, the emblem of defense or security.
Thus guided and protected Faith fearlessly advances, treading underfoot a
laurel wreath, the symbol of earthly glory.
In the north opening is a beautiful figure representing Simplicity, holding
in her left hand a scepter which symbolizes "the anchor of the soul, both sure
and steadfast" while on her right hand confidently rests a dove, artless and
unaffected, bearing an olive branch.
In the south opening Love is personified by a woman of gracious mien
caring for a child which snuggles in her bosom. In her right hand she holds
a scepter on which is upraised a glowing heart. This window was the special
gift of the class of 1 901 , of which Mrs. Goucher was the honorary member.^^^
Love and Simplicity and Faith! May the students of the Woman's Col-
lege of Baltimore ever associate them with Mrs. Goucher's name rever-
ently and gratefully, and may they strive to be not unworthy of the
beautiful exemplar.^^^
Many years later, in 1932, the alumnae again showed their
love and reverence for Mrs. Goucher by choosing her birth-
day, March 22, for Goucher Day — the day when Goucher
women around the world direct their thoughts to their Alma
Mater. ^^° What more appropriate focus of time for such
pronounced college attention could be chosen than the birth-
day of the gracious, womanly woman whose name the College
bears ?
Growth in Enrolment and Buildings
The period of Dr. Goucher's administration was one of
great expansion, both in the number of students and in the
98 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
number of buildings. When he became president there were
forty collegiate students; at the end of his presidency there
were 341. In 1891-92, the year when the first class was
graduated, there were eighty-eight college students; in the
mid-nineties, 1895-96, there were 226; in 1 899-1 900, 301;
in 1904-05, 326; in 1907-08, 341. These figures, however,
do not include the full number of young women receiving
instruction, whether collegiate or subcollegiate, in music or
in art, in Goucher Hall. We get some idea of the complete
enrolment in 1891-92 from the following statement: there
were on the entire roll, as reported in the spring, 320 students,
60 of these doing full college work, ^^ taking special courses,
80 in the departments of music, art, and elocution, and the
remainder, 145, in the Latin School.^" President Goucher
reported to the Trustees the enrolment of 1893-94 as follows:
graduate students, 5; college students, 165; Latin School
students, 172; special students, 11 ; a total of 2S3- ^^ these
84 were entering freshmen. In 1896-97, he stated that there
were 82 freshmen, 60 sophomores, 39 juniors, 40 seniors, 4
graduate students, and 6 special students. In 1891-92,
President Goucher made the statement to the Trustees that
40 percent of the students lived in Baltimore and 60 percent
came from twenty-one states, including Maryland. In the
fall of 1894, it was reported that students came from every
state in our country but two. In 1896, the Trustees were
informed that among the students there were 76 whose homes
were in Baltimore, 142 residing in the college halls, and 22
from outside the city but not living in the halls. The pro-
portion of city students to resident students has continued
in about this latter ratio, one third of the group coming from
Baltimore and two thirds from outside.
When Dr. Goucher became president there were three build-
ings, Goucher Hall, Bennett Hall, and the first residence hall.
Home A (Alfheim). By the fall of 1895, two houses on
Calvert Street had been purchased for the use of the special
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 99
department of music, five new buildings had been erected,
and Dr. Goucher's town house had been built. After these
first five years of great activity there was no further building
in this administration except the Power House, erected in
1902-03 and called the Shaw Power House in honor of Major
Alexander Shaw, who bequeathed most of the funds used for
the building.
The Trustees, looking ahead to the expanding needs of the
College, purchased ground, and by the end of 1892-93 they
owned six acres in the neighborhood of the College.i62 Upon
this ground buildings were erected to meet the rapid growth
of the institution. Home B (Glitner) was opened in Janu-
ary 1893; Catherine Hooper Hall was ready for use by the
preparatory school— the Girls' Latin School— in September
1893 (when Home A was also turned over to the same group);
Home C (Fensal) was ready for students in the fall of 1894,'
and Home D (Vingolf), the following September. Through
the liberality of Mr. B. F. Bennett a second building was
presented to the College. This structure, known as Bennett
Hall Annex, was similar in architecture to the gymnasium
building, with which it was connected by a beautiful stone
bridge. It was ready for use in the fall of 1895 and provided
for the pressing needs of the departments of physiology and
biology.163
The breaking of ground, the laying of cornerstones, and the
dedication of these buildings provided ceremonies in which the
college community took much interest and great pride. Some-
times these observances overlapped. On College Day 1893,
Catherine Hooper Hall was dedicated, the completion of the
brick work of Home C was marked, and ground was broken
for Bennett Hall Annex.^"
The three new residence halls were built of red brick with
sandstone trimmings of similar design to the first one. The
scheme of naming the homes alphabetically was intended
only for temporary use, for the College hoped to have gifts
lOO THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
presented for the purpose of making the boarding halls mem-
orial buildings. Though such donors were not forthcoming,
nevertheless, in the spring of 1899, the names of the college
homes were changed. For some years there had been much
dissatisfaction about their alphabetical designation, and in
response to this feeling Dr. Goucher once announced that if
the students would hand in suggested names the most ap-
propriate would be selected. In the winter of 1897-98, while
President Goucher was away, the students sent to the Execu-
tive Committee of the Trustees a request for specific names to
be given to the homes. When no immediate action was taken
they tried to take the matter into their own hands, deciding
to call Home C, Gorton Hall; Home D, Irving Hall; and Home
A, Fisher Hall in honor of Mrs. Goucher. With the excep-
tion of Irving Hall, however, the names were little used, and
no official action was taken in regard to them.
At the banquet of the Alumnae Association, June 8, 1898,
Professor Joseph S. Shefloe, whose forebears came from Nor-
way, suggested that the homes be named after the abodes of
deities of the old Norse mythology. Such a source had never
been used elsewhere, and the idea met with favor in all direc-
tions. Thus Home A became Alfheim Hall, Home B, Glitner,
Home C, Fensal, and Home D, Vingolf. Alfheim was the
home of the Light Elves, which the gods gave as a gift to
Odin; Fensal was the mansion of Frigga, the wife of Odin and
mother of the gods; Glitner was Forseti's golden hall that
ghttered like the sun and was the best seat of judgment among
gods and men; Vingolf was the "abode of the goddesses, a
mansion of bliss. "^^^ For a number of years subsequently
Norse names were given to the houses purchased and adapted
for residence use.
The urgency of the need that compelled the erection of
Catherine Hooper Hall and the source of the funds that made
it possible to do so have been treated earher in this chapter.
The building is of granite, with red tile roof, and is of the
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER lOI
same Romanesque style of architecture as the other academic
buildings. The style of architecture of these buildings was
determined by that of the First Methodist Episcopal Church
designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead and White.
"This church," said Lewis Mumford in The Brown Decades^
"showed the influence upon White of Henry Hobson Richard-
son, who in the first ten years of his practise (i 860-1 870)
went through the usual Victorian experience of working in
Gothic, from which he felt his way back to the more elemen-
tary forms of the Southern French Romanesque. . . . His
influence came out ... in some of the earlier work of his own
pupils, Messrs. Charles Follen McKim and Stanford
White. . . . The freedom which Richardson had begun to
teach this generation they used as architects of the First
Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, 1887. . . . The
tower is surely one of the finest that has been erected in
America. "^^^ In a letter, dated April 8, 1938, from McKim,
Mead and White to President Robertson, the statement is
made that Stanford White was the architect of Bennett Hall,
of the residence of Dr. Goucher, and of Catherine Hooper
Hall, and thus is confirmed the local tradition to that effect.
Goucher Hall was designed by Charles L. Carson of Baltimore,
who was associated with McKim, Mead and White in the
building of the First Methodist Episcopal Church. All of
these structures, as well as the four original residence halls
were built by Benjamin F. Bennett, trustee, benefactor, and
treasurer of the College.
Many prominent educators, architects, and builders in-
spected Catherine Hooper Hall at the time of its erection and
pronounced it one of the most complete and satisfactory of
the kind in the country. Though it was occupied by the
Girl's Latin School until 1909, during President Goucher's
administration some parts of it were used by the College on
special occasions. Its assembly halU" served as a center for
many college, student, and alumnae functions, supplementing
I02 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
the chapel of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, which the
College used for its morning services and, until Catherine
Hooper Hall was constructed, for all other assembly purposes.
Its large gymnasium was used at times for dramatics and some
social affairs and on many occasions for the annual luncheon
of the Alumnae Association.
In the fall of 1892, President Goucher's handsome residence
at 2313 St. Paul Street was completed, and about the middle
of December the first reception given for the College was held
there. It was especially designed for entertaining, and during
the years of Dr. Goucher's life it was the scene of much gra-
cious hospitality. The house, costing over |ioo,ooo, of Italian
Renaissance architecture, was suggested by a palace which
Dr. Goucher saw during a visit to Florence. The style is
simple and strong, rather than ornate. It is built of Pompeian
brick, with the lines of the building in grey sandstone. The
vestibule is lined with Siena marble, and the panels of the
doors were brought from abroad, having been selected which
great care. The entrance is imposing, the vestibule leading
into a square hall from which open reception room, parlor, and
dining room, and a beautiful staircase leads to the second
floor. One of the most interesting features of the house is the
use of varied materials — yellow brick and grey stone on the
outside, beautiful woods and marbles within. The reception
room is finished in white mahogany, the hall in quartered
oak seasoned in England, and six other kinds of wood are
used in as many rooms in the house, one in birch, one in red
mahogany, another in cypress, one in white pine, another in
yellow pine. Marbles from different parts of the country and
from Europe are used, among them Paranozzi marble in the
hall, Mexican onyx in the parlor, Siena marble in the dining
room and vestibule, and a grey-rose marble in the living room.
In a letter dated, October 22, 1906, five days before he left
for a journey around the world. President Goucher deeded
this house to the College. One paragraph of the letter reads:
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER I03
I would recommend . . . that the building be held and used for a general
administration building, unless in the judgment of the Trustees the interests
of the College can be better served by some other use, and further, I would
request, if for any reason the Trustees think it desirable to dispose of the
building and grounds by sale, exchange, or otherwise, that the value of the
same shall be set apart as a part of the permanent endowment of the College
and the income be used from time to time as the Trustees shall direct.
These requests are not to be legally binding, or in any way modify the abso-
lute gift of the property as conveyed in the deed.
The Trustees insisted, however, that Dr. Goucher occupy the
house during his lifetime, and it did not come into the pos-
session of the College until 1922.
Over the college buildings, the American flag was raised
for the first time in the fall of 1892. After Columbus Day-
had been appropriately celebrated in the chapel, the audience
was invited to adjourn to the campus in front of Goucher
Hall. The Class of '93 performed the ceremony of hoisting
the flag over Goucher Hall, while the crowd below cheered the
students gathered on the balcony. The Classes of '94 and
'95 had charge of raising the flags on Bennett Hall and Home
A to the accompaniment of class and college songs. '®^
Among the many memorials and treasured gifts in Goucher
Hall are two which are valuable relics of Methodism, the
clock which for many years stood in the corridor and is now
in the president's reception room, and the Cokesbury bell.
The San Domingo mahogany clock belonged to William Wat-
ters, the first native Methodist preacher in this country, whose
name appears among the ten preachers in the First Methodist
Conference in America. He was born in Baltimore County
in 1750, and he is generally acknowledged to have been the
first American itinerant preacher. ^*^ He organized the Meth-
odist church in Washington and was the first Methodist pastor
there. He was also a pastor at Alexandria, Virginia, In June
1889, Dr. Goucher announced that the Methodist Episcopal
Church of Alexandria, Virginia, had donated to Goucher Col-
I04 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
lege an "old-time clock" formerly belonging to the Reverend
William Watters.^^o
The Cokesbury bell was once used at Cokesbury College,
the first Methodist college in the world, named after the two
bishops who were ordained in 1784, Coke and Asbury. This
institution, located at Abingdon, Maryland, was burned to
the ground December 4, 1795. "The villagers found the
college bell among the ruins and used it on their church at
Abingdon for many years. Later Dr. George C. M. Roberts
and Mr. Joseph C. France of Baltimore persuaded them to
give it to the Methodist Episcopal Historical Society in case
a new one should be given for it. When the Woman's Col-
lege of Baltimore was founded the old bell was placed there,
and by means of an electrical connection calls the students to
their classes. "^^^ It is now near the St. Paul Street entrance
to Goucher Hall, and is rung hourly to mark the beginning of
each class period.
For one day, October 18, 1895, the bell went back to its old
home. On that day the Methodists made a pilgrimage to
the site of Cokesbury College and, where the four corners of
the college building had been, placed four granite memorial
stones, on each of which was carved, "Cokesbury, 1795-
1895." '^^^ chief paper was read by Dr. Bernard C. Steiner,
librarian of the Enoch Pratt Free Library and associate pro-
fessor of history at the Johns Hopkins University. President
Goucher was one of the four who officiated in turn at the plac-
ing of the stones. The bell was taken from Goucher Hall to
Abingdon and placed in the forks of a tree, and it was rung
by Dr. Goucher and Bishop Foss — "but gently, lest they
break it.""^
Many years later, because of associations, the bell had a
part in two other celebrations. At the Baltimore observance
of the Washington Bicentennial, February 22, 1932, the
exercises at the Washington Monument were opened by the
ringing of the Cokesbury bell lent by Goucher College. It
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER IO5
was fitting that the bell should have a part in the Bicentennial.
In 1789, when Washington was en route from Philadelphia to
Baltimore after his election to the presidency, the twenty-five
students and the four faculty members of Cokesbury College
were drawn up to greet the General as he passed along the
road. As he came into view, the college bell began to ring.
As men and boys cheered his passing the bell kept on ringing,
and continued to ring until he was out of sight. Again, on
October lo, 1934, when the Sesquicentennial of the founding
of Methodism in America was observed in Baltimore, its
birthplace, the bell was rung for five minutes, at the same
time that the City Hall bell sounded one hundred and fifty
times.
Educational Contacts
The College was helped by its educational environment.
Concerning the influence of the Johns Hopkins University
on the Woman's College Professor Butler wrote:
"The most important influence coming to the Woman's
College from its environment is found in its neighborhood
to the Johns Hopkins University. While the university can
be held in no way responsible for the shaping of the College, its
indirect influence has been very great. ... Its mere existence
in Baltimore is a spur and an inspiration to the College to
maintain standards as high for collegiate as that does for
university work. And in the faculty of the Woman's College
the heads of the departments of mathematics, biology, chem-
istry, Romance languages, and history and economics are all
men who did their graduate work and took the degree of
doctor of philosphy at the Johns Hopkins."^"
The valuable collection of books in the Peabody Library has
always been a great help to students of the College. More-
over, on two occasions during President Goucher's administra-
tion, the Library in a special way extended its hospitality.
On November 13, 1900, Dr. Uhler, provost of the Peabody
Io6 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Institute, invited the Contributors' Club of the College to
the Library and talked on "Books and Book Binding," il-
lustrating his lecture with some of the rare and beautiful vol-
umes of the collection. Again on January 8, 1901, Dr. Uhler
gave to the English department of the College the privilege
of seeing a number of old and rare volumes of Shakespeare,
putting them in a special room to which these students had
access. The Peabody Library has always extended to stu-
dents and faculty of the College the privilege of using reserved
tables in the inner reading room.
Not only was the College a recipient from its environment,
but it was also a donor to it, exercising a marked influence
upon the preparatory schools whose students desired to enter
the College. President Goucher referred to this fact on two
important occasions in 1893. At the commencement exercises
in 1893 he said:
Many schools have asked that their students be accepted by the Woman's
College upon their certificates. After carefully investigating and, in some
cases, after requiring that the schools improve their work, this privilege has
been granted to 42 schools located in 16 different States.
In this goodly city of Baltimore far famed, and justly, for the beauty of
its women and the chivalry of its men, the Honorable School Commissioners
have under serious consideration a peculiar problem, viz.: shall they give
their fair daughters similar opportunities to those which they have furnished
the boys? Some changes have been made in this direction, and the Superin-
tendent of Education has recommended others, but as the curriculum of the
Eastern and Western Female High Schools now stands, the four years of
instruction which they offer will count for only two years to the girl who
desires a first class college training. But there is hope ahead. The ex-
periment is being tried on colored girls of Baltimore, and the High School
to which they are admitted offers Latin and other opportunities as good in
a general way as are provided for the white boys. If it works well with them,
no doubt in time the less favored white girls will be accorded similar priv-
ileges. Then as the Johns Hopkins University supplements the Baltimore
City College, so the Woman's College of Baltimore will supplement the East-
ern and Western Female High Schools and the educational work of our city
will be well co-ordinated.
A number of the private secondary schools of Baltimore and vicinity are
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER I07
adjusting themselves to the college work and quite a number of the primary
schools have come into line with the Girls' Latin School. So the Woman's
College is fitting itself into a reconstructed environment.
And at the annual meeting of the Trustees in November
1893:
After resistance and hesitation the Eastern and Western Female High
Schools of Baltimore have made decided modifications in their courses of
study, and it is intimated that more are contemplated, so that they are
moving into line with the requirements necessary to enable their graduates
to enter the lowest class of the College . . .
Other secondary schools have modified their plans, so that a number of
them are now announcing that they "prepare students for the Woman's
College," and we are enabled to receive their students on certificate. A
large number of secondary schools in Baltimore and in different parts of the
country have submitted to a standing committee, appointed by the Board
of Control for that purpose, their various courses of study together with the
evidence of the thoroughness with which they give the instruction, and in
some cases they have enlarged their faculties and broadened their courses
so as to comply with our requirements. More than forty of these have been
accepted as certificating schools.
These changes were brought about mainly through the
strict enforcement of the entrance requirements, but partly
also through scholarships. The first students to come to the
College from the Eastern and Western High Schools upon the
basis of competitive scholarships given by the College entered
in the fall of 1895.
In 1898 and 1899, the Woman's College was associated with
other colleges in two interesting enterprises. In 1898 it
joined with Bryn Mawr, the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar, Wellesley, the Associa-
tion of Collegiate Alumnae, and the Committee on Science
Lessons of the Woman's Education Association of Boston in
endowing an American women's table at the zoological sta-
tion at Naples. "It has been decided that well-quahfied
women shall be given the preference, but that, if no suitable
women present themselves, men shall be eligible in their
I08 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Stead. There is, they think, special reason for this provision,
as in the past, women have been cordially welcomed to men's
tables at Naples. "^''^ A Goucher woman, Florence Peebles,
'95, was the holder of the first appointment to this table in
1898-99.
In 1899 the Woman's College of Baltimore was one of the
ten women's colleges in the United States to which the Daugh-
ters of the American Revolution offered prizes for the best
essays on historical topics connected with the War of the
Revolution, the others being Vassar, Smith, Bryn Mawr,
Barnard, Radcliffe, the University of Michigan, the Woman's
College at Rockford, Illinois, and the Leland Stanford Junior
University. The prize, $200 in gold, was to be divided among
the ten colleges. In the end, the Committee of Award de-
cided to give a second prize of ten dollars in gold to each of
two colleges — the University of Michigan and the Woman's
College of Baltimore. ^''^
Academic Recognition
Not only was the College on a friendly and helpful footing
in relation to other educational institutions, but the quality
of its standards began to win recognition. An endorsement
of the academic work of the College in its science departments
brought satisfaction in the spring of 1893. An account from
the New York Tribune^ May 21, 1893, is as follows: "On
Tuesday last President Oilman, and Drs. Brooks, Remsen,
and Welch of the Johns Hopkins University visited the Wom-
an's College for the purpose of examining the work and equip-
ments in the chemical and biological laboratories and to learn
whether the present courses pursued in these departments are
equivalent to the same course required at Johns Hopkins.
The guests expressed their gratification that the quality of the
scientific work is so good, and the students from these depart-
ments may now enter the Medical School with the conscious-
ness of meeting the full requirements there."
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER IO9
In his commencement address in 1893, President Goucher
quoted the following letter received from the President of
the Hopkins subsequent to this visit:
The instruction given by the Woman's College in the studies which are
required for admission to the Johns Hopkins Medical School closely corre-
sponds with the instruction given in the undergraduate classes of the Johns
Hopkins University. The chief teachers of Chemistry and Biology have
been nominated to the Woman's College by Professors in the Johns Hopkins
University, who have also visited the laboratories and given to the President
the benefit of their counsel. Students who graduate from the Woman's
College after completing the courses in French, German, Physics, Chemistry,
and Biology, as now taught, may be assured of their admission to the Johns
Hopkins Medical School.
Some years later Dr. Lilian Welsh, referring to the pre-
medical work of the College, said that it had done well "its
work of preparation for the most exacting medical school in
the country."^"^
The friends of the College were further encouraged about
this time by favorable statements concerning it made by indi-
viduals and by organizations. For example. President Eliot
said, at a meeting of the New England College Presidents,
"The best equipped college for women is in Baltimore."^"
The students, in the Public Opinion Department of Kalends,
commented on this statement: "We were present last year
when Dr. Ehot made equally flattering remarks when he was
visiting us, but we attached no further importance to them
than the effort of the president of the oldest college in the
country to make a very young college feel satisfied with its
youthful existence. But now that he has repeated them, it
is time to consider them seriously."
Further favorable comment was made by Dr. William T.
Harris, United States Commissioner of Education, who, after
visiting the College a number of times, said with full knowl-
edge, "For the work required of them, the faculty of the
Woman's College of Baltimore is unexcelled in this country." ^^^
Not only were there encouraging estimates of the College
no THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
made by those from afar, but the following appreciation of it
was expressed by a Baltimore educator: "In the higher educa-
tion of women, the extraordinary growth of the Woman's
College has already made Baltimore an important centre for
a large section of the country, and the source of noteworthy
influence upon the educational development of the South. "^^'
And finally there were favorable official classifications made
by the United States Commissioner of Education. In the
report for 1890-91 fifteen women's colleges, among them the
Woman's College of Baltimore,^^" were put in Division A,
which included the colleges fairly able to meet accepted col-
lege standards and organized and conducted in accordance
with the plan of liberal arts colleges.^" In 1897-98, in another
grouping, the College again received recognition. President
Goucher, in his report to the Trustees, November 18, 1898,
referred to the classification by the United States Commis-
sioner which placed fourteen colleges in the first class, thereby
designating those that "have the most ample furnishings,
the most efficient faculties, and are doing the most thorough
work. This class of fourteen includes among others. Harvard,
Yale, Princeton, and the Woman's College of Baltimore. "^'^
Thus the College was fully rewarded for maintaining the
academic standards to which Dr. Van Meter referred in 1897
in his report to the Trustees as acting president in Dr.
Goucher's absence:
It is undeniable that some feeling has been created against the College
by its positive stand for high grades and modern methods. Applicants have
been excluded on account of their want of preparation, whom some other
colleges found it possible to admit; others have been required to complete
their preparation before entering upon college work; the privilege of special-
izing has been refused to applicants who were not prepared for it and a
pointed refusal has been given to some who wanted to pursue music or art
or both without reference to studies that are genuinely academic. The
result has sometimes been the alienation of persons whom we should like to
hold as friends, but who seem unable to appreciate the particular function
of a college in the educational system, and the necessity for standards and
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER III
methods which necessarily exclude those who are not prepared. Again the
College has been conducted absolutely without favoritism. Preparation,
ability, application, intelligence alone determine the standing of a student
here and the daughter of a seamstress has all the opportunity and all the
encouragement of the daughter of a bishop or a millionaire. There is a
kind of human nature that finds it hard to tolerate such impartiality and
characterizes it as "indifference." Every man who is worth anything has
his enemies and the same is true of institutions. "Woe unto you when all
men speak well of you."
The true criterion of a college's standing and progress, however, is not to
be found in the opinions or feelings of persons here and there who have been
personally pleased or personally displeased at their contact with it, but in
the esteem in which it is held in the educational world, and in the value
which is accorded to its parchments. This is the judgment that endures
and makes the future of the college. Individual discipline may cost us a
student or two, but the disapproval of the educational world would cost us
our life.
Within the next few years, through the good work done by-
graduates of the College, other institutions became aware of
the excellence of its standards and of its teaching. By June
1904, ninety-one graduates, or twenty-one percent of the whole
number of alumnae, had completed at least one year of gradu-
ate work. Thirty-two of these had attended institutions where
they were eligible for fellowships, and to them twelve fellow-
ships had been awarded by these institutions, in addition to a
number of graduate scholarships. ^^3 Thus the way was being
prepared for the rating of the College in 191 1 by Kendrick C.
Babcock,!^^ to which reference is made in Chapter V.
Financial Difficulties and Campaign of 1905
Dr. Goucher's fine statement of the faith of the founders in
undertaking the establishment of the College has often been
quoted:
"Confidently believing that what ought to be done can be
done, without either endowment or insistent demand, with
only an ideal, a purpose, and a firm belief in a divine com-
112 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
mission, the enterprise of establishing in Baltimore a college
for women to be second to none in efficiency, thoroughly
Christian, but in no sense sectarian, was launched."
When the College was projected the founders were faced by
a variety of adverse conditions which many pronounced
insurmountable. Among these were: "The want of adequate
resources, the want of experienced leaders and educators, the
wide spread indifference to the claims of such varied and high
grade work for women, the deep rooted opinion that a college
for women could not be established in Baltimore which could
compete with the strong, well-endowed colleges already rejoic-
ing in a world-wide reputation, the impossibility of finding
students able to meet its matriculation requirements, and if
such could be found of making them stay until they were
twenty-one or older to graduate. "^^^
It is a matter of history that all the criticisms adverse to the
estabhshment of the Woman's College were fully answered in
President Goucher's administration, save only one, the impos-
sibility of securing funds for so large an undertaking. As
Dr. Goucher phrased it to the Trustees in 1893, "We are liv-
ing but do not enjoy the fullness of life." In 1896 Dean Van
Meter wrote in a newspaper article:
It is . . . eight years since its doors were opened to students with nothing
back of it except an empty purse and the courage of its projectors ... It
does not need higher standards, for its curriculum is in every respect abreast
of the times, and its methods those of the new education; it does not need
abler instructors, its heads of departments are all specialists, and no college
for women is better equipped in this respect. It does need . . . that its
endowments be increased and its accommodations made more ample . . .
In 1 91 6, in commenting to the Trustees on the financial
struggle of the early years President Guth said: "Its needs
were always justifiably greater than the funds which it could
command." At another time he said: "[It] has had a re-
markable financial history. Its growth has been rapid, far
more so than its means could warrant. Through all the years
it has put excellence and honesty first and has well earned
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER II3
its Standing. It has had no one large donor such as even
Vassar or Wellesley had. No gift approximating a million
dollars has been received from one person. From many
sources, from far more than is generally supposed, its funds
have been secured."^^^
The College grew too fast for its financial backing, and
throughout his whole administration President Goucher faced
financial difficulties. Twice they were so severe that the con-
tinuance of the College was in jeopardy i^" in 1889-90, at the
time when the funds were needed for the first residence hall
and the building of the preparatory school, and again in 1904,
when the burden of the college debt was almost unbearable.
In his report to the Baltimore Conference in March 1891,
President Goucher said: "We congratulate you upon the
success of this Institution, founded by your authority and
maintained by your patronage. The success has been pro-
nounced as phenomenal in all the history of educational
enterprises in this land. The embarrassments which have
attended it during the past year are such as are incident to
success." But there were serious problems and President
Goucher from the first had to try to solve the problem of
debts. At the end of the first year, 1888-89, ^^ere was a
deficit of $4,000 in the current expense account, and a similar
lack the second year. Through Dr. Lyttleton F. Morgan,
who without salary acted as the financial agent of the College,
an appeal was made to the Conference in 1890 to raise this
amount by means of its Educational Collection. The finan-
cial needs of the College were put before the Baltimore Confer-
ence strongly each year, but the response was small. The
Conference that had been so generous in calling the College
into being was failing, at this time, to nurture it. The fol-
lowing statement from the Baltimore Annual Conference
1896, shows this:
We commend to the pastors of the Conference the urgent need of larger
contributions by the churches to the current expenses of the College, which
now show a deficit at this point of ^23,000. The trifling sum of ten cents
1 14 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
from every member of our churches would easily raise the six or seven
hundred dollars usually given by the Conference to a sum that would meet
these expenses annually. As an incentive to this effort, stands the fact
that more than thirty scholarships are offered throughout the Conference to
those who can take them. This committee strongly recommends that the
second Sunday in May be observed as Woman's College Day in the Balti-
more Conference, when each pastor shall be asked to preach on education,
and represent the exceptional advantages and pecuniary needs of the College,
at the same time taking the annual collection which the Conference devotes
to this institution. Also that one week previous, the opportunities and
requirements of the College be brought to the attention of the young women
of their churches, through the Sunday Schools and Epworth League meetings.
Despite this earnest plea and the careful planning, the col-
lection was increased but little. In 1889, the minutes of the
Conference in relation to this offering stated: "The meagre
sum of |8oo, could easily be raised to $8,000 or 1 10,000 a
year." The financing of the College was left to the President
and a few generous friends.
On many occasions an appeal was made to the Trustees.
For example, in September 1890, Dr. Goucher, unable to
attend an Executive Committee meeting because of a sudden
illness, wrote to it relative to the deficit in current expenses
as follows: "The only suggestion I can make is that the Execu-
tive Committee shall personally donate that amount. I am
willing to contribute a fair proportion of it. Hitherto, we,
as a committee, have not been drawn upon to meet necessary
expenses and this will furnish a good opportunity to show our
devotion to the work."
In a further effort to balance the budget, at the meeting of
the Board of Trustees in 1894, an increase was voted in the
charge for tuition and board, the cost to be $125 for tuition,
with no extras except in art and music, and $250 for board,
applicable to all students applying after this date. In 1904
there was another increase in board of $25, thus raising the
cost to $400 for hall students; again in 1905, the tuition was
increased by $25, making the cost of tuition $150 and the cost
of resident $275, a total of $425.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER II5
Only once, however, in this administration, though all
these methods were used, were the receipts in excess of the
expenditures. At the annual meeting of the Trustees in
1895 the presiding officer, Mr. James N. Gamble of Cincin-
nati, a member of the firm of Proctor and Gamble and the first
layman to be president of the Board of Trustees, called at-
tention to the fact that the Trustees had at last succeeded
in paying all of their expenses out of their receipts — the re-
ceipts being $85,205.04 and the expenses $84,808.81. Even
then, however, they could not be too much elated, for Dr.
Goucher's report contained the following statement:
"Net surplus $396.23, which includes everything except the
salary of the President." This phrase, which was repeated
in other years, calls attention to a significant fact. On the
authority of Dr. Frank G. Porter, which is substantiated by
references in the minutes of the Board of Trustees, it is cer-
tain that Dr. Goucher never really received any salary for his
eighteen years of service as president of the College. Even
when the Trustees compelled it, he returned it, in various
forms. At a meeting of the Trustees in November 1900,
it was recorded that "The generous donation of the entire
salary of the President in connection with his untiring and
invaluable service we deem worthy of very special mention."
A number of times in his reports. Dr. Goucher states this
fact. For example, in the following:
I have cheerfully given my services without receiving any salary, or even
traveling expenses, returning all of the salary allowed into the treasury to
pay for the scholarships which have been established and the discounts
which have been granted, together with the tuition of worthy but needy
students who would otherwise have been unable to continue their work.^^^
In the treasurer's report of the year 1895-96 and 1896-97,
there are interesting comparative figures relative to the re-
ceipts from tuition and the salaries of the faculty. In 1895-96,
the receipts from tuition were $22,325 and the salaries of the
faculty were $32,345; in 1896-97, from tuition $22,825 was
Il6 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
received and the salaries amounted to $31,915.^89 j^^ ^he
Woman's College, as at all colleges of any rank, the income
from the tuition fees was not sufficient to pay the salaries
of the instructors and executive officers, to say nothing of the
hundred and one other items that went to make up its expense
account.^^"
The table of receipts and expenditures in 1895, as set forth
in President Goucher's report,^^^ is of interest:
Receipts Expenditures
College 20,137.94 40,686.89
Latin School 19,110.00 12,426.56
Homes 39,213.10 26,115.52
Hospital 1,020.00 726.73
Music 4,274.00 2,893.97
Use of Instruments 765 .00 785 .00
Art 685.00 1,173.99
85,205.04 84,808
The portions of the plant that were debits and those that
were credits in the accounts were relatively the same as above
for a number of years.
Ten years later, in his annual report to the Trustees, Presi-
dent Goucher gave the following statistical facts as to what
students had cost the College from its opening to that year:
"From the opening in 1888 to November 1905, the College
had in attendance 1529 students. It cost the College $300
annually for the tuition of every student, while the charge
has been $125. The cost of instruction has been 11,184,400,
and the actual receipts have been $395,408. Accordingly the
contribution of the College has amounted to $788,992, divided
as follows:
Charge less than cost $690, 900
Scholarships awarded 54,764
Ministerial rebates 33 . 100
Other rebates (teachers, etc.) 10,228
^788,992
Not only were there deficits in the current expense account,
but serious debts piled up in the capital account while there
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER II7
were urgent needs for equipment and buildings. The financial
difficulties of the early years are revealed through statements
made at an Executive Committee meeting in September
1892, when it was decided to borrow $75,000 for five years on
the Charles Street property and with this sum to buy two
houses on the southwest corner of Calvert and Twenty-third
Streets, to pay for ground on Charles and Twenty-third
Streets, ground on St. Paul and Twenty-fourth, and a house
on Calvert Street and other lots, to pay $25,000 on outstand-
ing notes of the Building Fund, to refund to the Endowment
Fund the |8,ooo borrowed from the Building Fund, to refund
$12,000 to the President to hquidate the debt in current ex-
penses carried by him. The remainder of the $75,000 was
ordered to be put at the disposal of the Building Committee
for purposes of building.
At an Executive Committee meeting, February 4, 1890, the
report of the Treasurer showed debts amounting to $25,000
unprovided for; at the meeting of the Trustees, November 22,
1900, President Goucher reported that the capital debt
amounted to $306,500. By 1905, it had reached about half a
million. Year after year President Goucher, to the Trustees,
to the Conference, and, at commencement time, to the public
made appeals for funds, setting forth the needs, but always
with good cheer and optimism. Once to the Trustees, how-
ever, he used a different tone in speaking of the burden that
he carried in trying to solve the financial problems of the
College :
The aggregate contributions which I have made in buildings, on current
expense account, and other matters pertaining to the necessities of the In-
stitution have averaged more than ^2 5,000 a year ever since the College was
started. I only speak of this to say that I cannot risk the permanent im-
pairment of my health by the continuance of such onerous duties as have
devolved upon me in the past, and such are the demands upon my finances
from other educational and benevolent enterprises with which I am identified
that I cannot continue to contribute to the College as I have done in the
past. My sympathies and my interest have not abated in the least.
Personally I have carried the burdens of the Woman's College of Balti-
Il8 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
more from its inception to the present time with all cheerfulness and to the
full extent of my mental, physical, and financial ability. Three times since
the enterprise was projected have I been on the verge of a complete break-
down from nervous exhaustion and have been preremptorily ordered off
by my physicians with the assurance that nothing but rest would enable me
to avoid ruined health or possible death.^^^
There is a rare note of discouragement in this annual re-
port — Dr. Goucher was concerned over the "inroads" that
might be made into possible sources of revenue for the Col-
lege by the projected American University of the Methodist
Episcopal Church at Washington. ^^*
But he turns from it in expressing appreciation of the work
of the Treasurer: "The burdens which have come to me have
in a large measure and greatest cheerfulness been borne by
our treasurer, Mr. B. F. Bennett, who has never failed in his
interest and has frequently and cheerfully held his own per-
sonal interests in abeyance that he might further the enter-
prise."i9''
Also he referred to some special encouragement from gifts
and from the possibilities of financial assistance to the Col-
lege that might come from the Twentieth Century Thank
Offering. The bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church
had proposed the raising of twenty million dollars, half of
which should be devoted to educational purposes, as a thank
offering at the beginning of the new century. The Trustees
of the Woman's College passed a resolution organizing a stand-
ing committee whose work it should be to try to secure one
million dollars of this amount for the liquidation of its debt
and the increase of its endowment. The College received
some funds from the movement, but not a large amount.
At the annual meeting of the Trustees on November 22,
1899, the Finance Committee, in its turn, paid a tribute to
the work of the treasurer of the College, Mr. B. F. Bennett:
It is evident that the finances of the College are in faithful hands, and that
the burdens of fidelity in official duty are constantly on the conscience of
the Treasurer and the interests of the College in his heart.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER II9
Further, the Finance Committee, after commending the
"tireless" labors of President Goucher, suggested the wisdom
of appointing a financial agent to assist him. There had been
no financial agent since the death of Dr. Lyttleton F. Morgan
in 1895.
In accordance with this action, the Executive Committee
appointed the Reverend S. Reese Murray, D.D., first as secre-
tary of the Baltimore Conference Twentieth Century Fund,
and later as field secretary for the College, and he served in
this joint capacity for three years. Dr. Hugh Johnston was
elected secretary in March 1904, and continued to work for the
betterment of the college finances until the end of 1910-11.
For two years, 1905- 1907, Mr. Fred M. Stone tried to secure
endowment insurance for the College.
The most striking feature of the year 1905-06 was the can-
vass to complete the subscriptions to the debt fund of $500,000.
As we have seen, the capital debt of the College grew from
year to year. Several times plans were made to cover it,
but all of them came to naught. At the annual meeting of the
Board of Trustees, November 21, 1901, the Finance Com-
mittee had reported:
We beg leave to recommend that an earnest effort be made by the Trus-
tees to carry out his [Dr. Goucher's] suggestion that the debt of the institu-
tion be paid. . . . We leave it to the judgment of the whole Board of Trus-
tees to devise the best means of obtaining this desirable end. Too much
stress cannot be laid upon the effect of this course upon the institution and its
work. Not only would it impress the public mind favorably, but should
tend to increase the patronage of the institution when once it becomes known
that it is solvent beyond a peradventure.
At the next meeting of the Baltimore Conference, March
1902, Dr. C. W. Baldwin made a special plea for help because
the Woman's College of Baltimore "is peculiarly our child and
dependent upon our support" and because it "has not re-
ceived the consideration or financial assistance which its merits
and necessities require. "^^^
The next year the President, in his annual report to the
I20 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Trustees, said "No systematic, persistent, and organized
effort has been made to provide for the indebtedness by-
trustees or by the committee appointed to take the matter in
hand. . . . The Trustees will have to lead in this." But the
burden was not lifted from the President and the few friends
who helped him to carry it.
On February 7, 1904, Baltimore was visited by a great con-
flagration, which devastated one hundred and fifty-five acres
in the heart of the business section of the city and destroyed
ninety million dollars' worth of property. The college build-
ings were about a mile distant from the burned area, but its
financial condition, already acute, was intensified by this loss.
Friends who had been among its liberal contributors suffered
financially, and both actual and prospective patrons were
not able to send their daughters to college. ^^^
This great calamity drew the attention of the leaders of
the Methodist Episcopal Church to the crisis in the life of the
College. The University Senate of the Methodist Episcopal
Church and the Association of College Presidents of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, in session in Evanston in February
1904, passed resolutions earnestly commending the Woman's
College to the generous support of the church. Previous to
this time. President Goucher had never made appeals for
money to the Methodist Church as a whole. Feeling, indeed,
that each section had its own college or colleges and that local
loyalty should go to local institutions, he never went into other
territory to soHcit contributions."'' It is an interesting fact
that of the 12,500,000 which had gone into the buildings,
equipment, and ground of the College all but two percent had
been given by Baltimore."*
After the great fire, the first cash gift, one of $2^0, came
from a Methodist layman of Chicago, through the Methodist
Board of Education,"^ while the second gift, a pledge of
150,000 conditioned upon the raising of the whole $500,000,
came from the trustees of the estate of Mr. H. A. Massey
of Toronto.^""
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 121
The following November, President Goucher made this
statement to the Trustees:
I am pleased to report that I have secured since the fire a subscription
thus far of $100,000 towards the $500,000 necessary. This is conditioned
upon the other $400,000 being raised. If the Financial Secretary and myself,
through the hearty cooperation of the Trustees and other friends of the
College, shall be able to raise $200,000 from outside of Baltimore, I feel
confident that the Trustees and friends of the College in Baltimore will
gladly provide the other $200,000 and so relieve the burden.
In President Goucher's report to the Trustees, November
21, 1905, three happenings are recorded. On April lo, 1905,
President Goucher invited a few Methodist friends to dine at
his home and consult together about the situation. Bishop
Andrews and Bishop Foss were present. Before rising from
the table, these friends had pledged ^90,000, Mr. Summerfield
Baldwin and Mr. John K. Shaw leading with subscriptions
of $20,000 each, and four others pledging 1 10,000 each. 201
A month later in Louisville, Kentucky, President Goucher
had a hearing before the May meeting of the Board of Bishops
who by resolution agreed to cooperate. "Before passing the
resolutions," Dr. Goucher said, "they did first what Methodists
are expert in doing, they took a collection among themselves,
which aggregated $16,500." In October a number of the
bishops dined at Dr. Goucher's home. "Though no contribu-
tions were asked, $45,000 was subscribed. Dr. D. H. Carroll
promising $20,000 of the amount."202
The bishops worked loyally for the cause, and in a time of
great tension toward the end of the campaign a letter of encour-
agement, dated May 8, 1906, and signed personally by sixteen
of them, was sent to President Goucher. In this they said:
"The immense investment already made must not be left
imperiled, nor must the efficiency of the school — our only
great college for women — be even temporarily impaired."
Bishop Foss, Bishop Andrews, Bishop Cranston, and Bishop
McDowell gave their time to personal solicitations which
brought in considerable sums.
122 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Faculty, alumnae, and students aided the campaign in every
possible way. The eight Greek letter fraternities, for example,
gave to President Goucher the amount they had intended to
expend on their annual June banquets. The response from
the alumnae was also liberal according to their means, and
brought special encouragement.
If there has ever been any doubt in the minds of the founders of the Col-
lege as to the actual good they have accomplished, it can exist no more.
Any college that can bind its students to it by such strong ties of loyalty
and devotion, that can feel the love of its alumnae growing stronger and
deeper year by year, that can have a student body eager to serve it, may be
justly proud of its work, thankful for its influence in the past, and confident
of its power for the future. ^"^
When the subscriptions amounted to ^415,000 the financial
condition of the College was brought to the attention of the
Merchants and Manufacturers Association of Baltimore, and
through them to the attention of other financial organizations
of the city. In response to the request of a joint committee,
the Mayor called a meeting of about one hundred representa-
tive citizens. They manifested their practical appreciation
of the College by appointing a Citizen's Committee that gave
valuable assistance. The press cooperated generously, and the
ministers of denominations other than the Methodist, notably
Dr. John Timothy Stone and Rabbi Rosenau, worked dili-
gently.204
On commencement day, June 5, 1906, President Goucher
had the deep satisfaction of announcing that the amount
needed to meet the debt had been subscribed:
Of the total amount pledged the Trustees of the College have given
^211,900, the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church ^22,600, the Alum-
nae and Students $10,729, the teaching staff of the College $5,400, and other
friends of the institution sums ranging from 50 cents to $50,000, making a
grand total of $580,000. Through these generous pledges we are able to
report the entire debt of the College provided for, $10,000 pledged for a
special purpose, and the Endowment of the College increased by $70,000.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 123
One of the subscriptions which gave particular satisfaction
was that of $50,000 from Mr. Andrew Carnegie. ^"^
There was much rejoicing over this achievement. Said an
editorial in the Baltimore Sun^ June 7, 1906, "The announce-
ment by the President of the Woman's College of Baltimore
that provision has now been made for the payment of the debt
. . . has been received with genuine satisfaction by the people
of Maryland. The splendid work of this magnificent college,
its value to the state, to the city, and in fact to the country —
for all can enjoy its advantages — are well recognized, and
that is the reason why all rejoice in its prosperity."
But unfortunately the amounts were subscriptions and not
cash in hand. By March 1907, only one third of the pledges
had been redeemedj^"^ and by November 1908, the debt was
still unpaid. 2" Seven years later Dr. Goucher said that if the
$500,000 had been paid promptly it would have extinguished
the debt at the time. Some of the subscriptions were never
paid, "because of death, etc." The interest on the large debt
continued. There were annual deficits, much greater than in
earlier years, $43,617.21 in 1905-06208 and $49,388.45 in
1906-07.209
Resignation of President Goucher
In the fall of 1906, believing that the financial problem had
been solved and feeling the need of recreation and change.
Dr. Goucher, accompanied by his three daughters and by
Bishop and Mrs. Cyrus D. Foss, started for a trip around the
world, visiting India, China, Korea, Japan, and the Philippines.
Although President Goucher took this trip primarily for rest,
he accepted invitations to address several important gather-
ings, among which were the jubilee service held at Bareilly to
commemorate the anniversary of the inception of the mis-
sionary work of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Southern
Asia, the centennial service in Shanghai, and the World's
124 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Students' Christian Federation in Tokyo, Japan. 210 At Tokyo
he had a reunion meeting with the eight Woman's College
graduates attending the convention, there being more delegates
from this college than from any other one institution. ^i^
He left Baltimore October 26, 1906, and returned July 30,
1907. During his absence Dean Van Meter was authorized
by the Trustees to represent the President in all academic
matters, and Dr. William H. Hopkins to represent the Dean
in the event of his being away from the College. Financial
matters were left with the Executive Committee, of which
Mr. B. F. Bennett was elected chairman. Mr. Henry S.
Dulaney was selected by the Executive Committee to act as
bursar and authorized to sign and endorse checks, drafts,
notes, receipts, and releases. Dr. Van Meter presided at the
commencement exercises and awarded the degrees in 1907.
And the students were evidently on their good behavior during
this academic year, for it was reported to the Trustees: "The
deportment was so admirable that the Dean did not find it
necessary to admonish or reprove a single student during the
year."
The meeting of the Board of Trustees November 21, 1907,
was occupied mainly with one thing which came as a surprise
to most of the members — the resignation of President Goucher.
His trip around the world had indeed provided change but
not rest, since he was not only in attendance at conventions
but also at the same time prominent as a speaker and adviser
on many subjects. At the close of his report to the Board of
Trustees as president, he presented his resignation, in part
as follows:
In a few weeks it will be a quarter of a century since it was my privilege
to suggest the establishment of a college in the city of Baltimore for the
higher and thorough Christian culture of young women as women. For
several years, by public addresses, by personal interviews, by correspond-
ence, and through the press, and as chairman of various committees, I gave
to the launching of this enterprise all the time and energy I could spare from
the exacting demands of a heavy pastorate.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 12^
For eighteen years I have occupied the office of president, and the inter-
ests of the Woman's College have been my chief and absorbing concern. I
need not add my faith in its future and interest in its work are unabated,
but for many months the condition of my health has been a matter of serious
concern to the physicians I have consulted, and they insist that I must have
protracted and complete rest.
Recognizing that the best interests of the Woman's College require a
more vigorous direction than I shall be able to give, that there can be no
more favorable time to change its chief executive, I hereby present my
resignation as president of the Woman's College of Baltimore, the same to
take effect at the close of the present academic year, or as much earlier as
you may be able to arrange for the work of the office.
In laying down the responsibilities and privileges of the office I desire to
record my high appreciation of the generous cooperation the trustees, faculty,
students, and friends of the College have unanimously given me, and the
charitable interpretation accorded my administration.
The resignation was accepted to take effect when his sue
cessor was chosen, but he was unanimously requested to serve
as President Emeritus after that appointment. A committee
was named to prepare an expression of their high appreciation
of his services as president, and of regret that the condition
of his health compelled him to take this action.
It was with keen regret that members of the faculty, stu-
dents, and friends of the College heard of the resignation. This
feeling is well expressed in a paper summarizing his services
prepared for Kalends ^ January 1908, by Mrs. Hans Froelicher:
That Dr. Goucher is soon to give up his active duties as President of the
Woman's College of Baltimore is a source of the deepest regret to us all, and
we would be in no wise reconciled to it if we did not know that the step had
been taken by him on account of ill-health. ... In choosing Baltimore for
the home of the College, Dr. Goucher showed the same sagacity that has
guided him in the development of all its workings. Into this city, which
in its way has been for many years a borderland, we have gathered together
discordant elements and sent them away harmonious.
By founding a woman's college in the city of Baltimore, he has made it
possible for many Baltimore girls to go through college who otherwise would
have lost the opportunity, and he has been instrumental in no small measure
in the very marked advance in the excellence of the preparatory schools in
this city and in many Southern cities in order to make it possible for their
126 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Students to enter our college. Dr. Goucher announced at the outset that
our college was to emphasize womanliness in its training and not to encourage
young women to follow too closely in the footsteps of their brothers; and now,
as a result after twenty years, we have among our students an atmosphere
that is both scholarly and womanly. In some of the older institutions
strenuous efforts are being made to infuse more of this spirit among the women
students to counteract the threatening invasion of the old-time traditions
of men's colleges, many of which are none too wholesome for the men. If
every word, therefore, in the title of our college should receive its proper
emphasis, the name is most significant and wisely chosen. . . .
He has been keen and farseeing in his judgments and quick to act in times
of emergency. Towards all good movements inside of our college walls he
has shown an active interest and to every progressive body of workers he
has been a generous coadjutor. We can think of no one to take his place.
We can only hope that some bright star will appear on the horizon strong
enough to lend its light to our young institution whose pilot needs a season
of rest. That he is to live near us, and that our separation is not to be
absolute, mitigates our sorrow at parting. His plans for the future of our
college are far-reaching. We should prove that we have appreciated the
faithful guidance of our pilot in the days of our youth by helping him to
realize in our maturer years the full development of his plans in broadened
scopes of activity.
The idea that Mrs. Froelicher expressed at the close of her
article was again emphasized when the Baltimore Conference
ruled that "the best way, however, by which we can show our
appreciation of Dr. Goucher's great service is not by the mere
passing of resolutions of gratitude, but by giving our heartiest
support to the school in its further endeavor to enlarge the
scope of its work. "212
The alumnae meeting in 1908 was unusually well attended,
representatives of every class being present. At the close of
the luncheon Dr. Goucher was presented with a testimonial
of the loyalty and esteem of the alumnae. The testimonial
was handsomely bound in blue leather and bore in gold letters
the inscription, "John Franklin Goucher."
At the last commencement, 1908, at which President
Goucher presided there was a distinguished speaker, Woodrow
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER I27
Wilson, then president of Princeton University, whose daugh-
ter, Jessie Woodrow Wilson (later Mrs. Francis B. Sayre) was
a member of the graduating class.
Summary
When Dr. Goucher became president, the institution had
on its roll 352 pupils;^^^ 119 of these were in the department of
music, 193 were of subcollegiate grade, and 40 were in the col-
legiate department. At the end of his administration the
special "schools" had been given up, the preparatory depart-
ment completely separated, and of collegiate students there
were 341. The highest enrolment during his term of office
was reached in 1902-03, when there were 357 students. In
1890 there were three buildings; at the close of his presidency
there were nine, and the College owned six acres of ground.^^^
On the administrative and teaching staff of the collegiate
department in 1890 there were eighteen persons; in 1908 there
were forty-one. Listed in the program of 1890 there were four
full professors, three associate professors, four associates, four
instructors, three administrative officers, including the presi-
dent. Listed in the program of 1907-08 there were twelve
full professors, seven associate professors, nine instructors,
thirteen administrative officers, including the president.
Three members of the first faculty were still on the staff — Dr.
Van Meter, Dr. Hopkins, and Dr. Froelicher. In all, during
these years, the teaching staff had included sixty-seven men
and women, twenty-three of whom had married while in the
service of the College and one of whom had died. In the first
class, graduated two years after Dr. Goucher became Presi-
dent, there were five women; in the last class of his administra-
tion there were sixty-one graduates. By 1908 there were 722
alumnae. Sixty-four percent of the number who matriculated
in the first fifteen classes were graduated; one fourth of those
who were graduated in the first fourteen classes pursued gradu-
128 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
ate work. 215 By the end of Dr. Goucher's administration the
College was offering annually three fellowships. The Alumnae
Association had been organized in 1893, and by 1908 had
five local chapters.
In May 1890, Kalends, the first student publication of the
College, made its appearance, and Donnybrook Fair was also
started at this time when the Class of 1896 (the juniors) first
brought out, in the spring of 1895, a yearbook to which they
gave that name. By reason of their importance in initiating
a custom that has built up a storehouse of fact and tradition
concerning the College, the founding of these pubhcations
deserves passing mention here, along with other first events,
albeit they will be dealt with in more detail in the chapter on
"Student Life."
In the early days the admission requirements were stated
in terms of subjects, but in 1902-03 the change was made to
points, and after 1905 fifteen points were required for en-
trance. ^i" With the increase in amount of preparation there
came a corresponding increase in flexibility through the intro-
duction of alternatives. 21^ Admission to the College has
always been either by examination or by certificate. After
1905 when examinations were required they were those of the
College Entrance Examination Board.^^s 516 preparatory
schools had accepted the requirements of the College toward
the end of Dr. Goucher's administration and sent graduates
for entrance. 21^ During the years of Dr. Goucher's presidency
the requirements for the degree amounted to sixty year-hours. "o
Of the selection of the faculty and the development of its
work in the period of Dr. Goucher's administration. Dr. Butler
wrote:
The principle followed in selecting the faculty was to secure young men and
women of undoubted ability and character, with the best training, and to
commit to their hands the destinies of the College. In this way the institu-
tion could best be expected to grow to maturity in perfect touch with the
progressive movements of the day. . . . The college curriculum itself and the
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER 1 29
college policy is therefore a growth, a becoming, an ever-changing adjust-
ment among many changing elements, according to the needs of the day and
the relative achievements of the workers — both investigators and teachers —
in different subjects. As such it demands for every member of the college
faculty a feeling of freedom and security, of due weight and authority, a
realization by each one that all appeals in behalf of his department are to be
made to his colleagues alone rather than to any power above or beyond
them.221
To the statement previously made concerning academic
freedom may be added the testimony of two other members of
the faculty.
Dr. Metcalf:
President Goucher, whose gifts to the College and whose position as
President made his influence controlling, was peculiarly successful in bring-
ing out the cooperation of the teachers, and it was, as I think of it, his habit
of putting responsibility upon the head of each department for the work of
his department that led each one to give all that was in him. The "authori-
ties" let us alone. The teaching job was ours, our own. President Goucher
was back of us to give us every possible aid, and we went to him continually.
Many proposals were turned down. They had to be, but it was only after
full consultation and a decision in which teacher and president came, almost
without exception, to agreement. Dr. Goucher was without experience in
academic work, but was not handicapped by that fact. He relied upon the
teacher's knowledge of his own problem and brought out to the full the
teacher's best.^^^
Dr. Lilian Welsh:
It was [his] open mindedness and fairness of judgment that enabled Dr.
Goucher to make what, in my opinion, was his most valuable contribution to
the educational policy of the College. Having chosen his faculty and tried
them out he charged them with the duty of making the College, in his own
words, "second to none in efficiency." He saw to it that they were not
restricted in their teaching. Academic freedom they had. Academic
license they never desired. I have often wondered how Dr. Goucher parried
the onslaughts that I knew from other sources, never from him, were di-
rected against the teaching of the Bible in the light of the higher criticism,
and of biology in the light of the theory of evolution. There was never any
interference from him. He showed particular interest in the departments of
biology and physiology. It was during his presidency that one of the best
130 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
expositions in English of organic evolution designed for the intelligent lay-
man was published by Professor Metcalf, then head of the department of
biology.^^^
Of Dr. Goucher's idea of what the college education of a
woman should give to her, there is a statement in a brief
address on the topic, "Should the higher education of women
differ from that of men," given at the Annual Convention of
the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the
Middle States and Maryland, November 30, 1900:
Neither man nor woman is substitutional, each is supplemental. Any
method of education which has a tendency to transform either women or
men into weak imitations or brilliant substitutes for the other is narrowing
and inadequate. A womanish man is a farce; a mannish woman is a tragedy
. . . neither has a sphere, each is but a hemisphere, and they twain shall be
one. . . . The tendency in the colleges for men is . . . towards specialization,
as demanded by so-called "practical education." . . . The result is intensive,
technical, narrowing. . . . The prime object in woman's higher education is
not to make a specialist. To meet the essential demands of her nature and
of her functions to home, society, and the race and to prepare her in a general
way for a possible call to be, for a more or less limited time, a wage-earner,
woman's higher education should include two things. One is breadth of
culture to secure to her a widened horizon, knowledge of self, mastery of
self, enlargement of personality, more varied sympathies, and largest effi-
ciency. Running side by side with her broadening culture should be such
intensive work as will add to her discipline and furnish conditions for a
joyous avocation, or, if need be, serve as the basis of a vocation.^"'*
Of Dr. Goucher's ideal for the College, Dr. Froelicher wrote
in Donnybrook Fair, 1925:
Dr. Goucher's ideal was perhaps the most perfect development of the
mental nature of woman with those elements superadded which made Mrs.
Goucher the "Exemplar and Friend" for every Goucher girl: deep, gentle,
tolerant Christianity, undemonstrative generosity and ministry, gracious-
ness and sincerity of approach, modesty and self-effacement, quiet dignity.
This truly seemed the pervading atmosphere in The Woman's College.
This left its impress upon the young women who went forth from Goucher.
This gave individuality to the College and to the graduate. Under these
influences the position of Goucher was achieved.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER I3I
In his personal dealings with members of the college com-
munity Dr. Goucher was always cordial in manner and thor-
oughly kind. He possessed a happy combination of dignity
and charm. He was a very busy man, but never too busy
for a friendly word of help and advice to those who came to
him. The impression that he made on the students is summed
up in Donnybrook I'air^ 1899: "A man he seems of cheerful
yesterdays and confident tomorrows." Dr. Welsh, in writing
of her personal impression of Dr. Goucher, said: "His invari-
able optimism, courtesy, consideration, and friendliness are
the qualities that always come to my mind first when I think
of him, "225 and "I saw him many times under trying circum-
stances but I never saw his serenity disturbed. Always he
was the courteous gentleman. "226
Concerning Dr. Goucher's gifts to the College and of the
contributions which came to it through him from one group.
Dr. Frank G. Porter, when he was secretary to the Baltimore
Conference, wrote a letter to the Baltimore Sun^ published
January 31, 1922, in which he said: "It is a matter of interest
that in the founding and development of Goucher College,
the First Methodist Episcopal Church, through members and
constituents, has given approximately $1,500,000, of which
Dr. Goucher has given more than $500,000." It was often
said of him that he was a "money getter, as well as a money
giver." Though the financial difficulties pressed heavily upon
him through most of his administration, he had the ability to
keep these things out of the life of the College, so that the stu-
dents and faculty were not oppressed by them. In speaking
of this characteristic. Dr. Welsh said:
A member of a college faculty may know little about the finances of the
institution. I doubt whether any of our faculty knew until after Dr.
Goucher's resignation the overwhelming financial burden he had constantly
borne. When the responsible head of an institution sees year after year the
income fall far short of the outgo, when he sees all possibilities for growth and
expansion sacrificed in order to keep the college going, it takes rare qualities
132 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
of mind and soul to present to the public a never failing optimism. This
Dr. Goucher always did.^^''
President Goucher was criticized by some for his financial
poHcies, and a strong but courteous statement along this line
was made by President Noble, the successor of President
Goucher. This statement and a reply to it will be found in
Chapter IV.
Dr. Goucher has sometimes been referred to as an absentee
president, because he was away many times on business and
for meetings of the church. He took long trips to Mexico and
to Egypt, and twice while he was president he made a trip
around the world. Yet among the reasons given by Dr. Hop-
kins for resigning from the presidency was the fact that he could
not travel in order to present to those outside of Baltimore the
needs of the College as was necessary for the welfare of the
institution in the days when it was unknown. Through his
journeys Dr. Goucher made friends for the College and secured
both gifts and students. It is also to be remembered that
Dr. Goucher hesitated about accepting the presidency because
he and Mrs. Goucher were fully committed to a deep interest
in the cause of missions. That interest and his participation
in the work of his denomination he was never willing to give up.
His duties as president of the College were left to his discretion
by the Executive Committee when he was elected,"^ and he
chose to promote both the College and these other causes.
Further, the burden of the debt of the College was at times
so unbearable that he had to have the rest that came from
travel and from immersion for a time in other interests. And
on all his journeyings, whether for the College primarily or
otherwise, he paid in full all of his expenses. It was fortunate,
of course, that Dr. Van Meter was at the College to take over
his duties when he was away.
Through Dr. Goucher's administration, the academic devel-
opment and the financial struggle proceeded side by side, the
first attaining success along every line, the second continuing
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GOUCHER I33
to the last a problem not fully solved. Dr. Goucher had an
unusual power of engaging, directing, and coordinating the
labor of others, and through the faculty led by Dr. Van Meter
the academic success was won. All the members of the faculty
doubtless would endorse the tribute paid to Dr. Van Meter
by Dr. Hopkins:
And while we all worked hard and all did our best, a simple sense of jus-
tice (to say nothing of gratitude) impels me to record the fact that the man
of all others most relied on in those days of trial (I speak now of those asso-
ciated with me in the internal administration) was he who still serves with
unabated usefulness the institution which he did so much to plant and
develop — the greatly beloved and revered Dean of the Faculty.^^^
It was in every way a happy fact for the College and for the
two men that Dr. Goucher and Dr. Van Meter worked together
for its development. Of what they meant to it, Dr. Welsh
well says:
I doubt whether any college for men or women ever had such a combina-
tion to start it on its progress. President Goucher with his faith and op-
timism kept the College going, while Dr. Van Meter constantly guided the
academic advance along approved educational pathways.^^"
The success of the College during these years was the result
of the efficient and faithful work of many men and women, but
all would agree that there were three outstanding personalities.
President Goucher, Mrs. Goucher, and Dean Van Meter, and
to them, for their gifts of money and ideals and service, will
the College be forever grateful.
Chapter IV
THE ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT EUGENE
ALLEN NOBLE
1908-1911
Dr. Noble's election — Biographical sketch — Installation — Change
of the name of the College to Goucher College — Change in the
election of Trustees and other charter changes — Change of the
seal — Resignation of Dr. Van Meter as dean — Appointment of Dr.
Lord as dean — Sketch of Dr. Lord — Complete separation of the
College and the Girls' Latin School — 20th anniversary of the open-
ing of the College — Tributes to Dr. William Hersey Hopkins on
the completion of fifty years of teaching — His writing of Almae
Matri — Academic developments — Changes in buildings — Visiting
lecturers — Financial crisis — Resignation of President Noble — Es-
timate of his administration.
Dr. Noble's Election
jL FTER President Goucher's resignation had been received
/\ and accepted, at the same meeting of the Board of
JL JL Trustees a committee consisting of the members of the
Executive Committee augmented by Bishop W. F. McDowell
and Mr. James N. Gamble, president of the Board, was ap-
pointed to nominate his successor.^ Subsequently the Execu-
tive Committee delegated this task to a subcommittee of three,
Mr. Gamble, Bishop McDowell, and Dr. Goucher. The
committee worked diligently and quickly. They considered
more than fifty men. Dr. Goucher stated at the Alumnae
Luncheon. At a special meeting of the Board of Trustees, on
May 25, 1908, they were ready to nominate Eugene Allen
Noble, principal of the Centenary Collegiate Institute of
Hackettstown, New Jersey, who was unanimously elected.
President Noble began his official duties at a meeting of the
Executive Committee on July 9, 1908.
134
PRESIDENT EUGENE ALLEN NOBLE
administration of president noble 135
Biographical Sketch
Eugene Allen Noble, the son of William Richard and Mar-
garet J. (Hays) Noble, was born in Brooklyn, New York,
March 5, 1865. His mother was Welsh. "It is good blood to
have, that Celtic strain," said Dr. Noble, "but occasionally
some wild old Welsh ancestor appears in me, and has to be put
down with a strong hand." When he was a boy he went to an
Episcopal school, where, he reported, "When I was so bad I
had to be punished, which was not infrequently, I was made to
learn a Collect, so that now I have a large collection of those
prayers stored in my memory." He did not, however, join
the Episcopal Church, but later was converted "in a way," he
said, "that meant an entire change of life and caused me to
become a clergyman in the Methodist Church."2 He prepared
for college at the Hackettstown institution of which he later
became principal, and in 1891 was graduated from Wesleyan
University (Connecticut) with the degree of Ph.B. He then
spent a year in the study of theology at Garrett Biblical Insti-
tute in Evanston. Before coming to the Woman's College, he
had received the honorary degree of S.T.D. from Wesleyan
University and that of L.H.D. from Dickinson College.^ Later
he received the degree of D.D. from St. John's College, Annap-
olis, and LL.D. from both Hamilton College and the University
of Pittsburgh. He was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi and
Phi Beta Kappa fraternities."
Dr. Noble was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal ministry
and served two churches, Grace Church, Bridgeport, Connecti-
cut, 1891-95, and Eighteenth Street Church, Brooklyn,
1895-97.5 While at the latter church, during the illness of the
superintendent, he was appointed assistant superintendent of
the Seeley Hospital, a Methodist institution in Brooklyn.
Later he was elected to head the hospital and served in that
capacity from 1897 to 1902. He managed the affairs of the
hospital through a period of crisis with extraordinary prudence
136 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
and conspicuous success. For five years he was a trustee of
Centenary Collegiate Institute. During that time the build-
ings were completely destroyed by fire. After they were
rebuilt, the institution had a heavy debt and there was, more-
over, a deficit in the operating expenses. The presidency was
vacant, and Dr. Noble was urged to take it. After refusing, he
was again approached, and this time he accepted. During his
term of six years, 1902-08, the mortgage debt was much re-
duced and the school became self-supporting.^
While at Wesleyan University, Dr. Noble began some
studies in English literature, which he carried on with such
success as to win special commendation from Professor Caleb
T. Winchester. At the time of his coming to the Woman's
College, he was writing a life of Whittier, and was engaged in
studies on the development of the English language as indi-
cated by versions of the Scriptures.
On November 19, 1893, he was married to Lilhan White
Osborn of Port Chester, New York. At the time of their
coming to the College they had two children, a son, Francis,
thirteen years old, and a daughter, Beatrice, eleven.
Dr. Noble was a man of cultivated tastes with a wide, accu-
rate, and sympathetic knowledge of books, pictures, and
music. His wife was a woman of culture with a charming and
friendly personahty and she was in complete accord with her
husband in every phase of his work.
In one of the numerous interviews concerning him, when he
came to Baltimore, we find in the Baltimore Sun^ May 26,
1908, the following:
Hackettstown is a great old place, but Dr. Noble has none of the airs of a
villager. He speaks of New York as if he knew his way around, of the
Adirondacks with all the love of a fisherman, of art and books like a man
who knows an etching and who loves Browning and other poets. He
already knows what sort of fishing he may expect down here. . . . Dr. Noble
isn't clerical by any means. ... At first sight he looks as if he just fitted
the idea the trustees had when they talked of electing a layman.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE I37
He could easily be taken either for an "energetic business man
or for a physician." "But," said an interviewer in 'The Balti-
more NewSy "when he speaks of his religious experiences, the
strong reverential spirit of the man appears."
It was marked that in the midst of a group of frock-coated
ministers his gray suit was in effective contrast. His costume
pleased the students.
"He . . . always wears a grey suit. We are glad he has a habit. We
should be lonely if he hadn't. Dr. Goucher's buttonhole carnation has
been our presidential habit hitherto, but we look with favor on the gray
suit."^
The needs of the College when he came were well summed up
in Donnybrook Fair, 1910, published during the first year of his
administration:
The tasks that await the President are of a very trying nature. Pro-
vision must be made, first of all, to establish the College permanently on a
sound financial basis, [and] to secure constant and large revenue. Then
provision must be made for larger numbers of students in buildings, equip-
ment, and teaching force. The departments existing already need strength-
ening. The alumnae should be bound more closely to the College. Finally:
we need a campus.
In an article written for Kalends, November 1908, President
Noble set forth his ideal for the College:
To train young women so that they may have a clear and comprehensive
knowledge of things, persons, and events, to train them so that they may
have a sympathy with and appreciation for all that is fine and beautiful
and lovable, and to pursue their course of training in full view of current life,
so that they may later be called into the high and worthy and needful social
service which only a trained woman can give — this is the ideal of the
Woman's College.^
When Dr. and Mrs. Noble first came to the College they were
the guests of honor at many functions, the most elaborate
being a banquet on October 13 in Goucher Hall given by the
faculty. On this occasion Dean Van Meter presided and
138 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
responded to the first toast "Our New Chief"; Dr. Welsh spoke
in honor of "Madame President"; Dr. Hopkins on "The
College: the Past is Secure"; and President Noble made the
concluding speech on "The College: the Future."^ The Trus-
tees fixed the salary of President Noble at $5,000 with traveling
expenses and a home in Roland Park, or |6,ooo and traveling
expenses, he to select his own house. ^^ Dr. Noble seems to
have selected the latter plan and the first two years of his
presidency he and Mrs. Noble lived at 2222 North Charles
Street^^ and the last year at 2327 North Charles, in a house
which was purchased by the College. ^^ Both students and
faculty enjoyed the hospitality which Dr. and Mrs. Noble
graciously dispensed. They carried on the tradition of a
winter reception to the seniors and faculty. Mrs. Noble was
well liked by faculty, alumnae, and students. On October 9,
1908, she was elected honorary member of the freshman class,
the class of 1 91 2.
Installation
Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Goucher had no special installation
ceremony upon assuming their ofiice as president of the College;
the first such function took place for Dr. Noble on Tuesday,
February 2, 1909. To prepare for the exercises, the Executive
Committee had appointed Bishop McDowell, Dr. John F.
Goucher, and Mr. B. F. Bennett, and the Board of Control,
Dean Van Meter and Professor Shefloe. To these was added
later Professor Eleanor L. Lord. The ceremonies took place
in the First Methodist Episcopal Church at four o'clock. The
students and alumnae marched to the Church from Bennett
Hall and the delegates, faculty, trustees, and guests from
Goucher Hall, "perfect weather" adding to the beauty and
dignity of the occasion. The banners of the students and
alumnae and the gay colors in the hoods of the alumnae,
faculty, visitors, and other dignitaries made an attractive
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE I39
picture. The first division in the procession was made up of
students of the College; the second, of alumnae; the third, of
representatives of civic and religious institutions; the fourth,
of representatives of schools; the fifth, of delegates from col-
leges and universities; the sixth, of the faculty of the College;
the seventh, of the trustees; and the eight, of Dean Van Meter,
chairman of the Committee in the absence of Dr. Goucher,
and those who were to take part in the exercises. Dr. Shefloe
was the Chief Marshal. About fifty colleges and universities
were represented by faculty or graduates; twelve of these —
Johns Hopkins, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, Wesleyan, Northwestern,
Upper Iowa, Randolph-Macon, Swarthmore, University of
Illinois, Howard University, Western Maryland, and Univer-
sity of Pittsburgh — sent their presidents. The attendance
was about 900; every seat was occupied, and many remained
standing throughout the program.
A student account of the event is given in Kalends^ March
1909, as follows:
To those present who had never seen a great representative college func-
tion, the spectacle was one of unusual solemnity and magnificence. At
3 o'clock the gym promptly filled with excited undergraduates and equally
excited but more composed alumnae, who in caps and gowns and hoods
carried banners yellow with age and of color schemes that filled the under-
graduates, some with mirth and some with the tender respect due to age.
The robing rooms for the various dignitaries fortunately faced the gym, and
at all times you might have seen girls hanging breathlessly out of Bennett
Hall windows as they watched William adjust vari-colored hoods about the
necks of the august. And with what pride was it that we, with an anxious
jealous eye for our own, saw that our faculty was just as festive and dis-
tinguished and gay in colored hoods as we could possibly have desired.
. . . With what genuine enthusiasm did we greet the Head Marshal, our
benefactor on many occasions, and especially this one!
Once in the chapel, the dignity and beauty of the scene began to dawn on
us. In front was the organ loft deep-set in palms; all around us in the gal-
leries were hundreds of our college mates, and below there was a sea of color,
noted college presidents, educators, bishops, prominent officials, all in gala
academic robes.
140 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The following was the order of exercises:
Processional — Coronation March (Svendsen).
Hymn— "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty."
Invocation by the Reverend James M. Buckley, D.D., LL.D.
Statement of the Board of Trustees.
Greeting from John Franklin Goucher, D.D., LL.D., President Emeritus
of the College.
Installation of Eugene Allen Noble, S.T.D., as President of the College,
by Bishop Wm. F. McDowell, D.D., LL.D.
Address by Henry Smith Pritchett, Ph.D., LL.D., President of the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Address by Elmer Ellsworth Brown, Ph.D., United States Commissioner
of Education.
Address by Ira Remsen, Ph.D., LL.D., President of Johns Hopkins
University,
Address by John E. Semmes, Esq., President of the Board of School
Commissioners, Baltimore.
Inaugural address by President Eugene Allen Noble.
Ode — "Alma Mater."
Doxology.
Benediction by Bishop Luther B. Wilson, M.D., D.D.
Recessional — Triumphal March from "Naaman" (Costa).
In the absence of James N. Gamble, president of the Board
of Trustees, Bishop W. F. McDowell presided during the first
part of the ceremonies. After Mr. Charles E. Hill, on behalf
of the Board of Trustees, had presented Dr. Noble as President
of the Woman's College of Baltimore, and after the reading of a
letter of congratulation and good wishes from Dr. Goucher,
who was on his way to Egypt on account of his health. Bishop
McDowell, instaUing Dr. Noble as president, bestowed upon
him the charter and keys of the College, the symbols of its
authority, while there was placed upon his shoulders by the
president of the Alumnae Association, Anna Heubeck, '92
(Mrs. Walter Knipp) and Mary Watson Green, '97, an alumnae
trustee, a hood lined with the college colors, the academic
insignia of his office.
In his inaugural address President Noble discussed three
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE I4I
factors in social progress: education, woman, and the Church.
"The broad policy outlined in this address appealed to the
audience, and especially to that part representing the Woman's
College, because of the spirit of tolerance, progress, and ideal-
ism pervading it."^^
Important Changes
President Noble was at the College for three years, and
during that period there were a number of important changes:
in the charter, in the name of the College, in the seal, in the
deanship, and in the relation of the College to the Girls' Latin
School.
One of the most important happenings in Dr. Noble's admin-
istration was the change in the Charter and By-Laws. Some
of the amendments were far reaching, others concerned minor
details.
In Dr. Goucher's administration in 1907, the Board of Con-
trol had appointed a committee of three, Dean Van Meter,
Professor Hopkins, and Professor Hodell, to study the matter
of the eligibility of the College for the Carnegie Pension Fund.
This committee, reporting on November 4, 1907, found that a
change in the charter and the passage of a special resolution
were necessary. They reported as follows :
1. That this college under its present Charter falls in Class 3 of institu-
tions grouped as denominational by the trustees of the Foundation. This
is due to the charter demand that the trustees must be confirmed by the
Baltimore Conference. . . .
2. That the removal of these requirements from the Charter would bring
the College into Class 5 of the grouping referred to.
3. That while the institutions of Class 5 are not ineligible to the Carnegie
list, it is nevertheless required that the trustees certify by a resolution to
the trustees of the Carnegie Foundation that notwithstanding the lack of
specific prohibition in the charter "no denomination test is imposed in the
choice of trustees, officers, or teachers, or in the admission of students, nor
are distinctly denomination tenets or doctrines taught to the students."
Upon the passage of such resolution by the governing bodies of such institu-
I42 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
tions, they may be recognized as entitled to the benefits of the Carnegie
Foundation so far as considerations of sectarian control are concerned.
Your committee therefore recommends that the Trustees of the Woman's
College of Baltimore be memorialized to take into consideration the ad-
visability of adjusting the college charter to the requirements of the Carnegie
Foundation.
It may be added for the information of the Board of Control that corre-
spondence has been conducted with Dr. Pritchett, the president of the
Foundation, and a conference held with him by a member of the Committee.
Dr. Pritchett expressed himself as perfectly satisfied that this college is
eligible, with the exceptions above mentioned, and stated that he would
visit the College at an early day, and is anxious to see it placed upon the list
of accepted institutions.
At a meeting of the Board of Control a month later, Presi-
dent Goucher's resignation occupied the attention of the
Board, and the suggested change in the charter was not dis-
cussed.
The movement that resulted in the charter changes in Dr.
Noble's administration grew out of the discussion about
changing the name of the College. Of the reasons for the
choice of the first name. Dr. Froelicher wrote in Donnybrook
Fair, 1929:
Why was this college called by so odd a name as the Woman's College of
Baltimore? Some years later, Dr. Goucher himself explained. It was, in
the first place, to break down all prejudice against the word woman in a part
of the country where all females, above childhood age, colored included, were
called ladies or females and where the region teemed with Ladies' Academies
or Female Seminaries or Ladies' Finishing Schools. fVoman, so he said, was
the sweetest, finest term by which the sex could be known. Furthermore,
in the days when colleges for women closely followed the Johns Hopkins
curriculum, on the principle that there should be no difference in the educa-
tion of the two sexes, this was to be, not a college for women parading in
men's attire, but a college for women as women. Woman, it was argued,
had her particular and exclusive place in creation and as her vocation in
life was different so should also be her preparation for her particular vocation;
as wife, mother, and ministering angel. Hence the Woman's College. It
was moreover, not to be an academy or Lyceum or Finishing School nor
strut about under the pretentious title of university, as so many half-baked
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE I43
high schools did, but it was to be a college in the true sense. It was to be
first of all, a college for the women oi Baltimore, the educational key position
for the whole south and a region where the higher education of women was
taboo. . . . This was then to be a college to break down the prejudice against
higher education for women among women of Baltimore. Hence the Wom-
an's College of Baltimore. Finally the college was planned to do work of
such high character that for all times to come it was to be The Woman's
College of Baltimore.
A few years after the College opened, discussion was begun
about the desirability of a more distinctive name. In 1893,
Professor Frank R. Butler stated:
In its name, it is perhaps not altogether fortunate. This seems to be
too long, and since it inevitably suggests a type rather than an individual,
lacks distinctive character. It wants the ease of utterance and the con-
densed suggestiveness which are needful in order that a mere name shall
come to affect the imagination and the sentiment deeply. But who can tell
but that the recognition of this fact may one day lead some one to endow the
college generously enough to bring about a change in the name?'*
To the reason given by Professor Butler was added within a
few years another important one — the confusion that devel-
oped from the establishment of other "women's colleges" some
of them of not very high grade. '^ At the Alumnae Luncheon
in 1898 when Dr. Shefloe suggested the Norse names for the
residence halls he also proposed that the name of the College
be changed in honor of Dr. and Mrs. Goucher. But at this
time Dr. Goucher was not favorable to a change.^® The stu-
dents, however, with their interest stimulated by the new
names of the halls of residence, in the Public Opinion Depart-
ment of Kalends^ January 1898, said:
There is need for a change of name because we are a first rank college with
a third-rate name. . . . Several good names have been mentioned in a tenta-
tive way: Calvert, for instance, in honor of Lord Baltimore; Goucher for our
honored President; and Fisher for the much loved wife of our President.
Other suggestions were made: "Arundell College,"^'' or "some
one of the fathers of the Methodist Church might have his
144 "THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
labors perpetuated in the name."^^ Nothing happened at this
period, but the subject was revived from time to time, and at
the end of 1907-08, when Dr. Goucher retired from the presi-
dency, the students sent to the Board of Trustees a petition
dated May 2a, 1908, saying in part:
Whereas, the students of the Woman's College realize the disadvantage
of the name, the opportunities of the present time, and the debt of gratitude
and affection due the retiring President,
Therefore, the Students' Organization of the Woman's College of Balti-
more respectfully petitions the Board of Trustees of the Woman's College of
Baltimore that said name be changed to Goucher College, or that, if this be
impossible, some other individualistic and characteristic name be chosen
by you.
The matter was referred by the Trustees to a committee of
three to report at the next regular meeting, the committee
consisting of James N. Gamble, Bishop W. F. McDowell, and
Charles E. Hill. In the meantime, at the annual meeting of
the Alumnae Association, 1908, it was voted to ask the Trustees
to change the name to Goucher College. Shortly afterward,
the committee of the Trustees reported as follows:
Conditions have arisen since the College was organized which seem to
make it desirable that the present name be in the near future discontinued
or essentially modified. . . .
We advise that in loving memory and grateful appreciation of the serv-
ices of the Reverend John Franklin Goucher and Mary Cecilia Goucher,
the name of the Woman's College of Baltimore be changed to Goucher
College.^®
The report was received but action on it was deferred.^"
At the meeting in November 1908, it was the sense of the
Trustees that the name should not be changed at that time.
Since it was apparent that a change of name would require a
change of charter, it was decided to consider several other
modifications at the same time in order to eliminate obscure
passages and to "bring the institution up to date in charter as
it is in fact." And for this larger task another committee was
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE I45
appointed — Bishop McDowell, Bishop Cranston, Aldis B.
Browne, Charles E. Flill, H. S. Dulaney, and President Noble,
ex officio. The committee took a full year to do its work.
"After much deliberate discussion, the name was changed to
'Goucher College','' said Dr. Noble. "The name, Goucher
College, was the inevitable name. That it came in 1910 was
fortunate; that it had to come sometime was certain. "21
To the change, there had been some opposition on the part
of trustees, alumnae,^^ faculty, and students, some for financial
reasons because an institution named for an individual loses
some gifts, and some on the score of sentiment of one kind or
another. And so the Trustees acted slowly, coming to their
decision after "nearly three years of serious consideration and
realizing the full significance of the interests at issue. "23 "Under
the new name, which is definite, appropriate, and serviceable,"
commented President Noble, "the College enters upon a new
era." In an editorial in the March 1910, Kalends^ the stu-
dents expressed their pleasure:
We, who for over twenty years have been well-nigh nameless, who have
suffered hopeless confusion with institutions of similar name but inferior
standing, who when the world bestowed on us the title 'Ladies' College of
Baltimore' have inwardly raged, while we outwardly pitied an ignorant and
unenlightened public, we at last have had a name conferred upon us. And
as for that name ... is it not mentioned always . . . with a loving thought of
those who bear and have borne it?
The next important change dealt with the method of electing
the trustees. In the original charter of 1885, article 2, the
provision was made that members of the Corporation might be
elected by the corporation, "provided, however, that such
election shall be submitted to the Baltimore Annual Conference
of the Methodist Episcopal Church for approval or rejection.""
In the amendment to the charter in 1890, section 6, the power
of the Baltimore Conference was strengthened. "All new
members ... to be approved by the Baltimore Annual Con-
ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at the Annual Ses-
146 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
sion of the said Conference next succeeding such election, and
the election of any member who shall not be so approved shall
be void. 2^ In the 1910 amendment to the charter, there was a
radical change. The names of the trustees were not to be
submitted to the Baltimore Annual Conference, but to the
Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and
the milder language of the original charter was used "for ap-
proval or disapproval, as the case may be."26
At the meeting of the Baltimore Annual Conference in
March 1909, before the passage of the amendments to the
charter, there was evidently some concern about the rumored
change, and in the resolution offered by Dr. C. W. Baldwin and
adopted, there was the following:
Whereas, the College was projected and founded by the Baltimore Annual
Conference, and by its charter sustains a most intimate relation to this
Conference. . . .
Resolved, That in the judgment of this Conference the relation now existing
between the Woman's College of Baltimore and the Baltimore Annual
Conference as set forth in its present charter, should not be disturbed.^'
When President Noble presented his report to the Baltimore
Annual Conference in March 1910, after the charter changes
had been made, he referred to the "fear [that] had been enter-
tained by some that an effort might be made to lessen the
binding ties that exist between the College and the Methodist
Episcopal Church. ... It is my duty and honor to state clearly
that it has not been in the mind of the governing board of the
Woman's College ... to alienate, in the slightest degree, their
institution from the Methodist Episcopal Church." And he
went on to make the following explanation of the reason for the
change in the method of electing the trustees:
Heretofore, since 1890, the power of veto has been held, but not exercised,
by the Baltimore Annual Conference. The old charter compelled the Balti-
more Conference to take annual action in reference to the election of trus-
tees of The Woman's College. This caused some criticism, criticism which
was pertinent and relevant in view of a very important matter connected
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE I47
with denominational education. It has been said by certain influential
persons that a defect in the organization and operation of denominational
institutions is that they are too frequently governed by persons or bodies
who are not primarily interested in the work of education. That is, they
are governed by Synods, Conferences, Bishops, Boards, or Legislatures,
whose fundamental duties are not related to educational enterprise, and it
has been commonly said that denominational institutions have not been
discriminated against because they were denominational, but because, as
denominational, they were non-educationally managed. Let it be made as
plain as possible that this statement has gone broadcast from those who
were thought to be averse to giving recognition to denominational institu-
tions. It did look as if there were some point in the criticism that an educa-
tional institution should be managed by those who are primarily interested
in education. . . . The action of Goucher College has related the College to
an agency that is primarily and specifically engaged in the work of education.
. . . Instead of cutting loose from denominational relationship, we have tied
in very tightly.
In addition to the two changes which have been considered
there were several others which should be mentioned — the
definition of the duties of the dean, the modification of the term
of the trustees, and the recognition of the alumnae trustees.
Not until the charter of 1910, was there a section on the office
of dean, defining the duties and stating "that the Dean shall
be the second executive officer of the Institution. "^^
In the original charter, the trustees were elected for a period
of five years;" in the amendment of 191 o, the term was changed
to four years. ^°
For the first time in 1910, charter recognition was given to
the alumnae trustees. Since 1893, the Alumnae Association
had exercised the privilege bestowed upon it by the Executive
Committee of nominating yearly a trustee, but now a higher
sanction was given to it. Among the "not fewer than 12 nor
more than 40 trustees" were to be included "the president of
the College, ex officioy and four representatives of the alumnae
of the College to be nominated by the General Alumnae Asso-
ciation. "^^ At first there were five alumnae trustees each
serving for a term of five years; by this change of 1910 there
148 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
were four, each serving for four years; by the change in 1914,
in Dr. Guth's administration, when the term of all trustees
was reduced to three years, there were but three. This diminu-
tion in number, however, was offset by the fact that alumnae
were chosen directly by the Board of Trustees in addition
to those nominated by the Alumnae Association.
About the same time that the name of the College was
changed there was a change in the seal.
In Chapter III is described the first seal of the College which
was in readiness in 1892 for the diplomas of the first graduates.
In 1902, there was a discussion about the need for a change in
the seal, doubtless because it was known that it was not correct
from the point of view of heraldry. For the triangle with
rays of light emanating from its sides, there was proposed the
substitution of an open Bible with the words "Your whole
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless, i. Thess.
5 -.23. "32 The matter was referred by the Executive Com-
mittee to the Board of Trustees^^ and by them referred again
to the Executive Committee,^* but no final action seems to
have been taken, and the seal remained unchanged until Dr.
Noble's administration. During his second year, 1909-10, he
asked the Trustees to appoint a committee of three, to prepare
a new seal for the College. The idea met with favor, and Dr.
Noble, Janet Goucher Miller, '01, and Dean Van Meter were
appointed with instructions to report to the Executive Com-
mittee. ^^ A design was submitted and adopted, February 24,
1910.3^ On the new seal, the date 1885 (of the first charter)
and the old legend, I Thess. Chapter V, verse 23, were re-
tained; the suggested change of 1902 — the open Bible — was
included, and the arms of the State of Maryland, three Delia
Robbia lilies, and an additional motto, "Gratia et Veritas,"
were added. The lilies symbolizing womanly grace and the
new motto were the suggestions of Dean Van Meter. In the
first form the shield rested within a trefoil, which later was
changed to a quatrefoil. To this very unimportant change,
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE I49
there was added in 1923 an important one — a change in the
motto on the seal, from I Thess. Chapter V, verse 23, to I
Thess. Chapter V, verse 21. The seal thus became heraldi-
cally correct and identifies the College as an educational institu-
tion chartered in 1885 in the State of Maryland, resting upon a
religious foundation, having as its purpose the search for truth
and the cultivation of womanly grace, and seeking to "prove all
things; hold fast to that which is good."
The new seal and the new name were used first on the title
page of the Bulletin of Gaucher College for March 1910, which
published the Charter and the By-Laws and stated that they
were adopted at the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees
held February 2, 1910, and that the name of the College was
changed and the charter of the College amended by Act of the
General Assembly of Maryland, passed March 31, 1910.
There was also an important faculty change in Dr. Noble's
administration. At the end of 1909-10, Dr. Van Meter retired
from the deanship, an office which, in the words of President
Noble, "he had created by multifarious activities outside of his
work as a teacher, and filled with singular devotion for many
years."" He had been dean for eighteen years.
Upon his retirement, he devoted himself entirely to teaching
for the remainder of Dr. Noble's term.^^ An expression of
appreciation of what he had meant to the students, past and
present, was given in Kalends, January 191 1 :
When Professor Van Meter signified his intention to relinquish the duties
of the office of Dean, a position which he had filled for so many years with
conspicuous success and in which he had rendered the truest service to the
College, the announcement was received with profound regret on the part
of all the members of the institution, as well as the alumnae who revere him
as their wise counselor and friend and cherish for him an affectionate ad-
miration and gratitude. To the hundreds of young women who have gradu-
ated from the College as well as those fortunate enough to be still within its
precincts, Professor Van Meter has been something more than a professor
and executive officer; he is an inspiration to high endeavor and enthusiastic
devotion to learning, a scholarly enthusiasm that makes college days a
150 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
fountain of intellectual refreshment. But it is not on the intellectual side
alone, or chiefly, that Dr. Van Meter holds a place of rare elevation in the
hearts and thoughts of his colleagues and pupils. He is the soul, at once, of
kindness and chivalry; of devout faith, yet most benign tolerance; and upon
all who have sat under his guidance and instruction, he has exercised an
influence that will abide with them for good throughout their lives. Little
wonder that the alumnae invariably proceeded first to his office when they
returned to visit their Alma Mater.
And further, as an expression of their love and gratitude, the
alumnae at the annual meeting of the Alumnae Association,
June 3, 191 1, voted to name the fellowship, for the endow-
ment of which the general group and the chapters had been
working for many years, the Dean Van Meter Alumnae Fellow-
ship. Toward the endowment fund for this fellowship, the
Class of 1904 gave five hundred dollars in the name of Dr. Van
Meter, its honorary member.
President Noble, at the commencement exercises in June
1910, said:
This occasion permits a brief word of reference to the faithful service
which has been rendered to the College by Professor John B. Van Meter,
D.D., in the office of Dean. With an unusual perception he has clearly
understood the problem of the higher education of women, and with un-
exampled devotion has built himself into the lives of the graduates of this
institution. He retires from the activity of the dean's office in order to de-
vote himself exclusively to his work as a professor in the College.
Also, a committee of the Board of Trustees consisting of
Mary Conner, '01 (Mrs. William Van V. Hayes), William H.
Maltbie, and Luther T. Widerman, prepared a resolution
expressive of the Board's appreciation of his services:
Whereas John B. Van Meter, after serving Goucher College as Dean from
its foundation^^ until June 1910, and.
Whereas his service has been marked by an unusual degree of self-sac-
rificing devotion to the Institution, and.
Whereas a large measure of the success of the Institution has been due to
his faithfulness to the interests committed to his care, and the wisdom,
ability, and tact with which he has discharged the duties imposed upon him,
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE I5I
Therefore, be it resolved by the Board of Trustees of Goucher College,
that in accepting his resignation, as Dean, we hereby spread upon our
minutes an expression of our appreciation of the services already rendered
by him, and of our regret that he is unwilling to continue longer in that
position, and of our gratification that he is not to sever his relation with
the Institution, but is to continue his work as Instructor therein.'**'
In seeking a successor to Dr. Van Meter, the administration
decided in the end to give preference to a woman and when this
decision was rumored about, the thoughts of students, alumnae
and faculty turned to Eleanor L. Lord, professor of history. ^^
She herself was unaware that she was being considered and it
was a complete surprise to her to learn of her appointment by
the Board of Trustees on November 30, 1910. In this case
the position sought the person. The announcement at chapel
on December i, 1910, that Dr. Lord was appointed dean was
"greeted with the heartiest applause and rejoicing." She
brought to her work an equipment of training, experience, and
sympathy that promised much for useful service in her new
office. ^2 By virtue of the place of her birth, of her early educa-
tion, and of her first college training. Dr. Lord represented
New England; through her graduate study and her teaching,
she had a wider connection; in her sympathies, educational
survey, and thinking she was truly cosmopolitan.^^ She was
born in Salem, Massachusetts, and received her bachelor's
degree from Smith College in 1887 and her master's in 1890.
She was fellow in history at Bryn Mawr College, 1888-89;
she held the European Fellowship of the Woman's Educational
Association of Boston and was a student of history at Newn-
ham College, Cambridge, 1894-95; from Bryn Mawr College
she received her Ph.D. in 1896. Her doctor's thesis was on
the subject of International Peace. She taught for a brief
period in Maiden, Massachusetts, and later became instructor
in history at Smith College, from there she came to a similar
position in the Woman's College in 1897. She was an instruc-
tor for three years, an associate professor for four, and then
152 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
in 1904, was made professor, an unusual honor to come to a
woman in the Woman's College. Dr. Lilian Welsh writes:
It was not President Goucher's policy to appoint women to professorships
and except in this department [physiology and physical training] the only
woman on the Board of Control was the woman physician. In 1904, Dr.
Eleanor Lord, associate professor of history, was made full professor and
from that time until 1916 Dr. Lord and I were the only women on the Board
of Control, which determined the academic policy of the College, and, until
student government became a part of the college policy, exercised a certain
measure of control over the rules and regulations for the conduct of
students.'*''
Dr. Welsh, in enumerating the influences which seemed to
her to have forced the College into the path of educational
soundness, counted Dr. Goucher with his unfailing optimism
which kept the college doors open in spite of constantly in-
creasing debt and his zealous guarding of academic freedom;
Dr. Van Meter "with his ear always close to the educational
ground, always an advocate of educational progress and educa-
tional freedom"; the young men professors, for the most part
doctors of philosophy of the Johns Hopkins University, with
their high ideals of scholarship. She continued:
Above all, shall I say beneath all, was the influence of the women instructors
the majority of them graduates of northern women's colleges, determined
that the instruction of girls in this college should measure up to the standards
women had set for themselves. In the classroom and outside of it, they
were continually encouraging the students to form high ideals of scholar-
ship and to demand that the College should stand for these ideals, bringing
their influence to bear on the college authorities on the one hand and on the
students, on the other.^^
Among these women. Dr. Lord was the leader, and in her
long connection with the College she influenced the students
along scholarly lines. She was honorary member of the Class
of 1902, v/hose commencement ivy came from her college,
Newnham. In writing of her, soon after her election to the
deanship, a student said in Kalends^ January 191 1 :
Her charming womanly traits never fail to win the esteem of all who come
into personal relations with her. She has a genial sense of humor, a delight-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE 1 53
ful simplicity, and a perfect freedom from cant or pretense. Her sincerity
of purpose never fails to convince. . • . Her helpful and affectionate relation
to the students in their various activities has always made them eager to
seek her advice, confident of a ready response in every worthy effort. . . .
She can enter upon her new official duties with the well-founded assurance of
a universal approval and cordial goodwill. Here's to you, Dean Lord;
success and joy! Here's to our College; congratulations!
Shortly after her election to the deanship. Dr. Lord sug-
gested the appointment of a joint committee of faculty and
students, called the College Council, with a view to bringing
about closer and more sympathetic relations between them,
through the discussion of matters relating to the general life
of the College and to particular student activities with regard
to which such interchange of opinions was likely to be profit-
able.''^
In President Noble's administration the Girls' Latin School
became completely separated from the College. It had occu-
pied Catherine Hooper Hall since 1893, but in 1909 it moved
to Alfheim Hall, corner of Calvert and Twenty-third Streets,
which it leased from the College. ^^ For one year after this
removal, the Board of Trustees of the College continued to be,
as it had been, its directing body and the Executive Committee
continued to appoint its faculty.^^ In 1910-11, the final bind-
ing tie was severed, and the Girls' Latin School became an
independent institution, incorporated under an interdenomina-
tional Board of Directors. ^^ Miss Nellie N. Wilmot was
principal of the school at this time. In Alfheim, the two
upper floors were used for boarding purposes, and the two
lower floors for recitation rooms and other school altivities.^°
The school continued to lease this property from the Trustees
of the College until 1914," when the building was needed by
the College itself, and the Girls' Latin School moved else-
where. At the fortieth anniversary of the school in 1930, it
was stated that about fifty percent of the graduates, some
675 in all, had entered college, and of these 361 had been
graduated from Goucher College.
154 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The removal of the Latin School from Catherine Hooper
Hall in 1909 gave the College its much needed science building,
and in a short time the departments of physics and chemistry-
were estabHshed there.
Miscellaneous Items
In addition to important changes already considered, there
are also several other events in Dr. Noble's administration to
be recorded.
In the first year, the twentieth anniversary of the opening
of the College was celebrated in a simple way. While Dr.
Goucher was yet president, a committee consisting of Professor
Maltbie, Professor Shefloe, and Professor Thomas had been
appointed to arrange for an appropriate observance." Dr.
Goucher's resignation, however, prevented any elaborate
preparation, and the event was marked only by special exer-
cises at the chapel service on Friday, November 13, 1908."
exactly twenty years from the time of the formal opening. In
planning "to recognize such an important event in some suit-
able way, attention [was called] to the significant address
delivered at the opening of the College by the President of the
Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Daniel Coit Gilman, on 'What
may Be Secured by a Liberal Education.' The recent death of
ex-President Gilman [gave] peculiar emphasis to his masterly
utterance. "^^ The principal speaker on the occasion of the
twentieth anniversary was Dean Edward H. Griffen of the
Johns Hopkins University, who spoke on a phrase from Aris-
totle which had been used by Dr. Gilman twenty years before
in his address at the opening of the College and which was
thought to have been the guiding motto of his life: "The right
conduct of business and the noble employment of leisure."
This was given to the students as worthy of their adoption for
the goal to be attained by their training." President Noble
presided at the exercises and delivered an address on the liberal
education of women. On account of illness. Dr. Goucher was
CATHERINE HOOPER HALL
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE 1 55
unable to attend. Subsequently, Dr. Noble had Dr. Gilman's
address published to mark the twentieth anniversary and also
as a tribute of respect and regard for the great educator who
had been a friend of the College.
The commencement of 1910 was made more impressive by
the fact that for the first time on such an occasion, to the great
satisfaction of alumnae and students, the faculty were academ-
ically garbed, and further that the procession marched from
the front of the Lyric through the main aisle to the stage in the
order followed ever since. ^^ In his commencement address in
1 910, President Noble paid a tribute to Dr. William Hersey
Hopkins, who at the end of 1909-10 had rounded out fifty
years of teaching. Dr. Noble spoke of him as one who "with
rare appreciation of what is involved in the function of teaching,
and with rare devotion to his ideals . . . [had] successfully
stimulated the love of letters and the pursuit of knowledge
among many students."®'
All of Dr. Hopkins' days of teaching were spent in his native
state of Maryland. At the outset of his career, the classics
held absolute sway in the educational world; at the end of his
half-century they had been supplanted by science and modern
languages. His fight for the value of the classics in college
training won for him friends who admired "his honesty of
purpose, his enthusiasm, his moderation, his scholarship, his
grace of speech, and his personality."^^
His anniversary was observed by his friends among the
faculty, students, and alumnae. In appreciation of his service
to the College and as an expression of their esteem for him, the
Baltimore Chapter of the Alumnae Association presented him
with a purse of gold.^^
During the following year Dr. Hopkins wrote his Latin hymn
"Almae Matri" which set to music by D. Merrick Scott,
college choir director, was first sung at the commencement
exercises in 191 1. It has been used more than any other col-
lege song, and it is loved by hundreds of Goucher women.
156 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
During Dr. Noble's presidency, the group system in the
curriculum was introduced at Goucher. It was discussed at
the end of Dr. Goucher's administration and a committee of
five, Dr. Hodell, Dr. Lord, Dr. Kellicott, Dr. Froelicher, and
Dr. Welsh was appointed to consider its practicability and
desirability.^" It was reported on and adopted during the
following year.^^
It was during this period, also, that the possibility of offering
"extension" courses to teachers and others desiring work of
special character or at special hours was considered by a com-
mittee of Dean Van Meter, Professor Hodell, and Professor
Maltbie.^2 Toward the end of the academic year, 1908-09,
this plan was changed to include cooperation with the Johns
Hopkins University and the details were arranged by a joint
committee of representatives of the College, the University,
and the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore. ^^ During
the year 1910-11, the plan was put into operation. Professor
Kellicott teaching biology. Dr. Annie H. Abel, history. Miss
Clara L. Bacon and Dr. William H. Maltbie, mathematics."
Soon after Dr. Noble became president an important change
was made in the relation of the head of the department of
physiology and hygiene to the students. Up to this time, this
professor had not looked after those who were sick. Dr.
Welsh says:
In my first interview with Dr. Goucher he told me that the policy of the
College was to designate two male physicians resident in Baltimore, one of
the regular school (he said 'allopathic') and one homeopathic, to be called to
the [halls] in cases of illness, the nurse in charge calling the doctor after
ascertaining from the student her preference. . . . When Dr. Noble became
President, I was appointed by action of the board of Trustees, medical ad-
viser of the College, with the understanding that I was to organize the care
of the sick in the infirmary as I saw best, but to receive no compensation for
medical services from the College.®^
In Dr. Noble's administration there were a number of
changes in the interior arrangement of the buildings. With
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE I57
the removal of the Girls' Latin School from Catherine Hooper
Hall, the physics and chemistry departments were changed
from the lower floor of Goucher Hall to that building. Where
the chemistry laboratory had been the business office was set
up, the room it continues to use. The Y. W. C. A. was given
its present room, the former chemistry lecture room. On the
first floor of Goucher Hall, the president's office was established
in its present location, which before had been used for the
cashier's office, and what had been the president's office be-
came the president's reception room.^^ There were also
numerous changes in Bennett Hall Annex making it better
adapted to the work of the biological department.
While Dr. Noble was president, the interest of the students
in bringing about a closer relation with the alumnae became
deeper. They arranged for a committee to welcome visiting
alumnae and give them information about college events, and
also for an advisory alumnae committee in connection with the
Students' Organization."
In 1908-09, there were only four outside lectures at the
CoUege,^^ but in 1909-10, apparently for the first time, the
custom was started of having lecturers weekly, at ten o'clock
at the chapel exercises."
One of the interesting persons who visited the College during
this administration was ex-President Theodore Roosevelt.
He made an address before the student body and invited guests
in the First Methodist Church, November 2, 1910. After
his talk of about twenty minutes, a reception was held for him
in Goucher Hall.'^°
Financial Crisis
While the aff"airs of the College were externally serene and
prosperous, within, it was faced with an increasingly serious
condition.
Dr. Noble came to the College at its most depressing period.
158 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
when the outlook for the future was very grave and the finances
were at their lowest ebb.''^ Before coming he did not fully
understand the seriousness of the situation. In his final report
to the Board of Trustees on February 28, 191 1, he said, "The
work to which you called me more than two years ago was not
definitely understood by me when I came. The magnitude of
this problem was not even suspected."" The patrons and
friends of the College also had no idea of the financial diffi-
culties. President Noble reported:
A misconception exists in many places about our resources. Not a few
of those who ought to know better have suspected us of possessing wealth,
and have even believed that Aladdin's lamp was in Baltimore and could be
rubbed for a new building, more endowment, or anything else. ... In view
of the heroic canvass conducted before my incumbency, and the statements
made and the results achieved in that canvass, many persons seem startled
to learn that this college now has a debt. They forget that there is a differ-
ence between a promise to pay and money in hand, a difference which my
colleague, the Reverend Dr. Hugh Johnston, who has given persistent and
painstaking effort to the collection of the debt fund, knows from discourag-
ing experience. Besides the unpaid pledges, there is an accumulation of
annual deficits covering a period of years and some heavy interest charges to
be considered. ^^
The annual deficits on the current expense account con
tinued. In 1909-10, it cost the College I317.25 per student to
maintain the work, irrespective of board and care of residence
halls. The students paid the College, said Dr. Noble, "an
average of |i 23.83 on this same account, which means that the
College donated 1 193.42 to each student. . . . This explains the
embarrassing deficit which occurs year after year. Until our
endowment resources are adequate, this embarrassment must
continue. "^^ Though in 1909-10 the total number of students
(367) was the largest in the history of the institution, the
finances were not helped thereby, because the College was
receiving a great many students on the basis of free tuition
without having funds to cover such scholarships, '^^
Means to increase the current income and decrease the ex-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE I59
penses were sought. In the interest of economy, it was
decided to discontinue the two foreign fellowships offered by
the College to graduates, and in their place to substitute two
resident fellowships,^^ the holders of which should live in
Goucher residence halls and pursue their studies at the Hop-
kins. When this was done, the fellowship given by the
Alumnae Association was called the "travelling" fellowship.''''
Also early in Dr. Noble's administration, the board for students
in residence halls was raised by twenty-five dollars, making
the total for board $300 in addition to the I150 for tuition. '^
The President was instructed by the Executive Committee in
May 1 910 to formulate a plan for "modification or changes in
the academic organization and administration of the College
for the purpose of reducing expenses without weakening the
standard of the College." In pursuance of that policy, the
recently organized department of education was discontinued.''^
President Noble suggested also in his last report to the Trus-
tees, February 28, 191 1, that resources might be increased by a
laboratory fee and a library fee. "The college has proudly
announced a policy of 'no extras,' but there are reasons why
laboratory fees and a library fee should be paid by students."
But these were only small savings, and the total debt of the
College was assuming large proportions. Of the amount of the
indebtedness. Dr. Noble reported about this time:
The inspection of our books by the certified public accountants shows
liabilities that total $479,391.23. As far as it goes this statement is quite
correct. But there are expended annuity funds, and also funds used as
temporary accommodation, which might be regarded as additions to lia-
bilities. So regarded, the total liabilities of the College, as I estimate them,
would total about eight hundred thousand dollars.^"
To understand more clearly the exact financial status of the
College, the Executive Committee in the fall of 1908 asked
President Noble and the chairman of the Auditing Committee
to investigate the business methods of the institution and make
what changes seemed desirable. ^^ Dr. Maltbie, no longer a
l6o THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
member of the faculty, but a member of the Board of Trustees,
was asked to present a statement of the history of the realty
of the College; the Treasurer was requested to present a classi-
fied statement showing the history of the securities of the
College ;^2 }t was voted further, "that a complete list of all
gifts to the institution, the terms under which they were made,
and the subsequent history of the securities donated be pre-
pared . . . and that preliminary to this complete report, a hst
of such endowments as are now unencumbered be filed."^^ In
October 1910 these reports were made.
At this time of financial stress, during the second year of
President Noble's administration, the property on the south-
east corner of Charles and Twenty-fourth Streets, formerly the
residence of John K. Cowen, president of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad, was acquired. At a meeting of the Executive
Committee on November 16, 1909, a committee consisting of
Dr. Noble, H. S. Dulaney, and B. F. Bennett was appointed to
consider and act upon the proposition of the President to pur-
chase the property. The committee reported later that, if
the house were used as a residence for the President and the
stable as a shop for the College, it would be an advantage to the
Institution sufficient to justify the investment.^'* Twenty-five
thousand dollars was paid for the property which originally
had cost seventy thousand. ^^ The transaction was consum-
mated on March 2, 1910, deed having been passed by Mrs.
Sara Cowen Monson and her husband to Eugene A. Noble and
in turn from Dr. and Mrs. Noble to the College. The money
to pay for this purchase was obtained from the Massey Fund.
H. S. Dulaney, John T. Stone, and Eugene A. Noble had been
appointed by the Executive Committee as the committee on
Investment of the Massey Fund, "It being understood that
the committee is to invest $25,000 of this fund in a first mort-
gage on the property purchased from the Cowen Estate, the
rate of interest to be not more than 4 percent; and also to secure
a second mortgage for $25,000 on Fensal Hall at the same
rate."86
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE l6l
President and Mrs. Noble moved into the Cowen house
during the summer of 1910, and during the last year of their
term it was the President's House.
About the same time that the Cowen property was pur-
chased, the financial difficulties became acute through the need
of repaying to the estate of Mr. William E. Hooper a loan of
$95,000.^^ It brought to the consciousness of the Trustees
"with distressing acuteness the menace of debt."^^ They
turned first to the old Debt Fund of 1905-06, and the President
was asked to send a letter to each of the subscribers whose
pledges had not been paid.^^
A careful list of the total subscriptions and payments was
reported later to the Trustees. It was found that the subscrip-
tions had totaled ^500,429.50, "not including ^50,000 from the
Massey Estate and $10,000 from the Elizabeth H. Bennett
Fund,"^" but the total amount paid to date was only
$309,995.68.«i
This plan was evidently not very successful in securing
funds, for ground rents, bank stock, and bonds had to be sold
and $40,000 borrowed from the banks to meet this serious
need.^^
In the fall of 1910, several committees of the Trustees were
at work upon the matter of finances; John T. Stone, Sewall
S. Watts, H. S. Dulaney;»» B. F. Bennett, W. H. Maltbie, A.
Rozel Cathcart;^'' B. F. Bennett, J. T. Stone, H. S. Dulaney.^^
There were numerous joint meetings of the Executive and the
Finance Committees.^®
Dr. Noble felt that the time had come for a frank facing of
the financial condition of the College by the Trustees, and in
what turned out to be his final report to them on February 28,
191 1, he presented a candid statement,^^ making in a fev/
courteous and well chosen sentences an introduction to his
criticisms:
No one is more conscious of the propriety of considerate and carefully
tempered statement in discussing these matters than I; and I have no in-
tention to sit in judgment or to indulge in personal criticism.
l62 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
And yet, there should be perfect frankness in stating certain principles
that are fundamental to successful college administration, and in such state-
ment there should be on the one hand no intention to find fault and on the
other no inference of unfairness.
The safety of Goucher College will not be well assured until we have, at
the very least, one million dollars prudently invested in income bearing se-
curities, such as mortgages, ground-rents, bonds, etc. Irrespective of the
value of grounds and buildings, and also irrespective of current income from
fees, our work compels us to recognize no need so pressing as this need for
adequate productive endowment.
A defect in our financial administration is connected with our interpreta-
tion of endowment funds. We have included some of our buildings in our
estimate of these funds. To use endowment funds for the erection of a
college building, even if that building produces revenue, does not seem to me
to be most prudent unless the funds have been given for such specific pur-
pose, and to enumerate dormitories among the forms of investment may lead
to serious complications. ... In this connection may I venture to state that
the policy of transferring endowment funds to any other fund, either by
assuming a mortgage liability or by recording an obligation that implies
the payment of interest on the funds transferred, or in any other way, is a
policy of great risk. The pressure of an immediate demand in connection
with current expenses may bear heavily upon an institution, but the transfer
of endowment or other trust funds, even as an expedient, the most urgent,
seems to me most dangerous.
The past year has brought to our consciousness with distressing acuteness
the menace of debt.
The financial operations of the College have been conducted heretofore in
a way which many institutions have found it wise to abandon. The College
has been financially divided into two parts, the Board of Trustees, who own
and control the institution, whose function is that of proprietorship, and the
College, represented by the President and his colleagues. The plan is not
unlike that of a church organization, with a board of trustees and a board of
stewards. In practice this plan has produced some interesting varieties of
operation, as, for instance, where the trustees rent the institution to someone
who operates it — a scheme almost but not entirely obsolete. The practical
working of the plan in this College relates itself to two accounts, and, as a
consequence, a dual sense of financial obligation. This is almost the same
thing as saying that the college bookkeeper kept two sets of books; it means
an actual separation of activities and often a dilemma with two projecting
horns. And our financial condition is closely related to this old arrangement.
If the college account should ever exhibit profits, the Trustees would have
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE 163
the benefit. But when, as usual, the college account has exhibited a short-
age, an effort has been made to persuade the Trustees to assume responsibil-
ity for it. And this, in our particular instance, they have done, not, how-
ever, by collecting the amount of each annual deficit from generous friends,
which would have been wise, followed up by an order to reduce operating
charges, but usually by borrowing from banks, from individuals, or from
trust-funds what they needed to have. Such a process has been an expe-
dient, and like most expedients, follows a line of least resistance, with conse-
quent danger. Borrowing money may be creditable in the sense of showing
that trustworthy persons have credit; but it is never creditable when interest
or principal becomes an intolerable burden. The Trustees have undoubtedly
had only the highest sense of official responsibility, and a high desire to serve
the institution in everything that has been done; and the financial arrange-
ments of the College have imposed burdens which some of them have borne
with singular devotion and courage. But I think the arrangements making
these burdens necessary are not ideal.
A reorganization of office methods was recommended and ordered some
time ago by your Executive Committee. Among the important activities
of the past year has been the formulation of a new plan of accounts. Here-
after the College in its operations in all financial transactions, and in every
way, will be undivided. One set of books will be kept, with many particular
accounts making up a general account, imposing, undoubtedly, more work
upon the office force, but putting us where we ought to be. Most colleges
have done the same. The Carnegie Foundation is trying to standardize
college bookkeeping, among other things, and we have adopted many of
their suggestions. Special recognition should be given to one member of
this Board, Mr. Henry S. Dulaney, for his fidelity in directing the certified
public accountants, and in the preparation of forms, and to our office force
in introducing them. This new bookkeeping will not pay obligations, but
it simplifies and benefits the financial organization of the College.
Of the effort to provide temporary relief for the debt and of
the great need for endowment, he wrote in the same report as
follows :
At a meeting of the Board of Trustees held in November, a report was
presented by me showing the outstanding obligations against the College.
This report was followed by a recommendation that a series of bonds be
issued, secured by a first mortgage upon our valuable property, so that we
might refund our debt, reduce the interest charges, and provide for some
needed repairs and improvements. . . . But I am not deluded by a false
164 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
hope that this or any temporary expedient will guarantee the financial com-
fort of Goucher College. One fundamental essential requirement must be
secured. Without endowment we cannot do out work. The statement
may seem dogmatic; the facts make it so. Colleges may be qualified for
usefulness in various ways; but the qualification for this College is endow-
ment. To this matter I am giving time and hope and effort. . . .
No college can be assured of permanence or can perform its academic
functions with such a reasonable guarantee of prosperity as every college
needs, if it assumes liabilities which it cannot easily meet, or bears the galling
yoke of a great debt. It would be a safe principle for every college to insist
that as much money must be raised for permanent and productive endow-
ment as for the erection of buildings and the purchase of grounds. One
cannot venture too far in emphasizing the need for productive endowment,
which ought to be at least sufficient to provide income to meet the fixed
charges for instruction in whole or in large part.
This report of President Noble to the Trustees was approved
and ordered printed at the meeting on February 28, 191 1. It
was pubhshed in the regular June Bulletin of the College.
In this report there were four criticisms; namely, that debts
were allowed to accumulate; that the cost of the residence
halls (since they produced revenue) was counted in the esti-
mate of endowment funds; that endowment funds were trans-
ferred to other funds under the pressure of an immediate
demand in connection with the current expenses; that two
accounts were maintained, one for the College and one for the
Trustees.
The reply to the last three of these criticisms is the same.
These methods were customary among many colleges at the
time they were adopted and were continued in use because
they concealed a financial condition which, when revealed,
threatened to result in closing the doors of the College. If
they had been revealed earlier prospective students would have
gone elsewhere and the faculty would have sought other
positions. Some of the faculty began to prepare for the worst
after the publication of President Noble's report, but waited
to see what would be done.
Many friends of the College, moreover, commended Dr.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE 165
Goucher for not revealing the true financial condition during
this period, among them Dr. Metcalf, who asserted:
The financial backing of the institution was as yet undeveloped. The
College had little beyond student fees with which to meet expenses. It
constantly faced financial difficulty, often extreme and critical. But none
of us knew much about it. Dr. Goucher kept to himself the problems which,
if known at all vividly, would have made the atmosphere one of apprehension,
not conducive to good work. His not inconsiderable personal wealth was
used to bolster the college credit, and there was repeated interweaving of his
personal and his official financing in a way that would have been most con-
fusing for an outsider to follow. But it was all most masterfully done.
It saved the College repeatedly and in the end did not strain the credit of
the College or Dr. Goucher's own finances to the breaking point. No one
will ever know fully this burden which Dr. Goucher carried. We lived dur-
ing those years in an atmosphere of confidence in the growth and success
of the undertaking.^^
Dr. Goucher undoubtedly did things that were dangerous,
as he directed the financial policy of the College, but his
friends say that the perilous condition of the finances required
these measures. If he took great risks, it was in order to avoid
the risk of extinction. "Probably no other man," wrote Dr.
Metcalf, in 1933, to Florence Edwards Sumwalt, '97, "cer-
tainly no other available man, could have pulled the College
through its first difficult years. . . . He did it, and never doubted
that he would succeed."
As to the matter of the debts, we know that Dr. Goucher and
the Trustees early faced the alternative of incurring heavy
debts or crippling the institution and made their choice. As
President Goucher said to the Trustees, November 17, 1898:
When the Woman's College was projected its trustees had to elect be-
tween two policies: To expend simply the moneys in hand and start with a
school with a limited faculty, inadequate laboratories and meagre facilities
for advanced work, unworthy to be called a college, and thus add another to
the long list of schools of large pretense and small possibilities, or to borrow
money to equip a first-class institution ... the latter policy was the one wise
one and it was adopted.
l66 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
In this statement Dr. Goucher makes his own defense for
the poHcy of allowing the College to run into debt, and answers
the criticism that an annual deficit implies mismanagement.
A college with a first-class faculty and equipment and little or
no endowment cannot, with a small student enrolment, avoid
an annual deficit. In his last report as President, Dr. Goucher
suggested a way out through larger enrolment. It had been
his idea that the college should be a small one. "In my judg
ment, the freshman class should not be permitted at any time
to exceed one hundred and twenty-five students." He said
this to the Trustees in 1898, and at commencement in 1906,
he repeated: "One hundred and twenty-five is the fixed limit
of her freshman class." But in his last report in November
1907, he suggested "that the Trustees shall commence plan-
ning at once to provide, in the not distant future, to increase
her student body from 340 to 800. This is quite possible
and from every standpoint desirable." While Dr. Goucher
was aware of the advantages of a larger enrolment, it was not
until Dr. Guth's administration that this method of avoiding
an annual deficit was worked out.
Resignation of President Noble
On June 13, President Noble delivered the commencement
address at the conferring of degrees at the Johns Hopkins
University.^^
Just one week previously, June 6, it was announced by the
newspapers that Dr. Noble had been elected president of
Dickinson College, Carhsle, Pennsylvania, but whether or not
he would accept the offer he had not yet made known.
At a meeting of the Board of Trustees ten days later on
June 16, 191 1, a resolution was passed to the effect that the
"Board of Trustees earnestly desires that Dr. Noble shall
continue as the President of Goucher College and hereby
pledges to him its unqualified and united support in every plan
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT NOBLE 1 67
and effort he may make for its stability, prosperity, and larger
usefulness in the work of the higher Christian education of
women." The record continues:
Dr. Noble presented his resignation [a very brief statement] "I present
herewith my resignation as President of Goucher College."
On motion of Dean Van Meter a committee of two was appointed to
inquire of Dr. Noble whether it will be possible for the Board of Trustees
to take any action which will lead him to withdraw his resignation, and John
T. Stone and George A. Solter were appointed. The Committee reported
that after a conference of some length with Dr. Noble, during which the sit-
uation was quite fully discussed, it was not apparent that anything would be
gained by deferring action upon the resignation.
On motion of Dr. Richardson, the resignation of Dr. Noble was accepted
. . . with regret.
The chief criticism of Dr. Noble's administration was that he
had not been able to secure additional funds for the College.
Some of the ways in which he had aided the College, he
listed as follows in 191 1 in his report to the Baltimore Confer-
ence:
I. We have changed our methods of bookkeeping, a fact of seeming in-
significance, but really most radical.
a. We have recast our statement of resources, putting the Endowment
Fund entirely apart from buildings and grounds.
3. We have reviewed and revised the list of our outstanding obligations,
and desire as quietly as possible to make better provision to carry them.
Though he was criticized for publishing it, Dr. Noble felt
that he had rendered his best service to the College in making
public his final report to the Trustees. As a result of it, the
Trustees were obliged to face the situation of a College
heavily in debt and with no endowment.^"" With the College
firmly established and its academic standing recognized, it was
considered by many no longer wise or helpful to conceal its
true financial condition. ^''^
chapter V
THE ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT
JOHN BLACKFORD VAN METER
1911-1913
Dr. Van Meter's election — Biographical sketch — Summary of
his whole connection with the College — Appreciations by organi-
zations and friends outside the College — Characteristics of his
work in the College — Tributes from alumnae and colleagues — The
million dollar campaign 1911-1913 — Babcock classification^
Death of Benjamin F. Bennett — Changes in the curriculum —
Twenty-fifth anniversary — Dr. Van Meter's work as acting presi-
dent.
Dr. Van Meter's Election
BY the end of the academic year 1910-11, the merit and
worth of the College had been recognized but its mone-
tary support was as uncertain as its standard was safe.^
The publication of the frank statement concerning the financial
status of the College, followed quickly by the sudden resigna-
tion of President Noble, created an emergency difficult to
meet. "The Trustees faced two problems of grave signifi-
cance," said Mr. John T. Stone. "The indebtedness of the
years had raised the serious question as to whether Goucher
College could overcome its financial difficulties. Unless at
least one million dollars was secured, the College must close
its doors. Those who knew the facts did not question this
alternative. Added to the financial burden was another diffi-
culty, the College was without a president and it seemed impos-
sible to secure the right man."^
At the meeting of the Trustees after Dr. Noble had presented
his resignation, it was resolved to appoint a committee of five
to consider the situation thus created. Dr. John F. Goucher,
Bishop Earl Cranston, H. S. Dulaney, John T. Stone, and
George A. Solter were selected and they added to their number
I)FA\ lOHN BLACKFORD \ AN MKIKK
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER 1 69
Summerfield Baldwin and Bishop William F. McDowell.
After careful thought they recommended that an acting presi-
dent be elected to begin service August i . The man chosen was
Dr. John B. Van Meter. "No man could better fill the place
than Dr. Van Meter," said "The Baltimore News July 14, 191 1,
"and the committee without loss of time came to the conclusion
that he was the man that should be appointed." He was asked
to serve until the first of October, unless a president was
elected before that time.^ And then early in the fall the Acting
President was requested to continue his work until a new presi-
dent should be installed."
At the end of the scholastic year 19 10- 11, Dr. Van Meter, very
weary and greatly in need of a rest, had started with his daugh-
ter for a summer vacation. While on this trip he received a
visit from Dr. Goucher, who urged his acceptance of the
leadership of the College in this serious emergency. His
daughters were reluctant to have him assume such burdens, but
he loved the College too unselfishly to desert it at such a time
of peril, and so he undertook the task. His abilities came to
their flowering in his long, varied, and valuable service to
the College.
Biographical Sketch
John Blackford Van Meter was born on September 6, 1842,
on the west side of Third Street near Race, Philadelphia.^
His parents were Thomas Hurley Van Meter and Johnetta
Blackford Van Meter. His father's ancestors in early colonial
times came from the Netherlands. His mother's family was
of English and French descent and also came to this country
in early days.
His mother's maternal grandmother was named Dubree.
Dr. Van Meter writes:
This Miss Dubree married a man by the name of Truman. They were
living at the date of the Battle of Germantown. Mother has told me,
what she no doubt learned from her grandmother's lips, that when the battle
lyo THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
began, her grandmother fled from her house across the open fields, accom-
panied by her children, and that when she arrived at a spot where she was
either compelled to stop for want of strength or where she felt secure, she
found herself dragging the two smallest children, one by the arm and the
other by the leg.
It is not likely what my great-grandfather displayed any greater warlike
qualities than did his wife, although it remains to be explained where he was
at the time of the flight. Perhaps he was leading the race. The family
belonged to the Society of Friends. ... It is true that some members of this
society were untrue to their principles and shouldered muskets in these
trying days, but I have never heard that my great-grandfather was one of
them. I think I should have heard of it had it been so, for one of the daugh-
ters lived until about 1870, dying then at the age of ninety-four. She was
not reticent and would scarcely have forgotten to tell me such a fact of her
father's history, of which I feel sure she would have been proud.
I think this great-grandmother of mine must have lived until about 1846,
for I have a shadowy recollection of her. I seem to see a tall woman sitting
very erect in a chair with her feet upon a stool on which I myself was sitting
looking up into her face. The chair was backed against a wall, on her right
was a window which looked out upon a street and on her left a bed. She
seems to have been dressed in some plain brown or gray fabric, a silk shawl
pinned across her shoulders and a cap of some thin stuff upon her head. I
remember her telling me about one night when she was aroused from her
sleep by the watchman's call, raised the window, listened, and heard 'Past
twelve o'clock! Lord Cornwallis is taken!' Those were the 'Ledgy Extras'
of 1784. I can hear yet her deep voice and exultant tone in imitation of the
watchman. Should not this entitle me to membership among the Sons of
the American Revolution? This or the flight to Germantown.''
His mother's mother, Hannah Truman, was married to a
Mr. Blackford, whose family were also Friends, but she and
her aunt withdrew from the Meeting and united with the
Methodist Episcopal Church, and his mother was brought up
as a member of that communion. On his mother's side his
immediate ancestors were members of St. George's Methodist
Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, "at least from as early
as 1790."
His paternal grandfather, John Van Meter, who survived
until Dr. Van Meter was ten or twelve, was a manufacturer
of wall paper with a factory at Mantua, now included in "over
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I7I
Schuylkill," Philadelphia, and a store in the city on the south
side of Chestnut Street near Third.
His father was the eldest of seven children, and in 1841, at
the age of twenty-four, he married Johnetta Blackford.
Thomas Hurley Van Meter was a devout and active member
of the German Reformed Church and his wife attended that
church after their marriage. Dr. Van Meter was the elder
of their two sons. Of their family life he wrote, "It was a well-
balanced family life of the working class in post-colonial days,
[characterized by] industry, efficiency, intelligence, sociability,
and piety." His father was something of a student, the Bible
being the center of his studies. "He led a singularly beautiful
Christian life," Dr. Van Meter says. " 'May you be like your
father' was a frequent blessing bestowed on me. My father
was rapidly making money — rapidly for those days. Property
which he had acquired in Philadelphia would now be worth
a fortune," But long sickness came and then death.
Much of Dr. Van Meter's early childhood was spent in the
home of his Quaker great-grandmother and great aunts with
whom his mother lived after the death of his father. His
mother, not yet twenty-seven, was left a widow with two little
boys, one four and one two, and without means. Then began
her struggle to support herself and her boys, first by the needle,
for she was a skillful needle woman, and afterward by taking
boarders. The pressure of her lack of means was especially
hard at Christmas time. "There must have been Christmases
when her loving heart was wrung as she thought that the hardly
earned dimes must not be spent for toys and candies because
everyone of them was needed for rent and food and clothes."
But three of the holiday times were a little easier, and on one
of them John B. Van Meter received a gift that he cherished
to the end of his life.
I would not part with it for its bulk in gold. It is a little china ornament
representing the trunk of a tree (hollow so that a few flowers might be placed
in it), at the foot of the tree is a pond with grass borders, and on the pond
172 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
on one side a full grown swan and on the other a cygnet. . . . This is its his-
tory. . . . After supper on Christmas eve, my mother took a basket which I
well remember (it had two lids opening from the middle under the hand leat
both ends) and we went down Eighth Street . . . then a street of petty retail
trade. It seemed to me brilliant although the illumination must have come
from candles or whale oil lamps. . . . After walking some distance we went
into a store. My brother was along and probably my aunt. There was a
wonderful array of toys spread on shelves and counter and Tommy and my-
self were directed to select what we would like to have. Who set the pace I
do not know, but the result of the selections was the swans for me and for
Tommy, a very shaggy goat, also of china. There were also, two books
among the purchases of that evening.
And now when on Christmas eve I see mothers humbly dressed bearing
baskets and leading children by the hand, stopping and gazing into toy-
filled windows with eager and wistful eyes I understand them — the mothers
and the children— and comprehend the struggle in the mother's heart be-
tween the Christmas spirit and the warnings of a slender purse. I also
understand how little it takes to fill a child's heart with joy.
Six years after the death of her first husband, his mother in
1852 married again. Her second husband, Zerubbabel Hallock
of New England Puritan stock, was a Presbyterian and an
upright Christian man. He came from Long Island originally
and later was a merchant in Springfield, Illinois. He was not,
however, a good business man.
He invested his means in a business about which he knew absolutely
nothing, furnishing the capital while a partner was to furnish the skill, with
the usual result of such an arrangement. Reduced to poverty and in debt
to business creditors, he removed with us to Baltimore in the spring of 1853.
Obtaining employment, and at the same time opening for his wife a little
shop, he paid off every last cent of his indebtedness.
Subsequently with a small legacy that had come to him he
purchased the house in which the store had been opened and
by industry and economy the family managed to be "moder-
ately comfortable." Their home was near the Monument
Street Methodist Church, but they attended the Presbyterian
Church on the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets.
Dr. Van Meter's education began in the public schools of
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I73
Philadelphia and Baltimore, but he says that "the foundations
were laid by mother who taught her little son to read apprecia-
tively, with such deliberation and emphasis as brought out the
sense. A book was never only a book to him; it contained
something that he must grapple with and understand for him-
self. He read rapidly, voraciously, intelligently, retentively."
It was his step-father's conviction that, when he reached the
age of thirteen, he should help support the family, but his
mother pled for him to go to high school if he passed the
examinations. "The proudest day of a long life," he declared,
"was that day in July 1855, when I found my name in the
columns of the Baltimore Sun among those who had been suc-
cessful." On July 21, 1859, nearing seventeen, he was gradu-
ated from the Male Central High School of Baltimore "now
'improved' into Baltimore City College," with honorable men-
tion. In the class with him were J. J. G. Webster and C.
Herbert Richardson, both of whom later served on the Board
of Trustees of the College.
With the high school, because of financial necessity, his
academic privileges came to an end. "But," he writes, "I
had obtained a start, had learned how to study, and subse-
quently no subject was beyond my power to grasp."
Immediately after his graduation he received an appoint-
ment to teach in the Grammar School at Broadway and Bank
Street, where he remained for nearly four years. Later, for
a short time, he was principal of the Port Deposit High School.
But he had decided on law and politics for his career, and in
1862 while he was still teaching he began the study of law
under the direction of one of the leading lawyers of Balti-
more. The double work, joined with imprudence in diet
and insufficient sleep, affected his health unfavorably, for he
was by no means robust. Then in February 1863, came the
shock of the sudden death of his only brother who had enlisted
in a regiment of Delaware Cavalry, only to succumb to typhoid
fever without seeing active service. This bereavement, cou-
174 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
pled with overwork, brought on a nervous breakdown. Seek-
ing the restoration of his health, he was obliged to give up his
teaching and study, and during this period the course of his
life was changed.
About the time of his graduation he had united with the
Monument Street Methodist Episcopal Church. Convictions
on the doctrine of the "decrees" alienated him from Presby-
terianism, and friendships drew him to the Methodist church,
the theology of which so far as he was acquainted with it
commended itself to him.
Years later, in speaking to a member of the college faculty
of the various denominational influences which he had encoun-
tered. Dr. Van Meter told this story: "A Methodist minister
said to me with the humorous exaggeration and inaccuracy
which are pardonable in a joke, 'It has been hard for me to
classify you denominationally, but I have finally solved the
problem. You are a Quaker by birth, a Presbyterian by train-
ing, a Unitarian by conviction and a Methodist only by the
grace of God.' " When Dr. Van Meter united with the
Monument Street Methodist Church he joined the senior class
of the Sunday School conducted by John B. Seidenstricker. In
connection with that class and for other church services, he
was called on for certain oratorical and literary exercises for
which he had a gift. His success along this line led many to
suggest that he should enter the ministry. This had been
pressed upon him before; the minister of a church — not a
Methodist — had ofl^ered to send him through college if he
would do so. Moreover from early childhood his relatives
had urged on him that his father had solemnly dedicated him
to the ministry. This was not only unattractive to him, but
he says he "had a positive repugnance to that calling and
expressed it unhesitatingly." Yet now, unable to work and
overwhelmed by grief, "in profound contrition he yielded to
what took the aspect of a divine command," and offered him-
self to the church. He was accepted and the following March
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I75
(1864) he received his first appointment as junior preacher in
the Middletown circuit which extended from Harper's Ferry
to Sugar Loaf Mountain. This was the year of General
Early's raid through Maryland, and the circuit was conse-
quently in great confusion. Nevertheless, he was encouraged
by having eighty members added to the church at one station.
He served for a year on this one circuit and then for the same
length of time on each of three others — at Westminster,
Liberty, and West Harford. These three were strong and
populous circuits. And so as a young minister he preached
in Harford, Carroll, and Frederick counties to intelligent and
militant Methodists, not many generations removed from
Francis Asbury and Robert Strawbridge.^
December 19, 1866, he was married to Lucinda Cassell of
Westminster, whose family was associated with the Straw-
bridge traditions. Her father's youngest brother was a suc-
cessful and eloquent member of "Asbury's cavalry" at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. Dr. and Mrs. Van Meter
had two daughters, Johnetta and Lydia.^ For many years
Mrs. Van Meter was an invalid. A few of the students knew
her as a sweet frail lady, but she was not well enough to have
any part in the social life of the College, and whenever neces-
sary his daughters acted as his hostesses.
After his first four years in the ministry, he tried for an
appointment at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with the design of work-
ing for a bachelor's degree at Dickinson College as several
ministers there had done before him. But since that place
had already been filled, he was sent instead to Gettysburg,
where there was a college under Lutheran auspices. Here he
was graciously received by the authorities who placed the
college facilities at his disposal, and yet the outcome was not
very favorable to his desires, for he found that the demands of
a scattered circuit did not permit the systematic pursuit of
studies under conditions demanding exact days and hours of
class attendance. His appointment to Gettysburg brought
176 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
him, however, an interesting opportunity. There was a move-
ment to erect at Gettysburg a handsome memorial church
commemorating the famous battle, and along with others, he
went to the meeting of the General Conference at Chicago to
further the project. Thus he obtained a chance to see a section
of the country unknown to him, to look in on a great political
convention — for the Republican Convention that nominated
Grant was in session in Chicago at the same time — and to be-
come acquainted with men who had won for themselves con-
spicuous positions in church and state. He also came into close
touch with Bishop Simpson and with John P. Newman, after-
wards Bishop Newman. Both men profoundly affected the
course of his life, the former by stimulating his interest in the
higher education of women, and the latter by being instru-
mental in having him appointed as a chaplain in the United
States Navy.
After a year at Gettysburg he was offered an opportunity to
enter educational work by becoming principal and proprietor
of the Male Academic and Female Collegiate Institute at
Westminster, which he says he "foolishly embraced" not be-
cause he wanted to return to teaching, but because it gave him
a chance to get back to Maryland. The school was in a bad
financial condition when he took it, and while he was successful
with the teaching, he was not able to solve these other prob-
lems. He had the satisfaction, however, during his year in
Westminster, of being instrumental in having a substantial
church edifice erected.
This move interrupted his ordered progress as a minister
and plunged him into financial embarassment. He would have
regarded it as a serious blunder, he comments, if it had not
proved to be the first of a series of changes which about
twenty years later led up to what "I am certainly justified
in regarding as 'my career' ."
Happily he was able to find a purchaser for the school, and
in March 1870, he was stationed at Ryland Chapel in Washing-
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I77
ton, where he remained for about two years. There he renewed
his acquaintance with Dr. John P. Newman, whose church
President Grant attended. The President wished to secure
for the Naval Academy a chaplain of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, which before that time had never had such recognition,
and Dr. Newman, through his influence, secured the appoint-
ment of Dr. Van Meter. His commission dated December 19,
1 871, was confirmed by the Senate on January 12, 1872. He
remained in the chaplaincy until his resignation, April 7, 1882.
During that period of a little more than ten years, he was in
active service for about seven years, with both sea and shore
duty in reasonable proportions. "As things were then going
in the navy," he wrote, "the record was not a bad one, for the
navy was at about its lowest activity and few ships carried
chaplains."
On receiving his appointment, he was detailed at once to
the Naval Academy and reported to its superintendent. Com-
modore Worden of "Monitor" fame, on January 20, 1872.
He remained there for a year and a half. His next service —
for two years, October 7, 1874, to October 5, 1876 — was on
the U. S. S. "Alaska" while it was abroad. This furnished
him with "the delight and benefit of a visit to Europe." The
ship cruised first on the Mediterranean, then in the North and
Baltic Seas and back again to the Mediterranean, and finally
along the west coast of Africa. The third service was on shore
duty at the Washington Navy Yard, where he remained for
about two years until there was no longer a force kept up there
and consequently no need for a chaplain. His fourth and last
service was on the United States training ship "Portsmouth,"
where he remained for about a year. During this period the
ship cruised to "Bermuda, Azores, Halifax, Mount Desert,
etc." Of his securing this last appointment he wrote as
follows :
Had an interview with Commodore Selfridge and urged that the school
ships ought to be furnished with chaplains. He objected that officers'
178 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
quarters were limited on those ships on account of their small size. I argued
the point with him (he was a most delightful gentleman) and leaving I said
"Commodore, please understand that I am willing to accept orders at any-
time, to any service, while I remain in the navy." He replied, "That is
fair." A few weeks later, I received orders to the School Ship "Portsmouth,"
Captain Crowninshield. I was the first chaplain to be appointed to a school
ship.
Twice during this time, while on land duty or while awaiting
orders, he took a pastorate. Both times he intended to resign
from the Navy when his work was established, because "naval
Hfe did not please me and I did not suit it." In the first case
in 1874, he served Emory Church, Baltimore, at the time of the
serious illness and death of its minister. After his appoint-
ment to the charge and before he had sent in his resignation to
the Navy, his throat exhibited signs of disease, and his physi-
cian advised him to stop preaching and, when he had the oppor-
tunity, to go to sea. Again in 1879 ^e was the minister for a
year at the Mt. Vernon Place Church, Baltimore; Secretary
Thompson of the Navy had given him leave of absence so that
he could accept the appointment tentatively. That it did not
become permanent was due to what he termed "ecclesiastical
circumvention."
His third effort to get back into the regular work of the
ministry was successful. Through the assistance of Bishop
Simpson he was appointed to the Huntingdon Avenue Church,
located on what is now Twenty-fifth Street. A previous invita-
tion from the official board had been arranged by John F.
Goucher, who had once been the minister of that church and
was intimate with its most influential members.
After this appointment. Dr. Van Meter immediately resigned
from the Navy. So ended what he termed this "crazy quilt"
portion of his career. Of this, he wrote:
It contained many pleasant experiences; I learned many things, especially
principles of organization, command, and subordination. It contributed
many factors to my subsequent successful work and especially prepared me
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I79
for the duties which devolved on me in my relations with Goucher College.
Yet I cannot look back on it with unmixed satisfaction.
He remained at the Huntingdon Avenue Church for three
years, then he went to Wesley Chapel for one year. His last
charge was at Plainfield, New Jersey, from which he came to
his professorship in the Woman's College of Baltimore. Of
his relation to the Baltimore Conference and of his preaching,
John T. Ensor said:
Dr. Van Meter was held in high esteem . . . His was the spirit of the in-
trepid pioneer, ever seeking truth in uncharted realms, and his constant and
tireless preparation was such as to fit him to make the best use of opportuni-
ties when he met them.
... It might be said justly that his gifts were better adapted to teaching
than to preaching the Word; yet it is evident he was a finished, forceful
preacher. He aimed at the reason and the will and the things he said and
the way he said them were topics of conversation weeks afterward among
those who listened to his sermons. . . . Those things which brought him
success in his early ministry continued to be dominating factors through
his whole life, enabling him later to fill important charges acceptably and to
win recognition as an able pulpit representative of Methodism.*
From another source we likewise have testimony of his power
as a preacher. Writing of early times at the College, Mrs.
Froelicher declared:
My husband and I used to follow him around through the city when he
was making those fine addresses in the different churches and we always
came away with some good strong sane spiritual and intellectual uplift.
. . . And his humor was so refreshing.^
His power as a preacher was useful to the College on many
occasions. For a number of years he preached at the last
vesper service of the Y. W. C. A. and the seniors in particular
considered it a privilege to leave their Alma Mater "with his
wise parting admonitions ringing in their hearts."^"
Before he began teaching at the College he had received two
honorary degrees from Dickinson College, an A.M. in 1878 and
l8o THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
a D.D. in 1881.^^ He was to receive a third honorary degree,
an LL.D. in 1914 from Goucher College— the first honorary-
degree awarded by the College. ^^
The three years of his appointment to the Huntingdon Ave-
nue Church were important ones in the development of Method-
ism in Baltimore and Dr. Van Meter was brought into active
touch with two movements, namely the erection of the present
First Church edifice and the founding of the Woman's College
of Baltimore. "In both of these enterprises Dr. Van Meter . . .
bore a conspicuous part, in the former cooperating with John
F. Goucher who was then pastor of First Church and in the
latter rendering a service which the Conference recognized
when it stated that 'the success of the Woman's College enter-
prise is due in good degree to his self-sacrificing, unremitting,
and judicious labors.' "^^ This enterprise indeed he was able
to foster not only through the Conference organization but
also through his editorship of the Baltimore Methodist which he
held for a short time beginning 1881. During this period the
management of the paper received many compliments, includ-
ing one from Dr. J. M. Buckley, who said it was "ably con-
ducted."^^
In a little note book in his own handwriting. Dr. Van Meter
thus sets down in brief his whole connection with Goucher
College ;
Chairman of Conference Committee, March 1883.
Secretary of the Committee charged with the enterprise, March 1884.
Member of the Board of Trustees— 188 5-1 888.
Member of the Board of Trustees — 1908-^*
Member of the Building Committee— 1886-1888.
Member of the Board of Control — 1886-1914.
Professor, September 1888 to August 31, 1914—26 years.
Dean 1892-August 31, 1910.
Acting President, August i, 191 1 to September 30, 1913.
Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus, August 31, 1914-
An article in the Goucher College Weekly ^ April 17, 1930, after
enumerating the things he had done for Goucher, said of his
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER l8l
service to the College that it was "one which no words of ours
can express and no gratitude can repay." At the meeting of
the Alumnae Association in 1930, Miss Probst said: "After
he left these halls, there remained the spiritual life, the tradi-
tions, the high standard of academic work which he established
and fostered. The classes of recent years and of the years to
come enter into the inheritance of his ministrations to the
life and work of the College." As Dr. Stimson said at com-
mencement, 1930, he possesses "a precious immortality of
fruitful influence."
Commendations
Dr. Van Meter's ability received the approval of organiza-
tions and friends outside the College. His service to the cause
of education through his work in Goucher College was recog-
nized by the Carnegie Foundation. In granting him a pension
at the time of his retirement,'^ Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, presi-
dent of the Foundation, wrote to Dr. Van Meter, May 16, 1914,
that it was bestowed "in view of your long and distinguished
service" and expressed on behalf of the Executive Committee
of the Foundation the "high appreciation of the service which
you have rendered to education." In the 25th Annual Report
of the Carnegie Foundation there is this tribute: "An inspiring
teacher and a skilled administrator, Dean Van Meter was even
more widely known for his intimate acquaintance and influence
among students, which continued during their years as
alumnae."'^
At the time of his appointment as the first full professor of
the College,'^ there appeared in one of the Methodist church
papers the following approving comment:
We are glad to learn that the Woman's College has elected as its senior
professor the Reverend J. B. Van Meter, D.D. ... The wisdom of this choice
will be generally recognized and the College is to be congratulated upon
havmg as the occupant of its most important professorship one who, by his
enthusiastic devotion to its interests, has contributed largely to the 'success
1 82 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
of the enterprise, and who is in every way so fully qualified for the responsi-
bilities of the office.
And when he received the honorary degree from Goucher
College, Bishop L. B. Wilson, in a letter dated February i8,
1914, wrote to him:
After waiting all these years it was important to make choice of one for
such honorary degree as would by merit justify the College in its unaccus-
tomed action. May I be permitted to say that the friends of Goucher may
well be proud of the action taken. Intellectual ability, distinguished service,
nobility of character surely deserve recognition, and I am personally delighted
that this honor comes to you.
When Dr. Van Meter first accepted his professorship in the
College, he stipulated that he was to have no administrative
work, but was only to teach. But more and more he was
called on to perform the duties of dean, and in the fall of 1891
the office was created, and he was called on to fill it.^^ Assum-
ing the title after Christmas, he set up the office early in 1892.
His previous activities had prepared him for this work, since
he had taken a keen interest in the curriculum, and he was
actively concerned with the life of the students. He had been
on the committee that set up the first schedule of studies for
the College ;2o he had served with Dr. Butler and Mrs. Froe-
licher on the committee on grades ;2^ he was chairman of a
committee to formulate a suitable plan for awarding scholar-
ships." His ability to organize complicated material and
present it clearly to others was of value in working out new
plans in the early days of many changes. At a faculty meeting
on March 17, 1891, a new and intricate study scheme was
presented. Though he was not chairman of the committee
it was voted that "Professor Van Meter be asked to explain
the scheme presented" and "Professor Van Meter then ex-
plained the scheme as desired."
He was the first librarian of the College, elected by the faculty
January 21, 1890, and he never lost his vital interest in the
development of that part of the students' equipment. In his
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I 83
report as dean in 1904, he made a plea for more reading space
(the library was then housed in the northeast room on the sec-
ond floor of Goucher Hall) and for more magazines:
I also feel like urging that some means be provided for securing ample
readmg space. It seems tome that it might be done. It might not be neces-
sary to take any room but a large portion of the second story and the third
story halls, as well as the first story hall might be devoted to this under
student oversight, to be obtained from scholarship students provided always
that order and quiet can be obtained in the halls. The most impressive
exhibition that could be made to visitors entering our doors would be that of
a number of young women quietly and earnestly at work. ... I should like
to suggest that even as little as one hundred dollars a year appropriated for
the P^^chase of the best magazines would place our reading-room in a more
favorable light before those who observe these matters. The ragged back
numbers that litter our shelves in the reading room (and they are furnished
as a sort of chanty by individual professors) are a disgrace to us. A large
proportion of the most valuable recent information goes into the pages of
magazines, and ought to be accessible to our students.
Dr. Van Meter's ability to phrase things happily found
expression in the much quoted "ideal" of the founders, which
he wrote first for the seventeenth annual program, 1905; it
has been used every year thereafter.23 Goucher life has varied
and developed through the years, but the underlying trend has
always been toward the realization of the aims set forth by
Dean Van Meter when he said :
The ideal entertained by the founders of the College is the formation of
womanly character for womanly ends-a character appreciative of excel-
lence; capable of adaptation to whatever responsibilities life may bring-
efficient alike in the duties of the home and of society; resourceful in leisure'
reverent toward accepted truths, yet intelligently regardful of progressive
Ideas; earnest and purposeful, but gentle and self-controlled.
His passion for system and orderliness was a notable help
in the early days of the College. Dr. Metcalf says, "The
burden of detail which he carried in the new college, so that all
ran without undue friction and efi^ectively, was an indispen-
sable contribution to success."^* Of his efl^orts to make things
184 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
go smoothly, we catch a ghmpse in his report to the President
in 1902, where he makes a plea for more carefully defined
organization of the offices of the College, asking especially for a
clearer statement of his duties as dean and their relation to the
College. "In the early days of the College," he says, "it
seemed sufficient that the President and the Dean should co-
operate in such a way as needed no definition of the functions
of the latter. The personal relations that existed between us
rendered such definition unnecessary while the work was com-
paratively simple, and no questions were asked by the faculty
about the scope and function of the dean's office. But as the
work became more complicated it was inevitable that such
questions should arise and definition should be found desirable.
. . . The separation from my office of the work of registration
renders the definition of the boundaries between the dean's
office and that of registration an imperative necessity. There
is no danger of misunderstanding, it is true, between myself
and the gentleman to whom that work has been given, but a
strict definition of functions would... [be] promotive of
efficiency. Would it not be well for President, Dean, and Reg-
istrar in council to reach a definition of these different duties?"
Of the motive prompting him to ask for this clearer defini-
tion, he declared:
I have been conscious of no other desire than to promote the well being of
the institution. I think I can truthfully affirm that desire for distinction
or power has never formed an element in my life. But I do crave orderly
and systematic organization, in which both myself and others shall under-
stand exactly what is expected of me. The less responsibility laid upon me,
the more agreeable to myself, but when responsibility is laid upon me, power
should accompany it.
A glimpse of his wisdom and his sane common sense appears
in the following statement relating to entrance requirements
in his report to the President in 1904:
I wish to warn you that we are drifting in the direction of an exact mathe-
matical requirement for admission which sets the formal above the material
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VEN METER I 85
and inquires less into what an applicant is probably able to do than what she
has done; that throws down the gauntlet to a respectable secondary school
whose teachers are capable, earnest, and honest, and challenges either their
judgment or their veracity or both in the statements which they make
concerning applicants who come from their schools.
He had a keen sense of responsibility. Resigning his profes-
sorship a year after the termination of his acting presidency,
he remarked:
There are now no reasons for my wish to resign except such as arise out
of infirmities which, while not yet serious, have begun to embarrass me and
are impairing my efficiency. The students of the junior and senior classes
have a right to expect the highest efficiency in the provision made for their
guidance in the paths of philosophy.^ ^
When the resignation was read at the trustees' meeting, one
of the trustees said to Dr. Van Meter, "Doctor, why are you
giving up? You are still a good teacher." "I want to give
up while that can still be said of me. I don't want to keep on
until some one will say, 'Five years ago that man was a good
teacher,' " was his reply.
The spirit in which he welcomed the future was shown in his
letter to Dr. Guth when he first learned of the election of the
new chief:
First let me assure you of my personal welcome. . . . The time has arrived
when fresh policies need to be outlined for Goucher College. None of us
old fellows could do it. We belong to the past quarter of a century and we
naturally think our way was best. Perhaps it was for the time; certainly it
is not for the next reach of effort. ... It is not likely that I shall be much
longer with the College, but for whatever period, I pledge loyal support and
whatever aid I can render. I ask, however, that it may be inconspicuous,
that I be allowed to retire quietly into a back seat.^®
Dr. Van Meter wrote further in this letter that "Goucher
College above all things needs reconstruction," and Dr. Welsh
comments thus upon his attitude:
Dr. Van Meter after all these years of service . . . proud of what [the Col-
lege] has done and is, came to the point where he indicated that the note of
1 86 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
the new man must be the note of reconstruction. This is an unusual atti-
tude in a man who has come to the years of Dr. Van Meter, and particularly
when what he was talking about was really his own child. ^^
It is not easy to find among the preserved sayings of Dean
Van Meter those that will give to people who did not know
him an idea of the quick wit and cleverness-^ that made his
contacts with the students and alumnae so refreshing and
stimulating.29 He mingled wit and wisdom in admirable pro-
portions, making his wit ancillary to his wisdom.^" Those who
passed by his classroom were not surprised to hear ripples of
laughter, but they were ripples on the surface of deep thought.'^
He liked simplicity — an inheritance doubtless from his
Quaker ancestry — and he disliked sentimentality. In a note
to the Committee on Memoirs of the Baltimore Annual Con-
ference, after giving data about his life, he ends with this:
"Only one request to make: 'Please omit flowers.' Those of
rhetoric are particularly objectionable in such a document."
His sincerity and lack of pretence were recognized and
approved by the students:
For he is true, by praise unbought;
To be, his passion, not to seem.^^
He was at times stern in dealing with students, but his stern-
ness was usually modified by "his smile and the twinkle of his
eye."^^ And they always felt that he was just — "A mighty
man. But in the center of his might, they saw that he was
just."" He had strong convictions on the subject of justice
and said at one time: "We can bear everything better than
what seems to us unjust. "^^ And he was full of sympathy for
human weakness. In the early days of the College, the first
violators of the rule forbidding students living in the halls to go
to the theatre were threatened with expulsion but Dr. Van
Meter was prompt in recommending that their apologies should
be accepted, and they were accordingly allowed to remain.'^
Dr. Welsh commenting on this said that "a softer hearted man
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I 87
to woman's frailties never existed, no matter how fierce he
sometimes seemed.""
In a New Year's message to the alumnae some years after
his retirement he expressed his opinion of the relation of luck
to success :
As a small boy I used to stand on the shore and wonderingly watch the
boats go in every direction no matter from what point of the compass the
wind came out. As an old man I sit and gaze over the sea of striving hu-
manity and observe the same thing, in a figure. That is, under identical
external conditions one man gets ahead, another drops astern; one man fails,
another succeeds; one man is simply buffeted by the forces to which he is
subject, another man subjects those forces to himself and demands the result
he desires.
"AH things come to him who waits?" Not by a long-bow shot! One
thing is sure to come, and only one — death. Oh! there is such a thing as
luck — great good happenings which the beneficiary has had no part of either
wisdom or work in bringing to his hands. . . . Nevertheless, the power which
can be depended on, ninety-nine times in a hundred, is that which conceives
a purpose, lies awake to plan the path to it, and refuses to be weary until it
is attained. Luck is the hundredth case.^^
Considering his success as an educator, it is of interest to
find on a filing card in his own handwriting his opinion of what
constitutes education, and the method by which it should be
pursued: "Education does not consist in the preservation of the
past but in equipment for the future; it should furnish wings,
not weights. Yet knowledge of the past is not without its
uses, it offers an elevation from which flight may be more
easily begun and more accurately directed." Of his judgment
of the ideal method in education he spoke in the fall of 1906
when a course of Maryland Field Studies was given in the
chapel. Governor Warfield, the first speaker, strongly com-
mended the course for increasing the interest of Marylanders in
their native state. Dr. Van Meter, the second speaker, was
received "with an applause that was noticeable for being even
more prolonged than that with which the enthusiastic Mary-
landers greet their governor." He spoke on the subject of
I»» THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
"The Greater University," and tracing the mental develop-
ment of the boy during his first seven years, he deduced the
natural methods of education, and showed how they are the
ideal methods to be used in all educational institutions.^^
He was one of the great teachers of the College. In refer-
ence to his work of teaching twenty years before he came there
he had said, "I could teach; that was always an instinct."
His ability manifested itself very early in the life of the College.
He was the first teacher of history: "Dr. Van Meter's class in
Roman History has been inspired with the most enthusiastic
interest in the subject, and extend their sympathy to all those
who have not had the pleasure of listening to his brilliant lec-
tures on the life and character of Julius Caesar. "^° In stress-
ing his ability as a teacher. Dr. Metcalf wrote:
He . . . took the chairs of philosophy, ethics, and Bible. In ethics and
Bible he was an expert. The philosophy was largely the philosophy of
ethics. He taught from the standpoint of experience. He was a realist
and led his pupils to free themselves from unintelligent subservience to tra-
dition, freeing them not by any destructive attitude but by helping them to
substitute positive apprehension of productive living truth. . . .
His often startling directness may be illustrated with his summing up the
Jewish priestly attitude by his quotation of Malachi 3:10 ("Bring ye all
the tithes into the store house . . . and prove me ... if I will not open to
you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not
be room enough to receive it") as "Pay up and I'll bless you" in contrast
to the prophetic "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to
love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God." Such teaching registered
and it was not only emancipating but even more, was inspiring.*^
His Bible teaching especially was of immeasurable value to
the members of his classes, for it established them upon a firm
foundation in the days of changing interpretation. Dr. John
T. Ensor expressed it thus:
Controversy over the inspiration and interpretation of the Bible was at
white heat during his active years, but he, always a reverent seeker after
truth, was not led into extreme positions. His philosophic mind was ca-
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I«9
pable of winnowing the wheat from the chaff and his high purpose was always
to strengthen the faith of those whom he taught. The many who met him
in the class room during those years revere his memory, and speak with
unstinted praise of the permanent character of his work.'*^
His Biblical scholarship was recognized widely in his own
denomination. George Elliott, editor of the Methodist RevieWy
New York, wrote to Miss Van Meter, May 14, 1930: "In my
opinion he was one of the ablest scholars of the New Testament
that we possessed in the church during the last generation."
Outside the College there was a great deal of criticism of his
interpretation of the Bible but the authorities stood by his
work. At a meeting of the Board of Trustees in November
1900, the Committee on Government and Instruction, made up
of Bishop McDowell, A. Bertha Miller, and Charlotte S.
Murdoch, singled out his work for commendation.
From the earliest years of the College, Dr. Van Meter was
held in high esteem by the students. In the Baltimore Method-
ist, May 24, 1894, there is the following:
Every professor has, of course, his own special following among the stu-
dents, usually those of his own department. But by far the most popular
man among the whole body of the students is the Dean, Dr. J. B. Van Meter,
who is brought into personal relations with every student of the College,
and by whose tireless energy are the wheels of the great institution kept
supplied with the oil of harmony, which insures their successful and noiseless
continuance. Few persons, not intimately associated with the College
work can have any idea of the importance of the position which is filled by
the Dean, or of the many-sidedness of his work. Not only is he professor of
Bible and philosophy including psychology and ethics, but he is familiar with
every detail of the Institution from the least unto the greatest.
Many years later when the class of 191 3 presented the por-
trait of Dr. Van Meter, Dr. Goucher, accepting it for the
College, remarked:
Your gift is the concrete expression of the love and devotion you have for
Dr. Van Meter and represents the last stage in your feeling for him, affec-
go
THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
tion; the other three stages corresponding to the years of your college course
— as freshmen, you felt awe; as sophomores, fear; as juniors, admiration; as
seniors, affection/^
New Students were awed because his manner was more
business-like than cordial, and it was not till they knew him
in the classroom that they learned to admire and love him.
By the time they were seniors, they were on terms of warm
friendship. At the Class Day exercises of 1897, in the bequest
of the graduates to their successors they said: "If ninety-eight
gains half the profit and the inspiration we have found in room
1 1 with the Dean, this will be their most precious possession,
as it has been ours, and it is the one we are most loath to leave."
He played an active part in the social as well as in the
academic life of the students. In the early days he took groups
of them to Tolchester and to Annapolis; he took them to visit
the Cruiser "Baltimore," and to the battlefield at Gettysburg.
For his class in Roman History he prepared an illustrated
lecture on Rome, which he gave in May 1890, for them and
their friends — the first public lecture given by a faculty member
to a college audience. He entertained groups of students in a
pleasant fashion; "Dean Van Meter and Miss Van Meter
gave a dinner to the class of 1907 at Glitner Hall. Of all the
series of entertainments given to the successful presenters of
Rolfin Hoody the Dean's dinner was the most complete."
Beginning with the Class of 1892, he frequently entertained the
seniors. To the Class of 1904, of which he was the honorary
member, he was "the most kind friend, the most just critic,
the most wise counselor a class ever had,"^* and when he invited
them to his home just before they were graduated, they wrote
of it in these words:
We found a great deal to enjoy in our delightfully informal evening:
There was the dark lawn with its bushes of snowballs; there were tall trees,
and a great moon making it all more beautiful. There was the class singing
on the steps just at its own sweet will. . . . But best of all, there was Dr. Van
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I9I
Meter himself, and the thought of all the good fortune of the past and pres-
ent, which we owe to him/^
To his popularity with the students was added the confi-
dence of their parents, and now and then he was cheered by a
letter like the following:
Let me add that what delights her parents most is the deep and beautiful
spirit of consecration to the highest ideals which she exhibits — a matter on
which we had some anxiety during the long period of separation. It is an
unspeakable satisfaction to us to know that her college life has developed
such a strong spiritual character and breadth of vision remarkable in one of
her years. I mention these things chiefly to let you know that so far as
this one student of yours is concerned, your labors have not been in vain.
. . She makes grateful mention of your extremely great kindness in giving
her your special personal attention. . . . Our hearts are deeply touched by
this expression of your interest. ... It is more than any girl could expect.
. . . Accept a father's grateful thanks for your most helpful influence as a
Christian instructor over my girls and for your great personal kindness.*®
Tributes from Alumnae and Colleagues
Not only was Dr. Van Meter held in high esteem by Goucher
women in their undergraduate days, but their devotion con-
tinued when they became alumnae. The first important
undertaking of the Alumnae Association — the endowment of a
fellowship — was named in his honor "The Dean Van Meter
Alumnae Fellowship," upon his retirement from the deanship.
In thanking them for this in a letter dated June 6, 191 1, Dr.
Van Meter wrote, 'Tt gives me pleasure to accept the honor
which you tender me of having the alumnae fellowship called
by my name. The honor would not be trivial, but the assur-
ance of the affection and esteem of the alumnae from which it
comes is prized, beyond estimation or comparison."
He led the alumnae in raising their contributions for the
1913 Million, and, to their great satisfaction, the Trustees
set aside, in 1917, for the endowment of the Dean Van Meter
Professorship, the amount that they gave.
He frequently visited the Alumnae Chapters (the Clubs of
192 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
today), especially those in New York, Washington, and Phila-
delphia, and he was gladly welcomed. A typical account of
one such visit states: "The greetings he brought us from old
friends, news of the bright future before the College, together
with the fact that we were so fortunate as to have with us
again the one to whom we owed our largest debt of grati-
tude — are sure to make the time one long to be remembered."*^
Concerning his influence in the lives of individual alumnae
many statements could be cited:
The wonderful way that he adjusted himself to each succeeding adminis-
tration has been a lesson I have longed to learn. I don't suppose he ever
realized what a living lesson he was to many of us.''^
Some of his wise sayings I have cherished and lived by ever since I was
a student of his.*^
He who knew us best, who tyrannized over us in the making of our sched-
ules and terrified us with interviews, put into the chapel prayers and talks
the very best of our college ideals. We were in the storm and stress period,
but as we listened, a measure of his calm and sanity entered into us. Every
now and then something that he said crops up (arises from the depths of
subliminal consciousness) and it is mighty good to remember these things.*"
I can never tell anyone just how important a part Dr. Van Meter played
in the development of my mind. He opened a door through which I walked,
and life has been different ever since. That course in Bible in my freshman
year was the most illuminating to me of all my college work and its influence
has been persistent through all these years. He was so honest and thorough
and clear in all his own mental processes that his pupils were bound to be
profoundly influenced. My four years in Baltimore would have been worth
everything to me, if I had never attended any classes but his, for what
individual thinking I have been able to do through my life is the result of
his teaching and influence. I admired him profoundly and loved him
sincerely.*^
He was one of the great formative influences of my life, and I am more
grateful every year for all that he taught me. His work was so astonishingly
modern! My colleagues and contemporaries can hardly believe that before
1900 I was inducted into knowledge and theories which are valid today.
And the majestic personality and alert mind gave an ideal of what the teacher
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I93
should be — an ideal, as I know after years of experience, that is rarely
attained."
And lastly, a tribute written September ii, 1934, from A.
Bertha Miller, '94, professor of Latin at Wellesley College:
My first impressions of Dean Van Meter's power came from his masterful
teaching. Even as a young student I realised how complete was his mastery
of the subject, how logical his organization of the material and how lucid his
presentation of it. No need for a course in pedagogy under his instruction!
One could not help seeing how it should be done; for every lecture, every
recitation was a model demonstration of the art of teaching.
As one advanced on the student's career, it became more possible to appre-
ciate the richness of scholarship behind the evidence of a great teacher.
There was always the weighing of authorities, and the liberal, open mind
which advanced as far as the evidence was sound, and no farther.
But last of all and deepest of all. Dr. Van Meter's students found his great
gift of friendship. Behind the piercing eyes which saw through sham or
shallow knowledge lay a deep human sympathy and understanding heart.
The culprit had reason to tremble when facing the stern justice which seemed
to await her, but the unfortunate or blundering student found a warmth
of ready sympathy which was more fatherly than judicial. And so genera-
tions of Goucher alumnae have cherished the memory of Dean Van Meter as
teacher, scholar, and friend, one whose life gave much to the lives of all.
An editorial in the Baltimore Sun i\pril 9, 1930, well sums
up his influence:
His was a fine far reaching service . . . duly appreciated by classes of
girls who now in later life still aspire towards something of his practical
idealism and shrewd understanding of human motives. . . . He was an anom-
aly to those who thought that female education should be ladylike and he
was greatly beloved by many, including his students who sought to see life
clearly. . . . The passage of time has not dimmed the gratitude of those who
knew his distrust of sentimentalism. Goucher began when Ladies' Semi-
naries were the fashion and it managed to face reaHty instead. In its
struggHng pursuit of intellectual integrity. Dean Van Meter played a part
which stands out brightly against the provincialism of the time and which
gained its power from the character and wisdom of his quiet personality.
Not only was he held in high regard by students and alum-
nae, but his secretary and his colleagues as well bring testimony
194 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
of what he meant to the College. Miss Mary C. Colburn, who
was his secretary for a number of years, said of him:
Dr. Van Meter gave unstintingly of self and time in administering the
manifold duties assigned to the dean during his tenure of office, usually
taking about a month or six weeks' vacation, a vacation not entirely unen-
cumbered, as important matters were referred to him for action. He pos-
sessed a quick, sane judgment, and was most business-like in managing all
official affairs, even the minute details, many of which he handled personally.
His opinions were always concisely and clearly stated, leaving no doubt in
one's mind. When one who had worked with him wrote to tell him what a
great privilege the experience had been, and to thank him for his kind "con-
sideration," he replied, "I have a theory that it is just as much my concern
to look after the interests of those who are associated with me in work as it is
their business to look after the duties of their respective positions. I think
that is the way the Master looked at human relations." He was an unusual
administrator.
Dr. William H. Hopkins said that he was "one ... to whose
studious application to the successive problems faced by the
College, to whose clear brain and untiring energy, to whose
warm hearted and self-effacing loyalty the College owes far
more than can ever appear in its official records.""
President Guth:
Dr. Van Meter has been one of the most vital forces in the history of
Goucher College. He struggled for certain ideals in woman's education
before the College was founded and labored with much diligence to make
these ideals a living force in the educational work of the institution. He has
stood for the highest standards of scholarship from the beginning and, be-
cause of this stand, has enabled Goucher College to be a pioneer in the edu-
cational advancement of the whole South so far as the higher education of
women is concerned. He is loved and respected by all the students who
were privileged to share his counsels and benefit from his class room.**
And Dr. Metcalf :
With his nervous disposition seemingly tending towards, but never reach-
ing, irritability, with his thoughtfulness, his considerateness, his keen appre-
ciation of beauty, especially beauty in living, his epigrammatic diction and
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I95
his real eloquence, he was a truly great man, one of the most vivid men who
shared in laying the foundations of the College.^'
Of his influence on the academic standards of the College,
Dr. Welsh wrote, March 14, 1933:
I sat in the Board of Control from the time I entered the College in 1894
and so was familiar with the general discussions carried on there on educa-
tional matters. No one of my colleagues approached Dr. Van Meter in his
grasp of educational problems that were constantly being discussed in this
Board. In my opinion the College owes more to him in maintaining and
elevating the educational standards of Goucher College than to any other
one person.
The Board of Control in its resolutions dated April 14, 1930,
laid emphasis on that same fact:
The four forms of service which he rendered as Founder, Professor, Dean,
and Acting President are well known, but there is a fifth service whose im-
portance has been less fully recognized. He was a consistent sustainer of
high academic ideals and was resolutely determined that the new institution
should not be merely a "finishing school", but the peer of any college in the
land.
Back of these services to the College was the unusual strength of character
of the man, who rendered the services. . . . His moral greatness was an in-
dispensable factor in the making of the College, and so the College itself is
one of the best tributes to his character.
The Board of Instruction thus summed up his value to
Goucher College in resolutions dated April 20, 1930: "His
unusual personality . . . moulded the early life of the College,
has determined the traditions of the College of the present,
and will be the inheritance of the College of the future."^®
Million Dollar Campaign, 1911-1913
During the years 1911-1913 while Dr. Van Meter was acting
president, Goucher College passed through the financial crisis
that threatened its very life. When the Trustees announced
that money must be secured to wipe out the debt or the College
196 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
must close, they were not making a threat — they were stating
a fact. In November 191 2, in the daily press of Baltimore the
Trustees published a statement signed by Summerfield Bald-
win, president of the Board, and by John T. Stone, chairman
of the Subscription Campaign Committee, as follows;
Probably no graver responsibility ever rested upon the trustees of an edu-
cational institution than that which must now be faced by the Trustees of
Goucher College — namely, the responsibility of determining whether the
College shall be lost to Baltimore. ... It will necessarily be lost unless this
million dollars is raised, thus stopping the annual deficit of about 140,000.
. . . This statement is made by authority of the Board of Trustees. It is
absolutely frank and true, and is only made in order that, if the dire possi-
bility of the loss of Goucher College to Baltimore shall become a reality,
the Trustees will be absolved from any charge of not acquainting those who
realize its value with the real facts.
While the fate of the College was still undetermined, the
Trustees received from the Trustees of the American Univer-
sity at Washington a letter dated December 11, 1912, which,
after expressing good wishes for the success of their financial
endeavor, continued:
But in the event of their failure then ... the American University holds
itself in readiness to cooperate with them in such measures as may be insti-
tuted lawfully for the preservation of the College and the continuance of
its usefulness. . . . We feel warranted in this proffer by the fact that the
trustees of the American University control ample grounds and buildings
that easily may be made ready for purposes of instruction, and also by the
fact that Washington City geographically is located conveniently to the
constituency of Goucher College. ^^
In Chapter III there is an account of the campaign of 1905
to liquidate the debt. Concerning this and the financial situa-
tion of 1 91 3, Dr. Goucher, in the Baltimore Evening Sun,
March 15, 1913, made the following statement:
Seven years ago there was a campaign for $500,000 to provide for the debt
of the College. Had it all been paid promptly, it would have extinguished
the debt at that time. None of that fund was for endowment, and the pres-
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I97
ent debt includes such subscriptions as were made at that time, but unpaid,
because of death etc., annual deficits, interest accounts, and some property
acquired since then.
On October 25, 191 1, an able committee of the Trustees,
consisting of John T. Stone, chairman. Dr. John F. Goucher,
Dr. John B. Van Meter, Bishop Earl Cranston, Bishop W. F.
McDowell, H. S. Dulaney, Summerfield Baldwin, and George
A. Solter, was appointed with authority to devise and execute
plans for the procurement of a fund of one million dollars to
be used in paying the indebtedness of the College and in
increasing its endowment investments.^* Before this commit-
tee began its activities some excellent work had already been
done by Bishop Wilson S. Lewis. Bishop Lewis then was at
home on financial duty and was about to return to his post in
Foochow, China, where Bishop Bashford eagerly awaited his
coming,^^ when Dr. Goucher laid before the Board of Bishops
the serious situation at the College. The Bishops gave their
own personal gifts of money. In speaking in chapel, March 8,
1934, Dr. Charles W. Baldwin, called attention to their more
important gift:
They gave the best possible gift when they persuaded their colleague
Bishop Wilson S. Lewis to forego his immediate return to the field in China
and to give himself to the work of raising one million dollars to save Goucher
College He gave himself indefatigably to this . . . work . . . One day
towards the end [of the campaign] he said to me, 'In this work I have con-
sumed 10 years of my life'. Repeating this to one of his intimates the
reply was: "It is true, for he died an untimely death at sixty-four."
Bishop Lewis came to Baltimore early in July 191 1, and
held several consultations with the Executive Committee.
Few people knew he was in Baltimore but through his efforts
four of the trustees, Summerfield Baldwin, John F. Goucher,
Benjamin F. Bennett, and Henry S. Dulaney, inaugurated the
campaign by subscribing the sum of sixty thousand dollars
each, and another trustee, David H. Carroll, equalled this by
198 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
subscribing fifty thousand and bequeathing ten thousand.®"
With this beginning, — with thirty percent of the total amount
secured — the committee was ready to start its work. There
were many meetings, discussions with men of experience in
money raising, interviews with Bishop Lewis, and a conference
of citizens invited to the home of President Ira Remsen of
the John Hopkins University." It was decided in order to
have definite objectives and helpful rivalry that raising the
sum of $400,000 should be allocated as the task for Maryland
and the District of Columbia and $300,000 as the task for the
territory outside. These sums with the $300,000 subscribed
by the five trustees made up the needed million. The Trustees
decided in September that an expert on money raising, Mr.
R. A. Cassidy, should be employed to carry on a special drive
during the last week of October 191 2.
In the meantime at the General Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, held at Minneapolis in May, much work
was done to interest the Church in the financial need of the
College. The Board of Bishops placed themselves squarely
behind the movement. ^^
The October campaign led by Mr. Cassidy brought in about
$119,000. This was secured by the efforts of twelve teams,
each with a strong captain, and with Henry F. Baker and E. L.
Robinson as chairman and vice chairman of the general com-
mittee. About $50,000 had been raised previously and these
sums added to the five large gifts made a total of $469,000
secured by November i, 1912.^3
The part of the alumnae was an important feature of the
campaign. It was thought that they might be able to give
$50,000. But their response was more than complete: when
the returns were in, the actual sum they subscribed was found
to be $57,158.04.^'' Of this gift Mr. Stone said: "This result
would have been impossible, in the opinion of the committee,
if there had not been the leadership and the remarkable per-
sonal influence with the alumnae of Acting President John B.
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I 99
Van Meter, who took entire charge of this portion of the
work."" Some of the money given by the alumnae went
through the Woman's Committee and it was estimated that
the full amount contributed was |6o,ooo." In addition to
the money, the alumnae also helped the campaign by sending
in letters on "What Goucher Has Done for Me." These were
published in the press at the time and later were printed in
^he Bulletin of Goucher College^ July 191 6. They were a great
stimulus to the giving of others.
After the intensive campaign under Mr. Cassidy, it seemed
wise to discontinue that type of work for a while, but various
other methods were used, among them a systematic and per-
sistent solicitation week after week under a committee of
women headed by Dr. Lilian Welsh assisted by Lulie P.
Hooper, '96. The invitation to head the women's team came
to Dr. Welsh, "not as a member of the faculty of Goucher
College," she says, "but as a public spirited citizen of Balti-
more, I was fairly well known to the women of the city as far
as their organizations were concerned before I ever saw Goucher
College. I had the earnest support of the faculty, students,
and alumnae, without which I could have accomplished
nothing.""
The round-up rally of the Woman's Committee was held in
Catherine Hooper Hall on March 18, 1913, when Dr. Welsh
reported that the Woman's Committee had raised approxi-
mately $17,000. Miss Hooper stated that the alumnae teams
had secured $9,700, which they expected to increase to 1 10,000,
and the undergraduate body had enlarged the fund by $5,101,
thus exceeding by more than $2,000 the amount they had
pledged themselves to raise.
Two sources from which the College hoped to obtain part
of the needed funds proved disappointing.
Toward the end of Dr. Noble's administration, he had had
interviews with Mr. Buttrick and Mr. Sage of the General
Education Board and at the trustees' meeting on June 6, 191 1,
200 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
he recommended that the Trustees ask the General Education
Board to donate to the College $150,000 on condition that
$350,000 more be raised for the permanent endowment fund
of the institution. His sudden resignation led the Trustees to
decide to withhold this request until the election of a president.
But the matter was not deferred so long; within a year two
requests — modifications of that recommended by Dr. Noble —
were made. To these appeals there came the statement under
date of June 5, 1912: ". . . the Board does not at this time
find it practicable to make the contribution for which you have
asked. This does not indicate that at some future time we
may not find ourselves in a position to cooperate with you."
The Trustees, however, were not discouraged and again in
November they made a third request. To this also there was
an unfavorable response.®^
The second source from which there was an effort to get
money was the State Legislature. The committee to consider
the condition of the College was instructed by the Trustees
January 4, 191 2, to make application to the Legislature to
appropriate $100,000 in two yearly payments. There was a
difference of opinion about the wisdom of this action and the
yeas and nays were called for. There were nine of the former
and six of the latter. Dr. Goucher voted in favor of the
application, and Dr. Van Meter against it. This grant also
was refused.^^
The Trustees made public announcement that the College
would close its doors if the needed million had not been
pledged by April 4, 1913. Those last months, laden with
anxiety, were marked by two very large and important rallies,
one held in McCoy Hall for the college women of Baltimore,
the other held in Ford's Opera House for the high school stu-
dents. Dr. Welsh suggested these meetings, arranged them,
and was responsible for their success. In her own words:
It occurred to me that in our appeal to the Baltimore public we might
show that if Goucher College should go out of existence a large group of
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER 20I
Baltimore girls would be deprived of all possibilities of a college education as
at that time women were not admitted to any undergraduate course at the
Hopkins even through the back door of the Teachers' Courses . . . second
that the number of women college graduates in Baltimore was steadily-
increasing largely as a result of a college for women located in the city and
that these women were taking active and prominent parts in the social,
educational, and welfare work of Baltimore; that many of them, as home
makers, were making a valuable contribution to the solution of problems of
the home and the family.'"'
The College Women's Rally was held December 3, 191 2,
in the auditorium of McCoy Hall, the main building of the
Johns Hopkins University on West Monument Street, where
most of the important meetings of an educational character
were held. Dr. Welsh describes this meeting as follows:
President Thomas of Bryn Mawr, a native of Baltimore, one of the first
Baltimore women to gain an academic degree, was the speaker of the eve-
ning. Until shortly before this time Miss Thomas had no particular liking
for Goucher College. Her standards for the education of women were high
and unless a college offering advanced opportunities for women measured up
to her ideals, she treated it with scant courtesy. She had learned, however,
the character of our work by the graduate students we sent to Bryn Mawr.
... In addition to this shortly before 1913 the famous Babcock report on the
colleges of the country had been made to the U. S. Department of Education
and Goucher College had been placed in Class I.
All the college women in town were invited to come in cap and gown and
march in procession from the second floor to the seats reserved for them on
the platform and in the body of the hall. In order that as many as possible
might join the procession in academic costume the freshman class of Goucher
lent their caps and gowns for the occasion and dressed in white stood in two
lines in the outer hall through which the academic procession passed. The
Bryn Mawr College graduates resident in Baltimore led the procession in
Bryn Mawr academic costume sent down from Bryn Mawr for the occa-
sion. They formed in two lines on either side of the Hall as a guard of honor
to Miss Thomas and through this line those assigned to seats on the platform
proceeded to their places: First, Miss Thomas, escorted by Dr. Lord of our
faculty, followed by the doctors of science, doctors of philosophy, and doctors
of medicine. I presided because Miss Thomas had asked me to do so. The
Goucher College Glee Club led the singing of college songs. Subsequently
the College printed Miss Thomas' address in attractive form under its title.
202 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
"What College Women Mean to a Community, What Goucher College means
to Baltimore" and spread it broadcast. '^^
The College Rally was a great success and demonstrated
that the body of college women of Baltimore stood as a unit
in asking the public to lend its support to a local college for
women.
In arranging the Rally for Goucher all the secondary schools
of the city, both public and private, cooperated. Through
the cordial assistance of Miss George of the Western High
School and Miss White of the Eastern and of Miss Henrietta
Baker (now Mrs. Low), at that time director of music in the
public schools, a program was prepared. The Rally was held
at Ford's Opera House, the use of which was given by Mr.
Ford, on Thursday afternoon, March 27, 1913. The house
was crowded to its limit, "packed" as Dr. Welsh phrased it,
"to the remote corners of the peanut gallery."^^ Representa-
tives of the high schools, dressed in white, sat in rows upon the
platform. On the front row were Dr. Welsh, Miss Carroll of
the Arundell School, Dean Lord, Jessie Woodrow Wilson,
'08, daughter of the President, and Dr. Frances Mitchell
Froelicher. Miss Carroll introduced the speakers — two repre-
sentatives from each of the high schools, Miss Wilson, and
Dr. Welsh. According to Kalends, April 1913, the speeches
of the high school girls were of "unusual merit, enthusiastic,
convincing, and well delivered." Miss Wilson was greeted
with tremendous applause. She began by saying that she
wished her father had been able to come and address the meet-
ing and for this reason she bore a letter from him which she
would read before telling them what Goucher had meant to
her. She then read the following letter headed "The White
House, Washington, March 27, 1913."
My dear Friends:
I wish sincerely that it were possible for me to be with you this evening,
to aid in calling the attention of public-spirited men everywhere to the needs
of Goucher College.
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER 203
I have in the past shown my confidence in the College in the most con-
clusive way and I shall be very glad indeed if any word of mine could fix the
attention of liberal men upon the necessity of seeing that this institution
shall not pass out of existence. It would indeed be an evidence that our
great educational public does not fully understand its own interests if an
institution which has served not only with such faithfulness, but with such
distinction, in the cause of women's education should be allowed to break up
for lack of money.
It gives me pleasure to join in uttering a very earnest call for liberal sup-
port in the hope that the funds may be forth coming and forth coming in
liberal quantity.
Cordially and faithfully yours,
To the Friends of Goucher College. Woodrow Wilson
After reading the letter, Miss Wilson in a few simple words
told what the College had meant to her and other alumnae
and what she wanted it to mean to coming students. Her
quiet dignity, her sincerity and enthusiasm did not fail to
make its impression upon the audience. In conclusion. Dr.
Welsh spoke of the good work that was being done by Goucher
alumnae. Competitive songs had been written by the second-
ary school girls and the successful one was sung by a large
choir under the leadership of Miss Baker. The program came
to an end with the Goucher call given by the alumnae and
students of the College. The Eastern and Western High
Schools, the Bryn Mawr School, the Girls' Latin School, and
the Arundell School, all made substantial contributions to the
campaign fund.''^
About February i, in New York, bishops, editors, college
presidents, ministers, and laymen of the Methodist Episcopal
Church met and during four hours discussed the emergency
confronting the College. Bishop Lewis and Dr. Nicholson,
secretary of the Methodist Board of Education, were instructed
to organize an aggressive and insistent campaign for securing
the part of the fund allocated to the territory outside of Balti-
more.''* Bishop Henderson joined actively in the work,
devoting nearly all of his time to it. The Central Pennsyl-
204 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
vania, the New York, the New York East, and the Wilmington
Conferences, all pledged large sums. By April 2, the $300,000
allocated to the territory outside of Maryland and the District
of Columbia was all pledged."
Meanwhile, in Baltimore plans were carried forward for
securing the quota needed. On the first of February, women
of all denominations united in a great prayer meeting in Mt.
Vernon Place Church; in addition to prominent Methodist
women of the city there were leaders from other denominations:
Mrs. J. Ross Stevenson, Mrs. Oliver Huckle, Mrs. John C.
Thomas, and Mrs. A. Morris Carey.
On March 6, at the suggestion of Mr. A, S. J. Owens, Mayor
Preston invited six or eight hundred prominent citizens to meet
at the City Hall. Governor Goldsborough was represented
by the Secretary of State, Mr. Graham, who pledged his sup-
port of the movement. Among the speakers were Dr. William
Rosenau, Mr. F. N. Hoen, Mr. J. F. Sippel, and Mr. John T.
Stone. A number of men including the Mayor, Rabbi Wil-
liam Rosenau, Mr. J. Barry Mahool, pledged themselves to
raise |i,ooo each.'^^ Mr. R. Tynes Smith, Jr., was the chair-
man in charge of the work of the ten or more teams. He se-
cured the captains and helped them to enroll the team mem-
bers, everyday giving systematic and efficient attention to
this difficult work. Mr. W. H. Fehsenfeld rendered valuable
help as chairman of the committee on the general plan of the
civic campaign. Many civic organizations in Baltimore
assisted in this work, notably the Greater Baltimore Com-
mittee which placed at the service of the workers its entire
organization. Its director, Mr. E. L. Quarles, and its secre-
tary, Mr. N. M. Parrott, devoted their entire time for nearly
three weeks to the campaign. Nearly every financial institu-
tion displayed placards, which were also, without charge,
carried by the cars of street railways. The newspapers of
Baltimore gave unstinted support in their news and editorial
columns. A concert at the Lyric, arranged and guaranteed
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER 205
by the Stieff Piano Company, netted one thousand dollars.
Moreover, in their efforts to secure gifts, the churches of the
Baltimore Conference were aided by President Race of Chat-
tanooga University, President Shanklin of Wesleyan Uni-
versity, and Dean Richardson of Boston University."
The last week, March 28 to April 4, was filled with anxiety
and excitement. Daily reports of various teams were made
at luncheon at the Emerson Hotel. Said Dr. Welsh: "I shall
never forget that week with its daily disappointments at noon
and the daily encouragement of the afternoons, when students
and alumnae always buoyed up my depressed spirits by some
unexpected contribution and by their unfailing optimism. "'^
The last day, April 4, came with $64,000 unpledged, but
the noon luncheon brought in $32,000. A group met at the
hotel again at eight o'clock for an all night meeting if necessary
but by ten o'clock the last $8,000 was pledged by three or four
men who had already given generously.
An hour was given to brief addresses with Bishop Henderson
presiding. Among those speaking were Bishop Lewis, Bishop
Cranston, Dr. John F. Goucher, John T. Stone, Summerfield
Baldwin, and Henry S. Dulaney. Dr. Thomas Nicholson,
secretary of the Methodist Board of Education, pronounced
the benediction."
The million dollars was made up of 5,916 subscriptions,
counting the alumnae and each Conference (except Baltimore)
as one subscriber. When the individual subscriptions were
substituted for these single collective subscriptions it was esti-
mated that the total number of subscribers reached about ten
thousand.^'' For a full year as chairman of the Campaign
Committee, Mr. John T. Stone gave himself tirelessly to the
working out of the plans that brought victory.^^ In his report
as treasurer of the College at the end of the scholastic year,
he gave as the total amount subscribed to the Million Dollar
Fund $1,036,918.50.82
The doors of the College were not closed. *'
2o6 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
There were other celebrations of the success of the campaign.
On Saturday, April 5, when the news came from Baltimore to
the General Conference, "the Conference leaped to its feet and
sang the doxology."^^
The following Monday, April 7, at the College a jubilee was
held. Songs were sung by the various classes and then all the
students with their guests assembled in the central pavilion
of Goucher Hall to listen to addresses. Dr. Goucher spoke of
the seven epochs in the history of the College and showed the
first gift in money the College had received — a five dollar gold
piece. ^^ Dean Lord and Dr. Van Meter were the other speak-
ers. The letters G. C. were formed on the front lawn by girls
who carried lanterns, and balloons were sent off from the bal-
cony. Afterwards refreshments were served in the Y. W. C. A.
room.
For her devoted service to the College during the campaign
the Baltimore Chapter presented a gift to Dr. Welsh, *^ and
as a spontaneous expression of good will the alumnae gave her
a pin, a replica of the seal of the College with this inscription
on the back: "By the Alumnae of Goucher College, presented
at the annual meeting in 1913."^^
In appreciation of Dr. Van Meter's leadership in the alum-
nae giving, the Trustees in June 1917, set aside the contribu-
tion of |6o,ooo from the alumnae for the endowment of the
Dean Van Meter Alumnae Professorship.
The Board of Trustees also in April 1913, adopted resolu-
tions expressing their grateful appreciation to the Board of
Bishops, to Bishop W. S. Lewis, Bishop Earl Cranston, Bishop
Theodore S. Henderson, Bishop Bashford, to the religious
press and the daily press of Baltimore, and to "the unselfish
co-operation and financial assistance of many schools, organiza-
tions, college presidents, large-hearted ministers and laymen,
and honorable women not a few, without whose aid the crisis
would not have had such a glorious issue."
The securing of money was not the only benefit that came
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER 207
to the College from the million dollar campaign. As a result
of the information disseminated through the drive Goucher
College and its place in Baltimore were "far better understood
and far more appreciated than ever before. "^^ Through this
crisis it came to a place in the regard and affections of the
Methodist Conferences and the Methodist Church in general
that "many years of quiet prosperity could not have won
for it."83
Some misconceptions were cleared up by the publicity. In
a statement made in rebuttal of the charge that in a narrow
sense the College was a Methodist institution, figures were
given that showed the falseness of the accusation in relation
to the denominational affiliations of the students benefited
by its tuition and its scholarships and also the affiliations of
its faculty and employees.^"
Instances of the wide recognition of the scholastic merit of
the College were cited at the meetings held, and so its high
standing was more widely known. And the part that the
College had played in the development of secondary education
in Baltimore and the South was made clear. ^^ Not only for
its influence on secondary education in the South was its merit
recognized, but also for its aid in raising collegiate standards
in that section. At the headquarters of the Greater Baltimore
Committee, Dr. Lilian Johnson of Memphis, founder of the
Southern Association of College Women, said during the cam-
paign: "Goucher College has always been to the southern
college woman as a light set upon a hill."^^
It brought, also, benefits to the inner life of the College.
Graduates and undergraduates that had seemed far apart
before were brought closer together:
Within the past months there has come to both of us, students and
alumnae alike, a new experience, an experience which has Hnked all Goucher
women to one another as nothing else has been able to do. . . . We hope that
the big and earnest spirit which has united us in our anxiety can not die,
but must live on through the undergraduate and graduate life to come.^^
2o8 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The work and the giving of the alumnae were also developed
as never before, and their emergence upon the field of helpful
activity, often involving cooperation with other college women,
was one of the real benefits to the College. ^^
With his notable contribution in this campaign, Dr. Goucher
brought his large giving to the College to an end. He told
Dr. Welsh then that he had done what was in his power for
Goucher College and that in the future his primary interests
were to be in the mission field and the educational opportuni-
ties there. ^^
During the progress of the 1913 campaign, statements were
made that not only would the debt of the College be covered
by its success but also there would be money left over for
productive endowment, but in the end there was little left for
endowment. The debts were all paid, and the College was
rescued from immediate peril; a great accomplishment after
its long struggle. Yet as President Noble estimated, the
total debts including all items amounted to about ^800,000, "^
and there was some shrinkage in the payments on the Million
Dollar pledges. Mr. John L. Alcock remarked in a letter
dated May 8, 1929, that he had often heard Dr. Guth say that
when he arrived at the College there was simply nothing in the
safe deposit box as an endowment. "Any endowment funds
that were supposed to be possessed by Goucher had, I believe,
been used as collateral for loans."
So far as known there is only one reference to the amount
of the 1 913 million actually paid, namely $850,000. President
Guth in his Tenth Annual Report referred to the "depreciation
of abou t $ 1 50,000. " "
The Babcock Classification
At the time that the College was overwhelmed with debt
and facing the possibility of having to close its doors, in the
scholastic rating made by the Bureau of Education of the
Department of the Interior, in the "Classification of the Uni-
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER I09
versities and Colleges of the United States with reference to
Bachelors' Degrees," Goucher College was, none the less,
ranked as a Class I educational institution.^^ "It had reached
the unique state of being financially bankrupt at the same time
that it was one of the most intellectually solvent colleges in
the country.''^" In her address at the College Women's Rally
in McCoy Hall, President M. Carey Thomas commented as
follows on this distinction:
Recently to the surprise of Baltimoreans, perhaps even to the surprise of
the faculty of Goucher College as well, Dr. Kendrick Charles Babcock, the
Educational Expert of the United States Bureau of Education, after a
searching examination extending over several years, has singled out Goucher
and placed it among the fifty-nine colleges and universities of first academic
rank in the United States. No one who is not in the college world can realize
the full significance of Goucher's place in Class I. Of the five hundred and
eighty-one colleges and universities of the United States, many of them
with great reputations and endowments and long years of effort behind them,
only fifty-nine have been placed in Class I and little Goucher, only twenty-
four years old, without a penny of endowment, staggering under its crushing
load of a half-million dollars of debt, is among these fifty-nine colleges. Of
the twenty-one best women's colleges in the United States only six are in
Class I: Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, Wellesley, and
Goucher. Of the one hundred and eighty-five colleges and universities
south of the Mason and Dixon line only five are in Class I: the University
of Virginia, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, the Johns
Hopkins University, and Goucher College. But although Baltimoreans
may have been surprised, other colleges, like Hopkins and Bryn Mawr,
which year after year have been testing the undergraduate training of
Goucher, as its graduates have worked side by side with the graduates of
other colleges in their graduate schools were not surprised. They know
Goucher ranks high among colleges for the excellence for its teaching.
At the dinner at the Belvedere at the time of Dr. Guth's
inauguration. Dr. Van Meter, acting as toastmaster, said in
regard to this classification by Dr. Babcock:
I must say that we were a little proud when it turned out, quite without
our knowing anything about it, that we were the only college south of the
Mason and Dixon's line for women only which was associated with others
2IO THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
in the first class. Of course we were proud. But we were not proud in
any such sense as that we want to remain the only college south of Mason
and Dixon's line entitled to be so classified. We are Southern. . . , The
interest of the South is our interest; and if there shall be by this year of the
next decade a half-dozen institutions side by side with us in that list we shall
rejoice even more than we are now rejoicing. We do not want to tower
above the South at the expense of the South; we would like to have the whole
South aligned with us in this educational work.
One of the principal educators of the South said to me three or four
years ago, "Be careful of your standards; do not lower your standards in
answer to any demands whatever; we cannot live up to them yet, but you
are drawing us that way.^""
End of First Twenty-five Years
At the meeting of the Board of Trustees on April 25, 1913,
the President announced the death of Benjamin F. Bennett,
identified with the College from its beginning, for twenty-five
years treasurer of the Board of Trustees, donor of two of its
buildings, of the Elizabeth Harwood Bennett scholarship, and
of numerous other gifts.
There were a few changes in the curriculum at this time:
in 191 1, the department of geology was eliminated, and in 1912,
Mr. Bibbins was appointed the first curator of the museum.
Though the department of education had been given up in
Dr. Noble's administration, the project of maintaining a
course in education of two hours and raising it, if possible, to
four hours was considered by the Trustees and Executive
Committee. This action was doubtless due to the need of
adapting the curriculum to meet the requirements of the State
Boards of Education of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and other
states. A committee of two, consisting of Dean Lord and
Professor Bacon, was appointed by the Board of Control to
study this question. The use of the Missouri system in grad-
ing was also considered during the first year of Dr. Van Meter's
term. Professor Kellicott was active in sponsoring this system,
but it was not adopted until 191 5-1 6.
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER 211
Goucher College continued its cooperation with the Johns
Hopkins University in relation to the college courses for teach-
ers jointly arranged. By this time the work had been well
established and Professor Gay, Dr. Abel, Dr. Bacon, and Dr.
Froelicher were among the instructors.
It is rather curious to discover that during this administra-
tion fire drills in the residence halls were introduced for the
first time, and in December 191 1, four dozen fire extinguishers
were purchased and placed in the buildings. Also, with the
same idea of fire protection, the Trustees had built under the
north stairway on the lower floor of Goucher Hall a fire proof
vault connected with the business office, in which the college
records could be kept.
In 1911-12, the students living in the residence halls re-
ceived restricted permission to attend the theatre in Baltimore.
That the Executive Committee was not altogether sympathetic
toward this lenience, is seen from the regulation that was
approved :
Attendance upon the theatre is not approved and will be allowed only on
the written request of parents or other persons who are responsible for the
presence of the student in the College; even in such case permission must
be obtained from the President or Dean in each particular instance, and a
limitation will be placed upon the number of permissions.
But to the students, it brought much satisfaction: "Public
Opinion [in Kalends] would not truly represent college table
talk . . . without expressing our appreciation of our new privi-
lege of attending the theatre. . . . We appreciate the privilege
and shall not abuse it."
At the commencements of 1912 and 1913, Dr. Van Meter
presided and Dr. Goucher awarded the diplomas. Thus at
this time of peril and rescue the two men who had done so
much for the College had charge of its most important public
function. In the Class of 191 2, the one thousandth graduate
received her diploma; and in the Class of 1913, there were 82
212 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
candidates — the largest number in any one class up to this
time.
The end of the scholastic year 1913 marked the termination
of twenty-five years of college work. The dream of the found-
ers of the Woman's College that at the end of twenty-five years
the College should stand second to none, should have one
thousand alumnae and an endowment fund of three millions
had been partly realized. The first two objectives had been
attained, and in the case of the third, through the clearing up
of the debts by the million dollar campaign, the way was
ready for the accumulation of endowment. There was no
public observance of the twenty-fifth anniversary at the end
of the college year, nor of the anniversary dates in the fall;
though at the time of President Guth's inauguration the morn-
ing of February 9, 1914, was given to a joint celebration of the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the College and the successful con-
clusion of the million dollar campaign. ^"^ But at the end of
the year there were within the College numerous reminders of
the fact that it was completing its quarter-century of life.
The Donnybrook Fair issued in 1913 was a special number in
honor of the anniversary; it contained an article entitled "A
Quarter Century of History: A Retrospect and a Forecast,"
written by Ruthella Mory, '97 (Mrs. Arthur B. Bibbins).
The Class of 1903 on its own tenth anniversary entertained
Dr. Goucher as a special guest and offered him a birthday cake
ablaze with twenty-five lighted candles.
On Monday, June 2, the alumnae held an informal after-
noon reception in the central pavilion of Goucher Hall. The
officers both present and past received. Invitations were
issued to all alumnae, all non-graduates, the present student
body, the present faculty and former members of the faculty,
and the Board of Trustees. The alumnae chose to mark the
twenty-fifthyearof their Alma Mater by this informal gather-
ing of all those connected with the institution during its quarter-
century. ^"^
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER IIJ
There was one further observance. On Senior Day, Tues-
day, June 3, the graduates with faculty, alumnae, and stu-
dents assembled at ten o'clock in the central pavilion of
Goucher Hall for the presentation of the class gift. Miss
Helen Harrison, president of 1913, after referring to the great
regard that all alumnae and students had for Dr. Van Meter,
and to the unique place which he had held in the College during
the twenty-five years of its existence unveiled a large oil
painting of him.io^ The gift was accepted on behalf of the
Board of Trustees by Dr. Goucher, who said that
No gift could have been more appropriately chosen. . . . The class had
really anticipated a plan of the Board of Trustees to have just such a por-
trait made in the early fall. Your gift is the concrete expression of the love
and devotion you have for Dr. Van Meter. . . . [It] is a necessary addition to
our college walls and should it have been withheld longer, the College would
have been showing an ungrateful lack of recognition of Dr. Van Meter's
zeal and devotion to college ideals. ... He has never for a moment lost sight
of the high ideals and standards he set for himself and those we have ever
recognized and respected.^"'*
Painted by Adolphe W. Blondheim, the husband of a member
of the Class of 1913, this portrait of Dr. Van Meter hung for
years over the mantel of Room 15, and it is now in the central
pavilion of Goucher Hall. There is also in the president's
reception room, over the mantel, the enlargement of a photo-
graph, used first in the Donnybrook Fair^ 1904, and presented
at its fifteenth reunion by the Class of 1904, of which Dr. Van
Meter was the honorary member. Then too, in the central
pavilion, there is a bronze relief of him, made by Hans Schuler
and presented to the College by the Trustees at commencement
in 1931.
Election of Dr. Guth
Dr. Van Meter's work as acting president did not end with
the close of the academic year 191 2-13. As soon as it seemed
reasonably certain that the campaign for the million dollar.*!
would succeed, a committee of eight was appointed by the
214 'T^E HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Trustees to secure a president. Their task was performed and
Dr. Guth was unanimously elected to the presidency on
June 12, 1 913. But as he could not assume control until the
first of October, the work of starting the College in the fall of
1 9 13 was carried out by Dr. Van Meter.
Estimate of Dr. Van Meter's Acting Presidency
In appreciation of the work of Dr. Van Meter as acting
president, the Trustees passed the following resolutions:
Resolved I. That we, the Trustees of Goucher College, hereby express
our hearty appreciation of the promptness with which Dr. Van Meter ac-
ceded to our request [to assume the acting presidency], the faithfulness with
which he has given his attention to the internal affairs of the College, the
energy and success with which he directed the Campaign among the alumnae
in the interests of the Million Dollar Fund, and the spirit of sacrifice which he
has manifested in prosecuting the work when it made heavy drafts upon his
time and strength and interfered with greatly needed vacations.
Resolved II. That we recognize and commend the work of Dr. Van
Meter as Acting President as a contribution to the development of the
College, helpfully supplementing his long and enthusiastic occupancy of
the position of Professor, and his notable services as Dean of the College.^*'^
Mr. Stone in speaking of his success as acting president said:
Dr. Van Meter rendered the most effective service. The title of "Acting
President" carried many difficulties but these he handled wonderfully.
All came to him with their worries. Parents and students wanted to know
whether they should begin looking for other places to go for their education
and members of the faculty wished to know whether they were to be thrown
outof ajob or not. Dr. Van Meter had all these problems to meet. He held
the student body and the faculty together in unbroken continuity and also
satisfied the anxious parents. He should be paid a tribute for his wonderful
power and resourcefulness in meeting the emergency.^"®
"So eminently satisfied and happy are we under Dr. Van
Meter's rule," said a writer in Kalends^ November 191 1, "that
we wish it might continue as long as he feels himself able and
desirous of continuing it. There is no one among faculty,
ADMINISTRATION OF ACTING PRESIDENT VAN METER 21 5
alumnae, or students who does not cherish a hope that our old
friend and president pro tern may become our president in
very truth."
Not only was Dr. Van Meter responsible for the adminis-
tration of the internal affairs of the College during his acting
presidency and for the leadership of the alumnae in their part
of the campaign for the million dollars, but he also carried on
his teaching. And so by his work within and without, he added
another service to the long list of his activities for the benefit
of the College. Which was the greatest of these, it is rather
difficult to say, but there is little doubt that at this critical
time no one else could have so helped the College to carry on
its work with faculty, students, and alumnae while the des-
perate financial struggle was being fought through to its
successful conclusion.^"
Chapter VI
THE ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT
WILLIAM WESTLEY GUTH
1913-1929
Biographical sketch^ Dr. Guth's inauguration — Resignation of
Dr. Van Meter — Academic progress — Increased enrolment — Build-
ing expansion — Alumnae Lodge — Organization of the Alumnae
Council — Publication of the Gaucher College Weekly and the Gaucher
Alumnae Quarterly — Appointment of a director of vocational guid-
ance — Goucher College in relation to the World War — Resignation
of Dean Lord — Dr. Eugene N. Curtis as acting dean — Appoint-
ment of student counselors — Dr. Dorothy Stimson elected dean —
Summary of changes in the functions of the dean's office — Faculty
Club — Retiring allowances for faculty— Resignation of Henry S.
Dulaney as president of the Board of Trustees^Charter amend-
ments — Financial reorganization — The Supplemental Endowment
Fund, 1917 — Gift from the General Education Board — Death of
John T. Stone and election of John L. Alcock as treasurer — LL.D.
bestowed by Goucher College upon President Guth — The acquisition
of the Towson Campus — The beginning of the 4-2-1 campaign —
The charter controversy — The conclusion of the 4-2-1 campaign —
The death of Dr. William H. Hopkins and of Dr. Goucher — The
illness and death of Dr. Guth — Death of Elinore B. Jeffrey, presi-
dent of the Board of Trustees — Appointment of Hans Froelicher
as acting president and of a committee to fill the office of president
— Memorial service for President Guth — Tributes to Dr. Guth by
Goucher women— Summary of the benefits of President Guth's ad-
ministration — Poem by Joseph M. Beatty, Jr.
Biographical Sketch
WILLIAM Westley Guth was chosen as the fourth
president of Goucher College at a meeting of the
Board of Trustees on June 12, 1913. He was forty-
two years old, having been born October 15, 1 871, in Nashville,
216
PKF.SIDKXI Wlll.l AM WKSII.KV (Jl TH
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 217
Tennessee. His ancestry was German and French, but his
parents, George and Susan Sophie Guth, were born in this
country. His father was a Methodist minister. "At the early
age of thirteen he was supporting himself by doing commercial
illustrating, and at sixteen we find him the youngest member
of the staff at Tiffany's in New York, drawing ecclesiastical
designs and studying at the New York School of Design, with
every evidence of an artistic career ahead. But at eighteen,
feeling the necessity of more education, he joined his parents,
who were living in California, and entered the Academy of the
University of the Pacific.
"Forced, however, to make his living in order to attain his
educational ambitions, he took up journalism, and at the time
of his graduation from the Academy, he was the City Editor
of the San Jose Evenmg Mercury, a paper supplying a popula-
tion of over one hundred thousand."^
He entered Leland Stanford Junior University in 1892, and
was elected president of the freshman class. He completed
his course in three years. "In his senior year it is recorded of
him that he was a journalist of such reputation that to the
astonishment and envy of the professors he made four thousand
dollars in that one year."- He was graduated with the
"Pioneer Class" of 1895, with Phi Beta Kappa honors. He
then began the study of law in the Hastings Law School,
passed the examinations four months later, and was admitted
to the California bar in December 1895. ^^ ^^^ Helen Louise
Fischbeck, of San Francisco, were married March 10, 1896.
He practiced law very successfully in San Francisco for three
years. Feeling, however, that he wanted to do "more active
work in helping humanity," he entered the School of Theology
of Boston University in 1898 to prepare for the ministry. He
was ordained in 1900 and became pastor of the Methodist
Church in West Chelmsford, Massachusetts. He took the
S. T. B. degree at Boston University in 1901. Having become
deeply interested in philology, he studied that subject for three
2l8 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
years at the Universities of Halle and Berlin. Halle University
gave him the Ph.D. degree in 1904.
For the next four years he was pastor of Epworth Church,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, a church attended largely by
Harvard and Radcliffe students. Then came a call from the
University of the Pacific, a struggling institution in financial
distress. He accepted the call. Later he changed the name
of the institution to "College of the Pacific." In five years he
"succeeded in placing that college upon a solid foundation,
with a sense of doing creditable work, and inspired it with
renewed ideals. "^ It was during this period that he wrote
four books: T^he Assurance of Faith (191 1), Revelation and Its
Record (191 2), Spiritual Values (191 2), and The 'Teachers
Teacher (1913).'*
When offered the position of president of Goucher College,
Dr. Guth, after some hesitation, finally accepted, and wrote
to the Board of Trustees on July 15, 1913: "I shall come to
Baltimore with enthusiasm, determined to let my energy and
abilities go into the new work to their fullest capacity." Mrs.
Guth,. who was a graduate of the College of the Pacific, was
inspired by the same spirit. For sixteen ye-^rs she worked for
the College side by side with her husband. They were chosen
honorary members of the freshman class which entered the
College at the same time they did, and this gave them an easy
and natural acquaintance with student life and activities.
Mrs. Guth gave special attention to the improvement of the
furnishings of the residence halls and various rooms in the other
buildings. She transformed what had been a lunch room into
the delightful Faculty Room, and she effected similar trans-
formations in the reading room of the library, the Goucher
College Christian Association room, and several others. The
faculty and students repeatedly expressed warm appreciation
of her efficient thoughtfulness.* She also selected the furnish-
ings for the Goucher Room in the national headquarters in
Washington of the American Association of University Women.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 2I9
For a number of years she was chairman of the House Commit-
tee of the College Club of Baltimore, and selected the furnish-
ings for the rooms of the club. President and Mrs. Guth made
a present to the alumnae of the furnishings for the large foyer
of the Alumnae Lodge. ^
After coming to Goucher, President Guth held several impor-
tant offices. He was president of the Middle States Associa-
tion of Colleges and Secondary Schools (1921-22), a member
of the Advisory Council of the Bureau of Vocational Informa-
tion, and chairman of the Finance Committee of the Southern
Women's Educational Alliance. He was a member of Phi
Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Psi.
Inauguration
Among the memorable events in the year 1913-14 were those
connected with the inauguration of President Guth. Most
of the following account of these events is an abstract from the
narrative of Dr. Hans Froelicher, who was the official chronicler
of "an impressive succession of academic and social functions."^
The first meeting was held in the chapel of the College at
three o'clock on Saturday, February 7, and was a general
reunion of the alumnae and former students. Every class,
beginning with the first, 1892, to the latest, 1913, was repre-
sented. Christie Y. Dulaney, '07, president of the Alumnae
Association, presided. In her opening remarks she welcomed
Dr. Guth into the large family of Goucher alumnae, and assured
him of a very hearty cooperation in his work for the future of
the College. The secretary of the Alumnae Association, Carrie
Mae Probst, '04, called the roll of the classes. As each class
responded, it pledged its loyalty to President-elect Guth and
to its Alma Mater. The exercises were informal in character,
a number of addresses being made on the general topic,
"Goucher College: Her Past Services; Her Future Needs."
The first speaker was Anna Heubeck Knipp of the Class of
220 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
1892 and former president of the Alumnae Association. A
letter was read from Angeline Griffing (Mrs. S. George Wolf),
of the Class of 1898 and ex-president of the Alumnae Associa-
tion, and addresses were made by Dr. John F. Goucher, Dr.
William H. Hopkins, Dean Eleanor L. Lord, Dr. John B. Van
Meter, and President-elect William Westley Guth.
At half-past five the meeting adjourned, to reassemble in
Goucher Hall at half-past six, when the graduates and former
students were to be the guests of the Trustees at a banquet.
Mr. Summerfield Baldwin, president of the Board of Trustees,
presided, and after the dinner introduced Dr. John B. Van
Meter as toastmaster. Dr. Van Meter proposed first of all
a toast to "Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States,
the warm and faithful friend of Goucher College," to which
Bishop Earl Cranston, of Washington, D. C, responded, and
then there followed toasts by alumnae, faculty, and trustees.
On Sunday afternoon, at three o'clock, in First Church a
religious service was held, and a sermon fitting the occasion
was delivered by Bishop William Franklin Anderson. "He
spoke on the freedom of scholarship, a freedom centered on
the abiding principles of truth as these have been discovered
and expressed throughout the ages, but a freedom which gave
full opportunity to run along any avenue which truth marked
out."
Dr. Froelicher's narrative gives the following account for
the next day:
Monday, the ninth, at ten o'clock in the morning and again in First
Church, trustees, faculty, and alumnae, as well as friends, met to celebrate
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the College and the successful conclusion of
the Million Dollar Campaign. Bishop Earl Cranston presided, and in a
most happy and engaging way introduced the speakers. The keynote of all
the remarks was the memory of past struggles and present achievements,
a reviewing of the growth of the College, and a tribute to those who have
gone before us into that Silent Land. Especially do I mention the tribute
which Mr. John T. Stone, treasurer of the College, paid to the late Mr.
Benjamin F. Bennett, that gentle, kind, and generous friend of the College,
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 221
its treasurer for a quarter of a century. Who can fail to remember him,
coming to the College, a fresh flower in his buttonhole and a smile on his
face? Mr. Stone announced also that over one third of the Million Dollar
Fund had already been paid in (1371,000), that three fourths of our debt
was paid, and that by July the entire debt would be wiped out.
The Other speakers on Monday morning were Dr. William
H. Hopkins, the Rev. Edward L. Watson, Dr. Lilian Welsh,
Rabbi A. Guttmacher, and Dr. M. Bates Stephens, the latter
representing the Maryland Department of Education.
The inauguration of President-elect Guth was set for that
afternoon at three o'clock. The Lyric Theater had been
secured for the event. Before an imposing audience, he was
formally inducted into office by the President of the Board of
Trustees, Mr. Summerfield Baldwin. Dr. John F. Goucher,
President Emeritus of the College, made the address of pre-
sentation, and President Mary A. Woolley of Mount Holyoke
College delivered the charge to the incoming president. Greet-
ings were brought by Dean Eleanor Louisa Lord for the
faculty; Christie Y. Dulaney, '07, president of the Alumnae
Association, for the alumnae; Helen L. Keever, '14, president
of the Students' Organization, for the undergraduates; Acting
President William H. Welch of Johns Hopkins University;
President M. Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr; Professor Ephraim
D. Adams of Stanford; President Marion L. Burton of Smith;
and the United States Commissioner of Education, the Honor-
able P. P. Claxton.
Dr. Guth's inaugural address followed. He boldly cham-
pioned the political and economic rights of women, as well as
their educational rights, and argued against a rigid curriculum.
One feature of the inauguration program was a carefully
planned surprise. Professor Froelicher arose and addressed
President Guth as follows:
Mr. President: It becomes my pleasant duty to present to you on behalf
of the Board of Control one of my colleagues, to have conferred upon him
the highest distinction within the gift of the College, the honorary degree of
222 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Doctor of Laws, a degree which has never before been conferred upon any-
one by Goucher College. And we do this in order to honor publicly one
whom we have loved and respected through these many years of service.
It has long been in our minds and hearts to do him honor, but we were
heretofore defeated in our good intentions by his firm resistance to any
formal recognition. On this present occasion, with your hearty approval
and assistance, we have proceeded by strategy. For the first time in the
history of the College, I believe, a meeting of the Board of Control was
called at which Dr. Van Meter was not notified to be present. At that
meeting, held in his absence, and without his knowledge, the Board, wishing
to express in some measure at least, the esteem and affection in which he is
held by all, unanimously recommended that the degree of Doctor of Laws
be conferred upon him by the College. I have the honor, therefore, Mr.
President, to present to you by recommendation of the Board of Control,
and by order of the Board of Trustees, our colleague and friend. Dr. John
Blackford Van Meter, Doctor of Divinity, Professor of Philosophy, and
Morgan Professor of English Bible, for over twenty years Dean of the
Faculty, and . . . during the most critical period of the College, Acting
President of Goucher College, to receive at your hands the degree of Doctor
of Laws.
Apart from the inauguration of the President, no event
during the three days' celebration gave greater pleasure or
more satisfaction to the alumnae, students, and constituency
of Goucher College. Few men have been honored as Dr. Van
Meter was honored when at the moment of the conferring of
the degree upon him by President Guth the student-body and
alumnae arose with spontaneous, sincere, happy, and long-
sustained applause. The hood with which Dr. Van Meter
was invested was the gift of the Alumnae Association.
After the inauguration the delegates and faculty joined their
hosts, the Trustees, at a delightful banquet at the Belvedere
Hotel, about two hundred men and women being seated around
small tables, x^gain Dr. Van Meter was chosen as toastmaster,
calling with humorous arbitrariness upon this and that guest
and infecting his victims with his own humor, so that the feast
vanished into the late evening hour amidst mirth and good
fellowship.
The speakers at the banquet were Bishop William F. Ander-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 22^
son, Dr. Abram W. Harris, president of Northwestern Uni-
versity, Dean Virginia C. Gildersleeve of Barnard College,
President Kerr Duncan MacMillan of Wells College, President
Laura Drake Gill of the College for Women in The University
of the South, Miss Vida Hunt Francis, the general secretary
of the American Association of Collegiate Alumnae, and Presi-
dent Lemuel H. Murlin of Boston University. At the conclu-
sion of the banquet the guests attended a reception at Goucher
Hall. The building was crowded to its utmost capacity for
more than two hours as the guests and friends of the College
passed the receiving line to wish President and Mrs. Guth
all success and happiness.
Important Developments
President Guth, whose custom it was, during his administra-
tion, to preach both the matriculation and baccalaureate ser-
mons, delivered his first baccalaureate sermon on Sunday,
May 31, 1 914. On Wednesday afternoon, June 3, there was
present at the Lyric Theater the largest assembly of the
faculty, the students, and the alumnae that had ever attended
a Goucher commencement. Bishop Francis J. McConneli
gave the address. The most significant announcement made
at these exercises was that of the resignation of Dr. Van Meter,
who had served the College from its beginning. He received
the title of Professor Emeritus of English Bible and Philosophy,
but because he was best known as Dean his title was soon
changed to Dean Emeritus.
It was the purpose of President Guth to make his first
year at Goucher College mainly a year of observation, but his
second year was marked by some important changes. He was
a progressive, and his attitude toward conservatism is ex-
pressed in the concluding paragraph of his first annual report:
"In closing permit me to say that I have become more and
more impressed during the year with the worth and prospects
of Goucher College. There is conservatism of a very apparent
224 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
sort in Baltimore, in the Alumnae Association, and in the
Faculty. A tendency to harp on the glory of the past and a
freely expressed conviction in some quarters that what was
good enough need not be made better has been noticeable.
Changes will have to be made which may not be pleasant or
welcome to all. But we are living in the present, not in the
past, especially are we living in the presence of great war
movements, the consequences of which no one can foresee.
At no time can an educational institution remain static; at
this time, particularly, it is the sacred duty of the educational
forces of our country to set mind and energy to the solution of
the grave national and international, social and individual
problems which are upon us. Let us hold to the past only
because of the good there is therein, and go forward to the
future with courage and cheerfulness to help make that good
better."'
Fortunately, the faculty proved to be progressive, and in
1914-15 they adopted the major department plan developed
from the major subject plan, the Missouri system of grading,
and a provision that Latin should no longer be required for
admission. This last change, which required courage, was
effected without lowering the standards. During the first half
of his administration, before 1921, two other educational
innovations were made — change in the method of handling
admissions in 191 6 and the use of psychological tests for fresh-
men in 1918.^
The enrolment of students was steadily increased by Presi-
dent Guth from 390 in 1913-I4 to 622 in 191 6-1 7. All avail-
able space in the old residence halls was utilized, and finally, in
the fall of 1 91 6, two new halls were opened, Mardal and Folk-
vang, both of which were remodeled residences. The chapel
which the Board of Trustees of First Methodist Episcopal
Church had kindly allowed the College to use since its opening
in 1888 was no longer large enough. President Guth saw the
possibilities of transforming the old Assembly Room of Gather-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 12^
ine Hooper Hall which seated only five hundred. On the rear
end of the building, he erected an addition, extending to the
northern end of the property line. This addition, on the
ground and first floors of the building, increased the floor space
of the gymnasium and the gallery for spectators, made room
for showers, dressing rooms, lockers, a kitchen, a city students
lunch room, and an extension of the dark room of the physics
department. And on the third floor it provided an additional
chemical laboratory.^" This made possible a new chapel and
auditorium, which including the balconies, has a seating capac-
ity of about twelve hundred. Well lighted, attractively
designed and decorated, with a stage equipped for student
productions, this new room satisfied a real need of the College.
It was furnished with a new $10,000 organ designed by the
director of music, Mr. Alfred Willard. The Goucher College
Hymnal^ edited by President Guth was used for the first time
when the college year opened formally in the new auditorium
on Friday, October 6, 1916.'^
The following autumn there was another improvement.
When Dr. Welsh returned from her vacation she experienced
what she referred to as "the greatest surprise of her life." She
had gone away wondering where the largely increased number
of students in physiology and hygiene could be accommodated.
She found in the fall of 1917, that back of Bennett Hall Annex,
where for many years the lot had been used by the College and
the neighborhood as a dump, ground had been broken and the
foundations laid for a new two-story granite building. This
was completed rapidly and used by the department for much
needed laboratories and a lecture room,^-
During the next year, 1 917-18, another building was added
to the college group — the Alumnae Lodge. As far back as
191 2, the Alumnae Association had asked the College for a
room to be used for permanent alumnae headquarters^^ and
the Trustees resolved to provide such a room as soon as pos-
sible. ^^ In the meantime the Alumnae Association directed
226 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
its attention to the possible purchase of a house in the neighbor-
hood of the College to be used as an Alumnae-Student Club
House. ^^ The Trustees, in 1917, were engaged in raising the
supplemental million dollars, and wanted the alumnae to have
a share in it. Since raising money for the purchase of a build-
ing could not be included in the fund the Trustees were raising,
the alumnae relinquished their plan and devoted their efforts
to raising funds for the endowment of a professorship to be
named in honor of Lilian Welsh, and, on their part, the Trustees
agreed to provide the alumnae with a building if they would be
responsible for furnishing it,^^ On the rear of the lot on which
Mardal Hall now stands, there was a large brick stable belong-
ing to the original Cowen property. President Guth saw the
possibilities of the site and of using some of the materials.
And here, under his leadership, with Mr. W. W. Emmart as
architect, the Alumnae Lodge, so much used and enjoyed by
the alumnae, was erected.^^ The large lounge was beautifully
and tastefully furnished by President and Mrs. Guth, the four
bed rooms were furnished as memorials; one in memory of Mrs.
Goucher by her three daughters; one by the class of 1898 in
memory of five of its members; one by 1904 in memory of its
senior president, Florence Walther (Mrs. George A. Solter);
the fourth by 1908 in memory of Kate McCurley Maltbie,
wife of Dr. William H. Maltbie, its honorary member. The
other furnishings of the building for the most part were pro-
vided by gifts from alumnae and former students in Baltimore. ^^
President Guth, acting for the Trustees, turned over the keys
of Alumnae Lodge to the president of the Alumnae Association
at an Open House held on February 14, 191 8. ^^ This important
event in the history of the Alumnae Association took place
during the second mid-year meeting of the Alumnae Council.
At the meeting of the Alumnae Association in June 191 5, A.
Bertha Miller, '94, proposed the organization of an Alumnae
Council. 2" She was made chairman of a committee to prepare
plans for such a council and to promote interest in it among the
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 227
Chapters. 21 In 191 6 the plan was adopted by the Association
and the first meeting of the Council was held February 8, 9,
10, 1917, and Miss Miller was elected its first president. ^^
The purpose of the Council as stated in its original constitution
was: "to bring about a closer relation between Goucher College
and its alumnae and between the Alumnae Association and its
chapters; to act as a medium for securing and disseminating
accurate information concerning the College; and to recom-
mend and undertake lines of active alumnae service." Carolyn
Montgomery, '98 (Mrs. Thomas G. Sanders), chairman of
arrangements for the first meeting of the Council expressed its
purpose as follows: "To bring the College nearer to the alum-
nae, and the alumnae nearer to the College." In the organiza-
tion of the Alumnae Council, President Guth took a keen and
sympathetic interest.
In this administration, also, encouraged and aided by Presi-
dent Guth, two important publications were started — the
Goucher College Weekly, published by the undergraduates and
the Goucher Alumnae Quarterly, by the alumnae."
The first important event of President Guth's administra-
tion, coming before his inauguration, was the result of a pro-
posal by Dean Lord. It gave a new direction to the evolution
of vocational guidance in Goucher College. That evolution
was in three stages, the first being inaugurated by Dean Van
Meter in 1897, the second by Dean Lord in 1913, and the third
by President Guth in 1921. During the early years of the
history of the College most of the alumnae chose teaching as a
vocation, and, as Dr. Lord says, "the Dean in conjunction with
the Registrar could easily handle the applications for candi-
dates received during the course of the year from employers of
teachers; and this service was most efficiently performed by
Dean Van Meter and Miss Probst." The opening of new
fields for women caused the development of intercollegiate
bureaus which dealt with positions other than teaching, and
led to the formation of faculty committees of an advisory
228 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
character in most of the women's colleges, including Goucher."
Those committees emphasized guidance as well as placement.
The Board of Control, on December i, 1913, appointed a
standing committee on Occupations and Vocational Guidance.
The chairman was Dean Lord, who not only promoted voca-
tional guidance in Goucher College, but, because she special-
ized in placing teachers, did the largest share of the work.
The Committee was appointed in December, 19 13, and met occasionally
throughout the rest of the academic year. It was agreed that correspond-
ence and placements for teaching positions should be made through the
Dean's office, social workers should be supplied through Dr. Thomas, and
workers requiring preparation or talents in writing English or handling manu-
scripts, etc., through Dr. Keller. Each member arranged for definite hours
for consultation with students and for vocational guidance. Each member
undertook to keep posted as far as possible on the outlook in the field selected
and to collect informational material which could be placed at the disposal
of the students. A bulletin board for the convenient display of such in-
formation was placed in the basement of Goucher Hall and was much con-
sulted by students. . . . ^^
When Dr. May L. Keller, associate professor of English,
resigned her position in Goucher College in 1914 to become
dean of Westhampton College, her place on the vocational
committee was taken by Dr. Annette B. Hopkins, associate
professor of English, who did much in the way of vocational
guidance by printing a series of articles in the Goucher College
Weekly^ as well as by posting notices and holding personal
interviews. Her services ended in 191 8, and other members
were added to the committee at various times: Professors Cur-
tis, King, Geer, Rogers, and Miller. The end of the committee
system came in 1921, when President Guth appointed a Direc-
tor of Vocational Guidance. He saw that vocational guidance
had gone beyond the stage where it could be handled advanta-
geously by a committee of the faculty working in cooperation
with the Dean. Goucher was among the pioneers in research
carried on by a director of vocational guidance, who made a
contribution to our knowledge of the best methods of dealing
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 2^9
with the administration and organization of guidance and the
study of occupations. 2^ Dr. Iva L. Peters, associate professor
of social science, was made director in 1921. She had experi-
ence in personnel work during the War and also in field work in
New York City. Leona Buchwald, a Goucher alumna, who
had statistical experience in the War Department and also
administrative training as business women's secretary in the
Young Women's Christian Association, was appointed voca-
tional secretary.
The new venture was completely successful. As a result of
its success, so much of the time of Dr. Peters was spent in inter-
preting the plan to other colleges that during the year 1924-25
she was granted relief from professorial duties. She served on
committees of the National Vocational Guidance Association
and the National Research Council. She became associate
counselor for the Southern Women's Educational Alliance for
1924-25, Her work was carried on by visits or correspondence
with nearly all of the colleges and universities open to women
in the South. She started an "orientation course" along
vocational lines at William and Mary College." Goucher's
Bureau of Appointments and Vocational Guidance was used
as a model by a score of institutions. ^^ One fundamental
principle in the work of the Bureau was stated thus by Dr.
Peters: "Vocational guidance in the college is not only a win-
dow through which the college student looks out into the
world, but is one of the cooperative agencies for the attainment
of education. "29
Dr. Peters resigned in 1926 to become Dean of Women at
Syracuse University. Miss Buchwald had resigned previ-
ously, in 1923, to become educational and vocational counselor
in the Baltimore City Schools. Mary T. McCurley, a Goucher
alumna with experience as a teacher and executive experience
in the Bureau of State and Municipal Research, Baltimore, and
in the Maryland Food Administration, has been vocational
secretary since 1923. She begins her work with freshmen so
as to ascertain as soon as possible their vocational interests
230
THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
and make appropriate suggestions, and she also serves alumnae
long after the year of their graduation. In various articles
she has described the five functions of the Bureau: "Collecting
and disseminating information in regard to opportunities for
college graduates, arranging for students to obtain prevoca-
tional experience, helping students to find part-time work,
assisting them with financial and personal problems, advising
and placing those who wish positions. "^°
GoucHER College in War Time
During the Easter vacation in 1917 the United States entered
the World War. Goucher promptly prepared to render such
service as it could. At a meeting of the Students' Organiza-
tion on April 12, Dr. Lilian Welsh, professor of physiology and
hygiene, presented some plans which she said were to aid, not
necessarily in preparation for war, but in preparation for life,
which is the best possible preparation for times of peace or war.
The student, by keeping her body in the best physical condi-
tion, would prepare herself for any emergency calls which the
crisis might impose upon her. In addition. Dr. Welsh advo-
cated specific preparedness in order to do one kind of work
well. Dr. William E. Kellicott, professor of biology, said he
would like to add to the ideas of physical and specific pre-
paredness that of mental preparedness. He urged the students
to be alive to the present situation and to learn what the world
was about in this war.^^ These ideas of Dr. Welsh and Dr.
Kellicott were referred to a joint committee of faculty and
students and incorporated in the "Goucher College Plan."32
It was written in the form of the following pledge, which was
enthusiastically adopted and signed by a large majority of the
students:
Goucher College Pledge
To respond to my country's need I hereby pledge to prepare myself
physically, mentally, and, so far as possible, specifically for usefulness.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 23I
/. Physical Preparedness
In order to develop my physical capacities to their possible extent, I will
sincerely pay proper attention to exercise, diet, sleep, dress, and personal
habits.
I will take at least one hour of regular exercise each day, whether in the
gymnasium, in recreation, or at manual labor.
I will endeavor to form correct habits as to diet, abstain from eating
needlessly between meals, ascertain under college medical advice what my
physical condition should be and train accordingly.
I will sleep approximately eight hours every night, retiring as early after
ten o'clock as is compatible with reasonable duties or engagements, sleeping
with the windows of my room wide open, on a sleeping porch or in the open
air.
I will wear simple clothing, paying due regard to the laws of hygiene, to
habits of neatness, and to economy and serviceableness.
I will put into practice what I know to be correct as to personal habits,
keeping my room and all places over which I have control clean and in orderly
arrangement.
In all of the foregoing I recognize the expediency as well as the practic-
ability of a regime that emphasizes regularity, persistence, and willingness
to profit from the wisdom and experience of others.
//. Mental Preparedness
In order that I may be informed as to the causes of the war, its progress
the changes that have come in the reasons why the nations are at war, par-
ticularly why the United States is forced to engage therein, I will attend the
eight or ten lectures to be given by the History Department of Goucher
College, and will read some every day, either in newspapers, periodicals, or
books, recognized as supporting the policy of our government.
///. Specific Preparedness
In addition to preparing myself physically and mentally, as above set
forth, I will conscientiously take account of my own fitness and inclinations
and give myself over to specific training offered by some one of the depart-
ments of Goucher College. I will give this time outside of my regular class
room and laboratory duties. I will be loyal and faithful in this regard and
will do all in my power to stimulate the loyalty and faithfulness of my fellow
students. I will undertake this specific preparedness willingly and enthusi-
astically, thankful for the opportunity it gives me to respond to my country's
call."
232 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The physical preparedness was under the direction of the
department of physical training, and the mental preparedness
was mainly in charge of the departments of history and
English. Dr. Katherine J. Gallagher, of the history depart-
ment, gave a course of eight lectures on the events which led
up to the war and to American participation in the war. The
English department posted on a bulletin board each day the
leading events of the war and arranged to study the chief
speeches and documents of the war in class. Specific prepared-
ness was under the direction of those departments which could
offer the needed courses. The department of botany gave
instruction in agriculture, the department of physiology and
hygiene offered courses in food and nutrition and also a clinical
laboratory course, and the physics department gave instruc-
tion in wireless telegraphy and in the mechanism and operation
of an automobile, with the aid of an automobile corporation
which placed the chassis of an eight-cylinder car at the disposal
of the class of forty-five students. The department of mathe-
matics gave courses in bookkeeping and typewriting — the
latter with the cooperation of one of the business colleges of
Baltimore, which gave instruction in typewriting to over fifty
students free of charge. The departments of foreign languages
offered intensive courses in the translation of every-day Ger-
man, French, Italian, and Spanish, and also some courses in
conversation. The department of social science undertook to
teach students the principles used in relief work so that they
might aid the families of those who went to the front." The
specific preparedness courses lasted only a few weeks in the
spring of 1917. Though no academic credit was given to those
who took them, a large majority of the students were enrolled.
The courses were not given the next year because they inter-
fered too much with the regular work of the students.
The first war-time service rendered by Goucher was putting
five teams of ten students each, under the direction of a
Goucher alumna, Nellie Snowden Watts, '05, in a campaign
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 233
which the Baltimore welfare organizations were conducting
to raise an emergency fund of $1,500,000.
The first formaldemonstration of patriotism at Goucher was
the raising on March 22 of a large new flag on the balcony over
the main entrance to Goucher Hall, A brief speech was made
by President Guth, and patriotic songs were sung. The flag
was the gift of Mrs. Louise M. Fischbeck, the mother of Mrs.
Guth. During the spring vacation a large flag-pole was
erected on the green in front of Bennett Hall. It was the gift
of Mr. W. H. Fehsenfeld, a member of the Board of Trustees.
On the first day after vacation the faculty and students gath-
ered to witness the raising of the flag to its new position on this
pole while they sang "The Star Spangled Banner" and "Amer-
ica."3^
It meant real sacrifice for the students to abolish for the year
certain extracurriculum activities to which they had been
looking forward, but which would cost time or money needed
in the service of their country. At a meeting of the Students'
Organization on April 21, these were given up: Glee Club,
Agora, the boat rides of the freshmen and sophomores and of
the Pennsylvania and Southern Clubs, Senior Class Day, and
Kalends — but it was later decided to issue four numbers of
Kalends during the year 1917-18.
The juniors gave the annual banquet to the seniors on April
20, saving expenses by doing most of their own cooking and
by making their own decorations "No one who partook of
the banquet-fare can say that college girls, or at least the
Goucher juniors, fall short as cooks. Here again the juniors
deserve credit for their good planning and for the successful
carrying out of their plans. "*« The underclassmen willingly
served as waitresses.
The cooperation between class and class and between the
students and faculty was excellent. Especially hearty was
the appreciation by the students of Dr. Gallagher's lectures
relating to the war." Another form of enthusiasm is described
234 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
in an editorial in the Gaucher College Weekly entitled, "There
was a Time:"
The enthusiastic way in which Goucher girls united with Baltimore in
welcoming Marshal JofFre and the French delegation last Monday is an indi-
cation of the presence in college of that long hoped-for interest in non-
collegiate affairs. This interest in outside events has been zealously en-
couraged, and on the day of the delegation's arrival, first hour classes were
excused in recognition of that interest — or was it because the faculty wished
to go to the station? Anyway, there was a general exodus from Goucher,
and Dr. Shefloe's large silk tri-colored flag borne by an unofficial delegation of
Goucher girls was the first flag which greeted Marshal JofFre and Viviani in
Baltimore and it was the only French flag at Union Station.
Reminiscences may not be inapropos. "There was a time" when we were
not interested in Marshal JofFre — but that was before the war lectures.
There was a time when we did not know who Marshal Jofi"re was — but that
was before the days of the bulletin board. There was a time — but that
was before we had the war maps, with their fascinating pins and colored
cords.
It is safe to assert that "there was a time" is past. The memory of
Marshal JofFre's visit will remain with us, and we shall be proud to remember
that to one of our faculty belongs the first flag saluted by members of the
French delegation on their entrance into Baltimore.^ ^
By the close of the year 191 6-17, it was known that the
Goucher Plan had met with great favor, even in the far west,
and had been adopted, either entirely or in part, by a number
of women's colleges. The students praised the benefits of
physical efficiency. An editorial in the Goucher College Weekly
says: "Early to bed and early to rise has by now become a habit
with us, and perhaps that has something to do with the fact
that finals this year have not their usual terror for us."^'
Goucher's first service in connection with the war in the year
1 917-18 was the campaign for the Student Friendship Fund,
which had been brought to Goucher by student initiative. On
October 12, Louise Spieker, '18, and Virginia Woollen, '19, were
sent to Harrisburg to represent Goucher at a conference of the
students from all the colleges in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH l^S
Delaware. The conference had been called by leaders of the
Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. to discuss the relief work
carried on in foreign countries by these two organizations. A
week later the Goucher representatives arranged to have Mr.
David Porter, international secretary of the Y. M. C. A., speak
to the students, and a few days later Dr. Gertrude C. Bussey,
of the Goucher department of philosophy, addressed them.
Students made many sacrifices for the Student Friendship
Fund. Many city students gave up attending the movies,
and, when possible, riding to college in the street cars. Many
students did without a new suit or new hat during the year.
A large majority of the juniors pledged themselves not to buy
new gowns for the junior-senior banquet." Money was saved
in other ways, and the total contributions during the campaign
amounted to $2,626.'^^
One day after this campaign was started Goucher College
took part in a memorable event which is pictured as follows
in the news columns of the Goucher College JVeekly :
About thirty-five members of the faculty of Goucher College and more
than three hundred and sixty students marched in the Liberty Loan Pageant
which thrilled all Baltimore on Wednesday evening, October 24th. It is
estimated that 9000 persons participated in the pageant, which was com-
posed of marching divisions, immense floats, banners, and military bands.
Several colleges and schools were represented in the pageant, among them
Johns Hopkins University, City College and Polytechnic Cadet Corps.
The Boy Scouts were torch-bearers, and by the light of these torches the
various banners and legends were plainly visible.
Through this procession the Goucher division in cap and gown could be
distinguished. Long hours of tactic marching in the gymnasium stood the
girls in good stead. [They] marched in military formation, wearing academic
costume, except for forty-five girls in the center of the platoons who formed
a red cross, a marching formation received with much favor by the spec-
tators.''^
The most important activities of Goucher College in relation
to the war were those undertaken by the War Council, which
resulted from an enthusiastic mass-meeting of the students on
236 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
November 27, 191 7/3 The problem of the College was three-
fold: to maintain at highest pitch the academic standard, to
give opportunity for proper relaxation, and to give opportunity
for acquiring information on war issues/^ Moreover,
The first problem which confronted us this year was not merely to pro-
vide opportunity for war service, but to arouse the student body to an appre-
ciation of the seriousness of the war. When college opened last October
with a student enrollment of over 700, with a second-year class of 171 stu-
dents only half assimilated by the body politic, and with a trifle over 300
of raw material, with a rather pallid recollection of the Goucher Prepared-
ness Plan and the pledges taken with some enthusiasm the previous spring
to abide by its rulings, and with the knowledge that the non-credit courses
organized last April under the caption "Special Preparedness" and widely
elected, had been discontinued, the war, to those who were looking on,
seemed, in spite of insistent reminders, to be holding an incidental place in
the general student mind. Much indifference of a positive as well as a
passive sort seemed to prevail, especially in the two lower classes. . . .
Almost simultaneously movements were started by two members of the
faculty on the one hand and the Student Organization on the other to find
a way out of these difficulties. As each group began to work without knowl-
edge of the other's intentions, an unfortunate conflict ensued. This was
however removed without serious consequences. The result of these efforts
was the formation by the Student Organization, on November 27, 1917,
of a College War Council, suggested by a similar institution at Wellesley,
with the purpose of informing the students on and organizing them for vari-
ous kinds of war service.
The Council numbered 14 persons: a senior chairman elected by her class,
a secretary, a treasurer who was also head of the Finance Committee, a
representative from Goucher Collegi Weekly, and eight others, each of whom
was the head of a committee organized by herself for her particular work, but
not sitting with the Council. These committees were:
1. The Liberty Loan (originally entertainment of soldiers and sailors,
but this work was afterwards abandoned by the students as impracticable,
and turned over to the alumnae).
2. Patriotic education.
3. Food conservation.
4. Surgical dressings.
5. Knitting.
6. Collecting of books and periodicals for training camps.
7. Summer employment.
8. Social service. . . .^*
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 237
The College had suffered from a shortage of coal during
December 1917, owing to the war, which also caused a delay
in the transportation of two boilers necessary for the enlarge-
ment of the heating plant in order to take care of the additional
buildings. The new boilers had not arrived when the students
came back from the Christmas vacation. "Then, as if the
three present boilers were an elegant superfluity, instead of a
painful insufficiency, one of them stopped working on the
afternoon of January 3rd — one of its tubes broke and could
not be repaired short of twelve hours, there were other troubles,
for the water pipes on the fourth and fifth floors of Vingolf had
burst on the Monday preceding the opening of the College,
and on Wednesday one of the city mains also burst, and
flooded the cellars of Sessrymner and Gimle. Under this combi-
nation of difficulties, only the residence halls could be heated,
so the Friday and Saturday classes were held in the social halls
of the various residences."*^ When the national government
issued an order that all recitation halls of schools and colleges
should be closed on Mondays in order to save coal, Monday
classes were not discontinued but were held again in the resi-
dences — and with the hearty approval of the students.
The Students' Organization, at a mass-meeting on January
28, 191 8, pledged itself to join with the alumnae and faculty
in supporting two of the Goucher alumnae for a year of re-
construction work in France. "The motion was made and
passed enthusiastically, following an address by Nell Watts,
'05, who assured the students that the alumnae would support
any war work undertaken." The students attempted to raise
$2,000 and the alumnae an equal amount. Both amounts
were over-subscribed.*^ It is interesting to note in this con-
nection two curious devices used by the students to raise
funds for the work — the Kaiser and the thermometer. "The
first was a full-length, five-foot portrait of the War Lord, upon
various portions of whose anatomy were pasted, when sold,
different sized squares of paper, the size varying according to
the price. The thermometer, constructed on a block of card-
238 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
board about four feet high, showed by strips of silver paper
pasted over the tube every few days the progress of the mer-
cury towards the $2000 mark."
An enthusiastic mass-meeting was held in the Auditorium
on April 15, 1918, to get subscriptions to the Third Liberty
Loan. Speeches by President Guth and Dr. Gallagher, patri-
otic songs, and cheering characterized the meeting, and
116,700 worth of bonds were purchased in less than an hour,
and a total of $25,500 was reached a week later.
The desire to send money to save the lives of Belgian babies
made the junior-senior banquet (which was held on April 27,
1 91 8, in the central pavilion of Goucher Hall) one of the most
remarkable in the history of Goucher College. It is described
thus by the editor of the Goucher College Weekly, January 25,
1918:
Junior-Senior banquet this year, with its saving of I250 for the War Fund,
will go down in the annals of Goucher as one of the really great events in the
long and honorable list of student activities. That one class could entertain
another with practically no food is not particularly remarkable. The
amazing thing is that the Juniors actually succeeded in giving a banquet
without food. For, to borrow a phrase from the idea of dramatics, so skil-
fully carried out in the toast scheme, a "perfect illusion" of food was created.
It was impossible to remember that the simple dessert which formed the only
course was not the end of a long menu. The toasts, the music, the decora-
tions were admirable. The ensemble lost none of its loveliness by the fact
that practically the entire class had pledged themselves not to buy new
gowns. The Sophomores proved efficient waitresses, and were most at-
tractive in their white costumes. The whole affair was an overwhelming
demonstration of the triumph of "mind over matter." It was truly a "feast
of reason and a flow of soul."'*^
Dr. Annette B. Hopkins summarizes the work of the com-
mittees of the War Council, which finally numbered ten, and
shows that a great change took place in the student attitude
during the year. Recognizing that the War Council was
partly responsible for this by acting as a sort of intellectual
leaven, she gives due credit to other influences, such as the
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 239
constant cooperation of the administration, the stimulating
pubHc addresses by noted speakers, the courses in modern
European history and the work of the History Club, and,
finally, the changing spirit of the country, as the American
troops got into action and the casualty lists grew longer, with
the result that occasionally a student dropped out of classes
for a few days to reappear in mourning.''^
The quality of the academic work of the students remained
high in the distracting year 1917-18, in spite of unusual war-
time activities, fuel shortage, a very hard winter, and the
curtailment of class hours due to pubhc lectures. Dr. Hop-
kins says that all instructors with whom she talked reported a
growing seriousness in their students and a realization that
they must do the best type of work possible. Several of the
more thoughtful declined important positions for the next year
in the extracurriculum world in order to devote more time to
their studies.^"
In April 1917, the Alumnae Association found itself facing
the question of doing its part in the war. A War Work Com-
mittee made up of Nellie S. Watts, '05, chairman, Mabel
Hutzler, '05, and Clarinda Matthews, '14, looked into the
matter of farm units and social service courses, but its most
important work was in cooperating with the students and
faculty in securing funds to send Goucher alumnae abroad and
in selecting those representatives. About six thousand dol-
lars was secured and in the summer of 191 8, there was arranged
with the Red Cross the Goucher unit composed of Nellie S.
Watts, '05, Mary V. Robinson, '07, Mary E. Gross, '12, and
Helen Harrison '13. By September 191 8, this unit was at
work in France. ^^
In the Goucher College Bulletin, February 191 9, there is a
list of thirty-eight Goucher alumnae and former students who
had served in some capacity in the war zone." In 1921,
Christie Dulaney '07, (Mrs. George A. Solter) president of the
Alumnae Association, gave forty-seven as the number of
240 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Goucher women working over seas. Three alumnae deaths
were caused by the war: Elizabeth Barrows, '99 (Mrs. C. D.
Ussher), Helen E. Robinson, '02," and Katherine Baker, '96."
The faculty also were active in war work. They contributed
largely to the college output of surgical dressings and knitting
for the American Red Cross, and were useful also through the
various departments. Some were absent from the College in
government service: Dr. William E. Kellicott, Dr. J. W. Ma-
gruder, Mr. Earl A. Martin, Mr. David G. Thompson, and,
in 1 91 8-1 9, Dr. H. M. Diamond and Dr. Ethel Bowman, the
latter was Head Aide in Reconstruction in the Walter Reed
General Hospital near Washington."
One incidental effect of the war was the adoption of the
budget system by the students on April 23, 191 8, to prevent too
many separate payments for dues and contributions. The
plan was worked out by the War Council at the suggestion of
the College Council and provided for compulsory dues to be
paid to three organizations: the Students' Organization, the
Athletic Association, and the class to which each student be-
longed. These dues were to be paid when tuition was paid.
It was arranged to have a United Campaign for voluntary
contributions to various causes. ^^
On the morning of Commencement Day, 191 8, at the last
class meeting of the seniors, Donnybrooklet, the substitute for
the regular year book, was distributed. Bound in an attrac-
tive blue paper cover, it contains only thirty-five pages. The
Foreword states that the Class of 1919 (juniors) proposed "that
we publish no college annual this year, but give all the money
of the subscriptions to some war work. We must confess that
we could not bring ourselves to equal the Juniors in making
the relinquishment of the book complete. To graduate, and
face a future far out in the wide, wide world, with no pictures,
however tiny, of our class-mates, seemed more than we could
bear. So we have cheerfully thrown aside all elaborate — and
expensive — details so dear to the editorial heart and have out-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 24I
lined the history of 191 8's senior year in skeleton form. . . ."
Besides the class history, class songs, grinds, and a page of
jokes, Donnybrooklet contains an article entitled "Beau Brum-
mel: a Memory," an appreciation of the class play of the seniors
by Professor Gay of the English department. The seniors
had given the play in April, but repeated it the night before
commencement in order to raise money for the Reconstruction
Fund, already over-subscribed.
The summer of 191 8 is memorable in the history of Goucher
for the war-time activities of the students, especially the
"farmerettes." Of the 462 students who did summer work
directly or indirectly related to war needs, 106 worked for the
Red Cross and loi on farms— five more than the number who
had registered for that kind of work.
The owners of farms were dubious at first about employing
"fool college girls," but, after the students showed what they
could do, their services were in great demand. One of those
who worked on a farm in Maryland with the largest group
from Goucher, who were each paid twelve dollars a week and
board, relates their experiences in the Goucher College Weekly.
Hasn't each one of the thirty-eight Goucher girls who "went farmer-
etting" at Fallston told you already what a wonderful summer she has had?
Of course they never worked harder, never ached more acutely, and perhaps,
though they didn't tell you so, never complained more bitterly. But at the
same time the summer was so brim full of good times and funny experiences
and we felt so patriotic and so satisfied with what we were accomplishing for
Mr. Hoover and Uncle Sam that our farmeretting seems a big experience
that not one of us would like well to have missed. . . .
Now for the real work, the eight hour day work. I advise you not to
mention thinning corn when you are talking to the farmerettes, especially
the first sixteen who went out. If you did you might mistake them for mem-
bers of one of the squelch societies. For corn thinning is a sore subject.
Let me tell you about it. We were taken to the nearest corner of a field
of corn about a foot high that seemed to stretch away over hill and through
valley into infinity. We were told to walk down a row and pull up, by the
root, all except the two thriftiest corn stalks of each hill, and we were advised
not to stand up straight except at the end of each row. It sounded easy and
242 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
we started happily down the first row. We sang, we talked on such subjects
as "The Immortality of the Soul," "Justice upon Earth," etc. But at the
end of the second hour or so there began to be a lag in the conversation.
As we passed each other on the row the question was often asked, "How
do you feel," and the answer came, "My back!" So it was through all those
long corn weeks, each hour getting longer, and each field bigger than the last,
until by the last of June we began to count up and found we had thinned for
Uncle Sam four hundred acres of corn. And we surely did it for Uncle
Sam and no one else. But not every one thinned corn all the time. We
had to divide into groups, for there were tomatoes to be stuck, which con-
sists of boring a little hole in the ground, sticking in the roots of a tender
plant, and firmly pressing it into place.
How glad we were when the first call for hoeing came in and what glowing
reports of the day's work came from the hoers. It was so easy. . . .
The work that proved us and showed just how capable we could be came
with the harvest time. Of course only the huskies were sent out for hay and
wheat and oats, but the rest of us envied them. It was such fun to load up
the hay wagon, ride into the barn, and unload it again. It made you feel
so like a real farmer. We really helped with the threshing too. Of course
the men ran the engine, filled the bags with wheat and did the other easy
things while we did the pitching. We had a little song that we sang, a part
of which might express our sentiments on this subject. It was,
"We work through rain, and we work through heat.
While the men drive the horses from a comfortable seat."
But the summer wound up with the work I think we liked best of all, the
corn cutting. We had hated that same corn so heartily earlier in the sum-
mer, that we slashed at it with a vengeance when the time came. One
man said he preferred us to men on the job too.
Does this all sound as if we hadn't enjoyed the work end of farmeretting?
Indeed we did. We had such good times out on the fields together, such
funny things were always happening, and then there was the lunch hour.
What a blessing the lunch hour was. Four big sandwiches and a piece of
cake for each. The ground was never quite so soft nor the shade of a tree
so soothing as at the lunch hour. . . .^'^
One result of the war was the enrolment of some French
students, one of whom later became a member of the faculty.
The Association of American Colleges had made an arrange-
ment with the government of France for the education in
American colleges and universities of a number of young French
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH
H3
women. In March 191 8, the Executive Committee of the
Board of Trustees authorized President Guth to invite two of
these scholarship students to come to Goucher. Mile. Louise
Cleret and Mile. Emilienne Machot began their work in the
fall of 1 91 8. Mile. Cleret continued it the two following years
and was graduated in 1920. She was appointed assistant in
French in 191 9 and was promoted three times, becoming asso-
ciate professor in 1935. She also received the degree of doctor
of philosophy from the Johns Hopkins University in 1929.
Meanwhile her name had been changed by her marriage to
Mr. George K. Seibert in July 1920.
The last of these French scholarship students came in the fall
of 1 91 9 — Mile. Suzanne Allamercery and Mile. Jeanne Folliot.
The latter was graduated in 1921.
One of the most serious emergencies in the history of Goucher
occurred in 191 8. The great epidemic of Spanish influenza
caused the Health Commissioner of Baltimore to close the
schools and colleges on October 9, 191 8, just five days after the
formal opening of the fall session at Goucher. The College
was closed for four weeks. The fifth floor of Fensal Hall,
which ordinarily was large enough for an infirmary, had to be
supplemented by nearly the whole building. Students volun-
teered to assist the regular nurses, and their services were
gratefully accepted. Carefully masked, they took tempera-
tures and aided in other ways. Dean Lord had a temporary
office in Fensal Hall and answered telegrams and telephone
messages from the parents. The regular nurse, Miss Elizabeth
Browne, and another nurse were assisted in the care of the
convalescents by members of the faculty, especially by Dr.
Bussey, Dr. King, Miss Jervis, and Miss Miller. The regular
physician, Dr. Lilian Welsh, was aided by Dr. Mary Sherwood
and Dr. Mabel Belt, '10, and amember of the stafl^of the Johns
Hopkins Medical school acted as a consulting physician. In
view of the extent and severity of the epidemic, it was consid-
ered fortunate that the number of deaths did not exceed two.^'
244 ^^^ HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
When the last convalescent had been sent home "with admo-
nitions and thanksgivings," Miss Browne said in the Gaucher
College Weekly in reference to the student volunteers: "I
honestly don't know what we could have done without them,
and the efficiency of the system which was organized by
Katherine Manning, president of the Student Organization,
would make the Kaiser weep with envy. There were three
shifts of volunteers a day, some to serve the trays, some to
help take temperatures and to wait on the needs of the pa-
tients, others to carry messages, go after the clothes, etc., and
still others in the main hall to take letters and telegrams,
answer the door, and run the elevator. . . ."
In 1 91 8-1 9 activities incident to the war and reconstruction
continued to occupy much of the time of the faculty and stu-
dents. These activities were directed chiefly by the Student
War Council. While the influenza epidemic was raging in
October, Mary T. McCurley, '10, who was State Secretary of
Volunteer College Workers for the Food Administration,
employed a number of students in clerical work. The efforts
of Goucher students in the Fourth Liberty Loan resulted in
subscriptions amounting to $109,500. Most of the subscrip-
tions were obtained at the Goucher booth in the Emerson Hotel
in connection with a general campaign for selling government
bonds.
Just at this point came the Armistice — on November 11, 191 8
— and it was made memorable for Goucher by a remarkable
impromptu parade, representing the greatest and most pro-
longed outburst of enthusiasm which the College has ever
known — an enthusiasm due to the belief that the world had
been made safe for democracy and permanent peace. The
description of this unique event by Dr. x-\nnette B. Hopkins,
professor of English, is one of Goucher's classics."
The Armistice did not bring a cessation of college activities
on behalf of our soldiers, for most of them were still in France,
many of them wounded, and others in need of such services
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 245
as would prevent demoralization. Only brief mention can
be made of these activities of the year 1918-19. The United
War Work campaign, the purpose of which was to support
seven agencies which ministered to soldiers, received college
subscriptions amounting to 14,276. Money was also collected
for the Red Cross and Armenian relief. The Social Service
Committee sent each Friday from twelve to fifteen carefully
selected students to the hostess house at Camp Meade for the
purpose of dancing with and otherwise helping to entertain
convalescent soldiers stationed there. The Canteen Com-
mittee supplied hot lunches for city students on the cafeteria
plan, with volunteer services, including dish washing, and
made profits of fifteen dollars a week for the Reconstruction
Fund, to be used by the alumnae in France. The motto of
the Canteen was "Service here and over there." The total
amount to the credit of Goucher in the Fifth Liberty Loan or
Victory Loan was 156,600, of which $31,450 was subscribed
at the College and $25,150 at the booth in the Emerson Hotel. ^^
The history of the war spirit in Goucher would not be com-
plete without the statement that it has declined greatly and
that there has been a considerable development of antagonism
to war, even among those who aided in war-time activities.
For example, the two faculty advisers of the War Council are
now avowed pacifists. The students also would not be unani-
mous in supporting another war.®^
Changes
Dean Lord, on May 6, 191 9, wrote a letter to the Board of
Trustees asking for leave of absence for the year 1919-20.
She said, among other things, that after twenty-one years of
continuous service at the College, during nearly nine of which
she held the office of dean, she felt a definite need of mental
refreshment and a respite from the constant strain of adminis-
trative responsibility incident to the steady increase in the size
of the College. ^2 j^ acceding to her request, the Board ex-
246 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
pressed Its high appreciation of the services rendered by Dr.
Lord, both as head of the department of history and as dean
of the College.®* The Board of Control adopted a resolution
conveying its good wishes to Dean Lord for her year's leave of
absence," and "the students unanimously voted that a tele-
gram of greetings be sent to her to remind her that she is still
present in the hearts and minds of the people of Goucher Col-
lege."®^ There was genuine regret when, at the end of her
year's leave, she did not return. She had been a popular and
efficient dean, using her constructive executive ability to im-
prove the College in various ways.
The work of the dean's office was carried on for two years
(1919-21) by an acting dean, an assistant dean, and a stu-
dent counselor. Dr. Eugene N. Curtis, at that time associate
professor of history, was appointed acting dean and filled the
office in such a way that President Guth said he could find no
objection to making his appointment permanent except that
he was a man. He had charge of academic but not of social
matters. There had been no intention to name an assistant
dean, but at the beginning of the year President Guth received
a petition from the women members of the faculty asking for
the appointment of an assistant dean and recommending that
Dr. Ola E. Winslow, at that time assistant professor of English,
be chosen. ^^ She had general supervision over student activi-
ties and special student problems in cooperation with the
Student Counselor. She served for two years. Elizabeth C.
Mason, '14, was appointed in 1919 as the first student coun-
selor, serving till 1931. Frances R. Conner, '02, was made
associate student counselor in 1922 and student counselor in
1924."
While Dr. Curtis was the acting dean. President Guth
searched the whole country carefully to find the best woman
available for the office of dean. His choice was Dr. Dorothy
Stimson, professor of history and Dean of Women in Transyl-
vania College, Kentucky. Her career before she came to
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 247
Goucher in 1921 and then as dean and acting president will
be described in the Chapter on her administration.
A series of changes, culminating in 1921, had been made in
the functions of the dean's office. The first dean, Dr. Van
Meter, had five functions: the academic duty of general super-
vision of the work of the students, the direction of social life,
general supervision of the infirmary, the admission of new
students, and vocational guidance, the last being of slight
importance until Dr. Lord became dean. President Guth
divided these duties among five officials, each being inde-
pendent of the others, but all responsible to the President.
The Dean retained the academic functions. ^^ In 1919 the
direction of social life and of the residence halls was the func-
tion of both an assistant dean and a student counselor, and,
beginning in 1 921, of a student counselor (or counselors) only.
The admission of new students had been assigned to the
Registrar. ^^ The care of the sick had already become the duty
of the department of physiology and hygiene, and President
Guth had ratified this plan.^" The last of these five differenti-
ations was the reorganization in October 1921, of the Bureau
of Appointments, which was called after that date the Bureau
of Appointments and Vocational Guidance.
The first Faculty Club in the College had gone out of exist-
ence soon after it had been organized in 1890 at the suggestion
of Professor Frank R. Butler. The wish for another club had
been expressed frequently by Dr. Froelicher, who was one of
the original sponsors of the reorganization. It actually started
in the summer of 191 9, as the result of a conversation between
Dr. Florence P. Lewis and Dr. Lilian Welsh on the rocks at
Ogunquit, Maine. She was "exchange professor" (the only
Goucher one thus far) at Wellesley in 1918-19, and while there
was invited to visit the Wellesley Faculty Club, an institution
which she admired. While in Maine she told Dr. Welsh her
experience, and they agreed at once to encourage the idea of a
Faculty Club at Goucher when they returned in the fall. They
248 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
enlisted the aid of several other women members of the faculty,
and as a result the club was organized in October 191 9, for the
interchange of ideas on the special lines of work of its members
and for the discussion of educational problems. The original
plan was to have the organization and conduct of the club as
informal as possible, with no president, but with a chairman of
the program committee who acted as executive officer. In May
1933, the constitution was amended to provide for the annual
election of a president. The club in 1933 began a Faculty Loan
Fund to be used to aid juniors and seniors in paying tuition.
Contributions have been collected each succeeding year until,
at the time this is written, there is a Faculty Loan Fund of
over two thousand dollars.
A system of contributory retiring allowances for instructors
was discussed on November 21, 1919, by the Board of Instruc-
tion, and the sentiment of the majority at that time was
opposed to purchasing annuities from the Teachers' Annuity
and Insurance Association. On February 4, 1920, Dr. Lewis
C. Karpinski, professor of mathematics in the University of
Michigan, addressed the faculty in favor of such a system. A
committee of the Board of Control consisting of Dr. Bacon,
Dr. Longley, and Dr. Lloyd reported on May 2, 1921, in favor
of requesting the Board of Trustees to adopt a system of annui-
ties, and the report was adopted. The Board of Trustees on
October 20, 1921, determined to participate in the system of
retiring allowances that is offered by the Teachers* Insurance
and Annuity Association of America with the following provi-
sions: "first, that participation in the plan be entirely volun-
tary; and, second, that the Trustees appropriate and pay to on
behalf of the officers, teachers, and employees of the College
an amount equal to five percent of the respective salaries of
the said officers, teachers, and employees, provided they agree
to spend or are already spending, at least an equal sum for an
annuity in the Teachers' Insurance and Annuity Association
of America or toward an annuity or endowment policy in any
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 249
Other approved life insurance company." Fifty thousand
dollars was given by the Carnegie Corporation to establish the
system in Goucher, which satisfied the conditions of the gift
by setting aside one hundred thousand dollars of the endow-
ment to be used for the same purpose.
In 1923, Goucher had its only publicly discussed case involv-
ing freedom of teaching. William Jennings Bryan had at-
tacked the theory of evolution in an address at the Lyric on
January 14. The Reverend C. Sturges Ball, instructor in
Biblical literature at Goucher and Rector of the Protestant
Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, replied to Mr. Bryan
in the Baltimore Sun on January 17. Mr. Henry S. Dulaney,
president of the Board of Trustees of Goucher College, a man
highly esteemed for his sterHng character and his generous
gifts to the College, thought it was not right for the department
of Biblical literature to accept the theory of evolution, though
he said he did not object to its acceptance in the scientific
departments of the College. ^^ He expressed to President Guth
his objection to the teaching of evolution in Bible courses, but,
finding that he could get no satisfaction from the President, he
finally wrote a letter on May 26, 1923, resigning his member-
ship in the Board of Trustees. The Board accepted his resig-
nation with regret and passed resolutions expressing very
hearty appreciation of Mr. Dulaney's great services to the
College. "2
Some fundamental amendments to the charter of Goucher
College were secured from the Maryland Legislature on March
17, 1914. The charter, as amended in 1910, had provided that
those who were proposed by the Board of Trustees as new
members had to be approved or disapproved by the Board of
Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church. "This Board of
Education at its meeting in July 1913, refused to act upon the
names of trustees submitted to it by the Board of Trustees
of the College, basing their refusal on the ground that it had no
rights or prerogatives in the matter of the election of members
250 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
of the Board of Trustees of the College and that its approval
or disapproval of a trustee was only formal and perfunc-
tory.""
A committee of the Board of Trustees on the revision of the
charter had already been appointed and had been at work when
President Guth came into office. He was made a member of
this committee, and as such attended a meeting of the Board
of Education in December 1913. It was agreed that the
Board ought not to hold to any college such relationships as
the charter of 1910 presumed. A committee of the Board was
appointed, therefore, to confer with the committee of the Board
of Trustees on charter revision and consider the enactment of a
new charter.^* It was unanimously agreed by both of these
committees to adopt an amendment to the charter whereby
the number of trustees should be thirty-three, of whom eleven
should be chosen from nominations made by the neighboring
Conferences and distributed as follows: Baltimore, four;
Central Pennsylvania, two; Philadelphia, two; Wilmington,
one; New York, one; New York East Conference, one. Three
trustees were to be elected "from a list of nominations which
the General Alumnae Association of Goucher College in annual
meeting may furnish; provided, however, that if said Annual
Conferences, or any of them, or said General Alumnae Asso-
ciation shall at any time fail to furnish such list or lists, the
Board of Trustees of Goucher College shall fill the vacancy for
that year by electing a representative from said respective
Conference or the General Alumnae Association; but the Board
of Trustees shall have power to determine the conditions and
requirements by which representation shall be continued to
the General Alumnae Association or to the above named
Conferences or extended to any other Conference, provided
that the relative numerical representation of the interests of
said organizations shall not be changed."'^
Another effort to change the charter, occurring in the midst
of the 4-2-1 campaign, will be considered later in its chrono-
logical sequence.
administration of president guth 25i
Finances
President Guth began to reorganize the financial system of
the College in the first year of his administration, after con-
sultation with the officers of the General Education Board.
The changes made, as he stated them, were as follows: "(i)
To place behind every trust fund and every annuity an income
bearing investment; (2) to make expenditures of current in-
come according to a budget prepared at the beginning of the
year and adhered to as rigidly as possible."'^
Only about $850,000 of the million dollars subscribed in the
campaign of 1913 was ever paid, and the larger part of this
sum was used to cancel the debts of the College." Therefore
the College continued to have annual deficits, the largest in
President Guth's administration being $37,887.26 in 1913-14.
In his third annual report to the Board of Trustees: "Goucher
College has never been without a deficit. Its needs were
always justifiably greater than the funds it could command.
In truth, the way in which it has overcome financial difficulties
is a marvel. This fact alone is evidence of its inherent worth.
We confidently look forward to the time when we shall be able
to close our books at the end of the year with the debit and
credit sides of the ledger equalized and our educational stand-
ard in no wise lowered." ^^
The confidence of President Guth was justified when he
closed his fourth year (1916-17) without a deficit. Moreover,
he did the same in all the succeeding years of his administra-
tion. This result was accomplished chiefly in two ways — by
increasing the enrolment of students and by increasing endow-
ment. The enrolment was increased partly by means of pub-
licity, which he employed without cessation till Goucher was
nationally known as never before. The largest enrolment
before he became president was 369 in 1912-13. In 1916-17,
this had risen to 622, and in 1925-26 to 1,060, which was the
highest in all the history of the College. It was 985 at the
close of his administration.
252 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
In the first year of his administration President Guth had
asked the General Education Board for money to use as en-
dowment, but he had been refused because of "the unsatis-
factory financial administration of the College."" After
the finances were reorganized in 1913-14, the Board promised
1250,000, provided the College would raise enough to bring it
up to a million dollars by April i, 1917. President Guth then
asked permission to use as part of the quota of the College the
unpaid subscriptions from the million dollar campaign of
1913. "This was agreed to by the Board, and, with this sum,
amounting to between $300,000 and $400,000, as a starting
point, the College went after the rest."^" President Guth
states in his second annual report that on November 19, 19I4,
he submitted to Dr. Wallace Buttrick, secretary of the Gen-
eral Education Board, a list of the 1913 subscriptions which
would be available for the fund, amounting to $190,972.62.
He adds: "Over and above this sum were other good and valid
subscriptions available for endowment, but they were not
included because of the impossibility at that date, or even now,
of determining the amount of the deficits that would have to be
taken care of this year and next year and probably the next."^^
President Guth usually referred to the money raised between
1 914 and 1 917 as "The Supplemental Endowment Fund." It
was popularly called the "second million" or "the 1917 mil-
lion." It must be understood, however, that, for the reasons
given above, the first and second millions did not make two
millions. The fund was completed on March i, 1917, exactly
one month ahead of time. The Alumnae Association pledged
$60,000 towards the fund and the students $12,000.^2
As a result of the 1913 campaign and the quiet campaign of
1914-1917, the indebtedness of the College was wiped out and
$1,025,687.78 was left for endowment." The General Educa-
tion Board, which was unwiUing to help in the campaign of
1913, had changed its attitude, as is shown by a letter written
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 253
by Dr. Buttrick to President Guth on March i, 1917, in which
he said:
My interview with you this morning gave me great pleasure, and I hasten
to contratulate you upon your splendid achievement in establishing Goucher
College on an enduring financial foundation. You and your associates in
the management of the college are entitled to the congratulations and grati-
tude of all friends of higher education. In making its conditional contribu-
tion of $250,000 to the college, the General Education Board formally ex-
pressed its confidence in the sound management of the institution. You can
well understand, therefore, our pleasure in learning that you have completed
the campaign in which we have been permitted to participate and have thus
made permanent and secure the institution to which you, your honored
predecessor. Dr. Goucher, and other firm friends have devoted their lives. ^"^
That the task of President Guth in raising this fund was
strenuous was reahzed fully by the Treasurer of Goucher Col-
lege, Mr. John T. Stone, who said in an address to the Alumnae
Council that the task seemed impossible when President Guth
first proposed it." The Board of Trustees, the faculty, and
the students all passed resolutions expressing cordial apprecia-
tion of what he had done.^^ The Board of Trustees and the
faculty gave a dinner in his honor at the Stafford Hotel on the
evening of March 15, 191 7. Dr. Lilian Welsh was toast-
mistress. Speeches were made by Mr. Summerfield Baldwin,
president of the Board of Trustees, Mr. John T. Stone, Mr.
Henry S. Dulaney, and Nell Watts, '05 (Mrs. Irving Marshall
Clark), an alumnae trustee, "all of whom expressed very
pleasantly the genuine admiration which every one felt for the
achievement of President Guth. It was then the turn of
President Guth, who gave half the credit to Mrs. Guth, and
then spoke earnestly and hopefully of the future of the col-
lege."*^
A change in the treasurership of the College took place in
1920. Since April 20, 1888, only three men have filled this
office, and they served so long and with such skill, zeal, and
success that they are among the most important officers the
2^4 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
College ever had. Their names are Benjamin F. Bennett,
John T. Stone, and John L. Alcock. Mr. Bennett's services
have been described in the chapter on Dr. Goucher's adminis-
tration. The other two served during President Guth's
administration. Mr. Stone became a trustee in 1909, assistant
treasurer in 191 2, and treasurer in 1913. He was enthusias-
tically and effectively active in the million dollar campaign
of 1 913. His services as treasurer were cut short by his death
on May 9, 1920. Mr. Alcock, who succeeded him and still
holds the office, had been a trustee since 1913. His services
were particularly valuable in the 4-2-1 campaign and also
when President Guth was ill in the closing years of his adminis-
tration.
President Guth Awarded Honorary Degree
At the commencement exercises. May 31, 1920, there was
an interesting ceremony which is described as follows in the
Bulletin of Gaucher College , June 1920:
The Board of Trustees, at the request of the Board of Control, conferred
upon President Guth the degree of Doctor of Laws at the commencement
exercises held on May 31. Dr. Lilian Welsh, who on behalf of the Board of
Control presented President Guth to Dean Emeritus John Blackford Van
Meter, as the representative of the Board of Trustees, made the following
address:
"President Guth, the end of the present academic year completes the
seventh year of your presidency of Goucher College. During these years of
your administration the growth and development of the College have been
phenomenal. New departments have been added, the faculty has been
enlarged and strengthened. The number of students has been doubled and
a waiting list of applicants seeks admission. The increase in the number
of buildings and of class rooms, the expansion of the library, the liberal
equipment of the laboratories, the enhanced beauty of the grounds, the
solid financial position of the College all testify to your great ability as an
administrator. But all these things represent merely the material setting
of the College, its external body whose value even the wayfarer may justly
estimate. What have you done for the real College, for its soul, its spirit?
We members of the Faculty who probably are best able to evaluate such
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 255
service desire to testify to your conspicuous leadership in this inner life.
You have not only maintained the college traditions of sound scholarship,
its high ideals of education as training for service, but you have carried them
forward. You have been a close and careful student of educational problems
and a constructive contributor to educational literature. In grateful recog-
nition of your ideals of women's education, of your scholarship, and of your
educational leadership, the Board of Control representing the Faculty of the
College, has requested the Board of Trustees to confer upon you the highest
honor in its gift. The Board of Trustees has unanimously endorsed the
recommendation of the Faculty and has vested authority in one of its mem-
bers, the beloved ex-Dean of the College, to confer upon you a degree which
the College has awarded but twice in its history. . . ."
The diploma in its leather bound case was presented to President Guth
by Dean Van Meter. Mrs. Anna Heubeck Knipp, representing the Alumnae
Association, then handed the hood, resplendent with purple border and blue
and gold lining, to Professor Hans Froelicher, who on behalf of the Board
of Control of the College adjusted the hood on President Guth's shoulders.
TowsoN Campus
A statement made at this same commencement prepared the
way for the announcement one year later of the beginning of
the Greater Goucher Campaign. It was announced that the
General Education Board had donated $400,000 to Goucher
on condition that |6oo,ooo more should be raised so as to make
a total of $1,000,000 "for endowment for increase of teachers'
salaries." The great rise in prices since the war made an in-
crease in salaries necessary if colleges and universities were to
maintain the quality of the teaching staff, and Mr. John D.
Rockefeller had made a Christmas gift to the General Educa-
tion Board of $50,000,000 for this purpose.*^ This offer made
a financial campaign for $1,000,000 necessary, but President
Guth had long had in mind a plan for another campaign for
$5,000,000 to move the College to a more desirable location.
It was the combination of these two campaigns into one which
resulted in the Greater Goucher Campaign for $6,000,000
which was announced and inaugurated in 1921.
During the first year of his administration President Guth
256 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
had pointed out to the Board of Trustees the desirability of a
change in the location of the College, though on account of its
financial condition at that time no recommendation was made
for immediate action. ^^ President Guth said at one time that
in 1917 a person of wealth was about to donate money enough
to purchase a site near Guilford, within the hmits of Baltimore,
but the entrance of our country into the war caused this person
to decide that the money should be used for patriotic purposes,
and the campaign for money to move the College had to be
postponed. ^°
By 1 92 1, the time seemed favorable for preparing for the
campaign, and on March 17, President Guth, in a meeting of
the Board of Trustees, called attention to the various times
he had reported to the Board the inadequacy of the present
plant of the College, the unsatisfactory condition of the neigh-
borhood, and the constant encroachment of the business
section of the city upon the College. He read resolutions
which had been passed by the Alumnae Council, one of which
was as follows: "In sympathy with the motion passed last May
by the Alumnae Association, the Alumnae Council makes the
specific recommendation that a campaign be inaugurated by
the Board of Trustees to be conducted in active co-operation
with the Alumnae Association for $6,000,000 for the purpose
of endowment and the removal of the College to a new and
more desirable site." This resolution was adopted on Febru-
ary 12, and the Board of Trustees passed a similar resolution
at its meeting in March." At the same meeting President
Guth stated that for several years he had been investigating
various pieces of property as a possible new home for the Col-
lege, and he asked and received authority to continue his search
for a campus.
The results of his search were reported to the Board of Trus-
tees on May 21, 1921. He said that in considering the merits
of a site the following requirements had to be held in mind:
"ample acreage, necessary elevation, good drainage, satis-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 257
factory neighborhood, accessibility, and the likelihood of the
development of the district in which the College might be
located. Another consideration of great consequence was the
cost of the new location." These requirements, except that of
reasonable cost, could have been met within the city limits, but
as the cost there was prohibitive, a tract of land a little north
of the city was recommended. It consisted of 421 acres adjoin-
ing the town of Towson. It required much time and work to
secure from many people contracts for all the land. President
Guth laid maps and plans of the new property before the Board
and asked for authorization to close the deal according to the
recommendation of himself and the Treasurer, Mr. John L.
Alcock. President Guth stated that the total cost of the
property would be in the neighborhood of ^150,000 or ^160,000.
By a rising vote, given unanimously, he was authorized by the
Trustees, May 21, 1921, to close the deal.
Some of the less important contracts for land were still un-
signed at this time. The largest part of the new acquisition
had been known as the Chew estate, but, in order to secure a
pleasing approach to this part, several additional acres had to
be purchased. There were forty deeds signed, some by people
who had never transacted business before, and one by a
woman who used the German script she had learned in child-
hood.
At ten o'clock on Wednesday morning. May 25, the last
contract was signed. The facts were soon to be published in
the papers. Mrs. Guth had suggested the idea of linking the
old college with the new by taking the first four "grand-
daughters" of Goucher College to the campus in the early
afternoon of May 25. Except President and Mrs. Guth and
Mr. Alcock, they were the first members of the College to set
foot on the new campus. These four students were Elizabeth
Sanders, '23, daughter of Carolyn Montgomery Sanders, '98;
Margaret Sumwalt, '23, daughter of Florence Edwards Sum-
wait, '97; Caroline Wolf, '24, daughter of Angeline Griffing
258 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Wolf, '98; and Marian Upham, '23, daughter of Margaret
Spier Upham, '97. ^^ That same afternoon at five o'clock the
news was told to the students and faculty in the college audito-
rium and was received with vigorously expressed enthusiasim."
The next day the seniors were given possession of the new
campus. Margaret Fishback, '21, wrote:
On Thursday, May 26, 1921, the first Class Day ever held on the new
campus took place. For a few days before — a very few — there had been a
sort of breathless suspense in the atmosphere for the seniors, due to the fact
that President Guth in secret session with us had asked us if we could be
ready to go to a certain place, tantalizingly vague as to geographical location,
on very short notice. The notice came to the assembled multitude of
Goucher on Wednesday afternoon in a very inspiring mass meeting, and on
Thursday morning we seniors started out to take possession of the new
world.
We felt that day an excitement of soul something akin to that which
Columbus himself must have felt when he knew that the land of his dreams
was not far away. It is seldom that we find reality coming up to the beauties
concocted in our imagination. Often we dream fair dreams and delight in
the anticipation of their fulfillment, but almost never do we escape some
measure of disappointment when we face the object of our dreams in cold
material fact. But the new campus was no disappointment. It so far
surpassed all of our dreams that we were amazed. It seemed almost too
wonderful to be true. . . .
There were amusing "stunts" and then certain sad farewells, and the
presentation of the proceeds of Senior Dramatics to President Guth for the
Fund. A spirit seemed to pervade the place and touch our hearts and
souls till we were keenly sensitive to the uniqueness of the day, the first
Class Day on the campus, a golden link between the old and the new, sig-
nificant of the fact that underlying our ever progressing college there will
always be that steady and constant spirit of Goucher. ^'^
On the afternoon of the same day the trustees and the Alum-
nae Council were invited to take supper on the campus and to
join in the jubilation of the students.^* Oral public announce-
ment of the acquisition of the new campus was made for the
first time at the commencement exercises held in the afternoon
of Monday, May 30, 1921.
administration of president guth 259
Beginning of 4-2-1 Campaign
During the summer of 1921 President Guth remained in
Baltimore to launch the financial campaign. He said later,
in a meeting of the Board of Control, that he preferred not to
entrust the work to an agency (as was done by some other
colleges) not only because they charged a large sum for their
work, but also because, even with paid direction, the work was
really done by the students and alumnae. The Greater
Goucher Campaign is usually called the 4-2-1 Campaign,
because the campus consisted of 421 acres and the allotment for
each of the Goucher women (students, alumnae, and non-
graduates) was I421. President Guth at first estimated that
Goucher women would raise one fourth of the total amount,
but this was afterwards changed to one sixth, or one million
dollars, of which the General Education Board gave ^400,000.
In his original estimate he added about one percent for cam-
paign expenses and divided the sum by the number of Goucher
women (3,600). Surprised and pleased to find that the quo-
tient was almost exactly 421, he linked the number of acres
and the number of dollars together thereafter. ^^ He said:
"We could hardly expect an actual contribution of I421 from
each Goucher woman. So very soon the slogan. Give or Get for
Goucher was evolved, the 'give' to be interpreted in terms of
each giving what she reasonably can, as much as she can; and
the 'get' in terms of earning the balance of the $421, or as much
thereof as possible, rather than of asking someone else to give
it. . . . May we ask you not to solicit your I421 in small sums
from men and women who can contribute a much larger sum
and ought to be approached later according to a well ordered
system that will be presented to you in due time.""
The following was the "Give or Get" pledge:
In grateful recognition of what Goucher College has meant and means to
me personally, and in order to assist to the extent of my ability in raising the
Six Million (^6,000,000.00) Dollar GREATER GOUCHER FUND, I hereby
a6o THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
pledge myself to do all in my power to give to or get for the College the sum
of Four Hundred and Twenty-one (|4ai.oo) Dollars, payable in not more
than five years from the date hereof at the annual rate of Eighty-four and
20/100 (I84.20) Dollars, divided, if possible, into quarterly installments of
Twenty-one and 05/100 (^21.05) Dollars each.
When vacation was over the entire student body spent the
afternoon of Saturday, October i, 1921, on the new campus.
They rambled through the meadows, cornfields, and woods,
climbed apple trees, fished for minnows in the streams, waded,
gathered flowers, and visited farm houses until the common
bond— hunger — brought everybody together again around the
smoking campfires. This taste of the joys of the future in-
creased their enthusiasm for 4-2-1 and the Greater Goucher.^^
Nobody can say who first began to earn money for 4-2-1,
but it is known whose activities are recorded in the first issue of
the Gaucher College Weekly in the fall of 1921. Dr. Curtis
gave a bridge party at Ocean City, New Jersey, during the
summer, and the enthusiasm of the Goucherites who were there
resulted in contributions of prizes by many of the shops of the
city, part of which were disposed of by Dr. Curtis, acting as
auctioneer. The sum of one hundred and fifty-three dollars
was cleared. Bessie Lineback, '22, put an advertisement in
the Gaucher College Weekly ^ of which this is a part: "Waste not
your money in down-town stores for a modiste waits at your
very doors. She will change last year's gown into this year's
mode and relieve your mind of many a load." The Board of
the Gaucher College Weekly opened a tea room and sandwich
shop in the rear of Sessrymner Hall and adorned it with purple
cows and orange pups and called it "Noah's Ark." Three
Baltimore students established a boot-black emporium in
Catherine Hooper Hall near the city lockers. Goucher women
all over the country were soon arranging rummage sales,
concerts, and benefit performances, and selling insurance,
homemade cakes, automobiles, safety pins, hair nets, Betty
beads, Christmas cards, and many other things. President
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH l6l
Guth said on October 21 that he was receiving every day from
twelve to eighteen letters containing 4-2-1 pledges. ^^
An inspiring rally of Goucher women in the interest of
Greater Goucher was held on October 21, 22, and 23, 1921.
Alumnae were present from twenty states, and every class was
represented. The spirit shown was such that Mrs. Parsons, a
prominent alumna of Smith College, fresh from a successful
leadership in the Smith campaign, said: "Never have I seen
anything like it in any of the other college campaigns with
which I have been connected."^"" Throughout the series of
meetings President Guth stressed the value of a one hundred
percent alumnae loyalty manifested in the signing of pledges
so as to establish a firm foundation on which to ask for other
contributions. At the Friday evening meeting speeches were
made by Mrs. Parsons, Dr. Katherine J. Gallagher, Mary
Louise O'Neill, '96, (Mrs. Clyde B. Furst), and Dr. Lilian
Welsh. The series of meetings was closed by an impressive
Sunday vesper service conducted on the highest spot of the
new campus at sunset by Dr. Van Meter. ^"^ The vision there
seen was later put into verse by Dr. J. M. Beatty, Jr.:
The Builders of Greater Goucher
There is a charm in ancient old-world shrines,
In hoary colleges whose willowed backs
Slope greenly down to Milton's sedgy Cam.
Here all is peace; dim shapes of long ago
People each rosy garden-nook, and saints
Hallow each chapel-window, girt with light
And garlanded with gules and blue and gold.
Aye, down these walks right many a poet paced
Mute, musing, held ecstatic in the thrall
Of beauty age-enchaliced — yet his heart
Aflood with dream-creation never knew
The joy of those gray masters who beheld.
Long years before, their visions wrought in stone
Rear first bright sun-tipped pinnacles to God.
262 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
And we who stand upon this sunny hill
Far-looking over wood-crowned Maryland,
Shall be no idle dreamers: we shall feel
The joy of seeing visions realized,
The thrill of glimpsing through these mellowed oaks
White spires of august learning, and shall say,
"We are their builders; we have wrought them so."
Charter Controversy
Early in 1922, breaking with adverse effect into the midst of
the 4-2-1 campaign, there was an unsuccessful attempt to
change the charter of Goucher so as to take away from the
Methodist Conferences their right to nominate one third of the
Board of Trustees. As early as 191 9, President Guth had
resigned as a minister (but not as a member) of the Methodist
Episcopal Church because he wanted to act only in the capacity
of an educator.^''^ j^ January 1922, he said in regard to the
attempt to change the charter: "Whether the Methodist
Episcopal Church shall dominate Goucher College is the real
issue. "1"' To this the representatives of the Baltimore Con-
ference replied that they wished no changes in the direction
of sectarian control but merely wanted to keep their charter
rights as they were.^"'* A brief statement of the events pre-
ceding the attempt to change the charter and of the arguments
on both sides is given below.
There appeared in all the papers of Baltimore on January 21,
1922, a statement with twenty-eight numbered paragraphs
entitled "To the Public of Baltimore and Maryland: a State-
ment by the Trustees of Goucher College Concerning the
Charter Amendment." It was signed by fifteen of the nine-
teen members of the Board of Trustees. For the sake of
brevity it has been called the Public Statement. The following
is an abstract:
In 1912-13, because of the precarious financial condition of the College,
a campaign was organized to raise ^1,000,000. In Baltimore special stress
was laid on the fact that the College was non-sectarian and non-Methodist.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 263
. . . Men and women of Baltimore, without regard to creed or faith, responded
to the appeal of the authorities of Goucher College and pledged and paid
their money "to save Goucher College for Baltimore."
In 1 914 the Trustees petitioned the General Assembly of Maryland for
another charter. This was granted, the significant features of which were
(i) that the College by the terms of the charter was made undenominational
as well as non-sectarian; (2) that the Board of Trustees was made self-
perpetuating without the right of any outside body whatsoever to say a
word concerning the choice of new Trustees and (3) "the ultimate source of
authority in all matters pertaining to the College" was vested in the Board
of Trustees.
In this charter of 1914 privileges were given to certain annual conferences
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, including the Baltimore Annual Con-
ference, to make nominations of Trustees to be elected by the Board. But
the charter specifically gives requirements by which representation shall be
continued to the above-named conferences. This privilege was extended
to these conferences on the ground solely of pledges of money which they
made in the campaign of 1913.
At the first meeting of the Board after the new charter was received the
Trustees elected representatives from all these conferences. From two
conferences the representatives declined by return mail to serve. In one
conference one of the men declined. Three of the representatives remon-
strated, saying that they could not attend the meetings and did not care
to assume the trust. They allowed their names to stand as Trustees, how-
ever, but only one of them ever attended a meeting, and he attended only
once. None of the conferences, including the Baltimore, ever took ad-
vantage of the privilege to nominate Trustees to the Board for the past
seven years until last April, and the Board has gone on, electing its own
Trustees without reference to the conferences.
None of these conferences redeemed their financial pledges. The Balti-
more Conference has paid some 60% of its pledge, one of the Pennsylvania
conferences 40% of its pledge, one conference has paid nothing at all and two
about 12%. All of the conferences outside of Maryland showed little in-
terest when the financial claims of the College were from time to time pre-
sented to them. . . .
Last April with one accord these six conferences undertook to revive
their privilege of nominating men to the Board of Trustees of Goucher
College. In May and June the Corresponding Secretary of the Board of
Education undertook again to establish an organic and legal relation of
Goucher College with the Methodist Episcopal Church.
The nominations made by these conferences last spring were presented
264 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
to the Executive Committee of the Trustees in October of last year. The
President of the College was in ignorance of these nominations, as they had
not been sent to him as they ought to have been under the By-Laws of the
Charter. A strong attempt was made at this time to add eleven more
Methodist trustees to the eleven Methodist trustees now on the Board,
which would have given the Methodists complete control of the College and,
in fact, transformed it into a denominational institution. The Trustees,
with one dissenting vote, refused to accept these nominations of the con-
ferences.
In October the Corresponding Secretary ot the Board of Education in
New York again began to force the denominational issue with the College.
In December he sent "an official communication" to every member of the
Board of Trustees, declaring that Goucher College came under the rules and
regulations of the discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church and hence
was an institution organically connected with the Methodist Episcopal
Church. . . .
On January 4, 1922, the Board of Trustees answered the communication
of the Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Education of the Methodist
Episcopal Church and again declared that the College could not assume such
a relation to the Board of Education in New York as the discipline of the
Methodist Episcopal Church implied. "The Trustees of the College believe
that the interests of the College will be best served if the relation between it
and the Methodist Episcopal Church is one of traditional sympathy and
interest and not one of official control or supervision. They are entirely of
the opinion that the cause both of religion and of education will be wisely
furthered by leaving any relation between the College and the Methodist
Episcopal Church upon an unofficial but friendly basis."
At the same meeting, on January 4th, fifteen of the sixteen active Trustees
of the College voted to petition the General Assembly of Maryland so to
amend the present Charter as to remove any ambiguity that might exist in
the Charter concerning the undenominational and non-sectarian character
of the institution and to withdraw from the six conferences above mentioned
the privilege of nominating Trustees to the Board.
The issue joined, therefore, is whether Goucher College is to continue to
be as it has been from the beginning, undenominational as well as non-
sectarian, under the management of a self-perpetuating Board of Trustees
with power to administer the affairs of the College as their wisdom shall
dictate. . . .
We set this forth as an official statement of the Trustees of the College
and use the advertising columns of the daily press as our agency to put these
views before the public.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 265
A reply to this statement was printed on February i, 1922.
It was signed by William F. McDowell, Resident Bishop of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, and by five District Superin-
tendents of the Baltimore Conference. The following is an
abstract:
Throughout the Public Statement there is emphasis laid upon some
supposed new and recent sectarian assertion upon the part of ourselves or
those representing us. This is wholly misleading. The Statement shows
with great particularity that from its founding in 1885 to 1910 the College
was regularly pronounced in its prospectus and otherwise as being "not
sectarian" in spirit and character. During all those years the Baltimore
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church had the absolute and un-
questioned right to confirm or reject the entire College Board of Trustees.
The "sectarian" alarm over continuing our nomination of only eleven
trustees is, therefore, without warrant. . . .
The petitioning trustees fail to state fully the provisions of the present
Charter. The Public Statement wholly neglects to inform the public that
the present charter provides that, in case the Annual Conferences, or any of
them, shall at any time fail to furnish its nomination lists of trustees, "The
Board of Trustees of Goucher College Shall Fill the Vacancy for
That Year by Electing a Representative from Said Respective
Conference." At no time subsequent to 1914 did the acting trustees
perform this required duty. It is stated that the Board of Trustees shall
have "power to determine the conditions and requirements by which repre-
sentation shall be continued to the above-named Conferences," but it omits
the requirement that "The Relative Numerical Representation of
the Interests of Said Organization Shall Not Be Changed." The
Statement does not inform the public of a general provision of the Charter
(Section 8) that "This Act Shall Be Construed Liberally for Every
Beneficial Purpose Hereby Intended, and No Omission to Use any
of the Privileges Hereby Granted Shall Cause a Forfeiture of the
Same." It is this mutual agreement — now the law — which the Trustees
seek to have forfeited, and petition that the Legislature do assist in such
forfeiture. . . .
The letters cited [from the Board of Education, described as "forcing the
denominational issue with the College"] sought friendly interview upon the
developing situation, and definitely disavowed any purpose or desire to
hamper or sectarianize the institution. . . .
At the founding, in 1885, the Baltimore Conference undertook a con-
tribution of $200,000 to fulfill the conditions for establishing the college.
266 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
In 1906 a great financial crisis of the Institution was met by the leadership
of the Church at large and the benefactions of its membership in Maryland
and elsewhere.
Again, in the desperate crisis of 1912-13, the meeting at which plans
were laid to save the College by the leaders of the Church . . . was held in
the offices of the general Board of Education in New York City on January
30,1913....
There was, as told in the Public Statement, great generosity of other
friends, not Methodist, for which the gratitude and appreciation of Method-
ism has never ceased. But much the larger part of the one-million-dollar
subscription came from Methodists. Bishop Wilson S. Lewis stayed from
his field of work in China and put his great power without stint into the
College cause. Of the initial subscriptions asked by Bishop Lewis, |6o,ooo
came from five donors, all five subscriptions were made by Methodists.
The gift of Methodism, of its members and Conferences for the founding,
up-building and preservation of Goucher College constitute one of the many
noble examples of sacrifice and loyalty to be found in the history of Chris-
tian education. . . .
We take it to be an inadvertence in the Public Statement when it says that
the eleven trustee places of the Annual Conferences were "extended to those
Conferences on the ground Solely of (the) pledges of money which they
made in the campaign of 1913." We cannot think that the Trustees of
Goucher College, now or ever, have sought to allot memberships in the
Board solely under financial considerations. But it is said that because of
these benefactions six Methodist Conferences were given the right to nomi-
nate a minority — eleven — of the entire number of college trustees. For
similar reasons and to emphasize the non-sectarian character of the College,
all other classes of friends than those of the Methodist Episcopal Confer-
ences were given a two-thirds majority representation in the College Board,
in the maximum number of twenty-two. To this generous process the
Methodist founders and supporters of the College raised no question, and
to this large outside representation the Board of Education of the Church,
then having the right of approval or disapproval of the trustees, fully con-
sented. Well and good. Is it not a strange return for the denominational
generosity thus indicated that in eight years the representation of twenty-
two then accorded, or part of them, should seek to dispossess the minority of
eleven of a right founded upon history, precedent and generous benefac-
tions? Is this the due spirit of a non-sectarian Christian college toward the
element which is acknowledged to stand in "mother" relation to it? Is it
fair play? We cannot feel that it is, nor that the Legislature of Maryland
will so feel. . . .
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 267
We hold that all philanthropies are imperiled — that endowments builded
by the sacrifices of generous-minded men are nowhere safe — if institutions
thus nurtured and fostered by denominations may, as they wax strong and
independent, cast off the nurturing influences which have given them birth
and growth, and may disregard the purposes of their major benefactions.
An institution of Christian education which is looking toward a great future
must enter upon that future with clean hands. ^"^
Dr. Eugene N. Curtis, professor of history at Goucher, com-
menting in 1936 on the arguments on both sides, said: "One
important point seems to be omitted. The feeling of the fac-
ulty (and, as I understand it, that of the trustees and Dr.
Guth) was that in this matter Goucher was simply following
the evolution of most important educational institutions.
Founded by a religious denomination (as Yale and Harvard by
Congregationalists, Columbia by Episcopalians) the original
denominational tie had gradually weakened in these other
cases as the college became of national importance. Like
them, Goucher, we felt, must be free and independent of any
possible future check on its development or instruction.
Whether we were right in taking that stand I am not sure.
Legalistically the Methodist statement is much the stronger;
the basis of our position was not the logic of law but the logic
of historical evolution."
The bill to amend the charter was introduced in the Maryland
Legislature on January 17, 1922, through the courtesy of
Senator David G. Mcintosh. It provided for twenty-five
instead of thirty-three members of the Board of Trustees. It
made no reference to representation of the Methodist Con-
ferences or of the alumnae. President Guth said in regard to
the alumnae that there was "no intention whatever to raise
any bar against them."^°^ The Board of Trustees at its next
meeting (to be mentioned later) resolved to keep the repre-
sentation of the alumnae unchanged. On January 24, a meet-
ing was held between representatives of the Trustees and
representatives of the Baltimore Conference in the hope of
reaching some agreement, but in vain.*°^ A hearing at Annapo-
268 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
lis before the Senate Committee on Corporations was held on
January 31. Those who spoke were against the amendment,
since those in favor of it had obtained permission for a separate
hearing on February 7. The principal speakers were Bishop
William F. McDowell and Mr. Summerfield Baldwin. Mary
Stewart, '08, (Mrs. H. T. Collenbcrg) spoke for those alumnae
opposed to the amendment. President Emeritus John F.
Goucher was too ill to attend and had taken no part in the
controversy until urged to express his opinion. He then wrote
a letter in opposition to the amendment which was read at the
hearing.^*'^
The hearing of the advocates of the amendment, at which
they would have responded to the published Statement of the
Baltimore Conference, was postponed twice, each time at their
request, and they finally gave up the idea of having a hearing.
They indicated their willingness to compromise by giving repre-
sentation on the Board of Trustees to the Baltimore Confer-
ence because it had done so much for the College. Judge
Morris A. Soper, a member of the Board, made this suggestion
in a letter to the Baltimore Methodist which was published on
February 2, 1922, and the suggestion was formally adopted by
the Board at their next meeting which was on February 11.
There were several facts which pointed to the desirability of a
compromise. While the Faculty and the Student's Organi-
zation adopted resolutions in favor of the amendment by over-
whelming majorities, the alumnae were divided. In the
second place, editorials were beginning to appear in the Balti-
more papers deploring such a controversy in the midst of a
campaign for a Greater Goucher.^"^ A third significant fact
was the receipt of reports from Annapolis saying that the
general sentiment was hostile to the bill.
Whatever the reasons for a compromise, it is certain that an
attempt to reach one was made at meetings of representatives
of both sides on February 6 and 7.^^" The trustees were willing
to have the Baltimore Conference represented on the Board of
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 269
Trustees, such representation to be provided for in the by-laws
of the Board instead of the charter."^ No agreement was
reached. On February ii, the Board of Trustees met and
resolved that the Mcintosh bill be amended to provide (as was
stated before) for the representation of alumnae trustees on the
same terms as existed before the bill was introduced. The
committee on charter revision was also given power to further
amend the bill, either by giving the Baltimore Conference six
representatives on the Board of Trustees, or by giving the
Baltimore Conference only four and the Central Pennsylvania
Conference two and the Wilmington Conference one."^ This
last plan would have deprived three Conferences of the right
to nominate trustees: the New York, New York East, and
Philadelphia Conferences. Meetings were held of representa-
tives of both sides on February 14 and 15,^^' characterized by
"heated discussion but no practical results. "^^* On March 15,
1922, the committee of the Board of Trustees on charter revi-
sion wrote to Senator Mcintosh, asking him to withdraw the
bill. This was done, thus ending what was generally called
"the charter fight."
The Trustees accepted the defeat of their plans graciously
and promptly wrote to Bishop McDowell, asking him to have
the Conferences make nominations to the Board, which he did.
Thus the right of the Conferences to nominate a third of the
trustees remained unimpaired,^^^ but the policy of the Board
of Trustees (in accordance with which denominationalism in
no way affected the lives of the students or faculty) continued
to be as liberal as it had been before the charter controversy.
In recent years cordial relations between the Baltimore Con-
ference and the College have been restored.
Conclusion of 4-2-1 Campaign
After the charter controversy was settled the 4-2-1 cam-
paign was pushed with renewed vigor. It is impossible to
understand the further history of that campaign without the
270 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Statement that Its leader had received not only much enthu-
siastic commendation but also some adverse criticism. This
statement needs some amplification.
The great achievements of President Guth on behalf of the
College had called forth expressions of admiration on the part
of the trustees, faculty, alumnae, and students. The Board
of Control was probably first in formally expressing its appre-
ciation. When he secured the Supplemental Endowment Fund
in 1 917, they said that this achievement merited and com-
manded the profound admiration, respect, and gratitude of
the members of the faculty and of all friends of Goucher
College. ^^^
Another formal expression of appreciation came from the
Board of Trustees June 11, 1918, near the end of his first five
years at Goucher. They said that "principally as the result
of his personality, standing, and efforts, the General Education
Board appropriated a quarter of a million dollars for our
Endowment Fund. This practical endorsement, on the part
of a Board whose requirements are rigid and whose judgment
of the merits of institutions of learning is generally recognized
as dependable, has in our opinion been of such value to Goucher
College as would be hard to over-estimate. . . . Under his man-
agement the student body has increased, so that it is now more
than double what it was when he became President, this
increase having been accomplished without any lowering of
the high educational standard of the College. ..." The Trus-
tees also praised his skill in finding the right kind of teachers.
They commended his wise foresight in erecting new buildings
and making additions to old ones so that the enlarging life of
the College was matched constantly by enlarging accommoda-
tions. They stated that as an administrator, as an economist,
as an educator, and as a builder he had abundantly met all
requirements.
The Alumnae Association repeatedly indorsed President
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 27I
Guth's administration. By a unanimous vote they com-
mended him in May 191 9 for seeing that the College could be
made to occupy a strategic position on the educational map;
for conceiving for the College big ideas and succeeding, under
almost insuperable difficulties, in bringing them to fulfillment;
and for regarding the College not as a finished product but as
something continually in the making — an attitude ofi^ering end-
less possibilities for future progress.^"
The students also expressed their loyalty to him. At the
spring meeting of the Students' Organization in 1920 they
voted to present to President Guth a library fund of one
hundred dollars "in appreciation of his work for Goucher
College and as an expression of the loyalty and good fellowship
which have grown out of his relations with every Goucher girl.
As this year of 1919-20 has been a 'Golden Age' that has
reflected this spirit and realized many of the ideals and hopes
which Dr. Guth has always cherished for Goucher College,
there was a demand to express this sentiment objectively, in a
way which would commemorate the deep appreciation and
admiration which the student-body felt for him. . . "^^^
President Guth aroused criticism by his attempt to change
the charter in 1922, by his dismissal of several members of
the faculty at difi^erent times and for various reasons, by his
love of power and strict discipline, and by his occasional blunt-
ness in both interviews and correspondence. His friends re-
plied that he was right about the charter amendment, that his
dismissal of some of the professors was justifiable, that as
head of a college he ought to have had almost autocratic powers
because that is the most efficient method of administration,
and that his occasional bluntness of speech was due to over-
work. The criticisms, whether justifiable or not, retarded the
success of the financial campaign, in spite of the fact that its
leader admittedly possessed conspicuous merits — mental abil-
ity, executive ability, diligence, progressiveness, initiative.
I-JI THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
enthusiasm, energy, resourcefulness, pertinacity, and the
dauntless courage which never quailed at "the challenge of
the hard job."
It would be a mistake to conclude that criticism of the leader
of the financial campaign was the only factor which limited its
success. The nature of the other factors will be clearer after
a further discussion of the campaign.
President Guth had conducted the 4-2-1 campaign with
characteristic energy, using all the best devices which had been
tried by other colleges, inventing campaign slogans such as
"Give or Get for Goucher," making several drawings, including
the "Goucher spires" so familiar to alumnae, and preparing a
campaign leaflet called "Ideas," which was filled with prac-
tical suggestions as to methods of earning money for Goucher.
It has already been stated that the alumnae and non-gradu-
ates, with the aid of the faculty and students, were to raise
?6oo,ooo to supplement the conditional gift of $400,000 and
complete the first million. This was to be used for endowment.
No public campaign was to be undertaken for the other five
millions till this was done. In January 1922, it was realized
that some one with abundant executive ability and ample
acquaintance with the alumnae must be made Alumnae Cam-
paign Chairman and devote her time to the work. The Regis-
trar, Carrie Mae Probst, '04, was selected by President Guth
for this position. She was still registrar, but spent her days
at the campaign office in the Alumnae Lodge. Her chief duty
was to secure responses of some sort from the largest possible
number of Goucher women and also pledges amounting to
|6oo,ooo. She reported to the Alumnae Association in June
1922, that $417,562.98 had been pledged."^
The letters written by those who made the pledges, though
often consisting of a single sentence, gave inspiring evidence
of enthusiasm for Goucher. A few of the briefest ones are
quoted below, but the names of none of those who contributed
to the fund will be given either now or later, since no one can
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 273
tell whether the small or the large givers made the greater
sacrifice.
I am enclosing another check for the Greater Goucher Fund. This
check of ^25 is not large but it shows that Goucher has been in my mind all
summer and I have been plodding steadily for her.^-°
Enclosed you will find a check for ^78, the amount I cleared by selling
Christmas cards. ^-^
At last I am enclosing a check which will finish my quota for the Cam-
paign Fund. On Christmas day my mother handed me a substantial gift
in the form of a check which she thought I would use for some needed furnish-
ings for our home. But I decided to get this Goucher 4-2-1 attended to
first. 1"
I am enclosing a check for ^27.88 I have been collecting this bit by
bit through the sale of fancy work. // is hard work but I am glad to do it
for such a cause!^"^
Enclosed is my check for I158, rounding out an even thousand for the
Greater Goucher Fund. Every cent has been earned and it has proved one of
the most interesting experiences of my life}"^^
That last letter was written by the one who was the first
to earn $421, the first to earn double that amount, and who
then increased it to a thousand, and who later gave liberally
to help pay off the debt to the banks incurred in 1925. She
was graduated in the nineties. At first she was opposed to
the idea of a Greater Goucher, but soon she became more
opposed to the idea of being a slacker. "So the unquenchable
Goucher spirit was aroused" and, though she was a busy
housekeeper, she skillfully managed to place candies and beads
on sale in many places and set the pace in earning money.^"
A statement of the achievements of the alumnae chapters
for only one year, 1922-23, will serve to illustrate this kind of
work in the other years of the campaign. The Baltimore
Chapter presented the "Piccadilly Circus" in cooperation with
alumnae groups from six other colleges. The Journeymen
274 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Playshoppers of the Johns Hopkins University gave short
plays at the circus. Goucher's share of the proceeds was about
|i,ooo. The Radclife News called this the most original
money-making proposition yet and said that perhaps the most
novel feature of all was the sale of snails. ^^^
"Petticoat Lane" of the Chicago Chapter had the largest
financial success. It was originated by Goucher alumnae and
carried through in cooperation with alumnae from Wells,
Wellesley, and Vassar, with a net profit of ^9,774, of which
Goucher's share was $2,443.54. The Brooklyn Chapter par-
ticipated in the "Wonderland Bazaar" and earned $421.07.
The Southern California Chapter held a "Donnybrook Fair"
and secured over |2oo. The Boston Chapter, which had
brought in $209. 10 by a concert in 1921-22, arranged in 1922-23
a series of lectures by Hugh Walpole and netted $602. The
New York Chapter was fortunate in cooperating with Mc-
Cutcheon and Company and securing a five percent discount
on sales to Goucher women and their friends. The financial
results were not stated, but the far-reaching publicity was be-
lieved to be still more important. The "Oriental Bazaar" held
in Baltimore gave Goucher women in foreign lands a part
in the campaign. They sent their goods to a local com-
mittee, who assumed all responsibility and gave their time and
energy most willingly. They earned for the Oriental women
|2,i 1 5. Rummage sales were the most popular form of activity
and brought over $2,000 in 1922-23. The Marionettes in
Baltimore and Boston cleared $1,104 i^ ^^at year.^"
Although, owing to delays in the completion of the first
million dollars, there never was a truly public 4-2-1 cam-
paign, ^^s ye^- a plan was carried out in the spring of 1923 which
was a step in that direction. In connection with this plan a
preliminary meeting was held in the chapel on March 7, and
addresses were made by President Guth, Dr. William H.
Longley, Dr. Katherine J. Gallagher, and Dr. Lilian Welsh.129
In the evening of April 6 an impressive public meeting was
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 275
held in the Lyric. President Guth introduced Dr. J. M. T.
Finney, who presided and spoke briefly about the campaign.
Addresses were made also by Dr. Gallagher, by Dr. Frank
J. Goodnow, who was then the President of the Johns Hopkins
University, and by Mrs. Gifford Pinchot. The faculty and
students were in academic garb and sang college songs enthu-
siastically. ^'^
On the following day, Saturday, April 17, 1923, the alumnae
in various cities were addressed by members of the faculty and
seniors, who were honor guests at alumnae luncheons and
dinners. No attempt was made to raise funds, but the plans
for the campaign were explained. President and Mrs. Guth
and Mr. John L. Alcock, the treasurer of the College, opened
the campaign in New York City. Dean Stimson and Dr.
Bussey spoke in Philadelphia, Dr. Gallagher in Boston, Dr.
Welsh in Chicago and later in Des Moines, Dr. Froelicher in
Pittsburgh, and Dr. Carroll in York. The alumnae at Harris-
burg were addressed by Dr. Thomas and Eliza Tillman, '23,
those at Washington by Dr. Longley, Dr. Rogers, and Helen
Hosp, '23, and those at Norfolk by Dr. Peters and Eloise
Dunbracco, '23.1^1
In April 1923, a campaign leaflet was issued showing the
expansion of the College during the ten preceding years. ^^^
As a result of sending out various forms of campaign literature
and holding meetings new pledges began coming in and pay-
ments were made on former pledges. In order to get the
conditional gift of the General Education Board it was neces-
sary to secure pledges amounting to $600,000 by June 1923.
On the first of May, $158,000 of these pledges was lacking,
and new appeals were made to the alumnae. ^^^ President
Guth also requested the students to pledge $80,000 more.
As was their custom, they did more than they were asked to do.
Under the energetic leadership of Helen Hosp, president of
the Students' Organization, pledges for $86,334 were obtained
from 212 students in an intensive campaign of two days and
276 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
presented to President Guth at the seniors' last chapel. ^^^
The alumnae pledged enough to cover the rest of the deficit,
and the first stage in the campaign— the securing of enough
pledges — was completed. ^^^
Helen Hosp, '23, who acted as field secretary for the College
during the year 1923-24, in pursuance of one of her duties
visited the alumnae in various localities and discussed ways
and means of aiding the campaign. She also endeavored to
make Goucher better known through publicity work in the
schools and community and to interest good students to come
to Goucher. ^^^
The General Education Board was expecting the |6oo,ooo
in cash (as distinguished from pledges) by June i, 1924. When
they found that payment was impossible then, they generously
granted an extension of time to March i, 1925. On that date
over $310,000 had been paid and nearly $290,000 was lacking.
Monday, the first of March, was truly "blue Monday," for
on that day the President had to face the assembled students
and faculty and announce that the campaign was far short of
its goal. Commenting on this announcement, an editorial in
the Goucher College Weekly said, in part: "Throughout the
entire campaign President Guth has shown dogged courage,
unbounded faith, and determined optimism. The bitterness
of our partial failure is sweetened by the generosity of his spirit
in accepting it. For it seems quite obvious that it is our
failure, not his. And still he uttered not one word of reproach.
Because of the inspiration afforded by a courageous man,
striding forward, head high in the fact of disappointment, we
shall work with renewed ardor, with fresh vigor, and with a
determination that shall not be defeated."^"
A second extension of time was granted until December 31,
1925. In the fall the Vocational Secretary of the College,
Mary T. McCurley, '10, was appointed by President Guth as
Campaign Director until December 31, 1925. She made a
vigorous drive with the aid of twenty regional directors who
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 277
coordinated the campaign activities in their territories. This
new plan of organization had been recommended by a com-
mittee of the Alumnae Association at its meeting in May 1925.
On October 30, 1925, there was an inspiring meeting in the
chapel where the president of the Alumnae Council, Anna
Heubeck, '92 (Mrs. Walter Knipp) spoke briefly and was
followed by Mary McCurley, '10, Angeline Foster, '17 (Mrs.
D. E. WiUiams), Miriam Franc, '15 (Mrs. L. I. Skirball),
Christie Dulaney, '07 (Mrs. George A. Solter), and President
Guth.138
The students, faculty, and alumnae all made sacrifices for
the common cause. The students paid more than they them-
selves or the committee had thought possible — $21,674.65."^
A committee of the Faculty Club, appointed as early as Novem-
ber 16, 1 92 1, with Professor Curtis as chairman, made a full
report on November 10, 1925, showing that ninety-one percent
of the faculty members above the rank of instructor who had
been at Goucher for two years or more (forty-eight in number)
had contributed to the fund. Seventy-three percent of these
had pledged $421 or more, and seventy-seven percent of the
pledges had already been paid in full. The instructors and
assistants not counted above who aided the fund were twenty-
four in number, besides the administrative stafi^. They gave
additional amounts in 1926. A statement published in April
1926, showed that eighty-eight out of ninety-six teachers and
assistants contributed $27,505.07.1^0
The alumnae gave the largest amount. They were stirred
to new endeavors by the leaders among the alumnae and by
Dr. Lilian Welsh. She had retired from teaching in 1924 and,
with her friend. Dr. Mary Sherwood, had spent a year in
Europe. On her return she entered the campaign with zeal
and made speeches in fifteen cities of the South and East and
also in Chicago. ^-^^
As a result of all these efforts, half of the $290,000 needed —
or $145,000 — was paid before the time limit expired; but, for
278 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
reasons to be given presently, it was impossible to collect more
just then, and there was a deficit of ^145,000 toward the last
of December 1925. In this emergency President Guth secured
the promise of a loan of that amount from two Baltimore
banks. On December 30, by a personal appeal, he had secured
from a group of trustees and friends of the College the promise
to underwrite $95,000 of this loan. Before midnight of De-
cember 31, by his unaided personal efforts, he secured promises
for underwriting the remaining $50,000. On January 12, 1926,
the officers of the Alumnae Association signed a legal agreement
assuming responsibility for the 1145,000.^^2 Before this was
done Angeline Foster Williams, '17, the president of the Alum-
nae Association, had addressed the Board of Directors in favor
of assuming the debt and had pointed out that the men who
agreed to underwrite it did so in the firm belief that Goucher
' women would fulfill their pledges in due time. After debating
the question solemnly and deliberately, the directors resolved
to assume the debt.^*' In this way the "Alumnae Million,"
as it was called, had been secured, and the second stage in the
4-2-1 campaign was completed.
It is impossible to understand the 4-2-1 campaign without
an enumeration of some of the chief causes for the slowness
with which the Alumnae Million was pledged and collected.
First, the administration had lost the support of some alumnae
for reasons already mentioned in connection with the charter
controversy of 1922. In the second place, Goucher College
had no outstanding women of wealth such as many other col-
leges had. Nor were there any very large gifts from people
outside the College except from the General Education Board.
A third cause was that $421 was too large a sum for the average
alumna and especially the average student to pay. Goucher
women have displayed energy, enthusiasm, and sacrifice in
meeting every emergency in the history of the College. They
oversubscribed their quota in the first million dollar campaign
of 1 913; they did the same thing repeatedly during the World
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 279
War; and large groups did so repeatedly during the 4-2-1 cam-
paign. Nevertheless some of the most loyal knew that circum-
stances were such that they could neither give nor get $421,
and they preferred not to sign a pledge. A fourth cause,
mentioned by some prominent workers in the campaign, was
that, in the minds of some alumnae, the motive to give was
not sufficiently stirred by the idea of adding to the endowment.
There was no connection between endowment for salaries and
the 421 acres at Towson. Moreover, there were many who
did not realize that the additional endowment of a million
dollars to meet the higher prices brought about by war-time
inflation was more vital than moving to Towson, even though
the latter had become urgently desirable. Goucher would have
lost many of its best teachers and replaced them by inferior
ones, and, moreover, would have faced serious financial diffi-
culties if it had not been for the Alumnae Million. But
"endowment for teachers' salaries" was not so strong an incen-
tive to many alumnae as the idea of moving to the new campus.
A fifth cause of weakness in the campaign was the fact that
the pledge was not binding like a promissory note. "I pledge
myself to do all in my power" was a statement interpreted
subjectively and not measured by any definite objective stand-
ard. Moreover, the need of securing $600,000 in pledges by
June I, 1923, led some workers for the fund to encourage the
signing of pledges by those, including freshmen, whose earning
power was dubious or distant. One freshman gaily signed two
pledges. While such manifestations of evanescent enthusiasm
were not numerous, they increased the deficit. Others signed
reluctantly, but were urged to do so because they were told
that they ought to sign to show their faith in their college and
that they were not bound to pay the whole amount but only
to do all in their power to pay it. Such pledges smoothed the
road in 1923 but made rough traveling for the ensuing years.
A sixth and final cause was the pressure brought to bear for
premature fulfillment of pledges. It ought to be easy to
28o THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
understand the cause of this pressure, with the time limit for
the payment of the $600,000 not far away. On the other hand,
it is easy to understand the situation of a woman confronted
with a request for money she has not yet had time to earn or
save. Since most of the unpaid pledges had been made by
recent graduates or undergraduates, it is not surprising that
there was a deficit of $145,000.^''* There was nothing to do
but fail to secure a large part of the Alumnae Million or borrow
enough to make up the deficit. As just stated, the money
was borrowed, and the loans were guaranteed by men who had
well-justified confidence that Goucher women would make
payment in the course of time.
Never were the wisdom, courage, and devotion of the officers
of the Alumnae Association and the Alumnae Council displayed
more abundantly than during the third and final stage of the
4-2-1 campaign, when they gradually paid off the principal
and six percent interest on the debt. The size of the debt
was naturally appalling to them, but they avoided a tone of
martyrdom and spoke with cheerful confidence and acted in a
way that deserves admiration. Misfortunes often have their
beneficent aspects. Professor Lilian Welsh and Professor
Annette B. Hopkins, '01, who acted as cheer leaders for the
alumnae, both pointed out two great benefits v/hich had come
from the hard struggle. One of these was capacity for coopera-
tion. Dr. Welsh said that the efforts of the Goucher women
in the campaign filled her with admiration and pride, and that
something which might eventually be worth far more to the
College than the million dollars was "the spirit of mutual
helpfulness developed, the unity attained in working for a
cause which puts the College and what it stands for — the
education of women — before every other consideration in its
demand for loyalty to an idea. . . ."^"^ Dr. Hopkins said, in
part: "We have existed externally as an organization since
the beginning, but there has been no force, no appeal in our
history that has equaled this campaign in developing in us
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 28 1
oneness of spirit. This working together for a common, vital
cause has famiHarized us with each other. It has revealed in
some of us capacities of which our friends, perhaps even we
ourselves, were unaware — capacities not so much of a physical
or intellectual nature, but spiritual capacities. . . . What pos-
sibilities for the future may there not lie in this self-knowledge
which has come to us as an organization? May it not be our
reservoir of strength P"^"*^
The second benefit stressed by these leaders — a consequence
of cooperation — was the development of the Alumnae Associa-
tion from adolescence to maturity.
A specific evidence of the cooperative spirit of the alumnae
was the adoption of the method of paying pledges known as
the Washington plan. It is true that before December 31,
1925, $15,000 had been underwritten by various classes and
nearly $11,000 by five chapters: Chicago, New York, Phila-
delphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington. These sums were not
included in the $145,000 borrowed.^^^ The Washington plan
was more than a simple underwriting. Under the able leader-
ship of Alice Deal, '99, principal of the Columbia Junior High
School in Washington, a new pledge like a promissory note was
prepared to run for five years. The Washington committee
visited or telephoned every Goucher woman in or near Wash-
ington who had made a pledge and asked her to make cash
payment or sign the new notes for as large a sum as possible.
The result was that in six weeks the total debt of the Washing-
ton group was reduced from $7,000 to $2,613, this last sum
being owed chiefly by recent graduates and alumnae who had
met reverses, and who were given an opportunity to pay in
semi-annual installm.ents. The Washington Chapter then
borrowed the $2,613 from a bank on collateral put up by their
own members, so that their total debt was paid by December
31, 1925. It is an evidence of "mutual helpfulness" that most
of these loans made by alumnae to alumnae were without
interest."^
282 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
When Miss Deal described these methods to the Alumnae
Council on May 27, 1926, the Council enthusiastically voted
to recommend to the Alumnae Association the adoption of the
Washington plan. On May 29, it was adopted at the meeting
of the Association on the campus. Moreover, they passed by
a rising vote a motion to bring Miss Deal to Baltimore in
the summer of 1926 to inaugurate the new plan. That was a
memorable day. A contemporary account says:
A moving spectacle was Dr. Welsh, the mainspring of this part of the
meeting. If every Goucher alumna could cultivate even in small measure
the intelligent devotion to her college that is apparent in whatever Dr.
Welsh does or says for Goucher, the labors of the faithful would be greatly
diminished and their spirit greatly heartened. It was this act of the small
group of alumnae there present that brought forth Dr. Welsh's stirring re-
mark: "I am seeing my ideals realized. The Goucher alumnae have grown
up; they can stand on their own feet." No wonder Dr. Welsh was pro-
foundly stirred by this act of ours when she saw in it the birth of a broader,
finer, more intelligent spirit than had ever before actuated our Alumnae
Association.^'*^
It should be added that, although the Washington plan had
decided merits, it was less successful in most chapters than it
was in Washington because conditions were quite different.
An illustration of the attainment of adult life by the Alumnae
Association was seen in the appointment of an alumnae
director whose expenses were paid by the Alumnae Associa-
tion itself for the remainder of the campaign. Those officers
who had previously acted in a similar capacity for brief terms
were the Registrar and the Vocational Secretary, both of
whom were appointed by the College and not by the Associa-
tion. The change came about in an evolutionary fashion.
The Board of Directors of the Alumnae Association on October
20, 1926, voted to have an alumnae representative come in to
direct contact with important alumnae groups. The president
of the Association, Angeline Foster Williams, '17, acted as
representative. To get money to pay her expenses the Goucher
Alumnae Quarterly was not published between December 1926,
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 283
and September 1927, and the meeting of the Alumnae Council
in November 1926, was omitted.
The result of this experiment was so successful^*'' that the
Board of Directors of the Alumnae Association and the Alum-
nae Council voted that money ought to be raised to enable
Mrs. Williams to act as alumnae director for the year 1927-28.
Dr. Lilian Welsh, who previously, with prophetic vision, had
urged the adoption of a plan like this and had accurately fore-
cast the beneficial results,^*^ spoke in favor of it at the annual
meeting of the Alumnae Association on May 30, 1927. It was
moved to raise $1,500, the amount necessary for the salary
and expenses of the Director, by personal subscription, and
the enthusiasm was so great that the amount was raised before
noon. 1*2
Mrs. Williams served as alumnae director for a year and
was then succeeded in 1928 by Florence Edwards, '97, (Mrs.
Charles W. Sumwalt) who is still in office as alumnae secre-
tary.^" Under her gracious and capable leadership with the
assistance first of Marian Day, '24, (Mrs. Ralph L. DeGroff)
and latterly of Helen Fawcett, '29, (Mrs. George Walter
Knipp) as office secretary, the work of the Alumnae Associa-
tion has been unified and strengthened.
In a trip through the southern cities, visiting and meeting
with alumnae groups, Mrs. Williams started her work. She
requested the groups to organize as chapters of the Alumnae
Association, to assume the chapter debt on unpaid 4-2-1
pledges, and to assume the six percent interest on the debt
until it was paid.
One of the two banks which had lent $145,000 to the Alum-
nae Association created an emergency in the fall of 1927 by
insisting that half of its loan must be paid by February i,
1928. The interest had been paid and the principal reduced
by $25,000 (in round numbers), leaving $120,000 as the total
amount still due to the two banks. Since the contract called
for equal payments to this bank and the other bank, it became
284 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
necessary to raise ^60,000. Various methods were used,
among which was a strong appeal sent out on January 1 8, 1 928,
by the President, Mabel Patten, '12, (Mrs. Henry C. Stock-
bridge, III), and all the former presidents of the Alumnae
Association. 1*^ The responses were highly creditable to "the
spirit of Goucher." The following letters, which exemplify
self-sacrificing loyalty, have been selected almost at random
from those of similar nature in one issue of Give or Get for
Gaucher^ February 25, 1928:
The enclosed check for $10 is sent in response to the appeal sent out
January i8th and just received. This is not a payment on a pledge, for I
have made none. I am not financially able to send even this small amount.
I do so in the hope that even small amounts may help out the committee,
who are probably not at all responsible for the present predicament, and
have my sincere sympathy.
My pledge of 4-2-1 is paid but I still wish to "Give or Get for Goucher"
and I am enclosing a check for $60, trusting this small amount will with
many others raise the ^60,000 by February 1st.
Enclosed please find check for $15 to be used for reducing the bank
loans on February i. I have not been at work for nearly three years, have
small means, and have not been well; so my gifts to Goucher are necessarily
very much limited.
Enclosed find check for 1151.25, making my total an even thousand. I
hope and hope the debt may be paid and the alumnae officers relieved of the
terrific strain. Best of luck.
Enclosed is a check for ^25 which I wish were much more. Illness and a
hospital operation since returning from the foreign field prevent. May
God bless you in your heroic fight.
I did not pledge any amount originally because our family financial bur-
den during these last few years did not permit it. The money I am enclos-
ing I have borrowed, but it gives me deep satisfaction to do this for Goucher.
Occasionally a letter was written by those alumnae who,
because they disliked some policies of the administration,
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 285
refused to aid any of its policies. There is no doubt that many
of these alumnae were highly sincere and conscientious in their
refusal to cooperate. Whether they reasoned correctly or not
was a disputed question.^"
In the same number of Give or Get for Gaucher in which the
letters quoted above appear there was very appropriately
reprinted a song written a few years earlier by Hope Nelson, '22
(Mrs. Lewis Richard Andrews) and frequently sung at 4-2-1
rallies:
The spirit of Goucher,
How much those words imply.
In work and play we will strive alway
To lift the standard high.
Today's step goes forward
To mark tomorrow's stride,
So throughout the year may the way be clear
And may we take it side by side.
President Guth and five groups of people took the way side
by side to the victorious completion of the |6o,ooo payment
on February i, 1928: friends of the college, the trustees, and
the majority of the alumnae, students, and faculty. "President
Guth obtained gifts from donors whom no alumna or group
could have successfully approached. "^^^ The presidents of
both of the banks which had lent the $145,000 gave generously.
A gift of $^4,000 was made anonymously. One of the trustees
gave $10,000, and several others contributed liberally. Five
alumnae gave $1,000 each, and many others smaller sums.^^'
The faculty gave two plays in one evening, and each of the four
undergraduate classes gave an entertainment and supple-
mented the proceeds by individual gifts. They were under
the able leadership of Elizabeth Schamberg, '28, president of
Students' Organization, and, as usual, exceeded their quota
and raised over $10,000. The banks were paid $60,000 by
February i, 1928.
There was no time for rejoicing. On the same day that the
286 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
$60,000 was paid, the banks requested the payment of the
remainder, a shghtly larger sum, by June i. "The test of the
heart is trouble." How the officers of the Alumnae Associa-
tion stood that test is indicated by the following paragraph
from a letter to the alumnae published in Give or Get for Goucher
by Mabel Patten Stockbridge, '12, president of the Alumnae
Association, and Angeline Foster Williams, alumnae director:
We are now on the last lap of the Alumnae Million. The banks demand
payment of the reminder of the note, ^63,300 by June ist! This came as a
blow to us on the same day we paid the |6o,ooo. It will no doubt seem the
same to you who have pushed to the limit during the past month. After
a few days of reflection on the problem, try to do as we have — accept the
situation philosophically, realizing that it will hasten the day when the alum-
nae can focus their attention on the benefits derived from the raising of the
money. Think of the joy we will share when the debt is paid! We must
not fail when the race is nearly run. . . . Will not each of you during the next
few months give of your strength and money 'until it hurts' ?^*^
The four months between February i and June i were obvi-
ously insufficient to raise the money, and the banks had to
grant an extension of time. But the conclusion of the cam-
paign was fortunately linked with honors paid to two of the
makers of Goucher College, Dr. Hans Froelicher and Dr.
Lilian Welsh. It is one of the pleasant episodes of Goucher
history, and is best told in the language of those who helped
to make that history.
The Alumnae Director, Mrs. Williams, in her annual re-
port which was made on June 2, 1928, said:
Two weeks ago we realized that the fortieth anniversary of Dr. Froelicher's
coming to Goucher was approaching. Naturally we wanted to honor him
in some special way. A professorship suggested itself as a suitable tribute,
but since we were already involved in the raising of our alumnae million,
it would be impossible to undertake the raising of another sum of money
at this time. We conferred with President Guth and it was decided that it
would be possible to set aside the last $40,000 of the million which we are
now raising to form the Hans Froelicher Professorship Fund, and that
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 287
^40,000 of the money already paid into the alumnae million should be added
to make it an |8o,ooo professorship. There is no member of the faculty
more beloved than Dr. Froelicher and it is a real privilege that we have to
do him honor. He has endeared himself because of his genuine and lovable
nature to every student with whom he has come in contact. In contributing
to this professorship we have a two-fold privilege, first that of honoring Dr.
Froelicher, and second, completing our alumnae million. . . .^^^
The evening of St. Valentine's day in 1929 was a memorable
occasion which has been described by Florence Edwards Sum-
wait, '97, alumnae secretary and treasurer of the Alumnae
Association. The following is a part of her account:
"Hearts were trumps" at the opening dinner of the twenty-third session
of the Alumnae Council of Goucher College on the evening of St. Valentine's
Day, 1929. They were in evidence everywhere except on our sleeves and
in our throats — always in the right place, however. What Goucher heart
has ever been but in the right place as regards our old friends, our tried
friends — the two Dr. Froelichers!
With them as the honored guests, the regular personnel of the Council
and representatives of sixteen chapters were seated in the dining room of
the Alumnae Lodge. Eleanor Harris, '06, (Mrs. R. C. Golyer), President
of the Council, was here from Hubbard Woods, Illinois, to preside with her
own rare charm. Anna Heubeck Knipp, '92, spoke of Dr. Froelicher as a
friend; Mabel Patten Stockbridge, '12, of Dr. Froelicher as a citizen; Helena
Hogue Tittman, '08, as a professor; Helen Hosp, '23, as an art critic; and Mrs.
De Golyer told of Dr. Froelicher as an honorary member.
The climax of the dinner came with the presentation to Dr. Froelicher by
Frances Strader, '13, (Mrs. John K. Culver), president of the Alumnae
Association, on a huge silver tray, of the packet of Valentine letters and
autographed envelopes which had been bombarding the Alumnae Office for
days, bringing visual evidences of the love Goucher girls and Goucher
faculty all bear this royal pair who have given so generously of their royal
best to the College and her alumnae.
Over our coffee cups around the big open fire in the Lodge, Dr. Froelicher
gave us the real Valentine touch by recounting the story of his first meeting
with Frances Mitchell, afterward our Mrs. Froelicher, and followed that
with a most interesting resume of Goucher's history. All too briefly and
all too modestly Mrs. Froelicher told us something of her earliest contacts
with the College.^*"
288 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The next morning the session of the Council was exciting.
The following is an abbreviation of the account given by-
Mrs. DeGolyer:
When we came to face the second part of our program, the cancellation
of the bank loan and the completion of our fund, we knew that it was a call
to immediate action. Angeline Foster Williams, Alumnae Director, re-
ported that the amount due at the banks had been reduced to 1 14,000. The
alumnae responded well, the chapters too. An offer had come through Dean
Stimson of an anonymous gift of $4,000 to be made if the rest could be cleared
up, but it must be raised in cash and not underwritten. . . . Every councilor
present knew how her chapter had struggled and had seemingly done its
utmost, but calls were made over the long distance telephone, and tele-
grams sent to individuals who might help, while Mrs. Williams left to keep an
appointment with a possible donor. She returned with a gift of $5,000 . . .
this gift also contingent upon our raising the remainder in cash.
President Guth, hearing that we were so near the completion of the Hans
Froelicher Professorship Fund, sent a letter from his sick room, in which he
stated that from funds at hand and outside the Greater Goucher Fund, the
college would allocate a sum sufficient to complete the Lilian Welsh Profes-
sorship Fund and that he believed the trustees would bring it up to $80,000,
so that the two funds might not only be completed simultaneously but be
equal in amount. It was interesting to note from the figures given that of
the entire amount raised for these two professorships, approximately $40,000
for each had been raised by alumnae with the definite idea of honoring these
professors. Of the Lilian Welsh Professorship, alumnae had raised
$42,483.60 as a part of a previous millon, when they were asked to stop and
concentrate every effort on the 4-2-1 campaign for a Greater Goucher.
Now the college was allocating an amount sufficient to complete that pro-
fessorship. As the Greater Goucher Fund had neared completion, the
College had agreed to allocate $40,000 from funds already raised, for a Hans
Froelicher Professorship Fund, if the alumnae would go on and raise the
final $40,000. Before the adjournment of Council the announcement was
made that only a little*over $500 of that final $40,000 remained to be raised,
and we had the assurance that this would soon be gathered in by those at
headquarters who have always borne the brunt of things and carried the
heavy end of the load. . . .^"^
The banks were paid in full on March i, 1929, and so the
4-2-1 campaign, as a campaign, was ended. There remained
debts about ^15,500 representing mainly the obligations of
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 2»9
individual alumnae to their classes or to other alumnae, but
these were reduced to 16,722 the following year.'^^ M^s. "Wil-
liams, feeling that her chief task was completed, ceased to be
alumnae director and became chairman of the 4-2-1 Cam-
paign Committee in charge of further liquidation of debts.
Since her final report was made in 1934, the story of the formal
ending of collections on the 4-2-1 fund belongs chronologically
to another administration; but logically it belongs here.
Mrs. Williams, on June 2, 1934, reported that she had turned
over to the College on that day $1,000 which was lent by an
alumna, Martha Clarke, '96, (Mrs. W. S. Fulton), to help
repay the banks. It was to be used (when enough money came
in on pledges to liquidate the loan) to establish a Library Fund
in memory of her little daughter, Martha Clarke Fulton, the
bookplate to bear her name. The transfer of this money to
the College marked the completion of the 4-2-1 fund.^"
The 4-2-1 campaign was at once the most painful and most
profitable experience the Alumnae Association ever had. It
was painfully disappointing because it was drawn out, for
causes already enumerated, over a period of eight years.
Three of these years, from 1926 to 1929, were especially burden-
some. During a large part of that time President Guth was
critically ill, and he never appealed to the general public for
money to move the College to the new campus. So the failure
to get at least part of the money necessary to go to Towson
was a second disappointment. But the moral and material tri-
umphs of the campaign outweighed its disappointments. In
fact, with the single exception of the noble record made by
Goucher alumnae in France during and after the war, there
is nothing of which the Alumnae Association has more right
to be proud than the cheerful toil and stinting and sacrifice
of so many Goucher women for love of their college, and also
the loyalty, resourcefulness, pertinacity, and tactful discretion
with which the leaders overcame almost insuperable difficulties
for which they were not in the least responsible. Four of the
290 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
benefits of the struggle will be enumerated, not counting moral
victories such as have just been considered.
Since the magnificent new campus would never have been
thought of except as an indispensable factor in a Greater
Goucher Campaign (which was used synonymously with a
4-2-1 campaign), the first benefit to be mentioned is the
acquisition of that campus, the "promised land" which shall
be the home of the College some day. This acquisition and
the plan and inauguration and continuance of the campaign
were due to the rare foresight, enthusiasm, energy, and execu-
tive skill of President Guth. The next benefit is the endow-
ment of a million dollars, without which the College must have
lowered the standards of its teaching staff so as to compare
unfavorably with its sister colleges. The million dollars not
only saved the standards of teaching in the College before the
great industrial depression in 1929, but helped to save it finan-
cially after that depression came. It added nearly 74 percent
to the endowment. It would be hard to exaggerate the
advantages of having that million dollars. The third benefit
is the attainment by the Alumnae Association of the coopera-
tive spirit, leading to maturity of thought and action and to
the capacity, as an Association, to stand alone — self-reliant,
vigorous, and alert. The staggering burden of debt it
attempted to carry made it stronger. The fourth benefit,
which follows naturally from the third, is progressiveness. The
Alumnae Association has adopted better methods of carrying
on its work. For example, money is now raised in a more
pleasant way — by means of the Alumnae Fund, which will be
considered in President Robertson's administration, Angeline
Foster Williams has made the well-justified statement that
the Alumnae Association has grown into just what Dr. Welsh
said in 1925 it should be — the strong right arm of the College.^"
Death of Dr. Hopkins and of Dr. Goucher
The first president of the College, Dr. William H. Hopkins,
died in Chicago on December 17, 191 9, at the home of his
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 2gl
daughter, Elsie Hopkins, '96, (Mrs. J. C. Billingslea). He
lacked only three days of reaching the age of seventy-eight.
He had become professor emeritus of Latin and had also been
honored with the degree of Doctor of Laws at the commence-
ment of 191 5. His services to the College have been described
in Chapter IL The enlarged photograph of Dr. Hopkins in
the president's reception room was given to the College by the
Chicago Chapter of the Alumnae Association.
President Emeritus John F. Goucher died of anemia at his
home, Alto Dale, on July 19, 1922. He was seventy-seven
years old. The funeral services at Alto Dale were conducted
by Bishop William F. McDowell. There was sorrow in many
lands, for his benefactions were as wide as the world, and he
was also greatly loved on account of his personal qualities.
His achievements have already been described in Chapter HL
A memorial service was held in the College Chapel on February
18, 1923. There were four tributes: from the alumnae by
Lulie P. Hooper, '96, from the faculty by Dr. Lilian Welsh,
from the students by Helen M. Hosp, '23, and from the Trus-
tees by Mr. Henry S. Dulaney.^^^
Illness and Death of President Guth
Even before he became seriously ill, President Guth suf-
fered from overwork and overstrain. In the early part of his
administration he said to one of the professors that he could
do more work than most men because he could work for half
of the night and yet feel no bad effects the next day.^®^ But
various administrative officers who were in daily contact with
him noticed the effects of excessive exertion. He said to the
same professor in 1928, "Overwork has been the greatest mis-
take of my life." It is true that he had occasional leisure which
he used in pleasant changes of occupation, but change, though
desirable, was no substitute for sleep, and recreation was not
that re-creation of power which would have prepared him to
face new responsibilities. It was President Guth's attitude
1(^1 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
towards responsibilities which has caused some of those who
knew him intimately to prefer the word "overstrain" to "over-
work" in his case.
He was a man who did not avoid responsibility but who
actually went out to meet and welcome it. This is illustrated
by an incident which occurred in the first year of his adminis-
tration and which seems trifling but is extremely significant
in this connection. During that first year he had made a study
of every piece of property the College possessed and had
assumed a personal responsibility of its care. He discovered
that in every residence hall the east rooms were not provided
with a fire escape. He reported the fact to the Executive
Committee in April 1914, and asked and received permission
to remedy this defect. This care was admirable, but he carried
his zeal further, and refused to trust power to others and
then hold them accountable for results only. His was the
choice of both ends and means. He purposely bore the brunt
of every problem, great or small, physical or psychic, which
thrust itself on the College, whether it was maintaining the
neat appearance of Lovegrove Alley or the raising of a million
dollars. He sacrificed many a vacation to work for Goucher,
and interrupted other vacations to return to the College when
needed. When it became evident during one of his summer
vacations that a new residence hall must be obtained, he re-
turned and purchased Ford House and arranged for its recon-
struction before he went back. He went daily to Vanaheim
and Midgard when those buildings were undergoing renova-
tion. One of his friends said, "He often was very weary
but he never seemed to think there was a limit to what he
could endure." He evaded no responsibility but that of keep-
ing himself in prime condition to meet responsibility.
The resulting overstrain made a change in him which was
noticed at first by only a few but eventually by many. The
conflicts of opinion between those who knew him only in the
early years of his administration and those who met him later
can be explained by the fact that the opinions, while expressed
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 293
about the same person, were not expressed about the same per-
sonality. His disposition had been altered by overstrain in
the service of Goucher College. A knowledge of this fact
forms a basis for a lenient judgment of the latter half of his
administration and especially the years of his illness, when he
continued in authority after he was no longer able to use his
power to the best advantage. A broadminded and charitable
Goucher professor says that a president naturally has the
defects of his qualities. It has been stated that among Presi-
dent Guth's conspicuous good qualities were mental abihty,
executive ability, diligence, progressiveness, initiative, enthu-
siasm, energy, resourcefulness, pertinacity, and courage. It is
natural for such a man to love power, to overwork himself,
and to be impatient with those who disagree with him. If he
succeeds and is praised lavishly on all sides as an exceptional
administrator and is shielded from frank criticism, it is natural
for him, when he becomes ill, to doubt whether another would
be as successful. It is natural for him to hope for a speedy
recovery and meanwhile to continue in authority.
Through the greater part of the years 1926-27, 1927-28, and
1928-29, President Guth was seriously ill. Though he always
had the interests of the College uppermost in his mind, and
gave his time and attention, without stint, to its supervision,
even when the sickest, academic progress and routine business
were both delayed. When renewed illness in the fall and
winter of 1928 confined him to his own room. President Guth
sent a letter to the faculty on January 9, 1929, saying that he
had appointed a Committee of Reference. But this com-
mittee, though faithful and conscientious, settled only minor
problems and could not possibly clear away the accumulated
difficulties of the situation.
President Guth displayed commendable courage in enduring
great pain and in fighting a three-year war against disease with
undaunted spirit. One of his physicians, Dr. Harry R. Slack,
Jr., says, in a letter to the authors: "His patience and fortitude
^94 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
were an inspiration to all who came in contact with him.
Never once did any of us hear anything like a complaint. He
was always most cooperative and willing to help his physicians
in every possible way. During the last weeks of his illness,
I am sure, he must have realized that it was a hopeless battle
he was fighting, but he always maintained a spirit of hopeful
confidence and a beautiful Christian faith." Dr. Paul W.
Clough, another of his physicians, says: "Dr. Guth showed
throughout his illness great courage and fortitude in enduring
pain and suffering, and even more in maintaining his spirit and
determination to recover throughout the long and discouraging
struggle."
President Guth died on Friday, April 19, 1929, at the age of
fifty-seven. The funeral exercises were conducted in the
central pavilion of Goucher Hall on April 22. The services
were impressive. They were conducted by Dr. John T. Ensor
of First Methodist Episcopal Church, Dr. Hugh Birckhead of
Emmanuel Protestant Episcopal Church, and Dr. Harris E.
Kirk of Franklin Street Presbyterian Church and professor of
Biblical literature, Goucher College. The casket was brought
in and, after the services, carried out through a guard of honor
of seniors in academic gowns. It was taken to the Druid Ridge
Cemetery.^"
The President of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Elmore B.
Jeffery, though very ill, had felt that it was his duty to attend
the funeral of President Guth. His own death occurred three
days later, on April 25, 1929.
Election of Dr. Froelicher as Acting President
This double loss to the College caused a meeting of the Board
of Trustees to be held on May 2, 1929. The tributes to the
memory of these officers of the College, which the Executive
Committee had previously directed to be prepared by Mr. Al-
cock were adopted at the meeting. A three-fold division of
presidential duties was agreed upon until a new president
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 295
should be appointed. Some of the financial duties of the presi-
dent were transferred to the vice president of the Board of
Trustees, Mr. Edward L. Robinson. Mrs. Guth was ap-
pointed business executive, with the following duties: "The
supervision and control of the buildings and equipment of the
College, including the ordering of repairs thereto, the purchas-
ing of new equipment and supplies of every character, and the
approval of all bills, vouchers, and requisitions." The aca-
demic duties of the president were to be discharged by an acting
president, and Professor Hans Froelicher was chosen for this
position. It was voted by the Board that the vice president
of the Board should be chairman of a committee of five to take
steps to fill the office of president of the College. Mr. Robin-
son later appointed Bishop Francis J. McConnell, Mrs. Mary
Conner Hayes, 'oo, Mr. John L. Alcock, and Judge George A.
Solter. This committee requested the assistance of a com-
mittee of the faculty and of the alumnae. The faculty com-
mittee of three whom they appointed was composed of Profes-
sors Hans Froelicher, Wilfred A. Beardsley, and Gertrude C.
Bussey. The three alumnae were Frances Strader Culver,
'13, Jessie Wilson Sayre, '08, and Cloyd Burnley Stifler, '97. ^^^
The Board expressed its appreciation of the admirable way
in which Mr. Alcock had conducted matters during the trying
period just passed.
It also adopted a suggestion of Mr. Alcock that the College
have a portrait of President Guth painted to be hung in the
College as a memorial of him, to be completed in time for a
memorial service in the fall.
Memorial Service for President Guth
This service was held on Sunday afternoon, November 3,
1929, in the college auditorium. There was a tribute from
the student body by Helen Lankford, '29, from the alumnae
by Mary Conner Hayes, '00, from the faculty by Dr. Katherine
J. Gallagher, and from the Trustees by Mr. John L. Alcock.
296 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The memorial address was given by Bishop Francis J. McCon-
nell, who said, in part:
Goucher College is under debt to Dr. Guth in many directions. First of
all to his marked genius for administration, especially in financial lines. At
the time our friend began his work here the General Education Board, of
New York, was beginning its career for the strengthening of higher education.
In the Methodist denomination Dr. Guth was one of the three men selected
by the late Dr. Wallace Buttrick for especial observation and encouragement.
Later Dr. Buttrick, one of the secretaries of the Board, spoke with astonished
wonder at the success of Goucher College in paying its way year by year,
without great endowment, and without sacrifice of scholastic standards.
Though I speak without special information, I am confident that the record
of Goucher in that respect is almost, if not quite unique in the annals of
American colleges of its rank.
I do not believe I have ever known a more complete mastery of details
than that shown by our friend. I have never been able to understand where
he found time to become so thoroughly informed as to the least matters
which confronted him in his administration day after day. To carry through
to success an institution like Goucher College in such fashion as to have a
surplus year after year, above operating expenses, relying almost wholly
upon the income from fees, required, of course, the most careful scrutiny
of every cent of expenditure. It is no secret that upon what proved to
be his deathbed he insisted upon seeing the checks v/hich were issued to meet
various claims. The utmost that any rational being could have expected of
Dr. Guth would have been that he should sign the checks. It was hardly
reasonable to expect him to do even that, for the pain which he was con-
stantly suflFering would have warranted the trustees in insisting that he turn
this work over to someone else. Dr. Guth not only signed the checks, but
he noted the amounts for which they were drawn. He came to know, it
would seem, virtually every stone in Goucher's buildings. The explanation
was not only that he was gifted with the power of microscopic attention to
details, and with a remorseless memory, but that he felt a devotion to the
institution which drove all the interests of that institution into the very
depths of his soul. . . ,
Secondly, Dr. Guth gave the demands of scholarship the right of way in
his handling of educational problems. He was never misled by quantitative
measures. It may be that his success as a financial manager obscured the
fact that he was an educator of thorough scholarship. The field of his own
scholarly proficiency was Semitic languages and institutions. During his
residence at Cambridge he was sought out for contributions to highly tech-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 297
nical discussion in seminars of experts in this field. Just a little while ago I
saw a reference in the Encyclopedia Britannica, by a distinguished scholar,
to the expert work of Dr. Guth in the realm of Semitics. At one time his
investigations led him to altogether original research in the Babylonian
contracts, making it necessary for him to read cuneiform tablets by the
hundred — this, too, was a third of a century ago when such studies were
not as common as now. Out of all this came an appreciation of scholarly
and scientific method altogether too rare among college executives. W. W.
Guth knew scholars when he saw them — and he knew where to look for them.
He knew also when scholars were more than scholars. . . .
Again, Dr. Guth kept on high the Christian ideals in his presidency. I
certainly do not mean by this that he approved everything in traditional
religious training. In his own studies of Biblical questions he was out-
spokenly in the liberal camp. Moreover, he had reacted quite strongly
against some features of Methodist emphasis in religious life and duty-
Methodist self-assertiveness of the louder type being especially offensive to
him. Nevertheless, he remained in the church of his youth to the day of his
death. His resignation from the ministry was due to his conviction that he
ought to be wholly and strictly an educator at Goucher.
I was not thinking, however, of church relationships, but of emphasis upon
the essentials of Christianity. In his loyalty to these he never wavered. He,
of course, had to meet the criticism of pastors and parents who expect their
young people to go through a college course with their religious beliefs un-
changed — which is to expect the impossible. It is out of all reason to tell
growing youths to hold fast to immature or traditional religious views while
attaining more adequate views in everything else. Still Dr. Guth always
aimed at the strengthening of the essential beliefs. As a means of such
strengthening he insisted upon the frank facing of the most disquieting
problems.
Above all we are indebted to Dr. Guth, the man. He was fundamentally
honest. The first attribute in a genuine educational leader is the power to
to command respect. William Westley Guth always commanded respect.
Like any true leader he had to be at times insistent upon his own view. He
was at times aristocratic, and at times autocratic, but always with democratic
aims. He would not allow anybody to impose upon him — and he never
sought to impose upon anyone. He may have kept power too much in his
own hands. The tasks, however, which he found laid upon him called for
power in a single pair of hands. On the basis of this fundamental directness
and honesty Dr. Guth came into contact with scores of students and teachers
who will remember his genuineness and sincerity in friendship as among their
priceless spiritual possessions.
298 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
We speak with a feeling akin to reverence, or awe, of the heroism of his
closing days. Stricken with a malady which was at once baffling to the best
scientists and indescribably painful to himself, he wrought on with a de-
termination and cheerfulness which were but little short of a physical and
moral miracle. Outside of his devotion to the one who in all things stood
closest to him, even in those days of dreadful pain and trial his whole thought
was for Goucher College, which he served till his last breath.^ ^^
After the address, President Guth's little daughter, Helen
Louise, unveiled his portrait, and Mr. Edward L. Robinson,
who presided, spoke as follows:
It is perhaps pertinent to state that the portrait of our late President,
William Westley Guth, which has just been unveiled by the affectionate
touch of this dear little child, was painted by a sympathetic, understanding
and loving hand.
A distinguished artist of Russian birth, Ivan G. Olinsky, of New York,
with whom Dr. Guth was well acquainted, has done this work, which is
thought by capable critics to represent an intelligent and highly artistic inter-
pretation of his subject by the artist.
In the name of the Trustees, the portrait is accepted by Goucher College
and becomes a tender, inspiring historical possession; a golden link with the
past, a vital influence forever to be cherished.
A valiant spirit hovers for all time over the temple of learning he loved.^''''
Many tributes were paid to President Guth by Goucher
women. These four letters indicate his personal interest in
students and alumnae:
How was he able, with his heavy duties as President of the College, to
take such a personal interest in each individual alumna? I shall always
remember his friendly smile whenever I entered his office door; I still treasure
a note that he wrote me at the time of my marriage.
When I was a Freshman Dr. Guth made a bookplate for me with my name
as a legend, and it is one of my treasures and an everlasting source of delight
and inspiration. It was a lovely thing for him to do.
All my college days I admired him for his scholarship and for his extraor-
dinary administration and I loved him for his kindness and his understanding.
Then since those days I have come to appreciate him even more. His noble
and unselfish life of sacrifice will never cease to be an uplifting influence and
a spur to better things.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GUTH 299
The interest and help he gave to the individual girl in the midst of his
great problems was one of his most remarkable and endearing qualities. ^'''^
Summary
The benefits of President Guth's administration can be
summarized by dividing them into four classes: financial
improvements, the expansion of the College, educational prog-
ress, and miscellaneous achievements. He reorganized the
finances of the College and added to its endowment by the
quiet campaign which ended in 1917, and by the 4-2-1 cam-
paign, with the aid of the General Education Board and the
alumnae. The following tables are instructive.^"
Financial Growth
1912-13 192S-Z9
Income $70,207.13 $701,137.29
Expenses 113,406.13 633,565.45
Faculty and salary budget 53,140.59 240,569.66
Indebtedness 928,680.76 None
Value of plant and equipment 1,061,449.00 1,600,000.00
Endowment 103,812.77 2,390,647.28
Expansion of the College
1912-13 1928-29
Total student enrolment 369 985
Faculty 32 102
Volumes in the library 10,229 49 > 393
Courses in which students were enrolled 141 308
Buildings 7 22
President Guth provided a new auditorium, built Alumnae
Lodge, purchased and remodeled various buildings, moved the
library and biological laboratories to more spacious quarters
in Alfheim Hall, and enlarged and improved the infirmary.
His chief educational changes were the adoption of the major
department plan as developed from the major subject plan, the
Missouri system of grading, the dropping of Latin as a require-
ment for admission and graduation, the adoption of improved
methods of admission, the use of intelligence tests for entering
freshmen, and the appointment of faculty advisers for students.
300 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
His chief miscellaneous changes were improvement of the
college grounds by planting hedges, increased publicity, the
founding of the Gaucher College Weekly, the establishment of
the college book store, the appointment of student counselors,
the development of vocational guidance, and the acquisition
of a magnificent campus. The last was both an achievement
and the foundation of the greater achievement which is indi-
cated in the following poem by Professor James M. Beatty,
Jr.:
In Memoriam
The hands are quiet now that yearned to rear
Tall, soaring spires on Maryland's high hill;
No longer can that dauntless power of will
Dare life and death for causes we hold dear.
His was the dream and his the seer's eye
That glimpsed his hope's fair vision wrought in stone;
But like Mount Nebo's captain all alone
He could but see the promised land and die.
He gave us of his best; unflinching, kind.
He fought brave battles, won him love or hate,
And strove with ceaseless purpose, early, late.
To build new, statelier dwellings for the mind.
He would not have us spend unfruitful sighs
As mourning him whose long day's work is done:
His task at noontide was but just begun —
We cannot fail him now: his spires shall rise.
PROFKSSOR HANS FROKl.ICHKR
Chapter VII
THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF ACTING PRESIDENT
HANS FROELICHER AND OF ACTING
PRESIDENT DOROTHY STIMSON
1 929-1 930
Biographical sketch of Dr. Froelicher — Restoration of normalcy in
student life and in legislative and administrative functions — Sudden
death of Dr. Froelicher — Tributes to Dr. Froelicher — Election of
Dean Stimson as acting president— Biographical sketch of Dr.
Stimson — Her characteristics as dean — Her division of responsibili-
ties as dean and acting president — The appointment of Dr. Elinor
Pancoast as acting dean — Continuation of Dr. Froelicher's poli-
cies — The solution of some academic problems; others passed on
to next administration for final adjustment — Death of Dr. Van
Meter— Election of Dr. David Allan Robertson— Appreciations of
Dr. Stimson as acting president— Her year abroad as Guggenheim
Fellow.
ACTING PRESIDENT FROELICHER
Biographical Sketch
DR. Hans Froelicher was born in Solothurn, in German
Switzerland, on March 6, 1865. The name Johann
Baptiste, given to him at first, he later changed to
Hans. His first five years of schooling were in Solothurn, the
next two in Dalle, France.^ The harsh treatment of the
students by the teachers at Dalle remained vividly in his
memory. In an impromptu speech at a faculty dinner, after
becoming acting president of Goucher College, he said, "It
was terrible, and I resolved then that, if I ever became a
teacher, the students in my classes should be treated with
kindness."
When he left the school in France he went to the Gymnasium
at Solothurn, from which he was graduated in 1885. After
301
302 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
this, he specialized in German philology at the University of
Zurich, where he did all his graduate work except for one
semester spent at Munich studying Romance languages. ^ Art
was always included in his curriculum. His ancestors had
artistic tastesj and his own natural love for art was developed
by a cousin, Frank Buchser, an eminent Swiss painter, who
came to America in 1866 and painted portraits of Grant, Lee,
and other famous men.^
One day in 1887, at the University of Zurich, Hans Froe-
licher was summoned by his fiancee. Miss Frances Mitchell, to
meet Dr. Hopkins, the president of the College. He said that
Dr. Hopkins' gracious manner and beaming smile and fine
conversational German quickly won his heart. Dr. Froe-
licher's account of the meeting and its consequences is as
follows :
I thought the visit would be a purely social chat. I never had the idea of
coming to America. My fiancee was coming to Switzerland in the summer.
I thought we were to be married and settle there.
Dr. Hopkins, however, said that he was traveling in the interest of the
Woman's College, to be founded in Baltimore the following year. He was
assembling his faculty and the upshot of it all was that I was offered the
position of associate professor of French. And Frances was to be on the
staff of this new institution. I thought the opportunity an excellent one.
I would stay for a year or so, learn English, observe American customs and
educational methods and come back to Switzerland much the wiser.
Well, I was given my Ph.D. in July 1888, when I was 23 years old. I
sailed for America the end of August, arriving at New York on September 4.
I immediately went to Baltimore, where we were married the following day
and, on the day after that, I attended a faculty meeting of what is now
Goucher College,
My English was faulty— Frances told me all about that meeting. But
I liked the college from that minute on. I had a great deal of respect for
the opinions of Dr. Goucher and I learned to respect him more as the years
went by.'*
Dr. Froehcher rendered six important services to the College
and the community: he taught German, he founded a new
department of art criticism (and so was at the head of two
ADMINISTRATIONS OF DR. FROELICHER AND DR. STIMSON 303
departments), he was secretary of the Board of Instruction and
the Board of Control from 191 6 to 1929, his civic activities
were numerous, he gave substantial aid to the cause of "pro-
gressive education" in Baltimore and elsewhere, and he became
acting president of Goucher College in 1929.
Although Dr. Froelicher began his work in the College in
1888 by teaching French, in 1890 he changed to German. He
and Mrs. Froelicher formed one of the first of the departmental
clubs, the Schiller Kranzchen, on Saturday evening, November
10, 1894.5
It was at the request of Dr. Goucher, who realized the
educational value of art, that Dr. Froelicher gave the first
course in art criticism in the fall of 1896, after spending the
summer studying in the art galleries of Europe.® The course
was immediately popular. It began as a one-hour course, but
finally expanded into four two-hour courses, with a total
enrolment of two hundred students. A new departmental
club, the "Philokalai" (lovers of beauty) was formed.
Though he was foreign-born. Dr. Froelicher mastered the
art of being a first-class American citizen. He was a member
of the executive committee of the Baltimore Reform League
and of the City-wide Congress. He was also a member of the
City Club, which was especially interested in civic problems.
He was a member of the executive committee of the Educa-
tional Society of Baltimore. In 1908 he was chairman of a
committee of this society which examined all the libraries in
Baltimore and made recommendations for their improvement.
But it was as an educator in the field of art that he rendered
his most frequent if not his greatest service to Baltimore. He
gave lectures under the auspices of the Municipal Art Society
in the crowded districts of the southern part of Baltimore to
audiences composed partly of foreigners. Mrs. Froelicher, who
attended every one of these lectures, says that frequently
women with handkerchiefs tied around their heads and babies
in their arms were among the most eager Hsteners.' The city
304 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
sometimes stationed policemen at these meetings to keep order,
but none knew better than Dr. Froelicher that they were not
needed; his audiences, he said, loved artistic beauty. He
gave courses on art at the summer school of the Johns Hopkins
University and at the Maryland Institute over a period of
years, and lectured repeatedly at Walters Art Gallery and the
Museum of Art. He was a member of the Board of Directors
of the Museum of Art. Dr. and Mrs. Froelicher spent a
sabbatical year in the art centers of Europe, beginning in
February 1921.
The educational ideals of Dr. Froelicher were modern. In
1909, during the administration of James H. Van Sickle, a pro-
gressive superintendent of the Public Schools of Baltimore, Dr.
Froelicher was appointed by the Mayor as a member of the
School Board; but after the conservatives came into power in
191 1, he resigned. Dr. Froelicher was one of the founders in
1 914 of the Park School in Baltimore — a progressive school.
He was offered the position of principal, but preferred to re-
main at Goucher College. He was made president of the
Board of Trustees of the Park School, and helped to organize a
similar institution in Philadelphia. It is interesting to know
that Hans Froelicher, Jr., became principal of the Park School
in 1932, and that each of Dr. Froelicher's three sons was head-
master or principal of a progressive school.
Dr. Froelicher was honorary member of the Classes of 1906
and 1914 in Goucher College. Not only these classes but all
classes felt his influence. One student said, "He was a dearly
beloved mentor of my college days, always regarded as the
ideal professor in manner, culture, and influence." Another
student said, "Although I was so close to him, I never lost
that sense of being in the presence of one who was truly great."
No less high than the opinions of students of the College
was the estimate placed upon Dr. Froelicher by outsiders. A
fair sample is found in a paper published by the Maryland
Institute, which, speaking of his lectures on art appreciation
ADMINISTRATIONS OF DR. FROELICHER AND DR. STIMSON 305
given there from 1924 to 1929, says: "Few men were better
qualified for such an undertaking. He brought to it a vast
store of learning in the field of the arts, a scholarly viewpoint
and equipment, which, for all the erudition which it reflected,
never hinted at pedantry, and a method that made his knowl-
edge readily transferable to the student. He had that beauti-
ful sympathy, that calm and penetrating insight which dis-
tinguishes the true teacher and which makes him beloved of
his students and a guiding influence in their lives."*
Not long before he became acting president. Dr. Froelicher
received an honor which formed a fitting culmination of his
forty-one years of teaching. "The Professorship of Fine Arts
on the Hans Froelicher Foundation" was established in 1929.
How this honor was originated and carried out by the alumnae
has already been related in connection with the 4-2-1
campaign.'
Mrs. Frances Mitchell Froelicher had an equally interesting
educational career. She was born in Philadelphia, in a family
of Friends or Quakers — a fact which helps to account for her
pioneering activity in the cause of equal educational rights for
women and men. She was educated in a private school.
Soon after finishing the course she happened to visit her
brother, a Cornell student, at a time when entrance examina-
tions were being given. She suddenly resolv^ed to take them
just to see if she could pass, although, if she had desired to go
to Cornell she could have entered on certificate. Being a
zealous scholar, she easily passed the examinations. She then
decided to enter Cornell. During the two years which she
spent there she formed friendships with Miss M. Carey Thomas
and other women who were educational pioneers. At the end
of her sophomore year, against their protests, she left the
University to become a teacher. She told them she did not
know whether she would like teaching or not and wanted to
test her powers before further preparation. After several
years of experience she resolved to prepare herself for a college
306 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
professorship by completing her education. As some universi-
ties in her own country had previously refused to admit her,
she armed herself with testimonials from Andrew D. White,
the president of Cornell, and applied at the University of
Zurich. She was admitted and was the second woman to
receive the Ph.D. degree at that University, the first one being
Miss M. Carey Thomas, afterward president of Bryn Mawr
College. Miss Mitchell did one semester's work for her degree
at Leipzig.
Dr. Frances Mitchell accepted a temporary position at
Bryn Mawr College for the year 1887-88 as reader in Anglo-
Saxon, while Mr. Froelicher was completing his work for the
Ph.D. degree at Zurich. Then they met in Baltimore and
were married on September 5, 1888. They began teaching in
the Woman's College eight days later.
Mrs. Froelicher was the first secretary of the faculty. The
older graduates describe her teaching of German as earnest,
vivid, and effective, and her personal attitude toward them as
sympathetic yet judicial.
Mrs. Froelicher, who excelled in and lived the profession of teaching,
taught during the first two years of the college's existence. Then for a time
she withdrew to devote herself to her home and her children. Later she
returned to her beloved profession for seven additional years, and once more
retired. Again, in 192a, when a grandmother, she was called upon to return
to the German department and complied with the request of the President,
thus rounding out her tenth year of teaching.^"
Her success as a mother was equal to that as a teacher. She
had three sons, Charles Mitchell, Hans Jr., and Francis, all
of whom have been distinguished educators. In addition to
her duties as teacher and home-maker was another which was
also highly important — her intelligent, enthusiastic, and con-
tinuous collaboration with her husband in forming and carrying
out those plans which made the German department such a
vital factor in the life of the College, and the department of art
criticism so valuable not only to the College but also to Balti-
ADMINISTRATIONS OF DR. FROELICHER AND DR. STIMSON 307
more, and the administration of the Acting President so suc-
cessful at a highly critical period.
Achievements
On May 3, 1929, it was announced in chapel by Mr. Edward
L. Robinson, on behalf of the Trustees, that Dr. Froelicher had
been appointed acting president. The announcement was
greeted with the greatest enthusiasm. ^^ The confidence in him
was increased by the inspiring address which he made in chapel
on May 6, and was later still further increased by the manifesta-
tion of his executive ability. ^^ Never in the history of Goucher
was the confidence reposed in an executive officer more needed
than by Dr. Froelicher as he faced the situation caused by the
decline of morale during the years of President Guth's illness.
The morale of the students from the founding of the College
up to that time had been commendable. It never wavered
during the desperate financial crisis of 191 2-13; in fact it rose
higher. It was affected by nothing except the loss of leader-
ship, which resulted first in uncertainty and a feeling of in-
security, followed by discontent, gossip, false rumors, pes-
simism, and slackening of endeavor. In 1926, an editorial in
Goucher College Weekly, which tried to inspire the students to
change their attitude, began with these words: "There is dis-
content in the ranks. Bored or disgruntled, we seem to be
falling into the depths of some not-very-divine despair for
which no one can account."^* Conditions were worse in the
year 1928-29, owing partly to rebellion against strict "social
rules" and stern discipline.^*
The other outstanding achievement of Dr. Froelicher's
brief administration was the restoration of normality to legis-
lative and administrative functions. Academic legislation,
which was confined to routine matters during President Guth's
illness, had finally ceased altogether. The Board of Control,
the only body with power to legislate in regard to strictly
academic matters, met but twice during the first year of Presi-
308 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
dent Guth's illness, on May 2 and May 9, 1927, to transact
absolutely necessary business. In the next year, when the
President was better, it met four times, but in the year 1928-29
it did not meet at all until April 29, ten days after his death.
In Dr. Froelicher's administration the Board met regularly
once a month. The committee on curriculum, with the Presi-
dent as chairman, had not met for three years. The courses
within certain departments needed revising and also it was
important to decide which of two departments should give
courses that were on the border-line between the two. Dr.
Froelicher renewed the activities of this committee. The
College Council also had not met for three years. This
organization consists of the President, members of the faculty
whom he appointed, and the heads of various organizations of
the students. They discuss college problems affecting student
life. Arrangements were made for regular meetings of the
Council during Dr. Froelicher's administration,^^
Dr. Froelicher's wisdom and patience, his sympathetic
attitude and his frank recognition of the right of students to
share in making their own "social rules" were some of the influ-
ences which helped to bring about new conditions in the College
before the coming of Christmas in 1929.1" The movement he
began was continued by the next administration.
Death of Dr. Froelicher
It was stated in Chapter VI that arrangements were made
for a threefold division of presidential powers during Dr.
Froelicher's administration so that he would have no business
or financial functions, but only those which were academic.
One reason for limiting his duties was the fact that he was
not well. About a year before he became acting president, on
March 18, 1928, he had given an inspiring Fireside Talk on
"The Right Conduct of Life," in which he twice stated his
belief that one should be ready to die, if necessary, in the
performance of duty. He was one of those rare men who not
ADMINISTRATIONS OF DR. FROELICHER AND DR. STIMSON 3O9
only have high ideals but live up to them. His physicians told
him in 1929 that if he kept on with his new duties he ran the
risk of death, but he calmly decided that he ought to continue
to serve Goucher during the emergency of a transition period.
On the afternoon preceding the formal opening of the College
in 1929 he had a severe heart-attack. When he made an
address the next day in the auditorium there were physicians
seated in the front row ready to treat him in case of heart-
failure, but he completed his address in such a manner as to
receive high praise,^' In the same spirit he continued his two
great tasks — the renaissance of morale and the restoration of
normal academic functions. He inspired others with his
courage. To an administrative officer who was troubled at the
difficulties which had been piling up, he would say whenever he
met her accidentally in the hall, "Be patient — these things will
pass."
On the evening of January 17, 1930, Dr. and Mrs. Froe-
licher in the Alumnae Lodge entertained Homer St. Gaudens,
the son of the famous sculptor, who was to lecture on modern
art in the Auditorium. After the dinner Dr. Froelicher had
gone upstairs with Mr. St. Gaudens to get his overcoat, prepa-
ratory to leaving for the lecture, when he had a heart-attack.
He sank quietly back upon the bed and the end came without
struggle and without pain.^^ Simple funeral services were
held on Sunday, January 19, in the Auditorium, which was
crowded with those who had great esteem for him. The ser-
vices were conducted by the Reverend Dr. Harris E. Kirk,
who spoke of his rare culture, his love of beauty, especially the
beauty of goodness, his combination of idealism and practical-
ity in his educational work, his public spirit and acts of benefi-
cence, and the courage with which he entered upon his last
great service and gladly laid down his life for the College.
Tributes
The Board of Trustees adopted resolutions prepared by
Judge Morris A. Soper and Judge George A. Solter, which, in
part, are as follows:
3IO THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
No one in Baltimore in our time has done as much as he to create and
maintain an understanding appreciation of the finer things in the world of
art. No one on the original faculty in those critical early days, and no one
who has since come to us, has done more to establish and maintain the high
standard of scholarship which has placed Goucher in the front ranks of Ameri-
can colleges.
These things were the rich fruits of a scholarly life, and they explain the
success of his educational achievement. But they tell only of one side of his
personality. We like to dwell on those endearing qualities which led him to
be truly called "The Beloved Professor." Someone has written of him that
he has been a part of the college life of every student who has ever attended
Goucher; and this is true not merely because there was no Goucher before
he came, but because the fine flavor of his life affected all who came within
the sphere of his influence. It was not merely that a store of learning filled
his mind, but dignity, courtesy, modesty and humor characterized his spirit,
and contributed with an inspiring belief in the student's ability and a deep
sympathy with the student's difficulties to make him an ideal teacher.
How fortunate for the institution, and how fitting in the eyes of all friends
of the College, that when a vacancy occurred, he was available to assume the
duties of the President, so that in his closing days we had the benefit of his
ripe experience, and he had the distinction of leading the work which he had
so long devotedly loved! His memory will long he cherished, and his
influence will be felt not only here but throughout the land wherever students
shall carry something of the high conception of living which they caught
from him; and we, of the Board of Trustees, while gratefully remembering
his labors, will do well if in the selection and maintenance of the teaching
faculty the pattern of his career is ever before our eyes.
The president of the New York Chapter of the Alumnae
Association, Winnifred Brown, '20, gave an appreciation
luncheon to honor the memory of Dr. Froelicher. There were
sixteen speakers. One of them, Isabel Van Sickle, '09, (Mrs.
John Whyte), who had had the opportunity to know him
intimately even during vacations, said:
Dr. Froelicher, many of us feel, was the greatest teacher of our experience.
His was not merely a cloak of book learning, to come off and on; his culture
was a real part of him. Yet we were not afraid of him. . . .
I remember how the Froelicher home was opened to us and we knew we
were welcome. I remember those meetings of the Schiller Kranzchen (I
ADMINISTRATIONS OF DR. FROELICHER AND DR. STIMSON 3 II
had taken German just to be with Dr. Froelicher) when we sat on the floor,
and sang and tried to converse in German. We always had the same
delicious dessert; hot chocolate, whipped cream, and lady fingers. Mrs.
Froelicher created such a wonderful atmosphere of hospitality.
There was nothing self-seeking about him; he never had time to turn his
wonderful art lectures into a book to bring him fame. He preferred to give
his best to his students. . . .
I feel that I knew him best at Pocono. To know him thoroughly one
must see him in the woods. He had a love of nature beyond anything that
most Americans know. One felt that when he was alone in the woods he
was never lonely. We used to go on long walks with Dr. Froelicher always
in the lead, for he always had found the hidden and interesting places first.
Last summer he showed us an arduous climb to a little lake in the woods,
clear and cold, with no outlet. His name for it was "Lost Lake."
His grandchildren (there are ten) were among the delights of their summer
home. There were nearly always several hanging about him and begging
for his fascinating stories. One night while a lot of us adults were talking,
several at once, about the fire-place, he saw a wistful little face on the out-
skirts of the group, and soon he had quietly withdrawn to talk to that little
child who was being left out. That was his way, always making people
comfortable with his gentleness and sympathy.
Among the poems written in honor of Dr. Froelicher, there
was one by Esther P. Elhnger, '15:
Requiescat
Like some tall prophet, in calm dignity,
He stood there by the threshold, — at his side
Two loved companions, — when an unseen Guide
Upon his shoulders laid imperiously
No earthly cloak, but Heaven's immensity.
Thus, ere one could a breath from breath divide,
In that dark quiet hour of eventide
This mortal put on immortality.
And he was not. Yet there can be no end
To our remembrance, which enshrines his grace.
His wisdom and the mighty Truth he loved:
We shall remember, in hearts deeply moved,
Those understanding eyes, his smiling face.
The patient loving kindness of our friend.^ ^
312 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
ACTING PRESIDENT STIMSON
Biographical Sketch
At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Board of
Trustees on January 21, 1930, Dean Dorothy Stimson by a
unanimous vote was appointed acting president.
A study of Dr. Stimson's heredity reveals the fact that her
ancestors and relatives on both sides of the family furnished
an unusual number of able leaders. Her maternal grand-
father, Samuel Concord Bartlett, was president of Dartmouth
College. Her father, Henry Albert Stimson, was a distin-
guished Congregational minister, a lecturer in theological
schools, the author of several books, and an active leader in
education. Her sister. Major Julia Catherine Stimson, was
superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps and was director of
the Army Training School for Nurses during its existence.
Henry Lewis Stimson, her first cousin, was Secretary of War
in President Taft's administration and Secretary of State in
President Hoover's administration. Ten individuals who are
connections of the family were listed in "Who's Who in
America" in the edition of 1930.20
Dr. Stimson was born in St. Louis on October 10, 1890. A
year and a half later her residence was transferred to New
York City because her father had accepted a pastorate there.
She was graduated from Miss Spence's school in 1908 and from
Vassar College with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 191 2. During
her first years at Vassar she planned for a business career,
expecting to become a secretary and hoping to rise to an
executive position. Executive work had always appealed to
her, but not teaching. She expressed herself to a Birmingham
reporter in these words: "I used to say I would never be a
teacher. Nothing on earth could induce me to be a teacher.
And then came along the potent influence of a personality, in a
teacher whom I had at Vassar, and turned the current of
events for me, and here I am, happy in the profession I have
DKAX DOKOl'H^' SliMSOX
ADMINISTRATIONS OF DR. FROELICHER AND DR. STIMSON 3I3
chosen. "21 It happened that Miss Stimson was tutoring in
EngHsh and French at Vassar when one of her professors urged
her to become a teacher. Accordingly she chose history as her
specialty and took three courses in that subject in her senior
year. But even in her choice of teaching she had the desire to
combine it eventually with executive work.--
Immediately after her graduation she spent a year at Colum-
bia and received the A.M. degree. Feeling then the need of
practical experience, she taught from 1 913 to 191 5 in the Tudor
Hall School for Girls in Indianapolis. In 191 5-1 6, she was
Curtis Scholar at Columbia, where she took the Ph.D. degree
in 1917. For one semester that year she was instructor in
history at Vassar. In the fall of 191 7 she became dean of
women and professor at Transylvania College in Lexington,
Kentucky. In 1921 she was appointed dean and associate
professor of history at Goucher and is now dean and professor
of history.
Dean Stimson has held positions in both national and local
organizations, of which the following is an incomplete list:
president of the National Association of Deans of Women and
editor of its quarterly bulletin; a member of the Committee on
International Relations of the American Association of Uni-
versity Women; a member of the Executive Committee of the
American Council on Education; a member of the Council of
the History of Science Society; a member of the Alumnae
Council of Vassar; president of the College Club of Baltimore;
chairman of the Program Committee of the Business and
Professional Women's Club of Baltimore; and member of the
Board of Governors of the Young Women's Christian Asso-
ciation of Baltimore. She was counselor at the Aloha Camps
for girls in Vermont and New Hampshire for five years, to
1 92 1. She is the author of a book on The Gradual Acceptance
of the Copernican Theory. She has written magazine articles
on her specialty, the history of the scientific point of view,
and also articles on the work of deans. -^
314 the history of goucher college
Characteristics
Dr. Stimson has given a number of reasons why a dean should
teach at least one course and she herself has taught two. She
had a section of the class in freshman history until the pressure
of administrative duties compelled her to give it up. She still
teaches a course called "The Development of the Scientific
Point of View." It has been praised by the students, and
objective evidence of its success is found in the fact that several
of those who have taken it have become so interested that they
have done graduate work in the same subject. ^^
Naturally, Dr. Stimson's work as dean is more important
than her work as professor. Instead of performing the vari-
ous functions which characterized the first dean when the Col-
lege was smaller, she is what is known as an "academic dean."
Her duty, up to the year 1930, as she herself stated it, concerned
"the advising of students in regard to their schedules and
consultations with students and faculty in regard to curriculum
problems, particularly the adjustment of the student to her
work."" But the duties of the office were broadened in scope
after 1930.26
Dr. Stimson believes very firmly in treating students as
individuals and not according to prescriptions drawn up in
advance to meet the needs of a group. She says: "Under a
shell of indifference or frivolity a student may be concealing
dreams of the day when she may draw together again her
separated parents. Another may have lost her chum in a
terrible accident in another college, leaving her to face a
depression that has narrowly escaped resulting in a complete
breakdown. The most casual conference r.iay suddenly be-
come a deadly earnest matter for both the student and the
dean."27
Closely related to treating the student as an individual is
true friendship for the student. Three words uttered by
Dean Stimson have been cherished and often repeated by the
ADMINISTRATIONS OF DR. FROELICHER AND DR. STIMSON 3I5
Students. "The Dean cares." One who knows her inti-
mately says, "She gives herself wholeheartedly in helping
students solve perplexing problems, personal as well as aca-
demic, and she also enters enthusiastically into their extra-
curriculum activities. She is an efficient executive and a real
friend." One of the specific ways in which Dean Stimson
manifested her friendliness for the students, was in her Monday
Night Readings appreciated by many undergraduates during
fourteen or fifteen years. Immediately after dinner on Mon-
day evenings, the Dean kept informal open house, and then
read aloud to her guests for an hour, choosing on one occasion,
for example, the story of the Kangaroo, from Kipling's Just-So
Stories^ and the history of Baltimore's Mt. Vernon Place
Square from Letitia Stockett's "not too serious," Baltimore.
Another characteristic of Dean Stimson was expressed by a
member of the administrative stafi^ who said: "The students
have confidence in the straightforwardness, integrity, and
justice of the Dean." Another member of the administrative
staff says, "There is no doubt in the students' minds as to
where Dean Stimson stands — there is no straddling an issue."
Yet she blends justice with sympathy.
More important, perhaps, than a statement of the Dean's
belief in the principles of justice, friendhness, and individuality
is the question as to whether the students think she lives up
to those principles. One of them says: "If acquaintance with
her were confined to the seances which are held in the office
behind the usually occupied 'mourners' bench,' it would be
said that Dr. Stimson is very fair and sympathetic and, on the
whole, a 'dandy dean.' Many go to her with their problems;
and those who appear in response to the summons enclosed
in the deadly yellow envelope know that they will meet not
only the dean of Goucher College, but also an understanding
friend. She treats girls as individuals and judges each on her
own merits rather than on the basis of some conventional
3l6 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
method extracted for the occasion from Its official pigeon-
hole "28
Constructive energy is one of Dean Stimson's noteworthy-
traits. What she did during her first year at Goucher will
furnish some examples. She amplified the office machinery
to meet the increased enrolment, installing a duplicate record
system and devising new blanks. She standardized the expla-
nation of absence from class, standardized the reporting of
students doing unsatisfactory work, planned to adjust fresh-
men more rapidly to their new environment by means of talks
given by various members of the administrative staff, and,
finally, organized and regulated tutoring by students. ^^ It is
hardly necessary to add that the Dean is progressive. Perhaps
the most valid criticism which has been made is that she is
impatiently progressive. To this her friends reply that an
impatient desire to change wrong conditions is better than
excessive patience. Her own career exemplifies progress, being
characterized by "increasing breadth and clarity of judg-
ment.''^"
Among the greatest of the merits of Dean Stimson is the
moral and spiritual leadership which she exerts. She is char-
acterized by a deep earnestness concerning the triumph of
right methods of living over wrong methods. It is a rare art to
deal with disagreeable topics in an agreeable way, avoiding both
harshness and excessive solemnity. It requires refinement of
taste and a sense of humor. Scattered through the pages of
Goucher College Weekly for many years back are reports of
talks by the Dean which suggested antidotes for student frail-
ties in such a way as to win student approval. ^^
Much of the influence which Dr. Stimson and Dr. Froelicher
exerted as acting presidents was due to their previous cham-
pionship of the good as well as the true and the beautiful. It
is to the credit of Goucher students that they did not morbidly
criticize such championship as "preaching," but accepted the
messages in the earnest spirit in which they were given.
administrations of dr. froelicher and dr. stimson 317
Academic Problems
When Dean Stimson was appointed acting president an
editorial, of which the following is a part, appeared in the
Gaucher College Weekly: "We congratulate the Trustees on the
only choice which could insure the continuity of the administra-
tion. We congratulate ourselves on our good fortune. The
press has had much to say about the novelty of a woman
president. We have no doubts. The semester, we think,
can scarcely fail to be what Dr. Stimson has said that she wants
it to be — for the seniors the happiest spring of their lives, and
for the whole college a profitable and progressive four
months."32
The threefold division of presidential powers which was
made at the end of President Guth's administration was con-
tinued during this administration until near the end, when Mrs.
Guth resigned as business executive. Her resignation became
effective on May i, 1930. The duties of the office were then
transferred to the Acting President.
Dr. Stimson, at the beginning of her administration, planned
to spend the morning hours in the president's office and the
afternoon hours in the dean's office, but was soon able to leave
the dean's work entirely in the hands of an acting dean. Dr.
Louise Kelly was appointed to this office but within forty-eight
hours was called away by critical illness at home. Dr. Elinor
Pancoast was then appointed and she continued in office not
only while Dr. Stimson was acting president but for a year
longer while Dr. Stimson, for reasons to be explained later,
was on leave of absence in England. Dr. Pancoast, who at that
time was associate professor of economics, was a progressive,
keenly interested in new educational methods. She not only
performed the routine duties of her office, but in her report to
the President made a number of recommendations for improve-
ments (chiefly in general educational policy and the work of
committees) and nine of these recommendations have been
adopted.^^
3l8 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Dr. Froelicher's administration and Dr. Stimson's were
almost like one in quality of purpose, selection of methods, and
degree of success. Dr. Stimson began her Monday talks in
chapel at this time. She continued the policies of the restora-
tion of morale and the resumption of normal college functions.
She continued the use of cooperative and democratic methods.
She carried forward the work on academic problems which
Dr. Froelicher had begun and also dealt with new problems
which arose during her own administration. About half of
these were definitely disposed of and the remainder were
passed on to the next administration as unfinished business.
The curriculum committee consisted of the Acting President,
the Registrar, and Professors Beatty, Bowman, Gallagher, and
Hopkins. After thirteen long meetings they presented to the
Board of Control modifications of the curriculum which were
adopted on March 3, 1930. Dr. Stimson on February 3 raised
the question in the Board of Control as to whether honors
should be given to students below the senior class for unusually
excellent work. The Board of Control and the Board of
Instruction both approved the idea. A committee consisting
of Professors Lewis, Curtis, and Taylor was appointed to study
the question in detail but final action was not taken till the
next administration. On March 12, the Board of Control
took action to meet the new requirements of the Maryland
Department of Education for teaching certificates. On April
7, the Board of Control adopted two recommendations of the
Board of Instruction: one in regard to sectioning students in
required courses on the basis of academic achievement (which
was made a matter of departmental policy) and the other in
regard to increasing the flexibility of the curriculum in the
freshman year. On April 14, Dr. Stimson announced to the
Board of Control that the Executive Committee of the Board
of Trustees had set aside five hundred dollars "in the budget for
1930-31 for the aid of special research by members of the
faculty upon the recommendation of a faculty committee and
ADMINISTRATIONS OF DR. FROELICHER AND DR. STIMSON 3I9
the approval of the Acting President.''^" A Research Projects
Committee was appointed consisting of Professors Williams,
Bowman, and Wilfred A. Beardsley. Also at this same
meeting Dr. Stimson announced the receipt of a letter from
the Superintendent of the Baltimore Public schools "informing
us of a plan in three Baltimore high schools to give (to selected
students) a five-year course, including first year college sub-
jects. The colleges are being asked to admit these students
directly into the sophomore year of college work."^^ Professors
Gallagher, McCarty, and Cleland were appointed as a com-
mittee to report on the subject the next year. In Dr. Robert-
son's administration, Goucher College cooperated cordially
in this progressive experiment not only in putting before the
teachers involved the college requirements of the freshmen
year which the accelerated class would need to meet but also
even "by lending apparatus and setting aside a special shelf
in the College Library for books reserved for the use of the
Baltimore accelerated group. It is an interesting fact that of
the forty teachers taking part in the work of this accelerated
group, twenty-one are graduates of Goucher College. "^^
At a meeting of the Board of Control on May 5, 1930, Dr.
Stimson suggested a change in procedure at the opening chapel
assembly in the fall, namely, that this assembly be made more
of an academic occasion, with the faculty marching in academic
costume and taking seats on the platform. The plan met with
general approval and is now a custom of the College.
Some fundamental changes were initiated as a result of a
series of discussions in the Goucher College Chapter of the
American Association of University Professors. This Chapter
had been organized on February 8, 192a, at the suggestion of
Dr. William H. Longley, who was its first president. During
the spring of 1930 there were discussions of such questions as
the powers of the faculty, tenure of office, bases of promotion,
and the salary scale." Partly as a result of the discussions,
the Board of Instruction passed a motion requesting the Board
320 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
of Control to appoint a committee to look into some of these
questions. The Board of Control, on April 21, 1930, adopted a
motion which, when amended, was as follows: "That a com-
mittee be appointed to look into the possibility of a revision
of the relations between the Board of Instruction and the
Board of Control, and to consider other related questions,
such as faculty representation on the Board of Trustees;
method of faculty appointment, promotion and dismissal;
salary scale; and personnel of the Board of Instruction and
Board of Control." It was also voted that the committee be
appointed by the Chair and that it should represent different
shades of opinion and that it should consist of seven members —
four members of the Board of Control and three members of the
Board of Instruction. The Chair later appointed Dr. Curtis,
chairman, and Dr. Longley, Dr. Beardsley, and Dr. Bacon
from the Board of Control; Dr. Crane, Dr. Goddard, and Mr.
Ustick from the Board of Instruction. This committee made
an important report in the next administration, which was the
basis of several significant innovations, to be described later.
Death of Dr. Van Meter
Dean Emeritus Van Meter died on Tuesday, April 8, 1930,
at the age of eighty-seven years and seven months. The
funeral services were conducted in Alumnae Lodge on April 1 1
by Dr. John T. Ensor, of the First Methodist Episcopal Church.
According to Dr. Van Meter's request the services were exceed-
ingly simple, consisting of reading from the Scriptures and
prayer, with no eulogies. The burial was in Greenmount
Cemetery.
The College had lost within three months two honored and
much loved pioneers who had rendered it eminent services for
more than four decades: Dr. Van Meter, who was largely
instrumental in its founding, and had been in its service in one
way or another since the day it was founded, and Dr. Froe-
licher who began his work when its doors were opened. On
ADMINISTRATIONS OF DR. FROELICHER AND DR. STIMSON 32I
Commencement Day, Acting President Stimson paid impres-
sive tributes to these leaders.
Election of President Robertson
Mr. Edward L. Robinson, the chairman of the committee to
choose a president of Goucher College, reported to the Execu-
tive Committee and to the Board of Instruction that Dr.
David Allan Robertson was the choice of the committee, and
the report was received very favorably. Mr. Robinson said
that Dr. Robertson had not yet consented to accept the presi-
dency if offered to him, but it was hoped that he would if the
Board of Trustees made the offer unanimously. Both the
hopes of unanimity and of acceptance were fulfilled. What
happened at that important meeting of the Board of Trustees
on May 26, 1930, is well told by Dr. Mary Jane Hogue, '05,
who was senior alumnae trustee at that time and reported the
proceedings to the Alumnae Association :
Mr. Robinson gave a very comprehensive report of the vast amount of
work which this committee has been steadily and quietly doing the past
year and presented the name of Dr. David Allan Robertson, at present As-
sistant Director of the Council on Education in Washington. After listen-
ing to his academic record, and to what his friends said of him, and to testi-
monials from other members of the committee, and to Dr. Stimson, we all
felt that we were peculiarly fortunate in being able to call such a man to the
presidency of Goucher. Mary Conner Hayes, one of the committee, said
"all the letters from the alumnae stressed two points. They wanted first
an educator and second some one who can help us to build a Greater
Goucher." These qualities Dr. Robertson seems to possess in a very happy
combination with many other qualities which eminently fit him for the
presidency of Goucher College.^ ^
Tributes to Dr. Stimson as Acting President
At this same meeting of the Trustees, Dr. Stimson made her
report as acting president and Mr. Robinson "expressed the
appreciation of the Executive Committee for the prompt and
cooperative way in which Dean Stimson had responded to the
322 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
emergency situation resulting from Dr. Froelicher's sudden
death in January, and of the devoted and unselfish way in
which she had thrown herself into the duties and responsibilities
of the acting presidency, and of the efficiency with which she
had conducted the work of the office." The Board of Trustees
took action as follows:
Resolved, that the Board of Trustees of Goucher College are grateful
for the efficient service that Dr. Dorothy Stimson has rendered in the last
few months as Acting President of the College; and we believe that her po-
sition in the world of education is such that her occupancy of the place has
given an added distinction to the institution.
More than a year previously Dr. Stimson had been honored
by a Guggenheim Fellowship bestowed for the purpose of
enabling her to study the relation of ecclesiasticism in England
to the scientific thought of the seventeenth century. When
Dr. Froelicher became acting president he joined with the
Executive Committee in requesting her to postpone the utiliza-
tion of the fellowship for one year, and she consented to do this
in order to serve the College in an emergency. On June lo,
1930, the Executive Committee had a meeting at which Mr.
Robinson read a letter from Dr. Stimson requesting leave of
absence for the year 1930-31 to avail herself of the Guggenheim
Fellowship. This leave was granted. ^^
The last words of Dr. Stimson's report to the Board of
Trustees were as follows: "Whatever has been accomplished
during these months has been made possible only through the
wholehearted cooperation and help given me by students,
faculty, trustees, and staff alike. My thanks are offered to
them all, together with my best wishes for the College under its
proposed new leader. His is indeed a great opportunity, and
the College is fortunate to have found one so well fitted to
make fine use of that opportunity." These words fore-
shadowed that cordial cooperation between the new President
and the Dean which has characterized Dr. Robertson's admin-
istration.
PRESIDENT DAVID ALLAN ROBERTSON
Chapter Fill
THE ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT DAVID
ALLAN ROBERTSON
1930-
Biographical sketch — Inauguration — Reorganization of the fac-
ulty — Reorganization of admissions — Reorganization of the curric-
ulum — Minor academic changes and developments — Retirement of
members of the faculty — Necrology — Financial conditions — Gifts
and bequests — Publicity — Changes in the buildings: Foster House
Infirmary, Recreation Center, Museum, Library — Matters of stu-
dent and of alumnae interest — Fiftieth anniversary, revival of
interest in the move to Towson, and architectural competition — Dr.
Robertson's services to Goucher College.
Biographical Sketch
DR. David Allan Robertson, the fifth president of
Goucher College, a descendant of the Robertson and
Mitchell famihes of Banffshire and Perthshire, Scot-
land, and of the Dawson family of Aberdeenshire, Scotland,
and a collateral descendant of Sir William Dawson, principal
of McGill University, Montreal, was born in Chicago, October
17, 1 880. His parents, John and Christina Mitchell Robertson,
were both born in Scotland.
As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, he found
time to sketch cartoons of students and professors for the
weekly newspaper; he acted Shylock in The Merchant of Venice
and the miser in Ben Jonson's The Case is Altered. He re-
ceived the degree of Bachelor of Arts in June 1902 with honors
including election to Phi Beta Kappa. ^
Having resolved to teach English, he began his graduate
work at the University of Chicago in 1902. He was awarded
a fellowship in English in 1904, taught as assistant in the
English department during 1904-05, as associate in 1905-06,
3'^2
3H
THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
and as instructor from 1906 to 1910. From 1910 to 191 4 he
was assistant professor at his Alma Mater and associate profes-
sor from 1 91 4 to 1923. In these nineteen years of teaching his
field ranged from English I for freshmen to graduate courses in
Elizabethan Drama and in Contemporary Literature. It was
he who introduced the use of the Atlantic Monthly in composi-
tion courses. His constant aim in teaching was to develop the
individual, for he considered that the real teacher's task was
the awakening of minds, and he felt that the stimulation of the
student to self-education was the secret of successful teaching.
Desirous of inspiring in his students an interest in creative
writing he has in later years had satisfaction in their pubHca-
tions. He felt that not only did teachers of economics, politi-
cal science, history, and foreign languages have a duty in
training the citizen's responsibility for maintaining effective
and happy relations with others — especially in groups such as
the family, the municipality, the state, and the nation — but
"even a teacher of English literature may do so," he said, "as I
learned some years ago. ... It seemed to me that the reading
of Thomas Hardy's The Dynasts made my students more
internationally minded."^
Interest in art led him to become a founder and at one time
president of the Renaissance Society, which fostered campus
exhibitions of paintings and prints; interest in music caused
him to be a founder and for twelve years executive officer of
the University Orchestral Association which arranged at the
University concerts by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to his teaching. Dr. Robertson was the secretary
to the President from 1906 to 1920. He was executive officer
of the University College, the down-town college (1906-08);
he was director of public lectures and so was brought into
contact with many distinguished men and women; he edited
the University Record (1915-20). Perhaps the most im-
portant position which he filled during these years was that of
dean of the Colleges of Arts, Literature, and Science from
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 325
1 91 9 to 1923. His work as dean was characterized by the
recognition of the individuahty of the students, by skill in the
diagnosis of delinquencies, and by modern methods.
Dr. Edwin E. Slosson tells of an example:
The son of a prominent citizen of a western town entered the University
of Chicago at the age of eighteen. . . , Shortly after the term began, his in-
structor reported him to the dean as absolutely incompetent to do the class-
work. Dr. David A. Robertson was not only kind and considerate, which
all deans are expected to be, but also skilled in the diagnosis of delinquencies
which not all deans are. By conversation in non-bookish subjects, the boy
was found to be shy but not stupid. The dean suspected that he had not
been taught to read properly so he sent him over to the department of ele-
mentary education where the tests of the mechanics of reading were being
carried on. . . . Within half an hour the eye expert telephoned back to the
dean that the boy was equal to a fourth grade pupil in oral reading, a fifth
grade in silent reading, while in the comprehension of what he read he was up
to the average of his age. The dean inquired into the life of the boy and
found that his father and mother were so fond of reading that they had read
his lessons to him and he had got used to learning by ear instead of eye.
After explaining the situation to the parents. Dr. Robertson put the boy
under an expert in reading. At the end of three months he was allowed to
register for two courses, one in geography, one in economics, both involving
a great deal of reading. He passed both with Grade B and was able to
finish college. ... He has regained his self-confidence and self-respect and will
doubtless prove adequate to the financial and social responsibilities which
will devolve upon him in life from his father's position in the community.^
During this period Dr. Robertson was also secretary of the
Chicago War Service (1917-18), and, representing the Uni-
versity of Chicago, secretary of the Association of American
Universities (1918-23). For the latter organization, after he
had moved to Washington, he investigated some two hundred
American colleges.
From 1924 to 1930 he was assistant director of the American
Council on Education, with headquarters in Washington. For
the Committee on Foreign Travel and Study (1924-28), he
developed the idea of the Junior Year Abroad."* Dr. Robert-
son has visited some fifty European Universities. In 1926 he
3^6 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
represented American Universities at the Third Congress of
British Universities. He has published studies of international
exchange of teachers, foreign study for undergraduates, and
other international educational relations.^
The American Council on Education also made him secre-
tary of the Committee on Personnel Methods and chairman of
the subcommittee on Personality Measurements (1927-30).
His reports were published by the Council. The importance
of the work of this personnel committee is indicated by the
fact that it received large grants from the General Education
Board.
Another by-product of his work with the American Council
on Education was his exposure of "diploma mills." "Degrees
for Dollars" appeared in the Educational Record, January
1926, and "The Educational Underworld" in The North Central
Association Quarterly, September 1926.
During the time of his Washington residence he became a
trustee of the National Vocational Guidance Association in
1929, and a trustee of Fisk University in 1927. Dr. Robert-
son served as an elder in the Church of the Covenant, a Presby-
terian church in Washington, 1 926-1 930, as president of the
Washington Federation of Churches 1 929-1 930, the first
layman to occupy such a position, as chairman of the Middle
States Committee of the Religious Education Association,
and as trustee of the National Church Extension Society.
Before coming to Goucher College, Dr. Robertson had
written much on education, many of his pamphlets being
sources for the latest information concerning important new
developments. He had pubhshed studies on various phases of
English literature. A list of more than fifty such articles
published during the years 1925 to 1929 is given in the July
1930, Goucher Alumnae Quarterly, ^ Dr. Robertson was also the
author of three books: The University of Chicago: an Official
Guide, The Quarter-centennial Celebration of the University of
Chicago, and American Universities and Colleges. The last,
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 3I7
published in 1928/ is encyclopaedic in its information in
regard to higher education in this country and has been re-
published by the American Council on Education under the
editorial direction first of Dr. John H. MacCracken and later
of Dr. C. S. Marsh. The late Dr. Clyde Bowman Furst, secre-
tary of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching said of this book that it "contains more information
concerning higher education than any other single volume ever
published in the United States. I know of no reader who does
not agree with those who have called it clear, concise, complete,
illuminating, invaluable, and quite the best book of its kind."^
Dr. Robertson received in 1928 the degree of Doctor of
Laws from George Washington University and in 1929 the
degree of Doctor of Literature from Bucknell.
Goucher College was fortunate in obtaining the leadership
of a man of such unusual background and personality, of such
wide experience and familiarity with modern educational
standards, a man well known in educational circles because of
his scholarship, administrative ability, and numerous publica-
tions.^ And he brought with him a wife closely identified
with all of his work.
It was through their mutual love for music that Dr. and Mrs.
Robertson first became acquainted. Though they had been
fellow students at the University of Chicago, it was during the
intermission at a symphony concert that they met. Miss Anne
Victoria Knobel was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister
of Chicago, and descendant of a line of clergymen, teachers,
and lawyers. On December 26, 1906, she and Dr. Robertson
were married. For three years, 1911-1914, they presided over
Hitchcock House, one of the dormitories at the University of
Chicago. There Mrs. Robertson kept open house on Sunday
afternoon, and students and friends dropped in for tea.
One of her Chicago friends, Julia Cooley Altrocchi, author
of "Snow Covered Wagons," who is the wife of the chairman
of the Department of Italian in the University of California,
32\
THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
replied to the invitation of the Board of Trustees to attend
the Inaugural ceremonies as follows:
As an old and devoted friend of Dr. and Mrs. David Allan Robertson,
may I count myself, at this happy time, among those numerous admirers
who are not only felicitating the Robertsons, but who are felicitating Goucher
College upon its acquisition of such a leader's wife.
Of Dr. Robertson's distinguished qualities you are already well aware,
for it was the discovery of those very qualities that led inevitably to his
selection. It is of my loved friend, Anne Knobel Robertson, who is herselt
a distinguished personality — and far more than a beautiful accessory ac-
quisition—that I wish especially to speak. Mrs. Robertson is unusual for
her gifts of heart and mind — her benevolences, her loyalties, her gay enthu-
siasms, her richly-cultured mind, her quick, Meredithian wit, her literary
talents, her undeniable leadership, her irresistible charm, and her unusual
gift — which amounts to a genius — with people, transforming her drawing-
room into a genuine salon. She resembles, with an added strength and sub-
stantiality, the grandes dames of French salon life. Such a President's
wife cannot fail to bring to Goucher College an unusual atmosphere of dis-
tinction, charm, picturesqueness, and happiness! I, who deeply love and
admire Mrs. Robertson, congratulate you upon her pending regime as well
as upon Dr. Robertson's, and predict and wish for you and Goucher College
a golden future.
In Baltimore, Mrs. Robertson's graciousness and ability as
a hostess have brought together "town and gown" and have
made for her a large circle of friends. Her receptions on the
first Wednesday afternoon of each month have been distin-
guished. Dr. and Mrs. Robertson during their residence in
Chicago and Washington, and in their travels in this country
and abroad, have met many of the world's famous people. A
considerable number of these they have brought to Goucher as
lecturers before the College or guests at their receptions, and
so have made it possible for residents of Baltimore and members
of the college community to hear them and to meet them.
Books and people are the hobbies of Dr. and Mrs. Robertson,
and in the President's House, accumulated through the years,
are prints and paintings, letters and inscribed books — "souve-
nirs amicaux" — treasured because of their associations.^"
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON
329
By night, through "The Lighted House," as students affec-
tionately call the president's home, and by day, through the
flowers in the windows, Mrs. Robertson sends a continuous
message of cheer to the students, a message which they say is
"alternately sympathetically encouraging and companionably
gay, according to our mood.''^^ In the equipment of an at-
tractive new infirmary and the organization of an Auxiliary to
maintain it, Mrs. Robertson has expressed in a specific way
her constant concern for the welfare of the young women at the
College. 12 Her acts of thoughtfulness are innumerable-
chrysanthemums to a sick freshman, concert or theatre tickets
to students far from home, tea to the secretaries in the presi-
dent's ofiice, and the same "cheer" to members of the Executive
Committee.
President and Mrs. Robertson have manifested in many ways
appreciation of loyal and efficient service by the colored
employees. Mrs. Robertson gives an annual party to the
laundresses just before Christmas, when the laundry is appro-
priately decorated.
Mrs. Robertson, like her husband, is deeply interested in
literature, art, and music and has a long record of social
service. She has made a special study of contemporary fiction
and has delivered many addresses on that and other subjects
to numerous clubs and societies in Chicago, Washington, and
Baltimore.i3 j^ Washington she was a member of the Council
of the Girl Scouts and a director of the Scouts in the District
of Columbia. She was on the Million Dollar Fellowship Com-
mittee of the Washington Branch of the American Association
of University Women. She was also active in the work of the
Church of the Covenant.^"
Since she came to Baltimore, her chief interest has been the
activities of Goucher College but she has served on the Board of
Managers of the Babies Milk Fund Association, as a director
of the Women's Civic League of Baltimore, as district chief for
District 9 of the Community Fund Drive, as a member of the
220 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Women's Committee of the Johns Hopkins University drive,
as a member of the program committee of the Baltimore Music
Club, as Honorary President of the Lizette Woodworth Reese
Memorial Association.
President and Mrs. Robertson have one son, David Allan
Robertson, Jr., who prepared at the Oilman Country School
for Princeton University. After graduation with Phi Beta
Kappa honors from Princeton University in 1936, he returned
to Princeton as Fellow in English. In the spring of 1937, he
was awarded a Flenry Fellowship for study at Trinity College,
Cambridge. In the autumn of 1938, he returned to the
Graduate School of Princeton University as a Fellow in English.
After coming to Baltimore in 1930 as president of Goucher
College, Dr. Robertson continued to work in various social
and educational fields. The record of his services outside the
College includes the following: he was appointed by the
Governor of Maryland a member of the Baltimore Commission
on Stabilization of Employment (1930), a member of the
Executive Committee of the Baltimore Federation of Churches
(1930-), an elder in Brown Memorial Church (1931-), vice
president of the Religious Education Association of the United
States and Canada (1931-32), chairman of the Committee on
Qualifications of Phi Beta Kappa (1931-), in succession to the
late Dwight F. Morrow, member of the Senate of the United
Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa Senate (1931-), first vice president
of the Goethe Society (1932), a member of the Executive Com-
mittee of the Association of American Colleges (1933-35);
member of the Executive Committee of the League of Nations
Association (1934-), member of the Maryland Committee on
the Higher Education of Negroes, (1934-), chairman of the
committee on the dictionary of educational terms of the
American Council of Education (1934-), a member of the
Maryland Committee on Mandatory Old Age Pensions (1934-
2^) J a member and later chairman of the Commission on Higher
Institutions of the Middle States Association of Colleges and
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 33I
Secondary Schools (1935) and president of the Association
(1936-37)-
His Phi Beta Kappa activities are especially interesting. He
was president of Beta of Illinois and Beta of Maryland, but he
performed more important services as a member of a special
committee of the Senate which established criteria and meth-
ods to be used in determining eligibility for Phi Beta Kappa.
Since 1931 he has been chairman of the Committee on Quali-
fications, which recommends to the Senate institutions to
receive charters for chapters of the Society.^^
The Goucher Chapter of the American Association of Univer-
sity Professors on October 21, 1929, nearly seven months be-
fore they knew that Dr. Robertson was being considered for
the presidency, voted that the following were desirable quali-
fications of a president of Goucher: (i) Administrative and
financial ability, (2) broad religious sympathies, (3) ability to
appeal to the interests of and to make friendly contacts with
the Baltimore community, the press, other educational organi-
zations, and eastern and southern people, (4) ability to co-
operate; easily approached by students and faculty, (5) a wife
who possesses social charm and an understanding of the place
of a college in the community, (6) creative imagination and
an open and liberal attitude toward the content and method
of college education, (7) national reputation for scholarly
interests.
Dr. Robertson's reasons for accepting the invitation to
Goucher are indicated in his letter of acceptance, which was
read at commencement by Mr. Edward L. Robinson, the
acting president of the Board of Trustees. Dr. Robertson
said that he was acquainted with the admirable educational
record of the College and saw before it a great opportunity.
He was convinced that the Board of Trustees was in sympathy
with the high purpose of developing it to an even greater
excellence; that they comprehended the rapidly changing con-
ditions of American life and education, especially that of
22'^
THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
women; and would be active in realizing the vision of Goucher's
opportunity. He believed the faculty were ready for the
experimentation and interpretation on which to build pro-
gressive educational policies. He said:
I am informed that the alumnae and students are sensible of their re-
sponsibility and eager to demonstrate their loyalty by cooperating in the
development of a still finer Goucher. If they, while undergraduates as well
as alumnae, will exhibit that high quality of scholarship and character for
which their College has always stood, it will be possible to win for their
Alma Mater, long called the Woman's College of Baltimore, the proud and
generous support of that queenly city.^®
'J'he Baltimore News commented thus on the choice of Dr.
Robertson :
He is a tried and trained, a broadly experienced educator. From his
record he must be a good executive, both in affairs and among students.
The high quality of his friends makes it plain that he can move among the
leaders of men and be one of them.
So, in his choice, there is strong hope for four highly desirable, perhaps
necessary, things:
That Dr. Robertson will raise the scholastic standards of Goucher even
higher.
That he will carry the college to a new home and a broader scope of work
at Towson.
That he will lead the college into the daily thoughts and feelings of Balti-
more and gather those thoughts and feelings around the college.
That one more high intellect and strong, vigorous personality will be
added to the life of this city.^^
Inauguration
President Robertson assumed the duties of his office on
June 1 6, 1930. His inauguration as the fifth president of
Goucher College took place on Friday afternoon, April 24, 1931,
at the Lyric, which was filled with an audience of 2500 people.
Distinguished visitors, 250 in all, occupied seats on the plat-
form. "England, Canada, and Switzerland, India, Turkey,
Porto Rico, and Palestine, forty of the United States of
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 233
America, as well as two hundred and seventeen universities
and colleges, were represented there, in addition to many-
educational societies and associations and individual savants. "^^
Mr. Edward L. Robinson presided at the ceremonies.
Prayer was offered by the Reverend Edward Louis Watson,
D.D., pastor of the Waverly Methodist Episcopal Church.
Two internationally famous scientists were next on the pro-
gram. An address on "University Women and International
Relations" was given by Dr. Winifred Clara Cullis, professor
of physiology at the University of London and president of the
International Federation of University Women. Another
address on "Education and Unemployment" was given by Dr.
Robert Andrews Millikan, director of the Norman Bridge
Laboratory and chairman of the Executive Committee of the
California Institute of Technology. After these addresses
came the formal induction of the President. Mr. Robinson
presented him with the charter of the College as evidence of
his authority while the audience first applauded vigorously
and then rose and gave him an ovation. President Robertson
replied: "Mr. Chairman and Members of the Board of Trus-
tees, I accept this symbol of authority, and I pledge myself
to devote my best energy to the fulfillment of the responsibili-
ties which it represents."
"The Teacher" was the subject of the President's inaugural
address. He commended the faculty of Goucher because they
not only disseminated truth but discovered it and inspired the
students to discover it. "The best teacher," he said, "is the
leader of an exploring party, not the conductor of a tour. . . .
On this occasion, in spite of the need of Goucher College for
better physical conditions, in spite of our impatience to create
an educational village appropriate to the beautiful Maryland
landscape provided at Towson and useful to our teachers and
excellent body of students, I have chosen to emphasize the
importance to our institution of the teacher — the teacher who
is master of his subject, able to teach so that his students will
334 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
get not only departmental information but that full inspiration
and discipline represented by the purpose of the College as a
whole, possessed of the desire to add to the sum of human
knowledge through the discovery of truth, prompt and effective
in administrative duties, generous and expert in public
service."
Goucher College considered that this was a suitable occasion
to honor four women who were distinguished for their literary
or scientific achievements. Miss Lizette Woodworth Reese,
Baltimore's lyric poet, was presented to President Robertson
by Professor Annette B. Hopkins to receive the honorary degree
of Doctor of Literature. Dr. Florence Rena Sabin, of The
Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, formerly professor
of histology in the Medical Faculty of Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity, was presented by Professor William H. Longley to
receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Dr. Winifred
Clara Cullis, head of the department of physiology at the
School of Medicine for Women in London and professor of
physiology in the University College, London, was presented
by Professor Jessie L. King to receive the honorary degree of
Doctor of Laws. Lou Henry Hoover, (Mrs. Herbert Hoover)
a leader in social service in the old world and the new, and a
Latin scholar who translated Be Re Metallica^ was presented
by Professor Thaddeus P. Thomas to receive the honorary
degree of Doctor of Laws.
After the conferring of degrees, the song of the College,
Almae Matrix was sung, and the benediction was pronounced
by the Reverend Thomas Guthrie Speers, pastor of the Brown
Memorial Presbyterian Church.
In the evening six hundred and twenty-five guests assembled
at a dinner in honor of President and Mrs. Robertson at the
Lord Baltimore Hotel. Mr. Edward L. Robinson, acting
president of the Board of Trustees, presided. The Reverend
Harris E. Kirk, D.D., professor of Biblical literature in Goucher
College, was toastm aster. The Right Reverend Edward Trail
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON ^35
Helfenstein, D.D., Bishop of Maryland, was chaplain. The
speakers were the Honorable William F. Broening, Mayor of
Baltimore, Dr. John H. Latane, professor of American his-
tory at the Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Charles R. Mann,
director of the American Council on Education; Dr. Winifred
Clara Cullis; Dr. Florence Rena Sabin; Miss Lizette Wood-
worth Reese; Mrs. Henry Evans Corner, president of the
Alumnae Association; Miss Virginia Dillon, president of the
Students' Organization; Dr. Katherine Jeanne Gallagher, pro-
fessor of history at Goucher; Mrs. David Allan Robertson;
and, finally. President Robertson.
Commenting on the important effects of the inaugural cere-
monies at the Lyric, Dr. Annette B. Hopkins said: "No one
present who could see and hear could have come away without
a new consciousness of Goucher's place in the educational world
and in the community of Baltimore. To those particularly
close to the College it was an occasion for profound pride,
for gratitude, for resolves that this splendid pomp and pag-
eantry should be an incentive to all concerned to carry Goucher
on through still higher stages of growth into still wider fields
of usefulness. "^^
One effect of the inaugural ceremonies was that Goucher had
more publicity than ever before, resulting in an increased
demand for catalogues. Two motion picture corporations were
active at the Lyric taking pictures, three gave nation-wide
radio broadcasts, and four furnished press services. It was
estimated that over five million people "listened in" at the
ceremonies. The Paramount news reel showing the conferring
of an honorary degree on Mrs. Hoover was shown in seven
thousand theatres here and abroad. The Fox film was shown
in eight thousand theatres.
Reorganization of the Faculty
If "to renew one's self is to live" as Jose Rodo the greatest
of Latin-American philosophers has said, then Goucher Col-
23^ THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
lege has had an abundance of life. Dr. Froelicher in his acting
presidency, remarked: "This college has been founded twice,
once in the early days under the leadership of Dr. Van Meter
and Dr. Goucher, and a second time under Dr. Guth." Had
Dr. Froelicher lived he would undoubtedly have added a third
founding: that under President Robertson. In all cases the
fundamental ideals have been the same — those of the earliest
times — but by changing means adapted to varying conditions,
their realization has been made increasingly possible.
During the short space of the eight years of President Robert-
son's administration, there have been many developments,
some of them of major importance, some of minor, but all of
them working together to make an educational institution
better suited to the needs of an educated woman in the world
of today. A list of the topics to be considered in this chapter
shows the variety and extent of the happenings in the years
1930 to 1938: the reorganization of the faculty, the develop-
ment of a new plan of admissions, important and fundamental
changes in the curriculum, other academic changes, new plans
for publicity, financial problems of depression years, the loss
of members of the faculty and of the trustees by death, the
reorganization of the museum, the rehousing of the library,
and of the infirmary, the establishment of a Recreation Center
and a Cooperative Hall for the students, the beginning of
alumnae giving to the College through the Alumnae Fund and
the arrangement of Adult Education courses by the Alumnae,
the observance of important dates connected with the fiftieth
anniversary of the founding of the College, the renewal of
friendly relations with the Baltimore Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, the reorganization of the Board
of Trustees and the formulation of important plans for the
future development of the College.
President Robertson spent the summer of 1930 studying the
records of Goucher College. So fruitful was this work, in the
light of his previous experience, that when he addressed the
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 337
Board of Instruction at his first meeting with them, on Septem-
ber 29, 1930, he brought valuable suggestions for the develop-
ment of the College in educational, organizational, and finan-
cial ways. And for the realization of these plans he asked
for the cooperation of his "colleagues." "Cooperation" said
he "is a two-way street, from me to you and from you to me."
For the attainment of the objectives set before them, he stated
that he considered the personnel of the faculty entirely ade-
quate, since they were masters of their subjects and of the art
of teaching, and skilled in research and in administration and
in pubUc service. But it was no easy task to which he sum-
moned them, for he asserted his belief in "centralized control
with decentralized responsibility," and that, he pointed out,
would mean more administrative work for the faculty.
In the earliest years of the College, the faculty small in
number, carried on its work as a single body. In 1891, two
branches were created, the Board of Instruction, which in-
cluded all members of the teaching staff but had no legislative
power, and the Board of Control, the body of power which was
made up of professors and such others as the president might
name. 2" For forty years the faculty functioned under this ar-
rangement, with some discontent at times from its more demo-
cratic members,2i but there was no change until the first year
of Dr. Robertson's presidency. A committee on academic reor-
ganization under the chairmanship of Dr. Curtis on February 9,
1 93 1, brought in a report embodying five different plans, rang-
ing from the most progressive to the most conservative.22 At
first the extreme plans received the highest number of votes —
the same number for each — and the intermediate plans very
few. There were many meetings for discussion, and finally
on May 20, 1931, the President, having been appealed to,
summed up the relative advantages of large and small legis-
lative groups. He said "we could be assured of being in the
line of progress if we had a large group with established stand-
ing committees and an executive council." Thus interpreted.
33^ THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
the progressive plan was adopted and the Board of Trustees,
approving the report from the Board of Control, set up:^^
the College Faculty and the President's Council. The Fac-
ulty, according to the By-laws of the Board of Trustees, con-
sists of "the President, the Dean, the Professors, Associate
Professors, Assistant Professors, Instructors, and such other
members of the staff of administration and instruction as may
be designated by the President. Instructors in their first
three years of service have no vote. The Faculty decides all
matters of academic policy, passes upon candidates for degrees
and for fellowships and determines such other questions as
the President may lay before it."^^ The President's Council
consists of "the President, ex-ojfficio, the Dean, ex-officio, and
such other administrative officers, not to exceed three, as may
be designated by the President; and nine members of the
instructional staff of whom one third may be elected by the
Faculty. For members elected by the Faculty the term of
office is three years, one member retiring each year.''^^
These changes resulted practically in an extension of the
academic franchise. At the same time other legislation rela-
tive to appointment, promotion, and tenure was passed and a
procedure in accord with the most modern policy and practise
was set up:
The term of initial appointment to the Faculty shall be at the discretion
of the President. After three years of service, a member of the Faculty of
whatever rank shall have indeterminate appointment subject to the provi-
sions of the following paragraph:
There shall be a faculty committee regarding dismissals. This committee
shall consist of five Professors elected by ballot by the Faculty for a term of
five years, one member retiring at the end of each year and not subject to
immediate re-election. Any member of the staff above the rank of Instruc-
tor, and any Instructor after three years of service, whose dismissal is under
consideration, shall at his request be entitled to a hearing before the President
and this committee. The committee's report and also the President's
recommendation, if it be at variance with that of the committee, shall be
laid before the Board of Trustees before final action in the case is taken.
Recommendations for promotion in rank shall be made by the President
after consultation with the department concerned.^^
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON
339
The faculty in the few years following the reorganization
had to pay the price of democracy by attendance at many
committee meetings. The gradual reduction, however, in the
total number of standing committees has made this work
lighter; in 1932, there were twenty-eight committees;" in 1934,
twenty-one ;2^ in 1937, ten.^^
During Dr. Goucher's administration, there was no by-law
on the subject of the succession in the event of illness or death
of the President, but the custom was for the Dean to exercise
authority when the President was absent. In Dr. Noble's
administration, in 1910, what had been customary was made
law and the Dean became "the second executive officer of the
institution" with duties to be defined by the Executive Com-
mittee in consultation with the President. However, some
duties were defined by the by-laws, one of which was to preside
at meetings of the Board of Control and the Board of Instruc-
tion in the absence of the President. In 1914, during the first
year of President Guth's administration, the clause which says
that the Dean shall be the second executive officer of the
institution was omitted. On October 3, 1927, the clause which
says the Dean shall preside at meetings of the Board of Control
and the Board of Instruction was omitted and on the same day
a new by-law was adopted which says that "In the event of
the disability of the President of the College to perform the
duties of his office the President of the Board of Trustees shall
be empowered to call a meeting of the Executive Committee to
provide for the uninterrupted operation of the institution."
In President Robertson's administration the College repealed
the by-law quoted above and adopted two others. One of
these provides that "The Executive Committee may be called
by the President of the Board of Trustees, by the President
of the College, or by three members of the Executive Com-
mittee."3o
The other provides:
In the event of the death of the President, or his incapacity through ill-
ness to perform the duties of his office, the Dean of the College shall imme-
340 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
diately (with the approval of the Executive Committee), become acting
president, with the powers and duties incident to such office as prescribed by
the By-laws of the College, pending further action by the Executive Com-
mittee.
Power is granted to the Executive Committee as a continuing power to
appoint the Dean or other person acting president in the event of the death,
incapacity through illness or absence of the President and to revoke such
appointment without notice. The general power of the Board of Trustees
to elect or appoint the officers and agents of the college is not abrogated, but
is reserved. ^^
Reorganization of Admission Procedure
At the same time that the committee on the reorganization
of the faculty was at work there was another group — the Ad-
missions Committee — studying better methods of admission.
Their report, adopted February 2, 1932, contained recom-
mendations for important changes in entrance requirements
and administration of admissions. ^^
In brief, graduation from an approved secondary school,
recommendation by school principals, an acceptable score on
a scholastic aptitude test, satisfactory health record, and
favorable personality reports are now factors in the selection
of Goucher students. The personality reports are of the type
developed by the American Council on Education Committee
on Personality Measurement, of which President Robertson
was chairman. Whenever possible, a personal interview with
the applicant is secured. The College also admits students of
irregular or unusual preparation, who show promise of ability
to carry the Goucher program because of the quality of their
preparatory work, their scholastic aptitude test, and excellent
recommendations. Through this hberal policy, the College
is easily able to cooperate with the Progressive Education
Association experimental program.
Admissions are now administered by a director of admis-
sions and an Admissions Committee made up of the Dean,
six members of the faculty, and the Director of Admissions."
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 34I
Financial exigencies delayed the appointment of the Director
of Admissions until 1934, when on recommendation of the
President, the Executive Committee created that office and
appointed Dr. Naomi Riches to fill it.''*
The Registrar, Carrie Mae Probst, '04, was a member of
the Committee on Admissions that set up the new procedure.
In appreciation of her value to the committee and of her long
service to the College in handling admissions, resolutions pre-
pared by the committee were read by President Robertson
at commencement, 1934, which, in part, are as follows:
Her memory of intricate detail, her knowledge of schools and of laws and
of precedents, her shrewd analyses of situations and of persons, her skill in
handling complex problems, her unflagging devotion to tasks that could have
no time limit — all these we have grown to know; but most of all we have
admired her unfailing devotion to the College combined with her sympathetic
concern for the applicant as a human being. Complicated as the machinery
of admission must inevitably be. Miss Probst has never once lost sight of
the fact that a young, eager girl was at the center of each case and that she
deserved and should receive consideration as from the hands of justice itself.
How difficult such attainments are and how well Miss Probst has succeeded
in them, the Committee has learned with its own increasing experience.
The new curriculum and the new time schedule, to be treated
later, increased administrative work in the registrar's office,
and with the setting up of the new admissions requirements.
Miss Probst was left free for these larger responsibilities.
By these changes in the admission requirements, it was
hoped that something already good would be made better.
That the previous methods of selection had been effective is
evidenced by the fact that a high percentage of those who
entered continued until they received the degree of bachelor
of arts. In the President's Letter, February 5, 1934, Dr.
Robertson stated that only one freshman had been dropped on
account of unsatisfactory record and one sophomore advised
to withdraw; warnings had been received by fifteen freshmen,
sixteen juniors, and three who entered from other colleges.
"Apparently," said the President, "the college admission
342 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
requirements have selected students who not only can succeed
in college, but who are determined to do so."
Of his deep personal interest in the selection of students
Dr. Robertson wrote in the Gaucher Alumnae Quarterly: "As
President, I wish to add one word more. The master of an
Oxford College selects the students for his own college. I
found that out some years ago in the office of the Overseas
Secretary when I examined a basketful of credentials of Ameri-
can students who had been accepted or refused admission to
Oxford colleges. Some American institutions are interested
in reproducing in the United States the architecture of Oxford.
I am more interested in the Oxford respect for the individual.
So I determined then that if I ever became president of a
college I would give to the selection of student as much atten-
tion as I discovered that the Honorable H. A. Fisher, Sir
Michael Sadlier, and the Master of Balliol gave to choosing
members of their colleges. . . . That is why I am glad to give
my own attention to applications for admission. "^^
Reorganization of Curriculum
The reorganization of the faculty and of admissions prepared
the way for the most important educational achievement of
this adminiatration — the reorganization of the curriculum.
"The story of the evolution of the Goucher curriculum," said
Dr. McCarty, "is interesting both in the ways in which it
follows and reflects the traditions of each period of its history
and in its several courageous breaks with tradition. "^^ One
of those "courageous breaks" came in President Robertson's
administration. He was keenly aware of, and interested in,
all the challenging discussions of the day regarding higher
education, and one of his chief reasons for accepting the presi-
dency of Goucher College was that it presented "an oppor-
tunity for studying and helping to work out a solution of a very
important American educational problem."" "The size and
quality of the college," he wrote, "affords a first rate labo-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 343
ratory for testing out the educational program. "^^ In his first
address to a Goucher audience given at the opening chapel
service in 1930, and entitled "Mint Leaves and Weightier
Matters," Dr. Robertson made it clear that he was not afraid
to try "new devices in education. "^^
From his extensive study of the college problems President
Robertson might have worked out alone an educational plan
and presented it to the faculty for acceptance. But his way
was a more democratic one, and, considering the group with
which he had to deal, a more effective one. He had been
attracted to Goucher College not only by the educational
problem but by the "imagination, scholarship, freedom, and
energy"*" of the faculty. His confidence in them was not
misplaced for in less than a month after college opened he was
able to write of the faculty: "They are showing a wonderful
spirit in attacking some of the problems of the educational
program."
Some of these problems President Robertson put before the
faculty at his first meeting with the Board of Instruction,
September 29, 1930. From the minutes of that meeting there
is this account of what he said:
In present day American education our program as teachers is to get hold
of the individual student, make an analysis of his abilities, then guide him
in his development. Our practice thus far at Goucher has been in the
right direction. We are small enough to do a really notable piece of work on
the measurement of personality. One of our problems is to determine what
characterizes "a graduate of Goucher College." Let us work out an educa-
tional program in this institution that will capture the imagination of busi-
ness men in Baltimore, New York and elsewhere; we should then have little
difficulty in realizing our dream of the future. . . . Our educational program
is more important than our architectural future.
At the second meeting with the Board of Instruction,
December i, 1930, the President asked the questions: "What
do we want a Goucher graduate to be? What are our objec-
tives? What are we trying to accomplish?" After discussion
344
THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
it was decided that department by department the faculty-
undertake the study of the general and departmental objec-
tives. Their formulation was in itself an educative and broad-
ening process. For a year the faculty discussed the aims of
Goucher College in terms of life activities and of departmental
purposes in relation thereto. ^^
Thus was begun the work on what was called afterwards
"The New Plan" — "The Goucher College Plan." It was
considered first by the curriculum committee, and then by the
full faculty. The second semester of 1933-34 broke the record
for faculty meetings. There were fifteen; five in April, six
in May. On May 14, 1934, the new curriculum was adopted
by the faculty with a vote of 55 to 4.*^
While the curriculum committee was still at work on the
revision it held a conference with representatives of the student
body, meeting with College Council and candidates for honors
to discuss certain problems. Before the final decision of the
faculty was made in relation to the New Plan, it was presented
at chapel by President Robertson, and an invitation to com-
ment on the proposals was given to all students. In the May
number of the Goucher Alumnae ^uarterlyy the President at
the close of an article "Curriculum Proposals" extended the
invitation to comment "to all alumnae." Thus in the most
democratic way possible the curriculum revision was carried
through. It afforded a fine example of the type of Dr. Robert-
son's leadership. The sane radical has his uses but he goes so
fast that few can keep up with him. The conservative does
not go at all. The reactionary goes backward. The moderate
progressive goes forward at a pace which the majority can
attain and maintain. But while the method of revision at
Goucher College was gradual, the purpose was radical in the
best sense of the word. It went to the roots of the problem.
A discussion of the content of the "Goucher Plan" may be
found in Chapter IX, "The Development of the Curriculum."*'
A simple statement of it is found in a message that President
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 345
Robertson broadcast over a Baltimore station, November 6,
To the question "What is college for," the answer of Goucher College
is not in terms of semester hours or required courses, but in terms of the life
activities of an educated American woman of today and tomorrow, in terms
of realistic objectives of general education towards the attainment of which
we require each student to make some progress.
These eight objectives are: i. to establish and maintain physical and men-
tal health, 2. to comprehend and communicate ideas in English and a foreign
language, 3. to understand the scientific method in theory and application,
4. to understand the heritage of the past in its relation to the present, 5.
to establish satisfying relations with individuals and with groups, 6. to utilize
resources with economic and aesthetic satisfaction, 7. to enjoy literature and
the other arts, 8. to appreciate religious and philosophical values.
Reasonable progress towards the eight objectives is required by the end
of the second college year.
How does this requirement differ from requirement of courses? The
difference is the same as that which exists in the American army between
commands and orders. A command must be executed at once in a pre-
scribed way. 'Shoulder arms,* 'Forward, march,' 'Halt,' — these are com-
mands.' Orders are statements of objectives to be attained, with responsi-
bility for finding ways to attain the objectives placed upon the person to
whom the order is given. . . .
The attainment of the eight objectives of general education is the responsi-
bility of the Goucher Student. She may take a course that will help her to
attain the first objective, but she is not required to take Physiology i. She
may have had training at home if the daughter of a physician who afforded
her the opportunity to know how to maintain her physical health. More-
over, she should have more than knowledge. A student may have excellent
knowledge of nutrition; but if she eats the wrong things for her, she can
hardly be said to maintain physical health. So all the influences that affect
a student inside the class room and outside of it, inside the college and out-
side of it, may help or may hinder the student in establishing health habits.
We are interested not so much in a course in physiology or biology or psychol-
ogy as in the maintenance of physical and mental health. To measure that
we consider all available evidence — the general examination at the end of the
second college year, the examinations in courses, the medical examinations
and records, and the judgments of all those who have had the opportunity
to observe the student.
So with the other objectives. . . .
346 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Does the absence of required courses mean that a student is entirely free
to study anything she pleases? That is what the elective system permitted.
It failed. The Goucher plan provides for freedom under guidance. Prac-
tically an individual curriculum is worked out for each student. This is
based on the student's known achievements in various fields of knowledge
and upon her interests and aims. She has the advantage of intimate con-
ference with a guidance officer who has access to all the information about
her — high school and college records, personality reports, etc. The guidance
officer, with an understanding maturer than that of the student, is generally
able to guide the student wisely and to enlist the student's will in her pro-
gram. When the student's will is engaged, there is little difficulty with
studies. . . . The place of the will in progressive education is most important
as a motivating factor. . . .'*'*
President Robertson in another connection referred to this
latter factor in these words: "Its importance is shown in all
of the memoirs written by people important enough to write
their memoirs. The thing we want to get is the self-starting
of the student. We work for that golden moment when a
Woodrow Wilson takes his education into his own hands, or
an Edmund Burke or a Bismarck. It is that instant when the
student becomes responsible for her own education that we
are striving for, teacher and student."^^
Under the New Plan, the College is organized into an Upper
and a Lower Division. In the Lower Division, or the first
two years of college, there are offered courses concerned chiefly
with the laying of broad foundations in certain fields of knowl-
edge useful to every educated American woman in living her
life. In the Upper Division, or third and fourth years, courses
are pursued affording opportunity for a more intensive study
in at least one field of special interest to each student. Separa-
tion between the two divisions is not, however, absolute. Stu-
dents of exceptional ability are given opportunity throughout
the four years to pursue independent study suited to their
capacity."*^
The New Plan is in harmony with recent tendencies in such
institutions as Colgate, Minnesota, Buffalo, Columbia, Swarth-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 347
more, Toronto ;^^ it has some of the features found in a small
number of the most progressive colleges. Said Professor
Florence P. Lewis: "It is eclectic but not imitative; it is not
radical nor subversive; it selects some of the new devices which
seem to have good in them and adapts them to supporting and
furthering the purposes of the solid old structure that has
stood for fifty years. ""^
Under this new curriculum the student's road to a degree is
no easier than it used to be, but "it comes nearer," wrote
R. L. Duffus, "to the ideal of education as an inner experience
as contrasted with the mere satisfaction of requirements
imposed from without. "^^
President Robertson, in discussing the principal distin-
guishing feature of the Goucher College program, said that it
lay in "the emphasis on the objectives. Other institutions
have allowed the individual freedom to organize his own cur-
riculum. Other institutions have also provided guidance
officers in the form of tutors or preceptors. The Goucher
College program affords the student freedom under guidance,
and encourages the student to make her entire experience
inside and outside of the classroom contribute to her attain-
ment of genuine life purposes."
To the Alumnae Council of 1937, President Robertson
brought interesting proof that the Goucher Plan met the needs
of an educated woman of today. In 1935 one hundred alum-
nae of all periods were questioned as to how their work at
Goucher had fitted them for life. They were asked what
modifications of the curriculum of their day would have served
better their needs as revealed later. Their answers, studied
by Dr. Elizabeth Nitchie, brought out the fact that the cur-
riculum of today would have supplied the lacks which some
of the alumnae had found.
In the working of the New Plan, the system of faculty guid-
ance officers is of central importance. Though Goucher Col-
lege had always emphasized work with the individual student
348 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
before the present administration, the details had not been
worked out to make it function most effectively. "Goucher
College," says Dr. Esther Crane, "now plans to give the same
thoughtful attention and careful advice to the brilliant and
well-behaved student, as she, like all other colleges, once gave
only to stupid, unruly, or obviously maladjusted individuals."^"
Some thirty or more specially appointed guidance officers"
from all ranks of the faculty assume the supervision of from
five to ten students in the Lower Division as part of their
regular teaching load. They concern themselves with the stu-
dent's choice of courses, consult frequently with her about her
special problems and find out all they can about her. Thus a
valuable body of information is gained about each student.
"The enlarged scope of the records available on each student,"
commented Dean Stimson, "seems to me to be one of the most
important improvements made by the present administra-
tion.""
Of the appreciation of this guidance system by the parents
of the students, of its value to the guidance officers themselves,
as well as to the young women, Dean Stimson in her annual
report for 1934-35, says:
This new guidance officer system with its definitely official aspect super-
seding the somewhat casual social one of the old faculty adviser system for
freshmen, was planned to give each student much more individual and
detailed attention than had been possible for her when the dean alone had
been doing the academic advising of the new students. This purpose has
been accomplished. In addition in many cases a developing friendly re-
lationship between officer and student has brought each into the other's
home and has been continued during the summer by correspondence. Ap-
preciation of the relationship by the students' families was apparent at the
evening reception in Goucher Hall May 8th when, at the invitation of the
Faculty Club, parents of students in the lower division were invited to meet
the President and the members of the faculty. Many came. The success
of this meeting should mean the development of similar occasions in future
years when the parents and the instructors of the students may meet and dis-
cuss college affairs freely. The guidance officers themselves have gained an
insight into the individual student's problems, personal and academic, that
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 349
has been an eye-opening experience in some instances and in others has bene-
fited the guidance officer in handling his or her own class-room problems. . . .
Dr. Crane, in a paper, "Academic Dietetics," Journal of
Higher Education, April 1936, has given examples of the value
of the guidance officer to the individual student as follows:
The majority of the students ... are taking much the same courses they
have taken in the past. ... In many of these cases the new system has
justified itself, however, because the guidance officers have been able to
explain more clearly the purpose of those courses which were once required
and have made the student believe that they could contribute something
valuable to her own individual development, whereas in the past these
courses tended to be taken as mere requirements, to be "passed off" as easily
as possible. Thus one Freshman who declared that she could not endure the
idea of taking science, was allowed to begin the year without any science
course. Her guidance officer, however, talked with her at length, found that
she was unusually interested in music, and on that basis built up an interest
in a non-technical course in sound, which is given by the physics department.
By the second term, the student was voluntarily enrolled in the regular course
in freshman physics. Surely the new motivation will make that physics
course a more valuable experience. . . .
Since every candidate for a degree needs to be able to appreciate beauty
in some form, each guidance officer talks over with a student her ability to
enjoy literature, art and music, and the methods of utilizing for her de-
velopment the opportunities offered by the courses given in the college and
by the rich resources of Baltimore's libraries, museums, concerts, and
theaters. If the student takes a course in literature or in art she is en-
couraged to ask herself, "What do I see of beauty now that I did not see be-
fore? What books do I enjoy reading or what pictures do I like that meant
nothing to me before?" rather than, "What mark did I get in that course?"
Under a curriculum so planned and directed no student at
Goucher could voice the criticism made by Lincoln StefFens
in his Autobiography. "No one ever developed for me the rela-
tion of any of my required subjects to those that attracted me;
no one brought out for me the relation of anything I was
studying to anything else, except, of course, to that wretched
degree."
In the Goucher Plan, course marks are not abolished, but
2SO THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
ideally they play a secondary role, while under the guidance
of a mature mind the student places her primary emphasis
upon the objectives of her education.
At the same time that the curriculum reorganization was
effected, there wer^ also important changes in the time
schedule." A three term system instead of the semester was
adopted with course examinations scheduled on three days at
the end of each term. To the great satisfaction of the students,
Saturday classes, which had been introduced in 191 6-17, were
omitted.^^ Students now ordinarily carry three courses, each
meeting four times a week. This greater concentration in the
number of subjects studied at one time, according to Dean
Stimson "has provided the framework for more thorough work
and a better concentration of effort.""
The new curriculum, put into operation in the fall of 1934,
was optional with the students. It was difficult to manage
the new and the old plan simultaneously, but the combination
avoided the opposition which a sudden change might have
caused. A majority of the students elected to follow the new
plan. Of the entering freshmen only one student selected
the old plan, and by the end of the year she transferred to the
new.^^ It was natural that few seniors would accept it — only
seven percent did so, but seventy-one percent of the juniors
accepted it, and sixty-five percent of the sophomores.
The student body as a whole were enthusiastic about the
New Plan. Their interest in their work was shown by the
fact that on one Wesnesday some five hundred and fifty stu-
dents out of a total enrolment of six hundred and thirty used
the library.*' Members of the faculty found a new delight
in their work and made over many of their courses. Dean
Stimson in commenting on certain developments the first year
that the Goucher Plan was in operation said:
Most conspicuous has been the enlivening of the faculty. Almost with-
out exception they have participated with zealous enthusiasm in every de-
tail in which they have shared. Though they have grumbled over the time
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 35I
demanded by committees, they have actually asked for more frequent
guidance officer meetings, for example. There has been an excitement in
the air all year. . . . This enthusiasm gave added interest to college activities
and of course vitalized the classroom. The students, especially the more
thoughtful ones, have appreciated the work the faculty were doing and have
gladly adventured with them in the New Plan. In consequence there has
been an excellent spirit throughout the college whichshould be reflected in a
larger than usual return of old students this coming fall. . . .^^
The prophecy with regard to the return of old students was
fulfilled. In the fall of 1935, the number of returning students
broke all previous records; about eighty-six percent came back
as against from eighty to eighty-four percent in previous years.
The new curriculum had succeeded in holding the interest of
old students.
This new educational program had extensive newspaper pub-
licity with releases in four hundred and nine papers and a num-
ber of special articles. Favorable comments from college presi-
dents and other educators came to the president's office.
From the curriculum committees and executives of some six-
teen American universities, colleges, and secondary school
systems came requests for further information. From a
woman's college in China and a Graduate School of Social
Work in India, came a query based on an article about the
Goucher Plan in the New York Times. The faculty and the
President were to be congratulated on the successful launching
of this important educational venture. As Margaret S. Mor-
riss, '04, said in her report to the Alumnae Association as
senior alumnae trustee "it takes courage and initiative on the
part of a faculty to plan and put through such drastic curricu-
lar changes, and that is a sign itself of the vitality and power
of the faculty of Goucher College." Though the working out
of the New Plan was a joint enterprise, it is recognized both
within and without the College that Dr. Robertson was its
originator and leader.
In the unfolding of the new curriculum. President Robertson
recognized not only the danger of failure but the danger of
^^2 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
success — the period when the very success of a plan leads
people to take its operation for granted, and when the whole
plan gets into a rut. For him the work was not finished.
"Fortunately," he wrote, "we do not conceive our plan to be
perfect. Even if we are successful we shall continue to seek
improvement. If at first we do succeed, we'll try, try, again."
Minor Academic Developments
Though the most important educational achievement of this
administration is the setting up of the New Plan itself, there
have also been minor academic changes or developments, some
of them connected directly or indirectly with this major change
and some having other origins. The list is too long to include
all the items and space forbids any lengthy discussion, with one
exception, of those mentioned, but a few of them need to be
considered briefly.
In February 1933, Miss Rutherford, assistant professor of
psychology, was appointed consulting psychologist in con-
nection with the dean's office and under her direction freshmen
have been encouraged to organize their time and are shown
methods of work that have in many cases eased their tension. ^^
The graphs accompanying her reports illustrate vividly the
assistance that her work has been to those who have cooperated
with her.
The work of the psychological counselor in remedial reading
has been of special interest. Among women's colleges,
Goucher and Smith have been pioneers in using the modern
device of watching eye movements for testing speed and com-
prehension in reading. Not only is this work helpful to low
grade students, but it increases the efficiency of high grade
students as well.
Among first year students at Goucher College, as in many
other educational institutions, there was found some ignorance
of ordinary mathematics. To remedy this, individual work
in the kind of mathematics necessary for physics, chemistry,
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 2S3
or biology, or the keeping of a budget has been offered. Work
of this kind fits admirably into the New Plan with its emphasis
not on credits and courses but on objectives. Similarly moti-
vated, though on an entirely different level, is the foreign
language study undertaken by Goucher students as an extra-
curriculum activity: Greek read with Dr. Braunlich, and fairly
simple journal articles in French and German translated by
chemistry students. ^°
Starting early in the fall of 1931, Dr. Robertson's proposal
to make the major system more elastic by not limiting majors
to one department was developed further under the New Plan.
To be able to combine courses of vital interest to the individual
student and make a new major was a delight to those working
in such fields as international relations, comparative literature,
classical civilization, social welfare, statistics, public health."
In common with most of the privately endowed women's
colleges, Goucher introduced the use of honors work.^^ y^g
awarding of general honors, discussed in the acting presidency
of Dr. Stimson,^^ was formulated as a policy on December 8,
1930. Thereafter, at the opening assembly in the fall, the
lists of students whose academic record warranted such recog-
nition, in number not to exceed fourteen percent of each class,
were read, and afforded at the very outset of the year a powerful
stimulant to scholastic effort. Later President Robertson
called attention to the desirability of specific honors for spe-
cific excellence as well as general honors for a high general
average. On April 20, 1931, the faculty made provision for
departmental honors, which, in connection with the New Plan,
they modified on May 4, 1934, and called special honors.**
These honors are for individual, independent work of distin-
guished quality. 'Tt is impossible to overestimate the value
of studying gamma ray spectra under a woman who has just
spent a year in the laboratories of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
in Germany, or the theory of inheritance with a man who has
made an enviable reputation by his special studies in heredity.
354 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
or problems in prosody with an authentic poet."" A student
working on the Chaco boundary dispute spent every Monday
afternoon in the map division of the Library of Congress, where
she discovered two maps pertinent to the dispute, and said to
be unknown to either disputant.
The privilege of auditing classes either regularly or occa-
sionally was given to seniors in 1931-32 and later. May 28,
I934j was extended to juniors and sophomores with the writ-
ten permission of the instructor and the Dean. In 1937-38,
nearly one third of the seniors availed themselves of this op-
portunity.
In the second semester of 1932-33, the opportunities, avail-
able to Baltimore women of serious purpose, for pursuing
courses at Goucher College as "unclassified students" were
given wider publicity.^^ The majority of the women thus en-
rolled are college graduates.
In 1933, also, President Robertson following the custom
long in use at Oxford and Cambridge, and practiced at Har-
vard, Yale, and Vassar, estaWished at Goucher the method of
administering halls of residence through faculty members.
President Robertson was personally acquainted with this sys-
tem having been in charge of two different halls at Chicago
where the plan had been used for some years. The first step
in introducing the new system was taken by organizing the
largest hall, Vingolf, under the leadership of Dr. Assunta Vasti,
instructor in physiology and hygiene, and Miss Ruth C. Child,
instructor in English. Miss Frances Conner, student coun-
selor, had always been the head of Hunner House. In addi-
tion to these two halls, in 1937-38 two others were in charge
of faculty members — Mardal and Foster. President Robert-
son considers that the plan has worked well at Goucher, and
the students are pleased, one of them at Vingolf the first year
writing thus: 'T think that, as a whole, the Vingolf girls are
very much pleased at the outcome of this experiment.""
Experiments of interest to all concerned with higher educa-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON JfC
tion have been undertaken by departments: the department
of chemistry has organized a course of high standard for non-
technical Students; the department of economics and sociology,
one in the economics of consumption; the department of
Romance languages has developed placement and achievement
tests for French and arranged individual summer reading
courses in French, Spanish, and Italian. The German depart-
ment, also, gives placement tests and offers a summer reading
course. The classics department offers summer reading
courses.
There have been many illustrations of interdepartmental
cooperation: students in eighteenth century literature have
supplemented maps of i8th century London by photographs
of views and buildings from the collection of the department
of fine arts; a student in the department of political science,
majoring in the department of fine arts, received permission
to study mural painting from the point of view of political
propaganda as her supplementary work in political science;
Professor Kelley of the department of chemistry arranged for
fine art students a session in the chemistry laboratories on the
techniques and materials of painting, allowing them, after
watching the manufacture of the pigments by chemical proc-
esses, to make from the dry powdered pigment, a stick of
pastel, a sample of tempora, a bit of water color and of oil
paint.^^
The developments in both art and music in this administra-
tion require a more lengthy treatment. In the early days of
the College, art in the form of painting, modeling, and design,
and music, for the most part in the form of applied music,
had a place among the courses offered.«^ This work, at first
with no academic entrance requirements and not of collegiate
grade, became "a veritable step-child in academic tradition'"")
and was given up entirely after about a decade and a half.
Art, however, came back into the College through lectures by
Dr. Froehcher on its history and appreciation. Registration
356 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
in the German department at the time of the World War was
so depleted that Dr. Froelicher was able then to devote almost
his entire time to art, increasing the number and scope of the
courses relating to it. After Dr. Froelicher's death, Dr.
Eleanor Patterson Spencer, with experience in the Fogg Mu-
seum of Fine Arts at Harvard and a doctor's degree from Rad-
cliiFe, was appointed full time instructor in art with the title
of associate professor; in 1936 she was advanced to the rank
of professor.
To the college equipment for the teaching of fine arts, which
includes library works, photographs, some four thousand lan-
tern slides, and some originals, with an especially fine collec-
tion in Egyptian and American archaic pieces, there is added
the special advantage of the art collections in Washington and
Baltimore. In particular, the valuable collection of the Wal-
ters Art Gallery offers an unusual laboratory or classroom for
the Goucher student of fine arts.''^ The proximity of the two
institutions and the friendliness between them make this col-
lection easily available. The development of the relationship
between the two institutions was strengthened by the appoint-
ment of Mr. George Heard Hamilton of the Walters Art
Gallery as assistant in fine arts in Goucher College, 1935-36.
The Baltimore Museum of Art has also been of special help
to the art students of Goucher, not only through its exhibits of
famous collections and the access to its valuable prints, but
also through its permission to use its workroom and equipment.
One year each member of the class had a chance to make an
etching, the resultant prints, and a linoleum block print for
herself.
Visiting professors have been of great value in the depart-
ment of fine arts. Richard Lahey, director of the Corcoran
School of Art in Washington, has conducted a studio course in
painting since 1936. Professor Jakob Rosenberg, formerly
curator of the Print Room of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum
of Berlin, conducted a half-course in Dutch Painting of the
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON ^57
Seventeenth Century, and delivered two popular lectures on
Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and other masters of the period in
the winter term, 1936-37. Robert Treat Paine, Jr., associate
in the department of Asiatic art of the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, gave a course in Japanese and Chinese Art in January
and February, 1938.
Through the commendable zeal of Dr. Spencer, there have
been many art exhibitions at the College, some in Goucher
Hall, some in the common room of the library: a collection of
the works of modern artists secured through the courtesy of
the College Art Association of America; an exhibition of Ger-
man prints sponsored by the Carl Schurz Memorial Founda-
tion; an exhibition of Modern Hungarian Painting; a collection
of Picasso drawings; a black and white exhibit showing a great
variety of subject matter, technique, and artists, and lent by
the Baltimore Museum of Art; and again two years later,
another display of black and whites by the Artists Union of
America; a series of One-Picture Exhibitions circulated by
the Museum of Modern Art, New York — Paul Cezanne's por-
trait, "Madame Cezanne," Renoir's "Le Moulin de la Galette,"
Gauguin's "Tahitian Idyll." Occasionally, there is also an
exhibition of the work of a Goucher alumna, as when Gretchen
Hochschild, '10 (Mrs. Charles Austrian) displayed her paint-
ings, some of which gave to Goucher students glimpses of
familiar Baltimore scenes in picturesque streets and old
markets. Not so long ago a fine arts class had an exhibition
of articles costing less than twenty-five cents, ranging from
jewelry to cold-cream jars, in good taste and in bad, all dis-
played with the hope of showing young women that fine design
can be obtained at a low cost.
At the time of the Maryland Tercentenary, Dr. Spencer
conceived the idea of having a two-day Institute of the Arts
of Early Maryland. It was held on November 23 and 24,
1934. Illustrated lectures on "Colonial Architecture of Mary-
land" by Henry Chandlee Forman, on "Baltimore Architecture
358 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
of the Greek Revival Style" by D. K. Este Fisher, Jr., on
"Early Maryland Silversmiths and Their Work" by J. Hall
Pleasants, lectures on "Music in Early Maryland" by John
Tasker Howard and on "Printing in Colonial Maryland" by
Lawrence C. Wroth, filled the two mornings. On the first
afternoon, there were visits to the home of Mrs. Miles White,
Jr., and of Dr. James M. Bordley, Jr., to view Maryland glass
and furniture and to the Maryland Historical Society to see
the Maryland painters represented in the collection of the So-
ciety and to hear about Baltimore Clippers from J. E. Hancock
and G. H. Pouder. The next afternoon the party divided
into four groups, one going to visit the old buildings at Annapo-
lis, a second to see old public buildings in Baltimore, a third
to observe domestic architecture of early times — Mount Clare,
Homewood, Hampton, Mrs. Jencks' House — and a fourth to
see the Cator Collection of Maps and Early Views at the
Enoch Pratt Library, the old theatre programs at the Peale
Museum, and examples of Maryland printing and music at the
Peabody Library. '^^
Despite the oft-expressed desire of undergraduates and
graduates for music courses of collegiate grade in the College,
it was thirty years after the old work in applied music was given
up before, in 1935-36, a department of music was organized
with Dr. Laurence A. Petran as instructor." Courses in music
for those students whose interest in the subject is mainly
cultural, and for those who anticipate professional study,
include elementary harmony, introductory courses in history
and appreciation, and advanced courses dealing with the more
important art forms in music and epochs in its history. For all
of these courses, the College possesses equipment which makes
frequent illustration possible on phonograph, piano, and organ.
From the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1935, the Col-
lege received a valuable gift which included a Capehart phono-
graph, a collection of eight hundred and twenty-six records.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 359
representing all nations, periods, styles, and vocal, choral,
and instrumental combinations.^^
Through the cooperation of the Peabody Conservatory of
Music, Goucher students may pursue there courses beyond
those offered at the College, and students with a major in
music may receive recognition for courses in applied music
taken at the Peabody." There are two students whose major
is music to be graduated in 1939.
Faculty Retirements
In previous presidencies, two members of the faculty had
retired. It was an indication of the advancing age of the
College that during this administration four members of the
faculty were retired: in 1933, Dr. Herman Louis Ebeling, pro-
fessor of Greek, and Dr. Samuel N. Taylor, professor of physics,
both of whom came to the College in 191 1; in 1934, Dr. Thad-
deus P. Thomas, professor of economics and sociology, who
began his work at the College in 1892, and whose term of active
service, therefore, has exceeded that of any other teacher, and
Dr. Clara Latimer Bacon, professor of mathematics, who came
to the Woman's College of Baltimore in 1897. With deep
appreciation of their long service, with thanks for their con-
tinuing devotion, with cordial wishes for their ever increasing
happiness and with deepest love, these teachers were retired
with the title of "emeritus" in their respective departments.
Necrology
During commencement week, 1931, a group of alumnae, stu-
dents, and friends gathered in the central pavilion of Goucher
Hall to do honor to the memory of two of the makers of the
College in the unveiling of two bronze medallions designed by
Hans Schuler of Baltimore. Through the one, the Board of
Trustees of the College paid tribute to Dean John Blackford
Van Meter, administrator, teacher, friend, and through the
360 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Other, the Class of 1930, to Hans Froelicher, the beloved
professor. ^^
During the short period of the present administration, the
College has lost by death three trustees: Mr. R. Tynes Smith
of Baltimore on February 4, 1931, Mr. Everett B. Sweezy of
New York City and Riverhead on February 15, 1931, and Dr.
Mary Sherwood of Baltimore, on May 24, 1935; and five mem-
bers of the faculty: Dr. Anna Laura Hintze on October 27,
1935, Dr. Thaddeus P. Thomas, on March 31, 1936, Dr. Stella
A. McCarty on November 13, 1936, Dr. William H. Longley
on March 10, 1937, Dr. Lilian Welsh, February 23, 1938.
For more than forty years, part of the time as a member of
the Executive Committee, Mr. R. Tynes Smith gave to the
Trustees the benefit of his wise counsel. He was deeply in-
terested in the students and for many years entertained the
freshman class in his home. He served as honorary member of
the Class of 1 913, one of the few persons outside the faculty to
be so honored. He contributed to the financial needs of the
College and on two occasions he made gifts to endowment
funds: a scholarship in memory of his daughter, Georgina,
and a lectureship in memory of his second daughter, Manie
Hooper.
Mr. Everett B. Sweezy served on the Board of Trustees for
more than ten years. Because of his important financial con-
nections (he was for thirteen years a vice president of the First
National Bank of New York) he was able to give valuable
advice to the College in such matters. Not only that, but
also, with his wife, Caroline Wilson Sweezy, '93, he made
large contributions, especially at the time of the 4-2-1 cam-
paign.
Dr. Mary Sherwood, elected to the Board of Trustees in
May 1923, was an active member until the time of her death.
But her connection with the College extended through a much
longer period, for in its earhest years because of her close asso-
ciation with Dr. LiHan Welsh, she became deeply interested
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 361
in its welfare. Her service as honorary member of the Class
of '99, brought her into friendly relations with the student
body. For more than thirty years, she was a vital influence
in the lives of many Goucher women whom she brought into
sympathetic touch with the great causes to which she dedi-
cated her life: the higher education of women, woman's suf-
frage, and child welfare. To the furtherance of these move-
ments, she brought not only courage and trained ability of a
high order, but as well a graciousness, charm, and radiant
beauty that won for them many friends."
Anna Laura Hintze, A.B., A.M., Ph.D., at the time of her
death assistant professor of physiology and hygiene, came to
the College in 1928 as instructor and was advanced in rank the
following year. Broadly trained in the basic sciences, and
genuinely devoted to research, she brought her brilliant mind
to the problems of her special field of physiology. She was
regarded by her colleagues not only as a true scientist, but as
an exceptionally expert teacher, well versed in pedagogical
methods. Her steady influence for scholarliness remains a
quickening power in the lives of her students, some of whom
have made distinguished records in graduate work.'^^
In the death of Dr. Thaddeus P. Thomas, Ph.D., A.M.,
Ph.D., Goucher College lost that member of the faculty whose
years of service outnumbered all others. In 1892, he was
appointed instructor in history in the Woman's College of
Baltimore, and was associated with this institution as associate
professor of history and sociology, professor of economics and
sociology, and professor emeritus until his death. He was the
founder in the College of the department of sociology (1893)
and of economics (1898), and he is credited with having ofl^ered
the first course in sociology in any woman's college (1893)
and one of the first undergraduate courses on the family (1917).
Through his sincerity, simplicity, and fairmindedness, he
became an inspiration to his students to think for themselves.
To them, after graduation as well as before, he gave his best
362 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
powers. In 1930, he wrote to President Robertson "I decided
to give my limited strength to personnel work, vocational
guidance, and the direction of social service activities of alum-
nae instead of research." It is due to his teaching and influ-
ence, not only that some Goucher alumnae have done distin-
guished professional work along the line of social service, but
also that many have been useful in welfare movements in their
own communities. He was also a wise guide to undergraduates
in numerous extracurriculum activities, in particular, helping
them in the organization of student government and in their
pioneer work in debating. The last years of his life were
devoted to the collecting of material for the history of the
College from its earliest beginnings which in the late spring
of 1932, he had been asked by the Trustees to write. In loving
appreciation of his service, the Alumnae Association engaged
in raising a memorial endowment fund to be used for the pur-
chase of books on sociology and economics for the library.'^
As student, alumna, member of the faculty, and benefactor,
Stella A. McCarty gave the best years of her life to Goucher
College. She entered the day it opened and was graduated
with the five members of its first class. She helped to organize
the Alumnae Association, and had throughout her life a gener-
ous and active part in all its projects. Her interest in kinder-
garten work began soon after her graduation from Goucher,
and eventually included the whole field of education. In this
subject, she received the degrees of Master of Arts from
Columbia University in 191 6, andof Doctor of Philosophy from
Johns Hopkins in 1923. She returned to Goucher College in
1 91 5 as instructor in the department of education, where until
her death she taught in the successive ranks of assistant pro-
fessor, associate professor, professor, and chairman of the
department. Her students found in her a stimulating and
sympathetic teacher, to whom they turned for encouragement
and help both in their undergraduate days and afterward
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 363
when they, too, were contending with educational problems.
Sound judgment, united with a wide knowledge of educational
matters, rendered her work invaluable to the many faculty
committees on which she served. She also labored to secure
public kindergartens in the city and the state. By her will,
Stella McCarty left to Goucher College, her educational library
and the residue of her estate, the income from which is to be
used for the maintenance of the department of education.
Thus her influence, which was present with the first opening of
the College, will continue for all time; a perpetual witness to
the love she had for her Alma Mater.*"
WilHam Harding Longley, A.B., A.M., Ph.D., Sc.D., was
for twenty-five years a member of the department of biology,
and for nineteen years its chairman. His creative efforts in
the field of science, his stimulating influence in and out of the
classroom, his sturdy defence of the highest ideals of scholar-
ship, and his sterling qualities as a man have been of inesti-
mable benefit to the College and to those who were associated
with him.^i He was an eminent scientist — the recognized
authority on tropical reef fishes. To the study of these or-
ganisms in many parts of the world he devoted much of his
energy, under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Wash-
ington. For fourteen years, up to the time of his death, he
served as the director of the Dry Tortugas Laboratory of the
Institution. He was not merely an observer and a classifier
of species but "he utilized his intimacy with a great group of
organisms as a basis for experiments designed to throw light
upon the nature of species and the factors responsible for their
origin and spread. As a result of brilliant experimentation
and equally brilliant reasoning, he built up an elaborate theory
of species development which in recent years has attracted the
attention and interest of students of evolution in both the old
and the new worlds." His eminence as an investigator
brought fame and added lustre to the institution which he
364 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
served with such faithfulness. With his deep interest in
original research and extensive publication of results, he was
effective and inspiring as a teacher. In the lecture room he
was animated and vivid, in the laboratory he developed in his
students the highest degree of independence and self reliance.
As a result of his deep personal interest in his students, many
of them have taken advanced degrees and have entered upon
scientific careers of distinction. ^^
In view of the great loss Goucher College sustained in the
death of Dr. Lilian Welsh, who died February 23, 1938, the
Board of Trustees presented the following resolution:
Dr. Lilian Welsh was appointed "Professor of Anatomy, Physiology,
Hygiene, and Physical Training" in the Woman's College of Baltimore, now
Goucher College, in 1894. At her suggestion in 1902 her title was changed
to that of "Professor of Physiology and Hygiene," the catalogue stating that
Physical Training was included in the Department of Physiology and Hy-
giene. In 1909, Dr. Welsh was appointed "Medical Adviser to the College"
and in 191 5, the full direction of the Infirmary was placed in her hands, so
that she would be able to organize the Department of Hygiene as a unit
having complete charge of the health of students. In 1924, at her own re-
quest, she retired from active duty. And, honoring her, her title was
changed to that of "Professor Emeritus of Physiology and Hygiene." By
unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees, the degree of Doctor of Laws was
conferred upon her at the Commencement of 1924.
For her pioneer work in the teaching of physiology and personal hygiene
in which Dr. Welsh set a standard followed by many women's colleges in this
country and which increased the prestige of our young College;
For her influence on her students whereby through personal contact she
stimulated the development of the individual towards scholarly endeavor
and useful service;
For her absorbing interest in all that pertained to the College and her
leadership in times of crises, as the presentation to her of a medallion in
recognition of her services in 1912-13, in the $1,000,000 Campaign, indicates;
For her outstanding service in the community both in her professional
capacity and in her interest in the welfare of women and in her eagerness to
secure for them the recognition of full opportunities for usefulness;
We, the Trustees of Goucher College, hold in gratitude and loving re-
membrance her vital personality and devoted service. ^^
administration of president robertson 2^5
Finances
President Guth's business acumen and tireless work for the
College gave it an endowment which was safely invested, and a
largely augmented student enrolment which swelled its income.
Year after year, there were surpluses in the current expense
account, some of which were allowed to accumulate and some
used for promotion and enlargement. Toward the end of his
administration, owing to his long illness, things began to slip
a little. The peak of the enrolment was reached 1925-26 and
1 927-28. The last year of Dr. Guth's life, 1 928-29, there were
seventy-five fewer students than the year before. The reces-
sion begun at this time was quickened by the years of the
depression. 8" While income fell off during the years 1928 to
1 93 1, expenditures increased. ^^
President Robertson came to Goucher College in the midst
of the worst industrial depression which this country has ever
witnessed and he was obliged from the beginning to face the
financial problems of bringing about a decrease in expenditures
and an increase in income. In his first address to the faculty
and to the Trustees he spoke of the necessity of controlling
expenditures through the setting up of an itemized budget
departmentally administered, the heads of departments being
responsible for recommendations regarding departmental busi-
ness. Dr. Robertson's work on the budget at the University
of Chicago made him well acquainted with the demands of this
task on which he spent many hours during the first year of his
presidency. On May 25, 1931, when he presented to the Trus-
tees the results of his labor in working out the budget for the
College, they were impressed by this scientific and thorough
plan for controlling expenditures.^^ In reporting to the Execu-
tive Committee in the fall of 1932 on the budget for 1931-32,
President Robertson was able to state that though it was not
balanced, the anticipated deficit had been lessened by
132,153.30 owing to the new budget system and the cordial
^66 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
cooperation of all members of the College in the administration
of it. A somewhat similar statement could have been made in
successive years." In 1935, asked by the editors of the
Gaucher College Weekly to furnish a list of his ten favorite
books, Dr. Robertson, before making the choice, said: "The
book to which I turn every day — with interest in a struggle
with a great deal of suspense and a possibly happy ending — is
unpublished — the Goucher College Budget— and so I suppose
it must not be listed."
During these years while every effort was made to maintain
and increase educational efficiency, reductions were made as
follows: in the expenditures in material things, though, of
course, some necessary repairs were made;^^ in cost of adminis-
tration at the same time that the amount of work done by
administrative officers was increased; and in the cost of instruc-
tion, by an adjustment of the teaching staff to the size of the
student population. ^^ A reduction in the salaries of the faculty
was considered only as a last resource and then it was brought
about in such a way that it can well be held as a gift — a contribu-
tion — and as such will be considered later.
The income of Goucher College is derived principally from
income on investments and income from students fees.^°
In the character of its investments, the College has justly
taken great pride. At commencement in 1937, President
Robertson stated: "At the end of seven years of financial
stress, it was found that the general endowment funds were
invested in securities which in February 1937, had a market
value several thousand dollars in excess of their cost." During
the years 1929-37, the loss of income from investments
amounted only to $23,676.05. Only keen financial insight and
tireless watchfulness could have produced such results during
those bad years. For this highly satisfactory condition, the
College is indebted particularly to the chairman of the Finance
Committee, Mr. Edward L. Robinson, and the treasurer of the
College, Mr. John L. Alcock.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 367
During this time, however, some of the securities matured
and many were called and the Trustees found it difficult to
find high grade investments yielding an income such as had
been enjoyed hitherto. In place of a five and six percent
return, the new issues provide income at rates varying from
two and three quarters to four percent. ^^ To meet the difficul-
ties growing out of this situation, on the recommendation of
Mr. Robinson and Mr. Alcock in particular, and of the Finance
Committee and the Audit Committee in general, the Trustees
in 1937 engaged investment counsel to supervise the portfolio
hereafter.
The efforts to augment the income derived from students*
fees took two directions: plans to enlarge the enrolment, and
increases in the tuition.
In the curve of the enrolment the highest point was reached
in 1925-26 and 1927-28 when there were 1060 students, the
lowest point since then, in 1934-35, when there were 630. The
falling off in the enrolment began before the depression started
and by the time it was well under way, about fifty percent of
the loss had been reached. The income from enrolment
is affected not only by the smaller numbers but by the fact
that, while in former years one third of the students had come
from Baltimore, in 1934 the proportion was forty-six percent.
Through wise methods of publicity, through the adoption of
the new curriculum, and the efficient set up of the new admis-
sions office. President Robertson has sought to increase the
enrolment. By a personal letter to every alumna, student,
trustee, and faculty member he has appealed for lists of pros-
pective students. By 1935, the tide of recession turned, a
larger number than ever before of old students eligible to return,
came back, eighty-six percent, and there were more new stu-
dents than for some years. The number of students who
return is higher than in most institutions, but until 1935, the
highest percentage of those coming back was 84.31.
In the effort to stimulate enrolment, there has never been at
368 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
any time a lowering of the academic standards: of students
applying for admission in the autumn of 1934, 64 percent were
admitted; in 1936, 6^ percent; in 1937, 57 percent. The
entering class of 1933-34 had a higher scholastic score than
ever before, 10 percent more being in the highest decile on the
American Council on Education tests and none in the lowest
three. In the fall of 193 1, A. C. E. tests were given to 41,000
entering students in 152 institutions. The median score for
all those examined was 147, that for Goucher 199.^2 Goucher
stood fifth highest in the entire list of institutions participating
in the test. In May 1932, the sophomore achievement test
of the American Council on Education was given to over 36,000
students in 137 colleges, Goucher sophomores participating. ^^
The results again placed Goucher College in the fifth place.
Nor did the College seek to increase the enrolment through
a greatly enlarged policy of scholarships. The Trustees
decided that a conservative plan in regard to scholarships was
the wise one though they recognized the need of seeking to add
to the funds available for financial assistance to students of
high scholarship and character. During this period, the annual
amount available for scholarships and loans has been about
twenty thousand dollars, this sum being derived from endow-
ments, from general funds, from gifts from faculty and stu-
dents, from the Alumnae Fund, from Baltimore groups, and
from individuals.^* From this amount has been assigned suffi-
cient for the support of regional scholarships set up by Presi-
dent Robertson. In addition to these funds, students needing
financial assistance have been directed in earning a part of
their college expenses through the Vocational Bureau,^'*
through the government agencies, such as the National Youth
Administration and the Federal Emergency Relief Administra-
tion,^^ and through the cooperative residence hall, Foster
House.
In the effort to balance the budget by an increase in income
from students* fees, during the years 1 930-1 937, the tuition
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 369
fee has been raised twice, the first time beginning with the
year 1933-34, from I300 to $350, and the second time, in
1937-38, from ^350 to $450." For the quahty of its educa-
tional program, the tuition fees have always been low at
Goucher College, and this later rate is in keeping with the
charge of institutions of similar rank in its own territory. In
putting before the Trustees the need for these advances, Presi-
dent Robertson gave to each member of the Board a carefully
tabulatedstatement of tuition fees in 123 institutions — colleges
for women, for men, and for co-educational groups in the terri-
tory from which the majority of Goucher students come, and
thus their decision was based upon an intelligent understanding
of the problem. This clearness and frankness in putting this
special financial problem before the Trustees was character-
istic of his method in dealing with all financial questions not
only with the Executive Committee and the whole Board of
Trustees, but with the students as well. After the decision of
the Trustees had been made. President Robertson laid before
the students at a chapel service the imperative need for the
advance. With their understanding of the situation, came
their friendly cooperation.^^ Of the two advances in tuition,
there was practically no criticism or objection either from
students or from their parents.
In 1933, President Robertson had the unhappy task of
explaining the financial situation of the College to the faculty.
By that time the budget, unbalanced for several years had
exhausted the surplus accumulated during the prosperous
years of the preceding administration, and despite President
Robertson's wise plans, the College, for the first time in about
twenty years, carried the burden of a deficit. The "lean kine"
had devoured the "fat kine." The plight of Goucher College
at this time was faced by other institutions as well. In 1932-33
fewer than forty colleges in the United States had balanced
their budgets without a salary cut or a deficit. On April 10,
1933, a memorable meeting of the Goucher faculty was held to
370 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
face the financial condition. The President put all the figures
on the black board and explained the situation, but made no
suggestions. It was promptly moved and seconded that the
faculty should donate ten percent of their salaries to Goucher
College for the following year. The motion was discussed and
then carried enthusiastically and unanimously. The Goucher
faculty had shown Goucher spirit to such an extent that the
President was plainly affected and exclaimed, "What shall
I say? I can't say anything to you now but I'll say it to the
trustees to-morrow." One professor expressed appreciation of
the treatment of the faculty by the trustees and the President,
and another said she liked the straightforward way in which
the President had presented all the facts and figures, and these
hearty commendations were followed by the most prolonged
applause which had ever been heard at any faculty meeting
in all the history of the College.
This action of the faculty was highly commended. Presi-
dent Robertson expressed his "very deep personal appreciation
of the cheerfulness as well as the generosity which marked the
discussion of the faculty proposal. It was an inspiring exhibi-
tion of loyalty to the institution to which we are all devoted."
Mr. Edward L. Robinson, acting president of the Board of
Trustees, on their behalf, conveyed to the faculty "the warm
appreciation of the fine spirit recently shown in helping the
Trustees solve some of their financial problems" and told them
how deeply the trustees valued "their unstinted cooperation."
In an editorial in the Goucher College Weekly^ there was
expressed "the appreciation of the student body for this act
of the faculty. . . . We feel that the faculty of Goucher College
has more than done its part always, but this latest action tells,
far better than words, that the faculty literally place the college
before self and that their chief concern is in the perpetuity and
advance of Goucher."
In the three years following, in the same fine spirit, the
faculty made this same contribution. Before the first action
of the faculty. President Robertson had insisted to the Execu-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 37 1
tive Committee on the reduction of his own salary. The ten
percent cut was extended to all administrative officers, and
each year, for four successive years from instructional and
administrative officers, came this contribution amounting to
about $20,000.
Its cancellation was made possible for 1937-38, through the
second increase in tuition. Whether the advance should be
of fifty or of a hundred dollars including laboratory and other
fees, the Trustees considered for some time. The larger
amount might affect the enrolment unfavorably and so defeat
the end in view. Finally under the courageous leadership
of Mr. Emory H. Niles, who had recently been elected presi-
dent of the Board, the larger increase was decided on.
In the autumn of 1937, it was found that the enrolment was
maintained. The 1937-38 budget was balanced. It contains
an item looking to the amortization on a five year plan of the
accumulated deficit^^ and it does not contain the item of
faculty and administrative contribution. i""
In the years 1930 to 1937, the College has received in gifts
and bequests 1139,856.101 Since Dr. Robertson has been presi-
dent, among the larger contributions may be mentioned: the
Clara and Agnes Bacon Fund of $50,000, the Isabelle Kellogg
Thomas Fund of $20,000, the annual gifts through the Alumnae
Fund totaling, in these years, to more than $25,000. Among
the smaller gifts may be included: the Ruth Frank Elias
bequest of $1,000; the Carmine Fund of $2,000; the Joseph A.
Mosher bequest of $1,000 in honor of his wife Anna Weust-
hoff, '06; the Marion Hartfelder Wilder award established by
Valentine D. Wilder in memory of his wife, a member of the
class of 1925, and presented annually to a member of the gradu-
ating class characterized by gracious personality, cheerful and
constructive citizenship, and definite accomplishment; the
Lilian Welsh Prize established in 1937, by the alumnae in the
department of physiology and hygiene and other friends of
Dr. Welsh, to be awarded to an upper division student for the
best paper based on laboratory experiments, not a part of
372. THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
regular class work; the Catherine Milligan McLane lectureship
founded with the accumulated funds from the Baltimore Asso-
ciation for the Promotion of the University Education of
Women of which Miss McLane for many years was president. ^"^
By the terms of this gift made in 1925, the fund of ^2,000 was
to accumulate until it reached I2500, and then the income
was to be used to provide lectures by some university woman
who had won distinction in her chosen field. ^°^ The first
lecture was given in 1933.
The Isabell Kellogg Thomas Fund provides for an annual
prize to the sophomore who ranks best in English and for
annual lectures on English. The first prize was awarded at
commencement, 1936; the first lecture given in the spring of
the same year.^"* The majority of the gifts made through the
Alumnae Fund^°^ have been for scholarships and loans, some
from the general fund, some from Goucher Clubs, some from
individuals, some from the Tau Kappa Pi Fund.^°^ The
Alumnae Fund has been used, also, as the channel for memorial
gifts such as the 1908 class gift to the department of mathe-
matics in honor of Professor William H. Maltbie;^"^ the alum-
nae gift for the purchase of books in the field of economics
and sociology in honor of Professor T. P. Thomas ;^"^ and the
gift to the library from Martha Clark, '96 (Mrs. William
Stuart Fulton) in memory of her daughter, Martha Clark
Fulton.109
Publicity
The subject of securing adequate and wise publicity for the
College has been discussed through most of its history. It has
weighed on the mind of the President, it has been talked about
among the trustees, and few have been the times when the
alumnae have come together when it has not been agitated.
Such consideration has borne fruit in constantly improved
methods and enlarged scope. It was to be expected that Presi-
dent Robertson with his experience in handling publicity at
the University of Chicago and for the American Council on
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 373
Education would be able to make a valuable contribution
along this line. These hopes have been realized through pub-
licity not only greater in amount but also more attractive in
form.
The news releases for the College Press Club have been
carefully supervised from the president's office. In this work
Dr. Robertson has been aided by Mary T. McCurley, 'lo,
who was in 1933 appointed assistant to the President. At the
meeting of the Alumnae Council in 1933, as proof of the deter-
mined, yet dignified, publicity campaign pushed in every corner
of the country. President Robertson pointed to ten large
volumes of clippings, accumulated in three years through a
press clipping bureau.
All of the regular publications of the College have been made
more attractive in binding, in paper, in type, in illustrations,
in wording. Three of them may be mentioned. In June 1932,
there was distributed widely a handsome brochure "Goucher —
The Woman's College of Baltimore" accompanied by a poster
with Mr. Jackley's etching of Goucher Hall and an invitation
couched in words corresponding to the divisions of the pam-
phlet: "Goucher — The Woman's College of Baltimore ... in
a city of rich cultural influence . . . with a distinguished
faculty . . . interesting fellow students ... a curriculum to fit
a woman for her twentieth century world . . . stimulating
libraries and laboratories ... a happy college home ... at a
cost ruled by reason . . . proud of the achievements of gradu-
ates . . . and gratified by recognition . . . invites you to an
educational adventure."
In the summer of 1934, there was issued a new edition of
the college catalogue entirely reset in eleven point Caslon
Old Style by the Waverly Press of Baltimore. "It represents,"
said President Robertson, "an efibrt to make even a college
catalogue attractive in appearance and interesting in con-
tents. . . . The material has been prepared primarily from the
point of view of the prospective student, her parents, and her
secondary school counselors. At the same time, the book is
374 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
intended to afford full information to those who are constantly
using college catalogues. ..." Commenting on the success of
this new edition in comparison with other college catalogues,
the editor of the Goucher Alumnae Quarterly said that "it
is cheerful without and readable within. ... It opens easily. . . .
It is a pretty piece of printing. . . . The reader can find his
way about in it. . . . It can be comprehended by the average
intelligence, a stupendous merit, and it does tell the truth as
we at Goucher College see it."^^"
The third publication to be specially noted is the December
1936, Bulletin of Goucher College , "Science at Goucher," in
which there is set forth in an attractive way not only the
science facilities of today, but also a resume of the strong
position which the sciences have always held at the College
"because there has been at Goucher a line of devoted and, in
the early days, heroic and even militant men and women who
sensed [the] manifold importance of science and felt very
keenly, as Dr. Lilian Welsh felt, that women as well as men
should have a chance to know about and take part in all that
science means. "^^^
President Robertson was interested not only in reaching
through publicity those on the outside of the Goucher circle,
but those within it as well. On December 12, 1931, he sent
out the first number of the President's Letter. This "occa-
sional" communication was intended at first to enable all
members of the Goucher faculty to know promptly about
matters pertaining to their opportunities and responsibilities.^^^
It proved so useful that it was sent to a constantly enlarging
list — the trustees, the officers of the Alumnae Association, the
presidents of the Goucher Clubs, and perhaps will even be sent
now and then to all alumnae. It has been of genuine value
in developing interest and enthusiasm.
Not only has publicity through the printed page been empha-
sized, but to the alumnae on numerous occasions. President
Robertson has pointed out the value of "Golden Gossip for
Goucher."
administration of president robertson 375
Building Changes
In the seven years of the present administration though no
new buildings have been purchased or erected, changes in the
old ones have increased the efficiency of the College. Foster
House has been set up as a cooperative hall, and important
changes have been made in the infirmary, the recreation hall,
the museum, and the library.^^^
The original suggestion for having a cooperative residence
hall came from Dr. Elinor Pancoast. Foster House was
opened in the fall of 1933 with Miss Dorothy Tapley, instructor
in physical education, as head of the house, and nineteen stu-
dents in residence, each of whom, chosen on a scholarship
basis from a long list of applicants, was able to reduce her
college expenses by the sum of l^oo.^i'*
For many years on the fifth floor of Fensal Hall, Goucher
College had an infirmary which took care of students sick with
minor ailments. ^^^ From the college physicians and nurses,
they had expert attention and all necessary care. In 1933, that
there might be more effective, comfortable, and attractive care,
the infirmary was moved to new and more cheerful quarters on
the top floor of Vingolf Hall and the Goucher College Infirmary
Auxiliary was organized. The idea of the auxihary was Mrs.
David Allan Robertson's. ^^^ Deeply interested in Goucher
students and impressed by the value of the Auxiliary to the
Princeton Infirmary, Mrs. Robertson on April 17, 1933, at the
President's House, arranged a meeting for about sixty faculty
members, alumnae, and friends. After the usefulness of the
Princeton Auxiliary had been presented by Dr. J. M. T. Finney
and Miss Helen Gross, sister of Mrs. Finney and former
infirmarian at Princeton, the Goucher Auxiliary was formed
with Mrs. Robertson as honorary president and Mrs. John L.
Alcock as president. ^^■^ Each year at commencement time the
Auxiliary is entertained at its annual meeting by Mrs. Robert-
son when there is a birthday cake.^^^ This organization made
376 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
up of parents of students, alumnae, faculty, and friends of the
College has provided for the infirmary furnishings, equipment,
and delicacies beyond those that could be furnished by the
college budget. "The atmosphere of the infirmary has been
completely transformed through the efforts of the Auxiliary,"
comments a student. Fresh flowers, restfully tinted walls,
interesting paintings and prints, draped windows, dainty china
on convenient trays, homemade jams and marmalades, colorful
lamps, hospital beds with extremely comfortable mattresses,
books and magazines combine to make what might have been
a dismal experience in the infirmary into one that is pleasant
and cheerful."ii9
In addition to the improved care of the sick, the attention
which has always been paid by the College to preventive medi-
cine^2° and the establishment of physical and mental health
was manifested in two ways. In the fall of 1937, the tuberculin
test was administered to all students, followed by x-ray exami-
nation of those v/ho showed positive reactions. The means
for carrying out this preliminary work came from a distin-
guished alumna. Dr. Florence Seibert, '18. Lecturing at the
College on one of the foundations in 1936-37, Dr. Seibert
returned the honorarium asking that it be used for the tuber-
culin tests for the students. ^^^ The x-ray examinations were
generously provided by the Maryland Tuberculosis Associa-
tion. In November 1933, there was sponsored by the commit-
tee on Mental and Physical Health an Art of Living Week.
The problem was approached in three ways. At the chapel
period each morning there were speakers, each an authority
in his or her line, when the subjects dealt with were "Mental
Health," "The Daily Round of Living," "Lights and Light-
ing," "Some Aspect of Nutrition," and the "Common Cold."
There was an exhibit displayed all the week in the Recreation
Room where were shown proper lights and lighting (obtained
from the Wilmer Institute), proper shoes for sports, walking,
and dress, and numerous posters relative to other phases of
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 377
health. This exhibit culminated in a "Fashion Show" on
Friday afternoon when the effect of posture on appearance, as
well as on health, was demonstrated. And lastly all students
were asked to fill out cards, charting their habits, listing the
regularity of their meals, their average amounts of sleep and
various other pertinent facts, and urging each one to take an
active part in the Art of Living Week by actually practising
a few simple rules drawn up for her.^22
The long felt need of the college community for a social
and recreational center was met in the spring of 1933 by the
conversion of the gymnasium in Bennett Hall Annex into a
recreation hall.^^s Yhe room, further described in the chapter
on "Student Life," was opened with a dance on April 8, 1933.
In the early years of the College along with the plea for a
building for the library and the infirmary there was also one
for a museum building. Not waiting, however, until a place
to house it could be secured, the College started early to gather
material. Its collections began in 1889 with a gift of 291 care-
fully selected minerals donated by Mr. John W. Lee of Balti-
more. ^^'^ The following year a spur to the proper display of
the material was given when Mr. Barnhart of Cleveland, pre-
senting a further collection of minerals, stipulated that they
be placed in cases. After a few years the museum was located
on the ground floor of Goucher Hall and the excellent specimens
forming the collection had been placed in order. Mr. Arthur
B. Bibbins, appointed curator in 1894 worked for twenty years
in securing and arranging the material. At the end of his
service, it was estimated that there were one hundred thousand
pieces in the museum. Among the most important articles
secured by Mr. Bibbins were fine specimens of cycads dis-
covered by him and named, the one, in honor of Dr. Goucher
and, the other, in honor of Mrs. Goucher (Mary C. Fisher).
The specimens are now in the National Museum, Washington,
D. C.^" Dr. Goucher's extensive travels and his wide con-
tacts brought valuable material from Egypt and Mexico as
378 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
well as articles from Japan and East India and many arti-
facts from the American Indians. Most of the articles in the
museum have been gifts, a few were secured through field
trips of the Geology Club, and some have been purchased.^^e
During the years since 191 4 when the museum has been
without a curator, there have been some additions, the most
importantof which was the purchase in Dr. Guth's administra-
tion of the valuable collection of about 1000 Babylonian tab-
lets through the courtesy of Yale University and the friendship
of Professor Clay of the University for Professor R. P. Dough-
erty of the Goucher department of Biblical literature. Some
of these tablets are Sumerian; the majority date from the Neo-
Babylonian period. The Goucher collection ranks fifth in the
United States in importance In two volumes, Dr. Dougherty
translated the Goucher tablets under the title Archives from
Erechy the first being published while he was a member of the
Goucher faculty, the second, in 1933 after he became a pro-
fessor at Yale University. ^^'^
In the Goucher Museum there are objects from all over the
world. Many of the specimens in the geological and mineral-
ogical collections were the gifts of scientists. There are 1801
microscopic slides of animal and vegetable tissue beside the
Edward Rowland collection of fifteen hundred specimens.
There is an American Indian Collection. The Mayer water
colors were presented to the College by Mr. Henry Walters
of Baltimore. In 1851, when Mr. Frank B. Mayer of Annap-
olis was a member of a party sent out by the government
to make a treaty with the Sioux Indians, he made thirty-one
pencil sketches of them. Mr. Bibbins came across the
sketches, and at his suggestion, Mr. Walters supplied the
means for their purchase. These paintings were lent to
the Minnesota Historical Society for display in December
1932, and an article by Miss Heilbron, "The Goucher
College Collection of Mayer Water Colors," appeared in
the December 1932 number of Minnesota History: A
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 379
Quarterly Magazine. In the rearrangement of the museum
material during this administration the most valuable of the
Egyptian things were placed on the first floor of Goucher Hall,
and on the second floor, the Mexican. Among the Egyptian
objects was found an encaustic portrait, which was restored
by the Fogg Museum and is now displayed in the central
pavilion. ^28
The most important of the changes in buildings was made
in the fall of 1934 when the library which had occupied two
floors of x^lfheim Hall, was removed to the complete occupancy
of a building. And thus was satisfied after nearly fifty years
the need for a library building expressed many times in its
early catalogues and in President Goucher 's statements at
commencements. The library, which had begun in the second
year of the College^29 as the "College Reading Room" in the
central pavilion of Goucher Hall with twelve journals and
about sixty dollars worth of books, moved, as it and the Col-
lege grew, first to Room 28 in Goucher Hall and then to the
eighteen rooms of the first two floors in Alfheim. By 1930,
when the number of books had reached 51,885, it was begin-
ning to need larger quarters.
Because of the demands of the new curriculum, the library
made its fourth move to Glitner Hall which was remodeled
for that purpose at a total cost of $6,656.26, of which $2,289.50
was for lighting.^'" "The qualities that a college president
needs these days, ingenuity and the imagination to adapt
present resources to growing needs" said Dr. Margaret S.
Morriss, '04, "are admirably exemplified in that really well
planned college library building. "^^^ The building is conve-
nient and correct in most essential details; accessibility for
students, central control by one person at the circulation desk,
proximity of the card catalogue reference room and cataloguing
room to each other and of the bibliographical room to the last
two, good lighting and room for expansion. "^ The students
were greatly pleased with all of the improvements in the
380 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
library: its larger size permitting a better arrangement of the
books, so that they are easier to find, its better lighting both
by day and by night, "its attractiveness and comfort as well
as its general usefulness. "^^^ Canon Harold N. Arrowsmith,
chairman of the library committee of the Trustees, reported
that "the atmosphere of the Hbrary seems cheerful and friendly.
... It is not a place which merely offers storage to a lot of
books, but places its wares temptingly to the students.''^^"
Among the devices to make books attractive may be men-
tioned: the circulation of new book lists to the faculty, the
exhibition of new books in the periodical room, the exhibition
of selected volumes on the week-end shelf, the rental collection
of new books, the current exhibitions in three cases, and the
hbrary teas with informal talks in the common room. The
glass display cases are kept filled with books from the collection
of the library or with books or other material borrowed from its
friends. One year among the exhibits there was one in con-
nection with the celebration of the 400 years of the printed
EngHsh Bible, when facsimiles of early Bibles were on display;
another of the library bequeathed by Sara Haardt, '20 (Mrs.
Henry L. Mencken) to the College; a third of Mrs. Robertson's
collection of autographed and presentation volumes; a fourth
of an exhibition of i8th century novels, some of them lent by
Dr. Annette Hopkins; a fifth of "Four Phases in the Develop-
ment of the Art of Writing," the first phase illustrated by four
cuneiform tablets from Erech belonging to the Goucher College
collection of Babylonian tablets, the second by texts on papyrus
from Egypt; the third by a leaf lent by Dr. Eleanor Spencer
from a "Book of Hours," the fourth by an incunabulum,
printed in Venice in 1490. About the time of the week-end
Institute on the Early Arts of Maryland, there was a collection
of the entire works of Stephen Collins Foster, "America's
Troubadour," and the biography of this composer by John
Tasker Howard who spoke on early Maryland Music. In
addition to displays of books on a number of occasions Dr.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 38I
Spencer has arranged exhibits of prints or paintings in the
Common Room of the Hbrary.
At the "Library Teas" there are brief informal addresses
on bookish subjects: on one occasion President Robertson
spoke on "Founding a Library of One's Own," on another,
Dr. Katherine Jeanne Gallagher, on "Study in European Libra-
ries"; on still another, Dr. Ehzabeth Nitchie, on the "Poetry
of Lizette Woodworth Reese."
In 1930, Miss Falley who has been librarian since 191 9,
began an active effort to gather a complete set of all faculty
publications. In a case in the Common Room, the books are
now on display. She began about 1932 a similar collection of
alumnae publications. At that time she started to display in
the library at the commencement season, all alumnae publica-
tions for the current year.
The College seeks to build up a well rounded library not
especially emphasizing one subject rather than another. Since
the college students have always had access to other valuable
libraries in Baltimore and Washington, it has laid stress on
gathering in its own collection bibliographical work as these
offer the key to the published material of the world. In addi-
tion to the usual general encyclopedias, it has various special
encyclopedias and dictionaries and complete files of the impor-
tant periodical indexes, and it receives, as they appear, the
catalogues of the British Museum, la Bibliotheque Nationale,
and the Prussian libraries. At the present time the library
contains 67,748 volumes and 12,500 pamphlets covering all
the fields included in the college curriculum. It receives cur-
rently 360 periodicals, of which 50 are published abroad.
By special gifts and purchases, the library has been strength-
ened in various directions. Before the present administration,
there were several acquisitions of special value: the library
of 9000 volumes of Dr. James W. Bright, professor of English
at the Johns Hopkins University which included works in all
periods of English literature but was particularly strong in the
382 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
field of Anglo-Saxon and in the writings of minor authors of
the i6th, 17th, and i8th centuries; from the Carnegie Cor-
poration of New York have come 79 volumes, which have
strengthened the department of art, and music study equipment
previously referred to. Further gifts in the present administra-
tion include: Spanish books from Mr. Louis Cebrian of Ma-
drid, Spain; 300 German books from the library of Mr. Henry
G. Hilkin of Baltimore, presented by his daughter; more than
50 volumes, many of them printed before 1 800 and among them
3 incunabula, belonging to the library of former President
John F. Goucher, presented by Janet Goucher, '01 (Mrs. Henry
C. Miller); manuscripts of Miss Lizette Woodworth Reese,
presented by her sisters Mrs. A. C. Dietrich, Mrs. Sophy Gay-
ton, and Miss Mary Reese and including the manuscript of an
early poem, an autographed typescript of a poem, autographed
typescript of a short story with many corrections in Miss
Reese's own hand; more than 400 selected books bequeathed by
Sarah Haardt, '20 (Mrs. Henry L. Mencken), comprising a
number of volumes on the history of the South, particularly
of the Civil War period, a collection of Victorian material and
more than 100 association copies with autographs. ^^^ This
last bequest was supplemented later by a gift from Mr. H. L.
Mencken of six scrapbooks bound in blue morocco; two of them
made up of articles written by Sara Haardt and clipped from
magazines and newspaper, and the other four containing
her notes and manuscripts arranged chronologically. Mr.
Mencken has added prefatory notes and comments.
Developments of Interest to Students and Alumnae
To the lecture foundations existing before 1930, two were
added in this administration — the Catherine Milligan McLane
and the Isabelle Kellogg Thomas. Through these founda-
tions distinguished lecturers have come to the College in this,
as in other presidencies. Dr. Robertson, returning to a prac-
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 383
tice of some years ago, has arranged many of the lectures in
the evening, so that not only the students, but the general public
as well have profited by them,!^^ thus acceding to the expressed
desire of certain of the donors.
The usefulness of the Goucher College Book Store, organized
in Dr. Guth's presidency as a convenience for students who
desired to purchase textbooks and stationers' supplies, was
widened during this period by the setting up of the Book
Shelf on which are for sale carefully selected miscellaneous
books. The Book Shelf was begun about 1 931, at the sugges-
tion of President Robertson who entrusted to a committee
of faculty members the selection of the books, which include
inexpensive reprints as well as more costly books of recent
publication. The object of all this careful planning has been
to help students develop their own libraries by placing before
them as a guide, books, whether new or old, that will wear
well.
Not only were the Trustees and the administration con-
cerned with budgets, but in January 1935, through a Budget
Week sponsored jointly by the Committee on Scholarship and
Loans, the Chapel Committee, and the Committee on the Art
of Consumption, the subject of budget-keeping was brought to
the attention of the entire student body. There were daily
talks at chapel, the subject of each speaker being some aspect
of the budget problem as it arises in connection with colleges,
families, department stores, or railroads. In the central
pavilion of Goucher Hall there was an interesting exhibit of
pamphlets and books on the subject and some model budgets
for various incomes. A month later there was a fashion show
of clothes selected for budgets of $150 and |2oo and a plan
for the purchase of household furnishings for a newly-married
couple on a limited income.^"
Mary T. McCurley, vocational secretary, ready at all times
to assist undergraduates in obtaining positions, set up Janu-
ary 15 and 16, 1937, a vocational symposium whose avowed
384 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
purpose was to acquaint students with contemporary trends
in vocations for women and with opportunities offered in a
select group of occupations. With one exception, all the
speakers were recent Goucher graduates who had been success-
ful in their special choice of careers. The plan, in which the
Board of Directors of the Alumnae Association cooperated,
included an opportunity at dinner and tea to meet and talk
with the speakers.
The undergraduates took pride in the fact that Goucher
College had been invited by the president of the National
Education Association to select one of its students to speak for
the women college students of this country at the Annual
Convention in Los Angeles, June 1931. Virginia Potter, presi-
dent of the senior class, was chosen by President Robertson
for this honor.
Dr. Robertson's belief that every student should be awak-
ened as soon as possible to the necessity of self-education,
which implies the ability and desire to make use of the facilities
at the College, and his confidence that Goucher students are
mature and serious minded enough to take advantage of these
facilities of their own accord, led to the abolition, 1931-32,
of the penalties for absence before and after vacations. Dis-
cussions of penalties for absence before and after vacations, go
back to very early days. Drastic measures were taken at
Thanksgiving, 1924, and reforms were made by Dr. Stimson
in 1929. In 1933, penalties for any class absence were abol-
ished, and it is to the credit of Goucher students that this
liberal treatment has been in no way abused. President
Robertson said that attendance records thereafter were kept
at Goucher only in order to check on the health of the students
and that the only penalty attached to absence from classes,
was the injury the individual student may do to her own scho-
lastic standing. The new program emphasizes measurement
of achievement, not time spent in a classroom.
In addition to the regular courses on religions subjects, the
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 385
religious life of the students of this period has been provided
for by the Administration through talks in chapel by outside
speakers; through discussion groups with Dr. Harris E. Kirk,
Dr. S. Vernon McCasland, and Dr. Thomas Guthrie Speers;
through such a series as the addresses on three successive days
in October 1935, when in commemoration of the 400th anni-
versary of the first complete English translation of the Bible,
Dr. Curtis spoke on "The History of the English Bible,"
Dr. Annette Hopkins on "English Literature and the Bible,"
and Dr. McCasland on "The Bible: Problems of Translation;"
and again in February 1936, when under the general subject of
"The Religion of Scientists and Philosophers," Dr. Lloyd pre-
sented the point of view of the chemist; Dr. Frehafer, that of
the physicist; Dr. Lewis, of the astronomer; Dr. Moment, of
the biologist; President Robertson, of the English teacher;
Dr. McDougle, of the sociologist; and Dr. Bussey, of the
philosophers.
President Robertson in 1934 formed the President's Guild
made up of alumnae living in "a few strategic localities" where
it is desirable to have continuous representation of Goucher
College by one person who will be appointed by the President
as a personal representative. In the first list of such members
there were sixteen names.
In 1934, the Continuing Education Committee of the Alum-
nae Association arranged its first series of lectures in the field
of adult education. For an hour a week during February and
March on six successive weeks three courses conducted by
members of the Goucher faculty were given: "Descriptive
Astronomy," "Some Aspects of Twentieth Century Litera-
ture," and "Science and Religion in Recent Philosophy."
There was an enrolment of 80. The next two years there
were similar courses in the fields of science, the humanities,
and the arts. The second year in addition to the winter courses
there was a symposium the day before commencement on the
subject "Changing Ideals in the Twentieth Century:" moral,
386 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
political, literary, and sociological ideals respectively. This
proved so popular that it has been continued since. Un-
friendly weather the first three years had made some difficulties
for the winter meetings and for the 1936-37 program there
was set up in addition to the commencement discussion group,
an evening symposium on Spain at the time of the Alumnae
Council, and in the spring a week-end conference on "Mexico —
Today and Tomorrow." Most of the presentations have been
made by members of the Goucher faculty, but in some cases,
experts from other institutions have been brought in as well.
The leaders in this adult education work have been Caroline
Diggs, '15, Katherine Treide, '17 (Mrs. Michael S. Baer), and
Eleanor Diggs, '15 (Mrs. Henry E. Corner).
The interest of the College and of the alumnae in adult
education has been shown, also, in another direction — in the
classes for industrial workers. In the autumn of 1932 under
the sponsorship of a committee of the faculty and of the Balti-
more Goucher Club, classes in economics, history, and English
were set up for women employed in industry."^ That first
year some twenty-seven young women came to the College on
Friday evening, sometimes having supper in the City Girls'
Center,^" using the library, and then attending classes taught
by Dr. Naomi Riches, Dr. Elinor Pancoast, and Alice Jim-
myer, '29 (Mrs. Richard Reynolds). This work under the
chairmanship of Dr. Pancoast has been continued in the suc-
cessive following years. The Baltimore Goucher Club, keenly
interested in it, has made annual contributions to its financing.
In the chapter on Dr. Guth's administration, it was pointed
out that in 191 6, an alumna was appointed to membership on
the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees. In March
1 93 1, President Robertson and Mr. Robinson, acting president
of the Board, appointed a second alumna to that committee,
Frances Strader, '13 (Mrs. John K. Culver) who had come to
the Board as a representative of the Alumnae Association.
Two years after Mrs. Culver's resignation, Eleanor Diggs, '15
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 387
(Mrs. Henry E. Corner) was made a member of the Executive
Committee. Today therefore on that most important com-
mittee of the Trustees, there are two alumnae.
During this administration, there was brought to its first
fruition a valuable enterprise of the Alumnae Association —
the Alumnae Fund which at the commencement season of 193 1
made its first gift to the College. ^*<^ In the autumn of 1928,
Frances Strader Culver, president of the Alumnae Association,
asked Anna Heubeck Knipp to study alumnae and alumni
funds of other colleges and bring a report with recommenda-
tions concerning them to the annual meeting in 1929. At that
time it was decided to adopt this method of financing the work
of the Association. During 1929-30 a committee of five with
Mrs. Knipp as chairman worked out a plan suited to the
Goucher Alumnae Association, which plan in 1930-31 was
put into operation. Through the Alumnae Fund, the Goucher
Alumnae Association finances its own work, including the
support of the alumnae office, publishes its own magazine —
Goucher Alumnae Quarterly — and makes an annual gift to the
College. The total of such gifts coming to the College during
the six years that the Alumnae Fund has been in operation
was estimated in 1937 by its second chairman, Janet Goucher
Miller, to be ^26,600.
Previous gifts^^*^ by the alumnae were raised by the difficult
and, in many respects, unsatisfactory methods of campaigns
and drives. Hereafter, it is planned to bring annual, continu-
ous gifts to the College through the Alumnae Fund.
Fiftieth Anniversary and the Future
Early in the present administration, attention was directed
to the fact that the College was approaching its fiftieth anni-
versary. In its founding, as the first and second chapters show,
there are six significant dates: March 8, 1884, when the Balti-
more Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church resolved
388 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
that "The Conference make the foundation and endowment
of a Female College the special object for its centenary celebra-
tion;" January 26, 1885, when the College came into legal
existence through incorporation under the general laws of
Maryland; October 5, 1886, when the cornerstone of the first
building, Goucher Hall, was laid; Thursday, September 13,
1888, when the College was opened for the registration of stu-
dents and the first term of the first year began; Monday,
September 17, 1888, when the classes were organized and
instruction started; November 13, 1888, when inauguration
ceremonies were held and what was called its "formal opening"
occurred. It was decided by the Trustees to observe the first
three anniversaries in a simple way and to reserve the formal
celebration until 1938, when the half century of work with the
students could be commemorated.^^^ But since September 13
and 17 would come before College opened and November 13
was rather late for exercises on the Towson campus, October 14,
15, and 16, 1938, were chosen as the time for the formal cele-
bration. ^^^
For the observance of the first date in the series the College
was fortunate in being able to secure as the speaker at a chapel
service on March 8, 1934, the Reverend Charles W. Baldwin,
D.D., a member of the original founding committee and the
oldest living member of the Baltimore Conference. In his
"camp-meeting" voice, as he termed it, a voice still full and
resonant despite his ninety-four years. Dr. Baldwin described
clearly the labors and sacrifices and enthusiasms of the founders
of the College. By his message and the earnestness and dig-
nity of his benediction, the large audience was profoundly
stirred.^""
Charter Day was celebrated by a meeting of the Executive
Committee and of the Board of Trustees on the anniversary
date — January 26, 1935 — and by an address in chapel the day
before, when Mrs. Knipp traced the steps leading up to the
incorporation of the College, laying especial emphasis on the
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 389
important work, in arousing interest and securing funds, done
by the Methodist women through their Woman's Educational
Association.^'*^
The third date was noted by Dean Stimson in her regular
chapel talk on Monday, October 5, 1936, when she called the
attention of the students to the fact that fifty years ago that
day the cornerstone had been laid for the first College building
— Goucher Hall.i^^
In connection with the formal celebration, there are to be
two publications; President Robertson's report on the period
of his administration "A College of Today for Tomorrow,"
and this history of the fifty years of the institution. ^^^ These
two publications are indicative of the emphasis to be placed
by the entire program, on both the future of the College and
its past.
Happenings of the last few years add special significance
to the part of the commemorative exercises connected with the
Towson Campus. The magnificent tract of land, acquired in
1923 through President Guth's business ability and inspiring
vision for the future of the College, he was not permitted to
develop. That President Robertson began his administra-
tion with high hopes of some day moving the College to Towson
there is abundant evidence: in his first address to the faculty,^*^
in his first report to the Trustees,^'*^ in his first meeting with
the Alumnae Council,^^" in his first commencement statement.
"The opportunity" said he at commencement, 1931, "is one
of the most remarkable in the American field of education.
An institution with a highly honorable record, increasingly
creditable, does its work under increasingly difficult conditions
because of the movement of an urban population and espe-
cially the enormous development of a noise of traffic against
which neither classroom nor residence hall can combat success-
fully.
"In the possession of the College a beautiful tract awaits
provision of buildings which will permit Goucher College even
390 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
more effectively to do its work. A library, a chapel, a residence
hall! I envy a donor the joy he will receive if he seizes this
opportunity to erect a memorial on the beautiful new campus
of Goucher College."^"
While cherishing the dream of moving the College, President
Robertson, however, has kept in mind the practical side of the
question. In a report made to the Trustees in June 1937 on
the "Future of the College," he pointed out the difficulties
facing the future of privately endowed institutions, and he set
before the Trustees various possible developments of the Col-
lege in the years ahead. "It is necessary to anticipate as
definitely as possible," he said, "national trends particularly
in finance and education, as well as trends in local conditions,
financial and educational, as these may affect a privately
endowed college for women in Baltimore. This is particu-
larly true if present physical or other conditions force considera-
tion of removal of Goucher to another site. Every possi-
bility must be explored."
Depression years have made impossible the speedy formula-
tion of any plans looking to the realization of these hopes,
though President Robertson has continued to refer to them.^"
Now and then from outside sources there have come encourage-
ments. Mr. Gerald W. Johnson writing in the Evening Sun
a series of articles on the general subject of "What's Wrong
with Baltimore.^" had on December 2, 1933, under the sub-
topic "Intellectually," these words to say to Baltimore about
Goucher College: "Goucher College has a fine suburban site,
but it is left gasping and choking in the smoky heart of the
city because it has never been able to raise enough to move;
yet it ranks high among women's colleges and deserves to be
the pride of the city."
During the period of hopeful waiting, important preliminary
developments within the College have taken place. The reor-
ganized faculty gave its attention to making better still the
educational program of Goucher College which today is de
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 39I
clared by experts to be worthy of public support, and the
faculty, also, through a general committee on planning, as
well as through subcommittees, has made careful studies of
the future building requirements of the College, the various
departments having been asked to submit reports on their
respective needs from an architectural point of view.*"
The alumnae, with a few individual exceptions, have always
been enthusiastic about the removal of the College to the
Towson site. The Alumnae Council meeting of 1935 came to
an end with the annual dinner of President and Mrs. Robert-
son, held that year in the pleasant setting of the Mt. Vernon
Club. After the dinner, President Robertson asked the alum-
nae some questions about building the College on the Towson
campus, among them: "What would the Alumnae Council
advise the Trustees to do in regard to a promotional program ?"
The answer came in the form of a motion, enthusiastically
adopted by the group: "The members of the Alumnae Council
of 1935 ask the Trustees as a part of the Fiftieth Anniversary
observance to formulate definite practical plans for the re-
moval of the College to the campus and to develop them as
far as possible by 1938."
The Trustees, fully aware of the disadvantages of the
present location and of the great advantages of the new site
and realizing that moving a distance of only six miles in these
days of rapid transit would deprive the College of none of the
good things that it enjoys today, have often expressed them-
selves in favor of moving the College if the funds to do so could
be secured. That aspect of the case has pressed heavily upon
them, for the financial problems of the College are their chief
concern. About a year after the Alumnae Council meeting
referred to above, the Board of Trustees was reorganized,
Mr. Emory H. Niles was elected its president.
To the presidents of its Board of Trustees, the College owes
a great debt of gratitude. In the earliest times, the resident
bishop of the area was, ex-officio, the president of the Board,
39'
THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
then for a time the office was held by ministers of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. The first layman to occupy the position
was Mr. James N. Gamble of Cincinnati. Mr. Summerfield
Baldwin, Mr. Henry S. Dulaney, Mr. Elmore B. Jeffery, in
succession since, have rendered distinguished service. On the
death of Mr. Jeffery in 1929, the vice president, Mr. Edward
L. Robinson, became acting president. Drawn into an interest
in the College during the campaign of 191 1 and 1912 to free
the College from debt, Mr. Robinson has served on the Board
of Trustees since 1913. His leadership has been of inestimable
value to the College in financial matters and in securing
Dr. Robertson as president of the College. Despite repeated
urgings of the Executive Committee, Mr. Robinson, because
of his age, refused the office of president of the Board, though
he exercised all the functions until November 16, 1936, when
Mr. Emory H. Niles was elected president and Mr. John W.
Sherwood, vice president of the Board.*" Its committees were
then raised to full strength, and during the subsequent time
its attention has been devoted to securing expert architectural
and financial advice as to the procedure of the College in the
development of the Towson campus.*"
On December 23, 1936, Mr. Emory H. Niles, president of
the Board of Trustees, Mr. John W. Sherwood, vice president
of the Board, and President David A. Robertson presented
the problem of the Trustees to a committee of the Baltimore
Chapter of the American Institute of Architects made up of
the president, the incoming president, and five past presidents
of the Chapter, and asked for advice as to the method of
architectural procedure. In the subsequent report the method
that had the greatest support was that of creating an Advisory
Board of Architects. To this Advisory Board, the Trustees
have appointed Mr. Edward L. Palmer, Jr. of Baltimore,
chairman, Mr. James R. Edmunds, Jr. of Baltimore, and Mr.
Richmond H. Shreve of New York. This Advisory Board,
cooperating with the faculty committee on planning, whose
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 393
chairman is Professor Clinton I. Winslow, has developed for
the Board of Trustees a program for securing through com-
petition an architect to prepare a general plan and to design
one principal building. In the spring of 1938, notice about
the architectural competition was sent to about one hundred
chapters of the American Institute of Architects. More than
one hundred and fifty architects, among them the best in the
country, ranging from the most modernistic to the most con-
servative, applied for invitations to enter the competition.
Of these, fifty were invited to submit designs. Members of
the jury are Gilmore D. Clarke, chairman of the U. S. Com-
mission of Fine Arts, John A. Holabird of Chicago, Dean
Everett V. Meeks, School of Fine Arts, Yale University.
In the meantime the Trustees employed New York experts
to make a survey of Goucher College. This survey, presented
March 31, 1938, received careful consideration by the Board
of Trustees and led to the appointment of public relations
counsel who, in association with the officers of the College,
members of the faculty, and alumnae are preparing for the
celebration, in the autumn of 1938, of Goucher's fifty years
of service.
It is planned to announce at the Fiftieth Anniversary Meet-
ing to be held in the Lyric Theatre October 14, 1938, the
awards of prizes of ^2,500, $2,000, $1,500, and $1,000 for the
designs receiving the first four places in the architectual com-
petition. All designs submitted in the competition will be
exhibited in Goucher Hall on the two following days, October
15 and 16.
As the editor of the Goucher Alumnae Quarterly wrote, there
was "buzzing ... in all four quarters of the academic globe on
the question of going to Towson" for even the students at
commencement, 1937, had a step-singing song on that subject,
the first since the famous "Moving-Day" of long ago.
The celebration of the fiftieth anniversary will bring together
students, alumnae, faculty, trustees, and other friends of the
394 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
College. It will be an occasion for all Goucher women to
unite in paying tribute to the men and women who had a part
in the founding and the development of the College, to recog-
nize the accomplishments of the first half-century, to plan
for the future. Distinguished educators will give addresses
and discuss educational problems. The social events will
afford opportunity for class reunions and the renewing of
friendships and college associations. The complete anni-
versary program has been announced as follows:
GOUCHER COLLEGE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
October 14.-15-16, ig^S
Program
Friday
College Classes open to visitors
10:30 a.m. Alumnae Council Chapel Service
Speaker: Harriet Ellis Levering, A.B., Pd.D., recipient of
the first Goucher degree
8:30 p.m. Fiftieth Anniversary Meeting — Lyric Theater
Address: Mildred Helen McAfee, A.M., LL.D., President,
Wellesley College
Address: Isaiah Bowman, Ph.D., Sc.D., LL.D., President,
Johns Hopkins University
Address: David Allan Robertson, A.B., Litt.D., LL.D.,
President, Goucher College
Announcement of Awards in Architectural Competition
Conferring of Honorary Degrees
Saturday
10:00 a.m. Discussion: Ends and Means of College Education — Catherine
Hooper Hall
Ada Louise Comstock, A.M., LL.D., Litt.D., L.H.D.,
President, Radcliffe College
Oliver C. Carmichael, A.M., Sc.B., LL.D., Litt.D., Chancel-
lor, Vanderbilt University
William S. Learned, Ph.D., LL.D., Carnegie Foundation for
Advancement of Teaching
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 395
Marjorie Nicolson, Ph.D., Lltt.D., Dean, Smith College
Dorothy Stimson, Ph.D., Dean, Gaucher College
12:00 m. Campus Party: Luncheon and Conducted Tours
4:00-6:00 p.m. Reception by President and Mrs. Robertson —
Goucher Hall
7:30 p.m. Fiftieth Anniversary Dinner — Lord Baltimore Hotel
Sunday
1 1 :oo a.m. A Service of Remembrance — First Methodist Episcopal Church
Preacher: Lynn Harold Hough, Th.D., L.H.D., Litt.D.,
LL.D., Dean, Drew Theological Seminary
Services of President Robertson
In the July 1930 number of the Goucher Alumnae Quarterly ^
there is presented a picture of the new president. Dr. Clyde
B. Furst emphasized the following attributes of Dr. David A.
Robertson: high scholarship; administrative ability; unusual
familiarity with American institutions of higher education;
authorship; vision, with the ability to launch successfully new
ideas; familiarity with international educational relations, per-
sonnel methods, and vocational guidance; interest in fine arts
and music; profound and practical belief in the things of the
spirit, indicated by his work; methods in agreement with those
of Goucher College.
In the light of his accomplishments as revealed in this
chapter, it can easily be seen how many of the high hopes
entertained when he came to the College have been realized.
His ability as a speaker has carried the name of the College
far and wide, and he has been no less appreciated within the
Goucher circle itself. During his first seven years at Goucher
College, President Robertson has been much in demand: on
the president's calendar more than one hundred and seventy
formal addresses are listed. He has spoken on educational,
literary, patriotic, and religious topics, chiefly, of course, on
the first two. He has addressed educational organizations,
colleges, secondary schools, parent-teachers associations, reli-
39^ THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
gious clubs, churches, Young Men's Christian Association,
Lawyers' Round Table, library groups, Kiwanis Clubs, Rotary
Clubs, women's clubs, chapters of the League of Nations
Association, the English Speaking Union, St. George's Society,
St. Andrew's Society.
The breadth of his culture has not only affected the curricu-
lum in the introduction of new courses in the department of
fine arts, but it has exerted an important influence on the
students, which was set forth in Donny brook Fair, 1934, as
follows :
A man is like his home; and as "the lighted house" cheers our hearts, so
Dr. Robertson himself illuminates our minds. His vibrant interest in
everything and everyone is a source of inspiration to us all. Without over-
emphasis he manages to convey to us his ideal of complete fulfillment of the
intellect. Not books alone, and A's and B's on little blue cards, make
the full woman, says our president; in addition to the foundation of earnest
study, one must seek music, art, and people. Only a man of Dr. Robert-
son's vitality and understanding could succeed in conveying so vividly to
us his own passion for real knowledge.
His wide experience in educational and academic matters
have brought drastic changes into the College: the setting up
of a departmental budget, the reorganization of the faculty,
the reorganization of admissions, of student guidance, of the
curriculum, of the Board of Trustees. And these changes have
been brought about with little or no friction, because he has
laid matters with fulness and frankness before trustees, faculty,
alumnae, and students. He has displayed an attitude of
tolerance for opposing opinion, and to his courage in initiating
new policies, he has added patience and a cooperative spirit
in carrying them through. When the faculty were debating
on certain aspects of the New Plan, President Robertson urged
patience: "If we make a change let us do so because we believe
in it; then we shall do it with greater courage and enthu-
siasm. "^^^ He has been the wise leader "who sees farther than
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 397
Others see but does not go faster than they can go." Perhaps
the most valid criticism of this administration has been that
sometimes it has been too patient and cautious, but the obvious
reply is to point to results which would not have been achieved
by the undemocratic assertion of authority.
Through his conciliatory policies and his tact, President
Robertson early in his administration brought the College back
into friendly relations with the Baltimore Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. In his first year perhaps the
most significant act outside the College was his presence on
June 4, 1931, at the annual meeting of the Conference when
he returned to the Methodist Historical Society certain old and
valuable documents which had remained in the college vault
since the days when Dr. Goucher was president both of the
College and of the Methodist Historical Society.^" Dr.
Robertson was vigorously applauded as he came on the Con-
ference platform and as he presented the papers he said that
"anyone connected with Goucher College should feel a sense
of indebtedness to the Methodist Episcopal Church out of
which came the institution. "^^^ He spoke further of the able
men on the Board of Trustees who had been nominated by
the Baltimore Conference and expressed the desire that they
would continue to send men of vision and initiative. ^^^ A
few years later this initial impression was strengthened when at
the observance in Baltimore of the sesquicentennial of Method-
ism, the Cokesbury Bell in Goucher HaW^^ rang one hundred
and fifty times, and the Trustees of Goucher College sent
greetings to the Bishops of the three Methodist Groups as
follows :
At the Christmas Conference of 1784, there was undertaken the creation
of Cokesbury College. One hundred years later, the Baltimore Conference
provided for the establishment of the Woman's College, which became
Goucher College. To the generous action of that conference Goucher
College owes its very existence;
Moved by deep appreciation of the contribution of Methodism to the
398 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
well being of the College, the Trustees of the College send their best wishes
for a successful celebration of the sesquicentennial of Methodism in
America.^"
Coming to the College at a time of confusion and difficulty,
President Robertson has displayed optimism in many ways,
but particularly in relation to the future reality of Greater
Goucher. "His optimism is not the foolishly baseless sort,
but rather a serene belief based on wide knowledge of the world
and its events. With him we look forward to the day when
the community of Goucher College will be the embodiment of
past hopes. . . ."^^^
This chapter may well be brought to a close by two alumnae
tributes. One, presented at the alumnae banquet, 1935, by
the president of the Alumnae Association, Hester Corner
Wagner:
President and Mrs. Robertson, the Alumnae Association wish on this
occasion to recognize the completion of your five years of service to Goucher
College by reviewing the significant achievements of this brief period.
You, President Robertson, through budgetary and legislative reform;
through the development of the library; through effecting a complete re-
organization of the curriculum, a project for which you have courageously
labored from the beginning, have striven unceasingly to express the prin-
ciples of liberalism fundamental to any growing institution of learning.
Through your frequent contact with outlying alumnae groups, through
your wise and cheerful cooperation with the central office, you have shown
yourself sensible of the Alumnae Association as a vital factor in the college
life.
Through your contributions to the civic and social life of Baltimore you
have done much toward establishing that relationship of mutual helpfulness
between the College and its environment which should be the aim of every
educational institution.
Mrs. Robertson, we realize your service to have been different, yet notably
essential. The signs of your generosity are on every hand. We remember
your part in the reorganization of the infirmary; your constant care for the
social happiness of all the college family; the evidence, everywhere, of your
love of beauty; your faculty for utilizing, for the college welfare, those social
and intellectual advantages to which residence in Baltimore offers such abun-
dant access.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ROBERTSON 399
For these and many other constructive measures for the development
of Goucher College, we here express to you both our gratitude, our pride,
and our affection.
And the other given at the 1936 meeting of the Alumnae
Association by Janet Goucher Miller, '01, as senior alumnae
trustee: "In President Robertson's experience gathered from
near and far, in his unfeigned appreciation of the finest in our
past, in his unwearying concern in the vital interests of our
present, we have a guarantee of a radiant future. "^^
Chapter IX
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM*
Introduction — Admissions — Curriculum changes — Requirements
for the degree — The New Plan of 1934 — Adapting the curriculum
to the individual.
Introduction
THE evolution of the curriculum of Goucher College
reflects the general trends of curriculum development in
all institutions of higher education, particularly in
women's colleges. When the earliest colleges for women were
founded the general belief in the mental inferiority of women
was still so strong that the authorities of these early colleges
for women dared make no innovations in the usual curriculum
for fear their critics might attribute such changes to the in-
ability of women students to master the intellectual tasks
required of men. This is perhaps the reason why the criticism
has been made that the growth of the curriculum of the
women's colleges has been marked by no particular originality;
that is, the women's colleges cannot be pointed out as the
source of any single tendency in the American college today.
When the Woman's College of Baltimore City was shaping
its policies in 1888, the older colleges for women had already
cast their programs in the traditional mold inherited from the
men. The classics dominated the curriculum. The initial
momentum of the interest in the free election of studies, which
was inaugurated at the University of Virginia in 1825 and
received new impetus as the policy of Harvard University
under President Eliot in 1869, had by the late eighties nearly
spent itself. Both of its original sponsors had receded from
* This chapter, written by Professor Stella A. McCarty, was practically completed
at the time of her death, November 13, 1936. See "Acknowledgments."
400
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 4OI
their radical position. In other institutions the question had
been settled by compromise, a group of required subjects, more
or less numerous, forming the foundation upon which later
elective studies must rest.
That the new college in Baltimore from its early days was
conscious of the special problem of adapting higher education
to the needs of women is clearly evident from the statement of
aims written by Dean Van Meter, which first appeared in the
catalogue for 1904-05 and continued to appear through the
succeeding years: "The formation of womanly character for
womanly ends — a character appreciative of excellence, capable
of adaptation to whatever responsibilities life may bring, effi-
cient in the duties of the home and of society, resourceful
in leisure, reverent toward accepted truths, yet intelligently
regardful of progressive ideas, earnest and purposeful, but
gentle and self-controlled." The influence of tradition, how-
ever, and the desire for recognition as one of the high grade
colleges of the country were evident in the actual shaping of
the curriculum; and the development of a program adapted
to the special needs of women students has been a matter of
gradual evolution which still continues. This growth and the
changing social needs of women in the past fifty years form the
subject of this chapter.
Admissions
The problem of admission requirements is so intimately
related to the whole academic policy of an educational institu-
tion that the story of its various solutions forms the most
appropriate introduction to any study of the curriculum.
Although by the middle of the nineteenth century the doc-
trine of universal elementary education was generally ac-
cepted, and although opportunity for some form of universal
secondary education adapted to individual needs and capaci-
ties was coming into favor before its close, higher education
402 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
has always been regarded as the special privilege of a selected
group. The colleges and universities have always demanded
of their applicants some evidence of special fitness. For
centuries the only qualifications necessary were proficiency in
the Latin language and literature and some knowledge of
mathematics. The prestige of these subjects, a survival of
the classical renaissance, was prolonged by the practical utility
of Latin as the language of universal social usage. When,
with the development of the modern vernacular languages,
that very real value waned, the disciplinary theory was invoked
in defense of the traditional subjects. Higher education came
to be regarded as a mental discipline, whose value was con-
ceived not in terms of the intrinsic worth of the subjects pre-
sented but in terms of the intellectual training gained, and the
most effective instruments for such training were the time-
honoured subjects, Latin and mathematics. Although the
scientific movement of the nineteenth century had threatened
to dethrone them, they were so strongly intrenched that the
most that could be achieved by the newer subjects was a
grudging acceptance of a limited program of the scientific
subjects in addition to the traditional ones.
When the Woman's College was organized, four years of
Latin, including Latin grammar, Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil,
and mathematics, including arithmetic, algebra, and geome-
try, were the first requirement for entrance as they were at
Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith, at Harvard and Princeton, and
at the majority of colleges for both sexes. The more modern
note is struck in the requirement of a second language, which
might be Greek, French, or German; of English grammar and
composition; and of some literature, history, and science. The
Woman's College departs somewhat from the example set by
the older women's colleges, Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith, in
substituting English history for Greek history and in requiring,
in addition to geography, which is the only science listed by
the other colleges, physics and physiology. The only other
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 4O3
variant is Wellesley's requirement of "Bible through Exodus."
Admission to all is by certificate from approved secondary
schools or by examinations set by the colleges. The selection
of the approved list at the Woman's College was originally in
the hands of the faculty; when the Board of Control was
organized in 1891 it became the function of that body.
Minor changes were made in the next few years, but there
was none of lasting significance until the organization of the
College Entrance Examination Board in 1899. By 1905-06
the list of preparatory schools approved by the Board of Con-
trol was superseded by the "list of accredited preparatory
schools prepared by the New England College Certificating
Board and by the North Central Association of Colleges and
Secondary Schools." The College thus ceased to function as
an accrediting agency.
The influence of this Board, in which the College has main-
tained its membership from the beginning, was shown the next
year after its establishment in the new definition of entrance
credits in terms of "points," a point being defined as one year's
work in a class meeting not less than four times a week. Four-
teen points (increased to fifteen in 1 904-1 905) were prescribed
as the minimum. These included three points of English com-
position and literature, one of history, four of Latin, and two
of mathematics, a total of ten prescribed subjects. The remain-
ing four points were to be elected: two from a second language,
which might be French, German, or Spanish, though Greek
was included the following year, the other two from mathe-
matics and the natural sciences.
Latin remained the dominant study until 1907-08, when the
four years of required Latin were reduced to two. In the third
year of President Guth's administration, 1916-17, Latin was
dropped from the prescribed subjects for entrance to Goucher,
and the language requirement became "three entrance units
in one foreign language or two units each in two foreign lan-
guages," but with the qualifying statement that "It is preferred
404 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
that at least three units of Latin be offered." President Guth
justified the change, first, because of the change in the relative
importance of Latin as compared with the modern languages;
second, "because it seems right to give to any well-prepared
young woman . . . the opportunity of an education in one of
the leading eastern colleges for women;" and, third, because
"It is in harmony with the prevailing tendency of the promi-
nent colleges and universities of the United States." This
point of view has since been justified by investigations of the
value of Latin and the validity of the disciplinary theory of
education in general. These investigations have shown that
the chief reason, and perhaps the only reason, for the acknowl-
edged superiority of Latin over non-Latin students has been
that, because of the inherent difficulties of the subject, Latin
is more frequently elected by students of superior intelligence.
The familiar logical fallacy, post hoc^ ergo propter hoc, has been
responsible for the elevation of Latin to a unique place among
secondary school and college subjects. On the contrary side
it is claimed that the specific subjects studied in the secondary
school have little weight in determining the fitness of a candi-
date for success in college, although the methods of work ac-
quired in these earlier years, the interests fostered, and the
ideals instilled may be most important. In fact, some recent
studies of college students made by Professor Corwin of Yale
University have shown that, if allowance be made for difference
in the students' achievement in college: "Preparation for col-
lege is not necessarily synonymous with fitness for college
work." In later years the study of Latin at Goucher has
assumed its rightful place as a respected elective for those
students whose abilities, interests, and future life needs may
be fostered by this subject.
In 1900, the College Entrance Examination Board decided
to offer examinations for those colleges which preferred to use
them. Later Goucher College rejected the invitation to use
these examinations exclusively as its basis for admission.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 4O5
President Guth says of this decision: "The fact is admitted
that the principal and the teachers under him who have known
the candidate for four years are best able to judge of the
candidate's fitness to enter college. When a public or private
school is recognized as first class, and the judgment of the
principal can be depended upon, a statement from the principal
that the candidate is 'college material' is a better means of
determining the candidate's fitness, we think, than any kind
of an examination. The question arises then, 'Why examine
the candidate.''' If she passes, she merely substantiates the
principal's word which ought not to have been questioned. If
she fails, the failure may have been due to conditions incident
to the examination. But it is not likely that she will fail.
The college is assured against her failure by the statement of
the principal, and time, expense, and nervous energy can be
saved by trusting the principal's judgment and integrity. If
the first year of college work shows that a mistake has been
made, which mistake is just as likely to occur if the candidate
passes a creditable examination, the mistake can be corrected,
as far as the college is concerned, by dropping the student
from the college roll. The college can thus guard itself against
students who ought not to be in college, and indicate to the
principal of the school that he is in error of judgment. It is
not likely that principals of accredited preparatory schools
will make such mistakes often. "^
For the next sixteen years these requirements remained
essentially the same. Candidates meeting all requirements
and recommended by accredited preparatory schools were
accepted unconditionally. Candidates with satisfactory rec-
ords who lacked such recommendations were admitted only
on examination. The recommendation of the principal in-
cluded not only his report on scholarship but also his esti-
mate of the candidate's intellectual and social interests, her
personality and character.
Minor changes were made from time to time. Some form
406 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
of probation for students from non-accredited schools and for
those with irregular or deficient preparation was recognized for
many years, its precise conditions varying from time to time.
In 1924, however, the enrolment of the College having grown
to its full capacity, the regulation was made that "No candi-
date is admitted under any condition who does not offer the
full amount of preparation."
Attention was always paid to the applicant's preparatory
school grades; the catalogue for 1921-22 states that there must
be, in addition to the recommendation of the principal, a
minimum of eighty in the final average of grades. Later,
when intelligence tests came to be widely used in secondary
schools, some attention was given to the score or rank of the
candidate in any test she might have taken. Thus the need
for more objective measures was beginning to be recognized,
although the nature of these measures was still indefinite and
variable.
In the same year, 1921-22, the College ceased to require any
specific subjects for admission, except that each candidate
was required to present four years of English. Although no
definite rule was stated until 1918-19, it had before that become
the custom to require four years of English composition though
these years were counted for only three units.
The appointment of Dr. David _ A. Robertson as president
of the College in 1930 was the signal for a thorough revision
of its educational policies along all lines. Well versed in the
old "culture," yet familiar with the practical details of college
administration through his years of experience as dean of the
Colleges of Arts, Literature, and Science of the University of
Chicago, and acquainted with the broader problems and the
technical aspects of education through his six years' associa-
tion with the American Council on Education, President Rob-
ertson brought to his new duties a rare combination of theoreti-
cal insight and practical experience. In the spring of 1933, the
first significant progressive step of his administration was taken
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 4O7
in the adoption by the faculty of the report of the Admissions
Committee appointed by him two years previously.
According to the new plan of admissions, responsibility for
judging the qualifications of applicants, which had gradually
become concentrated in the hands of the Registrar, was vested
in a newly constituted Admissions Committee composed of the
President, the Dean, the Registrar, six members of the faculty
and a Director of Admissions, who should act as the administra-
tive head of the committee, should make contacts with second-
ary schools and with candidates, and should be responsible for
the records of the admissions office. This organization was con-
summated in the spring of 1934 when a director of admissions
was appointed; and the responsibility of passing on the quali-
fications of candidates was distributed among those who would
later share the responsibility of dealing with the accepted
candidates as Goucher students. However, the committee
was originally less concerned with the details of administering
this important function than with the requirements themselves.
Conscious of the changes that had taken place in the secondary
schools in the past twenty years, and of the development of a
groundwork of educational science upon which to a large degree
these changes were based, they sought, by a comprehensive
study of past admissions policies at Goucher, of the changing
status of preparatory schools, and of entrance requirements in
other colleges and universities, to adopt a plan which would
recognize the scholastic and technical advances of secondary
education and at the same time safeguard the College in the
maintenance of its academic standards.
Admission according to the new plan was based upon the
combined results of the secondary school records and of an
aptitude test to be administered under the auspices of the
College. The scholastic record, however, was Hmited to the
last three years, for which twelve units of work were required.
This change was in part the result of the junior high school
movement, which had made it difficult or impossible to secure
408 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
reliable records for the ninth grade in the more progressive
public school systems. It was in part the result of statistical
studies made at Goucher and elsewhere, which have shown
that the grades of the last three years of secondary school
work show a closer connection with college marks than do the
grades of the last four years.
The only subject absolutely required is English, which must
be studied for three years. The remaining nine units may be
elected from the languages, the natural sciences, and the social
studies. In addition to these, "the Committee on Admissions
at its discretion may accept one unit, or under exceptional
circumstances two units, in subjects not listed, but related
to the Goucher curriculum. "2
The new admission requirements at Goucher also make some
provision for "applicants whose preparation has been irregular
or unusual, but who, by the quality of their preparatory work,
by their scholastic aptitude test, and by their recommendations
show exceptional promise for success in college work. ... A
small number of such students may be accepted each year, and
their progress shall be compared with that of the students who
are regularly prepared. At the end of an experimental period
the records of such students shall be examined to determine
whether this experiment shall be continued, modified, or dis-
continued. "^
The regulations with regard to grades for certification have
also been modified. A study of the grading systems of the
preparatory schools whose graduates have been admitted to
Goucher has shown that the passing grades vary all the way
from sixty to eighty, if a percentage basis is used; while many
institutions have abandoned the percentage basis entirely in
favor of some system of letter grades. Hence the rule that the
average grade must be eighty or above, which was passed in
1920, had resulted in standards which were indefinite and
variable. The requirement as revised in 1932 is that "the
average grade for certification should not be lower than the
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM
409
midpoint between the passing mark of the school and 100.
The committee reserves the right to weight this grade, taking
into account the varying standards of secondary schools."*
In case a letter system is used, and no numerical equivalent is
given by the school, the grades are interpreted on the basis of
all available evidence. Comparison of the grades given in
preparatory schools with those earned by their graduates at
Goucher College is constantly being made in order that ulti-
mately some more satisfactory standard may be adopted. The
present standard is obviously faulty. Some effort is now being
made by the use of standardized tests and other means to
bring about uniformity in grading; but so long as the student
personnel of different schools varies as widely as it does at
present, and so long as the quality of teaching in the prepara-
tory schools varies to an almost equal degree, such differences
are bound to continue. Goucher recognizes the problem by
adopting as its second measure of fitness an aptitude test.
The College had been using an "intelligence" test since
191 8, when the Thorndike Intelligence Examination first be-
came available. This test was repeated with each incoming
class and its results were studied from year to year. The corre-
lation between the scores on the tests and college grades was
computed annually; and for some years the test scores were
also compared with secondary school grades, and the secondary
school grades with college grades. At Goucher it has been
consistently true that the correlation between test scores and
college grades in the freshman year has been significantly
higher than that between secondary school grades and college
grades. The statement of Thorndike that it is possible by
one test to measure more accurately the students' probable
success in college than by the complete record of their course
in secondary school is thus true for Goucher. The combined
data for the secondary school grades and test scores have been
found both at Goucher and elsewhere to have a correlation
about twenty-five points higher than either measure alone.
4lO THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Thus the combination has probably as high vaHdity in selecting
college students as any criterion yet devised. Lest injustice
should be done to any individual by the accidents of circum-
stance, the new requirements provide that an exceptionally
high record in the preparatory school may compensate for a
low score on the aptitude test, and an exceptionally high score
on the test may compensate for a questionable record in the
preparatory school.
The applicant's records must be accompanied by recom-
mendations from the principal of the school, from two teachers,
and from two other persons, not relatives, who know her
qualifications. These recommendations are made on the form
devised by the American Council on Education, which lists
five personality traits — personal appearance and manners as
affecting the individual's social relations, intellectual interest
and initiative, social leadership, emotional stabihty, and the
degree to which she is dominated by well defined purposes.
For each of these traits are listed five degrees of merit, one of
which is to be checked. Space is provided for concrete in-
stances of each, and finally for a statement regarding any
unusual talents and for an estimate of the candidate's general
fitness for college work. Such ratings from five qualified per-
sons present a composite picture which is a valuable supple-
ment to the more objective ratings, and which receive equal
consideration with them.
In addition to its intellectual and personal requirements,
the College has insisted from its earliest years upon health as an
essential qualification for an applicant. A certificate of physi-
cal health from her family physician has always been required.
This was soon supplemented by a thorough physical examina-
tion given after admission by the college physician and the
department of physical education. Under the able administra-
tion of Dr. Lilian Welsh, who for thirty years was professor
of physiology and hygiene and director of physical education
as well as resident physician, these examinations were made
thorough and exacting.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 4II
The first mention of admission to advanced standing is found
in the 1891-92 catalogue of the Woman's College of Baltimore.
The College was then preparing to graduate the members of
its first class with the degree of bachelor of arts. At that time
applicants wishing to transfer from other colleges were re-
quired to pass examinations in all the subjects for which credit
was desired. Later, applicants with satisfactory records from
colleges of equivalent standing were admitted on the basis of
their records, but remained on probation for the first year.
Applicants from other colleges were admitted only upon exam-
ination in the subjects taken in the other institution, and
usually with severe discounting of credits. The enrolment of
the College by 1921-22 had "reached full capacity and there-
fore the admission of students to advanced standing is not
encouraged and is limited to students from colleges of recog-
nized standing and with satisfactory records." On recom-
mendation of the Admissions Committee, the rule was adopted
in 1932 that thereafter students from institutions on the
approved list of the Association of American Universities
should be accepted at Goucher, receiving full credit for those
courses which had been satisfactorily completed at the former
institution, and which were in harmony with the Goucher
curriculum.
The age of admission to college has become in recent years
a matter of increasing interest. The catalogue for the first
quarter century stated that the candidates must be at least
sixteen years of age. In 1915-16 this statement was modified
to read, "The candidate should not be under sixteen years of
age, but exceptions may be allowed at the discretion of the
Committee on Admissions." The policy in this matter re-
mained unchanged until the revision of entrance requirements
in 1933, when all reference to age was omitted. There has
been a gradual decrease in the average age of students ad-
mitted: from over nineteen years in the earliest period to
seventeen years and ten months for the five year period from
1 93 1 to 1935. This is a natural consequence of the generally
412 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
accepted opinion that the rate of mental maturing is not en-
tirely dependent upon chronological age, but is accelerated
in the case of children of superior intelligence. Contrary to
the traditional view that early precocity is a symptom of
abnormality and is likely to be followed by early cessation of
mental growth, it is found that with few exceptions children
of superior mental endowment develop more rapidly than do
children of just normal intelligence, and are able to pass through
the lower schools at a more rapid rate than their duller neigh-
bors without detriment to their physical or mental health.
Although the modern tendency in the more progressive schools
is not to push these children too rapidly through the lower
schools, but to temper acceleration with enrichment of their
program, some reduction in the number of years which they will
inevitably spend in education is certainly desirable, and the
increase in the number of students who enter college before
their eighteen year is a wholesome sign. Moreover it has
been shown by investigations at Goucher and elsewhere that
the younger college entrant tends to be a superior college
student. The great majority of these younger students are
also sufficiently mature socially and physically to adjust them-
selves happily to the new social world of the college.
Curriculum Changes
The fulfilment of the ideal of the College — "the formation of
womanly character for womanly ends" — was in the early years
frustrated by the influence of tradition. The Aristotelian
conception of education as culture and of culture as prepara-
tion for leisure dominated all institutions of higher learning.
When such a conception was declared inadequate, it was
defended on the grounds of the disciplinary theory, as mental
training which would so develop the powers of the mind that
they would function equally well with any practical problems
that life might later present. The Aristotelian ideal was the
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 4I3
natural outcome of a social structure in which culture was the
special prerogative of a leisure class made possible by a sub-
stratum of slaves. The modern democratic ideal conceives of a
society in which both leisure and labor are the duty and privi-
lege of all. In such a state, the conception of education as
preparation for leisure, although increasingly important in
that it must be expanded to embrace all classes of society,
becomes at the same time inadequate in that there is no leisure
class; culture, which is the right of all, is as inclusive as life
itself. "It is the particular task of education at the present
time to struggle in behalf of an aim in which social efficiency
and personal culture are synonyms instead of antagonists."^
The sheltered position of modern women of the upper class
and their freedom from economic responsibilities prolonged the
influence of the Greek ideal in their education; but the twen-
tieth-century recognition of their economic and political rights
and responsibilities has made that ideal wholly obsolete. The
broader view has gradually transformed the curriculum of the
women's colleges, until it has come to embrace some prepara-
tion for all the manifold duties of the modern woman — not only
in the home, but in the world of industry, of government, and
of finance. Some foreshadowing of this broader purpose is
seen in the early curriculum of the Woman's College of Balti-
more with its inclusion of "natural science," anatomy, physiol-
ogy, political economy, and psychology. In the first year,
however, curriculum ofi^erings were relatively few and depart-
mental organization was simple, with numbers of subject
combinations which were determined by the exigencies of the
situation and the special aptitudes of the faculty members
rather than by strictly logical organization. In the first year
there were only seven regular members of the academic stafi^;
their teaching subjects were divided as follows: mathematics,
English, "natural science" (chemistry, physics, and biology),
classical languages, modern languages (French and German),
anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, and a combination of
4I4 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
history, philosophy, logic, ethics, psychology, and Bible. In
addition to the academic departments there were four others
whose courses were not recognized for the degree— elocution,
music, fine arts, and physical education.
As the faculty and the student body increased, and the four
year course became a reality, curriculum changes were fre-
quent and departmental organization was rapidly evolved.
The departments of English and mathematics held their inde-
pendent status from the beginning. In the first four years
the "natural sciences" were separated to form the three depart-
ments of chemistry, physics, and biology; "modern languages"
separated into the two departments of French and German, and
the department of history, political science, and economics was
divorced from its temporary union with Bible and philosophy.
Geology and mineralogy appeared in 1891-92 and remained in
the curriculum until 1911-12, when it was suspended to be
reinstated twice, and finally dropped in 1926-27. Beginning
in its inaugural year, the Woman's College provided a course
of lectures on physiology and hygiene, which were given by the
college physician. In 1895-96 under Dr. Lilian Welsh these
lectures were expanded into a regular course with laboratory
work, which formed the nucleus of the department of physi-
ology and hygiene. The modern languages were enriched by
the addition of Spanish and Italian, which were incorporated
with French into the department of Romance languages.
History, political science, and sociology continued to be
taught in one department until 1902-03, when economics and
sociology became a separate department. Not until seventeen
years later, when the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitu-
tion gave to women the responsibility of the suffrage, was
political science elevated to the status of a separate department.
The department of Bible and philosophy, in which psychol-
ogy was included, remained so organized until 191 5-16, when
three separate departments were created — Biblical hterature
and comparative religions, philosophy, and psychology. In
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM
415
the meantime, in response to an insistent demand, some
courses in education had appeared in the curriculum. These
were temporarily included in the department of psychology,
but in 1916 a separate department of education was created.
The attitude of the College toward the fine arts has passed
through several phases. In the early days of the Woman's
College courses were offered in vocal and instrumental music
and in drawing and painting, but they were never recognized
as a part of the regular curriculum qualifying for the degree.
These courses were finally abandoned in 1902, and students
who wished to combine such subjects with the college course
were advised to seek them at the local institutions which
specialized in music or art. However, interest in the theory of
art was early manifested largely because of the enthusiasm of
Dr. Hans Froelicher, professor of German. In the earliest
years he gave a series of lectures on art. Later these lectures
were expanded into an accredited course in the fine arts, which
for a brief period was required for the degree. After his death
in 1930, a specialist in fine arts was appointed and the work
was organized as a department. In 1935, music received its
first recognition in the curriculum by the appointment of an
instructor, the introduction of courses in appreciation and
theory, and the organization of a department.
In spite of its recognition of "efficiency in the duties of the
home" and the "formation of womanly character for womanly
ends' as one aim of the College there were in the early years
but few evidences of conscious efforts to direct the curriculum
toward these ends. The first indication is found in the state-
ment of the content of a course in economics for 1902-03:
"Consumption, production, exchange, and distribution, with
emphasis upon the economic function of women, household
economy, and domestic service — treated in accordance with
the laws of social evolution, and concluding with the ethical
aspects." In the year 1917-18, President Guth created a
department of home economics, because "We believe at
4l6 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Goucher College that education ought 'to be for use and not
merely for ornament." When Dr. Ruth Wheeler, a well-
known scientist, was appointed professor of home economics,
the work expanded to constitute a major department, whose
popularity among the students was immediate. However, two
years later when Dr. Wheeler resigned to accept an important
executive position, the department was disbanded, and the
only direct survival is a course in nutrition given in the depart-
ment of physiology and hygiene.
The purpose of "efficiency in the duties of the home" has
received recognition in other ways. The department of eco-
nomics and sociology under Professor T. P. Thomas developed
two courses looking to home responsibilities: "The Family,"
a study of the historical developments, present status, and
problems of the home — a pioneer course in its subject — and
"The Economics of Consumption," a course designed to give
scientific background for the problems of consumption which
are recognized today as chiefly the problems of women. The
department of physiology and hygiene, in addition to the study
of nutrition mentioned above, presents a course in community
hygiene in which not only the more broadly social problems
but the hygiene of the home and of child care are emphasized.
The department of education for sometime offered a major
in early elementary education in which the courses in child
psychology and allied subjects led directly to preparation for
parenthood. The combined offerings of these departments
gave opportunity for acquiring considerable insight into the
many-sided problems of home-making.
Thus the curriculum organization has developed from the
originally vaguely differentiated departments into eighteen
departments, designated as Biology, Chemistry, Classics, Eco-
nomics and Sociology, Education, Fine Arts, German, History,
Mathematics, Music, Philosophy, Physics, Physiology and
Hygiene, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, and Romance
Languages.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 4I7
Vocational claims have not been entirely ignored. Among
the earliest signs of recognition of this practical aspect of higher
education by the College was the pre-medical work which was
planned immediately after the Johns Hopkins Medical School
was established in 1892. This school had immediately opened
its doors to women students whose previous training had been
equivalent to the preliminary medical courses prescribed for
men. But the nature of the pre-medical course at the Woman's
College could hardly be called narrowly vocational, as it
embraced courses in modern languages, Latin, philosophy, and
English in addition to specialization in chemistry and biology.
The department of economics and sociology has from time to
time presented courses of a more or less practical nature, look-
ing toward social service as a vocation. The first of these
was offered in 1895-96, a course entitled "Economics and
Charities," which included a study of "the dependent and
defective classes, with methods of dealing with them." More
recently such courses as "Society and the Delinquent,"
"Methods in Social Work," and "Statistical Methods" have
made it possible for the student specializing in social science
to prepare partially for practical work in that field. Students
interested in international relations with a view to future
placement in diplomatic positions are given opportunity to
specialize by a combination major embracing studies from the
departments of economics and sociology, history, and political
science. Until recent years a large percentage of Goucher
graduates have become teachers. In the earlier period of the
College specialization in some one or more subjects of the
secondary school curriculum was sufficient preparation for
teaching in high schools; but with the development of research
in education and psychology came an increasing demand for
courses in education on the college level. Goucher, although
recognizing the validity of this demand, has consistently re-
stricted the number of courses which could be offered for a
degree in the belief that a rich background of content should
4l8 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
not be sacrificed to a technical knowledge of the methods of
teaching it.
In general it has been the policy of the College to include
in its curriculum only vocational materials which contribute
to general culture, with a minimum amount of apprenticeship.
Yet the women's colleges of today can hardly afford to ignore
the vocational interests of their students. President Guth
said in 191 8, "as years go by it becomes increasingly clear that
with the changed economic position of women, their increased
entrance into the professions and into industry, together with
the standardization of requirements for entrance into profes-
sional and technical schools, the college cannot look upon its
curriculum as designed purely for cultural purposes. The
insistent question of the modern student, *To what does this
lead me?' must be met with a practical answer. Primarily
college courses may be, probably must be, cultural, but this is
not incompatible with making these courses look towards a
vocation. There must be training for living and training for
doing. It is certainly a function of a college for women to see
that women students grasp the significance of this educational
idea."
No attempt has been made to follow the record of develop-
ment within the several departments. The total number of
courses offered has grown from fifty-six in 1891-92, the first
year when a full four year curriculum was presented, to three
hundred and nineteen in 1936-37. Expansion was naturally
wider and more rapid in its range in those departments which
attracted a large number of students. At Goucher as at the
majority of women's colleges, the social studies and the humani-
ties have always been more popular than the physical sciences
and mathematics. More specifically, English, economics and
sociology, history, and the Romance languages have far ex-
ceeded any other subjects in the favor of students both as
majors and as free electives; as a result, these departments
excel in the variety and intensiveness of their courses.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 4I9
In economics and sociology specialization has taken two
distinct lines: economics, including, besides the general course
in principles, courses in the "Economics of Consumption,"
"Labor Problems," and "Women in Industry;" sociology,
including social psychology.
Requirements for the Degree
The history of the changes in the requirements for the degree
has already been foreshadowed in tracing the admission policy
and curriculum development. At the period when the
Woman's College of Baltimore was founded, the principle of
free election of courses had been tried and found wanting; but
it had left its mark upon the curriculum of every American
institution of higher learning in the form of some kind of com-
promise between freedom and prescription. This is evident in
the provisions of the older colleges for women. The Vassar
curriculum of 1888 was "formed with regard to the conflicts
between the prescribed and elective systems,"^ where the work
of the first three semesters and seven hours of the fourth semes-
ter was prescribed, the remaining hours of the fourth semester
and the whole of the third and fourth years being left open
for elective subjects. Wellesley College, after a year of pre-
scribed work, offered a bifurcated course, classical and sci-
entific. The student, having made her choice of one of these
lines, followed its course with increasing opportunity for free
elections in the junior and senior year.^ At the Woman's
College, the curriculum was originally divided into four main
"courses," the classical, modern language, mathematical, and
scientific. Immediately upon her enrolment each student was
required to elect one of these courses, and having chosen the
main highway over which she wished to travel, she had little
opportunity to wander into bypaths. Sixteen year-hours of
work were prescribed for the freshman year, fourteen for the
sophomore, eleven for the junior, and six for the senior year.
420 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
In the total program of courses leading to the degree approxi-
mately fourteen year-hours were left open for free electives.
The rigidity of the plan was somewhat mitigated by the provi-
sion that "other combinations may be permitted by the Fac-
ulty." There was a large core of subjects which were the same
for all four courses.
The subjects required of all students included one year of
college Latin, mathematics, physical science, history, psy-
chology and logic, political and social science, ethics and Chris-
tian evidences, English rhetoric, literature, and in addition
foreign languages selected from Greek, French, and German.
Bible study was required for one hour each week through the
four years, and weekly lectures on human anatomy and hygiene
were prescribed for one year. In addition to these subjects
which were accredited toward the degree, the writing of an
essay every two weeks throughout the college course, elocution
through two years, and physical training in Swedish gym-
nastics through the four years were required without credit.
That this program was consciously planned with due regard
for the prevailing type of contemporary program for the men's
colleges is made clear by the early catalogue statement that
"the course of study is substantially the same as that of Johns
Hopkins University." It is also practically identical with the
lists of prescribed courses at Vassar and Wellesley, although
differing somewhat in details. For example, required history
in 1888 at Vassar included Greek and Roman history only; at
Wellesley, English and United States history and "the history
of civilization;" at the Woman's College, ancient, medieval,
and modern history. The requirements in the physical sci-
ences are the most diverse, at Vassar consisting of "natural
history" alone, at Wellesley, of chemistry and physics, at the
the Woman's College, of botany, biology, chemistry, or physics.
In addition, Wellesley and the Woman's College required Bible
and ethics.
In its provisions for the physical welfare of its students the
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 42I
Woman's College of Baltimore was in advance of its elder
sisters. Wellesley as late as 1899-00 required one hour of
physical training for one year, "permitted it to a limited num-
ber of upper classmen, and gave opportunity for organized
out-of-door sports, including rowing." The program of physi-
cal education at the Woman's College, as has been mentioned
above, required two hours of class work a week at the begin-
ning, and this prescription was soon increased to three hours a
week throughout the four year course.
The subjects listed as electives in all three institutions in-
cluded a wide variety of choices: for example, in the physical
sciences, mineralogy and lithology (Wellesley), astronomy
(Vassar and the Woman's College), and lectures on geology and
mineralogy (Woman's College), and in the humanities, theory
of art and music (Wellesley).
In 1891-92 the four "Courses" for the degree had given place
to fourteen "Groups," including nine possible language com-
binations, three physical science combinations, history-political
science, and history-English. A clearer recognition of the
relation between prescription and individual choice is shown
in the expressed desire for "careful proportion between re-
quired and elective courses. The required courses are those
essential to any course in liberal education and are the founda-
tions on which later specialization may build. There must be
sufficient opportunity for choice to enable the student to shape
her work with reference to any particular end she may have
in view. . . . The electives may not be combined at pleasure
but must be chosen with reference to the pursuit of a consistent
course of study and must follow naturally the work already
accomplished."
Two years later (1893-94) the fourteen "Groups" were
reduced to seven, consisting of Latin-Greek, Latin-English,
English-German, French-German, mathematics-physics, chem-
istry-biology, and history-sociology. However, in 1895-96,
nineteen principal "Groups" are listed, providing a wide range
422 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
of choice. The number of required courses was gradually-
reduced, so that at this time they comprised only about fifty-
percent of the student's work, but they must be taken at a
definite stage and electives must be grouped in a consistent
manner with the required courses and with other electives.
Furthermore, "The course of study is not arranged for early
specialization but for symmetrical intellectual development.
Yet students may pursue some one study or group of studies
consecutively in preparation for attaining a specialist's knowl-
edge after graduation. "^ Two years later a special bulletin
issued by the College discusses the problem of the free election
of studies and of speciahzation from a slightly more modern
point of view. "Every student should do advanced work in
some one subject and yet give a part of her time to other sub-
jects to avoid premature specialization or its opposite evil of
never choosing at all but spending four years dipping into all
the subjects the catalogue offers. . . . Besides a hurt to their
moral natures through such indecision, they [the students]
finish their four years of college with very little positive knowl-
edge to show for it, besides never having proceeded beyond
the elementary methods employed at the beginning of a new
subject."
The conception of the departmental major was evolved
gradually through the next twenty years. The program for
1895-96 provides that "After the freshman year two courses
of four hours each are elective each year. So a student may
pursue a chosen subject through three consecutive years."^ It
is not until 1902-03 that the term major is used in this connec-
tion: "Each student must elect one subject to be pursued
usually consecutively through the equivalent of two courses of
four hours each during a year. These constitute a major. No
required course may be counted as part of a major or minor."
In the following years the requirement became crystalized as
two major subjects of eight year-hours each or one major of
eight year hours and two minors of four year-hours each. So
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 423
it remained until 191 5-16, when, under President Guth's
administration, the present major plan was adopted. Accord-
ing to this plan every student was required to choose a "major
department" by the middle of her sophomore year. In partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree she must offer
credits amounting to approximately thirty semester hours, not
including required courses, in her major and its related sub-
jects. No definite combination of these subjects was fixed,
but each student must pursue such subjects as were specified
by an advisory committee, two members of which were the
Dean and the student's major professor. This last provision
was later modified so that the major professor became the
advisor, his decisions being subject to final approval by the
Dean. The major system remained substantially the same
until the curriculum revision of 1934, when significant changes
were made which are so closely identified with other phases
of this revision that they will be considered later.
The requirements of Latin and mathematics remained until
President Guth's administration. Latin was dropped from
the requirements, and one year later mathematics also.
"Thus," says President Guth, "education is freed from the
shackles of the belief that no education worthwhile can be
acquired without a painstaking drill in Latin and mathe-
matics.
"10
The attitude of the College toward the sciences, on the other
hand, has been one of steadily increasing interest. The original
requirement of one year of any "natural science," taken at any
time before the senior year, gave way in 1894-95 to the specific
requirement of physics and one other science in addition to the
lecture course in "anatomy and hygiene." In the following
year the latter course was expanded into a three hour course in
physiology and hygiene with laboratory work lasting through
the year. Soon after, physics and chemistry were both made
obligatory for the degree, unless a satisfactory course in either
had been offered for entrance. The year course in physiology
4^4 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
and hygiene was reduced in 191 5-16 to one semester, and one
semester of biology was made prerequisite to it. Psychology-
had been a requirement from the first years. The science
sequence from 1915-16 until the revision of 1984 consisted of
one year of physics or chemistry provided both had not been
taken in secondary school, and one semester each of biology,
physiology and hygiene, and psychology.
English language (as rhetoric or composition) and literature
have always been required, although the content and the num-
bers of hours prescribed have varied from time to time. In
1919-20 the requirement of two years of English, one year of
composition and one year's survey of the development of Eng-
lish Hterature, was adopted. Eleven years later some flexi-
bility was introduced into the program in consideration of dif-
ferences in the capacities and preparation of students. Those
who showed special aptitudes in composition were exempted
from the second semester of freshman composition and per-
mitted to substitute either an advanced course in composition
or a course in literature. Those who had had the equivalent
of the survey course in literature were permitted to substitute
an intensive course in some special field of English hterature.
History, which has also been a required subject from the
earhest years of the College, originally included ancient,
medieval, and modern history. This course was later broad-
ened in title to "The History of Civilization," then limited to
ancient or medieval civilization. Still later English history
was added as a third alternative, and in 1917-18 United States
history became a fourth. Four years later freedom of election
was extended to permit a choice of any course selected from
the elementary group. This experiment was evidently not
wholly successful, for in 1924-25 all students were required
to take the course in medieval and modern European history.
In 1930-31 the requirement was slightly modified by permit-
ting the substitution in exceptional cases, with the approval
of the department, of an elective course of an intermediate
grade of difficulty for the second half of the requirement.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM
425
In the linguistic studies, aside from the changes in the Latin
requirement, there were occasional variations. In the first
years of the Woman's College, the classical domination is seen
in the requirement, in addition to Latin, of one year of Greek,
for which a modern language might be substituted. Three
years later Latin and two years of a modern language are
required. For a time a third language was demanded, and
for several years Latin, German, and French were stipulated,
including a reading knowledge of the two modern languages.
In 1919-20, a student might take in College two years each
of any two foreign languages, Latin, Greek, French, Italian,
Spanish, or German, for which four years in secondary school
could be offered as an equivalent.
In the field of philosophy and ethics, the one constant
requirement has been the study of the Bible, which appears
under various titles — as "Bible," "The Bible as Literature,"
"Biblical Literature," and "Religion." After six years, during
which Bible was required for one year-hour through the four
years, the course was concentrated in the last two years. In
1901, the prescription was limited to one year, and in 1932, to
one semester. For sev^eral years "Morals and Christian Evi-
dences" was listed as a senior requirement. It gave place to
philosophy in 1894, but after eight years was reinstated as
ethics, which was dropped as a prescribed course in 1910-11
in favor of philosophy, which remained a requirement for the
degree until 1934.
The New Plan of 1934
For the past ten years the liberal arts colleges and universi-
ties have been subjected to many investigations resulting in
trenchant criticisms, criticisms directed against their aims, their
curriculum offerings and organization, their teaching tech-
niques, and their methods of accounting for results. Their
aims are said to be stated in too general terms, to be too remote
from the life needs of students, and to place too exclusive
426 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
emphasis upon the functions of "general education" at the
sacrifice of such speciaHzed education as will prepare the stu-
dent to meet her individual problems and responsibilities.
Their curriculum requirements are said to be too inflexible,
taking too little account of the variable preparation, capacities,
and purposes of their students. Their teaching techniques
are charged with over emphasis upon the lecture method and
the acquisition of knowledge without adequate provision for
its assimilation, and without sufficient opportunity for the
development of independent thinking and independent search
for truth.
College methods of accounting in terms of "credit hours,"
the accumulation of which, like bank deposits, entitles the
holder to present her claim for the degree, have been blamed
for failure in results. As Dr. William S. Learned has sug-
gested in connection with the Pennsylvania Study, the system
is administered "in isolated packages of specific ideas, segre-
gated for the time being in self-contained 'courses,' elected
semester-wise and cut off by their examinations and 'credits'
from any other living connections." As one course succeeds
another and the credits toward a degree are secured, the aver-
age student tends to relieve his mind of what has gone before
in favor of the tasks of the day. This accumulation of credits,
as a measure of intellectual stature, is "somewhat analogous
to a record of physical growth that should content itself with
adding together the amounts of food daily administered to a
child and take no thought of the actual growth of the child
itself."!^
Goucher College has for many years been cognizant of the
problems presented by these criticisms, and both in its admis-
sion requirements and in its curriculum has been making tenta-
tive efforts to adjust itself to an educational changing social
order. With the advent of President Robertson, these efforts
were brought to a focus. In the spring of 1934, the Faculty
adopted the report of the Curriculum Committee which had
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 427
been at work for nearly three years under his chairmanship.
This legislation brought sweeping changes in the plan of cur-
riculum organization. The college course was separated into
two somewhat distinct parts, to be known as the Lower and
Upper Divisions. The purpose of the Lower Division, nor-
mally the first two years of college, was defined as the con-
tinuation of general education, whose end is preparation for
living richly and responsibly, comprising the following specific
objectives: the maintenance of physical and mental health;
the ability to comprehend and communicate ideas both in
English and in foreign languages; an understanding of the
heritage of the past in its relation to the present; an under-
standing of the scientific developments of the present age as a
basis for the interpretation of the modern intellectual and
industrial world; acquaintance with the social sciences as a
foundation for the realization of the responsibilities for social
living; the ability to utilize resources with economic and aes-
thetic satisfaction; and appreciation of literature and the fine
arts; and an intelligent appreciation of philosophy and religion.
The purpose of the Upper Division, normally the last two
years of college, is defined as specialization in the field of major
interest. This does not imply that general education is re-
garded as complete at this period; in fact, it is recognized that
general education continues throughout life. It is hoped,
however, that the student by this time will have acquired such
intellectual interests, such study habits, and such fundamental
knowledge in varied fields that she will be able to continue
her general education independently. Moreover, the period
of specialization is not to be narrowly interpreted. Further
opportunity for general education is given by the provision
that only approximately one half of a student's time in the
Upper Division shall be devoted to the major subject, leaving
her free for the remaining time to range in the fields of knowl-
edge which have not been included either in the lower division
428 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
program or in her major and its related subjects, or to pursue
further any subjects of secondary interest.
In its administration the New Plan is designed to liberate
the student at the beginning from any attempt at regimenta-
tion. The work of the Lower Division is not prescribed.
Each student's schedule is planned for her individually, with
reference to her previous education, her present interests and
aptitudes, and her probable future needs. Three safeguards
are provided to prevent a one-sided and unorganized program.
First, each student must plan her course in consultation with
her Guidance Officer. Since a Guidance Officer is responsible
for a relatively small number of students he may be able to
study each one carefully in order to guide her progress towards
the development of her individual capacities and the strength-
ening of her individual weaknesses. Second, each student is
expected to plan her schedule with regard to the furtherance
of the general aims of education as they have already been
defined, supplementing her secondary school course in such
subjects as have been omitted or inadequately presented there,
and adding such subjects as are not offered in secondary
schools. Third, she must prepare herself to meet successfully
the series of tests which are the qualifying measures for ad-
vancement to the Upper Division. The first of these is a
general examination covering the fields of knowledge related
to the fulfilment of the objectives. The second is an examina-
tion in one foreign language, in which the student must demon-
strate her ability to use the language as a tool by facility in
reading. The third test is an essay examination in which the
student is expected to demonstrate her ability to think effec-
tively and to express her ideas clearly and correctly on some one
topic selected by her from a list of assigned subjects. The
fourth is a library project by which she must prove her ability
to use the library, to organize materials, and to perform an
intellectual task independently.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 429
In addition to passing these tests of intellectual fitness, each
candidate for advancement to the Upper Division must have
certain character qualifications which are demonstrated by her
adaptation to the human situations presented by the college
world both in the classroom and in its many extracurriculum
activities. Although this last qualification is difficult to ap-
praise, and must be based largely upon subjective judgments,
it is none the less fundamental if the College is to fulfill its
purpose of preparing its students to meet life's situations.
Although there are no required courses the statement of
objectives and the above measures for testing the students'
progress toward their attainment ensure that the great fields
of human knowledge will have been traversed, and that a broad
foundation will have been laid for the- more specialized educa-
tion which is to follow.
The plan for the Upper Division is a less radical departure
from the practice of the preceding years. Approximately one
half of the students' time is to be devoted to the major subject
and its allied courses. The remainder is left free for election
in other fields. The courses of the Upper Division are planned
to serve the needs of students of intellectual maturity, who
have been previously trained in scholarly interests and habits.
Independent work is encouraged. The work of the major
department culminates in a comprehensive examination at the
end of the senior year, covering the content of the major field.
This serves to organize and unify the materials of the indi-
vidual courses. As stated in reference to a similar plan
adopted at the University of Wisconsin, "it breaks down the
present idea that all knowledge is divided into courses which,
if once taken, may be forgotten. To graduate by piling up so
many credits without genuine mastery of subjects will be more
difficult."^2 Goucher College hopes to attain this end by aban-
doning the course-credit system, with its bookkeeping methods
of evaluating academic work, and substituting the record of
achievement as measured in the ways described above.
430 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
In order that the student may have time and opportunity
to develop this power of independent, intellectual work, the
normal schedule throughout the four years is reduced from ten
courses a year to nine a year, thus affording more time for
independent reading. To provide for a greater degree of con-
centration the College has reverted to the three term organiza-
tion which was in effect during the earliest years. By all
these means the College aims to give to each student the
opportunity to develop her special capacities in accordance
with her individual needs, and at the same time to stimulate
scholarly interests.
Grades
By the terms of the new curriculum, grades in courses are
considered in relation to other measures of achievement, but
their elimination from all consideration must probably await
a more ideal organization of society and a corresponding recon-
struction of human nature. The system of grading at Goucher
College has been the subject of periodic investigation and
legislation. In the early years of the Woman's College the
closed system of grading was adopted, according to which the
students were not permitted to know their grades until after
graduation. At first only four grades were recorded — "Passed
with credit," "Passed," "Conditioned" and "Deficient."
These values were later modified to include "High Credit,"
"Credit," "Passed," "Conditioned," and "Failed." No fur-
ther change was made until 191 5-16 when the Missouri system
of grading was adopted and it was decided that grades should
be announced to the student not later than ten days after the
final examination.
Adapting the Curriculum to the Individual
The effort to adapt the curriculum to the individual student
began long before the curriculum revision of 1934, though it
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 43 1
must be admitted that Goucher like all other colleges has been
slower to make such adjustments to individual needs than the
lower schools have been.
It has been shown that from the earliest days, Goucher has
sought to provide for a certain amount of flexibility in both
entrance requirements and requirements for the degree. Indi-
vidual differences have also been provided for by excusing
from required courses, students who could demonstrate their
proficiency in these subjects. Thus in the departments of
English and history the most able and best prepared students
were released from at least a part of the required courses and
were permitted to substitute advanced courses, partly of their
own choosing. In the English department a test of English
usage has since 1932 been given to all freshmen, and made a
basis for guidance in determining whether students shall be
urged to elect courses in English composition. In French also
every student who offers entrance credits is subjected to a test,
and her placement at Goucher is based, not upon her secondary
school record, but upon her demonstrated ability to do satis-
factory work in this language at a certain level.
In recent years some experiments have been made in the
sectioning of classes according to ability— a movement which
seems to be founded on sound psychological grounds and which
has been gaining steadily in popularity at all levels of edu-
cation below the college. Such experiments met with objec-
tions from some members of the faculty. "They tended to
develop intellectual snobbery in the students of the upper sec-
tions;" "they were less stimulating to students and instructors
of the lower sections, and were no more effective in results."
After one year's trial sectioning according to ability was aban-
doned as a general policy. It was continued for several years
in certain departments, but because of administrative difficul-
ties was finally abandoned.
Adaptation to the individual in the rate of progress through
college has also received some attention from the beginning.
43^ THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The Woman's College made some effort to escape from the
tradition of the four year schedule leading to the bachelor of
arts degree, as is shown by the catalogue statement of 1889-90:
"The old class-system with its traditional names and fixed
dates for graduation is abandoned as open to the objection of
requiring the same amount of work of all students within the
same time." In the catalogue for 1891-92 this statement is
elaborated; while it will ordinarily take four years to com-
plete the degree requirement, the length of the period is
subordinate. Students who are young or of delicate constitu-
tion may take longer. Students who are maturer and more
vigorous or of superior industry may take less time. In
order to lessen the weight of tradition in place of the time-
honored designations, freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior,
they used the somewhat cumbersome titles, "first collegiate,
second, third and fourth collegiate;" but, since these titles
stood for the same concepts, they were soon dropped. How-
ever, the statement regarding flexibility in the time for fulfil-
ment of the requirements for graduation remained, but without
much effect so far as the acceleration of more able students
was concerned, since the rigid scheme of required courses, with
a definite limitation on the number of courses, or class-hours,
that could be carried, made it almost impossible for students
to take advantage of the freedom nominally granted. With
the inauguration of the new plan of 1934, the opportunity for
more rapid progress through college is clearly provided for
those who are mentally and physically equipped to take advan-
tage of it. "The student's previous preparation, her indi-
vidual interests, and her special needs will determine both the
length of time necessary and the best ways of making prog-
ress.""
Perhaps the most effective means of providing for the indi-
vidual of high ability is the opportunity for independent study.
To some degree the College has always recognized the necessity
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM 433
for developing in its students the power to think independently
and effectively. In the catalogue for 1897-98 occurs the
sentence; "The acquisition of information is less important
than the practical training in observation, investigation of
both sides of controversial questions, and the formation of
discriminating judgments." The years have brought increas-
ing emphasis upon the guidance of students toward habits of
independent study and toward scholarly interests by the exten-
sive use of a growing library, by the assignment of papers
calling for independent research, by individual experimentation
in laboratory courses, and by individual or committee reports.
In many classes the expression of opinion and frank and free
discussion of controversial problems give opportunity for per-
sonal initiative and self-expression. Thus the stimulus to
original thinking is present from the beginning of the college
course and is presented to every student. However, it is
recognized that students of high abihty, whether in general
intelligence or in some special field, will profit most from such
opportunities, which must therefore be provided them in larger
measure than for the student body as a whole. For a number
of years such provision has been made along two lines. All
language departments have since 1934 permitted students
whose past records have been satisfactory to do independent
study during the summer months. The results of this work
are tested at the beginning of the fall term and must be of high
grade to receive recognition. Opportunity to do honors work
in the senior year has been offered to students of outstanding
ability since 1931-32. Those who are invited to do this work
are released from an equivalent amount of class work, in order
that they may devote their time to research; if this work is of
satisfactory quality, it counts toward the degree; if it is of the
highest grade, the student receives "departmental honors,"
now "special honors."
The plan of the new curriculum of 1934, which accepted
434 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
whole-heartedly the principle that education is fundamentally
a means of guiding the student towards satisfactory solution
of her life problems, made liberal provision for independent
study. Emphasis in the Lower Division upon the fulfilment
of aims rather than upon earning credits placed the responsi-
bility squarely upon the student. No longer accountable
merely for passing courses, she is held accountable for mastery
of subject matter. Released from a too-exacting program of
required work in the classroom, she is free to secure this mate-
rial on her own initiative and in her own time yet under the
guidance of a member of the faculty who has studied her
peculiar needs and interests. In the Upper Division her
powers of self-direction are further tested by the comprehensive
examination, which requires the organization and unification
of a wide field of knowledge covering the work of two or three
years in her major and its allied subjects. This is her personal
responsibility. By this means the burden of responsibility for
achievement is gradually shifted to the student, with the pur-
pose and in the hope that the habits of intellectual initiative
and the scholarly interests so fostered may prepare her to
meet life's problems, whether in the home or in the market-
place or in the study.
Thus the College has evolved since its opening in 1888 from
a small institution, whose high purposes as expressed in its
catalogue were hampered in their realization by the traditions
of the era in which it was founded, to one which is rapidly
adapting itself to the educational needs of the times, with its
entrance requirements adjusted to the changing character of
the modern secondary school; its offering of courses providing
such content as will prepare its students for the demands of
present day living for the educated woman; its methods and
administration seeking to prepare its graduates to cope with
this complex rapidly changing world by the development of
independent judgment and the power to acquire new truth
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM
435
rather than a body of fixed doctrines; its curriculum and
methods made sufficiently flexible to meet the varying needs,
capacities, and interests of its students rather than to mould
them all in a common form. It cannot be assumed that the
present organization is final, for, in the words of the great
interpreter of education in the present age, "Life is growth
and growth is change. "^^ In so far as it is possible to predict
the future from the past it may be assumed that Goucher Col-
lege will present a constantly evolving curriculum.
Chapter X
STUDENT LIFE
The early days — Residence hall students — City students — Class
organizations — Music — Dramatics — Athletics — Clubs and other
organizations of the students — Publications — Traditions — General
characteristics.
The Early Days
GoucHER College likes to tell this story. One summer,
when a man and his wife, interested in entering their
daughter, came to Goucher Hall to see Dr. Van Meter,
they asked him to show them the college. He hesitated for
a minute and then said, "The college is not here, it is home on
vacation; I cannot show it to you. But I can show you the
buildings." In a very real sense the students are the College.
Student life, after moving slowly the first year, soon acquired
a more rapid tempo. Matters of general concern were settled,
life in residence halls begun, classes organized. By the middle
of the "nineties" every phase of student life had been launched.
Musical, literary, dramatic, athletic, and other organizations
had been formed, two student publications had been started,
and activities repeated each year had developed into tradi-
tions. Dr. Welsh, commenting many years later on this devel-
opment, wrote:
It is somewhat surprising when one passes in review the various student
activities that have imbedded themselves as traditions in the college life,
how many had their origin in the early days of the college.
Either early students had more ingenuity, or entering an empty field,
they preempted all the space with things so essentially good that they have
never been displaced.^
That this should be so was all the more remarkable in view of
the heterogeneous nature of that group of "about fifty young
436
STUDENT LIFE
437
ladies, the majority of them accompanied by their parents or
guardians" and many of them manifesting "a Httie nervous-
ness," who enrolled for classes in September 1888. There was
no "formal opening" until a full two months had passed.
There was no student welcome for the freshmen — nobody knew
who the freshmen were, not even themselves — and there were
no upperclassmen. Moreover, there was no Bennett Hall, no
residence to serve as a center for social activities; there were
a few completed classrooms in Goucher Hall and the chapel of
the First Methodist Church. Yet student life during the first
year, though somewhat barren of events, was by no means
negative and dreary. Both faculty and students were filled
with the enthusiasm of pioneers, and there was a very friendly
relation between them, as there was also among the students,
coUegiates and subcoUegiates, who were apparently then upon
the same footing. The faculty were hosts at the first college
party, a Christmas party around a huge trimmed cedar reach-
ing to the second story in the central pavilion of Goucher Hall.
With this party communal life may be said to have begun. A
Glee Club was formed. Concerts and art exhibitions brought
the students together for pleasant social intercourse.
This sense of unity was given outward expression in the con-
ventional symbols of college life: a college yell — sanctioned
the next year by President Hopkins with the proviso that it
be used only in the open air — which was later replaced by the
call, "B-A-L-T-I-M-O-R-E, Baltimore"; college colors of blue
and yellow, "shown with good effect on the gymnasium suits,"^
and stabilized as dark blue and gold by the Board of Control
after several years during which the shade of blue varied.'
Other outward symbols had to wait for their adoption: the
first college pin was not devised until 1893; the official pin was
not designed until 1899; caps and gowns were not thought of
until 1890-91, after the subcoUegiates had been segregated,
and were not worn until the first commencement day.
Upon these outward symbols the students looked with true
438 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Victorian sentimentality. Of their academic costume, for
example, which had, in 1893, been made compulsory for all
college occasions, they wrote;
We may value our uniform now chiefly because it is so chic and becoming,
but we know there is in it a deep signification; that the very wearing of it
impresses upon us a high standard which we must not fall below. . . . Our
cap and gown will become more and more dear to us as the companions of our
daily work, until at last we shall lay them away when we have finished our
college life, with the feeling that there is something sacred about them.^
"College spirit" was being built up in those early days.
Through the years that followed, it has fluctuated in expression;
at times it has even been regarded as bad form to be "colle-
giate." But on the whole, though caps and gowns, for in-
stance, are no longer regarded with such veneration and are
reserved for commencement week and for the use of the College
Choir and the ushers at lectures, the inner "spirit of Goucher"
has continued to determine "today's step" that marks "tomor-
row's stride." The record of the community life, of the active
organizations of the College, of the traditions — those that have
lived and those that have died — is the record of a structure
built firmly on the foundation stones of 1888.
Residence Hall Students
Some of the most attractive features of college life are
developed through the pleasant associations and intimate rela-
tionships of students in the residence halls. According to the
first prospectus (1888) of the Woman's College of Baltimore
City, the authorities did not plan to maintain a boarding
department for students coming from a distance. But the
plan was satisfactory neither to parents and students, nor to the
college stafl^, and during the opening year, the first residence
building. Home A — now Alfheim — was begun. It was not
ready for occupancy until December 20, 1889, when the new
STUDENT LIFE 439
home was opened with about forty residents. Mrs. M. A.
Thomas, the "lady in charge," was the first of that long suc-
cession of what are now called "heads of halls," all of whom
have done much as guides and mentors of the domestic life
of hall students. In recent years some of them have been
members of the faculty.
A contemporary paper gives some glimpses of life in the
boarding hall a few months after it opened. In the bedrooms,
"on the pretty dressing table of polished oak, with its glittering
plate glass mirror, are all the dainty trifles so dear to woman's
heart. There is the pin cushion, resplendent with satin and
lace, the embroidered mouchoir case, the fancy comb, brush,
and hand glass, the plush covered manicure set, with innumer-
able knick-knacks in the frames of the mirror, such as visiting
cards, the inevitable tin-types, and miniature photographs . . .
while in places of honor, encased in delicate hand painted
frames, are the photographs of several young men, 'my brothers
you know' explains the fair occupant. ... In another part of
the room is the wash stand, with decorated toilet set and
bright bordered towels, hung with an eye for the artistic."
The day began at fifteen minutes before seven, when the
matron marched relentlessly up and down the halls ringing the
rising bell, and, in case "its resounding tones should not prove
effectual, knocked coaxingly on each door, and continued to do
so until a voice from within responded sleepily, "I'm awake."
After breakfast at seven-thirty, the students put their rooms
in order and then went to classes, returning for dinner at one-
fifteen. After supper served at six o'clock they had a social
hour in which they occupied themselves with music and singing,
games and conversation, and "running and sliding up and down
the long corridors" (remember the subcollegiates among them).
Then followed two hours of study, and finally at half-past
ten the last bell — lights out — was rung. Perhaps Mrs. Thomas
was a bit lenient with her family, for on March 31, 1890, the
440 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Executive Committee directed Mrs. Thomas to have the gas
in the Boarding Hall turned off at half-past ten. It was gas
in those days.
There was a pleasant mingling of the North and the South
in the management of the home that first year, for the lady in
charge was from Massachusetts and the matron from Virginia,
and between them they were able to provide something suited
to all tastes. We do not know what delicacy the Old Dominion
furnished, but the hall adopted the favorite old New England
custom of having baked beans for supper on Saturday nights —
"a plan which meets with the hearty approval of the students."
This home proved so popular and the enrolment from out of
town increased so rapidly that in quick succession three more
residence halls were built. In these, students lived happily,
despite numerous regulations that many of them did not like.
Modern amusement at the prohibitions of those early days
must be tempered by the realization that to the rigid social
regulations of the late Victorian Age, the College, under careful
Methodist oversight, added the strict rules of the church in
relation to amusements. A booklet of Regulations for the
Government of the College Homes of the Woman's College
of Baltimore — 1895 — states that "residents are not permitted
to attend the theatre or the opera, or card parties, or to indulge
in card playing in their own rooms or anywhere upon the college
premises. Dancing is not allowed at the college receptions
whether held in the Homes or in the Halls; nor have residents
the privilege of participating in dancing elsewhere at public
receptions or on similar occasions when they may be allowed
to accept invitations; nor may dancing form any part of the
entertainment at Society, Fraternity, Class, or other
gatherings."
In a pamphlet on "Conditions of Admission to the College
Homes" of probably 1892, appear these regulations about
callers: "Occasional calls from lady friends may be received . . .
gentlemen, not near relatives, are not permitted to call. It
STUDENT LIFE 44I
will not be conceded that any relation is possible between young
ladies in the Home and young gentlemen of the city that would
bring calls from the latter within the limits of propriety. . . .
At the same time it is neither desired nor deemed wise to debar
residents all intercourse with gentlemen. At the monthly "At
Home" and the various receptions they are invited to meet
their own and each other's friends under conditions to which
no exception can be taken."
In the rules for 1895 the regulations about association with
young men were even more strict, for "It need scarcely be
mentioned that no one should suffer herself to be joined upon
the street or at church or any place of entertainment to which
she may be allowed to go, by gentlemen acquaintances. It is
always courteous to explain that the rules of the Home do not
permit it."
There were also strict rules for the residents in regard to
religious observances: "Residents of the Home are required
to attend prayers in the College Chapel every morning except
Saturday, Sunday, and holidays when prayers will be held in
the Home parlor. . . . They are expected to attend Divine
Service on Sunday morning at some place of worship."^ In
1889 the Executive Committee ruled that each resident must
hand in a signed slip on Monday morning giving the name of
the church she had attended the day before.
In arguments about the strictness of these rules, the College
thus stated its position: "Residence in the College Home is a
privilege of which the student may avail herself and not a
necessity thrust upon her by the College. . . . Whoever,
therefore, accepts the privileges of the Home must conform to
its regulations. . . . The rules may sometimes conflict with
the student's opinions, wishes, and habits; but the only point
to be considered by her, is that they are the discipline of the
Home, submitted not to her judgment, but for her acceptance."^
Of course, there were attempts to evade some of the rules,
and penalties were then imposed by the Board of Control.
442. THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Five students attending a matinee on January 12, 1895, were
not allowed to remain in the Home for the rest of the year.'
Two students who received confectionery from visitors in the
alley adjoining the Home, and two others for the same offense
and for walking with young men were called before the Board
of Control for reproof; they were denied the privilege of making
and receiving visits for the remainder of the term, and their
parents were informed of their conduct. A young lady re-
ported to the Board by Mrs. Thomas "for an act of impro-
priety. . .in arranging a matter of business on the Sabbath,"
was dealt with lightly because she "had uniformly borne a
good character in her classes," and Mrs. Thomas was permitted
to administer such discipline as she herself thought proper.
"An act of impropriety" was a general term covering many
minor offenses in those days, and the method of handling it
was veiled in the vague threat that it would be dealt with in
"a summary manner."^
That the authorities were not always too strict in the inter-
pretation of the rules is shown in the following story of a
boarding hall student who started out one afternoon with her
grip but returned in a few hours. The belief was that she
went to the circus and took the precaution to take a few
necessary articles with her in case it should be considered an
impropriety and she should not be admitted on her return.^
In the midst of many criticisms of the severe rules it is re-
freshing to come upon this editorial in Kalends, January 1891:
Here we are in the midst of a large city and we can not be as free and
unconcerned with regard to personally conducting ourselves as we should
be were we situated in a small town; secondly we are not the Woman's College
alone, but there are some younger members of society among us, whose
buoyant spirits sometimes lead them to acts of indiscretion, and those acts
never remain unobserved by citizens who have not the welfare of our insti-
tution at heart. These two reasons alone are sufficient to make it necessary
that some recognized method of discipline should have been adopted, and
we sincerely thank the administrators of justice and learning that they did
not make it more severe.
STUDENT LIFE 443
If there were some things about which the students were not
permitted to act as they desired, in many respects they had
very happy times. ^^ It is said that the Friday evening re-
ceptions held monthly in each of the homes showed great
fertility of resource in varying what otherwise might have
proved rather monotonous. On the other Friday evenings
there were entertainments by the departments, the fraternities,
the clubs, and the classes.
The custom begun in the earliest times of having Christmas
parties in the halls of residence has been continued, and a gay
dinner and a tree in each hall have marked the closing days
before vacation. Other festal days of the year have been ob-
served too, especially in earlier times. Hallowe'en, Valen-
tine's Day, and Washington's Birthday have been celebrated,
often with costume parties. The young women at Goucher
have always liked to "dress up."
Occasionally in the nineties, cold weather gave special
opportunities for enjoyment. Dr. Hall and Dr. Shefloe
chaperoned skating parties to Sumwalt's Pond, Druid Hill
Park, and Lake Roland in 1891 and there were also sleighing
parties. In February 1895, two such parties started out from
Home C on Saturday afternoon. The members of one crowd
were humble and took their seats in low sleighs while the other
group climbed high up into a tally-ho on runners, which, alas,
soon toppled over. The proud maidens standing in the snow
watched their sisters dash by, and then an hour later, with the
wisdom of experience, started the second time in low sleighs.
Many years later, in 1927, a skating party of another sort was
enjoyed, when under the auspices of the sophomore class the
students strapped on roller skates and glided over the floor of
the Catherine Hooper gymnasium at the Winter Skating
Carnival.
There were parties peculiar to the earliest days: a quotation
party; an observation party; a bubble party, with the prize
going to the guest who blew the largest bubble; a candy pilll.
444 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
with a good time enjoyed by all, except perhaps those who had
to clean up the floor afterwards. Before dancing had been
forbidden, there was a sheet dance in January 1 891, at Home A,
when the masked guests were draped in white from head to
foot. After the opening procession and a Virginia reel, the
company unmasked and danced for two hours. After re-
freshments came an exhibition of fancy dancing, and with a
final Sir Roger de Coverly the aff'air came to an end. "After
giving the college yell, the ghosts, hot, but happy, retired to
dreamland," says the chronicler.
The variety continued at a later period. On October 31,
1899, ^^^ residents of Vingolf had a cake walk. Ragtime
music was furnished by a comb orchestra with piano accom-
paniment, and refreshments consisted of stick candy, peanuts,
and popcorn. Sometimes important social affairs were par-
odied. On February 22, 1897, in Home D there was a "Brad-
ley Martin" ball, with a close resemblance in the costumes and
decorations to those displayed at the notable function held
shortly before in New York City. In 1904, Mrs. Jarley's
Waxworks came to Vingolf for two evenings. Very often
there were table parties when every passing phase of life was
burlesqued: movie parties where each girl represented her
favorite star, war parties, with a Red Cross nurse and drum
major bonneted in a muff, mid-year examination parties,
with a hollow-eyed group clad in cap and gown, each girl
bearing the label of her most detested subject. Often there
were baby parties, put on by the seniors to the delight of the
freshmen.
Outside the immediate circle of the College, even from the
earliest times, the hall students had pleasant experiences.
In the autumn of 1890 a party of seventeen girls "with their
chaperones reminding one strongly of a delegation from an
orphan asylum" toured the John Hopkins University. Save
for an exchange of Hopkins song and Woman's College cheer,
the occasion was evidently quiet and most decorous. The
STUDENT LIFE
445
next morning's paper reported "that the reputation of the
young ladies of the Woman's College for lady-like behaviour
was as true as it was merited." Other more distant trips were
also enjoyed. The one to Annapolis started by Dr. Van
Meter became, under the leadership of Dr. William H. Hop-
kins, an important annual event. For awhile, too, there were
yearly excursions to Luray Caverns, conducted by Mr.
Ribbings.
Hundreds of trips to Washington have been enjoyed by
students of The Woman's College of Baltimore — of Goucher
College. The first one was taken by the residents of Home A,
under the chaperonage of Mrs. Thomas on a Saturday in
February 1890. By daybreak — and happily on a fine day —
they were stirring, and travelling on a Baltimore and Potomac
express train, they reached Washington before nine o'clock.
They visited the National Museum and the Smithsonian, the
Corcoran Art Gallery and the Capitol. They attended a
reception at the White House and shook hands with President
Harrison, and were much disappointed at not meeting Mrs.
Harrison. They went up the Washington Monument and
from the top gave the college yell. They wanted to stay for
the evening and "even suggested going to Susan B. Anthony's
banquet. But they pleaded to no avail, for the inexorable
lady counted all of her little brood and stowed them away
safely on a homeward-bound train. "^^
Gradually restrictions on the freedom of students in the
residence halls have been relaxed, reflecting, on the one side,
the changed standards of the Methodist Episcopal Church
and, on the other, the growing freedom of young people in
society. Toward the end of Dr. Goucher's administration,
the prohibition of dancing among the students in the Halls
was given up. By the time that the Recreation Hall was
opened in President Robertson's administration, dances to
which men could be invited were allowed regularly on the
campus. At the beginning of Dr. Guth's administration,
446 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
the rule against attendance at the theatre and opera was
cancelled, and about the same time the restrictions against
card playing were rescinded. Today men may call any
evening, and students may go out after complying with a
minimum of formality in the offices of the heads of the halls.
The hour for their return has been gradually advanced. From
the Student Counselor week-end permissions may be obtained
with little restriction save such as are involved in the written
statement of the parents of the young woman concerned. It
is well to consider the principle back of some of the social
restrictions today. For instance "signing out" is useful
because it assures college authorities of the safety of the stu-
dents; especially in these days of automobiles, there may be
anxiety if there is no knowledge of an individual's whereabouts.
Many minor hberties have been granted; radios are allowed
now in student rooms, and today each hall has a room in
which students may smoke.
In her supervision of the students the head of the hall has
been greatly aided by the hall president, a senior elected by
the students living in her hall. She is a member of the Execu-
tive Board of the Students' Organization and brings to it
problems relating to the hall residents.
To the four residence halls built in President Goucher's
administration, Dr. Guth, at the period of greatly enlarged
enrolment, added houses in the neighborhood, which he
admirably adapted to the needs of students. In recent years,
when there has been a smaller enrolment, comfortable study
and rest rooms have been furnished in the halls.
City Students
In general, about two thirds of the students have lived in
the residence halls and one third have come from Baltimore
and its vicinity, and there have been certain problems in the
student life which owed their origin to the large number of
STUDENT LIFE 447
young women not living in the residence halls. Their free-
dom, especially in the earlier years, caused discontent in the
halls; and, on the other hand, there were many college acti-
vities in which they found it difficult to participate. Dis-
cussions were frequent in the early college publications on the
comparative advantages of the town and the home students.
There has been a gradual progress towards the solution of the
city students' problems, which have centered mainly in lunch
and lunchroom, rest and recreation rooms, group organization
and quick communication, and the promotion of such forms
of social life as would make the student body as a whole better
acquainted. When in 1935, under the supervision of Miss
McCurley, arrangements were made to serve hot soup to the
city students in the City Girls' Center, it was not a new idea
but the revival of an old one. In 1898, to meet the same need,
the Board of Control arranged in Home A for "bouillon and
roll without meat" at fifty cents a week. In response to
urgent pleas of the city students, the first lunchroom for their
use was set aside on the lower floor of Goucher Hall. To-
gether with the room given to the Christian Association and
much used by city students, it was a step toward the satis-
faction of their need. When the chapel in Catherine Hooper
Hall was remodeled, among the other changes were additional
conveniences for the city students, with showers, dressing
rooms, lockers, and a kitchen on the gymnasium floor, and a
lunchroom on the first floor. The initial effort to give them
an apartment was made in 191 9, when on the third floor of
Vanaheim Hall they had a front room with four comfortable
couches to be used only for rest, a dining room and a kitchen-
ette with an ample supply of china and cooking utensils,
open from half-past five until eight. The most important
change for their benefit was made, however, in 1922, when
the City Girls' Center, on Twenty-third Street near Maryland
Avenue back of Folkvang Hall, was arranged. Here the city
student may rest or cook any time during the day, and with
448 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Special permission they may spend the night. In 1932, that
they might have a place nearer the center of things, the city
students were given for a short time rooms on the ground
floor of Foster House.
By 191 5 the city students had elected one of their number
president of their group. She was enrolled as a member of
College Council, in which organization the problem of bringing
the city students into college activities was frequently dis-
cussed. Soon it was evident that they needed more than a
president to take their part in college life, and a committee of
city students was formed. Later the whole body of city
students was organized and for some years their president has
acted as intermediary between her group and the college
authorities and, as a member of the Executive Board of the
Students' Organization, has brought the point of view of city
students to that body.
To furnish quick communication with city students, one of
the institutions of the College was devised about 1916: "Wire-
less." It consists of a board marked ofi^ in squares, each of
which bears one of the letters of the alphabet. On hooks in
each square are placed communications intended for a student
whose name begins with the initial of the square. It hangs by
the Twenty-third Street door of Goucher Hall, and, though
originally designed primarily for city students, it is used now
by every one.
Tea dances and receptions have been given by the city
students and for them, to get them better acquainted with
each other and with the hall students. Since 1922 they have
often entertained in their Center.
The problem of an adequate social center for the entire
college community, however, was not solved until 1933. For
parties, informal dances, and even for formal dances that
included both hall and city students, they had to be content
with the bare and unattractive gymnasiums of Bennett Hall
or Catherine Hooper Hall. In spite of student ingenuity
STUDENT LIFE 449
and taste in decoration, the rooms remained gymnasiums.
Miss von Borries, head of the department of physical educa-
tion, had felt this need especially and frequently referred to
it. In 1933 Miss Duval, of the department of physical educa-
tion, suggested redecorating the small gymnasium in Bennett
Hall. Dr. Spencer, professor of fine arts, when called into
consultation, saw the architectural possibilities of the room
and worked out the color scheme. Mrs. Hayden, house-
hold manager, solved the practical problems; Miss Conner,
student counselor, listed the uses to which the room could be
put. President Robertson had enthusiastically approved the
plan, and on his recommendation, the Trustees gave per-
mission for its development. Miss von Borries had calculated
that if every one in college gave thirty-five cents, the fund
would be sufficient for the transformation, and laid the matter
before the College Council. The Council then and there
planned for a successful short campaign. With its walls of
rose with a tinge of rust, and the woodwork and hangings of
different tones of rust, the room was attractive. There were
ferns on the window sills, and at intervals around the room
were bright blue benches. One end was arranged as a club
room, with comfortable chairs, lamps, and card tables. For
music there were a piano, a radio, and an orthophonic vic-
trola. The following Saturday night, April 8, 1933, it was
formally opened by a dance, with an orchestra of eight pieces.
With the opening of the Recreation Hall, the girls were per-
mitted to invite men on Friday or Saturday evenings for
games or dancing, and the curfew was delayed until twelve
o'clock.
The game room of the Recreation Hall has proved useful,
too, not only at odd moments, but on the Game Nights pro-
moted by residents of the halls, when monopoly, bingo, bridge,
table tennis, and badminton have been played, this group of
games forming an interesting contrast to the croquinole and
tiddle-de-winks of early days.
450 the history of goucher college
Class Organizations
Student life in the residence halls and in the College in
general was well under way before class organizations became
established in 1891-92, when the College was entering its
fourth year and for the first time was having four classes.
The first class to form a regular organization was the Class
of '95^^ the freshman class of 1 891-92. It was quickly followed
by the other three classes that had been about to take
the same step. The student body, completely organized,
made its first public appearance at the service on the Day of
Prayer for Colleges, in the First Methodist Episcopal Church,
January 28, 1892, when the students proceeded in a body from
the college building and entered the church in classes, each
class being led by its president.
Class colors were chosen that first year of organization. The
first three classes selected the usual primary colors, though
not in the order of today: '92, green and white; '93, yellow
and white; '94, red (crimson) and white. In 1901, after an
interval of variation, was established the rotation of blue, red,
green, and gold which has continued ever since. In the early
days each class had also its flower — white rose, daisy, red
carnation, narcissus, for the first four classes. Entertain-
ments given in honor of a class always used the class fiower in
the decoration. The Class of '96 was the first to have a
motto, "Da mihi scire, quod sciendum est," and for about ten
years thereafter each class used some frequently quoted sen-
tence or phrase in Latin, Greek, German, or English. The
first class to have a flag was this same enterprising '96. ^^
The idea was taken up quickly by the other classes in college
and also by the alumnae. To '95 must be given the credit
for having the first class song, written in their freshman year.i^
In the fall of 1892 there was appointed a general college
committee on "yells," whose business it was to stimulate the
use of the college yell and to see to it that each class in college
STUDENT LIFE 45I
had its yell — except in the case of the seniors, "whose dignity
as well-nigh graduates. . . would not permit them to indulge
in such an act.''^^
The Class of '96 had two more important "firsts" to add to
its honor: at its class day exercises it made a gift to the College,
and in its junior year, 1895, it published the first yearbook,
the Donnybrook Fair^ 1896.
To '97 belongs the credit of starting the tradition of "honor-
ary members." At the end of their freshman year, the spring
of 1894, they had a banquet, made notable by the fact that
the first honorary member chosen by a class in the Woman's
College of Baltimore was the guest of honor — Dr. Maltbie
Davenport Babcock, the minister of Brown Memorial Church,
The first class entertainment in the College took place on
February 13, 1892, when the seniors gave a Valentine tea to
the other collegiate classes. Room 14, the French Room, as
it was called for many years, was emptied of all its clumsy
chairs, the black board walls were neatly covered with cheese
cloth, and the whole room was transformed into a tastefully
decorated salon. Rugs covered the bare floor, and screens,
lamps, palms, and statuary aided the brightly burning wood
fire to made the room home-like. The whole class of '92
received to the right of the mantel piece. Before leaving,
each guest picked from a large bowl a valentine, tied with the
class colors. Verses had been copied by the seniors on these
valentines; some of them were good and some very foolish.
When Mrs. Goucher took hers and opened it, there was a
tense moment. What had she drawn? "Thou art like unto
a flower." Of all the verses it was the one that the class
would have selected for her.
The Class of '94 gave not only the first junior-senior banquet
but also the first "sister class" party. In January 1894, they
invited '96 to an Arabian Nights party in the Latin School
gymnasium. Oriental hangings adorned the walls. Turkish
divans and cushions appeared in place of chairs, and mysterious
452 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
music filled the air. In the oriental maidens attired in gay-
Eastern costumes, with flowing tresses, it would have been
difficult to recognize the sedate young women in caps and
gowns who had "a few hours before trod the paths of learning
in Goucher Hall." Each one present, after making obeisance
to the Caliph of Bagdad, had to sing, relate a story, tell a
joke, or execute some feat of juggling. The seniors, knowing
the plan, were prepared, but the poor sophomores had diffi-
culties. After the presentation was over, the Caliph and his
people, "squatting gracefully on divans and cushions, enjoyed
oriental refreshments: dates, figs, almonds, and other sweet
morsels, ice cream and cake being strictly prohibited. "^^
And so, in the nineties, the Class, that most important unit
in the student group, was well established, and class spirit had
become a strong emotion. Throughout the half century, to
bring glory to their class, students individually and in groups,
have worked in athletics, in dramatics, in "sing song," in
publications, in gracious entertaining of other classes, as
advisers to incoming freshmen, and as donors to their Alma
Mater in times of special need. To do these things well has
required effective organization. "And the organization of
the class is the culmination and triumph of organization in
Goucher."^^
Music
There have been in the College four musical organizations —
the Glee Club, the Choir, a Mandolin Club, and an orchestra
or jazz band. The Glee Club, antedating the rest, was formed
in 1889, and was the first student club organized.^^ This
club, under the direction of Miss Florence Belle Cole, later
Mrs. Joseph S. Shefloe, practiced regular glees and four-
part songs, and gave one concert, which was "a decided success
and a genuine novelty."i^ Although the Club was organized
anew in successive years, it was not until 1894 that it was
STUDENT LIFE 453
established permanently under the leadership of Mrs. James
L. Patton.^" On March 22, 1895, it gave, with the assistance
of the Mandolin Club, the first of the annual concerts which
have been year after year a pleasant feature of the musical
life of the College.
In the "nineties" one of the concert programs consisted of
fourteen numbers, including classic compositions, catchy
college songs with local hits, a melodious negro melody, and
several lively ragtime selections. Sometimes there were
original songs, and "true to tradition, they ridicule every one
from the janitor to the president, from the long suffering
faculty to the longer suffering room mate."2i How far the
College has gone in the appreciation of good music and the
ability to render it is shown by the programs of recent years —
Palestrina, Mozart, Wagner, even original musical plays
embodying the madrigals of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries,22 or the songs and choruses of Schubert. ^^
At its concert the Club frequently gave operas or operettas.
In 1923, under the direction of Edmund Sereno Ender, they
presented T'he Japanese Girl\ in 1924, '^he Old Singing Woman\
in 1925, T^he Mikado \ in 1926, with Mrs. Low directing.
The Castaway \ in 1933, Martha. One of the favorites was
Hansel and Gretel. Presented first in 1928, in a simplified form,
in 1930 and in 1935 it was given in the more difficult Metro-
politan version. The last time there was a Saturday matinee
performance for children, whose delight in the witch and the
gingerbread house were increased by the gingerbread men
that they held in their hands and on which they munched
"noisily."
In presenting its programs, the Glee Club usually had the
assistance of other college organizations and occasionally of
outside groups. The Mandolin Club helped as long as it
existed, also the College Choir. The dramatic section of
Agora aided in 1925 in giving The Mikado^ and in 1936, the
freshmen members of Masks and Faces presented two short
454
THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
plays. In 1932, for the first time, men took part in the pro-
gram. Ten of them, from the Peabody Conservatory and the
Choir of Old Saint Paul's, were participants. Again in 1933,
in the presentation of Martha^ the Goucher students were
helped by men from the Baltimore Civic Opera Company,
Mr. Eugene Martinet, conductor, lending his scores, his
scenery, and his costumes, as well as his men. In 1934 the
Club was assisted by members of the Johns Hopkins Glee
Club.24
The Glee Club has contributed in many ways to the life of
the College, helping often at chapel and at commencement
exercises, appearing at college spirit parties to sing Goucher's
songs to freshmen, adding the necessary musical touch to
dramatic events, and now and then assisting in the program on
special occasions. For example, it was the Glee Club, sta-
tioned on the second floor of Goucher Hall, that sang Fair
Harvard as President Eliot entered the Hall after making his
College Day address in 1895, and it was again the Glee Club
that sang the four madrigals at the inauguration dinner in
honor of President Robertson.
The College Choir was also begun in the early nineties,
though it, too, had to be started several times. Apparently
one of its first leaders was Professor Henry Schwing, head of
the School of Music of the College, under whom the group met
for practice every Friday afternoon in 1892 and were thus
prepared to be an efficient aid in the morning service in chapel.
From these efforts there finally evolved a students' choir
"which. . . takes a leading part in the chapel services in the
morning, and presents an imposing appearance as it sits up
among the august members of the faculty.''^^ However, it
evidently did not continue long, and it was not until 1899
that a more permanent choir was formed. When attendance
at chapel was made optional instead of compulsory, the
Board of Control ruled that to make the service more attrac-
tive a college choir should be formed.
STUDENT LIFE 455
The College Choir is an indispensable part of the daily-
chapel services, and it serves the College in other ways — at
vespers, at the Easter morning service, and at Baccalaureate.
It was the choir that gave to the college community the beauti-
ful Christmas Carol Service that has become one of the best
loved college traditions. Its work is appreciated not only by
the faculty, but also by the students, one of whom wrote:
"I always carry song in my heart for many a day after I have
heard the music of our vested choir."2«
The Banjo Club, organized under the leadership of Lydia
Van Meter in January 1891, with sixteen members, later
became the Mandolin Club. It continued as an independent
organization until about 1923. During this time it assisted
with the formal concerts of the Glee Club and also filled a
place of its own in college life. The mandolins were heard at
the camp fire that marked the end of every picnic in the nine-
teen twenties, and they formed the "orchestra" for many
college spirit parties. "Indeed," wrote a student, "they are a
part of college that none of us would sacrifice, not even the
martyred one whose room-mate insists upon practising just
when she is trying to study for a quiz in 'Anglo-Distraction.' "^^
In the fall of 1923 the Mandolin Club assisted in the formation
of a college orchestra or jazz band, which quickly became very
popular and played for many dances. A few months after
it was formed a tag day was instituted to raise money for the
purchase of music, uniforms, and instruments. This Goucher
Band, consisting of three saxophones, one banjo, one xylo-
phone, one cornet, two violins, and the piano, furnished music
on the S. S. "Berengaria" in August 1925.
In addition to the contribution made by the musical clubs,
music has come into the life of the College in other ways,
mainly, perhaps, through college songs. These have been
written, in a few cases, by members of the faculty, but most
frequently by the students themselves. Many have been set
to original music, and various occasions have called them
456 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
forth, among them class day and ivy planting, College Day
and commencement exercises, step singing and sing song.^^
They have added zest to all sorts of college events, formal and
informal. College songs have formed an outlet for emotions.
"Strong feehngs," wrote a student, "surge up within us,
mighty emotions struggle for expression, and we give vent to
them in music. When things go awry, some brave soul
starts a song and all is well."^^
The first formal college hymn, beginning "All glorious like
the sun," was written by Professor Frank R. Butler, and was
first sung at commencement in 1895. In the early years it
was much used, until the Latin hymn, Almae Matrix of Presi-
dent Hopkins, came in 191 1 to take its place. ^^
College songs, desired by the students in the early years to
counteract the divisive influence of class and fraternity and to
develop college spirit, were composed, many of them, in
competition for prizes offered in 1895, 1900, and 1908. The
winning entries,^^ with other class and college songs, were
published in successive editions of college song books, the first
of which was issued in 1904 by the senior class, after they had
worked on it for four years. ^^
Goucher now has songs too numerous to mention, among
them favorites sung many times, but it is still awaiting the one
song which all students always, everywhere, will sing as the
college song.
In addition to the music contributed to the life of the College
by the students themselves through their musical organiza-
tions and their songs, the enjoyment of music has come to them
through recitals and lectures on musical topics given not only
by artists from afar, but also by members of the Peabody
Conservatory staff. The interest of the directors of the
Conservatory has been of long standing: in 1914 Harold
Randolph lectured on "Some General Musical Principles,"
with illustrations on the piano, and in 1934 Dr. Otto Ortman
spoke on "The Place of Music in a Liberal Arts Education."
STUDENT LIFE 457
A further development in the musical life of the College
came through the building of the organ in the Catherine
Hooper chapel in 191 6. The two organists since then, Mr.
Alferd R. Willard and Mr. Edmund S. Ender, with this instru-
ment have had some scope for their powers. The organ was
built by the Hutchins Company of Waltham, Massachusetts,
according to specifications made by Mr. Willard, and, al-
though not remarkable for its size, it has a richness of quality
and a variety of tone and effect not often found in instruments
of its type. The contribution of $1,000 from the Class of
1916 made possible the addition of several unusual stops.
Through the music before and after chapel and the recitals
during the year, Mr. Willard and Mr. Ender have done much
for the musical education of the students. Mr. Ender has at
times given concerts at twilight during examination week,
and "the escape from reality offered by this retreat is one that
Goucher remembers gratefully. "^^
Dramatics
"No educational institution is just what its founders sup-
posed it would be," said Dr. Van Meter in an important
article on dramatics in the Goucher College Weekly^ May 2,
191 8, in which he depicts the background which made the
introduction of dramatics slow and sometimes painful, and
sets forth the problem which had to be solved in its develop-
ment. The founders had no wish to impose Methodist doc-
trine upon the students, but they did expect that Methodist
usages and principles would be maintained and respected.
Among these principles was opposition to theatre going, with
which they identified college dramatics. Some of them would
have withdrawn their support if the College, at first, had
planned to allow plays. Moreover, to this very important
opposition was added that of some members of the faculty,
who set up barriers to the introduction of dramatics on educa-
45^ THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
tional grounds, on the score that thereby work would be in-
terrupted and attention distracted. To the plea that the
students needed recreation their answer was that it should
be found in the open air and not in further poring over work
indoors. But these ideals and theories encountered an array
of facts both within and without the College, and "for reasons
or without reasons, dramatics drifted very early into college
hfe, at first with an apologetic air, but at length unblushingly
and with the mien of prerogative."^^
Its coming, under the circumstances existing in the College,
brought many problems as to the play, the costume, the
audience, and the place for the performance. Since dramatics
were admitted, "grudgingly and of necessity," the plays
chosen had to be of a kind that the authorities deemed worth
while: the students must give "a correct and worthy inter-
pretation of a notable product of dramatic literature." Of
the effect of this. Dr. Froelicher wrote in Kalends^ December
1916: "On the soap bubble of our dramatic tradition, the
world of Shakespeare, Moliere, Goethe, Lessing, Euripides,
and Sophocles had been reflected since dramatics at Goucher
had been legalized under faculty censorship. . . . The muse
of the drama was wont to present herself to the imaginative
young minds in the iridescent colors and ideal forms of the
classic or romantic play, the grandeur of Shakespeare, the
charm of Barrie. Dramatics given or attended by students
bore the taint of aristocracy, of culture, of the esthetic and
pedagog. The drama was bashful, modest, and properly
uplifting."
Not only must the play be worthy, but the costuming must
not give offense. The chief difficulty was the costuming of the
male characters. The students were debarred from wearing
masculine garb and had to indicate their masculinity by various
devices, some of which Dr. Van Meter called "ridiculous"^^ —
gymnasium costume, long ulsters or raincoats worn over their
skirts. In the presentation of Iphigenie^ one of the heroes was
STUDENT LIFE aPq
draped in a jaeger blanket, all enveloping, and considered fit,
because it had the bordering design of a "Trojan-wall." By
1903 not only were the students having difficulties about
dramatics, but the administration as well. Through the offices
of the Dean and the President, the College was subjected to
much severe criticism of the plays presented, especially in
relation to costuming and dancing. So general and so pro-
nounced were these objections that they could not be ignored
by those having in view the best interests of the College and
the continuance of dramatics. Accordingly, the faculty com-
mittee, in giving permission in January 1903, for plays, at-
tached to it two provisions: first, that costumes must be r^ade
to conform to modern conventions or propriety in dress and
not to follow standards of the public stage, and second, that
only such dancing be introduced as was called for by the action
of the play, the ballet being distinctly discountenanced.
It was soon seen that mascuHne costume could not be entirely
suppressed, and the solution adopted was to limit the audience
to women. The first ruling that "only ladies" could be invited
to see a play was made by the Board of Control on May 5, 1892,
and from that time until 1908,36 when the fathers of the seniors
were allowed to see their presentation of Js You Like It, the
battle was on over the admission of men. Not only were men
outside the College excluded, but also male members of the
faculty. What is rather remarkable, this tradition was carried
away by the students after graduation. The Washington
Chapter of the Alumnae gave a play at the Ebbitt House.
"True to the teachings of the Woman's College, there were
no men. "3^
By the end of Dr. Goucher's administration, the rule against
the attendance of men was relaxed, and not long afterward it
was abolished. The hesitation in the faculty as the struggle
drew to a close is apparent. In 1907, after discussion, the
Faculty refused the request of the seniors that their fathers
be allowed to attend their presentation of Robin Hood, but
460 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
they granted permission to invite ^//members of the faculty.^^
But the following year, when the seniors again asked for special
privileges for their fathers at their play, the record is brief:
"Moved and carried that the request be granted. "^^ The men,
fathers and otherwise, were admitted. The problem cropped
up again in President Noble's time, but the struggle was soon
given up.
For many years entertainments for which an admission fee
was charged were forbidden.^" The expense to the students
giving a play was not at first very great, for theatricals began
simply, but after a few years they became increasingly elabo-
rate, and even extravagant. Occasionally a fortunate class
made enough on its publication of Donnybrook Fair to defray
the cost of its most expensive production, the senior play, but
that did not happen often. The Board of Control at one time
proposed the remedy of limiting the expenditure in producing
a play to one hundred and fifty dollars.*^ That, however, did
not prove satisfactory, and finally the problem was solved by
permitting 1909 to begin the practice of having an admis-
sion fee."
Until President Guth had the old Assembly Room of Cath-
erine Hooper Hall enlarged and admirably adapted to many
college needs, especially to dramatic ones, with the stage and
footlights and the handsome curtain presented by the Class
of 1917, the college drama wandered around the campus,
improvising a stage wherever it happened to light — now in
Goucher Hall, now in the Bennett gymnasium, now on the
basket ball grounds next to Fensal, now in the gymnasium of
Catherine Hooper or its old chapel upstairs. It was said that
Dr. Shefloe, whose efforts were "noble, ingenious, and sus-
tained."*^ had superintended the building of so many stages
that he could qualify as a professional. There was no relief
outside, for in the early years the students were not permitted
to present dramatics off campus,*^ though later they were
allowed to give senior plays at Albaugh's Theatre, on the
STUDENT LIFE 461
Buckler Estate, "Evergreen," on the Pinkerton estate at Wal-
brook, and other places. There were protests from the stu-
dents on the "inadequacy of the facilities for dramatics . . . our
dressing rooms are wherever the audience isn't ... it is remark-
able that any sort of large entertainment is ever attempted. "^^
And Dr. Froelicher, too, always recognizing the educational
value of dramatics, voiced his criticism that, while the College
had made provision for literary societies, fraternities, social
affairs, and athletics, supplying them with rooms heated and
lighted and well furnished, without expense to the organiza-
tions, for "dramatics it has provided no convenience, and
leaves the whole burden to rest upon the students.""*^
The last play upon an improvised stage was 'The Amazons,
given in 191 5 by the juniors in honor of the freshmen. In the
fall of 1916 the new chapel was ready, and its first public use
for dramatic purposes was on November 18, when Stuart
Walker's Portmanteau Theater, coming to Baltimore under
the auspices of the Drama League of Baltimore and Goucher
College, presented five plays at an evening and an afternoon
performance. This was the first time that a professional com-
pany of actors had played before a Goucher audience. On
December 8 the juniors, for the College alone, gave Milestones,
the first student play in the new auditorium. The first public
performance of the students was on the occasion of the annual
senior dramatics, when on March 16 and 17, 1917, they pre-
sented Percy Mackaye's A Thousand Years Ago and Professor
Robert M. Gay's adaptation of Macbeth.
Despite these difficulties, the drama was very popular at
the College, and often more permissions to give plays were
sought than the Board of Control was willing to grant. The
first group to give dramatic performances were the fraterni-
ties; next, the language groups, French, German, Greek; then
the classes; and last, the all-college dramatic organization,
under various names."^ Of course, these groups overlapped,
notably the last two.
462 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
The first play was given in Goucher Hall on March 7, 1891,
by the Tau Kappa Pi Society. In the central pavilion and
north wing of the hall were seated the spectators, in the south
wing a stage had been erected which was lighted by the beams
from the headlight of a Baltimore and Ohio engine lent by
Mr. O. P. McCarty, whose daughter, Stella, was one of the
cast. The entertainment consisted of tableaux and readings
from Tennyson's Dream of Fair Women.
The following year, in February, Tau Kappa Pi again made
the one presentation of the year. They chose the same author,
but their plans were more ambitious, as they gave a dramatized
version of 'The Princess in the gymnasium, which, with stage
footlights and other dramatic accessories, seemed to them
"a little gem of a playhouse.***^ The problem of male costume
entering into this performance was solved by having the men
who came into the sylvan retreat wear the regulation gymna-
sium costume. To add to the artistic effect of the play, there
were, between the acts, not dancing, but the Del Sarte move-
ments so popular in that day. The participants wore flowing
Grecian robes, with tunics of vari-colored pastel shades. These
efforts, however inadequate they may seem to us, gave much
pleasure to the students of that day, and stimulated the
desire for more dramatics.
This second performance aroused criticism in some quarters,
for at the end of the college year, when the Zeta Chapter of
Alpha Phi asked permission to give a Shakespearean play to
which they could invite their friends, they were told that they
could give the play, but that only ladies could be invited to
see it.^^ This seemed too discouraging at the time, and nothing
was done until the following year in March, when, submitting
themselves to the authorities, before a feminine audience, in
the gymnasium, with hired elaborate costumes, Alpha Phi gave
Sheridan's School for Scandal^ which was an immense success
artistically.
To Alpha Phi belongs the honor of giving in May 1 894, the
STUDENT LIFE 463
first original play. Written by three of its members, and
entitled No Mans Land, it centered in the summer adventures
of a party of college girls who sought, in a cabin in the Maine
woods, to escape from the attentions and troubles attendant
upon the society of men. Several clever original songs were
introduced with telling effect. In 1893 the faculty ruling that
the male characters in Tau Kappa Pi's projected dramatiza-
tion of "The Marble Faun must wear long ulsters and not trousers
and that the performance must be given within the college
walls or not at all caused high feeling. The play was dropped,
but not the discussion in this and in other groups. About the
same time sixty "very modest young ladies" sent a petition
to the Board of Control asking that attendance at gymnasium
exhibits be confined to women. This proved to be too much
for their courageous sisters. A rebellion was staged which
manifested itself in Goucher Hall and in the chapel. Accord-
ing to the Baltimore Sun-.
The girls who were opposed to the prohibition of men from the exhibitions
made evident their grief yesterday by prominently displaying crepe on their
persons. A china pug dog in the office of President Goucher was also
decorated with the emblem of mourning.
Not only was the "pug dog" in mourning, but Goucher Hall
was a sombre place. Julius Caesar, Venus, and the extremities
of chairs and tables were draped in black. "In chapel, the
maidens in caps and gowns were modestly veiled and all
was subdued and chaste. The cause of this propriety we
all know."^*' This ridicule helped to clear the atmosphere. ^^
Alpha Phi and Tau Kappa Pi, continuing to present dra-
matics, were joined in 1896 by Gamma Phi Beta with its presen-
tation of A Homespun Heroine. But, in the meantime, the
language groups were beginning to have what proved to be a
long line of dramatic successes. In the spring of 1894 both
the German and the French students began their presentation
of plays, the former giving scenes from Minna von Barnhelm^
464 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
SapphOy and Die Jungfrau von Orleans^ and the latter staging
Le Premier Roman. During the next few years under the
leadership of Dr. Shefloe the French department gave Les
Precieuses Ridicules^ La Cigale Chez les Fourmisy and Le
Bourgeois Gentilhomme. For these there were very handsome
programs, and in many scrapbooks of the time there is one
with the portrait of Moliere on the cover. In February 1895,
under Dr. Froelicher's leadership, the German department
presented part of Goethe's Iphigenia and the charming little
farce, Einer Muss Heiraten. Some years later, in 1908, they
produced Minna von Barnhelm — an ambitious undertaking.
Among the first outdoor plays given at the College was Rei-
nicke's operetta Schneewittchen, presented on a lovely May day
in 1899 at "Waldegg," the home of Dr. and Mrs. Froelicher at
Mr. Washington. Dr. Froelicher had dramatized the story
and, with the songs of Carl Reinicke, had made a complete
operetta. This was repeated several times.
Under the leadership of Miss Lila V. North, associate pro-
fessor of Greek, the department gave, on May 9 and 10, 1902,
a presentation of Euripides' Alcestis in the original Greek. ^^
Only twice before in the history of women's colleges in America
had such an attempt been made. Dr. Welsh stated in her
Reminiscences that this performance at the Woman's College
has been considered one of the most scholarly achievements of
the dramatic group. The most painstaking efforts, extending
over two years, were made in its preparation.
Never were costumes chosen with more care, never was the blending of
colors, the adjustment of folds, the looping of sleeves and the construction
of wigs more accurately studied. There were visits to art galleries and mu-
seums; libraries, costumers, and even the statues of Goucher Hall were made
objects of attention and research. . . . The Greek stage and how to adapt it
to a college gymnasium became the problem and night-mare of the stage
committee, for somehow the stage builder could not comprehend that a
mediaeval castle and a Greek palace are two entirely different things.^^
STUDENT LIFE 465
The event was anticipated with pleasure by the College, and
the performance far surpassed the most favorable expectations.
The leading parts were taken by Sara Rupp, '02, as Antigone,
and Anna Haslup, '03, as Creon, and the director of the chorus
was Clara Robinson, '03. On both nights the large gymna-
sium of Catherine Hooper Hall was crowded, and in the audi-
ence were many distinguished visitors.
There have been subsequent performances of Greek plays,
but never again in the original language or by the department.
The Class of 1914, under the leadership of Dr. Froelicher, out-
doors at the Pinkerton estate in Walbrook, on a warm June
night, gave as its senior play Antigone^ the chorus singing to
the music of Mendelssohn. Ten years later, in Catherine
Hooper Hall, the Class of 1924 presented the same play. In
1920 Agora gave Alcestis, and in 1932 the Goucher Guild pro-
duced 'Trojan Women.
It was not until the seventh year after the College opened
that the class enrolment had increased sufficiently to furnish
enough material for a class play. Very modestly, in November
1895, the Class of 1897 began the custom of junior dramatics
in honor of the freshmen, by giving tableaux from Robin Hood.
The next year, the class of 1898 at a Twentieth Century Party
for 1900, gave Vice Versa; the following year, '99, in honor of
1 901, presented Unconditional Surrender, and the traditions
was firmly established. For many years its selection presented
great difficulties, because only two weeks were allowed for its
preparation. A Shakespearean play, 'Twelfth Night was pre-
sented in December 1929, and As you Like It, the following
year. With these the junior play ceased for a time. Of these
plays Leonore Turner, '23, wrote in the Goucher Alumnae
Quarterly, February 1931:
Junior plays have been more significant for the store of pleasant memories
left with the actors than for amateur merit, yet occasionally they have risen
decidely above mediocrity. 191 8 gave a highly commendable rendering
of the exceedingly difficult Milestones. 1923 daringly attempted a modern
466 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
tragedy in Masefield's 'Tragedy of Nan. 1^16 gave a picturesque If I Were
King with Rita Rheinfrank making the swashbuckling Francois Villon un-
forgettable; 1927 was responsible for The Scarecrow which Jeanette Baer
made convincing; the class of 193 1 gave a Twelfth Night of Senior Dramatics
standard.
The sophomore play has, on several occasions, been called
the pioneer of Goucher dramatics. It began its work quite
boldly, encouraged by the example of three earlier junior
efforts. Sophomores gave the first Shakespearean play, the
first outdoor class play, the first boat-ride play. In 1898, the
Class of 1900 instituted the custom of sophomore dramatics
by presenting 'The Rivals-^ the next year, 1901 gave The Russian
Honeymoon^ the following year, 1902 staged London Assurance.
In 1 901, the Class of 1903 presented As You Like It — the first
time that a Shakespearean play had been given at the college.^*
In this production 1903 had the encouragement and help of
Dr. Lord and of their honorary member. Dr. Shefloe. Previous
groups had been afraid to make such a venture. Encouraged
by this success, 1904, in its sophomore year, gave The Taming
of the Shrew in honor of the seniors. They were aided by
Dr. Hodell and by their honorary member. Dr. Van Meter. Of
the interest in this play Kalends says: "There were crowded
houses both nights . . . and standing room was greatly in
demand a half hour before the rise of the curtain.""
The first outdoor class production was also given by the
sophomores. The Class of 1906, in honor of 1904, gave The
Canterbury Pilgrims, by Percy MacKaye, in the spring of their
sophomore year at "Wayside," Mt. Washington, the home of
Christine Carter, '95 (Mrs. J. Herbert Bagg) and Mabel
Carter, ex '95.
Two years later, 1908 initiated the custom of presenting
their sophomore play in connection with the boat ride given
in honor of the seniors. ^^ And so for many years sophomore
dramatics moved to an outdoor setting. On May 18, 1907, the
freshman began their custom of taking their sister class down
STUDENT LIFE 467
the bay, and they, too, entertained their guests with a play.
Many charming dramatic events took place under such circum-
stances, especially when the play chosen was suited to outdoor
presentation.
For many years the most notable class play was that given
by the seniors. It was the one most carefully staged, and
months of thought and hard work were given to its production.
1 904 was the first class to give a play in their senior year; they
chose Twelfth Nighty and their honorary member. Dr. Van
Meter, as the coach, was so absorbed in the rehearsals that as
the time drew near for the performance he "began cutting
psychology, with his usual appreciation of marginal dis-
utility."" Their labor was not in vain, for, of the effect of
the play on the audience, the Donnybrook record says:
"'Funny! We'd hate to see anything funnier,' some one said.
And yet there were those that cried — and there's the Shakes-
peare of it."^^
With one exception,^^ the next seven classes followed the
lead of 1904 and chose Shakespearean plays; after 191 2 four
other classes selected dramas by the same master, so that of
the twenty-six plays^^ given by the senior class, twelve were
Shakespeare's. When at the close of his lecture on "Shake-
speare's London" on April 23, 1935, President Robertson
expressed the hope that some day Goucher women might enact
Shakespearean drama at the Folger Library in Washington,
he was urging the revival and perfecting of an old tradition.
All of the senior plays have been of genuine literary value.
Some of them have been especially well presented, some of
them have been especially remembered for their beautiful and
appropriate setting or costuming. Some of the senior dra-
matics have marked a new departure in college traditions:
191 1, instead of holding the usual class day exercises, pre-
sented A Midsummer Night's Dream two afternoons at "Ever-
green," the estate of Dr. Thomas Buckler; 1909, in producing
"The Merchant of Venice^ introduced the innovations of com-
468 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
petitive examination for cast, a paid coach, an admission
charge, and the substitution of a purely conventional back-
ground for pictorial scenery; 191 5, for Romeo and Juliet^ and
1 91 6, for 'Twelfth Nighty tried the experiment of using a local
theatre; 1917, in presenting A Thousand Tears Ago, made it
"truly a class play" by having each member take some active
part in its production — a foreshadowing of the "work shop"
plan fully adopted a decade later.
The fourth group responsible for the presentation of plays
was the all-college dramatic club, which had its beginnings
within the circle of Agora. ^^ In the interest and support of
the students, the dramatic division of Agora outstripped all
the rest, and in the spring of 1919 this vital part of it was
organized by the Students' Organization into a dramatic club,®^
which made its debut Friday, December 5, with a presentation
of The School for Scandal. Although the name Agora, attached
to a dramatic club, was not suitable, it was used until 1930,
when the Goucher Dramatic Society came into being. This
name, in December 1931, was changed to the Goucher Guild,
which finally became, in 1932, Masks and Faces. ^^ When the
Guild wanted to produce Androcles and the Lion, it was found
that the play was not available for amateur production by a
group having the world "Guild" in its name, because of an
agreement of the publishers with the New York Theatre Guild.
From William Archer's Masks and Faces the Goucher group
took its name.
During the years from 191 9 to 1936 there were many other
changes, perhaps more important than that of name. In the
early part of the period Agora presented each year a few ambi-
tious plays and a number of smaller ones, sharing the boards
with various class plays. It aimed especially at artistic presen-
tation, unhampered by stage conventions, and it made some
interesting experiments in stage craft. Beginning in 1915,
with the costumes presented by the cast of Romeo and Juliet,
through gifts from undergraduates and alumnae. Agora had
STUDENT LIFE 469
by 1919 acquired something of a college wardrobe/'* In 1923,
under the capable leadership of Mildred Lillard, '23, Agora
improved greatly. Not only were seven dates claimed on the
college calendar and filled with plays so well presented that
they won good audiences of both faculty and students, but also
this year the Harvard Workshop plan was instituted, and stu-
dent coaching of student plays began.
The workshop plan was extended in scope during the next
four years. With groups for coaching, lighting, scenery, act-
ing, costuming, make-up, and the reading of plays. Agora grew
in strength and experience and accomplished gratifying results.
Under its auspices players from other colleges were brought to
Goucher: The Haverford Cap and Bells and the Carolina
Playmakers. For some years, it sent a delegate to the Inter-
collegiate Dramatic Association, and it also joined the Church
and Drama League of America. It was ready by 1930 to
take over the entire leadership for dramatic presentations in
the College. Thereafter, until 1936-37, all plays were given
under the auspices of the all-college dramatic organization.
In dramatics, as in other departments of student life, there has
often been the revival of an old custom. Class plays in the
most recent times have come back, and, for the first time since
1930, there was a senior class play on March 5, 1937, when
Prunella was produced.
For many years the generous aid of the faculty had been
indispensable in the production of dramatics. In 1909, and
for several years thereafter, a dramatic coach was called in for
class plays. In 1919, Mrs. Florence Lewis Speare was ap-
pointed director of drama and expression. The play that she
coached — School for Scandal — was a decided success, but she
did not remain long at the College. In 1925, Dr. Florence
Brinkley of the EngHsh department was relieved of a part of
her teaching in order to give time to dramatics. ^^ She served
ably for several years, but the need for a full time director
resulted in the appointment in 1929 of Mrs. Onnen, whose
470 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
Little Theatre experience and personal training were valuable
to the students. Under her direction, which continued, for
six years, Goucher dramatics began to assume an almost pro-
fessional air. Since 1935 there has been no director of dra-
matics, but the place of dramatics in the life of the college is
being studied.
For its initial performance the all-college dramatic organiza-
tion on March 6 and 7, 1931, gave Marco Millions. It was
the first time that this play had been presented anywhere by
amateurs. When "the elders of the college community"
learned the identity of the play to be given they were "a little
aghast." "But the event proved that fears were ground-
less. . . . The skillful training of Mrs. Onnen showed in each
phase of the production, in the acting, in the stage pictures, in
the clear and careful articulation, and the intelligent reading
of the lines. Yet even that skillful direction could scarcely
have produced such uniformly good results had the members
of the cast been drawn from only one class. No one who saw
the presentation of Marco Millions could doubt the wisdom
of Goucher's new dramatic venture. "^^ The boldness shown
in their first choice has been maintained, for among the impor-
tant plays that have been given are the following: Liliom^
Euripides' 'Trojan Women^ London Assurance., 'The Taming of
the Shrew, She Passed 'Through Lorraine, Nine Till Six, Every-
man,^'' Cradle Song, Androcles and the Lion, The Last of the
Lowries, The Fan, Women Have Their Way, and Gruach. Not
only was Masks and Faces successful in presenting well-known
dramas, but on several occasions it produced original plays
written by undergraduates and alumnae.
In 1933, at the presentation after the Thanksgiving Dinner
of The Importance of Being Earnest, the desire expressed by
some of having male characters impersonated by men was
gratified. The following spring, at the most important pub-
lic play, She Passed Through Lorraine, men were again in the
masculine roles. On several occasions subsequently, men from
STUDENT LIFE 47I
Hopkins and Baltimore's Little Theatre groups have appeared
in Goucher dramatics. ^^
In an article in the Barnard Alumnae Quarterly, fall 1934,
the dramatic activities of twenty-seven women's colleges are
described and compared, and Masks and Faces is commended
for three things — first its complete self-support; second, its
successful use of original plays; and third, its broadcasting of
productions over the radio. Beginning early in 1934, "Dra-
matics by Masks and Faces of Goucher College" was a fre-
quently repeated feature of WFBR, Baltimore.
Aided by their experience and training in Goucher plays, a
few of the Goucher alumnae have gone on the professional
stage; and a number have been connected with Little Theatre
work as directors or performers.
Athletics
Athletics at The Woman's College of Baltimore — Goucher
College — have always been connected with the department of
physical education, which, through all the years, has had but
one main objective. In his address on College Day in 1889,
when Bennett Hall was thrown open to the public for the
first time. President Hopkins said that the objective of physical
education at the College was not "to make athletes of our
young women, but only to secure the symmetrical development
of the body and the mental health and vigor depending upon
such a condition. "^^ That ideal of the earliest days has been
carried through the years.''" In a comparatively recent series
of articles on the athletic activities in colleges for women the
author commented thus:
•
Goucher meets the speciahzed physical education needs of girls in a city
college, and at the same time successfully holds the high degree of student
sport enthusiasm which is generally characteristic of colleges with vast
country campuses. A combination of progressive policies and precious
traditions keeps the program alive and well rounded and the girls' interest
at high pitch ... [It aims] to educate the girls to be more physically efficient
472 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
now and in the future; to furnish them with varied opportunities for healthful
recreation and exercise during college, and to supply them with skill in indi-
vidual sport which they may use for recreation and exercise after college.'
The opening of the gymnasium in the second year of the
College added a new element of variety to the student life,
and a glimpse into its activities that first year may be of
interest. Each hour of the gymnasium period was equally
divided between drill and work on the apparatus. By spring-
time " 'Skinning the cat' had ceased to be an accomplishment
and the girls were trying to be as pliant as snakes in weaving
themselves through the hanging ladders. A very few had
succeeded in climbing the slippery pole and had left their
initials on the rafters." In April there was a welcome change
to swimming and bowling on the lower floor, "where the
Dragon's head pours a constant stream of water into the swim-
ming pool, while strong-armed maidens make the building
resound with the rolling of ten pin balls." Visitors were wel-
comed to the gymnasium classes any morning from eleven to
one, and at the end of the season there was an exhibit to which
a small number of guests was invited.'^
For a long period, three hours a week in the gymnasium for
four years was required of all students, unless for some special
reason they were excused. A few upperclassmen now and
then tried to evade this requirement, but they found them-
selves in the unhappy position of having hours of exercise to
make up before they could be graduated. For the various
sports outside the drill work, there was no recognition as in
recent years, when sophomores, juniors, and seniors have
classes in dancing, tennis, basketball, and other sports, as well
as in floor and apparatus work. When and in what order were
these various forms of exercise added to the drill work ?
The first provision for extracurriculum sports was made by
the administration in 1890-91, when the tennic courts at
St. Paul and Twenty-fourth Streets were built. President
Goucher's announcement at commencement, 1893, that a lot
STUDENT LIFE 473
for athletics had been acquired— the one on Maryland Avenue
on the ends of which now stand Fensal and Vingolf Halls —
gave much satisfaction. This ground, ready in the fall of
1894, after Home C (Fensal) had been built, was fenced in
and laid off for tennis, archery, and other sports. The order
in which major sports were introduced is apparently the fol-
lowing: tennis, archery, bowling, basketball, hockey, fencing,
swimming (outside of required work), baseball, horseback
riding, aesthetic dancing, volleyball.
Indeed, in Goucher's athletic program, all sports except
football seem to have been included. Not that each sport has
continued uninterruptedly from the time of its introduction to
the present: some have flourished for a while and dropped out
to reappear later; some have been much more enthusiastically
pursued at certain periods than others. There has been a
change from time to time from interest in team sports such as
basketball, volleyball, and hockey, to an equally strong interest
in individual sports such as archery, tennis, and fencing. Now,
the more enthusiastic interest is in the latter — Goucher likes
solo sports today. By 1919-20 the regular round of the
athletic year had been established: tennis in the fall, followed
by hockey culminating in the Army-Navy game; basketball
with its contests in the spring; then two nights of the swimming
meet, followed by baseball games, and some years later by
volleyball.
A tennis club of eight members, called the Racqueteers, was
organized in the spring of 1891.'^^ The first tennis tournament
took place between the freshmen and the sophomores the last
Saturday in October 1893, and brought together a large crowd.
Outside the wire screen which separated the tennis grounds
from the street were gathered hundreds of uninvited guests;
inside the grounds were the faculty, wearing the colors of their
favorite side, and the students, with colors conspicuous and
banners flying. The game was a close one, but the freshmen
were victorious, and to them President Goucher awarded the
474 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
prizes — **the Woman's College souvenir spoons." ^^ Two years
later, when the freshmen were again victorious, Dr. Van Meter
presented to the unsuccessful players a beautiful bouquet of
yellow and white chrysanthemums, and to the winners the
silver cup. This tennis cup has been handed down from class
to class, with the numerals of the victors and the date of the
victory engraved upon it.^^ Tennis was also played in the
spring in the early years, and it is recorded that on June 8,
1895, occurred the first of the tennis tournaments, for so many
years an exciting event at the close of the season.
Interest in tennis has waxed and waned. A few years ago
it was said that "tennis and all its supporters are at Goucher
like a prophet in his own country."^^ Today, owing probably
to Miss von Borries' teaching of the advanced tennis class
and, in 1936-37, to the rebuilding of two of the courts, part
of the money for which was contributed by the Athletic Asso-
ciation, autumn, winter, and spring Goucher plays tennis; in
the winter in the "Katy" gym, in pleasant weather on the
courts at Twenty-fourth Street.
In the spring of 1893 an archery club was started with
twenty-four enthusiastic members." To this club only those
who had made the most improvement in their gymnastic work
were admitted. The first archery tournament took place the
following spring on the gymnasium grounds, before a large
number of invited guests, in spite of "lowering clouds and
scattered drops of rain." Prizes were interesting in those
days; for this archery contest, the winner of first place received
a silver and blue enameled hat pin.''^
For some unknown reason, interest in archery was not con-
tinued. It dropped out of college sports until February 1934,
when it again became very popular. The necessary equipment
was provided by the Athletic Association, and soon it was
said that there were enough huge bows and arrows to make
perilous a trip through Bennett gymnasium during the two and
three o'clock class periods.
STUDENT LIFE
475
Basketball, introduced in 1894-95, has always held the
major position among the sports, both in the length of the
period during which it was played and in the number of par-
ticipants. During many years each class had not one team,
but as many as four. The first of the championship basket-
ball games was played in April 1897, in the new gymnasium in
Bennett Hall Annex. It was not long before the regular plan
was established of having first the contest between the fresh-
men and sophomores, then that between the juniors and
seniors, and finally the game in which the victors in the pre-
ceding contests meet to decide the college championship. In
1901 a luncheon followed the game, and ever since there has
been a "feed" in connection with basketball contests. It was
at this "feed" that the varsity team — the honorary team com-
posed of the best players from all the teams — was announced.
This varsity team, organized for the first time in 191 5, played
that year with Bryn Mawr College the first and only inter-
collegiate game in which the College has participated.^^
For many years zest was added to the basketball game be-
tween the juniors and seniors by the "senior serpentine." The
class, dressed in white and carrying their colors, marched
around the gymnasium, twining in and out and forming
attractive figures in honor of classes, persons, or college
interests.
In the basketball season of 1933-34 there were not only class
and championship games, but city-girl teams, dining-hall
teams, and fraternity sextets. A ladder system was employed,
and any team might challenge any team above it. This sys-
tem produced a more wide-spread interest in basketball. At
the annual "feed" in Catherine Hooper, when the silver cup
was presented to the sophomores as a symbol of their victory
in the class tournament, the city-girls' team was given a tin
cup decorated with elephants, for having finished the season
at the top of the intramural ladder.
Bowhng, which had been enjoyed by the students the first
476 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
year that the gymnasium was opened, was organized into a
club by 1895, but it never attained an important place in
college sports.
In the fall of 1897, with the coming of a graduate of an
English athletic school as a gymnasium instructor, hockey and
golf were introduced.^'' The call for hockey players brought
so many volunteers — over eighty — that instead of one club
which had been planned, there were three. The advent in
1899 of Miss Hillyard as the new assistant in "physical
culture," whose special work it was to develop an interest in
English out-door games, intensified the zest for hockey. It
has always been played in the latter part of October and in
November, in crisp weather, when leaves have gathered on
Fensal Court "to crunch delightfully under the players' feet."*^
191 5 marked the inauguration of hockey as a regular "G"
sport on the same footing as tennis and basketball. It has
attracted many players — 250 in 1932. Moreover, one of the
most picturesque of all Goucher traditions, enlisting the interest
of the whole college, has been the Army-Navy hockey game
played about Thanksgiving time.
Golf was begun in 1897 — the same fall as hockey. A club
was formed to play in Druid Hill Park.^^ Apparently a golf
tournament was held at the park three years later, with a prize
for the winner of the championship. In 1917-18 the Goucher
students interested in golf played on the Clifton Park course.
Golf has never been a major sport at Goucher, owing to the
lack of an outdoor course, but during the last few years Ben-
nett gymnasium has been equipped for indoor golf, and a pro-
fessional instructor has been in charge.
In 1900 fencing was added to golf and hockey as the last
of three athletic attractions introduced in two years. ^^ In
1903-04 the fencing class numbered twenty-two.^* Appar-
ently, soon after that the masks and foils were put away for
many years, to be brought out, along with the bows and
arrows, in 1934.
STUDENT LIFE 477
The first year that the gymnasium opened all the students
were required to take swimming, for, as long ago as that, it
had been decided that no young woman, unless excused by
the medical department, could be graduated without being
able to swim. Through all the years, from the bamboo fishing
pole there has dangled many an unhappy beginner. But after
the initial difficulties have been overcome, swimming has
enjoyed great popularity. At one period as many as four
hundred swimmers a week used the pool.^^ At the first field
meet in 1896,^^ and subsequently, there were swimming con-
tests which brought out a small number of "stellar performers."
But the enthusiasm was increased when special meets were
arranged not on an individual but on a team basis, each par-
ticipant swimming for her class, and the class totaling the
greatest number of points winning the meet. The vantage
point from which the contests have been viewed has always
been the same — the tops of the lockers and showers. Perched
up there, with feet dangling, students, and sometimes even
faculty members, have cheered lustily for the swimmers."
No spectators have been more interested in the swimming
events than two of the loyal custodians of the gymnasium —
Amanda in the early days and Harriet in more recent times.
The volleyball and the basketball seasons overlap each other.
Volleyball was introduced earlier, but it was not until 1931 that
the volleyball sport was organized with four teams, interclass
contests, and an honorary varsity team.^^ All winter the
sport can be played indoors, in the organized classes, but in
the spring it is played outdoors, in the court back of Bennett
gymnasium.
More than a score of years ago baseball was introduced to
Baltimore women through Goucher players. ^^ The 1920 sea-
son was much more satisfactory than previous ones because
no attempt was made to combine baseball with Field Day.^"
On the Maryland Avenue field, as well as indoors, are played
interclass games, and there is a final game for the college cham-
478 THE HISTORY OF GOUCHER COLLEGE
pionship. A contest between the champions and a faculty
team is one of the most satisfying of sports events to the stu-
dents looking on.
In 1923 the physical education department added horseback
riding to the other Goucher sports. There were competent
instructors for beginners, and gymnasium credit was given for
riding as well as for any other sport. ^^ The following spring
there was a Saturday afternoon Horse Show on the Towson
campus with more than fifty entries. The next year this
event preceded the May Day festival on the campus: the first
half of the program was given over to interclass competition,
which included events for both advanced riders and beginners.
In 1937 the Horse Show returned to the campus at Towson,
after having been off campus for most of the intervening years.
The interest in riding has been continuous, and in 1936 there
were eighty-two Goucher students engaged in this sport.
It is a far cry from the ban on dancing in the early years,
which reached down even into secret fraternity meetings, to
the free enjoyment of dancing today, when social dancing forms
the important element of most parties and aesthetic dancing
a very popular activity of the gymnasium. By the end of
1923 a beginners' class in clogging had been introduced, and by
1927 a Dance Club had been formed. ^^ Jhis club has gained
more adherents each year, lured into it perhaps by the charming
aspect of the dance 
