History of Randolph-Macon College, Virginia: The Oldest Incorporated Methodist College in AmericaIrby, Richard
History
History of Randolph-Macon College, Virginia: The Oldest Incorporated Methodist College in America
Irby, Richard
Randolph-Macon College; Randolph-Macon Woman's College
"_Resolved_, That we request the Virginia Conference to order that the
deficiency in the yearly revenues of the College (which shall be
reported by the Board to each annual session of the Conference) shall be
divided among all the districts of the Conference, and sub-divided among
all the stations and circuits by the district stewards, as in case of
the Conference collection, and shall be raised by collections in every
congregation, and embraced in the annual report of the recording steward
of every charge to the Financial Board of the Conference.
"_Resolved_, That when the Virginia Conference shall have adopted the
plan proposed, all its ministers shall be entitled to send their sons of
proper age and acquirements to College without payment of tuition fees;
that the Baltimore Conference, by adopting the same plan, shall be
entitled to the same privilege, and that $2,500 be fixed as the amount
to be raised by each of these Conferences for the next year."
This action has been considered, and rightly so, to have been for the
time and under the embarrassments of the surroundings the most important
and efficient ever taken by the Board. With a small assessment of about
five cents on each member of the church in the two Conferences, the
annual income was in a short time increased by the sum of $4,000, which
was equal to the dividends on an endowment of about $70,000. The
Conferences adopted the plan, and have annually raised a large
percentage of the assessment, the Virginia Conference having in 1882
increased its assessment to $3,500.
[Illustration: REV. W. H. CHRISTIAN, D. D., _Virginia Conference._]
In looking back on the period since, nearly thirty years, it really
looks as if, without this action, the College could not have continued
its work. Certainly this work would have been greatly narrowed and
restricted. Great honor, therefore, should be bestowed on the name of
William H. Christian as the mover of this plan, and the friends of
Christian education in the State should render to the Conferences
grateful thanks for having, under the promptings of the good Spirit,
acted so promptly on the suggestion and carried it out for so many
years.
[Illustration: JOHN HOWARD, A. M.]
The year 1869 was otherwise a notable year. In the latter part of the
year the first general election for State officers and a Legislature was
held since the close of the war. With the inauguration of the Governor
elected at this election and resumption of the legislative functions
by the General Assembly, the State resumed its normal condition, and
military rule ceased to exist.
At the meeting of this first Legislature, a committee, which had been
charged with that duty, appeared before the body and asked and obtained
the change of the charter, and the sanction to the removal of the
College from its original site to Ashland. The amended charter reads as
follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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