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
The severance of President Garland from the College, after a service of
fourteen years in various capacities, was a source of great sorrow to
his old pupils and friends. However deficient he may have been in some
qualifications for the presidency, which from the first he not only did
not seek, but frequently declined, he preserved all along the
unqualified respect of all as an able professor and scholar. So devoted
was he to the prosecution of his favorite study, Astronomy, that he
generally broke himself down every year by attempting to perform the
arduous work of the president and also of full professor. Added to this
he was for years Treasurer. To a sensitive nature like his, the demands
of creditors made on him when he could not meet them was a burden of
itself heavy enough for any one to bear. If the College had had an
endowment fund large enough to pay the expenses as they were incurred,
and had allowed him to retain a professorship at a fair salary, with a
president taking on his shoulders the duties which in most colleges
devolved on the president, his valuable services could probably have
been retained--certainly if the dissension had not arisen in the
administration of the College. It is proper here to state that this
dissension was only with Professor Hardy, and was not participated in by
the other members of the Faculty, and did not lead to the resignation of
several of them.
President Garland accepted the Chair of Mathematics in the University of
Alabama, at Tuscaloosa. He never returned to his native State except on
visits. The whole of a long life was spent, first, at the University to
which he went, then at the University of Mississippi, from which he was
called to take the Chancellorship of the Vanderbilt University, at
Nashville, Tenn., which he accepted and filled for many years. Here in
connection with his old pupil, Bishop McTyeire, he did valuable work,
till age and feebleness forbade active work. Then he was made
_Chancellor emeritus_. He died suddenly, but not unprepared, at the
Vanderbilt University.
The closing years of President Garland's administration were the darkest
in, the history of the College. Many of its friends were hopeless of its
ever rallying again. Others gathered new hope, and their faith
"staggered not" in this dark hour. All the older Methodist colleges had
gone down, or were tottering to their fall. So much the greater faith
was needed at Randolph-Macon.
It was a fortunate circumstance that this re-organization took place at
the session of the Virginia Conference, which was held at the College,
and presided over by Bishop Capers.
[Illustration: REV. WM. B. ROWZIE.]
Rev. W. B. Rowzie, who for many years had been Agent, resigned the
position. A better friend the College never had.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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