Sewanee Alumni News, 1958
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Vol. XXIV, No. 1 February, 1958 m iMm. % t . The Vice- Chancellor's Page. Dear Alumnus: "Planting the Cross" on the cover of this issue is the last of a series of water-color sketches by Richard Brough, commissioned by the Associated Alumni to paint four his- torical scenes for the Centennial Year. The great eclat of the opening ceremonies of "Laying the Cornerstone" in 1860 had hardly subsided before the devastating War Between the States erupted in full fury and literally laid everything waste. Both armies passed back and forth across Sewanee Moun- tain. Every building on the domain was burned, and even the cornerstone was blasted to fragments. At the end of that frightful conflict the first two of the founders, Bishops Otey and Polk, were dead, one of natural causes, the other by a cannon ball through the chest. Bishop Elliott alone of the three original planners survived the war. Every cent of the endowment had vanished, and even the fountain to which one might have looked for replenishment had dried at the source with the total impoverishment of the South- ern States. Only the land remained, and it was not even certain that its ownership could be established. To the small band of surviving trustees the words of the Psalmist must have seemed poignantly pertinent: "In my prosperity I said, I shall never be removed: thou, Lord, of thy goodness, hast made my hill so strong." But "Thou didst turn thy face from me, and I was troubled. Then cried I unto thee, O Lord; and gat me to my Lord right humbly." But as Dr. Alexander Guerry said three quarters of a century afterwards, "The object of a deep faith cannot die as long as any live who hold the faith." On March 22, 1866, the newly consecrated Bishop of Tennessee, the Rt. Rev. Charles Todd Quintard, and Major George R. Fairbanks of the original Board of Trustees visited the Domain at Sewanee with the Rev. Thomas A. Morris and the Rev. John A. Merrick to make plans for a theological training school sponsored by the Dio- cese of Tennessee. Bishop Quintard recorded the scene: "In the evening we erected a cross on the site selected for the chapel, gathered the workmen about it and asked the blessing of the great Head of the Church on our undertaking. We recited the Apostles' Creed and made the grand old woods ring with the Gloria in Excelsis." To Fairbanks who had participated in both choruses, the contrast to the sound of a thousand voices with which he could remember those same woods ringing six years before must have been discouraging, to say the least. The place where the cross was erected is now marked by the oratory of St. Luke's Hall. Fairbanks and Quintard erected log houses at Sewanee. The theological training school was opened early in 1867, and funds were found to build a wooden building, Otey Hall, and to begin a small wooden chapel before Bishop Quintard set out for England and the Pan-Anglican Council at Lambeth Palace in September, 1867. Quintard came back with enough money to enlarge the chapel, build Tremlett Hall, and open classes in September, 1868, thus securing the Domain forever. Cordially yours, &L*szi*A £ E W A N E E ^(j: W S Chapel Construction Total Cifts Set Science Symposium Pace Quickens New Record To Be April 19 Construction on All Saints" Chapel Although final tabulations were in- The second Centennial Symposium complete, it was possible to announce will be is exciting to watch these days as the on "Christian Civilization" plans for enlargement and completion with this issue of Sewanee News that Saturday, April 19, on "The Sciences." the total gift income for the University oi the building, unfinished for hall a The Speakers: more and more ap- ol the South in 1957 again set a new century, become Biological Science—E. J. Boell (A.B., parent to the sidewalk superintendent. record. Nearly $1,750,000 in total gifts University of Dubuque; Ph.D., Iowa longer does the 1905 cornerstone from all sources came to Sewanee. The No professor of zoology at total given the University in 1950, also State; D.Sc), .-it lonely on the grass. The building Yale University; has grown to encompass it, while the a record, was $1,732,000. stone has been turned to fit the angled Of the 1957 figure some $400,000 came Physical Science—George Gamow wall of the new chancel. The stone from foundations and corporations and (Ph.D., University of Leningrad), pro- walls reach the clerestory level in the nearly $700,000 from fewer than five fessor of physics at the University of addition and the raised sanctuary can anonymous individuals. The most re- Colorado and author of Atomic Energy be seen. Around the east wall of the markable fact of the centennial year in Cosmic and Human Lije, One, Two, . Infinity, The Creation chancel is an ambulatory, lightened by was the response from the Episcopal Three and of five large windows and containing an Church to the University's dual appeal the Universe; and unbroken inner wall where memorial —Sewanee-in-the-Budget and the All Social Science—Grayson L. Kirk tablets will be placed to form a marble Saints' Chapel fund. In the former (B.A., Miami University; M.A., Clark surface. category (Church Support for operat- University; Ph.D., University of Wis- The chapel and Science Hall are ing expenses including Theological consin), president of Columbia Uni- now connected with a one-story wing. Education Sunday Offerings) the total versity and professor of political sci- to which other stories can be added. came to over $170,000—a slight drop ence, and author of Pliilippine Inde- As one enters from Science Hall, on trom last year. At the same time, pendence, The Monroe Doctrine, and the right or front there will be the however, church giving set a new re- The Study oj International Relations. chaplain's study and office for his sec- cord including gifts for the Chapel College faculty and students from retary and a room for St. Augustine's completion project. Tennessee schools have been invited for All Saints' Bishop Altar Guild, which cares Frank A. Juhan, director of to the two Centennial Symposia. The is the choir robing development, reported gratifi- On the left there "great first, on "The Humanities," was held in 100m with space for music storage, the cation" at the centennial showing. October. Speakers were Philip Wheel- new St. Augustine's Chapel, and the "Wi'h such a remarkable year im- wright on philosophy, Lionel Trilling mediately priests' sacristy. preceding, we hardly hoped on literature, and Roger Sessions on St. Augustine's Chapel, to be used to do as well again. The result is a fine arts. Dr. Charles T. Harrison, for services with small congregations, clear demonstration of the faith held former dean of the College of Arts and faces east. It will contain the altar. by Sewanee's friends. Perhaps the Sciences, has been in charge of ar- lectern, and other furnishings from the most significant fact is that in 1957 the rangements for the symposia. University's first chapel, situated just total number of donors rose substan- south of All Saints' in the present chap- tially. More and more people are be- center. Here we have an opportunity el yard. The diocese of Arkansas is coming increasingly aware that Se- to show forth what a superlative edu- making the new St. Augustine's a tri- wanee is more than a good educational cational establishment should be." bute to their former bishop, the Rt. Rev. R. Bland Mitchell, '08, and the rose window over the altar there is the gift of his friends in Birmingham. Alabama, where he was rector of St. Mary's Church. Shapard Tower is rising on the south side of the chapel, with construction past the large west window and the south door. It is hoped that the tower will be ready to receive some of the bells of the Polk Carillon this sprin, and it is possible that all of the bells will be in place by Commencemen;. Arthur L. Bigelow, designer of the bells and bell-master of Princeton University, installed a practice key- board for the carillon in the music building in January. Although prolonged snow and rain in January and February have slowed down the pace of construction, work on the narthex or entrance should be- gin soon. The chapel will continue to be in use as long as possible withou' delaying construction. Then the fur- niture will be moved to the Juhan Gymnasium and that portion which was formerly the basketball floor in the Ormond Simkins Field House will be set up for Sunday chapel. Week- day services of Morning Prayer will be held in the Union Theatre. All Saints' Chapel: Construction of tlie new chancel at the cast end. February) Nineteen Fifty-E (§£wanee V\(ews The Vice-Chancellor Speaks on Successor to the Sewance Alumni News Sewanee 's Role in Education Sewanee Alumni News, issued quarterly by the Associated Alumni of The University of the From an interview with Wallace O. Westjeldt, '47, in the Nashville Tennessean South, at Sewanee, Tennessee. Entered as second- class matter Feb. 25, 1934, at the postoffice at Se- The duty of the small, private liberal attention to the individual that can be wanee, Tenn., under the Act of March 3, 1879. arts college in today's crisis-ridden ed- given in the small university. Intimacy ucational world is to remain small and is so important in the teaching process FEBRUARY, 1958 selective, Dr.