The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1900-10-18

In October, 1889, a president and
four professors were present to open
the North Carolina College of Agricul-
ture and Mechanic Arts, with a single
building, surrounded by grounds bar
rem and forbidding. Five professors
had been elected, but the Professor of
Chemistry had a years leave of
absence, his work not beginning till
the second year. OF this group of
five who were present when the col
lege opened, two are still holding the
same chairs, D. H. Hill, of the Chair
of English, and w. F. Massey, of the
Chair of Horticulture and Biology.
Today instead of one building in a
dreary old field and four professors,
the college has eleven buildings and
beautifully improved grounds. In
stead of a handful of professors and
students. the professors, assistant
professors, and instructors number
between twenty and thirty, with
every room in the college crowded,
and every vacant room in the neigh
borhood rented to accommodate the
near 800 who were present on the
opening day. Every year, since the
little opening eleven years ago, there
has been an advance, and as the grad
yates have gone out to take respon-
sible positions in the worlds work,
they have given evidence of the thor
oughness with which they have been
trained. and have drawn increased at
tention to their alma mater. The
proof of the manufacture is in the
quality of its products, and measured
by this standard, the men who have
been working in the North Carolina
College of Agriculture and Mechanic
Arts have no reason to be ashamed of
the men they have trained and sent
out into the world.
With increased facilities for instruc
tion and training still better work
can and doubtless will be done, for
the present faculty is unit in the
determination to elevate the standard
of scholarship in the college, and to
do better work as the means are at
hand for the purpose. Visiting some
time since at Clemson College, S. c.,
the income of which is near three
times that of the North Carolina Col
lege, they were astonished to know of
what we were doing, with the income
at our disposal. Our reply was that
it had always been the boast Of North
Carolina schools that they did more
with dollar than those of any other
State This is evidenced by the fact
that even this year with hardly any
funds available for building and equip
ment, the college has added to its
equipment neat and well-built cleo
trical engineering building, and has
installed a COLLECTION of textile ma
chinery for the opening of the textile
school, though compelled to take the
only little auditorium possessed for
this purpose, and to trust the future
for means to build an auditorium
equal to the needs of the college.
With room for dormitories and in
struction, there is no doubt that there
would be this present term over 400
students in attendance, as the fact
that the college room was limited has
been so prominently brought before
the public that many despaired Of get
ting in and did not come.
When the fact that the standard OF
admission has been materially ad
vanced the present year is taken into
consideration, the large excess of ap-
plicants above the capacity of the col
lege is an evidence of the great re-
vival in the South Of interest in prac-
tical education, and the determination
Of our young men to prepare them
selves to take part in the work-day
world that is abroad-in the South, and
not only to take part in it but to be
leaders in the industrial awakening
that is putting the South rapidly to
the front.
The world is always on the hunt
for men with educated minds and
trained hands," said Andrew Carnegie