The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1910-06-16
IN THE ACADEMIC GROVES.


be just and honest.
z----:-e-=
IN THE ACADEMIC GROVES.
This is Commencement Week at
Hampden- Sidney College, because it is
the closing week of the college year.
The teachers and housekeepers will
cease from their labors for a brief
space and the young men who have
finished their studies will begin actual
work; at least, that is tile theory on
which this scheme of the collegian's
life is worked. IL the young men were
young women. we SHOULD say, Where
the brook and river meet, womanhood
and childhood fleet" or words to that
effect; but they are not. 1t would not
to imagine them in petticoats, al
though they wore with exceeding
grace the scholars gown, except when
they Were trying to cross damp places
and then in saving their skirts they
discovered their feet, which. except
possibly at the University of Chicago,
would Immediately identity them. Be-
sides, there Is not molly coddie
among them. certainly not among the
Philanthropics, a name hardly less
significant. although far from as me-
lodious, as the other name ever dear
to some other generous youth of an
other institution of equal piety, If not
of quite SO many honorable years, Phi
lomatheans. 1t was all very fine.
Sidney College is situated
away out in the woods. and such
woods as would delight the soul of
Pinchot, and near to water courses
which Bailinger would Immediately
want TO farm out TO the Gugsenheims.
Speaking of the Gug genheims, and the
Carnegies. and to the Rockefeilers
through the mouth of the General Ed
ucation Board, we would say in this
aside that there is no place where
they could put some of their money
with better advantage to the cause of
| liberal learning than down there in
| the woods; woods which have been
made memorial by the generous splr-
| it's trained to high thoughts and no
| BILE purpose under their protecting
| shade, woods where one would look
for the companionship of the scholars
of the ages; woods where Virgil might
| have written his Aeneid and Horace
I strummed his odes. and Homer might
have written out OF the lives of tho
| men here taught and the sufferings
of their people another and a greater
Had.
Established six months before
| the Declaration of independence was
written and more than thirteen years
before the American Constitution was
adopted, for more than century and
a third this school OF the patriot and
the prophet has withstood the wreck
OF fortunes and the changes OF cir
rising sun. Named for John Hampton
and Algernon Sidney. two OF the most
| illustrious champions of English lib
| erty, it has ever stood for what was
/ best in human thought and purpose.
| More than four hundred of the young
men taught here have devoted them
| selves TO educational work. Twenty
seven college and university pres!-
| dents and one hundred professors in
/ like institutions were trained at
Hampden- Sidney. Five times have the
sons of this school answered to the
| call Of their country, and thrice have
its students marched in a body to the
front of battle. In the War for South
ern Independence 637 men OF Hmnp-
dem Sidney went into the Confederate
armies. or a larger number than the
total number OF it's matriculates dur
! Ing the fourteen years immediately
preceding hostilities. and in the soil
Of Virginia eighty-three of ,he sons
: Of Hampden-s Sidney. having sacrificed
! their lives for principle. sanctiry thi!
soil with their sacred dust,
Madison was taught at this schoo
and WAS for twenty years q
member of its Board of Trustees, The
Governors of six States were educated
frightened by the culture and charac.
ter of ambassadors and ministers
trained in the academic groves of this
college, and wherever they have gone
and whatever profession or calling
they have followed. they have reflect
ed honor upon their alma mater ant
have done good service for the state
Hampden- Sidney is a denominations
Institution in the sense that IL is I'm.
der the protection of the Presbyterian