Bibb County GaArchives News.....MERCER UNIVERSITY. July 11 1872
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Linda Blum-Barton http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000645 November 3, 2004, 12:48 am

The Christian Index.
We gave four days to the first Commencement of the University in its new home.  
Unfortunately, we suffered under physical indisposition, and have not been able 
to prepare a suitable report of the occasion.  But an alumnus of the 
Institution has kindly supplied our unavoidable lack of service in that regard, 
and we invite the attention of the reader to his report, which appears 
elsewhere.  
The Commencement exercises were of a character to place the local reputation of 
the University on sure footing.  Their annual return will rank among red-letter 
days in the calendar of Macon society.   The Telegraph & Messenger, not 
extravagantly, said of them:  "Ralston's Hall, last night, showed a brilliant 
array of the beauty and fashion and intellect of Georgia.  Mercer may well be 
proud of her formal inauguration among our people, with the prestige and glory 
of many years resting upon her honored head.  Transplanted to a wider sphere of 
usefulness, from this hour new triumphs and grander achievements await her.  
With a faculty now complete in numbers, and not surpassed in erudition and 
administrative ability at the South, an exhaustive curriculum covering every 
department of knowledge, and new fields of science, embracing law, physic, and 
divinity, soon to be developed, nothing remains to cap the climax of her fame 
but the speedy occupation of her palatial halls of learning, and the generous 
support of the public.  The entire programme of the evening was deeply 
interesting."
Among the Baptist minsters present, we recall the names of Revs. J. H. DeVotie, 
D. D., B. F. Tharpe, J. G. Ryals, P. B. Robinson, H. C. Hornady, S. Boykin, G. 
F. Cooper, G. T. Wilburn, A. R. Callaway, T. H. Morgan, D. D., G. R. McCall, N. 
M. McCall, Jr., F. M. Haygood, W. H. McIntosh, D. D.  There are many others -- 
especially in the list of alumni-- who should not have been absent;  and we 
hope that each successive year will manifest a steady improvement in this 
regard. These Commencements ought to be annual reunions of the alumni; and 
their reunions should be the occasion of renewed interest in the University and 
of wise counsel for its welfare.  Half the strength of an Institution of 
learning lies int he arms of its alumni;  and it is matter of profound regret 
that, in the present instance, this strength largely lies there--asleep.  Shall 
it be our painful duty to make a similar record twelve months to come?
The observations and enquiries of four days put a hopeful aspect on the affairs 
of the University.  We doubt whether location at any other point in the State 
would have placed it in the midst of a body of brethren, or a community, more 
willing, or more able, to do the work rendered imperative by the exigencies of 
a transfer in troubled times.  The presidency of Dr. Battle opened 
auspiciously -- as our readers will perceive, when we have an opportunity of 
laying his Inaugural Address before them.  The return of Prof. Willet to his 
Chair in October, will be matter of sincere gratification to the friends of the 
University, and, with the induction of Prof. Steed into the Chair of Latin, 
gives us a full, learned and able Faculty, every way equal to the demands of 
their position.
Let not the University languish for want of public, and especially of Baptist 
patronage, in its new, healthy and refined home.


Additional Comments:
The Christian Index.
The Union of 
South-Western Baptist, of Alabama          The Christian Herald, of 
Tennessee.     
Vol. 51 -- No. 27     Franklin Printing House, Atlanta, Ga., Thursday, July 11, 
1872.    Whole No. 2627.


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