History of Randolph-Macon College

Faculty of the Early 20th Century

The academic program of the college from the teens through the thirties saw few changes from that at the end of the pre- World War One period. The number of subjects taught remained small. (One can hardly call them departments, since usually each subject was taught by one professor, perhaps aided by an assistant.) Blackwell had an adjunct professor (Henry Grant Ellis in 1914) to relieve him of some of the burden of teaching while he attended to his multitudinous chores. As a result of the church's agitation, two men taught religious subjects: Frank Leighton Day and former President John A. Kern. The rest of the faculty taught everything in their own disciplines by themselves.

R. B. Smithey, after whom Smithey Hall was named, taught mathematics, but he did not confine his interest to that subject. A member of the American Historical Society, he published a History of Virginia and Civil Government in Virginia. He retired in 1917 with the rank of professor emeritus (the first in the college), after nearly forty-five years of service in teaching at the college. The board paid Smithey a full pension with the provison that this action shall not be considered as precedent. He had been instructor in mathematics at the college from 1872 to 1876; M.A., 1876; and professor, 1878-1917. He died July 18, 1925.

Thomas Madison Jones, for whom Jones dormitory is named, taught Greek and was known as Potty Jones to generations of students. His successor was Joe Haley, remembered by Haley Hall, who came to the college in 1921. Both men made great impressions on their students and colleagues. One of them observed years later that he did not know whether characters taught Greek or teaching Greek made characters. Haley impressed his students by his large size and larger erudition. He was interested in everything, it seems, and commonly went to other members of the faculty to get to the bottom of a subject or problem. He died in 1957.

History and political science-babies among the disciplines, as they had been introduced in the twentieth century-were the domain of Early Lee Fox after 1918. Fox Hall bears his name. He was famous for lecturing while staring at the ceil ing. Fox was killed in a bus accident in 1946. He was a frequent consultant for county governments and in Washington.

Hall Canter, first dean of the faculty, taught chemistry from 1901 to 1939. When Canter died in 1939, his colleagues noted that the high quality of work he required in his classes, his rare ability as a lecturer, his genial spirit and his affable manner, his friendship for his students and his interest in their problems, stimulated scores of students of his to go into higher work. The memorial also notes his church work: steward, organist, Sunday school teacher. Granted that all such testimonials fall under the rubric de mortuiis nil nisi bonum, the virtues that are stressed reflect the common values: high expectations, hard work, and personal impact upon students.

William Houston Keeble, after whom Keeble Observatory is named, came in 1919 to teach physics. He is described by a former student as pixieish. Probably he was. Writing A Brief Sketch of my Life in 1952, he noted laconically: In August, 1907 I married Nell McSpadden. ...We were in Maryville College together. I am a rather strong advocate of coeducation. This is a brief record, but the annals of an uneventful life are necessarily brief."

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