Dr. las. E. Shepard
As head of the North Carolina
College for Negroes at Durham,
lie has accomplished a work
which has won national praise
and recognition.
»!/
It. C. LAWRENCE
TWO men have borne names which
have a similar sound within our
Commonwealth: James E. Shep¬
herd. eminent lawyer and scholarly
Chief Juitice of our Supreme Court;
and James E. Shepard, eminent edu¬
cator, scholarly student. President of
the North Carolina College for Ne¬
groes at Durham. I do not derogate
from the eminent service rendered by
the Chief Justice to his native state
when I say that the work of the college
president is by far the more valuable
and enduring, for when the learned
opinions of the sage of Blnckstone be¬
come but dusty tomes of ancient learn¬
ing, the educational work fathered,
nurtured and fostered by l)r. Shep¬
ard will live until time shall become
merged into eternity.
Our State has produced some emi¬
nent Negroes, among whom may he
noted John Chavis, an outstanding ed¬
ucator long liefore the Civil War;
Edward A. Johnson, Assistant United
States District Attorney, and later a
metropolitan lawyer; James II.
Young, Collector of Internal Revenue
and Colonel in the Spanisb-Ameriean
War; George H. White, solicitor, leg¬
islator and Congressman : II. P.
Cheatham, outstanding legislator and
Congressman, thereafter founding a
great orphanage at Oxford;
С.
C.
Spaulding, founder and president of
the largest Negro insurance company
in tho world; Dr. L. L. Smith, Minis¬
ter to Liberia and college president;
Bishop Price of Livingston College,
an orator of such power that his great
oration swept the Ecumenical Con¬
gress in London off its feet and caused
tho Jjondon Times to proclaim it a
great deliverance by a great Ameri¬
can ; and many other outstanding men.
A Worthy Leader
Booker T. Washington heads any
list of Negroes in the field of national
education, as does Dr. Carver in the
field of the chemist. I am not merely
rhetorical, nor do I pay my subject
any flattering compliment. when T -ay
that Dr. Shepard is the Booker T.
Washington of his race in Carolina.
Garfield said that a University con¬
sisted of Mark Hopkins on one end
of a log and a student on the other —
a saying most appropriate when we re¬
member that right here in Carolina,
the log cabin of Rev. David Caldwell
was at once “an academy, a colleee and
a theological seminary" from which he
graduated more than fifty preachers,
two Governors and n large number of
other men who boonmo prominent in
the life of Carolina. The work done by
Dr. Shepard may properly lx* coin-
eared with his, or with that, of Rev.
lobert IT. Morrison, founder of Da¬
vidson College, nr with that of Brant¬
ley Yorke, within whose academy lay
concealed the germ of Duke Univer¬
sity, or with that of Dr. James A.
Campbell, whose lengthened shadow
can be seen in the great college which
bears his name.
Two names stand preeminent in the
educational annals of our state, for
both conceived a great educational in¬
stitution: Charles D. McTver looked
down the ages and visioned an educat¬
ed Carolina womanhood, and he
wrought so earnestly and so mightily
that the Woman’s College at Greens¬
boro came into being. Dr. Shepard had
a vision of the Negro race pushing
onward and upward in tho field of
learning, and ho conceived, created
and established the great institution
over whoso destinies ho line presided
since its modest beginning in 1910.
All unendowed institutions have to
struggle for existence; and Dr. Shep¬
ard wrestled in behalf of bis concept
as earnestly and ns mightily ns did
Jacob with the angel of old, for he
never released his purpose until his
goal had been attained.
Steady Growth
Beginning with a faculty of four
and a student body of ton. the college
has under his skillful and wise guid¬
ance grown by leaps and bounds until
today has developed into the front
rank of colleges for Negroes in the
United States. Its growth has been no
less than phenomenal, for today it
has a beautifully landscaped campus
of sixty acres, on which are twenty-
five buildings, designed by eminent
architects, some of which hear the
names of outstanding friends and sup
porters of the institution, such ns the
Clyde R. Hoey Administration build¬
ing, the Benjamin N. Duke Audi
torium. the Angus Wilton McLean
dormitory and many others. It is the
proud possessor of an imposing facul¬
ty, all of whom in the academic and
professional schools arc tho holders of
college or university degrees. From
property worth $10,000 it has grown
in stature until it represents an in¬
vestment of more than one and a half
million. From ten students, its .«tudent
body has grown to around twelve
hundred, including the summer school.
(Continued on page thirty)
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