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SE Biology, Vol. 61, No. 1, January, 2014 
and Schools. The organization was conceived by Vanderbilt’s Chancellor 
James H. Kirkland (Wofford Class of 1877), who hoped to challenge peer 
campuses to attain national standards of academic excellence. Trinity 
College in Durham, NC, which later emerged as Duke University under the 
presidential leadership of Wofford alumni John C. Kilgo and William Preston 
Few, also sent delegates. Wofford was represented by two of its outstanding 
young faculty members, A.G. “Knotty” Rembert (class of 1884) and Henry 
Nelson Snyder. Perhaps it the Wofford community’s determination to meet 
the standards for accreditation that later inspired Snyder to turn down an 
appointment to the faculty at Stanford University to become Carlisle’s 
successor as president. It was also true that Spartanburg was no longer a 
sleepy courthouse village — it had become a major railroad “hub city” and 
was surrounded by booming textile mills. Local civic leaders launched nearby 
Converse College, which combined liberal arts education for women with a 
nationally respected school of music. At Wofford, it no doubt seemed 
possible to dream bigger dreams. 
The first decades of Snyder’s long administration (1902-1942) were a time of 
tremendous progress. Main Building finally got electric lights and steam heat. 
Four attractive red-brick buildings were added to the campus — the 
Whitefoord Smith Library (now the Daniel Building); the John B. Cleveland 
Science Hall; Andrews Field House; and Carlisle Hall, a large dormitory. 
Driveways for automobiles were laid out on campus, and rows of water oaks 
and elms were planted. Wofford began to attract faculty members who were 
publishing scholarly books in their academic specialties. For example, David 
Duncan Wallace was the preeminent South Carolina historian of the day. 
James A. “Graveyard” Chiles published a widely used textbook, and he and 
his Wofford students founded the national honorary society for German 
studies, Delta Phi Alpha. The “Wofford Lyceum” brought William Jennings 
Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, and other guest speakers to the campus. 
Although eight women graduated from Wofford in the classes of 1901-1904, 
the average enrollment in the early 20th century was about 400 men. The 
cornerstone of residential campus life was an unwritten honor code, for 
decades administered with stern-but-fair paternalism by the dean of the 
college, A. Mason DuPre. Modern student government began in 1909, and 
the first issue of a campus newspaper, the Old Gold & Black, appeared in 
1915. World War I introduced Army officer training to the campus, and after 
the conflict came voluntary ROTC, one of the first such units to be approved 
at an independent college. Snobbery, drinking, dancing, and other alleged 
excesses contributed to an anti-fraternity “Philanthropean” movement among 
the students, and the Greek-letter organizations were forced underground for 
several years. A unique society called the “Senior Order of Gnomes” 
apparently owed its beginnings to a desire to emphasize and protect certain 
“old-fashioned” values and traditions associated with the college. Both 
intramural and intercollegiate sports were popular, with the baseball teams 
