Presidents

Unrelated to his Predecessor

Osborn L. Smith, Class of 1842
1819-1878

President 1871-75

A firm believer in the depravity of human nature, President Osborn L. Smith was privileged to be able to confirm his belief at several educational institutions, including Emory. Following his graduation from Emory in 1842, he had served as principal of a high school before joining the Emory faculty in 1845 to teach Latin. In 1850 he left Emory again to teach languages at Wesleyan College, where he was president from 1854 to 1859. The war years called him to elected office in the Georgia Legislature, and after the Civil War he charted yet another path by entering the ministryHe was serving as minister of Saint Luke's Methodist Church in Columbus, Georgia, when he was elected president of Emory in 1871, no doubt on the strength of his previous teaching there and his administrative experience at Wesleyan.

The O. Smith years were tough ones for the college, in part because of the national economic panic of 1873, and in part because of the trustees' policy (adopted in 1874) of awarding two full scholarships to each district in the North Georgia, South Georgia, and Florida conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South—forty scholarships in all. Tuition exemptions continued for children of itinerant Methodist clergy, and this along with the scholarships and the economic panic left the college with only thirty-five paying students in 1874-75.

Nevertheless, some remarkable men graduated from Emory during Osborn Smith's presidency: Charles Dowman (1873), who himself would become president of Emory; W. A. Keener (1874), who would teach law at Harvard and Columbia and would serve for a decade as dean of Columbia Law School; James K. Hines (1872), later justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia; and Warren Akin Candler (1875).

Despite the economic difficulties of the school and the nation, President Smith was able, with the aid of Bishop George F. Pierce as financial agent, to oversee the construction of four new buildings, including Language Hall, Science Hall, the Prayer Chapel, and aclassroom building—all for the total cost of $42,000. But the endowment remained a mere $18,000.

Outwardly stern, always most comfortable in the classroom, and frustrated by the financial hurdles facing the college, Smith happily resigned the presidency in December 1875 to resume his duties as professor of Latin. He died two years later on his way home from class. As one student recalled Professor Smith's demise:

I was the last man that he called upon to recite, and having studiously prepared the lesson by the aid of an Interlinear . . ., I gave a most beautiful translation, but failed to parse a single line correctly, but failed to parse a single line correctly. He dropped dead as he went . . . home . . . and the boys always insisted that my . . . recitation was too much for him.

[Harry H. Stone, A History of the Class of Eighty. Emory College, 1876-1925 (Atlanta, 1925.]

Source: A Legacy of Heart and Mind: Emory Since 1836. Gary S. Hauk, PhD