"JAMES A. DUNCAN."
[Illustration: REV. JOHN D. BLACKWELL, D. D., Vice-President Board of
Trustees, and President Elect, 1877.]
The resignation of President Duncan was most reluctantly accepted, with resolutions of highest regard for him personally and commendation of his great services to the College. It may be stated here that he continued to act as president in the interval between the annual meeting and the adjourned meeting, held in Richmond, July, 1876. At this meeting Rev. John D. Blackwell, D. D., was elected President. He declined to accept the office. At the adjourned meeting, in November, Dr. Duncan was re-elected, and he consented to serve again, under the most pressing solicitation of the Board and the evident urgency of the case.
It has been said that "coming events cast their shadows before." So this resignation of Dr. Duncan, on account of the consciousness of failing health, was a shadow, and a very dark one it was, of the event of the coming year, which was to cause mourning in all Southern Methodism and in regions beyond.
The annual meeting adjourned, in sadness and gloom, to meet again in
Richmond, July 25th.
The financial condition was not satisfactory, and the old embarrassment of former years was again felt.
At the adjourned meeting, held in Richmond, Va., July 25, 1876, the resignations of Professors Thomas R. Price and James A. Harrison were tendered. Professor Price had been elected to the chair of Greek at the University of Virginia, and Prof. Harrison to the chair of Latin at Washington and Lee University.
[Illustration: PROF. R. E. BLACKWELL, A. M.]
Changes were made in the chairs to be filled, viz., one to be that of English and Modern Languages, and the other that of Latin and Greek. To fill the first Robert Emory Blackwell, A. M., was elected, and to the other Prof. Charles Morris, M. A., of the University of Georgia. Prof. Blackwell was in Europe at the time, taking a course at Leipzig. He took his degree of Master of Arts in 1874. He had served as assistant in the School of English under Prof. Price, and was recommended by him in the highest terms. He was the first of Prof. Price's graduates, of a long list, to be elected to a chair of English.
Prof. Morris was, when elected, Professor of Latin and Greek at the
University of Georgia. He, also, was highly commended to the Board by
Prof. Price, who was a fellow-student with him at the University of
Virginia. A more whole-souled, ingenuous man never lived than he, and
his character was beaming from his face. Though a member of the
Episcopal church, he threw his whole soul into the religious work of the
College, and no one would have known that he was not a member of the
Methodist church.