His duties were defined as follows: To have charge of the financial and business concerns of the College, and also of the library, grounds, buildings, etc. This office was accepted, and he entered upon his duties the first day of July following.
At the same session the Board proceeded to fill the chair of Moral and
Mental Science and Biblical Literature. Rev. John A. Kern, of the
Baltimore Conference, was elected to the chair, and he accepted the
same.
Prof. Kern was a graduate of the University of Virginia. In 1866 he entered the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He had filled many of the most important appointments of that Conference, and was then, as now, esteemed a man of talent, and growing year by-year in ability and acceptability. The estimate placed on him by his friends was not too high, as his subsequent career has proven.
The Board accepted the libraries which had been offered to it by the Literary Societies, consisting of about four thousand volumes, and the Librarian was directed to consolidate them with the College Library. This was a much-needed and timely improvement, and became a nucleus for a library which, in course of time, will be, it is hoped, a credit to the College.
[Illustration: REV. JOHN A. KERN, D. D. Elected President of
Randolph-Macon College in 1897.]
The new President was requested to continue his efforts in raising funds for the endowment, which had so far been attended with laudable success. This he was not slow in heeding.
On account of failure to record the financial statement of 1886, the exact amount of net assets of the College cannot here be given.
The retiring President served nine years, almost identically the same period served by his predecessor, Dr. Duncan. His administration was also, like Dr. Duncan's, marked by great financial embarrassment, which had a depressing influence on a sensitive temperament like his was. That his days were shortened by the constant burden of care, like his predecessor's, can hardly be doubted. Both of them were, in a sense, martyrs to the cause of Christian education.
Dr. Bennett never regained his health. He moved to his farm, in Louisa county, and took work on the contiguous appointment at the Conference of 1886. While engaged in the work of his charge he gradually declined in health, and died June 7, 1887.