In its long history, who was Baylor’s first senior professor? Dorothy Scarborough? A. J. Armstrong? Paul Baker? Daniel Sternberg? Glenn Capp? Cornelia Marschall Smith?
It was Dr. Luther Weeks Courtney, who taught in the English department for nearly 40 years. In 1954, President W.R. White conferred the newly created title of “Distinguished Professor” on Courtney “in appreciation of his years of superb teaching and out of gratitude for his sacrificial devotion to the teaching profession and Baylor University,” according to The Lariat. White added that the title confers “all the rights and privileges of a department head”–without the headaches.
By all accounts, Courtney was, indeed, a memorable professor of English. But his life outside the classroom was at least equally noteworthy.
And when he died, his obituary was on the front page of the Waco newspaper, classes at Baylor were cancelled, and tributes poured in for the man students called “‘Fesser”–though never to his face.
Courtney’s life is chronicled through a host of articles in The Baylor Line, The Lariat, The Round-Up, The Waco Tribune-Herald and various interviews with former students in the Baylor Institute for Oral History. It is a life that deserves to be better known (and appreciated) today.
But it was not without its share of controversy …
Luther Weeks Courtney was born to a family of limited means in Aiken, South Carolina, on June 12, 1880. Much to the delight of the Baylor student body, a small, self-published book titled A History of North Greenville Junior College somehow found its way to Waco during the end of Courtney’s tenure, several stories featuring a very young ‘Fesser.
While Courtney in the 1890s attended North Greenville, which also served as the area high school, he was once part of a group of six boys accused of killing a stray dog. A magistrate summarily ordered him to attend a trial at a courthouse high in the Appalachians. Courtney, who was not guilty, was outraged. “Why that’s three miles,” he declared to the magistrate. “I’m not going to walk.” The magistrate replied, “You can walk, or I’ll handcuff you and haul you over in the back of the buggy.” Courtney walked.
At the trial, it turned out that the actual culprit had already left North Greenville and the star witness had not actually seen the shooting. The judge (who also happened to be the magistrate) found Courtney and his classmates “not guilty.” While the angry courthouse audience reluctantly accepted the verdict, Courtney admitted his greatest fear was leaving the building–most of the disgruntled spectators having brought rifles to the hearing.
As a senior at North Greenville Junior College, Courtney taught the math and science classes and served as captain of the cadet corps. He declined the offer to become the corps’ commandant upon graduation to attend Furman University.
After graduating from Furman, Courtney served as superintendent of schools in Belton, South Carolina, from 1905 to 1908, then moved to teach at Oklahoma Baptist College from 1909 to 1911. He joined the Baylor University faculty in 1911, where he simultaneously worked on his master’s degree. He first appears in the 1912 edition of The Round Up, listed as “A. B. Instructor in English and History.”
Courtney left Baylor in 1914 to become head of Furman’s preparatory school, was a fellow at Yale University from 1916-17, then served five years on the faculty of Oklahoma State University. He also somehow found time to marry Estelle McCary Harris in 1918 and the couple eventually were the parents of two daughters. Courtney finally returned to Baylor in 1922 and, while teaching a full load of classes, still managed to earn his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1925.
Courtney’s life is a marvel of accomplishment. In addition to teaching English and history, Courtney helped found Baylor’s debate program, sporting the title of “forensics director.” He wrote several books, including Suggestions for Debating (1926), Hannah More’s Interest in Education and Government (1929), and Practical Debating (1940) with Glenn Capp. Other publications followed, primarily on the works of John Milton.
It was Courtney, then Capp (who arrived in 1934) who continued Baylor debate’s rapid rise into becoming a national powerhouse. According to Randy Fiedler, director of marketing and communications in the College of Arts and Sciences, Baylor debate was the most active program in the country, undergoing numerous long drives across the United States to debate the top U.S. colleges. “During one five-week period in the spring of 1929,” Fiedler writes, “three Baylor debaters and their coach, Dr. Luther Courtney, traveled 7,000 miles to compete against students in universities in California, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming and Montana.”
During Courtney’s tenure as director in the 1930s, it was said that “debate was the only championship Baylor could win.”*
Teaching and research were Courtney’s passion, but both the Tribune-Herald and Lariat feature a host of stories detailing Courtney’s service to his community and, ultimately, his country. Among the many positions he held were director of the Waco Library Association, president of the Conference of College Teachers of English, president of both the Waco Rotary Club and the Philosopher’s Club, as well as various national academic organizations. He was among the first Baylor professors to be named to Who’s Who in America. Courtney was also a member of the Waco city planning and zoning commissions, an active Democrat, and a lifelong Baptist.
All of that would pale by comparison to Courtney’s appointment by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to “assist in ironing out the Southern Pacific railway difficulties that have arisen between the employees and employers” on November 25, 1933. The front-page article in The Lariat states that Courtney and two other highly respected officials in Oklahoma and North Carolina were to leave immediately for Houston, where the new board of mediation was scheduled to meet to settle a strike by more 3,000 employees of Southern Pacific in Texas and Louisiana Railroad. Baylor President Pat Neff, who served on the permanent National Mediation Board, had recommended Courtney to FDR.
During World War II, Courtney served as the chair of the Committee for the Civilian Defense of Waco and headed McLennan County’s influential Advisory Board of Registrants–the draft board.
However, the closest he came to action was in November 1946 when he became trapped in one of the few elevators on the Baylor campus. The Pat Neff Hall elevator got stuck between floors, and within minutes smoke billowed up the elevator shaft from the basement. A Lariat article recounting the event said that President Neff left his office to console Courtney, even offering to have a bowl of chili sent over from the cafeteria, should Courtney’s unexpected stay extend past supper. Courtney demurred, the article reported, saying that a bowl of ice cream might be more appropriate.
Fortunately, the small fire was extinguished and Courtney was rescued 20 minutes later by Neill Morris, superintendent of buildings, “who broke the glass window of the elevator and released the door.” Neither Courtney nor the elevator apparently suffered significant damage.
But it was mainly in the classroom where Courtney was best remembered and honored at Baylor. Among his many admirers was Dr. J. E. Zimmerman, who himself became a much-honored English professor at Arizona State University and served as a visiting professor at Baylor from 1972-1973. In a flowery tribute to Courtney after his passing written for The Baylor Line written in 1976, Zimmerman said he happened into Courtney’s Milton class as a freshman and then took every class Courtney offered:
What I learned in his classes has meant much to me throughout the years and intensified the ideal and the determination to be a better teacher and a better man.
From him we learned the students are the most wonderful factor in teaching. He loved his students; he was not only their teacher, but also their friend; he encouraged them to think for themselves, to aspire, to succeed. He was interested in his former students long after they had left Baylor; he corresponded with many of them; his letters to me I cherished. …
His standards were the highest. He was a stalwart, forceful, outstanding personality. He demanded superior work. …
He wanted all of us to do and to get the best. He had no tolerance for the mediocre and lazy students, but he loved even these most unlikely ones and endeavored to promote their growth.
Not that Courtney was perfect–no human, professor or otherwise, can be. One of the several oral histories that discuss Courtney is by another legendary Baylor professor, W.C. “Wally” Christian, who took undergraduate courses at Baylor in the English department and said that Courtney was part of a trio of famed–and feared–English professors at the time, along with A.J. Armstrong and Charles G. Smith. And, as is sometimes the case, strong personalities in academic settings don’t always get along. “They would frequently in class make comments about the other one, never flattering, sometimes witty, sometimes quite derogatory,” Christian recalled. “One of the perils of the larger-than-life figure is that he ends up teaching not the subject, but himself.”
Still, most students apparently adored him. So it was no surprise in March 1954 that White named ‘Fesser as Baylor’s first “Senior Professor.”
Unfortunately, last two years later, Courtney suffered a “very serious” heart attack on September 20, 1956. He had been dressing for the funeral of his closest friend, Sam Darden.
Another front-page article, this one in the Tribune-Herald, reported that Courtney had died in Hillcrest Hospital on the morning of Saturday September 22. Services were held on the morning of Monday, September 24 at the First Baptist Church, where he had served as a deacon for many years, with burial following at Oakwood Cemetery. Baylor cancelled classes Monday morning so students, faculty, and staff could attend the funeral.
News of Courtney’s death was reported in dozens of newspapers throughout Texas in the days that followed. On Sunday, the Tribune-Herald’s editorial page led with a tribute to the man: “Dr. Courtney Left Rich Heritage of Service,” clearly written by a former student or colleague:
Luther Weeks Courtney spent a lifetime kindling the love of freedom, the love of beauty and the love of great literature in the souls of college students. There are few higher callings in terms of service to mankind and the many, many friends and admirers of Dr. Courtney can comfort themselves this morning that though his death was sudden and untimely, his life was a victory for the human race.
Dr. Courtney left the world a richer place for his having been in it. Future generations of scholars and teachers can profit by taking his life as a guidepost.
A small plaque dedicated to Courtney still hangs in Carroll Science Hall near the door to the English department office. It reads:
Luther W. Courtney
1880-1956
In Grateful Memory
Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the memory – Shelley.
Strikingly displayed in Armstrong Browning Library, one of the six beautiful stained glass windows in the Cox Reception Hall titled “Venice,” with its wreath of red geraniums amid a royal blue sea, is dedicated to Courtney by Jesmarie Harvey Hurst.
Finally, Zimmerman’s lovely tribute, written 20 years later, concludes with a quote from one of Courtney’s lectures:
Long before his name was carved on his tombstone in the cemetery, his signature was written upon his work, upon people, upon church, upon the university, and upon the community–an indelible signature in letters, words, and volumes of gold. I am so thankful that I knew Dr. Courtney. Ineffably wonderful memories are mine of his glorious signature written deeply into my life in lines of generosity, love, strength, and service. “Life is rich accordingly as we fill it with things that are beautiful to remember.”
* Baylor’s first national debate champions were female. On April 3, 1936, the team of Mary Helen Neely and Helen Harris won the women’s division of the Pi Kappa Delta national forensic tournament in Houston, beating out teams from 120 colleges in 35 states and Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, Baylor debaters Paul Geren and J.W. Bruner took second place in the men’s division. – from an article by Randy Fiedler
