Editor’s Note: For now over 75 years, The Baylor Line has been publishing vivid storytelling from across the Baylor Family. I don’t think our archives full of deep, inspirational features should live solely on shelves, so we are bringing them back to life in BL Classics. This March-April 1968 Classic features the farewell reflection of editor Enid Markham, a love letter to the University she served for over four decades.
Some years ago when our little daughter was about ten years old, she was helping with the Saturday morning housecleaning chores, dusting books, pictures, lamps, and miscellaneous bric-a-brac about the rooms. Presently, in annoyance, she exclaimed: “Mother, you have too many things !”
I paused to take a hasty inventory. “Things? Those are not ‘things’ — they are anniversaries, birthdays, Christmases, trips, special events — red-letter days and unforgettable experiences. They are all memories.” “Well,” she sighed, “anyhow, ‘Memories’ are to dust !”
That became a household byword with us, a part of that special lexicography peculiar to a family, somehow signifying to us that reconciliation of reality and sentiment, that commingling of duty and dreams with which Life seems to be filled.
And now, I, too, have arrived at one of those cobwebsweeping moments of life, bright with the sunshine of fulfillment but laden with the accumulated dust of days, when I, like that little girl, stand half protestingly, half proudly amid the bitter-sweet encrustations of the years and sputter : Memories are to dust!
So… with your indulgence, I am tempted to finger a few, turning them a moment to the light to see their special colors and flicking from them the flecks of Time before setting them gently back in their places of repose.
It was soon after the close of World War I — that conflict so gloriously waged “to make the world safe for Democracy,” as President Woodrow Wilson so eloquently proclaimed — that I first became a part of Baylor University. The War had come to a triumphant end in the fall of my senior year in high school, and the world — our part of it, certainly — was giddy with relief and rejoicing. Never again would there be War! Never would there be hate and death and greed and destruction and suffering! We had put an end to them all ! Everything was going to be wonderful, and everyone was going to be happy, prosperous, and good.
In that delightful frame of mind I entered Baylor University in the fall of 1919. And in the same felicitous mood I tripped through Dr. Downer’s Latin and Dr. Pace’s Botany and Dr. Armstrong’s Browning and Dr. Gooch’s Chemistry and Dr.Johnson’s Public Discourse (Journalism) and Dr. Dow’s Sociology and all the rest, receiving my degree in the spring of 1923, with the editorship of a prize-winning Round-Up tucked under my belt, not to mention the satisfaction of Baylor’s first Southwest Conference championship in football!
The Roaring Twenties and The Terrible Thirties
We didn’t know then, and we didn’t find out till years later, that we were participating in “The Roaring Twenties”; but I suppose we did our part to authenticate the impression later held of our era, if an attitude of general euphoria may be so broadly interpreted. Even an after-college “career,” consisting of several years of teaching experience and employment with an engraving firm specializing in the production of college annuals, failed to temper the tempo of the times for me!
Anyway… we came through, if not “roaringly,” at least light-heartedly — only to land smack in the midst of “The Great Depression” of the Terrible Thirties.
Of Script and Coupons
Unaware, however, of any impending misfortunes, I stepped blithely into matrimony with a particularly nice young member of the Baylor Music faculty in the very summer that introduced that grim Depression period to the world. On our return from a summer’s honeymoon-and-study sojourn in New York City, we faced a tumbling world of bank failures back home in the wake of stock-market crashes up East, and soon our Baylor salary dollars shrank to quarters and then to dimes! The administration found it necessary to make drastic cuts, and soon partial payment of what remained was made in “script” — those wretched little slips with University underwriting, acceptable to only a few local clothing and furniture stores — and who could eat their wares? Food, drugs, utilities and other necessities had to come out of the cash remnants of those slender checks. Babies, too! And ours was one of those.
Somehow, we got through that decade, however, and were embarking on a heartening new one, even daring to spend some of the hoarded script on a few new household furnishings, when Bang! — we were rocked by the bombs over Pearl Harbor in December, 1941.
Once again everybody began collecting historic bits of paper — this time known as Food Ration Coupons — courtesy of a fellow-Texan, Marvin Jones, who headedJohnson’s Public Discourse (Journalism) and Dr. Dow’s Sociology and all the rest, receiving my degree in the spring of 1923, with the editorship of a prize-winning Round-Up tucked under my belt, not to mention the satisfaction of Baylor’s first Southwest Conference championship in football! The Roaring Twenties and The Terrible Thirties We didn’t know then, and we didn’t find out till years later, that we were participating
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s War Food Administration. There were also coupons for gasoline and tire rationing and other assorted restrictions on the pursuit of happiness.
The Fearful Forties and The Frenetic Fifties
Those were, indeed, the Fearful Forties! — a period fraught with fear that the mortgage payments couldn’t be met, that a child couldn’t be educated, that the old tires would play out, even that jobs would be cut off — as many were. The only thing to do was to keep as busy as possible with USO work, church work, PTA work, community work of all sorts — anything to keep mind and hands occupied and the wolf from the door till Hitler could be subdued.
But the ancient poet was right : this, too, finally “passed away.” And we found ourselves facing The Frenetic Fifties, when everyone seemed to be making a frantic effort to recoup losses, to accumulate “something” for the years ahead, even to retain reasonable sanity in a world suddenly gone mad again with peace and plenty.
Major events in this decade for our particular family included: the graduation from Baylor, in 1954, of our little “memory-dusting” daughter; her marriage the following year to a splendid young Houston doctor, a graduate of Baylor and Baylor Medical College ; my own appointment, in 1957, as director of the Baylor News and Information Service; and the birth of a lovely little granddaughter as a 1959 Valentine.
The Swinging Sixties
Thus, we breezed into “The Swinging Sixties” — which swung me, personally, into the editorship of The Baylor Line in the spring of 1963. All this time, of course, the “Head-of-the-House” had gone right on teaching in the School of Music, building and repairing its organs, and in numerous ways doing his bit Pro Ecclesia, Pro Musica, Pro Baylor. The arrival of a fine little grandson in 1962 was the era’s Bonus for us.
Service Under Five Presidents
Thus, our lives have been firmly geared to the mechanism of this University, with whose fortunes, it should be fairly obvious, our affections have been tightly meshed. We have lived and worked under five great Baylor presidents : Dr. S. P. Brooks, Dr. W. S. Allen (acting president for a year), Governor Pat M. Neff, Rev. W. R. White, and Judge Abner V. McCall, each of whom has made unique contributions to the history and on-going of this institution.
We revered the great intellect, the unshakable integrity, and the courageous leadership of Dr. Brooks, who set the perfect example, in our estimation, of selfless dedication to Baylor during his 29 years as her president from 1902 until his death in 1931.
We adored the genial, warm-hearted Dr. Sims Allen, who served as acting president during the year following Dr. Brooks’ death and who had been the efficient and much beloved Dean of the University for seven previous years. He later was president of Stetson University in Florida for a number of years before his death in 1951, but he left an indelible imprint for good on the life of Baylor, his own Alma Mater.
We were devoted to the peerless Pat M. Neff, that veritable personification of dignity, diplomacy, and personal magnetism who was surely the most colorful and commanding figure ever to stride across the Baylor scene. His reputation as a “silver-tongued” orator and his poetic flow of history-infused eloquence have seldom been equaled in the annals of this nation. Unequaled, too, is his record of service to Baylor in his 27 years as chairman of the Baylor Board of Trustees during the presidency of his old Baylor roommate, Samuel Palmer Brooks, and his own 16-year tenure as president, 1932-1948.
Following these came William Richardson White, whose outstanding Christian leadership, quiet strength of character, and innate goodness cast a long shadow of progress and productivity across Baylor’s ancient greens from 1948 until 1961, when he became President Emeritus. Nor have his efforts in behalf of Baylor and Baptist weal abated to this day!
And now comes Abner Vernon McCall, who possesses something of the outstanding characteristic of each of these, to which he adds special qualities of his own. We have seen in him a counterpart to the great intellect, integrity, and courage of Dr. Brooks ; to the geniality and warm-hearted humanity of Dr. Allen; to the perspicacity and legal knowledgeability of Governor Neff; and to the Christian strength of Dr. White. But we have appreciated, also, his own forthright approach to life ; his unspoiled simplicity and unpretentiousness ; his rare sense of humor and appreciation for his fellow-man ; and his unusually perceptive and incisive ability to get at the heart of a problem — whether national, institutional, denominational, or personal — and to deal effectively with it.
Serving with these men has, indeed, provided cherished Memories to be kept well dusted!
A Parting Word
And now a word about my editorship of The Baylor Line which I am about to leave :
When I came to this challenging position in the spring of 1963, it was with one firm purpose and intention : to put the University’s “best foot forward” ; to strengthen and support the confidence of the ex-students in their school ; to give them an honest report on what goes on at the University ; to acquaint them with her leadership, progress, needs, and problems ; and to keep them informed on the activities of their friends and classmates, as well as on the worthy and/or notable achievements of Baylor Exes throughout the world.
To Accent the Positive
In short, I planned to “accent the Positive,” for I knew that Baylor has, and has always had, plenty of “Positives.” With matters of administrative policies, educational theories, functional frictions, and other normal concerns of any institution, I did not — and I DO NOT — conceive it to be the function of the alumni publication staff to “dabble,” since I hold these to be the responsibilities of persons better qualified and duly appointed to handle them, and since information about them can better lie presented through other and specialized communication media.
This credo of mine, I am well aware, runs counter to the constantly reiterated views of many of the persons most active in affairs of the American Alumni Council, as repeatedly voiced from convention platforms and in print. With monotonous regularity these self-appointed pundits of educational affairs keep drumming the theme of the editor’s “ethical and professional obligation” to a higher commitment than the mere administrative body of his institution; and with boring repetitiousness, they keep belittling and ridiculing what they term “the PR line of alma mater.”
I put my ear to the ground and that was not what I heard from our alumni. One influential Baylor trustee put it pointedly this way: “We hire the best men we can get to deal with the seamy sides of running a university, and we expect them to take care of these matters. When they are unable to do so, or fail to, we’ll find out through official channels and do something about it. We don’t need any half-baked, off-sides opinions of publication staffs to guide our thinking.”
Not Just “Another” Magazine
Another strong Baylor supporter said : “We don’t want just another magazine. There are plenty of these, available on any newstand, to acquaint us with social problems, political controversies, foreign policies, and the ailments of society in general. What Baylor people want is our own magazine filled with Baylor news and personalities. Our Board of Directors and Board of Trustees will keep their eyes on the inner workings of things and do what needs to be done about any conditions that need correction. We do not believe fundamental problems can be solved by casual readers or that their concern should be aroused by journalistic exercises.”
Still another loyal and intelligent Baylorite reminded us: ‘‘Look — you could print Lord Chesterfield’s letters or the letters of the Brownings and, however perfect they might be, they would not take the place of that ‘Letter from Home,’ which is what we expect our magazine to be to us. Don’t get too far off base,” she counseled, “if you want the Exes to follow you.”
All these nuggets of sagacity we tucked into our pack and turned a deaf ear to the urging of the AAC directives to mount the Critic’s perch. Because of this divergence of thinking, we have not entered our publication in any of the AAC-sponsored competitions, and we have found it expedient to make use of only one of the expensive insert articles prepared and made available at Council headquarters. In the latest announcement of a competition sponsored by the national body, appeal is made for the entry of what it designated as “those truly effective publications” which include “discussions … of the issues of our time.” And a prize is dangled to be given “in recognition of content relating the institution and public affairs.”
No Ambition to Be “Gutsy”
This, we take it, would involve articles on race problems, sex problems, war and political problems, and numerous other matters which we do not believe to be grist for the mill of an alumni publication.
An example in point is provided by the statement of one of the judges in a recent important contest, as quoted in the AAC Journal : “I found the gutsier stories about what was wrong with the university in the institutional articles… the inside stuff, often carried under the byline of a professor, really had the knives out.”
Now there may be institutions where this kind of treatment may be necessary, but so far, we believe ours is not one of these. And frankly, my fellow Baylorites, I have had no ambition to be “gutsy” or to make a special effort to focus your attention on “what is wrong with the university.” Nor have I gone knife-hunting for blades with which to stab your school and mine in the back. I am in agreement with a member of the Carnegie Foundation Commission on the Future of Higher Education, who has said that an editor has “the right to investigate any issue and treat it objectively,” but adds that it is a different matter “when the editor leaves objective reporting and begins to tell everybody what his views are.”
This is the feeling I have had as to my rights, duties, and limitations in serving as your editor these five years. I also agree with the view of the editor of The Columbia University Forum who said that people tend to regard controversy as news because, basically, “people love trouble.” But he added a warning: “It carries a danger . . . after all, these magazines are published by the institution as a part of a general program of education. . . We can’t very well expect our budgets to go on,” he quipped realistically, in combination “with ‘untrammeled freedom of the press’ on the campus.”
Neither Clever Nor Ethical
That speaker seemed to me to be saying that it is neither clever nor ethical of any editor to try to downgrade the institution on whose stability the worth of its degrees depend — not to mention the very existence of its alumni publication.
All these considerations, you see, are a part of an editor’s problems and responsibilities. Speaking personally — as I am, for the first and last time — I chose the path which I sincerely believed to be in the best interest of the University, itself, and therefore, of all of us, her alumni. I have never reported untruths nor sought to mislead your thinking about any existing conditions or problems. I have attempted to keep you abreast of the welfare and activities of your school and to present a true image of its administration and overall state of being. By your overwhelming responses of approval, I have been encouraged to believe I was pursuing the right course.
“And Now Farewell…”
In the words of Tennyson’s departing Arthur : “AND NOW, FAREWELL. I AM GOING A LONG WAY WITH THESE THOU SEEST…’’—“these” being “That Good Old Baylor Line.”
For, it matters not how long the way or how rough the going — or, in the better words of the poet, William Ernest Henley, “how charged with punishments the scroll” — I am sure that, even though I am NOT “the master of my Fate,” I can never fall out of that worthy “Line” which I joined so long ago and to which I pledged my life’s devotion.
So let me catch step with the rest of you now, and let us, while remaining ever alert and vigilant in behalf of Baylor, continue to march courageously, confidently, and proudly “down the years.”
Faithfully yours,
Enid E Markham
