Charles Lee Lewis

“ He taught them by precept and example the fundamental moral and religious principles of right living and honest thinking—the best preparation that young people can have for the battle of life. I owe to him as teacher and friend a debt of gratitude for knowledge and inspiration which for many years I have attempted to repay by trying to pass on to others the lessons I learned from him,—the kind of repayment which would be most pleasing and satisfying to such a man. ”

“ I question the truth of Robert Browning’s lines in “Rabbi Ben Ezra,”
“Grow old along with me;
The best of life is yet to be.”
As I grow older, this seems to me like the whistling in the dark I used to try when passing a country churchyard to keep my courage up. ”

“ So it is with our lives; if we are engaged in honest work, we shall go on from day to day, all unconscious of the monuments which we are building, the fabrics which we are weaving. The day may often close and leave us discouraged and dissatisfied, feeling that little, if any, good has been accomplished ”

“ Later in the new college building each society was given a special room for its meetings and for housing its library, each having as many as 800 volumes by 1895. The College curriculum also provided for weekly exercises in public speaking on Friday afternoons, and in later years introduced a department of elocution, or expression as it was also called.
When Carnes retired from the presidency in 1878 at the age of 78, he was succeeded by Dr. T. W. Brents. Like Elihu Burritt, Brents when a young man became a blacksmith by trade and developed a robust, powerful physique. ”

“ A hundred years seems a long time, even to some of us who first became students in this institution more than fifty years ago. Many changes take place in the course of a century. Let us turn back the clock of Time and take a bird’s-eye view of the year 1848, the year when Burritt College received its charter. ”

“ Louis Railway was under construction in 1848, it was not completed until 1853, and the branch from Tullahoma to McMinnville was not finished until 1858. There were not many colleges in this part of the state. Irving College, rebuilt in 1845 and then chartered by the legislature, was flourishing, but the Cumberland Female College was not founded in McMinnville until 1850. When Burritt College was established, there was no Vanderbilt University, no University of the South at Sewanee, no University of Tennessee, no Peabody College. Tennessee had been a state only 52 years ”

“ The charter for Burritt College was secured by a board of thirteen trustees. They apparently were not superstitious regarding the number thirteen in those days. This board, of which John Gillentine was the chairman, obtained money for the erection of a college building from citizens of White, Warren, and Van Buren Counties and probably elsewhere. Nathan Trogdon was employed as contractor and builder. The building, a two-story brick structure, a drawing of which appears at the top of the early diplomas, stood about midway between the present main building and Billingsley Hall. ”

“ Burritt College, where he had graduated in 1873. Never were the man and the position better suited for each other. Since his graduation at Burritt, he had taught at Eaton Institute and Onward Seminary in White County, whose Superintendent of Public Instruction he had been for four years. President Billingsley was an excellent scholar and an extraordinarily skillful teacher, also a careful administrator and disciplinarian. He was an eloquent and effective lecturer and preacher. He taught his students much more than the subject matter in the textbooks and the courses of study. ”

“ Carnes’ home, including the girls’ dormitory, was burned. At this time he was invited by the board of trustees of East Tennessee University to become president of that institution. They assured him that a gymnasium would be built, that the sentiment in favor of coeducation was growing, and that the municipal government of Knoxville [8] would prevent the sale of liquor to students. He accordingly accepted the invitation, and resigned the presidency of Burritt College, a position he had held for eight years. ”