The bulletin of Atlanta University, 1907 no. 175

              Number 175                                       Atlanta, Georgia                                     October, 1907 President Bumstead's Letter of Resignation Boston, June 19, 1907. To the Trustees of Atlanta University. Gentlemen:—The time has come for me to resign the presidency of Atlanta University and to ask you to put another man in my place. Including one year of service as Acting-President, I have been the executive head of the institution for twenty years. For the twenty-two years since the death of President Ware, I have carried its financial burden. In all, as Instructor, Professor, Treasurer, Acting-President and President, I have given thirty-two years of service. Owing to various peculiar circumstances, these have been difficult and trying years in the history of Atlanta University. Whatever the record may have to show of success or failure, of profit or loss to the University, the years have been full of rewarding satisfaction to myself in the inestimable privilege of having so long a participation in a great Christian and patriotic work. There is no other career that I could wish today had been substituted for the one that has been mine. During all these years Atlanta University has grown—to some extent, I trust, by my efforts; in some degree, doubtless, in spite of my mistakes and failures; to a larger extent, surely, because of the loyal support and co-operation of students, teachers, trustees, and the great company of friends throughout the country, and, most of all, as we may reverently believe, because it has been a vine of God's own planting. But while the University has grown, my own strength and ability to serve it have not continued to grow proportionately to its needs. With advancing years I am conscious of a widening gap between the demands that are justly and properly laid upon the President and the maximum of effort that I am able to put forth to meet them. The point has been reached where the responsibility must be shifted to younger and stronger shoulders. I therefore ask you to accept my resignation as President of Atlanta University to take effect the coming first of September, this date being suggested in order that I may have time to close up as satisfactorily as possible the affairs of the past academic year. Without wishing in the least to dictate to the board or in any way to abridge the liberty of its choice, I will venture to ask the privilege of nominating  my successor.     The   office   of President came  to me as  successor to Edmund Asa Ware, the founder of Atlanta University, the friend of my youth, my classmate in college, my fellow worker, counselor and inspirer for the ten years preceding his death. His son, the Rev. Edward Twichell Ware, I have known and loved from his infancy. He was born and received all his early training at Atlanta University, is a graduate of Yale, his father's college and mine, and of Union Theological Seminary, and for the past ten years has been connected with the work of our own institution, seven of them as its chaplain. He has inherited many noble qualities from his father and mother and is true to the ideals that inspired their work. It would be a very great satisfaction and joy to me if the office which I received from so worthy a father could pass through me to so worthy a son. Nor is this a mere sentimental desire, for my calm judgment is that no candidate could be named so well fitted, by inheritance, experience and his own personal qualities, to meet the present needs of the University in the office of President as Edward Twichell Ware. As I lay down my work, I desire to express my sincere and heartfelt gratitude for all the sympathetic and loyal co-operation that I have enjoyed at the hands of trustees, faculty, students and friends of the institution.' May I also express my earnest hope and trust that Atlanta University will ever remain true to the ideals of its founders as represented by their staunch faith in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, and their purpose, so far as they could, to provide the amplest opportunities of Christian education for all people of every race and class. I remain, Very respectfully yours, Horace Bumstead. Mr. Ware's Letter of Acceptance Duxbury, Mass., Aug. 30, 1907. Rev. Frederick H. Means, Secretary of the   Board   of   Trustees   of   Atlanta University. My Dear Mr. Means: I wish by this letter to formally accept the presidency of Atlanta University to which I was elected at the adjourned annual meeting of the Trustees held on Wednesday, June 19th, in Boston, Mass. There are several considerations which make it possible for me to do this. I have a deep and sincere belief in the principles of humanity for which Atlanta University stands. I believe in the democracy which means equality of opportunity for all people. I believe in the Christian brotherhood which, in genuine sympathy, reaches across the barriers which divide race from race and class from class. Atlanta University exemplifies these principles as applied to education. While I am conscious of my inexperience and my need for wisdom which comes only with the years, I am given courage and hope by the expressions of faith and confidence which have come to me from the Trustees, the teachers, the graduates and from many other friends. I am especially influenced by the fact that I was nominated by President Bumstead, and by his belief in my fitness to meet the needs of the University in the office of President. It is no small thing to me that I can enter upon the office with the hearty approval and sincere benediction of him who has, during the past twenty-two years, so nobly borne the burden of the work. I believe that Atlanta University is "a vine of God's own planting." The work to which I am called comes to me as a heritage from a noble past. I believe that it is God's will that I should undertake it; and I pray that He will give me wisdom and power to do it faithfully and well. There is no career which more strongly appeals to me than that of effective service in the cause of Christian education as represented by the ideals of Atlanta University. I therefore humbly and gladly accept the office to which I have been elected. Respectfully yours, Edward T. Ware.