Read the complete text of Sam Moss' ('63) speech dedicating the portrait of Dr. James Ross McCain to Darlington School Aug. 17, 2005:
Twenty-five days from today – Sept. 11 – marks the 100th anniversary of the day that James Ross McCain opened Darlington School and taught its first class. Today, as we welcome Tom Whitworth as our new headmaster, what more appropriate time could there be to remember and honor our first headmaster.
Let me tell you a little of what I know about Dr. McCain. Everything that I have ever read or heard about James Ross McCain reveals that he was clearly an extraordinary and remarkable man. The School’s founders, John Paul and Alice Allgood Cooper, personally selected Dr. McCain to build the school that they had envisioned. None other than J.J. Darlington himself – in whose honor the School was named – had suggested Dr. McCain to the Coopers. According to Dan Hanks’ book, The Story of Darlington School, when McCain came to Rome to meet the Coopers, “he found no school buildings, no grounds, no pupils; but he was so much drawn to Mr. and Mrs. Cooper and so much impressed and challenged by the idea and the ideal that he promptly accepted the position offered him."
When he returned in the fall, he found that the new building had not been completed; that he was the only teacher; that waiting for him were 24 boys, divided among eight different classes – from the fifth through the twelfth grades – with an average of three to a class, requiring two sessions a day: one from 8 to 12 for the younger boys; and the other from 12 to 4 for the older boys, with no time out for lunch, and with coaching duties after school – a schedule that many of Darlington’s current teachers can still identify with! McCain later lamented “we did not even have a blackboard with which to begin and no desks of any kind – simply chairs and a bare room. It was a pretty dreary outlook – no playground, no eating place, and no recreation center. I had to take four classes from 8 to 12, and then four more from 12 to 4. It did not give me time for getting any work done. I had no janitor and did such sweeping and cleaning-up as might be needful.” Only 24 years old at the time, McCain was clearly the consummate teacher, teaching all subjects to all boys, all day long!
Dr. McCain served Darlington as headmaster for 10 years, from the day the school opened until he left to join the staff of Agnes Scott College in 1915, where he had a distinguished career and served as president for 28 years. But he never forgot Darlington. He continued to serve Darlington for the next 42 years as a member of the Board of Trustees, many of those years as vice chairman.
In his later years, he remained a much-beloved figure at Agnes Scott … “living on the campus … in a home occupied on the second floor by Agnes Scott girls, and he called himself the only house father in existence!” Just a few months before his death, McCain “had gone abroad alone to travel around the world under the aegis of the Presbyterian Church - 29,000 miles in 31 days” at the age of 85. Following Dr. McCain’s death in 1965, a memorial service was held for him in the Darlington Chapel. At that service, Darlington’s president emeritus, Dr. E.L. Wright, Betty Wright Ledbetter’s father, said of Dr. McCain “and now in his 85th year, he had ventured forth in the spirit of [Tennyson’s] Ulysses, ‘to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars… to strive, to seek, to find.’ For you see, he had never come to know what it was to grow old; he was a living example that age need never put out the spark or dim the enthusiasms of youth.” When I read those comments by Dr. Wright, I thought: what greater epitaph could any teacher ask for!
On the 60th anniversary of Darlington’s founding in 1965, Dr. Wright also reflected on Dr. McCain as “co-founder and first headmaster,” remarking that, “He set the tone and character of the school – with its pattern of sound scholarship and gentlemanly conduct; he charted the course for us all to follow and he still remains the counselor, ever-present help and inspiration” – sixty years later! On a personal note, I actually met Dr. McCain during my senior year at Darlington when he was here visiting with Dr. Wright. I have always had a keen interest in history – and for a Darlingtonian of my generation, meeting Dr. McCain was a bit like meeting George Washington – Dr. McCain truly was the father of this school.
And now, about the portrait…
Several years ago, Gordon Neville and I were asked to relocate the oil paintings of Darlington’s leaders from Sydenham Hall to Wilcox Hall, where they could be more prominently displayed. As we were doing so, Gordon remarked that there was one glaring and obvious omission: Darlington had no portrait of Dr. McCain. As we on the Centennial Committee worked over the last year to plan for Darlington’s 100th Anniversary, we discussed what we as a committee might give as our gift to Darlington. We decided that, clearly, nothing could be more appropriate than a portrait of Dr. McCain.
We commissioned Darlington graduate and noted artist, Suzanne Royal (’77), to do the portrait. Suzanne has recently received much acclaim for her two portraits of Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, one of which now hangs in the State Capital in Atlanta – and the other of which will soon hang in the White House in Washington. I knew that Agnes Scott College had a very fine portrait of Dr. McCain, which I had seen many times – and which hangs in the McCain library on the Agnes Scott campus. Our first thought was that Suzanne would copy that portrait as she had copied the portrait of Mrs. Wilson. Suzanne suggested, however, that it might be more interesting to do an original portrait of Dr. McCain as a much younger man – as he looked when he was at Darlington. So, using photographs of Dr. McCain during his Darlington years and the fine portrait of him at Agnes Scott College for reference, Suzanne created an original work for Darlington. We are indeed indebted to my dear friend Stephanie Balmer, associate vice president for enrollment at Agnes Scott, and Dr. Mary Brown Bullock, the president of Agnes Scott, for making it possible for Suzanne to have access to the college’s portrait of Dr. McCain for this project.
And now, on this happy occasion we are absolutely delighted that 22 members of Dr. McCain’s family are present with us here today, including Dr. McCain’s daughter, Mrs. Louise Boyce … We are indeed honored that these members of Dr. McCain’s family are able to be here as we honor him. I would ask that members of the McCain family please come forward to the stage – accompanied by Suzanne Royal, the artist – and that Mrs. Boyce unveil the portrait of Dr. McCain.
And now, on behalf of all of the members of the Centennial Committee, I am pleased to present this portrait of Dr. James Ross McCain to Mr. Whitworth and Mr. Robinson for Darlington School.
