Blacks@Dartmouth 1775 to 1960

There is growing up in our country a goodly number of young men of the Negro race, intelligent, educated, earnest, self reliant and efficient of whom the vast majority of our countrymen are totally ignorant. Nearly every one of these men are self-made in the sense that they have had to struggle hard and practice much self denial in order to reach the goals they have set for themselves. These men are the fruit of the labor of the pioneer leaders of the last fifty years. Douglas, Booker Washington, Russell, Kelly Miller, Emmett Scott, Dubois, Morton and a host of other pioneers and teachers are justified of their children. This younger generation, already making their mark are not only the fruit of the pioneer laborers but are also the seed from which will come the next generation and in largely increased numbers of men of a caliber that will achieve for them positions (respect and influence, and in whom the country will be able to take pride as Americans standing for everything that is best in a progressive civilization.

A fine example of this class of young and progressive men is Dr. Wm. Francis Magruder of Washington, D. C, who was born in Washington November 24, 1893, a son of William Henry and Mary Queen Magruder.

Young Magruder went through the Grammar and High Schools of Washington and then entered Dartmouth College from which he was graduated in 1915. This takes but a sentence to tell, but it would take pages to tell of the boy's struggles. His parents died early. He worked about the college buildings, put in his vacations in the Government Printing Office and by hard labor secured the money to pay his way.

After leaving Dartmouth he entered the Medical Department of Howard University and was graduated with the M.D. degree in 1918. During the war he enlisted in the Medical Reserve Corps but was not called into active service. In 1919 he was an interne in the Freedmen's Hospital and in 1920 entered upon the practice of his chosen profession in Washington. Already his practice is steady and gaining in volume. He keeps fully abreast of all the latest discoveries in his profession and though doing a general practice is specially interested in gynecology. He is a member of the visiting staff of the Freedmen's Hospital and belongs to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of the District of Columbia and Chi Delta Mu Medical Fraternity.

An unusually intelligent and well equipped man, he goes about his work quietly and efficiently, neither agitates, blusters nor cringes, asking nothing more than a man's chance. He is likely to go far in his profession and as a citizen. Dr. Magruder is a Republican in politics and a Catholic in religion. He is affiliated with various Catholic orders. In his reading he is partial to fiction and poetry. Kipling is a favorite. He keeps up with the current literature of the day. To an aunt who took him in charge after the death of his parents he gratefully acknowledges a debt, for her motherly kindness and her constant effort to inspire him to strive always for the higher things of life. Now she has her reward.