METHODIST EFFORTS FOR A COLLEGE.

At an early period the Methodists of the United States founded Cokesbury College, named from the two bishops, Coke and Asbury, at Abingdon, Md. After its discontinuance on account of the burning of the buildings, no second attempt was made till Asbury College was founded at Baltimore in 1816. This also failed soon and the Methodists had no institution for higher education under their control. Several successful Methodist academies were in operation and the need of something higher was felt. At a meeting of the trustees of the Military Academy after Capt. Partridge left in 1829, one of them jokingly said that if the Methodists were thinking of founding a college they would sell them their buildings for $4,000.

This chance remark was told to the Rev. Laban Clark, D. D., who was in Middletown soon thereafter. With an instant perception of the great opportunity thus open, he at once notified the trustees that he would accept the offer and be responsible for the money himself. Following up this far-seeing determination he placed the proposals of the trustees before the New York and New England conferences of the Methodist Church and urged on them the necessity of founding a college and the opening for founding one at Middletown. They assented to the first proposition, and the two conferences appointed a joint committee, which, following the plan Trinity had adopted a few years before, issued a circular inviting different towns to compete by subscriptions for the privilege of becoming the site of the college. Troy, N. Y., Wilbraham, Mass., where the Methodists already had a flourishing academy, and Bridgeport, Conn., made liberal offers; but Middletown's promises were more than any of the others. The trustees of the old academy there offered the buildings and nearly 15 acres of land as a free gift on the sole condition that they be used forever for a college and that $40,000 for endowment be first raised. The proposition was accepted and citizens, consoled for the loss of Washington College some five years before, raised $18,000 before the end of 1829. The gift of the trustees is estimated at $30,000, and of the amount raised by subscription $10,000 was voted in town meeting. The report of this committee was unanimously accepted by the conferences in the spring of 1830, and it was determined to constitute the board of trustees: one-third from each of the two conferences and one-third from the trustees of the Military Academy.'

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY.2

At the May session of the legislature in 1831, the charter of " Wesleyan University" was granted. The property, by the act of incorporation, is vested in the trustees, and these were to serve for life or good

Wesleyan University Annals, LXXXI, College Book, p. 305.

Edward Cooke, D. D., in "Early Schools of Methodism," by A. W. Cummings, PP. 169-186.

behavior, and fill vacancies among their number. The election of the faculty, arrangement of instruction, and determining of all questions of administration and discipline were vested jointly in the trustees and an equal number of visitors appointed annually by the New York and New England conferences and such other conferences as should afterwards be allowed. A special provision was inserted "that subscribing to religious tenets shall never be a condition of admission to students, or a cause of ineligibility to the president, professors, or other officers." The first meeting of the joint board was held in the lyceum on August 24, 1830, nearly a year before the granting of the charter. It was then voted to open the college in August, 1831, and to have in the meantime a preparatory school in the building, conducted by Rev. W. C. Larra bee, a graduate of Bowdoin. Other regulations were made; salaries of the professors were fixed in May, 1831, at $850 and two-thirds of the tuition fees, provided the total did not exceed $1,500. The president was to receive $1,100; tuition was to be $6 for each daily study; room rent, $3 and $4, according to location; fee for graduation, $5. It was a day of small charges. So Rev. Laban Clark saw the desire of his heart accomplished and the college founded. That it was founded was largely due to his vigor and enthusiasm, and his prudence, energy, and fertility of resource were for many years of inestimable value in all the councils of the corporation." 1

66

PRESIDENT WILBUR FISK (1831-'39).

At the first meeting of the joint board, Rev. Wilbur Fisk, D. D then principal of the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, was chosen president of the new institution, which he served with faithfulness till his death on February 22, 1839. He had been identified with the enter prise from the very first, and fittingly lies in the college cemetery opened on a knoll west of the building, two years before his death. President Fisk was born at Brattleboro, Vt., on August 31, 1792, was graduated from Brown University in 1815, studied law, but later entered the ministry, and was made principal of the Wilbraham Academy in 1826.

"The institution could not have been more happy than it was in the selection of its first president," says Dr. Field, and we echo that thought. In him was found a rare union of sweetness and strength, of great executive abilities and "a woman's delicacy and quickness of feeling." His sympathy was large and ready, his temper gentle and saintly, his personal influence over the students great. To him chiefly it is due that Wesleyan successfully passed through its first years scanty means and countless difficulties. He gave the best energies of his mind and body to the college, performing an astonishing amount of labor for one so feeble in health. For Wesleyan he traveled over the

1 Wesleyan University Annals, LXXXII, College Book, p. 306.

Northern and Eastern States to secure an endowment, went to Europe to procure apparatus, attended personally to the minutest details of management, and into the hearts of the friends of the college he "infused something of his own calm confidence and quiet energy." When he assumed office he was already known outside, as well as within the Methodist church, as a cultured scholar, an able thinker, and a finished writer and speaker. He added to this reputation by his conduct in the presidency. His "pure and lofty piety" and his winning manners "drew the students to him and made him beloved, while his tact and prudence, high administrative ability, his thorough culture and extensive reputation, and his untiring efforts" for Wesleyan made it successful and gave it character. When he became president, he found the board of trustees and visitors "all eager to establish a college, but none knowing how that was to be done and few of them having any very intelligent idea of a college at all." Consequently it was left almost entirely to him to determine the course of study and to perfect the details of administration, both of which he did well. He made modern languages and physical sciences more important than in most other colleges of the period, thus anticipating in some respects the college policy of to-day. It was his idea to classify students by advancement, more than by the length of their residence, and he thought that, by adopting this plan, which was also tried at the University of Vermont, class feeling would be done away, so certificates and modified diplomas were given to those not going through the entire course. The students did not feel satisfied with this arrangement, and in 1836, they were arranged in classes, as at other colleges.

President Fisk's labors ceased only with death, and just before that, he committed the college to the care of the church, saying, "I give it as my dying request that they nurse the Wesleyan University, that they must exert themselves to sustain and carry it forward."

BEGINNING OF WESLEYAN.

2

Though no professional schools have ever been introduced to merit the name of university, and though the name Wesleyan is ambiguous, because of the rise of many of the colleges so named in the West, this rather unfortunately-named institution has from the first held high rank among American colleges. It was opened on September 21, 1831, and is the oldest Methodist college in America. Dickinson and RandolphMacon were chartered earlier, but the former was not at the time under the control of the Methodists, and the latter was not yet in operation. A strong faculty was provided. Besides President Fisk, there were Augustus William Smith, professor of mathematics; Rev. John Mott

'Field's Middlesex, p. 110; Alumni Rec. Hist. Sketch; College Book, p. 307; Annals Wesleyan University, pp. 83-91; Barnard, American Journal of Education, vi, 297-310; Prentice's "Life of Fisk;" Olin's "Life of Fisk."

* Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1883–84, p. 39.

Smith, professor of ancient languages; Rev. Jacob T. Huber. professor of modern languages; and William Magoun, tutor.

At the opening, a Latin salutatory and some other addresses by students, and the inaugural address of the president were delivered. The rule of the corporation, already referred to, as to classifying stu dents, was passed May 13, 1831, and reads thus:

All the studies pursued in the university shall be divided into departments and the students under the respective professors in their departments shall be classified according to their degree of advancement in that particular study, without any reference to other studies or to the time they shall have been members of the university. When they shall have gone through a thorough course of studies they shall be admitted to the honors of regular graduates.2

The first term saw 48 students enrolled, of whom 1 came from Columbia and 4 from Hamilton. Of these students, 40 lived in the dormitory, and to them the prudential committee of the corporation voted "to furnish stoves at a suitable compensation." Five departments were established: (1) Moral science and belles-lettres; (2) mathematics, natural philosophy, and astronomy; (3) natural sciences, i. e., chimistry (so spelled till 1839), geology, and mineralogy; (4) ancient languages; (5) modern languages. This system of study was continued till 1847. The first recitation on Monday morning after 6 a. m. prayers and before breakfast was, until 1856, on "evidences of Christianity and kindred studies, designed to fill up the vacant hours of the Sabbath." Evening prayers at 5 p. m. were conducted by the president; morning ones by the faculty.

On October 10, 1832, the joint board resolved "that none but male white persons shall be admitted as students of this institution." At that time a medical school was proposed, and a year later, a law school was suggested, though neither of these plans was adopted. On August 27, 1833, a seal was adopted and a strange departure, but one characteristic of early Methodist colleges, determined on:

Resolved, That the necessary arrangements for connecting mechanical and agricultural labor with the course of instruction be made, each student to labor at least two hours every day, the system to be introduced at once, so that parents may have assurance that the physical as well as the intellectual and moral education will be attended to.

This system was continued till 18394 and then given up, as it did not prove a success.

During these early years, there was no lack of interest in the college; but, as President Fisk said, "contributions for endowment were as meager as the leakage of a miser's purse." There were, however, faithful and loyal friends, to whose untiring devotion and efforts much of

'College Book, p. 306.

College Book, p. 308.

3This vote was rescinded August 25, 1835. It was doubtless first passed on account of Miss Crandall's school.

4 Wesleyan University Annals, pp. 82 et seq.

the present success is due.' One hundred and fifteen students graduated in the six classes leaving under President Fisk. The first commencement was on August 28, 1833, on the first day of the fall term. A procession, headed by a band and the sheriff of the county, went to the Methodist Episcopal Church, where the class received diplomas and exercises were delivered, which were "honorably spoken of by the pub. lic." Up to 1843, when commencement was put at the end of the college year, pieces for commencement were assigned without regard to scholarship, and strange pieces some of them were: Latin, Greek, French, German, and Spanish orations, eulogies, poems, dialogues, original drama, sketches, philosophical orations, and valedictories were all delivered from time to time."

In 1833 the boarding hall was bought for College Commons and in 1837 the president's house was built at a cost of $7,000.

In 1839 the first observatory, a small, octagonal, wooden structure, was built, and in the same year was erected the new boarding hall, which, since 1868, has been the observatory.

In 1836 we learn the library had an "accession of more than 1,000 volumes of the first scientific and classical works, selected in Europe by the president, with great care," and in the same year a telescope was purchased of M. Lerebours, of Paris, for 6,960 francs, and 100 philosophical and astronomical instruments were procured. The catalogue proudly states that the "entire apparatus is believed to be as complete and useful for the purposes of instruction as any in the country." In 1837 was purchased "Russell's magnificent orrery, a new and unrivaled instrument and the only one of the kind in the world."

In 1838 Dr. Fisk obtained a grant of $10,000 from the legislature, and, at the time of his death, the number of students was nearly 175.

PRESIDENT STEPHEN OLIN (1839-1841; 1842-1851).

On August 6, 1839, Rev. Stephen Olin, who was then traveling in Europe for his health, was chosen president and nominally filled the office for two years. At the end of that time, he resigned through continued ill-health; but, a year later, his health was restored and, his successor resigning his office, President Olin was again chosen, and Prof. A. W. Smith was made vice-president, to relieve him of some of the work. He was born at Leicester, Vt., March 2, 1797, and in 1820, graduated at the head of his class at Middlebury College. His excessive study in college broke down his health, which ever continued weak. After graduation, he taught in South Carolina and became a Methodist minister. From 1826 to 1833 he was professor of Belles Letters in Franklin College, Georgia, and then from 1834 to 1837 he was