USA > Connecticut > A history of Connecticut, its people and institutions, pt 1 > Part 19
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Catherine E. Beecher (1800-1878)
f From an Old Engraving
Sarah Porter (1813-1900) From the Photo by L. Alman
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there were schools enough; districts running riot with forty school organizations; in 1854, the Norwich Free Academy was incorporated, and later, J. F. Slater gave a building, costing one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, together with other funds. The Connecticut Literary Institute was established in Suffield in 1835; three years later, the Betts Academy was started at Stamford, and soon afterwards the Black Hall School at Lyme was organized. The Gunnery at Washington has had a noted history : Fred- erick W. Gunn graduated from Yale in 1837, and went back to his native town and opened a school, but his abolition views called down the thunder of the pulpit and the excom- munication of the church; forced to leave town, he went to Pennsylvania, whence he returned to Washington in 1847, and reopened the Gunnery, a unique and famous school. The personality of the founder was strong and positive, and the methods of discipline original. A boy caught smoking swallowed an emetic, and a pupil who plunged a cat in water was soused in the same element.
It is not easy to give the names of all the academies that did so much for the young people of the state during that dreary half century when the Connecticut public schools were passing through their dark ages. Many are held in affectionate remembrance, such as the Emerson School in Wethersfield, the Hart School in Farmington, and the Wood- stock Academy. They were feeders of Yale, trainers of many useful men and women, and sources of intelligence and power in scores of communities. There were also a few denominational schools of decided value, such as the Epis- copal Academy of Connecticut, founded at Cheshire in 1794, with Principal Bowdin who had charge of the ed- ucation of Gideon Welles and Admiral Foote. In 1865, the Seabury Institute was incorporated in Saybrook. Roman Catholic schools came late, since the population of the earlier times was Protestant; the Academy of Notre Dame being opened in Waterbury in 1869, the
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Seminary of Saint Joseph in Hartford in 1873, and the Academy of the Holy Family, a school for girls, in Baltic in 1874.
Though academies were so valuable and so popular that as many as ten thousand young people were at times in them, it was at length seen that more ample provision should be made for higher education, and on July 4, 1838, it was voted to establish a free High School in Hartford, twelve thousand dollars being appropriated. The first building was on the corner of Asylum and Ann streets, and with it was incorporated a grammar school; a building large enough for three hundred pupils. Other cities soon had High Schools: Middletown in 1841, New Britain in 1850, New Haven in 1859, Bridgeport in 1876, Meriden in 1881, and Bristol in 1887. Academies were not set aside entirely by High Schools; many of the older ones continue. Schools of another class are forming: such as the Bulkley School in Meriden in 1881, the Mystic English and Class- ical School, the Hotchkiss and Taconic schools in Lakeville, the Westover School in Middlebury, the Williams Memorial Institute, the Gilbert School at Winsted, and Westminster School at Simsbury.
Connecticut has done much for education outside the state, both in establishing schools of a high grade, and also in writing school-books. The most original and effective woman the state has produced is Mrs. Emma Hart Willard, who was born in Berlin in 1787, and after considerable experience as a teacher, published in 1818, a Plan for Improv- ing Female Education, a work which in 1819, led to the adoption by the New York legislature of the first provision for the higher education of women ever passed by any legislature, and to the incorporation in 1821, of the Willard School in Troy, from which have gone thousands of well- equipped women, under whose influences have been formed, largely in the South, two hundred similar schools. In an- other department of education Mrs. Willard and her sister,
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Emma Hart Willard (1787-1870) From an Old Print
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Mrs. Almira Phelps, who has been associated with her, have been of decided service, publishing school-books in geography, history, and science.
Reference has been made to Henry Barnard, who was born in Hartford in 1811. After graduating from Yale in 1830, and teaching a short time, he went to Europe and studied European methods of education, devoting himself to the task of gaining a wide knowledge, not only of public schools, but also of the treatment of the insane and of criminals. In 1838, he obtained the passage of a bill in the General Assembly for the better local supervision of the schools. That bill provided for a board of School Com- missioners for the state, on which Barnard served for four years. He traveled over the country to elevate public sentiment, and gave a lasting uplift to public instruction. The Normal School at New Britain was one result of his work. He was for a time Superintendent of Schools in Rhode Island, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, and the first United States Commissioner of Education. He established the first system of state libraries, and organized teachers in a national association. The Journal of Education, which he began in 1855, is called by the Bri- tannica "by far the most valuable work in our language on the history of education."
Of Connecticut birth too is B. G. Northrop, originator of the village improvement societies and Arbor Day, and for years president of the National Educational Association. William T. Harris was born in North Killingley in 1835, and after his training at Yale, he established the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, edited a series of school text-books, and was United States Commissioner of Education for years. Samuel Kirkland, who has an honored place among educators, was born in Norwich in 1741, became missionary to the Six Nations, and in appreciation of his invaluable services in the Revolution, he received a grant of land from the government, from which he set apart a portion for the
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Hamilton Oneida Academy, which in 1812, was incorporated as Hamilton College. The name of Asa Packer, born in Groton in 1806, is in the first class of educators. He de- veloped the Lehigh Valley railroad, and in 1865, he gave half a million dollars and a hundred and fifteen acres of land to found Lehigh University, to which he bequeathed in his will two million dollars. Similar in spirit was John F. Slater of Norwich, who gave a million dollars for the uplifting of the lately emancipated population of the Southern states; he also gave Norwich the Slater Museum, and did much for the Free Academy. Mention should also be made of Walter Newberry of East Windsor, who gave four million dollars to found the Newberry Library in Chicago, and of Daniel Hand, who gave a million and a half for the education of the negroes in the South. The name of Manasseh Cutler de- serves mention here as famous in education, since after his service in the Revolution he was a pioneer in Ohio, was the first to observe the transit of Venus, was prominent in organizing and settling the Northwest Territory, and had a leading part in drafting the Ordinance of 1787, which guaranteed complete religious liberty, public support of schools, and the prohibition of slavery in the Northwest.
Reference has been made to school libraries, and it remains to mention the movement, which has been so strong for fifty years that nearly every town has a public library. There was an earlier endeavor, which resulted in forming subscription libraries, after the idea of Franklin. In 1893, Connecticut passed a bill authorizing the estab- lishing of a library commission, with the appointing power in the hands of the Board of Education. Every town was notified that the state was willing to give for one year as much as it would give, up to two hundred dollars. The first to respond were Suffield, Seymour, and Wethersfield; two years later, there were libraries in twenty-five towns. In 1895, the legislature voted to give every free public library an annual sum of one hundred dollars with
Manasseh Cutler (1744-1823)
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certain mild conditions of state supervision, and many towns have availed themselves of this offer, though there are some, that prefer not to come under state supervision. Bridgeport was first to found a free public library, and New Haven was next, by a special act of the legislature in 1886. The name of Philip Marett of New Haven will be remembered for his gift of one-tenth of his estate of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars "for the purchase of books for the young men's Institute or any public library which may from time to time exist in the city." The income of that fund buys one-half the books for the New Haven public library. There are libraries housed in beautiful buildings, some of them richly endowed, such as: Scoville Library, in Salisbury; Eldredge Library, affluent with tapestries, supported by Isabella Eldredge, the Acton Library at Old Saybrook, the Scranton Memorial at Madison, and the James Black- stone Memorial at Branford.
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CHAPTER XVII THE COLLEGES
IT was apparent in the first years of the settlement that a I college was needed to carry to the goal the high ideals of the founders, to "perfect youth in English grammar, com- position, arithmetic, geography, Latin, Greek, religion and morality, to form for usefulness and happiness in the various relations of social life." Under the influence of John Davenport, New Haven began to plan for such an institu- tion in 1641. Owing to a protest from the leading men of Massachusetts, it was allowed to wait; they urged that all the resources of New England were barely enough to support Harvard, whose first building was erected in 1637. In 1652, the project was formally given up for the time, but the New Haven authorities had been directed, five years before, to reserve one of the home lots for the college, and it was only a question of time.
In 1698, the General Synod of churches devised a plan to establish a college, intending to call it "The School of the Church." "They were to nominate the first president and inspectors, and to exercise an influence over all elections to preserve orthodoxy in the governors." The institution was to be supported by the churches. The following year this plan was dropped, but ten ministers were named as trustees, and a body of the most prominent clergymen in the colony met in New Haven in the year 1700, and became a society of eleven members for the formation of a college.
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Later in the same year, there was another meeting in Bran- ford, when each minister laid upon a table his contribution of books, with the words, " I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony." " The contribution amounted to forty folio volumes pertaining to theology, with not a volume of classical literature or science. In the following year, Sir John Davie of Groton, while on a visit to England, sent to the college one hundred and sixty volumes, most of which were collected among the nonconformist ministers in Devonshire. The Rev. Noadiah Russell of Middletown was appointed librarian, and the volumes remained in his possession three years. The act of depositing the books has been considered the beginning of the college; but it did not have a corporate existence until October 16, 1701, when the General Assembly gave it a charter to make it legal, to encourage donations, and that it might become an owner of real estate. Judge Samuel Sewall and Isaac Addington of Boston prepared the draft of the charter, which was pre- sented to the legislature with a petition signed by a number of ministers and laymen; an annual grant amounting to about sixty pounds being voted to aid in the support of the institution, which in the charter was called a Collegiate School; no place of habitation being mentioned, the trustees having powers to decide on the site and to grant degrees and licenses.
The annual appropriation was continued for fifty years. The first private donor, other than the organizers, was James Fitch of Norwich, who gave six hundred and thirty- seven acres of land in Killingley, and glass and nails enough for a college hall. After the granting of the charter, the trustees met in New Haven, and decided that Saybrook was the most convenient place for the college for a time. After the eminent Rev. Isaac Chauncy of Stratford had declined the presidency, the Rev. Abraham Pierson of Killingworth (now Clinton) was appointed rector, and since his people were unwilling to part with their pastor, Yale
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College had its abode in the Killingworth parsonage. From March until September, 1702, Jacob Hemingway travelled several miles to college, "and solus was all the college the first year." At the first commencement, which was held in Saybrook in September, 1702, there were no public services, but the trustees gave the degree of Master of Arts to four Harvard students; making another Bachelor of Arts. The first student of Yale to be graduated was John Hart of Farmington, and at his graduation, September 15, 1703, he was chosen tutor with a salary of fifty pounds country pay; the books showing that the treasurer paid him the first year, nine pounds "tuteridg money." Until 1709, there were three classes, Senior Sophisters, Sopho- mores, and Freshmen, and a system of fines was arranged "for the preventing of irreligion, idleness and other im- moralities." The tuition was thirty shillings a year, and the studies were Latin, Greek, philosophy, mathematics and surveying, with a weekly recitation of the Assembly's Catechism in Latin and Ames's Theological Theses. In the second year, the students increased to eight, and a contribu- tion was solicited from the colony to build a college house. The resources of the people were small, as there were only about thirty incorporated towns, and the population was scarcely fifteen thousand, but they gladly helped.
After the death of Rector Pierson in 1707, Samuel Andrews of Milford was chosen rector, and the senior class went to Milford, while the other two classes were at Say- brook under the care of two tutors, and the college was thus divided until 1716. There was a decided difference of opinion among the trustees regarding the place for the college, and divided instruction, struggles of the towns to secure it, the coming on of the French and Indian war and smallpox so scattered the students that it looked as though the little school might vanish. Some students went to Wethersfield and placed themselves under the instruction of Elisha Williams. New Haven contributed seven hun-
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dred pounds toward the college and invited it to build there; Saybrook gave four hundred pounds and wanted it there; while Hartford and Wethersfield gave money and claimed it. On October 17, 1716, the trustees voted to place it at New Haven, and continued Samuel Andrews rector pro tem- pore. The Assembly in 1717, approved the removal and voted a grant for buildings. Saybrook resisted the change of the library to New Haven; and it was judged necessary for the governor and council to be present when the sheriff executed the orders of the General Assembly. The Say- brook people destroyed the carts furnished for the trans- portation of the books, the bridges between the town and New Haven were broken down, and many valuable papers and books were lost. The first commencement held at New Haven was in 1717; the number of students was thirty- one, and four received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Part of the students continued at Wethersfield, the northern part of the colony being opposed to New Haven as a site for the college. The commencement held September 12, 1718, at New Haven, was the first one to which the public was in- vited; it was attended by the principal laymen and ministers in the colony. In that year an edifice of wood, one hundred and seventy feet long, twenty-two wide, and three stories high, containing about fifty rooms for students, besides a hall, library, and kitchen, was completed at a cost of about one thousand pounds. One of the most liberal donors was Elihu Yale, a native of New Haven, who at the age of ten was taken to England, and later went to the East Indies, where he became governor of the East India Company. The books and goods he sent over were worth about five hundred pounds, and in recognition of his munificence, at the commencement in 1718, the new building constituting the college was named Yale, and dedicated to Elihu Yale. On the same day commencement was held in Wethersfield for the students there; but the legislature healed the differ- ences by conciliatory acts, and the college moved out of
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A
The Buildings of Modern Yale University : Phelps Gateway and Hall at the Left, then Welch, Osborn, and Vanderbilt; with " Old South Middle," now Connecticut Hall, near the Center, and President Woolsey's Statue at the Right of it
From a Photograph
View of the Connecticut State Library, on Capitol Hill, Hartford
From a Photograph
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troubled waters under the leadership of Timothy Cutler, a Congregational minister of Stratford, an accomplished scholar and imposing personality, who was appointed rector in 1719, and for him a house was built; instructors and students increased, the library was enriched, when suddenly, at the commencement in 1722, it was announced that the new rector and Tutor Brown, who comprised the faculty, had embraced Episcopacy. After a warm debate, the faculty was dismissed, and a resolution passed that henceforth every candidate for the office of rector or tutor should declare his assent to the Saybrook Platform, and satisfy the trustees of the soundness of his theology.
Elisha Williams was the next rector, and under him the college prospered again. In 1732, the General Assembly granted Yale three hundred acres in each of the new towns of Norfolk, Canaan, Goshen, Cornwall, and Kent. The same year Berkeley, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, made large contributions of money and books. In 1739, Rector Williams was compelled by ill health to resign, and Thomas Clap of Windham was chosen to fill the vacancy. Rector Clap was a scholarly man, and his genius for administration was prodigious. The library was catalogued; a new set of laws was compiled for the college, and a code was estab- lished for the government, ranging all the way from boxing a freshman on the ear to expulsion, though fining was a favorite penalty. In 1745, a new charter was ob- tained for "The President and Fellows of Yale College." In 1750, the General Assembly helped erect Connecticut Hall, and permitted a lottery to complete the work.
The social strata of the times are shown in the college catalogues, which, until 1767, were arranged in order of rank : sons of officers of the colony, then of ministers, lawyers, artisans, and tradesmen. The etiquette was laborious be- tween faculty and students, and students conversed with one another in Latin. All undergraduates were forbidden to wear their hats (unless it was stormy) in the front door-
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yard of the president or a professor's house, or within ten rods of the person of the president, or eight rods of a profes- sor, or five rods of a tutor. Freshmen (except in stormy weather) were required to go uncovered in the college yard until the May vacation, unless their hands were so full they were forced to rest the hat where it belonged. The fresh- men were not allowed to run in the sacred college yard, nor up and down stairs; neither were they allowed to call to any one from a college window. When near a gate or door in the college, freshmen were to pause and look around to see if there was a superior within three rods of the opening, and they must not enter first without a signal from the superior. Fines continued until the days of President Dwight. In three years under President Clap, one hundred and seventy- two pounds was collected by fines. Here are some penal- ties: absence from prayers a penny, tardiness a half-penny, absence from church fourpence, for playing cards or dice two shillings sixpence, for jumping out of a college window one shilling.
In 1755, when revivals under the preaching of George Whitefield and others were causing much excitement through New England, President Clap issued a declaration, signed by himself and members of the faculty, denouncing White- field's teaching, and creating in the minds of many good people a prejudice against the college. Faculty and stu- dents had attended the church in New Haven, but the ortho- doxy of the minister not being clear to the president, he established a college church; not even asking the legislature for the right to do so, but claiming that as an incorporated body the college was not dependent on the General Assembly in such a matter. The opposition attacked the college as "too independent," but President Clap appeared before the Assembly, and argued so powerfully in favor of the position that the civil authorities had no more control over Yale than over any other persons or estate in the colony that no action was taken in the matter, and the question has never
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been raised since. After Rector Clap died in 1767, Naphtali Daggett, professor of theology, was acting president, and, in 1779, when Tryon led the British against New Haven, among the hasty levies to repel the attack was President Daggett with a shotgun. After his companions fled, he stood his ground, blazing away until a detachment of the enemy captured him, and the officer, unmindful of Yale instructions to freshmen as to their manners, asked sharply, "What are you doing here, you old fool, firing on His Maj- esty's troops?" "Exercising the rights of war," said the theologian. The rights of war took a disagreeable turn for the preacher. In his own words:
They damned me, those who took me, because they spared my life. Thus, 'midst a thousand insults, my infernal driver hastened me along farther than my strength would admit, in the extreme heat of the day, weakened as I was by my wounds and the loss of blood, which, at a moderate computation, could not be less than a quart. And when I failed in some degree through faintness, he would strike me on the back with a heavy walking- staff, and kick me behind with his foot. At length by the supporting power of God, I arrived at the Green in New Haven. . . I obtained leave of an officer to be carried into the Widow
Lyman's and laid on a bed, where I lay the rest of the day and the succeeding night, in such excrutiating pain as I never felt before.
His life was spared through the influence of William Chandler, a Tory, and one of his pupils, but he never re- covered his vigor and died the next year, leaving some silver and negroes to the value of one hundred pounds. Ezra Stiles, who succeeded Dr. Clap, was inaugurated July 8, 1778, and was also made professor of church history. He was a valuable leader of the college, with salary of one hundred and sixty pounds, to be paid in wheat, pork, corn, and beef, or their equivalents in money, together with a house and ten acres of land. There were one hundred and thirty-two
Timothy Dwight (1752-1817). President of Yale College (1795-1817) From an Old Engraving
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undergraduates, and the faculty consisted of president, a professor of mathematics and another of divinity, besides three tutors, though lack of funds in 1781, caused the dis- missal of the tutors. In the strain of the Revolution the college was divided. Tutor Dwight took some of the stu- dents to Wethersfield; Professor Story asked to take another contingent to Glastonbury, while President Daggett visited the classes as often as possible. Many students were in the army; four of the officers at Bunker Hill were Yale men; Nathan Hale was educated there; Major-General David Wooster, mortally wounded at the Tryon raid, Colonel Hitchcock, valiant at the Princeton fight, Captain David Bushnell of torpedo fame, and Oliver Wolcott were all of Yale.
Modern Yale began with the inauguration of Timothy Dwight in 1795. The service his powerful mind and lofty personality gave to the mental and religious life of the college, in days when infidelity was rampant there, cannot be exaggerated. It was under the wise leadership of this man of breadth and foresight that the college entered the national field. At first, President Dwight and Professor Meigs, with three tutors, carried the whole burden of teach- ing, but when the students increased, the faculty was en- larged, and the three men who were added to the faculty were Jeremiah Day, James L. Kingsley, and Benjamin Silliman: the first an able mathematician, whose text-books were widely used; the second, an accurate scholar in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and called the Addison of America; the third, an accomplished pioneer in science. President Dwight abolished fines and fagging, and in his day there was published the first annual catalogue, a single sheet- said to be first of its kind in America. He had the fore- sight to buy most of the land between College, Chapel, High, and Elm streets and in 1800, there were built North Middle and the Lyceum-parts of the Old Brick Row. The laboratory had been built earlier, in 1782, and there Profes-
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