USA > Connecticut > A history of Connecticut, its people and institutions, pt 1 > Part 20
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sor Silliman performed those electrical experiments which Morse, his pupil, carried to such effective issues. The laboratory was so deep in the earth that the lecturer's head was six feet below the surface of the ground; but Silliman's zeal was not buried. In 1806, President Dwight urged the establishment of the Medical School, and helped to effect a union between the college and the Connecticut Medical Association, which had controlled medical education in the state, and in 1810, the Medical Institution of Yale College was chartered. Three years later it opened with a medical faculty of Jonathan Knight, then but twenty-three, to be- come a distinguished surgeon and unrivaled lecturer, Eneas Munson, Eli Ives, a successful physician, who was noted for his knowledge of the indigenous materia medica, Nathan Smith, whose studies in Europe gave him an extraordinary medical education for his time, and Benjamin Silliman.
President Dwight's successor was Professor Jeremiah Day, who was inaugurated president in 1817. Quiet and retiring, his administrative ability with his zeal for system and order had a decided influence on the college. A favor- ite expression of his was, "Punct-oo-ality is a vir-too." It was a turbulent era, when the famous "bread and butter rebellion" and "conic sections rebellion" were waged, and the faculty won, though at the expense of the expulsion of forty sophomores. Among the new professors were Chauncey A. Goodrich, powerful in personality and persua- sive in speech, and Denison Olmsted, whose text-books on natural philosophy and astronomy were in the first class. The treasury, under the care of James Hillhouse, was wisely managed, and in 1831, a fund of one hundred thousand dollars was raised. In 1822, the Divinity School was es- tablished as a department, and it soon became a power under the sway of the profound and eloquent Nathanael W. Taylor, who, with such associates and successors as Eleazer T. Fitch, Josiah W. Gibbs, and Leonard Bacon, George P. Fisher, Timothy Dwight and Samuel Harris had a
Professor Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864)
Professor James D. Dana (1813-1895)
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marked influence. The Law School, which as a private enterprise had existed for some time, became a part of the. college in 1824, when David Daggett became Kent pro- fessor of law in the college. In 1833, the famous Litch- field Law School was discontinued, and its books and records were transferred to the school at Yale, which has flourished under such men as Woolsey and Baldwin. During those years, North College, the chapel, the cabinet, and treasury were built.
In 1846, Theodore Dwight Woolsey succeeded President Day, carrying to the college a broad and careful scholarship, enriched by studies in Europe. On becoming president he turned from Greek, of which he had been professor for fifteen years, to international law in which he became an authority. He was also an able administrator; the graduate department was strengthened; James Hadley brought high scholarship as linguist and philologist; Elias Loomis added his mathematical genius; James D. Dana made the college famous in geology; Hubert A. Newton was accomplished in meteoric astronomy; Thomas A. Thacher was for over forty years an able teacher of Latin and molder of char- acter; in the year of Woolsey's inauguration the library building, the first Gothic structure on the campus, was completed. Yale was continually broadening its course; in 1841, Edward E. Salisbury was appointed to the chair of Sanskrit and Arabic, and became the first in the line of great Oriental scholars who have given distinction to Yale. In 1854, William D. Whitney was made professor of San- skrit, and in 1869, he gave to comparative philology the weight of his rare scholarship. The founding of the Pea- body Museum, the Art School, and the Winchester Observa- tory strengthened the college. In 1866, Othniel C. Marsh took the chair of paleontology, amassed a treasure of fossils, conducted a series of expeditions to regions beyond the Missouri River, and brought back four hundred speci- mens of vertebrate fossils, new to science. Addison E.
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Verrill was making a study of deep-sea life, bringing together two hundred thousand specimens.
The Sheffield Scientific School was an expression of the inspiring personality of Benjamin Silliman. In 1846, his son of the same name and John P. Norton began a school in analytical chemistry and mineralogy, and soon the atten- tion of Joseph E. Sheffield, well known in railroad enter- prises, was called to the needs of the college in science, and he made such generous donations that in 1861, the school that bears his name came into existence. The director was George J. Brush, the mineralogist; later, Russell H. Chitten- den, eminent in physiological chemistry, gave increased power to the school, as director. In 1856, Samuel A. Johnson, the chemist, became professor at Yale, and a leader in the establishment of agricultural stations through the country. The versatile William A. Brewer and the gifted authority in early English, Thomas A. Lounsbury, and in 1871, Josiah Willard Gibbs gave the faculty still greater power. Professor Gibbs, son of a noted Yale pro- fessor, had the chair of metaphysical physics, and was one of the most profound mathematicians the world has ever seen.
The coming of Noah Porter to the presidency in 1872, brought to the headship of the college an eminent teacher of mental science, and a conservative and kindly leader. In the same year, the government was popularized by bringing in the practice of electing six members of the corporation by the alumni instead of the legislature, at the same time the rising interest in athletics was marked by the introduction of football, and in 1877, Yale began her annual races at New London with Harvard. Two years later, the Intercollegiate Baseball Association was formed, and members of the class of 1881, secured the purchase of the Yale Field, and now arrangements are in progress for a stadium, to seat sixty thousand spectators. A system of electives came in about that time, and the Sloane physical
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laboratory, Kent chemical laboratory and Lawrence Hall were given.
In 1886, Professor Timothy Dwight, the wise and genial scholar, became president; electives were multiplied; the force of instructors increased; Dwight Hall, the center of the religious life of the college, was completed; there rose the walls of Osburn, Welch, White, Winchester, Vanderbilt, Phelps Memorial, Berkeley, and Pierson halls. Yale infirmary was given by women in New Haven and New York, and a gymnasium was built during President Dwight's administration, and Hendrie Hall was given to the Law School, though it was not completed until 1900. The School of Music became a definite department, and foundations were established for fellowships, scholarships, and prizes. The earliest permanent college magazine was the Yale Literary Magazine, which was established in 1836, and among its editors have been William M. Evarts, Donald G. Mitchell, D. C. Gilman, and Andrew D. White.
Just before the Bicentennial in 1901, President Dwight gave place to Professor Arthur T. Hadley, an authority in railroad science. At that celebration, alumni and sister institutions paid their tribute of honor to the college; the pageant was brilliant; a Bicentennial Fund of two millions of dollars was raised, by means of which were erected the Administration Building, dedicated as Woodbridge Hall, the new dining-hall, called University Hall, and the Woolsey Auditorium, in which the family of John H. Newbury installed the Memorial Organ. The Fayerweather Hall and Lampson Lyceum were also erected in that period; Kirkland Hall increased the facilities of the Scientific School in mineralogy and geology; Byers Hall, the headquarters for the Sheffield Young Men's Christian Association, and Vanderbilt Hall for the same department were also built. In 1900, James W. Pinchot made possible the founding of the School of Forestry, which is becoming an important department of the university, whose students have increased
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to more than three thousand and the faculty to nearly four hundred. The forty theological books given by the ministers have multiplied to nearly four hundred thousand. The Art School has some valuable collections,-such as the Trum- bull gallery of fifty-four works of the patriot-painter. There is also the Jarves gallery of one hundred and twenty-two volumes of Italian paintings from the eleventh to the seven- teenth centuries, illustrating the development of art in the old painters. There is the Steinert collection of antique harpsichords, claviers, and spinnets, besides autograph letters of great musicians. In the Peabody Museum is a paleontological collection unsurpassed by that of any other college in America, and according to Huxley-in Eu- rope. It has a skeleton of the primitive dog, the only complete one in existence, and a slab containing the skeleton of a cretaceous dinosaur, nearly thirty feet long and thirteen feet high, besides the huge remains of the largest land animals known; one from New Zealand is seventy feet long and twenty feet high. The museum is rich in minerals and meteorites, including the famous mass weighing sixteen hun- dred and thirty-five pounds that fell in Texas. The names of Yale men eminent in law, medicine, theology, invention, missions, and statesmanship are legion. The name Yale University was authorized in 1887, and in its many depart- ments it is developing in power under the able presidency of Arthur T. Hadley.
In tracing the history of Trinity College, we go back to the days when everything that was not Congregational was under the ban in Connecticut. Soon after the consecration of Bishop Seabury, steps were taken to organize a college under the care of the Episcopal Church, and at a convoca- tion at East Haddam a movement started toward the in- corporation, in 1801, of the academy at Cheshire, which was sometimes called Seabury College. The legislature granted only limited powers to it. It was not to confer degrees, for in that case it might become a rival of Yale. Repeated
The Right Reverend Samuel Seabury, D.D. (1729-1796). The First Bishop of Connecticut
From an Old Copper Print
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efforts were made in vain to secure an enlargement of the charter, until the adoption of the new state constitution in 1818, when, in connection with the consecration of Bishop Brownell, permission was granted to establish another col- lege in the state. A petition, signed by many citizens, was presented to the legislature on May 10, 1823; and soon afterwards an act incorporating Washington College was passed. Fifty thousand dollars was pledged within a year, and as Hartford subscribed three-fourths of this, it was chosen as the site. Bishop Brownell was elected presi- dent on May 16, 1824, and in the following month, Jarvis Hall and Seabury Hall were started. College opened in 1824, with nine students, and on the faculty with Presi- dent Brownell were George W. Doane, Hector Humphrey, and Horatio Potter. Students were received for a par- tial course of two years, having in view an English di- ploma. The first commencement was held in August, 1827, when ten graduates received the Bachelor degree. In 1831, Nathanael S. Wheaton became president, and during the six years of his term, a foundation was laid for a system of endowment, placing the college on a firm financial basis. In 1837, Silas Totten became president, holding office for eleven years. In 1845, a second dormitory was built named Brownell Hall, and the same year the name of the col- lege was changed to Trinity. A board of fellows was organ- ized to superintend the course of study and the discipline. Alumni, not members of the corporation, were formed into a House of Convocation, a title which was changed in 1883, to the Association of the Alumni. In 1849, the charter was amended to make the Bishop of Connecticut chancellor of the college and president of the board of trustees. Bishop John Williams held the office for two years, until compelled by duties of his diocese to resign, and Daniel R. Goodwin was president until 1860. Students increased; Hartford bought the college campus for six hundred thousand dollars for a site for the new capitol, and a tract
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of nearly eighty acres was secured a mile south. Thomas R. Pynchon became president in 1874, and in the following year, ground was broken for the new buildings, and in 1878, two large blocks were ready for occupancy. The erection of Northam Hall in 1881, completed the western range of the quadrangle-named after Charles H. Northam of Hartford, whose total gifts to the college were a quarter of a million of dollars. Under President Smith, the course of studies was enriched, Gymnasium, Alumni Hall, Labora- tory and Observatory erected. The college is advancing in efficiency and influence under President Flavel S. Luther, who was inaugurated in 1904.
The incorporation of the third college in Connecticut met no sectarian opposition, and early in the nineteenth century, leaders in the Methodist Episcopal Church, feeling the need of a college in New England or New York, while looking for a suitable place were attracted to Middletown. In 1825, Captain Alden Partridge, a former superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point, opened in Mid- dletown the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy, and to encourage the school, the citizens built two substantial stone structures, but failure to secure a charter led to the removal of the school to Norwich, Ver- mont, in 1829. The vacant buildings attracted the attention of Laban Clark, presiding elder of the New Haven district, and he told the owners that he would be one of ten to buy the property. The trustees gave it to the New York and New England Conferences-a gift of about thirty-three thousand dollars, on condition that it be used only for a college, and be endowed with at least forty thousand dollars. Trustees were chosen, and the college organized under the name of Wesleyan University,-the oldest in the country now existing, that was founded by and has remained under care of the Methodists. The first president was Wilbur Fisk, and in September, 1831, its doors were opened to men; in 1872, also women. Wesleyan was among
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the first to have a scientific course, and under the presidency of Augustus W. Smith, beginning in 1851, the raising of an endowment of one hundred thousand dollars assured the permanence of the college. In the presidency of Joseph Cummings, the first alumnus chosen to the office, Isaac Rich built a library to hold one hundred thousand volumes, and a large library fund was raised; the boarding hall was remodeled into an observatory hall, a memorial chapel, and the Orange Judd Hall of Natural Science constructed, the last at a cost of one hundred thousand dollars. In the presidency of Cyrus D. Foss, who followed Cummings, the debt was paid, and nearly a quarter of a million dollars added to the endowment. Of late, the gifts of George I. Seney, Daniel Ayres, and others have enlarged the scope of the college, built a fine gymnasium, and led to a large increase in students. It has been for years a growing conviction that the student body should be limited to men, and the last year in which women were graduated from the college was 1912. With grounds, buildings, and endowment aggregating in value two million dollars, an amount increased in 1912, by a million dollars, Wesleyan takes a high place under the leadership of William A. Shanklin, who was inaugurated in 1909.
There has been a conviction in many minds for years that there ought to be a college in Connecticut for women, and during the session of the legislature of 1910-II, a charter was granted to establish such a college at New London, and a tract a mile long on the west side of the Thames has been secured, partly by purchase, and partly by gift of Mrs. Harriet U. Allyn of New London. The people of the city have taken up the matter of raising money for the college with enthusiasm, and already over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars has been raised there. In addition to this, Morton F. Plant of New London has given a million dollars for endowment. The date appointed for the opening is 1915, and under Dr. F. H. Sykes as president, the college will start under the happiest auspices.
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The Hartford Theological Seminary was founded as the result of a convention of thirty-six Congregational ministers held at East Windsor, September 10, 1833, for the purpose of devising means to counteract certain theological views prevailing in some quarters, views concerning depravity and regeneration, which seemed to those conservative men dangerous innovations. At that convention, the Pastoral Union of Connecticut was organized on the basis of a Calvinistic creed. The constitution adopted provided for the establishment of a Theological Seminary to guard against the perversion of consecrated funds. The control of the seminary was placed in the hands of a board of trus- tees accountable to the Pastoral Union. As a result, the Theological Institute of Connecticut was incorporated in May, 1834, and opened in the following September at East Windsor with sixteen students. The early years were marked by financial straits, and after a score of years, so depressing was the situation that the trustees made over- tures to Yale to unite the two theological schools. There was substantial unity on both sides, but the men who rep- resented Yale asked for delay, and when the matter was taken up again there had come a change over the situation, because of large gifts to the East Windsor school, the largest being that of James B. Hosmer of Hartford, who founded a professorship, and gave one hundred thousand dollars to erect a building. In September, 1865, the semi- nary was transferred to Hartford, and for fourteen years was housed on Prospect Street, moving in 1879, to Broad Street, where, through the liberality of Newton Case, a library building was erected to hold two hundred thousand volumes, and the name was changed to Hartford Theological Seminary. The old-school war-horses of the faith, Bennet Tyler and William Thompson, have given place to men equally able: Chester A. Hartranft with his large vision, his genius for administration and inspiration, and, since 1903, William Douglas Mackenzie, a master of men and of
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ideas. Generous gifts of late have made possible enlarging the scope of the Hartford Seminary Foundation to include the Kennedy School of Missions and the School of Religious Pedagogy, with the outlook toward a university to meet the various needs of the churches, and a tract of thirty acres has been purchased in the western part of Hartford, to which it will move to enter its widening career.
The Berkeley Divinity School began in a theological department informally organized in Trinity College in 1851, by the president of the college, Rev. John Williams. Three years later, a charter was granted for the school as a separate institution to be located at Middletown, where a large building was given for its use, and Bishop Williams was dean of the school for forty-five years, until his death in 1899. Generous provision has been made from time to time for a spacious library, enlargement of buildings, and an endowment of nearly half a million dollars. Five hundred men have graduated from the school and have taken holy orders. There were in 1910, five full professors and several instructors and lecturers.
The influence of Connecticut on colleges in other states has been effective. The founding of Dartmouth College can be traced to Eleazar Wheelock of Windham, who, while pastor at North Lebanon, now Columbia, established a school for Indians, which he transferred to Hanover, New Hampshire, where fifty-five of the sixty-eight shares in the town had been assigned to settlers from Windham, and of the two hundred and eighty-four graduates of Dartmouth to 1790, one hundred and twenty-one were from Connecticut. The founder of Hamilton College was Samuel Kirkland, who was born in Norwich in 1741; after graduating from Princeton, he became a missionary among the Indians, and during the Revolution was able to secure the neutrality of the Oneida Indians, and in 1793, he founded the college.
Among the presidents of Marietta College has been Israel A. Andrews of Connecticut. The first president of
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Beloit College was Andrew Chapin, and the projector of the Western Reserve University was Caleb Pitkin, both from Connecticut. Illinois College owes much to this state, as J. M. Sturtevant was one of its founders, and Edward Beecher was its first president. The Johnsons, father and son, were influential in founding and shaping Columbia College, whose first president, William S. Johnson was born in Strat- ford in 1696, graduated at Yale, was member of the Stamp Act Congress, took an active part in the Revolution, be- came a member of the Continental Congress, member of the constitutional convention, and was one of the first sen- ators; Abraham Baldwin, born in Guilford in 1754, grad- uated from Yale, was chaplain in the Revolution, then went to Savannah, Georgia, where he entered the legislature and became delegate to the Continental Congress. He was sent to the constitutional convention, and afterwards to Congress. Baldwin secured a charter for the University of Georgia, gave forty thousand acres toward its endowment and was also its first president. Union University owes much to Eliphalet Nott, a native of Ashford, who conducted its affairs in its early years with great skill, raising large sums of money for it by lotteries. Another Connecticut man who gave distinction to the faculty of Union was Laurens P. Hickok, a native of Danbury, who was pro- fessor in Western Reserve and Auburn Seminary before becoming president of Union. Hickok's works on psy- chology and moral science are those of a profound thinker. John J. Owen, the Greek scholar, a native of Colebrook, was an eminent member of the faculty of the College of the City of New York.
Amherst College owes much to Connecticut; President Heman Humphrey, who did so much to put it upon its feet, was born in West Simsbury, and graduated from Yale; Julius H. Seelye, long a professor of mental and moral philosophy and for fifteen years its president, was a native of Bethel, as was his brother L. Clark Seelye, for years pro-
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fessor of English literature, and for a quarter of a century the able president of Smith College. From this state have gone three presidents of Williams College: Ebenezer Fitch, from 1793, when the college was chartered,-Fitch was born in Norwich, and was president fifteen years; Edward S. Griffin, born in East Haddam, who gave the college efficient service, 1821-26; and Franklin Carter, born in Waterbury, who was president, 1881-96. The famous Charles G. Finney was born in Warren, and was professor and president at Oberlin, 1835-54. Jared Sparks, professor of history at Harvard and for four years its president, was born in Willington. Cyrus Northrop, born in Ridgefield, was professor at Yale for eleven years, and in 1881, became president of the Univer- sity of Minnesota. Daniel C. Gilman was born in Norwich, and after serving as professor in the Sheffield School, he became the first president of the University of California, and later of Johns Hopkins, which he did much to organize in 1875, holding office until 1902, when he became president of the Carnegie Institution in Washington. Among the one hundred and five college presidents furnished by Yale, eighteen have been the first presidents, and most of them natives of Connecticut.
The founder of the first dental college in the world was Horace H. Hayden, born in Windsor in 1769, and his vers- atile mind found play as an architect, builder, army- surgeon, and geologist. He became interested in dentistry through John Greenwood, Washington's dentist. Hayden opened an office in Baltimore. In 1840, he called together a few leading dentists in New York, and the American Society of Dental Surgeons was organized, with Dr. Hay- den as its president until his death, four years later. The next step was the publishing of a journal, the American Journal of Medical Science. A college was opened in Baltimore in 1840, the College of Dental Surgery, with Hayden as its president, and professor of the principles and practice of dental surgery. In 1846, C. O. Cone, born in
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East Haddam, was appointed professor of mechanical dentistry in the new college. Hartford has also the dis- tinction of being the birthplace of E. M. Gallaudet, son of the distinguished founder of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford. Dr. Gallaudet organized, in 1864, the College for the Deaf in Washington, D. C. This institu- tion, of which the founder was until recently president, is the only institution of its kind in the world of the grade of college. In view of these facts, nothing further need be said to establish the claim that Connecticut has been true to the purpose of its founders to establish a commonwealth of intelligence.
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