USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 46
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"I have thrown out from the work about 130 pages ;- the raciness is not in the least lost,-the book is improved, and I shall not be ashamed of it now."
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SEVENTH YEAR
the shape of eggs and bacon. At Melchisedecville our courier- a little waggishly-simply announced the President! In the course of the evening our hotel was duly visited by some demo- crats in shirt sleeves, and some without a shirt-to see that old character-President Hickory-Face! They saw, however, a hero with a much smoother phiz, of softer words, but in all probability of a tougher conscience.
By the end of the third day, we could hear the cow-bells jingling homeward towards Woodville. The cows, a little in advance, were hurried forward by our courier, in a long line, with un- wonted speed, unusual clamour, great mudsplashings and tail lashings; from all which it was conjectured by the look-outs in the edge of the Woodville clearing, that something was coming! Indeed, as nothing else could have produced such commotion and uproar, Professor Harwood mounted into the crotch of the great old Beech at the Spring, and peering thence into the forest, he soon exclaimed :
"Fall in ! fall in !- Sylvan's behind the cows! I see his handker- chief waving on his whip! Fall in! the President is coming?"
Hence when we came within a few rods of the clearing, there sure enough they all stood in double file-
"What ! the cows !"
Pshaw! no-but Harwood, and the students, and the citizens- all in their Sunday clothes! And then taking off their hats-all, I mean, that had any-they gave us, as we passed between the opened lines, three or four most terrific cheers !
How the President felt I know not-but I, fondly hoping our college and town were both made-I was fairly lifted above my horse! and stood in the stirrups-I rejoiced as for my own hon- our,-thinking, too, I foresaw the rapid and lasting growth of learning, and science, and civilization, and religion. That Clar- ence rejoiced also, I well know-it was for this he had voluntarily stood aside and made room for an "elder, I did not say, a better soldier!" That Harwood rejoiced likewise, I well know-nay, without Harwood's suggestions and after efforts, Bloduplex had yet been in the peacefulness of his earlier wars-the triumph of his first victories over the incautious and open hearted! And yet that Harwood was soon hurled from his own office-his living
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taken away-his reputation !- but stay, we must not write faster than we lived, although very fast did we now live, if a large ex- perience of evil constitute fast living !
We omit the supper, and pass to the illumination. Pause we, however, to state that, in addition to Little College and Big Col- lege, we boasted now a third edifice, which may properly here be styled Biggest College. Some time since our Board had ordered the erection of a new building, and appointed a Committee to carry the order into effect; who, being carpenters and masons, lost no time, but taking the contract themselves, went immediately to work. Hence, one morning was very unexpectedly seen a sur- veyor running a line across the Campus, driving down stakes, &c .- and also several labourers digging a foundation ! Profes- sor Harwood accidentally passing, asked in surprise what was meant : and he was answered, "it's for the New College !"
"College !!- why we have no plan yet."
"Plan !- why it is to be like the Court-House-and aint that big enough?"
The next moment Harwood was at my store; and out of breath began :
"I say, Carlton !- do you know what's going on our way?"
"No : what ?"
"Why they're digging away at the foundation of the new College-"
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"No! you're quizzing ____ "
"Quizzing !- yes, quiz it will be on a large scale: they are actually going to put up a building the express size and pattern of that odious Court House !"
"Impossible !- let's go down and stop it."
And, sure enough, there was a foundation marked off for a building exactly square, about 50 feet to the side! Happily we had some influence, and some trustees had some shame : and hence, while the work could not be stopped, the contracts having been secretly disposed of and shared among our own trustees and their friends, an order was procured for an enlargement of the affair, making the house 30 feet longer ; and instead of two, three stories high! And this is the true history, although Dr. Bloduplex prided himself with having suggested in his letters "the just pro- portions :" the proportions, just or unjust, were wholly acci-
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SEVENTH YEAR'
dental, and owing to the cupidity of the contractors, and not to the love of classical or unclassical architecture.
Well, on the memorable night of the President's arrival, Little and Big Colleges were very tastefully illuminated in the eastern way; but on Biggest College, then incomplete, had been raised above the roof a pole perpendicular to the apex. The upper end of said pole, passed through the centre of radiating pieces bounded by a circumference, and continued to rise yet a few feet. Near its top crossed a bar at right angles; and at each end of the bar a candle represented a Professor-a very large candle on the extremity of the pole itself personated the President. The Stu- dents stood in other candles around the circle below, and just described ; so that the Greater and Lesser Lights of the Purchase glimmered forth to night, in all the glory and effulgence of cotton wick and beef-tallow.
It was a proud night! and not undelightful our emotions and anticipations, as we stood in the edge of the wilderness, late the lurking place of the Indian, and yet concealing the bear, the wolf, the panther, and gazed on those symbolical tapers! It did seem that Mind in its march had halted and erected her standard! But even while we gazed, those tapers became oddly extinguished ! First, one after another, died away the lights of the circle !- then the lights at the extreme ends of the bar, first Clarence, then Harwood !- while the light topping the pole was left, feebly burning, indeed, and spluttering, yet triumphant and alone !
"Was that ominous of what follows?"
So Aunt Kitty insists. Beside, she fortified her superstition by a dream! She dreamed that very night! that Mr. Clarence was seated in his great rocking chair, on the top of Biggest Col- lege, and that a wind, insidious, noiseless, and yet resistless, came like a double-blowing tornado, and hurled him to the earth!
Events soon happened strangely corroborative of the old lady's ideas and misgivings-and we can only account for those things, as Southey for the unaccountables, in Wesley's life-"there are more things in heaven." &c. Some said the Top Candle burnt and smoked the longest, because it contained the largest amount of gross animal matter, and was most wick-ed; but still that, you know, does not account satisfactorily for Aunt Kitty's dream, does it ?
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CHAPTER LXI.
"Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes, For villainy is not without such rheum: And he, long traded in it, makes it seem Like rivers of remorse, and innocency."
PRESIDENT BLODUPLEX was, as is usual, the son of his father and mother, being born in very early life, at an uncertain moment of a certain day or night, near Wheelabout.1
His talents were good; his acquirements respectable especially in Classics, Antiquities, History, and Literature in general ;- still they were not uncommon. In Mathematics and Sciences, we can- not state his attainments ; and simply because we never discovered them-yet he must have got beyond arithmetic, since Clarence, in return for aid in Greek, did gratefully assist the Doctor in Alge- bra. Harwood, indeed, thought the President's attainments in such matters inconsiderable; but then Harwood was Professor of Mathematics and may have expected too much. At all events the President set no great value on these matters, making himself merry at Clarence's expense, on accidentally discovering that this gentleman was studying Mathematics under the guidance of his friend Harwood, while Harwood read Latin and Greek with Clarence.
As a companion, no man could be more agreeable than our President. It was this led our young Professors to unbosom in
1 President Andrew Wylie was born in Western Pennsylvania, near Wheeling, West Virginia, April 12, 1789. He graduated at Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pa. in 1810 with the first honors of his class. He became a tutor in his Alma Mater immediately after his graduation and two years later was made President of the College. In 1817 he resigned the Presidency of Jefferson and became President of Washing- ton College, Pa., seven miles from Canonsburg. Both of these colleges were supported by the Presbyterians and Dr. Wylie hoped to unite the two. Local rivalries and sectarian differences between the liberal and the stricter and more orthodox branches of the Presbyterian church prevented this union. There were college quarrels at Washington and President Wylie's position became uncomfortable for him. He resigned in 1829 to accept the Presidency of Indiana College which had been chartered by the State in 1828.
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SEVENTH YEAR
his presence-and even when, in an unguarded moment, the President remarked-"friendship is a word I have blotted from my vocabulary !"-they thought he suspected other men only and not themselves. But before long it was found he had confidence in nobody ; and that he looked on all men as enemies, to be man- aged, resisted, counteracted, circumvented. This was his proton pseudos, to imagine all sorts of wickedness and chicanery in all others; and then to combat all with such weapons as he fancied they were using or would use against him! Hence said Harwood once,-"depend on it, when Bloduplex tells us of the meanness, . and duplicity, and falsehood, and machinations of Doctor Red and others in Wheelabout, towards himself, he has used the same towards them." But Harwood was a young man, and may have been mistaken.
Doctor B. was an excellent preacher, and a still better lecturer, whether is regarded the matter or the manner: and some of his pulpit exhibitions were surpassingly fine. His theological opin- ions, like the Oxford Tracts, were for the "Times:" his only decided opinion in theology being that "there were worse men in hell than Judas Iscariot."
Like King David, our President, but in a different sense, had 'been "a man of war from his youth ;" and in some adroit way- (he attributed it partly to his elocution)-he had usually worsted his enemies and even his friends, too, in ecclesiastical combats before the clerical courts! Indeed, so thoroughly had he devoured things as to have "used himself up!" One demolished brother in the middle east attributed the victory over himself to the "Doc- tor's peculiar memory, which had no tenacity in things that made against himself, but retained all and more, too, of such as were in his own favor." But that was the fault of his Phrenological organization; and he only acted in obedience to the laws of his nature.
My own opinion is, President B. owed most of his victories- and some of his defeats-to his Wonderful Religious Experience ! which in the stereotyped crying places always when first heard inclined weak believers to his side! I well know the peril of med- dling with this Experience; since the Doctor soberly arraigned both Clarence and Harwood for sniggering when they heard its
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SEVENTH YEAR
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third or fourth repetition-although the Judges would not con- demn the accused, inasmuch as a moiety of said Judges did snigger and sneer a little themselves when the Experience was enacted for them !
Ay! the Player did sometimes so overdo this part as not only to look excessively silly, but to see in other men's faces that he had been making a special fool of himself ! "A donkey,"-says Æsop -"boasting descent from a generous race horse, failed, however, in a certain race; when, humbled and ear-fallen, he had a shad- owy recollection of his father-an ASS." A dim remembrance of that donkey's true progenitor, very respectfully named in more than one solemn court and conclave, and as an accompaniment to the Religious Experience, may enable our worthy Divine, if he still live, to see one reason why (if, he failed not often to destroy his foes), he has so completely destroyed himself.
"Yes-but, by your own account, he did overthrow both Clar- ence and Harwood."
Reader-a double-cone seems to be rolling up hill, on its in- clined planes : and yet is it all the time really going down hill! According to his threat, he did "trample both Trustees and Fac- ulty under his feet ;"-but it has proved to himself only a rolling up-hill downwards!
Some will think we are manufacturing a character : and, maybe, critics will say it is a very poor one after all, and that any second rate genius could have invented a much better. Well, honesty is the best policy ; and, although it may affect the sale of the book one way or the other, we must say that Bloduplex is really a fictitious character !
CHAPTER LXII.
"Contention, like a horse Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose, And bears down all before him."
SUCH being our Fictitious Bloduplex, can any critic say, a priori, what will be suitable action? Perhaps, the popular induc- tive method had better been followed, and the ascent to the char-
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SEVENTH YEAR
acter taken place from the actions a posteriori: and that would have sorted with our President's favourite English use of that backsided logical phrase. Let none, here, exclaim, Mystery! We live in a mysterious age. Is it not the era of Animal Magnetism ? -of Phreno, or Phreney-magnetism ?- of Transubstantiation ?- Repudiation ?- Wax Candles ?- Holy Vestments? Is there not a laying, all through the pomps and vanities of the world, clear up to heaven, a Spiritual Rail Way, by which a vile sinner, touched and started by the proper persons, or their deputies and proxies, shall be in glory in a jiffey ?- and that whether puritanically con- verted and sanctified or not ! But-
Dislike was, in due time, expressed by the President for his Cabinet, conjectured to spring from-I. His jealousy of equals, and suspicious and untrustful temper : 2. His determination for a very low grade of studies-especially in Mathematics, and even in Classics,-he being resolved to level down and not up: 3. His love of ease, and wish to get along with a relaxed, or rather no discipline : 4. His using discipline as an instrument of avenging himself on students disliked by him: 5. His domineering and tyrannical temper: 6. His prying disposition, by which he was led to have spies in the professors' classes, and to watch when they came and went to and from duties. &c .: 7. His desire to make room for former pupils and relatives: 8. His erroneous theology.
Hence, without consulting his peers, nay, contrary to their known wishes and earnest remonstrances, he tried to discipline students at will, and to suspend and dismiss ; he permitted some to be graduated, and who now hold imperfect diplomas, signed with his sole name: and he commanded what the Professors should and should not do, and what teach, and how, answering their arguments with insult and derision, and threatening to stamp them and the trustees also under his feet! He pretended to think, and dared to assert, that the discipline of a College was of right a President's special duty,-and teaching, the Professors'. And, therefore, he rudely, on several occasions, contradicted his Fac- ulty in public, and aimed' to consider and treat them as boys! Nay, once, after permitting a young gentleman openly and grossly to insult a member of the Faculty, he stated in public, that unless
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that member and that pupil could make it up! the student- or Professor must leave the College !! He was the master of the school,-his Professors mere ushers! He arbitrarily prescribed- first, their duties, and then, dared enter their recitation rooms to ascertain in person if they were competent and faithful teachers: where, after asking questions of the students, showing always his impertinence and insolence, and not rarely his ignorance of the subjects, he said to those pupils, and in the very presence of their Professors, that if not fully satisfied with the teachers' explana- tions and instructions, they would come to his study, he would supply the deficiencies ! !!
"Mr. Carlton !- were your Professors men? Why, Professor Spunk, of our place, would have kicked him out!"
Softly : Clarence was a Clergyman, and Harwood good natured. For a while, too, amazement kept them speechless: and after that they were inclined to take, as a perpetual apology for the Presi- dent's rudeness, what he once offered as such to the students them- · selves, for a hasty act of discipline, viz. :- "that his nerves had been disordered by a cup of strong tea the night before, taken in- cautiously with a guest, and that in such cases he was sometimes forgetful and hasty !"
Clarence, indeed, always insisted that the poor Doctor was, at times, partially deranged; and that, even after receiving the fol- lowing anonymous letter :
(Note :- The Editor is unwilling to print the letter, and so he always told Mr. C.) * * *
This letter, Clarence, on opening his pocket Virgil, left as usual on the mantel of his recitation room, found in the book: and, not suspecting its character, he thought he would run it over before commencing the lesson. The hand-writing being apparently the President's, Clarence, conceiving that his master had chosen this way to lecture for some over-sight, looked for no signature. And, therefore, he read till the ending, when the absence of all signa- ture so perturbed him, that he got through with the recitation mechanically and by instinct !1
1 Touching this anonymous letter, Mr. Matthew M. Campbell (form- erly Principal of the Preparatory Department of the University who
1.
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SEVENTH YEAR
Great was his distress :- could it be that Bloduplex was so cowardly and vile to write such a letter ! ordering him to resign, and threatening if he would not! Yet, his was the hand-writing! -the style !- the very expressions !- the every thing !- but the signature, and that was wanting !
When this letter was thus found, it was a time of restored peace and renovated confidence-for, Clarence, being then a man of implicit faith and trustfulness of spirit-(having faith in man!
was an early student with personal recollection of these times) told Judge Banta that it was a complaining letter and reproachful, asking Hall to resign and leave. The letter-writer said that his request contained no more than the almost universal opinion of the students. Hall was called "indolent, careless, superficial, and shamefully neglectful of his duties." He was certainly none of these things. He may have been over-sensitive and too suspicious of President Wylie. It is hard to understand why he did not burn the letter and say nothing about it to any one.
I can find no reason for doubting Hall's integrity and sincerity. He probably had some reason to complain that President Wylie afterwards made use to his detriment of some of the innocent gossip in which he indulged during this long drive from the Ohio.
Evidence of Hall's unselfish and sincere devotion to the College, his wish for its prosperity, his kindly disposition toward Dr. Wylie upon his election to the Presidency and his willingness to serve the new President and cooperate with him, may be found in two letters of Hall written to Wylie in 1828 and 1829. In the first of these letters written on May 7, 1828 Hall says :
"Mr. John H. Harney, Professor of Mathematicks, and myself, who both, have long proposed and desired your election to the Presidency of the College of Indiana, cannot but be extremely solicitous that you should accede to the wishes of the Board of Trustees, which by this time must have reached you. In the hope therefore, that it may aid your determination, be assured that the call of the Board is entirely unanimous and cordial, that it meets the entire approbation of the townsmen and of all the principal men of the whole state both in publick and private life.
"Should you come hither, Sir, your influence may be exerted upon a very broad scale towards the noblest and most beneficial ends ;- the advancement of religion and of liberal education.
"Hitherto the smiles of Providence have been upon our Institution : and the very hand of God has visibly directed all events; and hence we cannot but hope that the same Being intends this as the scene of your future labours.
"The publick are all waiting impatiently for your decision: and great
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according to the modern doctrine of Lyceums)-had, child-like, looked over the past, and hoped afresh for the future; * * Down went he, after recitation, as usual, to the Doctor's study- but, accidentally, the door was locked! Then called he Harwood from his room, and, without uttering a word, put the letter into
and universal will be the disappointment should you by a sense of duty be impelled to a declinature of what may be termed, not merely the call of the Trustees but of the whole state.
"Bloomington I acknowledge is a new town and in a new country. But it is widely different in appearance from new towns generally; the work of improvement in all respects is rapidly advancing ;- and in regard to healthfulness abundant evidence may be furnished that it is by far superior to most places in the West, and equal to any whether in the East or West. For instance I have 'preached here to a small congregation for more than 3 years and in this time have buried but one adult person connected with the Presbytery and he died from a pulmonary disease derived from his parents. I have buried also an infant child, my daughter, who died of a peculiar eruption. Besides I recollect in the whole town not more than 6 or 7 deaths; and all from casualty or some special and occasional disease.
"With regard to Mr. Harney and myself I may say we are enthusias- tick in our respective professions; and that we are abundantly willing to become coadjutors in all schemes for the promotion of learning. And this will doubless weigh in your estimation when it is remembered that the influence and example of this College are to be felt and imitated through the entire state. Here, too, I may add, that no similar situation can now be found, and no juncture ever again occur, so very favourable for the adoption and wide dissemination of any plan to promote the interests of education. Nay, Sir, I affirm not too strongly when I say, that with the blessing of God upon judicious, well timed, persevering and united efforts, we may mould a system of education for the whole state; that this College may at no distant period be far superior to any other in the West; and that Indiana may ultimately become one of the most enlighened states of the union.
"With these and various other considerations which must have occurred to your reflections, may we venture to hope, dear Sir, that you will prefer Indiana College as the scene of your future exertions?
Hoping that such will be your determination, believe me, Sir, to be Yours, very respectfully, 1 BAYNARD R. HALL.
While from this letter we may conclude that Hall and Harney recom- mended Wylie's election as President of Indiana College, there is reason to suppose that other men of influence may have first proposed it to , the Trustees. William Hendricks, the second Governor of the State, and at the time a U. S. Senator, had been a college-mate and a student
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his hand. That gentleman read, and trembled as he read,-and, when Clarence asked-
"Who do you think wrote it?" he answered-
"I am afraid to say! but it seems like the Doctor,-the style- the hand-writing-the expressions-are so like his !"
Hastening home, Clarence handed the letter to his wife, and without word or comment. She read; but, soon bursting into tears, she voluntarily exclaimed-
"Oh! Charles !- the Doctor must have written this!"
Harwood had now joined them: when the anonymous letter was compared with several letters written by Bloduplex to Clarence, and the most remarkable similarity, as to the hand-the style-the words-the expressions-was apparent: nay, in some things, was an identity. And all this, even Dr. Sylvan afterwards acknowledged ; although with characteristic caution, he expressed no opinion as to the authorship.
"Do not resign-"
of Wylie's at Jefferson College and Wylie was known also to Governor Jennings.
In Hall's second letter to Wylie (April 7, 1829) written after the latter had accepted the invitation to Indiana, he assures the new Presi- dent that his acceptance had "filled all the friends of literature and religion in this region with unfeigned pleasure and satisfaction." "Of · course, Harney and myself," says Hall, are not among the least happy, still the doubt remaining whether or not we may expect your propria persona this spring gives us no little anxiety." Hall then gives a list of ten reasons why the new President should come soon.2 "Enemies you know from Harney's case [Referring to the sectarian opposi- tion to Harney's election to the professorship] the college has; these are only utterly defeated by your immediate removal. If you delay I dread new plots. If once defeated they can never rise again. ... If we can learn when you will be at Louisville, Mr. Harney and myself, with Maxwell and others, will meet and escort you to Bloomington,- to this we entreat you to consent, for as many reasons as are given above."
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