USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 15
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The conference proved barren of practical results. The Southern Synod, convinced of the futility of all further efforts to secure a recognition of any property rights in Centre College, and wearied with long years of litigation
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
in the civil courts, gave up all hope of reinstatement in the possession of this time-honored institution, and began to bend all its energies toward the establishment of another.
At the next meeting of the synod, in November, 1871, resolutions were introduced by Dr. Stuart Robinson, and passed by the synod, looking to the immediate endowment and equipment of a college upon the same plan and with the same scope as the one just lost to the Southern church. -
But a higher conception and aim, and a new movement, arose out of the general conviction in the minds of men of intelligence, wealth, and culture, that the need was of a university of the highest order and upon the most liberal scale.
This conviction found expression in a convention held in the city of Lexington on the 7th and 8th days of May, 1872, the members of which, after organizing themselves into a permanent association, addressed a memo- rial to the Synod of Kentucky, then about to assemble in the same city. urging the immediate establishment of an institution of learning, under the auspices of the synod, of the highest order and upon the broadest and most liberal basis, and pledging to the synod the earnest co-operation of the associa- tion in an effort to establish the same. This appeal met a generous response from the synod. A plan of organiza- tion was effected, which adjusted the mutual relations of the synod and the association in the government of the institution. Popular confidence was aroused, and in an incredibly short time two hundred thousand dollars had been subscribed toward the proposed endow- ment of five hundred thousand dollars. A charter was procured, which vested in the donors of the endowment, and such REV. GELON H. ROUT, D. D. others as they might associate with them- selves, the ownership and control of the university, under the title of the Central University of Kentucky. This proprietary association, which is known as the Alumni Association of Cen- tral University, fills its own vacancies and elects its own successors from among the alumni of the institution and its liberal benefactors, thus for- ever keeping the university under the control of those who have the highest interest in its welfare. Its government and the management of its funds are entrusted to the chancellor and fifteen curators, two-thirds of whom, under the charter, must be members of the alumni association.
Richmond, the county seat of Madison county, in the midst of a beau-
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THE FIRST SESSION.
tiful and productive portion of the bluegrass region of Kentucky, was selected for its location.
Here, on Tuesday, September 22, 1874, the university opened its first session in a large and commodious building, that had just been erected in the center of the spacious grounds, commanding a view of the country for many miles, and of the mountains nearly or quite to the Tennessee and Virginia lines.
Rev. R. L. Breck was the first chancellor, and was supported by.an able board, conspicuous in which, for his in- terest and zeal, was the lamented S. P. Walters, of Richmond. In the struggles of the Presbyterian church, Dr. Breck was an early leader. Of strong con- victions, of unwavering courage, and devoted to the interests of Church and State, he was ever ready to contend for what he deemed the truth and right. The best energies of his life were given to Central University, and to him, while in this service, was its founding mainly due. Life, health, and personal consid- erations were sacrificed in its interests. Failing health necessitated his resignation as chancellor and seeking its restoration REV. R. L. BRECK. in the milder climate of California. Dr. Breck is a son of Hon. Daniel Breck, whose wife was a daughter of General Levi Todd, and was born at Richmond, May 8, 1827. He graduated at Centre College, and studied theology at Alleghany and Princeton. His ministry was in Kentucky, Macon (Georgia), and New Albany until the war; since 1865, at Rich- mond, Kentucky, and in California.
Three of the four colleges contemplated under the charter opened at this time.
Notwithstanding the favorable auspices under which the university was inaugurated, it soon began to encounter waves of financial trouble. Difficulty was experienced in collecting the subscriptions. The chancellor, Dr. Breck, resigned his important post. Dr. Pratt also resigned the presidency of the College of Letters. The College of Law suspended for want of proper sup- port. The situation was critical, and many of the friends of the university became timorous as to its power to survive. Just then the attention of the alumni association and of the synod was called to Rev. L. H. Blanton, of Paris, Kentucky, a comparatively young man, but of ripe scholarship and rare executive ability, and already recognized as one of the foremost educators of the State. He was called to the chancellorship, and Rev. J. V. Logan, D. D., synod's professor of ethics, was promoted to the vacant
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
presidency ; and while Dr. Logan presided with admirable judgment over the college, Dr. Blanton threw all his energy into the work of consolidating and broadening the financial basis of the institution. His wise methods and cheerful words soon restored the fullest confidence in the future of the university. Generous contributions to the endowment again began to flow in, and the institution has gone steadily forward, increasing every year in patronage, lifting higher every year the standard of instruction and scholarship, until now it stands abreast of any similar institution in the country, and is regarded as one of the chief ornaments of the Common- wealth.
Lindsey Hughes Blanton, D. D., was born in Cumberland Co., Va., July 29, 1832, and was graduated at Hampden Sidney College; also at Danville Theological Seminary, in Kentucky. His services have been with the Presbyterian Church at Versailles, at Salem, Virginia, and as chaplain in the Confederate army. In 1868 he was pastor of the Paris church, Ken- tucky, which was greatly increased and strengthened under his ministry.
The number of students in attendance upon its various colleges for the year 1894-95 was seven hundred and fifty-four, distributed over many States. Its faculties of instruction, in the colleges at present in operation, are those in literature, in medicine, in dentistry, and in theology.
The university is particularly for- tunate in its chancellor, to whom it owes in large measure its present influence and prosperity. Though comparatively a young man, he has developed the highest qualities as an educator. An able and popular preacher, an erudite and accurate scholar, he combines with these gifts large and liberal views of the subject JAMES VENABLE LOGAN, D. D. of education, and that rare executive and administrative ability which enables him to carry out his ideals as an educator, giving them practical form.
A provisional class in theology was organized and instructed until the permanent establishment of the college at Louisville, in 1893, under the style of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Auxiliary schools are provided to be established in the State, in the charter of Central Univer- sity; two are located, one each at the sites of Elizabethtown and Jackson.
The reports of the Southern Presbyterian Church in Kentucky, for some years, give us proximately the following statistics of interest: Total com-
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THE ALUMNI OF CENTRE COLLEGE.
REV. LINDSEY H BLANTON.
municants, fifteen thousand; Sunday-school scholars, ten thousand. Of the sums contributed for various purposes annually, we have enumerated : For sustentation, seven thousand dollars; evangelistic fund, fifteen thousand dollars; invalid fund, fifteen hundred dollars; foreign missions, ten thousand dollars ; education, seven thousand dollars ; publication, fifteen hundred dol- lars; pastors' salaries, sixty-two thousand dollars ; congregational purposes, seventy-five thousand dollars; and miscellaneous, seven thousand dollars ; a total of two hundred and ten thousand dollars.
After the separation of the North and South divisions of the church, venerable Centre College, with all its possessions and prestige, remained under the auspices and management of the old assembly, at Danville. So much does it enter into the educational history of Kentucky that we have elsewhere treated of its origin and relations to other great institutions of learning of the past. Chartered in 1819, it was under State control until 1824, when the synod of Kentucky purchased its franchises and control.
Centre College is thus shown to be one of the oldest institutions of learn- ing in Kentucky, or in the South or West, having sent out its first graduating class in 1824. It has been prosecuting its work successfully, and without interruption, from that day to this No year has passed that it has not sent its graduates into the field. Among the alumni are many, both of the living and the dead, who have greatly distinguished themselves in their
35
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
respective professions, and have attained the highest positions of honor and trust, especially throughout the South and West, where they chiefly reside, or where they did reside while they lived.
Centre College has educated seventeen college presidents, forty-one col- lege professors, fourteen representatives in Congress, four United States senators, five governors of States, one vice-president of the United States, one justice of the United States Supreme Court, twenty-four circuit judges, state and national, thirty-seven editors, etc. No institution in Kentucky has sent out, year by year, a class of graduates reflecting more credit and honor on their Alma Mater.
Of its distinguished presidents, no other was so long and prominently identified with its history, during the ante-bellum period, as John Clark Young. This distinguished minister and scholar has left the impress of his character and work, as a leading educator, as widely and indelibly upon the educated mind of the present and preceding generations of the South and West as any other man in our history. He was a transplant from Pennsyl- vania to Kentucky, in the year 1828. He had been thoroughly trained in a classical school, Columbia College, in New York city, and graduated in Dickinson College, Pennsylvania; after which he spent four years of study in Princeton Theological Seminary, twice graduating with honors. But two years in Kentucky, he accepted the presidency of Centre College in 1830, and served with that success and favor which have made his name and ad- ministration so much a part of the most attractive features of the peaceful and progressive history of the Commonwealth, until his death in 1857- twenty-seven years. In the year of his death, there were in attendance on the col- lege and its academy two hundred and fifty-two pupils and forty-seven graduates. He was a firm and uniform advocate of emancipation, and signalized his devotion to the cause by his able writings and ad- dresses upon this exciting topic. His style of speaking was most effective from the tenderness, power, and fascination of his appeals to the heart and conscience, in which he excelled, as well as in the freshness, originality, and force of his illustrations and logic. He was always JOHN CLARK YOUNG superior as a public speaker, rising often to the plane of most attractive and pleasing oratory. Few men were more beloved while living, or died more lamented.
It is a fitting tribute to the name and worth of this eminent educator, that his son should succeed to the presidency of this venerable and honored institution. On the death of Dr. Ormond Beatty in 1890, William C.
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CENTRE COLLEGE STILL IN FAVOR.
Young was chosen to the vacancy occasioned thereby. He reluctantly ac- cepted, amid the protests and appeals of the members of the Presbyterian church, in Louisville, to whom he had endeared himself by years of faithful ministry. As president of Centre College, and as a minister of great power and popularity, the mantle of the father is worthily worn by the son.
President Ormond Beatty was born in Mason county, Kentucky, in 1815, and became a student of Centre College in his seventeenth year, graduating in 1835. His rare abilities and proficiency as a student led to his appointment to the professorship of natural science in his Alma Mater be- fore his graduation. He accepted on con- dition that he be allowed to spend a year at Yale College.
From this chair he was transferred. in 1847, to that of mathematics, but in 1852 was restored to his original chair. In 1870. he was elected president of the col- lege and to the chair of metaphysics. His versatile, thorough scholarship enabled him to fill all these positions with ability. Thus, PRESIDENT ORMOND BEATTY. it will be seen that Dr. Beatty acted as president and professor in Centre Col- lege for half a century. He was also, several times appointed commissioner to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and served under ap- pointment of that body and others in positions of highest trust and respon- sibility. He was a delegate to the first general council of the Presbyterian alliance in Edinburgh in 1877, and also to the second meeting of that body in Philadelphia in 1880. In 1882, he was elected the first president of the College Educational Association of Kentucky. In 1883, he represented the trustees of the Theological Seminary at Danville, before the General Assembly at Saratoga, to show reasons for not disturbing the relations and control of that institution.
Dr. Beatty was a man of great natural ability and a profound scholar, pos- sessing a mind singularly logical and practical. A man of remarkably equa- ble temper and a speaker of rare force and clearness. He had few equals as a public debater. His death occurred June 24, 1890.
Though colleges of a high grade have successfully multiplied in the South-west since the civil war. Centre College continues in favor with the patronizing public. In the college and academy for the session of 1884-85, the attendance of students was two hundred and eight.
The financial status of the college is set forth in the report of the finan- cial agent for 1885, as follows: General fund, in bonds, stocks, and notes, in productive real estate, in endowment of the chair of vice-president, and
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
other funds, $189,709; in buildings and grounds, library, apparatus, etc., $70,500 ; total, $260.209.
In May, 1885, the strength and resources of the old Synod of Kentucky are represented in the statistics of the official report of that date, showing three presbyteries, sixty-one ministers, eighty-nine churches, two hundred and forty-four elders, and one hundred and sixty-nine deacons. There were added to the church, on examination, five hundred and twenty-five; on cer- tificates, two hundred and twenty-five, making a total membership of sixty- three hundred and seventy-four. Of baptisms, there were one hundred and ninety-two adults and one hundred and fifty-four infants. There are fifty-two hundred and ninety-eight Sunday-school members. The contributions for the year ending May, 1885, were: For home missions, $6,687; foreign mis- sions, $3,641 ; education. $652 ; publication, $326; church erection, $5,837; relief fund, $638; freedmen. $636; aid to colleges, $6, 189; sustentation, $231; General Assembly, $415; congregational, $99,450, and miscella- neous, $13.354 ; total, $138,056.
1 The Roman Catholic Church, in 1800, had no bishop and but two priests in Kentucky. There were two churches and eleven stations, with a mem- bership of about two thousand. In 1884, the statistics of the church show the Catholics to have two bishops, one hundred and ninety-three priests, two hundred and fourteen churches and chapels, five colleges, fifty-two academies and select schools, one hundred parochial schools, sixteen thousand three hundred and forty-four pupils in charge, nine asylums. four hospitals, and a following of two hundred thousand. The church has preserved a wonderful unity and steadiness throughout the century of its existence, and seems to be solidly and permanently grounded for its work in the future. It has passed through many trials and vicissitudes in this time, but in all these the management of its interests appears to have been in skilled, prudent, and discreet hands. equal to all emergencies. Its greatest shock received was, perhaps, during the " Know Nothing " political movement of 1855, which spent its violent and pro- scriptive force within a year or two in an organized assault upon the foreign ele- ment of the country and the Roman Catholic Church, which embraced the great body of these in its folds. It was an organization against the antecedents and declarations of our republican insti- tutions, and needed but the sober thought of reconsideration to reverse its pur- poses and policy by public sentiment. During the turbulent and violent excite-
BISHOP MARTIN JOHN SPALDING.
x Webb's Catholicity in Kentucky, p. 580.
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SKETCH OF BISHOP SPALDING.
ment which for a brief period characterized its history, while acts of local and personal violence were mutually unavoidable, due credit was given to the leadership of the church for the earnest and co-operative efforts made by it to subdue and restrain from violence and to preserve law and order.
Among the very able and distinguished men who have given themselves to the ministry of the Roman Catholic Church in Kentucky, Right Rev. Martin John Spalding may be said to be pre-eminent in the intermediate period of our State history. He was born near Lebanon, Kentucky, in 1810, of Maryland parentage. He graduated here in 1826, giving marked evidence of his intellectual superiority. The next four years he spent in the diocesan seminary at Bardstown, preparing himself for the priesthood. under the instruction of Bishop David and Rev. Kendrick. In 1830, he set out for Rome, in company with James M. Lancaster, where both entered the renowned College of the Propaganda. After four years of severe study. he passed a most rigid examination, publicly defending two hundred and fifty-six propositions through a critical ordeal of seven hours. He next pre- pared himself for holy orders, and was ordained a sub-deacon on the 3d, a
deacon on the roth, and priest on the 13th of August. He returned home and assumed pastoral charge at Bardstown, and in 1836 became a leading editor of the Catholic Advocate, the organ of the church in Kentucky. In 1838, he was called to the presidency of St. Joseph's College, in which po- sition he served for two years. In 1844, he became vicar-general at Louis- ville, and the same year gave to the public his admirable "Sketches of Pioneer Kentucky," which he had been compiling for some years.
In 1847, Rev. Spalding received from Rome the bull appointing him co- adjutor to Bishop Flaget, in which position he performed the main and active labors of the bishop himself, and succeeded the latter on his death, in 1850. He was an ardent advocate of religious education, and delivered himself of the following pronounced sentiment on the common Catholic objection to common-school education under State auspices : "Education without re- ligion is the body without the soul, the building without the foundation, philosophy without fundamental principles," an utterance of profound sig- nificance, if secular education is entirely without the corresponding provision for religious instruction. Finding the ministerial forces inadequate for the needs of his jurisdiction, the bishop visited and traveled Europe in search of re-enforcing assistants. He succeeded in organizing and extending his work by the introduction from Europe of five ministers of priestly orders. four deacons, and one sub deacon. In 1864, he was installed seventh arch- bishop of Baltimore, in the presence of forty thousand spectators. He con- vened the second plenary council of Baltimore: distinguished himself at the Ecumenical council at the Vatican at Rome in 1869-70; returned to Amer- ica amid many public honors at Baltimore and Washington; during his arch- iepiscopate, erected many new churches, established new schools, founded and endowed new works of charity, and in April, 1872, died, honored and
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
lamented at home and abroad. His chief works of authorship were "Life and Times of Bishop Flaget," "Review of D'Aubigne's History of the Ref- ormation," ". Miscellanea," and "Lectures on the Evidences of Christian- ity."
1 The Methodist Church, with its Arminian sympathies, was deeply agi- tated by the great revival, to which it gave countenance and encouragement. In the earliest decades of the century its pulpits were occupied by some men of marked evangelic power, chief among whom were William McKendree and Learner Blackman. Later, these were re-enforced by Marcus Lindsey. Jona- than Stamper, William McMahon, Will- iam Adams, Samuel Parker, and Henry B. Bascom. Among all, the character and genius of Bascom shone out with greatest luster, in time. He was born in New York, in 1796, and his father im- migrated to Kentucky in 1812, in indi- gent circumstances. After his twelfth year, Henry never attended school; yet, REV. HENRY B. BASCOM. at seventeen, he was licensed to preach, He was of striking and commanding per-
and was appointed to a circuit. sonal appearance, with a fine address. In the pulpit his style was ornate and elegant, and so unlike was he to the ordinary members of the ministry, who went in and out daily among the people, that a prejudice was formed against him which did him great injury and injustice. Wherever he ap- peared in public ministrations, his superior attractions and power absorbed attention. In thought and action he was independent, while always loyal to his church. This gave him a marked individuality and independence of character, and made him subject to annoying oppositions, if not persecu- tions, in the ministry, and lost him, to a large extent, the sympathy of the church, to the interest of which he was sacrificing his life-labors.
He preached successively in the Danville and Madison circuits, Ken- tucky, and at Steubenville, Ohio, when, in 1823, through the influence of Henry Clay, his great admirer, he was elected chaplain to the lower house of Congress. During the intervals between the sessions of Congress. he preached often in the large cities of the East, and with great success and popularity. From 1831, he filled a professorship in Augusta College, Ken- tucky, for ten years, having the degrees of D. D. and LL. D. conferred on him. He served also several years as president of Transylvania University. In 1845, when the organization of the Methodist Church South was deter- mined on, as chairman of the committee on that subject, Dr. Bascom pre-
I Collins, Vol. II., p. 453.
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STATISTICS OF THE METHODIST CHURCH.
pared a very able report, which was approved by the body. In the General Conference of 1846, at Petersburg. Virginia, he was elected editor of the Methodist Quarterly Review, and appointed chairman of the board of commissioners to settle the controversy between the North and South divis- ions. His death occurred September 8, 1850, at Lexington, Kentucky.
In 1820, the total population of Kentucky was 685.049. The member- ship of the Methodist Episcopal Church at the same time was 15.670, about one forty-third of the population being Methodists. In 1830, the population of the State was 854, 194, while the Methodist Church had increased to 28, 189, being in the ratio to the total population of about one to thirty.
In 1860, were reported fifteen districts, embracing one hundred and sev- enty-three circuits and stations, to which one hundred and eighty-three preachers were appointed. The membership was 46, 181 white, and 10,634 colored-an increase since 1850 of 11.584.
In 1870, were reported eighteen districts, embracing two hundred and thirteen circuits and stations, to which two hundred and thirty-five preachers were appointed. The membership was 45,522 white, and four hundred and eighty-seven colored. '
The statistics thus far show the numerical strength of the Methodist Epis- copal Church South. During this decade, the colored Methodists were set off into a separate organization, which accounts for the apparent decrease in their membership.
The reports for 1891 show the membership of the Southern church to be 72,242 whites, and ninety colored ; total, 72,332. Of the Northern Methodist Church, there were reported for the year 1885, 17,975 full mem- bers, and 2,378 probationers, one hundred and fifty-two local preachers, two hundred and twenty-one churches, one hundred and forty-eight Sunday- schools, and 1,214 teachers and 8,661 scholars in the same. Besides these. the latest statistics give over thirteen thousand colored members in different organizations.
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