USA > New Jersey > The New Jersey coast in three centuries; history of the New Jersey coast with genealogical and historic-biographical appendix, Vol. I > Part 34
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The Rev. Samuel Finley was the unanimous choice of the Trustees as the succeeding President, at an election held May 31, 1761. He was a native of Ireland, of Scotch parentage. He came to America when nine- teen years of age and here he was prepared for the ministry. He had been for ten years an active member of the Board of Trustees, and he was en- tirely conversant with the condition and needs of the college, and he had successfully conducted another school, the Nottingham Academy, in Mary- land. During his Presidency of five years (his death occurring July 17, 1766), the college prospered beyond all previous experience. The in-
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crease in number of students was constant, and in 1765, the last com- mencement prior to the death of President Finley, thirty-one students re- ceived the first degree in Arts, and eleven were made Masters. The cur- riculum was broadened, and two additional tutors were employed. Among- those serving at this time in that capacity were Samuel Blair and the sec- ond Jonathan Edwards, both of whom became college Presidents, the one- of the College of New Jersey and the other of Union College. It is to be- here remarked that until the succeeding administration there were no pro- fessorships.
As a teacher, Mr. Finley was a man of surpassing ability. One of his students (the Rev. Dr. John Woodhull, of Monmouth county), said "his learning was very extensive. Every branch of study appeared to be familiar to him. Among other things he taught Latin, Greek and Hebrew in the senior year. He was greatly beloved and highly respected by the students, and had very little difficulty in governing the college." His deathe was undoubtedly hastened by his unremitting attention to his college duties. He was the fifth President to pass away during the first twenty years of the existence of the college, and these quickly succeeding events. exerted a depressing effect upon the friends of the institution.
After the death of President Finley, the Trustees undertook the task of placing the school upon a complete collegiate footing by the creation of professorships. John Blair, a native of Ireland, who was educated at the "Log College," and became, as was said by Dr. Archibald Alexander, "a theologian not inferior to any man in the Presbyterian Church in his- day," was made Professor of Divinity and Morality, and was placed in charge of the college in the capacity of Vice-President. Jonathan Edwards; (son of the late President Edwards) who was a tutor in the college, was made Professor of Languages and Logic, and Dr. Hugh Williamson, of Philadelphia, was made Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy.
In the meantime, Richard Stockton, a member of the Board of Trus- tees, who was then in England, was authorized to invite to the Presidency- the Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, of Paisley, Scotland. This call was de- clined, and the Trustees elected the Rev. Samuel Blair, who was a grad- uate of the college, in which he had served as tutor for three years. He was a teacher and preacher of great ability, and withal a man of surpassing- beauty and strength of character. He accepted the proffered position, but placed his declination in the hands of one of the Trustees, to take effect in the event of Dr. Witherspoon being persuaded to reconsider his de- termination, in full knowledge of the great desirability of engaging that eminent man should it be at all possible. More urgent appeals were made to the latter named, who finally accepted the call, Mr. Blair's resignation
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having been previously given effect as arranged. Dr. Witherspoon ar- rived in America on August 6, 1768, and on the 17th day of the same month he was installed as the sixth President of the College of New Jersey.
Following a goodly class of men, some of them of great ability and widely influential, Dr. Witherspoon was endowed by nature with those traits of character which shone resplendently in a crucial time. He had held a position of acknowledged eminence in the Scotch Church, and his high reputation brought great prestige to the college. But the institution was hampered for want of means-so much so that it was found expedient to procure and accept the resignation of Mr. Blair as Professor of Di- vinity and impose his duties upon the new President, who also delivered lectures in other departments, and also taught Hebrew and French to some of the students. It has been said that probably no contemporary teacher in America was more successful in impressing upon the thought of his stu- dents the great features of the system of philosophy which he expounded. He also bore a large share of the effort to provide means for the main- tenance of the college, and he made several journeys into New England to solicit subscriptions, in which missions his success was gratifying. He secured considerable sums for endowment purposes, increased the teach- ing force, broadened the curriculum, and succeeded in attracting a larger number of students and from a wider area than ever before. Other large plans he had for adding to the efficiency of the college, but political affairs. were rapidly approaching a crisis and were soon to paralyze, in large measure, all educational establishments. Hostile armies were to camp on either side of the college, its campus was to be the scene of carnage, and its. halls were to become the barracks of armed men. Treasured mementoes of those days and those scenes are two cannon which were used in the bat- tle at Princeton, and now point over the college grounds. During the months when Princeton was the temporary seat of government, the Con- gress held its sessions in the library room of the college, and the dormi- tories were used as committee rooms. In 1783 the commencement exer- cises were witnessed by Washington, then Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary army, accompanied by a brilliant array of army officers and foreign ministers, and in this room is now a portrait of that great soldier, painted at his own expense, by the artist Peale.
A devout christian, a conscientious minister and teacher, Dr. Wither- spoon was also a thorough American and patriot. In full sympathy with the struggle for independence, he aided it with his voice and pen, and en- couraged the students in their patriotic utterances, even if he were obliged to disband their societies at one time when their fervor led them to excess. of rivalry between themselves.
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Dr. Witherspoon presided at the commencement in 1794, on Septem- ber 23d, and he died on November 15th following. He had served with signal usefulness for twenty-six years-a period exceeding the combined years of service of his five predecessors. During his administration had been graduated the largest class of the eighteenth century. Before his coming had been educated within the walls of the College of New Jersey many who had become famous in military life during the Revolutionary war, in congressional and legislative assemblages during the same period, in the learned professions and in business affairs. Considering the num- bers and careers of his graduates, upon whom he set the seal of his per- sonality, and whose heart thoughts and motives were in some degree a reflection of his own, the administration of President Witherspoon was surpassingly illustrious. Under him were graduated one who became President of the United States, one who became Vice-President, three who became Judges of the United States Supreme Court, and others- thirteen Governors of States, six delegates to the Continental Congress, twenty United States Senators, twenty-four Representatives, and thirteen college Presidents. Of one so noble, so useful, well may it be said :
"Servant of God, well done! They serve Him well who serve His creatures."
Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith, who had been Vice-President for the previous six years, succeeded to the Presidency in 1795. He was a native of Pennsylvania, and he was the first graduate of the college to be called to its headship. One of his first acts was to create the Professorship of Chemistry-the first in any college in the United States-and the first to occupy its chair was John Maclean, a native of Scotland, and a graduate of Glasgow University. Professor Maclean's work attracted wide atten- tion, and it is of interest to know that Benjamin Silliman, who became the first Professor of Chemistry in Yale College, was aided greatly by him in his preparation for the field which he came to fill so worthily.
The college had been greatly impoverished during the Revolutionary War-its treasury was depleted, its buildings were seriously damaged, and its library and apparatus were scattered or destroyed. In this emer- gency the State made an appropriation of six hundred pounds, proclama- tion money, annually for a period of three years, to repair the material losses. In 1802 the interior of the college building was completely destroyed by fire. An appeal was made to the people of the United States, and subscriptions amounting to forty thousand dollars were procured for rebuilding and endowment purposes.
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During all these years the college had been dominated largely by Pres- byterian influences, to which it was indebted in large degree for its sup- port. This led to overtures from the General Assembly of the Presby- terian Church looking to the establishment of a theological seminary which should be so intimately associated with the college as to ultimately com- bine the two institutions in one. The plan was abandoned as inexpedient,. but both parties concurred in the conclusion that it would be well to es- tablish the theological seminary in close proximity to the college, in which event the latter would not establish a chair of theology. Thus the college retained its freedom from ecclesiastical authority, and the pro- posed theological seminary (in 1812) entered upon an independent exist- ence.
President Smith resigned in 1812, after occupying his chair for sev- enteen years. During this period he had given training to many who be- came noted in public life-a Vice-President of the United States, two Pres- idents of the United States, nine United States Senators and twenty-five Representatives, four Cabinet officers, five Ministers to foreign courts, eight Governors of States, thirty-four Judges and Chancellors, and twenty- one Presidents of colleges or college professors.
Dr. Ashbel Green, another graduate of the college, which he had served as Trustee, tutor and professor, was called to the Presidency on the retirement of President Smith. He was an able divine of the Presby- terian faith, and he was greatly instrumental in the establishment of his. denomination in America upon a platform of the broadest religious liberty. His son, Dr. Jacob Green, was (in 1818) called to the new chair of Experi- mental Philosophy, Chemistry and Natural History, and servell until the fa- ther resigned, on account of ill health, in 1822.
Dr. John H. Rice, a Presbyterian clergyman of Richmond, Virginia, was elected President, but he declined, and the college was temporarily conducted by Vice-President Lindsley, who also declined an election to the headship.
The Rev. James Carnahan, a graduate of the college, was then chosen,. and his administration was destined to cover the phenomenal period of thirty-one years (exceeding in duration that of any of his predecessors), and terminating with his resignation in 1853. He was inducted to office in troublous times, when students were few in number, and the Trustees were at variance as to administrative policies. His influence and labors were most salutary, and the history of the college during the years of his service is of rare interest. The curriculum was extended, new chairs were created, and the number of students was materially increased. In the decade beginning in 1829 the number had grown from seventy to two hun-
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dred and seventy. In the grand summing up, Dr. Carnahan admitted six- teen hundred and seventy-seven students to the first degree of the arts (an annual average of more than fifty-four), a larger number than had been graduated during the administrations of all his predecessors. Among. these were many who came to occupy distinguished positions-eight United States Senators and twenty-six Representatives, four Cabinet mem- bers, seventy-three Presidents or Professors in colleges and academies, and a great number of eminent professional nien.
Under President Carnahan, several new chairs were established, and the faculty included at various times such accomplished teachers as Pro- fessor Maclean, Ancient Languages and Literature; Professor Dod, Math- ematics; Professor Vethake, Natural Philosophy; Professor Torrey, Chem- istry and Natural History; Professor Howell, Anatomy and Physiology; Professor Hargous, Modern Languages; Mr. Alexander, Adjunct Profes- sor of Ancient Languages and Literature; Joseph Henry, Natural Philo- sophy; James W. Alexander, Belle Lettres; Stephen Alexander, Astron- omy; Arnold Guyot, Geology and Physical Geography, and others. For two years a law class was maintained, but conditions were not favorable to professional schools, and it was discontinued.
Two notable organizations had their founding under Dr. Carnahan's administration-the Philadelphia Society and the Alumni Association, both in 1826. The former named was in its day what the Young Men's Christian Association now is, and it was the first of that character in con- nection with any college in the United States. The Alumni Association was the first of the College of New Jersey, and its first President was James Madison, of Virginia.
The same period was one of great activity in the work of material bet- terments. Two dormitories were built-the East College in 1833 and the West College in 1836. These were four stories in height, built of stone, with brick partitions and iron stairways, and cost nearly $14,000 each. Two of the college societies were provided with halls which were not only well designed for their purpose, but were gems of architectural art. Whig Hall was in Ionic style, modeled in design after the temple of Dionysius, in the city of Zeus, with hexastyle porticos adorned with columns copied after those of an Athenian temple. Clio Hall, the other building, was similar in design.
President Carnahan was succeeded by Dr. John Maclean, a native of Princeton, a graduate of the college, and the son of the first Professor of Chemistry in that institution. After teaching in an academy at Lawrence- ville for two years, he became connected with the faculty of his alma mater, with which he served uninterruptedly until his election to the Presi-
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dency. He entered upon the latter named position in 1854, and his ad- ministration covered a period of fourteen years, closing with his resigna- tion in 1868. With his previous service as tutor and professor, his active connection with the college had extended over a full half century.
He entered upon the duties of President at an unpropitious time, and difficulties increased with the following years. In the first year of his Presidency the college building was a second time destroyed (interiorly) by fire. This loss was scarcely repaired when the great financial panic of 1857 swept over the country, and for the time ended all effort toward se- curing further endowment. Then ensued a long period of financial de- pression, followed immediately by the beginning of the Civil War. In spite of all these untoward circumstances and discouragements, Dr. Mac- lean accomplished a magnificent work. With the aid of his colleagues (particularly Dr. Matthew B. Hope and Dr. Lyman H. Atwater) he was able to acquire considerable permanent funds for the college, in the ag- gregate about $450,000-an amount probably exceeding all which had been contributed from its founding down to the beginning of his adminis- tration, a period of not much less than a century.
In point of number of students the college was greatly benefited. When Dr. Maclean came to the Presidency the number enrolled was two hundred and forty-seven. . Notwithstanding the discouraging conditions previously mentioned, this number had been increased to three hundred and fourteen when the Civil War began in 1861. In that year the graduat- ing class would have numbered nearly one hundred, had it not been for the exodus of young men who laid down their books to take a part in the strife then just opening. At that time the college contained students fromn twenty-six of the thirty-one States of the Union, and more than one-third of the whole number were from the South. The war carried away to the field practically all the young men of physical ability of the age of eighteen years, and in 1868, three years after the restoration of peace, the number of students enrolled at the opening session was but one hundred and seven- teen.
James McCosh became President in 1868, and he served for twenty years, resigning in 1888. His life history is of really romantic interest, and its telling were worthy the pen of a Walter Scott.
He was a son of Scotia, born near Ayr, the home of the ploughman bard, and there lie began his education in a small school. When thirteen year old he entered the University of Glasgow, in which he was a student for five years. He then entered the University of Edinburgh, where he had as tutors the eminent theologians Thomas Chalmers and David Welsh, and the great philosophical teacher, Sir William Hamilton. In 1835, when
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twenty-four years of age, he was made a licentiate under the Established Church of Scotland, and the same year he became minister at Arbroath,. famous as Fairport in Sir Walter Scott's "Antiquary." In 1838 he was. appointed by the crown to a large church in Brechin, and he gathered into his fold congregations to the number of fourteen hundred souls. In 1843. the ecclesiastical-political conditions impelled him to resign his living, and he organized more than eight hundred of his parishioners into a Free Church. Not much later he began work as a writer upon philosophical and meta- physical themes. His writings brought him into notice, and in 1852 he accepted the chair of Logic and Metaphysics in the newly founded Queen's. College, in Belfast, Ireland, and this marked the beginning of a more brilliant career as a class-room lecturer and author. The eminent value of his thought is at once evidenced by the glowing encomiums of Chal- mers, Guthrie, Hugh Miller, Sir William Hamilton, Dean Mansel, the Duke of Argyll and Mr. Gladstone, and by the criticisms of John Stuart Mill, the rasping comment of Ruskin, and the genial humor of Thackeray ..
In 1866 Dr. McCosh made a visit to the United States. Two years later he was called to the Presidency of Princeton College (as it had now generally come to be known), and he entered upon his duties the same year. The conditions at his coming have been, in part, previously referred to in connection with the close of Dr. Maclean's administration. It need only to be here said that the college had not recovered from the war-time paralyzation-the faculty numbered sixteen, and there were two hundred and fifty students, and scholarship and discipline were on a comparatively low plane. The coming of President McCosh wrought an immediate change. Faculty and students sprang into new life through the magnetic stimulus he imparted, and the work of improvement which began imme- diately continued until his retirement. The printed narrative can not af- ford adequate idea of the effect of his wonderful personality upon the minds. and souls of his associate teachers and the students over whom they were. placed-the only story can be told is of those accomplishments which ap- pear in statistics.
At the time of President McCosh's retirement, the faculty had in- creased from sixteen members to forty-three (many of these being Prince- ton graduates), and the number of students had been more than doubled. The curriculum was revised and modernized, and the entire corps of teach- ers and students developed a hitherto unknown mentality and morale. The college acquired such prestige as to command the attention and ad- miration of the most distinguished men, and such notables as President Grant, the German professors Dorner and Christlieb, the French historian Froude, the Duke of Argyll and Matthew Arnold, were well pleased to be-
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among its visitors. The utility of the instruction given during these years finds eloquent attestation in the fact that nearly one hundred and twenty of Dr. McCosh's pupils subsequently devoted their effort to the cause of higher education, and that twenty-four of their number at one time occu- pied faculty positions under his successor in the college headship. The material improvements made during the administration of Dr. McCosh are mentioned elsewhere.
Dr. Cosh maintained his affectionate interest in the college to the last, but never interfered with its conduct. His eightieth birthday oc- curred April 1, 1891, and the college and community made him a kindly visit. He was the most conspicuous and most honored figure at the Inter- national Congress of Education held in connection with the World's Ex- position in Chicago, in July, 1893, and this may be said to have been his last public appearance. His death occurred November 16th of the fol- lowing year, and he preserved all his mental faculties to the last.
The successor of Dr. McCosh was the Rev. Dr. Francis Landey Pat- ton. He was born in Bermuda, of Scotch and English ancestry. He re- ceived his literary education in the University of Toronto, Canada, and pursued his theological course in the Princeton ( New Jersey) ) Theologi- cal Seminary, from which he was graduated when twenty-two years of age. He was engaged in the ministry until 1870, when he became a mem- ber of the faculty of McCormick Seminary, Chicago, Illinois, with which he was connected for nine years, during a portion of the time also preach- ing and acting as editor of the "Interior." From 1881 to 1888 he was a member of the faculty of the Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, from which he was called in the year last mentioned to the Presi- dency of Princeton University. As an administrator of college affairs President Patton demonstrated unusual ability-a fact quite remarkable, when it is considered that his great strength as a scholar and teacher lies. in theological lines-pursuits which frequently unfit men for more practical. duties.
President Patton resigned June 9, 1902, desiring to have larger op- portunity for pursuing literary work. He retained, however, his chair as . Professor of Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion.
His successor was immediately chosen in the person of Professor Woodrow Wilson, a native of Virginia, and a graduate of Princeton. In 1886 he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from John Hopkins University, and in 1887 the degree of Doctor of Laws from Wake Forest College, North Carolina. In 1888 he was elected to the chair of History and Political Economy in Wesleyan University, and in 1890 he became Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy in Princeton Univer-
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sity. He has written several volumes and numerous magazine articles on topics pertaining to political science.
The retirement of President Patton and the inauguration of Presi- dent Wilson marks the end of one remarkable regime and the beginning of another whose trend is most significant and pregnant with wonderful possibilities. Until this event, the college management had been vested in an unbroken line of theologians inheriting the traditions and firmly founded in the faith of Presbyterianism. They were men of splendid at- tainments and strong traits of individual character, and the impress they left upon the minds and character of their thousands of students during more than one and one-half centuries was nothing but salutary. But stand- ards had been slowly and surely changing through all these years, and the- clogical dogma had come to take second place after a vital and active con- ception of practical Christianity. Christian principles had become identified with and made a part of all that enters into the world's work, whether in education, in political science or in business life. In a way this was to the disparagement of theology and of theological teachers. Yet this disparagement was more apparent than real. Christianity in its more practical manifestations had not brought down the pulpit or degraded the minister-it had brought humanity upward and into closer relations, into deeper sympathy and community of interest and effort, with the minister. And so came about appreciation of the fact that all conscientious workers, of whatever calling, are engaged in the Master's business-that of making men wiser and better-and that all who were capable and conscientious ivere equally commissioned to engage in that business. And, at the same time, another truth came to be acknowledged -- that the scholarship of the world had so broadened that learning was not restricted to those of any one calling, and this was a departure from the old traditions that the clergy- man was the one highly educated man in his community, and that he was, because of this, stamped above all others as the guide and instructor of youth. It only remains to be said that in this development of ideas there was no crusade directed against the clergyman-as a matter of fact, save in a very few instances, he was among the leaders in advanced thought and action, as in the case of President Patton, who voluntarily stepped aside to aid in the substitution of a non-clerical for a ministerial teacher in one of the most conservative collegiate institutions in the country, one which had clung longest to the old traditions and manner of conduct.
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