USA > Ohio > Butler County > A history and biographical cyclopaedia of Butler County, Ohio, with illustrations and sketches of its representative men and pioneers. Vol. 1 > Part 17
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Second Session .- Natural and Experimental Philosophy. Virgil's Georgies, Horace de Arte Poetica, Græca Majera continued, Translation from Greck into Latin and from Latin into Greek, Tytler's Elements finished, Hebrew Grammar, Jamison's Grammar of Rhetoric, Composition, Declamation and Bible recitations.
V. THE SENIOR CLASS STUDY .- First Session .-- Moral Philosophy including the Philosophy of the mind, Astrou- omy, Chemistry, Graca Majora finished, Cicero de Om- tore, Latin and Greek compositions, Hebrew Bible begun, Declanattion and Bible recitations.
Second Session,-Logie, Say's Political Economy, Cicero de Officiis et de Natura Derum, Select portions of Green Majora revised, Hebrew Bible continned, Evidences of Divine Revelation, Declamation and Bible recitations.
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HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTI.
VI. ENGLISH SCIENTIFIC DEPARTMENT .-- The stadies of the English Scientifie Department are substantially the same with the studies of the College Classes, with the exception of the Latin and Greek languages. No. person can be admitted into this department who is under six- teen years of age; and to profit by admission, arrange- ments ought to be made so that each student may con- tinne two years at least. It is intended to have some of the modern languages taught in this department, and to give regular diplomas to those who may study the whole course.
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. - A small but well-selected philosophical and chemical apparatus has been imported from London. Additional articles will be procured as the state of the institution may demand; a small sum is also permanently appropriated to procure regularly. for the use of the faculty, a few of the most important literary journals and any new work which may be of more than ordinary interest in any of the departments of science.
The first commencement will be on the last Wednes- day of September next, when the degree of A. B. will be conferred on the members of the present Senior Class.
With the commencement of the third year, on the first Monday of November next, it is proposed to form a regular class of resident graduates. The studies of this class will embrace a course of general reading, adapted to the profession to which the members may be individually devoted, and to a review of any of their former studies to which they may be peculiarly attached.
No degree of A. M., or of any kind, will, in any case, be conferred as a mere matter of course. Particular attainments and a character corresponding to these attain- ments will, in every case, be required.
. ExPENSEs. -- Tuition in Grammar School and in First Class E. S. Department, $5 per session ; College proper and Second aud Third Classes E. S. Department, $10 per session ; boarding, one dollar per week.
To those parents and guardians who have thus far encouraged an infant institution, those who have the more immediate direction of its concerns teuder their sineere and grateful acknowledgements; and trusting in the con- tinued protection of a wise and good Providence, assur- ance is hereby given that every possible exertion will be made to make the Miami University, in all its depart- ments, a public and common good.
PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITY.
MARCH, 30, 1825, William Sparrow was appointed professor of languages, but afterward declined entering : upon the duties of his office, aud his place was supplied by John T. Williston. The trustees resolved that a :
grammar school should be attached to the college, and appointed Mr. Williston principal, with a salary of $500.
March 28, 1827, the salaries of the officers were established as follows: President of the university, $1,200; professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, 8800: profes-or of languages, $700.
March 28, 1827, James Crawford was appointed treasurer, and James Ratliff collector.
March 26, 1828, it was resolved that a building, one hundred feet in length by forty feet wide, and three stories high, be erected for the university, according to a plan then exhibited, and that Messrs. MeBride, Reily; and MaeDill be a committee to contract and superintend its erection.
On the twenty-third day of April they contracted with David Richey to execute the stone and brick-work and plastering of the building, and with William P. Vanhook, of Hamilton, for the carpenter-work.
September 24, 1828, it was resolved that John E. Annan be dismissed as professor.
March 25, 1829, John W. Scott was appointed pro- fessor of mathematics and natural philosophy, and Will- iam F. Ferguson principal of the grammar school, at a salary of $400.
In September the building committee reported that they had erected a brick building, set on a good storie foundation, one hundred feet long by forty fest wide, and three stories high, each story or floor having two balls and eight rooms, situated directly east from the main building. The whole cost of ereeting and completing the building, including cost of materials, was $7,147. 46.
In September, 1826. an allowance of $150 per annum was made for teaching the French and Spanish languages.
In November, 1827, Robert C. Schenck, a graduate of the college, and since the general and statesman, commenced teaching French, and continued the regular teacher of that language until September, 1830, when he left the institution.
February 23, 1831, th. sakury of the principal of the grammar school was raised to 8500.
September 26, 1832, the professorship held by Mr. Scott was denominated the professorship of natural phil- osophy and chemistry, and the professorship held by Mr. MeGaffey was called the professorship of philology and mental science, with a salary of 8850 each. Samuel V. MeCracken was appointed professor of mathematics, and Thomas Armstrong professor of languages, with a stlary of $500 each :.
In 1833 it was thought necessary that an additional building should be erected for the accommodation of the students of the university, and Major James Galloway, Dr. John C. Duulevy, and James M. Bride were appointed a committee to contract for the erection and completion of a building one hundred feet in length by ferty fert wide, three stories high, having a passage of hell running north and south through the building, the residus to be
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PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITY.
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divided into rooms about ten feet wide. The tuition fees of the students in the college department were raised to twelve dollars per session, and in the grammar school to ten dollars per session.
The building committee, at the next meeting, reported that they had contracted with Thomas Brown, of Dayton, for the stone and brick, and liying the same, and for plastering the building, and with Thomas Morrison, of the same place, for the wood and carpenter work.
October 1, 1835, Samuel W. McCracken was ap- pointed professor of languages, in the room of Thomas Armstrong, deceased, with a salary of $600 per annum, and Albert T. Bledsoe, of Kentucky, professor of lan- guages. A lot of ground, about one acre, was directed to be laid off, in the north-east corner of the town square of Oxford, and appropriated exclusively for a cemetery or burying-ground for the students and other members of the Miami University.
March 30, 1836, Jonathan Mayhew was appointed treasurer.
In September, 1836, the resignations of Professor Al- bert T. Bledsoe and Professor W. H. MeGuffey were received. The salaries of professors were fixed as fol- lows: The professor of rhetoric and mental science, at $1,000; the professor of natural philosophy and chem- istry, $1,000; the professor of mathematics, 8800; and the professor of ancient languages, 8800. It was resolved that the college year should commence on the first Mon- day of October and endl on the second Tuesday of August, with a recess from the twenty-fourth of December to the second of January ; the Spring vacation to be three weeks immediately following the second Tuesday in March.
September 28, 1336, Johu H. Harney was appointed professor of mathematics, and Samuel T. Pressley professor of rhetoric and mental science.
December 21, 1836, the Rev. Mr. Pressley having deceased previous to his acceptance of the professorship of rhetoric and mental science, and Mr. Harney having de lined to accept his appointment, Silas Totten was chosen professor of rhetoric and mental science.
March 8, 1837, Messrs. MeBride and J. W. Scott were appointed a committee to erect a building for a laborator".
August 10, 1837, the committee for building the laboratory reported that they had made a contract for a buikting forty-four feet long by twenty-four feet wide, one story high, to be completed by the first of October, 1837, for $1,250.
August 10, 1837, Jobn Me Arthur was appointed pro- fessor of Grecian literature, rhetoric, and the elements of moral science ; Chauncey N. Olds was appointed professor of the Latin language and Roman literature. .
August 9, 1838, the salary of the professor of the Latin language and Roman literature was fixed at 8700, and the master of the grammar school at $700. Peter Satten was elected treasurer ..
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August 8, 1839, the price of tuition in the college proper was fixed at fifteen dollars per session, and in the grammar school at twelve dollars per annum.
August 12, 1840, the resignation of Chauncey N. Olds, professor of the Latin language and Roman litera- ture, and the resignation of Samuel W. McCraeken, pro- fessor of mathematics and civil engineering, were accepted. The Rev. Robert H. Bishop, president of the Miami Uni- versity, having signified his intention of retiring from the presidency as soon as a successor to supply his place could be found, the board elected the Rev. John C. Young, then president of Center College, Kentucky, at Danville, president of the Miami University. The board created the professorship of history and political economy, and appointed the Rev. Robert H. Bishop to fill that chair, for which he was to receive a salary of $650 per year, and a house and garden free of rent. The following resolution, complimentary to Dr. Bishop, was passed : " Resolved, That as the unanimous sense of this board, the able, faithful, and unremitting labors of President. Bishop in the discharge of his official duties as presiding officer of the Miami University for the last sixteen years, and the untiring exertions upon his part during that time to maintain for the institution the high reputation which has been so laboriously acquired for it throughout that period entitle him to the grateful memory of every friend of learning and moral virtue, as well as the warmest thanks upon the part of the patrons and supporters of this institution."
August 13, 1840, John Armstrong was appointed professor of mathematics and civil engineering, and John MeArthur, professor of Grecian literature aud rhetoric. The salary of John C. Young, president-elect, should he accept, was fixed at $1.500 per annum.
November 3, 1840, it was resolved that the professor- ships of Roman and Grecian literature be united into one professorship, to be called the professorship of ancient languages, and that John Me.Arthur, the present pro- fessor of Grecian literature, be appointed to the profess- orship of that department, with his present salary of $800 per year. Robert H. Bishop, Jr., was appointed principal of the grammar school. It having been aseer- tained that the Rev. J. C. Young declined accepting the office to which he was elected at the last meeting, the Rev. George Junkin, of Lafayette College, Easton, Penn- sylvania, was elected president.
March 9, 1841. J. C. Moffat, of Lafayette College, at Easton, Pennsylvania, was appointed professor of the Latin language and Roman literature, with a salary of 8700.
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August 11, 1841, the Rev. George Junkin was in- augurated president of the Miami University. The salary of the professor of history and political science was fixed at $750.
We have not thought it expedient to continue our extracts from the records, as the period dans closer to
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HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY.
our tunes. The earlier decades were those of poverty and adversity, and their record is full of interest and encouragement.
We have received from Dr. Scott, for seventeen years a professor in this institution, the following account of the Miami University while he was connected with it, and of the causes that led to his withdrawal. Dr. Scott wields a caustie pen, and sets forth his own side of the question with a freedom and fullness that leave nothing to be- desired on that score. Elsewhere will be found his biography :
"I went to Oxford, by invitation of the board of trustees of Miami University, to the professorship of mathematics and natural science, made vacant by the re- tirement, on account of broken-down health, of Professor Annan, in the Fall of 1828. Every thing there pre- sented, at that time, a rather primitive and rude ap- pearance. The buildings of the town were limited, with but two or three exceptions, to the space bounded on the east by the street that forms the west boundary of the college campus; on the west, by the street running north and south in front of the building erected for a female institute ; on the north, by the street running past the Presbyterian and the United Presbyterian churches ; and on the south, by the street forming the south bound- ary of the college campus and grove. The campus, which was mainly a naked and open common, in which many of the stumps were still standing, was unprotected by any kind of inclosure, and the grove was still in the primitive state of nature. The plat of land south of the town was principally, except during the Summer and early Fall months, a rich, fat mornes, through the eastern end of which, when at all passable, the citizens used to shorten distance by winding their way, among the stumps and fallen timber, to the Hamilton road, at the south-east corner of the corporation line.
the university. There was, at the early day of the first settlement, a strong prejudice in the minds of emigrants of means, who were able to purchase their lands in fee simple, against holding them on the tenure of a more lease, liable at the end of any year to forfeiture and sale without redemption, in case the rent or tax was not paid within three months after due. The consequence was, they would turn aside and purchase elsewhere, while any poor penniless wight, who could not pay for land outright, found it rather a temptation to take a lease and settle upon it for a few years, and if he could only make out to keep his six per cent of college rent paid up, and was worthless and unprincipled enough to do so, turn in to cutting and slashing away at the timber, and making all he could off of the land, without regard to its residual or ultimate value, as was said, in certain cases, to have been done'; and then if he had any eye to accumulation of means, all he had to do was to forfeit, and leave the land in its denuded and depreciated condition, and go farther West to make the best of his ill-gotten gains. If he did not care to accumulate, but speut as fast as he made, he would continue to remain the same poor, shiftless, pen- niless creature as before.
"The result was that the township, at the first sales, became largely filled up with a poor, and in too many cases not very honest, population ; indeed, at an early day of the settlement it ahnost passed into a common saying that if any property was lost in any of the adjoining townships it was but necessary for the loser to obtain a search-warrant and go over into Oxford Township, and he would find it. This was, of course, an exaggerated report, and yet there is reason to apprehend that the character and conduct of too many of the early settlers afforded too much ground for its currency. This state of public feeling and opinion may be illustrated by an amusing aneedote.
"With the exception of the college buildings, which " At the inauguration of Dr. Bishop as president of the university, the duty of making the inauguration prayer was assigned to the venerable Rev. Mr. Porter, a member of the board. In the course of his prayer-as I was toll years after by a very respectable oldl Scotch-Irish Presby- terian elder, a citizen of the township, who was present on the occasion -- the old father made allusion, in some manner or form, to the reputed state of society in the .. township-praying for a change. by which the college might be surrounded by more favorable influences. My informaut told me that the next day he met another old Scotch-Trish friend and neighbor, just over the line in an adjoining township, a rather quizzical genius, who had also beeu present at the inauguration, who asked him, ' Did you iver hear sich a foolish prayer as Father Porter made visterday at Oxford." . Why do you call it tool- ish?' he answered. . Faith,' said he, 'and I think it was the foolishest prayer I iver hard in me life. Why, he prayed the Lard that he wad move aff all that :if'ratt consisted of the great, tall, uncouth old center building and its disproportioned little western wing (which has since been enlarged and improved), and the uorth-east building, which had just been erected, I have a recollec- tion of but five or six brick houses in the town. Such was something of the physical appearance and condition of things at that day. In regard to the social condition, the mass of the population was correspondingly primitive. Apart from the college faculty, the cultivation and re- finement of Oxford was confined to a very small number of families, not exceeding six or eight at most, and the proportion in the surrounding township was, perhaps, very much the same. The manner in which the farming lands of the township were disposed of was not favorable to its settling up with a first-class farming population; namely, on a mere lenschold title, for which no purchase money was paid, but which was held on the condition of the payment, annually, of the interest of the nomina! price, at six per cent forever, as a permanent revenue for the support of | population from Oxford Township, and fill it up wi a
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good population. He might better have praved the Lard to convart them on the ground, and save the movin'.'
"In process of time, however, by industry, thrift, and intellectual, moral, and religious culture, Oxford Town- ship nobly redeemed her character; although, even at as late a day as when I arrived there, an element of the old rude, disorderly, intemperate, and vicious pioneer population, so characteristic of an earlier day, still re- mained, who would occasionally, of a Saturday afternoon and evening, collect together at a low groggery or two in the village, called (by grace) hotels, to drink and ca- rouse, and to disturb the quiet and orderly citizens by ' making night hideous' with their noisy and drunken orgies, brawls, and fights." " All this state of things, however, at length passed away. But I have, by this episode on the social and physical state of Oxford and Oxford Township, and their inhabitants, been diverted from the main subject; namely, the early history of the college.
"I went to Oxford, as I have already stated, in the Fall of 1828. The college had then been in existence just four years. True, there had been an academy or clas- sical and high school commenced, as a foundation or incipient step towards the establishment of a college ser- eral years previous, in the little old west wing of the main, or, as it was called, the center building. That great tall uncouth edifice was erected, I believe, in 1820-21, but the university was not organized in regular college form until the Fall of 1824, when the Rev. Dr. Bishop was in- augurated as its first president. It commenced operations with a faculty of three, the doctor as president and pro- fessor of all the branches of intellectual, moral and politi- cal science; John E. Annan, professor of mathematics and natural science, and William Sparrow, professor of languages.
" In 1826 Professor Sparrow, who seems to have been a very popular and successful professor, resigned, and de- voted himself to the Episcopal ministry. He afterwards, if mistake not, was connected as a professor with a the- ological seminary at Alexandria, Virginia. His place was supplied by the election of William HI. MeGutley. a graduate of Washington College, Pennsylvania, who afterward acquired a considerable celebrity as the com- piler of a series of English readers for the ' Eclectic dys- tom of Books for Common Schools.' He was a man of very considerable talent, though not of very general scholarship. especially in the departments of mathematics and natural science ; of active mind and fond of abstract and metaphysical investigation and discussion; an in- genious and plausible, but not always a fair and safe reasoner; a very popular lecturer and public speaker, from his fluency and command of language, though never rising to the higher and bolder flights of oratory; a man withal of a good deal of personal vanity and ambition.
"In the Summer of 1828 the health of Professor Annan failed to such a degree that he was obliged to
retire, and I succeeded to his place. He afterwards recovered his health so far as to enter the Presbyterian ministry, and preach for a year or two to a Church in Petersburg, Virginia, but died while yet a very young man. He was reputed a man of a high grade of natural talent, and of large and general attainments in scholar- ship for one of his age, and had he lived would have doubtless made his mark in the literary and scientific world; but on account of real or apparent rigidity and stiffness of manner, he does not seem to have been very popular as a professor.
"During the first four years of its existence the insti- tution seems to have flourishel very much in publie pop- ularity and patronage, the number of students having risen from a comparatively very small number to very well up towards one hundred. It might be observed that the grade of scholarship for a diploma was set high (the full curriculum was patterned very much after that of Yale); and in its pahniest days, which were from 1830 till near 1840, when its number of students rose some years to near two hundred and fifty, it obtained from its alumini, patrons, and friends, the soubriquet of 'the Yale of the West.'
"In 1832 the board were encouraged to increase the number of the faculty, by the addition of two new mem- bers. My professorship was relieved of the pure matie- maties, and a new department of those branches was established, and Samuel W. MeCracken, a graduate of the institution of a previous year, was appointed to it. The department of languages was divided into that of Greek, with an appendage of philology and general lit- erature, which Professor MeGuffey still retained: aud a professorship of Larin and Latin literature, with the ad- dition of Hebrew, to which Rev. Thomas Armstrong. another graduate of the institution, was appointed. Both the young professors had been among our best scholars, and were men of talent, particularly the latter, who gave much early promise, but died, much lamented, in the Summer of 1835, after less than three years' servies, in which he had already made his mark.
"On the decease of Professor Armstrong a change was made by which Professor MeCracken was transferred from the mathematical department to that of Latin ; and Albert T. Bledsoe, a graduate of West Point Military Academy, was appointed professor of mathematics in his place. Professor Bledsoe was a man of vigorous and, except in the department of ancient languages, well trained and well stored mind. He had an especial tai- ent and penchant for metaphysical study and discussion, and was unusually well read and well posted on such topies, as was manifested in a work which he published in more advanced life, entitied. . The Theo.licy,' in which he undertook to answer President Etwards's celebrated . Treatise on the Will,' and in which. if he does not re- fute the great and work !- renowned metaphysician, he shows great skill and resources in matters of abstract in-
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vestigation and reasoning. He is said to have published also another book to defend, or at least palliate, slavery (as I have been told, for I have never seen the book) from the Bible; although before he went back to his na- tive South, he was very decidedly antislavery in his ex- pressed opinions. Such is sometimes the vacillation and inconsistency of men of great minds. But with all his learning and ability he did not succeed in making himself popular as a professor. His difficulty was in the matter of discipline. Having been educated under the arbitrary rigidity of a military schoo!, he did not seem to realize and appreciate the difference between military discipline and that appropriate to a civil insti- tution.
"I must not forget, nor neglect to mention in this historical sketch, that in this successful period of the institution, somewhere about 1833 or 1834, the board took a first step toward making the institution in reality what it was in name, a university, by establishing a medical department in Cincinnati, under the title of the Miami Medical College. Dr. Daniel Drake, of Cincin- nati, a gentleman of considerable celebrity in his day, both in medical science and general literature, having fallen out with his co-professors in the Ohio Medical Col- lege, applied to the board to establish in Cincinnati, under their university charter, a medical department, which was granted. Accordingly, with a faculty of his selec- tion, consisting, with himself, of Dr. Mussey (the elder), Drs. Kives, Eberle, Stoughton, and Harrison, some of them very eminent in their profession, such a school was commenced, and carried on for some years with consid- erable spirit and success. What was its final fate I am not apprised of. My impression is that the doctor, in the course of a few years, disagreed with the faculty of his own selection and lett it. Whether the organization finally disbanded, or still continues its existence in some one of the medical schools which Cincinnati contains. Iam unable to say.
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