USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Cincinnati, the Queen City, 1788-1912, Volume II > Part 48
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"Kinmont made a profound impression upon those who knew him, and to me he had the air and character of a man of superior genius, and what is very rare, of one whose learning was equal to his genius."
At this period there existed also the Cincinnati College, the Medical College of Ohio, and the Rev. McKee's Classical Academy, the last being on Third street.
The Rev. Mr. Slack kept a school in the north wing of the college building. About this time an English woman, of superior attainments, founded a girls' school, which flourished for many years.
Mr. Wing kept his school in a house at Sixth and Vine streets, where the Gazette building afterward stood. Of this site the Daily Gazette said April 26th, 1879, "The very first building on this lot was a schoolhouse, built more than fifty years ago. There are many men and women in Cincinnati who have vivid recollections of Wing's schoolhouse, which stood on the southeast corner of Sixth and Vine. It was a frame building, a story or story and a half high. The entrance was on Sixth street, and the floor was constructed like that of a theater, rising from, the south end of the building to the north. The teacher occupied a sort of stage at the south end, and by this arrangement had before his eyes every pupil. The boys occupied the east side, and the girls the west side, next to Vine street. William Wing was the founder and builder of this school. He died soon after this school was opened, and then Edward Wing, his son, took up the work and kept the school going for a long time. The house being well adapted to giving shows, or exhibitions as they were called, Mr. Wing fre- quently gave that sort of amusement to his pupils and patrons. As one of these, Mr. W. P. Hulbert, then a mere lad, played the part of William Tell's son, to the late S. S. L'Hommedieu's William Tell, in the thrilling drama which introduces the exciting scene of shooting the apple off the boy's head. To the unerring aim of Master L'Hommedieu's arrow, and to the heroic bravery of Master Hulbert, who endured the ordeal without putting himself in range of the arrow, are we, perhaps, indebted for the present Gazette building.
"This pioner schoolhouse became one of the first schoolhouses of the public or common school system. George Graham, a man who carries more knowledge of Cincinnati in his head than any man living, was one of the trustees of the common schools, and he rented this school building for the use of the Second Ward school. Here Mr. Graham appeared frequently as an examiner, for he was an active man in those days, and knew how necessary it was to inaugurate strict discipline. The common schools were new, and were not popular. The name 'common' was distasteful. Mr. Graham personally examined every pupil in the schools. He popularized the system by causing all the teachers and pupils to appear, once a year at least, in procession through the streets, and soon had the pleasure of seeing the common school system regarded as one of the institu- tions deserving the highest esteem."
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In 1829, Caleb Atwater visited Cincinnati on his travels, and wrote: "Great attention is bestowed on the education of children and youth here, and the Cin- cinnati College, the Medical College of Ohio, the Messrs. Picket's Female Acad- emy, the four public schools, one under Mr. Holley, Mr. Hammond's school, and forty others, deserve the high reputation they enjoy. There is, too, a branch, a medical one, of the college at Oxford here located, and conducted by gentle- men of genius, learning and science, whose reputation stands high with the public."
In 1833, Miss Catherine Beecher, a daughter of the noted Lyman Beecher and a sister of Henry Ward Beecher, founded a young ladies' school in Cin- cinnati. She had been at the head of a school for young women in Hartford, Connecticut, but when her father became president of Lane Theological seminary on Walnut Hill, she came hither. She, with her sister Harriet, afterwards Mrs. Stowe, made their female academy widely known and successful for several years. It stood where later the St. John's Hospital was erected.
The brilliant and famous Harriet Martineau visited Cincinnati in 1835 and devoted a chapter of the book she soon afterwards published, to Cincinnati. "The morning of the nineteenth shone brightly down on the festival of the day. It was the anniversary of the opening of the common schools. Some of the schools passed our windows in procession, their banners dressed with garlands, and the children gay with flowers and ribands. A lady who was sitting with me remarked, 'This is our populace.' I thought of the expression months after- ward, when the gentlemen of Cincinnati met to pass resolutions on the subject of abolitionism, and when one of the resolutions recommended mobbing as a retribution for the discussion of the subject of slavery, the law affording no punishment for free discussion. Among those who moved and seconded these resolutions, and formed a deputation to threaten an advocate of free discussion, were some of the merchants who form the aristocracy of the place; and the secre- tary of the meeting was the accomplished lawyer whom I mentioned above, and who told me that the object of his life is law-reform in Ohio. The 'populace' of whom the lady was justly proud, have, in no case that I know of, been the law-breakers, and in as far as the 'populace' means not the 'multitude' but the 'vulgar,' I do not agree with the lady that these children were the populace. Some of the patrons and prize-givers afterward proved themselves 'the vulgar' of the city.
"The children were neatly and tastefully dressed. A great improvement has taken place in the costume of little boys in England within my recollection ; but I never saw such graceful children as the little boys in America, at least in their summer dress. They are slight, active and free. I remarked that several were barefoot, though in other respects well clad; and I found that many put off shoes and stockings from choice during the three hot months. Others were bare foot from poverty, children of recent settlers and of the poorest class of the community.
"We set out for the church as soon as the procession had passed, and arrived before the doors were opened. A platform had been erected below the pulpit, and on it were seated the mayor and principal gentlemen of the city. The two thousand children then filed in. The report was read, and proved very satis-
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factory. These schools were established by a cordial union of various political and religious parties ; and nothing could be more promising than the prospects of the institution as to funds, as to the satisfaction of the class benefited, and as to the continued union of their benefactors. Several boys then gave speci- mens of elocution, which were highly amusing. They seemed to suffer under no false shame and to have no misgiving about the effect of the vehement action they had been taught to employ. I wondered how many of them would speak in congress hereafter! It seems doubtful to me whether the present generation of Americans are not out in their calculations about the value and influence of popular oratory. They ought certainly to know best; but I never saw an oration produce nearly so much effect as books, newspapers and conversation. I sus- pect there is a stronger association in American minds than the times will justify between republicanism and oratory; and that they overlook the fact of the vast change introduced by the press, a revolution which has altered men's tastes and habits of thought, as well as varied the method of reaching minds. As to the style of oratory itself, reasoning is now found to be much more impressive than declamation, certainly in England, and I think also in the United States; and though, as every American boy is more likely than not to act some part in public life, it is desirable that all should be enabled to speak their minds clearly and gracefully. I am inclined to think it a pernicious mistake to render declamatory accomplishment so prominent a part of education as it now is. I trust that the next generation will exclude whatever there is of insincere and traditional in the practice of popular oratory, discern the real value of the accomplishment. and redeem the reproach of bad taste which the oratory of the present genera- tion has brought upon the people. While the Americans have the glory of every citizen being a reader, and having books to read, they cannot have, and need not desire, the glory of shining in popular oratory, the glory of an age gone by.
"Many prizes of books were given by the gentlemen on the platform, and the ceremony closed with an address from the pulpit which was true and in some respects beautiful, but which did not appear altogether judicious to those who are familiar with children's minds. The children were exhorted to trust their teachers entirely; to be assured that their friends would do by them what was kindest."
The Wesleyan Female College was founded in 1842. A meeting of Methodist ministers was held on the 4th of May of that year, at the office of the Western Christian Advocate, to consider the expediency of taking measures to establish in this city a female institute of the highest possible grade in this city. It was decided that a general meeting should be called to consider this matter, and a committee was appointed to draw up a plan to be brought before such an as- sembly. Wesley Chapel was the scene of this gathering on the 20th of the same month.
The plan reported was an ambitious one. "The contemplated institution should embrace all the branches of female education, from the highest to the lowest; to such a degree as not to be exceeded, if possible, by any similar institu- tion in the whole world." It was recommended that the institution should embrace the common English department, the collegiate department, the normal
OHIO MILITARY INSTITUTE
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SYCAMORE STREET AND ST. XAVIER'S COLLEGE
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department, and the department of extras, in which last those various branches not necessary for all, yet useful for some, should be taught. "Greek and Hebrew were to be included, as well as natural sciences and Biblical studies." The fol- lowing are some of the general principles, or characters, which should designate the institution : It should be a Methodist institution to all intents and purposes, so that the principles of Christianity, as taught by the Methodist Episcopal church, would be constantly inculcated, and a full course of sound Biblical in- struction should be learned by all; and all Methodist children should, without exception, go through this course thoroughly, in view of their becoming good Sabbath school teachers after they leave the institution, and as far as their services are needed while they continue in it. Yet children whose parents do not approve it need not commit our catechisms nor receive our peculiar views; but they must conform to our mode of worship and general regulations.
"The ornamental branches, as music, painting, etc., will be pursued in refer- ence to utility and the practical purposes of life, and in accordance with just but enlightened views of the pure religion of Christ.
"It will be desirable that the institution should furnish all the aid in its power toward the education of poor female children and girls, both for their individual benefit and the good of the public, in preparing them to be efficient teachers."
A committee of twenty-three was appointed. During that year there was rented for the purposes of the school, a small house on Ninth street, but as the attendance was soon too large for the accommodations, the following year the authorities of the institution rented the home of John Reeves on Seventh street. An additional edifice was soon built upon the same grounds. By February, 1843, the new buildings were ready for occupancy. Students flocked to the in- stitution. That season a charter as a college was obtained from the legislature. A full corps of teachers was actively employed, with the Rev. P. B. Wilber as principal.
The Rev. Mr. Finley, in Sketches of Western Methodism, wrote: "The commencement exercises of 1845 constituted a brilliant era in the history of the institution. They were held in the Ninth Street Methodist Episcopal church, which was crowded in every part. B. Storer, Esq., delivered an eloquent ad- dress before the Young Ladies' Lyceum, after which graduates read their com- positions and received their degrees as mistresses of English and classical liter- ature. The plan of the original proprietors was now no longer an experiment, and the female college from this point started on its high and glorious career."
As the popularity and reputation of this institution grew rapidly and pupils came in numbers from a distance, purchase was made of the handsome grounds and residence of Henry Starr, on Vine street, between Sixth and Seventh streets. A building was there erected capable of accommodating five hundred scholars. It was but a few years before the rapid growth of the school required still more room, and another building was erected.
In 1855 J. P. Foote, in his work on Cincinnati Schools, wrote: "It has had since its foundation a uniform course of prosperity and usefulness, its greatest defect being caused by the high reputation, which it has acquired, which brings more pupils to seek admission than can be accommodated, and, notwithstanding the want of room, the desire to receive as many of those who are anxious to Vol. II-25
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obtain the advantages of the institution induces the managers and principals to receive sometimes too many ; and though the extent of the buildings has been increased, the need of a further increase continues."
In 1845 Joseph Herron opened Herron's Seminary, a private school for boys and young men. This institution flourished for eighteen years, until the time of Mr. Herron's death in 1863. He had come to Cincinnati in 1829 and taught in the public schools until 1837. He was appointed in that year principal of the preparatory department of the old Cincinnati College, and continued in that posi- tion until 1845. He was for many years one of the foremost educators of the city.
By 1850 there were nineteen public schools, employing one hundred and thirty-eight teachers, with twelve thousand, two hundred and forty pupils. In addition there were three schools for colored children, employing nine teachers and with three hundred and sixty pupils. There were at that period about fifty private schools, with about twenty-five hundred pupils. Three colleges then existed, the Woodward, the Cincinnati and St. Xavier.
The medical schools were the Ohio, the Physio-Medical, the Eclectic and the College of Dental Surgery.
The only law school was attached to the Cincinnati College.
There were five theological schools in operation or in prospect. There were Lane Seminary, which represented the then so-called new school Presbyterian- ism, and the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, favored by the old school-dis- tinctions long ago done away with by a reunion of the two parties. There was a Baptist school at Fairmount ; the Seminary of St. Francis Xavier (Catholic), and another Catholic theological school had been formally established but was not yet in practical operation.
Thirteen parochial schools had been established by the Catholics, employing forty-eight teachers, with four thousand, four hundred pupils. The Chicker- ing institute was founded by Mr. Chickering September, 1855 as Chickering's Academy, in the George street engine house. It began with thirty-seven pupils, and increased within a year to seventy-six. In 1859 a handsome building was purchased, the name changed to Chickering's Institute, and a full graded course of classical and scientific studies was introduced. Within two years after enter- ing its new home, the school had so grown as to demand the addition of another story to its building. It for many years had an average attendance of more than two hundred pupils.
The free kindergartens are treated in the chapter on charities.
The Lancasterian School, chartered as a college in 1815, had started with high hopes and fine prospects. A large endowment was raised. Ten thousand dollars' worth of land and a generous amount of cash were contributed by General Lytle. Judge Burnet promised five thousand dollars and a considerable amount of property. Fifty others gave amounts which made the endowment fifty thousand dollars. The organization as a college was effected in 1820, Dr. Slack was chosen as president and all the professorial chairs were filled. The usual college course was marked out, while the lower or Lancasterian depart- ment was continued as before. But financial troubles overtook the institution, and for a time instruction was suspended. In 1836 the medical and law depart-
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ments were established, and an effort was made to revive the other branches. W. H. McGuffey was chosen president and professor of moral and intellectual philosophy ; Ormsby M. Mitchel professor of mathematics and astronomy; Asa Drury professor of ancient languages; Charles L. Telford professor of rhetoric and belles lettres, Edward D. Mansfield professor of constitutional law and his- tory, Lyman Harding principal of the preparatory department, and Joseph Her- ron principal of the primary department.
Mansfield says of McGuffey: "Mr. McGuffey entered Cincinnati College with the full knowledge that it was an experimental career; but he came with an energy, a determination, and a zeal in the cause of education and the pursuit of high and noble duties which are rarely met with, and are sure to command suc- cess in any pursuit. His mind is more purely metaphysical, and therefore an- alytical and logical, than that of any one I have known or whose works I have read. In his discourses and lectures before members of the college he disen- tangled difficulties, made mysteries plain, and brought the obtuse and profound within the reach of common intellects. Hence his Sunday morning discourses in the college chapel were always numerously attended, and his manner of treat- ing metaphysics was universally popular. I thought then, and think now, that Dr. McGuffey was the only really clearheaded metaphysician of whom it has been my lot to know anything. In addition, he was a practical teacher of great ability. In fine, he was naturally formed for the chair of intellectual philosophy, and in Cincinnati College put forth, with zeal and fervor, those talents which were peculiarly his own."
The other members of the faculty were men of talent and attainments, and several of them afterward gained national repute.
But while as many as one hundred and sixty students were found in the liberal arts department for a number of years, the lack of revenues constantly crippled and hampered the institution. Mr. Mansfield wrote further: "Had the college been only so far endowed as to furnish its material apparatus of books and instruments, and also to pay its incidental expenses, I have no doubt it would have sustained itself and been, at this moment, the most honorable testi- mony to the intellectual and literary progress of the city. Such, however, was not its future. After lingering a few years, its light went out; the professors separated; and the college name attached to its walls alone attests that such an institution once existed."
As the First Presbyterian church had leased its ground to the college with reservation of the right of the congregation to have certain pupils receive free education, litigation followed the closing of the literary department of the in- stitution. In 1840 a compromise was effected, the college receiving a deed for a portion of the lot and releasing the remainder. In 1845 the college buildings were burned. The present Cincinnati Law School, affiliated with the University, is all that remains of the old Cincinnati College.
From its establishment in 1821 a Roman Catholic parish school associated with the first Catholic church in Cincinnati continued to exist as such, and was then transformed into a higher-grade school. In 1840 the Jesuits were given possession of the property, and the school became St. Xavier College. It was chartered in 1842 by the legislature with the powers of a university. The dis-
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cipline was of such character as to induce Protestant parents to send their chil- dren, as they deemed the results commendable. In the early sixties a new build- ing was erected at Seventh and Sycamore streets, near the Athenaeum. The motto over the door is "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam." The college is splendidly housed, in a structure of great size and architectural beauty.
In the classical course, there are taught philosophy, rhetoric, poetry and the humanities. As in other colleges generally, the Bachelor of Arts degree is given upon graduation, and the Master of Arts degree after two further years of literary study or one year of philosophy.
In the commercial course students are fitted for a business life. The tuition is sixty dollars per year, and these fees are the only income of the institution. The faculty is composed of twenty teachers, and the number of pupils ranges from two to three hundred. The college possesses a fine library, a good natural history museum, and well equipped chemical and physics departments.
In 1806, a number of men interested in educational progress in Cincinnati formed an association looking toward the establishment of a university. This organization was incorporated in 1807. In undertaking to raise funds for en- dowment they were, however, so little successful that they determined to appeal to the legislature for authority to form and hold a lottery the proceeds of which should be devoted to the welfare of the new project. In hitting upon this device, now held to be socially and legally immoral they were but following a general custom; people of today would be shocked if they learned how many beneficent enter- prises of a hundred years, or less, ago were furthered by lottery sales. The public conscience had not then been awakened to the ethics of such a question. and the early friends of a university in Cincinnati are not therefore to be looked upon as having invented an immoral device, as we of today consider it, for raising school funds but merely as having fallen in line with the custom of their times. The request was granted by the legislature; the university lottery was arranged for; many tickets were sold; but the drawing never took place. With the funds obtained from sale of tickets, however, a schoolhouse of moderate cost was built. On the twenty-eighth of May, 1809, a great wind-storm swept through this region and before its power went down the schoolhouse in which it had been hoped an incipient university would be sheltered. Thus ended the first University of Cincinnati.
The Lancasterian Seminary and the Cincinnati College which were, in a sense, forerunners of the present University of Cincinnati have already been treated.
The University of Cincinnati, noticed in another part of this work, of today owes its origin to the splendid beneficence of Charles McMicken, whose name should be held in highest honor by all the people of this city and vicinity. He made possible the institution which is one of the crowning glories of Cincinnati. Charles McMicken was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, in 1782, and came to Cincinnati in 1803. His possessions at that time were the horse, saddle and bridle used on this trip, and the garments he had on his body. Looking about for a way to earn his living, he soon adopted the, at that time, common employment of flatboating. Apparently he prospered in that line and saved money, for presently we find him engaged in general merchandise business at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, and in Cincinnati and points between on the river. While later mak-
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ORIGINAL McMICKEN UNIVERSITY From which originated the great Cincinnati University now in Burnet Woods
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ing his headquarters in Louisiana, he retained a summer home in Cincinnati, finding southern Ohio, from which people nowadays, who can, retire to lakes and mountains in summer months, preferable to Louisiana at that season.
Like many another man who has been denied the advantages of a liberal education, Mr. McMicken valued it greatly in others, and having made a fortune he determined to further the cause of higher education by his wealth. In his latter years he gave ten thousand dollars to endow a chair of agricultural chem- istry in the Farmer's College, College Hill. September 2, 1855 he made a will. providing for the endowment of what has become the University of Cincinnati. Mr. McMicken died in Cincinnati March 30, 1858, being seventy-six years of age.
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