USA > Ohio > Delaware County > Delaware > Fifty years of history of the Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio : 1844-1894 > Part 2
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The salaries paid, or rather promised, to these inen were gauged by the resources which the Board hoped to have at their command by the end of the year. The President's salary, when he should enter upon duty, was fixed at $800 ; the Professors were to be paid $600 each, and the teachers i11
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the Preparatory Department $400 and $350 respectively ; but it was many years before even these meager salaries were paid as they became due.
Wednesday, November 13th, 1844, was the day appointed and advertised for the opening of the school. The weather was disagreeable; the day was rainy and chill; the sur- roundings were not comfortable, and the prospect was not encouraging. Dr. Thomson was present but for a day or two, and did not enter upon duty for nearly two years after- ward, and Prof. Johnson was detained from duty until after the winter holidays. The other three teachers of the five who were appointed to positions in the Faculty reported for duty. They met in the basement of the Mansion House, once the dining-room, which had been temporarily fitted up as a chapel. This room inight, if crowded, have held a hundred and fifty students, but only twenty-nine presented themselves for enrollment. This attendance was not as large as the teachers had hoped, or reasonably expected. But the students now were all males, of a maturer age, and more ad- vanced standing, and most of them were from other parts of the State. From this small number the Faculty were able to organize all the college classes below senior, though the representation in the upper classes was very small. By the end of the year, there were only two juniors, two sophomores, fourteen freshmen, and there were ninety-two in the Prepara- tory and other courses. Such was the initial catalogue of a university, which, long before its jubilee year, enrolled inore than forty times the first number of students, annually, and graduates a hundred at a time. It was the beginning, though humble, of a momentous movement, whose influences have been felt around the globe.
But it is long before an unpretending and unheralded movement such as this can conciliate and concentrate on
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itself all thoughts and all resources. The Conferences and the Board of Trustees found that before the University could gather many students or much money, the Church at large needed to be educated to the just conception of a college ; and to the special claims which the new college presented for their support. It may be doubted, indeed, whether the education of the Church, in these respects, is yet complete.
DELAWARE IN 1844.
Delaware in 1844 was a little village of twelve hundred inhabitants, away from the lines of travel, of commerce, of intercourse. There were no railroads in the State, and but few good pikes. In bad weather it took the tri-weekly stage a whole day to plough its way hither from Columbus. There were no paved walks or graveled roadways in the town; and in the Winter the Faculty and students extemporized walks of tan-bark, or else literally waded through the mud to their lodgings down town, to the post-office, or to church. There were no street lights, and on dark nights lanterns were necessary. There was no town-clock; but the court- house bell was rung at 6 o'clock in the morning and at 9 o'clock at night. There was no bookstore in town; there was a single weekly newspaper. There were two small common school buildings; the Delaware Academy built ten years before by a stock company, in the interests of a better education, had completely failed, and was standing empty. There was not a good church building in the place. But the several congregations, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, were prosperous, and their pulpits were well filled. The experienced and venerable Rev. Henry Van Deman was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church ; Dr. Tuttle, (after- wards President of Wabash College), was the pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church; Rev. William L. Harris, (after-
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wards Professor, Missionary Secretary, Bishop), was the pastor of the Methodist Church ; and the able and catholic Dr. Eli H. Canfield was the rector of the Episcopal Church. These men and their successors would have honored any pulpit in the land. Under such impulses, all these congre- gations within a few years afterwards erected good and commodious church edifices.
The University grounds, while not a public common, were often the common pasture of the town, overrun by cows and hogs; the surface was mostly as nature left it, rough, ungraded, brushy, and in the low ground, swampy. The sulphur spring was, of course, the chief attraction. To strangers, the taste and the odor of the water are not invit- ing ; but the water is wholesome and refreshing ; and peo- ple soon forget its sulphurous character, and acquire a fond- ness for the water which they never lose. The condition of the spring in its natural state was that of an almost inacces- sible marsh. Later, about 1830, the citizens filled in around the spring, and put in a modest stone basin, level with the surface. This was its condition when it came into tlie pos- session of the University. The present attractive appearance of the spring, its fine marble basin, and the pleasant ap- proaches, are due to the public spirit, many years ago (1870), of Mr. Sidney Moore, President of the Delaware County National Bank.
The Mansion House, now renamed "Elliott Hall," was the only building available for Academic purposes, and was ill adapted to this end. It was of frame, lathed and cemented on the outside; but in the interior finely finished in walnut and tastefully decorated with plaster mouldings. The drawing-room and parlors on the first floor, and some of the large rooms on the second floor, were converted into recita- tion rooms or the professors' studies. The chambers on the
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third floor were let to students, until, some years later, they also were needed for general purposes. In the basement, the old Mansion House dining-room was reconstructed into the college chapel; and the large kitchen, with its huge fire- place and brick oven, became the lecture-room and labora- tory for the Professor of Natural Science. On the south side of the main building was a large two-story annex, which was let as a boarding-house to a steward for the accommoda- tion of two or three of the Faculty and a half-score of students who had rooms in the building. In the rear of the Mansion House, on the east side, were long, wide porches, level with the first and second floors, 12 and 25 feet from the ground. In 1848, the boarding-house was discontinued; the cement outside of the main building was replaced with a good close- jointed covering. The lofty and unsafe porches were torn down, and the annex removed to a location near the spring. Here it was let to students, and, happily, was soon burned down. With this exception, and the exception of the first Monnett Hall of the Ohio Wesleyan Female College, as further mentioned, no one of the college buildings has ever been destroyed by fire, or even seriously damaged.
ENDOWMENT.
Education, the world over, is largely a gratuity, and es- pecially so in the higher institutions of learning. In the older and better-endowed colleges, no student pays a tenthi of the actual cost of his education. Grounds, buildings, cabinets, libraries, endowments, and all the educational ap- pliances of science and art, are the gifts of the founders of the school to the students who attend it. A college, to be eminently successful in its work, should have all these before it opens its doors to the public. Fortunately, this is some- times realized in the benefactions of wealthy men. But in
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former times, in this Western country, neither State nor de- nominational schools could afford to wait for the accumula- tion of all these before beginning their work; and the result was, that most of our schools were started upon very meager foundations. Such was the case with the Ohio Wesleyan University. The Board of Trustees started with nothing, and were in debt. To secure a present support and a future growth, was, of course, a matter of immediate and vital con- cern.
The only resources of the institution were the contribu- tions of its friends ; and these, at first, camne slowly and spar- ingly; and it was not until 1849 that the indebtedness of $7,000 for the purchase-money was all paid. We have seen that the Conferences early devised plans for the endowment of the University. In 1843, the Ohio Conference appointed Revs. Frederick Merrick and Uriah Heath, agents to raise funds from donations to the University, or by the sale of scholarships entitling the bearer to tuition, at the rate of $ 100 for five years. The following year, the North Ohio Confer- ence appointed similar agents to work within its bounds. These agents, in the course of two years, obtained sub- scriptions and notes for scholarships to the amount of about $30,000, and some donations of land worth perhaps $15,000 more. The interest on these notes, and some tuition fees, constituted the sole revenue of the institution for the support of the Faculty. Tuition for the regular Academic studies was early fixed at $30 a year; and it has never been changed, though, since the era of cheap scholarships, no student has paid tuition. Art studies alone are not covered by the schol- arships. As the sale of scholarships progressed, the tuition gradually fell to nothing. Perhaps two or three hundred of these higher-priced scholarships were sold, mostly " on time ;" but, unfortunately, many of them were never paid for, though
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the tuition had been promptly claimed and enjoyed. The Faculty was then wholly dependent on the income from the endowment notes. But, though agents were continued in the field for the sale of scholarships, the aggregate did not perceptibly increase. At the end of six years, the total net assets were estimated at only $70,000, and, of this, the en- dowment money and subscriptions reached only $54,000. The institution was still on the borders of inanition. It was evident, that, unless a more effective policy were adopted, the school was destined to failure, or, at best, to a feeble ex- istence.
At length, in the Summer of 1849, the Faculty, upon the suggestion of Professor Johnson, devised and proposed to the Board of Trustees a system of scholarships at a much cheap- er rate than those at first sold. It was hoped that these would be popular, and be sold to an extent sufficient to give the institution both money and students for, at least, all present necessities. The trustees held a special session to consider the subject, September 24, 1849, at Dayton, where the Ohio Conference was in session. The measure was felt to be perilous ; a failure would jeopard all ; and they deliber- ated a long time before they came to any conclusion. Final- ly, with the approval of the Conference, the Board adopted the plan, and ordered the sale of scholarships, entitling the holder to tuition, at the following rates : (1) for three years' tuition, $15; (2) for four years' tuition, $20; (3) for six years' tuition, $25; (4) for eight years' tuition, $30. Unlike the old series of scholarships, the new ones were to be paid for in full before they were used.
The system was needlessly complex ; the second and fourth rates alone would have been better than the four; and the price could have been one-half higher without lessening their salableness. But the success which crowned the effort
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quieted all criticismns. Three agents were appointed by each Conference to put the new scholarships upon the market. In two years, they had sold nearly three thousand, and paid into the treasury of the university, besides the expense of the agency and the support of the Faculty meanwhile, a sum sufficient to raise the nominal endowment, in 1854, to a round $100,000.
The exact number of scholarships sold was 3,740, calling for a little more than 25,000 years of tuition. It was es- timated that an average annual attendance of 500 students would exhaust this large aggregate in fifty years. As the attendance has not averaged this figure, the period for the final retirement of the scholarships may be somewhat pro- longed. Subsequently, the agents, under the authority of the Board, issued a few hundred additional scholarships to the full value of money or lands ostensibly given to the Uni- versity, but for which the institution paid a full equivalent. But this policy has now been stopped; and the Board has ordered that no inore scholarships be sold. After the issue of the cheap scholarships, the Board, to obviate complaints by the purchasers of the old higher-priced scholarships, witlı unbusiness-like facility extended the time of the old scholar- ships at a ratio equal to the new. This added many hun- dred years of tuition to the obligations of the University. In 1890, there were still due, on all these series of scholar- ships, fourteen thousand years of tuition. At the present average attendance of students, this large obligation may be cancelled in twenty years.
Part of this amount was still in unproductive land, and part in uncollected scholarship notes. But the income for the following year, 1855, was estimated to be $8,500, which the Committee of Ways and Means, in their report to the Board, say "will be amply sufficient to meet and defray all
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current expenses." In view of this hopeful condition of the finances, the salaries of the Faculty were now increased as follows : the President was paid $1,400; the professors, $1,000 each; the tutors, $500 each .* The value of the real estate, and other property of the University, had also largely in- creased ; and may be estimated at another $100,000. Thus, the end of the first decennium saw the institution in a healthful financial condition, and with good prospects for the future.
But the most gratifying result of the new scholarship sys- tem was the increase in the enrollment of students. In 1850, before the effort began, the number of students was 257; in 1851, after the agents had been a year at work, the number was 506, nearly double the attendance of the pre- vious year. This was not an unexpected result; indeed, one of the dangers that had been predicted was that of over- whelming numbers. But the friends of the measure relied on the general laws of average in such cases, and the Faculty anticipated just about the number that came. They could readily enough instruct this number, or even more.
This sudden influx of students, brought about by the offer of cheap scholarships, revealed what was, and is, a constant condition of things throughout the land; it revealed the hunger of the people for just such opportunities as the Uni- versity gladly put within their reach. There are, all the time, five thousand, perhaps ten thousand, young people, in our Methodist families in Ohio, who need only a wise sug- gestion from their pastors or from other friends, to turn their
* In 1857, the salaries were again raised by an addition of $200 each, all round. During the war, the salaries were reduced to their former figure ; but, after the return of business prosperity, they were restored to the rate paid in 1857; and, later, again, and again, in- creased. For twenty years past, the President has been paid $3,000 a year, and a house free of rent, and the professors have been paid, on an average, $1,600 a year. But there is scarcely a member of the Faculty who has not been offered larger salaries elsewhere.
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thoughts in this direction, and to arouse their ambition to make the most of their largest possibilities.
The greatest inconvenience from this sudden increase in the students was due to the want of a chapel large enough to hold them. This was a want that had already been seri- ously felt. As early as 1847, an effort was made to raise the means for the erection of a chapel, by the publication of a volume of sermons "by the Bishops, and the Senior Preachers of the Ohio and North Ohio Conferences." The volume was published, and about a thousand copies were sold. The ef- fort was, of course, a failure. As the sum of $1,000 would not have laid even the foundation of a building, the Board the next year devoted the amount to the repairs already mentioned of the Mansion House ; and the hope of a build- ing was for the present abandoned.
Meanwhile, after the great increase in the attendance, the old basement chapel was far-away outgrown, and the relig- ious services of the University were temporarily transferred to the basement of William Street Methodist Church. Even this was too straitened for the army of collegians that gath- ered for morning prayers. One day, President Thomson read at these services, for the morning lesson, the first chapter of Haggai : "Is the time not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built ?" As he read, his heart was touched, and a few minutes after, he came, deeply moved, to Professor Merrick, with a written proposition to sell his modest home, in Cincinnati, worth a thousand dol- lars, and give it all to aid in erecting a suitable chapel for the University. It was a word that burned like fire, a trum- pet call to duty, to which the Church was quick to respond.
Professor Merrick, himself, now kindled to enthusiasm, went out with his old skill as an agent and in a few weeks brought sixteen thousand dollars back for the new chapel.
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Fifty Years of History.
On Saturday, July 26, 1851, during Commencement week, the corner-stone was laid of a building large enough for a chapel, and a number of recitation-rooms. The building, which cost about $20,000, was dedicated the following year. The struct- ure was three stories in height, and measured eighty-five feet by fifty-five. The main audience room, twenty-three feet high, covered the entire upper floor. The capacity of this room was about six hundred sittings, which was then thought the utmost probable need of the institution for long years to come. The building was afterwards named Thomson Chapel, in honor of the first President.
The Conference agencies for the endowment and building fund were continued for some years ; and it will be seen by reference to the table of statistics further on that the endow- ment slowly increased for a number of years. At length, in 1866, the centennial year of American Methodism, a general advance was made throughout the connection. Educational interests were everywhere the foremost; and, in Ohio, the result of the effort was a large addition to the funds of the University. A portion was devoted to building and general improvement ; and the endowment was increased to consid- erably more than $200,000. Unfortunately, the resources for building and grounds did not prove as ample as was hoped ; and, after the "hard times" of 1873 set in, it was deemed necessary to draw upon the endowinent fund for these purposes. About $40,000 were thus consumed. The growth of this fund has, nevertheless, been so constant, that the heavy draft on it was soon more than inade good.
Of the amounts given by individuals to the University, it is proper to name a few. Mr. Jedediah Allen early gave a tract of ground in Marion County, which he estimated at $15,000 ; it was finally sold in 1856 for nearly $18,000. Thomas Parrott, Esq., of Dayton, one of the trustees, be-
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queathed in 1864, $18,000, which was devoted to the endow- inent of the chair of Mathematics. John R. Wright, Esq., of Cincinnati, another trustee, and an alumnus, paid in 1866, $25,000, and obtained subscriptions from others to the amount of $5,000 inore, for the endowment of the chair of Greek Language and Literature. Phineas P. Mast, Esq., also a trus- tee and alumnus, has paid in $10,000, besides other benefac- tions. Mrs. Eliza Chrisman, now of Topeka, Kan., paid $10,000, and has subscribed an additional $10,000 to the chair of Biblical Literature. Judge D. J. Corey, of Findlay, O., paid $10,000. Mrs. Rebecca Brown, of Bellefontaine, O., gave a tract of land adjacent to that town, which yielded $6,000, toward the endowment of the chair of Latin. Mr. John B. Kessler, of Troy, O., left a bequest (1868) which yielded about $8,000. Mr. William L. Ripley, of Columbus, O., bequeathed (1880) real estate to the University, which yielded $10,000.
Within the last decade, the contributions to the endow- inent fund of the University have been more frequent, and somne of them on a generous scale. Of these donations, in cash or realty, may be mentioned the following, a large part of which, however, are subject to life annuities to the donors or some member of their families. The list is given here without reference to the dates of the donations or bequests. Rev. Dr. Joseph M. Trimble, for twenty years President of the Board of Trustees, $46,000; Rev. Dr. Gaylord H. Hartupee, an alumnus and trustee of the University, $30,000; another honored alumnus, long one of our Faculty, $27,000 in cash, besides other large provisions; Amasa Bishop, $23,000 ; James S. Brittain, $30,000; Clinton J. and Sarah J. Howard, $22,000 ; James S. Mitchell, $16,000; Henry Amnrine, $9,000 ; Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Leonard B. Gurley, $13,000; Rev. Stephen C. Frampton, $8,000; Rev. Dr. David Rutledge, one of the agents of the University, $6,000; and the Association of
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Alumni, for an Alumni Professorship, $12,000 in cash and $6,000 in interest-bearing notes.
A number of smaller gifts, of the value severally of $5,000 or less, but aggregating perhaps $35,000, are equally worthy of special mention, but must be grouped in this general state- ment. But besides these amounts, already paid in, towards the endowment of the University, the Board has been form- ally notified of two subscriptions, of $30,000 each, soon to be paid, for the establishment of new professorships, by two of the trustees, Morris Sharp, Esq., of Washington C. H., O., and Zenas L. White, Esq., of Columbus, O. We know of other friends who are devising even more liberal things for the University, and who purpose to become their own executors, but are not yet quite ready to carry out their intentions ; and still others who have executed their wills with generous be- quests to the future wants of the University.
In addition to these gifts for the permanent endowment of the institution, many noble gifts have come into the treasury for various other specific objects. President Merrick, some years before his death, transferred to the University his whole estate, valued at $18,000, for the foundation of an an- nual lectureship on Practical Religion. David S. Gray, Esq., of Columbus, the president of the Board of Trustees, gave $27,000 to the completion of Gray Chapel in the Univer- sity Hall. This magnificent structure, whose total cost reaches nearly $200,000, was paid for by the gifts of inany others, equally generous, though from smaller means. And within the present year, Charles E. Slocum, M. D., of Defi- ance, Ohio, now one of the Trustees of the University, has generously provided for the erection of a library building on the University campus that will cost from $50,000 to $60,000. His gift is one of the largest single gifts ever re- ceived by the University ; and the Slocum Library building
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will long stand as a monument to the generosity of the giver, and of his wise provision for one of the great wants of the institution.
From the foregoing, it appears that no chair in the Uni- versity, with the single exception of the professorship of Greek Language and Literature, has yet had a living endow- ment. Five or six other chairs have received the names of generous donors, but not one of these foundations is self-sup- porting, and several of them have less than half of a mini- mum endowment, and the salaries have to be paid from the miscellaneous endowments of the University. Clearly, the policy of the Board hereafter should be to give no name to any professorship, in recognition of a sum less than a suffi- cient support of the incumbent. The minimum for the en- dowment of a chair is now thirty thousand dollars, and sev- eral new professorships have been promised at this rate. But the minimum ought to be raised to fifty thousand dol- lars; and even this amount will, in the near future, prove too little to pay the salary of competent men. Already many colleges, and even common schools, pay much larger salaries to experts and specialists ; many of the pulpits and offices in the Church pay from three to five thousand dollars; and the Ohio Wesleyan University has already felt the draft upon its Faculty from both these quarters.
As we have seen, the University has no income from tui- tion fees. Most of the large colleges in the East charge from $100 to $150 a year for tuition, and a large part of their income arises from this source. For example, in 1891-92, Harvard University received from the students in the College of Arts, with an enrollment but little larger than ours, over $300,000 in tuition fees. The Ohio Wesleyan aims to make education as nearly free as possible. With no revenue from the fees of students, the institution relies on the endowment
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