USA > Ohio > Butler County > Oxford > Old Miami, the Yale of the early West > Part 2
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Materially the college was prospering throughout these years. Its influence was widening, its scholarship was deepening. In 1836 Professor Scott, then teaching astronomy, set up on the campus a dressed stone accurately placed to serve as the foundation for a telescope-the sec- ond or third of its kind in America. Lit- erary societies were flourishing, Greek fraternities were beginning to appear; but hostility had arisen against President Bishop, murmurs were heard from vari- ous sources about his lack of discipline, and he resigned his executive authority for a professor's chair.
In his stead came George Junkin, of the Church Militant, famous for his strict administration of Lafayette College, and fresh from the lists of Presbyterianism, where his lance had never wavered in the cause of Old-School doctrines. The keen black eye that had looked innovating up-
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starts straight in the face was now to pierce holes in recreant Oxford sopho- mores; the thin, shrill voice which had often kept going for hours at a stretch in theological debate was to pronounce those public admonitions to trembling culprits. Hostility got there first, however, and met him at the threshold. Doctor Bishop was still on the ground, and though he took no part in faculty counsels was to his friends a constant reminder of past differ- ences. Doctor Junkin's position in the lime-light of Presbyterian controversy turned the eyes of other denominations upon the intimate connection of his church with University affairs. The relig- ious press throughout the country ranged its guns on little old Miami, and be- fore the fusilade was over the public was believing that the students parsed from the Geneva Confession and turned the Shorter Catechism into Latin hexa- meters.
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The new president was faithful to his trust in exercising stricter discipline. There is every reason to believe that the time was ripe for it. Some laws of the University, published in 1842, bear elo- quent testimony to a condition of affairs not altogether peaches and cream.
"No student shall wear about his per- son pistol, dirk, stiletto, or other danger- ous weapon.
"Playing at cards, dice, or any game of chance is strictly prohibited; also the possession of cards, backgammon boards, or any implements used in games of chance.
"Any student who shall send or ac- cept a challenge, or be second in a duel, or in anywise aid and abet it, shall be im- mediately expelled from college.
"No student shall, during term time, attend any ball, dancing-school, theatri- cal exhibition, horse race or any place of similar resort."
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Perhaps the considerable tinge of blue about some of these statutes may have in- creased the difficulty of enforcing all of them. At any rate there is one law in the same code that should have gone far to leaven the whole lump. It is hard to see why all colleges since that day have not adopted this perfect system of pre- serving students' characters:
"Every applicant for admission shall furnish written evidence to the Faculty that he sustains a good moral character, which shall be kept on file by the Presi- dent."
Two other acts of Doctor Junkin ap- pear to have rounded out the plot of his alleged comedy of errors. For twenty-five years there had been a portion of the Uni- versity grounds, between the buildings and the village residences, unused for college purposes and thrown open as a common where the horses, cows and geese
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of the citizens might roam at will and forage. The doctor enclosed this public pasture-lot against all trespassers, and immediately there was wailing and teeth- gnashing. The town-and-gown question before had never reached beyond the level of street brawls and tavern mix-ups. Now it rankled in the heart of respected tax-paying burgesses whose precious rights, privileges and live-stock were as- sailed. The executive offense was unfor- givable.
At this time the extreme abolitionists were lifting up their voices throughout the land. A party of them in the Presby- terian church demanded the immediate exclusion of all slave-holding members. Junkin demurred. He was a staunch union man, and personally opposed to slavery, but believed that emancipation should come by slow and gradual process, based on a scheme of deportation. In a
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session of Presbytery he expressed him- self succinctly in a few well-chosen words requiring some ten hours in their deliv- ery, and at once a new enemy camped at his gates. A man who took ten blessed hours to prove that slave-holding South- erners would find their names recorded in the Book of Life was no fit custodian of their children's characters, said the ab- olitionists. The allied opposition was too much for Doctor Junkin and he with- drew.
The later years of George Junkin read like a novel, as the school-girls say, and fully establish his sincerity and moral courage in national questions. About 1850 he became president of Washington College in Virginia. In the same town was a military school, with several gal- lant instructors fresh from West Point. One of these, Stonewall Jackson by name, wooed and won a daughter of the Junkin
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household, but the fair young bride was ยท soon stricken in death. Virginia was debatable ground as murmurs of seces- sion traveled through the southland and the war-cloud gathered. Student hearts in the Virginia college beat loudly for the south. There was love for the presi- dent as a man, but for his northern blood and northern kindred he was suspected and maligned. All his teachings were of peace and reconciliation, and fell more and more on hostile cars. Sumter was attacked; and as if by magie a palmetto flag floated over the college building. With his own hand Doctor Junkin low- ered it and applied a match. Another of the same kind took its place. The presi- dent appealed to his faculty for support, and to a man they were silent. At once he wrote a resignation and with his fam- ily took coach for the state line, leaving his soldier son-in-law to consecrate his bravery to the region of his birth.
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At Miami Doctor Junkin was suc- ceeded by an ardent abolitionist and a leader also among Old-School Presby- terians, Erasinus D. MacMaster. As he had been a striking figure in church coun- sels, so was he about the campus. He was of unusual height, despite a marked stoop. to the shoulders. A great mop of snow- white hair surmounted a splendid brow and a face always smooth as a woman's. He was a profound scholar, unapproached in his denomination, and unequalled per- haps in all the impressive faculty-roll of Miami. As they used to say, he was a very painful preacher, and his ponderous antitheses and periods searched the heart of weighty questions as they rolled de- liberately from his tongue. He had re- markable success later teaching in a theological seminary; but he could never understand or reach the heart of a tow- headed undergraduate. That particular
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phase of original sin was too much for him.
Not the least of Doctor MacMaster's troubles was his tendency to take prompt and decided stands on mooted questions, and then express himself freely. The Mexican war came rather early in his administration. He didn't believe in it, and said so plainly in a chapel sermon. The local recruiting officer was in the con- gregation, exuding patriotismi at every pore. Naturally the sermon gave him a chill, and he retaliated with martial methods. With a band of fellow-patriots he pulled a cannon down by the Doctor's home that night, and fired it there, shat- tering all the glass in the windows and rudely disturbing the Doctor's musings on predestination. Indignant friends of the president afterwards secured the cannon, dragged it down in the campus, burned the running-gear and threw the barrel into a cess-pool.
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Unfortunately, there were days to follow when you could hardly have mus- tered enough friends of the president, indignant or otherwise, to drag a medium- sized popgun. Through no particular error of his he lost control of the student body. Riotous conduct continued, and was seldom handled with tact. Boyish pranks abounded. One year, for instance, a grammar-school pupil was solemnly convicted as "accessory to theft, in steal- ing the chapel key" and giving "no evi- dence of sorrow or shame for the same." Somewhat later another was dismissed for sending a written challenge to single combat. The spirit of rebellion was in the air, and erring students found plenty of sympathizers to urge them to open defiance.
A series of epidemics visited the col- lege in President MacMaster's time. Small-pox came in the winter of 1846,
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and the cholera stalked about during several anxious summers. In small-pox time nearly fifty students signed a paper declaring that they would attend no more recitations during the scourge. The authorities regarded this as "an inten- tion to effect a suspension of the College, against the known views of the Faculty;" and not only required continued attend- ance, but insisted that the signers "ex- plicitly and fully acknowledge the wrong of such intention and their regret for par- ticipation in these proceedings." There were hostile mutterings among the some- what panicky students. "Aw, old Mac's had the small-pox himself, and don't care what happens to us," they said. The rumor gained credence, as such rumors will, and did much to estrange him still farther from the boys. Only a few of the brave ones, the volunteer nurses in those seasons of pestilence, knew how often
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that tall form glided into the sickrooms and took its turn of vigil beside tumbled beds, or how keenly the great heart that couldn't understand yearned over the youthful sufferers there.
A long line of difficulty with the Liter- ary Societies culminated in this admin- istration: the halls, true to their inherent independence, insisting on the right to select their own imported orators, without faculty interference; the faculty, and the president in particular, always ruling otherwise. As last came open rebellion, on the occasion of the great snow prank in January, 1848, with its long investiga- tion and series of dismissals. It was all at first the exuberant tomfoolery of youth. But in the end work was ruined, the stu- dent body scattered, the institution crip- pled. The splendid spirit of Doctor Mac- Master was broken for the time and he retired from the University. With the
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brilliant, popular and prosperous admin- istration of President Anderson, Miami entered upon her second quarter-century of active life, secure, efficient, optimistic. Pioneering days were done forever.
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M
Literary
Hans,
N OWADAYS we parade in our cur- ricula various stilted but imposing courses in public speaking and debate. Under pressure of a sweat-box ordeal in the class-room, students painfully con- struct briefs and plan forensics, grum- bling at every step and sub-consciously meditating on the recent junior prom. We argue the power of the spoken word and prate much of human personality; while the student body, going out to sway the world, is calmly balancing the probable incomes of a mining engineer and a well-to-do curb broker. In the
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good old times at Miami, public oratory was just a matter of course ;- not an un- derlined requirement in the catalogue. Boys declaimed and orated and struggled in debate because they wanted to and couldn't help it. They put their hearts into it as well as a stingy bit of gray mat- ter, and gave to it much of the energy that now goes into intercollegiate sports. Probably there was more demand for public oratory then-of a sort; but the fact of real significance is that oratory was then the fashion, taking the place of turned-up trousers and brindle bull dogs.
In the second year of the University two literary societies were established- hated rivals, of course. There is no evi- dence that they were suggested or pro- moted by the faculty, and goodness knows they asked no coddling while they grew. They took out charters from the state at once, if you please, and thereby
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hangs a tale or two. Having state chart- ers, they were afterwards in a strategic position to request the faculty to go hang; which, as we shall see, they occasionally did with much politeness. One of them assumed a Greek name, then a rather essential mark of caste, and both of them began with a really terrifying ob- ligation of secrecy. Just what they were keeping secret doesn't matter. It seldom does: the point is to have a secret. The Erodelphian Hall dates from November 9, and the Union Hall from December 14, 1825.
The minutes of both societies indicate that they got down to business promptly and attend to it seriously. They adopted modest official badges of ribbon measuring some two and a half inches in diam- eter. They secured permanent quarters from the University and fitted these up from time to time with their own funds.
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To this day if one of their rooms is utilized for recitation purposes, the insti- tution must pay rent for it to the society. They began at once the accumulation of their own libraries, which were to expand chiefly by voluntary donations. The questions they began debating present an interesting array to modern eyes, though many of them suggest that we have met them some place before. The Erodelpliians, for instance, first discussed the problem: "Is the reading of novels and romances productive of moral and intellectual improvement?" The second week produced the question, dear per- haps to Father Adam: "Which is pro- ductive of greater happiness, pursuit or possession ?"
Sometimes men tell us today that journalism has stolen the thunder from the literary forum. In the 20's these two seem to have lain down together, the lion .
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1
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and the lamb of Holy Writ. Those pro- gressive youngsters in Miami Halls, with organizations less than two years old, be- gan the publication of a monthly period- ical, "The Literary Focus." They soon had trouble with delayed printing, of course. Those were very primitive days. Then they boldly took the matter in their own hands, scaled the Alps, crossed the Rubicon, or whatever other figure seems appropriate, and went into the printing business for themselves. Yes, sir, those striplings from the woods, some of whom had never even seen such a contrivance, found the money somewhere to purchase a good old-fashioned man-power printing- press and outfit, got it somehow through the mud and over the corduroy bridges from Cincinnati, and set to work learning the trade. All for the sake of publishing, with no earthly chance of profit, a literary monthly!
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Publish it they did, and it was a cred- itable product. Complete files are acces- sible today, and the ink is evenly dis- tributed, the impression clear, the lines true,-all testifying to the artistic pride of the craftsmen in that barn-like room in the old main building. The literary side had character, too. As a rule the articles are rather imposing in subject and treatment, with that vealy tendency to abstract moralizing and broad gen- eralization that we characterize some- times as sophomoric. The style suggests too often the stilted effort of a performer who is conscious of an audience and is taking himself very, very seriously. But why not? Their thoughts and their dis- cussions turned to serious things, yet they made public their opinions with a modest restraint.
Even the poetry partakes of this pain- ful self-consciousness. Only on rare oc-
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casions has some contributor closed his eyes upon the staring crowds of earth and sailed right up into the empyrean-hark, hark, the lark !- as does the love-lorn "Alphonso" in his sparkling effusion to
"A FEMALE FRIEND."
"The dearest boon by nature given, The sweetest joy that earth can send, The richest treasure under heaven, Is a kind, tender female friend.
"Science is but a glimmering ray, That only casts a fitful gleam; And wealth's the creature of a day; Honor and glory's all a dream.
"Man is unkind and full of strife; His fortune such as fate may send-
"His sweetest solace of life, A true and faithful female friend.
"Gentlest refiner of the mind, Infusing virtue's mildest balm, To heal our grief of every kind Leaving the soul serene and calm.
"Sweet assuager of my woe, Dividing cares thou canst not mend; Be this my lot where'er I go- That I may find a female friend."
Dearest Alphonso, here's hoping that thou didst! At any rate the success of the
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"THE RICHEST TREASURE UNDER HEAVEN I. A KIND, TENDER FEMALE FRIEND."
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Focus was so flattering that the Halls, co-operating with the faculty, issued propositions before the first year was over, to focus the Focus upon The Lit- erary Register, which should be a weekly journal of news as well as literary fea- tures. Then the flattering fell off. Ox- ford and surrounding country were not yearning for a weekly newspaper of high standard so ardently as the students had imagined. At least subscriptions did not indicate any particular loss of sleep, ex- cept for the publishers. The faculty, however, impressed with the advantage of such a periodical for the community, volunteered to finance the proposition for a year. There is no apparent evidence that the societies, chartered by the state, quartered in their own halls, and regu- lated by their own laws, suggested that the faculty go hang on this rather delicate occasion.
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The Register is really fascinating. It is like coming upon some bit of yellow lace or a tarnished shoe-buckle up in grandmother's garret on a rainy after- noon. The Miami Canal is spoken of as likely soon to revolutionize rapid- transit across the country. Some man has invented a machine, about half the size of a grand piano, that prints letters by striking on its keys! Even the adver- tisements attract attention. Witness this quaint specimen:
ONE CENT REWARD.
. Ran away from the subseriber living in Oxford, Butler county, on the 19th inst., Alpha Leach, an Apprentice to the Carpenter and Joining business. He is 22 years of age, thick built, not very polite and of a bad disposition. This is to forewarn all persons from harboring, or employing him under the penalty of the law. The above reward will be given for his delivery to me, but no charges paid. Oxford, June 20, 1829. CHARLES BARROWS.
From literature the societies turned their minds to art. At the present time, the principal adornment of each hall, aside from the delirious color-scheme
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some local decorator has inflicted on the walls, is a tutelary divinity perched in a niche above the rostrum. In Miami Union this is a very mangy and weather- beaten owl, whose glass eyes wear a look of everlasting anguish and whose head droops limply with the suggestion of Jurid midnight orgies and a cold gray dawn. Across the corridor the Erodel- phians point proudly to a plaster bust, the face with its strongly moulded fea- tures petrified into an expression of right- eous horror at the collarless indelicacy of the classic drapings. Nobody has arisen from the misto of antiquity to re- late the tragic history of the bird of Athena. Perhaps he flew blundering in at an open window some day in the long ago and died there. Poor thing, he looks it. But the bust, for all its fly-specks, and modestly scratched initials, and the green paint the decorators dropped, is a thing
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of beauty and a joy forever, and opens up a delightful chapter of the remote past.
Back in 1829, the members of the Union Hall, having accumulated some extra money since they turned the jour- nalistic sack over to the faculty, con- spired to spring upon their forensic en- emies what a learned Senior insisted on calling a "coop de tat." Harding, then the leading artist of the great west, was engaged quietly to make a full-length portrait in oils of President Bishop, who, protesting against such worldly fripper- ies; was somehow cajoled into the neces- sary posings. The picture was an entire success, and great was the glee in Union Hall when it was publicly unveiled and the scowling Erodelphians invited in to see what a really progressive society might accomplish. "R-r-revenge!" hissed the Eros between their clenched teeth, just as the villain does in the play when
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the hero flashes the tell-tale papers be- fore his eyes. This is the story of that Great Revenge. Browning might have called it "The Portrait and the Bust."
For the next six months about the only business attempted behind double- locked Erodelphian portals was a series of discussions looking toward an evening- up of scores. Gradually out of the chaos of despair one plan began to take form. It was a rank apology for a plan, a dis- gracefully tawdry imitation, but appar- ently the only possible thing to justify the brethren in once more lifting up their eyes to heaven. In its hopeless outlines it was merely this. The same Harding was to be employed by the Eros to paint a similar portrait of the same subject, and this was to hang in the same way in the same place as in the sanctum of the "Union Lits." Charley Martin, the floor-leader, confessed to a touch of same-
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ness in the measure, but gamely defied the opposition to present a plan that augured better.
The youngsters especially were dis- satisfied. They never agreed with Mar- tin's stuck-up older crowd just on general principles, and now they were leading a regular dog's life, having their hats jammed over their ears by Union seniors and being asked where the Erodelphians got their original idea about a picture. Calling their tormentors a "Hyena gang" didn't help much either, but it relieved the feelings immensely, especially if a well-directed mud-ball went along with it. So controversy waxed warm in Erodel- phian circles, always with the same con- clusion. The logic, as Martin put it, was so infernally simple. "We must have some counter-attraction in a work of art, as an appeal to new members. What else can we obtain but a portrait? Whose
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portrait but Doctor Bishop's does any one desire? Who else in all the west can paint it but Harding?" The answer cer- tainly appeared to be, "The quicker the sooner."
One night little Charley Anderson, all unconscious that he would some day be governor of Ohio, was knitting his young brow over an awkward sentence in Livy. His name was bawled out from below in the friendliest tones, and he slammed up his window and poked out his head. It might be an invitation to a feast. A shower of gravel stung and rattled about his ears and a pair of Union lungs sang out, "Who's goin' to paint the Ero pic- ture, baby?" While Charley sputtered and spat, the triumphant gentleman be- low passed on, singing gaily "Lies and Love and Sausages," and sought the vil- lage to trade the first for the last.
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"Lies and Love and Sausages!" The strains lingered in Charley's memory and sang themselves to his tortured soul. Then association of ideas got to work. Where had he heard that song before? Oh, yes, that bully old mimic and comedian, Alec Drake, sang it and sang it scrump- tiously in the theatre the last time Charley stopped off in Cincinnati. Dear old Alec Drake! That was a wonderful image of him in that wax-works show at Main and Market streets. They must have caught him in the midst of that same song, jolly old rogue. Who would think that wax figures could be made so like the life? Why, I'd rather make images as good as those wax-works than paint all the old flat daubs that ever hung in literary halls. It's better art; it's real sculpture! "Lies and Love and Sausages!" O-o-oh, what a huge idea! It actually hurt for a min- ute, but there's something to it. Why not
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get a statue of Doctor Bishop for Erodel- phian Hall and lord it over the Hyenas forever? But a statue must cost barrels of money. Well, why not a piece of a statue, then; one of those head-and-shoul- ders things on a pedestal? Let me see- oh, yes, a bust, that's it; Erodelphian, forever, with a bust!
There was only troubled sleep for the youngster that night, and little of that. Society was to meet the night after and the final vote was to be taken. Argu- ments and rejoinders, wild fragments of oratory raced through his brain, and the fever burned his temples. No wonder he was only a pale, shivering wisp of a thing as he sat through the complacent remarks of Martin on Friday evening, heard a high-browed junior call for "Question," and struggled to his feet, stammering, "Mr. P-p-president!" How he said the rest of it he never knew. But when he
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sank into his chair again, the all-gone feeling had vanished from his middle and the Martinites knew what their young and persecuted brothers thought about cheap imitations. Moreover they were smiling at this impossible suggestion of a bust.
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