218

RUTGERS COLLEGE—ITS STRUGGLES REWARDED.

expense and delay of the voyage were so great, it was resolved to establish a school of theology at New Brunswick, and have the power of ordination conferred by the church in Holland on its American offspring. A charter of incorporation for an institution under the title of Queen's College, was obtained in 1770. Its board of trustees met at the Court-house of Bergen County, and elected Rev. Dr. Jacobus R. Hardenbergh their president. At this time, John H. Livingston, of the New York family of that name, was pursuing his studies preparatory to ordination in Holland, and he obtained from the parent church, their consent to a separate organization of American congregations, on condition that they should establish a theological professorate, 'as the church of Holland could not and would not acknowledge and maintain any connection with a church, which did not provide herself with an educated ministry.'

These conditions were complied with. Livingston returned after his ordination, and became minister of the Dutch Church in New York, and professor of Divinity. Financial embarrassment caused the literary exercises of the college to be suspended in 1795; but they were revived again under the energetic and self-sacrificing labors of Dr. Ira Condict in 1807. No union, however, of the theological professorate with Queen's College was effected till 1810, when Dr. Livingston removed to New Brunswick, and from this period may date the prosperity of the college. Receiving no aid from the State of New Jersey, and little assistance from any other quarter, its instructions had been given in temporary localities, and no one professorship was fully provided for. But with pious zeal and unflagging energy, Dr. Livingston maintained his professorship, and did much to sustain the institution. The College was, however, closed again from 1816 to 1825. At the latter date it was entirely reorganized; its name, in consideration of the services of Col. Henry Rutgers, was changed from 'Queens' to 'Rutgers; a new covenant was entered into between its Board of Trustees-whose strength was greatly increased by the election of Abraham Van Nest-and the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church; and Rev. Philip S. Milledoler became President. At the age of nineteen, this brilliant young man was called to the church in Nassau, between Fulton and John streets. He afterwards became pastor of the New Dutch Church in Rutgers street. Finally, under the patronage of the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, other professorships were established, and filled by learned men who afterwards became eminent; among them Dr. De Witt, who so long and successfurly maintained his lofty position.

Theodore Strong, LL.D., devoted thirty-four years as an educator in Rutgers. When Dr. Brownlee resigned his professorship to accept a call to the Collegiate Church of New York, he was succeeded by Joseph Nelson, LL. D., the celebrated blind teacher.'

1 In the Alumni address of 1852, the Rev. Abraham Polhemus says of Professor Nelson :-'He was at the time of his appointment, and had been for a number of years, totally blind; but with great powers of memory,

and a thorough acquaintance with the studies of his department, he conducted the exercises of his room to the very general improvement of his students and acceptance of the Board. I remember him well; how

ITS REORGANIZATION AND PERMANENT ENDOWMENTS. 219

Honorable A. Bruyn Hasbrouck assumed the presidency after the resigna. tion of Dr. Milledoler in 1840, and resigning ten years later, Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen took his place. This gentleman's father, Frederick, had served his country in the Continental Congress, resigning his seat to become cap. tain of a volunteer corps, and serving in the army to the end of the war, after. wards becoming Senator of the United States. The son had followed the career of the bar, and became in 1817 Attorney-General of the State; an office which he held till he was elected to the United States Senate in 1826, where he served two terms. In 1838 he became chancellor of the University of the City of New York, and twelve years later resigned the position to become president of Rutger's College. He held this office till 1862, when he died at New Brunswick on the 12th of April. He was a pure and noble character; a statesman of large views and unsullied integrity, an enthusiast in the cause of education, and dedicated heart and soul to works of religion and philan thropy. As president of the Board of Missions, and also of the Bible Society, the neglected and the destitute of distant nations rose up to call him blessed.

After Mr. Frelinghuysen's decease, the College, in consequence of its insufficient endowment, and of the depression occasioned by the late war, was threatened with destruction. In this emergency, Rev. Wm. H. Campbell, D.D., was called from his professorship of Hebrew and Oriental literature in the Theological Seminary, to assume the Presidency in 1863. By his indefatigable efforts, crowned as they have been with remarkable success, the institution has been remodelled in all respects, and placed on a basis of large and lasting prosperity. It has been declared to be a literary college, entirely independent of the Theological Seminary, and of the General Synod of the Reformed Church; several hundred thousand dollars have been added to its permanent funds; many new professorships have been created, and filled with. competent scholars; several large and costly buildings have been erected; and the number of students increased from sixty-five, to over two hundred. Among its professors stands the distinguished name of Geo. H. Cook, who, as conductor of the Geological Survey of New Jersey, and as the adviser in manifold agricultural and mineral enterprises, ranks among the most useful and practical scientists of the United States. A legacy of Mrs. Littleton Kirkpatrick raised a memorial chapel and library, at an expense of fifty thousand dollars. In 1864 the legislature of New Jersey chose Rutgers College as the seat of the Scientific School, to be sustained by the interest of the money accruing from the sale of 210,000 acres of the public domains voted by Congress to the State of New Jersey for the establishment of such a school. A Model Farm of 100 acres was connected with the college. The school of science, which was also constituted by the legislature the State College for Agriculture and the Me

he would sit with his thumb upon the dial of his watch, marking the minutes as they passed, allowing to each student his allotted portion, and the facility with which he would incidentally detect the least mistake in the reading of the text or translation. And I remember, too, that nice ear by which, with his class sitting in al

phabetical order, he would detect the location of the slightest whisper, and when rebuking an individual by name for the noise, it was rare indeed that the person charged had an opportunity of entering a protest against the justice of his suspicions.'-Page 6

220

ORIGIN OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.

chanic Arts, enjoys a liberal income, for which it provides forty State scholar. snips, whose appointments are wisely left to the superintendents of the various counties.

Having thus surmounted all the obstacles it encountered in its early history, Rutgers College now stands forth fair, and strong in the affections of the people of New Jersey, and New York. And well may this metropolis extend to that institution its generous sympathy and aid; for the great and good men who devoted their lives to building it up, were nearly all of them directly allied with the interests of learning in New York, and in the cause of morals and religion in this vast community. They mingled in our best society, diffusing through our higher circles, and over all our institutions of religion, the pure spirit of Christianity, and the priceless treasures of learning and culture.

Dartmouth College.-We are arrested a moment at the spot where the little rivulet bubbled forth from the hillside springs in the village of Lebanon, Connecticut, one hundred and twenty years ago, and which has been sending forth its life-giving waters to the nations. The foun ler of Dartmouth College was Dr. Eleazer Wheelock, whose name, it has been well said, might more properly have been borne by that school than that of the English statesman. Wheelock was descended from a line of godly ministers of New England. He carried the first Berkeley premium from Yale College, and began life as a pedagogue after the fashion of the times, one of his pupils being Samson Occom, a Mohegan Indian. The savage turned out so good a scholar, that the master set up an Indian missionary school to raise Indian teachers. A good farmer, Joshua Moor, of Mansfield, in 1754, gave a house and two acres of land adjoining Wheelock's residence for the school. Occom went to England and raised money, which was deposited with a board of trustees, of which Lord Dartmouth, one of the subscribers, was president. Wheelock's success suggested the removal of the school to closer proximity with the New England tribes, and various offers of situations were made to him from Albany, from Berkshire County, where Jonathan Edwards was then writing the Essay on the Will, and from other places. He at last decided on Hanover, in the western part of New Hampshire, near the Connecticut River. In 1769 Governor Wentworth granted a charter for the institution, which in honor of Lord Dartmouth was named Dartmouth College. Thus at the age of sixty, Dr. Whee lock moved into the wilderness, and with his family and students built some log huts. In 'The Memoirs of the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth, by M'Clure and Elijah Parish, 1811,' we have the following picturesque glimpses of the new college settlement: Upon a circular area of six acres the pines were felled, and in all directions covered the ground to the height of about five feet. One of these was two hundred and seventy feet in height. Paths of communication were cut through them. The lofty tops of these sur rounding forests were often seen bending before the northern tempest, while the air below was still and piercing. The snow lay four feet in depth, between

DARTMOUTH REFOUNDED BY DANIEL WEBSTER.

22

four and five months. The sun was invisible by reason of the trees, until risen many degrees above the horizon. In this secluded retreat, and in these humble dwellings, this enterprising colony passed a long and dreary winter. The students pursued their studies with diligence; contentment and peace were not interrupted even by murmurers. A two-story college was erected, and in 1771 four students graduated, one of whom was John Wheelock, son of the first, and the future president of the College.' '

The founder died in 1779, aged sixty-eight, and his son succeeded him. He had served as a tutor till the Revolution opened, when he carried his musket with Stark and Gates. At the close of the war, he went to Europe, to get help, taking with him letters from Washington, who spoke of him as a brave officer, and from the French minister Luzerne, to the Count de Vergennes. Reaching Paris, Franklin and John Adams gave him letters to the Netherlands, where the Prince of Orange and his friends made generous contributions to the Wilderness College. In England he procured valuable donations and philosophical instruments. He was wrecked on Cape Cod coming home, reaching the shore with his life. But the gifts to the college, that came in another vessel, were saved.

For thirty-six years he toiled for Dartmouth. The rise of a hostile party in the State, gave Wheelock an opportunity to appeal to the Legislature to redress his private wrongs. He asked their interposition against a majority of the Faculty who had not approved of his administration. His 'Memorial' brought on the legal controversy which ended in his removal by the Trustees. The State then interposed. The Legislature, in 1816, created a new corporation, changing the corporate title to Dartmouth University, and vesting the property in a new board. But the old trustees disregarded this legislation, and commenced an action for the recovery of the property. The case went against them in the State Court, but it was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, in 1819, where Daniel Webster appeared as their advocate, at the age of thirty-five, and by his learning and eloquence laid the corner-stone of his future fame as a constitutional lawyer. It was the fairest opportunity fortune could give. He had graduated from Dartmouth only seventeen years before, and had already argued their case in the State court; and now, in pleading the cause of learning, and the sacredness of its chartered rights, he found the inspiration which not only swayed the judgment of that bench of jurists, and secured the admiration and love of Chief Justice Marshall, but won his case,

1 'Another graduate was Levi Frisbie, father of the poet, and himself a writer of verses, in some of which he has celebrated the peculiar circumstances in which his Alma Mater was founded :

"Forlorn thus youthful Dartmouth trembling stood,
Surrounded with inhospitable wood;
No silken furs on her soft limbs to spread,
No dome to screen her fair, defenceless head;
On every side she cast her wistful eyes,
Then humbly raised them to the pitying skies.
Thence grace d'vine beheld her tender care,

And bowed an ear, propitious to her prayer.
Soon chang'd the scene; the prospect shines more
fair;

Joy lights all faces with a cheerful air:
The buildings rise, the work appears alive,
Pale fear expires, and languid hopes revive,
Calm solitude, to liberal science kind,
Sheds her soft influence on the studious mind;
Afflictions stand aloof; the heavenly powers
Drop needful blessings in abundant showers.'

and with it the gratitude of his clients, and the affection of the friends of learn ing all over the world.'

The eminent Joseph Hopkinson, of Philadelphia, one of the associate counsel in the case, in communicating the decision to President Brown said: 'I would advise you to inscribe over the door of your institution, Foundea by Eleazer Wheelock: refounded by Daniel Webster. President Wheelock was not restored after these troubles: he died only two months later—April, 1817-aged sixty-three.'

Thus permanently founded, Dartmouth has been steadily advancing in its solid work. It has taken high rank as a school of classical learning and modern science. If it has not been so richly endowed, nor put forth such large pretensions, all its work has been well and carefully done. Its graduates have, in diverse fields of labor, illustrated the soundness of their scholarship and the breadth of their attainments; and it has recently received striking proofs of the hold it has upon the hearts of the friends of learning."

Libraries, as well as colleges and men, may be classed among the moulders of society. Some words are due to the Library Company of Philadelphia,

In an article by Mr. George Ticknor, in the American Quarterly Review for June, 1831, that elegant scholar says of Webster's argument:

'He opened his cause with perfect simplicity in the general statement of its facts, and then went on to unfold the topics of his argument in a lucid order, which made every position sustain every other. The logic and the law were rendered irresistible. As he advanced his heart warmed to the subject and the occasion, Thoughts and feelings that had grown old with his best affections rose unbidden to his lips. He remembered that the institution he was defending was the one where his own youth had been nurtured; and the moral tenderness and beauty this gave to the grandeur of his thoughts, the sort of religious sensibility it imparted to his urgent appeals and demands for the stern fulfilment of what law and justice required, wrought up the whole audience to an extraordinary state of ex

citement.'

2 This great battle was fought by them not for themselves only; the principles concerned were vital to many other institutions of learning. It is certainly to the praise of Dartmouth, that, in comparative poverty and alone, she was thus instrumental in vindicating and establishing the sacredness of private eleemosynary trusts. To this category, in the judgment of the court, the institution belonged. A contract, they held, was involved; and no State might pass a law "impairing the obligation of contracts."-Old and New, Dec., 1873.

The whole number of its alumni, including all the departments, is five thousand three hundred and seventeen. These have come from all parts of the land; and, as graduates, have been scattered as widely. While a considerable number have entered from the cities and large towns, the great majority have come from rural places. The average age of admission has been somewhat above that at many other colleges; and to the maturity thus secured has been added, in many cases, the stimulus of self-dependence. From these and other causes, Dartmouth students, as a class, have been characterized by a spirit of earnestness, energy, and general manliness, of the happiest omen as to their life-work Most of them have gone, not into the more lucrative lines of business, but into what may be called the working professions. To the ministry, the college has given more than one thousand of her sons. Dr. Chapman says, in his Sketches of the Alumni,' published in 1867: "There have been thirty-one judges of the United States and State Supreme Courts; fifteen senators in Congress; and sixty-one representatives;

two United States cabinet ministers; four ambassadors to foreign courts: one postmaster-general; fourteen governors of States, and one of a Territory; twentyfive presidents of colleges; one hundred and four professors of academical, medical, or theological colleges.' Perhaps the two professions that have drawn most largely upon the institution have been those of teaching and the law. We recall a single class, that of 1828, one-fourth of whose members have been either college presidents or professors. Dr. Chapman states, that at one time there were residing in Boston, Mass., no less than seven sons of the college, "who were justly re garded as ranking among the brightest luminaries of the law. They were Samuel Sumner Wilde, 1789; Daniel Webster, 1801; Richard Fletcher, 1806; Joseph Bell, 1807; Joel Parker, 1811; Rufus Choate, 1819; and Charles Bishop Goodrich, 1822.' ”—Old and New, Dec., 1873.

The faculty of instruction by the catalogue of 1873 embraced thirty-six, and in all the different courses of study four hundred and twenty students from twentyfive different States and Territories at home and abroad, grouped as follows: Academical, two hundred and sixty-four; medical, fifty-one; scientific sixty-three; agricultural, twenty-three; Thayer department, seven. A number of libraries were accessible to the students besides that of the college; and these numbered over forty thousand volumes. A gymnasium was erected for their use in 1867, by the gift of George H. Bissell, at an expense of twenty-four thousand dollars. This institution has over a hundred scholarshipsState, ministerial, and individual. The New Hamp shire College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts was founded by the Legislature in 1866, on the basis of the Congressional Land Grant, and connected with Dartmouth. Another new associate department is the Thayer School for Civil Engineering, established by a donation of seventy thousand dollars from General Sylvanus Thayer, of Braintree, Massachusetts. Two other notable gifts have been lately received-sixty thousand dollars for the Agricultural Department from John Conant, of Jaffray, and fifteen thousand dollars from E. W. Stoughton, of New York City, to found a Museum of Pathological Anatomy. Within the last ten years, more than five hundred thousand dollars have been secured for the various departments. But with the restrictions imposed on some of the gifts, with the remaining wants of existing foundations, with the plans of enlargement and improvement in the minds of the trustees and faculty, and with the increased num ber of students, there is a present need of as much more.