American state universities, their origin and progress : a history of congressional university land-grants, a particular account of the rise and development of the University of Michigan, and hints toward the future of the American university system

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

The preface to a book is a device in order that its author may say, in regard to his work, something which ought to be known and still could not well be put together in a connected way in the body of the work. It may have reference to the origin of the work, or its plan and purpose, or to the authorities consulted, or anything personal to himself or others who may have been concerned in its production, or to all these.

This book did not originate in the author's conceit of his own special qualifications to prepare it. He was repeatedly urged to write a series of sketches of early university history for the Universliy Chronicle ; this he did, the articles numbering in all about twenty. These were favorabl}' referred to in the Detroit and other papers, and several of them were stolen and published as original in a New York periodical. Dr. Haven, at that time president of the University of Michigan, on several occasions urged their elaboration into a volume, and supported his advice by words which seemed indeed too flattering, in regard to the author's qualifications for such an undertaking. As the facts brought out in these articles related solely to an earlier period than that of Dr. Haven's first connection with the University, his words were taken as expressing an unbiased and honest, though perhaps mistaken conviction, that the author was the right man for this work. Dr. H. gave furthermore this sound advice : " Trust your own judgment and do not submit your work to others for opinions by which to be governed ; they will only confuse your own mind." His opinion has not been asked and was never offered, and the work, with the exception of two or three chapters which contain no references to the personalities of the present time, was submitted to no one for an opinion until after its completion.

The original plan embraced only a history of the University of Michigan. Reflection, however, led to a change. The attention , which the subject of University education is now receiving

VI PREFACE.

throughout our land, the fact that in a large portion of the country this enterprise is either not yet inaugurated at all, or is only in an incipient stage, and that everywhere the public mind is awake to any suggestions which the study of our history may bring out, led to the determination to attempt a work of more than a mere local interest. It will still remain as first intended, a history of the University of Michigan, not, however, now as a single phenomenon, but as part of a system yet to extend itself over the Whole country, if not the whole continent.

The question of State Universities is of difficult solution, and deeply concerns the people of every state. If this question has anywhere been solved, the work ought to be spread out for inspection. As preliminary to this, it seemed proper to survey the early condition of the old States as to culture ; then that of the new ; then of congressional action as it concerns all these States in common ; then insert tliat particular solution of the problem which should seem to be most nearly and satisfactorily completed, with suggestions as to its future completion in the Universities of our land. This is just what has been attempted, with what success, the reader is to judge.

The difficulties which have been encountered in one State, are in geneial those which maybe expected in any other, their variations being rather in extent and complication than in character. These will arise chiefly from the elements which are present, and must be provided for. All shades of political and religious bigotry, and fanaticism, ignorance, infidelity, and all the various prejudices against education or any particular forms and grades of it, must be so considered as to be either canceled or accommodated. The manner in which this has been accomplished in one instance, will show how it may be in another. It has therefore been deemed important to give a view of the religious public as related to irreligion and indifference, and of the religious denominations as related to each other, as also of the attitudes of politicians ; and just in the proportion that this is fairly and faithfully done, will be the value of the work to those who have these battles still to fight.

The articles above referred tocan not in any proper sense be regarded as the basis of this work. Scarcely a dozen pages have been used as printed in those sketches. The most extended passage of the work which has ever before been printed, is that on self-education, in the fourteenth chapter. This was prepared for

PREFACE. VH an educational convention, where it was read (the writer himself not being present) by Dr. Haven, and received such decided com!- mendation as to furnish one of the encouragements to this work. The editor of an educational journal, who was there on the occasion and obtained possession of it, afterward furnished th? author with a printed copy ; his manuscript he never saw again.

The author knows of no obligation which he has to acknowledge to others, except in general that he has conversed with Presidents Haven, now of the University of Syracuse, in the State of New York ; Angell, of the University of Michigan ; Folwell, of the University of Minnesota ; and Read, of the .University of Missouri ; and believes that he found evidence of their concurrence on the main features of the plan which he has sketched of the future University. But as his system has never been submitted for the approval of these gentlemen, or any others, he pledges no one for it. Dr. Read, who is perhaps the real Nestor of State University labor in this country, having been in this work in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Missouri, and being now near th^ end of fifty years of service, has furnished some valuable hints, in a conversation which has occurred since the manuscript was finished.

As to the authorities which Ijave been relied upon for facts, they could in all instances have been given. In regard to much of the work, memory has been able to run its lines with perfect accuracy from one to another of those stakes which documents have fixed, and yet this has seldom been used without confirmation.

There Is but one chapter the documentary authority of which needs special explanation — the review of events from 1844 to 1851. On his retirement in the latter year, the author was requested by his friends to prepare a statement of the facts which led to this step, the publication of which one of those friends chose to take mainly upon himself This paper was sent on from Utica, in the State of New York, soon after the author's arrival there in December of 1851, and placed, together with certain correspondence, which supported its statements, and was to be printed with it, in the printer's hands. Within a few days the action of December 31st of that year took place, and was announced to the author, as stated in the chapter in question. This led to correspondence and some delay, and as he never had any special desire to publish anything on the subject, it was dropped ;

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the manuscript was not returned to the author, and when desired, about four years ago, for this work, could not be found. Mr. Kendrick, to whom it had been entrusted, long since deceased, had pi-obably not thought to obtain it from the printer, as the author had never asked for its return to him ; but the original rough draft still remained in the author's hands, containing references to the correspondence, but without the letters themselves, so far as they had been sent away. This draft has been largely the authority on this part of the history. An interval of more than twenty years has removed the little desire which the author even then felt for any personal vindication, and taken from the matter all its interest except as a history of the University, for which purpose alone it it has been used, and simply because the facts relate to a class of difficulties which must in some form be met in all state institutions ; and this has been done not without grave doubts as to whether it would not have been as well for the authoi-'s name, had he left out this portion of the history ; but that it could not have been properly a history of the University without this account of the greatest difficulty ever encountered in establishing it, decided his course which he submits to the reader's candid judgment.

In the first place, then, because he was urged to the work, and then because he felt a deep conviction that if properly executed it would be important to an interest scarcely second to any in our country, he has completed and now sends it forth, commending it to the fair and kind consideration of a generous public.

University of Michigan, May, 1875.

AMERICAN STATE UNIVERSITIES.

Chapter I

Sketch of the Early Progress of Higher Education in the Atlantic States.

Ecclesiastical organization in New England was, from the beginning, quite complete, and included everything pertaining to schools as being but a part of religion itself. The introduction of an educational system into these colonies may therefore be deemed substantially contemporaneous with their settlement. It was of such character, too, and so energetically prosecuted that education suffered little, if any, deterioration in passing from Old to New England. It was, indeed, even more diffused on this than on the other side of the ocean ; for the classes which in the old country were uneducated, were not represented in the new. The settlements were large enough to maintain their primary schools. Single families seldom passed se far from these centers as not to be within their reach. Thus common school instruction at least was provided for all.

Higher schools, too, had an early beginning. What afterward became Harvard College was established but six years after the settlement of Boston, the general court having increased the amount raised by private subscription by an appropriation of £400. Every town of fifty families was obliged to support a school, and the same general state of facts existed throughout New England. Classical schools followed in regular succession. These were modeled after the grammar schools of England, in which the founders of the colonies had themselves received their first

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AMERICAN STATE UNIVERSITIES.

classical training. The scholars of New England's early days learned in these schools to write and speak Latin ; so that if scientific teaching was nearly unknown, discipline was secured by a more thorough instruction in the ancient languages, and especially the Latin. Grammar schools were very early established at Boston, Dorchester, Cambridge, New Haven, Salem, and Hartford.

In 1763 the oldest of the so-called acad«»mies, the Dummer School, at Byfield, was founded. Philips' Academy, at Andover, soon followed, as also similar institutions at Leicester and Exeter. These were designed for public use, and provided no special advantages to the towns in which they were located ; nor is it unworthy of note that those which were made free to all — that is, were not founded for the particular accommodation of those living near them — succeeded, while the restrictive ones failed. Of the earliest charters, some contained express provisions against localization, and justified the State appropriations to them by the equal freedom of all to their advantages.

The academies-in Massachusetts were designed to be a part of the public school system. There was indeed a plan which contemplated one in each county. The State appropriated lands in Maine toward the endowment of some of these ; and not the least interesting fact in regard to this subject is, that the man who was most prominent in this endowment by the State of the high schools of Massachusetts, Nathan Dane, was perhaps, more than any other man in Congress, the author of the system by which lands have been appropriated in the western Territories for education. In the pursuit of this policy, fifteen academies were incorporated in Massachusetts prior to 1797, seven of which had received donations of lands in Maine, and the principle involved in such gifts from the State had become settled.*

The other New England States were, according to their resources, about as forward as Massachusetts in the work

*An excellent account of the academies of New England will be found in the report of the Commissioner of Education for 1867, p. 403-432.

EARLY PRQGRESS OF EDUCATION.

of education. As early as 1701, the law of Connecticut required every parent to see that he had no child or apprentice in his household who could not read the word of •God and the "good laws of the colony." The system embraced a common school in ever}"- town of seventy families, a grammar school in the four chief county towns to fit pupils for college, "and a college, to which .the general court made an annual appropriation of £120.

We shall scarcely find an instance in which educational matters were in a more unfortunate condition than in New York during the first two centuries of its existence as a ■colony and a state. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware being included in the same statement. This was not so much on account of the indifference of the people, or because the support of schools was not regarded as an obligation of the government, nor was it because the colonists were unwilling to contribute voluntarily to this object ; but grew out of unsettled proprietary relations, or perhaps it will be better explained bythe fact that the colony was settled by merchants who were more intent on making money than on building up its best interests.

In 1649, complaint was made to the States-General, that, although contributions had been collected for a school, the money had been dissipated,* and no school built. Their answer was, that the church wardens had had charge of the money, f Neither coniplaint nor answer determines where the fault lay, but they both show the destitution of schools.

In 1656, forty-seven years after the settlement at New Amsterdam, there Were but three schools in the entire province of New Netherlands. These were at Manhattan, jBeverwyck (Albany), and Fort Casimir (below Philadelphia, on the Delaware). There were, indeed, no persons •qualified to teach who were not otherwise occupied, and if there had been, the people were too poor to pay them, though anxious to have their children taught. This state of things existed, too, in spite of an injunction of the

* Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York, Holland Docs., Vol. I., p. 300. t^<^-i P- 423-

Dutch West India Company, to the effect that the colonists, whether independent or under patroons, should make provision for the support of ministers and schoolmasters. If the colony had been under the States-General directly, instead of a mere mercantile company, the case would have been quite different ; schools would not have been allowed to fall into neglect ; not immediate interests, but permanent results would have determined action. A Latin school was indeed started in 1659, previous to which time classical teaching was not to be had nearer than Boston. This school was not indeed very successful under its first master, but became so eminent under his successor, Luyck, who entered upon its superintendence in 1661, that children were sent to it from Fort Orange (Albany), South river (the Delaware), and Virginia.

Wheij the province fell into the hands of the English, in 1664, the king's commissioners were instructed to "make due enquiry what progresse hath been towards ye foundacon and maintenance of any college schools for the educacon of youth."*

The relation between the Dutch colonists and their English masters was probably unfavorable to any school system. Their ecclesiastical differences increased the difficulty. Zealous churchmen held that the English Church was established in the province. The few Episcopalians of New England had been viewed with jealousy, and treated with some severity, as representatives of the persecutors from whom the Puritans had fled. Not finding congenial homes among the Congregationalists there, they sought to establish themselves in New York.

The colonial assembl}^ took some action, in 1747, looking toward a college — that is, made an appropriation of £1,800 ; t but the entire legislation of that period, attended as it was with frequent arbitrary adjournments bj' Governor

* Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York, Vol. III., p. 53.

t Id. The authorities consulted on this subject are O'Callaghan's History of New Netherland; Brodhead's History of the State of New York, first period ; and especially the Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York.

EARLY PROGRESS OF EDUCATION.

Clinton, shows a want of harmony between these Dutch people and their English rulers, which will account for much of inefficiency in every branch of the government. The college was, however, founded by royal charter, in 1754. This was to be an Episcopal seminary. Correspondence between Rev. Dr. Johnson,* who became its first president, and Bishop Sherlock and Archbishop Seeker, shows what the plan vvas in relation to its religious character, and this plan was in general carried out, though its religious features were tolerant and catholic. Indeed it could not well have been otherwise, as there was but about one churchman to fifteen so-called dissenters.

It is a matter of curious interest, that Dr. Johnson, in one of his letters to the archbishop, describes the college work. The description is in these words: "The president's business here is to oversee and govern the college, read prayers, moderate in disputations, and prescribe exercises, and to hold commencements, and give degrees ; and besides, to act the part of tutor to one of the classes (I have often two) ;. all of which the vice-president must do in my absence, and be alwaj's one of the tutors, living in a collegiate way, at a common table, at the expense of about six shillings sterling per week for mere board." The salary of the president, together with his perquisites, was, in 1760, about £650. Dr. Johnson urged a grant of land for an endowment, and the Lords of Trade reported to the privy council in favor of one of twenty thousand acres, in the immediate vicinity of New York.

The early school advantages of the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware did not differ enough, as already intimated, from those of New York, to make a separate treatment important for our purpose. They were all, at first, the same ; and when they passed severally into the hands of different proprietors, their action in regard to schools was, in general, of the same kind — it was

*■ The Life and Correspondence of Dr. Johnson, by Rev. E. Edwards Beardsley, D.D., has just been published.

/waction. William Penn, and afterward Benjamin Franklin, expressed themselves strongly in favor of education by the State ; but still Pennsylvania, in common with the other States here grouped with it, remained without a system of public instruction.

In relation to the means of culture of this period, the Swedish scientific traveler, Kalm, employs the followinglanguage : " On one side of this building (the Town Hall), stands the library, which was first begun in the year 1742, on a public-spirited plan, formed and put into execution by the learned Mr. Franklin. For he persuaded first the most substantial people in town to pay forty shillings at the outset, and afterward annually ten shillings, all in Pennsylvania currency, toward purchasing all kinds of useful books.^ The subscribers are entitled to make use of the books. Other people are likewise at liberty to borrow," etc.

" The building of the academy is in the western part of the town. It was formerly, as I have before mentioned, a meeting-house of the followers of Whitefield, but they sold it in the year 1750, and it was destined to be the seat of an university ; or, to express myself in more exact terras, to be a college ; it was therefore fitted up to this purpose. The 3'ouths are here only taught those things which they learn in our common schools ; but, in time, such lectures are intended to be read here as are usual in real universities."*

Dr. Franklin obtained subscriptions for this academy in 1749. He had some correspondence with Governor Colden, of New York, the same year, on the subjects of college instruction, and some soon afterward with Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, whom he desired to obtain as head of the school, but who did not accept the place, because he had a similar offer in New York. In 1751, he gives an account of the academy, as follows : " Our academy is be3-ond expectation. We have now above one hundred scholars, and the number is daily increasing. We have excellent mas-

* English translation, Vol. I., p. 44-46.

EARLY PROGRESS OF EDUCATION.

ters at present ; and as we give them pretty good salaries,. I 'hope we sliall always be able to procure such. We pay the rector, who teaches Latin and Greek, per annum, £200 ;. the English master, £150; the professor of mathematics,. £125 ; three tutors, each £60."

The provinces further south really made at first moreadequate provision for education. In 1692, the legislature of Maryland passed an act for the encouragement of learning, and four 3'ears later King William's free school was established. In 1723, schools were started in all the counties. To these. State aid was given in money, and lands were' appropriated in each county for the use of the teachers. Such pupils as the visitors should designate for thepurpose were to be taught gratuitously. Among the means of supporting the schools were a poll tax of twenty shillings on negroes and Irish (Catholic) servants imported into the province. These county schools were not of the primary, but of the higher grade. As early as 1782, Uie school for Kent county had made such progress as to appl}' to the legislature for a college charter, which application was followed two years later by a similar one in behalf of the King Williani school at Annapolis, both of which were granted, and the names Washington College and St. John's College applied to them severally. The same act which chartered them also united the two under the title of " The University of Maryland;" though each retained its separate character and location. But this system, so promisingly started, failed of any considerable success, chiefly because its government was vested in a board of visitors, to whom appeals could be made from all disciplinary action of the faculty, and of course the latter lost the respect of the students. Though the interests of these local institutions were clearly diverse, the two were treated as one, and such became the general dissatisfaction with their working that the State withdrew its aid in 1805,* and increased its appropria-

*Mr. Spi^rks in N. A. Rev., Vol. XIII., p. 338-342.

tions to the county schools, so that some received as high as $800 a year.

In New England, a public school system had grown up with the very first settlement. This had been fostered and perfected, and had remained without -any interruptions in its practical execution, which was not strictly true anywhere else. The very first settlers in Virginia, which was the leading province, and, afterward the leader among the States, intended to establish a university, and endow it with lands, and had a good prospect of effecting this, which was, however, defeated by the massacre of 1622, some other causes also concurring in the production of this result. It was just seventy years after this time that the first steps toward the realization of such a plan were taken. William and Mary College was founded in 1692 b}- King William and Queen Mary, they having given £1,985 14s. lod. and 20,000 acres of land toward its endowment, one penny per pound on tobacco exported to the Plantations, with some other sources of revenue from the crown, some private subscriptions — the celebrated Robert Boj'le being one of the large donors — and some provincial aid. It had a powerful influence in the early history of Virginia.*

Even in the time of the Revolution, there was an application to the House of Burgesses to aid the Academy of Hampden Sidney. This they did so far as to grant the right to raise money by a lotler}-, but the heavy drafts of the war forbade direct appropriations. This was in 1777. In 1783 this institution was incorporated. One of the arguments used in the appeal for aid was that the war was in the way of their going to the English universities for edu-

*This is scarcely less true in later days, in illustration of which the case of the late President Dew maj' be adduced. He was professor of political economy, history, and metaphysics, from 1S27 to 1S36, and thence to his death, in 1846, president. He died in the forty-fourth year of his age. His work on the restrictive system, published in 1829, is supposed to have affected the tariff of 1832, and John Qiiincy Adams regards his argument on domestic slavery as inaugurating a new era in our country. His posthumous work, " Ancient and Modern Nations," published six years after his death, is perhaps his ablest.

EARLY PROGRESS OF EDUCATION.

■cation, and the college at Williamsburg was so near the .seat of war as to cripple its usefulness.

But with these highly creditable movements toward higher education, there was no school system. The great statesmen of Virginia — the State most influential in later colonial times, and especially during the Revolution — perceived, indeed, and admired the excellencies of the New ^England system. Patrick Henry wrote to John Adams : " It shall be my incessant study so to form our portrait of government, that a kindred with New England may be <iiscerned in it ; and if all your excellencies can not be preserved, yet I hope to retain so much of the likeness that posterity shall pronounce us descended from the same stock." Richard Bland Lee, speaking of the institutions ■of New England, declared them " the wisest the world had ever seen."

In 1779, Wythe and Jefferson reported a bill, prepared iDy the latter, for a school system in Virginia, to be supported by taxation according to property. The great statesman may speak for himself. In a letter to Dr. Priestly, elated January 27, 1800, he says :

" About twenty years ago, I drew a bill for our legislature, which proposed to lay off every county into hundreds, or townships of five or six miles square. In the center of each of them was to be a free English school. The whole State was further laid off into ten districts, in each of which was to be a college for teaching the languages, geography, and surveying, and other useful things of that grade, and then a single university for the sciences.*

* Those who regard Jefferson as their model statesman might do well -to consider his plan. Nearly a century has passed since he proposed it. Mis native State has not even yet attained to its standard, and no State has transcended it, though all have of late been rapidly advancing in the direction which it indicates. In some quarters, however, an opposite movement is started. The legislature of Ohio is at this time (December, 1874) discussing the question of the right to support higher education by taxation. A judicial decision has just been given in Michigan as to the constitutional right to collect taxes for the teaching of the higher branches, especially the foreign languages, in the schools supported by taxation.

lO AMERICAN STATE UNIVERSITIES.

It was received with enthusiasm ; but as I had proposed that William and Mary, under an improved form, should be the university, and that was at that time pretty highly episcopal, the dissenters after awhile began to apprehend some secret design of a preference to that sect."

The adoption of the system seems to have been left to the option of the county courts, and it never went into effect — perhaps, as has been hinted by Mr. Jefferson himself, because the judges were wealthy, and feared the taxes.

How earnestly the great statesmen of that time were enlisted in placing the cause of learning on a firm foundation, will further appear by a reference to plans for a national university at the capital, in which Washington was greatly interested. One of the forms in which this subject was presented through Mr. Jefferson, was that of a proposition from M. D'lvernois, and the professors of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, to remove in a body to the United States, and establish a university. This was most probably designed to be a Virginia, rather than a national school ; though perhaps the central and leading jjosition of Virginia led these men to include both in one. Mr. Madison even proposed in the Constitutional Convention to give Congress the power to establish a national university at the capital. It is not our purpose to enter into any details on this subject, the interest in which, at that time, as shown by Washington's and Jefferson's references to it,

The two questions are indeed quite distinct; the one regarding the propriety of passing laws providing for taxation to support liigher schools, the other being a question of existing constitutional law. No point ia better established hy facts than that it is vital to primary schools that they be but part of a system which shall embrace the highest grade of scientific and literary culture. It is the old fable of the " Stomach and the Members," the latter complaining at the enormous expenditure upon the former, ■without benefit to them. But -as in the one case, so in the other, the ■withholding of these supplies must be quickly felt to the extremities. Nearly a century of progress has been lost by Sipme of the States, less' by others, from their not holding the position which they had occupied at the beginning of the Revolution, and advancing from it. It is to be hoped that the lesson will be learned, and no retrogade i^^ovement ever again be allowed.