CHAPTER VI.

THE COLLEGE AND THE UNIVERSITY.

The Indiana College was established January 24, 1828, "for the education of youth in the American, learned, and foreign languages, the useful arts, science and literature," and the institution was placed under the control of a board of fifteen trustees.

No instructor could be required to profess any particular religious opinions, and no student was to be denied admission or refused any particular honors, or degrees, on account of religious opinions, and no sectarian principles were to be taught or inculcated.

A board of visitors was also provided for the new college with powers and duties similar to those of the "visitors" of the seminary.

THE FIRST PRESIDENT.

In 1829, under the new régime, with the election of the first president, came a better era. Dr. Andrew Wylie, the new president, came from Washington, Pennsylvania. He was a man of marked character, an excellent scholar, and a successful teacher. He was an inspiration to his students, who, it seems, held him in great veneration. Many young men from Pennsylvania and Virginia, who had studied under Dr. Wylie in the East followed him to his new field of labor in the "far west." Under his administration the college grew rapidly in numbers, usefulness, and influence, and at his death, November 11, 1851, after twenty-three years of service, he left it a well-established institution. Dr. Wylie's services to Indiana in the capacity of first president of her university, are not easily estimated. As a class-room instructor he disciplined the minds and molded the characters of young men for useful service in the State. By his personal power he attached every student who had received the benefit of his tuition, to the welfare of the university. As a public educator and lecturer, and as a man among the people, he performed an enormous amount of labor in making known to the citizens of the State, and of other States as well, the advantages of higher education. He thus popularized the university and gave it strength in its appeals for legislative support.

A copy of the first catalogue, published in August, 1831, contains the names of the president, two professors, and sixty students, with a "superintendent of a preparatory department." The classes in the college department had their "regular hours of recitation, after which

they were dismissed, but the classes in the preparatory department remained throughout the day, as in common schools, under the eye of the superintendent." The single course of study was the old-time classical course. This embraced Greek and Latin, mathematics and physics, moral and mental philosophy, and the evidences of Christianity. From small beginnings have grown the extensive opportunities of elec tive courses offered in the university to day.

It was a favorite idea of President Wylie that the student should study "one thing at a time." He should complete his languages, then his mathematics, then his philosophy. Dr. Wylie's thought was to make broad and well-disciplined minds by requiring a special study of various essential subjects "in their turn." "The studies of the institution," we read in his first report, "are so conducted that each stu dent gives his undivided attention to one principal study till it is com pleted. This method has been adopted by the president under the full conviction, founded on twenty years' observation and experience, that it possesses many and decided advantages over that, which is pursued in most colleges, of blending together a variety of studies." This was specialization by rotation. It contained an essential idea of the modern plan that, even for discipline's sake, the thorough study of some one subject is better than a general study of many. It reversed the more modern idea by proposing a final equalization in all lines of study. The "Indiana College" was changed to the "Indiana University" by the act of February 15, 1838. It was at this time enacted by the general assembly of the State of Indiana that "there shall be and hereby is created and established a university adjacent to the town of Bloomington, in the county of Monroe, for the education of youth in the American, learned, and foreign languages, the useful arts, sciences (including law and medicine), and literature, to be known by the name and style of the Indiana University." The act provided for a board of 21 trustees. It was made the duty of this board of trustees "to elect, from time to time, as the interests of the institution may require, a president of said university, and such professors, tutors, instructors, and other officers of the same as they may judge necessary for the interests thereof, and shall determine the duties, salaries, emoluments, responsibilities, tenures of their several offices, and designate the course of instruction in said university." Among the members of the first board of trustees of the newly created university were David Wallace, Governor William Hendricks, Jesse L. Holman, Robert Dale Owen, and Richard W. Thompson. To the university, as to the "Indiana College," were appropriated all the funds arising from the sale of lands in the Monroe and Gibson reservations. All the power and authority of the trustees of the college over "the funds, estate, property, rights, and demands thereof, were to be transferred to the trustees of the new university created by this act, and the said trustees and their successors in office shall have, hold, possess, and exercise all the powers and 12524-No. 10- -6

authority over the said institution." This act was amended in 1841, and the number of trustees was reduced to nine; and any trustee who was absent from two consecutive meetings without excuse forfeited his seat as a member of the board. The pay of the members was fixed at the same per diem and mileage as that allowed by law to the members of the general assembly and was to be paid out of the university funds. There are traces, but no records, of a law department in the early years of the college. Hon. Miles C. Eggleston was an early law professor. But in 1840 this department was fully and legally organized, and a successful law school was carried on until 1877. It was abolished largely because of opposition in the State to the maintenance of purely professional schools-and especially to the education of lawyers—at public expense. In its day this school contained some of the ablest ⚫ lawyers of the State among its faculty, and many of the prominent men of the Indiana bar received here their instruction in law.

The provision in the law of 1838 for a school of medicine as a part of the university was never realized. The Indiana Medical College at Indianapolis was, at a meeting of the board of trustees in 1871, made the medical department of Indiana university. This school was nominally under the control of the university, and was reported in the annual catalogues as a part of the working force of the university from 1872 to 1876. But the connection was one of name only.

After the adoption in 1851 of the new Constitution, which omitted mention of the university, the legislature, by act of June 17, 1852, recognized the "college established by the act of 1828" as the University of the State; and the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Judges of the Supreme Court, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Superintendent of Public Instruction were made, ex officio, a board of visitors to the institution. By this law some member of the faculty whom the faculty may select is required to lecture each year on the purposes and work of the university in at least ten different counties of the State. In 1855 the board of trustees was made to consist of eight members, no two of whom could be from the same county, except from Monroe, where the university is located, which county was allowed two members.

After the death of Dr. Wylie in 1851, Rev. Alfred Ryors, D. D., was elected to the presidency. He occupied the position for but one year. He was succeeded by Rev. Wm. M. Dailey, D. D., who was president from 1853 to 1858. Dr. Lathrop, who had been chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, and was subsequently elected to the presidency of the University of Missouri, was at the head of the institution from 1858 to 1860. From that date until 1875 Rev. Cyrus Nutt, D. D., LL. D, was president, and Rev. Lemuel Moss, D. D., from 1875 to 1885.

In all these early years the university received practically no support from the treasury of the State. Its reliance was upon land endowment. These lands had been sold early and at a sacrifice, and no further endowment or increase of income could be hoped for from this source.