CHAPTER XXXIII. Difficulties CHAPTER XXXIII. Difficulties in electing a Professor of Divinity. - Henry Ware chosen. - His Election opposed, but confirmed. - Fisher Ames is chosen President and declines. Difficulties in electing a President. — Samuel Webber chosen. - Eliphalet Pearson resigns the Hancock Professorship. Consequent Proceedings. - Sidney Willard appointed his Successor. -John Farrar elected Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. The Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory established. John Quincy Adams elected Professor. - His Resignation. Joseph McKean appointed his Successor.- Citizens of Boston and the Vicinity establish a Professorship of Natural History. William Dandridge Peck elected Professor. Office of Proctor instituted. Lottery granted.-Holworthy Hall built from its Proceeds. - Death of Treasurer Storer. Jonathan Jackson chosen in his Place. - His Death. Succeeded by John Davis. — Change in the Constitution of the Board of Overseers. Its Origin and Nature.— Samuel Dexter bequeaths Funds for promoting a Critical Knowledge of the Scriptures.- His Character. - Death of President Webber. WHEN the death of President Willard occurred, the Hollis Professorship of Divinity had been vacant more in electing than a year. Every attempt to elect a successor to of Divinity. Dr. Tappan had been resisted by Eliphalet Pearson, a Professor the Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages, and an active member of the Corporation. He maintained, that Hollis, by the terms of the foundation of his Professorship, required that his Professor should be a Calvinist, and objected to every candidate proposed by any other member of the Board, as being deficient in this qualification.* Notwithstanding this * Manuscript Diary of the Rev. John Eliot, then a member of the Corporation. 1st opposition, on the 5th of February, 1805, the Cor- CHAPTER poration elected the Rev. Henry Ware, of Hingham. XXXIII. Rev. Henry tion oppos In the same month the question of concurrence in Ware. this election was discussed in the Board of Overseers, and the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D. D., of Charlestown, His eleca graduate of Yale College, took the same ground as ed, Dr. Pearson had assumed in the Corporation; maintaining, that inquiry ought to be made into the religious faith of the candidate; that "soundness and orthodoxy" were the characteristics required by Hollis ; that these terms were applicable only to Calvinists; that Mr. Hollis was a Calvinist, and could have used these terms in no other sense; that, by using them, he intended that inquiry should be made into "the soundness and orthodoxy" of the candidate; and that the Overseers at the first election under these statutes had exacted an assent to all the five high points of Calvinism." To these statements it was replied, that this at- supported, tempt to introduce a categorical examination into the creed of a candidate was a barbarous relic of Inquisitorial power, alien alike from the genius of our that the government and the spirit of the people; College had been dedicated to Christ and not to Calvin; to Christianity and not to sectarianism; that Hollis, though agreeing with Calvinists in some points, was notoriously not a Calvinist, and that, by his statutes, he prescribed the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the rule of his Professor's faith, and not the Assembly's Catechism. "After long and patient discussion," say the records, "the election of the Rev. Henry Ware was concurred in by the Overseers"; and, on the 14th of the ensuing May, he was formally inducted into the Hollisian Professorship of Divinity. and con firmed by the Over secrs. CHAPTER Difficulties in electing a President. Fisher Ames is chosen, and declines. The general duties of the President's office were performed during the vacancy by Dr. Pearson; and he presided at the meetings of the Corporation and at Commencement. To the candidates for the President's chair, proposed by the other members of the Corporation, his opposition was uniform; a decision. was consequently postponed until more than a year had elapsed after the death of President Willard, when, on the 11th of December, 1805, the Hon. Fisher Ames was chosen his successor by the Corporation. But on the 13th of January ensuing, before the choice had been submitted to the Overseers for their concurrence, Dr. Pearson received a letter from Mr. Ames declining the appointment. The difficulties which ensued in relation to the choice of a President were exciting and peculiar. Dr. Pearson, the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages, and Mr. Webber, Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, were the prominent candidates. At a meeting of the Corporation on the 28th of February, a decided opinion favorable to the election of Mr. Webber was manifested by the members of the board, and Dr. Pearson immediately gave notice of his intention to resign his Professorship and his seat in the Corporation. On the day succeeding, to which the meeting was adjourned, all the Dr. Pearson members were present except Dr. Pearson; when, as of his inten- the records state, "a free discussion was had relative to making an election of President, and on the question, whether the Corporation would proceed to such choice, before the vacancy in the Corporation, which may be made by the intended resignation of Professor Pearson, shall be filled; on which question it was voted in the affirmative, Judge Wendell dissenting." gives notice tion to resign his Professorship. XXXIII. The Corporation then voted to proceed to the elec- CHAPTER tion of President on the 3d of March ensuing, and a committee was appointed to inform Professor Pearson of the proposed meeting, " that he may attend if he see cause." On that day, all the members of the Corpora- Samuel tion being present except Dr. Pearson, Samuel Web- chosen ber, A. M., was chosen President of the University. Webber President. son's resig On the 11th of March, 1806, their choice was presented to the Overseers, who, having concurred in the election of Professor Webber, the chairman of the meeting delivered to the Overseers a letter from the Hancock Professor, indicating his intention to resign. his office. In this communication Dr. Pearson, after Dr. Pearasserting that his endeavours, during a connexion of nation. twenty years, had been to exalt the literary, moral, and religious state of the seminary, said that he now found"there remained no reasonable hope to promote that reformation in the society he wished," and that, "events during the last year having so deeply affected his mind, beclouded the prospect, spread such a gloom over the University, and compelled him to take such a view of its internal state and external relations, of its radical and constitutional maladies, as to exclude the hope of rendering any essential service to the interests of religion by continuing his relation to it," he therefore requested an acceptance of his resignation. This communication was referred to a Proceedcommittee of which Samuel Dexter was chairman, on of the who reported, "that, having had a free conversation with Dr. Pearson, although the state of the University did not appear to them so gloomy as he represented it, yet they duly appreciated his motives, and, considering them of a high and commanding nature to him, recommended, that the subject be ings there Overseers, CHAPTER postponed, and he requested to perform the duties. XXXIII. of the office in the interim and deliberate further on and their final report his resignation." This report the Overseers refused to accept; and, the subject being again referred to the same committee, they reported, "that they have attentively considered the communication from Professor Pearson, and that, although they are not apprehensive the University is in so unfortunate a state as he has represented, yet they truly respect the motives that actuate him, and think them of so high and commanding a nature to him, that it would appear indecorous to request him to continue in office, unless the impressions on his mind can be removed; that after a free and full conversation, he having expressed his full conviction, that there is no probability that his opinion of the propriety and necessity of his resignation will and votes. change," they therefore submit votes, accepting his resignation, expressing "a high sense of his virtues, talents, and services," and recommending "a speedy and serious consideration of his pecuniary claims." Vote of the Corporation. These votes, having been passed by the Overseers, came, with Dr. Pearson's letter, under the consideration of the Corporation on the 28th of March, and a vote was passed accepting his resignation, and expressing their regret at this event, and that, "though they cannot admit that his views of the situation and prospects of the University are correct, yet they are fully persuaded that they are upright and conscientious, and lament the loss of his able and faithful services." They then appointed a committee to consider and report on his claims. Theophilus On the 11th of April, Theophilus Parsons, LL. D., was chosen a member of the Corporation in the place of Dr. Pearson. On the 12th of May, Mr. Webber was Parsons. |