Indiana University - Arbutus Yearbook (Bloomington, IN)

Page 15 text:

The Old Doorw; The STORY of INDIANA UNIVERSITY ON a certain day in July, 1820, (histon- does not record anything more de- finite), Charles Dewey, David H. Alaxwell, John M. Jenkins, Jonathan Nichols and William Lowe, authorized by the General Assembly of the same year to select an eligible and convenient site for a seminary , met at Bloom- ington and chose the place of founding the State Seminary. In their report to the next legislature they said: The site chosen is about one quarter of a mile due west from Bloomington, on a beautiful eminence and convenient to an ex- cellent spring of water, the only one on the section that could with convenience answer the purposes of a seminar} . The native beeches, maples, oaks and poplars, still growing close around, the thickness of the July foliage and thickets of green, made the trustees over- look the highlands to the east and west — the contrasting upland and lowland which greet the e}-e of the Bloomington visitor and Universit} ' student today. True, the excellent spring of water , the trustees naively said, was the only one that could with convenience answer the purpose of a seminary, — as if the art of digging wells was not yet known ; wrote the late Judge David D. Banta, writer of the earh histoiv of Indiana Universitv.

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Jforefcdorb Co celebrate our 3nbiana sJ pirtftbap, nb gibe a picture of tfje pasit pear; recorb of tfje Clagg of Jgineteen tETluentp, 3 ebieb3 in part tfje manp tbingg tftat ijappeneb 3n clubsi anb organi ationg anb atfjleticsi; 1 0 bring back memorie£i of tbe bapei in college Co tbose itibo call b r noto tbeir iilma jHater, nb keep tbe present bapg foreber libing; Cbesie are our aimsi, tbesie tbe inspiration Co get about tbe tassk.

Page 16 text:

A plan of building was proposed on the plan of Princeton College in New- Jersey — the historic Nassau Hall. Over twenty months passed after the loca- tion was made before the work of building was actually begun. Two buildings were agreed upon, one for the reception of students and one for a professor ' s dwelling; the latter was thirty-one feet long and eighteen feet wide and cost $891. The seminary edifice proper was sixty feet long and thirty-one feet wide, two stories high, faced to the east, ss ML- with a chapel and several recitation rooms, costing in all 2400. In this small way was the spirit of the constitutional convention at Corydon, June 1816, embodied, where it was written that, It shall be the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as circumstances will permit, to pro- vide by law for a general system of education ascending in a regular gradua- tion from township schools to a State University, wherein tuition shall be gratis and equally open to all . This beginning of the future Univer- sity in large measure was the result of the untiring efforts of David H. Maxwell at the sessions of the General Assembly during December and Jan- uary, 1820, and of him can it be better said, more than any other, that he was the father of Indiana University . On (January 20, 1820, the day we celebrate as Foundation Day, the law which Dr. Maxwell sponsored was signed by the Governor and became the law of the land. It was not until the first of May, 1824, that the Seminary was opened, and that Baynard R. Hall, a young man destined to be the first professor, a graduate of Union College and a minister of the Presbyterian church, began his duties as teacher. On this first May day morning, a heterogenous crowd of youthful candidates for seminary learning awaited Professor Hall at the new college . Many of the young men carried with them their spelling books and readers and ink- bottles and copy-books, having but forsaken the village schoolmaster for the The Seminary