Indiana University - Arbutus Yearbook (Bloomington, IN)

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students were in attendance, and the fame of Indiana Seminary was becom- ing known. Its students were beginning to assume college airs — they had organized a literary society — the Henodelphisterian Society — which was so classical that every student in joining was compelled to use while within its hall, instead of his own plain name, one once current in the streets of Greece or Rome. The end of Indiana Seminary followed an inspection of the Seminar}- by a board of visitors, on the first of November, 1827. It was the duty of the board to examine every student in all the branches. It is said that the visitors went away charmed with what they had seen and heard and that the subsequent mes- sages and reports made at the General Assembly recommended that the Seminary be raised to the dignity of a college. With that end in view, a bill was prepared which was in time passed and signed by Governor James B. Ray, and on January 24, 1828, Indiana Seminary became Indiana College. The period of the Seminary had gone — at best it was only a make-shift. In the beginning, the Indiana Fathers had no thought of a State Seminary, nor of The First Laboratory

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higher learning . But it was Greek and Latin only at the new college , and the boys with the spelling books and readers and ink-bottles and copy-books were soon returned to the drowsy hum of lessons in the town schoolhouse. Ten boys were left in the Seminary after the weeding out of candidates, to begin the courses in Greek and Latin. All the students, as far as is known, were from Indiana homes, and nearly every county on the border and many of the inland counties were lepresented during the period of the Seminary which followed. Those who became students at the new college either walked from their homes to Bloomington, ot travelled on horse-back. Most of them would ride and tie , amethodbywhichtwo would travel with one horse; one would ride in advance a given distance and tie the horse and walk on, leaving his companion to come up and mount and ride on past the foot-man a proper distance, when he would in turn dismount, tie, and walk on. Those who walked carried their clothes with them, tied up in a handkerchief, and in riding, the habit was to carry all clothes neces- sary for a term in the saddle bags. Li those days of a hundred years ago, the students found rooms and board with the citizens of the town, in much the same manner as students have done since, and a house where two or more stayed was designated a fort after the old forts built against the Lidians during the troublesome times of 1811 to 1814. Not more than three lumdred persons lived in Bloomington at the time, in the little clustering of cabins around the square. For a period of three years — 1824 to 1827 — Baynard R. Hall was the only pro- fessor in the Indiana Seminary. From the report which Dr. Maxwell made in 1828, we learn that thirteen students attended the Seminary the first year; fif- teen the second, and twenty-one the third. It was resolved by the board during the second year that there should be taught English Grammer, Logic, Rhetoric, Geo- graphy, Moral and Natural Philosophy, and Euclid ' s Elements of Geometry, but for some reason, according to the report of Dr. Max- well, these requirements were not taught. John M. Harney, a young man fresh from Aliami University, was elected in 1827 as a professor in pure and applied mathematics, and entered upon his duties in the autumn of that year. At the opening of the follow- ing fall and winter season, about forty

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a State College, but had hoped for nothing short of a university. The State College was to be but a temporary expedient — a stepping stone to the more pretentious university promised by the Constitution of 1816. Found the college first, with a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, a professor of geography, — ancient and modern, and of astronomy; and one of Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages, with one or more assistants, and then, as the available funds increase, add to it a professor of theology, a professor of law, and a medical school; and lo! you have the University the fathers had in mind . . . - Excepting its boards of trustees and visitors, the College inherited all there was of the State Seminary — its buildings, its students, its reputation, itS ' prop- erty, its professors, its methods. The act of incorporation -established a col- lege professedly for the education of yOuth in the American, learned and foreign languages, the useful a-rts, sciences and literature, and that no teacher shall- be required by the board to profess any religious opinions and that no student shali be denied adrrrissioh or refused any of the privileges, honor ' s or degrees .of the -College on account of the religious opinions he may entertain, nor shall any sec- terian tents or principles be taught by any president, professor, tutor or instructor. -; ;-i: -?ti: ; l i ii tja S