NYU Washington Square College - Album Yearbook (New York, NY)

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added interest and importance. The Eucleian Society, which was organized in the same year as the opening of the classes at the University, has as its great point a complete record of the honorary as well as undergraduate members. In the roster of honorary members the more famous names of that early period are present. Such names as Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Theodore Frelinghuysen, Samuel F. B. Nlorse and Andrew Jackson appear on the rolls. Because the Eucleian Society was such a commendable influence in the life of the college, in the Fall of 1835 the Council assigned to them a hall in the new University Building on lfVashington Square. In the following decade there is no lack of famous names to be added to the roster of the society, a few of which are Washington Irving, President William Henry Harrison, President J. Quincy Adams, and President lVIartin Van Buren. Among the undergraduate members of this society was A. Ogden Butler, who in his will established a fund of S55,ooo, the income of which in part was to encourage excellence in essay writing. Among its records the society preserves autographed letters from such literary men as James Russell Lowell, and James Harper of the famous publishing firm. The second of the literary associations, the Philomanthean Society, was likewise founded in 1832 in the very month in which the instruction in the University began. This group, which appears to be more of a debating society than a literary organiza- tion, argued and debated various questions at its frequent meetings. Some of these questions were of a serious nature and some were not. At one meeting they would debate such a problem: Were the English justified in sending Napoleon to St. Helena? g while at the next meeting they would argue concerning the following question: When a pig is led to market, with a rope around its neck, is the pig led by the rope or by the man ? Both Eucleian and Philomanthean attempted to secure noted speakers for the commencement exercises, as well as putting up undergraduates of their own societies who carried themselves with credit to the societies to which they belonged. Many of the honorary members of this society were also members of Eucleian, and Philomanthean counted as many famous names on its roster as did its rival. The official and unofficial contact with Eucleian was uniformly productive of friction, but so far as the University records go, there was no definite collision between the undergraduate members of these societies. The work of these undergraduate associations must not be underestimated by the iconoclastic students of the present day, for they served to foster in the University that spirit which seeks to make for itself excellence in a given line of endeavor. By bringing together men of a kindred spirit, these societies were able to develop men who later brought credit to the University and to the group to which they belonged. From the records of the activities of the University at that time, it appears that every public offering of these societies was attended with much public acclaim. f28l

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country. The classes were held at Clinton Hall, which was the temporary home of the University. Here, with much ceremony, the Chancellor, Rev. James NI. Mathews, and the members of the faculty were inducted into their respective ollices by the Rev. Dr. Milnor. The average number of students who entered the University in the period from 1833 to 1835 was a little over two hundred. Those students who were not candidates for degrees studied modern languages, engineering or painting. In the same year that the college opened at Clinton Hall, a site for the new University Building was purchased on the eastern side of Washington Square. The development of the city at that time may be noticed from a remark of a contemporary newspaper which observed that the University was moving out toward the suburbs. The corner stone of the new building, which embodied all the ideals of its founders, was laid in July, 1833. Although the actual construction of the building went on smoothly enough as regards the financial condition of the Council, labor troubles in New York City during the years 1833 and 1834 hindered the work to such an extent that the building was not completed until the Spring of 1835. The following Fall the first classes were held there. However, it was not until two years later that the building was at last dedicated to the Purpose of Science, Literature and Religion with an address by the Hon. James Tallmadge, who was at that time the President of the Council. This new building, Norman Gothic in style, and splendidly equipped for that time, if we may believe contemporary accounts, housed all the departments of the college. Part of the building was let out for use as a preparatory school, while the ollices of the professors, recitation and lecture rooms, the rooms of the liucleian and Philomanthean Societies, and an elaborately decorated chapel occu- pied the remainder of the structure. Early in the Fall of 1838 the infant university became the center of a contention which threatened to block all progress in the development of the institution. A con- troversy arose between the Chancellor and the faculty which resulted in seven out of the eight professors who made up the undergraduate teaching stalf being summarily removed. This fact coupled with the financial crisis of 1837 dealt a stunning blow to the young college, which was even then struggling for existence. Then, too, through this controversy the Council lost many friends and supporters who would have been of great assistance to them at a time when their help was sorely needed. ln the following Spring Chancellor lllathews, as a result of this disagreement in the Uni- versity, retired from the Chancellorship, although he maintained his seat in the University Council until 1847. HE institution and growth of the literary associations is organically connected with the development of the University, for, as the catalogues for the earlier years of the college have been lost, the rosters and minutes of these societies take on E271

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MONG the prominent professors of the University was Samuel Finley Breese Morse, still famous for his accomplishments in his two lines of endeavor. Although not an alumnus of this University, Professor Morse can in every sense be considered a product of its halls. In 1826, differing from the ideas of the already extant schools of art in America, he organized the National Academy of Design, a school in which the teaching of art was to be the primary consideration and in which the products of the school were to be exhibited annually. When New York Univer- sity began its classes in 1832, the National Academy of Design already occupied part of Clinton Hall, and by 1835, when the college was moved to the new ,University Building, this school of art had become an integral part of the new University. Here in the new building Professor lVIorse took his offices and studios, and here, too, after much trial and experiment, he perfected the recording electric telegraph by which his name still lives. In the development of this instrument, Alfred Vail, a graduate of New York University, was assistant to llflorse and materially aided him in the experiments and the later exhibitions. Vail was also instrumental in gaining for Nlorse recognition from Congress with the result that the inventor was furnished with the funds for the construction of an experimental line. The institution of the telegraph perhaps did more to modernize the means of communication in the United States than any other single invention of the early nineteenth century. Illorse and Vail belong to America and to the world, but in a special sense they are true sons of New York University. FTER the retirement of Chancellor lVIathews in 1839, Theodore l relinghuysen was inaugurated as the second Chancellor of the University in the University chapel. He had for some time been a member of the United States Senate, but the aggressiveness of political life together with some of its questionable practices never appealed to him. He was a man of deep earnestness, just such a man as the college needed after the strenuous period which it had undergone in the years of 1837 and 1838. In his inaugural speech the new Chancellor showed his lofty character and ideals by refusing to play upon the favorite and popular chord of the economic advan- tages and possibilities to be derived from a college education. Instead he declared that the chief function of a liberal education was not to furnish superior knowledge and to find avenues to turn into wealth the resources of nature, but that the chief work of education was the training of the intrinsic powers of the mind and to bring a youth to a true and sober estimate of his own powers. In this the new Chancellor expressed what has come to be the most widely acknowledged duty of colleges and the aim of college life. Five years after his inauguration, due to his former political position and to his general uprightness in political matters, a quality which was desired by designing l-291