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

Page 30 text:

politicians, Chancellor Frelinghuysen was nominated as Vice-President of the United States with Henry Clay as President. This fact brought a great deal of much-needed national prominence and publicity to the University despite the fact that the Whig party, of which the Chancellor was a member, lost the election. The Fall of cam- paigning did not disturb the Chancellor at all, for he steadily carried on the affairs of the college without any change from the previous routine. Nor did the decision of the ballots mar at all the equanimity of this man, for during the whole pre-election period he never missed any important meeting of the faculty. HE spirit of exuberance of the college students of that time is well illustrated by the reports of the faculty discipline committee. There is a record that a certain junior was reported for improper conduct in sending a candy peddler into the Greek room during a recitation, while another Junior was reprimanded for send- ing a bill-poster into the mathematics class to post his bills. Locking the professors out of their classrooms seems to have been another one of the pet diversions of the bored undergraduate. The only punishments which these pranks called down on the perpetrators was a 1'eprimand from the faculty committee of the University. Hli year 1839 saw one of the first attempts to enlarge the scope of learning at the University, for in this year the suggestion of a hfledical School to be con- nected with the University was brought before the Council for the first time. ln the beginning the development was arrested because of lack of funds for the purchas- ing of a building and the inability of the Council to secure suitable instructors. A little later, however, the faculty of medicine was chosen by the Council and the classes were started in the Stuyvesant Building, and, indeed, for some time the insti- tution was known as the Stuyvesant Nleclical School. After this building was destroyed by fire some years later, the school was moved from Broadway to Bellevue Hospital because of the better facilities for the study of actual cases and because the growing popularity of Broadway had made the rents too expensive for the students. The most famous of the members of the faculty was Dr. Valentine Nlott, one of the Founders of the University and one of the foremost American surgeons of that time. By the action of the Council the standard course was made only two years in length, but there was a provision in the resolution by which the course was to be extended to a full four years at a later time. The first year's enrollment numbered 239 students from many different parts of the country. Probably the ITl0St important action of the Medical School was the work done by this department of the University in securing the passage of the bill allowing the dissection of bodies for medical pur- poses. After a hard struggle at Albany and in spite of the adverse public opinion, the bill was finally passed, and its passage may be fairly and definitely attributed to the efforts of the Medical Faculty at New York University. E301

Page 29 text:

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

Page 31 text:

OR about six or seven years the affairs of the University went along as smoothly as could be expected for an institution which was striving to make a place for itself in the world. In 1846, however, another disagreement arose within the Uni- versity. Because the ideas of the Hon. James Tallmadge as to the administration of the college conflicted with those of the Chancellor and the members of the Council, the former resigned from the Presidency and from the Council. For a period of two years or more this body had no head, and, indeed, the University was somewhat strongly pressed to keep its hard-won place in the collegiate world. Four years later the administration of the University was further weakened by the retirement of Chancellor Frelinghuysen. This great man, already wearied from the political strife which he had gone through in his earlier days and tiring under the strain of running a new institution, accepted the presidency of Rutgers College, and in this office he passed the remainder of his life. After the resignation of the Hon. James Tallmadge from the Presidency of the Council in 1846, no new head was chosen until 1849 when hir. Charles Butler was elected to that office. At this time the University was in rather sore straits financially, and at one of the Council meetings a united effort of all the members was requested in order that it might not be necessary to suspend instruction at the college because of lack of funds. ln addition to this the Council had 11011 as yet been able to secure a man of sufficient caliber to fill the ofiice of Chancellor. At this point a move was made to expedite the workings of the administrative machinery by the appointment of an executive committee to function in the place of the Chancello1'. Finally in 1852, Dr. Isaac Ferris was made Chancellor of the University, and in addition he served as the Professor of lVIoral Philosophy. In the following year Dr. Ferris was elected to the Council of the University with the understanding that he was to receive compensation at a time when the extinction of the debt should be secured and provided for. And so for once the Council chose a man who was to do one thing, to put the University on a firm financial basis, and this man did it. HIC meeting of the Council in June, 1853, deserves the particular attention of the alumni and students of the University, for on that date, when the college had completed almost twenty-one years of teaching and learning, the Chancellor reported that in his judgment the amount necessary for the liquidation of the debt of the University had been pledged. On the occasion of the commencement in 1853 Dr. Ferris was publicly inaugurated into the office of Chancellor of New York University in which office he had already worked hard and faithfully for several months. In his inaugural address he declared that his highest aim was the welfare of the institution of which he had been put in charge and the carrying out of the original plans of the Founders of that institution. In the final report made on June 21, 1854, of the actual and definite extinction IQSII