Ohio University - Athena Yearbook (Athens, OH)

Page 15 text:

OHIO UNIVERSITY, ORGANIZED BY THE I.KOISIA I IRE OF OHI l804. PRESIDENTS. 1804, Jacob Lindley, A.M., D.D. 1822, Rev. James Irvine, A.M. 1824, Rev. Robert G. Wilson, D.D. 1839, Rev. William H. McGuffev, D.D., LL.D. 1848, Rev. Alfred Ryors, D.D. 1852, Rev. Solomon Howard, D.D., LL.D. 1872, Rev. William H. Scott, A.M., LL.D. 1883, Charles W. Super, A.M., Ph.D.

Page 17 text:

THE OHIO UNIVERSITY IN EDUCATION. BY ONE OF ITS BOYS. When men become champions of a new idea in politics or science, they publish a paper whose pages are devoted to the promulgating of their new idea. When, on the other hand, a body of men become zealous defenders of some new doctrine of religion or of education, a college is established in which are to be trained valiant defenders of the favorite creed. In Ohio, in the first decades of its history, several colleges were established by denominational zeal and philanthropic en- thusiasm. But the Ohio University, the first college in the Northwest Territory, was purposed to be for the young colonies of the territory what the French Academy is to French learning and culture. Its builders hoped that in it the acquisition of knowledge would be placed upon a more respectable footing than in any other place in the world. Manasseh Cutler, who wrote its charter, said : I have consulted the charters of public seminaries in Europe and America, .... but none appear to me to accord with a plan so liberal and extensive as I think ought to be the con- stitution of this university. Even the general government, a new thing in its history, made provisions for building and maintaining this institution ; so that in the new country beyond the mountains, a school, founded on right principles, before custom or prejudice could gather rubbish in its way, might grow up to be the center of learning and culture in the Western land ; and the new college soon reached the high place its planner had hoped. Manasseh Cutler was a practical edu- cator, of extensive and accurate scholarship, and of prophetic vision of the coming needs of the colonies. Of Rufus Putnam