University of Georgia - Pandora Yearbook (Athens, GA)

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preceding year, to build a brick chapel to replace the shabby old wooden one. The result of this decision now stands on the campus as the “Philosophical Hall.” The lower floor of the building was used as a chapel, while the second story contained the library and the natural philosophy apparatus, the high quality of which was the continual boast of the University authorities. A large part of the $4,000 appropriated a year earlier to the purchase of a library also diverted toward defraying the costs of this building. In the summer of 1818, some one, probably a student, wrote from Athens : “The library now contains more volumes of the most approved historians, poets, etc., than will be read by any student whilst in college.” In December, 1820, the Trustees reported that the number of volumes did not exceed one thousand. The size of the library was not much increased before the time of its destruction when the New College was burned in 1880. I can now find no books in tho present library that I have reason to believe was owned by the University prior to 1830. Nearly all the lands of the University were sold soon after the act of 1815, which authorized their disposal, but the sales were on credit according to the customs of the time, and the money was hard to collect. The legislature provided, in 1816, for all the notes turned in by the Trustees of the University the State Treasurer should advance two-thirds of their face value toward the purchase of stock in the Bank of the State of Georgia then just established. $130,000 in notes was turned in and $100,000 worth of stock was purchased. For several years this yielded large dividends, so there was no complaint of lack of funds in Franklin College. There being no president, it was judged best to have no session of the University in the fall of 1818. In November, Reverend Ebenezer Porter was nominated as President by the Trustees, but he declined, although the salary was increased to $2,500. In March, 1819, the Reverend Moses Waddel, of South Carolina, was appointed by the Trustees President pro tempore, and was nominated by them to the presidency, to which he was elected by the Senatus in the autumn of the same year. Dr. Waddel was already a famous man when he accepted the presidency of the University; it is a matter of surprise that he had not been elected long before. John C. Calhoun and William H. Crawford had both been educated by him at his widely known school at Wilmington, S. C., and both remained his enthusiastic friends throughout his life. Crawford always took great interest in Franklin College, and was probably responsible for Waddel being made President. “At the time of Dr. Waddel’s arrival in Athens the number of students in college amounted to eight. . . . Since the vacation in June, the number has gradually increased to twenty-five. -18-

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No business of importance was transacted by the Senatus in 1812 and 1818, and no meeting in 1815. In 1814, a committee previously appointed to look into the advisability of selling the lands of the University and investing in bank stock, reported in favor of the sale. The Senatus passed a resolution asking the legislature to appropriate $2,000 to purchase a library for the College, which seems not to have been granted. An effort had previously been made to obtain a library in 1811. A bill was, upon the petition of the authorities of the University, passed by the legislature granting permission for the establishment of a lottery for the purpose of raising $3,000 to buy a library for the College, but nothing further is to be learned of the scheme. The public of the State seems to have been almost ready to give up the whole University as a bad job when the authorities met in 1816. The Trustees, in this meeting, proved themselves an energetic body. They demanded the wholesale resignation of the faculty, as above noted ; they petitioned the legislature for leave to sell the remaining lands of the University, and for a loan of $10,000, and they elected the Reverend Robert Finley, of New Jersey, to the presidency. Their petition to the legislature was granted, so, in the Georgia Journal of January 14, 1817, occurs the following notice: “Athens, Franklin College, December 24, 1816. Whereas, the General Assembly of the State, at their last session, having liberally placed within the power of the Trustees the means necessary for conducting the business of the University, with a confident hope of success: “ Resolved, that the collegiate exorcises will commence on the first Monday in January, next, under the control and superintendence of the Hon. Peter Early as President in. o. tem., until the inauguration of the Rev. Robert Finley, appointed President at the present meeting, and under the immediate instruction of Mr. Professor Goulding and Messrs. Tutors Comakand Hull, and that this resolution be published in the Georgia Journal, the Augusta Chronicle and the Savannah Republican. By order of the Board of Trustees. John Hodge, Secretary of the University.” Ten thousand dollars is loaned the University by the State. Salaries are raised all around. Four thousand dollars is appropriated by the Trustees for the purchase of a library, and soon afterwards, $8,000 for a new President’s house. Dr. Finley accepts the office tendered him, moves South to assume his duties, and at once shows himself to be a fine man for the placo. But, brought about by overwork and consequent fever, the untimely death of Dr. Finley only a few months after his arrival in Georgia, casts a great shadow over the newly brightened prospects of the University. The Reverend Nathan S. S. Beman was elected President pro tempore in December, 1817. Six months later he was nominated for the presidency, but declined election on account of the very low state of his wife’s health. A few years later Beman removed to Pennsylvania, and his name became very odorous in the South as that of an abolitionist of the most violent type. In 1818 it was decided not to build a new President’s house, but, as had been planned in the —17—

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. . . The members in the grammar school amount to forty-five.” A year later there were fifty students in college and sixty-six in the grammar school. Dr. Waddel changed the curriculum somewhat, but did not materially raise it. The entrance requirements for the Freshman Class in the University’s early history were quite as stiff as ours of to-day, as regards the ancient languages. In mathematics, arithmetic was required as far as proportion, and in English, a knowledge of grammar and spelling. But Dr. Waddel did more than reorganize the routine of the University; he popularized the institution in the State, and drew to it that public favor which was shown it in the years immediately following. Since the odium which President Meigs had brought upon himself and the institution, Franklin College had never had the confidence of the people of Georgia. At a banquet in Athens July 4, 1810, a toast was given “The University of Georgia, struggling against prejudice and illiberality—may its usefulness yet dofeat the viows of malignity.” In 1819, when James Monroe, then President of the United States, visited Athens and toasted the institution, another speaker responded to the toast: “ The University of Georgia, about to renew its operations under the direction of an able manager, and furnished, by the liberality of the legislature, with the most ample resources, it now only wants the confidence of the public and the affections of the people.” Dr. Waddel succeeded in cultivating the good will of the populace of the State, being greatly assisted by the Reverend Alonzo Church, professor of mathematics and afterwards President of the University for thirty years. The attendance, from eight in the spring of 1819, twenty-five in the fall of that year, and fifty in the next, reached, in 1821, the number of ninety-nine, and in 1822 one hundred and twenty students were in attendance, an enrollment which was not materially excelled for more than forty years. The legislature of 1821 guaranteed an income to the College of $8,000, an act which was brought about by the decline in the dividends of the bank stock. It furthermore appropriated the sum of $15,000, and authorized the Trustees to collect and retain $10,000, which, with the amount donated, was to be applied to buildings. Most of this money was put into the New College, which really cost nearly $30,000. In the autumn of 1822 then, when the building whose corner-stone has caught our eye was rapidly nearing completion, the University was possessed of two large and commodious dormitories, a chapel and several other buildings upon the campus ; it had a president, two professors and three tutors as its faculty, while its student body was composed of twenty seniors, -19-