University of Kentucky - Kentuckian Yearbook (Lexington, KY)

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university, strong, vigorous and symmetrical. While engaged in this arduous task, lie has been constantly trammeled by the fiercest and most determined opposition, and assailed by the bitter invective of implacable and influential foes. In 1880, he carried a measure through the Legislature appropriating a tax of one-twentieth of a mill on the dollar for the benefit of the Agricultural College, henceforward known as the State College. The denominational institutions at once attacked this measure on the ground that ii was inimical to their interests and unconstitutional as well. Since the most distinguished lawyers of the Commonwealth declined to defend the constitutionality of the Act, it devolved upon President Patterson to maintain the integrity of State College against the formidable attacks of the associated colleges. An elaborate argument was made by Judge Lindsay before the joint committee of the House and Senate, and, at its conclusion, the case of the College appeared absolutely hopeless. Though not a lawyer, the President ventured to address the committee, and presented his arguments with such facility and adroitness as to completely nonplus his opponents and to convince the committee of the cogency and soundness of his reasoning. In the courts he was matched against no common antagonists—Judge Lindsay, Alexander P. Humphrey, Bennett II. Young, and James Trabue: however, in 1S70, when Judge Holt of the Court of Appeals handed down an affirmative decision, it was based upon the lines which the President had laid down and upon the arguments which he had presented in his brief. The President is ever vigilant, endeavoring to lengthen the ropes and strengthen the stakes of that institution with whose history his life has been so closely interwoven. In 188 i, he established the Agricultural Experiment Station in connection with the College, and in 1887, was largely instrumental in procuring the passage bv Congress of the Hatch Act, endowing Experiment Stations with $15,000 a year. He was also equally efficient and successful in procuring from Congress the passage of the Morrill Act of 1890, giving $25,000 per annum to each State in the Union for the further endowment of state institutions established under the Land Grant of 1862. As the initiator of each forward step, the course of instruction and the number of buildings have, under his supervision, gradually increased, until, in 1908, •3

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LIFE OF PRESIDENT PATTERSON James Kennedy Patterson was born in Glasgow. Scotland, March 26th, 1833. In 1842, the President’s father and family sailed for America, and settled in the thinly populated district of southern Indiana. There were no educational facilities nearer than Madison, distant forty miles, whose schools he attended during the term of 1849 and 1850. After a year ajient in teaching in the common schools, he resumed his studies in Hanover Academy. Attending college and teaching, alternately, he graduated from Hanover College in 1856, the leader of his class during his undergraduate course. Immediately after obtaining his degree, he became principal of Greenville Prosbytorial Academy, Muhlenbtirg County, Kv., which position he held for three vears, when lie became principal of the Preparatory Department, and afterward Professor of Katin and Greek, in Stewart College, now Southwestern University, Clarksville. Temi. At the beginning of the Civil War, lie left his southern position and became principal of the Transylvania High School. liCxingion. Kv.. and, in I8G5-69, held the Professorship of Latin and Civil History in Kentucky University. At the latter date, he began, as President of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, an administration so eventful, so stormy, and so replete with monumental results! From a condition of bankruptcy, he has created a constantly increasing income: from a rude and imperfect organization, he has educed a modem 12

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he obtained from the Legislature $35,000 per annum for additional income, $300,000 for buildings and a change of name from State College to State Univer i of Kentucky. President Patterson received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy lrom Hanover College, Indiana, in 1875, and that of Doctor of Laws from Lab aye tic College, Pennsylvania, in 189G. His studies were for years mainly concerned with Comparative Philology, the basis of which was a more or less intimate acquaintance with Latin. Creek, French, German, Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and Sanskrit. Governor Leslie, in 1875, appointed President Patterson ns a delegate from Kentucky to the International Congress of Geographical Sciences, and to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Again, lie received like recognition at the hands of Governor Buckner, when selecting a scholar to represent Kentucky at the British Association for the Advancement of Science. 1890. During his long term of office, the gates of the Temple of Janus have not at all times been closed. He has, however, preserved a singular equanimity, worthy of the line inscribed in the Council Chambers of Calcutta—‘‘Mens aetjua in arduis. As a testimonial of his labors in this world, lie will have a monument more lasting than brass; all that education is in Kentucky today, despite its deficiencies, is due to the thrift, the sagacity, the jealous care of ibis fighting Scotsman. 4