Vanderbilt University - Commodore Yearbook (Nashville, TN)

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about a seeker of faculty position who was one of the most accomplished wire- pullers . . . No stone willbeleftunturnedto accomplish his purpose. Wire-pulling or no, the first faculty was an impressive group that included five former college presidents. Like many on the new faculty, William LeRoy Broun, a Professor of Mathematics, brought a different sort of background. Broun was the former Colonel LeRoy Broun of the Army of the Confederate States of America. Broun was superintendent of the Richmond arsenal during the war and ordered the incineration that shook the city to its center after Lee's surrender. And so the faculty, the University, was forming. The Bishop and Garland fnow Chancellor Carlandl appraised this progress in concluding the four-hour dedication ceremony in October of 1875. Now is to be breathed into it the breath of life, that the 21

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But the community was not the only problem. The University of Nashville was interested in merging with this new university, and Vanderbilt would gain some twenty acres of campus property and all of the other University's buildings. But negotiations bogged, and the Bishop was forced to write, The Trustees could not come to our terms, and we would not accept theirs. We declined to enter into any combination. We must control entirely or not at all. The Bishop, stipulated as President of the Board of Trust under the terms of the Commodore's gift, was still using his shrewd business sense. After buying tracts of land that varied in size from five acres to thirty-three, he could describe to the Commodore a compact and adjoining seventy acres that was west of the city, beautiful for situation, easy of approach, and of the same elevation as Capitol Hill, which is in full view. The Lord has opened windows in heaven for us, the Bishop wrote in a letter to Landon Garland, a lay leader in the Southern Methodist Church and an educational leader in the South, thot this thing might be. Though not yet named Chancellor, Garland was already marked by the Board and the Bishop as a leader for this new University. Garland called for quality and not quantity when forming university departments. Start nothing, Garland outlined in a letter to the first Board of Trust meeting after the Commodore's gift, in a crippled condition-make people regret that you have not more. Considering a different facet of campus life, Garland labelled campus dormitories the greatest curse that attaches to university education. The Bishop also consulted Garland while the faculty for the Vanderbilt University was being assembled. But personal ambition was pressing its influence, too. Garland warned the Bishop

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University may become a living soul, said McTyeire. The time will come when the fact that any man is connected with the faculty of the Vanderbilt University will give assurance of his ability. Then the institution will make the reputation of its professorsg but now the professors must make the reputation of the institution. Handing over the keys of the Vanderbilt University to Garland was the Bishop's next move. The Commodore had remained in close communication with the Bishop throughout it all. Congratulating McTyeire on progress to date, the aging Commodore made his only recorded statement of purpose about Vanderbilt University: If it shall, through its influence, contribute, even in the smallest degree, to strengthening the ties which should exist between all geographical sections of our common country, I shall feel that it has accomplished one of the objects that led me to take an interest in it.