Vanderbilt University - Commodore Yearbook (Nashville, TN)

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McTyeire made one last visit to the Commodore in early june, 1876. The Commodore, who never visited the campus of his name, asked the Bishop to delay his departure by one day. This would allow the Commodore time to execute his plans for an addition of S300,000 to the endowment fund, rounding his gift to an even million dollars. I have perfect confidence in my song the Commodore explained to the Bishop, I know he will carry out my wishes: but there's no telling what may happen from outside to delay and hinder: so you had better take it along with you. By early Ianuary, 1877, the Commodore was dead. Vanderbilt University was ready to venture forth with the largest endowment and one of the most complete faculties of any university in the South, apparently well on its way to becoming one of the strongest educational institutions in the country. It wasn't that easy. One problem was the students. Our students were all new, Chancellor Garland wrote to the Board of Trust in 1876. Few had any power of fixed and prolonged attention-or any practical knowledge of the modes of successful study . . . If we had stood firmly by our rules, we should have rejected fully two-thirds of those who presented themselves for matriculation. Hence sub-collegiate classes, which introduced a very large element of a boyish character. Maybe students just weren't ready for Vanderbilt. Garland also complained that students drawn from other schools were accustomed to an order of things very different from that which we wished to inaugurate. Sadly, this led to embarrassing cases of discipline. The sub-collegiate class was blamed. The fact is, Garland wrote, most of our troubles come from the Sub-Collegiate class. It is because those remanded to that class are, many of them, the failures sent up from the schools of the country, and only because they have attained the sixteen years of age. Sub-collegiate classes, however, were by no means unique to Vanderbilt. And Nashville was blamed-blamed as a corrupter of those youths who have no love of study, who have no training of mind, who do not know how to study, and who have been for the first time surrounded by the temptations of a large city. Abolish the sub-collegiate class, said Garland, and require entrance examinations. This would elevate the quality of Vanderbilt's tributary schools by letting it be known of a school that its pupils sent up to the University are always well trained. Though Vanderbilt started on equal footing with the best universities in the country, a

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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.

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