Western Maryland College - Aloha Yearbook (Westminster, MD)

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and on September 141111 1868, the college was enabled to open its second session and begin its long struggle with debt and financial distress. The real history of Western Maryland College begins with its second session, for it had, by that time, ceased to be the undertaking of Mr. Buell, it had taken on a corporate existence and had come under the special patronage of a strong and intelli- gent religious organization. Its charter, however, while providing, as was only just and proper, that one-third of the trustees should always be chosen from among the members of the Maryland Annual Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church is entirely free from sectarianisin. The first section provides that 'fyouth of every religious denomination are to be freely adinitted to equal privileges and advantages of education and to all the literary honors ofthe college, without requiring or enforc- ing any religious or civil test. or urging their attendance upon any particular place of religious worship or service other than that in which they have been educated, or which they have the approhation and consent of their parents or guardians to attend, nor shall any preference be given to the choice of a Principal, Master, Tutor or Teacher. on account of his or her particular religious profession. Under this charter and with Dr. Ward as Principal, the second session opened and the first catalogue was issued, the catalogue for 1868-'69, Including the Princi- pal, the faculty then consisted of six instructors: the number of students enrolled was seventy, one-half from Westminster and most of the remainder from Carroll county. By the time, however, the first class was graduated, the class of '71, the teaching force had been enlarged, and the school was attracting patronage from all parts of Maryland and even from adjoining states. Mr. Buell's original building was no longer able to accommodate the steadily increasing number of pupils, and in 1871 additional space was provided by the erection of another edifice at a cost of about seven thousaiid dollars. But in less than ten years it was felt that the college was again becoming cramped for room, and to meet the emergency Dr. Ward, by circular, appealed to his friends for small contributions towards a building fund. The response was prompt and gratifying, and, in sums ranging from fifty cents to ten dollars, the money came pouring steadily in until two thousand dollars had been raised. With this amount, largely increased from his own pocket, a building for male boarding students was erected in 1882, and most appropriately named by the trustees Ward Hall. One striking indication of the hold the young institution had already taken on the public confidence, under Dr. Ward's administration, was an Act of the Mary- land Legislature, passed in 1878, directing that twenty-six of the state-scholars, students. that is to say, whom the state was educating for public school teachers by free scholarships, should receive their training in Westerii Maryland College. To Dr. Ward belongs the honor of being, in a very real sense, the founder of the college. His name, his character, his inliuence, his abilities, carried it safely through the iirst years of doubt and, at times, almost of despair, and secured for it the repu- tation which it bears to-day among the schools of Maryland, and if it everrises to a great and glorious height, it will be because the foundation laid by Dr. Ward was so solid and so strong. During the nineteen years of the Ward administration the school received, as to its general features, the impress which it still retains. Prom the beginning, pupils of 27

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The walls did rise, and in one year from the laying of the corner-stone, the college was opened and its first session began. But early in the following year, 1868, it became evident that, inancially, the walls had no corner-stone, or other foundation, and that the whole enterprise was a ghastly failure. And in fact a failure it was fore-doomed to be, because it was the visionary undertaking of a misguided man on his sole responsibility, a man without collegiate training, and so ignorant of that with which he ambitiously grappled as not even to know that the building and the main- tenance of a college as a merely individual enterprise had never been accomplished, that it was, in fact, an impossibility. And yet, strange to say, the blunder of Fayette R. Buell was the origin of Western Maryland College. A teacher from the state of New York, he was conducting, with fair success, an academy or high-school in VVest- ininster, when the wild idea of founding a college took possession of him. He had no money, he knew nothing about colleges, but he was full of energy, Bred with zeal, and he had made influential friends. Through the good ofhces of these, he secured from the Maryland Annual Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church, in March, 1866, a recommendation of Mr. Buell and his projected college to the patronage of their people, Meanwhile, neither Mr. Buell nor anybody else knew where money enough to buy a perch of stone or a cart-load of sand was to come from, and YVestern Maryland College seemed fated to be only a paper college and never an architectural or other reality. There was a Board of Directors, it is true, of Mr. Buell's selection, but there was nothing to direct, and most likely there never would have been any- thing to direct, if no such person as james Thomas NVard had existed. But because he was, Western Maryland College is. Two friends of Dr. Wardis, bound to him by ties of love and admiration, john Smith, of XVakelield, and Isaac C. Baile, both citi- Zens of Westiiiiiister, offered to lend Mr. Buell ten thousand dollars to start his college with, on the condition that Dr. Ward should be at its head. This proposition was accepted, the work was begun, and, as we have seen, the corner-stone was duly laid. But, as we have also seen, it became evident, early in 1868, to Mr. Buell and all concerned, that the individual-enterpriseH plan of starting and conducting a college was a failure, and that unless some other plan could be devised and successfully substituted the work would have to be abandoned. The hnancial status of the college at the close of its first session, February 27th, 1868, when Mr. Buell called his Board of Directors together for consultation is described by President Lewis in his hfzkfoifzkzzl Sketch as indeed a pitiable one. H The building, he says, Wwas still unfinished, all the money had been spent, all the interest on the loan was unpaid, and the prop- erty was covered by mechanics' liens for nearly as much as had been borrowed in the hrst place. This was the situation Eeported to the Maryland Conference at its session in March, 1868. Although in no sense responsible for the disaster, the Conference had been nominally connected with it and determined to prevent utter failure if possible. The Conference, therefore, appointed thirty-three men to become incorporated by the Legislature of Maryland as a Board of Trustees. They were authorized to purchase the property of Mr. Buell for an amount equal to what had been spent and was still due on it. and Mr. Ward was directed to proceed at once to raise among the friends of the church sufficient money to meet the most pressing claims. The charter was obtained March goth, 1868, the agreement with Mr. Buell closed August 12th, 1868, 26

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both sexes have been admitted' and have received the same degree at graduation. For both the course of study is nearly tl1e same, the principal difference being that the ladies take French. instead of Greek. The plan of separate recitations, of sepa- rate residence, of monthly receptions to the male students, or parlor nights, in the presence of teachers, in short all the regulations which provide for and safeguard the presence of both sexes in the school come down from the early days of Dr. Ward's control. The arrangement has been amply vindicated by its success. In the twenty- six years during which young men and young women have been educated at Western Maryland College, with a town at hand 11ot free from the usual propensity to gossip, no whisper of scandal has been heard. Silence, surely, was never more eloquent. From the beginning, too, hazing was firmly discouraged and rowdyism of all kinds sternly discountenanced, so that now it has become traditional in the school to meet tl1e new .students with courteous welcome instead of the jocose brutality so often practiced elsewhere. Difficulties between town and gown, so common where n1ost colleges exist, have never occurred here, and no case has ever been known in which complaint was lodged against a 'Western Maryland student for disorderly conduct within the corporate limits of NVestminster. Under the fostering care of the faculty, early in the history of the college, the four literary societies now existing were organized, two, the Irving and the VVebster for the young men, and two, the Browning and the Philomathean for the young women, and have always been regarded as valuable adjuncts to the regular academic course. The Irving was formed on the opening of the college, in September, 1867, the Browning followed, in 18683 in 1871 the Webster Callle into existence, while the Philos date their anniversary from 1882. 'Ihe presidency of Dr. XVard lasted from the organization of the college until June, 1856, when, at his own request, he was relieved of the duties he had so long, so faithfully and so ably perforn1ed, and transferred to the important, but less burden- some charge of the Westminster Theological Seminary. ' Few men living are so widely known and so well beloved as the first president of Western Maryland College. Born ill Georgetown, D. C., August zrst, 1820, of sterling English and Scotch stock, carefully educated, and always studious, he devoted him- self to the preaching of the Gospel, and from 1841 to 1866, he led the life of a busy and useful pastor, at Philadelphia, Washington and other important points. Admon- ished by failing health to abandon the arduous work of the itinerancy, Dr. Ward, in 1866, sought retirement and rest in a beautiful home which he had purchased in the western suburbs of Westminster, and thus, providentially, he was on the spot, the right man. in the right place, when the college was first projected, became its first president, carried it safely through the times of early trial and handed it over to his successor an institution of learning solidly founded, widely and favorably known. The successor to Dr. Ward chosen by the trustees was Thomas Hamilton Lewis, who, as the organizer and first president of the Westminster Theological Seminary, had already exhibited executive talents of a rare order. I-Ie was born near Dover, Delaware, December 11th, 1852, graduated, with the highest honors, from Western Maryland College in 1875, entered the ministry of the M. P. Church, was stationed at Cumberland, Md., for two years, and for the five years fron1 1877 to 1882, filled 28