City College of New York - Microcosm Yearbook (New York, NY)

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THE LIBRARY

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N June 7th, 1847, a popular referendum approved the establishment of a Free Academy and four days later an inspired editorial writer, under the impression that the new school would emphasize studies in technology wrote: A Mechanic will be President of the United States!” But Mike Walsh, an individual familiar in Tammany annals, writing in The Sub- terranean called it a vile scheme of robbery on the poor.” An anonymous property holder tremulously cried out in the columns of The Journal of Commerce, A calm ob- server of the signs of the times must distinctly perceive unerring indications of the spread of that agrarianism which preceded the decline and fall of the Roman Republic.” The term, socialism, had not as yet its modern spurious connotations. On January 15th, 1S49, one hundred and forty-three fidgety and awkward boys, wearing starched, winged collars and high black shoes, assembled in a chapel that was still fragrant with the raw odor of fresh paint and varnish. On the platform stiffly sat ten men, who, with their bushy side-whiskers and steady disci- plined gaze, seemed to be the very devil's disciples. A sudden hush and Dr. Horace Webster, graduate of West Point, in character a composite of Cato and Andrew Jackson, stepped to the front and intoned a passage from the Scriptures, a custom that would persist down to the days of Dr. Finley. Thus did the College of the City of New President Webster York begin. President Webb Eleven