George Washington University - Cherry Tree Yearbook (Washington, DC)

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THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY : A SESQUICENTENNIAL ESSAY A ESSAY By DEAN ELMER L. KAYSER, AUTHOR OF “BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW.” LUTHER RICE AND THE COLUMBIAN COLLEGE. A university is a living, an organic thing. It is planted in faith and nourished by the hopes of those who look to the future. The little sapling may die before it ever puts down those roots which will draw from the soil the water and food which it needs for growth. It may be burned by summer sun and frozen by winter cold. It may be attacked by disease or eaten by insects. It may be cut down. Any tree planted by man’s hands lives precariously. Even though it grows from sap- ling to tree, it will always need nourishment if it is to live. The mortality rate of colleges in the early nine- teenth century was very high. Columbian College in the District of Columbia lived to become George Washington University. The founder, Luther Rice, with remarkable insight, was able to foresee the tree before the sapling had hardly taken root. He saw a university almost as soon as the College was started. What were the forces that condi- tioned the growth and development of the institution as it evolved from a small church-related liberal arts college to a large independent university? Of many, three might be singled out: the church, the city, and finances. The fact that Columbian was a liberal arts college was itself somewhat a matter of evolution, not so easy to trace. For the predecessor of Columbian was the Theol- ogical Institution in Philadelphia, founded by the Baptist Convention, three years before the College was started.

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THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY The George W ashington University A Sesquicentennial Essay by DEAN E.L. KAYSER, University Historian Author of “Bricks Without Straw” THE CHERRY TREE, Publishers. WASHINGTON, D.C.

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THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY : A SESQUICENTENNIEL ESSAY BELLWETHER OF BAPTIST THEOLOGY. The Reverend Doctor William Staugh ton, later to be the first president of Columbian, was chosen Principal and the Reverend Ira Chase professor of languages and bib- lical literature. Professor Chase, apparently the bell- wether of Baptist theology, led his flock of students from Philadelphia to Washington in early September, 1821 and began lectures a few months before classes in the classical department began. In 1825 Professor Chase left Columbian to set up a course of study in the newly organized Newton Theological Seminary. The College at the time was feeling severe economic pressure. No re- placement for Professor Chase was appointed. Lists of students from that time on show no registrations in the theological department, although many in the College were destined for the ministry. No later attempt to es- tablish a theological department ever had any permanent result. Fig. 2 - Luther Rice (1783 - 1836), founder of the Columbian College. This is the only known likeness of Rice, cut by Emily Redd of Caroline Co., Va., prior to 1830. Why did the theological department fold up, leaving the field almost exclusively to the liberal arts and sciences? To find the answer is not easy, especially since the denominational interest and involvement in the College was so marked. Some facts which may or may not have a bearing might be stated. The removal of Professor Chase to New England was due to a formal expression of northern Baptists that a theological seminary should be established in the vicinity of Boston. The Massachusetts Baptist Education Society selected Newton Center as the place. Maybe matters of conven- ience dictated the action, maybe there was some sectional feeling, maybe they did not relish the theo- logial climate of Washington, maybe they were alarmed at the financial insecurity of the College. As a matter of . fact, the costs of theological education, of the training L of ministers in general, was an important factor in that insecurity. Candidates for the ministry rarely ever paid their way and financial assistance was frequently reque- sted and invariably granted. Even before moving from Philadelphia, the Institution had accumulated a serious debt which was passed on to the College in turn. The institution at Newton did thrive. Certainly the removal of Professor Chase to Newton sounded the death knell for the theological department at Columbian. The withering away of the theological department seems strange in light of the Baptists’ desire to retain as close a denominational connection as was legally possi- ble. The extent to which the charter was affected by the political and legal climate of the period is remarkable. Very briefly the situation was this. Funds had been raised and the College lot of 46V2 acres just north of the Boundary, had been acquired for the Baptist Conven- tion. A decision in a case involving the Philadelphia Baptist Convention had held in 1819 “that an incorpor- ated association could not receive and administer a fund for the training of young men for the Baptist ministry.” In light of this decision, it was necessary that if the Baptist Convention was to hold funds and land for ministerial education, the Convention seek incorpor- ation. An appeal to Congress for this purpose failed to produce results, because of opposition to anything suggesting a church-state relationship. The Convention was incorporated two years later under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania. Meanwhile renewed efforts were being made to get a charter from the Congress of the United States. These efforts produced a charter, but a charter for a college, not a religious body. In that charter all religious tests were strictly prohibited. The college would be nonsectarian. A THOUSAND - YEAR LEASE. The form of the charter was undoubtedly influenced by the decision in the Dartmouth College case (1819), which held that the College’s charter could not be amended without the consent of the college trustees. The Columbian charter provided for the legislature’s rights in giving Congress the right to revoke or amend, and requiring the trustees to furnish information con- cerning “their own conduct, the state of the institution, and of its finances” when required by either House of Congress. The Attorney General had the right at any time to inspect or examine. Confronted with these legal requirements, how did the Baptist interests de facto to control an institution which de jure was nonsectarian? The land was transferred to the College for its use under a thousand year lease at an annual rental of one peppercorn, if demanded, the property to revert to the Convention if at any time more than one fourth of the Trustees were not selected from the official list, approved by the Convention. The method of election was, according to the charter, to be fixed by an ordinance of the Trustees. Since it was required that Trustees be elected by the contributors, a contributor was defined as an individual or group who had given at least a certain amount for denominational or educational purposes. Contributors