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

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THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: A SESQUICENTENNIAL ESSAY • •. •, WWW ' . vwANWN .t x xx ' x v; V , , •,v ' WV a W ' s x v ; V V s ' iSAVv. XV V L v ' ' ' ' W Vi ' w N . V ' N • ■ ' lv X ' v ' N j!v.x V «X ' W •. ivWWWV WAX ‘ N x‘ ,v V V v V X • • . • XVXXVXV. ' v • V ' W ' W • v. •. , WAV. • V X N. X • X s vx • ' ,■ ■ ' • x x ' N ,V N ' ' v %%xvV ' • V.X ' X «. . V x x ' • x x x . ' . » V V. « ' x - . ' ' A ' W v. ' . • X V N. v ‘ ‘ VvvV ' VN - - Fig. 3 — William Staughton, First President of the Columbian College, 1821-1827. were assigned additional votes for amounts given in excess of the minimum. These arrangements, needless to say, insured a majority of Baptist trustees on the governing body. There was never any revolution of real moment against Baptist control; far from it. The College just evolved out of it. When in 1826, after it had been in operation only five years, the College found itself deeply in debt, the Baptist Convention, as a precautionary move, stated that it was not responsible for the debts of the College and asked that the nomination of Trustees be put in other hands, the College requested the Convention to continue as before in nominating members of the Board. This was done as long as the Convention existed, but strong historical forces were to bring about the dissolution of the Convention within a score of years. Growing sectionalism and the sharpening of the slavery issue

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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

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THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: A SESQUICENTENNIAL ESSAY transformed the Convention into the Baptist Missionary Union, devoted solely and singly to the cause of missions, with the Southerners forming their own convention. As one of its last acts the Convention relinquished “all right, title and interest which they may have to the real estate or any other property” in the hands of the College. While any formal tie through property control by the Convention was now ended, the ordinances were not changed and Baptist organizations continued to seat a Baptist majority on the Board until 1865 when individual contributors were allowed to vote. Within a few years, the Board was made a self-perpe- tuating body, for the first time a layman was elected president of the University and an Episcopalian presi- dent of the Corporation. The hold of the denomination had been gradually relaxed by the force of circumstances and had now all but disappeared. FINANCIAL AND THEOLOGICAL WOES. There was just one relapse. Hoping by the change to attract massive support from a wealthy Baptist philan- thropist, sectarian control was established by charter revision from 1898 to 1904. Six years of complete frustration led to an enthusiastic resumption of the original charter. As logical as the progression to nonsectarian control seems, it is probably safe to say that, if at any time before 1904, large financial support from any Baptist sources had been tendered, that progression would have been interrupted. ' W ' .ASHIIS ' OTON INFIRMARY. CLINICAL DEPARTMENT. Just as significant as the relations of the College to the Baptist denomination is the influence of the expand- ing city on the institution. The College of 1821 had to provide for all of the needs of the students. It was often a very unwilling obligation that the institution had to accept. Student complaints about food have never been limited to any time or to any institution. Formal investigations made from time to time to see if the nuisance of affording living and feeding facilities could not be eliminated by ceasing to be a residential college led invariably to the same conclusion: the city could not afford proper accommodations for even so small a group. The Civil War and the melting away of the student body laid the question at rest for a few years. The small number of students who remained posed no real problem and College Hill was given over to military purposes. Once the war was ended, the question reboun- ded with new emphasis. Fig. 5 — The fifth President of the College, George Whitefield Samson, D.D. (1859 - 1871.) The Reverend Samson, incidentally performed the wedding ceremony of this portraits photographer to Miss Julia Handy. The photographer, the celebrated Civil War correspondent Mathew B. Brady. POST WAR COLLEGE HILL. The buildings were war worn and life in them rugged. No funds were available for a complete renovation or rebuilding. The change in the city itself pointed the way