University of Kentucky - Kentuckian Yearbook (Lexington, KY)

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proud one. Among the names of her thousands of graduates and students appear the names of Jeffer- son Davis, Thomas F. Marshall. Congressman and Judge of Kentucky Court of Appeals; Dr. B. . Dudley : Richard H. Menifee : John Boyle, Governor of Illinois and Chief Justice of Kentucky for sixteen years; Richard M. [ohnson ; V. T. Barry; Jesse Bledsoe: C. A. Wickliffe ; Justice Harlan, of the United States Supreme Court, and a host of others, cabinet officers, foreign ministers, governors, generals, physicians, divines, and men of every grade and business of life. Few colleges in America can show such an array of distinguished Alumni. Many of them have now passed away to reap their re- ward, but not a few alive to-dav. [maintaining the same exalted position that their predecessors occupied before them. The history of Kentucky University is as yet a brief one but has been by no mean de- i .ill of honor. Its separate history began in 1865 and a few years later the Agricultural and Mechanical College { Kentucky was founded by Act of Congress, and it was made one of the colleges of the University. It then had a College of Law and a College of the Bible in addition to the regular Academical Depart- ment. The Law College suspended operations early in the eighties, but it was again continued in 1892, but with small success and closed again in 1894. Kentucky University has to-day three departments, a College of Liberal Arts, a College of the Bible and a Commercial College. In these three departments there are usually enrolled about seven or eight hundred students each year. The Agricultural and Mechanical College was separated from Kentucky University in 1S7S, and is now a prosperous and flourishing college siluated in Lexington. There are few schools in the South which can compete with it as a scientific and technological college. Kentucky University, during recent years, has been constantly improving. In 1894 a large and handsome gymnasium was added to the other imposing buildings, and the following year a commodious new structure was dedicated to the use of the College of the Bible. In iSSq the educational display of Kentucky University at the ■•Exposition Universelle at Paris was rewarded by one of the highest awards, and in 1893 at the World ' s Columbian Exposition at Chicago, it again received the highest recognition and award. Among the distinguished Alumni of Kentucky University are found the names of Roger (L Mills. Senator from Texas: Benton McMillin, Congressman from Tennessee; Congressmen Champe Clarke, ot Missouri; Smith, of Arizona, and Owens, of Kentucky: among others the names of James Lane Allen, the celebrated Southern novelist: Dr. Virgil I ' . Gibney, of New York City, one of the foremost surgeons in America and a professor in Columbia Medical College; Prof. Wm. 15. Smith, of Tulane University, and in Kentucky, fames H. Hazelrigg, of the Kentucky Court of Appeals; State Senators 4

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Thus was founded the Transylvania University, an institution which afterward attained a reputation unexcelled by thai of any other American college. S m after the charter was granted to it the institution was given the appearance of a regular Uni- versity l v tii - addition i Law and Medical I lepartments. The teachers in the professional departments have never been surpassed in any ot the professional schools oi the oun Vmong I i ilty I the College of Law we find the names of [esse Bledsoe, [udge ol Kentucky Curt of Appeals, and United S i S nator ; Henry Clay, George D. Robertson, Chief Justice ot Kentucky Court ol Appeals; William ' I ' . Barry, Thomas . Marshall, and a number of other men hav- ing National reputations. In tact, --at that tim ilar college in tin ' United States was considere d its sup nor in the ability of its teachers or the number of its students. T 1 Mi dical Department were equally as prominent in their lines . and then ' was no Medicil College, excepi pprhaps the University ol P inia, that was its equal. The University was visited in i Nig by President M G neral [ackson, Governor Shelby, and many other distinguished men, and in 1825 by Lafayette, then on his visit to Ameri( t. About time Lord Stanley, afterward the Earl of Derby, made a personal examination of the institution, and expressed him -ill ' a- being much pleased with the plan ol ition. The numb r ol students attended in the best days of the institution «;h vi many as one thousand in its various departments. The number of graduates in the Medical Depart- ment alone had reached, in [865, upward, of two thousand, si I tnd 1 t 1 chool, v the Law Depa ner fui nished aim- -t the -.mi • numb Den iminationalism has always been the greatest drawback to Transylvania and h I 01 a long time it was under the control of the P - erian Church ; later under the 1 ial ( irch, and still latter the Methodist Church, while to-d ;i Kentucky University, its successor, is under the management ol the Disciples ol Christ. On acci unl ol tl is ti nd n to church influence, there had in the history of Transylvania numerous dissensions among ii supporters as to tin- m inner of its man- in :nt, a ' tim - being so violent as to lead to an entire surrender ol the school from nomination to another. During the Civil War. and just before it, Transylvania lost several ot ' her most imposing buildings by lire, and the war following jusl tu the wake of these losses had a very disastrous effect on thi Uni- versity. In fact, the institution never recovered from the effects, and in the year 1865 the trustees, de- siring to perpetuate for Lexington her character and usefulness as an educational c -ntre. conveyed the entire property to Kentucky University and consolidated it with that institution. From thai dati the historj ot Transylvania blends with that ot ' Kentucky University. The record of Transylvania is a

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Charles J. Bronston and W. W. Stephenson; Lieut. -Gov. M. C, Aiford, Circuit fudges Watts Parker and Jerre R. Morton, of Lexington, and a number of other prominent men of State reputation. The limit ..i this article will not admit a more extended account of Kentucky University. Suffice it to say, that if her students in the years to come are equal to the full measure of their predeo ssors, her future will indeed be a proud one. ... | sS r