University of Kentucky - Kentuckian Yearbook (Lexington, KY)

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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

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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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buildings. y HE first building of Transylvania University of which we have any record was a two-story brick lO which stood in the north end of the space now known as Gratz Park. It was probably destroy- ed by tire, for in 1817 a new building, a brick of three stories, was erected near the spot now oc- cupied by the music-stand in the lower end of the Park, which was at that time the University Cam- pus. This buiiding. named in honor of the Rev. Horace Holley, the third president of the University, was destroyed by tire on the 9th of Mav. 182a. Thus crippled by a severe blow the old college would not have recovered for many years had it not been for the benevolence of.two great citizens, Henry Clay and James Morrison. Colonel Morrison, a man of great wealth, having no children, desired to bequeath a large sum to one of Mr. Clay ' s sons. Mr. Clay, who was writing the will, refused to allow this to be done, and suggested to Colonel Morrison that he make the bequest to Transylvania University. Accordingly, by will dated December 21, 1820, he left $20,000 to establish in the University a professorship bearing his name and a residuary legacy, estimated at $40,000, to be applied to the erection of another edifice to be denominated Morrison College. After purchasing two-thirds of the present campus, the fund was used in the erection of the classic old building, which w-as opened with appropriate inauguration cere- monies on the fourth of November, 1833. 26