University of Maine - Prism Yearbook (Orono, ME)

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The Experiment Station Council. Trustee RUTILLUS ALDKN.....................................................Winthrop. Trustee BENJAMIN F. BRIGGS.................................................Auburn. President ABRAM W. HARRIS, Ph. I).. President. ......................Orono. Professor FRANCIS L. HARVEY, Ph. I)........................................Orono. Director WHITMAN H. JORDAN. M. S.. Secretary...............................Orono. Representative I). H. KNOWETON, M. A., State Pomological Society, . . Farmington. Representative B. WALKER McKEEN. State Board of Agriculture, . . Fryeburg. Trustee ARTHUR L. MOORE, B. S..............................................Limerick. Professor WliLTON M. MUNSON, M. S.,........................................Orono. Professor FREMONT L. RUSSELL, V. S.,................................Orono. Representative (). (). CROSBY, Maine State Grange, ...... Albion. 16

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Charles Frederic Allen, T). D. FIRST PRESIDENT Ol- THE MAINE STATE COLLEGE. pOR three years after the opening of the Maine State College for students it was without a president. During the first two years its faculty consisted of a professor of mathematics who was “ acting presi- dent.” and a farm superintendent who was instructor in agriculture.” There were also during these two years three non-resident lecturers for portions of each term—the College year then being divided into three terms. In the third year the facultv was increased by the addition of a professor of chemistry, an instructor in botany and horticulture and an instructor in French and German. The staff of non-resident lecturers had also been increased to six. among whom were Prof. K. S. Morse on zoology: I)r. A. S. Packard. Jr., on entomology, and Mr. X. A. Willard on dairy farming—men all eminent in the lines of their specialties. Throughout these early years in the history of the College the matter of choosing a president was one which had received much attention from the trustees. It had been discussed in meetings of the board, had been left to committees of corresj ondence, and the more it was considered, apparently greater seemed the matter of choice. It was by no means an easy thing to select the man for the place. The College was new and was to he administered upon wholly new lities in the higher education. There was also much opposition to it—opposition which came from already established colleges, from public men of high influence, from legislators, and from |x-ople in nearly all sections of the State—not excepting those in the near locality of its establishment. Under such a condition of public sentiment it can at once be seen that the task of the trustees was most perplexing. As made up in 1871, the year of its choice of first president, the board of trustees consisted of two Congregationalists. one Baptist, one Friend, one Catholic, one Swedenborgian and two whose religious sentiments arc not known. That such a board should have selected a Met hot list and a clergyman is evidence of their non-sectarian control, anti also 17