University of Tennessee Knoxville - Volunteer Yearbook (Knoxville, TN)

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The University, Past and Present It is difficult for students of the twentieth century to conceive of a college president fighting Indians and fighting them courageously and ef- fectively. It is more difficult for us to realize that the first president of our University did just this very thing. These were days when men feared God and kept their powder dry. Perhaps this indicates more graphically than could any thing else how firmly rooted is the past of our University. The early history of the University of Tennessee is inseparably linked with that of the state and the records of the University entwined with memories of illustrious pioneers bringing us in closer touch with the inspir- ing history of these early days. Every page of the pioneer history of Tennessee glows with romance and there is a certain fascination in the chronicles of our forefathers who suffered, dared and achieved, fighting the good tht, by virtue of fearless determination and rugged strength of character. In contrast with the ancient Universities of Europe, the University of Tennessee seems in the first flush of youthful vigor. To us, however, that live in a Civilization that is comparatively new, in a land where savage red men roamed through vast wildernesses broken only here and there by small settlements, a cluster of houses surrounded by the palisaded block house, even since the last century began7 an institution well deserves to be termed historic and venerable when its founding antedates by two years the establishment of the state government. Page Twenty-faur

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DEAN FERRIS College of Engineering A broad held of activity lies before the graduate of the College of Engineering. When he goes out from this College of the University of Tennessee he has been prepared to help develop the natural resources of the state. which may well be boasted of, furnishing as they do the raw materials for industries in many states. Tennessee is rich in promise for the technical graduate who is willing to put his efforts where they are needed, and who wishes at the same time to give service to the state. If he becomes a manufacturer he finds conditions most favorable. Cli- mate, fuel, coal and water powerelabor and raw materials combine to make the manufacturers outlook a prosperous one. Where ever there is 21 successful leader in industry, capital is quick to find him out. New transportation problems are facing the state. Tennessee has not really begun to build highways yet. When she does begin her great pro! gramme of highway building she will need 500 experienced and trained highway engineers. Besides men to supervise and design, to direct the men who build the roads, she will need others to organize. and put into effect a system of maintenance that will rival in magnitude the task of building. The. University of Tennessee is adequately equipped to train men for all these fields of service to the community and t0 the state. Page Twenty-tlzree

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These early settlers were in the main without classical education, but they were by no means illiterate. There were men like John Sevier, William Blount, and William Cox who had excellent educations and a great deal of culture. When, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the tide of civiliza- tion swept westward over the Alleghaniesy down into the valley of western Virginia and eastern Tennessee, it had, among others, one element that predominatedea race of intelligent, sturdy and upright men, the Scotch- Irish Presbyterians. Along with these men came preachers, strong, resolute men, not overly tolerant, perhaps, but who shared the perils and the labors of the settlers. tilled the Fields and fought the Indians. These men brought with them their rifles and their axes across their saddle bows, and their Bibles and spelling books in their saddle pockets, so that where ever they went they established a church, and at the same time a school house near by. Thus it happened that the four prominent educators of pioneer times in Tennessee, the reverends Samuel Doak, Thomas B. Craighead, Hezekiah Bolch and Samuel Carrick, were all Presbyterian ministers, and all but one had been students at Princeton. The early interest displayed by Tennessee is the more noteworthy when contrasted with the fact that North Carolina, of whose territory Tennessee was a part until 1790, was before the Revolution, in this respect, one of the most backward of the American colonies. The colonial government perhaps shared the jealous fears of popular education expressed in 1671 by Sir William Berkley, the Royal Governor of Virginia Who said HI thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have these in hundreds of years: for learningr has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from them both. In the fall of 1794, two years after Col. James White had laid off the sixty-four lots comprising the original town of Knoxville, at the first regular session of the first territorial assembly XVilliam Cocke, representative from Hawkins County, presented a bill for the establishing of a college in the Vicinity of Knoxville. Thus on September 10, 1794-, the bill chartering our University became a law, and Blount College, named in honor of the Governor, came into being. Though these men founded wisely and well, one eSsential feature of the plan for the University was omittedenamely, that it should be support- ed by public taxation. Blount College neither in the beginning nor in the Page Twenty-Jiwe