Wesleyan University - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Middletown, CT)

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siCemetery Dayii was observed in Iune, when the Iuniors cleared up the college cemetery; 11Tree Planting Day in Aprilw Chapel exercises were advanced from 6 to 7:45 A. M.-what :1 relief! The curriculum in 1847 was rearranged by years, instead Campus from the Southeast. in the Seventies of departments as before. Com- mencements expanded; twenty graduates giving eighteminute orations in August, 1842. In 1849 there were twenty-eight Commencement speakers! Sometimes the graduating exercises had to be held in two sessions-linked sweetness long drawn out! President Olin on June 1, 1846, went to England, in part for his health, which had been worn down by his heavy activities; returning in November. On the night of his return to Middletown the students arranged the lights in the dormitory so as to spell 1111K. OLIN. For a while his health and his labors benefitted by this journey. But four years later he again declined for some months, and in July, 1851, in the midst of an epidemic of dysentery in Middle- town, he and his wife and two-year-old son, James, were seized by the malady. tHis other son, Stephen H., had been sent away to safety in Rhinebeck, New Yorky. On August 1 the boy Iames, and on August 10 President Olin, died. For a year, during which Professor John Johnston was acting president, the trustees sought a new president; once electing Dr. John McClintock who declined. Finally on August 3, 1852, they chose Professor Augustus W. Smith, the Hrst layman to be elected president, :1 mathematician of national reputation through his masterpiece on Mechanics, and the righthand man in college administration of each of his predecessors. He sensed that the method of raising funds for current expenses threatened the permanence of the college; and accordingly he launched into the dithcult Centum Milia campaign for $100,000 of endowment. It was all subscribed tProfessor Harvey B. Lane aiding the president in the campaigny; but only a small part of it had been paid, when President Smith, sensing that the trustees were not unanimous in their support of him, resigned on August 5, 1857. His Five years of heroic work, not fully appreciated at the time, resulted in laying the foundation of endow- ments which. as they have developed, have made possible the century of Wesleyanis rich service to education. It was during Smiths administration that South College Ohe Lyceum, it was then calledy was adorned with its commemorative tablet over the doorway and its tower remodelled to protect the bell tmade in East Hamptonl The twenty-fifth anniversary of the college was held on August 6, 1856, in McDonough Hall. Twrnly-Mm

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O L L A P O D A 1'1BWM'011- WM 1-: 515110051 ' ' 90043111 '1D40M01'11979MM11 'L even to come to Middletown. In January, 1841, realizing that he ought not to allow his continued illness to embarrass the college any longer, he resigned, and the trustees elected Dr. Nathan Bangs president. Bangs, then missionary secretary and one of the foremost leaders in Methodism, was reluctant to accept. But the faculty went to New York in a body to plead his acceptance, and his fellow ministers in that city represented it to be his duty to accept in order to save the institution, which during the long interregnum had been losing students and was dangerously running into debt. Finally he consented to be president and the next August at Commencement he delivered his Inaug- iral Address. Bangs, ecclesiastical executive of rare skill, great-hearted in his sympae thies, loved the young college ardently: he was Wesleyanis friend from the start, and later served as trustee for eleven years. He sacrificed his leader- ship in the church to be- come president and to save Wesleyan from ime mediate dissolution. He found conditions in a de- plorable state and at once worked desperately and successfully to raise funds to tide over the threaten- ing crisis. But not being . V e a , e . , Left to right: North Lnngrcgalmnal Lhureh wetne- 0f 83 21 C011C3gC ngIdULHE 1101' fa' Ctumiu'ncemvntL Past Other. McDum-ugh Iluusc miliar with the tech nique of college administration, which he felt he was too old t641 to learn, he soon became enmeshed in dilhculties; and one year after his inaugural, learn- ing that Olin was restored to health, he resigned in his favor; and on August 2, 1842, Olin was reelected president. Stephen Olin, successful president of Randolph-Macon College tuntil his illnessa, was one of the most eloquent orators of his day. Whether preaching before Congress or lecturing to Wesleyan students tCollege Life was a post- humous publication of these lecturesL he cast a spell over his audience. At once he enhanced Wesleyan prestige and collected funds needed to steer the collegiate ship into deeper waters after Bangs had so narrowly rescued it from the rocks. Student activities began to expand. The Junior Exhibition started in 1844. Phi Beta Kappa was established in 1845. A glee club and a band Hour- ished. Great Fourth of July celebrations Flamed. Fraternities developed. b 70 TWI'IIvaIIIITI'

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Wesleyan history naturally divides itself into the periods of the several presidential administrations, each dis- tinguished by its own characteristic tone, but all Htting in a continuity of some: what logical development into the cen- turywoltl college of today. In turn these presidential periods may be grouped into larger periods, rounding out new stages Umm. chum-whm Religmt Servlees in the progress of the college. With the were hchl. resignation of President Smith, the col- lege completed the Period of Inception. W'ith the election of Dr. Ioseph Cum- mings, '40, tpresident 0f Genesee Collegey to the Wesleyan presidency on August 5, 1857, there began the Period of Construction. Cummings was the first Wesleyan graduate to become president. He reaped the harvest of Smiths Centum Milia Fund by bringing collections up to about $80,000. But he further developed the endowment, chiefly through large donors, Isaac Rich, Daniel Drew and others, until it had in 1873 a book value of $376,860. The financial panic 0f the middle lSeventies, however, deflated the endowment, and in 1879 it amounted to only $166,150, a serious embarassment at the end of Cummings's administration for a college which had expanded its budget. A permanent addition, however, to the college, which panics could not melt away, resulted from Cummingsls program of construction. He built the ubrown old row of college halls, adding south of the Dormitory and Lyceum 0r Old Chapel tcalled after September, 1871, North and South Collegey the $60,000 Memorial Chapel U87D, erected to the memory of Wesleyan men who died in the Union Army during the Civil War, Rich Hall 086$, the $540,000 gift of Isaac Rich, and Orange Iudd Hall of Natural Science t187D, the $100,000 gift of Orange Judd, '47. Also a tower was added 086$ t0 the old Boarding Hall, changing it into Observatory Hall, wherein a new telescope was housed. Previously the nine-foot octagonal observatory which stood on the site of Rich Hall was removed to In- dian Hill where a Mr. Truit thereafter used it as a hen-house tfrom astronomy t0 poultryU. A library fund of $27,000 was raised by the alumni, and many valuable additions were made to the scientihc col- lections. . y The from campus began to look more Lmver ClmpeliSCt-ne ul College Bony . . . mminm mmmm m. as It does today, 111 glonous contrast to the Tu'rnty-fil'e