of the faculty. President Burgess died in 1881, and Prof. A. R. Benton was again called to the presidency, which he continues to occupy. President Benton had retired from the university to become a member of the faculty of Alliance College, Ohio. He was called from Alliance to the chancellorship of the University of Nebraska, which institution he organized in the fall of 1871. This position he occupied for five years, when he returned to the North-Western Christian University as professor of mental and moral science. In 1873 the institution was removed to Irvington, four miles from Indianapolis. By this removal the university secured the liberal donation of 25 acres of land for a campus and $150,000 for the erection of new college buildings. The ground of the old campus was sold in city lots, and from this source $163,000 were added to the endowment fund of the university. The present endowment is about $300,000, the greater part of which came from the liberality of Ovid Butler in honor of whom the university is named. From the opening of the institution in 1855 to the present time there have been enrolled as matriculates of the university over 5,000 students, nearly one fifth of whom have been women. In its various departments the university has enjoyed the instruction of men whose names are prominent among the educators of Indiana. Among these are G. W. Hoss, W. M. Thrasher, Ryland T. Brown, Alfred Fairhurst, H. W. Wiley and D. S. Jordan. ENDOWMENTS. Generous men have contributed liberally to endow chairs in the institution. The Demia Butler chair was established by Ovid Butler in 1869, as a memorial to his daughter, who was the first lady graduate. One of the conditions in the establishment of this chair was that it should be filled in perpetuity by a woman. Mr. Butler's desire was to give an emphatic recognition of the rights of woman to occupy any position for which she is qualified. Miss Catherine Merrill was elected as the first professor of this chair-which position she accepted-April 21, 1869. The chair is now filled by Miss Harriet Noble. Jeremy H. Anderson, in 1872, endowed the chair of Greek language and literature with the sum of $20,000. COMMERCIAL DEPARTMENT. Since 1870 there has been maintained in connection with the university a department of business, in which commercial calculations, bookkeeping, and methods of business are taught. The change in the name of the university was made February 28, 1877, after full deliberation by the board of directors. They adopted the name "Butler University" in honor of him who had given largely to its endowment, and who for twenty years had given a large part of his time to its interests. 12524-No. 10-11 THE FACULTY IN 1890. Allen R. Benton, LL. D., President, and Professor of Mental Science and Biblical Literature. William M. Thrasher, A. M., Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy. Harriet Noble, A. M., Demia Butler Professor of English Language and Literature. Scott Butler, A. M., Professor of Latin Language and Literature. Oliver P. Hay, A. M., Ph. D., Professor of Natural History and Geology. Hugh C. Garvin, A. M., Professor of Modern Languages and Literature. Demarchus C. Brown, A. M., Anderson Professor of Greek Language and Literature. Thomas M. Iden, Ph. M., Professor of Chemistry and Physics. T. J. McAvoy, Professor of Elocution and Oratory. Hugh T. Miller, A. B., Instructor in German and French. Three courses of study are offered to the students of the universitythe classical, scientific, and philosophical. These courses lead to the bachelor's degree respectively in arts, science, and philosophy. Advanced courses are provided, leading to the master's degree. A prepar atory course of two years is also provided. Graduates of high schools, whose course of study is approved by the State board of education, are admitted without examination. The library of the university contains about 5,000 volumes, valuable and well selected books. The reading room of the library contains the most desirable periodicals of Europe and America, and is daily acces sible to students. The apparatus in chemistry and physics is adequate to usual college work, in many respects extensive and full. The laboratories in chemistry and natural history are well supplied. CHAPTER XI. THE DENOMINATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.-(CONTINUED.) FRANKLIN COLLEGE.-HISTORICAL SKETCH.1 Professor Haugham, for many years a teacher in Franklin College, and who well understands the social development of Indiana during the first years of her history, says: "Many of the pioneers of this State were the sons and daughters of those who introduced civilization into the borders of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas; neither the memory nor the fireside traditions of these people extend backward to a time when their progenitors were not pioneers. "Thus they formed habits of acting and thinking peculiarly their own. They acknowledged few conventionalities. them had enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education. a consequence Few of As soon many thousands of native adults could neither read nor write. "If this was so in general, it was especially so among Baptists. "The demand for ministeral labor was so great in those days that many were solemnly consecrated to the work of preaching who could. hardly read a hymn or a chapter in the Bible intelligibly, and it is believed that some were pressed into service who could not read a word when they began to exercise their gifts.' Many preachers brought forth by these throes of the churches were full-grown at birth. They ordinarily ranged themselves into two classes: First, those who, distrustful of themselves because they had few resources to draw upon, went humbly forward, groping and feeling for the ways of truth in an uncertain twilight, but with a faith sublime in its primitive simplicity that reached upward and took hold of the omnipotent arm; and secondly, those who were but too faithfully personated and not caricatured by the inimitable man who played on a harp of a thousand strings, sperits of just men made perfeck.' "The more sagacious and pious of the denomination, looking forward, saw little hope for themselves as a Christian organization, unless some powerful conservative influence could be brought to bear upon their interests." By Professor John W. Moncrief, Franklin College. These were reinforced by large-minded men, of various degrees of culture, moving in from the Eastern States. It was in the midst of circumstances like these that a number of Baptist ministers and laymen met, June 5, 1834, at Indianapolis to form an "educational society," and this is the inception of what is now Franklin College. Those who attended this meeting were natives of 6 States. Four of Massachusetts (1 a graduate of Amherst College), 2 of Pennsylvania, 2 of North Carolina, 2 of Kentucky, 1 of New York, 1 of Tennessee. If amalgamation gives strength, Franklin College received strength at the first meeting of these founders. And surely strength was needed, for it did not require the gift of prophecy to see that the college about to come into being was fated to pass through a struggle which was for many years to render its future a matter of extreme doubt. After some competition it was decided to locate the school at Franklin. Two years later, a "frame house 26 by 38 feet, one story high," had been erected. But since it seemed impossible for the trustees to get a "suitable teacher," the building was rented for a private school. It was not until autumn 1837 that the trustees secured the services of the Rev. Albert Freeman Tilton, a native of Deerfield, N. H., and a graduate of Waterville College, now Colby University, Maine. Mr. Tilton is described as a "tall, manly man of superior natural and acquired abilities," who was a successful teacher, but who "undertook more than any one mortal could accomplish." The institution was called "The Indiana Baptist Manual Labor Institute," and "it was just what its name imports. The young men who came to seek instruction built log huts in which to live and study; and with their own hands cut cord wood and made barrels to pay their necessary expenses."1 About 1844 the name of the institution was changed to Franklin College; a college charter was secured; and college instruction began under the presidency of the Rev. George C. Chandler, a graduate of Madison University, New York. From the first, the idea of scholarship was high, and the course of instruction was equal to that of other colleges in the West. In the earliest catalogues we read that "the design of this institution is to teach men to think independently and correctly." "We want no loungers here; therefore it is hoped that the indolent, careless, and dissipated will not seek admittance. If any wish only the name of be ing in college, or the honor of receiving a diploma, we hope they will seek this in some other place." Everything indicates that, notwithstanding shortness of funds and fewness of students, the college has stood fearlessly and firmly by these statements. In 1843 a building 84 by 40 feet and three stories high was begun. "During the whole time of its erection, the board was using the trowel History of Franklin College, in a sketch by President W. T. Stott, p. 1. or hammer with one hand, and warding off impatient creditors with the other. Various were the expedients resorted to in order to procure money. Goods and wares donated to the college were sold either at Franklin or in different parts of the State. At one time the board consulted the county commissioners and took legal advice on the subject of peddling clocks donated to the college; clock peddling in those days the essence of evil in the eyes of the law." But at last, in 1847, the building was completed and paid for. The first degree of A. B. was conferred in 1847. But after various successes and failures President Chandler grew weary and resigned. The two succeeding years were full of gloom. In 1852 Dr. Silas Bailey was elected to the presidency. Dr. Bailey, a native of Massachusetts, a graduate of Brown University, a man of ripe scholarship and profound thought, came to the rescue, and his magnificent powers were exhausted in the college which he soon learned to love better than his own life. There was very marked improvement under Dr. Bailey's administration. A second building similar to the first was erected at a cost of over $7,000. Endowment increased, the college was rapidly winning the respect of both the thinking and the unthinking. But in 1862 failing health necessitated Dr. Bailey's resignation. Immediately a feeling of insecurity began to grow, and in June, 1864, it seemed best to "suspend the exercises until such time as in the judgment of the board it may be proper to resume operations." Among the causes of this collapse may be enumerated (1) the apathy of the natural constituency; (2) the difficulty of collecting subscrip tions to the endowment; (3) the great Civil War, which drew largely upon the young men in attendance and unsettled the finances of the whole country; (4) and not least, the question of location had been raised and debated in a spirit too mildly expressed by the word "earnestness." The college suffered greatly from this division, which lasted until very recently. In 1867 Professor Hill began the work of reviving the college. He conducted a very successful school until the board assumed full control again in 1869, with Professor Stott acting president. In 1870 Dr. H. L. Wayland, son of President Wayland, of Brown University, was elected president. Various schemes for endowment failed. Dr. Wayland "was a most earnest and able instructor. His noble generosity inspired all his pupils. His ideas were broad and progressive. That he did not succeed was not that he lacked earnestness or power, but patience to abide the slow development of the State.": He resigned in January, 1872. At the same time the board resolved" "That so far as teaching is concerned the college is suspended." But the Baptists of Indiana did not intend to allow Franklin College to die. Jubilee paper of W. C. Thompson, pp. 36-7. |