ment largely increased and well invested, an organized faculty, and a strong body of friends and supporters of the college.

Much of this addition to the wealth of the college was due to the generosity and self-sacrifice of Dr. Hale himself. Indeed, the history of Geneva College is a record of the quiet devotion of a few selfdenying men, who gave their energies, their abilities, their chances of preferment, and the best years of their lives to keep it from extinction.

It was in 1851, during the presidency of Dr. Hale, that Trinity Church, influenced chiefly by the solicitations of Bishop De Lancey, decided to add a considerable amount to the permanent funds. There were several conditions attached to this grant, one of which was that the name of the college should be changed to Hobart Free College, in commemoration of Bishop Hobart, to whose labors the foundation of the college was in great measure due.

In 1858 the Rev. Abner Jackson, D. D., LL. D., succeeded Dr. Hale. During Dr. Jackson's administration (in 1860) the name of the college was changed from Hobart Free College to Hobart College. Dr. Jackson resigned in 1867 to become president of Trinity College, Hartford, and after a year, during which the senior professor, the Rev. Dr. W. D. Wilson acted as president, the Rev. James Kent Stone, D. D., was elected. He held the position only one year, and was succeeded by the Rev. James Rankine, D. D., whose term lasted from 1869 to 1871. The Rev. Maunsell Van Rensselaer, D. D., LL. D., filled the office from 1871 to 1876, and was followed by the Rev. W. S. Perry, D. D., LL. D., who was president only two months, resigning the position to become bishop of Iowa. He was followed by the Rev. Robert Graham Hinsdale, D. D. (1876–1883), and after a year, during which the senior professor, H. L. Smith, LL. D., was acting president, the Rev. E. N. Potter, S. T. D., LL. D., D. C. L., was elected. During Dr. Potter's presidency the value of the college real estate was very nearly doubled, chiefly by the erection of several new buildings. Among these the most important is the new library erected in 1885-86. There are now 22,000 volumes on the shelves, and the college is accordingly provided with a good working library. There are also a chemical laboratory sufficient for all the operations in elementary qualitative and quantitative analysis, a well-arranged geological museum, and a good collection of mathematical and astronomical instruments, including an equatorial telescope with a focal length of 10 feet and an aperture of nearly 9 inches.

In 1889 the total wealth of the college was $460,612.48 (no debt), its revenue from all sources $24,723.28, its expenditures $25,000.48, of which $14,602.41 was for salaries and $5,497.59 for prizes, scholarships, and beneficiary aid. The number of students was 76, of permanent instructors 9, of lecturers 3.

In 1897 the Rev. R. E. Jones succeeded to the presidency.

NOTABLE TEACHERS.

No account of Hobart College would be complete without some mention of several of its teachers. Dr. McDonald and Professor Webster have already been spoken of. Gen. Joseph Gardner Swift, the noted engineer, so well known as the first graduate of the United States Military Academy, was professor of political economy and civil engineering from 1831 to 1845. For one year only, 1848-49, the college enjoyed the services of another able engineer, David Bates Douglass, LL. D., at one time the president of Kenyon College. The Rev. W. D. Wilson, D. D., LL. D., L. H. D., so long the honored and reverenced dean of Cornell University, was professor of moral and intellectual philosophy from 1850 to 1868, when he became professor of philosophy at Cornell. Besides all these there is Prof. Hamilton Lamphere Smith, LL. D., who since 1868 has been professor of natural philosophy and astronomy, having come to Hobar from Kenyon College, Ohio. Professor Smith's contributions to the advancement of science, and in particular his work on the diatomaceæ, have a permanent value, while his generous enthusiasm and his unselfish kindness make him beloved as well as honored.

THE CLASSICAL COURSE.

The development of the classical course of study has been much the same at Hobart College as at other colleges of equal age and standing. When the college was opened, the age of a student at entrance was about 15. He had to pass examination in arithmetic and grammar, in about as much Latin as is now required, and in simple Greek prose, including the four gospels in Greek. Then, in his freshman year, he finished his arithmetic and grammar, made his first acquaintance with Greek poetry, and read Virgil's Georgics, some Livy, and Sallust. Afterwards he made his way through the elegant extracts in Græca Majora," read three books of Homer's Iliad in his junior year, and in his senior year studied Cicero de Oratore, the first volume of Stewart's Philosophy, mechanics, hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, magnetism, electricity, optics, astronomy, Kames's Criticism, Butler's Analogy, chemistry, mineralogy and geology, Stewart's History of Moral and Political Philosophy, political economy, Constitution of the United States and Chancellor Kent's Law Lectures, Rutherford's Institutes, Juvenal and Persius, and the Greek Testament. Indeed, the study of

66

the Testament occupied an hour a week throughout the course, and the close connection between the college and the church is shown by the fact that St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei was read during the junior year.

At the present time the age at entrance has increased from 15 to 17 or 18; the Homer formerly read in the junior year is read in the fitting school, an acquaintance with a few English classics is required for admission, and the algebra, geometry, and geography formerly

studied in college are now expected at entrance.

In the college course

the Greek Testament and St. Augustine are no longer read. The work in Greek and Latin is so arranged that a student has the opportunity of becoming acquainted at first hand with nearly all the great classical authors. The course in English is so planned that every graduate will have the power, so far as teaching can give it, of writing correet and straight forward English, and will have made a critical study of several plays of Shakespeare and a good part of the Canterbury Tales, besides gaining from his personal readings a gentleman's knowledge of English literature. Elementary German and French have been added to the required work, and the study of science has been made less general and more thorough. Mathematics are carried no further than formerly, but the calculus, which was part of the junior work, is now taken up in the sophomore year. In brief, a large amount of work in Greek, English, French, and German has been added to the old course, while in other departments the character of the teaching has become, so to speak, less scholastic and more academic than it was fifty years ago.

THE ENGLISH OR SCIENTIFIC COURSE.

Mention has been made of an English course which was devised at the opening of the college. The circular in which the plan of this course is set forth is so interesting that it has been thought well to print it in part:

That the blessings of civil liberty-real blessings only when shared among all ranks of people—may be extended as far as possible and continued as long as possible, a general diffusion of useful knowledge seems indispensably necessary.

There is another light in which the diffusion of knowledge may be received as of the highest importance to the community at large. It is where practical information is communicated to citizens in all stations of life, enabling them to add pleasure to business and extend their exertions for the means of domestic comfort into fields of research hitherto confined to the philosopher.

For these reasons it is proposed, should the plan receive the approbation of the honorable the regents of the university, to institute in the Geneva College, besides the regular course of study pursued in similar institutions, a totally distinct course, in direct reference to the practical business of life, by which the agriculturist, the merchant, and the mechanic may receive a practical knowledge of what genius and experience have discovered, without passing through a tedious course of classical studies.

Students of certain qualifications and age shall be admitted members of the college, with all the privileges of it, to pursue a full course of the following studies under the appointed instructors:

1. Under the English professor they shall study the philosophy of English grammar, geography, rhetoric, history, etc.

2. Under the professor of mathematics they shall study geometry, trigonom etry, land surveying, theoretical and practical; mensuration, generally, etc.

3. Under the professor of chemistry shall be studied chemistry, the principles of dyeing, bleaching, etc.