Circular[s] of Information

Isaac Westcott, Zenas Freeman, and Elon Galusha carried forward the work which had been thus auspiciously begun. The Baptists of New York were incited to renewed effort by the stirring appeals and the cheering announcements made in the Annunciator, a little paper published occasionally in the interests of Rochester. The result was that in less than a year after the first subscription was made the conditions of the regents were substantially complied with.

The progress of the new institution was so sudden and so wonderful that Ralph Waldo Emerson, according to Mr. Wilder, used it as an illustration of Yankee enterprise, saying that a landlord in Rochester had an old hotel which he thought would rent for more as a university, so he put in a few books, sent for a coach load of professors, bought some philosophical apparatus, and by the time green peas were ripe had graduated a large class of students. Mr. Emerson was certainly familiar with the marvelous growth of our university. "I watched over it in its cradle," he once remarked to the writer; "I am very certain that I shall never follow it to its grave."

IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.

September 27, 1850, the Hon. Ira Harris, of Albany, was elected chancellor of the university by the executive board, in which capacity he presided on commencement day until the election of a president.

1853.

April 6. At a special meeting of the trustees the presidency was tendered to Martin B. Anderson, of New York, at a salary of $1,800 a year.

July 9. At the annual meeting of the trustees a letter of acceptance was read from President Anderson, who entered upon his duties at the beginning of the fall term.

It was voted, 14 to 4, to accept the gift of 8 acres of land, valued at $10,000, which was tendered to the university as a permanent site by the Hon. Azariah Boody. The land thus secured was that on which Anderson and Sibley halls now stand.

Seventeen acres, in addition to Mr. Boody's gift, was subsequently purchased, with the idea of laying it out in house lots, by the sale of which the endowment of the university might be promoted. This idea was abandoned after lots enough had been sold to seriously mar the beauty of the campus.

1857.

March 7. The legislature of the State of New York voted $25,000 toward the erection of a new building for the university; provided that an equal sum should be added to the funds of the university from other sources. The condition was promptly met by Gen. John F.

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Rathbone, of Albany, who gave the university $25,000 to constitute a library fund.

1861.

January 10. The charter of the university was made perpetual by the regents-its provisions having been satisfactorily met.

1865.

September 18. Professor Cutting reported that the sum of $100,000 had been added to the endowment of the university.

1866.

The president's salary was raised to $3,000, and some addition was made to the salary of the other members of the faculty.

1869.

The university received from Macmillan & Co., of London, a very complete set of their valuable publications-being one of the three American colleges thus honored.

1870.

Tracy H. Harris, of New York, completed the endowment of the professorship of mathematics, for which he had subscribed $30,000. An alumni association was formed in New York City. Manton Marble, esq., of the New York World, was its first president.

1874.

Early in the year, Professor Lattimore, delivered a course of free lectures to the workingmen of Rochester, which excited such interest, and was productive of such good results, as to become a permanent feature of Rochester life-giving rise to the "Lattimore Free Lecture Course."

1880.

Through the untiring efforts of President Anderson, $256,800 was added to the permanent endowment of the university.

In addition to the gifts above mentioned, Anderson Hall was thoroughly renovated and completely refurnished by Mrs. Bertha A. Deane, of New York, at an expense of $3,150, and to the boundless gratitude of those most interested.

1882.

Decided changes were made in the curriculum, which may be typified by the facts that one term more of German and one term less of

Greek are, from this date, required of the students; that the calculus is made optional with French, etc., etc.

1888.

President Anderson resigned. He was succeeded by David J. Hill, LL. D.

AIMS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION.

One of the published reports of the university states that

The purpose of the institution is to prepare men, by sound elementary instruction and thorough discipline, for those professional or technical studies which they intend to pursue at a later period in their student life, and which they can not pursue to advantage without a certain degree of general culture. Hence the students are trained and taught with predominant reference to their wants as men, not as ministers, lawyers, or doctors in embryo. Attention is, however, given to the development, or repressal, as the case may demand, of individual tastes and tendencies; and some degree of choice is permitted in the studies of the junior and senior years, with reference to the calling which the student has in mind.

That this has been, from the outset, the design of the institution, is seen from a very able report made to the board of trustees, September 16, 1850, by a committee, appointed by that body, consisting of Robert Kelly, esq., Rev. William R. Williams, D. D., Hon. F. Whittlesey, and Professors Dewey, Conant, Kendrick, and Raymond.

In this report the current objections to a collegiate education, as previously conducted, are dispassionately discussed, and the proposed remedies for alleged evils (such remedies as dispensing with the study of the classics and the higher mathematics, to make room for the physical sciences and the modern languages, making the studies of a large part of the course entirely optional with the students, etc.), are intelligently considered.

It will be seen from this report that, so early as 1850, the university of Rochester entered upon four experiments, which some of the older colleges tried at a later day, or are trying still-namely:

1. So arranging the course of instruction that the student who takes neither Latin nor Greek can graduate with the same honor as if he had studied these languages.

2. Terminating the compulsory study of Latin and Greek with the sophomore year.

3. Requiring none of the higher mathematics of the classical student.

4. Making the studies of the classical course to a considerable degree optional after the second year.

The changes were mainly due to the influence of President Anderson, whose inaugural address on "The end and means of a liberal education" sufficiently explains and vindicates them.