The studies pursued comprise mechanics, drawing (to which a large amount of time is devoted), civil engineering, electrical engineering, surveying, both theory and practice, and sanitary engineering. Attention is also given to the preparation of specifications and contracts.

The new building for the mechanical and electrical engineering departments at the University of Vermont is practically finished. The equipment, including boiler, engine, machinery, and tools is first class throughout, and compares favorably with that of any similar institution in the country.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE.

By CHARLES B. WRIGHT, of the Department of English.

CHARACTER OF THE EARLY SETTLERS.

As Vermont was settled by emigrants from the older New England States, especially Connecticut and Massachusetts, it is natural that her civil, religious, and educational institutions should in many ways be duplicates of theirs. The settlers brought with them and retained in their new surroundings a strong belief in the church, the schoolhouse, and the college as essential elements of healthy, permanent growth. Privations only strengthened this belief and stimulated their determination to establish among themselves at the earliest possible day the institutions whose models had been so integral a part of their previous experience. It needed only a sufficient number of families in any neighborhood, therefore, to secure the organization of a school district without delay. As soon as a village became populous, a grammar school or an academy was projected. The political situation, however, was for many years extremely unfavorable for educational development. Besides the obstacles obtaining in all new settlements, there were many special hindrances. The controversies in which the inhabitants were so long involved for autonomy and the Revolutionary war both bade fair to annihilate Vermont as an independent State and turned all thoughts toward preservation rather than toward culture. Previous to her admission to the Federal Union almost the entire energy of Vermont had been absorbed in what may be called without exaggeration a fight for life. Under all the circumstances, then, it is a very creditable showing that previous to the close of 1791 four grammar schools had been incorporated: Clio Hall, at Bennington; Windsor County Grammar School, at Norwich; Rutland County Grammar School, at Castleton, and Athens Grammar School, at Athens. Nor is it surprising that during the next ten years, the adverse pressure having finally been removed, eight similar institutions were added to the list: Cavendish Academy, Caledonia County Grammar School, Addison County Grammar School, Franklin County Grammar School,

Montpelier Academy, Windham Hall, Chittenden County Grammar School, and Brattleboro Academy. The day when institutions similar to Yale and Harvard should crown Vermont's educational system had doubtless been looked forward to for many years as a consummation possible when peace should come, but it was not till November, 1791, that the legislature passed an act establishing a home college, the University of Vermont at Burlington. Previously, however, in 1785, while the controversy was yet unsettled between New Hampshire and Vermont, the latter had granted to Dartmouth College and Moor's Charity School 23,000 acres of land.

For various reasons, after the act of incorporation had been obtained in 1791, nothing was done at Burlington for a number of years toward putting a college into operation. In the meantime inhabitants of Middlebury and vicinity were moving for a college there. Young men desirous of a college education had to leave the State to obtain it, and great inconvenience resulted in consequence. It is related that the father of Jeremiah Evarts, when on his way to New Haven to place his son in Yale College, visited friends in Middlebury and expressed his regret at being forced to send his son so far because there was no college in Vermont. The University of Vermont seemed unable to furnish immediate relief. "The town contained but few inhabitants, and it was not in their power to erect the necessary buildings, procure a suitable library, philosophical apparatus, or the proper accommodations for professors and students. The trustees were embarrassed, seldom met, and a president was not appointed for the seminary."1

SECURING THE CHARTER.

The Addison County Grammar School had been given its charter in 1797, and its prospects were exceptionally bright. The act of incorporation had required $1,000 for building purposes, but more than $4,000 had been raised, the inhabitants of Middlebury being the principal donors. In 1798, while the building was being erected, Dr. Timothy Dwight, then president of Yale College, visited Middlebury and encouraged the plan of establishing a college there. Everything, indeed, conspired to make such a plan feasible. The building provided for the grammar school was amply large for both school and college purposes. It was of wood, 80 feet by 40, and three stories high; it contained convenient rooms for students and a chapel in the upper story. The founders of the school had "procured books, appointed an instructor, and collected a number of students. Their exertions had produced more of a literary appearance than was to be seen at Burlington. In this state of things they asked the legislature

1 Williams's History of Vermont.

to let them go on and make a college out of the school they had already formed. The matter had been suggested to the assembly at Windsor the year before. It was now urged with more warmth, and the legislature was invited to view and examine what they had already done. After much debate and reasoning upon the subject a majority of the house were of opinion that the exertions of Middlebury ought to be encouraged; that the most probable way to encourage the introduction and cultivation of science in the State would be to favor those who were willing to be at the expense of it, and to make it the interest of such societies to endeavor to excel and improve upon each other."1

Two causes operated, it would appear, to delay the granting of the desired charter: The direct efforts of the opponents of such incorporation, and, to a less extent, the political agitations of the time in connection with the administrative policy of President Adams, which appear from the records to have been of absorbing interest to the successive legislatures. That of 1800, however, was more deeply concerned in the advancement of the interests of the State through the encouragement of education and literature, and the efforts of those who had been so repeatedly advocating a Middlebury charter were in that year rewarded with success. The following summary from the journals of the general assembly of the State of Vermont will show in detail the legislative action:

Wednesday, October 31, 1798: A petition of Gamaliel Painter, and others, trustees of the Addison County Grammar School, stating that the petitioners and others, inhabitants of Middlebury, induced by an ardent desire to promote and encourage the education of youth by establishing and carrying into immediate operation a college or university within the State, have erected large and convenient buildings suited to the purposes of a college, and praying the legislature to establish a college in Middlebury and to grant a charter of incorporation to such trustees as shall be appointed, vesting in such trustees such rights and privileges as are enjoyed and exercised by such bodies-was referred to a committee consisting of one member from each county, to be nominated by the clerk of the house. Referred, Monday, November 5, 1798, to the next session of the legislature.

Saturday, October 12, 1799: Petition received from last session of the legislature referred to a committee to join a committee from the council, and on Monday, November 4, 1799, referred again to the next session of the legislature.

Saturday, October 11, 1800 (two days after the opening of the session at Middlebury): Petition referred from the last session of the general assembly referred to a committee to join with one appointed on the part of the council.

Tuesday, October 28, 1800: Committee reported a bill entitled "An act incorporating and establishing a college at Middlebury, in the county of Addison;" the incorporation being declared expedient by the house in committee of the whole, Wednesday, October 29, 1800.

Friday, October 31, 1800: Bill read a second time, and ordered engrossed and sent to the governor and council for revision and concurrence or proposal of amendment; yeas 117, nays 51. The governor and council concurred, without amendment, in a message to the house, Saturday, November 1, 1800.

The charter bears the date of November 1, 1800. It is signed by Isaac Tichenor, governor, and Roswell Hopkins, secretary of state. In it Messrs. Jeremiah Atwater, Nathaniel Chipman, Heman Ball, Elijah Payne, Gamaliel Painter, Israel Smith, Stephen R. Bradley, Seth Storrs, Stephen Jacob, Daniel Chipman, Lot Hall, Aaron Leeland, Gershom C. Lyman, Samuel Miller, Jedediah P. Buckingham, and Darius Matthews are constituted "an incorporate society, or body corporate and politic," to be "called and known by the name of the president and fellows of Middlebury College." Of this number, 5Gamaliel Painter, Seth Storrs, Samuel Miller, Daniel Chipman, and Darius Matthews-had been appointed trustees of the Addison County Grammar School on its incorporation in 1797. Until 1805 the work of both the college and the grammar school was carried on in the same building. President Atwater continued to be the nominal principal of the academy, though he no longer gave instruction. He had been recommended to the principalship by Dr. Dwight, with a view to the presidency when a college charter should be secured. In 1805 the preparatory school was removed to a building erected in 1803 for the female seminary, and vacant because of the death of the principal, Miss Strong.

THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS.

Two things are noticeable in connection with the foregoing account. The college was a natural development from the grammar school, with which at the outset it sustained peculiarly intimate relations. It was, in its inception, under the stimulus of Yale College, in the person of its generous-minded president. Dr. Dwight traveled much in New England and New York and visited Middlebury three times-in 1798, 1806, and 1810. It was on the occasion of his first visit that he urged the establishment of a college. "The local situation, the sober and religious character of the inhabitants, their manners and various other circumstances" rendered the village, in his judgment, "a very desirable seat for such a seminary." Nor did he subsequently lose his interest in the enterprise. In 1811, after his later visits, he wrote what is perhaps (after the petition to the legislature of 1810) the most attractive picture that remains to us of the institution as it appeared in its early days:

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"The academy began to prosper from the time when it was opened, and was in the year 1800 raised by an act of incorporation into a college. From that time to the present it has continued to prosper, although its funds have been derived from private donation, and chiefly, if not wholly, from the inhabitants of this town. The number of students is now 110, probably as virtuous a collection of youths as can be found in any seminary in the world. The inhabitants of Middlebury have lately subscribed $8,000 for the purpose of erecting another

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