Ohio History Journal

THE RISE OF THE DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGE.

BY RUSSELL M. STOREY.

Of all the groups that had their part in the early educational

life of the Ohio Valley none more completely ran the gamut of

pioneer experiences than the founders and builders of the denom-

inational colleges. They were hewers of wood and drawers of

water; in their persons they combined the functions of builder.

janitor, teacher, business manager, and president, together with

whatever other odds and ends presented themselves for atten-

tion. It was a time and a country in which individual vision and

initiative seized the opportunities and met the needs for which

denominational policy was unprepared or incapable of supplying.

In the rise of the denominational college, therefore, no more

potent factors existed than the personalities in whose thought

they were conceived and in whose activities they were realized.

The scope of denominational activity in the founding of

collegiate institutions is realized more fully when the discovery

is made that almost ninety per cent of the institutions founded

before 1840 and which survive to the present time had their

origin in or were connected with some denomination. Practically

all institutions, whether of state or denominational origin, had

back of them the influence of some minister of the gospel. From

the valley of the Tennessee to the Great Lakes and from the

crest of the Alleghenies to the Mississippi denominational col-

leges were planted.

The Presbyterians were the most active in the making of

collegiate history in the early days of the Ohio valley. There

was scarcely an institution, even those of distinctly non-denomi-

national origin, that did not feel the impress of their power and

influence. Of the denominational colleges founded in the Ohio

valley before 1840, nine of them had their origin in the wisdom

and energy of those who subscribed to the Presbyterian faith

and in all cases except one, that of Transylvania, the Presbyte-

rians maintained their control throughout this period. The

(52)

The Rise of the Denominational College.       53

other institutions just indicated were Washington, Jefferson,

Centre, Maryville, Illinois, Western Reserve, Hanover and Knox.

The causes for the founding of these institutions by the

Presbyterians vary somewhat in each case, but one motive ap-

pears to have been common to all, viz., provision for a denomi-

national ministry. In the cases of Transylvania, Maryville, Illi-

nois, Western Reserve and Hanover the theological seminary

either preceded or became an active factor in the development of

the college. Washington and Jefferson grew out of academies,

while Centre was the result of losing control of Transylvania.

The period before 1824 seems to have been a time either of

slow development or of practical stagnation in the careers of

these Presbyterian institutions. The lack of funds, quarrels

and squabbles between colleges and in presbyteries and synods

and the absence of any adequate and organized denominational

policy on the part of the denomination in this country as a whole,

all served to make this a period in which progress was difficult

to achieve, and almost as hard to maintain. Still, all of the

institutions founded by the Presbyterians during the first quar-

ter of the 19th century had attained to collegiate standing by

1824 and in this respect were rivalled only by institutions of

state origin such as Ohio and Miami Universities. The years

1824 and 1825 mark the opening of a better era in the history of

denominational education and into such blessing the early Pres-

byterian colleges were well prepared to enter.

This pioneering in the realms of higher education brought

to the front some very remarkable characters. The Rev. James

Moore, a Presbyterian divine from Virginia, proved to Transyl-

vania his vision and his constructive ability until he resigned

the presidency in 1804. The years following, until 1817, when

the Presbyterians lost control of Transylvania, were not char-

acterized by large achievement. In 1818 the Rev. Horace Hol-

ley, LL. D., led the movement for collegiate expansion, and by

1827 had made Transylvania the leading institution in the West

south of the Mason and Dixon line. The choice of Dr. Holley

at Transylvania and the initiation by him of more liberal and

broadminded policies led to disaffection which soon expressed

itself in the founding of Centre by the Presbyterians, Cumber-

54        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

land by the Cumberland Presbyterians, Augusta by the Metho-

dists and Georgetown by the Baptists.

In the founding of Washington and Jefferson colleges three

characters appear. The Dr. John McMillan is prominent among

his brothers in the development of Cannonsburg Academy, out of

which grew Jefferson College; he was a man of large ability,

scholarship and an enthusiastic purpose to seek out and educate

young men for the Christian ministry. Under him was developed

the material which later maintained Jefferson College during its

infancy and during the intense contest with Washington College

in 1806, and which from rivalry soon developed into a state that

was called the "college war." In the organization of Washing-

ton Academy also Dr. McMillan participated and with him was

the second of the trio above named, Rev. Joseph Smith, likewise

a Presbyterian, a man of culture and scholarship, and whose

work gave strength and vigor to the character of the institution

until his death in 1792.  In the founding of Washington

Academy the Presbyterians were aided by Rev. John Clark, an

associate Presbyterian, and the Rev. John Corbly, a Baptist.

Another active factor in the founding of this institution was the

Rev. Matthew Brown, who became pastor of the Presbyterian

congregation in Washington in 1805, principal of the Washington

Academy in the same year and under whom in 1821 Jefferson

College entered upon an expansive era, continuing through his

presidency, which closed in 1845. Says one of his biographers:

"No one man did more for the cause of Christian education in

the Ohio Valley than did Dr. Matthew Brown."

The list of great names on the Presbyterian roll of this

period would be incomplete without the name of one of the group

of college founders in Eastern Tennessee. The Rev. Thomas

Craighead founded Davidson Academy in 1786, which later grew

into the University of Nashville; Rev. Samuel Doak, one of the

claimants to the honor of being the pioneer educator of the Mid-

dle West, chartered Martin Academy in 1783 and Washington

(Tenn.) College in 1795. But the name which stands preeminent

in the history of education in Eastern Tennessee before 1840 is

that of Dr. Isaac Anderson, the founder of Maryville Seminary

in 1819, the college department being added in 1821. The labors

The Rise of the Denominational College.      55

of this man appear almost superhuman both in their scope and

intensity.

With the exception of Transylvania the heyday of the de-

nominational college before 1840 does not seem to open before

1824. In that year Bishop Philander Chase, who had had pre-

vious and uncongenial experience in the presidency of Cincinnati

College, returned from a mission to England, the object of which

had been to raise funds for an institution in accordance with

his own ideals. He had succeeded in interesting Lord Gambier

and other Englishmen and returned with more than $30,000, and

the history of Kenyon, the first Episcopal institution of the Ohio

Valley, began. The primary object of Bishop Chase had been

to prepare men for the ministry and hence the Theological Sem-

inary first opened its doors, the college department following,

however, very shortly after, graduating its first A. B. group in

1829. The name Kenyon was not assumed until 1891 and com-

memorates the name of Lord Kenyon, who, with Lord Gambier,

was one of the chief donors to the initial funds with which the

institution was to be opened.

Up to the founding of Kenyon, collegiate education of a

denominational character had been largely in the hands of the

Presbyterians. From this time on to 1840, however, there is

widespread activity among other denominations. Under the

leadership of Rev. John M. Peck, D. D., the Baptists in 1827

founded what later became Shurtleff College near Alton, Ill.,

following this up by opening up Georgetown College at George-

town, Ky., in 1829, and Denison University in 1831. In this

activity the names of Dr. Peck, the founder of Shurtleff, and of

Rev. Rockwood Giddings, the builder, though not the founder of

Georgetown, stand out preeminent. The Denison University was

the work of the Ohio Baptist Educational Society.

The Methodists had commenced their activities along edu-

cational lines with the founding of Allegheny College at Mead-

ville, Penn., in 1815. Thirteen years later the Rev. Peter Cart-

wright inspired the founding of McKendree College at Lebanon,

Ill., and in 1832 Asbury College, now a part of DePauw Univer-

sity, opened its doors under the guidance of the Methodist

church.

56        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

The energy of the Presbyterian denominations did not abate

with the entrance of other denominations into the field of higher

education. In conjunction with the Congregationalists, Western

Reserve College began its career in 1826 and under the presidency

of the Rev. George E. Pierce, beginning in 1830, forged rapidly

into prominence. These two denominations again combined their

energies in the early history of Knox College, which was founded

in 1837 at Galesburg, Ill. In the meantime the Rev. John M.

Ellis, assisted by a band of seven men from Yale, had in 1829

laid the foundations of Illinois College at Jacksonville, Ill., and

the Presbytery of Indiana was rewarded for its efforts by the

chartering of Hanover College in 1833. The year 1837 inaugu-

rates the beginning of Muskingum College under auspices which

later came to be United Presbyterian.

Catholic education enterprises seem to have worked from

west to east in the region of the Ohio Valley. What is now St.

Louis University was founded in 1818, followed in 1821 by the

opening of St. Mary's College at St. Mary, Ky., and by the crea-

tion of St. Xavier under the direction of Rev. E. D. Fenwick,

Bishop of Cincinnati, in 1831.

Most of the denominational institutions which thus came into

being before 1840 enjoyed a considerable degree, of prosperity

and growth during that period of their history which was com-

prised within the years 1824 to 1840. Many of them suffered

serious setbacks in the wake of the panic which swept the

country during Van Buren's administration. But the hardships

incident to the pioneer days of the latter part of the 18th and the

opening years of the 1₉th centuries were no longer present.

Transylvania, Washington, Jefferson, Maryville, Kenyon, George-

town, St. Xavier and Hanover all experienced a period of depres-

sion during the fourth decade of the 19th century but the other

institutions seem to have developed and grown steadily, though in

most cases slowly. And in all cases the depression seems to

have been temporary in character and in many cases was not

felt after 1840.

The financial history of the group of denominational col-

leges whose careers have been thus briefly reviewed is indi-

cated in the expression "a hand to mouth" existence. In Transyl-

The Rise of the Denominational College.       57

vania, Jefferson, Centre, Kenyon, and Georgetown a productive

endowment was well started by 1840; in some of the other insti-

tutions, Western Reserve in particular, movements toward endow-

ment were either just being inaugurated or seriously contem-

plated. There was an utter absence of any adequate denomi-

national policy looking toward the maintenance of collegiate

institutions except as denominational loyalty and interest found

expression in private gifts and donations for the benefit of the

annual budgets.

In reviewing the causes which led to the Rise of the Denomi-

national College one cannot fail to be impressed with the part

played by the missionary spirit. In over sixty per cent of the in-

stitutions the founders were actuated primarily by the desire to

establish facilities for the education and preparation of a Chris-

tian ministry that was to further denominational and Christian

propaganda and to give them stability and permanence. Coupled

closely with this was the initiative and enterprise of the men

who thus pioneered in the educational life of the Ohio Valley.

Denominational policy and loyalty actuated some; denomina-

tional rivalry seems to have been present now and then; while

disaffection with existing institutions and the lack of collegiate

educational facilities were motive forces in many instances.

The curriculum in these denominational colleges was always

broader than the number of the teaching force would indicate.

The Bible, and works on Christian philosophy and practice were

always prominent; but the cultural courses in the arts and

sciences formed the body of the work done. The methods of

instruction consisted of the text book and recitation with what

additional exposition the instructor was able or had time to offer.

The teachers taught almost continuously, even the presidents

having a very large part of the responsibility for instruction rest-

ing upon them. By far the larger proportion of the instructors

were ministers of the gospel, and in colleges where both colle-

giate and seminary functions were combined, they gave instruc-

tion to both classes of students.

The Christian church of the Middle West, and the cause of

higher education throughout this nation, both are obligated in per-

petuity to the founders and builders of the denominational insti-