On July 1, 1885, was celebrated the semicentennial of Marietta College. In addition to the commemorative features of the day, the occasion was marked by the formal retirement from the presidency of the college of Dr. Israel W. Andrews, who as tutor, professor, and president had been connected with the institution from 1838, a period of 47 years. Rarely has it happened in the history of any American • college that one man's name has for so many years without interrup. tion been found upon the roll of the college faculty. Still more rarely has it occurred that for almost half a century one man, possessed of clear convictions, steady purpose, and unswerving devotion to and faith in the college, has been without any undue self-assertion or assumption of authority the soul and guiding spirit of a successful American college.

So exactly is this the case, however, with Marietta College, that to recount the life of Dr. Andrews would be to tell the story of the college. He came to Marietta when the college was but three years old, and from then until 1885 (indeed, though perhaps less noticeably, his death in 1888) his voice was influential in determining the policy and development of the college, which perhaps more closely than any other in the West is built upon the New England model. Retiring in 1885 from the presidency to which he had been elected in 1855, he was prevailed upon to continue his connection with the college as professor of political philosophy.

He died in April, 1888, just as he was rounding out the fiftieth year of his services for the college which he loved so well, and which falls heir to his estate.

At the semicentennial celebration Dr. Andrews delivered a commemorative historical address covering the history of the college from its organization until 1885. As no one now living is so thoroughly conversant with the growth and development of Marietta College as was Dr. Andrews, and as the address not only gives the historical data connected with the institution, but interprets them in the light of the half cen. tury's experience of the venerable educator, the sketch is reproduced here with no modifications save that a few passages not bearing directly upon the educational history of the college have been omitted.

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HISTORICAL SKETCH BY DR. I. W. ANDREWS.1

The first half century of Marietta College is completed this year. This period of 50 years, from 1835 to 1885, embraces only the college history of the institution. Most colleges date from a point prior to the beginning of their college work. They count in a preëxistent period of greater or less duration. But Marietta was a college, in reality as well as in name, 50 years ago. In the autumn of 1835 there were two college classes-the sophomore and the freshmen-and 3 years later the members of that sophomore class, having finished their course, received their first degree in the arts. Though our first half century is strictly a half century of college work, in an historical sketch reference may well be made to the antecedent circumstances.

In the year 1830 there was established at Marietta, by Rev. Luther G. Bingham, the "Institute of Education." It embraced four departments, the two higher being known as the High School and the Ladies' Seminary. At first the lowest department occupied a brick building on Front street, originally the law office of Governor Return Jonathan Meigs. Very soon a building at the south corner of Putnam and Second streets, used of late years for law offices until it was recently destroyed by fire, was purchased, and all the departments were gathered there. In February, 1832, the high school was removed to the old Muskingum Academy, then standing on the lot next north of the Congregational Church, where it remained a few weeks till the room known as the Library Hall, on Front street, was fitted up for it. Here it continued till the close of the school year in the summer of 1833.

Mr. Bingham was the proprietor of this group of schools and had the general superintendence, but he employed others in the work of instruction. In an advertisement September 11, 1830, it is announced that "the recitations in the high school will be conducted by a graduate of the Ohio University, of competent qualification," probably Mr. Samuel P. Robbins, son of a former minister of Marietta. The next term Nelson Brown, M. D., a graduate of Williams College, became instructor in the high school. In April, 1831, Mr. Mansfield French is associated with Mr. Bingham as proprietor, and he and Dr. Brown give the instruction. In June, Mr. Henry Adams, a graduate of Amherst College, takes the place of Dr. Brown, and continues until August, 1832. The fall session of that year opens with Mr. Henry Smith as teacher in the high school. In the next spring he returned to Andover Theological Seminary, and Mr. D. Howe Allen, from the same seminary, took his place for the rest of the school year.

In the spring of 1832, after the high school had been in operation about a year and a half, Messrs. Bingham and French invite a meeting of the friends of education to consider certain plans which they wish to present. Of this meeting, held March 15, Dr. S. P. Hildreth was chairman and Mr. Douglas Putnam secretary. The propositions were read by Mr. French, and remarks were made by Messrs. Bingham, Caleb, Emerson, Arius Nye, and John Cotton, after which a committee of seven, Mr. Emerson, chairman, was appointed to report a week later. At the adjourned meeting, March 23, an elaborate report was made, suggesting the appointment of an advisory board of trust. This was done, and trustees were appointed. They were not a corporation in any sense, nor had they any control of the property, which was private, but this was the first step in the direction of establishing a permanent institution of learning.

With the next fall session (that of 1832) began the instruction of Mr. Henry Smith, who continued to teach in Marietta until 1855. The name of the institution, which had heretofore been "The Institute of Education," now appears as "The Marietta Collegiate Institute." In the American Friend of September 8, which has a full advertisement of the institution, there appears an editorial notice, containing this among

1 This sketch has been printed in full in the Report of the Commissioner of Common Schools in Ohio for 1885; also in pamphlet form by Marietta College.

MARIETTA COLLEGE.

other things: "It is the intention of all concerned to take early measures to make the Marietta Collegiate Institute au entirely public institution, so as to perpetuate its advantages on a permanent basis."

The proposed measures were taken a few weeks later. The first entry in the college records bears date November 22, 1832, when a meeting was held at the house of Rev. L. G. Bingham (on the north corner of Front and Scammel streets, for many years the residence of the late Weston Thomas), of which John Mills was chairman and Douglas Putnam secretary. A draft of a bill for the incorporation of an institution under the name of the "Marietta Collegiate Institute and Western Teachers' Seminary was presented and approved, and a committee appointed to confer with Mr. Smith with reference to a permanent professorship in the proposed institution. The charter was obtained, bearing date December 17, the Hon. Joseph Barker, jr., being the representative from this county in the general assembly.

On the 16th of January the organization took place by the choice of John Cotton, M. D., president, Douglas Putnam, secretary, and Johu Mills, treasurer. At the same meeting a resolution was adopted asking Messrs. Bingham and French to state the terms on which they would transfer their institute property to the trustees. A few days later these terms were accepted and the property was duly transferred, though the former proprietors were requested to continuo in charge till the close of the school year.

Before the institution was opened in the fall of 1833 in its new form four young men had been appointed to the work of instruction, all members of the Theological Seminary at Andover. Two of these, Henry Smith and D. Howe Allen, had been teachers in the high school at Marietta. The first of these was made professor of the languages; Mr. Allen, professor of mathematics; Mr. Milo P. Jewett, professor in the teachers' department; and Mr. Samuel Maxwell, principal of the preparatory department. Mr. Smith was a graduate of Middlebury College, Messrs. Allen and Jewett of Dartmouth, and Mr. Maxwell of Amherst. When the institute was opened, October 16, Messrs. Smith and Maxwell entered upon their work of instruction, while the other two remained in New England presenting the claims of the new institution to the friends of education and religion in that region. The beginning of a new educational year was a change in two respects. Before, the place of instruction was the Library Hall on Front street; now, it was a large new building on the college campus. Then, it was one of a group of schools under private owners; now, it is a public institution, under the control of a chartered corporation.

In this sketch of educational work at Marietta, prior to the college, we may properly enough speak of a still earlier period. Even before the present century began, aud within the first decade after the first settlement here in April, 1788, steps were taken for the establishment of an academy. In April, 1797, a meeting of citizens was held for this purpose and a committee appointed to prepare a plan of a house suitable for the instruction of the young and for religious purposes. This committee consisted of Gen. Rufus Putuam, Hon. Paul Fearing, Griffin Greene, Hon. R. J. Meigs, jr., Charles Greene, and Joshua Shipman. This was the origin of the “Muskingum Academy," and the building was doubtless the first structure erected for such a purpose in the "territory northwest of the river Ohio." This was used for worship until the present Congregational Church was completed in 1808, and as a place of instruction for about a third of a century. The building was moved in 1832 to Second street, between Scammel and Wooster, where it now stands.

The first instructor in the Muskingum Academy, the pioneer of the institutions for higher education in Marietta, was David Putnam, a graduate of Yale College in 1793. How many others of the teachers had received a liberal education is not known. Among those who had thus been educated were Nathan K. Clough, Dartmouth, 1806; Hon. Elisha Huntington, Dartmouth, 1815, afterwards lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts; Hon. William A. Whittlesey, Yale, 1816, long a citizen of Marietta, and a member of the Thirty-first Congress; and Levi Keyes, Ohio University, 1826. It is probable that from the beginning of the century until the time when Marietta Col.

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HIGHER EDUCATION IN OHIO.

lege was founded this town furnished almost uninterrupted facilities for instruction in the higher branches of an English education, and most of the time for such clas sical instruction as was required for preparation for college.

The charter obtained in December, 1832, was defective in giving no power to confer degrees and in having a clause allowing the legislature to repeal it. In February, 1×35, a new charter was granted by the State, giving the necessary power to confer degrees, and without the objectionable clause authorizing a repeal. The name was also changed from the Marietta Collegiate Institute and Western Teachers' Seminary to Marietta College.

In the spring of the same year the Rev. Joel H. Linsley, then pastor of the Park Street Church, Boston, Mass., was elected to the presidency. Thus, when the fall session of the institution was opened as Marietta College, in 1835, the faculty consisted of five members: A president, who had charge of the department of moral and intellectual philosophy, a professor of the Greek and Latin languages, a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, a professor of rhetoric and political economy, and a principal of the preparatory department.

The college was founded in the interests of religion as well as of education. From the first it was intended to be a Christian college. The trustees in their first published statement, August, 1833, say: "The board wish it to be distinctly understood that the essential doctrines and duties of the Christian religion will be assiduously inculcated, but no sectariau peculiarities of belief will be taught." In their annual report, issued September, 18.35, they say: "During the past year the board of trust have received new manifestations of the favor of God upon the work in which they are engaged. He has enlarged the circle of the friends and benefactors of the institution, and has again visited it with the converting influences of His Spirit, bringing a large portion of the youth connected with it to consecrate themselves to the service of Jesus Christ. Engaged as the board profess themselves to be in advancing the Redeemer's Kingdom by means of this institution of learning, so signal an expression of the approbation of God can not fail to be the occasion of devout gratitude to Him and of increased ardor in the work."

In the same report they say: "The honor of originating Marietta College is not claimed by the board of trust; its existence can not properly be ascribed to them or to any combination of individuals, but to the leadings of Divine Providence." The establishment of the college not only had the warm approval of the most intelligent Christian men West and East, but the trustees were urged to go forward by such men as President Day and Professors Goodrich and Silliman, of Yale College, Rev. Dr. William S. Plumer, of Richmond, Va., and others. The trustees seem to have been influenced by considerations of duty from the beginning, and their earnest, unceasing, and self-denying labors, with the remarkable generosity shown in their oftrepeated gifts, prove that they regarded themselves as engaged in a work laid upon them by the great Head of the Church.

We have been looking back over this period of fifty years to see how Marietta College came to be. We have inquired into its origin and antecedents. Let us look now at its name and its locality.

For fifty years it has remained in the same place; it has borne the same name; it has been the same institution. Some colleges are named from a founder, or early donor, as Williams, Harvard, Vanderbilt. Some bear the name of a distinguished man, as Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, Lafayette. Some are named from a State, as the College of New Jersey. Ours is named from the town where it is located. There are some advantages in this method of naming. The name of an early donor may be given prematurely. There are some institutions that might be glad to drop the personal name they bear. The name of a State is too general, and the name of a donor, or a man of eminence, is not a sufficient designation. The graduates of the oldest college in the country in preparing for their two hundred and fiftieth anniversary in 1886, are trying to find out something about John Harvard.