[Copyright Hal Morris 1997 - may be but not in large quantities or for profit]
In Norwich VT. Now Norwich University. Gideon Welles studied there 1824-25. Founded and initially run by Capt. Alden Partridge, who had been fired as superintendent of West Point, for overbearing, and at the same time sloppy, administration and running the school as a "sort of aid society for hungry Partridges and impecunious friends."
In the year Welles attended, the heavily promoted school's enrollment went from 162 to 400. Meanwhile, Welles found the atmosphere rowdy and overcrowded, the courses in the catalogue mostly nonexistent, and the library poor and grossly misrepresented. (Source: Niven, Welles, p17-19; and Shepard, Pedlar's Progress)
An organization for bringing lecturers on all sorts of knowledge to cities and towns around America.
Described in Abbott's Cornerstone.
Founded (around 1820?) "to check the progress of errors which are propagated from Cambridge (i.e. Harvard)", according to Noah Webster.
Graduates:
3 or 4 miles south of the Merrimack River, near Lawrence, on the tributary Shawsheen River.
Prep school which served many prominent men.
Organized largely through efforts of George Barrell Emerson.
Located in Brunswick, ME.
Bowdoin Students:
Located in Providence, RI, where several of the earliest buildings can still be seen.
First commencement - 1769, graduating seven students.
Formerly Rhode Island College - renamed in 1804 in recognition of a $5000 endowment by Nicholas Brown. Founded, initially as an interdenominational college, in keeping with Rhode Island's history of religious tolerence.
Faculty:
Graduates:
A rather thorough, and nicely illustrated, history of the school can be found at: http://www.brown.edu/webmaster/history.html
A co-ed secondary school, attended by Margaret Fuller and her brother Eugene.
The future actor James Hackett attended for 1 year at age 15 (1815?).
Attended by Sam Ward from 1829 (age 15) - ? "At that time [it] drowsed in Park Place, a quiet backwater running from the park towards the Hudson River. Sam described it as 'a kind of Sleepy Hollow in the heart of old New York, where, on a lovely lawn, stood the houses of the president and the faculty, flanking on either side the plain central building in their midst'" Ward went on to say that it was governed by mostly Espicopalian trustees "as free from receptivity to innovations, or even ameliorations, as the Admiralty of Great Britain or the Naval Construction Board at Washington." He also characterized the lessons as easy, requiring only two hours a day.
A free educational institution founded by Peter Cooper in 1857-59, combining practical training and scientific instruction. Lincoln gave his famous speech there shortly before his nomination as president.
Source (for foundation by Cooper): DAB.
Graduates:
Also figured in the Dartmouth College Case, of the early 1820s, one of Webster's early successes, which helped establish the binding nature of contracts, even in the case of one party being a state.
In Cheshire, CT, about 15 miles north of New Haven. Described by Glenn Weaver in Ct Historical Soc. Bulletin, Jan., 1962, as "America's First 'Junior College'".
In 1825, it was Clinton NY (near Utica), and was attended by Theodore Weld.
Founded in 1823 by Catharine Beecher, it was very successful, and became a model of what female education could be. Angelina Grimke visited the seminary in 1831 and considered attending, but did not. Delia Bacon, an ill-fated protege of Beecher, did attend.
Harvard was the first center of higher learning in the United States. It is located in Cambridge MA, just across the Charles River from Boston. The first class was started in 1628, and nine of these graduated in 1642.
The growing liberal climate of Harvard reached a point at which conservative Congregationalists became outraged. In 1805, the Unitarian Henry Ware (senior) became Professor of Theology at Harvard, and this soon lead to the establishment of Andover as a bastion of orthodoxy.
Some of the more famous presidents of Harvard were Increase Mather, Josiah Quincy, and Edward Everett (the two latter were distinguished by being, at times, congressmen; Quincy was Mayor of Boston, and Everett was governor of Massachusetts and Minister to Great Britain).
Harvard was, more than anything, a school for Congregationalist ministers until well into the 19th century.
Harvard trained ministers, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, who left the ministry, and others, like Theodore Parker, who did not, formed the nucleus of the Transcendentalist movement.
Harvard Graduates
Harvard Divinity School Graduates:
Headed by Edward Beecher from 1831 - ?. It became a hotbed of controversy after the killing of Lovejoy in Alton, IL, which was partly a response to an abolitionist meeting held in that town, of which Beecher had a leading role. Beecher also wrote a famous condemnation of Lovejoy's killing.
Illinois college, after that, was polarized, with much heated abolitionist activity, so much so that the father of William Herndon, a student there at the time, is supposed to have pulled him out of the school to prevent Herndon's becoming a "damned abolitionist puppy" (a doubtful story; see David Donald, Lincoln's Herndon, pp12-13).
Founded in Galesburg (chartered 1837) by George Gale and a group of ministers.
Begun with Arthur Tappan's backing, in Cincinnati, OH, in 1833, with Lyman Beecher as Professor of Theology.
Graduates:
"A respected Methodist academy in the Newberry district of SC, where Elisha Hammond taught from 1802-5 and 1815-?. (Source: Faust, Hammond, p7)
Gerard Troost was professor of sciences there from 1828-1850, after founding and presiding over (for 5 years) the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and staying a couple of years at New Harmony.
See Princeton.
Modern designation of what in 1823-5, when Gideon Welles studied there, was called the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy.
In Oberlin, Ohio, about 33 miles southeast of Cleveland.
Had a primary and a secondary school and a "college department" when, in 1834, it absorbed most of the Lane rebels to form a theological seminary.
The theological seminary was financed by Arthur Tappan, under the condition (which was accepted) that Charles Grandison Finney be professor of theology, and that there be freedom of speech, and acceptance of "colored students" on equal terms with whites.
source: Thomas, Weld
Located in the middle of Oneida County, NY, "just east of Whitesboro, about 4 miles from Utica, NY" [SERNETT-Smith-Green]; which places it right on the Erie Canal, about 20 miles east of Lake Oneida
see Cambridgeport - the Port School.
Described as, in 1825, taught by "Yale Graduate George Perkins, and attended by Oliver Wendell Holmes's genial younger brother John and the headstrong ten-year-old future author and politician Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
Grad Samuel Harrison Smith in 1787.
Prep. school in Andover, MA, about 20 miles north of Boston. Founded in 1778 by John and Samuel Phillips (principally the latter).
Attended by Theodore Weld about 1819-20, but eyestrain led him to drop out.
Prep. school in Exeter, NH. Founded in 1781 by John Phillips.
Attended by Jared Sparks 1809-11.
Founded as a Presbyterian school(?) Known in early years as the "College of New Jersey".
Some early Presidents:
In later days, Princeton was a bastion of conservative Presbyterianism; e.g. Charles Hodge, a professor there, in 1825 launched the Princeton Review as an anti-New School organ. (source: Auto...Beecher, II, p96)
Name of Brown University prior to 1804.
"a school well known for its strict but kindly discipline, its thorough instruction on the plan of the German gymnasium, and the vigorous outdoor life and manly spirit it fostered" (DAB, IV-273). Run by George Bancroft and J.G. Cogswell, it was here that Samuel Ward and his brothers got their pre-college education in the late 1820s and early 30s.
Picture of school: p117, Tharp, Appletons of Beacon Hill
Columbia, SC. From 1820 - 34, Thomas Cooper taught chemistry, mineralogy, and political economy there, and served as president of the college for most of that period.
1812 - Henry L. Pinckney, editor of the Charleston Mercury from 1823-32.
1802 - Josiah S. Johnston, Adams-Clay Republican Senator from Louisiana.
Troy New York (after 1895, known as the Emma Willard School).
Jonathan Maxcy served as president from 1802-04.
In New York City(?) Founded in 1836 by New School Presbyterians.
George Lewis Prentiss taught there after 1871, following his career as a minister.
Graduates:
A center, in the 1830s, or anti-slavery radicalism.
Gave George Wythe the first chair of law in an American college in 1779. Bruce Baird is researching the thesis that in some way, the student culture at William and Mary was largely responsible for southern dueling madness.
Had, as president, Edward Griffin, former Professor at Andover Seminary and pastor of Park St. Church in Boston (sometimes called "Brimstone Corner"). (source: Auto...Beecher, I, p113)
Located in New Haven, CT.; the 3rd institution of higher learning established in (what would become) the United States. Begun in the very early 1700s. A center of controversy in the Presbyterian church from around 1820, due to the "New Haven Theology" of, among others, Nathaniel Taylor. Benjamin Silliman, an important early teacher of science, graduated, and later taught, there.
Graduates:
p181, JER 97-2: Established by John Poor sometime betw 1780 and 1787. Had 100 students in 1787. Cofounded by Benjamin Rush, and sometimes referred to as his school. It was non-denominational. Source: JER-97-2.
[SERNETT-Smith-Green]: The
Antislavery Alliance of Gerrit Smith and Beriah Green