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{U of South VAULT/Early Papers Box Folder: "1860: Subscriptions & Gifts Church Support}
UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH ------------------------------------------
The Commissioners for raising the Endowment of the University of the South, beg leave to call your attention to the following Communication, which is authentic, and which indicates the progress and present condition of the movement.
From the New Orleans Picayune, of December 20th, 1859.
SAVANNAH, GA., DEC. 1, 1859.
MESSRS. EDITORS :--Your readers will be pleased to hear, in these times especially, something of the progress of the University of the South.
They may remember that at the meeting held in August last, the Committee to whom had been entrusted the duty of preparing a Constitution and statutes prescribing the plan of organization, and system and range of instruction, reported, and asked leave to sit again.
In their Report, they stated, that they had been collecting materials for the performance of their work, but were not yet in possession of all they deemed necessary. They had access to a large number of European publications, in the public and private libraries of the Country; and through a correspondence which they had opened with the Government at Washington, they had obtained the latest expositions of the plans and working details of the principal Universities, Colleges and other institutions of learning of France and the German States, and were now collecting those of Great Britain and our own country. They desired also to have the advantage of a personal examination of the leading Colleges, Universities and Schools of the United States. All of which they hoped to accomplish in time for a meeting they proposed to hold in this city in the end of November.
The request of the Committee was granted by the Board, and all they desired they have been enabled to effect to the extent of their wishes.
Through the American Ambassador in England, and other agencies, they have obtained a large amount of the most valuable publications, embracing the "Reports of Her Majesty's Commissioners, appointed to inquire into the state, discipline, studies and revenues of the Universities and Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge;" the "Report of the Comissioners," of the same Government "appointed to consider the best mode of reorganizing the system for training officers for the Scientific corps;" the Reports on, and Calendars of, "Queen's University, Ireland;" "King's College, London;" "The London University;" together with reports on a number of Schools of Law, Medicine, Theology, Agricultural Colleges, Schools of Applied Science, of Art, &c.
As many principles embraced in the programmes of these various institutions in Great Britain and on the Continent of Europe have been introduced to a greater or less extent into the Universities, Colleges and other Schools of our own country, it was desirable to make personal observation of their working on American soil. Members of the committee have been occupied, therefore, in visiting and examining all the principal educational establishments of the United States---those of the Carolinas, the University of Virginia, Harvard, &c.---and in communication; by letter or otherwise, with such minds as might aid them in the solution of the problem assigned them. While their task was one of great labor and responsibility, it was lessened by the large amount of material at their command. An amount, indeed, comprising the results of the experience of mankind in the higher walks of human learning.
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{U of South VAULT/Early Papers Bo Folder: "1860: Supscrip & Gifts Curch Suppor}
Their work was not so much one of invention as of selection, elimination and arrangement. Being indisposed to embark on the sea of untried experiment, they have deemed it wiser to accept the conclusions of the past and to confine themselves mainly to digesting such of these as were entitled to the greatest consideration, and to working them up into a system applicable to our peculiar social and political condition. With this work, the committee now in session, have been occupied for some days past. It is understood that they have agreed upon the principles which shall constitute the basis of their plan, and have made such progress in the details as to enable them to determine the character of its organization. It will follow closely no one system, but will be eclectic. It will embrace features from the English, the German and the French; such as have stood the test of experience, and combine harmoniously. When embodied, they will, it is believed, present to the country all that the most earnest and sanguine friends of the enterprise could desire. We may thus have at our own doors a University in the largest sense, combining all the best provisions and appointments offered by the leading institutions of the most cultivated States of Europe.
The report of this Committee is to be presented for the consideration of the Board of Trustees at a meeting to be held in New Orleans, on the second Wednesday in February next.--In the mean season, the large domain of the corporation, which is to be the future seat of its operations, is being laid out, with a special reference to the objects for which it has been secured. Not only for the reception and appropriate disposition of the University buildings, which may from time to time be erected, but also for the accommodation of that large number of Southern families already designing to make it the place of their future residence, the seat of social refinement as well as of letters and science.
Arrangements are also in progress for laying the corner stone of the centre building, sometime during the ensuing Summer. The vigor with which the whole work will be pressed forward to completion must depend on the promptitude with which our countrymen shall respond to the application of the Commissioners appointed to raise the endowment.
These gentlemen, who are members of the Committee on the Consitution, will shortly resume their task. And it is confidently believed that the enlightened and patriotic zeal and liberality with which this part of the great work has been so successfully inaugurated, in the gift of the large amount already received, (now near$500,000) is but an earnest of what the men of the South are prepared to do to carry it forward to a glorious consummation.
X.
MONTGOMERY, JANUARY 17, 1860.