Free and open to the public, the lectures, which commemorate the 175 th anniversary of Lafayette s chartering in 1826, are sponsored by the Friends of Skillman Library. The College Archives is delighted to sponsor this look back at Lafayette's early decades, says Diane W. Shaw, special collections librarian and College archivist. The college is so very different today from what it was like in the 19th century. Collectively, these lectures will paint a fascinating picture of the college's initial attempts to define itself. In recent years, we have had a number of scholars using the college archives to research various aspects of the college's history, and we are pleased to provide a forum for some of their findings.
Rice is the author of a book on the manual labor academy movement in America.
When Lafayette first admitted students in 1832, it was organized as a manual labor school. Students pursued a traditional course of study, but they also worked three or more hours a day in a wood shop located on campus, or on a nearby farm established by the College. George Junkin, Lafayette s first president and a leading proponent of the manual labor system, argued passionately that students who worked several hours a day would enjoy greater health. He also pointed out that they could pay for part of the expense of their education by the work they did. Implementing the manual labor system, however, proved costly, and by 1839 Junkin and the Board of Trustees decided to abandon the program.