Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1869-05-28
IIUIh tIIt lkhIFISII OEHIlNCi.
Fen and ink Sketches Of ttge UniyerSi-
ty Of North Carolina as i, Has Been.
DEDICATED To THE PEOPLE CT THE STATE, AND
TO THE ALUMNI OF THE UNIVERSITY.
NO. 3.
OUERE AS TO NUMBERS,

! QUERE AS TO NUMBERS.
The number Of Students under Dr. Caid
we'll, never exceeded 165. At the time O
his death, in 1895, it was not much ove
100.
[ do not know that nuna6ers should al
ways be taken as an evidence of what 8
college is doing, or be considered as the
> best index Of it's usefulness. There is some
vulgarity in the idea. Is not the water oi
the secluded mounting spring, gushing
from under the rock far up it's sides, over
hung, with laurel and pine, small though
it be, is it not purer. clearer, sweeter than
that of the great we'll walled in, and tram
pied and muddied by variety OF cattle?-
[ commend this thought to those who con
tend for wider doors and thronging
crowds in our literary Institutions.
Let a College be SO amply endowed that
the salaries of it's officers shall be not only
entirely independent Of the tuition fees,
but shall be SO liberal as tC command the
highest class of teachers, and let the facih-
ties and apparatus of instruction in all de-
partments be absolutely unrivalled. Let
the teaching Of l25 young men be of the
best grade, the temptations to vice and
folly few and far between, and let the per-
sonal influence of the Faculty be exerted
SO as to touch every individual student
Then will not these 125 be better trained,
better educated, better fitted for their
work in life every way, than the 400, 500,
600 OF the great Universities who point to
their annual catalogues as proof of their
superiority to the zone horse" Colleges? ?
! Who would not rather have son educa-
ted at Rugby than at Eton? [ believe that
the University at Chapel Hill did more to-
wards the fostering OF literary taste and
the love Of letters and in the diffusion of
elevating aims and liberal ideas in the first
thirty years of its life when it counted its
alumni by tens, than in the last thirty
years when it counted them by hundreds.
These. know, are not popular ideas
nor are they, indeed, at present, practical
bic, md hope that no aITocate of the
opposite side will represent me as holding
that ttUO students from abroad and sic little
rilldge boys besides, arc University enough.
II the University of North Carolina were
properly and ably otficered now, and it
rested with me, [ would pour in five hun
dred young men to those empty echoing
| corridors and halls. Practice and theory
cannot always coincide. Poor as we are,
and with such slender college endowments,
We cannot afford the better way. We
must have crows in order to have money.
THE SECOND PRESIDENT.
The choice OF u successor to DR.. Cald-
we'll was a matter of deepest Importance,
and question that was discussed with no
little anxiety and apprehension. The
President of a University is like the Cap
tain of ship. All depends on him. The
Trustees of thirty years ago were fully
aware of this fact, and they deliberated
like men who felt their responsibility
Many candidates were proposed. There
were one or two among the Professors
whose claims to succeed DIR. Caldwell
seemed superior to any others that could
be urged. It was probably because they
| could not decide among conflicting claims
and urgent friends SO near at home, that
the Trustees turned in an entirely different
direction. Their choice fell, singalarly as
| it seemed to those who looked on, for
tunately as it proved in the issue, upon a
man who was not regularly college-bred
nor had ever made any pretenslons to the
character of scholar, a self-made man
who had passed his life so far, among men
of the world, who had won his own way
from the backwoOds of Bnncombe, through
the various degrees OF a lawyers career, to
| the Governors chair IN Ralelgh, and who
| had perhaps never once turned his am
bitioas eye upon any Office in the Univer-
sity as likely to be within his reach, or
even desirable.
GOV. SWAIN.
When Gov. Swain come to Chapel Hill
! to take his seat as head of the University.
there was no little curiosity felt to see him,
and some disappointment when he arrived.
In appearance be was the very reverse Of
DIR. Caldwell. Though pleas ant and &C.
cessible, there was wanting the old school
touch of quiet and dignifed courtesy and
grace, the old prestige of scholarly asso-
citation and name which people had so long
revered and deferred to. There were not
wanting those who said Gov. Swain was a
mere politician and one sarcasm especially
was levelled at him to the effect that North
Carolina had always done a great deal for
David L. Swain and now she had sent him
to the University to get an education.
Gov. Swain however was one to hold his
own wherever he went. He soon made
himself felt as remarkable man, second
to none in sagncity. prudence and admins
trative ability. AS to his scholarship,
those who doubted it were soon silenced,
and obliged to confess that a: any rate be
knew how to use what he had. I have
heard DR.. Phillips tell with great qetstO the
effect produced when on one occasion there
being a considerable company assembled
at DR.. Mitchells, in the course of the con-
versation, Gov. Swain picked up a small
edition of the Hliard lying near, and turn
ing to a certain page, translated fuently
and elegantly dozen or two lines having q
very happy application to the matter under
discussion. No man knew better that Gov.
Swain the effect such an incident would be
likely to produce.
He told me once that on his first coming
TO Chapel Hill he received many hit freq
the college boys, many fling from tne
walls of his recitation room or Person Hall.
That he made il rule never to notice
these things any further than to take any
hint they might afford him. That he
always revised himself and reformed, il