Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-12-05
THE HALL OF FAME.
How the Names Are Chosen Ti.at Are
to be Perpetuated Therein.


to be Perpetuated Therein.
March 5, 1900, the Council of New
York University accepted a gift OF
100000, afterward increased to $780,
600, from a donor whose name was
withheld, for the erection and compile
ton on University Heights, New York
City, of building to be called The
Hall of Fame for Great Americans"
A structure was accordingly built in
the form of a semi-circle, SOC Ieet
long, Is feet wide, and ITO feet high,
connecting the University Hall of
Philosophy with the Hall of Ian
guages. Within the colonnade $50
panels, each by feet, are to De
placed to bear the names of Ameri-
cans deemed the greatest in their re-
spective fields.
Under the rules adopted only per
sons born on what is now United
States territory and who shall have
been dead ten or more years are eligi-
Bile to be chosen. Fifteen classes OF
citizens were recommended for con-
tors, business men, educators, invent
ors, missionaries and explorers, phil
anthropists and reformers, preachers
and theologians, scientists, engineers
and architects, lawyers and judges,
musicians, painters and sculptors, ply
sicians and surgeons, rulers and
statesmen, soldiers and sailors, dis
tinguished men and women outside
the above classes. Fifty names were
to be subscribed on the tablets at the
beginning, and Ave additional names
every fifth year thereafter, until the
year 1000, when the $50 inscriptions
will be completed. Should there be
failure to select the entire fifty names
at the beginning the vacancies shall
be filled in a following year.
The rules prescribed that the Coun.
Gil should invite nominations from
the public. Every nomination Sec
onded by a member of the University
Senate should be submitted to AN
electorate of one hundred eminent
citizens selected by the Council, each
of whom must vote for fifty of the
candidates.
In October, 1900, the University
Senate received the ballots of the
judges. OF the one hundred judges
selected ninety-seven voted. The mum
Der of names which had been submit
ted to them was 252. OF these each
judge returned vote for fifty. The
rule required that no candidate re-
ceiving less than fifty-one votes
should be accepted. The returns
showed that but twenty-nine candi-
dates received the required number
and were chosen. These were as fol-
lows: George Washington, Abraham
Lincoln, Daniel Webster, Benjamin
Franklin, Ulysses S. Grant, John
Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Henry w. Longfel-
low, Robert Fulton, Washington
Irving, Jonathan Edwards, Samuel F.
B., Morse, David G. Farragut, Henry
Clay, Nathaniel Hawthorne, George
Peabody, Robert E. Lee, Peter Cooper,
Eli Whitney, John J. Audubon, Horace
Mann, Henry Ward Beecher, James
Kent, Joseph Story, John Adams, VIII.
liam E. Charming, Gilbert Stuart and
Asa Gray.
1t was decided to select the remain
ing twenty-one names of the first fifty
in 1902, under the same rule, but as
the official book was not ready until
late in 1901, the Senate reconsidered
its action and decided to do no more
than it was required to do by the deed
of gift, namely: To fill the vacant
panels in 1905. At that time, there
fore, twenty-six panels will be filled |
All names which received as many
as ten votes on the first trial can be
voted for. The same judges will act, |
save that unavoidable vacancies will
be made by the Senate Provision
will be made for an additional hall
having thirty panels, to contain the
names of foreign-born Americans.
Six names for these will be chosen in
1905. Also for d Hall of Fame for
women, with sixty panels, for which |
twelve names will be chosen in 1905, |
two to be foreign born-The World |