Evening star., 1925-06-13
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL =. COLLINS.

Every five years a new group of
men or women is added TO the Hall
of Fame for Great Americans con-
nected with the University of New
York. and the election is now under
consideration by the university's
council and senate. The council in
vites nominations from the public, and
all nominations must receive seconds
from the senate before being submit
ted to the electors, who finally decide
the selection. The senate appoints the
board of leo electors. Originally the
candidates could not be eligible until
not less than 10 years after death, ,
now the limit is 25 years.
Up TO the present there have been
26 men and l woman placed on the
eligible list for this fiVe-year period.
The woman is Dorothea Lynde Dix,
angel of the Civil War" She was
born in Worcester, Mass. in 1902, and
during the Civil War she DEVOTED her
self to service in hospitals near Wash
ington. Her life work was given TO
investigating hospitals. especially
asyIums for insane, and she is credited
with having introduced psychopathic
institutions in a number of States.
The men nominated for this election
include Edwin Booth. actor; Samuel
Adams, statesman; Horace Bushnell,
lneOlOSidH, IeOIS6 ISoSeIS NleiI ~ tA-
plorer; John Livingston Copley,
painter; William Lloyd Garrison, edi-
tor and anti-slavery agitator; John
Hay, statesman; Adiniram Judson,
missionary, and William Penn.
The Hall of Fame for Great Ameri-
cans was founded in 1900 through the
beneficenCe of an anonymous glVer of
$3.50, 900, with which endowment there
was erected colonnade 400 feet long,
having spaces for $50 panels, each to
commemorate some great American" "
Fifty such great ones were to be Sc
lected Immediately leaving 100 panels
to be occupied in blocks of five, chosen
every five years, until by the year
1000 all spaces would be filled. The
schedule has not been fully MAIN
tanned.
Those chosen in 1900 were George
Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Daniel
Webster, Benjamin Franklin, u. S.
Grant, John Marshall, Thomas Jeffer-
son, r. w. Emerson, H. w. Long
fellow, 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, Will
liam f. Claiming, Gilbert Stuart and
| Asa Gray-29.
Chosen in 1905: John Quincy Adams,
James Russell Lowell, William T.
Sherman, James Madison, John G.
Whittier, Mary Lyon, Emma Willard,
Maria Mitchell-S.
Chosen in 1910: Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edgar
Allan Poe, James Fenimore Cooper,
Phillips Brooks, William Cullen Bry-
ant, Frances E. Willard, Andrew
! Jackson, George Bancroft and John
Lothrop Motley-10,
Chosen in 1915: Alexander Hamil-
ton, Francis Parkman, Louis Agassfz,
Elias Howe, Joseph Henry. Rufus
| Choate, Daniel Boone and Charlotte
CuShman-S.
Chosen in 1920: Samuel l.. Clemens
| Mark Twain. James B. Eads, Patrick
Henry, William r. G. Morton. Angus
| tus Saint t-Gaudens, Roger Williams
i and Alice Freeman Palmer.
| Total to date, Sc men women. 1t
would be permissible to choose II can
didates this year. Harriet Beecher
Stowe, in 1910, received the most votes
ever given to any candidate in the
| Hall of Fame.
| In addition to the Hall of Fame for
/ Great Americans, there is also under
the guardianship of the University of
New York a pantheon of American
artists and architects. of whom nine
busts are already placed: Beckwith.
Inness. Ogilvie. Duveneck. Shiriaw,
Saint -Gaudens, J. Q. A. Ward, Chase,
and Henry x. Brown.
1t will be an interesting exercise