The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 | Page 5

by the General Assembly of Rhode Island to represent the state in the Congress of the Confederation. This was during a crisis of depression and alarm, when the whole political fabric was threatened with destruction. He, however, returned to his college duties at the close of the year, being unwilling to remain longer away from the scenes of his chosen labors. With the momentous questions of the day he was thoroughly familiar, and he afterwards, by his voice and by his pen, contributed very materially to the adoption of the Federal Constitution by the State, in 1790. He died very suddenly in the summer of 1791, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. His death was regarded as a public calamity, and his funeral was largely attended, not only by the friends of the college, of which he may be regarded in one sense as the founder, but by a vast concourse of people from all parts of the town and the State in which he lived.
Dr. Manning was succeeded in the presidency by the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Maxcy, who during the previous year had held the temporary appointment of Professor of Divinity. The career of this remarkable man indicates a high order of genius. At the early age of fifteen he had entered the Institution as a pupil, graduating in 1787 with the highest honors of his class. Immediately upon graduating he was appointed tutor, which position he held four years. During his brilliant career of ten years, in which he was the executive head of the college, men were educated and sent out into all the professions, who, for learning, skill, and success in life, will not suffer in comparison with the graduates of any period since.
Dr. Maxcy resigned the presidency in 1802, when he was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. Asa Messer, a graduate under Manning, in the class of 1790. He held the office until 1826, a period of twenty-four years. Under his wise and skilful management the college prospered; its finances were improved; its means of instruction were extended; and the number of students was greatly augmented. It was in the beginning of his administration that the college received the name of Brown University, in honor of its most distinguished benefactor, Hon. Nicholas Brown. This truly benevolent man was graduated under Manning in 1786, being then but seventeen years of age. He commenced his benefactions in 1792, by presenting to the Corporation the sum of five hundred dollars, to be expended in the purchase of law books for the library. In 1804 he presented the sum of five thousand dollars, as a foundation for a professorship of oratory and belles-lettres; on which occasion, in consideration of this donation, and of others that had been received from him and his kindred, the Institution, in accordance with a provision in its charter, received its present name. Mr. Brown died in September 1841, at the age of seventy-two. The entire sum of his recorded benefactions and bequests, giving the valuation which was put upon them at the time they were made, amounts to one hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
Dr. Messer was succeeded in the Presidency by the Rev. Dr. Francis Wayland, who was unanimously elected to this office on the thirteenth of December, 1826. His administration extended over a period of twenty-eight and a half years, during which the University acquired a great reputation for thorough analytical instruction. His treatises on "Moral Science," and "Intellectual Philosophy," were used as text-books in other colleges, while "The Moral Dignity of the Missionary Enterprise" gave him a world-wide celebrity as a preacher. He resigned in 1855, when he was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. Barnas Sears, who continued in office twelve years, when he resigned, having been appointed agent of the Board of Trustees of the Peabody Educational Fund. During his administration, which extended through the financial crisis of 1857, and the long years of civil war, the University prospered, the facilities for instruction were increased, a system of scholarships was established, and large additions were made to the college funds. Dr. Sears was succeeded by Rev. Dr. Alexis Caswell, a graduate of the University, and for more than thirty-five years an honored and successful professor in the Institution. He was thus thoroughly conversant with its history, and familiar with its special needs. The Rev. Dr. E. G. Robinson, the present active and efficient president, entered upon his duties in the fall of 1872. He, too, is a graduate of the Institution over which he now presides, being a member of the class of 1838.
The buildings of the University are ten in number. Of these the oldest is "University Hall," which has already been described. This venerable structure, so rich in historical associations, and so dear to all the graduates, has