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CHAPTER 4 UN1VERS1TAS SCIENTIARUM, 1856-1861 7 have done some work here which will not die with me. CHANCELLOR FREDERICK BARNARD, 1859 resident Longstreet's resignation excited "a great scramble" for the presidency. The Methodists supported Reverend George W. Carter. The Presbyterians thought Reverend John Waddel should be and would be appointed. The Episcopalians endorsed Reverend Frederick Barnard, the parish priest of St. Peter's in Oxford. Though small in number, the Episcopalians dominated the board of trustees, which gave Barnard an advantage over Carter and Waddel. The primary obstacle to Barnard's appointment was Lewis Harper, professor of agricultural and geological science. As the board was considering various candidates, Harper published a pamphlet questioning Barnard's credentials as a scientist and accusing him of immoral conduct. Barnard was in New York buying laboratory equipment, on his way to Glasgow to attend a scientific meeting, when he learned of Longstreet's resignation and Harper's accusations. L. Q. C. Lamar and Eugene Hilgard telegraphed Barnard in New York telling him of Harper's pamphlet and urging him to return to Oxford as soon as possible. They concealed their identity by inverting the letters of their last names. Harper's attack so angered Barnard that he sent a letter of resignation to Jacob Thompson, chairman of the board of trustees and a parishioner at St. Peter's, with instructions to submit it to the board of trustees if they did not elect him president. If the board did not elect him, he told Thompson, that would be tantamount to an endorsement of Harper's charges against him. Barnard also wrote Hilgard lamenting that he was "born under an unlucky star." He had not completed the purchase of the laboratory equipment, and now he had to cancel his trip to Europe. Barnard assured Hilgard that he would never hear another recitation at the university if he were not elected president. P y 6 • U N I V E R S I T A S S C I E N T I A R U M On August 19, 1856, the board met in Oxford to elect a successor to President Longstreet. Several recommendations were "laid before the Board." The board also received a copy of Professor Harper's pamphlet attacking Barnard. After much discussion, the board elected Barnard, dismissed Harper, detached the geological survey from the university, and declined the resignation of Professor Waddel, which he presented in heat and haste following the election of Barnard. The next July, the board accepted Waddel's resignation. Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts , on May 5, 1809. Under the influence of his mother, Barnard developed a fondness for music. He played the piano and the flute, enjoyed singing, and even tried his hand at song writing and poetry. While at Yale, where he graduated second in his class in 1828, Barnard drifted away from his Congregationalist upbringing and formed an enduring attachment to the Episcopal Church. Barnard's first teaching position was at the Hartford Grammar School. In his memoirs Barnard recalled his first day: "Through all this distress of time I can still recall the feeling of painful diffidence with which I stood up before the little handful of small boys to whom I had undertaken to speak in the tone of a master. I have since addressed great and imposing audiences [of) every variety of age, intelligence and culture; but I have never under any circumstances felt again the inward tremor with which I presented myself the first time before that squad of boys." By 1832 Barnard had decided teaching was not a career option because of his severe hearing impairment. He spent the next six years working with his friend Harvey Peet at the New York State Institute, a school for the speech and hearing impaired. Though he was doubtful about his future, Barnard was intellectually active during his years at the institute. He published several articles on hearing impairment and developed methods of teaching concepts with sign language. In his writings he assaulted the lingering superstitions about deafness "in the present enlightened era." He especially criticized the theologians who opposed , on theological grounds, the L'Eppe method of signing. In the autumn of 1837, Barnard went to Yale to use the library of his friend and mentor Professor Benjamin Silliman. On the way back to New York, Barnard met Basil Manly, president of the University of Alabama. President Manly had been to Providence to visit Francis Wayland...

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