of Rhetoric and Logic. After that time the number and variety of studies were greatly increased, and it is believed that the present college curriculum is on as high a scale as any in the United States.
The University has, in the main, been fortunate in its governors and instructors. During the first nine years of its existence, it had no president, but was under the management of a professor as a presiding officer; that officer however, was, for the greater part of the time, the same distinguished gentleman who afterwards became its first president. Of his eminent merits in that respect it is unnecessary for me to speak at this time and in this place. The beautiful monument erected to his memory by the Alumni of this institution, and which now graces and adorns the college campus, fully attests his claim to distinction, not only as the head of the University, but as a learned divine and an early and efficient advocate of a system of internal improvements and of common schools in the State. His presidency extended from his first appointment in 1804, until his death in 1835, with the exception of an interval of four years, from 1812 to 1816, during which the unsuccessful administration of Dr. Robert H. Chapman occurred. Of the present incumbent,*
* Hon. David L.
Swain.
I shall say nothing, except that he has filled the office
with distinguished success for nearly thirty years. In administering the affairs
of college, and in business of instruction, the presidents were aided by a
succession of many learned and able professors. Of those who are now members of
the faculty, it will not be expected of me to speak; and of those who have gone
from us and are still living, I will merely refer you to Dr. William Hooper and
John DeBerniere Hooper, to Bishop Green, of Mississippi, to Professor Hedrick,
and to Drs. Deems, Wheat and Shipp. Among the dead there are several names which
the friends of the University ought not to permit to be forgotten. There was
Charles W. Harris, to whose brief sojourn here we were indebted for Dr.
Caldwell; there was Archibald D. Murphy, who afterwards became one of the most
distinguished jurists and statesmen of North Carolina; the Rev. William Bingham,
of whom Chief Justice Taylor said, that as a teacher of a school he was well
qualified to raise its reputation, "by the extent of his acquirements, the
purity of his life, and the judgment by which he accommodated the discipline and
instructions of the school to the various talents and dispositions of the
youth." There was Dr. Ethan A. Andrews, so well known for his classical labors;
and Dr. Olmsted, who, as Professor of Natural Philosophy at Yale College, so
greatly increased the reputation which he had established as Professor of
Chemistry here; there was Nicholas M. Hentz, a learned man, but not so widely
known as his accomplished wife, Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz; there was Walker
Anderson, who afterwards removed to Florida and became Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of that State; and finally there was Dr. Elisha Mitchell, whose
varied, extensive and profound literary and scientific acquirements were lost to
the world a few years ago by a tragical event which sent a pang of sorrow to
every votary of science throughout the land.
In referring to the instructors of the institution, the tutors should not be passed over without a notice. Among the living and the dead, they have very able and distinguished representatives. Among the living are ex-Governor Morehead, Hamilton C. Jones, Anderson Mitchell, Gilee Mebane, Judge Manly, ex-Secretary Jacob Thompson, and others whose names may yet swell the trump of fame. Among the dead, I would point you to James Martin, afterwards a Judge of the Superior Court; to Gavin Hogg, long one of the ablest lawyers of
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