Horace Holley by T. Cook Smith, M.D. Professor of Pediatrics University Of

Horace Holley By T. Cook Smith, M.D. Professor of Pediatrics University of Louisville School of Medicine 1928 Robert Peter, in the Filson publication of the History of Transylvania medical School, makes the following remarks: “In 1818, a new and brilliant career for the University and for the Medical Department of Transylvania was inaugurated by the appointment of Rev. Horace Holley, L.L.D. to the Presidency of the University.” In 1818, when Abraham Lincoln was only nine years old, and when McDowell’s operation, which has brought so much fame to Kentucky’s Medical History, was also nine years old, we find Transylvania University undergoi8ng a renaissance. We find the school, which had its beginnings in the pioneer days of Kentucky, and which, up to this period in its history, had amounted to little more than a grammar school, suddenly aroused from lethargy by the advent of a broad-minded man with a true university outlook. This man, Horace Holley, was destined to govern the school during its period of greatest glory. His introduction to Kentucky, however, proved to be one of those paradoxical situations in which much good and much harm are done at the same time. In theory, the University had actually existed since 1799, when the Kentucky Academy, strictly Presbyterian, had joined forces with Transylvania Seminary to form a University. At that time, Lexington had less than eighteen hund4red people, Samuel Brown, famed for his early vaccination, and Ridgeley, an eminent physician of that locality, had taught medical Classes in rather informal way. Likewise, later on in that decade and the next, Dudley gave several courses of lectures to such students as might gather to hear him. All of these things were good and honest efforts toward true education but depended too little on organization and university structure, the latter in fact being entirely lacking. Between its early beginnings and 1818, Transylvania University had only graduated sixty students. Human nature seems to have been very much the same throughout the ages. The zealots of various religions, while fostering and planning the growth of education, have frequently brought periods of intellectual blight and famine through vain controversies. When one points to the hampering effects of medieval religious tenets upon the great advances in science, one may just as truthfully admit at the same time that protectors of religion have always likewise been the constant protectors and teachers in our education evolution. And so it was in Kentucky when our sturdy ancestors invaded the forests America, colonizing, fighting Indians, clearing land under showers of arrows from the savages; there was always an intimate mixing of missionaries of several faiths. The Ancient Church of God, the Roman Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Church of England, the Baptist and Methodist Churches all had a noble part and played it bravely in the pioneer days when Kentucky was the frontier of Virginia, but religious zeal was accompanied as ever by powerful political reactions within the denominations, wrecking havoc with nonconformity. In the very blockhouses and crude wooden forts of pioneer ties, the leaders of these sects were diligent and insistent cradlers of infant education beginnings. Grammar and Latin masters were procured as well as dancing masters, even in those hardy and dangerous days. The Commonwealth of Virginia planned for education in Kentucky in a very large way almost from the beginning. Trustees were appointed, and a charter given for Transylvania Seminary, the forerunners of the University back in 1780. When the trustees of this Seminary called their first meeting in 1782, ten years before Kentucky statehood, life was very complicated and hazardous. It was in that year that six hundred Indians besieged Bryant’s Station near Lexington, and on their retreat from that place inflicted a disastrous defeat upon Kentuckians at Blue Lick. In this same year, an advertisement in the paper appears, which warned citizens not to use wheat, corn, potatoes, etc, from a certain place, because it was poisoned with arsenic so that the Indians might be led into a death trap in that way. Of course, Lexington at this time was only a blockhouse with the usual unprotected outlying homesteads. The famous McKinney, of wild-catefame, had a school in this blockhouse in 1780. In 1782, John Wilson taught in the same place. Isaac Wilson of Philadelphia established his Lexington grammar school here in 1787. The average cost for educating a child at this time per year was about five pounds, which could be paid partly in money, partly in cattle, and partly in produce. In 1789, a Lexington Dancing Academy was announced in one of the newspapers advertisements. Thus, we see that I her very beginnings, Lexington tried to maintain a certain amount of culture and of the social prerequisites. In December 1815, the condition of the school was such that the legislature appointed a Committee of Investigation. Robert Peter, one of our historians of that time, and one of the early members of the Medical Staff of Transylvania says, “It is evident that the people were not satisfied with the management of the presiding trustees and thought it had been fully demonstrated in long experience of fifteen years that denomination control of educational institutions wears not as favorable to success as a more liberal management which would give equal rights in them to all sects.” At this time, the Legislature completely reorganized a board of trustees and attempted to bring into it most of the leading men of Lexington. Henry Clay, a national leader at this time, had been professor of law in the university and was later made a trustee. He, at all times, took a great interest in the University and did everything in his power to further its success. The Presbyterian Church, without numbering a very large group in Kentucky, throughout her educational history, was yet of such quality and imbued with such interesting teaching, that they, from the first, maintained a certain amount of authority and scholastic standing and seemed to feel constantly that they should have complete control. They were the cause of the first split among the protectors of Transylvania Seminary, leading to the founding of the Kentucky Academy, which a year later maintained a majority on the board of trustees until the time when the Legislature reorganized the board as has just been mentioned above. It was at this time that Horace Holley, a Unitarian, was invited to come down and ct as president of Transylvania. A controversy ensued, and it is very interesting to hear both sides. Davidson, in his “History of the Presbyterian church in Kentucky,” makes statements, which are characteristic of the religious attitude of the time. He says, “Many of the Lexington social leaders were tinctured with French Infidelity.” He says, “Lexington has organized an ungodly board. They have invited into our midst a Unitarian President. They have selected trustees more form their social prestige or public fame than from the standpoint of Christianity.” He says the appointment of Holley came to the Presbyterian Church “like a clap of thunder.” Davidson is very bitter and feels that the Legislature broke all pledges and broke faith with the Presbyterian Church in not maintaining a Presbyterian board of trustees. It is not necessary for us to refer to the original agreement with the Legislature, which was as follows: The charter, which was first given Transylvania Seminary, contained in section twelve the following: “Provided always, and be it further enacted, that said trustees shall at all times be accountable for their transactions touching any matter as the Legislature shall direct.” So much for the religious situation, and so much for the forecast of storm and strife, which must necessarily take place. Let us allow Dr. Holley in his own words describe the physical environment of Lexington and the surrounding country into which he came. Excerpts from letters to Mr. Holley in Boston: “The town and the vicinity are very handsome. The streets are broad, straight, paved, and clean and have rows of trees on each side. The houses are of brick almost universally, many of them in the midst of fields, and have very rural and charming appearance. The taste is for low houses, generally two, sometimes ever but one story high, like English cottages. This taste gives an effect that eyes accustomed to the high building of an Atlantic City, where there is but little room, are not first pleased with. But it is a taste adapted to the circumstances, and to me in not unpleasant. The town is handsomer than I had expected, and has a more comfortable and genteel aspect. It has not the pretension without the reality, that so many of the small towns have through which I have passed. Yesterday, I breakfasted at Mr. Clay’s, who lives a mile and a half from town. He arrived here only three days before me. Ashland is a very pleasant place, handsomer that I anticipated. The grounds are beautiful, the lawns and walks extensive, the shrubbery luxuriant, the garden well supplied. The native forest of ash in the rear adds a charming effect to the whole. After breakfast, Mr. Clay rode in with me, and we went with the trustees, by appointment, to the college, to visit the professors and students. Dinners are made nearly every day for me, and there is a party almost every evening. But attentions of this sort, however agreeable, and however flattering to my self-love, do not bias my mind. You will not only be contented in Lexington, but you will be pleased and delighted. I love society as much as you do – and affirmation you will well understand, and I am as little likely to be fond of solitude and obscurity.

Load more