university of Connecticut 5 i libraries % ^*x^ jt^fOf 378.746 SUlc BOOK 378.746.ST4 1C c.8 STEMMONS # CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 3 T1S3 OOlEDMlfl 1 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/connecticutagricOOstem pq 5 CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE A HISTORY By WALTER STEMMONS College Editor research in collaboration with ANDRE SCHENKER Instructor in History WITH A FOREWORD BY RALPH HENRY GABRIEL Professor of History Yale University STORRS, CONNECTICUT J93 1 Copyright, 1931, by Connecticut Agricultural College Printed in the United States of America The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company New Haven, Connecticut TO CHARLES LEWIS BEACH President Emeritus TO WHOSE VISION AND LEADERSHIP THE COLLEGE OF TO-DAY OWES ITS PLACE IN THE LIFE OF CONNECTICUT FOREWORD IN 1931 the Connecticut Agricultural College passes into its second half century. The anniversary naturally turns the minds of its friends to events and ambitions of other days. It also gives to the citizens of the Commonwealth an oppor- tunity to evaluate the work and the significance of the institu- tion they have created and set in the beautiful Mansfield hills. For such an appraisal Mr. Stemmons's thoughtful book is a useful aid. Painstaking investigation has recovered many a lost episode and has disclosed the complex influences which called the institution into being and shaped its development during the formative years. The book presents an interesting chapter in the history of public higher education in the United States. Storrs is a product of one of the most significant American educational developments of the nineteenth century. It is also an outgrowth of the life of Connecticut. Its formal history covers fifty years but the forces which created it began to operate more than a century ago. The early years of the last century found the people of Connecticut throwing dams across their brooks and rivers so that waterwheels might turn the crude machinery of new factories. The sons of the State believed in progress. They vaguely understood that they were creating a new era. But the clattering factories in the valleys were small and few. The men of early nineteenth century Connecticut still lived in an agricultural age and looked upon agriculture as the basic and the most important industry of the nation. Side by side with the development of manufactur- ing, therefore, went the movement to improve the methods of husbandry. But the thought of early nineteenth century Connecticut rose above the level of material things. Some of these fore- fathers of ours a century ago visioned a new moral order. They strove to set men free, not only from the legal bonds of the institution of slavery, but from the bondage of vice, of physical and mental disease, and of ignorance. Nowhere was FOREWORD the American humanitarian movement of the first half of the nineteenth century more important in the lives of people than in Connecticut. A blend of idealism and of Yankee practicality, therefore, lay behind those forerunners of the Connecticut Agricultural College, the Derby Academy, the Cornwall Mission School, and the Cream Hill School. These institutions were private ventures. Useful as they were, they proved inadequate to meet the needs of the State. In the latter years of the century Connecticut took up the task which they had laid down and pledged its resources to carrying forward the important work of improving husbandry and of giving the sons and daughters of rural communities an appropriate education. Nineteen years before the Commonwealth established the Connecticut Agricultural College the American people, after a long struggle, formulated in the Morrill Act of 1862 an edu- cational policy of great significance for the nation. The American Republic wrote into the law of the land the principle that the state, by means of institutions supported by taxation, should hold open the door of opportunity in higher education to all persons who desire and are qualified to take advantage of the privilege. The Morrill Act is a charter of liberty, guaranteeing democracy in American higher education. It was no accident that Connecticut was among the first of the states to unite with the Federal Government in carry- ing out the purposes of the Morrill Act. The law made possible the further development of that movement toward better farming in which Connecticut people had been interested for many years. It was in harmony with the ideals which were influencing Connecticut thought. The State, accepting the federal grant, added it to the funds of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. For thirty years Yale served Connecticut as a land grant college, while at the same time developing swiftly as a private university. After a period of thorough trial the State decided that the purposes of the Commonwealth would be best served by a separate agricul- tural school wholly supported and controlled by Connecticut citizens. The years which have elapsed since this decision FOREWORD have seen a struggling school grow into a vigorous and significant college. The first fifty years of the life of Storrs have also seen commerce and manufacturing transform Connecticut. The rural village, whose houses cluster about a Georgian or a Greek-revival church, still remains to remind the twentieth century man of an age in which agriculture was the calling of a majority of the people. Connecticut farming, moreover, after a process of adjustment to soils, markets, competition and other factors, continues to be one of the soundest and most important industries of the State. But Connecticut has become a highly urbanized area, its life dominated by the machine age. During its swift industrial advance, the Com- monwealth has supported steadily the agricultural college in the Mansfield hills. But it has not permitted in any formal way the broadening of the purpose or the curriculum of the institution in such a manner as to provide a type of education definitely adjusted to the problems of the non-rural population of the State. The end of the first half century of Storrs history finds the people of Connecticut discussing the wisdom of extending to all citizens the principle of democracy in education inherent in the Morrill Act. Ralph Henry Gabriel. < u PREFACE WRITING histories has never been among my major ambitions. This one, contrary to precedents, has not been a labor of love but of necessity. A college editor, like the "noble Six Hundred," learns to do many queer things without stopping to reason why. In this case the order came from the Board of Trustees, and if it had been to paint a pic- ture or dig a ditch instead of to write a history, there would have been no more inclination to question the authority. The history has been written in serious vein. No one will ever know what a handicap that has been. If histories told the truth they would not be so serious. It is difficult to acknowledge the very vital help I have had from a number of persons without implicating others in the result. Professor Gabriel and his seminar class of 1929-30 in Yale supplied the coaching and the cheering section. President McCracken, with generous appreciation of the prob- lems of an historian by fiat, contributed the final drive that got the book out on time. Miss Edwina Whitney, Miss Esther Dodge and Mr. Andre Schenker checked the manuscript. Mr. Schenker did much of the research for certain chapters. None of these persons is responsible for any split infinitives or misstatements that you may find in the book. Those are mine. So it is, gentle reader, that I leave the book with you. It is as accurate as I have been able to make it, but if you find errors, please remember that no prizes are offered. In any event I trust that the experience will have made me more chari- tably inclined toward the authors of college bulletins, to whose manuscripts I must return after this strange interlude as an historian. Walter Stemmons. Storrs, Conn., April, 1931. CONTENTS Page Chapter I—An Adventure in Education 1 Chapter II—The Stone Age at Storrs 23 Chapter III—Yale-Storrs Controversy 58 Chapter IV—The Spectre of a "State University" . 78 Chapter V—"The War of the Rebellion" 97 Chapter VI—Proving That It Pays to Advertise ... Ill Chapter VII—The March on Hartford 132 Chapter VIII—The College During the War 158 Chapter IX—Cultural or Agricultural? 169 Chapter X—Swapping Horses in Midstream 199 Chapter XI—The Fiftieth Year 205 Chapter XII—Research, the Cornerstone of Progress 211 Chapter XIII—The College Goes to the People 230 CHAPTER I V* V AN ADVENTURE IN EDUCATION ON April 21, 193LL, the Connecticut Agricultural Col- lege entered its fifty-first year as a State institution. From humble beginnings it has grown steadily and has come to play no small part in the destinies of the State, Hundreds of students have felt its influence and thousands of citizens have been affected in some phase of their inter- ests by its manifold activities. It is Connecticut's sole contribution as a commonwealth to the complicated American system of university and college education. The first twelve years of the institution's history were as a small farm school. For thirty-eight years it has been a land grant college, supported jointly by the Federal and State governments, and as such has played a part in a national program of vocational education unique in the world's history. To understand the history of the institution for the past fifty years and to grasp the significance of the conflicting views as to its purposes, its functions, and its ultimate des- tiny, one must know something of the influences that gave it birth, that shaped its growth, and that must presage its future.