methods the library seems to have been quite generally neglected. Its collections, which numbered 8,000 volumes in 1850, had grown to only 9,821 by 1869. One student remembered it as consisting chiefly of German editions of Greek and Hebrew classics “which gave forth an unspeakable antique odor.”
Modern literature was to be found in the libraries of the literary societies which, with that of the Society for Inquiry, boasted over 3,000 volumes in 1858.
The practice of awarding prizes to stimulate students’ intellectual ambitions was not instituted until 1867 when James J. Lewis, not yet a member of the faculty, donated a fund in memory of his brother, Captain George W. M. Lewis of Utica, the income to be given on an annual competitive basis to the senior who delivered the best original oration. President Dodge, perhaps influenced by the system of awards Wayland had introduced at Brown, founded prizes for the best prepared entrants to the freshman class. George B. Lasher, Class of 1857, also established prizes for Juniors who excelled in English composition. These awards have all been maintained to the present.
Student enrollment statistics furnish a good indication of the University’s prosperity. Starting with an attendance in all departments of 33 in the fall of 1850, the number reached 90 by August 1851. During the Taylor administration it increased to a high of 228 in 1855 and thereafter declined to a low of 117 in 1864. By 1869 the figure had climbed back to 162. Registration dropped off seriously in the College and Grammar School during the Civil War years, as might be expected, the low for the College being 56 in 1865 and 20 for the Grammar School in 1864. The average number of students per year in all departments for the period from 1850 to 1869 was 164.
Admission requirements for each of the three departments remained much the same as drawn up in the 1830’s. The Catalogues from 1869 on, however, called attention to the fact that “Students from all denominations of Christians are admitted to the Seminary.”
But there is no reason to believe that any considerable number of non-Baptists sought to enter its doors. The only instance of “co-education”
to be found is the presence of Emily Taylor, daughter of the President, in her father’s class in intellectual and moral philosophy.
The faculty were sanguine over the first post-Removal student body, probably because they were pleased at having any to teach, and for a
