entered left to go into the ministry without completing their courses or even advancing to the beginning of the theological instruction. The principal reason was lack of funds.
The Education Society, so far as its means permitted, assisted poor students after they had been enrolled long enough for the faculty to judge their “character and talents.” As beneficiaries, they received board and tuition in return for a pledge promising to refund the expenditures in their behalf. In 1840 the Trustees refused to accept students as beneficiaries unless they gave clear intention of completing their course.
The total annual expense in 1833 in any of the three departments was $58.00, of which $16.00 represented tuition and $42.00 board and washing at the rate of $1.25 per week. By 1846 expenses for a lay student in the collegiate department totaled $93.00. Of this sum, tuition represented $30.00; board and washing, at $1.25 per week, $50.00; room rent, $9.00; incidentals, $3; and sacred music instruction $1. A non-ministerial student in the academic department paid the same charges except tuition, which was $20.00. Ministerial students in the academic and collegiate departments were not charged for room rent, hence their expenses were $74.00 and $84.00 respectively. Students in the theological department paid only $54.00 since tuition and room rent were free.
The quality of food which the Steward, in his efforts to keep down expenses, was able to provide for $1.25 per week would not be rated very high by modern standards. One student wrote in 1841, that breakfast consisted of coffee, bread and butter; dinner of meat, potatoes, bread and butter; and supper of milk, bread and butter. Today such a diet would be considered totally inadequate, but a century ago when Americans made relatively little use of fresh fruits, milk and leafy vegetables it was not so unsatisfactory as it now seems.
In the late 1830’s, Steward James Edmunds had great difficulty in getting provisions. Flour cost more than $60.00 a barrel and ordinary quality wheat $1.87 a bushel. Over three barrels of flour, or fifteen bushels of wheat, were needed each week to supply his boarders. Since the Steward did not find sufficient breadstuffs in the immediate vicinity, he had go as far as Ohio to buy them. He also resorted to substituting potatoes for the expensive wheat flour.
The Cottage Edifice served as the commons until 1838 when the
