The coincidence in time between the completion of 50 years of the life of the college and the close of my administration, makes a few personal words not inappropriate. Taking my first degree at Williams College, in 1837, I was appointed a year later tutor of mathematics at Marietta, with the understanding that the professorship in that department, theu vacant, would be given to me if mutual acquaintance should make it advisable. Detained awhile by my engagement at the East, I could not reach Marietta till the winter. Through the kind consideration of the trustees, my probation was brief, the election to the professorship being made within 3 months after my coming here, my duties to begin with the next college year. In 1850, on the resignation of Colonel Mills, who had given gratuitous service as treasurer for 17 years, I was appointed to succeed him. In January, 1855, on the resignation of President Smith, the trustees elected me to the presidency. For 47 years, therefore, I have been in the service of this college: One year as tutor, 16 as professor, and 30 as president. A life less eventful could hardly be found. Serving under trustees for whom I had the highest respect, and whose plans it was my earnest desire to carry out, and associated in instruction with men of ability and fidelity with whom it has been a joy to work, these 47 years have passed quietly and pleasantly, almost imperceptibly. It has been my good fortune to know personally every member of the board of trust, every member of the board of instruction, and every alumnus of the college. Of the 566 graduates all but four-the first class-have been graduated since my connection with the institution began, and nearly all have come under my instruction. As professor or president, I have served under every trustee, and, with a single exception, with every professor. It was the resignation of Professor Jewett, in the summer of 1838, that was the occasion of my coming. When I entered on the presidency in 1855 there was no one here of the original faculty; but all were then living. To-day they are gone, not only from us, but from the world which they did so much to bless. Of the eight trustees when I came in 1838, two only survive-Mr. Douglas Putnam and Rev. Dr. Addison Kingsbury. Of the eighteen trustees, in 1855, when my administration began, three only are left-the two just named and Mr. William P. Cutler. Of the twenty members of the present board of trust, all but five have been elected since 1863, or after I had completed a quarter of a century of college work. Of the original faculty, as has been said, none remain; but the venerable Professor Kendrick, who came in 1840, and after 33 years of active service was made Professor Emeritus in 1873, is still spared to us. Of the other professors, all have come since 1869. Our senior professor entered the college when I became President. May his health soon be fully restored, and may he continue for many years to be the senior professor of the faculty of this college.

The work of instruction has always been a pleasant one to me, and my efforts have received from these hundreds of young men all they deserved, and more. Many shortcomings there have been in teaching and in administration; none can know them better than I do. But a sincere desire to secure for every student the best pos sible culture, an identification of myself with the interests of the institution, and a readiness to do whatever lay in my power to increase its true efficiency and make it in the best sense a Christian college-these, if I know myself, have ever actuated me. Now that my relation to the college is about to be changed, my interest in its success will not, I trust, grow less. My prayer is that in all respects it may prosper; that it may accomplish all that its noble and generous founders ever anticipated for it. And so I commend it to the trustees, to the faculty, to the alumni, to all the friends of Christian learning. I commend it to Him whose servants and stewards we all are, and without whose blessing there can be no true success.

[NOTE.-The following paragraphs are added to complete the sketch from the point where it was stopped in Dr. Andrews's sketch.]

Upon the resignation of Dr. Andrews from the presidency, the trustees elected as his successor Gen. John Eaton, LL, D., prominently and honorably known for many years as Commissioner of Education.

1

Dr. Eaton accepted the appointment, entering upon his duties in 1886. Under his administration the college has continued to thrive and to maintain and advance the standard so carefully set up during the first half century of its existence. Though Marietta College is not, and perhaps never will be, classed among the larger institutions for higher education in America, very few have kept so rigidly and conscientiously to the standard set both for admission and for graduation, and probably none in the West have adhered more closely to the ideals and traditions of what has been called the "typical Eastern classical college."

Marietta College has within recent years permitted a limited amount (about one-half the work of the junior and senior years) of election of studies by students, perhaps as large an amount as the instructional force of the institution makes possible. The college has not opened its doors to women, nor is it generally supposed there is any movement in that direction on the part of the authorities.

In the catalogue for 1889–90 the names of one hundred students are found in the college proper, from nine States; the arts or classical course is the one pursued by more than two-thirds of the students.

1 General Eaton has since resigned the presidency.

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VIII-WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY.

(Formerly Western Reserve College at Hudson, and now known in its academic department as Adelbert College.)

(CLEVELAND, OUYAHOGA COUNTY.)

When the State of Connecticut ceded her lands in the Northwest Territory to Congress she reserved the property in the soil of that part of her territory extending westward along Lake Erie from the western border of Pennsylvania. This tract, known as the Western Reserve, drew settlers from Connecticut, who naturally brought with them not only the habits but also the religious and educational ideas prevalent in their native State.

Among such a people the desire for educational facilities immediately manifested itself, and in 1803, at the first session of the State legislature, an act was passed, on the petition of a number of inhabitants of the Western Reserve, incorporating the "Erie Literary Society," and authorizing the establishment by it of a seminary. Common schools had been established on the Reserve and it was the intention to establish a college or at least an institution for affording instruction of a higher grade than the common schools. In 1805, with the proceeds of lands donated for that purpose, a building was erected and a school opened at Burton, the first academy in northern Ohio, if not in the whole State. In 1822 the two Presbyteries of Grand River and Portage, which had for several years been raising and expending funds for the education of young men of the Western Reserve for the ministry, took under consideration the question of establishing a literary and theolog ical seminary. After some negotiation an agreement was reached by which the trustees of the Erie Literary Society were to establish a theological department "upon the Andover confession of faith," while the Presbyteries were to provide an education fund to be turned over annually to the trustees for the purpose of educating "pious indigent young men for the gospel ministry." This arrangement was terminable at any time upon a year's notice at the will of eight managers of the education fund if they became dissatisfied with the plan. The connection between the two organizations lasted for 2 years, by which time the managers of the education fund had become convinced that a prosperous institution could not be built up at Burton. As the trustees of the Erie Literary Society could not remove the academy from Burton without forfeiting a portion of their endowment, they declined to accede to