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FROM LEVERMORE, JANUARY 8, 1904
FROM LEVERMORE, JANUARY 8, 1904
Letterhead
Brooklyn, N.Y., Jan. 8, 1904.
Hon. Timothy L. Woodruff,
287 Broadway, New York.
My dear Woodruff:-
I think that there was a laugh in Lorimer's joke about the pup who got his meat at the price of running himself to death to shake off the can. At the same time I agree with you that the man of millions has good reasons for generally imposing such conditions as Mr. Rockefeller usually does impose. Nevertheless I believe that it ought not to be necessary to require that every gift shall be balanced by an equal amount raised by subscription. When a man of great wealth is dealing with an institution as poor as many colleges, hospitals and similar institutions are, he may sometimes be imposing in such a condition a burden too heavy for it to carry. Certainly the community of Brooklyn, wealthy as it is, could not often be interested in benevolence so extensively as you succeeded in interesting it two years ago. J. D. R. has several times made unconditional gifts to Chicago Univ. Adelphi is approaching the time when it will sorely need unhampered bequests or donations.
There is one other matter of business which we ought to begin to consider early, and perhaps it is not too early to consider it now. That is the question of a Commencement orator. We have thus far made a brilliant record in Commencement orations at the Academy of Music. We have had two there, and each time the Academy was packed from the platform to the remotest corner of the top gallery. It behooves us to continue to maintain our high standard, if we can, and I think that the continued success of that feature of our Commencement program must depend very largely on your action.
You are likely to know who the forceful speakers are, and to be able to induce such people to come to us. Please think this over and see if you can discover some suitable candidates. I am not now able to make any nominations that seem to me very good, with the possible exception of Woodrow Wilson of Princeton, whom I presume I can myself get, if anybody can, as I know him very well. But my belief is that it would be useless to try to get him this year. He is working now up to the limit of his strength and perhaps a little beyond it, and is very reluctant to do anything more, unless he feels that the interests of Princeton University demand it.
The only remaining individual who has been seriously considered in the former years, as I now remember the list, is the Rev. Amory H. Bradford of Montclair. I have no personal knowledge of him. He has been mentioned favorably by some members of our faculty and I think by Mr. Benedict.
Yours very sincerely,
Charles H. Levermore
P.S. Concerning place of Commencement I should add that Mrs. Hecht, manager of the Montauk, writes me that that theater will be closed in the middle of May. I fancy that we will have to go either to the Baptist Temple, or to the Grand Opera House on Elm Place, or possibly to the Columbia Theater - if open.
It is quite likely that all the large theaters will be closed.
I am
CHL -
FROM LEVERMORE, JANUARY 28, 1905
FROM LEVERMORE, JANUARY 28, 1905
Letterhead
Brooklyn, N.Y. Jan. 28th, 1905.
Hon. Timothy L. Woodruff,
Syracuse, N.Y.
My dear Woodruff:-
Dr. Hitchcock - the head of the Pratt High School, has made a report to me concerning investigations among the three lower classes of that High School, to see where they are likely to go next year. The majority of the students in that school will go to the Manual Training High School, but Dr. Hitchcock regards it as certain that about thirty will enter Adelphi Academy if an arrangement can be made by which they can be admitted at a tuition rate not to exceed $100. a year. He says there are three or four who would come here any way at full tuition, but there are as many as twenty-four who have told him that they will in all probability enter here if the rate of tuition mentioned above can be agreed upon. He represents that eleven more are undecided as yet between entering Adelphi and some other school. He thinks that if the twenty-four above alluded to should come to the Academy, most of the eleven would come with them. He reports that there are twelve more who have made no plans whatever for next year, and say that they are not ready to make any. Among this whole number of students the proportion of girls to boys is about as two to one. It would appear therefore, that if Dr. Hitchcock's estimate is correct, that we might add at the rate of $100. per head, some $3,000. to our income next year, and as these students are evenly distributed among three classes, it would mean about $2,000. more for the year afterwards, and about $1,000. more for a third year. It is possible that we might admit that number of students to our present study room without any additional expense excepting that involved in setting up a few more desks. If we did so however, we would undoubtedly be unable to admit any applicant who might come to us ready to pay full tuition; the room for the next year would be filled to overflowing. It is a matter for debate whether it would be wise for us to shut off, for a year's time at any rate, all applicants who would come ready to pay full tuition. It may be a countervailing argument, that the transfer of thirty students in a body from the Pratt to Adelphi Academy would be an advertisement that would be worth something. If this course were adopted, and the whole company of perhaps thirty could be accommodated in our present study room, I doubt whether any additional teaching force would be needed for them, unless it would be possibly another teacher in mathematics. If we should undertake however, to keep the door open for admitting new applicants who are ready to pay full tuition, we would have to fit up a room somewhere in the buildings which would be large enough to hold all of our next fourth year Academy class, and we should have to put that class - which would be the graduating class - with a special supervisor, into that room by itself, and handle it as a separate study room through the year. This of course would mean for us the expense of fitting up another room with study room furniture, and it would mean the addition of another supervisor, a sort of Assistant Superintendent in addition to the probable need of an increase in the department of mathematics.
I should be glad to know what you think about all this.
Yours very sincerely,
Charles H. Levermore
[marginalia] Mrs. G. Refer to me. -
FROM LEVERMORE, UNDATED
FROM LEVERMORE, UNDATED
I attended Mr. Grout's dinner last evening. Mr. Grout read an address which was carefully prepared, and which led up to the proposition with which he has already acquainted you, namely, that an application should be made to the legislature or the Board of Regents for a charter for a university in Brooklyn, which university should be situated possibly on the east side lands near the museum and should be controlled by a Board of Trustees nominated by the Mayor, and should be maintained as a part of the city system of education. Mr. Boody and Mr. Littleton made speeches warmly supporting the proposition. A good many other gentlemen spoke briefly to the effect that they warmly favored the proposition to establish a city college or university, and were willing to do what they could to help along the project. Among these gentlemen were Messrs. Alexander E. Orr, Ex-Mayor Schieren, Mr. Rossiter, President Atkinson - of the Polytechnic -, and Senator McCarren, and Messrs. McKelway, McLean, Berri and Peters, representing the four Brooklyn papers. All of these gentlemen, I think without exception, spoke only of the general proposition to consolidate the existing colleges and establish a strong college or university under city auspices. None of them discussed details. Professor Hooper was the only one who entered into a discussion of details. Professor Hooper said that there was not room enough upon the east side lands for a college campus, and that when the museum was completed no other buildings could be put up on that plot of ground without giving the appearance of unduly crowding the museum building. He suggested as a better site for a college campus, the land along the parkway to the east of the museum. Professor Hooper also opposed the endowment of a local college or university by the city. He affirmed that it would be much better if such a college could be kept away from the risk of political influence, and could be adequately endowed by private beneficence. He spoke somewhat at length of the possibility of finding people in Brooklyn who would be willing to give an adequate endowment for such an institution. Mr. Grout and Park Commissioner Kennedy and Professor Hooper entered into a slight and brief discussion concerning the east side lands, and the right to use them for such a purpose. Finally a motion was adopted, without any dessenting voices, that Mr. Grout should proceed to name a committee of one hundred, who would meet and organize, to procure from the legislature or the Board of Regents, a charter for for a college or university in Brooklyn. I believe that the resolution included nothing else, not even any reference to the possible financing of the enterprise by the city.
My belief is that a large part of the interest displayed in this scheme by Messrs. Grout and McCarren is due to their perception that the project is not only a worthy one as a piece of educational development, but that it also has some value as a move in the game of politics. At the same time I am heartily glad to have representative citizens discussing such schemes of improvement, whatever the mixture of of motives, and I welcome last night's meeting as a distinctly encouraging step.
However, I believe with Professor Hooper, that the east side lands are too small for a proper college campus. It would be foolish to start in as a part of the city system with a campus that did not leave ample room for growth for a hundred years. That part of the east side lands not occupied by the museum when completed, and by the new public library building, would be only large enough to hold buildings. What such an institution should have is a generous campus, fit to hold not only all the buildings that are needed, but open spaces and an athletic field besides. Such lands could be secured on the parkway between Franklin Avenue and Nostrand Avenue, and would include the clearing away of that unsightly old Kings' County penitentiary, which has got to go some time any way. Moreover, the latter site is convenient for transportation, since the Franklin Avenue and Nostrand Avenue lines connect with all the main arteries of traffic. The east side lands would be served by the Flatbush Avenue line and the Coney Island lines; the latter are at present of little importance for such an institution.
I also agree with Professor Hooper that the Brooklyn college or university which is to be established, should be adequately endowed by private munificence. That is the ideal condition, but I am afraid that we should have to wait too long before it is attained; therefore I am inclined to disagree with Professor Hooper, who is willing to wait. If the city treasury can be reached for this purpose, I am inclined to think that as a second best choice the appeal ought to be made. Nevertheless it is with the utmost reluctance that I would work for the establishment of a city college or university, which would almost surely pass under the control of political parties. If the Mayor of the city should have the power to appoint a Board of Trustees, it seems to me that, to begin with, Trustees should be chosen from the Boards of Poly. and the Adelphia and the Long Island College Hospital, and that after a certain number of years had gone by, the Mayor should be obliged to make a certain number of nominations from among the graduates of the institution. It also seems to me absurd to talk, as Mr. Grout has done, about including Packer and the Brooklyn Insitute, and perhaps the Pratt Institute in this scheme. None of these institutions are colleges or exercise the power of granting degrees. There is comparatively no work done at the Pratt Institute which has any collegiate value; there is scarcely any more work of such value in the scheme of the Brooklyn Institute; and the Packer Institute is chiefly a preparatory school. It has only two years of study which contain work that is collegiate in its character. I found in conversation with Mr. Grout, that his scheme as he himself had pictured it, included wiping out the secondary school work of Adelphi, Packer and Poly. I take that to be a chimerical notion. It would mean blotting about all there is to the Packer out of life, and the effect upon the Poly. would be about the same; - there are only about ninety students in the college work at the Polytechnic, and there are about four hundred and fifty in the preparatory school. As for Adelphi, this property which we hold was given to Adelphi Academy. It has over seven hundred and fifty students in preparatory work alone. It is paying the bills for the college now, and is abundantly able to pay its own way if the college were removed from it. Any proposition which would look to its extinction would meet with a chorus of condemnation from some two thousand people in the city who are its graduates or former students. Mr. Grout however, seemed to think that all the students
in these great private fitting schools should be at once tirned over to the public high schools. Such a notion is crazy.
[marginalia] Inasmuch as this scheme is probably to be pushed, I hope that you will get Mr. Grout's ear, and influence him in the nomination of members of his committee. That committee ought to be well packed with Adelphi and Poly trustees and friends. We should see to it that the consolidated college, if formed, is made by federating Poly & Adelphi as the first move. The new college should be a growth out of the institutions now existing, and not a legislative creation that we must swallow, willy-nilly, just as the politicians make it.
I hope that liberal representation of our own Board maybe secured, & certainly you & I ought to be in the plot from start to finish. You know these politicians very much better than I do. Mr Grout probably means well, but he is not fitted by character or training to become the father of a university.
Yours Very Sincerely
C H Levermore -
FROM LEVERMORE, APRIL 29, 1904
FROM LEVERMORE, APRIL 29, 1904
Letterhead
Brooklyn, N.Y., April 29, 1904.
Hon. Timothy L. Woodruff,
287 Broadway, New York.
My dear Woodruff:-
By all means, we want you to be present at the May meeting. If Thursday evening, May 26th, is the time which would best suit your convenience, please put that down at once among your engagements, and I will ask the office here to send out the notices for the meeting of the Board in accordance with the suggestion contained in your letter which I have just received.
About Commencement, I hope that if you can you will be with us. I have not yet seen Mr. Taylor about the oration, but expect to do so within a day or two, unless I hear from you that some outsider can be secured. No new names have been suggested to me excepting the name of Stewart L. Woodford.
Do you think that he would be any better for us than Mr. Taylor?
[marginalia] Since I dictated the foregoing Judge Crane has telephoned me that McDermott, our "new member" wants to invite John F. Carson of Philadelphia, a personal friend, I think.
Have you any wish to express?
I wish that you & Mr. Wheeler & Fred Crane & I could get together before the May meeting and talk over questions of policy, such as I partially outlined in a recent letter -
Our Board of Trustees & afterwards, the community need to see just what course we are to shape in navigating this ship of ours.
Garrison the Faith
C. H. Levermore -
FROM LEVERMORE, DECEMBER 8, 1904
FROM LEVERMORE, DECEMBER 8, 1904
Letterhead
Brooklyn, N.Y., Dec. 8th, 1904.
Hon. Timothy L. Woodruff,
339 Broadway,
New York City.
My dear Woodruff:-
Your letter is just at hand, and I am very much interested in your report of the conversation with Messrs. Murphy and Babbott. I did not believe that Mr. Murphy would accept the invitation, but I have no doubt that it was a politic thing to make the offer. Mr. Babbott's part in the conversation, and the suggestion of a possible interest on the part of the Packer people in schemes for consolidation, open some new views to me.
Up to this time I have always supposed that Dr. Backus and his associates would not wish to be considered at all in any such project. The people most dominant in the affairs of Packer Institute have turned down propositions looking towards Collegiate developments in their own institution, and I have supposed that they wanted the school to be an old-fashioned seminary for girls and nothing more.
I think that the proposition to sell the present properties of these institutions would have to include some plan for taking care of the preparatory work of all of them. If we should buy a site on the Eastern Parkway we might house Collegiate work there very comfortably, but it
be a poor place for the Academic work of either the Polytechnic or the Adelphi. Moreover, one of the chief arguments for getting the separate site is that we should disassociate the College life from the Academy life. Adelphi Academy is a prosperous school, and would undoubtedly need the present buildings even if the College went out of them. The Polytechnic Preparatory School likewise, would need to take the new building down there, and sell the
one for old junk, if the technical work were placed somewhere else.
As I mailed a letter to you yesterday announcing that Judge Crane would call the meeting of the Board for Thursday evening, December 22nd, I take it for granted that you have received that letter this morning, and that consequently you will not look for any telegram this afternoon.
[marginalia] With reference to the Eastern Parkway site, I understand that the new subway is to run under that Parkway, which will make that region very accessible, and within a year or two will increase values there very much.
What has Chicago done that it should be so much preferred to Brooklyn by the Rochfeller bounty? Perhaps we ought to include in our scheme of expansion the proposal to start a theological seminary under Baptist auspices in connection with the new Lond Island University. I think that there is no training school for Baptist preachers in our metropolis. With cordial greetings
Very Sincerely Yours
Charles H. Levermore -
FROM LEVERMORE, APRIL 3, 1905
FROM LEVERMORE, APRIL 3, 1905
Letterhead
Apr - 3 1905
My dear Woodruff
I was so inferrially tired Friday night that I went home without waiting to confer with you, as I had expected to. I realize how busy you must be with the preparations for the coming marriage but this Carnegie business seems to me so important that I maybe justified in holding you up in the highway for a brief reason.
Ought we not to acquaint him in some formal way with our needs, & at once? The Polytechnic people will surely approach him Dont we want to get a promise from him too? No better solution of the questions raised by Mr. Grant can be found than the speedy acquisition of considerable endowments by these colleges already existing.
Cant we manage it so as to secure at least the usual conditional promises from both Rockefeller & Carnegie, and secure the one with the other?
I cant help feeling that now in the accepted time for activity on our part. I dont want to approach Mr. Carnegie myself unless you & I have agreed that it is a wise thing to do & have outlined our plan of campaign together.
May I not hear from you? Or it would be still better if you could come over here - perhaps some morning
Faithfully yours
Charles H. Levermore -
FROM LEVERMORE, JUNE 2, 1905
FROM LEVERMORE, JUNE 2, 1905
Letterhead
June 2, 1905
My dear Governor -
If the Exec. Com. meeting has not been yet called. I feel pretty sure that it will be difficult to get the members together for business on Sat. afternoon.
The matter that it needs to prepare for will need some discussion I fancy. You have my letter of May 23d. I presume That committee which my motion calls for to cooperate with Mr. Nichols' committee of "Poly" folks in the consideration of affiliation & endowments & the Grant letter might be named by you now without the Exec. Com. & the names could be announced at the next Board meeting - which will be on June 12 . It might be a good thing to have that committee having the way & putting down wires during the summer. We have to try to consolidate & set up a strong college in Brooklyn & we will need all the reflection & all the help that we can command.
I am sorry that you could not come on with Mrs. Woodruff to see this big company of young folks. Put it down for next Fall without fail. My letter of May 23d was intended to show that Mr. Nissen, one of our new members was actively interested in the Metz candidacy & was not inclined to favor speedy favorable action. It will go over till next Fall now anyway. I suppose & by that time I fancy that we can all agree about Mr. Metz. I have wanted to get him on our Board but have been somewhat shaken in my seal for action by Mr. Nissen's conservative attitude.
The scholarships created here four years ago by Henry W. Maxwell & Charles A. Moore are vacated this year by the graduation of the incumbents - four Maxwell & two Moore scholars. They have all been splendid students.
I am intending to see to it that they send thanks to J. R. Maxwell & Mr. Moore for what they have rec'd. Would it not be wise for you to suggest to those two gentlemen the desirability of continuing these benefactions in the names of the original donors probably?
Why should not such scholarships be made permanent? I have reason to believe that Henry W. Maxwell intended to make his permanent, altho unfortunately he did not live long enough to put that clause into his will.
Yours Very Sincerely
C. H. Levermore -
FROM LEVERMORE, MAY 15, 1905
FROM LEVERMORE, MAY 15, 1905
Letterhead
May 15, 1905
My dear Woodruff
I have run away for a day or two in a search for a Professor of English Literature. I expect to return on Wednesday. I believe that I have not yet told you about my interview with Wm. H. Nichols. I spent last Thursday evening with him. He expresses himself as ready to join with representatives of our Board in a conference concerning ways & means of developing our two institutions together and of securing an adequate endowment, site, etc. He hopes that the scheme will take shape in the discussions necessitated by Grout's letter. The Poly Board referred that letter to a committee consisting of Messrs. Nichols, Lyman & Raymond. The latter was named because of his position at the L. I. Medical School. Mr. Nichols hopes that our Board will name a committee which will be prepared to deliberate with his committee & with persons directly representing the Medical College group of schools not so much about the Grant letter as about the formation of a Union Endowment Committee. He thinks - and so do I - that the counter-preposition made by such a committee would side-track the Grout committee. He thinks that the track will be free for us as soon as the Academy of Music project is finished. That is a large obstacle but I am delighted to find some one at the Poly who takes statesmanlike views & is ready to move.
The chief thing now is to get started.
Very Sincerely Yours
C. H. Levermore -
FROM LEVERMORE, FEBRUARY 6, 1906
FROM LEVERMORE, FEBRUARY 6, 1906
Letterhead
Brooklyn, N.Y. Feb. 6, 1906.
Hon. Timothy L. Woodruff,
N.Y.
My dear Woodruff:-
You have probably received from Mr. Grout copies of the proposed act incorporating a Brooklyn University, which he has sent to all members of the Committee of One Hundred.
This is the way in which that undertaking has thus far been conducted: The Committee of One Hundred authorized Mr. Grout last spring to appoint a Committee of Fifteen to confer with the representatives of various institutions in Brooklyn. Mr. Grout's Committee of Fifteen sent a letter to those institutions asking the appointment of representatives for such conferences.
This letter did not reach us no that our Committee could be appointed earlier than at the May meeting, and before our Committee had time to have a meeting of its own Mr. Grout issued a call for a conference at the Brooklyn Club. None of the other institutions, unless it be the Brooklyn Institute, had been able to have a meeting of its own Conference Committee before that call was issued. At the conference Mr. Benedict and myself reported that the Adelphi Committee had not been able to meet, and was not therefore able as a Committee to make any statement, - we expressed however, our individual opinions. The other institutions there represented, excepting the Brooklyn Institute, were not ready to make any statement of any kind excepting an utterance expressing a vague interest.
No other conference was called during the summer or during the autumn.
Last December Mr. Grout and two or three of his friends met the Polytechnic representatives at a dinner at the Hamilton Club. We were not invited, neither was the representative of any other institution invited. Mr. Swanstrom however, got a special meeting of our Board called in order that we might re-constitute our Conference Committee and be ready to have a session with the Committee of Fifteen. We have never yet received any invitation to meet the Committee of Fifteen, and no other institution, barring that one instance of the Polytechnic dinner, has had any invitation to meet the Committee of Fifteen, so far as we know.
Nevertheless Mr. Grout has evidently had sessions of the Committee of Fifteen, and has drawn up an act of incorporation* and an application to the Board of Regents, and has now summoned the Committee of One Hundred to meet on Wednesday afternoon Feb. 7 in Historical Hall at five o'clock, evidently with the intention of asking it to act finally upon the reports of this Committee of Fifteen. Taking into view the original instructions which the Committee of Fifteen received from the Committee of One Hundred, and taking into view also the liberties which this movement is likely to take with the policies and the prospects of existing institutions, it would seem as though the officers of this college had not had the opportunities which they have a right to expect to discuss with Mr. Grout and his friends the possibility of some form of university development which would meet the approval of all parties. [*This act says that all institutions joining the merger shall surrender to the University of Brooklyn at their property. This seems to contradict Grout's former assurance that he did not seek to disturb Adelphi Academy.]
A Brooklyn University ought to be the outgrowth of the existing colleges here. The energetic cooperation of a man like Mr. Grout and his immediate associates would be highly desirable, but it is certainly highly undesirable that a coterie of citizens of just that sort should force upon the institutions of higher education in Brooklyn a scheme of educational development which they have not had any large share in making.
I am quite ready to admit that it may be necessary to enter into some kind of relation with the city school system. I wish that it might not be so, but it is quite likely that it may be true. Mr. Grout and his friends however, have taken it for granted at the outset that the only kind of plan possible is one which will, so far as undergraduate collegiate instruction is concerned, create here without change an institution modelled upon the C.C.N.Y. There is scarcely an educator of any importance in the United States who knows anything about collegiate and university life, who would not deprecate a duplication of that institution, and would not urge that when a new city institution was to be created it should be framed so as to avoid some of the evils that have attended the origin and management of that school.
For my part I believe that it is foolish indeed to think that a Brooklyn college must be exactly like that college in Manhattan. Improvements are certainly possible, and a careful study of the problem is necessary in order to make certain what those improvements ought to be.
[marginalia] Since dictating the above I have had a conference with Rossiter & Crane. It was our opinion that a letter should be sent to Mr. Grout tomorrow saying that his documents have been received, that some of the propositions therein contained are such that we are unable to act upon them without ample deliberation, and that as we have no opportunity to discuss them with the Committee of 15 we do not feel ready to attend the meeting of the committee of 100. You ought to be the one to sign such a note if it is sent. If you get this tomorrow morning. I wish that you would call me to the phone.
Faithfully Yours
Charles H. Levermore -
FROM LEVERMORE, JUNE 6, 1904
FROM LEVERMORE, JUNE 6, 1904
Letterhead
June 6 1904
My dear Governor
It seems that Mr. Wheeler will probably be unable to sign checks for any purpose for some time perhaps for two weeks. He is said to be improving - but the process is slow, and the doctor forbids any intrusion of business. The trouble is with the liver.
Now salaries are due at the end of this week & some bills must be paid - The Mechanics Bank says that if you will write to it a letter asking that C. L. Rossiter's name be accepted on the checks for the salaries - they will honor his signature on the checks for that purpose, as he is chairman of the Finance Committee. It seems to me however that it would be better if you would call a meeting of the Exec. Com. on Wednesday. - state in the call that the purpose is to choose a Treasurer pro tem. I think that Mr. Palmer should be chosen if he will consent. Such a meeting could be held at your call anywhere & at any time in this office or in yours & it would not delay us long.
Then Sec. Crane could serve formal notice on the Mechanics Bank that the institution has an Acting Treasurer.
The Exec. Com. now consists of yourself & Messrs. Benedict, Wheeler, Crane, Rossiter, McDermott & Levermore.
This Com. is empowered by the By-Laws to do such things. Sorry to trouble you when you are so busy but Mr. Wheeler's unfortunate illness has put us into difficulties. The diplomas, certificates, etc. that you were to sign have all been sent to you, I believe -
Faithfully Yours
C. H. Levermore -
FROM LEVERMORE, MARCH 1, 1905
FROM LEVERMORE, MARCH 1, 1905
Letterhead
Brooklyn, N.Y., March 1st, 1905.
Hon. Timothy L. Woodruff,
339 Broadway,
New York City.
My dear Woodruff:-
You have doubtless heard or read about Controller Grout's project to secure a charter for a "public university" in Brooklyn. He has outlined his scheme as a proposition to establish here a free city college or university, controlled by trustees appointed by the Mayor, housed upon the city property near the Museum known as "the east side lands," and supported by the city treasury. He has suggested that the Packer Institute, the Polytechnic Institute, the Brooklyn Institute and Adelphi College, shoudl sell their various buildings and become merged in the new "public university." The sale of their property and the consolidation of their various possessions would suffice to erect the new buildings and provide some endowments. He also suggests that the organization of the Brooklyn Public Library could be affiliated or fused with the new university.
I am glad that Mr. Grout is interested in the educational development of this borough, and that he has brought our needs for the first time to the attention of a great many people in this community. But while I am thankful to him for this service, I believe that his proposition in its present form is unwise. As it seems possible that Mr. Grout will urge speedy action, I wish now to make in this way to each one of my colleagues upon the Adelphi Corporation, a statement of my reasons for opposing Mr. Grout's proposition, and for hoping that the Trustees of Adelphi College will refuse to favor it.
In the first place, the development of collegiate instruction in Brooklyn ought to proceed from the natural and gradual growth within Brooklyn's two colleges, the Polytechnic and Adelphi. The Packer is not a college, and has now only about sixty students who are of collegiate rank. The other institutions mentioned by Mr. Grout are even less collegiate in character. Mr. Grout's scheme proposes the disappearance of our present colleges in a new insitution created by legislative charter, which "Poly." and Adelphi must join, or be killed. Speaking of and for Adelphi alone, I believe that we ought to exhaust every possible method of preseving our individuality and independence before we consent to become another wheel in the great public school system.
Secondly, I believe that a college ought to be kept free from the danger of management by politicians and party machines. The great State Universities have suffered much from this cause. A City college or university would run a risk tenfold greater. If Mr. Grout's college were now in existence its trustees would be named by Mayor McClellan, and that means by Tammany Hall. We can easily imagine what kind of collegiate or university influences would emanate from such controlling powers as Messrs. Murphy and McCarren.
Adelphi College might be glad to have help from the city in securing a site, but surely not if that help were purchased at the cost of suicide or subjection to political control. There are four or five city colleges in this country, and every one of them has been a disgrace to the name of college because of low standards or political interference or both. There is but one city university in the United States and from its birth it has been the football of political contention, and the miserable home of endless quarrels.
Thirdly, I do not believe that our city should use its taxes for the maintenance of university or professional schools. New York City already has two universities within its boundaries which possess large endowments and can do all the university work that is needed here. The city should not enter into competition with Columbia and New York University. New York City is already maintaining two free city colleges in Manhattan. I would not favor the increase of that kind of institution unless I felt convinced that individual initiative and individual benevolence were both dead in Brooklyn. Adelphi College has excellent reason to believe that they are not dead.
Fourthly, I regard Mr. Grout's proposition to transfer the present wealth of these great Brooklyn schools to the new city university as not only unwise but impossible. He means that the buildings and lands of the schools named should be sold for the benefit of the new university. This means that Adelphi Academy, Packer Insitute and the "Poly" Preparatory School would all be blotted out of existence. He told me that the pupils in these schools should go to the public high schools. This is an absurd idea. If these private schools were destroyed today they would reappear tomorrow under new names. They are inevitable. Moreover Adelphi Academy is now a most prosperous school. It has over 750 students and is supporting not only itself but Adelphi College as well. If the College were otherwise provided for, the Academy would now go on creating its own endowment. It has the interest of several thousands of former students and graduates living in this vicinity. I believe that the man who proposes to kill that school in order to create a free college shows that he doesn't really understand the educational situation.
These statements do not cover all possible objections to Mr. Grout's proposition, but they seem to me to present sufficiently weighty arguments, and they will naturally suggest some others. After serious reflection along the lines here suggested, I have been forced to conclude that Mr. Grout's project would be ruinous to our educational ideals, destructive of the best kind of public spirit in Brooklyn, and fatal to the normal development of several splendid schools. If you agree with me, I hope that your influence will be used to thwart Mr. Grout's scheme.
Yours very sincerely,
Charles H. Levermore
Per W. -
FROM LEVERMORE, APRIL 26, 1904
FROM LEVERMORE, APRIL 26, 1904
Letterhead
Brooklyn, N.Y., April 26, 1904.
Hon. Timothy L. Woodruff,
287 Broadway, New York City.
My dear Woodruff:-
I am sorry that Dr. McKelway is out of reach. I do not feel that I have any better name to suggest than that of Mr. Taylor. If no better name can be discovered, I shall try to see him about it during the coming week. I have already made a tentative suggestion to him and I think that he was not unwilling to entertain the proposition.
I am inclined to believe that the time has come when you, as the President of the Board of Trustees, may, if you think it wise, properly take the lead in some movement looking towards a consolidation of certain Brooklyn institutions of higher education. Personally, I have come to think that such a movement on our part is justified by almost every consideration of policy.
Our increase in numbers and our comparatively narrow limits of space and our small endowments, all combine to compel us in the near future to make a considerable number of appeals, public and private, for assistance of various kinds. We shall probably have to go to Mr. Rockefeller again. We should seize a dramatic moment and in order to get that dramatic moment, we must create it. Our increase in numbers will help us to create such a situation, but in addition to that, I am confident that a rather striking development in local affiliations will give us a very strong support. The Polytechnic is trying to find a new president Undoubtedly no man who is worth his salt will take the office, unless the trustees of the Polytechnic will give him satisfactory guarantees about their debt. That will mean that the election of a new president down there will probably be conincident with a splendid advertisement for that institution caused by the liquidation of their indebtedness, or by a tremendous effort to make a stronger public appeal than
ever made before.
In either case, that institution is likely to hold the center of the stage, unless we can manufacture a stage for ourselves which will be larger than theirs. I think it is our duty to try to put ourselves in such a position that when the Polytechnic manages to get the new president and to provide some reasonable means for removing their indebtedness, the best thing that they can do next will be to come into a local university, which we have already started.
We ought to hold the leading cards, and up to date we are in a position to grasp them. I should advise that if possible you should take the lead in some private meetings, more or less social in character, in which the few men who are most immediately and personally responsible for Adelphi should invite a few men who are most directly responsible for the management of the Long Island College Hospital, the Polhemus Clinic, the Hoagland Laboratory, and perhaps the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy, to confer concerning plans for affiliating or perhaps consolidating, the institutions suggested into a Brooklyn university. If there could be a preliminary agreement, I think that it would be wise to try to draw into the combination the Brooklyn Institute, which would then become one of the biggest systems of university extension in
United States.
If such a scheme were well under way, the Polytechnic, when its hour of action comes, could find nothing better to do than to come right into it. If we do not get it under way, the Polytechnic people themselves may in self-protection be pushed forward to lead off in a similar undertaking. I say this because it is evident that the appeal which we all must soon make for adequate endowments ought to be made and must be made in the name of a corporation big enough to overshadow this end of the city and compel public attention. Otherwise the appeal will fail.
I believe that the conferences suggested would be eminently wise at this time, even though the result of deliberation should take different lines from those which I have here imagined. The main thing just now is to try to get the institutions which are solvent and which belong to the grade of higher education in Brooklyn, to learn how to stand together and begin to think of the needs of one another. Nothing but good can surely come from an object lesson of that kind. There is surely a magnificent possibility in these outlines. Somewhere among them lies the certainty of future progress. Let us try to be in the van.
Yours very sincerely,
Charles H. Levermore -
FROM LEVERMORE, MAY 11, 1905
FROM LEVERMORE, MAY 11, 1905
Letterhead
Brooklyn, N.Y., May 11th, 1905.
Hon. Timothy L. Woodruff,
339 Broadway,
New York City.
My dear Woodruff:-
Let me remind you once more of that suggestion about coming over here with Mrs. Woodruff some morning next week in order to show her the opening exercises of this institution. You have not visited the institution while in session during this year, if I remember rightly, and it seems to me that it would be a very nice thing to do.
I have just received from Mr. Grout a duplicate of that letter of his Committee of Fifteen. I expect to have a talk with William H. Nichols to-night about what the Polytechnic folks think concerning it.
I hope that your affairs will shape themselves so that you may after all find it possible to be at the meeting of the Board on the night of the 22nd. If that is absolutely impossible there will be a little more reason why our Executive Committee ought to have a session with time enough to discuss several of these subjects carefully with you, inasmuch as it is evident that we cannot have any other time to consider with you the fortunes of the institution until next fall.
I am still interested in the question about the advisability of approaching Mr. Herman A. Metz with reference to membership in the Board. He has done several little kindnesses for this institution in such a way that I cannot avoid the belief that he would really like to become one of us. I have tried a score of times to get any evidence concerning the rumors that have been referred to in the Board Meeting by Mr. Gilmore in former years, and Mr. Kelley more recently. Beyond what those two gentlemen have said I cannot get a spark of evidence that would substantiate their suggestion, and on the contrary I find a great deal which is entirely in favor of Mr. Metz in every way. He seems to be a man of considerable education, a great deal of liberality and public spirit, universally regarded as a good fellow, and undoubtedly successful in his business affairs. Is there anything more that you would say about this matter?
Yours very sincerely,
Charles H. Levermore
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