Seminary Of Learning, Alexandria, La., Dec. 2,1859
. . . . Last Monday there was a meeting of the Board of
Supervisors called but the governor could not come, and consequently there was
no quorum and the Board had to work informally. They could not adopt the
regulations, but called another meeting for December 10. I attended the meeting
and found they were willing to vest me with ample powers but they will be
embarrassed in their finances unless the legislature help or unless we have
more students than we now expect. We shall prepare for one hundred, but sixty
are as many as I expect. I will have no teaching to do this year unless I
choose, but will have all the details of discipline and management.
I found that there are two distinct parties in the Board —
one in favor of a real out and out military college and another who prefer a
literary seminary, only consenting to the military form of government. The
former party led by General Graham, want a continuous course, without
vacations, as at West Point, the summer vacations to be taken up with a regular
encampment. This would keep me here all the time until everything had settled
down into such a fixed system that I could go away. I can hardly forsee how it
will turn out but for the present believe we will have a summer vacation of two
months, during which I can come to Ohio.
The legislature meets the third Monday in January, soon
after which we will discover their temper and whether they will be willing to
build any buildings for the professors, but I believe they will not, as I
notice a hesitation to ask it and unless it be asked and urged very strongly of
course they will not appropriate. All kinds of labor, building especially,
costs so much that though the state as such is liberal, yet they cannot answer
half the calls made on them for such purposes.
I am lonely enough out here alone in this big house, but
will have plenty to divert me the next two weeks, and afterwards, the session
will be so near at hand with new duties and new things. I suppose my patience
will be tested to its utmost by a parcel of wayward boys.
SOURCES: The article is abstracted in Walter L.
Fleming’s, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 72-4
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