Revd. Mr. Nicholson (Methodist) now of Hamilton. 0.[hio] late of Baltimore, came to my office, introduced by Mr. Keith, to talk about the Am[erica]n. Colonization Society, of which he is Gen[era]1. Agent.
He wants to get up a meeting, in hopes to revive a spirit in favor of the Society, now grown languid, almost to atrophy.
Late in the evening — too late for business, being detained at my office professionally — Attended a meeting of the Trustees of the City University, to meet Revd. Dr. Wines,38 but did not see the Dr. as he had left before my arrival. It seems that a com [mitt] ee. had been appointed — Judge H. R. Gamble39 and Revd. Dr. McPheeters40 — to try to procure a President for the C.[ity] University]. They, it seems, had spoken to Dr. Wines and got him to come out and examine for himself.
I asked what was the present condition of the Institution — Mr. Gill said "We are out of debt[.]" — I suppose there is no endowment, and no income. Someone — perhaps Dr. W. M. McPheeters41 — said it was the intention to open a subscription in all the Churches in the City concerned in the enterprise — Old School Presbyterian — with a view to get $2000 from each church, as a temporary endowment, so as to induce Dr. Wines to assume the control, and build up the University by his personal efforts.
The house itself (NE corner Pine and 16th.) is large and well built, but has no ground attached, only a little paved back yard. An excellent house for a preparatory Grammar School. But as the beginning of an University, a mere futility.
I have had no great hopes of the Institution ever since the managers determined to stick it down on a little lot in the thick of the City, to enable 'the boys' to walk conveniently from their fathers' houses to school! I told them, in public meeting, some two or three years ago, that by those means, they might possibly succeed in making a pretty good preparatory school for young boys (which was not the thing we proposed to make) but a first class University (which we did design to make) never.
The $1000 which I subscribed and paid towards the University, is the only voluntary contribution which I ever begrudged, and that only because it seems to me perverted from its object.
38 See infra, July 25, 1859.
39 Hamilton R. Gamble, of Missouri: old-time Whig; brother-in-law of Mrs. Bates; one-time law partner of Mr. Bates; judge of the Missouri Supreme Court. 1850-1854; author of a dissenting opinion in the Dred Scott case in the state court; a strong advocate of the Union in Missouri at the outbreak of the Civil War; Conservative Unionist war governor of Missouri from June, 1861, until his death in January, 1864.
40 Supra, April 24, 1859, note 24.
41 A prominent St. Louis physician, at this time surgeon of the U. S. Marine Hospital and an editor of the St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal. North-Carolina-bred, he joined the Confederate Army as a surgeon when the Civil War came.
SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 34-5
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