The first important point gained by Mr. Niles was the election of his friend, Mr. Shurtleff, to the chair of Divinity, in 1804.
For ten years the breach was constantly widening between the president and his opponents. We now find the following official records:
"At a meeting of the Trustees, November 11, 1814, the following preamble and resolutions, introduced by Charles Marsh, Esq., were adopted.
"Whereas, the duties of the president of this university have become very multiplied and arduous; and, whereas, it is necessary that he should continue to attend to the concerns of this institution, and the various officers and departments thereof, and should have time to prepare and lay before this Board the business to which its attention should be directed; therefore, resolved, that, in order to relieve the president from some portion of the burdens which unavoidably devolve on him, he be excused in future from hearing the recitations of the Senior Class, in Locke, Edwards, and Stewart.
"Resolved, that the Professors, Shurtleff and Moore, jointly supply the pulpit, in such manner as may be agreed between them. That Professor Shurtleff hear the recitation of the Senior class in Edwards on the Will; that Professor Adams hear the recitation of the Senior class in Locke on the Human Understanding, and that Professor Moore hear the recitation of the Senior class in Stewart's Philosophy of the Mind, and that he hear them in both volumes of that work."
This action of the Board was followed by the publication of the "Sketches," and, in June, 1815, the presentation of the following Petition to the New Hampshire Legislature:
"Honorable Legislators—The citizens of New Hampshire enjoy security and peace under your wise laws; prosperity in productive labors by means which you have adopted; and, by your counsels, increasing knowledge in the establishment of literature through the State. But, for none of these, can so much be ascribed to your attention as for Dartmouth College. By your patronage and munificence it was flourishing in former years; and so it still would have continued had the management of its concerns been adapted to answer the designs of your wisdom, and the hopes of its most enlightened and virtuous friends.
"To your Honorable body, whose guardian care encircles the institutions of the State, it becomes incumbent on the citizens to make known any change in their condition and relations interesting to the public good. To you alone, whose power extends to correcting or reforming their abuses, ought he to apply when they cease to promote the end of their establishment, the social order and happiness.
"Gladly would the offerer of this humble address, avoiding to trouble your counsels, have locked up his voice in perpetual silence, while the evils are rolling on and accumulating, were he not otherwise compelled by a sense of duty to your Legislature, and to the best interests of mankind, in the present and future times.
"Will you permit him to suggest there is reason to fear that those who hold in trust the concerns of this seminary have forsaken its original principles and left the path of their predecessors. It is unnecessary to relate how the evil commenced in its embryo state; by what means and practices, they, thus deviating, have in recent years, with the same object in view, increased their number to a majority controlling the measures of the Board; but more important is it to lay before you that there are serious grounds to excite apprehensions of the great impropriety and dangerous tendency of their proceedings; reasons to believe that they have applied property to purposes wholly alien from the intentions of the donors, and under peculiar circumstances to excite regret; that they have in the series of their movements, to promote party views, transformed the moral and religions order of the institution, by depriving many of their innocent enjoyment of rights and privileges for which they had confided in their faith; that they have broken down the barriers and violated the Charter, by prostrating the rights with which it expressly invests the presidential office; that, to subserve their purposes, they have adopted improper methods in their appointments of executive officers, naturally tending to embarrass and obstruct the harmonious government and instruction of the seminary; that they have extended their powers, which the Charter confines to the college, to form connection with an academy[33] in exclusion of the other academies in the State, cementing an alliance with its overseers, and furnishing aid from the college treasury for its students; that they have perverted the power, which by the incorporation they ought to exercise over a branch of Moor's Charity School, and have obstructed the application of its fund according to the nature of the establishment and the design of the donors; and that their measures have been oppressive to your memorialist in the discharge of his office.
[33] Kimball Union Academy.
"Such are the impressions as now related, arising from the acts and operations of those who have of late commanded the decisions of the Board.
"Your memorialist does not pretend to exhibit their motives, whether they have been actuated by erroneous conceptions, or mistaken zeal, or some other cause, in attending to the concerns of the institution. But with great deference he submits the question, unless men in trust preserve inviolable faith, whether pledged by words, or action, or usage, to individuals, unless they continuously keep within the limits assigned to them by law; if they do not sacredly apply the fruits of benevolence committed to their charge, to the destined purpose; if the public affairs in their trust are not conducted with openness, impartiality, and candor, instead of designed and secret management; if they become pointedly hostile to those who discern their course, and honestly oppose their measures which are esteemed destructive; if they bear down their inoffensive servants, who are faithful to the cause of truth, how can an establishment under these circumstances, be profitable to mankind? How can there be a gleam of prospective joy to any except to those who are converting its interest into their own channel, to serve a favorite design? What motive, then, will remain to benefactors to lay foundations, or to bestow their charities on such an object?
"There is also ground for increasing, fearful apprehension, by adding to the immediate, what may be the ultimate effect of the measures which have been described. In a collective view they appear to the best acquainted and discerning to be, in all their adaptations, tending to one end, to complete the destruction of the original principles of the college and school, and to establish a new modified system, to strengthen the interests of a party or sect, which, by extending its influence under the fairest professions, will eventually affect the political independence of the people, and move the springs of their government.
"To you, revered legislators! the writer submits the foregoing important considerations. He beholds, in your Honorable body, the sovereign of the State, holding, by the Constitution, and the very nature of sovereignty in all countries, the sacred right, with your duty and responsibility to God, to visit and oversee the literary establishments, where the manners and feelings of the young are formed, and grow up in the citizen in after life; to restrain from injustice, and rectify abuses in their management, and, if necessary, to reduce them to their primitive principles, or so modify their powers as to make them subservient to the public welfare. To your protection, and wise arrangements, he submits whatever he holds in official rights by the Charter of the seminary; and to you his invaluable rights as a subject and citizen.
"He entreats your honorable body to take into consideration the state and concerns of the college and school, as laid before you.
"And as the Legislature have never before found occasion to provide, by any tribunal, against the evils of the foregoing nature, and their ultimate dangers, he prays that you would please, by a committee invested with competent powers, or otherwise, to look into the affairs and management of the