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Cumberland College
By 1808, a new building was completed for Davidson Academy, but already, two years before, Davidson Academy had become Cumberland College (September 11, 1806). The new building of brick was three stories high. It was seventy by forty and a half feet wide. Its cost was $12,240. It was located about a quarter of a mile south of Broadway. Like every school, then and now, the academy was in constant need of money, and its appropriation of land was sold off by piecemeal until by 1803 only seven acres remained. The charter had been changed to read "Davidson College," but the trustees decided not to accept this change, considering it inadvisable to expand a weak and struggling institution at the time. The way to Cumberland College was clearly opening up.
At the request of the trustees of Davidson Academy, the Tennessee Legislature passed an act entitled, "An Act to establish a College in West Tennessee." Section 1 of its Preamble reads:
Be it enacted that a college be established on the square reserved for Davidson Academy by the trustees thereof, which shall be known and distinguished by the name of Cumberland College (Windrow 17).
Obviously, Davidson Academy wished to have the title of "college."
Putting out vigorous shoots from a sturdy tree, the Academy must have grown with the growth of the times, for, on the 11th day of September, 1806, by an act of the General Assembly of Tennessee, Cumberland College was chartered on the foundation of Davidson Academy, and its property and rights became thenceforward those of the College. Professor Craighead moved into town and located about a quarter of a mile south of Broadway (Ewing 6).
In 1809, Thomas Craighead was replaced by James Priestly as president. Cumberland College was hardly a stable institution of higher learning, but its continuance meant that the leaders of Nashville had hopes for its future.
In 1808, Dr. William Hume became instructor in mathematics and foreign languages in Cumberland College. School and church!
In 1816, Cumberland College, "prostrated for lack of funds," closed, but reopened in 1824, with Dr. Philip Lindsley in charge. There were thirty-five students in the first session of the reopened Cumberland College. Also in 1816, Nashville Female Academy opened.
The University of Nashville
In 1826 (November 27) Davidson Academy and Cumberland College became the University of Nashville, a school which would run until 1911; Andrew Jackson was one of its trustees. Like Davidson Academy and Cumberland College, the University of Nashville would have its troubles, but its history would show a constant trend toward "higher education," as the following notes will show:
1851. The University of Nashville opened a Medical Department.
1854. The University attempted to establish a law school.
1855. The Literary Department's entire faculty resigned, and there was (Feb.) reorganization through the union of the Literary Department with the Western Military Institute.
1867. A preparatory school was opened, financed by Montgomery Bell.
1869. The school was expanded to include the first two years of college.
1870. The Literary Department and MBA were leased to Generals Edmund Kirby Smith and Bushrod Rust Johnson for a period of fifteen years. A law school was established.
1872. The law school was discontinued.
1875. The arrangement with MBA was discontinued. The Board of Trustees of the University of Nashville entered into an agreement with the Tennessee State Board of Education and the Trustees of Peabody Education Fund under the terms of which the Peabody State Normal School was established at the University of Nashville. The Medical Faculty contracted with the newly established Vanderbilt University, whereby the Medical Department of the University of Nashville would also serve as the Medical Department of Vanderbilt University.
1895. Vanderbilt University established its own medical school.
1909. The Medical Department of the University of Nashville merged with that of the University of Tennessee.
At the Centennial Exercise of the First Presbyterian Church of Nashville (Ewing 34), Mr. Alexander J. Porter, President of the Board of Trustees of the University of Nashville, alluding to the nature of the occasion, referred to the donation by North Carolina of the Davidson County Academy, which became Cumberland College, and then the University of Nashville. Obviously, Mr. Porter considered Davidson Academy a healthy acorn from which a sturdy oak would grow.
The history of education speaks of an act "of quiet heroism which we have met this day to commemorate - the founding of Davidson Academy, the germ of the University of Nashville" (Tavel 3). To quote further:
... heroic men got from North Carolina a charter for an Academy (12/24/1785) - as an endowment a grant of 240 acres of land, worth then, perhaps, five dollars an acre - built a small school house and employed such teachers as the times afforded, obscure men who have left no traces, "their bodies dust, their souls are with the saints, we trust" (Tavel 4).
The address of welcome was delivered by Hon. Randal M. Ewing, class of 1849. It is significant in the history of education that Davidson Academy was the second and only other school chartered for this territory by North Carolina. Martin Academy, afterwards Washington College, was the first school established west of the Alleghenies.
It is important to remember that Philip Lindsley turned down the presidency of Princeton University (in 1824) to give life to the seriously depressed University of Nashville. In 1850, when he retired after a quarter of a century, the school was still struggling, but he had firmly established a tradition of higher education in Nashville.
Peabody College for Teachers
In the later nineteenth century, sometimes wealthy men spent part of their surplus accumulations in endowing existing universities or founding new ones. So it happened that George Peabody, who accumulated an immense fortune by marketing American securities in London, not only generously endowed public education in the South, but founded great museums of natural history at the oldest American colleges.
Southern education owes an immense debt to George Peabody, a northern capitalist with a national view. Among his benefactions to education was the Peabody Fund, amounting to three and a half million dollars. This fund was used chiefly to encourage the southern states to provide taxation for the maintenance of the weak school systems frequently existing only on paper.
George Peabody was born on February 18, 1795, at South Danvers (now Peabody), Massachusetts. The school bearing his name is known and loved by students all over the world. What a wonderful use of money he represents!
When George Peabody died on November 4, 1869, in London, England, he did not really die, for he lived on in the minds and hearts of countless students. His beneficiaries are walking on the grounds of Peabody on this very day.
In 1889, the name Peabody Normal College was adopted.
Names change; ideals and aspirations remain the same. In 1905 (or 1906), Peabody Normal School became the George Peabody College for Teachers. And, in 1914, a graduate school was opened after a further grant from the Peabody Fund. There were fifteen trustees, headed by the first chairman, Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts.
Peabody College is now a part of Vanderbilt University.
The "Modern-Day'' Davidson Academy
Those first trustees of Davidson Academy in 1785, with all their foresight, could hardly have envisioned such a glorious history. And now there has arisen a new Davidson Academy, a part of the twentieth century, to be sure, but striving to maintain the best of its forbears.
A merger took place on July 1, 1979. George Peabody College for Teachers, with roots reaching back to Davidson Academy in 1785, was taken over by Vanderbilt University.
One hundred and ninety-five years after the founding of the first Davidson Academy, a new school of its name opened, again east and north of the city of Nashville, and again with meager financial resources, but again with unlimited spiritual assets.
Since the modern-day Davidson Academy opened formally in 1980 (as Madison Christian School), its growth has been phenomenal. The school of today has a faculty of certified and competent teachers, a student body of over twelve hundred, and modern buildings which are both attractive and functional.
While the twentieth century is not the eighteenth, one likes to think that the best attributes of the first Davidson Academy have been passed down through Cumberland College, the University of Nashville, and Peabody College to the students and the administration of the new Davidson Academy located on Old Hickory Boulevard. For, while the present Davidson Academy has not had to fight off Indians, it has had some of the problems which belong to every beginning school. All schools in their first years must struggle to obtain students and money. But Davidson Academy enjoyed some singular advantages.
Foremost among them was its choice of leadership. David I. Huggins, Postmaster of Nashville and a founder of the school, was its first chairman of the Board. Charter members of the Board included Leonard E. Arnold, Wade H. Bobbitt, William E. Crook, Kenneth J. Petty, and J. B. Wynn. These trustees elected Bill Chaney, formerly principal of East Robertson High School, as President of the corporation and Headmaster of the school. Every man on the board of trustees was known in the community for his integrity, for his achievement of personal goals and for his habit of planning for the future.
Also important was the choosing of a name. Many names for the new school were considered. Finally, the Board of Trustees chose Davidson Academy, after the first school west of the Cumberland Mountains, established in 1785 at a spot about two miles north of Madison Christian School, forerunner of Davidson Academy. The living up to a respected name can add a spark to any new institution.
The wisdom of opening Davidson Academy is shown by its spectacular growth in student population. In 1983, there were over six hundred students enrolled and over thirty faculty members. In the fall of 1984, 894 students chose the rapidly-growing private school. In 1986, total enrollment through grade 10 was 1,012, making Davidson Academy the fourth largest private school in Middle Tennessee. Further enrollment figures show 1,153 students in 1987-1988 and 1,223 students in 1988-1989. Today Davidson Academy is among the largest independent schools in the state, and there is every reason to believe that its growth will continue.
There are several respects in which Davidson Academy shows its resemblance to the academy of 1785. Each school grew out of a need. Just as the early settlers of Nashville felt the need for a Christian academic institution, so a group of dedicated persons in Madison, Tennessee, began to discuss, in the winter of 1979-1980, the need for another private Christian school to serve the area.
The founders of each school recognized the fact that any budding institution needs a head devoted to promoting its ideals. Thomas B. Craighead served the first Davidson Academy as such a head. William (Bill) Chaney, then principal of East Robertson High School, was chosen as a leader of the new forerunner of Davidson Academy. Like Mr. Craighead, Mr. Chaney believed deeply in a school based on academic excellence in a Christian atmosphere.
A striking parallel between the two Davidson Academies lies in the strong character of its founders. The founders of the first Davidson Academy were men of prestige in their pioneer community. So, too, were the men who served on the board of trustees of the new Davidson Academy. Without exception, they were men committed to progress in whatever areas they were engaged in - church, school, or community. All over the campus of present day Davidson Academy, their names may be read. For example, the Huggins Gymnasium keeps alive for all time the name of the first chairman of Davidson Academy's Board of Trustees.
But a school, old or young, is more than students, teachers, and buildings. It is a spirit of learning, a joy in the pursuit of the things of the mind. It is a perseverance in the achievement of the goals laid down for its present and its future. It is a working combination of the practical and the spiritual. It is a product of its past, a picture of its present, and a prophecy of its future. It is the firm belief of the patrons of Davidson Academy that it is such a school, carrying the best of qualities of the school of 1785 into the twenty-first century. |
