The little bronze plaque is hardly noticed today, even by students and faculty who have logged many steps in OSU's oldest building. It sits high on a wall at the top of the stairwell on the second floor of Benton Hall in the southeast corner. It's been there for over a hundred years, and it contains a piece of information that seems the simplest way to sum up what President Benjamin Lee Arnold did for Oregon State University. Serving from 1872 to 1892, Arnold was president of OSU longer than any other chief executive save William Jasper Kerr, who took the job in 1907 and stayed on into the 1930s. Twenty years is a long time to serve as a university president, even today, and Arnold's record of accomplishment during this lengthy tenure is extraordinary; he would show time and again that Corvallis College was firmly in the hands of an educator who understood the fundamental nature of the Morrill Act and knew how to set a course to build the kind of college envisioned in the legislation.

As we reviewed in Chapter 8, Arnold's first step was to reorganize President William Finley's college into a more manageable system by dividing the institution into two departments made up of several "schools." The "Literary Department" would contain the "schools" of ancient languages, modern languages, history and literature. The second department, the "Scientific," would include the schools of mathematics, engineering, technology, physical science (chemistry, agriculture, biology) and moral science (ethics and logic, political and "social" science). The fundamental academic skeleton of the modern OSU can still be seen in this primitive curricular structure.

Arnold's greatest legacy...

But "reorganization" can only take you so far. The rest takes financial resources, a problem that would plague the new president from day one. For money, he had none, so some things would have to wait. For staff, he could count on a faculty of three, himself included. He immediately set about identifying those subjects he considered "imperative" to the mission of the college, and these were mathematics, languages, physical science, and moral science. History and literature, engineering, and practical mechanics and technology would have to wait for awhile.

This prioritization, at least to one OSU historian, may be Arnold's most enduring legacy. In his The Making of a University: 1868-1968, James Groshong states that from existing evidence, it is clear he (Arnold) did not interpret the Morrill Act or the instructions of the legislature to mean he had to supervise the building of a trade school or technical institute.

"The Morrill Act remains general where it might be specific," Groshong writes, "especially on (such) crucial questions as curriculum and institutional identity. Congress had given little attention to these matters, and even in 1862, Morrill himself (when asked) seemed to be unsure about them, though in later years, his pronouncements became quite positive. 'It was a liberal education,' he declared in 1888, 'that was proposed. Classical studies were not to be excluded, and, therefore, must be included.' At one point Morrill even contended he had not envisioned the creation of agricultural schools at all, but rather schools of science that would complement, (not) oppose or contradict, the work of the literary colleges of his day. 'Obviously,' he wrote, 'not manual, but intellectual instruction is the object.' Morrill's hindsight notwithstanding, the act is ambiguous, but fortunately so; the ambiguity permitted broad, flexible interpretation. Beyond the requirement that agriculture, military science, and the mechanic arts be taught, the land-grant colleges were free to grow and develop largely as they determined to do. Interpretations, of course, varied considerably from college to college and even within particular colleges. OAC, for instance, began by interpreting the act rather broadly, along the lines of Mr. Morrill's retrospective judgment. Thus, for Arnold, the act seemed to call for a combination of liberal and scientific education to produce liberally educated men and women trained in useful specialties. By contrast, President (William Jasper) Kerr (beginning in 1907) tended to read the act as condoning only those liberal studies which were of direct use in the training of specialists, though he stressed continuously the importance of subjects like English and history. He appears to have taken seriously those portions of the act which specify that classical and scientific studies other than those requisite to agriculture and the mechanic arts are not to be excluded from the land-grant institution; that the aim (of the legislation) was to 'promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes.' Stated simply, with virtually no facilities and little support, Arnold hoped to produce educated men and women."

The new president, of course, would be forced to do so under the constraints or guidelines of his school's land-grant status. However, as Mr. Groshong points out, during the period from the 1870s to 1890s, there were no established models on how to start an agricultural college. Consequently, Arnold took advantage of this with his own, somewhat liberal interpretation of how to do it: keep strong the literary origins of Corvallis College while forging a new "agricultural college" identity for the school and its students. Pushing the "literary" side at the expense of the other--agriculture--would hurt both, Arnold preached over and over again, and so he proposed a middle ground and acted accordingly. Yes, train specialists, but educate them too! The substance of this doctrine, employing the double task of education plus training, has remained at the core of OSU's mission up to the present day.

From his first Biennial Report filed to the legislature in 1874, Arnold himself gives a picture of the college he had taken over and just to kinds of students he and his small staff would attempt to "educate."

"We have, during the past two years, had in the Institute 44 state students. Most of them are of the best young men in the state, men of fine muscle and brain, men who came here to learn, who wish to learn because they have a need of education. The only entrance requirement is that they be 16 years of age. Some were in the primary studies when they came. Some who could not read have been taught here. This shows that some of the men cannot be put into agricultural studies when they enter college, and as some only remain here one year, some only two, they can never reach such studies."

But enough reached the upper levels for the school to grow, in both student body and the need for additional space. Arnold met the need by expanding the original Corvallis College building to include a towered north wing (completed in February 1874) measuring 30x70 feet and two stories high, Arnold became the first president in school history to build new classroom facilities, a trend that continues to this day with the soon-to-be-opened new indoor practice facility on the southwest edge of campus.

The story of the Corvallis College bell...

For the belfry, a bell was installed or "reinstalled" around 1874, the piece having been cast in 1860 in the town of Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, by the Naylor Vickers Company and placed inside the front entrance of the original Corvallis College building around 1861-62. In both locations, the bell was used for the dual purpose of calling students to class as well as the faithful to church. On Sundays and during certain nights of the week, the Corvallis College school building became the place of worship for its owners, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. To signal a change of classes, student Ernest White, the brother of B.L. Arnold's wife, "Minnie" White Arnold, was paid $15 a quarter to ring it.

In 1898, the bell rang its last performance for the college student body and was moved to a new Southern Methodist church building, where it remained until 1924. At that time, the Southern Methodists moved the bell into yet another new building, which locals know today as the Corvallis City Hall, located at the corner of Fifth and Madison Streets. During the war, this building served area military as a U.S.O. facility...the church having moved out around 1939... and the bell was placed in storage until rescued by George W. Peavy and John Burtner in 1948.

Peavy, who was serving as mayor of Corvallis at the time, is the same George Peavy who was dean of OSU's College of Forestry and, more importantly, president of the College from 1934 to 1940.

Burtner, an Oregon State alumnus, was for many years a staff photographer and campus news columnist for the Oregon Stater, the OSU Alumni Association's alumni magazine.

In 1949, the bell was given to the Horner Museum and became the property of the Benton County Museum in the mid-1990s, when the contents and ownership of the collection were transferred to the Benton County Historical Society, trustees of the museum. The bell is occasional displayed in historical exhibits at the museum and did see action for years on the sidelines of old Bell Field, where each Beaver touchdown was met with a ringing of the old Corvallis College bell.

The father of OSU research...

Despite little money to get things going, Arnold was quick to start again the work President William Finley had first launched in 1869 o 1870: the teaching of agriculture and the conducting of agricultural research on the College Farm, one of the basic requirements of the Morrill Act.

Where Finley had conducted rudimentary studies of the alkaline content of the soils in the back yard of the college building on Fifth Street had selected and had started making payments on the College Farm three blocks away, and had actually assigned a faculty member (William Moreland) and some of his students to clean up the new property, Arnold went many steps beyond his predecessor by becoming the first OSU president to actually harness the potential of 'The Farm" on Lower Campus to produce both a working farm and an outside laboratory when students under the direction of B.J. Hawthorne began the first coursework at any school in the Far West devoted specifically to research and training in scientific agriculture. Indeed, his first Biennial Report is full of passages that show true enthusiasm for the task, which was clearly new to him in his career as an educational administrator and teacher.

B.J. Hawthorne

Anticipating the Agricultural Experiment Stations that would not arrive for another 15 years, he explained the importance of agricultural chemistry, reported briefly on a soil sample study he had conducted, and mentioned that studies on wheat varieties had begun. Already in 1874, Arnold had both physically and spiritually launched Oregon State University into a new era, one that would shape its destiny for the 20th century and beyond as the research university for the state of Oregon.

For instructors to teach agriculture, the faculty of the "literary" side of Corvallis College was employed, Arnold included. They were a whopping three in number, and teaching duties were divided up accordingly. Arnold taught chemistry, soils, fertilizers, drainage, landscape gardening and sometimes mechanical drawing. The Rev. Joe Emery instructed students in the history, care, and improvement of livestock, stock breeding, and zoology. This was when he wasn't teaching mathematics, astronomy, geology, mineralogy or surveying. B.J. Hawthorne, who was on the payroll as professor of languages, both ancient and modern, held down a number of agricultural assignments, especially in the areas of botany, field collecting, and mounting of samples, grasses, seed tests, injurious pests, and something called "fruit culture." More often than not, he also helped teach a few literature classes.

The most popular textbooks employed by the three "agriculture" professors included works with simple titles such as Caldwell's Agricultural Analysis, Allen's Farm Book, Goodale's Stock Breeding, Downing's Fruit Culture, Liebig's How Plants Grow, and Kemp's Landscape Gardening.

In terms of what experimental work the school was able to accomplish those first few years, Arnold wrote:

"We worked with oran wheat, a spring variety, and Yellow Scottish oats, the first year (1872-73). The second year we made chemical tests and experiments with spring club on white soils. These fertilizers were applied to plots of ground of the same size, the yield being proportionately indicated by differences in weight. The best of these were sulfate of lime and fresh acidified ashes...Looking forward, we expect to ascertain the nature of the soils of this state, to ascertain the best methods of draining and to learn the character of several varieties of wheat grown in Oregon. We can't try others till better furnished with teachers and apparatus."

The beginnings of student research...

From 1876 to 1878, Arnold and his staff began allowing students in agriculture to conduct their own experiments. Several research projects launched by students included experiments with Touzelle wheat, Chevalier barley and White Dutch oats. Their objective was to learn how much of each a pound of seed would produce on common grey soil in cultivation for 20 years versus a dark loam rich in humus, three years in cultivation. Another student set up an experiment to answer some questions about sugar beets. Still others tackled such issues as the means of preventing the deterioration of soils, means used to restore worn out soils, and meteorology and its relationship to the health of crops.

Now if all of this sounds impressive, it was...up to a point. Arnold tried his best to implement the mandates of Morrill Act and under the circumstances, highlighted by having to operate under long periods of public funding uncertainties, OSU's second president and his small faculty did an historic job of keeping the school headed in a positive direction.

A "dual nature" creates a crisis...

To do so required that Arnold fight off one public attack after another, as he realized early in his tenure there was a great undercurrent of dissatisfaction felt throughout Oregon with the new land-grant school. This topic was covered in Chapter 8 of this series and is worth summarizing here, beginning in 1876 with an attack by the powerful Salem Statesman. Citing its objection that the land-grant charter had been given to a college "controlled by the M.E. Church, South Conference, which simply permits the state to pay $5,000 a year for its support," the paper used the word "unconstitutional" more than once in its tirade against Corvallis College, evidence that Oregon's capital city was still embarrassed over Willamette University's loss of the land-grant charter a few years earlier.

The editorial further stated that, to date, the state of Oregon had put over $30,000 into the new school and had an enrollment of only 15 students to show for it. "After this expenditure," the writer concluded, "we have no college; in fact, we have nothing to show for our money."

At this point, Corvallis judge F.A. Chenoweth entered the contest with an editorial to the Statesman in which he, naturally, was bitterly opposed to all the key points of criticism the paper had leveled against the college. The paper answered with a personal attack on Chenoweth, judged his argument as weak, and predicted that the next election would be a day of reckoning for both himself and "his college."

If the Statesman was guilty of exaggerated facts and misdirected emotions, it was right about one thing: there was clearly a disconnect between the state's new agricultural college and the people it was set up to serve, namely Oregon's farmers.

To the paper, the cause was clear and centered on what was often referred to as the "dual" nature of the school, that is, agriculture mixed with religion. Many wondered how a college that was church owned and that prided itself on the strong "classical" education it afforded its students could also teach all the latest about scientific farming. Complicating matters was the fact that the president...Arnold...had to answer to two separate boards, one representing the church, the other the state. To many, this reporting system made for much inefficiency, as the president seemingly had to spend inordinate amounts of time coming up with ways to keep the two governing bodies happy. It also didn't help matters for auditors to discover, as they did in the mid-1870s, that a full one-third of all the male students enrolled as "state" or "agriculture" students were studying Latin and German! Rumors began circulating that Arnold and his staff were taking money intended to support the agricultural side of the school and using it to support the classical.

To a greater or lesser degree, there was some truth to the overall charge that Corvallis College was giving a poor showing in agriculture. Again, as we saw a few weeks ago, the reason was simple. No one at the college, from the head man to the custodian, knew anything about farming the Willamette Valley. Realizing there was a problem, the state sought the help of the powerful farmer's group, The Oregon State Grange, who, it was felt, would be able to use its members' experience as real farmers to set the school on its proper course. Grange members visiting campus found much to their disliking. It was a simple matter of looking at the kinds of students the school was graduating, a bottom-line kind of inquiry. Farmers were hard to find. Lawyers, teachers and businessmen, they discovered aplenty.

And so Arnold began a public relations campaign...the first in school history...to try and turn these negative beliefs into smiling faces. It wasn't easy. A "Degree in Farming" was announced in the 1880 catalog but school records showed not one person ever awarded the degree. Two additional acres of land were set aside on the College Farm to be used for experimental farming. But in doing so, the school called the new plot "inadequate" and hoped, in the same breath, that during the next year the "whole farm would be put to use in connection with the college for experimental purposes." In other words, school officials believed the use of the entire farm would at last connect the classroom with the farm, so that "theory and practice can go hand-in-hand," which is another way of admitting that, up to this time, the two had never connected. In most cases this was true. It's just that the people of the state perceived they were paying for something else.

On May 27, 1886, Arnold staged what was perhaps his most dramatic public relations idea to win back support for his college. He would show the public his aggie students were not a bunch of hayseeds. They were getting a good education in scientific agriculture and who better to demonstrate this to but to real farmers. Invitations were sent out to farmers around the Willamette Valley. The big day turned out to be a 16- hour marathon of programs, readings, "examinations," and questions and answers from the audience. How many attended or if Arnold's program had any effect on the group has been lost to history.

The beginnings of student "social" life...

A list of the "social" activities available to OSU students today would fill a book. Under William Finley, OSU's first president, things were far more primitive. What outside activities were available to students centered mostly on the church or were involved, to a limited extent, in the activities of the Calliopian Society, the city's first literary society. Formed in February 1860, the stated purpose of the group was to "benefit the young men of the community and to establish and maintain a library." Meetings were held and programs conducted twice a month for members and guests. Many students at Corvallis College had parents who were members, which afforded them opportunity to participate if only in an ancillary way. The best example of this was Alice Biddle, OSU's first woman graduate (see Chapter 7), whose father was the first president of the organization.

Among other things, the Calliopians used their activities and influence to help promote good citizenship among the citizens of Corvallis, particularly the young men and women of the college. In many ways, this early literary society also serves as the forerunner of the many book clubs, study groups, social-civic-service clubs, the fraternities, sororities and honoraries that have existed in Benton County and Oregon State University for the past 140 years.

Inspired by the success of the Calliopians, Finley gave permission in 1868-69 for students to form two literary societies: the Adelphians and the Philomathians, whose weekly programs at the college building included debates and the reading of compositions. Musical talent was also occasionally put on display. After one year, the Philomathians folded, leaving only the Adelphians to carry on. After only a short time, everyone realized it had been a lot more fun and stimulating when the school had two groups, so several woman joined together to form "Gamma Chi for Women," which met on Monday afternoons. It, too, went out of business after a few years, leaving the Adelphians once again as the only show in town. Evidence suggests that society meetings were held on the second floor of the original campus building downtown in a carpeted room furnished with comfortable chairs. The president's office was next door.

After a time, the Adelphians came to enjoy great prestige among the citizens of the town and became the source of much of the town's recreation during the 1880s. The good times lasted until the arrival in 1889 of a man named W.E. Paul, a Corvallis journalist and former member of a traveling troupe. A play was chosen called a "Soldier of Fortune," and the big performance in June 1889 brought in cash money at the door in excess of a $100 dollars, no small amount of change for that day and time.

After the lights were out and the curtains closed for the last time, someone in the group got the idea that maybe they should go over to Albany and "unwind." They had worked hard, had put on a good show, now it was time to have some fun. Which is exactly what happened. Except that no one in the group of 10 who made the trip kept track of how much money was being spent to keep the good times rolling, and so by the end of the night, all the proceeds from "Soldier of Fortune" were sitting in the pockets of a half-dozen saloon owners in Linn County's "Hub City." Arnold was not amused and the Adelphians were no more. New societies quickly emerged among the students, and they included the Dialectic and Hesperian literary societies (formed 1889-90) at the college level and the Athenian and Madisonian at the preparatory. Meetings were generally held on Friday evenings. The groups often competed in debate with gold medals awarded to the winners. It was considered a very high honor on campus at this time to have one of these medals. Dramatic performances were also a very popular activity among the four societies, and it not uncommon for one or several of the groups to take the "show on the road." A December 1892 performance by OSU students of the play "Among the Breakers" at the Oregon State Normal School in Monmouth was given, according to a newspaper report the next day, a "royal reception."

Student publications and journalism...

In the fall of 1868, the Adelphian literary society started what could be considered OSU's first student publication. Titled "The Student Offering" and issued quarterly, the popular publication was joined after a time by the "Literary Casket," a smart little piece produced by the Philomathians mostly for women. During his senior year in 1871, James K. Weatherford (of Weatherford Hall fame) took it upon himself every weekend to produce an account of the school news for the week just past on handwritten sheets he would tack to a bulletin board just inside the front entrance of the original college building on Fifth Street. During the school year 1869-70, Hugh Finley, the president's brother and the alumnus who would one day be the first president of the OSU Alumni Association, was the first editor of the "Offering."

Under Arnold, student publications became more sophisticated. In February 1883, a monthly student journal called "The Gem" was introduced and became very successful. In March 1885, the Adelphians announced the start of something they called "The Adelphian Review," but it is doubtful whether any issues ever made it to paper. Lacking funds to do so, the "Review" was prepared once a week and read aloud at society meetings. Not totally satisfied with doing things this way, representatives of the group negotiated with the staff members of the Corvallis Gazette for space in their paper to run Adelphian news, and so it was until the group disbanded in 1889.

The birth of OSU athletics...

Ben Arnold also begins intercollegiate athletics at OSU, with a lot of help from a man named Professor Bruce Wolverton, who was an alumnus of Christian College in Monmouth and who taught for a brief time at OSU in the early 1870s. According to John Smith's History of Corvallis College (self-published in 1953), it was Wolverton who introduced and encouraged the idea of intercollegiate athletics among the schools of the state, personally arranging for a baseball game to be played between a team from Corvallis College and one from Monmouth. Corvallis would host. On April 14, 1883, the two sides met on a baseball diamond located in the southeast corner of Lower Campus. Arnold's "farmers" were no Babe Ruth and ended up on the bottom of a 23-7 score. A rematch was immediately scheduled. The game was played in Monmouth, and Corvallis College returned home 0-2.

John Smith continues:

"Similar athletic relationships were kept up for several years and a contest in field sports was announced but prevented by unfavorable weather. On Saturday, May 17, 1890, a game of baseball between Corvallis and Monmouth resulted in yet another 'farmer' defeat, 32-22. Professor E.R. Lake, one of the coaches for the State College team, served as umpire on this occasion. Early in April 1891, a fine baseball diamond was prepared on Lower Campus and 'a splendid pitcher,' George Denman, and two men with 'power and cleverness behind the bat,' namely Charles and Asa Tunicliffe, were favorable in the reports of sporting events. The college Athletic Association (according to newspaper reports at the time) was booming by the spring of 1892 and had more than two-thirds of the boys and over 30 girls (enrolled) as members. (The paper also reported) the Association 'has the groundwork for a fine gymnasium in the upper story of Cauthorn Hall and is adding to it all the time. The outdoor sports have all given way to baseball now. Football was all the rage for a while, but as soon as the boys found that there is considerable hard work mixed in with it, and saw some of the handsomest and strongest men limping around and their faces all bruised from the effects of too much hard playing, they decided to leave it (football) alone for awhile...and play baseball. The first and second nines practice daily. Mr. J. H. Harris, clothier, has kindly provided the material for new black uniforms, bearing his initials, which the boys thankfully wear."

On Saturday, June 4, 1892, the boys from Corvallis finally won a baseball game, defeating Albany College at the Linn County picnic 19-9.

Even though the baseball uniforms were black, the official color of Corvallis College at this time was navy blue.

Well-liked and appreciated...

That Arnold was well liked and appreciated in his own time was made clear on his sudden death at the end of January 1892. Accolades came from all quarters, including a long obituary that took up a full half of the Gazette's front page. Written by his friend and co-worker Wallis Nash, in lush Victorian prose, it relates Arnold's character and many achievements and some details about his family life.

He had come to Corvallis a widower with a 4-year-old son. With his move west, he had left the boy in the care of his wife's parents in Leasburg, Virginia, where he had married Addie Lea in 1866. Addie's father, the Rev. Solomon Lea, was president of a nearby women's college and it is possible that Arnold taught there during the war.

At 38 and now president of Corvallis College, Arnold married again, this time to one of his students and a graduate of Corvallis College (class of 1876) from Albany named Minnie M. White. Her father, T.B. White, a Southern Methodist minister who seemed to have no church, worked for Arnold for one year as a fund-raiser and student recruiter. T. B. was also a member of the College Board of Trustees (church controlled) and had moved his family from Louisiana to Oregon in the early 1870s.

A son, Ernest White Arnold, was born in 1878. Arnold's oldest son back in Virginia, Harry Lea, joined his dad and family in Oregon in 1890. He was 12. Both boys were to have unusual lives. Both were exceptional students, both graduated from Oregon State and both took graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Neither, apparently, ever married.

Harry Arnold left for the East Coast the fall after his father died. He left Johns Hopkins after five years--just short of completing his Ph.D.-- and moved to Kansas City to take a teaching job in English literature. Caught up in the patriotic fever that gripped the nation in 1898 as the country prepared to fight the Spanish American War, Harry joined the enlisted ranks of the Army and stayed on for five enlistments, retiring around 1917 as possibly the most highly educated sergeant in the armed services. Returning to Corvallis, he rented a small room in a boarding house at 304 Seventh Street for the next 30 years. With no close relatives at his death, he left his estate to the city's library and parks. In Corvallis, Arnold Park on Harrison and Merrie Drive is named for him.

His half-brother, Ernest Arnold, was possibly even more brilliant. He could read Latin and Greek on sight, had advanced degrees from Johns Hopkins and California-Berkeley and for a time taught English in Germany at the University of Munich. Tragically, he took his own life in 1915 in Stockton, California. Little else is known of him.

Benjamin Lee Arnold, who had accomplished so much in his lifetime, was buried by an admiring public at Crystal Lake Cemetery in Corvallis under a warm early February sun. A long service with many eulogies was conducted by the Rev. J.R.N. Bell, who would in 1893 begin a 28-year reign as OSU's official athletic mascot. The hearse of the president was followed by a procession of more than 200 students and friends.

"To the high character and thorough scholarship of this gentleman, the College owes much," said long-time President of the Board of Regents W.S. Ladd at the time of Arnold's funeral. "His rule was just, kind, and courteous, his habits those of constant industry and conscientiousness."

His former students and admirers remembered him with the bronze tablet mentioned earlier, the one on the second floor of Benton Hall. It says: "Benjamin L. Arnold, a true friend, thorough teacher, and useful man."

Next week: The presidency of John Bloss (1892-96), OSU's most famous Civil War veteran-turned-college-president. Also, the birth of football: OSU's first coach, first team, first game.