TO most New Yorkers, the advertisement that appeared in the Gazette one day in 1754 was apparently not very exciting. The ad's announcement was that a new College would be opened some time in July, but when the time came for registration, only eight young men signed up. In those days, the institution that was to become Columbia, fourth largest (25,000 students) and fourth richest ($113,589,957.37 in capital endowment) of U.S. universities, had not a single building to call its own. About the only thing it did have was a conviction: that "New York is the Center of English America, and the Proper Place for a Colledge."
This year, as Columbia celebrated its 200th anniversary, it could summon scholars from all over the world to attend its year-long series of conferences and convocations. But in spite of its international prestige, it has never lost its early sense that the city is its "proper place," nor has it forgotten that its special character is largely a matter of location. It is an Ivy Leaguer minus the ivy, an ivory tower without ivory, a polyglot campus of brick and stone that still draws two-thirds of its undergraduates from a radius of less than 100 miles. Its bicentennial theme—"Man's right to knowledge and the free use thereof—is wide as the world; but the university's own official title is still proudly local—Columbia University in the City of New York.
Mortifying & Humiliating. In the course of two centuries, the city itself has not always returned the compliment of such enthusiasm. It was true that George Washington let his stepson go there, and that Alexander Hamilton was an alumnus. But by 1814 the trustees were branding Columbia as "a spectacle, mortifying to its friends, humiliating to the city." In the 18503, Trustee Samuel Ruggles ruefully pointed out that of two universities that George III chartered, Göttingen had 89 professors and 1,545 students, while Columbia still languished with six professors and 140 students.
It was not until 1865, when bearded President Frederick A. P. Barnard took over, ear trumpet and all, that Columbia began to achieve something like its present stature. The only trouble was that though Dr. Barnard was long on ideas, he was perpetually short of money. An educational statesman, he advocated honors courses, modern languages, the admission of women ("conducive to good order"), uniform entrance requirements for U.S. colleges, and teacher training. He looked forward to the day when Columbia would be a great university, complete with such modern additions as schools of engineering, architecture and commerce. Nevertheless, Columbia stayed put in its former deaf & dumb asylum on East 49th Street. It remained for the Midas touch of millionaire President Seth Low and his autocratic successor Nicholas Murray Butler to put Barnard's ideas into practice on Morningside Heights.