Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/506

 country," to quote the language of the minutes of the Board of Trustees.

Rivalries and jealousies developed, however, and we find hints of a disagreement which arose during the first year over the signatures which should appear on the diplomas of the graduating class. Dr. Carpenter, who had been elected dean of the department, appears to have objected to Wythe's signature appearing on the diplomas, but whether as a professor in the school or as president of the University is not clear. Relations became quite strained, and Dr. Wythe submitted his resignation as president, but the matter was finally adjusted and he remained until the following year.

The medical department of Willamette University was the second medical school to be established on the Pacific Coast, and apparently, west of the Mississippi River. The Toland Medical College, now the Medical School of the University of California, had begun instruction in San Francisco in 1865, thus antedating the Willamette department in actual operation. The latter school, however, maintained a continuous existence from the time of its establishment until 1913, when it was merged with the University of Oregon Medical School. Toland on the other hand, suspended for a time and then reopened, so to Dr. Wythe and his colleagues should be accorded the credit of having established the oldest continuous school of medicine on the coast. A son of our subject, W. T. Wythe, was one of the early graduates of the Willamette Medical Department, completing his work in 1868.

Wythe left the University and the Salem church in 1868 to become pastor of the Taylor Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Portland, which was located at Third and Taylor Streets. In Portland he also engaged occasionally in medical practice, and became somewhat out of favor with local ministers by so doing. It is