Page:The Story of the Jubilee Singers (7th).djvu/97

 This year was marked by several events of special interest. Hitherto the University had been without a President. Its work had been outlined and guided in its general features by the American Missionary Association. It was felt that the time had come when a capable President should take charge of it, supported by a fully-organised faculty. For this place, Rev. E. M. Cravath, M.A., was the unanimous first choice of its trustees and friends. More than any one else he had had the responsibility of its establishment; and, during his subsequent service for several years as Field Secretary of the Association, the burden of planning its work, and providing for its wants, had rested chiefly upon him. He had piloted it through a sea of difficulties, and to him it owed much of its success. Educated at anti-slavery Oberlin, and identified all his life with anti-slavery effort, he was felt to be specially adapted and providentially guided to the place. And as soon as events shaped so that he could well be spared from those duties, he resigned his secretaryship in the Association and entered upon the new work.

In 1875, also, the University graduated its first college class. It had taken some of them, ten years before, with little more than a knowledge of the alphabet, and carried them through extended preparatory studies and a thorough classical course, to the point where a rigid examination awarded them the degree of B.A. At graduation one was chosen instructor in the University, and others found responsible positions awaiting them as teachers in the City Schools at Nashville and Memphis. Two were