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McCorkle:
One Founding
Philosopher
BYVICKI CHENG
STAFF WRITER
He was a 6-foot-tall, blond-haired, blue
eyed pastor, and many claimed he looked
like Thomas Jefferson.
“We this day enjoy the pleasure of see
ing the cornerstone of the University, its
foundations, its materials and the architect
for the building,” he said, presiding over
the first University Day. “And we hope ere
long to see its stately walls and spire as
cending to their summit. Ere long we hope
to see it adorned with an elegant village,
accommodated with all the necessaries and
conveniences of civilized society.”
Two hundred years later, Rev. Samuel
Eusebius McCorkle is commemorated by
the grassy patch between Franklin Street
and Cameron Avenue that bears his name.
And much as McCorkle Place lies at the
heart of the University, encompassing be
loved UNC symbols such as the Old Well,
Davie Poplar and Silent Sam, McCorkle
played a central role in shaping UNC’s
curriculum until the end of the Civil War.
McCorkle graduated from Princeton
University and taught at Zion-Pamassus, a
preparatory school near Salisbury, before
becoming one ofUNC’s founding trustees.
“Rev. McCorkle and (William
Richardson) Davie together were the lead
ing proponents of the University,” said
James Leloudis, who teaches a course on
UNC history and American higher educa
tion. They were the forces behind the bill
for the nation’s first state University.
But disagreements between McCorkle
and Davie, now known as the father of the
University, quickly surfaced.
“Davie was a Free Mason, a man of the
Enlightenment,” Leloudis said. “He be
lieved strongly in the power of human
reason. McCorkle was a Presbyterian min
ister, the conservative opposition to the
Enlightenment. Davie’s curriculum broke
with the longstanding tradition of higher
education grounded in classics. It provided
for electives, and balanced history, mod
em languages, literature and science with
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The Davie Poplar and McCorkle Place honor two University founders.
the classics. Davie was engaged with issues
of the contemporary world, not just about
passing on the wisdom of the ancients.”
In fact, the University was radical in
offering two diplomas: Graduates could
choose to major in English instead of just
plain Latin, Leloudis said.
McCorkle was a moralist who did not
agree with Davie’s philosophy. “When
Davie’s curriculum went into effect,
(McCorkle) stormed off,” Leloudis said.
Davie’s experiment didn’t last for long.
In 1799, the first campus riot took place
when a popular student was expelled for
misconduct. Students resorted to pelting
their teachers with stones, Leloudis said.
McCorkle was quick to attack, charging
that the radical new curriculum was feed
ingrebellioustendencies. “Hisconcemwas
that the focus on the contemporary world
encouraged disrespect for established au
thority,” Leloudis said. “Unless the cur
riculum was abandoned, it would cause
the beginning of a reign of terror.”
The trustees heeded McCorkle’s advice.
They slashed electives from the curricu
lum, and students turned away from ques
tioning and enlarging their world to regur
gitating Greek classics.
After another student revolt in 1805,
many radical students quit the University.
But those that were left accepted the nar
row focus of the studies. In those days,
Leloudis said, a recitation meant reading
Cicero and literally reciting passages back
to the professor.
McCorkle’s moralist philosophy per
sisted through the Civil War, when stu
dents grew increasingly hostile to “free
thinking.” Members of the Dialectic and
tittKTElilftAL
Philanthropic Societies, for example, op
posedsciencecoursesbeingtaughtatUNC.
“Human imaginativeness and inventive
nessisokay,”Leloudissaid. “Butitcanget
out of control. The same powers of imagi
nativeness and inventiveness unleashed the
hellhounds of abolitionism.”
“Free thinking” didn’t return to the
University until after the Civil War.
“After the war, there was anew soci
ety,” Leloudis said. “The old education
couldn’t serve this kind of society.”
Modem education began with Kemp
Plummer Battle, University presidentfrom
1876 to 1891, who created anew curricu
lum in 1875. Teachers began lecturing to
their classes for the first time.
McCorkle probably wouldn’t recognize
the University’s diverse curriculum today.
But McCorkle Place has remained rela
tively unchanged for 200 years. It always
was set aside as a wooded, grassy park for
students to lounge around in.
“May this hill be for religion as the
ancient hill of Zion,” the pastor said on
Oct. 12,1793.
nrv
WEffiKVANE
Enjoy patio dining at
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LEGENDS
FROM PAGE 12
TarHeelstudentsproudly proclaim that
Sam has remained “silent” since the sol
dier was erected in 1913.
The United Daughters of the Confed
eracy donated money to have Canadian
sculptor John Wilson create Silent Sam, a
Confederate memorial honoring the war
dead.
Wilson never titled his statue “Silent
Sam,” and few seem to know where the
name came from.
Snider said he heard the legend of Silent
Sam and virgins when he attended the
University several decades ago but was
unsure how the myth started.
“I heard that in my day down there, and
that was just before World War n, ” Snider
said.
He also said the story of Silent Sam
probably was the most well-known of all
the campus legends at the University.
Shack of All Trades
Smith Hall, or Playmakers Theater as it
is now known, has served many purposes
for the University. It has been one of its
most versatile buildings, housing bathing
and toilet facilities before the time when
indoor plumbing was common and acting
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We congratulate UNC on
it’s 200th Anniversary!
Join us in our 2Sth Anniversary
by attending the Inaugural Stewart Lecture
sponsored by
Newnam Catholic Student Center, UNC-Chapel Hill
John Henry Newman: Theoritician
of the Modern University
The Reverend Dr. lan Ker
author of
“John Henry Newman:
A Biography”
Sunday, October 17,1993
3:00 PM
Hanes Art Center Auditorium
followed by reception and refreshments
free and open to For more information call
the public (919)929-3730
Tuesday, October 12,1993
as a ballroom, a li
brary, a law school
and a theater since
its construction in
1851.
But the building
is most famous for
acting as a stable for
Union horses dur
ing the Civil War.
On April 17,
1865, General
Atkins and 4,000
Michigan cavalry
rolled into Chapel
Hill after the Union
WIUJAMR. DAVIE
might not have been
involved in selecting a
site for UNC.
victory at Appomattox Court House eight
days earlier. Troops sent to secure the area
were quartered in University buildings,
and their mounts were put in Smith Hall.
The irony of the situation was not lost
on Gen. William T. Sherman, who found
it interesting that Union horses were housed
in same building with the majority of the
University’s books.
Sherman supposedly said his cavalry
officers’ mounts were “the best educated
horses in the Union army, as they spent all
their time, during their stay in Chapel Hill,
in the University library.”
The University’s reputation for higher
education lives on.
13