Talk:University of Rochester/Archives/2018

Early History

Greetings fellow Wikipedians! The Early History section is confusing. It begins with a reference to a Baptist church, but the connections between that church, the Baptist Education Society, the Hamilton society, Madison University and Colgate University are unclear. Various name changes make things even harder to follow. The reference to Columbian College, which later became George Washington University, just makes it worse and seems irrelevant to the U of R anyway.

So, after much head-scratching, I've rewritten this section in an effort to clarify and simplify it. You can read the re-written text in my sandbox (with citations) or as pasted below (without citations). If nobody objects within one week from today, I will put the new text into publication. Meliora!

The University of Rochester traces its origins to The First Baptist Church of Hamilton (New York), which was founded in 1796. The church established the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, later renamed the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, in 1817.[1] This institution gave birth to both Colgate University and The University of Rochester. Its function was to train clergy in the Baptist tradition. When it aspired to grant higher degrees, it created a collegiate division separate from the theological division.[2][3] The collegiate division was granted a charter by the State of New York in 1846, after which its name was changed to Madison University. [4] John Wilder and the Baptist Education Society urged that the new university be moved to Rochester, New York. However, legal action prevented the move. In response, dissenting faculty, students, and trustees defected and departed for Rochester, where they sought a new charter for a new university. Madison University was eventually renamed as Colgate University.[5]

BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 13:37, 4 October 2018 (UTC)