Upon the suggestion of Dr. Dwight, who visited Middlebury during his travels in New England, a college charter was obtained of the legislature, but all endowment by the State was refused. The institution was immediately organized with seven students, and held its first commencement in 1802. The first building, erected four years before, was of wood, but the college now occupies three substantial structures of limestone.
A military academy, under the superintendence of Captain Alden Partridge, was established in 1820 at Norwich. Some years later this was incorporated as Norwich University. It was removed to Northfield in 1866. Its distinctive feature is the course of instruction in military science and civil engineering. It contributed 273 commissioned officers to the Mexican and Civil wars,[102] and many, especially in the latter war, served their country with distinction.
The first course of medical lectures in Vermont was given in Castleton, by Doctors Gridley, Woodward, and Cazier in 1818, and laid the foundation of a medical academy at that place, which in 1841 was incorporated as Castleton Medical College. This, and another medical college established at Woodstock some years previously, no longer exist.
The State now gives thirty scholarships to each of her three colleges, which pays the tuition and room-rent of a student. These appointments are made by the state senators, or by the trustees of the colleges. Though there is much interest in all these higher institutions of learning, as well as in the normal schools and academies, many of which are prosperous and important, yet the common schools more particularly engage the attention of the people and of the successive legislatures, resulting in a complication of school laws scarcely balanced by the improvement in the school system.
The early inhabitants of Vermont, though, for the most part, they were rough backwoodsmen, were imbued with a strong desire for useful and instructive reading, and this led to the formation of circulating libraries in several towns, almost as soon as the settlers had fairly established themselves in their new homes. This was notably the case in Montpelier, where a library was begun in 1794, only seven years after the first pioneer's axe broke the shade and solitude of the wilderness. Its two hundred volumes were well chosen, being histories, biographies, and books of travel and adventure, while all works of fiction and of a religious nature were excluded, the one class being deemed of an immoral tendency, the other apt to breed dissension in the sparse and interdependent community.[103] In many other towns similar libraries were formed; though perhaps not with like restrictions, yet, as far as one may judge now by the scattered volumes, they were of excellent character. A rough corner cupboard in the log-house kitchen, or a closet of the "square room," held the treasured volumes of gray paper in unadorned but substantial leather binding. What a treasure they were to those isolated settlers, to whom rarely came even a newspaper, can scarcely be imagined by us who are overwhelmed with the outflow of the modern press.
It is a pathetic picture to look back upon, of the household reading of the one volume by the glare of the open fire, spendthrift of warmth and light, eldest and youngest member of the family listening eagerly to the slow, high-keyed words of the reader, while between the pauses was heard the long howl of the wolf, or the pitiless roar of the winter wind. Yet it is questionable if they were not richer with their enforced choice of a few good books than we with our embarrassment of riches and its bewildering encumberment of dross. In 1796 an act was passed incorporating the Bradford Social Library Society,[104] the first corporate body of the kind of which there is any record. Similar associations in Fairhaven and Rockingham were incorporated soon after.
In recent years several large public libraries have been instituted, such as the libraries of St. Johnsbury, St. Albans, Rutland, and Brattleboro, the Norman Williams Library at Woodstock, the Fletcher Free Library at Burlington, and others, founded by wealthy and public-spirited Vermonters. The library of the Vermont University comprises forty thousand volumes, including the valuable gift of George P. Marsh. This now occupies one of the finest edifices of the kind in New England, the Billings Library Building. Such a wealth of literature as is now accessible to their descendants could hardly have been dreamed of by the old pioneers, even while they laid its foundation.
The first printing-office in Vermont was established at Westminster in 1778 by Judah Paddock Spooner and Timothy Green,[105] the first of whom and Alden Spooner were appointed state printers. The enactments of the two preceding legislatures had been published only in manuscript, a method of promulgation which one would think might have curbed verbosity. Judah Spooner and his first partner began the publication of the pioneer newspaper of the State, the "Vermont Gazette, or Green Mountain Post Boy," at Westminster in February, 1781. It was printed on a sheet of pot size, issued every Monday. Its motto, characteristic of its birthplace, was:—
"Pliant as Reeds where Streams of Freedom glide,
Firm as the Hills to stem Oppression's tide."
Its publication was continued but two years. "The Vermont Gazette or Freeman's Depository," the second newspaper of the State, was published at Bennington in 1783, and continued for more than half a century. About this time George Hough removed the Spooner press to Windsor, and in company with Alden Spooner began the publication of a weekly newspaper entitled "The Vermont Journal and Universal Advertiser," which was continued until about 1834. The fourth paper, "The Rutland Herald or Courier," was established in 1792 by Anthony Haswell, and is still continued in weekly and daily issues, being the oldest paper in the State. William Lloyd Garrison edited "The Spirit of the Times," at Bennington, not long before he became the foremost standard-bearer of the anti-slavery cause, with which his name was so intimately associated. In 1839 "The Voice of Freedom" was begun at Montpelier, as the organ of the anti-slavery society of the State, and was afterward merged in "The Green Mountain Freeman," published in the interest of the political Abolitionists or Liberty Party. The publication of "The Vermont Precursor," the first paper established at Montpelier, was begun in 1806, and soon after changed its name to "The Vermont Watchman." For more than fifty years this paper was conducted by the Waltons, father and sons, and is still continued. In 1817 they began the publication of "Walton's Vermont Register," which is issued annually, bearing the name of its founder, and is a recognized necessity in every household and office in the State. Eliakim P. Walton, one of the sons, also rendered his State most valuable service in editing the records of the governor and council.