Mr. Clark replied, " I will soon have them 

 in, sir, if some one will open those doors.'' 

 The church doors being opened Brother 

 Clark cried out at the top of his voice, 

 " Thirty thousand dollars ! Twenty thous- 

 and dollars!" and instantly the good breth- 

 ren gathered in like a flock of sheep, and 

 gave their closest attention to the business in 

 hand. The establishment of a college hav- 

 ing been for some time in contemplation, 

 they were readily induced to appoint a com- 

 mittee to confer with a like committee from 

 the New England Conference. The first act 

 of the joint committee was to issue proposals 

 inviting the several towns within a specified 

 region to compete for the location of the col- 

 lege by the offer of subscriptions. Troy, N. 

 Y., Wilbraham, Mass., and Bridgeport, Conn., 

 made liberal proposals; but those from Mid- 

 dletown were now so modified as to leave no 

 room for hesitancy as to which should be 

 preferred. The trustees of the academy, with 

 the consent of the stockholders, offered the 

 entire property to the Conference in fee-sim- 

 ple, with the single condition that it should 

 be sustained as a college or university, be- 

 sides giving a local subscription of $18,000 

 if $40,000 additional endowment should be 

 obtained. In this way fifteen acres of land, 

 large, commodious and substantial buildings, 

 and the nucleus of a library were placed at 

 once in their hands. The report of the com- 

 mittee in favor of Middletown was adopted 

 at the next session of the Conference, and the 

 name of Wesleyan University agreed upon. 

 Other Conferences came immediately into 

 the measure, and active work was begun Au- 

 gust 24th, 1830, by the election of Rev. Wil- 

 bur Fisk, D. D., to the presidency. It was 

 thought by some that no American Methodist 

 was qualified to take charge of such an insti- 



