1890s Overview
In the 1880s, English became a department. And, for the first time, the faculty roster listed Professors of English. In the 1890s, however, when the university was expanding to include graduate and professional schools, the English department seems to have become something of an afterthought.
In 1892, the Western Pennsylvania Medical College became affiliated with the university, and the medical faculty began to dominate the faculty roster. In 1895, the year of the Law School’s founding, the law faculty likewise added their share. The university first admitted women in 1895. (They were two sisters, Margaret and Stella Stein. Margaret won the Chancellor’s Literature Prize in 1896.)
During this period of quite dramatic growth and change in the university, the English department suffered from a lack of consistent staffing. There was no Professor of English from 1890 to 1896, when A.S. Hunter was appointed as Professor of English and Ethics. J.P. Stephens, who had been the Instructor in Elocution, left the university in 1892 to teach in the local seminaries. George M. Sleeth returned for a year to teach elocution. Edmund J. Shaw served for three years as an Associate Professor of Latin and English Literature (1890-93). In 1893, E.P. Crane returned for a single year, this time as an Instructor in English Literature. There was no one, not even an Instructor of English, on the faculty roster from 1894 to 1896.
The curriculum in English remained relatively unchanged, with the exception of the first year, when American literature became the topic for the required literature courses. Throughout the 1890s, the catalogues expressed the multiple commitments of a curriculum in English—to teach rhetoric and writing and an appreciation of literature. In literature, the aim was to “cultivate in the student a taste for the perusal of standard authors, and to teach him to read them intelligently.” In rhetoric courses, the aim was to study “principles of invention, style, and criticism,” as well as “laws of effective discourse.”
Students began their coursework by studying both rhetoric and 19th century American authors. As upperclassmen, work turned first to English authors and “English poetical literature,” then to the history of the English language; in their final year, students worked on the history of the English language and 17th and 18th century essayists. Reading lists mention Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whittier, Bryant, Irving, Goldsmith, Scott, Tennyson, Macauley, Lounsbury’s History of the English Language, Bain’s English Composition and Rhetoric, Garnett’s English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria, Minto’s Manual of English Prose Literature, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Gray, Burns, Wordsworth, Mathew Arnold, Browning, Keats, and Coleridge. The university continued to support the Chancellor’s prize in literature. Prizes were awarded throughout this time period to the senior with the best declamation of an original essay.
Courses
The English curriculum in the 1890s was an extension of the curriculum developed in the 1880s. The courses available to Freshmen now included American literature. The offerings for the first year included Rhetoric, with Hill’s Elements of Rhetoric; Essays; Critical Study of the Masterpieces of Modern Authors; Rhetoric, Essays and Orations; American Literature to the Nineteenth Century (Critical Study of Longfellow and Whittier); and American Literature During the Nineteenth Century (Critical Study of Bryant, Irving, and Hawthorne).
Sophomore-level courses included Essays; Debates and Orations; Study of the Masterpieces of Modern Authors, with Critical Essays on the Same; Critical Study of Goldsmith and Scott; Critical Study of Tennyson and Macauley; and History of the English Language.
Courses for Juniors included Rhetoric, with Hill’s Elements of Rhetoric; Morley and Tyler’s or Shaw’s English Literature; Critical Study of Masterpieces; Bain’s English Composition and Rhetoric; Garnett’s English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria; History of English Literature- Critical Studies in Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare; History of English Literature (Critical Studies in Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden); Genung’s Practical Rhetoric; Genung’s Rhetorical Analysis; and Practical Studies in English Prose Writer.
Classes for Seniors included Critical Study of Early and Classical English; Critical Study in Pope, Gray, Burns, and Wordsworth; Critical Studies in Byron, Shelby, Coleridge, and Keats; and Studies and Readings in Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and Robert Browning.
Faculty
Alexander Stuart Hunter, Ph.D., joined the faculty in 1896 as Professor of English Literature and Ethics. In 1897, his title was changed to Professor of English Literature and Ethics and Lecturer in International Law. Hunter was a graduate of Washington and Jefferson (1880). He had a long and influential career in English at the Western University of Pennsylvania, spanning the time, in fact, when it was renamed as the University of Pittsburgh (1908). From 1909 until his retirement in 1918, he is listed on the faculty roster as a Special Lecturer in English Literature. Later in his career, he was primarily teaching courses in English and American literature. He is the author of two novels, The Girl from Kankakee (NY. W. Neale, 1926) and Different: A Story of College Life and Love (Toronto: Gorham Press, 1917), and a textbook, Ethics, Theoretical and Practical (Allegheny, PA: J. C. Park, 1900).
Edmund J. Shaw, A.B., was appointed Associate Professor of English Literature and Latin in 1890. He left the university in 1893.
Rev. S.B. McCormick served for one academic year, 1893/94, as Acting Professor of Literature and Rhetoric.
Rev. E.P. Crane returned for three terms in 1893 as an Instructor in English Literature.
George M. Sleeth was an Instructor in Elocution from 1884-1888, and then he appears again on the faculty roster in 1892. His primary appointment was at the Western Theological Seminary. He lectured regularly on campus; as late as 1912 he is listed as providing a lecture on “The Moral Aspects of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.” He is often given notice in the Courant, including this notice of a lecture in 1917:
Professor George M. Sleeth, instructor in oratory and public speaking at the Western Theological Seminary, addressed the student body in chapel on Friday, October 18th. Professor Sleeth spoke on his favorite subject, “Elocution.” His main thought was that the aim of speaking is to influence some other being and this is done by appealing to the feelings. “Cultivate the heart, for out of the heart are the issues of life,” was his cry. Professor Sleeth is a unique speaker in many ways and his talk was thoroughly enjoyed by all the students.
Students
1896 - First WUP class to include women, Margaret and Stella Stein
Louis J. Affleder (Chancellor’s Prize, English Literature) had a long career as an engineer. He was also a founding member of the National Federation of Settlements, part of the late 19th century settlement house movement designed to address the conditions of the urban poor.
Theodor Ahlers (Chancellor’s Prize, English Literature) joined in the family business, the Ahlers Lumber Company.
Edmund Watt Arthur (Chancellor’s Prize, English Literature) was an eminent Pittsburgh attorney, as well as an avid naturalist, geologist, and essayist. Lake Arthur (in Pennsylvania) is named in his honor.
Edgar Dawson Bell (Chancellor’s Prize, English Literature) was a property lawyer with Gordon & Smith. He also served as chairman of the board of Woods Run Settlement House and vice president of the Baptist Orphanage and Home Society of Western Pennsylvania.
Alexander Black (Special Literature Prize) attended the Pittsburgh Law School, where he taught for some time after his graduation, before moving on to the law firm of Gordon & Smith.
Ernest Gallagher Forrester (Senior Oratorical Prize) graduated from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and served as a Presbyterian minister in Ohio.
Joseph F. Griggs (Chancellor’s Prize, English Literature) became a physician whose career included the charge of a Presbyterian hospital in Peking.
William A. Johnston left a legacy in the university’s student culture that persists to this day. One of the early editors of the Courant, he was both valedictorian and class poet; he was also on the committee that selected blue and gold as the university’s colors and penned “Alle-genee-genac-genac,” a cheer still heard at Panthers football games. After graduation, he was a feature writer for several newspapers and an editor on the staff of both the New York Herald and the New York World. He published magazine articles throughout this career and a novel, Limpy, the Boy Who Felt Neglected (with illustrations by Arthur W. Brown) in 1916. It was made into an MGM movie, When a Feller Needs a Friend,” starring Jackie Cooper and Charles “Chic” Sale. Until his death in 1929, Johnston annually awarded a prize for the best short story written by a University of Pittsburgh undergraduate.
John Duff Houston (Chancellor’s Prize, English Literature) became president of James W. Houston Wholesale Grocers, his father’s company.
John E. McKirdy, literary editor of the Courant from 1891-92, later served as chief clerk of the state senate.
Park Hays Miller (Senior Oratorical Prize) served as a Presbyterian minister at the Church of the Evangel in Philadelphia. He also wrote a number of books, among them Heroes of the Church and Our Reasonable Faith.
William Gardner Shrom (Senior Oratorical Prize) worked for Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co. as an engineer.
Burt Smyers
Burt Smyers (Chancellor’s Prize, English Literature) organized the University of Pittsburgh’s first football team. He arrived on campus in the Fall of 1889 and with a senior, John Scott, assembled a team that played one game, a loss to Shadyside Academy. The following Fall, the team—and the sport—was formally recognized by the university. Smyers was the quarterback.
In recalling his career, Smyers said, "I played four years, as did most of the boys... And the last two years nearly all of us wore beards or moustaches. Football didn't bring in any revenue then. When we started the game we started very modestly. The boys had to supply their own equipment. I had no money to spend recklessly so I wrote home to mother and told her I needed a pair of football pants and she made them by cutting off the legs of an old gray pair and putting rubber elastic around the knees. The stockings were contributed by my sister.”
After graduation, Smyers had a long career as a lawyer in Pittsburgh. He remained an active supporter of Pitt football.
Margaret Lydia Stein (Chancellor’s Prize, English Literature) was, with her sister Stella, one of the first two women to enroll in the Western University of Pennsylvania. Both sisters returned for their master’s degrees; Margaret went on to serve as principal at Avalon High School until her marriage.
Prizes
The Chancellor’s Prizes in English Literature
In 1883, the Chancellor established two annual prizes in English literature, one of $20 and one of $15. These were awarded at the end of the sophomore year to students of “first and second rank,” based on their work in literature over the first two years of study. The students were selected by a committee consisting of “the Professor of English, the Chancellor, and a third party whom these two may select.” In the 1890s, the winners of the Chancellor’s Prize, English Literature were:
1890 Henry Maximilian Ferren, Joseph F. Griggs, Jr.
1891 William Charles Gill, Bert Hunter Smyers
1892 Louis J. Affelder, Alfred Fred Hamilton
1893 Edmund Watt Arthur, Theodore Ahlers
1894 Daniel McBride Franklin, Carlisle Hodkinson
1895 Frederic Walter Miller, Andrew Watson Forsythe
1896 Henry Hazlett Forsyth, John Duff Houston, Margaret Lydia Stein
1897 David Skirboll, Hugh Logan Porter
1898 Anna Mary McKirdy, Samuel Agnew Schreiner
1899 Edgar Dawson Bell, Alvah Hovey Adams
Senior Oratorical Prize (established 1895)
1895 Ernest Gallagher Forrester
1896 Frank Edward Diem
1897 William Gardner Shrom
1898 William Elmer Copeland
1899 Park Hays Miller
Special Literature Prize (offered to two students with the highest grades in the sophomore year)
1899 Alexander Black, Albert Walter Renton
Student Writing
Students regularly published essays and stories (and occasionally publishing poems) in the Pennsylvania Western and in the University Courant. Most likely these compositions were prepared as part of course work. If not, they remain products of an education in the literary and rhetorical arts at the Western University of Pennyslvania. Below are some examples published in the Courant:
“Criticism,” by Harry M. Ferren (Vol.4 n.1, 1890)
“Cudjoe,” by “Wamba" (Vol.4 n.3, 1890)
“Psyche,” “A Trippin’ Through the Clover,” and “Another Year”: Poems (Vol.4 n.1, 1890)
“A Public Debt,” A. Watson Forsythe (Vol.1 n.4, 1895)
“An Ancient Inscription,” F.W. Miller (Vol 10, n.9, 1895)
“The Fenton Mystery,” author unknown (Vol 10, n.8, 1895)
“A Terrible Mistake,” H ’97 (Vol 11, n.3, 1895)
“Grains from my Hour Glass,” G. Howard Lyle (Vol 14, n 1, 1899)
Footnotes
For the first half of the decade, the university sponsored “Lecturers Extraordinary,” eminent speakers recruited to give a general lecture to faculty and students, open also to the public. The list of lectures for 1891 included:
Rev. John R. Sutherland, “Wordsworth”
Professor M.B. Riddle (of the Western Theological Seminary), “The Study of Language and the Study of Languages”
Mr. A. Carnegie, “The Secret of Business Success”
In later years, topics included “The Life and Poetry of Robert Burns” (Professor Robert Christie), “Hamlet” (the Rev. D. Dorchester), “Polonius Revised” (the Rev. N. Luccock), and “How to Choose a Wife” (Mrs. W.H. Herron).
The image on the Overview page is taken from Robert C. Alpers, Pitt: The Story of the University of Pittsburgh, 1787-1987.