The Milner's tale

After AMC President Thomas Harrington was forced out in the wake of a Corps strike, Robert Teague Milner took over. Milner had been a member of the legislature and the first Commisioner of Agriculture in Texas. In the legislature, Milner wrote the law that requires students to learn Texas history. As President, Milner divided Engineering and Agriculture into separate schools within the College. Milner was an example for today's A&M, keeping costs down while expanding enrollment by housing the students in a tents.

In 1913, the faculty expelled 27 members of the Corps for hazing. In response, the Corps showed their reverence for the chain of command by deciding to stop going to class. 466 were dismissed for insubordination. The legislature, parents, and governor got involved. After a Board meeting in August, Milner resigned effective Oct. 1, 1913. Adams writes:

Milner's enthusiasm for growth did not take into account the need for additional staff support, recruitment of new faculty, extracurricular events, and what the cadets termed "amusements," such as a gymnasium

Vision 1920 cautions our leaders to learn from Milner. Never scrimp on the amusements!

Reverence for the Chain of Command

Last week Bud Rudder reminded us:

One of the unique qualities of Texas A&M is a reverence for chain of command.

This goes back through more than a 100 years of A&M history. Keepers of the Spirit gives an example from 1908:

Repeated efforts by the cadets to have their concerns heard at a higher level by either the president or the board were rejected. During a hastily called meeting, the A&M Board of Directors exonerated Harrington of all charges on February 11...

...the junior class of '09 met late into the evening of February 18 and voted to leave the campus en masse. By morning a majority of the seniors, sophomores, and freshmen agreed also to strike.

Dethlof writes that the reasons for the strike are unclear. According to Adams, one grievance was that Pres. Harrington refused to let the Livestock Judging Team to attend a circus in Bryan to view species not available on campus.

As the students went on strike, the parents and former students called for them to get a fair hearing of their grievances. Pres. Harrington was burned in effigy by the Corps.

Unwilling to budge and having lost the confidence of the cadets and the faculty, Harrington resigned at the August, 1908 board meeting to be effective September 1

Founding fathers

Sul Ross is so important to Aggie history that it's easy to forget that he was not our first President. The Class of 1951 tells what happened to Gen. Ross' predecessors

President Gathright was also taking a light view - of military aspects of the College. He rowed with his commandant. Most members of the faculty had been "top hands" in other institutions and, consequently, there were as many bosses as teachers. Gathright rowed with one of the bosses in particular, and students took sides. Meanwhile, farmers throughout the State were complaining that the school was ignoring its fundamental purpose of teaching agriculture. The Board of Directors met in Bryan and sent word to the faculty to meet with them there. L.L. McInnis, professor of Mathematics, didn't get the word on time. Hedrove by the house of Bernard Sbisa, supervisor of subsistence."Report to the Exchange Hotel in Bryan, Mac," Sbisa called out, "The 'Board' is going to fire you all." "I can't be bothered," McInnis called back. "I'm going fishing." Go fishing, he did , and the Board forgot to fire him though they dismissed Gathright and all other instructors.

Historian John A. Adams' Keepers of the Spirit says that the Governor personally intervened and called for the mass dismissal on Nov. 22, 1879. Gathright died within a year of being fired at AMC. These days, Gathright is the namesake of the Gathright award for outstanding students. Getting back to the Class of '51 version:

After the wholesale expulsion of the first A&M faculty, James [actually John - ed.] Garland James was elected second president of the College and served from 1879 to 1882. His administration was marked by a complete reorganization of curricula. The State Grange, at the time a powerful farmers' organization, led the fight against the previous curricula. The fact that still no professor of Agriculture had been added to the teaching staff, no doubt, helped provoke this censure. As a former superintendent of the Texas Military Institute at Austin, James is credited with establishing military tradition at Texas A&M. But throughout his administration, despite the actions to reorganize the existing curricula, James did not escape the ire of the farmers. In 1883, he gave up what seemed like a hopeless struggle. The Board dismissed him with most of his faculty, and despairing of finding anew president, named Professor H. H. Dinwiddie chairman of the faculty to act in lieu of their selection.

These actions of the early Boards were inspiring examples of Shared Governance, especially since Highway 6 didn't even exist yet.