Lehigh Week : Looking back.

              Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
June 1991
f 125 years later, i
Lehigh is not the 'risk' it seemed in 1865
The elaborate Victorian script only covers
one and one- half pages in the large,
leather-trimmed notebook.
Most of the actions recorded were
fairly mundane: listing those present,
electing officers, adopting a corporate
name, instructing the "secretary,... to
procure such books for the recording of
the minutes of the Board etc., as may be
deemed necessary."
Bishop William Bacon Stevens, president of
Lehigh's first Board of Trustees
There was no hint in the minutes that
the three prosperous gentleman, Bishop
William Bacon Stevens, Robert H. Sayre
and Robert A. Packer, who met in the Sun
Inn on the afternoon of July 27, 1865,
were actually launching a somewhat risky
venture into relatively uncharted educational waters—Lehigh University.
The prime mover of the enterprise, Asa
Packer, was a thousand miles away, on a
combined business and pleasure trip, but
he had selected the men who were at the
meeting and discussed his plans with them
prior to his departure.
In an 1887 interview, Stevens said that
he, Packer and Sayre had planned "the
whole of the great institution from the
walks in the campus to the statutes in its
charter" during several meetings in the
spring of 1865.
Packer first told the bishop of his
interest in donating $500,000 to found a
university, "for the intellectual and moral
improvement of the young men" in the
Lehigh Valley, in the fall of 1864.
Stevens was amazed by the size of the
bequest—one of the largest in its day—
and by its boldness.
Asa Packer, however, made his fortune
by astonishing people — first in canal
boats, merchandising and coal — then by
risking his wealth to build the Lehigh
Valley Railroad.
To run these enterprises, he needed
skilled men with technical backgrounds.
So far, he had been lucky enough to find
men who learned their skills through
practical apprenticeships.
However, American industrial technology, driven by the needs of the Civil War,
was becoming rapidly more complex, and
the traditional methods of learning
industrial and engineering skills were
becoming outmoded.
Packer recognized that he would need
subordinates who had formal training in
the sciences and engineering coupled with
a general education to function effectively
in this new industrial environment, and
that was the kind of university he pro
posed to Stevens.
At that time, few American universities
offered training in the sciences or engineering, though several others would open
by 1870. The typical university offered
training in the classics, mathematics, and
other subjects like English, history or
economics that could be broadly defined
as "moral philosophy."
Most engineers who had a theoretical
as well as practical education came from
West Point. Only Union College, in
Schenectady, New York, was known for
1758
iUNINN
At the turn-of-the century, the Sun Inn looked more like a 19th-century rather than an
18th-century structure.
combining a classical education with
science and engineering.
The minutes describe the organization
of the new university as "a college proper
as usually organized, together with a
scientific school embracing the whole
class of physical sciences taught in the
best institutions of the kind," clearly
identifying its purpose.
The fact that Asa Packer turned over
the planning of a major enterprise to
others, might seem unusual, but that was
the way he conducted most of his businesses.
Sayre served as Packer's principal
agent in the building of the railroad. The
trustees appointed another of Packer's
closest colleagues, E.P. Wilbur, the
railroad's chief financial officer and
Packer's former private secretary,
treasurer of the new university at the first
board meeting.
The task of creating the "college
building" and "professors' houses" was
given to Sayre and Robert Packer, who
were appointed to the building committee.
The trustees voted to locate the structures
in "Bethlehem South," to advertise for an
architect, and to construct the building "of
stone such as the Church of the Nativity."
Some people might have expected
Packer to put the new university in Mauch
Chunk, where he lived. But the Lehigh
Valley Railroad had its headquarters in
"Bethlehem South," and Sayre and Wilbur
lived in the community, which was
growing rapidly because of the railroad,
the Lehigh Zinc Company, and the
Bethlehem Iron Company.
The growing industries, railroad
connections, and the presence of Sayre
and Wilbur made the community, which
was incorporated in August "Of 1865 as the
Borough of South Bethlehem, a logical
choice for the new university.
With their business completed, Sayre
wrote in his diary that he "spent the eve
with the Bishop." What he didn't note
was that something new was created under
the Sun that day.