Harry Thurston Peck
Harry Thurston Peck was an American classical scholar, author and critic. Peck was born in Connecticut, he was educated in private schools and at Columbia College, graduating in 1881, where his literary gifts attracted wide attention. His address at the conclusion of that year's commencement exercises was "witty, of clever allusions" according to the New York Times. "Bouquets fell at his feet by the score as he bowed his way off the stage." Upon graduation he joined the faculty as a Latin tutor, becoming a professor in 1888. In 1904, at the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Columbia's founding, he was among several distinguished faculty members appointed to newly created chairs: he became Anthon Professor of Latin Language and Literature. In addition to a distinguished academic publishing career, he wrote travel guides and produced translations and works for children under a number of pseudonyms. Peck was a forceful contributor to magazines and newspapers, he was editor in chief of Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities and editor of the Students' Series of Latin Classics and Columbia University Studies in Classical Philology.
He served as the first editor in chief of The Bookman magazine, worked on its staff from 1895 to 1906, and, in 1895, created America's first bestseller list for its pages. Peck was editor in chief of the International Cyclopaedia from 1890 to 1901 and co-editor of the first edition of its successor, the New International Encyclopedia. In 1910, various newspapers reported that Peck was being sued by a former secretary for breach of promise—specifically, promise of marriage; the stories included alleged excerpts from his love letters to her. The romance had purportedly occurred around the time Peck divorced his first wife and married his second; the lawsuit was dismissed and the facts of the dispute were never established definitively. Nonetheless, the implication that Peck might have been involved with three women at once made for a titillating controversy. Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia, was a longtime friend and former schoolmate of Peck's. However, he promptly terminated the scholar's relationship with Columbia based on the press reports.
Peck fought his dismissal without success. Various Columbia scholars tried to support Peck's right to more considerate treatment or due process. Among them was Joel Spingarn, who soon found himself dismissed as well. Peck lived out his remaining years cut off from his former colleagues relying on income from occasional writing assignments. Depressed and unable to find work, he was sighted one day near the end of his life on the streets of Manhattan "walking in a dazed sort of way.... Dressed, as was his custom, in a frock coat and silk hat, but both were shabby, he passed, looking neither left. He was buried in Christ Church Cemetery in Greenwich, CT; the Semitic Theory of Creation Latin Pronunciation: A Short Exposition of the Roman Method Suetonius Roman Life in Latin Prose and Verse: Illustrative Readings from Latin Literature International Library of Masterpieces, Literature and Rare Manuscripts A History of Classical Philology from the Seventh Century BC to the Twentieth Century AD Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities The International Cyclopedia The Adventures of Mabel Hilda and the Wishes The Personal Equation What is Good English? and Other Essays The New Baedeker: Being Casual Notes of an Irresponsible Traveler William Hickling Prescott Twenty Years of the Republic, 1885–1905 Studies in Several Literatures Greystone and Porphyry Trimalchio's Dinner Harry Thurston Peck at the Database of Classical Scholars Works by Harry Thurston Peck at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Harry Thurston Peck at Internet Archive Works by Harry Thurston Peck at LibriVox
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the Greek and Anatolian peninsulas i.e. between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosphorus; the Aegean Islands are within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The sea was traditionally known as the Archipelago, but in English the meaning of Archipelago has changed to refer to the Aegean Islands and to any island group. In ancient times, there were various explanations for the name Aegean, it was said to have been named after the Greek town of Aegae. A possible etymology is a derivation from the Greek word αἶγες – aiges = "waves", hence "wavy sea", cf. αἰγιαλός, hence meaning "sea-shore". The Venetians, who ruled many Greek islands in the High and Late Middle Ages, popularized the name Archipelago, a name that held on in many European countries until the early modern period.
In some South Slavic languages the Aegean is called White Sea. The Aegean Sea covers about 214,000 square kilometres in area, measures about 610 kilometres longitudinally and 300 kilometres latitudinally; the sea's maximum depth is 3,543 metres, east of Crete. The Aegean Islands are found within its waters, with the following islands delimiting the sea on the south: Kythera, Crete, Kasos and Rhodes; the Aegean Islands, which all belong to Greece, can be divided into seven groups: Northeastern Aegean Islands East Aegean Islands Northern Sporades Cyclades Saronic Islands Dodecanese CreteThe word archipelago was applied to the Aegean Sea and its islands. Many of the Aegean Islands, or chains of islands, are extensions of the mountains on the mainland. One chain extends across the sea to Chios, another extends across Euboea to Samos, a third extends across the Peloponnese and Crete to Rhodes, dividing the Aegean from the Mediterranean; the bays and gulfs of the Aegean beginning at the South and moving clockwise include on Crete, the Mirabello, Almyros and Chania bays or gulfs, on the mainland the Myrtoan Sea to the west with the Argolic Gulf, the Saronic Gulf northwestward, the Petalies Gulf which connects with the South Euboic Sea, the Pagasetic Gulf which connects with the North Euboic Sea, the Thermian Gulf northwestward, the Chalkidiki Peninsula including the Cassandra and the Singitic Gulfs, northward the Strymonian Gulf and the Gulf of Kavala and the rest are in Turkey.
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Aegean Sea as follows: On the South. A line running from Cape Aspro in Asia Minor, to Cum Burnù the Northeast extreme of the Island of Rhodes, through the island to Cape Prasonisi, the Southwest point thereof, on to Vrontos Point in Skarpanto, through this island to Castello Point, the South extreme thereof, across to Cape Plaka, through Crete to Agria Grabusa, the Northwest extreme thereof, thence to Cape Apolitares in Antikithera Island, through the island to Psira Rock and across to Cape Trakhili in Kithera Island, through Kithera to the Northwest point and thence to Cape Santa Maria in the Morea. In the Dardanelles. A line joining Kum Kale and Cape Helles. Aegean surface water circulates in a counterclockwise gyre, with hypersaline Mediterranean water moving northward along the west coast of Turkey, before being displaced by less dense Black Sea outflow; the dense Mediterranean water sinks below the Black Sea inflow to a depth of 23–30 metres flows through the Dardanelles Strait and into the Sea of Marmara at velocities of 5–15 cm/s.
The Black Sea outflow moves westward along the northern Aegean Sea flows southwards along the east coast of Greece. The physical oceanography of the Aegean Sea is controlled by the regional climate, the fresh water discharge from major rivers draining southeastern Europe, the seasonal variations in the Black Sea surface water outflow through the Dardanelles Strait. Analysis of the Aegean during 1991 and 1992 revealed three distinct water masses: Aegean Sea Surface Water – 40–50 metres thick veneer, with summer temperatures of 21–26 °C and winter temperatures ranging from 10 °C in the north to 16 °C in the south. Aegean Sea Intermediate Water – Aegean Sea Intermediate Water extends from 40–50 m to 200–300 metres with temperatures ranging from 11–18 °C. Aegean Sea Bottom Water – occurring at depths below 500–1000 m with a uniform temperature and salinity; the current coastline dates back to about 4000 BC. Before that time, at the peak of the last ice age sea levels everywhere were 130 metres lower, there were large well-watered
Alexios I Komnenos
Alexios I Komnenos, Latinized Alexius I Comnenus, was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. Although he was not the founder of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during his reign that the Komnenos family came to full power. Inheriting a collapsing empire and faced with constant warfare during his reign against both the Seljuq Turks in Asia Minor and the Normans in the western Balkans, Alexios was able to curb the Byzantine decline and begin the military and territorial recovery known as the Komnenian restoration; the basis for this recovery were various reforms initiated by Alexios. His appeals to Western Europe for help against the Turks were the catalyst that contributed to the convoking of the Crusades. Alexios was the son of the Domestic of the Schools John Komnenos and Anna Dalassene, the nephew of Isaac I Komnenos. Alexios' father declined the throne on the abdication of Isaac, thus succeeded by four emperors of other families between 1059 and 1081. Under one of these emperors, Romanos IV Diogenes, Alexios served with distinction against the Seljuq Turks.
Under Michael VII Doukas Parapinakes and Nikephoros III Botaneiates, he was employed, along with his elder brother Isaac, against rebels in Asia Minor, in Epirus. In 1074, western mercenaries led by Roussel de Bailleul rebelled in Asia Minor, but Alexios subdued them by 1076. In 1078, he was appointed commander of the field army in the West by Nikephoros III. In this capacity, Alexios defeated the rebellions of Nikephoros Bryennios the Elder and Nikephoros Basilakes, the first at the Battle of Kalavrye and the latter in a surprise night attack on his camp. Alexios was ordered to march against his brother-in-law Nikephoros Melissenos in Asia Minor but refused to fight his kinsman; this did not, lead to a demotion, as Alexios was needed to counter the expected invasion of the Normans of Southern Italy, led by Robert Guiscard. While Byzantine troops were assembling for the expedition, the Doukas faction at court approached Alexios and convinced him to join a conspiracy against Nikephoros III; the mother of Alexios, Anna Dalassene, was to play a prominent role in this coup d'état of 1081, along with the current empress, Maria of Alania.
First married to Michael VII Doukas and secondly to Nikephoros III Botaneiates, she was preoccupied with the future of her son by Michael VII, Constantine Doukas. Nikephoros III intended to leave the throne to one of his close relatives, this resulted in Maria's ambivalence and alliance with the Komnenoi, though the real driving force behind this political alliance was Anna Dalassene; the empress was closely connected to the Komnenoi through Maria's cousin Irene's marriage to Isaac Komnenos, so the Komnenoi brothers were able to see her under the pretense of a friendly family visit. Furthermore, to aid the conspiracy Maria had adopted Alexios as her son, though she was only five years older than he. Maria was persuaded to do so on the advice of her own "Alans" and her eunuchs, instigated by Isaac Komnenos. Given Anna's tight hold on her family, Alexios must have been adopted with her implicit approval; as a result and Constantine, Maria's son, were now adoptive brothers, both Isaac and Alexios took an oath that they would safeguard his rights as emperor.
By secretly giving inside information to the Komnenoi, Maria was an invaluable ally. As stated in the Alexiad and Alexios left Constantinople in mid-February 1081 to raise an army against Botaneiates. However, when the time came and surreptitiously mobilized the remainder of the family and took refuge in the Hagia Sophia. From there she negotiated with the emperor for the safety of family members left in the capital, while protesting her sons' innocence of hostile actions. Under the falsehood of making a vesperal visit to worship at the church, she deliberately excluded the grandson of Botaneiates and his loyal tutor, met with Alexios and Isaac, fled for the forum of Constantine; the tutor discovered they were missing and found them on the palace grounds, but Anna was able to convince him that they would return to the palace shortly. To gain entrance to both the outer and inner sanctuary of the church, the women pretended to the gatekeepers that they were pilgrims from Cappadocia who had spent all their funds and wanted to worship before starting their return trip.
However, before they were to gain entry into the sanctuary and royal guards caught up with them to summon them back to the palace. Anna protested that the family was in fear for their lives, her sons were loyal subjects, had learned of a plot by enemies of the Komnenoi to have them both blinded and had, fled the capital so they may continue to be of loyal service to the emperor, she refused to go with them and demanded that they allow her to pray to the Mother of God for protection. This request was granted and Anna manifested her true theatrical and manipulative capabilities: She was allowed to enter; as if she were weighed down with old age and worn out by grief, she walked and when she approached the actual entrance to the sanctuary made two genuflections. Nikephoros III Botaneiates was forced into a public vow that he would grant protection to the family. Straboromanos tried to give Anna his cross, but for her it was not sufficiently
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian, born in Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire. He is known for having written the book The Histories, a detailed record of his "inquiry" on the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars, he is considered to have been the first writer to have treated historical subjects using a method of systematic investigation—specifically, by collecting his materials and critically arranging them into an historiographic narrative. On account of this, he is referred to as "The Father of History", a title first conferred on him by the first-century BC Roman orator Cicero. Despite Herodotus's historical significance, little is known about his personal life, his Histories deals with the lives of Croesus, Cambyses, Smerdis and Xerxes and the battles of Marathon, Artemisium, Salamis and Mycale. Herodotus has been criticized for the fact that his book includes a large number of obvious legends and fanciful accounts. Many authors, starting with the late fifth-century BC historian Thucydides, have accused him of making up stories for entertainment.
Herodotus, states that he is reporting what he has been told. A sizable portion of the information he provides has since been confirmed by historians and archaeologists. Herodotus announced the purpose and scope of his work at the beginning of his Histories as such: Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus; the purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks. His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. Herodotus's place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked, his work is the earliest Greek prose. However, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a literary critic of Augustan Rome, listed seven predecessors of Herodotus, describing their works as simple, unadorned accounts of their own and other cities and people, Greek or foreign, including popular legends, sometimes melodramatic and naïve charming – all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself.
Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain, but according to the ancient account, these predecessors included Dionysius of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, Hellanicus of Lesbos, Xanthus of Lydia and, the best attested of them all, Hecataeus of Miletus. Of these, only fragments of Hecataeus's works survived, the authenticity of these is debatable, but they provide a glimpse into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories. In his introduction to Hecataeus's work, Genealogies: Hecataeus the Milesian speaks thus: I write these things as they seem true to me; this points forward to the "international" outlook typical of Herodotus. However, one modern scholar has described the work of Hecataeus as "a curious false start to history", since despite his critical spirit, he failed to liberate history from myth. Herodotus mentions Hecataeus in his Histories, on one occasion mocking him for his naive genealogy and, on another occasion, quoting Athenian complaints against his handling of their national history.
It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a quote recorded by Eusebius. In particular, it is possible that he copied descriptions of the crocodile and phoenix from Hecataeus's Circumnavigation of the Known World misrepresenting the source as "Heliopolitans", but Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, unlike Herodotus, nor did he include the oral traditions of Greek history within the larger framework of oriental history. There is no proof that Herodotus derived the ambitious scope of his own work, with its grand theme of civilizations in conflict, from any predecessor, despite much scholarly speculation about this in modern times. Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors by relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism. For example, he argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to the older theory of a circular earth with Europe and Asia/Africa equal in size. However, he retains idealizing tendencies, as in his symmetrical notions of the Nile.
His debt to previous authors of prose "histories" might be questionable, but there is no doubt that Herodotus owed much to the example and inspiration of poets and story-tellers. For example, Athenian tragic poets provided him with a world-view of a balance between conflicting forces, upset by the hubris of kings, they provided his narrative with a model of episodic structure, his familiarity with Athenian tragedy is demonstrated in a number of passages echoing Aeschylus's Persae, including the epigrammatic observation that the defeat of the Persian navy at Salamis caused the defeat of the land army. The debt may have been repaid by Sophocles because there appear to be echoes of The Histories in his plays a passage in Antigone that resembles Herodotus's account of the death of Intaphernes. However, this point is one of the most contentious
Chess
Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a chessboard, a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. The game is played by millions of people worldwide. Chess is believed to be derived from the Indian game chaturanga some time before the 7th century. Chaturanga is the ancestor of the Eastern strategy games xiangqi and shogi. Chess reached Europe by the 9th century, due to the Umayyad conquest of Hispania; the pieces assumed their current powers in Spain in the late 15th century with the introduction of "Mad Queen Chess". Play does not involve hidden information; each player begins with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, eight pawns. Each of the six piece types moves differently, with the most powerful being the queen and the least powerful the pawn; the objective is to checkmate the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. To this end, a player's pieces are used to attack and capture the opponent's pieces, while supporting each other.
During the game, play involves making exchanges of one piece for an opponent's similar piece, but finding and engineering opportunities to trade advantageously, or to get a better position. In addition to checkmate, a player wins the game if the opponent runs out of time. There are several ways that a game can end in a draw; the first recognized World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886. Since 1948, the World Championship has been regulated by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs, the game's international governing body. FIDE awards life-time master titles to skilled players, the highest of, grandmaster. Many national chess organizations have a title system of their own. FIDE organizes the Women's World Championship, the World Junior Championship, the World Senior Championship, the Blitz and Rapid World Championships, the Chess Olympiad, a popular competition among international teams. FIDE is a member of the International Olympic Committee, which can be considered as a recognition of chess as a sport.
Several national sporting bodies recognize chess as a sport. Chess was included in 2010 Asian Games. There is a Correspondence Chess World Championship and a World Computer Chess Championship. Online chess has opened professional competition to a wide and varied group of players. Since the second half of the 20th century, chess engines have been programmed to play chess with increasing success, to the point where the strongest personal computers play at a higher level than the best human players. Since the 1990s, computer analysis has contributed to chess theory in the endgame; the IBM computer Deep Blue was the first machine to overcome a reigning World Chess Champion in a match when it defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997. The rise of strong chess engines runnable on hand-held devices has led to increasing concerns about cheating during tournaments. There are many variants of chess that utilize pieces, or boards. One of these, Chess960, incorporates standard rules but employs 960 different possible starting positions, thus negating any advantage in opening preparation.
Chess960 has gained widespread popularity as well as some FIDE recognition. The rules of chess are published by chess's international governing body, in its Handbook. Rules published by national governing bodies, or by unaffiliated chess organizations, commercial publishers, etc. may differ. FIDE's rules were most revised in 2017. Chess is played on a square board of eight columns; the 64 squares are referred to as light and dark squares. The chessboard is placed with a light square at the right-hand end of the rank nearest to each player. By convention, the game pieces are divided into white and black sets, the players are referred to as White and Black, respectively; each player begins the game with 16 pieces of the specified color, consisting of one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, eight pawns. The pieces are set out as shown in the diagram and photo, with each queen on a square of its own color. In competitive games, the colors are allocated by the organizers; the player with the white pieces moves first.
After the first move, players alternate turns. Pieces are moved to either an unoccupied square or one occupied by an opponent's piece, captured and removed from play. With the sole exception of en passant, all pieces capture by moving to the square that the opponent's piece occupies. A player may not make any move that would leave the player's own king under attack. A player cannot "pass" a turn. If the player to move has no legal move, the game is over; each piece has its own way of moving. In the diagrams, the dots mark the squares to which the piece can move if there are no intervening piece of either color; the king moves one square in any direction. The king has
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus, born Yosef ben Matityahu, was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian, born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry. He fought against the Romans during the First Jewish–Roman War as head of Jewish forces in Galilee, until surrendering in 67 CE to Roman forces led by Vespasian after the six-week siege of Jotapata. Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and interpreter. After Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperor's family name of Flavius. Flavius Josephus defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship, he became an advisor and friend of Vespasian's son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the Siege of Jerusalem. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt, the city's destruction and the looting and destruction of Herod's Temple soon followed.
Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century CE and the First Jewish–Roman War, including the Siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish Antiquities of the Jews; the Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Greek and Roman audience; these works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity.. Born into one of Jerusalem's elite families, Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos, son of Matthias, an ethnic Jewish priest, he was the second-born son of Matthias. His older full-blooded brother was called Matthias, their mother was an aristocratic woman who descended from the royal and ruling Hasmonean dynasty. Josephus's paternal grandparents were Josephus and his wife—an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman, distant relatives of each other and direct descendants of Simon Psellus. Josephus's family was wealthy.
He descended through his father from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus was a descendant of the high priest Jonathon, he was educated alongside his brother. In his early twenties, he traveled to negotiate with Emperor Nero for the release of 12 Jewish priests. Upon his return to Jerusalem, at the outbreak of the First Jewish–Roman War, Josephus was appointed the military governor of Galilee, but he strove with John of Gischala over the control of Galilee, who like Josephus, had amassed to himself a large band of supporters from Gischala and Gabara, including the support of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. Josephus fortified several towns and villages in Galilee, among which were Tiberias, Bersabe and Tarichaea, in anticipation of a Roman onslaught, resisted the Roman army in its siege of Yodfat until it fell to the Roman army in the lunar month of Tammuz, in the thirteenth year of Nero's reign. After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded.
According to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67 CE. The Romans asked the group to surrender. Josephus suggested a method of collective suicide. Two men were left, who became prisoners. In 69 CE, Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, in which his parents and first wife died. While being confined at Yodfat, Josephus claimed to have experienced a divine revelation that led to his speech predicting Vespasian would become emperor. After the prediction came true, he was released by Vespasian, who considered his gift of prophecy to be divine. Josephus wrote that his revelation had taught him three things: that God, the creator of the Jewish people, had decided to "punish" them. To many Jews, such claims were self-serving. In 71 CE, he went to Rome in the entourage of Titus, becoming a Roman citizen and client of the ruling Flavian dynasty. In addition to Roman citizenship, he was granted accommodation in a pension.
While in Rome and under Flavian patronage, Josephus wrote all of his known works. Although he uses "Josephus", he appears to have taken the Roman praenomen Titus and nomen Flavius from his patrons. Vespasian arranged for Josephus to marry a captured Jewish woman, whom he divorced. About 71 CE, Josephus married an Alexandrian Jewish woman as his third wife, they had three sons. Josephus divorced his third wife. Around 75 CE, he married his fourth wife, a Greek Jewish woman from Crete, a member of a distinguished family, they had two sons, Flavius Justus and Flavius Simonides Agrippa. Josephus's life story remains ambiguous, he was described by Harris in 1985 as a law-observant Jew who believed in the com
Mount Allison University
Mount Allison University is a undergraduate Canadian liberal arts and science university located in Sackville, New Brunswick. It has been ranked the top undergraduate university in the country 20 times in the past 28 years by Maclean's magazine, a record unmatched by any other university. With a 17:1 student-to-faculty ratio, the average first-year class size is 60 and upper-year classes average 14 students. Mount Allison University was the first university in the British Empire to award a baccalaureate to a woman. Mount Allison graduates have been awarded a total of 55 Rhodes Scholarships. American chemist James B. Sumner, who won Nobel Prize in Chemistry, used to work at Mount Allison as a teaching fellow. Mount Allison has one of the largest endowments per student in Canada. Mount Allison University is a United Church-affiliated undergraduate liberal arts university, established at Sackville, New Brunswick on January 19, 1843; the university was named in honour of his gift of land and money.
Its origins were steeped in the Methodist faith and it was designed to prepare men for the ministry and to supply education for lay members. The university was chartered on April 14, 1849. There is an amusing anecdote about the family of the founder of the school, Methodist merchant, Charles Frederick Allison. Charles Allison's grandfather had emigrated from Ireland to Canada in the late 18th century because of the after effects of a dinner with the local government tax collector. Wanting to impress the man, the family had set the table with their one valuable possession: silver spoons. After entertaining their guest, the Allisons were informed by the tax collector that if they could afford silver spoons they could afford to pay more taxes; the Allisons left Ireland shortly thereafter. The offending spoons are now on display in the university library. In June 1839, Charles Allison was encouraged by Wesleyan Methodist Minister Rev. John Bass Strong that a school of elementary and higher learning be built.
Allison offered to purchase a site in Sackville to erect a suitable building for an academy and to contribute operating funds of £100 a year for 10 years. This offer was accepted and the Wesleyan Academy for boys subsequently opened in 1843. In 1854, a girls' institution was opened to complement the boys' academy. In 1858 an Act of the New Brunswick Legislature authorized the trustees to establish a degree-conferring institution at Sackville, under the name of the Mount Allison Wesleyan College. In July 1862, the degree-granting Mount Allison College was organized; the first two students, Howard Sprague and Josiah Wood, graduated in May 1863. Mount Allison was the first university in the British Empire to confer a bachelor's degree to a woman, it was the first university in Canada to grant a Bachelor of Arts to a woman. For nearly a century, Mount Allison functioned as three distinct, mutually enriching parts: the College proper, the Boys' Academy, the Ladies College; the corporate name was changed to University of Mount Allison College in 1886.
The university's affiliation was transferred to the United Church of Canada following church union in 1925. Original components of the university included: the Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy for Boys, the Ladies' College, Mount Allison College. Mount Allison College was established in 1862 with degree-granting powers on behalf of the other two; the governance was modelled on the provincial University of Toronto Act of 1906 which established a bicameral system of university government consisting of a senate, responsible for academic policy, a board of governors exercising exclusive control over financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the two bodies and to perform institutional leadership. By 1920, Mount Allison University had three faculties: Arts and Engineering, it awarded the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Divinity, Master of Arts. It had 73 female students, as well as 28 academic staff, all male.
The closure of the School for Girls in 1946 and the Boy's Academy in 1953 coincided with a period of expansion and provided much-needed space for the growing university. In 1958, a period of construction and acquisition of buildings began, easing the strain of overcrowding at the institution. At this time the university board and administration decided to reaffirm the traditional aims of Mount Allison in providing a high-quality undergraduate liberal arts education, along with continuing to offer professional programs in already-established fields; as such, the university decided not to compete for new professional programs and avoided post-graduate course development. The policy of university education initiated in the 1960s responded to population pressure and the belief that higher education was a key to social justice and economic productivity for individuals and for society. Mount Allison University was established by the Mount Allison University Act, 1993. Mount Allison University's Arms and Badge were registered with the Canadian Heraldic Authority on November 15, 2007.
The mission statement of Mount Allison University promotes "the creation and dissemination of knowledge in a community of higher learning, centred on the undergraduate student and delivered in an intimate and harmonious environment". Mount Allison offers bachelor's degrees in Arts, Commerce, Fine Arts, Music, as well as master's degrees in biology and chemistry and biochemistry, and
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Zonaras, Joannes". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 