Williams Park (432 acres, of which 140 are water), with 9 m. of
drives and boulevards, in the southern part of the city, 2% rn.
from the State House. It was a part of the original tract ceded to
Roger Williams by Miantonomo; 107 acres were a farm which
Betsy Williams (d. 187I), a lineal descendant of Roger Williams,
left to the city by will. In the park are a chain of lakes with a
shore front of 7% m., a boat-house, a casino, a speedway and
athletic grounds, a municipal natural history museum, and the
Betsy Williams Cottage (1775). Other municipal parks are:
Neutaconkanut (40% acres; 2% m. west of the State House) on
high land commanding a view to the east and south; Davis
Park (38% acres) with amusement grounds; Blackstone Park
(43 acres, 1% m. east of the State House) along the Seekonk river;
Hopkins Park (% m. north of the State House), comprising the
estate of Esek Hopkins (1718-1802), commander of the American
Navy in the War of Independence, with a historical museum in
the Admiral Hopkins House; and City Hall Park. Blackstone
Boulevard is 1% m. long; and Pleasant Valley Parkway is 1% m.
long. Enclosed by a railing near the eastern end of Power
Street, on the bank of the Seekonk, is What Cheer Slatel Rock,
according to tradition the first landing place of Roger Williams.
In the North Burial Ground are the remains of Stephen Hopkins
(1707-1785), a citizen of Providence, a delegate to the Albany
convention of 1754, a colonial governor of Rhode Island(17 5 5-1757,
1758-1762, 1763-1765, and 1767-1768), a member of the
Continental Congress in 1774-1780 and a signer of the Declaration
of Independence; of William Barton (1748-1831), who in
the War of Independence captured General Richard Prescott
near Newport on the 10th of July 1777; of Francis Wayland;
and of Nicholas Brown, who was a patron of Brown University
and one of the founders of the Providence Athenaeum and of
the Butler Hospital for the Insane.
On the steep slope of College Hill (or Prospect Hill) in the east side near the business district, is Brown University (1764)-one of the eight colleges in the United States founded before 1776closely connected with the history of Providence, Rhode Island, and the Baptist Church in America. It has an undergraduate department for men, with courses, largely elective, leading to the degrees of A.B. and Ph.B., and courses, almost wholly prescribed, in civil, mechanical and electrical engineering. It includes, besides “ The Women's College in Brown University, ” a separate college for women, and a graduate department open to both men and women. The campus is shaded by some fine old elms and is surrounded by an iron fence with beautiful memorial gates. In 1910 there were twenty-two buildings, including the following: University Hall (erected in 1770 and used during the War of Independence as barracks and hospital by American and French soldiers); Sayles Memorial Hall (1881), containing the chapel, lecture halls and seminary rooms; three library buildings, the John Hay Library (which occupies the site of the old President's House), the old University Library (1878) and the John Carter Brown Library (1904); the Ladd Astronomical Observatory, with a 12-in. equatorial and much other valuable equipment; Rhode Island Hall (1840), containing a biological laboratory and a natural history museum; Manning Hall (1834), containing an art museum; Wilson Hall (1891), containing a physical and a psychological laboratory; Rogers Hall (1862), a chemical laboratory; an engineering building (1903); the Lyman gymnasium (1891) and Colgate Hoyt swimming pool (1904); an administration building(1902); the Sayles gymnasium (1906) for women; Rockefeller Hall (1903), occupied by the Brown Union, a students' organization and the Young Men's Christian Association; the residence halls: University Hall (1770, remodelled 1883), Hope College (1822 and 1891), Slater Hall (1879), Maxcy Hall (1895), and Caswell Hall (1903); and the Carrie (clock) Tower, erected in 1904 by Paul Bajnotti, of Turin, Italy, as a memorial to his wife, Carrie Mathilde Brown, of Providence. Besides the general library, containing (1909) about 164,000 volumes, the university owns the separately housed John Carter Brown Library of 20,000 volumes, one of So called because Roger Williams was greeted here by Indians, who Said “.What cheer, Netop?" (“ Netop " meaning friend).
the best collections in the world of material on early American history (especially of books printed before 1800), which, with an endowment of $500,000, was presented to the university in 1901 in accordance with the will of John Nicholas Brown, the son of John Carter Brown (1797-1874) a prominent Providence merchant, who began the collection. In 1909 the university had an endowment fund of $3,416,744, Q0 instructors and 993 students, of whom 88 were graduates; of the undergraduates 179 were enrolled in the Women's College. The charter of the institution requires that it shall be governed by a board of thirty-six trustees, of whom twenty-two shall be Baptists, five Friends, four Congregationalists, and five Episcopalians, and by twelve fellows (including the president) of whom eight (including the president) shall be Baptists, “and the rest indifferently of any or all denominations.” At the time it was framed the was considered extraordinarily liberal. Only two proare included regarding the character of instruction charter
visions
to be offered: first that “ the public teaching shall in general respect the sciences, ” and second, that “into this liberal and catholic institution shall never be admitted any religious tests, but on the contrary all the members hereof shall forever enjoy full, free, absolute and uninterrupted liberty of conscience.” The government has always been largely nonsectarian in spirit, and a movement was on foot in 1910 to abolish the denominational requirements for trustees and fellows.
Brown University, the first institution for higher education established by American Baptists, was incorporated in 1764, and although still under its original charter was known for the first forty years as Rhode Island College. The Latin or preparatory school was opened at Warren in 1764 and the college was started there in 1766, but in 1770 the institution was removed to Providence. Although its work was interrupted by the War of Independence, the institution was reopened in 1782 and ten years ater it began to receive aid from Nicholas Brown (1769-1841), a wealthy merchant who graduated from the Rhode Island College in 1786; it was named in his honour in 1804, and up to the time of his death his gifts amounted to about $160,000. Dr Francis Wayland, the most eminent of its presidents, began his administration in 1827 and in twenty-eight years of service as its head he established the elective system and greatly raised the standard of scholarship. Brown actually became a university under Elisha Benjamin Andrews, who was president in 1889-1898, who developed the graduate school and undergraduate instruction in history and social and political science, and who was succeeded in 1899 by William Herbert Perry Faunce (b. 1859), who graduated at Brown in 188O. In 1900 and 1901 more than $2,000,000 was added to the endowment o the university. The Women's College was founded in 1891, and in 1897 it was accepted by the corporation as a department of the university. Among distinguished alumni of Brown are Henry Wheaton (1785-1848), John Hay, Richard Olney, James Burrill Angell (b. 1829) Adoniram judson, William Learned Marcy, Wilbur Fisk, Horace Mann, Samuel Gridley Howe, Barnas Sears, Edwards Amasa Park, Samuel Sullivan Cox, George Park Fisher, George Dana Boardman, Alexander Lyman Holley, and Albert Harkness.
In Providence are the Rhode Island Normal School (in the north part of the city, in Gaspee St.; established in 1854; discontinued in 1857; re-established in 1871), which has a fine building (1898), the Rhode Island Institute for the Deaf (1876), and the Rhode Island School of Design (1877; partially supported by the state, since 1882, and by the city), affiliated with Brown University. The following secondary schools are in the city: four high schools, one of which is technical, La Salle Academy (1871; Roman Catholic, under the Brothers of the Christian Schools), Saint Xavier's Academy (Roman Catholic), the Academy of the Sacred Heart (Roman Catholic), Moses Brown School (Friends; at Portsmouth in 1784-1 788; re-established in Providence in 1814), the Brown school for boys (nonsectarian), Fielden-Chace school for girls (non-sectarian), and the Lincoln School (non-sectarian). The public school system has benefited by the presence of Brown University, whose faculty has been largely represented on the school committee; by an agreement with the university its professor of the theory and practice of education is director of the training department in the high schools, and there are other schemes of co-operation. Transition classes between the kindergarten and primary were
