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The walls did rise, and in one year from the laying of the comer-stone, the college was opened and its first session began. But early in the following year, 1868. it became evident that, financially, the walls had no corner-stone, or other fouudaticn, and that the whole enterprise was a ghastly failure. And in fact a failure it was fore-doomed to be, because it was the visionary undertaking of a misguided man 011 his sole responsibility, a man without collegiate training, and so ignorant of that with which he ambitiously grappled as not even to know that the building and the main- tenance of a college as a merely individual enterprise had never been accomplished; that it was, in fact, an impossibility. And yet, strange to say, the blunder of Fayette R. Buell was the origin of 'Western Maryland College. A teacher from the state of New York, he was conducting, with fair success, an academy or high-school in West- minster, when the wild idea of founding a college took possession of him. He had no money, he knew nothing about colleges, but he was full of energy, fired with zeal, and he had made iufluential friends. Through the good offices of these, he secured frcui the Maryland Annual Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church, in March, 18M, a recommendation of Mr. Buell and his projected college to the patronage of their people, Meanwhile, neither 1"1r. Buell nor anybody else kije w where money enough to buy a perch of stone or a cart-load of sand was to come from. and Western Maryland College seemed fated to be only a paper college and never all architectural or other reality. There was a Board of Directors, it is true, of Mr. Buell's selection, but there was nothing to direct. and most likely there never would have been any- thing to direct, if no such person as James 1'homas Ward had existed. But because he was, Western Maryland College is. Two friends of Dr. Ward's, bound to him by ties of love and admiration, John Smith, of Wakefield, and Isaac C. Baile, both citi- zeus of \Vestminster, offered to lend 1\'Ir. Buell ten thousand dollars to start his college with, on the condition that Dr. Ward should be at its head. 'I'his proposition W(15 accepted, the work was begun, and, as we have seen, the corner-stone was duly laid. But, as we have also seen, it became evident, early in 1868, to Mr. Buell and all concerned, that the "individual-entel'prise" plan of starting and conducting a college was a failure, and that unless some other plan could be devised and successfully substituted the work would have to be abaudoued. The financial status of the college at the close of its first session, February 27th, 1868, when Mr. Buell called his Board of Directors together for consultation is described by President Lewis in his Historical Sketch as "indeed a pitiable one." "The building," he says, "was still unfinished, all the money had been spent, all the interest 011 the loan was unpaid, and the prop- erty was covered by mechanics' liens for nearly as much as had been borrowed ill the first place. This was the situation reported to the Maryland Conference at its session ill March, 1868. Although in lIO sense responsible for the disaster, the Conference had been nominally connected with it and determined to prevent titter failure if possible. The Conference, therefore, appointed thirty-three men to become incorporated by the Legislature of Maryland as a Board of Trustees. They were authorized to purchase the property of Mr. Buell for an amount equal to what had been spent and was still due on it. and Mr. \Vard was directed to proceed at once to raise among the friends of the church sufficient money to meet the most pressing .claims. The charter was obtained March jotu, 1868; the agreement with Mr. Buell closed August r atu, 1868, ,6