278 History of Universities
duced perhaps five or six Indians to enter it; only one of
them graduated and he died within a year. Another almost
graduated, but went home for a vacation just before Com-
mencement, and was knocked on the head by his non-
Collegiate relations. William and Mary tried Indian educa-
tion with somewhat better success; for she limited her
endeavors (so far as the Indians were concerned) to the
three R’s, and did not kill them with Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew. But this did not discourage—nothing could dis-
courage—Eleazer Wheelock, graduate of Yale, minister by
profession, evangelist and educator by choice.
It started when an Indian named Samson Occum, one of
the last though not quite the last of the Mohicans, came to
Mr. Wheelock seeking schooling. The same year two Dela-
wares turned up ; and one of the parson’s parishioners gave
land for an Indian charity school. This so encouraged Mr.
Wheelock that he determined to found a college for Indians
alone. A born American advertiser, he hit on a master stroke
of propaganda, and sent Occum to England to solicit funds;
for 0ccum, by this time, had graduated from the charity
school and begun ministering to his people. He was a living
proof of what Wheelock claimed, that any Indian could be
educated and civilized as well as an Englishman. Occum
preached acceptably in the leading dissenting churches of
England before great crowds, playing up tactfully the Mace-
donian cry, “Come over and help us,” but not overdoing it.
He was received by the King and treated as a social equal by
the good and the great. A board of trustees for the College
was organized in England with Lord Dartmouth, the most
socially prominent dissenter, as President of the Board.
In less than two years ( 1767-1768) Occum and his partner
collected £11,000, the largest single fund ever raised for a
colonial educational purpose.