The Baptist Theological School of Professor Moses Smart seems to have strangled the Seminary, about which it twined for support. For when Mr. George H. Ricker, just graduated from Dartmouth College, came here as Principal in 1846, he found the school dead--as he says here in an address given here in 1885, no sessions had been held for a year. The Seminary, which started with such brilliant prospects, and an attendance of one hundred and forty students, in 1832, had thus, for reasons we cannot even guess at, come to a complete standstill in twelve or fourteen years.
Mr. Ricker came to take charge of the school in 1846. The buildings, he said, were in bad condition, the institution largely in debt. He opened school with nine scholars. He was principal for seven years and seems to have been a man to inspire everyone to hard work. The debt was paid off, the buildings were repaired and painted, the students increased to above one hundred.
