Changes at King’s College Editorial Note
Changes at King’s College
Samuel Johnson’s relationship with the King’s College Board of Governors was often difficult. These tensions, coupled with Johnson’s age, led the governors to request that the Archbishop of Canterbury suggest a successor. The chosen candidate, the Reverend Myles Cooper,1 was a graduate of Queens College, Oxford, and while not noted for his scholarship or preaching, he was amenable to going to New York. Cooper arrived in October of 1762 and was appointed assistant to Johnson and professor of moral philosophy. On 1 March 1763, Johnson officially retired and Cooper became president of King’s College. He immediately began the “Oxfordisation” of King’s, revising the curriculum and rules in imitation of Oxford’s. Gone were the practical courses in business; the new curriculum emphasized the classics, with some natural philosophy retained. Discipline was tightened, and students were required to wear academic robes. Students were required to sign these new statutes, just as they had the older ones.
John Jay apparently had a less cordial relationship with Cooper than with Johnson. After Johnson’s departure, Jay remained in contact, sometimes visiting his old professor. While Jay continued to be a diligent and well-behaved student, he opposed Cooper on a matter of principle and bested him. A cryptic remark in Jay’s 1817 “Memoranda” on his life reads, “April 1764 Dispute with ^between^ Dr. Cooper & students abt. wooden Horse.”2 According to Jay family tradition, “a few weeks before he was to take his degree” in the spring of 1764, John Jay was present in the college hall at King’s when some of his fellow students “either through a silly spirit of mischief, or in revenge for some fault imputed to the steward, began to break the table.” Jay replied to Cooper’s interrogation with the words “I do not choose to tell you, sir.” He insisted that this refusal to identify the students did not violate the college statutes. Cooper and the faculty disagreed, and Jay was suspended and sent home. Jay was allowed to return in time to receive his degree on 22 May 1764.3
1. Myles Cooper (1737–85), M.A., D.C.L., LL.D., Anglican minister, president of King’s College, and Loyalist. Cooper was born in England, earning his B.A. and M.A. from Oxford in 1756 and 1760, respectively. He was ordained in 1761. In the years immediately preceding the Revolution, Cooper wrote numerous Loyalist pamphlets, and he consequently became a target of mob violence on 10 May 1775, legendarily saved by student Alexander Hamilton. He returned to England shortly thereafter.
3. , 1: 14–15.