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Dartmouth College has its origins in More’s (later Moor’s) Indian Charity
School, a precursor educational enterprise established in the year 1754 at
Lebanon, Connecticut, by Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a minister of the
Congregational faith and a graduate of Yale. A search for support of this
undertaking and difficulties in finding either Native Americans or a charter in
Connecticut led Wheelock to relocate his mission in the province of New
Hampshire, where offers of land and expressions of civic interest had earlier
been elicited from the provincial authorities. Through the good offices of the
Governor, John Wentworth, and others, a royal charter was obtained and approved
on December 13, 1769, conveyed the charter from King George III establishing
the College. That charter created a college “for the education and instruction
of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land ... and also of English Youth and
any others.” Named for William Legge, the Second Earl of Dartmouth — an
important supporter of Eleazar Wheelock’s efforts — Dartmouth is the nation’s
ninth oldest college and the last institution of higher learning established
under Colonial rule.
In 1815, Dartmouth became the stage for a constitutional drama that had
far-reaching effects. Claiming its 1769 charter invalid, the New Hampshire
legislature established a separate governing body for the College and changed
its name to Dartmouth University. The existing Trustees, under the leadership
of President Francis Brown, challenged the action and insisted on the validity
of the charter and Dartmouth’s continuance as a private institution free of
interference from the state. The case was argued in the United States Supreme
Court by Daniel Webster, a graduate in the Class of 1801, who would go on to
become a member of Congress and Secretary of State under Presidents William
Henry Harrison and Millard Fillmore. The landmark decision handed down by Chief
Justice John Marshall in February, 1819, affirmed the validity of the original
charter. The Dartmouth College Case, as it has come to be known, is considered
to be one of the most important and formative documents in United States
constitutional history, strengthening the contract clause of the Constitution
and thereby paving the way for all American private institutions to conduct
their affairs in accordance with their charters and without interference from
the state.
In over two centuries of evolution, Dartmouth College has developed from its
roots on the colonial frontier into a college that has a special character and
a unique place in private higher education: an excellent undergraduate program,
small enough to ensure the intimacy of a classic liberal arts college, with
instruction provided by faculty members committed to undergraduate teaching;
yet one large enough to provide faculty depth and curricular breadth of a kind
typically found only at research universities.
An Ivy League institution, Dartmouth College enrolls approximately 4,300
undergraduates in the liberal arts and 1,600 graduate students. Drawing faculty
and students from around the world, Dartmouth is committed to advancing the
principles of liberal education within a diverse community of students,
teachers and scholars. In addition to 16 graduate programs in the arts and
sciences, it is home to the nation’s fourth oldest medical school: the
Dartmouth Medical School, founded in 1797; the nation’s first professional
school of engineering: the Thayer School of Engineering, founded in 1867; and
the first graduate school of management in the world: the Tuck School of
Business, established in 1900.
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