THE HALL OF FAME. By George Frederick Kunz, Ph.D. INTRODUCTION. On March 5, 1900, the Council of New York University, in the city of New York, accepted, from a donor whose name is withheld, a gift of $100,000, afterward increased to $250,000, for the erection on University Heights in the borough of the Bronx, of a building to be called "The Hall of Fame for Great Americans." The object of this institution is set forth in the following constitution of the Hall of Fame approved by the university in March, 1900: Constitution of the Hall of Fame. A gift of one hundred thousand dollars1 is accepted by New York University under the following conditions: The money is to be used for building a colonnade five hundred feet in length, at University Heights, looking toward the Palisades and the Harlem and Hudson river valleys. The exclusive use of the colonnade is to serve as "The Hall of Fame for great Americans." One hundred and fifty panels, each about two by eight feet, will be provided for inscriptions. Fifty of these will be inscribed in 1900, provided fifty names shall be approved by the two bodies of judges named below. At the close of every five years thereafter five additional panels will be inscribed, so that the entire number shall be completed A. D. 2000. The statue, bust, or portrait of any person, whose name is inscribed, may be given a place either in the Hall of Fame or in the museum.2 The following rules are to be observed for inscriptions: (1) The University will invite nominations until May 1st, from the public in general, of names to be inscribed, to be addressed by mail to the Chancellor of the University, New York city. 1 This gift was increased to one-quarter of a million dollars. 2 A bronze bust of Horace Mann, with granite pedestal, has been given to be placed above his tablet. (2) Every name that is seconded by any member of the University Senate will be submitted to 100 or more persons throughout the country who may be approved by the Senate, as professors or writers of American history, or especially interested in the same. (3) No name will be inscribed unless approved by a majority of the answers received from this body of judges before October 1st of the year of election. (4) Each name thus approved will be inscribed unless disapproved before November 1st by a majority of the nineteen members of the New York University Senate, who are the Chancellor with the Dean and Senior Professor of each of the six schools, and the president or representative of each of the six theological faculties in or near New York city. (5) No name may be inscribed except of a person born in what is now the territory of the United States1 and of a person who has been deceased at least ten years. (6) In the first fifty names must be included one or more representatives of a majority of the following fifteen classes of citizens: *(a) Authors and editors. (b) Business men. *(c) Educators. *(d) Inventors. (e) Missionaries and explorers. *(f) Philanthropists and reformers. *(g) Preachers and theologians. *(h) Scientists. (i) Engineers and architects. *(j) Lawyers and judges. *(k) Musicians, painters and sculptors. Physicians and surgeons. *(m) Rulers and statesmen. Soldiers and sailors. (o) Distinguished men and women outside the above classes. (1) * (n) (7) Should these restrictions leave vacant panels in any year, the Senate may fill the same the ensuing year, following the same rules. The granite edifice which will serve as the foundation of the Hall of Fame shall be named the Museum of the Hall of Fame. Its final exclusive use shall be the commemoration of the great Americans whose names are inscribed in the colonnade above, by the preservation and exhibition of portraits and other important mementoes of these citizens. The six rooms and the long corridor shall in succession be set apart to this exclusive use. The room 1 See Supplemental Rules. 2 The classes marked by an asterisk were each given representation by the electors in 1900, thus satisfying finally this Rule. |