CUTLER, CARROLL

CUTLER, CARROLL (31 Jan. 1829-25 Jan. 1894) presided over Western Reserve College (see CASE WESTERN RESERVE) during that institution's removal from Hudson, O., to Cleveland. The son of Rev. Calvin and Rhoda Little Cutler, he was a native of Windham, N.H. A graduate of Yale College and Yale Divinity School, he married Frances Gallagher of Orange, N.J., in 1858. Cutler then continued his studies for a year in Germany before joining the Western Reserve faculty in 1860. Regarded as the faculty's foremost scholar, he taught philosophy and natural theology among several other subjects. His publications included Purposes of College Studies (1874), A History of Western Reserve College in its First Half Century (1876), and The Beginnings of Ethics (1889). After a year as acting president, Cutler was appointed as the college's 4th president in 1871. Although he liberalized the curriculum in the direction of increased emphasis on sciences and modern languages, he was less successful as an administrator and fund-raiser. His most memorable initiative was the admission of women to the student body on equal terms with men. One of those who benefitted was his only child, Susan Rhoda Cutler, who graduated as valedictorian of her class in 1885. Cutler personally would have preferred to see the college remain in Hudson but supported the trustees once the decision to move to Cleveland in 1882 had been reached. Resigning the presidency in 1886 following a faculty rebellion against co-education, he left the university in 1889. Cutler had always been an ardent abolitionist, and he spent his remaining years teaching at small Negro colleges in Charlotte, N.C., and Talledega, Ala. He died in the latter town, survived by his wife and daughter, and was returned for burial in Hudson.


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