Samuel Stanhope Smith

Samuel Stanhope Smith
Charles B. Lawrence, Samuel Stanhope Smith (1750–1819), Class of 1769, President (1795–1812), Princeton University Art Museum
1st President of Hampden–Sydney College
In office 1775–1779
Succeeded by	John Blair Smith
7th President of Princeton University
In office 1795–1812
Preceded by	John Witherspoon
Succeeded by	Ashbel Green
Personal details
Born	(1751-03-15)March 15, 1751 Pequea, Province of Pennsylvania
Died	August 21, 1819(1819-08-21) (aged 68)
Spouse(s)	Ann Witherspoon
Alma mater	B.A. Princeton University D.D. Yale University LL.D. Harvard University
Religion	Presbyterian

Samuel Stanhope Smith (March 15, 1751 – August 21, 1819) was a Presbyterian minister, founding president of Hampden–Sydney College and the seventh president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) from 1795 to 1812. His stormy career ended in his enforced resignation. His words - "If reason and charity cannot promote the cause of truth and piety, I cannot see how it should ever flourish under the withering fires of wrath and strife" - ironically epitomize his career.

Born in Pequea, Pennsylvania, he had graduated as a valedictorian from the College of New Jersey (name later changed to Princeton University) in 1769, and went on to study theology and philosophy under John Witherspoon, whose daughter, Ann, he married on 28 June 1775. In his mid-twenties, he worked as a missionary in Virginia, and from 1775 to 1779, he served as the founder and rector of Hampden–Sydney College, which he referred to in his advertisement of 1 September 1775 as "an Academy in Prince Edward." The school, not then named, was always intended to be a college-level institution; later in the same advertisement, Smith explicitly likens its curriculum to that of the College of New Jersey. "Academy" was a technical term used for college-level schools not run by the established church. Stanhope Smith held honorary doctorates from Yale and Harvard and was a leading member of the American Philosophical Society.

Smith studied under president Witherspoon, married Witherspoon's daughter, returned to Princeton as a professor in 1779, and succeeded Witherspoon as president in 1795. The situation during the winter semester of 1806-07 under Smith's presidency was characterized by little or no faculty-student rapport or communication, crowded conditions, and strict school rules - a combination that led to a student riot on 31 March-1 April 1807. College authorities denounced it as a sign of moral decay. Smith was active in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church and served as moderator of the 11th General Assembly in 1799. Smith was an urbane and cultivated man who sought, in the tradition of Witherspoon, to maintain orthodoxy while opposing tendencies toward rigidity and obscurantism. His efforts were unsuccessful, and he was forced to resign from his office in 1812 as a result of criticism from within the church. In his efforts to reconcile reason and revelation Smith left himself vulnerable to charges of rationalism and Arminianism.