New York Central College, commonly called New York Central College, McGrawville, and simply Central College, was the first college in the United States founded on the principle that all qualified students were welcome. It was thus an abolitionist institution. It was founded by Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor and other anti-slavery Baptists in McGraw, New York (at the time called McGrawville; not modern McGrawville, New York). The sponsoring organization was the American Baptist Free Mission Society, of which Grosvenor was a vice-president. It was chartered by New York State in April 1848, laid the cornerstone of its main building on July 4, and opened in September 1849. Its "prominent features" were "Radical Anti-Slavery, and Equality of the Sexes".It has been called a predecessor of Cornell University.: 38 The college lasted about 10 years. As put by the author of a modern study, "A little town tried to create a place without any prejudice, and it did make a difference. It created humanitarians and heroes in a time where nothing else existed like this." While Oberlin and Oneida had accepted African-American students, and Oberlin female students, New York Central College was the first institution in the country founded to accept all students, which it did from its very first day. This was the vision of its founder, Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor.As was common in the Antebellum period, when there were no public secondary schools anywhere in America, Central had a large preparatory, or high school, division. Students at the college level were never more than a small minority of the student body. At the first commencement in 1855, there were five graduates, with a student body of well over 100. There were some students at the primary level. Yet there was no question that Central was a college, whatever the ratio of students, and not an academy, whose studies ended at the high school level (typically including Latin and Greek).
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