Whereas many of the ministers, who are to supply the vacant churches and destitute places in the more new and growing parts of our church must for some time to come, continue to be educated in the older sections of our country, and at a great distance from the field where they are to be employed; and whereas, it is important to the happy and useful settlement of these ministers in their several fields of labor, that they should enjoy the full confidence of the ministers and churches among whom they are to dwell; and whereas the ordination of ministers in the presence of the people among whom they are to labor is calculated to endear them very much to their flocks, while it gives their fathers and brethren in the ministry, an opportunity of knowing their opinions and sentiments on subjects of doctrine and discipline.

Philip was born December 21, 1786, to Isaac and Phebe (Condict) Lindsley at the residence of his maternal grandmother near Morristown, New Jersey. He prepared for college studying for three years in an academy under the direction of Rev. Robert Finley. Finley was a graduate of the College of New Jersey (Princeton) and was a tutor before ordination to the ministry. With the encouragement of Finley, Lindsley, just shy of his sixteenth birthday, entered the junior class at Princeton. Following graduation in 1804, he became a teacher in a school in Morristown, New Jersey, before returning home to teach with Finley. Lindsley professed faith in Christ and became a member of Finley’s church where he  soon felt called to the ministry. After resigning from the school at Morristown he came under care of the Presbytery of New Brunswick and returned to the College of New Jersey for two years to teach Latin and Greek while studying theology primarily with Samuel Stanhope Smith. Continued studies earned Lindsley the A.M. in 1807. He was licensed to preach the gospel by presbytery April 24, 1810.

He tested his gifts for ministry for two years supplying various pulpits while studying at Princeton. Several congregations including the Presbyterian Church in Newtown, Long Island, found him a proficient preacher and offered calls, but he declined them all. In 1811 he was twice offered the presidency of Transylvania University in Kentucky but declined these opportunities as well. Following an extended trip through New England with Finley, he returned to Princeton to become senior tutor of languages in the college in 1812. The next year he was appointed professor of languages, was elected secretary of the Board of Trustees, and soon thereafter added to his duties were those of librarian and dean. Lindsley was important for the operation of the college, but more importantly, another aspect of his work may have helped the college survive.

The year Lindsley returned to Princeton was the beginning of the ten-year tenure of Ashbel Green, D.D., as college president. It was an era of student unrest, vandalism, lawsuits, and declining enrollment. One of Green’s duties was raising funds to sustain and improve the college, but as a board member of the Presbyterian Church’s newly opened and much anticipated seminary at Princeton, Green instead raised funds for seminarians rather than for the collegians that were his immediate responsibility. One historian of Princeton, Thomas J. Wertenbaker, is critical of the Green administration and the college board saying that,

In this period of retrogression, when the president and trustees seemed either blind to the needs of the college or incapable of meeting them—a larger endowment, more professorships, better teaching, better equipment, fresh intellectual springs [sources], national rather than denominational control, a saner policy in maintaining discipline—there was among the faculty members one of the most progressive and ablest educational thinkers in the country. Philip Lindsley, the son of an Englishman of a distinguished family, studied under Robert Finley, graduated from Princeton when eighteen, became a tutor in 1807, studied theology under Samuel Stanhope Smith, and in 1817 became vice-president of the college. Despite his sensitiveness and nervous temperament, he was an interesting teacher and profound scholar. Amidst all the tumults in Nassau Hall, all the harsh repressive measures of the faculty and trustees, the students always respected Lindsley as their friend and trusted adviser. (p. 162)

Was Lindsley recognized by the college leadership as a reliable liaison between the restless students and disconcerted faculty? It would seem so because when Elijah Slack left the college vice presidency in 1817, student-beloved Lindsley was appointed to his position. He was soon ordained, sine titulo (without call), by the Presbytery of New Brunswick. Lindsley continued as vice president until he became acting president when Green resigned in 1822. Even though the college wanted him to continue in the presidency, after refusing an offer to the presidency of Ohio University he accepted an offer from what was then Cumberland College in Tennessee. Cumberland College had been created by Congress in 1806 with its substance drawn from Davidson Academy (founded December 29, 1785). Lindsley was inaugurated January 12, 1825, then as he had requested the name was changed to the University of Nashville Nov. 27, 1826. Nashville and the newly named university were transitioning from their rugged frontier beginnings into important places for further westward expansion while the city would eventually come be known as “Athens of the South.”

The University of Nashville was to be Christian but non-sectarian possibly because of a significant problem facing Lindsley. According to Woolverton, there were too many denominational colleges competing for too few dollars, so the more generic religious designation could increase enrollment (p. 9). But with respect to the education itself, he would set the University of Nashville apart from the existing Old Southwest colleges by following a different curriculum model. Under his leadership, by 1837 courses would be offered in “ancient languages and literature, Oriental languages, history, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, architecture, geology, archaeology, philosophy, law, political and economic statistics, fine arts, physiology, engineering, mechanics, and biblical literature” (Woolverton, pp. 19-20). To move the University of Nashville to its end Lindsey would present a new plan for education in his inaugural address.

Let us, then, borrow some ideas from the schools at Hofwyl and Yverdun—something from the ancient Greeks and Romans—something from our own Military Academies at Norwich and West Point—something from the pages of Locke, Milton, Tanaquil Faber, Knox, and other writers—something from old and existing institutions of whatever kind—something from common sense, from experience, from the character, circumstances and wants of our youth, from the peculiar genius of our political and religious institutions; and see whether a new gymnasium or seminary may not be established, combining the excellencies and rejecting the faults of all. I seriously submit it to my fellow citizens, whether this subject is not worthy of more than a passing thought or momentary approbation. Who is prepared to enter fully into its spirit, and to engage heart and hand in the enterprise? (pp. 99-100).

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