professor, university president, b. Sherburne, N.Y. He attended Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y., and graduated from Yale Univ. (1819). He taught for several years, tutored at Yale (1822-1826), and worked briefly as a lawyer. In 1829 he became a professor at Hamilton College, leaving in 1841 to become president of the Univ. of Missouri. In 1849 he came to Wisconsin as first chancellor of the Univ. of Wisconsin. Although an excellent scholar and popular with the students, Lathrop's tenure as chancellor was marked by dissensions with the faculty, the regents, and the legislature. His indirection and lack of forcefulness in pressing for adequate appropriations, and his insistance on a "classical" education as the best means of serving the interests of the state offended those who wished to see the university conduct more practical courses in agriculture, education, industry, and commerce. Several of the faculty members also regarded his policies as arbitrary and dictatorial. The climax came in 1858 when the legislature investigated the university. Although the legislature's program for reorganizing the university was not made law, the regents undertook their own reorganization program. Lathrop resigned the chancellorship but continued to serve as professor and acting chancellor until 1859, when he became president of the Univ. of Indiana. In 1860 he returned to the Univ. of Missouri as a member of the faculty, and in 1865 was again made president, holding the office until his death. Dict. Amer. Biog.; Wis. Mag. Hist., 23; M. Curti and V. Carstensen, Univ. of Wis. (2 vols., Madison, 1949).

The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the John Hiram Lathrop Miscellany for details.

View a related article at Wisconsin Magazine of History Archives.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]