The school that would eventually become known as the University of South Carolina was facing a problem in 1820. The first President of the college, then known merely as the South Carolina College, was preparing to retire. Their search for a suitable replacement lead them to selecting remarkable a professor who had barley even been there for a year: a man named Thomas Cooper. A controversial and educated figure, Cooper went on to greatly shape the policy and history of the College for over a decade with his various contributions to the educational requirements of the curriculum. In addition to his direct contributions to the South Carolina College’s education, his vast collection of minerals were added to the schools museum, known as McKissick. A recent grant has enabled the museum to inventory and record the various specimens that Copper saved for study. Through his policies for improving the college, his various controversies that he brought about, and his extensive collection of minerals that remain at the college, Thomas Cooper did and continues to shape the College where he was elected as president so soon after its founding. Cooper was born in Westminster, and spent the first half of his life in England. He studied at Oxford but never …show more content…
He raised the required age of application from age 14 to age 15, and increased the amount of Greek and Latin that applicants were expected to know in order to gain admittance to the college. While he attempted to raise the age to 16 and to advocated making the education offered at the South Carolina College free, arguing that its was their duty to spread education to those who do not have it. While Cooper continued to teach chemistry, he also began to teach additional classes in the form of social