Church Career and University Presidency
Following graduation, John Anderson entered the Presbyterian ministry, and was ordained four years later. His first charge was located in Stockton, California, where he served until 1862 when he was appointed chaplain of the Third regiment, California volunteer infantry. In this capacity, he accompanied General Patrick Edward Connor and the regiment on its expedition to Salt Lake City, Utah. Alexander resigned from this role in the spring of 1863, and he was subsequently appointed relief agent, United States Sanitary Commission, a post he held until 1865.
In 1868 Anderson came to Kansas as pastor of the First Presbyterian church in Junction City. He soon became a vocal critic of the fact that Kansas State Agricultural College, the Land-grant university in neighboring Manhattan, Kansas, was focusing on providing a classic liberal arts education rather than a practical agricultural education. Partly as a result of his advocacy, the Kansas Board of Regents appointed Anderson the second President of Kansas State on September 1, 1873. Anderson's tenure was marked by pedagogical reform in which academic emphasis was subordinated to a more practical approach to applied agriculture.
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