Reverend Elded Barber was the first principal and the purpose of the school as stated in the Board of Trustees minutes was to provide "instruction to youth of both sexes in the higher branches of English education, the learned languages and the liberal arts and sciences."
It was the desire of the trustees of the institute to place education within the reach of all who would avail themselves of it, and in this they succeeded as nearly as was possible.
No student was ever refused admission or dismissed because too poor to pay his way in the institute.
At the time it was established, it was the only school on the Western Reserve west of Hudson where young men could be prepared for college.
The Huron Institute closed in 1857 and re-opened as the Western Reserve Normal School in the next year.