USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Vol II > Part 4
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"'In the land of the stranger, despised and forlorn, We drag out our lives 'neath the scourge and the chain. Our name a reproach, our suffering a scorn, We cry for relief from oppression in vain.
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"'O yet while the vengeance of heav'n is delayed, Ere your crimes shall have filled up the cup of your woe ; In pity relent at the wreck ye have made, And bind up the hearts that lie bleeding and low.'"
" The Williams College Temperate Society " was formed in July, 1827, with fifty-seven members. They adopted a constitution which
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prohibited the use of ardent spirits and wine except "for wounds, in case of sickness, by the advice of a physician, at the sacrament, or when necessary for the preservation of life." This pledge was regarded by some as unnecessarily stringent, and occasioned no little criticism. "It is true," said the advocates of it, " we were ahead of public opinion. We had taken high and novel ground, in which the public were not pre- pared to sustain us. But we are not of the number of those who idly pretend that we must merely keep pace with public opinion on this subject and not attempt to lead it." The dissatisfaction resulted in the autumn of 1827 in the formation of a second organization with a milder constitution-" The New Temperance Society of Williams Col- lege." At the annual meeting of 1828 this society passed a resolution de- claring " that the use of ardent spirits in any quantity by the student is most sincerely to be deprecated." Members of the older organization thought that men who could say no more than that were hardly worthy of admission into the ranks of temperance workers, especially as they laid no restriction whatever on the use of wine. The new society peo- ple seem to have been very much alive to criticism. "We have met with opposition," they declare in their report of the annual meeting for 1829, "with opposition from those whose babblings we fear not, and whose praise would disgrace us. The effects of their bigotry will recoil on themselves. We would smile at their malice if we did not pity the ignorance that produces it!" On the Fourth of July, 1829, orations were delivered before both societies-one of them in the morn- ing, and the other in the afternoon.
Another sign of progress was the publication of a college paper, The Adelphii, the first number appearing August 18th, 1831, and the last July 9th, 1832. It was a creditable enterprise. The young men who contributed to it, however they may have acquired the ability, wrote
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very respectable English. Among the subjects which they discussed were Gibbon, the political character of Milton, "Alas, Poor Yorrick," Bulwer's novels, and the poetry of Willis, Whittier, Bryant, H. K. White and Scott. In the valedictory issue the editor complains that his labors have been of almost herculean dimensions. He says that he has been obliged to sweep the college with a drag, to search old drawers, to turn upside down the neglected contents of old closets, and to pry into every nook and corner of the institution in his search for contributions. "And then," he goes on to say, "it has been our pleasant task to review, criticise, correct, amplify, point, dash and interrogate said compositions and condense the substance of them in our paper." Evidently this editor drew a fairly long bow.
The Adelphi of April 26th, 1832, contains a lively description of an obsolete college custom which dates back almost to the beginning of the institution-Chip Day. During the winter a large amount of debris collected about the buildings from the chopping and sawing of fire-wood, and in the spring the students (recitations being suspended) devoted a day to clearing it up. In 1832 this Chip Day seems to have passed off with unusual cclat. "At length it came," says the writer, " and a beautiful one it was. The laughing sun shone brightly and not a cloud darkened the azure concave. ' Hurrah! hurrah!' echoed through our halls. 'We have the day, hurrah! hurrah!'" The big, disfiguring piles of chips were quickly removed. A procession followed in which the chipmen became a martial troop, brooms and brushes served as flagstaffs, and sheets and handkerchiefs as floating pennons. "Our quiet, beautiful town of the vale has not seen so im- posing a sight this many a day."
There are two other holidays which, according to an editorial writer in The Williams Quarterly for June, 1856, it has always been customary
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for the faculty to grant-Gravel Day and Mountain Day. "We say al- ways -- at least the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." Though their exact date may be doubtful, neither of them can claim the antiquity of Chip Day. Gravel Day was devoted to repairing the walks on the campus, which, in consequence of the clayey character of the soil, were often in a wretched condition. The only one of these holidays which still survives is Mountain Day. In the nature of the case the others were temporary. They grew out of the crude, primitive conditions, and passed away with them. But Mountain Day has quite another foundation. It is designed to call the attention of students in an emphatic way to the extraordinary scenic beauties of the region. The raison d'etre for this custom has strengthened with the lapse of time, as the growth of the college, the addition of new buildings to the plant, have invested the landscape with a larger human interest. In the summer of 1838 Nathaniel Hawthorne spent a month in the neighbor- hood and did not fail to appreciate this Northern Berkshire wonder- iand. The view of Williamstown which he described was at a distance of two or three miles, and he saw " a white village and a steeple in a gradual hollow with high mountainous swells, heaving themselves up, like immense subsiding waves, far and wide around it. On these high mountain waves rested the white summer clouds. It was like a day-dream to look at, and the students ought to be day-dreamers, all of them-when cloud-land is one and the same thing with the sub- stantial earth."
In 1833 President Griffin's health began to fail. It had become so far impaired in 1835 that he was unable to attend to his college duties. According to The Boston Recorder for June 21st, it was announced that his place as instructor of the Senior class would be supplied by Mr.
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Hopkins, "the very able and popular Professor of Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric."
President Griffin resigned in 1836, and took a final leave of Will- iamstown in September. His departure was marked by unusual demon- strations of affection. These demonstrations were eminently fitting, as he had saved the institution from extinction and established it on a permanent foundation. The declaration of Dr. Samuel H. Cox at the Commencement of 1856 that, but for President Griffin, Williams College " would have been securely anchored among the sunken reefs of obliv- ion," is simply an emphatic enunciation of the truth. His impressive per- sonality, his eloquence, which often rose to a commanding pitch, and his wide reputation among the churches, enabled him to do what probably no other man could have done. And withal, during these years when the fate of the college was trembling in the balance, it succeeded in edu- cating and sending out into the world men of whom it has no occasion to be ashamed. Among them were eleven College Presidents, eight College Professors, eight Judges, nine members of Congress, and a goodly number of professional and business men.
The 16th of August, 1836, is memorable in the annals of the col- lege, since on that day the man who became "beyond all question the most conspicuous figure during the first century of its ex- istence," was elected President. For this auspicious event a negative sort of credit is all that can be awarded to the trustees. Evidently they did not know a hawk from a handsaw, since, when Doctor Griffin retired, they promptly elected as his successor the Rev. Dr. Absalom Peters, a man with no aptitude whatever for the place, and that, too, when Mark Hopkins was a member of the faculty and had made an extraordinary impression upon the college. Whether the trustees, if there had been no intervention, would have finally elected him to the presidency, is more
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than doubtful. This fortunate intervention came from the students, who in this particular instance were wiser than their official guardians. "If the boys want him." said the Rev. Dr. Samuel Shepard, senior member and vice-president of the board, with a fine magnanimity. " let them have him." What the grounds of hesitation were is mostly a matter of con- jecture. It was not their first hesitation in regard to Mark Hopkins. When they met in 1830 to elect a successor to Professor Porter in the chair of Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric. Dr. Durfee, in his " Biograph- ical Annals," says that there was a difference of opinion among them as to the most suitable candidate and that the speech of a newly elected member. Colonel Henry W. Dwight, of Stockbridge, turned the scale and secured the election of his townsman. "For this." in the opinion of Dr. Durfee, " he is entitled to the thanks of the alumni."
The trustees in 1836 may have thought Professor Hopkins too young for the post, as he was only thirty-four years old. Or possibly they may have misread the significance of his popularity, interpreting it as nothing more than a by-product of easy class-room methods.
It was soon apparent to the most careless observers that no mistake had been made. The board of trustees quickly got into line. In the course of a few years the personnel of it changed very considerably. Among the earliest of the new members was Dr. Henry Lyman Sabin, of Williamstown, who continued in office forty-six years and was a close friend of the President. Within the first decade the Rev. Dr. Vermilye, Charles Stoddard, Esq., the Rev. Dr. Robbins, Governor Briggs, Governor Washburn, and the Rev. Dr. Todd, also became mem- bers of the board.
The new President was born in Stockbridge, in Southern Berk- shire, and in 1824 graduated in Northern Berkshire, where he spent almost the entire subsequent period of his long life. The year follow-
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ing his graduation he taught in Stockbridge and attended the Pittsfield Medical School. Then followed two years of service at Williams as tutor. In 1827 he resumed his medical studies, and in 1829 received the degree of M. D. His election in 1830 to a professorship diverted him from the practice of medicine and changed his whole plan of life. The American Advocate of September 8th, 1830, contains in its account of Commencement the following colorless announcement : "Dr. Mark Hopkins, of New York City, formerly a tutor in the college, was ap- pointed to the professorship of Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric, vacant by the death of the lamented Professor Porter."
President Hopkins, who was inducted into office at the opening of the college year in the autumn of 1836, devoted his inaugural address to a discussion of education in general and to setting forth his plans for the college. "I have no ambition," he said, "to build up here what would be called a great institution." So late as the Commence- ment of 1884 he reaffirmed this statement, and declared that fifty stu- dents a year- two hundred in all-would content him. But he was anxious at the outset and always, that " here may be health and cheerful study and kind feelings and pure morals."
Mark Hopkins held the office of President for thirty-six years. On the material side, in the matter of brick and mortar and endowment, his administration made a very creditable showing. Nine buildings were erected, -- an Astronomical Observatory, South College, East College, Lawrence Hall, Kellogg Hall, Jackson Hall, the old Chapel, Goodrich Hall, and College Hall,-while the productive funds rose from $25,000 to $300,000. There were times in this period when hope had heavy accounts to settle with fear. The total destruction of the old East Col- lege in 1841 by fire brought the institution into serious financial straits. Not less grave was the emergency on the outbreak of the Civil War,
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when sixty students left the college in six months, when prices were greatly increased and the income fell off alarmingly. Through these and other grave crises the institution was successfully piloted.
To President Hopkins, however, the executive details of college administration had no particular attraction. He managed them with good success, but his genius lay elsewhere-lay in the qualities which made him the foremost teacher of college students in his time. These qualities had their source largely in his personality. He owed little to technical scholarship or original investigation or wide reading. To freshen familiar ideas, to set them forth in their completest and most attractive form, was his province. Keen, incisive, kindly, able to invest even the profounder questions of philosophy with a fascinating interest, he made his class room a luminous and inspiring place. He taught for fifty-nine years in Williams College, and that is a capital fact in its history.
Another point is worthy of notice. For a long period Dr. Hop- kins belonged, like James Martineau in Manchester College, to the class of teachers which have been called " pluralists " as distinguished from " specialists,"-teachers who meet the pupil at many points rather than a single point, so that the latter feels the " full weight of their intellect and character." During the twenty years after his election to the presidency he " taught all the studies of the Senior Class, corrected all their literary exercises, and preached once every Sabbath." Such a range of work for a single instructor, unusual at any time, is of course no longer practicable. The contrast between the Senior year of 1836- 56 and that of 1905-06, when the teaching force concerned numbers more than a score, is at least interesting.
The accession of President Hopkins wrought no immediate and sudden change in the fortunes of the college. In attendance the in-
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crease was slow. The largest class graduating in Dr. Griffin's day nun- bered thirty-two. During the first five years of the administration of his successor that total was surpassed only once. While the students discovered at an early day that President Hopkins was a remarkable man, the public did not begin to accord him much recognition until after the Semi-centennial in 1843. That anniversary, though conditions were just then depressing, as the Old East College burned down two years before and the plans for raising funds had not prospered very well, was celebrated with great enthusiasm. And the one signal event of this anniversary, an event which lifted it high above all routine and commonplace. was the oration of President Hopkins. Not more than two or three of the baccalaureate sermons, even, which illuminated sub- sequent commencements, rival it in intellectual force, in breadth of thought and artistic temper. The oration attracted immediate attention, and was the beginning of the larger recognition of his genius.
One striking feature of the preceding administration was greatly modified. The revivalism which constituted so prominent and dramatic a feature in the Williams College of 1821-36, could hardly continue to be what it had been. The bent of President Hopkins' mind was phil- osophic and rationalizing rather than emotional and declamatory. He set his students to a serious and reverent study of man-of his physical, intellectual and spiritual characteristics. Here the dominant note was hardly revivalistic. Yet there was no lack of intensity and fervor in the religious dispensation which followed on the passing of Dr. Griffin. The apostle of this new religious life was not the President, but his brother, Albert Hopkins-a man of intense, refined, poetic spirituality. He had the fervor, the visionary eye and car, and the dramatic sensi- bility of the greater Hebrew prophets. The chief organ of his religious work was a noon prayer meeting which, beginning in 1832, survived for
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forty years. Professor Hopkins not only founded it, but continued to be the life and soul of it to the end.
The noon prayer-meeting was essentially devotional. Questions of theology never obtruded upon it. But the field of dogmatics was not neglected. "Vincent on the Catechism " became a part of the curric- ulum at an early day. President Hopkins retained the book and gave up Saturday mornings to a discussion and exposition of its contents. All the great doctrines of the Christian faith were considered in the course of the year, and the splendid genius of the instructor never showed to better advantage than in some of these weekly exercises.
From 1836 to 1872 the expectancy and enthusiasm of Williams stu- dents centered in Mark Hopkins. "Senior year, which gave us the privilege of his instruction," wrote Professor W. D. Whitney, of the class of 1845, " was the period eagerly looked forward to all the way through college, and, like other classes before and after us, we were not disappointed." Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that no intellectual interests were abroad in these days except those which . gathered about the president. In 1838 an observatory . was completed, the first permanent building of the kind in this country, and conse- quently, in the words of Professor Safford, a striking landmark in the history of American astronomy. The observatory was planned and built by Albert Hopkins, who three years before led a scientific expedi- tion to Nova Scotia to observe the high tides in the Bay of Fundy and to make collections in the interest of natural history. It was a pioneer expedition, nothing of the sort having been undertaken before by our colleges, and attracted the attention of European scholars. Subse- quently other scientific expeditions were undertaken,-one to Florida, one to Mexico, and one to South America. Dr. Ebenezer Emmons be- came widely known as a geologist. Professor Chadbourne, by his
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eloquence and enthusiasm, revived the interest in natural science. Pro- fessor Phillips had few, if any, superiors as a teacher of Greek; Pro- fessor Carter gave distinction to the department of Latin; Dr. Bascom introduced three subjects-Fine Art, English Literature and Sociology -into the curriculum before they had obtained much recognition in other institutions, and discussed them with unwonted power and bril- liancy. Professor Perry's work in Political Economy was of a high order and importance. "From 1866 to 1870," according to Professor Bullock, of Harvard University, "after the appearance of Professor Perry's book, the study of Political Economy can be said to have been as prominent at Williams as almost anywhere in the United States. Woolsey at Yale, Lieber at Columbia, and Bowen at Harvard are about the only men who were better known than Professor Perry; and, in the field of Political Economy proper, Perry's work was of greater importance than that of these men."
This catalogue is by no means complete. Other men there were quite worthy of a place in it, but enough has been said to show that the teaching staff of this period was of no ordinary character.
The relations of students and faculty in Dr. Hopkins' time were generally pleasant. His attitude toward them was always kindly; he never fell into the bad way of looking upon them as the adverse party which must be regarded with suspicion and treated with reserve. Only one serious disturbance occurred in his time-the rebellion of 1868- and that broke out in his absence and was quickly composed on his return. Fines were still the prevailing penalty for the lesser offenses. As usual, we find a considerable variety of conduct which came under the ban, some of which does not now seem to be so very black. Sleep- ing out of one's room, failure to recite the morning after Thanksgiving, littering the halls with the bones of chickens surreptitiously eaten, putting
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up a flag on the Sabbath, which happened to be also the Fourth of July (1841), smoking out Freshmen, stamping in recitation, going to Troy when excused to go to Bennington-these are among the offenses for which fines ranging from twenty-five cents to five dollars were imposed.
During a considerable part of the period under consideration there was an uncommon interest in the public literary societies. Among the subjects discussed the majority were political. They included the char- acter of Jefferson, the annexation of Mexican territory, the Fugitive Slave law. the Kansas agitation, the emancipation proclamation, and nearly every other important question of contemporary politics. In these discussions a surprising conservatism often appears. The young gentlemen concluded that the Fugitive Slave act was "advisable"; that Old John Brown was guilty of treason and therefore deserved hanging, and that Abraham Lincoln ought not to be re-elected.
A curious illustration of certain phases of the life in these societies is seen in the abolition of the office of Reader. This office, the chief function of which was the presentation of volunteer communications, had been in existence many years, and on the whole had served an amusing and useful purpose. But it was a sort of thing that readily lent itself to abuse. From the beginning there had been complaints of varying intensity and volume. In 1840 the character of the communi- cations fell so low that the Reader asked to be relieved from his duties. His request was granted, the office abolished, and the secretary directed to draw up and spread upon the records of the society a statement of the reasons for this summary action. "The pieces in this depart- ment," said the secretary in his statement. "tend directly to foster vice; to excite hatred, animosity, revenge and the like; to blunt the moral perceptions : to make enemies of friends, [and] to interfuse into
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the mind ideas the most pernicious and polluting!" Unless the secre- tary's indictment of this wicked institution is to be taken with large allowance, the Philologians of 1840 abolished it none too soon.
In these later times it is not easy to understand the intense and bitter rivalry which often existed. A striking instance of it occurred in 1850. . President Hopkins and Professor Tatlock happened to attend a meeting of the Technian Society, and naturally were invited to speak. Being " old Techneans," they both made brief remarks. This innocent visit roused a tremendous indignation among the Philologians. At a special meeting they passed a series of resolutions denouncing it as some- thing " unprecedented since our connection with the college," as an in- defensible act of favoritism to a rival society. " We must and do unani- iously protest," said these much perturbed young men, "against all such interference as most unwise and ungenerous." Two of their num- ber served as a committee to present President Hopkins and Professor Tatlock with a copy of the resolutions. The present writer has no in- formation in regard to the audience of the committee with these gentle- men, but it must have been an interesting occasion.
Another illustration of these absurdly strained relations appears in a vote, October 16, 1850, directing the Philologian secretary to pre- serve certain resolutions " as a monument of Technian perfidy too dis- graceful to be placed on the records of this society!"
It was during President Hopkins' administration that all organized opposition on the part of the students to the Greek Letter fraternities came to an end. The oldest of these fraternities-the Kappa Alpha Society-was founded in the autumn of 1833 with fourteen members. Not only the faculty but a majority of the students looked upon the innovation with disfavor. About a year later this opposition took shape in the organization of a society called first the Social and later the Equit-
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able Fraternity, with the avowed " purpose of counteracting the evil tendency of secret associations." This organization began with a mem- bership of thirty. It waged a twenty-nine years' war against secret societies, and then gave up the fight as a lost cause. But final defeat was preceded by some signal successes. At times its membership was large and influential. In 1838 two-thirds of all the men in college belonged to it, and for the next decade the proportion seldom fell much below one-half. Feeling between the antagonistic cotcries often ran high, especially in the early years. An illustration of the ruder col- lisions occurred in 1839. Late at night a mob of Social Fraternity men are reported to have visited the house where the Kappa Alphas were in session and to have begun a disturbance. "One of our members." said a participant in the little mêlée, " seized an old Queen Anne musket and another an ancient sabre, and we all sallied forth, drove the gang to the top of Consumption Hill, when we suddenly found ourselves confronted by Professor Albert Hopkins." His appearance brought the hostilities to a sudden conclusion. But the discussions, the warfare of pamphlets and personal appeals continued to the last. In November, 1855, two of the Greek Letter societies challenged the Equitable Fra- ternity to a public discussion of the question, " Resolved, that the anti- secret society in college is uncalled for and inefficient." The latter promptly picked up the glove which they threw down, and appointed James Abram Garfield, Andrew Parsons and Charles Stork as its repre- sentatives. Formal articles of agreement regulating the discussion were drawn up, but the matter never got beyond this point. The Greek Letter champions finally withdrew, pleading " want of time to do justice to the subject " and the impolicy " of making an excitement in college." " Thus ended," said Garfield in his report to the society, " the bold and chivalrous attack of the knights of modern secrecy on the prin-
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