USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Brunswick > General catalogue of Bowdoin College and the Medical School of Maine, 1794-1894 > Part 4
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HISTORICAL SKETCH
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autographs-the last letter Professor Cleaveland wrote and the sonnet to his memory by his old-time student, Longfellow.
At the close of the first chapel service which was held in this building, George Thorndike, the youngest of the little group of students, half carelessly, half purposely, planted an acorn by the door-way. The next year, somewhat to his surprise, he found it had grown into a tiny shrub which he transplanted in the Presi- dent's garden. Here it has slowly, but steadily, grown, and for many years successive classes have held their farewell exercises beneath its boughs. It stands, not only as a memorial of that youth who was the first to die of a long line of graduates, but also as an emblem of the progress of the institution which has often suffered from the lack of material resources just as the tree has felt the natural poverty of the soil that sustains it.
The Thorndike Oak also serves to mark the position of the two wooden buildings which were erected under President McKeen, but were long since destroyed. The dwelling-house, built for him and also occupied by his two successors, stood between the tree and Main Street. From it a plank walk extended to the old chapel which then faced the west and was a few rods to the south- east of the oak. The chapel was at first only intended to be a temporary structure and, though afterwards enlarged and sur- mounted with a belfry, never was provided with adequate facilities for heating. The second story was the home of the college library until the completion of King Chapel. The insufficient accommodation it afforded cramped, if it did not check, the normal growth of the collection.
If tradition may be trusted the first Commencement, which occurred in September of 1806, was a most notable event in the social life of the District of Maine. The college Boards, which included those most prominent in the professions and in official station, were present as a matter of course. Visitors who came from as far as Boston and vicinity in their private carriages, gave an appearance of wealth and importance to the little village with its sandy roads that it had never known before. At the close of the exercises diplomas were conferred on the seven young men who had completed the course, and the ad eundem degree of
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bachelor or master of arts upon fourteen recent graduates of Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth, who had expressed the desire to become connected with the new institution. The festivities of the occasion were somewhat interrupted by the most violent storm of a series of years. In the darkness and confusion incident to the return from the Commencement ball, Gen. Henry Knox's fine equipage, with its load of ladies and gentlemen, was upset in the mire.
The first was also the last Commencement at which President McKeen presided. A painful and lingering disease which kept him from his college duties for several months terminated his life 15 July, 1807. His brief administration must be deemed remark- ably successful, if consideration be had of the difficulties under which he labored. Among the forty-four students he. matricu- lated, were Nathan Lord, for thirty-five years president of Dart- mouth College, Charles Stewart Daveis, prominent as a lawyer and polished orator, and two members of the legal profession who represented the commonwealth in the National Congress.
CHAPTER IV.
PRESIDENT APPLETON'S ADMINISTRATION.
Rev. Jesse Appleton-Bible study-College discipline-Maine Hall- State aid - Commons - The President as a teacher - Professorship of English and Hebrew-Other instructors-Student societies-Religious life-President Appleton's death-Political antagonism to the college.
To fill the vacancy caused by President McKeen's death, the Trustees selected one of their own number, Hon. Isaac Parker, afterwards chief justice of Massachusetts and for a number of years professor in Harvard University. Judge Parker had been active in college affairs, especially in the sale of the wild lands, was a man of scholarly tastes and well qualified for the position ; but his election was negatived by the lower Board. The Trustees then chose Rev. Eliphalet Nott, who had just begun his long and famous administration of Union College. He, too, was rejected by the Overseers. The third selection was Rev. Jesse Appleton, then pastor at Hampton, N. H., and this was approved by the other Board.
President Appleton was born 17 November, 1772, at New Ipswich, N. H., graduated at Dartmouth in 1792, and studied theology with Dr. Joseph Lathrop, of West Springfield, Mass. While yet a young man he had won a reputation for ability and scholarship, and had been a prominent candidate for the Hollis professorship at Harvard. Of the esteem in which his parish- ioners held him, evidence is given in the curious claim they made upon the college to be pecuniarily reimbursed for the loss of their pastor. Though not a controversialist, President Appleton was a leader on the evangelical side in the division that was then beginning to separate the Congregational churches of New Eng- land. He brought to the president's chair a sense of personal responsibility for the moral, religious, and intellectual welfare of the young men connected with the institution which many would characterize as morbid, and which certainly led to excessive labor
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and anxiety. In his inaugural address, delivered in December, 1807, after a tribute to the literary value of the Bible he suggests " whether some general system containing the outlines of Christian theology might not with advantage be considered as a necessary part of collegiate studies and whether his education should not be regarded as deficient who has no particular knowledge of the facts and doctrines described in the sacred volume."' In furtherance of this belief he conducted regularly a Sabbath evening exercise in Bible study in the chapel, in which all the students participated and for which he himself made especial preparation. This course was supplemented by the "theological lectures " delivered on Thursday afternoons. They were composed with great care and form the major portion of his works which were published posthumously in two octavo volumes. So earnest was he, not only in these public ministrations, but also in his daily recitations and private conversation, that it was said by one of his pupils that no one could go through Bowdoin College without receiving serious impressions.
A large portion of President Appleton's inaugural was devoted to the subject of college discipline. He held the view then prev- alent that college authorities should guard with paternal care, the students should render strict obedience, and that every transgression should receive a just recompense of reward. The specified pun- ishment must be inflicted not solely to maintain due subordination and respect for lawful authority, but as a part of a fair and hon- orable contract between two parties. This theory was executed with a conscientiousness and an impartiality that won respect, but that caused an amount of labor and of friction at which college Fac- ulties of the present day would stand aghast. For playing cards, for staying away from his room at night, for failing to observe study hours, for walking or driving unnecessarily on the Sabbath and for other similar offences, definite penalties were fixed and imposed. Unfortunately, delinquencies of this sort, while they occupy page after page of the records of the executive govern- ment, were not the only ones to be punished. The habits of
1 The works of Jesse Appleton, D.D., in two volumes, with a memoir of his life and character. Andover, 1837. Vol. ii., p. 392.
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society at that time and the circumstance that the students, for the first twenty years of the college's existence, were mostly from the wealthier class in the community, made intemperance a formid- able foe to college order and morality. The temptation to drink to excess, if opportunity be considered a part of temptation, was surely far greater than at the present day ; while the personal oversight conscientiously exercised by college officers living in the buildings made every shortcoming known. The failures of men well disposed and generally correct were not overlooked. On one occasion a young man, who afterwards became a faithful and honored pastor, was publicly admonished for having been over- come with liquor. There is no reason to believe that intemper- ance and kindred vices were more prevalent at Bowdoin than at other colleges at this period, but it seems proper to mention the earnest and open measures taken to check them. On the failure of the public admonition, the usual course was to suspend the student. Of sixteen cases of suspension during this administra- tion, six resulted in permanent separation from college. There were also two instances of dismissal or removal by the parent at the request of the Faculty.
It became evident in the previous administration that the endow- ment of the college was not sufficient to provide new buildings as they were needed, or even to maintain a suitable number of instructors for the increasing body of students. The college, therefore, was forced to appear as a suitor for legislative aid on several different occasions. In 1804 the General Court bestowed upon the two younger colleges, Williams and Bowdoin, equal rights in a "residuum of land in the town of Sullivan." This land proved to be ledge and was unsalable, until the era of spec- ulation in 1832, when Bowdoin received two thousand dollars for its half. In March, 1806, the township now known as Etna was granted to the college. It was promptly sold, and apparently brought into the college treasury $11,311.49, the amount appro- priated in September of that year for the erection of a new structure.
A college dormitory one hundred feet long, forty feet wide and four stories high, had long been an aspiration of the Boards.
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They had formally voted to build it ten years before, but poverty forbade. In 1808 such an edifice was completed and occupied by the students. A few years later, having perhaps lost some of that pristine importance which rendered a special name unneces- sary, it was formally designated Maine Hall, in honor of the new state. The various vicissitudes it has since experienced will be referred to in their chronological connection. It should be remem- bered, however, that the building was originally of greater archi- tectural pretensions than at present, having entrances in front with an elaborate pediment. The architect was Mr. Samuel Melcher of Brunswick, who also designed the old church and Winthrop Hall. The rooms were heated by open fire-places and provided with closets for study, which could not, however, be used in winter, and with capacious "wood-holes." They were without carpet, paint, or paper, but the charge for room rent was only five dollars a year.
Encouraged by the liberality of the previous legislature, the Boards in September, 1807, petitioned for the grant of two town- ships of land to increase the permanent endowment of the college. The petition was granted. Unfortunately, however, the demand for wild lands had slackened. After repeated efforts to sell them unlocated, two townships in Piscataquis County, still known as the Bowdoin College Grant, were formally transferred to the col- lege in 1813. They continued in its possession, a source of expense rather than income, for twenty years. They were then sold for $29,440. Owing to the presence of squatters the college had difficulty in disposing of the valuable lands given by Mr. Bowdoin in Bowdoin and Lisbon. Sebec, one of the townships in the original grant, brought $14,000 into the treasury ; but the sales from two others, Guilford and Abbot, which were made directly to settlers, ceased during the so-called " Ohio fever," while the severe seasons of 1816-17 crippled many who had already pur- chased and given notes on long time. The annual income of the college repeatedly failed to meet its current expenses. Under these circumstances the President and the senior professor agreed that two hundred dollars should be deducted from their salaries each year until " better times." Some of the Trustees proposed a
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lottery, but fortunately for the record, if not for the wealth of the institution, this proposal did not receive the sanction of the Boards. The legislature was petitioned for pecuniary aid, not " for authorization to raise $30,000 by a lottery." Happily for all concerned, the friends of the two other colleges in the Common- wealth, Harvard and Williams, who were before the General Court on a similar errand, made a joint request. As a result an act was passed, February, 1814, "for the eneouragement of liter- ature, piety, morality, and the useful arts and seiences." This meant a bank tax of sixteen thousand dollars for ten years, from which Harvard received annually ten thousand dollars, and Bow- doin and Williams three thousand each. Each college was to use one-fourth of the grant in defraying the tuition of worthy and indigent students. The importance of this grant to Bowdoin ean hardly be overestimated. It ensured the maintenance of the teaching force of five and gave promise of an addition to the number of professors whenever the endowment of wild lands became productive. It materially inereased the number of stu- dents by placing a college eourse within the reach of many to whom the tuition charge of twenty dollars was a formidable obstacle. The portion of the grant set apart for this purpose was carefully and faithfully applied. At first a small surplus aceumu- lated, but this disappeared in the next decade. A list of those to whom term by term an allowance was made from this source has been preserved, and it ineludes some of the best known and most useful workers the college has sent forth.
A minor, but hardly less satisfactory, result of the grant was the repayment of Messrs. Appleton and Abbot for the amount they had voluntarily taken from their salaries, and the assurance that similar saerifiee would be unnecessary in the future. The grant was assumed by Maine and renewed for a period of seven years. It eeased in 1831, the total amount thus received having been $51,000, of which $12,750 was paid baek directly to bene- fieiaries of the state.
At the opening of the college a publie inn was built in what is now the north-west corner of the college campus. It is probable that from the first some of the students boarded here, though a
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majority were accommodated in private families. In 1810 an arrangement was made with the owner, Col. T. S. Estabrook, to maintain " commons " for the tutors and students. The plan was undertaken from motives of economy and convenience. The table was presided over by the senior tutor, who said grace. The stu- dents were seated alphabetically in order of their classes, and are reported to have been orderly and respectful. The fare, plain, substantial, and inexpensive, was a subject of complaint from a few in each class who had themselves excused from the obligation to board there on the certificate of a physician that their health demanded an appetite tempted rather than satisfied. After a trial of five years the experiment was discontinued, to be renewed, however, under more favorable circumstances in 1828.
As in the previous administration the President had a large share in the work of instruction. The duties of the departments of mental and moral philosophy, and of rhetoric and oratory devolved mainly upon him. Especially after the resignation in 1816 of the chair of ancient languages by Professor Abbot, he frequently conducted the recitations in the classics. His fondness for Livy was so marked as to lead the students to maintain that, if called on to save three volumes from a burning library, the President would be found with Paley in one pocket, Livy in the other, and a big Bible in his arms. Of the character of his instruction, a pupil has given the following testimony :1
"Instruction in Butler's Analogy, and Paley's Evidences was always his peculiar province. With how much patience, assiduity and ability were these multiplied duties performed. His decided pre- dilection for those studies, which relate to the moral and intellectual nature of man, imparted to the recitations in these departments, as conducted by him, a high degree of interest and importance. The text books at that time in use, beside those above named, were Locke on the Human Understanding and Stewart's Elements of Intellectual Philosophy. He never permitted himself to enter the class room, without having thoroughly investigated the subject of the lesson. He usually conducted such investigations with pen in hand, and to insure precision and clearness on his part, he was accustomed to write his
1 Professor Alpheus S. Packard in the memoir prefixed to the published works . of Rev. Jesse Appleton.
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questions in the margin of his book. These were framed with much care and skill, so as to fix the attention more on the subject under discussion, than on the author. The students well knew, that igno- rance or sloth could not escape the severe serntiny they were obiged to undergo. Close attention and a vigorous exercise of their powers could alone stand the test, and the attentive pupil never left the recita- tion room without new topics for reflection, suggested both by the searching nature of the examination through which he had passed, and by the remarks of the President. At different times he heard the recitations in most of the Latin and Greek authors at that period read in our colleges, and his manner of conducting these exercises was marked by the peculiarities, which have been already noted. The passage always underwent a thorough examination, and minute accuracy in the forms and syntax was required, as also in the prosody, a point then too commonly neglected. The subjects assigned for forensic disputation, were usually derived from the studies of the class in intellectual, moral or political philosophy. This exercise was open to all the students of college. The decisions of the President, which were uniformly written, contained a brief summary of the most impor- tant arguments on both sides, followed by his own opinion. They were marked by that logical exactness and clear conclusive argumenta- tion, for which he was distinguished, and were listened to with great attention. The President's manner uniformly showed that he himself attached importance to the recitation. No languor, no indifference, no disposition to hurry through a task, was ever apparent in him. The natural tendency of this was to impress the student with the idea, that the exercises, at which he presided, were not to be lightly esteemed, much less to be neglected. His remarkable punctuality served to deepen this impression. It was well understood, that nothing but urgent necessity prevented him from being in his place at the appointed time. It does not admit of question, that his influence had in an uncommon degree, a tendency to give his pupils habits of logical exactness in reasoning, of patient, thorough investi- gation, as well as to form them to a pure taste. The entire absence, moreover, of display in himself, rebuked any disposition to be superficial in them. There is indeed little risk in affirming, that a large propor- tion of those who enjoyed the privilege of being trained by him, are still conscious, in their mental operations, of his forming hand."
In 1812 Rev. William Jenks, D.D., pastor of a Congrega- tional church in Bath, was chosen professor of the Oriental and
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the English languages. It was hoped that the finances of the college would soon allow it to claim all of the time of the new professor, who continued to hold his pastorate while giving instruc- tion in Hebrew and taking charge of the work in English compo- sition. This expectation was not realized, and four years later his resignation was regretfully accepted. Instruction in Hebrew, however, continued to be offered until 1866. It was an optional study, and rarely taken save by a portion of those who had the ministry in view.
Of the score of young men whom President Appleton called to assist in collegiate instruction, as tutors, not a few were attracted by his own reputation as a theologian to pursue with him their studies preparatory for the ministry. In view of this fact, it is curious to note that of the twelve who became clergymen, a majority joined the Unitarian denomination, with which the Pres- ident had little sympathy. Nehemiah Cleaveland, of the Class of 1813, was, with a single exception, the only one of the twenty whose service extended beyond two years. His name deserves mention here, not alone for faithful instruction rendered at the beginning of his long career as a teacher, but also for his valuable services as historian of his Alma Mater.
The two general literary societies, the Peucinian, established in 1805, and Athenæan in 1808, began to assume in this adminis- tration that important place in college life which they afterwards held for nearly half a century and which will receive full mention in a subsequent chapter.
During President McKeen's brief administration, religious life and activity existed among the teachers, not among the students. For a longer period than would be supposed, in view of the earnest efforts put forth from the first, this continued to be the case under President Appleton. The Theological Society, with a membership of seventeen, was organized in 1808, and its meetings continued to be held with greater or less regularity for forty years. Its object, however, was the friendly discussion of doctrinal and ethical questions, rather than the direct promotion of Christian living. Though its influence for practical piety was not manifest at the time of its organization, it is a significant fact
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that nine of these seventeen became earnest Christians in after life. The society collected a library of several hundred volumes which was incorporated with that of the college in 1850. Its discon- tinuance at that time seems to have been due to the increase in number and attractiveness of other student organizations, rather than in any special lack of interest in the subjects to which its discussions were devoted.1
In 1812 two men of earnest and aggressive piety, Frederic Southgate, tutor, and James Cargill, student, were the means of establishing meetings for prayer and the promotion of personal righteousness among the students, which have been since main- tained without interruption. An organization, formed three years later, and known until recently as the Praying Circle, was the agency through which these activities were conducted. Its con- stitution, though several times revised, always set forth the object of the association as "mutual edification of its members, the promotion of vital godliness in the college, and prayer for the universal spread of the gospel." Membership was open to those and only those who offered "charitable evidence of being real Christians " and gave "assent to the fundamental doctrines of the gospel." Its meetings have been held twice a week; one on the Sabbath, more formal in its character, and one on a week-day evening, conducted and attended as a rule by under-graduates only. Despite the presence on its rolls, from time to time, of names of unworthy members, the personal religious work it has accomplished has been very great. Its membership has varied in different years from one-tenth to one-half of the student-body.
Special religious interest marked the fall term of 1816. "The venerable Jotham Sewall preached in the college rooms with great fervor. He visited every room, talked freely, affec- tionately, and faithfully to us all concerning our duties to God and our eternal interests. And he earnestly besought us to be recon- ciled to God through Christ without delay. Especially was he devout and fervent in his prayers that God would give us his
1 In 1840, after discussing the question "till a late hour " at three different meetings, the society decided, by a vote of eleven to three, that the Bible does not teach universal salvation.
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Spirit, and, the greatest of all mercies, new and contrite hearts. Soon it was apparent that those prayers were answered, that the Holy Spirit was with us of a truth. The Bible, religion, personal salvation, were the absorbing topics within the walls of Bowdoin. Those were days to be remembered."1
The President, through whom Father Sewall had been secured to labor in this field, was indefatigable in his efforts to make permanent the results of the interest thus manifested. His feelings may be inferred from these two extracts from his private journal.
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