The history of Colby College, Part 12

Author: Colby College
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press
Number of Pages: 716

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This certifies that has paid into the treasury of Waterville College $600 towards erecting a chapel. Thereby he and his assigns forever are entitled to enter and have one student in the College, free of all bills for room rent, tuition, lectures, and library; but no assignment shall be recognized by the College as valid unless the same shall be made by the donor to some incorporated body in trust or otherwise. Provided that, if the College shall at any time here- after pay the donor, his trustees or assigns, the sum of $600, the scholarship shall cease.

Perhaps fearing that the scheme might get out of control by extending per- manently too generous largess, the Trustees voted to restrict the number of scholar- ships to twenty-five.

In 1836 construction was started on a building situated between North Col- lege and South College. Its earliest name was Recitation Hall, but soon after the close of the presidency of James T. Champlin, in 1873, it was renamed, in his honor, Champlin Hall. It was originally 65 by 40 feet and two floors high, surmounted by a square tower, on top of which was a smaller tower containing the college bell.3 In later years a third floor was added to the building and it was otherwise remodeled. Professor Hall is authority for the often questioned state- ment that the architect was Thomas U. Walter, who later designed the extension to the national capitol in Washington. The entire structure was erected at a cost of eight thousand dollars.

The entire first floor was taken up by a large chapel, and above it were the library, a room with the philosophical apparatus, and two recitation rooms. Be- cause the main floor was elevated several feet above the ground level, it was possible to secure a basement with considerable window surface above ground. The four recitation rooms in that basement were, however, damp, dreary and unattractive-the cause of many complaints until the general remodeling after the Civil War.

The connection between President Babcock's scholarship plan and the erec- tion of Recitation Hall was made clear in President Champlin's semi-centennial address in 1870, when he said: "The central building, between North and South Colleges, was begun during the summer of 1836 and was completed in 1837, for the sum of eight thousand dollars, Dr. Babcock having secured about that amount in scholarship subscriptions."5

When President Babcock arrived on the scene, aid from the State of Maine had ceased, and it was not to be resumed until 1861. In eleven years following the formation of Maine as a separate state, the College had received a total of $13,500, the last payment of which had been $1,000 in 1832. It had begun with $500 in 1821, followed by $1,000 in each of the next three years, by $1,500

HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE

in 1825, by $2,000 in each of the subsequent three years, by $1,000 in 1829 and $1,500 in 1830.

The last thousand dollars of state money, granted in 1832, came hard. The request for three thousand dollars, was approved by the legislative committee. They pointed out that the budget for 1832-33 called for $3,780, broken down as follows: President's salary, $900; three professors at $600 each, $1,800; salary of one tutor, $300; incidental expenses, $300; interest on debt, $480. For in- come the College could expect $26.50 a year for tuition and room rent from 59 students, totaling $1,563.50; interest on notes given for land and timber, $360; making all expected income only $1,923.50, leaving an expected deficit of $1,856.50. When the bill reached the floor of the House, it was amended to provide $1,000 for one year only.

Even the total of $13,500 supplied by the state since 1820 had not been without costly restrictions. Since 1825, each grant had been accompanied by the provision that $500 of each year's payment should be applied to the partial or total remission of tuition for indigent students holding residence in Maine.

The legislative committee found strong reason for granting the original re- quest, even though the majority of the legislature decided otherwise. The com- mittee reported:

We are satisfied as to the manner in which the concerns of Waterville College have been managed, that the money granted by the state, as well as that contributed by individuals, has been carefully applied and judiciously and economically expended. At Waterville College the ex- penses of a student are less than one-fourth of what they are at Harvard. It will be perceived from the annexed statement that Waterville College cannot continue to operate without aid from some source, and that the amount it has received from private donations much exceeds all that has been given by the State.8

In spite of Jeremiah Chaplin's devotion to the College and his ceaseless efforts to keep it financially solvent, he was accused by the more conservative Baptists of being the man who had killed the theological department. Rufus Babcock was determined to remedy that situation. He never suggested that the main business of the institution should be other than that of a college of liberal arts, but he did believe that, as an adjunct to such a college, a Baptist theological school could be advantageously operated. The promotion of theological training within the denomination was in the hands of the Maine Baptist Theological Asso- ciation. When that body convened at Hallowell in 1836, it received the following communication from President Babcock:

Ever since the organization of the present faculty of the College, it has been the determination to form a theological class entirely distinct from the college exercises, and they have only been delayed until the present time for want of materials. Such a class is now formed, and during the whole of the last term has been progressing in theological studies. The class is limited in its course to a single year.7

The single year of theological studies, according to Babcock's announcement, consisted of eight parts. In the first term were Antiquities and Geography of the Bible; Ecclesiastical History; Bible in Original Languages and in the English Version; Composition and Elocution. The second term covered Principles of

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Biblical Interpretation and Christian Theology. In the third term the students would write at least fifty exercises on doctrines and duties, would compose and deliver sermons, and pursue a study of pastoral and pulpit duties. The announce- ment stated, "No charge is made for tuition in the theological class."

Of course there was no money to provide a separate theological faculty. Babcock simply arranged that two of the professors should join him in giving theological instruction, as an added load to their college classes and without addi- tional compensation. It was a sincere, even sacrificial attempt to allay the qualms and answer the complaints of dissident Baptists, but it did not succeed. The annual catalogues which the College published during the Babcock presidency do not even mention the theological class, nor do the names of any such students appear in the lists of enrolled students who did not receive degrees. The at- tempt seems to have been carried on for only one year, with about half a dozen students, who remained anonymous. Perhaps it would have been more success- ful if Babcock himself had not resigned in 1836.

Working day and night to put the struggling college on its feet, Rufus Bab- cock so taxed his strength that his health failed. Not only had he raised $20,000, revived theological instruction and taken on a heavy load of personal teaching, but he had also assumed almost alone the burden of the college finances. Major financial responsibility of the institution has been the fate of most Colby presi- dents. It had certainly been true of Chaplin; yet even he had the assistance of fund-raising agents appointed by the Trustees. When Babcock became presi- dent, the treasury was so low that the Trustees dared not risk the continuation of a financial agent out in the field, but left the whole fund-raising job to the new president.

As a consequence of these manifold duties, Babcock became increasingly afflicted with pulmonary trouble, so that his physician, suspecting the approach of tuberculosis, insisted that he must seek a different climate. At the annual meeting of the Board on August 1, 1836, he presented his resignation.

Not the least of President Babcock's contributions had been his relaxation of stern, often cold relationships between faculty and students. In the first quar- ter of the nineteenth century some of the customs started at Harvard nearly two hundred years earlier had been abandoned. Students were no longer required to use only Latin in conversation on the campus. But other ancient customs of college life had survived. At Dartmouth and Williams, at Brown and Amherst, even at Bowdoin and Waterville, a student was expected to stand with uncovered head when he talked with any professor, even out-of-doors on the coldest winter day. The student must keep his hat off until the professor was out of sight. Such practices seemed nonsense to Dr. Babcock. Even in the classroom he en- couraged an informality which his colleagues were reluctant to accept, and after his departure the old classroom decorum was so strongly resumed that it per- sisted until well after the Civil War.

It should not be assumed that, while some customs were relaxed, discipline was non-existent. There were plenty of regulations calling for exemplary con- duct, and the faculty insisted upon their rigid enforcement. Every student was required to attend chapel twice a day, before breakfast in the morning, and at early candle light in the evening. All disturbance in the buildings or on the campus was strictly prohibited, and no student was allowed to be absent from his room or use any musical instrument during study hours. Not only must the student attend chapel service twelve times a week, twice every day from Monday through Saturday; he must also "behave with gravity and reverence dur-

HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE

ing the whole service, and while going to and returning from the same." On Sunday and on every Fast Day the student must attend public worship of the church of his choice. A student could not escape this requirement by registering his choice for a denomination that held no service in Waterville or the immediate vicinity. He must attend some church where the faculty regularly posted proc- tors. In the 1830's the choices were limited to the Baptist and Universalist Churches in Waterville, the Congregational Church in Winslow, and the occa- sional services held by other denominations in the public meetinghouse on the Waterville town common.

A serious offense was for a student to keep a cat or a dog "for his private use or pleasure," and if he were caught in the possession of gunpowder, he was almost certain to be expelled. It is interesting to note that the rule against the use of tobacco was more severe than the liquor regulations. "No student shall, at any time, smoke a pipe or cigar in any rooms of the College, or in or near any of the out-buildings; nor shall he keep any ardent spirits, wines or in- toxicating liquors, except when prescribed by his attending physician for medi- cine or permitted by the faculty." Under what conditions the faculty permitted the use of wine or spirits, the old records sayeth not. But quite as repugnant to the authorities as indulgence in liquor or tobacco was playing "at dice, cards, billiards, backgammon, or any such game."

The old doctrine that a man's house is his castle never applied to student dormitories. The faculty saw to it that no such false notion took hold at Water- ville College. They decreed: "Any member of the faculty shall have power at all times to order students to go to their own rooms, and every student must obey such order without delay; and any faculty member must be admitted into a student's room promptly when he requests such admission." Students were also forbidden to enter the rooms of other students without the latters' permission.

Young men in college in the 1830's had to be careful how they let off sur- plus energy. "No student shall make any bonfire, play off fireworks, nor go shooting or fishing, without permission of the President." If a student left town without permission, he was severely punished. Even in the college town, there were certain things the student could not do with impunity. Conscious of those town and gown relations that have always troubled college communities, the faculty decreed: "Every student shall maintain a sacred respect for the property of per- sons living adjacent to the College. He shall not enter upon their ground, nor do any injury to their possessions, under pain of severe punishment, independently of subjecting himself to the penalty of the laws of the country." There was an- other regulation designed to assure proper student behavior in the village. "No student shall eat or drink in any tavern in Waterville, except in company with his parent or guardian; nor shall he attend any theatrical performance or idle show in Waterville, nor be guilty of disorderly behavior or disturbance of any citizen."

College students have long been adept at "snitching" food. As long ago as 1830, Waterville College published a rule that "no student shall enter any apartment appropriated to the Steward, without his permission, under any pre- text whatever; and any attempt to do shall be deemed an offense worthy of repre- hension."

Punishments understandably varied with the gravity of the offense. Unless, because of immediate and humble penitence, an offender was pardoned outright, the lightest penalty was a public reprimand, made in chapel before his assembled fellow students. The offender had to stand at the front of the room, before the

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pulpit, while the President delivered the reprimand. For absences from class or chapel, for violation of study hours, and for numerous other misdeeds, the penalty was a fine. Unexcused absence from any college exercise cost the student ten cents; absence from town cost him twenty-five cents a day. For more severe misconduct the punishment was suspension from college, ranging from a period of two weeks to a whole term's "rustication" in the home of some Baptist min- ister. The popular belief that expulsion was common in all colleges in the old days, even for offenses now regarded as not very serious, is not substantiated by the records, at least not by those of Waterville College. The faculty showed great patience before finally resorting to expulsion. Even when final severance was at first intended, the offender was often readmitted by a relenting vote. It is important to note, however, that no single college officer, not even the President, imposed or rescinded any of the penalties. Every case was decided by faculty vote. Those votes, however, were not of equal value. On every matter decided by the faculty, disciplinary or otherwise, the President was entitled to three votes, each professor to two votes, and each tutor to one.

The faculty records are replete with interesting cases of discipline. One such item reads: "Having convicted J. and C. of taking up a goose in the road between this town and Augusta, bringing it into the College and afterwards treat- ing it with cruelty, it was voted that J., principal in the action, should be rusticated till next Commencement, and that C. should be suspended till the beginning of the next term. Voted also that J. and C. pay fifty cents each as a restitution to the owner of the goose."

Sometimes indeed a case did reach the point of expulsion. When that oc- curred, there was drawn up an indictment much like that presented to a grand jury in a criminal case. When one J. G. was expelled, in 1830, he was found guilty of eight separate offenses: "Uniting with another student in breaking down a classmate's door; removing a garret door of the south division of South Col- lege; making threats against members of the faculty; falsely representing to an officer that members of his class wished to have their lessons shortened; falsely representing that the class wished to be excused from recitation in order to make a walk between South and North Colleges; arranging letters in his black- board diagrams so as to form obscene words; throwing a ball at an officer of the College with the acknowledged intent of hitting him; endeavoring to create amusement in the recitation room by distortion of his countenance, thereby in- terrupting the lesson; finally, for speaking a piece full of indecent and offensive language."

In 1831 the faculty voted, in lieu of outright expulsion, that the parents of L. and P. be requested to remove their sons from college. Mr. P. complied, but Deacon L. protested, whereupon it was voted that L. be required to spend six months with the Reverend Henry Nourse at Surry.

As has almost always been the case in well-conducted colleges, theft was an offense punished by immediate expulsion. In 1832, "C., having been con- victed of stealing five dollars from the trunk of T., which crime he has himself acknowledged, it was voted that his connection with the College be dissolved and that he be required to leave town by nine o'clock on Friday morning next." Evidently the convicted student protested, for three days later the faculty as- sembled in special session on his case, and their secretary spread the following minute on the records: "C., having abused the kindness of the government in not announcing publicly his disgrace, by representing to his fellow students that his connection with the College was dissolved at his own request, which was made

HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE

on account of his dissatisfaction with the government of the College, it was voted that the students be informed in chapel that said C.'s connection with the Col- lege was dissolved, not at his request, but as punishment for a crime, and that he was suffered to depart privately, when his offense would have justified a much sterner course, and that such lenient action was taken out of consideration to his tender age and in hope of a speedy and thorough reformation."

The Commencement of 1835 was noteworthy because of two visitors from England. Rev. Francis Cox of London and Rev. James Hoby of Birmingham had come from the English Baptists to visit their brethren in the United States. One of their tasks was to make the rounds of the Baptist colleges. They ar- rived in Waterville just in time to participate in the commencement exercises and receive honorary degrees from the hands of President Babcock. Whether the valedictorian and the salutatorian of the Class of 1835 were disappointed or elated because of this visit may be in doubt, for a week before Commencement the faculty voted, "Having heard since Thursday that the English delegates, who had been invited but scarcely expected to be with us at Commencement and take part in the public exercises of that day, will both accept the invitation, the faculty have decided to excuse the salutatory and valedictory addresses from performance on that occasion."

Dr. Cox expressed his approval of what Americans were doing in the wilder- ness of Maine. He said, "They have not waited for a long revolution of time, the clearance of the country and the progress of refinement, before attempting a literary establishment, but have, with the zeal of Americans and the discern- ment of legislators, patriots and philosophers, commenced at once the refining process, the oral melioration of their noble state, in the provision of a storehouse of knowledge for their rising sons."8

Although Rufus Babcock had heroically saved the College from collapse in the three short years of his presidency, the worst was still to come. And that worst had to be faced by the young man whom the Trustees elected as their third president, on August 2, 1836, Robert Everett Pattison.

CHAPTER X

A Professor To The Rescue

N selecting Babcock's successor, the Trustees turned for the first time to a graduate of Amherst College, an action which they were to repeat with brilliant success more than a hundred years later when they chose Julius Seelye Bixler to head the new college on Mayflower Hill. In 1836 the Amherst man of their choice was Robert Everett Pattison, who like both of his predecessors was a Baptist minister. He was not unknown in Waterville, because in 1828 he had served under Chaplin as a tutor at the college. At the time of his election as president, however, he was pastor of Roger Williams' historic church, the First Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island.

In spite of President Babcock's success in raising $20,000, most of that money had been spent to erect Recitation Hall, to reduce the current debt and to meet, at least partially, the expected deficit set up in each annual budget dur- ing Babcock's administration. New debts continued to pile upon old. It was all quite a "frog in the well" business. As fast as one dollar of debt was paid, two newly owed dollars appeared on the books. Budget estimates went badly astray. For the year 1833-34, the first of Babcock's presidency, estimated in- come included $500 from subscriptions, $1540 from term bills, and $1000 from sale of lands. The actual returns were only $96 on subscriptions, $382 from term bills and not a penny from land sales. At the end of the year, faculty salaries were in arrears by $1950, and debts incurred during the year added nearly $10,000 to the total indebtedness.

One item of debt, when the books were closed in 1834, was $1285 in "out- standing orders." That phrase needs explanation. No longer ago than when the present writer was a boy, in the early part of the present century, "town orders" were very much in circulation. The smaller Maine towns, instead of borrowing money in anticipation of taxes, would issue orders for all payments, even for salaries of the school teachers. Those orders would be redeemed by the town treasurer whenever he happened to have received enough tax money to pay them. Meanwhile they were accepted by merchants and others, but seldom at par. The discount was sometimes as much as ten per cent, if tax collections happened to be especially slow. Under those drastic conditions, a poor teacher receiving a town order for twenty dollars would let it go for eighteen dollars in cash, while the merchant who took it at the discount never knew how long he must hold it before the treasurer would honor the paper.

A century earlier, when cash was even scarcer and bank checks were almost unknown, other corporations besides the organized towns used this method of "orders." The item so designated in the report of the Waterville College treasurer

HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE

for 1834 means that for goods or services the Prudential Committee had issued orders for $1285. Probably few of those orders were still in the original hands. Some were held by merchants, others by speculating individuals, a few by the Waterville Bank. But they all represented a debt which the college corporation expected eventually to pay.

When presenting his report in 1834, Treasurer Cook made it clear that he had had quite enough of the job and insisted upon the Board's acceptance of his resignation. They thereupon elected a local man, James Stackpole, Jr., son of Waterville's pioneer merchant, who had recorded in his diary how several citizens turned out in 1819 to help Dr. Chaplin put up his house. The younger Stackpole continued in the post of college treasurer for seventeen years.

Cook, the outgoing treasurer, felt called upon to explain the unusual deficit of the year just ended. He pointed to two circumstances: the purchase of the house and lot of the departing professor, Avery Briggs, for $715, and an advance of $600 to that perennial white elephant, the Mechanics Shop. Nor was Cook at all optimistic about the future. He said, "It is apparent that the debts of the College must continue to increase and that its income during the ensuing year will fall considerably short, even of the salaries of the officers. Aid from the state to any considerable extent is rather to be hoped for than expected. Experience admonishes us that it cannot be relied upon."

A year later, in the summer of 1835, the amount owed to the faculty had risen to $2500, and the total debts, in spite of money collected by President Bab- cock, exceeded $14,000. Treasurer Stackpole had now been through a year of trying experience in his difficult job, and in his report he pointed out that the college was only a short jump ahead of the sheriff. He said, "The immediate payment of all debts except those covered by long term notes, is pressed by our creditors, and in some instances suits have been commenced. The greater part of the amount collected on term bills for the past year has been absorbed in pay- ing demands which the students had for services in the workshop, the steward's house, and incidental work on the college premises."

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The history of Colby College, Part 12

Author: Colby College Publication date: 1963 Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press Number of Pages: 716

Author: Colby College
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press
Number of Pages: 716