USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Waterville > The history of Colby College > Part 20
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In his naive thinking, what the prospective donor had apparently overlooked was that the College would not receive from the students the money they would otherwise have to pay if they were not recipients of the scholarships.
Expecting substantial returns from Mr. Love's efforts in the joint campaign for the two colleges, the Waterville trustees made plans in 1860 for investment of the money. It was to be put into scrip, or notes of the State of Maine, or any county, city or town in the state, in bank stock to an amount not exceeding twenty percent of the whole investment, and in first mortgages on real estate at fifty percent of valuation.
Surprisingly, until 1860, there had been no segregation of funds collected for endowment. Although a small amount had been set aside, of which less than ten thousand dollars remained when Champlin became President, it was too often encroached upon to meet mounting deficits. Not until Champlin so insisted in 1860, did the invested funds become a sacred trust, only the interest to be used. The Board voted,
All sums donated to the College for its endowment shall henceforth be kept distinct from all other funds of the College, and only the an- nual interest shall be expended.
The President proposed that higher standards for admission be applied at once, and the Trustees agreed. Champlin was also dissatisfied with the way recipients were selected for honorary degrees. The Trustees decided that such awards should be guarded against abuse, but they felt that friends and graduates of the College should have first consideration, although the guiding rule should be "distinguished merit." Up to that time honorary degrees had been conferred by majority vote of the Trustees present at a legal meeting. On the President's insistence the Board adopted a new by-law requiring a two-thirds vote for those awards. Champlin agreed that it was the Trustees' duty to know what was going on in academic pursuits at the College, and he assured the Board they would re- ceive annual reports from each department, including lists of books used and lectures given.
The cost of college attendance had risen very slightly since 1820. A term bill issued to Francis Hesseltine in December, 1859, preserved in the college archives, totaled $17.17, of which ten dollars was for tuition and $3.33 for room rent. Other charges included use of library, general repairs, service, fuel for classrooms, catalogues, copy of the college laws, and fines. At that time, as has already been mentioned, the College operated no commons, so board charges were not included on Hesseltine's bill. Of course it cost him something to eat, even if he boarded himself, as many students then did.
When Professor Charles P. Chipman was editor of the Alumnus in 1913, he invited the College's oldest living graduate, George M. P. King, 1857, to contribute his recollections of college days. King had enjoyed an illustrious career in education. After graduating from Newton Theological Institution in 1858 and serving several years in pastorates, he became President of Wayland Seminary in the national capital, in which position he served for thirty years. Then for eighteen years he was Professor of English at Virginia Union University in Richmond, where he was still teaching when he died in 1917 at the age of 84. King is not the only alumnus who maintained that Professor Champlin-he became president the year that King graduated-was not so popular with students as had
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been Pattison and Sheldon. A certain aloofness made it difficult for students to get close to him. King wrote:
Some of us came to have more respect for him, while others were extremely reticent about expressing any attachment to the man. But there was a thoroughness in his drill of Greek and Latin grammar that generally won out with a majority of the students.
Concerning another member of the faculty in the 1850's, King said:
Dr. Smith helped us wind our way over (not always through) Whately's Rhetoric, and he also cared for a part of our Latin. At first he im- pressed us with his staid bachelor habits, but after a time Tutor Abbott, not then connected with the College, led him into the way of matrimony, and about the middle of our course he surprised us by taking a wife. This increased his smiles and gave a more paternal touch to his tones.
King disposed of one professor in a single sentence. "Dr. Kendall Brooks taught mathematics, but many of us fancied he was happier in the pulpit than in the classroom." King had nothing but praise for Charles Hamlin.
Professor Hamlin taught the sciences, including botany. We were glad to go to his classroom, because we got up in the world a bit, ascending a flight of stairs in South College. We were glad to get out of those damp, dingy basement classrooms in the chapel, but even without that benefit, the climb in South College was well worth our while. Pro- fessor Hamlin was a gifted teacher who imbued us with something of his own enthusiasm for the natural world.
It will be recalled that when Recitation Hall was built in 1836, the first floor had been fitted as chapel. But the room had no heat. King tells us:
A little while during each year we could meet in the chapel for morn- ing devotions, but during the cold weather we were herded into the underground room in the basement, where a fatherly stove dispensed its heat to shivering students.
Looking back from the vantage point of that year of 1913, which was the graduation year of the writer of this history, King could well point out the ab- sence of student activities in his day. Only a short time before King wrote his reminiscences to Chipman, Ralph Good's football team had won the state cham- pionship, the baseball team had enjoyed conspicuous success, and Frank Nar- dini of the Class of 1913 had taken three first places in the state track meet. Athletics were prominent at Colby in the opening years of the new century's second decade. This is what King told Chipman about such activities in his day:
I cannot remember that a word was ever said about need of physical culture. We dropped our shoulders, sheltered our hands in our pockets, went to our meals with marked promptness, and came back by the post office. That was the extent of our exercise.
Concerning religious life in the College, King commented that while such an organization as the YMCA was unknown, they had the Boardman Missionary
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Society and managed to keep "in rather lingering existence" its weekly prayer meeting. Everyone was expected to be in church on Sunday, and "if we did not become staunch Calvinists it was not the fault of Dr. Wood, pastor of the Bap- tist Church. The Bible was not one of our textbooks and we never gathered in classes for its study."
King felt that college instruction in his day was decidedly narrow.
We left college only slightly less natural and untrained than when we entered. The importance of our personalities escaped attention. Our textbooks were the limit of our thinking. We frequently forgot the hours when Dr. Smith would have the library open and where there was plenty of reading matter to provide material for our compositions or entertain us in our leisure. Very few students read anything that was not assigned, and most of the professors assigned nothing but pages in the textbook. Perhaps it was not easy for our instructors to put themselves in our places, see just what we needed and then frankly tell us. If this could have been done, our vision would have been broader and our lives enriched. I wish the training had been more circular, and the circle greatly enlarged .*
Another student of King's time, Albert C. Marble, tells about his first visit to the College when his father took him, a twelve year old boy, to Commencement in 1852.
We had arisen at dawn and after driving a dozen miles, neared the Winslow end of Ticonic Bridge. Suddenly the stately tower of Recita- tion Hall burst into view above the surrounding roofs and treetops. From the flagpole floated the Stars and Stripes, and below it a long streamer with motto of the College, Lux Mentis Scientia. The waters of Ticonic Falls dashed musically on the rocky bottom of the river below; birds sang in the trees that bordered the highway. No human traffic was in sight to mar the scene. If the mills on the Waterville shore were running, their hum was drowned by the music of the Falls.
It was the morning of Commencement Day, and later the bell pealed forth its call from the tall old tower. The crowd assembled; the mar- shall, with a baton wound with pink and white ribbons, stood on the high steps in front of the Chapel and gave the command to form the procession. At last the door was opened, and forth walked the Presi- dent in cap and gown, followed by the professors and the long line of trustees, reverend clergy and high dignitaries of church and state. To the sound of martial music, they marched in long procession to the church while the streets on both sides were thronged with an eager crowd. At the church the line divided and was arrayed on both sides of the walk. Between the lines walked the President, with the Governor at his right, followed by all the dignitaries. Then the line closed like turning a stocking inside out. This surprised some of those in the line, who found themselves at the foot instead of the head, and worse still, the house filled before they got inside. The galleries were crowded with the beauty of the town in gala dress, with fluttering fans and sparkling eyes. The President ordered the band to play, then he of- fered a prayer and made a short speech in Latin; then each member of the class gave a speech or dissertation. When it was over, the line formed again and marched to the town hall, where a collation was
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spread. To a hungry boy who could not enter, it seemed a gate to para- dise-a paradise which five years later that boy did indeed enter.
Such was Waterville College in the sixth decade of the nineteenth century -a little, backwoods institution on the banks of the Kennebec in the nation's northeasternmost state. With only six teachers and fewer than a hundred stu- dents it would seem likely to make little dent on the great surface of the next decade's stirring events. For portent of those events was already appearing on the horizon. Down at Brunswick, near the only rival college in Maine, had re- cently lived and written the lady whom Abraham Lincoln called "the little woman who made so great a war." After long hesitation, the Waterville College faculty had, in 1858, at last permitted the formation of an anti-slavery society. Within less than a year of the 1860 Commencement, young men would be leaving the Waterville classrooms to die on southern battlefields. Dark days lay ahead for the little college on the Kennebec. Fortunate was it to have at the helm during those grim days a man of unflinching strength like James T. Champlin.
CHAPTER XVI
Champlin And The Civil War
W HEN the Trustees of Waterville College assembled for their annual meet- ing in August, 1861, the war was already four months old. The disastrous battle of Bull Run had been fought and nearly 200,000 men had already enlisted in the Union forces. A few students had left the classroom to join the ranks, but it was too early for the full force of the war to be severely felt.
The Trustees gave their chief attention to the campaign for funds. Like most citizens of the North, they thought the war would soon be over, despite the set-back at Bull Run, and they saw no reason for discontinuing or even postpon- ing their appeal for money. They were disturbed by an operational deficit of more than a thousand dollars and were determined to raise funds to liquidate it. They also demanded "the closest economy in the management of college affairs."
In the previous winter the Maine Legislature had granted to Waterville Col- lege two half-townships of land (See Chapter XIV). Because a condition of that grant had been that the College raise $20,000 within two years, the Board now urged extraordinary efforts to achieve that goal. They showed confidence that it would be met when they voted, "Placing full confidence in the ability and practical knowledge of our Prudential Committee, we would recommend that the grant be left in their care, for its sale or to locate it, as they may deem for the interest of the College." In order to ease the financial situation, Presi- dent Champlin relinquished his claim on free rent of the President's house.
At the next annual meeting in 1862, the Treasurer's report showed the financial situation apparently improved, although the war had made the nation's finances much worse. Receipts for 1861-62 totaled $11,103, and expenses were $10,238. But this was really a false picture, because $4,177 had come in from payments on the campaign subscriptions, and the Board had voted that those endowment funds must be segregated. The true picture of actual operations was quite different. From term bills the College had received $4,643; from interest on invested funds $818, and from all other sources $35-a total of $5,496. Faculty salaries had cost $6,313, scholarships $415, insurance and taxes $128, commencement and exhibitions $315, maintenance $733, miscel- laneous $102-a total of $8,006. So there was actually an operational deficit of $2,510. The discrepancy between these operational figures and those presented by the Treasurer lay in the inclusion of fund receipts and fund raising expenses in his report.
It is well to note just what the College had by way of invested funds on August 1, 1862. It held Portland City scrip that had cost $7,478, Bangor City bonds of $4,000, Canal Bank stock at $1,000, Ticonic Bank stock at $800, and Mount
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Eagle Manufacturing Company stock at $1,200-total investments of $14,478, figured at cost. The market value was certainly somewhat less.
Estimating the prospective receipts for 1862-63, the best the Prudential Committee could do was to set the expected amount at $4,969. In 1861-62 faculty salaries alone had come to $6,313; so unless there were drastic cuts, another deficit must be faced.
When a special meeting was called in January, 1863, it was not to meet a war emergency, but to consider action respecting a bill recently passed by the Federal Congress. It was what became known as the famous Morrill Act, creat- ing the Land Grant Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. The act did not, however, require the establishment of new colleges, but made it possible to establish agricultural and mechanical departments in existing institutions. The federal procedure was to issue land scrip to the states. The scrip represented acreage in the great public lands of the West and could be sold by the states for cash.
The trustees of Bowdoin and of Waterville colleges were equally alert to the opportunity afforded by the Morrill Act, and both tried hard to get a share. At their special meeting in January, 1863, the Waterville trustees voted that, if the State would apply part of the funds to Waterville College they would be willing to change the college name, to create necessary departments and appoint necessary professors, and actually let such appointments be subject to approval by the Governor and Council. They further declared their willingness to allow the Governor and Council to be a perpetual commission to visit the college and ar- range with the faculty the course of study to be pursued under terms of the Act.
There is evidence of an agreement with Bowdoin, whereby that college would receive the mechanical course, while Waterville got the agricultural, be- cause the latter board voted, "It is agreed that the Legislature may appoint a Board of Trustees, who shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the Trustees of the College in directing the management of the agricultural department." There is no such distinct mention of the mechanical department.
The State had made no decision when the Waterville trustees met in August, and all they could do was to continue their committee of liaison with the Legisla- ture and authorize the College Treasurer to execute any necessary bond "to enable the College to avail itself of the grant of land by the General Govern- ment for founding agricultural colleges."
The result is well known. Despite protests from both Brunswick and Wa- terville, the legislative decision was to establish a new college of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Orono-the college which has since become the University of Maine. It was a fortunate decision, because it assured for Maine a public university, comparable with those in other states, and it assured to Bowdoin and Colby the privilege of remaining independent undergraduate colleges of liberal arts, free from state control.
One can read the records of the Waterville College trustees from 1861 to 1865 without suspecting that the nation was at war. The first item in those records, in any way connected with the war, occurred on August 9, 1865, several months after Appomattox, when degrees were conferred on the Class of 1865. Then, in its first mention of the war, the Board recorded:
The degree of A.B. is conferred also upon Henry Merrill Bearce, originally of the Class of 1863, who left near the close of his junior year to join the army, and after two years absence, seven months of
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which was spent in a southern prison, returned and made up all but two terms of the remainder of the course.
The records of the faculty are equally silent in respect to the Civil War. It would appear that very few faculty meetings were held during those years. In the entire period between January, 1861, and September, 1865, only four faculty meetings were recorded (March 26 and April 30, 1862, and April 29 and May 16, 1863) and at none of those four meetings was there any mention of the war.
Despite the silence of both trustee and faculty records, the Civil War did have vital impact upon the College. In a later chapter, Colby in Three Wars, we shall tell of the part played by Colby men and women in those three great trials in our nation's history. In the present chapter we are concerned not with what Colby did in the war, but with what the war did to Colby.
Years later several prominent alumni told how the news of Fort Sumter was received at the College. In 1911, when Colby's illustrious graduate, Col. Richard Cutts Shannon, was a consul in Switzerland, he reminded his classmate, Col. Frederic Boothby, how they got news that the war had started.1
You remember better than I that spring day in 1861, when we heard the maddening news of the first attack on the flag. And you remember how you and Hall2 hunted up somewhere an old drum, mustered Dekes and Zetas and neutrals of all classes, and led the motley crowd through the frantically excited town. It was the quiet, peaceful Hall who drew us up before the residence of Hon. Joshua Nye. By our tumultuous cheers we called out Senator Lot Morrill, who was visiting there. He made a good patriotic speech, but not pitched on a key at all corre- sponding to the blazing enthusiasm and sacred rage of the youths before him. But he could not know that boys in that group were really say- ing, 'On our way to death we salute you!' Yet, was there one of us who six months before could have imagined himself a soldier? We could not even be called good men physically. We knew nothing about the stress of modern athletics, the perils of baseball or the vio- lence of football. We were pure mollycoddles. We were not even very keen about hazing. Most of us had never fired a gun and would not have recognized the uniform of an American soldier if we had seen one. We went to the war with resolute but sad hearts, solely because an inner voice whispered, 'You must.' And the account Colby men gave of themselves in the next four years shows that, if they were not athletes, they were just as brave as any professional soldiers.
George Illsley of the Class of 1863 recalled that, the very afternoon when the news of Sumter reached the College, drill was started on the campus. "Many students enlisted at the first opportunity," said Illsley. "Forty of them went down on the stern-wheel steamboat to Augusta and took the boat for Portland. The recruiting station was the most popular place in town. As the days passed, the feeling grew even stronger, so that it was necessary to close the college term earlier than usual for the summer vacation. My Class of 1863, which entered with fifty men, went down to only eight at graduation."
Augmenting what he had written to Boothby, Col. Shannon wrote some ten years later to Dr. E. C. Whittemore:
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When there was a murderous assault by rebel sympathizers on the 6th Mass. Regt. as it was marching through the streets of Baltimore, the excitement among the student body was out of control. Finally, when some of the students had already joined a military company then re- cruiting in the town and others were showing a disposition to follow their example, President Champlin deemed it advisable to bring the term to a close. It would have closed in regular course on May 8. So, one day towards the end of April, we were assembled in the old chapel, and after a brief but fervent address by the President, we were dismissed to our homes, to consult our parents and friends before tak- ing final action.8
When war excitement first hit the campus, study was badly disrupted, but not the actual holding of classes. Shannon makes it clear that Champlin's reason for closing the College a week or two early, in the spring of 1861, was that he feared many students might rush off to war without parental consent; so the President wisely told the boys to go home and talk the matter over with father and mother. Save for that one early closing, during the entire four years of the war there was no disruption of class schedule or college calendar. How much work was actually done in those classes is doubtful. Probably many students felt as did Col. Shannon, who later recalled it as anything but a studious time.
To understand thoroughly the principles of zoology was undoubtedly very important, but in view of the present aspect of public affairs some of us thought the principles of military science would be of more prac- tical benefit. Another subject we had to study was mechanics of fluids, but the fluid that chiefly interested us at that time was the Atlantic Ocean and how, in traversing it, our government could throw supplies into Fort Sumter. In Greek we were studying the tragedies of Euripides, but what greater tragedy could there be than the dismemberment of our glorious Union?4
Although many students marched off to war, the college ranks were not completely drained. In fact, an examination of enrollment figures for the years of the Civil War reveals surprisingly that numbers were less depleted than has been supposed. In the fall of 1860 total registration was 122; in 1861, when the war had been several months under way, it was 117. In the fall of 1862, enroll- ment had indeed dropped to 83, and in 1863 it was down again to 69, and in 1864 to 62, its lowest ebb. But in the fall of 1865, when the war had been ended scarcely four months, it was up to 71, though in 1866 it dropped again to 66. Of course a slump from 122 to 62 in four years was serious, but it did not come even near to closing the College. In the five years before Champlin had become President the annual enrollments (1852-1856) had been successively 88, 89, 86, 89, and 66. So it appears that only once during the war did enrollment drop lower than it had in 1856.
Although many diplomas were conferred in absentia, Commencement was held every year during the Civil War, and even some innovations occurred. It was in 1862, for instance, that the first Class Day was held. Of that occasion the Waterville Mail said:
Tuesday forenoon was devoted to a celebration of Class Day by the young gentlemen who had just finished their college course. It was a novelty at this institution, but will henceforth no doubt form one of
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the most attractive features of Commencement. The exercises com- menced at the Baptist Church, where a large audience having as- sembled, prayer was offered by President Champlin, who also made a short address to the class. Then followed an oration by George Gif- ford and a poem by George Hunt. Under escort of the Waterville Band, which had done much to enhance the entertainment at the church by interspersing appropriate music, the class then proceeded to the col- lege grounds, followed by a large share of the audience. Gathering beneath the class tree near the southern avenue, after music by the band, an ode was sung. Then the history was given by Edward W. Hall, followed by a prophecy by A. G. Barker and an address to the class by A. L. Lane.
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