USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Waterville > The history of Colby College > Part 33
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1889 had been 129 in President Pepper's last year, when 113 men and 16 women had been enrolled.
In his three short years as President, Dr. Small was able to increase the faculty from twelve to fifteen. They included an assistant in Rhetoric to re- lieve Professor Smith, an instructor in Greek to absorb part of Professor Foster's heavy load, and an instructor in Modern Languages, in order to give Professor Hall more time for his library duties.
Under President Small, the Conference Board, which had been established by President Pepper, became an effective organization, settling without rancor several vexing cases of discipline and making improvements in student-faculty relations. In 1890-91 the three faculty members of the Board were President Small, Professor Warren and Professor Taylor. Of the student members, the four seniors were A. H. Chipman, G. A. Gorham, F. W. Johnson, A. T. Watson. The juniors were C. P. Barnes and L. Herrick; the sophomores were D. E. Bowman and W. E. Lombard; the freshman was V. M. Whitman. It will be noted that this was a board solely of the Men's Division, or what President Small persisted in calling the Men's College.
In 1891 the Colby Echo under Franklin Johnson's editorship, took a stu- dent poll of college needs. The result was that more than ten students named the following twelve needs: a lecture course by prominent visitors, a new chapel and art gallery, fellowships for graduate study, a course in oratory, better athletic spirit, better accommodations for the Y.M.C.A., a course in zoology and biology, a course in Biblical Literature, a course in political economy, a chemistry build- ing, classroom ventilation, and a substantial library fund.6
Just before Small became President, Harvard's dynamic leader, Charles W. Eliot, had led a movement toward uniform entrance requirements among eastern colleges. The resulting commission centered its work at first on the subject of English, and agreed that some knowledge of literature as well as skill in writing should be required. They published annually a list of recommended books, which appeared in the catalogues of all the cooperating colleges. The commission had been created by vote of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and consisted of President Eliot, Professor Hitchcock of Amherst and Professor Poland of Brown. The next step was an attempt to unite the New England colleges in the establishment of a system of entrance examinations. The fourteen cooperating colleges were Amherst, Boston University, Bowdoin, Brown, Colby, Dartmouth, Harvard, Smith, Trinity, Tufts, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Williams, and Yale. The outcome was the establishment of the College Entrance Examina- tion Board, which the smaller colleges were reluctant to enter at first. Bowdoin became a board member early, but did not use the Board's examinations exclu- sively until much later. Colby delayed its board membership until 1932, and until 1935 continued to use its own entrance examinations, although honoring those of the Board. For a quarter of a century Colby has now supported and par- ticipated in the outstanding work of the College Entrance Examination Board. For six years, Dean Marriner served on its general steering committee on examina- tions, and several members of the Colby faculty have served on various subject- matter committees.
Early in President Small's administration there arose protests against com- pulsory chapel. Spirited letters appeared in the Echo. Finally the President made a public announcement that the required chapel service would be continued, and in a carefully reasoned statement he told precisely why that decision had been reached. He pointed out that Colby owed its very existence to the Christian re-
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HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
ligion and had been generously supported as an institution of Christian culture. The daily chapel service was required as a necessary discharge of the trust com- mitted by the founders and as testimony to the continuing conviction that the Christian religion contains the laws that harmonize all knowledge in the highest wisdom. He said that the students were at liberty to accept or reject the force of Christianity, but the College could not neglect to commend it to their candid reflection.
It was in Dr. Small's first presidential year, also, that public attention was first directed toward hazing at Colby. In stinging articles appearing week after week, the Fairfield Journal spread upon its pages the indignities to which fresh- men were allegedly subjected down at the college in Waterville. That some fun with the freshmen was regular sophomore practice was freely admitted. In Sep- tember, 1889, the Echo referred to the time-honored institution known as Bloody Monday Night, the freshmen's first Monday at the College.
Bloody Monday was ushered in with blast of trumpets and scurrying of feet in the darkness. A few timid freshmen hovered about the scenes of confusion, but more had obeyed the instructions, written in bloody letters beneath skull and crossbones, and had stayed in their rooms. Soon, amid strains of Phi Chi, '92 was making its first official call on '93. Freshmen responded meekly to the calls for speeches, delivering such classics as 'Little Drops of Water' and 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'. For a time all seemed quiet, then suddenly the sounds of war were heard. Fierce was the onset and many the deeds of valor. City water flowed freely and sophs fell in bloody grapple. The verdict may be partial, but '92 claimed the victory."
The Waterville Sentinel came to the defense of the College, branding the accusations of excessive and injurious hazing as greatly exaggerated. Even the Portland Press took sides, saying "The stories of hazing at Colby are largely exaggerations. A freshman sometime ago received a pressing invitation from the sophomores to make a speech. That is all the hazing there has been."
Almost as gladly heralded as the coming of electric lights had been the opening of the horse-car line between Waterville and Fairfield in 1888. Why college students should want to go to that town where the newspaper gave them unfavorable publicity may need explanation, but we can only say that they did go there for many kinds of entertainment. A few years later, when the horses were replaced by electric power, and Amos Gerald opened an amusement park on an island in the Kennebec, opposite Fairfield Village, it was a popular resort for Colby students.
Never before in its history had Colby enjoyed such high quality in both faculty and students as it did during the presidency of Albion Woodbury Small. On the teaching staff were the nationally recognized scholars, William A. Rogers in physics and William S. Bayley in geology. To such outstanding teachers as Foster, Warren, Taylor and Elder, had been added three younger men who would win distinction: Anton Marquardt who would become Colby's beloved "Dutchy;" Shailer Mathews, who would later join both Small and Butler at the University of Chicago; Norman L. Bassett, prominent Maine jurist; and best remembered of all, Arthur J. Roberts, who would be Colby's thirteenth president.
Probably never again, as never before, will two future Colby presidents graduate in consecutive classes under the same leader. It was from the hands of
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THE GREAT COORDINATOR
Albion Woodbury Small that diplomas were received by Arthur Roberts in 1890 and by Franklin Johnson in 1891.
Why did Dr. Small leave the Colby presidency after so short a tenure? It was at the behest of one of the greatest figures in American higher education. Encouraged by generous gifts from John D. Rockefeller, President William R. Harper was determined to bring to the University of Chicago a truly distinguished faculty. It speaks much for Colby that, within a few years, he had chosen Albion Woodbury Small to develop a new department of Sociology, Nathaniel Butler, Jr., as Dean of the Graduate School, and Shailer Mathews as Dean of the Divinity School. A bit later they were joined by a fourth Colby man, Franklin Johnson, as principal of the University of Chicago High School.
After he left Colby, Dr. Small did indeed achieve such fame that he came to be called the "Father of American Sociology." He founded the American Journal of Sociology, wrote several books, and many articles in both professional and popular journals. After Dr. Small's death his daughter, Mrs. Lina Small Harris, established at Colby the Albion Woodbury Small Prize for the best article each year written in the fields of economics and sociology.
Albion Woodbury Small indeed won his greatest fame as a sociologist, but to Colby men and women he should also be remembered as the great coordinator.
CHAPTER XXV
The Youngest President
W HEN President Small resigned, the Trustees turned again to a young man, but this time to one from outside the faculty. Their choice was the Reverend Beniah Longley Whitman, pastor of the Free Street Baptist Church in Portland. It was probably Dr. Pepper who guided that choice as chairman of the commit- tee to nominate Dr. Small's successor. Pepper had a firm conviction that the administration of the college should be in young, energetic, progressive hands. His happy choice of Small as his own successor would naturally lead the Trustees to listen to him when the time came to choose another president.
Beniah Whitman comes close to being Colby's forgotten president. In half a century's close association with the college, this historian cannot recall hearing a single graduate ever mention the name of Whitman. Everyone remembered Small and Butler, but Whitman seemed to be a dimly recalled interlude between the two. The obvious conclusion that Whitman was not a successful president is, however, far from justified. He proved himself so able an administrator that he went from Colby to the head of a much larger college. His administration saw no major disciplinary incidents; indeed he extended the scope of the Con- ference Board to include the Women's Division. He cemented the relations of the College with the Baptist denomination, especially with its more conservative wing.
Why, then, is Beniah Whitman not better remembered? In the first place, he was not an inspiring teacher, because his thinking ran along abstract, rather than concrete lines. Albion Woodbury Small's inaugural address had been filled with concrete details about education at Colby College; Whitman's made no reference to the local situation. Entitled "Ideals in Education," Whitman's inau- gural had for its theme that education should give to the individual emancipation, redemption, and possession. He talked about rescue from the dominion of sense, release from the bondage of fancy, deliverance from false authority, the need for inner compulsion, and consciousness of right relations with God. Every- thing he said was highly commendable, but the only examples, illustrations, or concrete statements in the whole address of thirty printed pages were limited to quotations from the classics.
Secondly, Whitman worked through organization rather than forceful per- sonality. The accomplishments of his administration were cooperative efforts, and it was no simple task for a president to maintain harmony in a changing and growing faculty. The enrollment increased, finances improved, and the repu- tation of Colby, so rapidly advanced by President Small, was maintained; but it was all done by good organization, with President Whitman himself in the back- ground.
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HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
Thirdly, Whitman was no innovator. He was not a reactionary, not op- posed to new ideas, but he was more inclined to improve the operation of methods already established than to adopt new ones. He would never have proposed anything so radical as Small's coordinate system, but once it was established, Whitman would set his hands to making it work even more effectively than it had under his predecessor.
Instead of a dim interlude between the dynamic administrations under Small and Butler, the three years of Beniah Whitman's presidency should be considered a happy period of consolidation and confirmation of the spectacular changes made by Albion Woodbury Small. Without that interlude, affording the changing col- lege a chance to catch its breath, Colby might have entered the twentieth century less strong and less sure of its mission.
Beniah L. Whitman was born in Wilmot, Nova Scotia, in 1862. Brilliant to the point of precocity, he was teaching a country school at the age of fifteen, when friends convinced him that he must go to college. Circumstances compelled him to let several more years elapse before he completed preparation at Wor- cester Academy and entered Brown University, from which he was graduated in 1887. Determined to become a Baptist minister, he took the full theological course at Newton, graduating in 1890, and immediately became pastor of the Free Street Baptist Church in Portland. When he was elected President of Colby University in 1892, Beniah Whitman was only thirty years old-the youngest man to hold that presidential office in a hundred and fifty years of Colby history.
Whitman's election had been worked out behind the scenes before the Trus- tees met in Portland on May 7, 1892, but perhaps never has the selection of another Colby president been decided in so short a time. The Chairman of the Board, Josiah Drummond, upon receiving Dr. Small's resignation on April second, had appointed a committee, headed by Dr. Pepper, "to take into consideration the resignation of President Small and report on a successor." When the Board met five weeks later in Portland, the committee recommended Beniah Whitman and he was unanimously elected at a salary of $3,000 and house.
Both Pepper and Small had made it clear to the Trustees that no one man could efficiently perform all the duties expected of a Colby president. In fact Pepper's health had broken under the burden; and Small, though a younger man, had found that he could not give adequate attention to all the tasks. The Board had therefore authorized a committee to investigate the situation and make recom- mendations. As a result, at its annual meeting in June 1892, at the very Com- mencement when Whitman was inaugurated, the Trustees voted to relieve the President of service on the Prudential Committee, and they appointed Professor Hall to that place. The Preceptress of the "Women's Building" was to have complete oversight of the student residents there, and for such needs as sup- plies and repairs was to deal directly with the Prudential Committee. The Presi- dent was no longer to issue excuses for absence from college exercises. That duty was now transferred to the Registrar for the men students and to the Pre- ceptress for the women students. Finally, the Board agreed that at last the Presi- dent should have an office on the campus. For seventy-four years Colby presidents had carried their office almost literally in their hats. The only way a student, faculty member, or janitor could consult the President was to go to his home, encounter him on the campus walks, or waylay him after one of his classes. Now at last, the President had an office in South College. But he still had no secretary and no typewriter. Letters went out from that office in the President's own hand.
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THE YOUNGEST PRESIDENT
In spite of increased endowment and notable physical expansion, the College had conducted its current operations with an annual deficit for seven years since 1885, and except for the slight surplus of $250 in 1885 itself, there had been a constant stream of annual deficits for twenty-five years. In Whitman's first year receipts exceeded expenditures by a thousand dollars, and in his third and last year the surplus was $2300. This was accomplished by careful budgeting. In Dr. Small's last year expenses had reached the highest total up to that time, $40,307, while receipts, though also the highest yet known, were only $35,324, leaving a deficit of $4983. Some drastic cuts in Whitman's first year reduced expenses to $35,416, while receipts went up to $36,422. The Whitman admin- istration, however, did see one year of deficit. In 1894, although receipts reached a peak of $39,632, expenses shot up to $42,158. Corrections were at once made so that in 1895 there was again a surplus.
For the operation of finances between 1892 and 1895, President Whitman was probably less responsible than was Professor Hall, the man who became the on-the-campus representative of the Prudential Committee. In 1894 the Com- mittee was able to report, "So far as we are aware, the entire indebtedness of the College does not exceed twenty-five dollars."
President Whitman's three years were not an easy time to finance a col- lege. Persons who remember the grim days of depression in the 1930's can un- derstand something of what the Panic of 1893 meant to the economy at that time. In his final report to the Trustees in 1895, President Whitman said: "The con- tinuance of business depression makes desired improvements impossible. With more favorable conditions, certain changes and developments are to be earnestly recommended. Until conditions are more favorable, however, it would be idle to think of them. Keeping in mind general business conditions, we have avoided every expenditure not imperatively needed."
The Trustees were faced with the problem of replacements and additions to the faculty without increasing the budget for salaries. In 1893 they determined that they had just $23,000 to work with for salary payments. But the new co- ordinate system was going to prove costly. Professors Foster, Taylor and Warren had assumed extra loads for one year, but when sophomores, and to some extent juniors and seniors, should be placed in separate classes for men and women, additions to the staff would be imperative.
Professor Samuel K. Smith, who had been teaching Rhetoric at the College since 1850, ended his long teaching career in 1892. Professor Edward W. Hall, who had been teaching Modern Languages since 1866, desired to devote full time to his duties as Librarian. A special committee of the Board, appointed to investigate the salaries and duties of the faculty, decided that money could be saved by not appointing at once a Professor of Rhetoric, but let the young graduate, Arthur Roberts, take on the whole load as an instructor. The Board agreed, and that is the way the English situation continued until Roberts was made a professor in 1895.
As for Professor Hall, the committee could not face the expense of two high priced men in place of one. They agreed that Modern Languages demanded a professorship, but they felt if Hall were thus replaced, as he desired, the library ought to be cared for by "some young woman graduate of the college at a salary of $700." But that would leave Professor Hall out in the cold, and the College owed far too much to his many years of devoted labor to permit any such action. He was therefore elected Librarian at a salary of $1800. The Board decided to make temporary appointment of an instructor in Modern Languages, and Dr.
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HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
Anton Marquardt, a native of Germany then teaching at Watertown, Massa- chusetts, High School, was engaged with the understanding that he would, in a year or two, be replaced by a professor. The young German turned out to be so good a teacher that he stayed right on, and in 1896 he was made Associate Professor of Modern Languages, and in 1901 became Professor of German.
By some expert juggling, the Finance Committee not only made the adjust- ments to which we have just referred, but also added one instructor to the faculty, provided for a Preceptress of Women at $350 a year, and added one hundred dollars each to the salaries of Foster, Taylor and Warren, while keeping the total salary budget within the allotted $23,000.
If the finances of the college were pinched in the early 1890's by a national depression, so were those of the students and their families. President Whit- man at once felt the full brunt of one last act of the Small administration -- the advance in room rents. So persistent and so vigorous was the protest that in 1893 the Board voted to reduce the scale of room rents by two dollars in each category, making the range $12 to $16, instead of $14 to $18, per term.
As absurdly cheap as the cost of attending college was in 1893, wages were low, steady employment insecure, and credit exceedingly tight. Save for the modest help supplied by a scholarship, the student had to find about $50 three times a year to pay charges directly to the college. Those charges included twenty dollars a term for tuition, an average of fifteen dollars for room, five dollars for use of library and gymnasium, and five dollars for "ordinary repairs, employment of janitor, monitors and bell ringer, copy of the college laws and annual catalogue, and expense of heating public rooms." On the spring bill was an additional charge of five dollars for "Commencement Dinner and Oration." On their final bill seniors had to pay five dollars for diploma and twenty-five cents for General Catalogue. Board cost $2.50 a week for thirty-seven weeks, or $92.50. Books, fuel for his room, light, washing, furniture, and incidentals came easily to $55, so that a student had to plan on an overall expense of about $300 a year.
As everyone who has ever attended college well knows, unexpected costs were always arising. Tucked away in small print in the 1894 catalogue were the words, "The procuring of music for exhibitions shall be left to the students, subject to the approval of the faculty; and the bills therefor shall not be included in the term bill, but shall be paid directly by the students."
When Beniah Whitman left the presidency, the faculty numbered fourteen, just as it had in his first year, but it was only continuance of the depression that caused to be left vacant, and so indicated in the catalogue, the professorship of rhetoric. Changes in personnel, however, had been significant. Smith and Fos- ter had gone into retirement. In the latter's place had come Carleton Stetson, while young Arthur Roberts was working his way up to the position in rhetoric. Hall had discontinued all teaching, but still managed the library. Elder, Taylor, Warren, Rogers and Bayley were still on the job. J. William Black had replaced Shailer Mathews as Professor of History, and a snappy little German was already being called "Dutchy." Especially significant was the return to the College of George Dana Boardman Pepper as Professor of Biblical Literature.
In 1890, in response to student demand as shown by a number of articles in the Echo, the Trustees voted that, as soon as funds should warrant, a chair of Biblical Literature and Elementary Hebrew should be established, the former to embrace the literary characteristics of the Scriptures, and the latter to provide an amount of instruction in Hebrew equivalent to one term's study of that lan-
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THE YOUNGEST PRESIDENT
guage in any theological institution. The President was authorized to seek funds for such a department.
A plan was devised to raise money through the Baptist Young People's socie- ties. The response was so gratifying that, a year later, eight thousand young peo- ple in Maine and Massachusetts churches had contributed $800 in dime con- tributions. Though not enough to start the department, the amount was suf- ficiently encouraging to induce the Trustees to authorize the department's estab- lishment as soon as a full thousand dollars a year should be assured for a period of five years.
At the annual meeting in June, 1892, the Board passed the following vote: "It being announced that $800 a year had been guaranteed by friends of the College for a period of five years, toward the support of a chair of Biblical Litera- ture, it is voted that the Trustees take the responsibility of procuring the addi- tional $200 per year to make good a salary of $1000." They then proceeded to elect George Dana Boardman Pepper, their former president, Professor of Biblical Literature at a salary of $1000 a year and house rent.
It is obvious that neither the Trustees nor Dr. Pepper intended the new professorship to be a full-time position. All regular professors at that time were paid at least $1800 a year. Dr. Pepper, therefore, was not expected to carry a full load of classes. The important point, however, is that, when Beniah Whit- man came to the presidency in the fall of 1892, he was accompanied on the faculty by the man who had not only been his predecessor in office, but had also been chairman of the trustee committee which chose Whitman as the new presi- dent.
Ever since the arrival of Professor Elder it had become increasingly evident that the facilities for chemistry in Coburn Hall were inadequate. The Examining Committee of the Trustees reported caustically in 1893:
Professor Elder's treatment at our hands would be little short of murder if it were not free from malice. Here is a man teaching analytical chemistry shut up in the same room with all the gases generated dur- ing the experiments. This has been going on for years, until Pro- fessor Elder is in such a state of health that he will soon be relieved, if not by us, then by the Angel of Death. This is the condition of one of the ablest and most devoted teachers in the University. We recom- mend that a suitable room for chemical analysis be provided forthwith, or that the Department of Chemistry be abolished.
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