The history of Colby College, Part 37

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

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Although the difficulties with Professor Bayley had begun long before 1902, it was President White who had to shoulder the onus of the controversy, and he was accused of ousting from the faculty its last productive scholar. Surely the fault was not entirely his. Financial stringency, rightly or wrongly, declared a research professor to be a luxury. Bayley did indeed insist upon a light teach- ing load, and his actions caused friction within the faculty. But it is regrettable that broader administrative vision, and more far-sighted executive action could not have retained a man so valuable both in student relationship and in scholarly productivity.

As if the low state of college finances were not enough, disaster struck in December, 1902, when North College was almost completely destroyed by fire. No lives were lost, but many students lost all their clothing, books, and personal possessions. As always in such emergencies, the citizens of Waterville responded generously, giving the students shelter and clothing. The students at Bowdoin contributed $158 and those at the University of Maine $133 toward the imme- diate personal needs of the unfortunate fire victims. In February, 1903, the Maine Legislature voted $15,000 toward the restoration of the dormitory. The faculty even gave academic consideration to the disaster, voting on December 12, 1902, that "in view of the fact that so many notebooks were lost in the burning of North College, the sophomore course in philology, the work of which can be tested solely by the notebooks presented, shall be cancelled for those who have taken the course this term and whose books were burned."

President White deserved the highest praise for his insistence that student term bills be paid or secured promptly. But from the student body, instead of praise, he reaped opprobrium. For several years, longer than any of the en- rolled students could then remember, no officer had been so cruel as to insist that term bills be paid. Even President White's proposal of the acceptance of rather loosely secured notes did not satisfy them. But the President had the full support of the Board, and the new policy was adopted.

Scarcely had the resentment over term bills subsided when trouble arose over dancing. President Butler had allowed student dances under rigorous restrictions. It had not been done without protest from the more conservative Baptists, but President Butler's more liberal view considered the change in keeping with the

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times. President White's view was exactly the opposite. Indeed there were friends of the College who insisted that he had been chosen president for the very purpose of curbing the social life of the Colby campus and bringing it into conformity with conservative Baptist principles. Anyhow, White accepted the mandate. He would see that Colby did not stray farther from the Baptist fold. He decreed that there should be no more dancing at college parties.

It had become customary for a dance to follow each concert given by the Colby Glee Club as it traveled about the state. Some local high school or academy usually sponsored the event and the local management was actually responsible for the dance. In 1904 the Club's season began at Winthrop. Be- cause of some local difficulties, the Club assumed responsibility for the evening, including the dance. The next day President White called the manager to his office and made it plain to the young man that such an incident must not be repeated. As the manager told about it in later years, "The President was very much exercised over the matter, and I think only my otherwise good reputation and the fact that I was not a Baptist and didn't know any better, together with my innocent youthfulness, saved me from suspension."

Several times in previous chapters reference has been made to False Orders. Those burlesque programs of college events, especially of the exhibitions and prize speakings, had appeared intermittently for half a century before Charles White became President of the College. Shortly before 1900 False Orders had taken the form of an annual publication, produced by the sophomore class and distributed at the Freshman Reading contest in the spring. The distribution was made by in- terrupting the speaking with shouts, and by hurling copies of the publication all over the auditorium of the Baptist Church, where the contest was held. By 1900 the publication was no longer a burlesque imitation of the evening's official program, but had expanded into a four-page folder like a small newspaper. Its contents often included lampoons of the faculty as well as jibes at the freshmen. For nearly twenty years the scurrilous sheet carried the name The War Cry. It was that publication and its obnoxious distribution that, in President White's second year, produced the most spectacular event of his administration, the Student Strike of 1903.

The Annual Freshman reading of 1903 was scheduled for the evening of June fifth. To see what happened let us turn to the recollections of the man who turned out to be the only speaker on that memorable occasion. This is how Karl Kennison recalls the event.

I was not only one of the speakers; I was the only speaker. A minute or two after I had started the speech, the War Cry1 appeared from no- where and filled the air. I paid no attention to the disturbance, and President White did not stop me. When I finished, the commotion had largely subsided, and President White rose and dismissed the au- dience. I believe the prize money was equally divided among all the contestants.2

Ever since the interruption of the Freshman Reading by a similar episode in 1902, President White had been determined to put a stop to the disgraceful custom. Carl Bryant of the Class of 1904 wrote:

It is my opinion that the action of the Class of 1904 at the Freshman Reading in June, 1902, had left a bad taste in the mouths of the faculty and led to their action in June, 1903. In 1902 several members of my

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class had wired the Baptist Church with an electric bell placed in the baptistry. The wire ran under the carpet to the right corner pew in the middle section. One of the boys was assigned to press the switch, but a member of 1905 discovered the bell and cut the wires. Then we took the cover from a lard can and loosely fastened a buzzer to it, then fixed it to the round grill over the auditorium. We ran the wires back to the rear gallery, spread open the baseboard, put the wires back of it, and ran them under the carpet to the front right pew. The buzzer worked fine and made a big noise. After the second freshman started to speak, one of the boys, dressed in women's clothes and gen- erously supplied with copies of our War Cry, came in the front of the auditorium and up the right aisle, throwing copies of the War Cry into the audience. The freshmen jumped up and seized him, but the sopho- mores rescued him, all the time accompanied by the loud buzzer. Even when the program was resumed, the buzzer occasionally interrupted a speaker. President White declared the whole affair a disgrace.3

Immediately after the interruption of 1902, President White had warned the students, in a chapel statement, that any repetition of such disgraceful conduct would not be tolerated. White was a man of his word, an administrator who never made idle threats. Therefore, when the very first speaker was interrupted in 1903, the President closed the speaking.

A week went by, and on June 12, on the President's recommendation, the faculty voted to suspend all the men of the Class of 1905, with the request that they leave town at once. Five days later the faculty was called into special session because of events duly set forth in the faculty records.

Petitions and statements from different sections of the student body re- lating to the affair of the Freshman Reading were presented. A petition signed by members of the Men's Division, with few exceptions, asking that the men of the sophomore class be reinstated. The request was based on the grounds that the disturbance was participated in by the student body as a whole; that the sophomores had done nothing to war- rant suspension; and that the course taken by the President and the faculty was entirely without precedent. Appended to the request was the statement, "After 6 P. M. on Monday, June 15, we will attend no recitations, examinations, or commencement exercises until our request is granted."

A petition was also presented from members of the senior, junior, and freshman classes of the Women's Division, asking that the men of the sophomore class be reinstated. This was accompanied by a statement from the women of the sophomore class, saying that they felt equally de- serving of punishment with the men. A further statement, signed by the women of the senior and junior classes, said that they intended to with- draw from participation in the coming exercises of Commencement Week, on the ground that the women students alone could not sustain the expenses of those exercises.

At this point, the faculty records reveal that the man who did most to soothe the student wrath and effect a reconciliation was the young professor of English, Arthur J. Roberts. It was voted to take no action on the women's statement con- cerning Commencement until Professor Roberts had had opportunity to confer with the petitioners.

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On the main issue of the suspension, however, the faculty proceeded at once to hold conference with a committee of ten students from the Men's Divi- sion. It accomplished nothing except to confirm the faculty's insistence that the entire class of sophomore men be suspended.

Exactly what happened after that is not entirely clear. The record is am- biguous and the recollections of alumni of that time differ widely. What emerges as probable fact is that none of the sophomore men took final examinations in June, 1903; that the seniors did hold the usual Commencement exercises and did receive their diplomas on time; that in the autumn all the suspended members of the Class of 1905 were allowed to return to College.

When the Trustees met in annual session on June 22, 1903, they appointed a committee, headed by Judge Percival Bonney, "to inquire into the extraordinary state of affairs existing in the College, the cause of the difficulties and the efforts made to adjust them, and report facts and conclusions to the Board." On the following day the committee reported: "While we deeply regret such an oc- currence, we are unanimously of the opinion that the action of the faculty in suspending the sophomore class was so just and so lenient that there was no occasion for further action."

The action had indeed been lenient. The suspension had, from the start, been intended to terminate with the opening of the fall term, and it had been imposed less than two weeks before the close of classes in the spring term. All the punishment those men would receive would be to get home more than two weeks early for their summer employment, and have to take make-up examina- tions in the fall.

The faculty records of September, 1903, make it clear that the penalty was never changed, but that the suspension itself was lifted in the autumn, just as intended. The only question was what to do about the examinations. Professors Bayley and Roberts proposed that, in view of all the circumstances, a general amnesty be declared; but their colleagues overruled them and voted to hold the examinations, make them one hour each in length, on the first two days of the fall term.

On one point the members of the Class of 1905 with whom the historian has corresponded are unanimous. They never took those sophomore examina- tions. It is their recollection that, when college reopened, the whole unfortunate affair had been kindly forgotten. They believe that what happened was that the friendly negotiations carried on with unruffled patience by Professors Bayley and Roberts finally resulted in no further faculty action despite the record to the con- trary.

So many disturbing things occurred during President White's administra- tion that in the succeeding years they seemed to overshadow his definite, con- structive accomplishments as head of the College. Those accomplishments were by no means insignificant.

No sooner had White assumed the presidential chair than he saw the folly of the Ph. B. degree. It was likely to become a kind of cheap dumping ground for those who could not meet standard requirements. White considered it best to extend to the A. B. classification students who had met all other requirements except the time-honored insistence upon Greek. In 1902 the Trustees agreed, and all Colby graduates received that degree until, in 1903, the Board instituted, again on President White's recommendation, a curriculum leading to the degree of Bachelor of Science. The first persons to receive that degree at Colby were two men of the Class of 1906: John Wesley Coombs, who later won fame as a

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major league baseball player, and Rex Wilder Dodge, who became an investment broker and a prominent member of the Colby Trustees. The only significant differences between the two curricula lay in the fact that B. S. applicants need not present Latin for admission and must take both physics and chemistry in college, while the A. B. candidates were required to continue Latin in their fresh- man year. It would be a long time before a major field of concentration would be required for either degree.

One of the greatest burdens under which President White had to labor was the persistent problem of what kind of a college Colby was to become, in respect to its instruction of both men and women. A later chapter will be devoted to the full story of this controversy, when we consider the part that has been played in Colby history by the women, but in connection with President White, a brief account of the growing crisis is appropriate here.

The male alumni, the faculty, and the Trustees had become so concerned about the increase of women students, accompanied by a steady decrease in male enrollment, that the Trustees had appointed a committee on the "Future of the College." A majority of that committee, reporting at the annual meeting in June, 1901-the very meeting at which White was elected president-recom- mended that the system of coordination started by President Small be con- tinued, and that, as soon as financial conditions should permit, the two divisions be separated in chapel, recitations, lectures, and public exercises. So strongly opposed to that decision was one prominent member of the committee that he filed a minority report, recommending return to the original status of a college for men only. After lengthy debate, the Trustees voted: "It shall be the policy of Colby College to continue to use its equipment for the higher education of both men and women. The system of coordination shall be continued in the form of a men's division and a women's division. The number of students in each division shall be limited only by the means of the College to provide suitable accommodations and perform its work in the best possible way."

There were both alumni and faculty members who were dissatisfied with the decision, and President White found factional dispute still rampant when he as- sumed office in the fall of 1901. Seeking a workable solution that would recon- cile the factions, the new president offered in 1902 a proposal that eventually proved to be not feasible, but at the time it satisfied both sides. His sugges- tion was to turn the Women's Division into "a woman's college-a part of Colby, but distinct in name, location and interests." The Board accepted the recom- mendation and voted "to establish a new college for women as soon as finances should permit, and to instruct the President to continue his efforts toward the accomplishment of that result."

In 1904, President White could report little progress toward a separate col- lege for women: "Although I have made strenuous efforts to obtain sufficient funds to endow a woman's college at Waterville, I am thus far unable to report substan- tial gains." But meanwhile the President had rendered a significant contribution by. persuading his Baptist acquaintance, Mrs. Eliza Foss Dexter, to devote $20,000 for the erection of a women's dormitory. While it was the general in- ability to endow a separate college that blocked President White's plan, the decision to erect Foss Hall on College Avenue, only a short distance south of the campus, was the deciding factor. Although, when the cornerstone was laid in the spring of 1905, President White declared it to be assurance of a Women's College, the new building's proximity to the campus rendered coordination closer

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and more vital than it had ever been before. Gradually all talk of a separate college ceased.

There is no question that President White's efforts, including his strenuous insistence upon economy, restored denominational confidence in the College. It was his strong Baptist convictions that appealed to Mrs. Dexter; it was his economizing that attracted her husband. On one occasion White reported: "Mr. Dexter asked me some searching questions with reference to the shrinking of our endowment. While lamenting past mistakes, he fully approves the present policy, and his attitude is typical of other Baptists."

On another occasion White told the Board: "The denominational conscious- ness in Maine is exceedingly pronounced. Increased resources have given the Baptists in this State a distinct advantage in varied possibilities over every other denomination. Yet I have found many of those people lukewarm toward the College. I can trace this only to the conviction that the College is not carefully safeguarding the religious life of its students; that, unless the College is Christian, there is no gain in sending sons and daughters into the ranks or contributing to its support."

President White was determined that the College should be not only Chris- tian, but also loyal to the most conservative views in his denomination. Bap- tists had been traditionally opposed to dancing, card playing, and the theatre, but that even among Baptists more liberal views were gaining support is evident from President Butler's admission of dancing into college parties. Unable to see that it was too late to set the clock back, and convinced that the conservative view was right, Charles Lincoln White led a losing battle to restore the social life of the College to the straitened restrictions of the old days.

One innovation for which Colby men were long grateful to President White was the conversion of certain college buildings into fraternity houses. The issue arose because of the purchase by Delta Kappa Epsilon of a home of their own on College Avenue and by permission granted Phi Delta Theta to occupy the Hersey House on the edge of the athletic field. Other fraternities at once made plans to rent houses in the town. Such an exodus from the college dormitories would have been disastrous, especially at a time when men's enrollment was not increasing. President White therefore proposed that South College and the south end of North College be converted into quarters for the three remaining fraternities, Zeta Psi, Alpha Tau Omega, and Delta Upsilon.

At the mid-winter meeting in 1907, the Trustees appointed a committee to estimate the cost of refitting the dormitories into chapter houses and to con- sult with representatives of the fraternities on terms of rental. In June, on recommendation of the committee, the Board voted to make the necessary physical changes, and to assign Zeta Psi to the south end of South College, Alpha Tau Omega to its north end, and Delta Upsilon to the south end of North College. Each section was to be provided with a reception room, a large living room, and a chapter hall, with student rooms above the first floor. The College would col- lect the rental on individual term bills, each occupant paying $1.25 a week. The fraternity must provide care of the rooms and make ordinary repairs, and must pay cost of lighting. The College would provide heat and hot water. Provided also was what the fraternities called "ram-pasture" style of sleeping quarters ---- large attic rooms with dormer windows and open doors, where were lined up row on row of beds.

In September, 1907, the three fraternities moved into those dormitory quar- ters and continued to occupy them, save for brief interruptions in war time, until

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all the men were moved to Mayflower Hill. It was a happy decision, solving the problem of dormitory rentals and greatly strengthening the life of the men's divi- sion.

The building of Foss Hall naturally attracted more women applicants, but a corresponding number of men did not respond, even with the opening of fraternity quarters. By 1907 voices were being heard, even within the Board of Trustees, demanding a change in the college administration. A motion was presented to the Board calling for a committee "to determine whether a change in the executive management of the College is desirable." The motion was laid on the table indefinitely.

That the critics were not silenced, however, is revealed in a letter which President White wrote to Dudley Bailey in February, 1908.

I understand Mr. S- insisted on saying some very disagreeable things to Mr. and Mrs. Jones at the station in Portland about me, which they very much resented, although they tried to treat him courteously. I hope we have not lost Mr. Jones to the College. Please take an early chance to see him and try to undo what has been done. I think Mr. S- ought to be dropped from the Board at the first possible moment. He can only do harm.

Enrollment in the Men's Division failed to improve. In 1906-07, there were fewer men in College than there had been at any time since 1885. It was the enrollment of women that raised the total number to the highest point in the college history. That year, for the first time, women exceeded men in the en- rollment figures, but only by a count of one-119 women and 118 men. In the following year, 1907-08, out of a total enrollment of 239, only 111 were men, while 128 were women. Seeing the situation well nigh hopeless, and receiving an offer to an associate secretaryship in the American Baptist Home Mission Society offices in New York, President White submitted his resignation to the Colby Trustees, which they accepted with the following resolution:

Whereas the executive ability and virile characteristics, the persevering industry and promptness, the tireless devotion to duty of the President of Colby College, Charles Lincoln White, together with his attractive per- sonality, have been observed and admired by those in charge of impor- tant trusts, who have called him to fill a most responsible place, there- fore the Trustees of Colby College accept with regret his resignation and gratefully give tribute to him for his faithful, loyal and effective service to the College during his administration as its president.

Before President White left, he rendered one further notable contribution. He had tried hard to have the Colby faculty accepted under the annuity provisions of the Carnegie Foundation, but had been informed that the plan was not open to colleges under denominational control. White tried to convince the Foundation that, while Colby certainly had affiliation with the Baptist denomination, it was by no means controlled by the sect. The Foundation, however, pointed to the terms of the Gardner Colby gift, under which the College had agreed that the president and a majority of the faculty should always be Baptists. That decision, declared the Foundation, marked Colby as certainly a denominational college, not eligible to the pension plan.

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President White then turned his attention to the increasingly powerful Gen- eral Education Board. In 1906 the Trustees voted that the President and a committee of the Board confer with officers of the General Education Board in New York. As a result of that conference, Dr. Wallace Buttrick of the General Education Board attended the meeting of the Colby Trustees in June, 1907, in Waterville. He expressed approval of the coordinate plan at Colby, but advised that the Women's Division be given a separate name, as had been done at Brown and Tufts. The Trustees then decided to raise $200,000 for endowment and $100,000 for buildings, asking the General Education Board to give half of the total of $300,000. A few months later Dr. Buttrick replied that so large an amount was out of the question. The College then revised its application; saying it would undertake to raise $125,000, and asked the General Education Board to give all it could in addition, with the understanding that both sums should be used for endowment purposes only. The College agreed to devote the income of the additional endowment to erase the annual deficit and to im- prove the faculty. White's plan did not bear fruit immediately, but it did pave the way for his successor to get a substantial contribution from the same source.

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The history of Colby College, Part 37

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