USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Waterville > The history of Colby College > Part 41
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Men
Women
Total
Seniors
24
26
50
Juniors
30
20
50
Sophomores
61
51
112
Freshmen
74
47
121
Special
22
9
31
211
153
364
This remarkable achievement must be credited almost wholly to the per- sistent efforts of President Roberts and to the implicit confidence of students in his ability and determination to see them through financial difficulties. That Colby enrollment so rapidly returned to normal and moved on to new heights was due chiefly to the man at the helm.
President Roberts pushed forward plans for return of former students at the opening of the second semester on March first. A large number of Colby men who had been in active service now sought to complete their college course. On February 19 President Roberts told the faculty that he already had so many assurances of return by these men that their cases required special action.
This was the first mention in the faculty records of the important matter of academic credit for war service. The President pointed out that Dartmouth had adopted the policy of a full year of college credit for a year's service in the armed forces, while Harvard issued to such men a diploma bearing the statement that part of the credit was for war service. The President then stated that Colby was prepared to be liberal to returning students who had seen service, and that men who returned that spring and would normally have graduated in June, 1919, ought to be given their degrees if they completed satisfactorily the final semester.
President Roberts asked and received faculty approval of his disposition of the case of a young man who later became Central Maine's most famous specialist in diseases of the eye. "I told Howard Hill," said Roberts, "that he had better enter medical school at once, rather than return here to graduate in June. I assured him he would be given his Colby diploma when he finished his first year at medical school."
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HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
In April, 1919, in response to a vote of the Trustees, President Roberts ap- pointed Professors Libby, Grover and Taylor a committee to make recommenda- tions to the faculty concerning a definite plan of academic credit for service ex- perience. The committee proceeded to ascertain the practice at other colleges, and on June 12 reported that no uniform policy had been developed, but that each college was acting on its own initiative. Amherst was granting the degree to men who lacked no more than a year of course credits necessary for graduation. Dartmouth granted fifteen semester hours to men who had been in the service from three to nine months, and thirty hours (equivalent to a full college year) to those whose service exceeded nine months. To men who returned to college between January and June of 1919, and completed that semester, Bowdoin gave a full year's credit, and men unable to return were presented certificates of honor. Bates had adopted a plan which offered a full year of college work during the months remaining between the demobilization of SATC and commencement; the period from January to April constituting one semester, and the period from April to June another semester. Surprisingly the President of the University of Maine had reported no demand for war credit on the part of the University's returning service men. He wrote: "They are anxious to get back to the Uni- versity and do the work necessary for their degrees."
Action having already been taken to give returning service men at Colby an opportunity to complete as much as a year's work between January and June of 1919, the faculty adopted the following recommendations of the Libby com- mittee to govern the granting of war credit to students returning after June, 1919.
1. That all men who left college to enter military service be encouraged in every legitimate way to return and complete their education.
2. That each case be considered on its merits and no blanket rule be adopted concerning academic credit for war service.
3. That to former students with war service who now enter upon pro- fessional study in law, medicine, divinity, or technology, the college grant the usual college diploma when such students shall have com- pleted the first year's work in professional school, provided each such student shall have had at least one year of military service.
4. That each student who applies for credits for military service and who had completed such college work as to place him within one year of graduation, shall be required to furnish a certified military record, showing time of enlistment and discharge. His case shall then be re- ferred to a special committee of the faculty for full review and with power to determine whether the time devoted to military work and its character shall entitle the applicant to a Colby degree without further attendance at the College.
In spite of the confusion and frustration caused by the SATC, the experience had convinced the college authorities that some permanent arrangement with the government would be a safeguard in case of the recurrence of war. The Presi- dent therefore appointed Professors Black, Parmenter, and Ashcraft a committee to investigate the possibility of establishing a unit of the Reserve Officers Train- ing Corps. After a thorough study of the plan, and considerable correspondence with Washington, the committee reported that they considered the plan not feasible at Colby, although some other plan could perhaps be worked out that would be more attractive to students. The matter was then dropped, and Colby had to wait
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WAR COMES TO THE CAMPUS
for a new war and a new campus before a unit of any ROTC was established in 1951.
As soon as the SATC had departed, the fraternities were revived. On January 10, 1919, the Echo said:
Three months ago, on the establishment of the SATC unit, no one knew what attitude the government would take toward fraternities. Con- sequently all six of our fraternities adopted a hesitant policy. Pledge- pins were just beginning to appear when the government ordered sus- pension of all fraternity activities. Now that the SATC has been disbanded and we are all civilians again, the fraternities are returning to their natural existence. Nearly all have resumed living in their houses, which have suffered much from their occupancy by strangers who have given the places careless treatment. It is a great relief to all fraternity men to be again in control of their residences.
Thanks to the wisdom, patience, and patriotism of President Roberts, the careful financial management of Treasurer Frank Hubbard, the over-time, un- compensated hours of a loyal faculty, and the enthusiastic response of the stu- dents, the College had come through the trying experience of war triumphantly. In June, 1919, Colby issued her first degrees to returning veterans. College work was again normal, and attention could be given to the coming celebration of Colby's hundredth anniversary.
CHAPTER XXX
The Centennial
L ONG before the momentous June days of 1920, when Colby celebrated the completion of its first hundred years, the authorities had laid plans for that significant observance. In Chapter XVIII we have shown that the year 1870 had been selected for the fiftieth anniversary because the institution, despite its 1813 charter and its 1818 beginning of classes, was not a degree-granting col- lege until it received its new charter from the State of Maine in 1820. That con- clusion is supported by a statement published in the New York Times on March 2, 1913.
Colby College, which was brought into existence by the act of the Massachusetts Legislature on February 27, 1813, granting a charter to the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, celebrated its one hundredth anniversary on Thursday. The year before, in 1812, a charter committee named by the Baptist associations of Maine, had labored vainly to obtain a charter, and it was granted in 1813 only on condi- tion that the institution should not give collegiate degrees. For this reason there was no formal celebration this week at Colby, the college trustees deciding to wait until 1920, one hundred years after the State of Maine empowered the college to confer degrees.
The first mention of the coming centennial did indeed occur in 1913, but it was four months after the date of the hundredth anniversary of the charter. On June 23, 1913, the Trustees appointed a committee, composed of President Roberts, Emery Gibbs, and Fred Preble, to consider proper observance of the one hundredth anniversary of the College. A year later the committee was continued and was instructed to report at the mid-winter meeting. On January 28, 1915, it recommended:
1. That a thoroughly planned and an efficiently conducted campaign be undertaken for a very large increase of the endowment fund.
2. That, at the next commencement, a special committee be appointed, to which shall be given full power and ample scope for the realiza- tion of the plan.
3. That the centennial celebration itself be made as significant as the noble history of the college justly demands, and as far reaching as the present great achievements of the college rightfully deserve.
4. That, inasmuch as two years, in the judgment of the committee, seems sufficient time to arrange for the exercises of the celebration,
316
HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
it is not necessary at present to take into definite consideration the matter of public demonstration.
5. That, when the suitable time comes for exact and energetic action, a special committee be named to arrange for and carry out the most complete and inspiring program that can be devised.
Thus matters stood until December 21, 1918, a little more than a month after the signing of the armistice that ended World War I. Peace had returned to the nation, and plans could now be definitely formulated for the Colby cen- tennial. The Trustees therefore instructed their chairman, Judge Leslie C. Cornish, to name a committee to arrange for the occasion. Judge Cornish appointed one professor and four trustees on that important committee, with the professor as chairman. Comprising the committee were Professor Herbert C. Libby, Nor- man L. Bassett, Woodman Bradbury, Rex Dodge, and Reuben Wesley Dunn.
The choice of committee chairman assured a magnificent and efficiently man- aged centennial, for every task to which Professor Libby had given his atten- tion since President Roberts called him to the faculty in 1909 had been brought to a successful conclusion. Long before 1920 his Department of Public Speak- ing had won wide renown. It became a "must" with Colby students to take Libby's Public Speaking, and many a timid boy first gained his ability to face a group of people with convincing words under Libby's dynamic, sometimes sarcastic, but always helpful instruction. He had induced prominent alumni to donate prizes for a whole series of speaking contests. While they were still undergraduates, his students had been sent by him throughout Maine, to deliver addresses on public occasions, such as Memorial Day. Furthermore, Libby knew his boys and followed their careers after they left college.
With such unfailing interest in Colby's product, it was natural that, when the founder of the Colby Alumnus, Librarian Charles P. Chipman, gave up its editor- ship, Libby should take over the alumni magazine. And what a magazine he made it! No adequate history of the College would be possible without constant reference to its files.
When World War I called for Colby men to enter the service, Libby deter- mined that every enlistment, every promotion, and every significant happening to every Colby man in the war should be recorded. From the summer issue of 1917 until long after the armistice, he filled every quarterly issue of the Alumnus with Colby's contribution to the war and the effect of the war upon Colby. It is his voluminous account of the SATC that has furnished much of the material for the previous chapter. During the war he kept up an enormous correspondence with Colby men in the service.
When it fell to Judge Cornish to appoint a centennial committee, the Judge well knew that one Colby man was closer to the alumni than was any other in- dividual, and he knew also that here was a man who would see the task through to brilliant success. Judge Cornish unhesitatingly named Herbert Libby as the committee chairman.
The intended scope of the celebration was revealed in the fall of 1919, when Chairman Libby announced the formation of twenty-two special committees, di- vided into five groups, each responsible to one of the five members of the general committee. In Group I, responsible to Mr. Bassett, were the committee on Speak- ers with George Otis Smith, 1893, as chairman; the committee on the Anni- versary Dinner, headed by Harry S. Brown, 1899; and the committee on Me- morial Services, chaired by Franklin W. Johnson, 1891. Group II, responsible
317
THE CENTENNIAL
to Mr. Bradbury, contained the committee on Pageant, under Miss Adelle Gil- patrick, 1892; on College Sing, under Cecil M. Daggett, 1905; on Alumnae Luncheon, under Miss Florence E. Dunn, 1896; and on Class Reunions, under Leon C. Guptill, 1909. In Group III, responsible to Mr. Dodge, were the com- mittees on Publicity, headed by Fred Owen, 1887; on Music and Concerts, under J. Colby Bassett, 1895; on Torchlight Parade, under John Nelson, 1898; on Alumni Luncheon, under Hartstein Page, 1880, and on the College Song Book, headed by Stephen Bean, 1905. Group IV, responsible to Mr. Dunn, had im- portant historical responsibilities. The Committee on History of Colby was headed by Dana W. Hall, 1890, and contained such rather well known alumni as William Crawford, 1882, Mary Low Carver, 1875, Edward Mathews, 1891, William H. Looney, 1877, and Clarence Meleney, 1876. The Trustees had com- missioned Edwin C. Whittemore, 1879, "to enter at once upon the work of writ- ing a history of the College to be ready for distribution at the Centenary Celebra- tion." It was the duty of the Committee on History to arrange for publication and distribution of Dr. Whittemore's book. Because of the pressure of his de- nominational duties, Dr. Whittemore was unable to complete his history in time for the centennial, although he was able to report substantial progress at that time. The book was eventually published in 1927.
Another committee in Group IV was that on the General Catalogue, headed by Professor Charles P. Chipman. As editor of that 1920 General Catalogue Professor Chipman accomplished a task for which many Colby alumni have been grateful. It is highly regrettable that no issue of that comprehensive alumni directory has been published in the forty years that have since elapsed. An occa- sional directory of living alumni is not enough. Every college should publish, at intervals not longer than ten years, complete summarized information about all persons, living and dead, who have ever been connected with the institution.
The dates for observing Colby's hundredth anniversary were deliberately set late in June to accommodate the large number of alumni teaching in public and private schools, as well as in other colleges and universities. It was felt that the last week in June would avoid any possible conflict with other gradua- tions. So it came about that a vast horde of Colby men and women assembled in Waterville for the exercises which extended from June 26 to 30.
On Saturday evening, June 26, the program began with the usual Junior Exhibition in the First Baptist Church. On the following morning, in the City Opera House, President Roberts delivered the baccalaureate sermon, taking as his text, "Give and it shall be given unto you." Conscious that there were ultra-conservatives among the Baptists who complained that Colby was not strict enough in teaching Baptist tenets, Roberts made definitely clear his own position as head of the College.
A Christian college is not a place where Baptist Latin or Baptist chem- istry is taught, but rather a place where wisdom is held to be quite as important as knowledge; where learning is looked upon as a means of life and not as an end in itself; and where character is considered quite as necessary as scholarship for human equipment. Other things being equal, I believe one gets a sounder education under teachers who are men of religious faith than under those who are not. The philosopher or scientist who takes it for granted that this is God's world and He is working out His plan and purpose in it, is more likely to find the truth than he who begins by eliminating God from the universe.1
318
HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
On Sunday afternoon, in a big auditorium tent erected on the campus, were held appropriate exercises in memory of the nineteen Colby men who had died in the First World War. With his customary eloquence, Professor Libby told of Colby's experience in the war, and proudly announced that 675 of Colby's 2300 living male alumni had been in some form of the military service, and that more than half of the 675 had risen above the rank of private. Fifteen Colby men had been cited for distinguished service. Of the nineteen Colby men who gave their lives, Professor Libby said, "With but one exception, I knew all of them personally. Most of them I taught in my classes. From many of them I had received personal letters while they tarried in camps and later when they crossed the dangerous seas to engage the foe on foreign soil."
Representing the armed services on the program was General Herbert M. Lord, 1884, Director of Finance of the U. S. Army. Following his address, the assembled Colby veterans of the war marched forward in ordered ranks to be presented individually by President Roberts to General Lord, who pinned on each man's breast the Colby service medal, designed by Norman Bassett. The medal's obverse side showed a soldier and a sailor leaving a college classroom; on the reverse side Elijah Parish Lovejoy was shown defending his press. Most moving scene of all was the presentation of medals to the parents of those Colby men who would never return.
On Sunday evening President William Faunce of Brown delivered the Phi Beta Kappa address on the topic "The Meaning of America."
On Monday afternoon appropriate exercises marked the presentation to the College of the Lovejoy bookcase. The principal speaker was Norman Bassett, who portrayed Elijah Lovejoy in the centennial pageant, and who had spent many years collecting Lovejoy memorabilia for Colby. Mr. Bassett described how the bookcase was made and how it happened to come to the College.
Lovejoy's home on Cherry Street in Alton was a plain square two story house; to this home he brought his wife and little son. The house was taken down in 1890. Visiting in Alton at this time was David Loomis, the sole survivor among those who had defended Lovejoy's press on the tragic evening of November 7, 1837. Loomis took from the old house several timbers, from which he caused to be made a bookcase. Upon Loomis' death, his niece, Mrs. George K. Hopkins, became the owner of the case. Learning of our centennial, she decided that the place to put this memorial permanently was Lovejoy's college. And here it is !?
Accepting the bookcase for the Trustees, Judge Wing made appropriate re- marks and placed, as the first book in the case, a rare volume bearing on its title page "Memoir of the Rev. Elijah Parish Lovejoy, who was murdered in defense of the liberty of the press at Alton, Illinois, November 7, 1837. With an introduction by John Quincy Adams. Published by John S. Taylor, Corner of Park Row and Spruce Street, New York, 1838."
On Tuesday afternoon was presented the Centennial Pageant, depicting the development of the College from its earliest days. The author was Miss Adelle Gilpatrick, 1892, and the producing director was Miss Lotta Clark of Boston. The production was given out of doors on the lower campus between South Col- lege and the river. The musical chorus was directed by Mrs. Clarence White and Mrs. Harriet Bessey was in charge of costumes. The unfolding history of Colby was presented in eleven scenes: the Baptist Ideal, the Founding, the Martyrdom of Lovejoy, The Spirit of '61, Sam a Freed Slave, Colby's Daughters,
319
THE CENTENNIAL
Colby's Preparatory Schools, Colby's Benefactors, Missions, The Great War, Colby of Today and Tomorrow. William Abbott Smith, 1891, portrayed the part of the first president, Jeremiah Chaplin, while Mrs. Chaplin was acted by Ethel Merriam Weeks, 1914. Sam Osborne was played by Thomas Grace, 1921; Gen- eral Ben Butler by Cecil Daggett, 1905; George Dana Boardman by Ralph Brad- ley. The two most prominent women graduates, Louise Coburn and Mary Low Carver, were present in person, and they stood with President Roberts and Chair- man Cornish in an impressive tableau. Altogether, more than three hundred different persons had some part in the magnificent pageant, which ended with the Centennial Hymn composed by Woodman Bradbury, 1887.
On Wednesday, the day marked as Commencement and Anniversary Day, the usual Commencement exercises and conferring of degrees were combined with the special centennial address by Shailer Mathews, 1884, Dean of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. The longest procession ever to leave the old campus for any down town convocation point took more than half an hour to reach its destination. In line were representatives of the Federal Government and of the State of Maine. Among the members of the Maine Supreme Court who attended, three were Colby graduates: Chief Justice Leslie C. Cornish, Jus- tice William Penn Whitehouse, and Justice Warren C. Philbrook. The many colleges and universities represented included Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, and Brown. Dr. Mathews' address was a brilliant summary of the major influences in American life during the century of Colby's history. His concluding sentences voiced a profound faith in Colby's part in the development of American democracy.
An educated democracy is self-directing. It does not wait for self- appointed leaders. . It must and can act for itself. It is too great for any single leader. It breeds its leaders as it grows in power and ideals. Lovejoy and Lincoln voiced a spirit that they did not originate. The spirit was born of the people; they only gave it needed leadership. The task of our colleges is to make secure our national future by educat- ing the mighty present. Colby's record in this task is secure. Through- out these hundred years it has stood for the ideals and institutions that have triumphed in the nation. Its halls have been the birthplace of that leadership which expresses democracy's ideas within democracy itself. It has championed liberty of thought and sanity of judgment. It has taught its students to distrust cleverness and to honor service; to hate hypocrites and to believe in men of honor; to act bravely and not wait upon the unknown. Our college has been both the creature and the inspiration of those spiritual forces which made the century which we celebrate truly significant.3
Two thousand persons gathered in the huge tent for the anniversary dinner, over which Judge Cornish ably presided. Governor Carl E. Milliken spoke for the State of Maine, and Judge Charles F. Johnson for the Federal Government. Colby's first woman graduate, Mary Low Carver, 1871, spoke for a thousand Colby women when she said:
We would bespeak for our Alma Mater not only lavish material gifts, but also a great spiritual endowment, to which an increasing processional of Colby women shall add color and charm and womanly worth. May these girls always come, from cultured city homes, from hillside farms
320
HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
and forest hamlets, from lowly fisher huts beside the sea -- may they come, an ever-growing wealth of eager-hearted maidenhood, voicing in surer tones the love and loyalty that the present Colby daughters bear this dear foster mother of their spiritual life.4
Judge Harrington Putnam, 1870, a member of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, discussed contemporary conditions with which the college and the nation must now deal. Ernest C. Marriner, 1913, then a teacher at Hebron Academy, spoke for Colby's preparatory schools. Speaking for the other Maine colleges was President Kenneth C. M. Sills of Bowdoin. Representing the colleges outside the State was Dean Otis Randall of Brown.
On Wednesday evening the celebration program closed with a band concert and grand illumination of the campus.
The climax of the Colby Centennial was the successful completion of Presi- dent Roberts' campaign to raise half a million dollars of additional endowment. It was indeed a personal triumph for Roberts. Almost every dollar had been secured by his own direct solicitation. He had received no assistance from pro- fessional fund raisers, and he had no organization of class agents at his command.
As early as 1914 Roberts had envisioned the raising of half a million dollars before the college centennial should be celebrated in 1920. After frustrating attempts to interest various foundations, he had finally secured a promise from the General Education Board of $125,000 on condition that the college raise the remaining $375,000 from its own constituency.
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