The history of Colby College, Part 43

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

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Fine as were the improvements to chapel and Recitation Hall, the outstanding addition to the Colby plant, between 1920 and 1925, was the gift of a generous

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woman who was not even a Colby graduate. Mrs. Eleanora Woodman of Win- throp made the first of her many significant gifts to the College by assuring Trus- tee Herbert Wadsworth that she would provide funds for a spacious stadium on the Colby athletic field. She desired that the structure be a memorial to Colby men who had served in the First World War. On June 20, 1922, the stadium was appropriately dedicated, with presentation by Mrs. Woodman and acceptance by Chairman Cornish. Mr. Wadsworth's own Class of 1892 presented the new staff and flag that rose in front of the serried stands.

In 1924 Mrs. Woodman placed on the old campus the substantial and at- tractive concrete walks that made it unnecessary for students and faculty to wade through mud or balance themselves precariously on the narrow duck-boards. The Class of 1902, under the impetus of Professor Libby, presented the Memorial Gate, at the main College Avenue entrance, in 1927.

Before President Roberts' administration ended, plans were well under way for two additional buildings, one for men, the other for women. The story of the successful campaign to erect the Field House will be told in a later chapter on Athletics. The even more thrilling story of the women's victory over almost overwhelming odds to assure the Alumnae Building, for the health, physical educa- tion, and recreation of Colby girls, will have its place in the chapter on Women at Colby.

Here, however, a few words should be said about the development of physical education for both sexes at Colby during those early years of the century's third decade. By 1920 both the athletic and the physical training situation for men had become chaotic. Hence the Trustees decided to create a Department of Physical Education, and authorized an Alumni Governing Committee, under the chairmanship of Archer Jordan, 1895, to cooperate with President Roberts in de- termining the scope and organization. C. Harry Edwards, a young graduate of Springfield College, was appointed as director. Edwards established a sound pro- gram of physical education, paving the way for even more substantial improve- ments to be made later by the combined efforts of President Franklin Johnson and Edwards' successor, Professor Gilbert Loebs.

It was the fortunate choice of Miss Ninetta Runnals, 1907, as Dean of . Women that brought to Colby girls not only a progressive program of health and physical education, but many other forward steps which will be fully recorded in a later chapter. Miss Runnals was determined that the part-time, low paid service of a person merely to supervise gymnastic exercises should be replaced by a re- spectable program of health and physical education. She won that battle, per- suaded Mrs. Woodman to equip a woman's infirmary and supply a full-time nurse, organized the Women's Health League, made sure that only intra-mural games would ever compose the women's athletic program, and finally saw the comple- tion of the Alumnae Building.

After the war, President Roberts continued the custom of an annual Colby Night, and each year just before the principal home football game, as the Echo put it, "The whole crowd made a wild rush for the tables, piled high with sand- wiches, doughnuts, coffee and apples, over which presided the genial 'Chef' of SATC days, Fred Weymouth." When Fred Short resigned as college janitor, to go into the plumbing business in 1918, he was succeeded by Weymouth, who for . more than twenty years continued not only to supervise the student maintenance workers, but also prepared the annual Alumni Luncheon and Commencement Dinner.

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Himself a member of Phi Delta Theta, President Roberts believed in the fraternity system and constantly encouraged the several Colby chapters to be more than social clubs. He was especially pleased in 1921, when Delta Upsilon spon- sored a lyceum course of lectures, bringing to Waterville, among its speakers, Rabbi Stephen Wise. But Roberts always insisted that his favorite Colby fra- ternity was his personally founded "Sons of Colby." Beginning in 1921, he an- nually assembled at his home all the boys who were sons or grandsons of Colby alumni, and he saw to it that their group picture appeared in each year's Oracle. Later the plan spread to the Women's Division, and eventually the organization became "The Sons and Daughters of Colby."

In 1920 began the annual award of the Condon Medal. Randall J. Condon, 1886, long Superintendent of Schools of Cincinnati, Ohio, author of outstanding textbooks for the elementary schools, and once introduced to an international gathering as "the best superintendent of schools in America," designed a beautiful medal and provided the funds to give it annually to that member of the senior class, either man or woman, who, by vote of classmates and the approval of the faculty, should be deemed to have been the best college citizen.

At the Commencement Dinner in 1925, President Roberts pointed out that, in no small degree, the success of a college lay in its ability to hold its faculty. Proudly he listed the tenure of five men: Taylor 56 years, Marquardt 33, White 22, Parmenter 21, and Chester 20. Roberts himself had been at the College 33 years, and among the younger men of the faculty Professor Libby could already count fifteen years. Within two years Marquardt had died, but Taylor continued to teach beyond sixty years of service, and many years were to elapse before the re- tirement of White, Parmenter, and Chester.

There had long been speculation as to the reasons why young men and women chose to attend Colby. In 1924 the Editor of the Colby Echo, Joseph Co- burn Smith, decided to find out. It was the new era of the questionnaire, and Smith devised such a paper for circulation among the students. It went farther than questions about entrance, as it probed into different phases of college life.

Asked what influences induced them to enter Colby, 137 men and 25 women indicated the motivation came from parents, relatives, or friends. The academic reputation was named by 29 men and 7 women; and its reputation in preparing teachers had motivated 30 men and 19 women. Only twelve men and no women had been induced by the low expense to attend Colby. A mere handful of twelve men had been stirred by athletics.

Asked what occupation they intended to pursue, 29 men and 25 women named teaching. Among the women no other occupation scored more than five votes, but of the men 29 planned to enter business, 27 would study law, 18 medi- cine, and eight engineering. Five men wanted to become journalists and three would be athletic coaches. Thirty-seven men and six women were "undecided."

For sport participation, the men's favorite was football, followed closely by baseball. Both tennis and track outranked basketball. Golf had only four ad- herents. For the women the favorite sport was field hockey, followed by tennis and softball. As a spectator sport, both sexes overwhelmingly preferred football. It got 122 votes to 34 for baseball.

On the financial side, three-quarters of the men and three-fifths of the women said that they were working their way, at least in part. Besides college janitorial work, some of the ways Colby men found to earn money were tending furnace; running a college agency for laundry, cleaner, or other service; high school coach- ing; chauffeur; playing in dance orchestra; working in a restaurant; and news-

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paper writing. Editor Smith estimated that, including summer work, 120 Colby men earned about $350 a year each toward their college expenses.

Smith asked bluntly whether the responding student would prefer a Colby "C" or a Phi Beta Kappa key. Of the men, 97 preferred the key and 77 the letter. Among the women, only nine would have the letter rather than the key. Asked what student office would be most valuable to its holder in later years, 52 men said Editor of the Echo, 33 President of Student Council, and 22 Manager of a sport. Only four men thought the captaincy of football would be important in a later career. The women's choice was predominantly for President of Student Government, although President of the YWCA was not far behind.

CHAPTER XXXII

The Passing Of Roberts

A FTER the centennial, President Roberts continued to give persistent at- tention to college finances. The year showed a deficit of nearly $14,000, but because that was almost exactly the cost of the centennial celebration, the actual operating expenses of the College had not exceeded income. Determined that proceeds of the 1921 Christmas Fund should wipe out the deficit, Roberts pushed that fund to the highest level it had yet achieved.

Part of the half million dollars raised in the Centennial Fund had been intended to produce income to increase faculty salaries. Realizing that it would take several years to collect the pledges, the General Education Board had agreed to give, in addition to its gift of $125,000 to the Fund, annual decreasing sums for a period of three years, at the end of which the College must take over the burden. Those special gifts amounted to $15,000 in 1920-21; $12,000 in 1921-22; and $8,000 in 1922-23.

Roberts was quick to see that the new capital of $500,000 would not be enough to meet the rapidly increasing needs. He proposed an immediate cam- paign for additional endowment of $150,000, and in June, 1920, the Trustees voted to request the General Education Board for one third of that amount, on condition that the College raise the remaining two-thirds. In November the General Education Board agreed to that proposal.

The decision to raise additional money by a general solicitation aroused concern among the Baptist constituency of the College, because it seemed to conflict with the denomination's nation-wide campaign known as the New World Movement. The college trustees therefore asked for a conference of their repre- sentatives with those of the General Education Board and the Board of Promo- tion of the Northern Baptist Convention. In April, 1921, Dr. Frank Padelford reported on the happy outcome of that conference. The Board would give $50,000, in addition to its already generous grants, provided the College would raise another $100,000.

Roberts named the new campaign the Second Century Fund. In November, 1922, he reported that $80,000 of the $100,000 goal had been raised. Then, because of the disastrous fire in North College a month later, Roberts asked and was granted an extension by the General Education Board to April 1, 1923. When that date arrived, he was able to tell the Trustees: "The subscriptions now amount to over $125,000, of which $60,000 has already been paid."

Meanwhile the Baptist money was rolling in. By June, 1923, the College Treasurer had received more than $117,000, raised through the denomination's New World Movement. A year later collections on the Second Century Fund

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had been completed and the College received the promised $50,000 from the General Education Board.

At the annual meeting of the Trustees in 1924 Treasurer Hubbard an- nounced that when he became Treasurer seven years earlier, the income from invested funds was only $19,000; now it was over $54,000. In 1917 the en- dowment had been less than $500,000; in 1924 it was $1,248,000.

Typical of President Roberts' method in raising these funds is a letter he wrote to Dudley P. Bailey in October, 1921.

I have to take the trail once more for money about December first. I dread it, but there is nothing else to do. Before beginning to beat the bushes, I want to get some nest-egg subscriptions. To come straight to the point: Are you willing to pledge $250 towards the Second Cen- tury Fund? I had put you down for that amount in my mind. And besides, can you not assure me that you are leaving the College by will an amount that will provide for the scholarship in memory of Mrs. Bailey, about which we have so often spoken? It is my anxiety for the good of Colby that makes me so eager for your assurance.

That was Roberts' way-the approach direct. It got results. As did many others to whom Roberts appealed, Mr. Bailey gave much more than Roberts asked.

President Roberts had now raised $650,000 in new funds, but he was not content. Just as he had suggested in his letter to Dudley Bailey, he was deter- mined that the College should have increased scholarship funds to meet not only the rising enrollment, but also the rising expense of attending college to the stu- dent and his family.

For fifteen years prior to 1919, tuition had stood at $90 a year. When, in the year following the war, it was raised a modest ten dollars to one hundred dollars a year, there were complaints. Conditions, however, compelled the Trus- tees to increase the amount to $120 in the very next year. The fee for tuition, room and board in the Women's Division had been $200 since 1915. In 1919 it was raised to $225, and in 1920 to $275. The year 1920 was, in fact, a year of crucial decision regarding fees. For many years the charge for room rent in men's dormitories and college-owned fraternity houses had been $45 a year. It was now increased to $60. From time immemorial the College catalogue had stated that men could obtain table board in the city for $3.50 to $4.00 a week. That statement was now changed to read "$5.00 to $7.00." In 1923 tuition was again increased to $150, where it remained until 1928, when it was raised to $200. Meanwhile the overall charges for women rose to $306, and room rent for men was placed on a scale from $60 to $100, according to location of room.

Roberts was concerned because scholarship funds were not keeping pace with rising costs. In 1921 the total funds designated for scholarships totaled only $110,500, yielding about $5500 a year. There were 37 of those scholarship funds, only four of which exceeded one thousand dollars in invested capital: the Gard- ner Colby Fund of $20,000; the Frank L. Besse Fund of $10,000; the Mabel Keyes Averill Fund of $5000; and the W. H. Snyder Fund of $2500.

Through the years since 1820, scholarships had from time to time been so- licited from the Baptist churches in Maine. As a result, in 1921, there were 29 of those church scholarships for a total investment of $18,376. Those scholar- ships were severely restricted. Many were limited to students who were mem- bers of the local church donating the fund. Others were for candidates for the ministry; others for Baptists only; others for students designated by the pastor

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THE PASSING OF ROBERTS

of the donating church. None of those funds exceeded a thousand dollars; some were as little as two hundred, and the average was less than $600. The income from any church scholarship therefore ranged from ten to fifty dollars.

Since, year after year, the College found it necessary to grant increasing amounts of scholarship aid, by 1921 the annual appropriation for that purpose far exceeded the income from the scholarship funds. It was to stop that drain on the current budget that Arthur Roberts now turned his attention to a vigorous campaign for more scholarship money. In 1924 he issued the following public statement:

Present income for student assistance is far below the amount required, and for years we have had to appropriate money that should have been used in other ways. The growth of the College in recent years has been far greater than the increase in scholarship funds. I am determined to raise $100,000 in additional scholarship funds. Each scholarship will bear the name of the donor and will be assigned in accordance with his wishes. Many graduates of the College who themselves re- ceived scholarships are now in a position to establish scholarship funds to provide for students through generations to come. Both graduates and friends of the College who are looking for an investment in human character and influence have here the desired opportunity.1

In November, 1924, Roberts explained to the Trustees that the campaign for scholarship funds was progressing well. He said he sought those funds by three methods: cash payments, annuity gifts, and promises of bequests. He re- garded the unit of a designated scholarship as $1500, yielding about $75 a year. He explained that the campaign had not been extended to recent graduates, be- cause they were inclined to be more interested in other projects, nor had appeal been made to the women graduates, who were concerned with their own cam- paign for a new building.

In 1925 Roberts doubled the amount sought to $200,000. He said, "Gen- eral income cannot continue to bear the load of payments for the scholarship account. With twice as many students as before the war, and with the cost of living doubled, we need not $5000, but $10,000 in added scholarship income."

In April, 1926, the new fund amounted to $70,000. Because of President Roberts' illness and death, the campaign was never completed, but its momentum enabled the College to increase its scholarship resources substantially year after year until they reached nearly $900,000 in 1959.

Just before World War I, the Trustees had been able to bring the top salary for a full professor to $2000. In 1920 they made the maximum $2400. Then, spurred by the annual gifts of the General Education Board and by the success of the Second Century Fund, they raised the maximum to $2800, a figure at which it remained for many years. Some instructors were, in 1924, paid as low as $1200, although $1400 was the more usual starting salary. There was little difference in salaries among those in the three professorial ranks. Two associate professors each received $2625, while the salary of each of three assistant pro- fessors was $2400, exactly the same as that paid to several associate professors. In 1925 bonuses were voted to the faculty: to each professor $150, to each asso- ciate or assistant professor $100, to each instructor $50. Not until 1928 did agitation stimulated by the Executive Committee, in charge of administration pending the election of a new president, result in substantial increases. The story of that accomplishment will be told in a later chapter.

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HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE

Annuities for retiring faculty members were first considered effectively in 1924, when it was voted to take up with the Carnegie Foundation the matter of retirement pensions. It is true that twenty years earlier, in President White's time, an effort had been made to have Colby accepted under the then existing Carnegie plan, but that corporation had informed President White that the facul- ties of denominational colleges were not eligible. Toward the end of the second decade of the century the Carnegie Teachers Retirement Corporation had en- countered serious difficulties, with the result that in its stead was organized the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, with a much more liberal policy. It was that new corporation, not the old Carnegie group, which was meant in the trustee vote in 1924. The Colby Alumnus explained the plan.

It involves the annual payment by the College of an amount equal to five per cent of the professor's salary and payment by him of an equal amount. At present rates of salary, assuming retirement at 68 years, the men now over forty would receive annually an average of $1230, varying with the age and salary of each. The largest amount would be $1806. As a teacher's salary increases, so does the amount of his re- tiring allowance.2

That last sentence in the Alumnus account proved to be too optimistic, be- cause when salaries were indeed increased in 1928, the amounts paid as premiums were not immediately increased. The T.I.A.A. reported that the contract did not require the recognition of increased salaries, but that it was the common, almost universal practice of the cooperating colleges to do so. After two years of delay, the Colby Trustees decided to follow the common practice, and since 1930 there has never been any question about payment of five per cent of the teacher's salary regardless of the varying amounts of that salary during the teach- er's tenure. At first the plan was voluntary, and a few members of the faculty did not participate. In 1940 it was made compulsory for all new members of the faculty above the rank of instructor.

Almost contemporaneous with the adoption of the annuity plan was the placing of a policy of group life insurance for those of the faculty who decided to participate. This gave each participant $2000 of insurance at very low cost. Shortly before the College adopted Social Security for all its employees in 1951, the group insurance plan was abandoned.

President Roberts' health began to fail in the winter of 1922-23, and those who knew him best said that he was never the same man physically after he passed through the ordeal of the fatal Lambda Chi Alpha fire in December, 1922. At three o'clock on the morning of Monday, December 4, the fire alarm sounded for a blaze in the north end of old North College, then occupied by the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. Before the flames were under control it was known that four occupants were missing. When firemen could at last search the ruins, they found the bodies of four students: Charles Treworgy, 1923, of East Surry; Alton Andrews, 1923, of Belfast; Norman Wardwell, 1925, of Newport; and Warren Frye, 1926, of Revere, Massachusetts. College and community were severely shocked.

Arthur Roberts bore the full brunt of the disaster. The bodies of the four victims were placed in his College Avenue home until the stricken parents could arrive. Time and again the President asked, "What could I have done to pre- vent this disaster?" Should he have forbidden the common fraternity practice

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THE PASSING OF ROBERTS

of "ram-pasture" sleeping-the use of the top floor for general sleeping quarters? The practice had long been criticized. But not one of the four men who lost their lives had been sleeping on that top floor; all of them had been in rooms on the lower floors. Should there have been better fire exits? The building was fully equipped with fire escapes, and one of the boys had died in a room where such an escape passed one of the windows. No, there seemed no reasonable precaution that the college authorities had not already taken.

Reason told Arthur Roberts that no blame attached to him, but he could not escape the emotional feeling that he might have done something more than had been done. He knew that he had a reputation for careful, even miserly, spending of college funds. Although he had spared no expense when student safety was concerned, perhaps other persons did not appreciate that fact. Then, too, Roberts was no cold-blooded executive. He regarded every male student as one of his boys. He could call every one of them by name. To have four of them lose their lives in a horrible fire was something that made a deep scar on the man they knew as "Rob."

Immediate response of the citizens of Waterville, with temporary housing for the students and with money to replace their lost possessions, revealed at once the good relations between town and gown during the Roberts administra- tion. For many years the boys of Lambda Chi Alpha had good reason to ex- press their gratitude to the people of Waterville.

Sensing that their President needed rest, the Trustees voted to provide Roberts and his wife with a trip to Europe in the spring of 1923, but Roberts insisted that he could not go until the Second Century Fund was fully secured. In the fall of 1923 that task had been accomplished, and Judge Cornish prevailed upon the President to take a European trip in the spring of 1924.

Instead of appointing one officer as Acting President during his absence, Roberts used a device which was to become a pattern for administration between his own death and the election of his successor. He placed administration in charge of a faculty committee composed of Professors Taylor, Parmenter, Ash- craft, and Libby. As chairman, Taylor presided at faculty meetings and was general administrator. Parmenter was the official spokesman for the college in public announcements. Libby acted as Freshman Adviser, attended to the Presi- dent's mail, and took charge of admissions. Ashcraft was in charge of the chapel exercises. Thus, the Alumnus pointed out, it took four men even to try to fill Roberts' shoes. On his return, the President paid high tribute to the efficient work of the committee.

In spite of the long hours spent at his college duties, Arthur Roberts always found time for worthy community projects. He was the first President of the Waterville Rotary Club, prominent in the activities of the First Baptist Church, a member of the Waterville Board of Education, and on numerous civic commit- tees. Recognition came to him from the business community when, in 1924, he was elected a director of the Maine Central Railroad.

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The history of Colby College, Part 43

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