The history of Colby College, Part 45

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

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Sometimes Bloody Monday caused reaction from the city authorities. In 1919 the Waterville Sentinel announced that a reward of fifty dollars had been offered for the conviction of persons who had placed Phi Chi posters on windows of public buildings. Occasionally some obstreperous student was taken into cus- tody, but was usually released without trial. The city officials, always friendly toward the College, were remarkably patient with student outbreaks, especially the antics of Bloody Monday Night. Even when students removed the portraits of Waterville mayors from the corridor of City Hall and placed them on the steps of a fraternity house, the public regarded it as a good joke on the local police, for the corridor was just outside the open door of the police station.

The Freshman Rules, posted by the sophomores in 1928, were typical of the period, absurd as some of them would seem today. Note that they applied only to men.

1. Wear the cap and green tie at all times.

2. Walk on the female side of College Avenue.

3. Bare the head to upperclassmen and coeds.

4. Learn all Colby cheers and songs.

5. Be in the arms of Morpheus by midnight.

6. Keep off the college lawns.

7. Carry matches and offer them to upperclassmen.

8. Do not wear prep school insignia, knickers or sweat shirts.

9. Do not smoke on street or campus.

10. Shun the company of the fair sex.

Another accomplishment of the interregnum was the introduction of an orientation course for freshmen. Meeting once a week, in place of the old-time Freshman Reading, it was planned and directed by Professor Marriner. The first semester, with various speakers from faculty and administration, covered such subjects as the requirements for graduation, use of the library, preparation for examinations, taking of notes, budgeting of time, student organizations, and finances. Required reading was Dr. E. C. Whittemore's History of Colby Col- lege, which had come from the press in 1927. The second semester was de- voted to orientation to the fields of knowledge, beginning with the sidereal uni-

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verse, continuing through geological, physical, chemical and biological processes to a consideration of man's place in the nature of things. Lectures were given by fifteen members of the faculty. At the end of World War II, Marriner de- veloped the second semester area of this experiment into a regular three-hour course for freshmen, under the title "Man and His World."

Finding that many Colby students were interested in good music, Professor Everett Strong, who in addition to his teaching of modern languages served as organist at the Congregational Church, started the first college concert series in 1929. It became so popular that it was later enlarged into the Waterville Com- munity Concert Series.

In February, 1929, after long negotiation, the College acquired what was known as the Bangs property, situated on College Avenue, between the DKE House and the home of Dr. E. S. Risley. The purchase included a large brick residence on land extending from College Avenue to Front Street. On the rear of the lot had been installed the rink of the Waterville Hockey Club, which the College now acquired for its own hockey teams. The house itself soon became Colby's first infirmary for men.

For many years members of the Colby faculty had taken active part in civic affairs. It was left for Professor Libby, however, to be the first faculty member to serve as Mayor of Waterville. Elected in 1926 and reelected in 1927, he gave the city the most efficient administration it had ever known. Reforms which he inaugurated have shown their beneficial results for more than thirty years.

In 1928 Libby announced his candidacy for Governor of Maine. Although defeated for the Republican nomination, he ran well in the primaries, and might have won easily if he had had the support of the party ring. He was too straight- forward and too outspoken to meet the approval of the machine politicians. The primary election came early in June. By the middle of May, Libby had made 80 campaign speeches and had shaken hands with more than 12,000 persons all over the state.

That recurrent demon, fire, hit twice during the interregnum years. Shortly before the Easter recess in 1927, Coburn Hall was so badly damaged that it had to be rebuilt. Valiant work by students succeeded in salvaging many of the valuable contents, especially the collection of birds that had been given to the College by Professor Hamlin. Although complete renovation was made during the summer, it was not until after the Christmas recess that the departments of biology and geology could again make full use of the building. The Echo de- scribed the improvements.

Although the new Coburn Hall is situated on the old foundations and uses the old walls, the internal structure has been entirely changed. Some of the more obvious improvements are a larger entrance, better placed classrooms, a basement room for comparative anatomy, a museum on the top floor, and more efficient offices. In addition to the departments of biology and geology, the building now houses the Department of Education and Psychology, and also has several general classrooms. The renovation has provided three large lecture rooms, several con- ference rooms. and spacious laboratories.

About eleven o'clock on the evening of May 3, 1928, fire was discovered in the gymnasium. Breaking out in the furnace room, the flames destroyed sup- porting columns and floor timbers, causing about $2500 damage. This harm to property was so slight that little would have been thought of it except for un-

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fortunate publicity. The College was in the midst of a campaign to provide a new gymnasium, and an over-zealous newspaper reporter spread the rumor that students had set the fire to get rid of the old gym and make a new one absolutely necessary. The report said that students had interfered with the firemen and had even cut the hose.

Too many newspaper readers were ready to believe the report without in- quiry. The financial campaign was seriously affected, as prospective givers noti- fied the committee that such a student body didn't deserve support. College officials, again led by Professor Libby, worked hard to squelch the ugly rumor. Finally, with the help of the public press, and to the satisfaction of all concerned, it was shown that there was no evidence whatever of arson. The insurance adjusters had settled the claim without any suggestion that the fire was incendiary. The Waterville fire chief stated that the hose had not been cut and hydrants had not been tampered with.

Not since the administration of President Small had the College given the Master of Arts degree automatically to one who engaged in teaching or one of the learned professions. But until 1928, the manner of conferring that degree in course had been loosely administered. Decision not to operate a Colby Summer School had focused attention of many Colby graduates on other means to im- prove their certificate status as teachers in the public schools. The coming of Professor Edward J. Colgan to the faculty, as director of a modern program of teacher training, had caused many teachers to seek means to secure the master's degree through extension courses and by informal arrangements with faculty members. The situation had become so confused that, on the recommendation of a committee composed of Professors Morrow, Colgan and Chester, the faculty voted the following regulations concerning the master's degree in October, 1928. A month later the new regulations were confirmed by the Board of Trustees.

In order to secure the master's degree, a student must pursue five courses of graduate study, three of which must be in the major department; he must write an acceptable thesis, must pay the same tuition as under- graduates, must have at least one full year in residence as a graduate student, and must have a mark of B or better in each graduate course.

At the same time the Trustees abolished the practice of conferring the Mas- ter of Arts as an honorary degree. Later, when the College ceased to give the master's degree in course, the honorary master's degree was restored.

The campaign which President Roberts had started, to obtain a new gym- nasium, was continued vigorously after his death. In 1928 it was decided to expand the campaign into a development fund of $500,000, only part of which would be used for the proposed gymnasium. The decision to move the College changed that picture completely, and half a million dollars for development on the old campus changed to many millions on Mayflower Hill. But, before the decision to move had been made, a large addition to the old gymnasium facilities had been erected. Known as the Field House, the story of its building and its use will be told in a later chapter on Athletics.

During the interregnum advancement was also made in respect to academic standards. Shortly before Roberts died, the faculty had abolished the time- honored deficiency examinations. For many years a student failing a semester examination could try it again on the third Wednesday of the following semester. In 1926 the faculty decreed that, in any course, a student had the right to one

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final examination only, and for more than thirty years no "make-up" of a semester examination has been permitted.

Admission deficiencies were still causing trouble. Sometimes a student would reach the middle of his senior year, only to be notified that he had never passed off some entrance deficiency. One prominent alumnus recalls that he took the entrance examination in geometry five times before he finally passed it a few weeks before graduation. Though not ready to abandon entrance deficiencies altogether, as they happily did a few years later, the faculty in 1928 decreed that any student having entrance deficiencies must make them up before he could be admitted to the junior class.

Effective with the Class of 1929, the "quality point rule" went into effect. A student who secured only a "D" mark in every course could no longer graduate. A portion of the marks had to be of quality; that is, above the minimum passing level of "D." Three-fourths of all marks had to be at least "C," except that each "B" cancelled a "D," and each "A" cancelled two "D's."

As has been briefly mentioned in the preceding chapter, the place so long held by Sam Osborne had by 1927 come into the hands of Fred Weymouth. For many years he acted as guide, philosopher and friend to many boys who held janitorial jobs on the old campus. Because he somehow personified the unity that held the College together after President Roberts death, this is a fitting place in the historical account to pay tribute to "Chef."

He got his nickname from his job in the SATC during World War I. There he had been chief cook of the Army mess on the Colby campus. Because faculty members insisted that the word "mess" had more than one application to the troublesome days of 1918, "Chef" became valued as a peacemaker and a friend of the KP boys, as well as lord of the kitchens.

Weymouth succeeded Fred Short as head janitor, and in that capacity he had to supervise the not too efficient labor of some thirty male students, who stoked the furnaces, swept the floors, cleared the walks and tended the grounds.

After his morning rounds "Chef" could usually be found in his basement retreat in Hedman Hall, sitting back in an easy chair, puffing a malodorous pipe, and patting his small dog lying in his lap. But in the early morning hours there was no easy chair for "Chef." Even if he had not been constantly called for difficulties with heating, plumbing or lighting, he would have had trouble enough routing his reluctant student help out of bed. Into the fraternity "ram-pastures" he would storm his way on a sub-zero morning, shouting "Hey! What's the big idea? Six o'clock doesn't means half past seven. Come on, snap out of it and go tend your fire."

Just as Sam had done before him, "Chef" often derided a student by calling him "professor" or "doctor." He showed no particular deference to faculty mem- bers, but for his immediate superiors, the men who gave him orders, he had great respect. He never called President Roberts "Rob," nor Treasurer Hubbard "Frank." They were always "Prexy" and "Mr. Hubbard."

It was "Chef's" kind heart that saved many a thoughtless student from los- ing his job. Time and again "Chef" covered up the delinquencies, but for one sin he had no tolerance. When he ever caught a boy lying to him, that boy went on the Weymouth blacklist.

When a new president came to Colby in 1929, there awaited him a janitor who had become as memorable an institution as was Sam Osborne in the new president's own student days.

CHAPTER XXXIV

They Also Taught

W. HAT of the men and women who served on the Colby faculty during the glamorous 1920's? Reference has been made to some of them, and at least one of their number, Professor Libby, has had a prominent place in the preceding chapter. Others already mentioned, like Weber, Eustis, and Dean Runnals will be given detailed consideration in later chapters, as will the beloved religious leader, Herbert Newman.

Let us here take a look at other Colby teachers of the 1920's, some of whom continued into the Johnson and even into the Bixler administration.

When Roberts' successor entered the presidential office in 1929, four promi- nent members of the Roberts faculty were no longer on the staff. J. William Black, Professor of History, who had been on the faculty almost as long as Roberts himself, had resigned in 1924 to accept a position at Union College in Schenectady. Of all the faculty members he was probably closest to "Rob," yet they were dif- ferent men. Black was a clear, analytical lecturer, rather coldly intellectual, de- manding exacting academic standards, and was meticulous in dress and manners. The college girls insisted that he never wore the same tie twice in the same week. He loved formal social events, and was a good dancer. It was Black who secured a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa for Colby, and he long served as its secretary. He built up a distinguished departmental library in history and government. More than any other teacher, Black developed the lecture method at Colby. Following his example other faculty members made increasing use of lectures rather than the time-honored recitations. He was so painstaking in his coverage of details that students in his American history course used to say that, when it came time to celebrate the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, Columbus had just sighted land. That, of course, was slanderous exaggeration, and however slowly one of Black's courses seemed to progress, the student was made to cover many a point thoroughly and memorably. Years afterward many a Colby graduate was grateful for the clear, logical presentation of "J. Bill."

Homer P. Little, who had carried on the tradition of Keely, Hamlin, and Bayley in the teaching of geology at Colby, had also resigned to accept a position at Clark, where Wallace Atwood had changed the emphasis on psychology of the days of G. Stanley Hall to vigorous attention to geography and geology. Within a few years Little was made dean at Clark, where he continued in office until his retirement.

Death had claimed two faculty members: Benjamin E. Carter, Associate Professor of Mathematics, and Anton Marquardt, Professor of German. Carter, a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Harvard in 1890, had come to Colby

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as assistant professor of mathematics in 1910. Four years later he married a Waterville girl, Mary Caswell, a graduate of Colby in 1904. He had prepared for college at Phillips Andover Academy and had taken the master's degree at Harvard in 1892. From 1893 to 1910 he was an instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For two years before his death, Professor Carter had been seriously ill and had undergone major surgery. He bore his suffering with exceptional fortitude and insisted upon attending classes even when wracked by pain. He was a faith- ful deacon of the Congregational Church. The Alumnus said of him: "No man on the faculty was held in higher esteem. He never spoke unkindly of anyone. To him teaching was serious business, and in attending to it he never counted hours or health." He died on June 10, 1926.

President Roberts, though himself in poor health, with only a few months to live, saw the passing of an old friend and close associate, Professor Marquardt, on January 24, 1927. Affectionately known as "Dutchy," Dr. Marquardt was per- haps the last member of the Colby faculty who could clearly be called "a char- acter." Never losing his native German accent, even after forty years in the United States, he would apply it to the most caustic American expressions. Look- ing over the rims of his spectacles, he would glue his eyes on some inoffensive student and "ride" him unmercifully. One alumnus recalls that he became com- pletely flustered when "Dutchy" once asked him to decline a German noun. "De- cline it," said the professor. Silence. "Come, come," shouted "Dutchy," "fangen sie an, get on going schnell, decline it, decline it!" Whereupon the student voiced in scared tones, "Die Kleinit, der Kleinit, der Kleinit, die Kleinit."

After taking his doctorate at the University of Kiel in 1885, Marquardt had come directly to the United States, where he came under the influence of the great Harvard classicist, Kenneth Rand. At that time Rand made his home in Water- town and was a member of the local school committee. He found a place for young Marquardt on the staff of the Watertown High School. There "Dutchy" remained until 1891, when he came to Colby as instructor in modern languages. In 1896 he was promoted to associate professor, and in 1901 was made Professor of German. He purchased property near the Oakland line, on what is known as Rice's Rips road, where he conducted a unique, but unprofitable farm. From one trip to Germany he returned with a handsome stallion and seemed about to become a rival of the famous "Hod" Nelson as a breeder of horses, but the venture was not successful.

In the early 1920's Marquardt sold the farm and moved his wife and two sons to California. Each June he would make the long journey from Maine to the west coast by railroad day coach, never using a sleeping car, and each Sep- tember he would make the same kind of journey in the opposite direction. Sum- mers he spent with the family. The entire college year, including Christmas and Easter vacations, he spent in Waterville.

This historian felt especially close to Dr. Marquardt. During junior and senior years in college, I had been his undergraduate assistant, marking those daily exercises which the doctor called "teems." When Marquardt became seri- ously ill, President Roberts asked me to add to my librarian's duties the teach- ing of two sections of first year German. Consequently I often visited "Dutchy" in his sick room on Elm Street. He never went to the hospital, but remained in the little boarding house room until the end. There, on a bitter January day in 1927, far from his loved ones on the other side of the continent, died the man who could say of so many Colby graduates, "Mein friend, he vas mein friend."

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Writing in the Alumnus, Marquardt's associate, Professor White, said of him.

He was typically German in his painstaking thoroughness, his scorn of superficiality, his patient endurance of grinding routine, in his tenacity to what he held to be right, and in his regard for duty. Though born and bred in the north of Germany, he had little sympathy with mili- taristic and imperialistic Prussia. He suffered greatly in 1917-18 under the groundless implication that because he was a German he was dis- loyal to his adopted country. He was always a thoroughly loyal Amer- ican. Above all he was a born teacher. His happy knack of tempering sternness and strictness with flashes of pungent wit saved him from the fate of so many foreign-trained teachers who attempt to instruct our young barbarians. It was that unique display of humor that made a speech from "Dutchy" an indispensable feature of Colby Night. He held in deep affection all sons and daughters of Colby. Who can esti- mate the value of those extra hours he spent with students in order that even the slowest and dullest might make the grade?1

Still vigorously teaching when the 1920's merged into the 1930's was a man who had been on the faculty longer than either Roberts or Marquardt. To more than half a century of graduates, Julian D. Taylor symbolized Colby College. He had already been on the faculty three years when the first woman graduate entered, and was still a faculty member when the fiftieth anniversary of that woman's graduation was recognized. He lived to see four of his former students become president of the College: Small, Butler, Roberts, and Johnson. When he retired, nine of his faculty colleagues had been his former students.

Immediately after his graduation from the College in 1868, Julian Taylor began the teaching of Latin in his alma mater-a career that continued until 1931, the remarkable span of 63 years. It is believed that no college teacher in America ever surpassed that record.

Bertha Louise Soule rightly entitled her biography of Taylor Colby's Ro- man. Roman indeed he was in countenance, in dignified manner, in authori- tarian dictum. Even after four years in his classroom, the Latin "majors" sat in awe of him. He could squelch a poorly prepared student with withering scorn, and when he praised a good recitation it was scarcely extravagant. Yet this man who seemed the very personification of reserved, even cold dignity had played first base on the Colby baseball team, was a member of Erosophian Adelphi and of a senior "feed society," a debater and prize-winning speaker, and not averse to mild student pranks. To be sure he was never accused of setting fire to the college privy, as was his student Nathaniel Butler, who later became Taylor's own boss as Colby president, but he was neither anti-social nor unduly dignified in his student days.

In 1879 the Trustees voted to sell to him "the small piece of land between the railroad and the late Professor Keely's house, on the payment of five hundred dollars." Remaining a bachelor until 1892, he then married the widow of Dr. Nathaniel Boutelle. She had been Mary Keely, daughter of Professor George Keely. Thus were linked by marriage the famous Colby names of Keely, Bou- telle and Taylor. After his marriage, Professor Taylor built a home on the lot he had held for a dozen years.

In 1921 Professor Taylor presented his resignation, saying that 53 years was plenty long enough for any man to continue teaching. The resignation met with prompt and decisive remonstrance, and he was persuaded to withdraw it,

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a decision for which the urgent pleading of President Roberts was largely re- sponsible. Although repeatedly trying to have his resignation accepted, he con- tinued to teach until June, 1931. At the meeting of the Trustees in November, 1930, President Johnson had said: "Professor Taylor will retire at the end of this year. Incapacitated by illness for several weeks, he has now returned to his teaching with his customary vigor. He is unique in the length and quality of his teaching and in his devotion to the College."

Professor Taylor lived for only one year after his retirement, passing away on October 13, 1932. Only a few years before the end he had fulfilled a life- long yearning to see Rome, where his spirit had walked daily for more than half a century. Riding along the Appian Way he got out of the taxi and walked for miles in the footsteps of the Latin writers he knew so well.

Long interested in financial matters, Taylor served for many years as a director of the Ticonic National Bank. He once told the Colby boys, in a chapel talk, that only two things are necessary to make money-foresight and patience. His offer of a large sum to the College if it would remain in Waterville will be recounted in a later chapter on "Mayflower Hill." His will made the College his residuary legatee.

Fortunately, as in the case of President Roberts, we can again turn to the notes carefully kept in his student days by Robert Waugh of the Class of 1927. Beginning about 1910, Dr. Taylor gave in alternate years a course in Teaching Latin. It was little more than a review of Cicero and Virgil. When this his- torian took the course in 1912, it gave almost no instruction on the teaching of beginning Latin to high school freshmen, nor did it reveal any knowledge of educational psychology. But when Waugh took the course in the spring of 1927, Taylor spiced it with keen observations on educational methods, and showed all too clearly that he had little sympathy with the techniques and the educational philosophy then emanating from Teachers College of Columbia University, the very place from which was to come Colby's next president. Let us note some of the Taylor advice to teachers, as Waugh recorded it from the old Roman's own lips.

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The history of Colby College, Part 45

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