USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Waterville > The history of Colby College > Part 9
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Until 1825 no attempt had been made to open a college commons, although several students boarded in the homes of professors. Most of the students seem to have supplied their own meals, some of them subsisting on very meager fare. At the annual meeting in 1824 the Trustees voted to appoint a committee to de- termine whether it would be expedient to elect a steward and to make appropriate recommendation at the next annual meeting. The next year the committee reported that steward's apartments were ready in North College and that David Robinson had applied for the position. The Trustees accepted the recommendation and authorized Robinson to set up a boarding department, with his rent free. The plan was for the college to contribute the space and for Robinson to collect the board charges directly from the students. For several years his rate was $1.50 per week.
What became an established landmark of the college was the college fence, put up in 1826. It was at first a simple rail fence with wooden posts, but was later made more substantial by the erection of heavy stone posts with two thick
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THE FIRST DECADE
rails between each pair of posts. When the college was moved to Mayflower Hill, a section of this historic fence was taken up and set at the rear of the officers' park- ing space behind the Miller Library.
In 1828, both Professor Briggs and Professor Chapin resigned to accept bet- ter positions elsewhere, but with the best of feelings toward Waterville College. To replace Briggs, Robert Everett Pattison was induced to leave Amherst College and become Professor of Mathematics at Waterville. He was not given Briggs' longer title of Professor of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Chemistry. Chapin, who had come originally as Professor of Theology, had been made Pro- fessor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. In his place the Trustees chose Thomas J. Conant, whom they made Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. He had been a tutor in the Baptist institution in the national capital known as Columbian College. At the same meeting the Board appointed as a tutor John O'Brien Chaplin, son of the President.
Although the Board could not know it when they made the appointments, this was the beginning of a bit of nepotism that did not turn out well for the col- lege when a crisis arose in 1833. Conant married Chaplin's daughter, and as son-in-law of the President became inextricably involved in the difficulties in faculty-student relations which reached a climax, the story of which must be re- served for the following chapter.
An unsolved mystery surrounds Colby's famous Paul Revere bell. There is no question that it is of authentic Revere manufacture, made in the foundry car- ried on by Joseph Warren Revere after the death of his father in 1818. Bells marked simply "Revere" are not authentic, but were made by Revere's son Paul, who left the father's firm and set up a foundry of his own. Authentic Revere bells have one of three markings: "Paul Revere," "Paul Revere and Son," or "Revere and Company," and must bear a date between 1792 and 1828. The best authority on these bells was Dr. Arthur H. Nichols, who sought to trace every bell listed on the foundry records of Paul Revere's firm. The Colby bell bears the inscription "Paul Revere and Son" and the date "1824." Nichols found that the company records listed only two bells made in 1824: one made for Hampden Academy in Maine, weighing 392 pounds, and another purchased by Munson and Barnard of Boston weighing 408 pounds.
The mystery is caused by the fact that while the Colby bell is certainly au- thentic and is clearly dated 1824, it weighs approximately 700 pounds. The Hampden bell was destroyed by fire in 1842, and the Munson and Barnard bell is too light by 300 pounds. Either the Colby bell somehow escaped listing at the foundry, or what is more likely, it is a recast of an older bell, using the metal of that bell and adding new metal.
The college records are completely silent regarding either purchase or gift of a bell. The first mention of such an object is a cryptic statement in the faculty records for July 26, 1824: "Entered into certain regulations for ringing the college bell." We cannot be sure that the bell thus referred to is Colby's present Paul Revere bell, but the date implies that it was. It is thus probable that as long ago as 1824 students were called to classes by the same bell that summoned their successors down through the years until 1950. Then the silenced old bell was reverently taken down from the tower of South College and hung over the north porch of Roberts Union.
As we have already learned, from Albert Paine's letter to President White, students as well as president and faculty were busy with the work of maintenance and improvement of grounds and buildings. It was fitting, therefore, that the first
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decade of Colby's history should close with the following resolution by the Board of Trustees:
Whereas the students of this college have very assiduously and industri- ously employed their leisure hours in adorning and beautifying the land in front of the college buildings, the Rev. President is instructed to ex- press to the students our high gratification that they have thus laudably and profitably exercised their skill and industry, and to tender them the warm thanks of this corporation.
CHAPTER VIII
The End Of A Reign
JEREMIAH CHAPLIN terminated his presidency in 1833, but before that event occurred he had seen three important decisions, in each of which he had had a conspicuous part: the establishment of a medical school, the starting of a student- aid workshop, and the final abandonment of the theological course.
In 1828 the Trustees took advantage of an offer from the Clinical School of Medicine at Woodstock, Vermont, whereby students would take certain funda- mental courses in the medical sciences at Waterville, then complete their clinical study at Woodstock, after which Waterville College would confer the M. D. de- gree. On December 31, 1828, the Board voted:
The members of the Board of Trustees now present do approve of the proposition of Dr. Gallup, made to this College, to confer medical degrees on pupils of the Clinical School of Medicine in the County of Windsor, Vermont; the Trustees of the College reserving the right of appointing two censors, to attend the examination of said school in concert with the censors appointed by the Medical Society of Vermont; reserving the right also to discontinue conferring such degrees whenever the Trustees of the College may deem it proper; and that the President of this Col- lege inform Dr. Gallup of this vote, when he shall have received in writing or otherwise the assent of such a number of the members of this Board as, with those present at this meeting shall constitute a majority of the whole board.
After confirmation of the vote, the Trustees elected Dr. Joseph Gallup Pro- fessor of the Institute of Medicine and Dr. Willard Parker Professor of Anatomy. Then they cannily decreed that "the fees for degrees and diplomas granted to the students of the Clinical School of Medicine belong to the President of Water- ville College." They set the diploma fee at six dollars, thus netting President Chaplin sixty-six dollars in addition to his salary when eleven medical degrees were conferred in 1830.
In 1831 Dr. David Palmer was elected Professor of Obstetrics and the M. D. degree was conferred upon sixteen young men. In light of present high standards of the medical profession, the reader may be surprised to learn that the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine was not uncommon in the 1830's. Waterville College, in addition to granting the degree to the sixteen graduates of the clinical school, gave the same degree in honorary status to Daniel Huntington of Rochester, Vermont, John Cleveland of Rutland, and William Graves of Lowell, Massachusetts. In 1832 the number of medical graduates reached a peak of
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HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
twenty-eight, and the honorary M. D. went to a practitioner in New Hampshire and to another in Massachusetts.
When the Trustees convened in annual meeting, on July 30, 1833, their experiment with medicine had ended. The records contain no explanation, but merely the brief minute: "Resolved that the connection between the College and the Clinical School of Medicine at Woodstock, Vermont, be dissolved." Evi- dently the rift had occurred during the college year of 1832-33, because no medical degrees were voted in 1833. Whittemore says that opposition had arisen in Vermont to the connection of their school with the Maine college. Burrage states in more general terms that "evidently the arrangement did not prove satis- factory and the medical department of the College was discontinued." Hall states only that, in the years 1830, 1831, and 1832, a total of 55 degrees was conferred upon students who completed the medical course at Woodstock, but he makes no mention of when or why the practice was abandoned.2 All we can say with certainty is that, in the three years during which the M. D. degree was con- ferred by Waterville College, President Chaplin augmented his salary by $330 that he would not otherwise have received.
How a boy from a poor family can find the money to attend college has always been a problem. Except for the money they had saved before entering and help from outside sources, such as the denominational societies, most stu- dents in the 1820's found only two ways of earning money during their college course: by teaching or by preaching. The letters quoted in a previous chapter show that neither of those sources provided substantial income, even in compari- son with the low rates for tuition, board and other charges during the four years of the college course.
Since early colonial times, New Englanders had approved the dignity of manual labor. To work with the hands, in pursuit of daily bread and a margin of savings, was accepted Christian practice. Waterville College had been in existence only a few years when parents began to inquire if there was not some way for the college to provide remunerative manual labor for needy and deserv- ing students. Many of the students came from the farms, where the hours of labor were long and arduous, and even those who came from families of the clergy knew what it meant to work with their hands, for many a minister in the 1820's spent as much time cultivating crops as he did cultivating souls.
In 1828 the Trustees heeded the popular demand by passing the following vote:
Resolved that it is expedient to have a mechanic shop erected on the college lot, in which such students as are disposed may employ them- selves a small portion of the day; and for this purpose the Prudential Committee is instructed to employ an agent to solicit subscriptions to liquidate the expense of erecting a suitable building; and said committee are also instructed to take such other measures as they may deem ex- pedient to carry this object into effect.
The shop was built, and by 1831 it became apparent that it was not break- ing even, but the size of its deficit was impossible to tell because its accounts were merged with those of the whole college operation. As a result of the Trus- tees' growing concern about the shop, Daniel Cook and Nathaniel Coffin were appointed agents to superintend the workshop and to keep its accounts distinct from those of the college. A year later it seemed necessary to take even more drastic action, and the Board voted:
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THE END OF A REIGN
To put the mechanic shop under the superintendence of a single agent, who shall be authorized to obtain funds for that object and shall have the disposal of all money collected by him for the purchase of lumber, tools and other necessary articles. The agent shall appoint a suitable person to give instruction to students who labor in the shop and give such person reasonable compensation for his services. The agent shall raise by subscription $2000 to be employed as a permanent fund for the purchase of stock and for purchase of articles manufactured by the stu- dents. As soon as funds will allow, the agent shall be required to pur- chase of the students, at reasonable prices, all articles manufactured by them in the shop, within one week after they are completed. The agent shall replace the money thus expended by resale of the articles pur- chased from the students. The agent shall receive, for the present year, $300 for his services, out of any money which he may collect.
In 1832, the College also loaned the shop $600 for tools and stock. The College Treasurer at that time reported: "Nothing has been paid into the treasury from the sale of articles manufactured in the shop. It certainly deserves con- sideration whether the funds of the college should be appropriated to sustain an establishment which, though a useful auxiliary, cannot support itself." In 1833 President Chaplin made a detailed report to the trustees on the operation of the project.8 He said that he and Professor Newton had been personally responsible for the purchase of 7000 feet of lumber from Simeon Mathews, for which they gave a note of $70. (Note that price in comparison with present lumber prices -$10 a thousand.) Chaplin also conceived the idea of storing up a quantity of green lumber at an even lower price, letting it dry, and then use it in the shop a year later. So he persuaded four other interested persons, including Newton, to join with him in buying 50,000 feet of green lumber from General Kendall at Fairfield, and have it sawed in Kendall's mill according to directions given by Nathaniel Coffin, superintendent of the shop. Chaplin reported that additional expense had been incurred by hiring a number of students to carry the boards up from the river and pile them near Kendall's mill, and still further expense for transporting them from Fairfield Village to the college grounds.
Forty years later President Champlin thought it likely that his illustrious predecessor, Jeremiah Chaplin, was at least lukewarm toward the workshop. Chaplin was indeed a man who thought a student's entire time should be devoted to study, unless the faculty agreed to allow him to perform part-time teaching. Would such a man look kindly upon the shop?
Chaplin's report to the Trustees in 1833 leaves us in no doubt concerning his personal stand. He wrote:
Permit me to say that to keep the shop in successful operation is of vital importance to the prosperity of the College. Judging from past experience, I am decidedly of the opinion that the shop, if well man- aged, will contribute more to the increase of your number of students than all other causes combined. It will, of course, increase the amount annually due to the college from its students, and what is of still greater importance, it will furnish indigent students with the means of punc- tually discharging their college bills. The effect which a well regulated manual labor establishment must have on the order of the College and the morals of its students is another consideration of great weight. Idleness is the bane of youth in every situation; in a college it is pecu- liarly destructive. Long experience and observation have assured me
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that one of the most important prerequisites to the good government of a college is to provide the means for keeping its inmates constantly em- ployed in something honorable and useful.
Chaplin went even further than general approval of the workshop. He dis- agreed with the college treasurer's opinion that funds of the college should not be devoted to its support. He said:
Should you think it best, as I sincerely hope you will, to encourage the manual labor establishment, allow me to recommend the appropriation of a certain part of the income deriving from tuition for its support; say all which will be due from those who work in the shop. The tui- tion bills of those students will of course be easily collected, and the proposed arrangement may be so guarded as to insure the College against being responsible for debts of the shop.
In response to the outgoing president's plea, the Trustees decided to con- tinue the shop at least for another year, but they condemned the former practice of paying the students in cash for the articles they made, and henceforth demanded that all such purchases be credited against the students' college bills.4
When, in 1835, the financial operation of the shop still showed no im- provement, the Treasurer reported: "Believing that the workshop ought to be so conducted that its current receipts could meet its current expenses, I recom- mend that no further drawing upon the funds of the college be permitted. No such appropriation should be necessary. All that is required to prevent the shop from becoming a subject of pecuniary embarrassment to the College is vigilance, activity, and fidelity on the part of its financial agent."
So obsessed were the majority of the Board with the shop's necessity that they paid no heed to the Treasurer's recommendation. Instead they authorized a committee actually to build an extension on the shop, and they appropriated $500 for the purchase of lumber and materials. They probably knew it was only wishful thinking when they added that they expected to be reimbursed from pro- ceeds of the shop.
In 1837 matters had reached a crisis, but the Trustees were not yet willing to abandon the shop. Treasurer Stackpole was all for calling it a day, but others overruled him, and it was finally voted that "the Prudential Committee be directed to make such arrangements with regard to the workshop as will save the cor- poration any expenses in keeping the same in operation, if practicable." Those two qualifying words "if practicable" indicated the way out. Continuation of the workshop was simply not practicable, although it somehow remained open under intermittent operation until the spring of 1841. At the annual meeting in that year, the Trustees spread upon their records a statement which reveals the whole story in appropriate summary.
While the workshop system was a novelty and public opinion was warmly in its favor, many young men were drawn from the industrious walks, who attempted to work their way through college, and some succeeded, to their own advantage as well as that of the public. The workshop was probably at first of some advantage to the College, in enticing students to come here, but not in any proportion to the heavy expense incurred by the College in building and maintaining it. Now, for some time past, it has been a useless monument of misjudged expenditure. The com-
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THE END OF A REIGN
mittee deems it useless to think of again putting the shop in operation. They recommend that the Prudential Committee sell, lease, or other- wise dispose of the workshop, including stock and tools, as they shall think best, but in no event to involve the College in any more expense for this project.
Nearly thirty years later, President Champlin felt able to judge the whole enterprise and state the causes of failure. He said:
As a financial operation, one may readily guess the result. The shops steadily ran the College into debt, till they had absorbed not only the collections made by Mr. Merrill, but several thousands of dollars be- sides. So many young men, generally without experience in the use of tools, and by the action of a general principle of human nature, each disposed to appreciate his labor above its real value, and each pressing the superintendent for the highest possible allowance for it, could not, in the nature of the case, have been profitably employed. The judg- ment of the better portion of the trustees had for many years been ad- verse to long continuance of the shop, and at last the Board officially closed it in 1841.5
Following the decision to make the Institution a true four-year college, the theological department had become less and less popular. As we have seen in a previous chapter, many Baptists disapproved the change and withdrew their support. Whatever may have been the intention of William King and others, who from the first favored a college charter, there were influential members of the Board, as well as supporters in the Baptist churches scattered throughout Maine, who believed that the literary department should always be supplementary to the theological, and the Maine charters of 1820 and 1821 certainly reversed that relationship. Furthermore the Baptists had established a theological school at Newton, Massachusetts, and the Baptists of Boston, especially the wealthier of them, were glad to use the Waterville change of policy as an excuse to support an outright theological seminary in the Old Commonwealth. To Newton, rather than to Waterville, young men intent upon theological training more and more turned their steps.
The result of these influences was that the theological department at Water- ville College became steadily weaker. Although five men finished the course in 1825, they were the last to complete it. Two students held on until the sum- mer of 1826, but neither finished the course. For three years thereafter no pro- fessor was available for the department, Chaplin himself teaching only his col- lege classes when he was not out on the road soliciting funds. In 1829 the Trus- tees made at least a gesture toward reviving the department, voting that "a pro- fessor of theology be speedily appointed and that the office remain permanent." They took no chances, however, concerning additional expense, but solemnly ap- pointed Jeremiah Chaplin Professor of Divinity, at the same time authorizing a committee to prepare rules and regulations for the government of the theological department. They regarded the department as several years dead and in need both of a professor and of regulations if it was to start all over again.
The Trustees wanted to assure theological studies in the Institution, but not at the expense of what they regarded as of first importance, the liberal arts col- lege. No side show was going to distract from the main tent if they could prevent it. In 1830 they voted that "the theological department shall be supported wholly
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HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
and solely by funds arising from donations, legacies and subscriptions made and granted to this college expressly for that purpose; and the agent, J. C. Merrill, is instructed to procure funds for the College generally, and for the theological department in particular, keeping a distinct account of the latter; and the agent shall receive his salary from the funds so collected, in proportion to the amount collected for each purpose."
In 1831 hope arose from interest expressed by the Maine Branch of the Northern Education Society of Baptists. An offer from the Society to pay tui- tion and room rent for students under its sponsorship in the theological depart- ment was met by the College Trustees' agreeing to allow those students to occupy rooms in the college dormitories, provided there were any rooms not needed by college students, and also to permit theological students to "attend lectures by the professors with college students and to have free use of the college library and the philosophical apparatus."
Chaplin, however, had had quite enough of this obviously dying department. He insisted upon his resignation as Professor of Theology, though remaining as President and as Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy. The Trustees then turned to Rev. Henry Green, pastor of the Waterville Baptist Church, but were unwilling to give him a professorial appointment. They voted that "Rev. Henry K. Green be requested to take charge of and instruct such theological students as may resort to this place for instruction during the ensuing year, it being understood that the Maine Branch of the Northern Education Society will make him compensation for the same." The theological department never was officially abolished; like old soldiers, it just faded away.
One other project of very brief duration occurred during Chaplin's presi- dency. Along with the operation of the workshop went an attempt to give stu- dents employment in cultivation of the college lands. The steward, who operated the college commons at his own financial risk, was given the added job of being a sort of superintendent of farm. He was given the title of College Farmer and was instructed to furnish to any student of the college as much cleared land as the student would agree to cultivate in proper order. His compensation was "the use of such land as shall not be tilled by students and officers of the college, and one-fourth of the produce raised by the students."
The farm project was no more successful than the workshop, and in 1870 President Champlin paid it the same reminiscent respect he had paid to the lat- ter. "I think the experience shows that men whose wits have been thoroughly sharpened, by whatever form of culture, generally contrive to live by their wits, not by the plow."6
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