USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > New London > A centennial history, 1837-1937, Colby Academy, Colby Junior College > Part 24
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In 1890 the Colby alumni reorganized as the New London Association. It became the custom to meet in Boston one year during the winter and in New London the next year at Commencement time, thus preserving the interest among the alumni resident near or in the city and those who were associated more closely with New London.
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1 N AN educational institution it is the personality and efficiency of the teachers that determine the quality of any particular period, but it is the administration of the head of the school that gives it character and reputation. In the century of Colby history approxi- mately twenty men have been in charge of affairs as principals, headmasters, or presidents. Certain of them have been men of strong personality and contagious zeal, others have been popular but easy-going, still others have made little or no contribution to the progress of the academy.
Because he was a man of real worth and had the shaping of policy while the school was still in its forma- tive stage, Reverend George W. Gardner was one of the outstanding characters in Colby history. Because he was for many subsequent years a leading member of the Board of Trustees and in his advanced years again a teacher in the academy, he was a factor in the impact of the school upon its students for much of the forty- two years that elapsed between his coming to New Lon- don in 1853 and his death on the hill in 1895.
He was a graduate of Dartmouth and in later years the college bestowed upon him the degree of doctor of divinity. His personal qualities of manliness, friendli- ness, and engaging fondness for learning recommended him to those who were trying to revive the New London Academy, and his administration of eight years abun- dantly justified the confidence that they imposed in him. He was able to lay the foundations broad and deep and
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to attract so many students that the town could hardly hold them. Mrs. Gardner was a true helpmeet, and for a short time she was a teacher in the school.
Dr. Gardner's personal ability was reflected in his later career. Ordained five years after he came to New London, he felt strongly the attraction to the pastorate of a church, and when the call came from the Baptists of Charlestown, Massachusetts, he decided to make the adventure. His stay of eleven years and his record in other pastorates made it clear that he was not limited to educational affairs. His interest in foreign missions took him away from Charlestown, and for four year he was one of the secretaries of the American Baptist Mission- ary Union. After a short interim of church leadership in Cleveland and Marblehead he returned to education as president of Central University in Iowa for three years. He retired to New London at the age of sixty weakened by ill health. Former students purchased a home for him near the Burpee Homestead, and there the sun of life set for him in 1895. Always he was re- spected for his personal worth and exercised a natural leadership which made him a man of mark.
While Dr. Gardner was first of all an educator and afterward a minister, his successor at New London, Reverend George B. Gow, was a minister before he became connected with the schools. He was trained for the ministry at Colby College and Newton Theological Institution, and served a church in Massachusetts an- tecedent to accepting the principalship of the New London Literary and Scientific Institution. In those days the first requisite for a principal was an education, and any trained minister was deemed eligible for a school principalship or a college presidency. As a school with religious traditions and close church relations Colby Academy might have done far worse than to have Mr. Gow for its leader for three years, but his early return
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to the pastorate is fair evidence that he felt that his true work was other than educational. He had a number of pastorates in New England and was at Glens Falls, New York, for twelve years. He was honored with the degree of doctor of divinity by his own college.
The third principal at Colby had a five year term from 1864 to 1869. Reverend Artemas W. Sawyer grew up as a boy in New London during his father's pastorate in the local church. Like many other Colby boys he found Dartmouth conveniently near and graduated there in the class of 1847. He acquired his first teach- ing experience at Windsor, Vermont, in the three years from 1847 to 1850, then he continued his studies at Newton Theological Institution. After graduation in 1853 he went to the First Baptist Church, Lawrence, and two years later to the professorship of the classics and belles lettres in Acadia College, where he remained until 1860. He returned to the active ministry at Sara- toga Springs, New York, and from there was called to the principalship of Colby Academy on the departure of Dr. Gow in 1864.
The new administration of five years, coming as it did in the midst of the strain of the Civil War, was not easy, but the policies were wise, the scholarship of the principal was unquestioned, and his friendly approach to the students made them fond of him. It would have been greatly to the advantage of the academy if he could have managed its affairs for a generation, but he was marked for promotion. In 1869 a vacancy occurred in the presidency of Acadia College, and his previous professorship recommended Dr. Sawyer as the next in- cumbent. When the invitation came he resigned at New London and commenced a career of conspicuous suc- cess as president and professor of mental and moral philosophy in the Baptist educational center of Nova Scotia. He was made doctor of divinity by Colby Col-
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lege while he was at New London, and was given the degree of doctor of laws by Acadia in 1888.
Horace M. Willard was a Connecticut Yankee who took his college course at Brown with the class of 1864 and went to Bridgewater for an academy principalship of six years. It was in 1870 that he was selected to succeed Dr. Sawyer at Colby Academy. His stay was so brief that he had a small share in making Colby history. He went from New London to Gloucester and after a year to Newton to be superintendent of schools. After three years at Newton he became principal of Vermont Acad- emy, remaining for thirteen years. Later he transferred to the principalship of Howard Seminary, a school for girls at West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and in later life he organized his own successful Quincy Mansion School for Girls at Wollaston. Brown conferred upon him the honorary degree of doctor of science.
Dr. Willard's departure brought Laban E. Warren into the limelight. Born in Littleton, Massachusetts, and educated in part in Groton and Colby academies and in part by home study, he entered Brown in 1862. There he exerted a good influence in a quiet way, made a reputation for scholarship, and graduated a member of Phi Beta Kappa four years later. After a year of teach- ing at Providence he came to New London. He was a young man of versatile intellectual accomplishments such as a Colby teacher needed in those days, and he showed such competence of leadership after the de- parture of Dr. Willard that he was the logical candidate to succeed him. From 1872 to 1874 he held the position, marrying his lady principal, Mary O. Carter, and holding the students with firm but judicious hand until he was called into college circles as professor of mathematics at Colby College, Waterville, Maine. There for a quarter of a century he showed excellence of scholarship and breadth of knowledge, lecturing on art, teaching the
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Bible as well as mathematics, and delving into literature, of which he was fond. Colby gave him the degree of doctor of laws in recognition of his ability. He was a man of sterling character and was respected by the stu- dents, over whom he had a strong Christian influence.
Colby had departed from its custom of choosing min- isters for principals in the case of Willard and Warren. On Warren's departure the trustees turned to the minis- ter of the Baptist church at Biddeford, Maine, Reverend Asa L. Lane, for the next principal. Mr. Lane was a native of Maine, a graduate of Colby College and New- ton Seminary, and had been five years at Biddeford. But like Gow and Sawyer he had been active in the field of education as principal of Reid Institute follow- ing his college course. Mr. Lane's administration of a single year was too brief to judge fairly what he might have done over a longer period, but he accepted an opportunity to make a connection with Coburn Classi- cal Institute in his own beloved state of Maine. There he prepared students for his own college for a term of twenty-five years before he returned to the active minis- try over the neighboring church at East Winthrop dur- ing five years of his later life.
The experience of the trustees with men who seemed equally attracted by school and church did not deter them from choosing Reverend James F. Morton as acting principal. A native of Nova Scotia and educated at Acadia and Newton, he had filled two pastorates in Massachusetts before he came to New London. After he left Colby he was connected with educational institu- tions for several years. Later in life he returned to the ministry but in the Unitarian fellowship, and eventu- ally this denominational connection brought him back to the vicinity of New London as principal of Proctor Academy at Andover. He remained in that position for
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fourteen years and subsequently was superintendent of schools in Andover for ten years.
Short terms in the principalship at Colby did not end until Elias J. McEwan had filled the position for a year, but this disastrous policy ended when James P. Dixon became head of the school in 1879. Like Mr. Lane he was a Maine boy, but he went to Bowdoin instead of Colby for his college training. He gave promise of the scholarship for which he was noted in the academy when he gained the honor of the valedictory in his class of '67. After graduation he found his field of activity in eastern New Hampshire. Rochester made him prin- cipal of its high school for a year, then he went to Somers- worth for a term of eleven years. It was from there that he came to New London, where in association with Mr. Peaslee and Miss Smiley he set a high standard of schol- arship and struggled to make financial ends meet in school administration. He was not without initiative and resourcefulness, but he was handicapped continually by petty burdens consequent upon insufficient income and the necessity of using old buildings and meeting the heavy expense of maintenance of the new brick structure on the hill. Perhaps, too, the students were not always so considerate of the difficulties as they might have been. After his retirement from the academy Mr. Dixon was in the real estate business in Worcester for several years, but later returned to New London and purchased an estate on the hill where he engaged in farming. Eventually he returned to Maine. It is prob- able that Xenophon in all the varied experiences of his historic career, through which Mr. Dixon led his Greek class annually, never enjoyed a more delightful panorama of beauty than the instructor himself could enjoy as he looked southward over the grassy slope to the Bradford hills.
The Dixon regime was followed as well as preceded
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by short rations in the administration. Albert L. Blair came to New London as an experiment and was gone within a twelvemonth. Samuel C. Johnston remained less than two years, forced out by a change of policy. He was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Colgate in the class of '84, had had seven years of teaching experience before coming to New London, and was assistant prin- cipal of Suffield Academy.
Reverend George W. Gile succeeded to the financial and administrative problems of Colby Academy in 1893. As a trustee of the school he understood the difficulties that thickened about it, but no one could foresee the depth of the business depression that intensified the financial problem through the loss of income from in- vestments and the impossibility of raising money for the needs of the academy. Mr. Gile was an alumnus of the academy, graduating in 1861. Like several of his predecessors he was trained for the ministry. After Brown and Newton he was ordained in Rhode Island and then served as pastor of Baptist churches in South Berwick, Maine, and Lawrence, Pittsfield, and Fall River in Massachusetts, and he was financial secretary of Colby for a year before he assumed the responsibility of the presidency. His teaching was in English and public speech. His social, genial disposition made it agreeable to live with the students in the Heidelberg, and he had large ambitions for the school. Unfortunately the con- dition of the finances taxed his ingenuity, and as the years passed it was apparent that the future was darkly clouded. By 1898 he felt that the time had come to lay down the weight of responsibility, and he returned to the pastorate the next year in Portsmouth, remaining nine years until his death.
Reverend LaRoy F. Griffin had the misfortune as act- ing president to inherit the task of carrying debts that had grown steadily heavier, without any of the emolu-
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ments that went with the office. He deserved a better fate than came to him when the trustees decided on such drastic salary reduction that it was impossible to carry on. Professor Griffin was a superior scholar and teacher, a delightful lecturer and writer and a preacher as well, and his going was a serious loss to the academy.
Reverend Horace G. Mckean stepped into the gap in 1899 when ten years out of college. During that time he was at Crozer Seminary for a year, and after ordina- tion held pastorates in Baptist churches in Philadelphia and Arlington, New Jersey. In 1895 he was made pro- fessor of English language and literature in the Penn- sylvania Military College, Chester, Pennsylvania, and remained four years in that position when he decided to accept the challenge of the situation at Colby. "We all know," wrote one who spoke later in appreciation of him, "how he came to Colby at the most critical period in her history, when her fine building was gone, her debts almost overwhelming, and her standing and prestige at a low ebb; and how after six years of un- tiring whole-hearted effort, he left her a large, well- established institution with a high standard of scholar- ship, character and ideals, and financially sound." Mr. McKean was a graduate of Colgate, class of 1889, from which he received the master of arts degree three years later and the doctor of letters in 1916. He was an in- spiring teacher, friendly and sympathetic with the stu- dents, dignified yet magnetic in his personality, and so deeply religious in the best sense that his chapel talks were powerful in their influence upon the students. He did not hold himself aloof from athletics and the other interests of the undergraduates, and he shed a spirit of optimism even when days were dark. He spurred on discouraged students; a favorite motto was Emerson's 'Hitch your wagon to a star." It was a common testimony that "he brought to us all something cleaner, finer, and
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more manly than we had ever met before." In 1905, with the school property free from debt and restored to the trustees by deed from Mr. Colgate, Mr. Mckean felt that he might turn over the responsibility to other shoulders, and shortly he commenced a career of twenty- one years as professor of rhetoric and public speaking at Union College in Schenectady, New York.
Justin O. Wellman, who succeeded Dr. McKean, had the advantage of a rising tide in the fortunes of the school, but he might have hindered the advance if he had been unworthy of the confidence which both stu- dents and trustees had in him and had he not remained in his position long enough to put Colby firmly on its feet. He came to New London from Maine, a graduate of Colby College, class of '98, with teaching experience in the Bangor High School and the Paris Hill Academy, and in the Ricker Classical Institute, of which he was principal. His fourteen years of service at Colby from 1905 to 1914 surpassed the record of time made by the heads of the school before Dr. Sawyer commenced his present term in 1922. As a teacher and leader he was capable, wise, faithful and friendly. He tried to broaden the usefulness of the school in agriculture, commercial studies and domestic science, and so to meet the needs of a larger variety of students. He made contacts which broadened the constituency of the school. He had the satisfaction of seeing added to the equipment of the academy the capacious structure of Colgate Hall. After leaving Colby he was superintendent of schools at Dur- ham for two years and then taught in Amesbury for three years. Then came his promotion to New Hamp- shire University, first as assistant professor of education and psychology and then as professor of education for a total service of nine years. He attained to the degree of doctor of philosophy in 1933, but in the early winter he was the victim of a fatal automobile accident.
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When Dr. Wellman left the hill in 1919 his place as headmaster was taken by Gaius H. Barrett. He was a graduate of Brown University in the class of 1910, hav- ing gone there from the Mount Hermon School at Northfield. His religious interest led him to Newton for a year's study, and then he returned to Mount Hermon to teach the English Bible, remaining there seven years. He was active in the college Young Men's Christian As- sociation at Brown, and when the World War came he offered himself for "Y" service and was assigned to Camp Devens. There he had charge of organizing the educa- tional work of the camp. He therefore came to Colby with thorough training and a variety of experience, which augured well for his success with students. All departments of the school functioned efficiently, includ- ing athletics, but his administration was not to be marked by its length. After three years he surrendered the re- sponsibility of supervision, and entered the field of superintendency of public schools.
H. Leslie Sawyer was a neighbor when he answered the New London invitation to succeed Mr. Barrett in 1922. Like Lane, Dixon, and Wellman he was a native of the Pine Tree State. Bates bred him intellectually, not Colby or Bowdoin, and his class was 1908. He car- ried his studies farther at Princeton, earning the degree of master of arts after three years. Then followed three years of teaching at the Portland High School, during which he had an opportunity to test himself and his training. The principalship of the Lebanon High School for two years gave him experience in management, and the superintendency of the Lebanon schools for the next four years proved his efficiency and ability to co-operate with the school board and the teachers. In 1922 he was ready for the invitation to Colby.
It did not take long to prove that the new headmaster was capable of meeting the demands of his position, but
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educational perplexities regarding the future of schools like Colby Academy were disturbing. Then there was the problem of the old buildings, the need of a boys' dormitory and a new gymnasium, and the persistent problem of an income that would be sufficient for the necessary outgo. All these problems Mr. Sawyer met wisely and courageously and in full consultation with the trustees. At last he and they took the venture of faith and the character of the school was changed. Under new and untried conditions the school and its president commenced the triumphal forward march of the last nine years. A well-deserved honor came to him when his own alma mater bestowed upon him the degree of doctor of education in 1933.
Colby Academy has been very fortunate in the num- ber of women of worth who have been among its lady principals and preceptresses, not to mention such wives of principals as at times have had the superintendence of the girls. Susan F. Colby set the pace, but she was so young as to be almost like one of the girls. When the reorganization was effected the New London Literary and Scientific Institution secured an ideal co-principal with Dr. Gardner in Mary J. Prescott. She was a woman of culture and social standing in the New Hampshire capital, and she had had experience in teaching at New Hampton, at Chowan Female Institute in North Caro- lina, and as principal of her own private school for girls at Concord. She was affectionate and gentle, well- poised, and a good teacher. Dr. Gardner testified to her effective leadership when he said: "The Ladies' Depart- ment of the Institution owes much of the high prestige which it has always maintained among educational in- stitutions for young ladies, to the quiet, but persistent, the gentle but earnest, the kind but exacting discipline of the first principal - Mary Jane Prescott."
Harriet E. Rice, who superintended the life of the
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girls for the next three years, was of vivacious disposition and the girls were fond of her. Her relation to Dr. Hovey through her sister kept her in close touch with religious affairs, and her missionary interest and pros- pective marriage with a missionary candidate prevented her staying at Colby long enough to make a lasting im- pression, but the Board had confidence in her judgment and skill and the regret at her going was general. Her successor, Julia A. Gould, was not lacking in ability but it was a foregone conclusion that some minister would appropriate every lady principal of Colby, and three years was the limit of her service. Dr. Joseph Foster was the fortunate man.
Mary O. Carter succeeded to the position after two or three short terms and proved an efficient director of student activities, but she too yielded to male blandish- ments and married Principal Laban E. Warren. She was followed by Hannah P. Dodge of Littleton, Massachu- setts. She had been well trained and had taught both North and South, including Oread Institute in Worces- ter and her own school in Dorchester. She had even been an instructor in Kalamazoo College, Michigan. Her versatile accomplishments made it possible for her to teach such different subjects as painting and evidences of Christianity and she wrote poetry. But when the con- ventional three years were over she returned to her home at Littleton where she directed the town schools for four years as superintendent.
The girls who had the privilege of living in the brick building on the hill while Adelaide L. Smiley was lady principal believed that she was unexcelled as friend and teacher. She won the affection of her charges by her unselfishness and her confidence in them. She came gradually to her responsibilities, since she had been both student and teacher at Colby and was in charge of the girls for a year after the departure of Miss Gould. Then
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she had taught in Illinois and had come back east to be lady principal of Oread Institute in Worcester where she had been a graduate student for a year. She gained plaudits as Latin teacher at Vassar College from '70 to 74, and her religious interest led her to teach a weekly Bible class. A year of teaching at Plymouth Normal School followed a period of rest after the Vassar experi- ence. She was ready then for the exacting duties at New London. As lady principal she would have few minutes that she could call her own, and she had her Latin classes to take care of besides her administrative duties. Nor was she content with carrying out a routine programme. She was mindful continually of the need of improve- ments, yet she had to share the anxiety over the lack of sufficient funds for the simplest operations that she wished to make.
Her qualities of character were impressed upon those who worked with her and upon the students who came under her influence. Dr. Peaslee said of her: "The crowning glory of her life lay in her unselfish devotion to the cause of Christian education and to the interests of those committed to her charge. She had an ideal for every one. It comprehended all that was possible for each to attain, and she was satisfied only when each had grasped the ideal and was worthily seeking its at- tainment. How many today bless her memory because through her kindly, earnest work and words their eyes were opened to a great vision of the possibilities of life and their souls awakened to nobler aims and higher purposes."
"She led us to a fair and sunny height By pleasant paths, and pointed out the way Where, gleaming in the golden morning light, The fruitful fields of life and learning lay. Unceasingly her kind judicious care
So fostered growth of loyalty and truth,
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That many blossoms, beautiful and rare, Were added to the garlands of our youth. Whenever grateful memory recalls Our dear Miss Smiley's venerated face, Her spirit of enlightened service falls A benediction on the time and place;
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