Radio Script #879
Little Talks on Common Things
February 7, 1971
I find it interesting to encounter in old publications, other than those published by the college, accounts of Colby in the past. Recently I ran across an issue of the New England Magazine dated August, 1888, that came from the press 82 years ago. Its leading article is about the Waterville institution then known as Colby University. It was written by Albion Woodbury Small, who was then Professor of History and Political Economy at Colby, and who would soon be elected president of the college. Ten years later he would be known as America’s leading sociologist, in his position at the University of Chicago.
In the article Small himself pointed out that Colby was not really a university. Indeed, when he was president, he persuaded the trustees to change the name to the more realistic Colby College. In this magazine article Small wrote: “In adopting the title Colby University on January 23, 1867, the trustees may have chosen unwisely between pretentiousness and alliteration, but they certainly did not err in deciding that Mr. Colby’s name should forever be associated with the institution. His gift of $50,000 had saved the college at a critical time.”
Accompanying the article is a page containing inserts of pictures of the twelve men who then comprised the entire Colby faculty. Colby students today would find these photos amusing. In this day, when facial hair adorns the countenances of so many students, they might point out with delight that in 1888, eleven of the twelve faculty members had beards, flowing mustaches, or side whiskers. Only one was smooth-faced, and he remained so all his life. He was Julian Taylor, the Professor of Latin. who would continue in that post for 44 more years after 1888. Taylor often pointed out that his beloved Romans of classical times wore no beards or whiskers. That, he said, was a barbaric Greek custom, which might have been, in my own time in college, a snide reference to the beard of the Greek professor, Clarence White.
Two of those 1888 professors had immense flowing beards, well down over their chests. Neither needed to wear collar or tie, though both probably did. Those richly adorned hirsute specimens were Laban Warren, Professor of Mathematics and William A. Rogers, Professor of Physics. Samuel K. Smith, Professor or Rhetoric and father of our well known Congregational pastor William Abbott Smith, and grandfather of the present deputy director of our nation’s Central Intelligence Agency, Abbott Smith, had flowing mustaches, side whiskers and closely cropped chin whiskers. The whiskers of William Elder, Professor of Chemistry, though even more closely cropped, did spread under his chin. The prize mustache with ends curled up beyond the sides of his face. was worn by the author of the magazine article, Albion Woodbury Small. He too had close cut chin whiskers. William Bayley, Professor of Geology, was similarly adorned, but his mustache was smaller and less ostentatious than Small’s. Two of the Colby 1888 faculty dispensed with any whiskers or sideburns, but they had flowing mustaches. Those men were Edward Hall, librarian and Professor of Modern Languages and the youngest member of the faculty, Shailer Mathews.
In his article Small pointed out the precarious state of Colby finances at the end of the Civil War. He said the total endowment was only $15,000, and enrollment had dwindled to 69 students. He wrote: “No improvements whatever had been made upon the premises, no additional teachers had been employed, and there had been no additions to the library for more than thirty years. Many friends of the college had lost all hope of keeping it open and were inclined to give up the struggle. Then Gardiner Colby came to the rescue.”
Now in 1971, after all trace of buildings on the old campus beside the Kennebec have been eliminated, even with the regrettable demolition of stately Memorial Hall, it is well to note what Dr. Small said about that old campus in 1888. He wrote: “The Colby campus is an extensive tract on the right bank of the Kennebec River. The buildings are six in number. South College contains the Students’ Reading Room and 28 suites of rooms intended to accommodate 56 students. North College, renamed Chaplin Hall, has rooms for 64 students. It is heated throughout by steam, and since the completion of the city water works during 1887, it has been provided with probably the most complete sanitary appointments to be found in any similar building in the country. Champlin Hall, between South and North Colleges, is often called Recitation Hall, and contains the YMCA room, six recitation rooms, and the physical laboratory. Coburn Hall is devoted entirely to the use of chemistry and geology. Memorial Hall, so named in honor of alumni of the college who fell in the Civil War, and the first building to be so erected by any college in the country, is built of stone and surmounted by a tower 80 feet high. The eastern wing houses the college library, furnished with double alcoves and shelves for 30,000 volumes. The western wing contains on the first floor the college chapel, and above it the Alumni Hall, in which, niched in the east wall, is the Memorial Tablet, surmounted by a copy, in marble, of Thorwalden’s Lion of Lucerne. The Gymnasium, located at the north end of the campus, is equipped with apparatus selected by Professor Sargent of Harvard. Regular exercise, under supervision of an instructor, is required.”
An educational progressive and innovator, Dr. Small was eager to point out changes under way in instructional methods and in graduation requirements. He said: “Opportunity is still given for study of the classics in all four years, but neither Greek nor Latin is required after the sophomore year. During the last two years an increasing number of electives are available. The natural sciences are taught by lectures and by experiments performed by the students themselves, not merely demonstrated by the teacher. The art lectures are illustrated by a collection of the same kinds of prints and casts as are used in similar instruction in the universities of Europe. Altogether there is a noticeable modification of the outmoded classroom routine that demanded the recitation of laboriously memorized text.”
That the college in 1888 was still under firm Baptist control and still determined to steer many graduates into the ministry is shown by Small’s proud announcement that a course in Hebrew had recently become available in the last term of the senior year. Women had been students at Colby for only 17 years when Small wrote that magazine article. He said: “In 1871 Colby ventured (note the word ‘ventured’) to open its doors to young women on the same terms as to young men. A few years ago an estate was purchased on College Street, about three minutes walk from the campus, and Ladies Hall, presided over by an efficient matron, is now a pleasant home for the women students. Colby already has 21 of these alumnae, and their record, with that of the 18 young ladies now in attendance, demonstrates that, so far as Colby is concerned, co-education need no longer be considered an experiment.”
Two years later, when Small himself had become the Colby president, he took decisive action to prevent the threatened elimination of women students. A number of die-hards on trustees and faculty had never been reconciled to the change, and they started an organized movement to have Colby revert to a college for men only. To assure the retention of women, Small came up with an ingenious plan called coordination, rather than co-education. There were to be, under one management, two separate and nearly autonomous divisions, one for men, the other for women. The trustees adopted the plan, and until fairly recent years there were at Colby the men’s and women’s divisions, each headed by a dean. For many years, Miss Ninetta Runnals was Dean of the Women’s Division, and from 1929 to 1946, I was the first Dean of the Men’s Division. When I became Dean of the Faculty in 1946, George Nickerson became Dean of the Men’s Division. During all those years, Colby catalogues carried the student enrollment lists under the separate divisional heads, and at Commencement diplomas were presented to the two divisions separately.
As time went on, the divisional distinction became less pronounced. Its last vestige in the classroom (except for the imperative distinction in physical education) was in the Department of English, where the sections of Freshman English were segregated by sex. Finally, less than ten years ago, the trustees officially made Colby coeducational in legality, as it had long been coeducational in fact.
In his article Dr. Small made much of what he called the Colby University System, by which he meant the college and its then three affiliate academies. (The fourth, Higgins, had not then been added.) He wrote: “Colby is the center of a system of academies controlled by the university trustees. Hebron, the oldest of these schools, which has instructed more than 12,000 pupils, of whom we may mention Hannibal Hamlin, William Pitt Fessenden, Eugene Hale and John D. Long, has just been offered $10,000 by B.F. Sturtevant of Boston toward a new building. Coburn, in Waterville, has a stately building erected by Hon. Abner Coburn, former Governor of Maine, at a cost of $40,000. Ricker at Houlton has just dedicated Wording Hall, in memory of Judge William Wording, a graduate of Colby in 1836.”
When we think of the millions of dollars of Colby assets today, Dr. Small’s financial data in his article seem woefully small. He pointed out that the college invested funds were $500,000, Coburn’s $52,000, Hebron’s $30,000, and Ricker’s $40,000. The college income from its own invested funds was only $32,000 a year. I find that, earlier in this broadcast, when I talked about the bewhiskered faculty, I failed to mention the most important of all, the Colby president, George Dana Boardman Pepper. People often pointed out his striking resemblance to Abraham Lincoln — tall, gaunt, kindly, humorous and friendly, Dr. Pepper had side and chin whiskers much like those that Lincoln grew after he became President of the U.S. The final paragraph of Dr. Small’s magazine article provided striking contrast with the cost of attending college today, but equally striking contrast with the generous aid now available to students who need help to meet today’s cost.
Of 1888 Small said: “Colby attracts students of limited means because the necessary expenses are less than in any other college of equal grade in New England. Seventy endowed scholarships and a fund of $20,000 afford to needy students aid which is nearly equivalent to the total charges for tuition and room rent.”
Year: 1971