Radio Script #811

Little Talks on Common Things

September 14, 1969

Today we start the 22nd year of Little Talks and this is the 811th broadcast.

As Colby College now opens a new year and all its alumni and friends are eager to see what will be the results of the college constitutional convention in October, in solving the problems that have confronted Colby through student demonstrations, it is with some nostalgic interest that I call your attention today to happenings at Colby on the old campus seventy years ago in 1899.

That June the Class of 1899 had contained 35 graduates, 23 men and 12 women. The entire faculty consisted of 19 persons, on which was included Dr. J.F. Hill as lecturer on the eye and ear and as medical eXaminer. As early as 1899 the faculty had two women: Mary Anna Sawtelle as Dean of the Women’s College and Associate Professor of French, and Miss Margaret Koch, instructor in Physical Education in the Women’s College. Not until many years after 1899 was any woman on the Colby faculty permitted to teach men students. Even with the rank of Associate Professor, Miss Sawtelle taught only women.

When I entered Colby ten years later the men’s and women’s separate sections were known as the Men’s and Women’s Divisions. President Charles Lincoln White’s idea to form two entirely separate colleges under a common board of trustees had by that time -been pretty well forgotten, though it would occasionally be heard rather weakly in President Roberts’ time. And so strong had been the tradition of subordination of women at Colby that even President Roberts considered them as little more than tolerated guests at a men’s college.

Some of those graduates of 1899 became well known. Harry Brown, father of Carleton Brown, founder and head of the Kennebec Broadcasting Company, over whose WTVL station these programs of Little Talks have gone on the air for 21 years, was to become a member of the Emery-Brown Department Store firm, and a leader in civic enterprises. For several years he.was president of the State YMCA. Ernest Maling became a highly respected business man in Portland and a trustee of the college.

In the academic field the class counted Henry Spencer, son of the longest serving pastor of Waterville’s First Baptist Church. Henry became Professor of Political Science at the University of Ohio and gained a national reputation. At the age of 90 he is still living in Columbus, Ohio, and in recent years has become a close friend of Colby’s present president, Robert Strider. Almost as well known nationally as Henry Spencer was William Oliver Stevens, author of several books and an expert on the history of the U.S. Navy.

Of the women of 1899 the best remembered locally was Miss Alice Purinton, a dynamic leader for the equal recognition of women at Colby, and for several years the Alumnae Secretary. That was at a time when the Alumni and the Alumnae scarcely recognized each other, and had two organizations, each with its separate secretary.

In the same class was Agnes Stetson, known all over Maine as an excellent high school teacher. Her brother, Arthur Stetson, of the Colby Class of 1907, still lives on the old family farm on the Marston Road in Waterville.

I suspect that few Colby alumni realize how old are some of Colby’s fraternities and how early they became affi·liated with national organizations. Today all over the nation the worth of college fraternities is a matter of violent dispute, and there are both students and faculty members at Colby today who would like to see fraternities abolished on Mayflower Hill. But from my somewhat prejudiced view in favor of fraternities, I take some delight in seeing how they continue to survive and playa significant part in college life. I contend that if college fraternities today serve no other purpose than to act as a conservation buffer against the radical left wing that would destroy our colleges, they serve a useful purpose.

Anyhow fraternities have been a long time at Colby. The oldest, Delta Kappa Epsilon, was founded in 1845, nearly a century and a quarter ago. Among the DKE chapters that still existed in 1899, Colby was the third oldest, preceded only by Yale and Bowdoin. In fact it was the Bowdoin Dekes. founded in 1844. who only a year later sponsored the Colby chapter.

Unlike most other national fraternities, Zeta Psi has always believed in having a sma 11 number of chapters. Today it has on 1 y a few more than the 20 chapters that constituted the fraternity in 1899. The Colby charter of Zeta Psi was granted in 1850, only four years after the fraternity was organized at the College of the City of New York. The only other Zete chapters to precede Colby’s were at Williams, Rutgers and the University of Pennsylvania.

Colby’s third fraternity was Delta Upsilon, organized in 1852 as the fraternity’s sixth chapter, sixteen years after its start at Williams College. The only other DU chapters older than Colby’s were those at Union, Amherst, Hamilton and Adelbert.

Among Colby fraternities Phi Delta Theta came fourth. Its Colby chapter was comparatively late, 1884, being 47th in a rapidly growing national organization. By 1910 the Phi Delts had won a prominent place at Colby, partly because they were the fraternity of President Arthur Roberts.

In 1899 Colby had only five fraternities, and it had exactly the same number when I entered ten years later in 1909. The baby among the Colby frats was Alpha Tau Omega, though it was no infant in the national fraternity world. It had been founded at Virginia Military Institute only a few months after the end of the Civil War. One of its purposes was to heal the wounds between North and South and it soon had chapters north of the Mason & Dixon line. By 1890 it had invaded Maine. with a chapter at the University. It was that U of M chapter that sponsored the chapter at Colby in 1894.

For many years Colby had only one sorority. Sigma Kappa, founded at Colby itself in 1874 — the only national sorority or fraternity ever founded at Colby. For several years, as its numbers increased. it was divided into sections so as to accommodate all girls who wished to join, and thus ward off the creation of a rival sorority. But by 1899 it did have a rival in the form of a local group known as Beta Phi. that later affiliated with the national sorority. Chi Omega. In those days the Oracle headed each sorority list with a group of names designated “Sorores in Urbe”,’ meaning alumnae who lived in Waterville. Sigma Kappa’s liln Urbe” list of 1899 contains such names as Peace Meader, Jennie Smith, Adelle Gilpatrick. Florence Dunn. Lenbra BesseY1- and the two Pepper sisters, Annie and Jessie. Beta Phi. being then still young, had only two sorores in urbe: Nellie Merrick and Gertrude Lord; but still undergraduate Beta Phis were Agnes Stetson, Carrie Tozier, Lucinda Peacock, Nellie Lovering and Edna Owen.

Colby had some prominent trustees in 1899. Josiah Drummond was Chairman of the Board and Leslie Cornish was secretary. Drummond was one of Maine’s foremost attorneys and a nationally known Mason. Cornish would later be Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court. Both were born not far from the old campus — Drummond in Waterville and Cornish in Winslow. In 1899 Moses Giddings of Bangor had been on the board for nearly half a century and would complete 60 years of service as a trustee before his death in 1911. Eugene Hale. who would become a U.S. Senator, was a Colby trustee in 1899, as was also Eugene Foss, a future governor of Massachusetts. whose family had presented Colby with its women’s dormitory, Foss Hall. now the Sacred Heart School on College Avenue.

The Colby family was represented on the trustees in 1899 by Joseph Colby of Newton Center. Another distinguished member was Henry Burrage. Maine’s illustrious historian and father of the present Miss Mildred Burrage, founder of the Lincoln County Historical Society and restorer of the old Pownalborough Court House. Burrage was pastor of the Waterville Baptist Church in the early 1870’s.

In my book “Remembered Maine” I have told of his dispute with the fiery Charles Hathaway, creator of Hathaway shirts. and how the two fought out their church differences in the weekly columns of the Waterville Mail.

By no means least important of the Colby Trustees in 1899 was the wealthy Civil War veteran and builder of South American railroads. Col. Richard Cutts Shannon, whose major gift to Colby was the Shannon Physics Laboratory and Astronomical Observatory that was the northernmost bUilding on the old campus, adjoining the athletic field. It was Col. Shannon who brought to Colby one of its few professors who ever attained international fame, Prof. William Rogers. It was in the Shannon Laboratory that Rogers developed the standard yard for the U.S. Bureau of Standards.

In the 19th century Maine colleges and academies were often given grants of Maine land. That fact is well known, -but not so well known is the fact that they were a long time getting rid of the property and turning it into cash. Colby’s first grant Came from the Massachusetts Legislature in 1815, and was of a township of land six miles square on the west bank of the Penobscot, some distance above Bangor, in what later became the little, sparsely populated towns of Argyle and Alton. In 1865 the college received from the Maine Legislature another grant in the far north end of Somerset County, near the Canadian border. Now this broadcast is devoted to Colby in 1899. Why do I bring in Colby lands? Because in 1899 Moses Giddings was still Chairman of the Trustees Committee on Timber Lands. It would be well into the first decade of the 20th century before Colby would finally be rid of those lands. During their long possession, however, the lands had not been without value. Colby sold and collected on repeated deals in timber rights, but it is sad to report that a big loss among those deals was time caused. in periods twenty years apart, by the bankruptcy of purchasers.

Now let us close this account with a word about Colby athletics in 1899. All athletic sports were then under the control of, and were the financial responsibility of the Colby Athletic Association. The college corporation hired no coaches and paid no athletic bills. But it is evident that no student was trusted with the money, for the association treasurer was the popular professor of geology, W.S. Bagley. The Association’s executive committee was made up of four faculty, three alumni and seven students. The alumni members. long renowned for their loyalty to Colby teams, were Dr. J.F. Hill, Bert Drummond and Elwood Wyman.

And with that account of Colby College seventy years ago, we must say Good-by until next week.

Year: 1969