<\/p>\n
Now in 1973, when Colby College has a student body of more than 1500 and a faculty of more than 120, it is not easy to comprehend what a struggle that college had to keep alive during the first half-century of its existence.<\/p>\n
Although Jeremiah Chaplin held his first classes in the newly chartered Maine Literary and Theological Institution in 1818, it was not until 1821 that the little college obtained the rights to grant degrees, and the next summer, in 1822, George Dana Boardman and Ephraim Tripp constituted the entire first graduating class.<\/p>\n
By 1824 Chaplin had managed to assemble 62 students, some of whom were still in the theological department. When we consider that today’s faculty – student ratio is considered good if it does not fall below one to fifteen, those 62 boys in 1824 were rather well instructed, for the faculty then consisted of three professors and two tutors, a ratio about one to twelve.<\/p>\n
By 1828 the theological department had been abandoned, chiefly because the newly founded Newton Seminary was taking its place in the preparation of Baptist ministers. Consequently the Waterville College enrollment had dropped to 36, and the next year it was down to 31.<\/p>\n
No wonder the trustees looked around for new opportunities. A medical school in Vermont lost its right to grant degrees, and eagerly accepted the offer to combine with Waterville College. Under the merger, medical students would get their first instruction in Waterville, then complete their clinical training in Vermont. At the end of the course Waterville would grant the MD degree. So, in 1830, there were enrolled in Waterville 45 collegiate and 28 medical students. By 1832 the numbers had increased to 81 collegiate and 79 medical. The medical arrangement, however, lasted only four years, but meanwhile members in the liberal arts program had annually increased, so that in 1834, for the first time they exceeded 100, their exact number being 109. Then in 1835, the total was 112.<\/p>\n
That boom failed to last, for that 1835 enrollment was to be the largest for a quarter of a century. Not until 1859 did the enrollment again exceed 100. One reason for this decline was the unpopularity of one Colby president with his fellow Baptists. In 1843, the trustees elected as president Rev. David Sheldon, already known as a brilliant preacher and with the alleged charisma so badly needed to give a boost to the college. Within a short time, however, Sheldon’s liberal theology got him into trouble. The mid-nineteenth century was a time when Baptists were divided into two distinct groups, the Calvinist Baptists and the Free Will Baptists.<\/p>\n
Colby had been founded by the strait-laced Calvinists who still believed in predestination – the doctrine that held when you’re born, you’re done for. A person had no control of his eventual salvation. He was born either to be saved or damned, and there was nothing he could do about it. David Sheldon could not stomach that belief, nor many other items of Baptist theology, such as original sin, the nature of righteousness, and where moral obligation ends and moral freedom begins. Today many of Sheldon’s views would not be considered radical, but in the early 1850’s they were rank heresy to the Baptist leaders of Maine. Consequently he was forced to resign the presidency in 1853, and soon afterward became an avowed Unitarian. To make matters worse, for the college trustees, a few years later Sheldon returned to Waterville as the first pastor of the New Unitarian Church.<\/p>\n
All this had a bad effect on the college enrollment. When Sheldon left in 1853 the number had fallen to 66, actually lower than had been the liberal arts enrollment in 1832. Even Sheldon’s departure did not mend matters, and it took the appointment of one of Colby’s greatest presidents, James T. Champlin, in 1858, to get the college once more on its feet. In 1859 enrollment was 117, and in 1860 it was 122, the highest figure it was destined to reach until twelve years after the close of the Civil War.<\/p>\n
Naturally that war seriously affected enrollment at Colby, as it did in most colleges. In 1862 the number was down to 83, in 1863 to 69, and in 1864 had dropped to only 62. Nor did the end of the war bring immediate improvement. In 1866 there were only 52 students, representing the lowest enrollment since 1830. By 1873 the number had risen only to 59. The college had been reduced to such financial straits that it would certainly have been obliged to close if Gardner Colby had not come to the rescue. His gift of $50,000 was such a life-saver that the grateful trustees changed the name of the college to Colby.<\/p>\n
It was the coming of President Henry Robins in 1874 that started the badly needed upturn. Women had been admitted for the first time in 1871. Before 1875 they were so few, however, that they made little difference in the whole number. But by 1877 the total enrollment was 157, the highest figure Colby would see between its start in 1818 and seventy years later in 1888. Even under Robins, the boom did not last, for when he left in 1882, the number had fallen to 124.<\/p>\n
It was Albion Woodbury Small, the most scholarly of all Colby presidents up to that time, who first saw enrollment go above 175, but even under him it never quite reached 200. Then in the 1890’s under Nathaniel Butler and Charles L. White the figures rose to 300, Which was about the total enrollment when Arthur Roberts became president in 1907. The now old men and women who were in college in my student days remember well how Roberts had shot the figures up close to the 600 mark when Franklin Johnson took over in 1929.<\/p>\n
It was of course the move to Mayflower Hill that brought Colby enrollment after the Second World War gradually up to more than 1500 that it enjoys today. It was inevitable that the faculty should increase with the student numbers. Because those student numbers grew so little in Colby’s first 75 years, the faculty long showed little change. As late as 1866, the year after the close of the Civil War, there were only five professors. Using some of Gardiner Colby’s money, the trustees added a professor in 1868. By 1875 there were eight professors and two tutors. The title tutor had been abandoned by 1882, when there were nine professors and two assistants. The title of Associate Professor first appeared in 1887, when there were ten professors, one associate and one instructor. When Roberts became president in 1907, there were only 12 professors, 3 associates, 4 assistants, and four instructors, a total of 23. When I first joined the Colby faculty in 1923, the entire number was 36. Although there were further increases under Roberts and Johnson, it was the opening of the Mayflower Hill campus under President Bixler that brought the big boost in faculty numbers, and under President Strider the total first exceeded 100.<\/p>\n
Now what about the cost of attending Colby? In 1972-73, the cost payable directly to the college for students living in a dormitory and eating in a college dining room totaled $3,890 for the college year. That was broken down into tuition $2,500, board $700, room $500, and fees of $190.<\/p>\n
I do not need to tell you that those figures were tremendous compared with college costs in the early days. In 1824, when Jeremiah Chaplin was struggling to make the new college successful, the charges were tuition and room $20 a year; board, washing and mending $1.33 a week. Students had to furnish wood for the stove in their room at one dollar a cord. Even if a student did not get his own meals as many did, his full year’s expenses did not exceed $100. In fact, as late as 1830, the cost of a full year’s attendance was given in the catalogue as only $75, broken down into tuition, room and use of library $26.50; fuel and lights $4.50; washing $5.00; and board $39.00, or one dollar a week for 39 weeks. You will note that not included was the cost of books. In 1830 few students bought textbooks, but rather rented them from the college at very low rates. In 1833, one student wrote that during his entire four years at the college, he had bought only two books, which together cost him $3.00, and his total book rental charges for four years had been less than $20.<\/p>\n
In 1830 most students belonged to one of two societies, Erosophian Adelphi or Literary Fraternity, the forenames of the later Greek letter fraternities, but dues were only a dollar a year. Transportation, by stage or boat, did cost non-local students something to get to and from home, but the rates were not high. In 1830 the stage fare from Portland to Waterville was $2.00. At that time a Colby student living in Portland could meet all college expenses in Waterville and have three round trips home, all for less than $100.<\/p>\n
Even as early as 1830 a Colby student was not expected to pay all his college bills in cash. At that time the college had just set up a carpenter shop, which it somewhat glamorously called a mechanic shop. It did help students earn part of their expenses, and one of those students was the later notorious Civil War general, Benjamin F. Butler. The shop was not successful financially for the college, however. The school lost money on it every year until it was closed in the 1840’s.<\/p>\n
Not until 1832 was tuition and room increased from $20 to $30 a year; in 1838 it went to $35, but even then the whole cost for a year was only $85. Board fluctuated according to the cost of living. Its lowest figure came in 1845, when students paid only 80 cents a week to board at the college commons. During Colby’s first fifty years it ranged between that figure and $2.00 a week, with the median being about $1.50.<\/p>\n
By the close of the Civil War it was costing $175 a year to attend Colby, but as late as 1880 the total had not reached $200. In 1909, when I entered Colby as a freshman tuition was only $90 a year, and the total cost of all expenses about $300. Not until Mayflower Hill did tuition reach $1,000. The largest increase in all Colby history, as indeed is the case at most colleges, have come during the past dozen years.<\/p>\n
Year: 1974<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #997, Broadcast on January 20, 1974<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1203,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}