department” and that intellectual freedom should be extended to professors and students alike. If a younger colleague needed “eldering” Dr. Dodge gave him counselor criticism in the most kindly and understanding spirit. The faculty regarded him as a genuine friend who was especially concerned with their personal welfare and professional achievement. His ideals of character and attainment constantly stimulated them to “higher intellectual exertion and nobler living.”
James B. Colgate matched Dr. Dodge in sturdiness of character. Though often gruff in manner he could be genial on occasion. His outlook on life, however, was anything but light-hearted. He opposed the use of alcohol, tobacco, card-playing, theater-going, and dancing and asserted that the waltz was “conceived by the evil one and should be condemned by all.” He did, surprisingly, have a keen delight in oil paintings, gardens, and flowers and kept an extensive greenhouse on his estate at Yonkers. Without much formal education, he had a sharp analytical mind and wrote with clarity and grace. His religious faith was “simple and childlike” and his conservative Baptist doctrinal views he held tenaciously. His great wealth came from his Wall Street activities in securities and specie in partnership with John B. Trevor.