The University, in accordance with its agreement of 1853 with the Baptist Education Society, paid operating expenses and faculty salaries for both the Seminary and College but left to the Society the responsibility of providing for the beneficiaries. Collection and disbursement of the Society’s funds and supervision of its investments were the major duties of its Treasurer. Agents assisted in making collections in the Baptist Churches throughout the state as they had done since 1817. The Madisonensis editor in 1872 objected that some of them often exaggerated stories of student privations to play on the emotions of potential donors and that such an approach cost the University a loss of respect and standing. The agents competed with their opposite numbers from the Rochester Theological Seminary but by the late 1870’s a plan “for the equitable tilling”
of the field had been drawn up.
The increase of tangible assets is a useful measure of growth in the Dodge regime. The major items are, of course, land and buildings though this heading also covered the contents of the library and museums and instructional apparatus and equipment. Valued at $91,000 in 1869, they were worth $312,000 in 1890.
The campus of the 1870’s and the early ’80’s was in deplorable condition. Professor James M. Taylor described it as a “third class farm”
Envious of other institutions, students published their frequent criticisms in the Madisonensis, noting the overgrown fields kept as a pasture for the janitor’s cow, the large unsightly tree stumps, ash heaps outside the dormitories, ancient fences, and tumbled down barns, and sarcastically urged that something be done to make the buildings and grounds “look less like a county poor-house, and more like a University.”
Any improvements made represented the labor of students and faculty, usually on a volunteer basis; most of their efforts were devoted to tree-planting. In 1877 the faculty petitioned the Trustees to employ a landscape architect to draw up an over-all plan. The Board responded by asking Professors James M. Taylor and Lucien M. Osborn to make a topographical survey as a first step, but here the matter dropped. President Dodge was averse to bringing in outside experts and Treasurer Spear opposed any changes.
The final impetus for campus improvements came from an outbreak of diphtheria among the students in November and December, 1882. This focused attention on the unsanitary conditions in the janitor’s barns and in the dormitory, East Hall. To ensure an objective investigation, Professors Taylor and Alexander M. Beebee were instrumental