four years in college and were designed to provide them a set of standards for meeting problems of religion and of public and private morality. His role as teacher, he filled as effectively as that of president. He encouraged students to examine all kinds of ideas without restraint. One observer and friend stated, “Most fervently did he believe in free thought. He held it to be an indispensable requisite to large discovery of truth. Fetters on the mind he utterly abhorred, and he would have cut off his own right hand before he would have helped to bind them upon any human being.”
Professor Beebee gave most of his attention to his courses in homiletics in the Seminary but he did teach logic to college juniors. Professor Sylvester Burnham, appointed to the Seminary faculty in 1875, by student request, first offered an elective course in Biblical Literature for college seniors in 1887. His approach was an analysis of the Bible as national literature in comparison with other ancient literatures. The course won acceptance and was adopted by other colleges.
Academic incentives in the form of prize competitions numbered three in 1869 and twelve in 1890, and at the latter date rewarded distinguished achievement in the classics, chemistry, history, mathematics, English composition, public speaking, and debate. Professor Lewis had been active in instigating and promoting those in the last three areas. He also encouraged the University to join the Intercollegiate Literary Association in 1876. This organization staged an annual contest among the colleges for the best essays, orations, and examinations in literature which to some extent rivaled in interest the intercollegiate athletic contests of the time. Madison entrants were among the winners in 1878, 1879, and 1880.
The University’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, Eta of New York, owes its existence primarily to Professor Lewis. He forwarded an application for a charter to the Union College chapter, Alpha of New York, in 1873 but, apparently through inadvertance, favorable action was delayed until 1878 when Alpha complied. Associated with him as founding members were President Dodge and Professors Maynard, Burnham and Judson and they in turn elected to membership six seniors, the seven remaining faculty members, and 21 alumni.
Throughout the Dodge period the Seminary curriculum retained its major divisions of Old and New Testament, ecclesiastical history,