early 19th century were lacking at this Seminary. The prevailing theological tone which emphasized the serious side of life, the poverty of most of the students, and the fact that their average age was about 25, discouraged frivolity and student pranks. Also, the rather delicate public relations between the Institution and its Baptist patrons would not permit kinds of student behavior which would in any way injure the school’s reputation. In earnestness and sobriety, the Hamilton students resembled those at Andover rather than the carefree youths of Brown and Amherst. They were so impressed with the heavy responsibilities of being ministers that many went to groves and woods for prayer and contemplation. The Executive Committee was quick to note:
the spirit of industry and zeal for the knowledge and glory of God, and also unanimity, which has been a source of gratification, and a pledge of their future usefulness in the kingdom of God’s grace.*
One graduate wrote of his student days in the early 30’s:
If it be thought there was not in the earliest days as broad and critical culture as in later times, there was a depth of the philosophy of life, an earnestness and self-denial, a courage and faith, a force in execution, a strenuous persistence in the face of difficulties, a philological, critical and prayerful study of the Divine Word, and a clear penetration into the Divine Will, that makes those times as the age of romance.**
Though college boys of today would consider such an environment morbid and gloomy, their predecessors on the Hill, as the campus was affectionately called, found the air filled with inspiration and joy.
From 10 in 1820 the enrollment of the Institution grew to 124 in 1833. The increase had been steady until the revivals of 1831-2 encouraged young men to enter the ministry and hence sent up the number of admissions considerably. Of the 258 students who had entered from 1818 to 1833, nearly two-thirds, 160, came from New York State. Vermont contributed the next largest number, 25; then came Connecticut with 24 and Massachusetts with 11. States with less than 10 were Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Georgia, and New Jersey. England and Wales sent 3; Nova Scotia, 3; Ontario, 4.
Jonathan Wade, the first student, came from Hartford, Washington County, New York, in February, 1818, less than six months after the
* Baptist Education Society, Annual Report, 1822, 5.
**[Colgate University], Class of 1836 Fiftieth Anniversary (Utica 1886), 15.