ture, Science and Art.”Though disgusted with its style and pretentiousness, the faculty at Ritchie’s suggestion permitted him to continue it on condition that he add as associate editors four students to be chosen by the two literary societies, the Adelphian and the Aeonian. Ritchie had also suggested that no political articles be printed. Matters soon came to a head when Ritchie wrote a controversial editorial on the religious press and the anti-slavery sentiment in New York State which the associate editors rejected, a decision in which the faculty concurred. When Ritchie announced he would run the editorial despite his express agreement to publish nothing without the associate editors’ concurrence, the faculty suspended him for two days with the warning that expulsion would follow if he did not change his mind at the end of that time. Flouting their authority, he published the editorial in the issue of January 15, and immediately left the village to return some days after the suspension period had expired. Expulsion resulted from his defiance and the Students Association promptly repudiated the publication on the ground that its editor had been expelled and that the University no longer authorized its existence.
Ritchie, however, continued on his own to issue 21 more numbers, the last one appearing on September 15, 1847. Some of the Baptists of the State who advocated many of the radical reforms of the day sought to make him a martyr, but within a few months his case was forgotten because of the rising importance of the Removal controversy.
The Aeonian and Adelphian Societies, to whom the faculty had attempted to transfer the Hamilton Student, apparently had little inclination to sponsor it because neither published a successor. They did maintain, however, their customary programs of private and public meetings for reading, orations and other literary efforts. When several members decided to enter the University of Rochester in the fall of 1850, it became necessary to decide whether the societies and their libraries, which were valued at between $600 and $700 each, should go with them. Thanks to the resistance of William T. Biddle and others, they remained on campus.
The question of establishing fraternities, which the faculty had vetoed in 1843, came up again in 1847. This time it was presented as a matter of forming an anti-secret organization. After careful consideration, the faculty decided that no Secret or anti-secret Society shall be