Category Archives: Chapter 10

p. 215 – Student Life, 1869-1890

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The commencement season, as always, was the highlight of the academic year. After 1872, it came in June rather than August as had been the old custom. There were separate graduation exercises of each of the three divisions of the University, as well as the usual annual meetings, class reunions, and various events of the College Senior class. Aside’ from the actual graduation, perhaps, the Seniors found Class Day the most attractive occasion of the week. At it they conducted their own program of orations, class history, prophecy, poem, and presented their “class gift” to the University. The Class of 1882 introduced the practice of sending rather elaborate commencement invitations to their friends while the Class of 1889 daringly innovated a “Senior Ball.” For the College graduation, the commencement procession formed at the Baptist Church and marched down Broad Street and up the Hill to Alumni Hall to the third floor auditorium where the exercises took place. By the late ’70’s members of the Junior Class had assumed the duties of marshalls. A band, hired from Utica or Syracuse, led the procession which consisted of the University and Education Society trustees, faculty, classes of the Seminary, College and Academy (or such of the students as chose to remain on campus at the year’s end), alumni, and citizens of Hamilton. The program of speeches by the whole graduating class remained unchanged from the earlier period. Throwing bouquets to the graduates as they came to the platform to receive their diplomas was given up in 1883 and after 1890 the degrees were no longer conferred in Latin. Following the exercises came the Alumni Dinner and the concluding event, the “President’s Levee,” at his home.

Alumni ties to the University and each other were fostered not only by the Alumni Association but also by regional organizations. One was formed in New York City in 1872 and later others were to be found in, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago. At the various annual meetings of the Baptist denomination the Madison alumni arranged to foregather. At all of these occasions it was usual for a faculty member to bring greetings and news from the campus. As a means of building alumni loyalty one student suggested in 1885 that graduates assist the faculty in finding jobs for the increasingly large proportion of non-ministerial members of each senior class. Alumni interest in University affairs was reaching the point in 1886 where some were urging that they have representation on the Board of Trustees. This development was to be

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p. 214 – Student Life, 1869-1890

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Baseball Team, 1889, Henry Hill Collection-6, p214

 

“professionals” to supplement the regular players. The record fails to give a clear picture of Madison’s wins and losses but does show victories over Cornell and Rochester and defeats by Union and Hamilton. Sustained enthusiasm for baseball does not seem to have appeared until the late 1880’s when the students personally contributed towards the team’s expenses and, in addition, gave a concert and staged two shows burlesquing the faculty to raise funds. Starting in 1889 the Madisonensis, reflecting and stimulating student interest, began to give more than sporadic coverage to baseball or any other kind of athletics.

The “minor sports” of the 1870-’90 period included “football” which seems to have been a kind of Rugby played with a round ball. There was also tennis and for a brief period a court was laid out near East Hall. The annual intramural field day in October aroused considerable interest; established in 1879, it featured track events. A few students in the ’70’s, catching a prevailing enthusiasm in the colleges for crew, seriously suggested one for Madison.

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p. 213 – Student Life, 1869-1890

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dents accustomed to manual labor, as most of them were, many having come from farms, lack of exercise often led to impaired health. An adequate gymnasium, a required physical education program and a competent teacher should be provided, the editors asserted. The faculty and trustees acknowledged the validity of these points but action had to wait until the 1890’s.

To be sure, there was a dilapidated wooden gymnasium, so called, of an earlier time which, despite occasional repairs, was little more than a barn. President Dodge in 1886 became genuinely interested in seeing it replaced with a suitable structure and the undergraduates, themselves, launched subscription campaigns for a building fund which were to bear fruit in 1894.

Madison students, like those in other colleges, believed that physical exercise should be made a pleasurable experience in the form of athletics. In 1880 they formed the Madison University Athletic Association to promote various campus sports and intercollegiate competition. Interest in athletics, however, was intermittent, a condition which critics felt a new gymnasium would remedy.

The most popular of the sports was baseball which had been played on an organized basis since 1863 though support for it had fluctuated. In the 1870’s the players had difficulty in finding a suitable spot for the diamond. One location, north of the present Huntington Gymnasium, was plowed up in the spring of 1875, despite their objections. In retaliation, students made an evening’s escapade of turning the sod back into the furrows and thus ruining the field for immediate replowing and planting. They also put the plow on the roof of Alumni Hall and the harrow on the roof of East Hall, emptied a manure wagon on village gardens and dismembered its parts which they distributed on the village green and the “Ham Fern Sem” grounds.

A revival of interest in baseball occurred in the spring of 1880, seemingly inspired by Henry C. Wright, a senior who was the pitcher and the first student to be designated “captain” of a team of any kind. The recently formed Athletic Association sent delegates to Syracuse to join those from Union, Hamilton, Cornell, Syracuse and Rochester in establishing the New York Intercollegiate Baseball Association. This group worked out an elaborate schedule of thirty games to be played in less than a month which was not a success since many games were canceled. All the members of the Association were criticized for hiring

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p. 212 – Student Life, 1869-1890

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Brown, could state in 1886 that college presidents and professors who actively opposed them made a serious blunder. The part they played in campus life can be appreciated when the proportion of students in fraternities is noted. Of the 136 students in the college in 1890 there were 117 belonging to the five fraternities.

The oldest, Delta Kappa Epsilon (1856), chiefly through the physical efforts of undergraduate members, in 1877 completed its red brick
“temple” as a hall for meetings and fellowship. Its rival, Delta Upsilon (1866) rented a “hall” in a village business block until 1882 when it became the first fraternity on campus to have a house which was built for its special use as living quarters and eating club.

Three new Greek letter social and literary societies came into existence in the 1880’s and, like Delta Upsilon, took rooms in business blocks in the center of the village-Beta Theta Pi in 1880, and both Phi Kappa Psi and Phi Gamma Delta in 1887. Beta Theta Pi was the transformed Adelphian Society. Its most valuable tangible asset was the Adelphian Society library of about 1,000 volumes. Phi Kappa Psi grew out of the revived Aeonian Society, some of whose members had been in the same boarding club. Phi Gamma Delta owes its origin to the efforts of Isaac D. Moore, ’90, who had been a member of the chapter at Bucknell University prior to his transfer to Madison. He induced members of the “Union Debating Club” to join him in forming the Madison group. From 1874 to 1876 Delta Phi had a chapter at Madison but for some reason not now known disappeared.

Two underclass honorary national fraternities, whose purpose seems to have been primarily staging initiation ceremonies, also claimed student loyalty-Eta of Theta Nu Epsilon for sophomores, founded in 1882, and Beta of Beta Delta Beta for freshmen, established in 1889. Lurid accounts of Theta Nu Epsilon’s initiation in 1883, held in a cemetery vault and in a nearby village, nearly led to the society’s dissolution but it survived until 1913. Its companion expired in 1905.

Academy students, too, had their fraternities which resembled those of the college and had as their aims the promotion of literary efforts and “public exhibitions” as well as social life. They were: Theta Zeta (1867), Alpha Phi (1870), Epsilon Kappa (1881), and Theta Phi (1889); all subsequently became chapters of national organizations.

Editors of the Madisonensis repeatedly called attention to the need for physical training, gymnastics and instruction in hygiene. For stu-

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Salmagundi yearbook commences publication (p. 211)

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The Madisonensis continued as the student newspaper and literary magazine. Regularly featured were editorials, essays, campus and village jottings (or gossip), college exchanges and alumni notes. There were also occasional poems, book reviews and reminiscences. President Dodge held to a no-censorship policy for the paper even though some items might seem to call for deletion or correction. He regarded the printed comments as “a vent to what was more likely to be harmful if repressed.

The first number of the yearbook, Salmagundi, appeared in 1883. Published by the Junior Class, its editor was James C. Colgate. The title, meaning a miscellany or medley, may well have been suggested by the Washington Irving, James K. Paulding periodical bearing the same name. Its contents, which covered the wide gamut of college activities included lists of faculty, fraternities and other organizations and their membership. Its antecedents were The Madisonensian, which first appeared in 1858, and other publications issued at commencement to inform alumni and friends of the extracurricular achievements of the past year.

Student government, as such, seems to have become dormant after 1872, perhaps because the growing interest in class organizations and other specific groups brought students together. The Dormitory Association, established in 1886, was helpful in maintaining cleanliness and quiet in the college buildings. The Society of Inquiry, which had been active in earlier periods, became moribund but was not to be dissolved until 1893. The Young Men’s Christian Association, founded in 1881 as a branch of the national organization, moved into its place. The Y’s emphasis was on the implications of Christianity in campus and community life rather than on foreign missions. In 1885 the Academy students set up their own YMCA which carried on an active program. There were also other short-lived clubs to foster special interests such as in history, German, and debating.

As was true in many colleges, the literary societies, the Adelphian and Aeonian, deteriorated, thanks doubtless to the flourishing fraternities which took over their objectives of promoting an interest in public speaking and writing as well as maintaining boarding clubs and providing opportunities for social life. The Greek letter societies were definitely in the ascendant. Faculty hostility had changed to acceptance and Dr. Dodge, a loyal Alpha Delta Phi since his college years at

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p. 210 – Student Life, 1869-1890

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Hamilton Female Seminary c.1890, Hamilton History 9a, p210

presence of young-lady guests and the social activities which followed the formal program gave the occasion some aspects of a modern Winter Party. Students joined the community in observing Decoration or Memorial Day in the 1870’s. Proceeding in a body to the University and village cemeteries, they put flowers on the soldiers’ graves and joined the village people in a program of addresses and music appropriate to the occasion.

The glee club of the 1860’s seems not to have lasted. In 1882 it was revived and gained a permanent status in 1885 when Professor McGregory, who was familiar with the glee club at his Alma Mater, Amherst, gave encouragement and instruction. Thereafter, it became a regular feature of campus life. Students also sang in a well-received non-University production of Pinafore in 1880 and demonstrated some talent in providing music and words for several songs in the two editions of Carmina Collegensis (1868, 1876) and the American College Song Book (1882). In honor of Madison  University, the music instructor at the Female Seminary, J. R. Muth, in 1874 composed and published a march for 32 instruments.

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p. 209 – Student Life, 1869-1890

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“tunk,” which means a masculine social occasion, often in the evening, at which food and non-alcoholic drinks were served. The earliest reference found, which is in 1882, suggests that the word had been in use for some time. It might have been derived from a term in early Welsh history meaning “food-rent.” The second was “bum,” such as “sugar bum” or “cider bum,” which were excursions by sleigh, carriage or on foot, to a farmer’s home where warm maple sugar, or maple syrup, and biscuits would be served in the spring or to a cider mill for draughts of fresh apple juice in the autumn. Also, as early as 1882 students took a “run”, i.e., dismissed themselves, when a professor was late or absent from his class, and would “bohn,” or study, on occasion.The latter term originated with Bohn’s Classical Library which contained reprints of authors studied in Greek and Latin courses.

College spirit and especially class unity, students felt, were promoted by the cane and salt rushes. Also since the class seldom exceeded 30 the members could know each other quite intimately and often enjoyed seeking amusement as a group. Their sugar and cider bums and banquets, supplemented sometimes by a literary program, helped to reduce the monotony of the long winter months. The Class of 1887, after their last examination in the spring, instituted Senior Pipe Day, somewhat in imitation of practices on other campuses. Seated in a circle out-of-doors, with a large can of lemonade in the center, they smoked and passed around a large Indian pipe and then each smoked his own pipe, meanwhile tasting and drinking the lemonade. To conclude their ceremony, they all joined hands around a grave in which they buried a hatchet and promised to forget all animosities which had grown up among them the past four years.

Individual leisure time activities included long walks, hunting and fishing, chess, and sometimes card playing, an amusement the “authorities” frowned on, though perhaps less seriously than in an earlier day. Village and faculty homes were often open to students and there were occasionally social clubs in the village where students could meet the local young people and the Hamilton Female Seminary girls. Professor and Mrs. Myron M. Goodenough who maintained the Hamilton Female Seminary arranged for formal social and literary occasions to which they regularly invited large numbers of students.

Celebrating Washington’s Birthday with a literary entertainment, a practice begun in 1867, the juniors perpetuated until 1890. The

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Maroon and orange selected as new school colors (p. 208)

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dents. A series of revival meetings in 1871, however, seems to have met with a mixed response; most of the Hill appears to have been swept up by it but a few students seem to have resisted and called for a University Church which they felt would meet the special needs of the campus. Their efforts were fruitless and they were informed that the village church was interested in students and welcomed them to all its activities.

The village people took pride in “their” university and many watched with zest the growth of “college spirit” and customs. Since so many of the students were preparing for the ministry the prevailing atmosphere continued still to be more earnest than that on other campuses. The subtle changes which were creeping in, however, brought a more carefree outlook. Through their contacts with college friends at Hamilton, Syracuse and elsewhere, and through reading the regular coverage of college news in the Madisonensis, students kept abreast of developments on the “collegiate scene.” Madisonensis editors often deplored the lack of college spirit but one, alarmed in 1883 at what he thought was an over-emphasis of “college ‘tone:” asked “whether the extreme type of college man, with his college fashions, his college slang, his inane college gossip, his peculiar college mannerisms, is not as complete a snob, as poor a creature, as exists.” Neither he nor other alarmists could prevent Madison students from adopting current practices and customs.

Distinctive college garb was introduced as early as 1870, when freshmen announced their intention of wearing “Oxford caps,” which would seem to have been mortarboards. By 1881 all classes had them, each class identified by the color of the tassel-senior, purple; junior, blue; sophomore, red; and freshman, green. One student urged without results, that the seniors should wear gowns and another that the faculty adopt academic costume as was the practice at other institutions.

Madison’s colors, blue and magenta, adopted in 1868, were changed in 1886 by the Students Association to maroon and orange. They were a conspicuous means of fostering enthusiasm at athletic events and a feature of college life which was especially interesting to the young ladies who followed the fortunes of the teams, especially baseball.

College slang, of course, infiltrated the campus and Madison students seem to have made at least two unique contributions. One was

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p. 207 – Student Life, 1869-1890

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lenged. In 1878 the Democrats objected to their voting and three were arrested. On the grounds that they had severed their connections with their former homes and lived in Hamilton and supported themselves by their own efforts and with scholarship assistance it was later held they met the residence qualifications for the franchise. With the approach of presidential elections students organized their own political clubs and in one campaign, at least, went out stump-speaking for their candidates.

Townspeople and most of the students and faculty attended the regular Sunday service at the Baptist Church; classes of the three divisions of the University had their assigned seats in the gallery. The pastors of the period-Walter R. Brooks, James M. Stiller, Stephen H. Stackpole and William Newton Clarke-were popular with the stu-

First Baptist Church c. 1900, Hamilton History 2, Folder 62, p207

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Railroad comes to Hamilton (p. 206)

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boys signed. On another occasion, a student caught in exceptionally incriminating circumstances sought exceptional clemency. Unmoved, he responded, “Young man, sometime you may be President of Madison University, but not now, not now.”

Student town-gown relations were generally good. Hamilton remained unchanged from the pre-1869 years-a country village of about 1,500 inhabitants whose economic base rested primarily on providing goods and services for the adjacent area and for all those connected with the University. It was not until 1870 that a railroad, the Utica, Clinton, and Binghamton, reached the village, giving it access to the New York Central in Utica and the New York Oswego and Midland at Smith’s Valley (Randallsville); the latter provided a connection with the New York Central at Oneida to the north and New York City and intervening points to the south. About three years previous, rail service had become available at Poolville, about four miles southeast of Hamilton, when the Utica Chenango and Susquehanna was put through to open up a line to Binghamton. Townspeople and students alike recognized that the coming of the railroads brought a new era by breaking down the community’s isolation. Timetables were published regularly in the student paper and soon special trains to carry them to athletic contests in Clinton and Utica and to bring in alumni and friends at commencement became customary. The new railroads seem to have stimulated business life; real estate was improved, flagstone sidewalks were laid, and a new brick block built to replace the old stores in the center of the village. The construction of Tripp’s Hall or “opera house” in 1870 encouraged both townspeople and students to import a variety of entertainers, musicians, and lecturers and afforded campus organizations excellent facilities for their public meetings.

From time to time villagers complained of student rowdiness. One source of friction was the delay at the post office each evening as they waited for the mail to be sorted and distributed. Sometimes bored students and “townies” scuffled and broke window lights. Another irritation was the noise and clangor from “ringing the rust” each spring. Yet, there were no serious clashes.

Students often participated in political campaigns. Since the Hill was predominantly Republican, as were the villagers, they found a ready welcome at rallies and helped to swell torchlight processions and victory parades. Occasionally those who went to the polls were chal-

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