Category Archives: Colgate in the 1890’s

p. 241 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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circulars for the Geology Department and prepared the University’s first viewbook which was issued for distribution at Colgate’s prize-winning exhibit at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. The format of the Catalogues was modernized.

The trips of the musical and dramatic groups, too, reached a rather wide public and Patrons’ Day and Commencement Week brought large numbers of friends and graduates to the campus.

Colgate constituencies had cause for genuine satisfaction in the University’s vigorous condition and accomplishments as the ’90’s drew to a close. Though there had been no president for most of the decade, morale was good and James C. Colgate and members of the faculty had given wise leadership. Administrative reforms promoted efficiency and the Dodge Fund contributed to financial stability. Landscaping and a new gymnasium were changing. the appearance of the campus. Lively and progressive professors updated and improved the courses of study and enthusiastic students took pride in their fraternities, athletics and expanding extracurricular activities. There was ample justification for expecting continued prosperity as the University stood on the threshold of the new century.

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p. 240 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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First University Band, 1895.
First band, 1895

behavior. The Executive Committee informed the Trustees in December 1893 that the students on the athletic field “have conducted themselves in a manner which has reflected credit upon our institution, and the interest in athletics has helped the general tone of college life.” Many Colgate supporters regarded achievements in sports as especially valuable for enhancing the University’s reputation.

Other enterprises for making Colgate more widely known enlisted considerable faculty and student support. Professor Thomas was particularly active in several. He aided students in 1892 in organizing a Press Club to supply newspapers with stories on all phases of campus life and, incidentally, to give the undergraduates journalistic experience. He took the lead in establishing the Department of University Extension (1892-96) as a part of the New York State educational system to  provide neighboring communities with lecture courses taught by the faculty. With Professors Thurber, Taylor, and a Norwich printer, he formed the Colgate University Press in 1894 which in its less than two-year existence published the Salmagundi and Colgate Catalogues, among other items. Professor Brigham initiated a series of

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p. 239 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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First Football Squad, 1890, Sports-12, p239

nominate managers, and have final authority over athletic affairs. The
Committee was unable to prevent mismanagement of a baseball trip in
the spring of 1896, however, or to deal with serious financial difficul-
ties. The following autumn the faculty took over control of athletics
and student organizations placing its own special committee in charge
of their activities, including finances. The faculty also agreed to the
recommendations of an intercollegiate conference on athletics, pre-
sumably made up of Central New York colleges, that only bona fide
students be permitted to play on a team; that no player be allowed
more than two academic deficiencies; and that no player receive any
pecuniary consideration for participating in any sport.

There were those who saw football as leading to the disparagement
of intellectual pursuits and others who felt that because of frequent
and serious injuries it was too barbarous a sport. Opposed to the critics
were those who, like Dean Andrews, regarded it as an admirable
outlet for that “animal vitality” which often led to pranks and worse

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First football and track teams (p. 238)

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scholarship and intellectual interests both in the classroom and in their own literary exercises which were still a feature of fraternity life. He saw them also as instruments for supporting high standards of discipline and developing among their members manners, courtesy and gentlemanly conduct.

In athletics, as in fraternity life, Colgate reflected developments to be found in other American colleges. Baseball continued. to attract support; the first track team was organized in 1892; and basketball began as an interclass sport in 1899. But it was the introduction of football, which had been rapidly gaining popularity throughout the country, that marked a radical departure from the old pattern. John W. Peddie, ’94, a freshman who had played the game in preparatory school, is credited with organizing the first team in 1890. It was difficult to find eleven men willing to join in the new game since probably no more than three among all the undergraduates had ever played it before, he recalled nearly 40 years later. The first season two games were scheduled-Hamilton College and St. John’s Military Academy at Manlius. Colgate lost to Hamilton, 14 to 28, a score one spectator interpreted as most encouraging since the losers had little over two weeks’ practice and no “trainer” while their opponents had played all fall and under a coach’s direction. Colgate won the St. John’s game by 14 to 6. The captain was Charles de Woody, student in the Seminary in the Class of 1892.

The 1891 season saw a decided improvement with Colgate winning all five games scheduled. They included the first encounter with Syracuse University with a score of 22 to 16. Contributing in no small measure to the team’s success were the efforts of Samuel Colgate, Jr., the first coach. He had graduated in 1891 from Yale where he had been on a class football team and had come to Colgate that autumn to study in the Seminary. During the 1896 season the team had its first professional coach, Aaron J. Colnon, Cornell, ’93; a training table was provided and athletic tax to defray expenses was introduced.

Control of athletics had rested with the specific teams and their managers and the Athletic Association. In 1893, however, the Association, apparently in a move to re-allocate responsibility, established an Advisory Committee consisting of representatives of faculty, alumni, residents of Hamilton, the three upper classes of the College, and the managers of baseball, football, and track. They were to raise funds,

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p. 237 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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minister and teacher. He wrote that he entered college “a very simple-minded boy-appreciative faculties wide awake, critical faculties asleep” and that he found at Colgate what he needed most, “stimulating personalities,” especially among the faculty. Despite his struggle over religion as part of his intellectual development, he enjoyed college life, “was in on all the fun the campus afforded,” and was one of the best dancers on the campus. He was a D.U., edited the Salmagundi and was on the Madisonensis staff but public speaking was his major activity and here he excelled, foreshadowing his subsequent eminent pulpit reputation.*

The students’ response to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War was prompt and enthusiastic. They joined the faculty and villagers in patriotic rallies and several from the Seminary and Academy, as well as the College, organized into four companies which drilled throughout the spring of 1898, Harry Fosdick serving as a first lieutenant. At the celebration the next year in honor of Admiral George Dewey, it was Fosdick, as President of the Students Association, who represented the undergraduates with a forceful and polished address, “College Students and American Life.”

The ’90’s saw fraternity life quickened and enriched. By 1894 each group was living in its own house. The D.U.’s already had theirs which had been completed in 1882. The D.K.E.’s acquired the Kern residence on the site of their present house in 1891. The Phi Psi’s built a house in 1892 on the corner of Charles and East Pleasant Streets which later became the University Infirmary. The Betas rented the old President’s House in 1893 and the Phi Gams took over the G.O.C. Lawrence residence on Madison Street. James C. Colgate pointed out to the alumni that all who contributed to the chapter house building funds helped the University in providing student accommodations; approximately half the college students were living in fraternity houses by 1894. Though there were some who questioned the value of fraternities, especially because of the bitter rivalry among them which was occasionally to be found, they were generally held to be a highly desirable feature of campus life. Many of the professors took an active part as helpful “older brothers” to the undergraduates. Among them was William Newton Clarke, ’61, a D.K.E. who believed fraternities could serve the aims of the University effectively by encouraging

*Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Living of These Days (New York, 1956), 48ff

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p. 236 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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1895 Editorial Board
Picture of Editoraial Board

band was organized; it consisted of 16 members and was directed by John W. Finch, ’97. Dramatics, too, captured enough student interest to warrant establishing in 1890 under Professor Thomas’s sponsorship the first Dramatics Club. Though it seems to have disappeared about six years later it had among the productions to its credit The Rivals and The School for Scandal, with students taking the women’s roles.

Academic garb was not yet accepted as a matter of course. Occasiona1ly a senior class would adapt cap and gown to be worn in the spring or fall and the Class of 1897 requested the faculty to appear similarly attired at commencement but that innovation had to wait until President Merrill’s administration. The Quartette and choir as shown in the Salmagundi of 1893 had mortarboards and wore gowns over evening clothes.

Outstanding in this generation of students was Harry Emerson Fosdick,.’00, who was destined to a great career as New York City

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The first band (p. 235)

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Glee Club, 1891. First known picture.
Picture of Glee Club

be disassociated from Patrons’ Day it remained a highlight of the spring calendar and became the antecedent of “Spring Party.”

After the spring of 1891 students could no longer look to the Hamilton Female Seminary for dates because that school had come to an end. For a brief period in the middle ’90’s, a successor, Emily Judson Hall, was in operation, but for the most part, they turned to local girls or, for special occasions, they sometimes invited guests from outside. There were the perennial suggestions for coeducation or even what might be called a “co-ordinate college” but all of them were rejected by the Trustees who in 1892 voted that no women should be accepted as students in any department though the few young ladies already in the Academy might complete the course. Perhaps the most compelling reason for this attitude was the difficulty of finding additional funds which educating women at Colgate would require when they were already having problems in meeting regular expenditures.

Throughout the ’90’s student publications and musical groups-the glee club and others-continued to flourish. The editors of the Madisonensis called for new Colgate songs and vainly attempted to revive the old “Alma Mater” of the 1860’s. In the fall of 1895 the first

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Spring Party beginnings (p. 234)

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enthusiasm to the churches. When Cossum went to China a few months later, Colgate students undertook to meet part of his expenses as the “University Missionary.” Since the Volunteer Band in effect took over the functions of the Society of Inquiry that group dissolved in 1893.

Despite James B. Colgate’s belief that the YMCA tended to weaken Baptist loyalties the Y flourished in the College, Seminary and Academy and through this means Colgate students shared in the religious interests common to most other American colleges. In 1896 the spiritual life of both village and University was quickened by a series of revival meetings sponsored by the Baptist, Methodist, and Congregational Churches and conducted by an itinerant evangelist, Rev. W.E. Geil.

The ’90’s saw, also, an acceleration of social life, so much so, in fact, that President Smith wrote to James B. Colgate in 1896 that students “live beyond their means and are a little too gay.” The Class of 1894, several of whose members were jovial and fun-loving young men, had the distinction of introducing what became known as Junior Week or Junior Prom. This affair grew out of the Washington’s Birthday Celebration staged each year by the Junior Class. In 1893 the Juniors arranged not only for the usual literary exercises but also for an elaborate reception in the new library. There were extensive decorations of flags, bunting, Japanese lanterns, and plants; an orchestra played from the balcony, and a caterer from Utica served refreshments. In 1894 the Class of 1894 instituted Patrons’ Day in April to honor all who had aided the University, especially the Colgates, and to foster interest and loyalty of the alumni who were invited to return to Alma Mater for the occasion. The actual observance focused on a banquet with speeches but the round of events scheduled included fraternity receptions, a performance of “The Rivals” by the Dramatic Society, and a baseball game. Of particular interest was the “Junior Promenade” in the new gymnasium the evening before the banquet. Decorations were in orange and maroon, Colgate’s colors, while the “drill room,” later to be the basketball court, was converted into a reception room with alcoves along the sides fitted up with rugs, sofas, and lamps. A Utica orchestra provided music for the program of marches following which the Juniors and their guests and others danced. Thus was begun a new custom which represented a decidedly new departure in campus social life. Though Junior Prom was later to

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p. 233 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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University’s benefactors to establish a chair of Semitic languages and in September Schmidt resigned to accept appointment to it.

The extent of faculty involvement in their colleague’s case is difficult to determine. Of those in the Seminary, Jones, in addition to Burnham and Loyd, opposed him while Clarke assisted him and McGregory and Brigham, among his friends in the College, appear to have been active in his behalf. Little publicity seems to have been given to the case until after Schmidt resigned when a long account appeared in the New York Sun. Aside from the issue of academic freedom, valid objection can be made to the procedures employed to effect his dismissal. No definite charges were formally made; no investigation of allegations undertaken; nor was he given a hearing and an opportunity to defend himself. Had he possessed a less pugnacious spirit it is entirely possible that the Trustees could have parried outside criticism of his views and permitted him to continue teaching along with the liberal William Newton Clarke. He “was sent away because he was a troubler of the peace,” Dr. Loyd confessed some years later.* At Cornell he was to win great fame as scholar, author and teacher.

The combined enrollment of all three divisions of the University during the ’90’s fluctuated, with a high of 369 in 1891 and a low of 314 in 1898. The College enrollment reached its peak of 167 in 1895 and its low of 125 in 1898; likewise the Academy with 184 in 1891 and 111 in 1894 and the Seminary with 61 in 1892 and 45 in 1891. The number of graduates from the College entering the Seminary declined from 10 in 1890 to 6 in 1898.

The growing secularization of the University caused concern to the theological faculty who were mindful that its original purpose was to provide an educated clergy. The alumni, too, noted changed conditions and complained about the loss of “the old spirit” which they remembered from the days when a large percentage of the College students went into the ministry.

Student interest in religious matters continued, however, but expressed itself in new forms. In 1891 William H. Cossum, ’87, came to the campus as an agent for the YMCA-related Student Volunteer Movement and organized 57 students from all divisions of the University into the Students Volunteer Band for Foreign Missions. They met for prayer and the study of missions and carried their message and

*Copy, letter, Dr. Hinton S. Lloyd to Rev. E.P. Brigham, January 15, 1902.

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p. 232 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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Society, reported that the churches were alarmed and the situation became so grave that Schmidt was urged to seek a non-theological chair at some other institution.

In response to questions from Samuel Colgate, President of the Education Society, Professor Schmidt made a detailed statement to Mr. Colgate of his views which he defended as in accord with those usually held by Baptists. The heart of the matter as Schmidt saw it was

 

 

whether there is room in the Baptist denomination for a consistent application of scientific principles in the interpretation of the Bible and for progressive theology to which it invariably leads and what is the true conception of the duty of a theological professor in a Baptist seminary.*

 
Dean Burnham, who seems to have kept to the sidelines at first, threatened to resign if Schmidt remained on the faculty. He considered his associate’s views more Unitarian than Baptist and asserted that the real issue was whether the Seminary was to have a faculty who taught “the generally accepted Baptist truth.” He did concede, however, that in a college the professors might teach “truth as by their studies, they come to believe it to be.”**

Matters came to a climax at the June 1896 meetings of the University and Education Society Trustees. Both Boards, in accordance with their Compact of 1893, appointed a joint committee to recommend action on the Education Society Board’s request that Schmidt be dismissed for teachings which tended “to weaken the confidence of young men in the Scriptures and to alienate the sympathy of our churches from the institution.” The committee promptly recommended that his services be terminated as soon as possible, James C. Colgate, alone of the committee, protesting on the ground that no proper cause of action had been presented. The Education Society’s Board at once unanimously approved the Committee’s recommendation. Since the University Board had already adjourned, Mr. Colgate, as Secretary, informed Schmidt that the University Board was certain to dismiss him at its next meeting in December and advised him to find a new position. At Cornell, meanwhile, President Jacob G. Schurman, himself a Baptist and aware of the Colgate situation, had persuaded one of his

*Letter, Nathaniel Schmidt to Samuel Colgate, May 25, 1895.

**Letter, Dean Sylvester Burnham to Samuel Colgate, February 5, 1896.

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