Category Archives: The Expanded Period, 1833-1846

p. 78 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

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two student assistants tried to accommodate the needs of readers and borrowers. Detailed regulations provided, among other things, that the library rooms should be open at least two hours every week-day during term time, and that no ink be used there. No student was to withdraw more than two books at a time and for failure to return them at the end of two weeks was to be fined 12 1/2 cents a volume for each week’s delay.

Never has Colgate had an abler, more energetic, or devoted faculty than in the 1830’s and ’40’s. Their marked scholarship, careful planning of the curriculum, and thorough and inspired teaching made this period an Augustan age in the history of the institution.

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p. 77 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

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pointed out that the book collection was entirely inadequate to the needs and that where similar institutions had thousands of volumes, the Seminary had only a few hundred. To overcome this grave deficiency he announced that he and a few others had opened a subscription of $1,000 to be spent by the faculty for books and that $700 already had been pledged. In response to his appeal, the assembly subscribed the remaining $300 in a few minutes. Part of the money realized was sent to Professor Sears, who was then in Germany, for the purchase of theological tomes rarely on the market in the United States.

Encouraged by the results of the subscription campaign in 1833, the Trustees opened a second one three years later. Five thousand dollars was to be raised one hundred shares of $50.00 each, payable in five annual $10.00 installments would thus insure an income of $1,000 for five years for buying books. All members of the faculty, except Professor A. C. Kendrick, who was then on a trip in the South, were subscribers. Their high hopes were blasted by the Panic of 1837, but not before a $1,000 order had been placed with the German bookseller at Halle. After some items arrived the Executive Committee was forced to cancel the order for those not already shipped and Dr. Kendrick was obliged to appeal to William Colgate for a loan of $700 to cover the consignment which had already been received.

Nearly every Annual Report of the Education Society carried an appeal for the library, especially for volumes in English on theology, history, and literature. At the urgent request of the faculty, the Executive Committee in 1842 sent $500 to’ Professor Conant, then studying in Germany, to buy books, including the “principal writings of the Fathers.” Professor Raymond who apparently resented the purchasing of so many works in theology, especially those in foreign languages, complained that the library was “shamefully deficient” in standard titles in English literature. By 1846 the collection probably contained about 5,000 volumes, estimated as being worth around $3,500.

Professor A. C. Kendrick, who was chosen librarian by his colleagues in 1834, was intensely concerned about the responsibilities of his position. He observed that “Other institutions are making up the necessity of having an ample library &if we are not on the alert on this point they will draw the students.” Under faculty supervision he and

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p. 76 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

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Fairfield, New York, gave his course of lectures in chemistry, both on the Hill and at the Hamilton Academy. Professor Taylor took over chemistry instruction in 1843. Astronomy always had a place in the curriculum throughout this period, but geology and mineralogy seem to have been offered only in 1836. A course in biology based on William Smellie’s Philosophy of Natural History was given from 1833 to 1835.

Unfortunately, when Professor Taylor had gotten the work in science nicely developed he resigned and recent graduates added to the faculty as tutors attempted to carry on in his place. The students resented this makeshift arrangement which was to last until the 1850’s.

The quality of instruction in the Institution’s two-year preparatory course proved to be so good in the mid-’40’s that the Hamilton Academy, which a decade before had been rated second in the state by the Board of Regents, suffered severely from the competition. The office of principal was abolished in 1838 and the regular faculty assumed responsibility for the elementary work in their respective fields and either conducted classes themselves or directed advanced students who served as assistants.

The eight-year course embracing the three departments of the Institution had no counterpart. Professor Raymond wrote of it in the Society’s Annual Report in 1842:

 

The organization is certainly unique-strikingly so. Its precise model is not to be found, we believe, in any other school, secular or religious, at home or abroad. But the Board…did not feel bound by existing models. Their eye was fixed on the specific wants of our own zion; and, while they were not negligent of, the lights of experience or unsolicitous to secure the counsels of the wise, their measures were all finally adopted with exclusive reference to those wants. The result of many years anxious and prayerful deliberation, of very many distinct and cautious and (almost invariably). unanimous decisions, is before us in the plan of the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution- a place so manifestly the work of Divine Providence and so susceptible of justification in all its essential features, that we think none but the most ureflecting could condemn it on the irrelevant, ground of non-conformity to institutions formed under different circumstances for different ends.

The efforts of the faculty and trustees to build up the library failed to advance with the development and improvement of the curriculum. At the Education Society’s annual meeting in 1833 William Colgate

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p. 75 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

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Sophomores and juniors studying the science of reasoning learned their syllogisms from Whately’s Logic, and if they were in the class from 1836 to 1838, they had Levi Hedge’s as well. Lord Henry H. Kames’s Elements of Criticism gave juniors a basis for forming standards of taste in aesthetics, ethics, psychology, and literature. From 1835 to 1846 seniors devoted a term to Bishop Joseph Butler’s Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed and from 1836 to 1846, a term to Wayland’s Elements of Moral Philosophy. Seniors also used William Paley’s Natural Theology from 1836 to 1838. These texts were then standard in American colleges.

Professor Eaton’s declaration in his Inaugural Address in 1834 when he succeeded Professor Bacon in the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy, that science and literature, properly interpreted, were useful adjuncts to religion, reveals the faculty’s approach to the study of those subjects in the ’30’s and ’40’s. From them, Eaton maintained, the ministers-to-be could draw arguments for refuting infidels and timely sermon illustrations which would make a strong impression on the popular mind then beginning to turn from the classics to science. The curriculum stressed mathematics the first two years when freshmen and sophomores took from four to six terms of algebra with occasional forays into solid and spherical geometry, calculus, trigonometry, and “mensuration.” Many of their texts were by Charles Davies and included his edition from the French of Adrien M. Legendre’s Geometry.

Work in natural philosophy, the progenitor of modern physics, was emphasized particularly for juniors. They studied mechanics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, electricity, magnetism, and optics from Tiberio Cavallo’s Elements of Natural or Experimental Philosophy and, after 1835, from Denison Olmsted’s books. Professor Eaton and Professor Taylor supplemented textbook recitations by classroom experiments on a “philosophical apparatus” borrowed in 1835 from the defunct academy of John B. Yates at Chittenango, New York. For many years the officers of the Education Society had tried to raise money to buy such equipment, but it was not until after an energetic and successful fund-raising campaign by Professor Taylor himself that they purchased one for about $1,500 in 1841. The new apparatus, including a telescope, and the instructor’s enthusiasm made the subject “one of lively interest to the students.” Dr. William Mather, the physician of

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p. 74 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

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core of the college curriculum. Such emphasis, then common in America, was considered essential for preparing young men for preaching. Throughout the course they read the classics: freshmen, Xenophon’s Anabasis or Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, always Livy, and after 1840, Virgil’s Aeneid; sophomores, the Greek orators and Tacitus; juniors, the Greek orators, poets, and tragedians and usually Horace’s Odes; and the seniors, the Greek philosophers but no Latin after 1838. Their texts included the well-known editions of Horace by Charles Anthon and Livy by Charles Folsom.

Hebrew occupied a prominent place in the curriculum because of its special value for prospective preachers. Four to six terms were spent on it in the college course in addition to the advanced work in the theological department. The students used Moses Stuart’s Grammar and Chrestomathy until Professor Conant’s Chrestomathy and his edition of Genenius’s Grammar supplanted them in 1838,

During the college course there were extensive exercises in English composition and public speaking. From 1835 to 1840 every Saturday morning was given over to rhetorical exercises. Archbishop Richard Whately’s Rhetoric was the text. Professor Raymond, who took over most of this work in 1840, introduced a one-term history of literature course for seniors.

Interest in modern languages appeared in 1835 when the faculty permitted students at their own request to employ a French teacher. Three years later the Catalogue stated that “Instruction in the German and French languages is given without expense to such as wish to pursue these studies.” This statement was carried up to 1851, but not until several years later did modern languages become an integral part of the curriculum. Professor Conant seems to have taught the first German class; the first French instructor is unknown.

After experimenting one term, in 1835-36, with a course based on Joseph Story’s American Constitution, the faculty replaced it with Jewish history “in order to meet the Expectations of the Baptist Community.” Why Baptists could have objected to Story’s work is not clear unless it be that they felt the students’ time could be better spent on subjects more directly related to the ministry. However, a one-term course in political economy had been taught from 1833 to 1835; in 1838 it was restored, this time with President Francis Wayland’s Elements of Political Economy as the text.

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p. 73 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

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Address. When the Board chose a professor, however, they probably knew beforehand enough about his ideas and had’ enough confidence in his character to make such procedure superfluous.

The new appointees in their inaugural addresses at the time of the Annual Meeting explained the importance of their fields of instruction to the Education Society members and thus indirectly to the denomination. Objections to education for ministers had begun to wane among the Baptists, but many were still lukewarm and gave grudgingly to the Institution. Dr. Kendrick tried to rouse them repeatedly in the Annual Reports and in the columns of the Baptist Register where he had the sympathetic assistance of editor Alexander M. Beebee and professors Maginnis and Eaton.

The faculty reported with pride to the Society in 1834 that the wisdom of expanding the course of college instruction to the full four years had been borne out by the first year’s experience. The attendant disorganization had been slight and the students responded enthusiastically to the changes which placed the Seminary “by the side of kindred institutions.” Two years” study in the preparatory department, four in ‘the collegiate, and two in the theological, the faculty was convinced, provided adequate training for young men going into the ministry. For those whose age or other circumstances made so extensive a preparation impossible, there was the four-year “English course” which omitted the classics and Hebrew but included specified work in all departments.

A few young men who were anxious to begin preaching or get into the missionary field as soon as possible chafed at the delay the lengthened course imposed. The majority, however, seem to have been glad to take advantage of their opportunities, which, it should be remembered, had been widened by demand of the students themselves. The faculty, naturally, discouraged the more impatient ones who wanted to leave before completing the course, and William Dean of the Class of 1833 advised all who planned to join him in missionary work in Siam not to cut short their studies but to learn all they could. The faculty believed that satisfactory work required two hours of study for each hour of class. Usually a student took three subjects a term with daily recitations in each. The academic year consisted of three terms-winter, spring and summer.

Language study, the classics, Hebrew, and English made up the

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Seminary Church organized (p. 72)

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nized the Seminary Church, November 9, 1845. Pastoral duties were assigned to Professors Maginnis, Conant, and Eaton, and Brother Burchard was made deacon. Adoniram Judson, the famous Baptist missionary to Burma, who was then on his first visit to Hamilton, had come to the meeting and at its close gave the church his blessing. The founding members “felt that the occasion was rendered more impressive and memorable by his presence, and the spiritual prospects of the church were brightened by his prayer.” Granted fellowship by a church council a few days, later, the new organization from time to time added students to its roll and remained in existence until 1851.

Democracy characterized the procedures and practices of the faculty in the ’30’s and ’40’s. Their “Bye-Laws,” drawn up in 1834 and revised slightly in 1841, provided for a chairman, and secretary, and standing committees, elected from among themselves. The chairman presided at faculty meetings and public occasions and in general exercised functions relating to the internal government of the Institution similar to those of a college president. The secretary not only carried out the record-keeping duties normally associated with his office, but also prepared the annual report of the faculty and supervised the machinery for admitting students. The seven standing committees stipulated in 1834 included one for the reception of applicants for admission, one for examining them after they had been at the Institution for a term on trial, and committees on discipline, the monitorial system, requests (petitions), internal regulations (buildings and commons), and publications and public meetings. Committees on music and beneficiaries were added in 1841. Faculty meetings, held at least once a week, were limited to two hours’ duration and usually opened with prayer. The minutes reveal active participation by all members of the group. Important matters of policy and petty details, many of them in the present-day dean’s province, they treated with care and due deliberation.

Aside from, the faculty resolution, passed in 1833, “that it is expedient for the officers to open their recitations generally with a short address to the throne of grace,” no restrictions, theological or otherwise, were placed on what the professors taught or the methods they used. Professor Maginnis was so impressed with the fact that no one questioned him about his religious views or asked him to sign a creed before he was appointed that he commented on it in his Inaugural

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p. 71 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

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country for his violent and dramatic sermons which swayed thousands. His lurid admonition to the unregenerate that sinners would have to plow the hottest regions of hell with a shingle and two bobtailed rats is still remembered in Hamilton. Following his graduation from the Institution in 1824, he had introduced his revival methods among Baptist churches with great success. In 1835 he returned to the village to locate his family while he went out to preach wherever his services were requested. The large amount of property he was acquiring in the work of “saving souls” as well as his spectacular technique excited considerable comment and criticism among Baptists and non-Baptists alike. When he asked the local church in 1843 to grant him a letter of commendation that his standing might be assured in the denomination, the storm broke. Fiery Professor Maginnis, motivated by disapproval of Knapp’s preaching methods and for personal reasons, led those who objected to granting the letter. Out of this issue developed involved investigations and bitter discussions of Knapp’s character and behavior which were protracted over six months. When finally the church by a vote of 32 to 16 gave Knapp their approbation, all the faculty save Professor Taylor were found in the minority.

While the uproar was subsiding, Dr. Kendrick wrote ambiguously to a friend that the faculty had objected neither to Knapp’s success as a revivalist nor to the methods he employed so long as his meetings were “properly conducted.” The professors had tried to do their duty when the case was before the church and now that it was over they would “leave the whole affair with things that are behind.”*Some of the Trustees of the Education Society had “considered the propriety & practibility of forming a church in the Seminary” and a few months after the Knapp case the Board recommended that the faculty take such a step. Accordingly, in September 1845, they and their families withdrew in a body from the village church to establish their own on the Hill. Professor Taylor whose stand in the Knapp case had not differed from that of his colleagues had avoided the embarrassment by resigning in the spring.

The professors and their families, Deacon Seneca B. Burchard, President of the Education Society Trustees, and his wife, both of whom had also left the village church, and one student, gathered on a snowy Sabbath in Professor Raymond’s classroom, and formally orga-

*Nathaniel Kendrick to James Edmunds, New York, N.Y., Mar. 7, 1845.

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Jacob Knapp urges church to declare slavery a sin (p. 70)

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though at the same time lashing out at them on the platform and in the newspapers. He asserted that wherever they exerted “their influence, there languishes the cause of slaves, and there abound apologists for the oppression.” Eaton, who had a favorable impression of the more enlightened slaveholders as a result of teaching in Virginia in his youth, seems to have been chosen to represent his colleagues in disputes with Smith.

When the Peterboro reformer became incensed in 1841 at a visit to the campus of the Southern Elder Jonathan Davis, as well as at the suppression of the third antislavery society and the failure of the Seminary to support his new Liberty party, Eaton defended the faculty in a long letter to the Hamilton Palladium. He made it clear that, since they had not identified themselves with the abolitionists, it did not follow that they were pro-slavery. Elder Davis, he pointed out, had not come to reconcile the students to slavery, nor had he mentioned the subject on the Hill. Professor Maginnis, whose guest he had been, heartily opposed Negro servitude, but was convinced that the evil could be righted peaceably only with the help of Southerners whom Northerners should treat courteously and invite to discuss the subject without rancor or bitterness. Such an approach to the problem failed to make any impression on Smith whose avowed and constant purpose was “to abolitionize the public mind.”

The Hamilton Baptist Church, like the Seminary, refused to become involved in the slavery question. Jacob Knapp, the firebrand evangelist, had bitterly denounced a representative of the American Colonization Society from its pulpit in 1841 and a year later urged the church to declare slavery under all circumstances a sin. After extensive discussion, in which it was evident that the members agreed with his sentiments, they nevertheless decided against “the passing of any specific resolutions on the subject of slavery &to such a mode of church action; in general” and concurred “in the opinion, that by their public profession of Religion, &by their church covenant, they have clearly declared themselves against slavery as a sin, together with all other moral evil.”

Though the church avoided dissension on the slavery question, Knapp, with his genius for controversy, was able to plunge it into bitter turmoil on his own account. A plain, uncouth, loud, and uncompromising revival preacher, he was widely known throughout the

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Faculty place antislavery publications in library (p. 69)

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law, Jeremiah Chaplin, founder and president of the college. Determined that no such conditions should develop in the Institution, they resolutely checked student enthusiasm in this direction.

The faculty’s position first became evident in 1834 when they abolished a recently formed student antislavery society on the grounds of “expediency” and three years later a second met with a similar fate. Regarding the latter, a student wrote in his diary that the professors viewed the organization as “a nuisance & labored zealously for its dissolution. They wished to compel no one’s conscience or restrain liberty in any respect save this; the society was noxious to the best interests of the institution and must be dissolved.” Three members withdrew from the Seminary in protest, two of them transferring to Hamilton College. Others immediately joined sympathetic local citizens in forming a society in the village where it at once encountered opposition from hostile elements of the community.*

Student interest in antislavery did not subside, but rather sought other outlets. A few months after the faculty stamped out the second society, they were asked to approve a “Free Discussion Society,” the chief subject to be discussed being, of course, antislavery. They denied the petition but did express a willingness to allow debate on the issue under faculty supervision.

In 1839 members of the Eastern Association gave much thought to the question of the support of missionaries “from the avails of slavery” and invited Beriah Green, the abolitionist, to discuss it with them. Shortly thereafter, no doubt on the advice of Dr. Kendrick and Professor Maginnis, they decided “to dismiss the subject, not that we loved slavery less but that we loved the heathen more.” For the third and last time the faculty suppressed an antislavery society in 1841 and as a check against renewed agitation they decided in 1842 to place a gift of American Antislavery Society publications on closed shelves in the library.

Criticism of so cautious a policy came from a few strongly ,abolitionist Baptist churches, One of which even suggested the faculty truckled to the pro-slavery patrons of the Institution in New York, Albany, and Buffalo. However, it was from Gerrit Smith that the hottest blasts came. Irascible and unpredictable, he nevertheless maintained friendly relations with the faculty, even lending Professor Eaton $300,

*Isaac K. Brownson, “Diary,” 1837-43, Aug. 4, 1837

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