had a feeble beginning in 1843, when a group of students petitioned the faculty for permission to establish a secret society, the constitution of which they submitted. After due and sympathetic consideration, the faculty informed them that, though they found nothing to disapprove in the avowed objects and deemed the character of the petitioners sufficient assurance that they would hold to those objects, they considered such an organization “inexpedient.” They believed that the existing literary societies gave sufficient opportunities for literary exercise and feared that the proposed fraternity would take many able students from those groups. The argument that it would provide a special bond of friendship for its members, the faculty met by stating that “the best kind of intimacy is that which grows out of a natural intercourse unrestricted by express pledges and artificial relations.” The fundamental objection, however, seems to have been the feature of secrecy which the professors felt might be abused in the future and which “would constitute an undesirable distinction among the members of the Institution, and give pain to many of its patrons and friends.” The last point is especially significant in’ view of active support Baptists in New York State had given to the Anti-Masonic movement.
Student interest in music easily won encouragement from the faculty and Executive Committee, especially since a knowledge of sacred music bore a close relationship to ministerial education. Student choirs, directed by Eli Buel, the local music teacher, regularly performed at commencement exercises. By 1835 there was the Philomelpian Society, presumably a successor to the Musical Society, which, in cooperation with the Students Association, fostered an interest in singing. The Sacred Music Society seems to have superseded the Philomelpian in 1837. The Executive Committee appropriated funds and the faculty granted time from class schedule, for singing instruction. After 1838 the curriculum regularly included sacred music for which there was an annual charge of $1.00.
Aside from occasional assistance from Eli Buel, the students seem to have provided their own musical instruction. In 1835 they hired as their teacher Hiram C. Paddock, then enrolled in the academic department, who had probably attended Buel’s singing school in the village. Thomas C. Wright and Robert R. Raymond, both theologues, who followed Paddock in 1840, began a new era in musical development with the publication of The Chapel Choir, a collection of ar-
