Tag Archives: Aeonian Society

Salmagundi yearbook commences publication (p. 211)

Posted on June 14, 2012 by | Comments Off on Salmagundi yearbook commences publication (p. 211)

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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Posted in Chapter 10, p. 211, Student Life, 1869-1890, timeline

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p. 164 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

Posted on May 3, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 164 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

and to refrain from playing politics in the affairs of the literary societies. Unmoved, the faculty proceeded to inform the Dekes that they must either pledge in writing to disband or face expulsion. Fourteen complied in June and were thereupon ejected from the fraternity. The others eventually capitulated, but not before they had perfected a plan to outwit the faculty. The last one delayed signing until the day of his graduation in August, 1857. On the night before, he and the chief officer of the Hamilton College chapter had initiated eight members of the incoming freshman class, who, as students in the Grammar School, knew the struggle of the past year and were ready to carry it on.

To all appearances the anti-secret society rule had been enforced and only gradually did the truth come out. The new members, knowing the penalty if they were discovered, nonetheless exulted in preserving the organization. They usually assembled every two weeks if conditions favored, sometimes in a member’s room, but more frequently at the Eagle Hotel where a brother would take “lodging” for the evening. As partial satisfaction of the requirement that the fraternity be given up, they formally voted at the close of each meeting to disband and then reorganized when they next convened. They initiated some of the best students in the University and gave particular attention to literary programs of orations, essays and debates, then important features of fraternity life which the Greek letter groups had appropriated from the literary societies. In the need for maintaining secrecy they. once deposited their charter with the Hamilton College chapter and for six months stored their records in the bureau drawer of a local Deke sweetheart. Such precautions gradually became needless, and in 1868 a room in the business section of the village was rented for regular use. The prohibition against fraternities still stood but the faculty no longer attempted to enforce it.

The unity which the Dekes maintained in their struggle with the faculty also made itself felt in the two literary societies, the Adelphian and the Aeonian. During the early ’50’s, the rivalries of these enthusiastic and successful organizations was intense and their public meetings and the Junior Exhibitions-for which they elected third-year men in the College to be their representatives-attracted large and responsive audiences from Hill and village. In 1857 the Adelphians fell into a bitter dispute among themselves over an election in which the Dekes

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Posted in Chapter 8, p. 164, Recovery and Expansion, 1850-1869

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p. 137 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

Posted on May 3, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 137 – The removal controversy, 1847-1850

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

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p. 90 – Student life, 1833-1846

Posted on May 2, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 90 – Student life, 1833-1846

should keep their pledges “to labor for God among the heathen.” In 1834 four had gone to the Orient, and in 1835 five went, but thereafter the number declined, and in some years none responded to the “call.” The failure of so many to keep their pledges and a waning interest on the campus in foreign missions led to a sharp decline in membership. Early in 1842 the pledge requirement was removed. A few months later the Eastern Association and the Western Association, the analogous organization for students intending to do missionary work in “the Mississippi Valley, joined the Society for Inquiry in an auxiliary status.

The first literary society, Gamma Phi, seems to have been founded prior to 1833, while the second, Pi Delta, probably originated in 1834. Little trace of their activities remains except the names of their orators on commencement programs. Competition between them for members led to faculty intervention, with the result that both seem to have been dissolved in 1840 when the Adelphian and Aeonian Societies came into existence. For two or three years, amicable relations seem to have prevailed but in 1844 difficulties arose relative to their joint public exercises. The faculty had scarcely restored harmony when rivalry over the selection of members again brought official action. Some Adelphians, refusing to abide by arrangements which had been agreed upon, attempted to form their own society in the village so that they might be free to admit freshmen of their own choosing. Within a week, however, they gave up the plan.

Both societies had rooms in the “attic story” of the present East Hall. The Aeonians devoted their weekly meetings to orations and the reading of original essays, plays and poems. A critic, appointed from their own number, passed judgment on these efforts. The essays and other contributions were collected by three editors who bound them together as the “Aeonian Casket.” The Adelphians occupied themselves in much the same way as the Aeonians. The faculty considered that both groups stimulated the development of oral and written expression, which were phases of the curriculum badly in need of expansion. The Institution, however, was probably no further behind current standards of instruction in speech and rhetoric than other colleges of the day. The Aeonian and Adelphian Societies and their predecessors were following, consciously or not, patterns of earlier and contemporary literary societies on other campuses.

The fraternity movement, a natural outgrowth of literary societies,

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Posted in Chapter 5, p. 90, Student Life, 1833-1846

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