Tag Archives: Dodge Memorial Fund

p. 267 – The Bryan Period, 1908-1922

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Dr. William M. Lawrence, '70, Bio File, p267Prof. William H. Hoerner, Bio File, p267Dr. Joseph F. McGregory, Bio File, p267

 

 

endowment, including the Dodge Fund, grew from $1,765,000 in 1909 to nearly $3,000,000 in 1922.

The most notable acquisition to endowment came from a massive fund raising drive, the first of its kind Colgate had experienced since that for raising an endowment in 1850 as part of the Removal Controversy. Launched in 1920 under the direction of professional fundraisers, the campaign had originated with alumni leaders and was integrated with a current Northern Baptist Convention fund drive. Its objective, $1,000,000 for endowment and a new gymnasium, won student as well as alumni support and within ten days of its start pledges of approximately $900,000 were on the books, of which the undergraduates had been responsible for giving or getting $153,000 for the gymnasium. By June 1922 the grand total reached was over $1,000,000 of which $150,000 came from the Rockefeller General Education Board in the form of a matching grant conditioned on the University’s raising $350,000. Approximately $517,000 was added to endowment. A new pattern for financing the University was emerging: no longer would it look to the Colgate family for its major support but would turn to alumni, friends, and foundations and soon there would

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James B. Colgate passes away (p. 244)

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acknowledge he had much to learn about educational matters and willing to accept the judgment of the Dean and others.

Dr. Merrill had a clear picture of the University’s finances and sought to improve them. Despite the income from the Dodge Fund there were annual deficits ranging from $22,000 in 1899 to $42,000 in 1908. Of the three divisions of the University, the College accounted for the largest percentage of loss which reached $21,000 in 1908. This increase is explained in part by growth in College enrollment from 151 in 1899 to 287 in 1908 accompanied by more tuitions remitted and additional expenditures for faculty salaries and for maintenance of buildings and grounds. The tuition of $60.00 was much lower than that in most colleges in the east and none was charged in the Seminary; that for the Academy was $45.00. As he had done for the past several years, James C. Colgate made up the deficits, contributing over $300,000 from 1899 to 1908. Meanwhile, the endowment, excluding the $1,000,000 Dodge Fund, grew from nearly $556,000 to $695,513 in 1908.

The University’s munificent patron, James B. Colgate, died at the age of eighty-five in 1904 not long after he had made his last large gift of $100,000 for endowment. In attempting to arrive at a summary of Mr. Colgate’s chief benefactions, admittedly incomplete, Dr. Merrill estimated that they totalled over $1,700,000. Gratefully acknowledging them, he pointed out to the Trustees, none-the-less, that the University would need many friends and many large donations to keep its standing at a time when most of the nation’s colleges were expanding rapidly. On James C. Colgate’s declining to become his father’s successor as Trustee President, the Rev. William M. Lawrence, Class of 1870, was chosen. Formerly pastor of a large Baptist Church in Chicago, where he had a prominent part in founding the University of Chicago, he was an active alumnus and in 1905 had become pastor of the North Orange, New Jersey, Baptist Church.

Dr. Merrill demonstrated a Hair for what later generations would call public relations. He felt that the advantages and needs of the University should be advertised as widely as possible. He traveled extensively to speak before secondary schools, churches and religious groups. Alumni relations he regarded as especially significant and he not only met with alumni clubs but encouraged the forming of new ones. He printed his annual “President’s Report” and mailed it to

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p. 222 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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Colgate and his son made them up, quietly sending the Treasurer the sums required and having them credited on the books as from the Executive Committee. These deficiencies are explained by increased expenditures for improvements, new equipment, and new instruction. After the Compact of 1893 had been signed the University’s accounts included those of the Education Society and hence comparative statistics for total income and expenditure for 1890′ and 1899 give a somewhat distorted view. It is useful to note, however, that in 1899 real estate and equipment were valued at $700,000 and endowment, including the Dodge Fund, at $1,718,202.

At no time in the ’90’s did the payments from the Dodge Fund exceed $20,000 and in 1895 the figure reached a low of $11,800. Income from other sources declined also. When a Trustee Committee attempted to raise $10,000-among some 1,000 living alumni for a gymnasium and other improvements, they met with apathy and failure. It seemed clear that few alumni or Trustees felt any obligation to contribute. Many of the former, because their low salaries as pastors gave them little surplus, were unable to do so, but one suspects there was a general disposition to let the financial load rest on the Colgates alone. Raising tuition from $30.000 to $45.00 in 1892 and to $60.00 in 1896 and also tightening up on scholarship grants helped in some degree to reduce deficits.

Landscaping made a notable advance in 1891 with the hiring of Ernest W. Bowditch, landscape architect and engineer of Boston. He at once proceeded to make a detailed and meticulous survey of the entire campus which was to serve as the basis for all future plans. A major part of its cost the citizens of Hamilton contributed as an expression of their interest in the University. Under the direction of Professor James M. Taylor, Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds, a long-term program of grading, planting, and building new roads was begun and carried out, principally by his crew of Irish groundsmen. In 1893 a sewer system connecting all the buildings was constructed though it was not until 1895 and 1896 that electricity and water from the village began to be available in one building at a time.

The major building erected in the ’90’s was the long-desired gymnasium. Funds accumulated slowly and F. H. Gouge, a Utica architect, drew up plans for a three-story structure in a modified Romanesque style, which echoed the lines of the Library. Amid great

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p. 219 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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James B. Colgate was its first chairman and his son and Gardner Colby the other members. Another innovation, though relatively minor, which shows the trend to modern practices was the regular employment in 1890 of stenographers in the Treasurer’s and Dean’s offices.

This period saw also a slight change in the composition of the Board of Trustees. As early as 1885 James C. Colgate’s classmate, Edward M. Grout, ’84, had spearheaded a movement for alumni representation, citing several northeastern colleges where it was to be found. Inertia and the priority of other subjects seem to have delayed action till 1894 when the Board permitted all College degree holders and graduates of the Seminary’s full course to make nominations by mail ballot; the Board reserved the right to choose one alumnus from the nominees, however. The first balloting was held the next year and Grout was selected. Thereafter he was to be a permanent member of the Board, except for a two-year interval, until his death in 1931.

One of the most significant events of the ’90’s or of the University’s entire history, in fact, was James B. Colgate’s munificent gift of the Dodge Memorial Fund in honor of his dear friend, the late President. At a meeting of the Board in June, 1891, which the Education Society Trustees, by previous arrangement, attended, and from which the donor was absent, Samuel Colgate read a communication from his brother announcing the gift of securities worth $1,000,000. Three “custodians,” one of them being James C. Colgate, were named and were empowered to elect their successors and to have control of the Fund independently of the University Trustees. One half of the annual income was to be paid to the University and the balance added to the principal The total income was to be turned over when it reached a figure satisfactory to the University Trustees for providing an adequate supplement to the University’s over-all income. It is worthy of note that Mr. Colgate imposed no conditions on the use of the expendable income. He was “confident that this University will continue to be in the true sense of the term, a Baptist University where the ruling purpose is to discover and teach truth in order that it may be fearlessly, yet reverently, followed wherever it may lead.” One wonders if he appreciated the far-reaching implications of this statement. Since there developed some question as to the validity of the Deed of Gift the Board requested, and the State Legislature passed in 1900, an act chartering the ‘Dodge Fund Trustees and making the

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