Tag Archives: Ellery C. Huntington

Huntington Gym (p. 295)

The first of the new buildings of the Cutten period was the dormitory, Andrews Hall, made possible by the bequest of Richard M. Colgate, supplemented by gifts from his brothers. Designed in “collegiate Tudor” by Frederick H. Gouge and William M. Ames of Utica, it was completed in 1923 and named for the late Newton Lloyd Andrews, beloved dean and Professor of Greek.

The gymnasium was the second of the new buildings. As early as 1911 “Doc” Huntington had pointed out that the rapidly expanding enrollment had made the old gymnasium most inadequate and soon plans were underway to replace it. Actual construction, however, had to wait until 1924 when alumni and students, led by George W. Cobb, ’94, President of the Alumni Corporation, and Clarence J. Myers, ’20, staged an enthusiastic and successful drive to raise the necessary funds to supplement those already pledged and those contributed in the 1920 financial campaigns. Under the direction of Franklin B. Ware, architect of New York, the building, including the swimming pool, the gift of James C. Colgate, was completed in 1926. Named in tribute to the beloved Dr. Ellery Channing Huntington, the “grand old man of Colgate athletics,” it proved admirably suited to the University’s needs. The old gymnasium which it was planned to convert into a student union and Y building, was destroyed by fire only a few weeks before its successor was ready for occupancy.

p. 280 – The Bryan Period, 1908-1922

PHI GAMMA DELTA HOUSE, C. 1900
PHI GAMMA DELTA HOUSE, C. 1900

the Delta Upsilon, until 1912 when Delta Kappa Epsilon completed its building to be followed in 1914 by Phi Kappa Psi; both the DKE and Phi Psi houses are still in use though much enlarged. Fire destroyed the Beta Theta Pi house in 1921 and plans to rebuild were made and carried out almost before the embers were cold. To deal with common problems of rushing and pledging, the six fraternities on the campus in 1914 had organized a Pan-Hellenic Council to which they admitted the other organizations as they became chartered.

Colgate’s athletic program of the Bryan period was in the most spectacular and widely known phase of its development and the fortunes of its teams, especially football, often seemed to outweigh all other University concerns. The President came to recognize this as a dangerous situation and at the instigation of alumni leaders an Alumni Athletic Council and an Athletic Governing Board were set up in 1921 which provided representation for graduates, faculty and students and which were to insure that the athletic policies and practices were in harmony with the University’s educational interests. The immediate responsibility, of course, rested with “Doc” Huntington who was assisted by Graduate Managers, Asa King Leonard, ’07 (1911-14); Edwin W. Leary, ’14 (1914-1915); Frederick M. Jones, ’09, Assistant Professor of Romance Languages (1915-19); and William A. Reid, ’18 (1919-36).

p. 261 – The Merrill Presidency, 1899-1908

In the conflict between the claims of the athletic field and the classroom the faculty seems to have stood staunchly by the eligibility rules published in the Catalogue. Team members were generally good students and occasionally included Phi Beta Kappas, Walter Runge and Earl Sweet among them. Though the Athletic Advisory Council, the faculty committee on student organizations, and “Doc” Huntington supervised the sports programs, the President also kept an eye on them. He had serious reservations about football because of the physical danger to the players and certain elements of “unfairness” which he found in the game and in 1903 published his criticisms in the North American Review. Later, however, he was more hopeful. He endorsed the national campaign for cleaning up the game which followed President Roosevelt’s luncheon at the White House in 1905 with coaches and physical education directors. The next year Colgate adopted the new rules to eliminate brutality in the game as announced by the National Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee and joined the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, recently formed to secure fair and reasonable college sport.

Throughout their many vicissitudes James c. Colgate maintained a keen interest in all phases of the athletic program, especially football. He gave considerable material aid but even more valued were “his uncloaked enthusiasm, his personal interest in schedule, coach, team and players and his unequivocal championship of the highest ideals of sportsmanship.

From 1886 to 1900 the teams had been identified by the colors orange and maroon but there had developed a wide latitude of shades for each ranging from yellow and crimson to pink and garnet. In the spring of 1900 the Students’ Association and faculty adopted maroon as the Colgate color and filed in the Library a swatch of silk of the correct shade.

President Merrill sought to give special dignity to commencement and other public academic occasions by the wearing of caps and gowns. In 1899 the faculty and trustees adopted his recommendation that gowns be required of seniors and academic regalia requested of the faculty. Shortly before the 1900 commencement he gave an extended chapel address on academic costume and its significance in anticipation of its first formal use at Colgate.

Over the commencement of 1908 hung a cloud of gloom because of

p. 252 – The Merrill Presidency, 1899-1908

under Professor Thomas were among the most popular. Students saw them not only as a means for learning skills useful after college but also as training for the several oratorical and debating contests which engendered as much undergraduate enthusiasm as intercollegiate athletic competition.

To relieve Professor Moore of his courses in French, Frank C. Ewart, a Denison graduate who had studied at Chicago and Heidelberg, joined the faculty in 1899. In 1900 he added Spanish and in 1903 Italian and in 1907 seems to have introduced the use of the phonograph for instruction in speaking.

The arrival in 1903 of Everett W. Goodhue, a Dartmouth alumnus, to teach economics and sociology enabled Professor Spencer to offer additional history and political science courses until his departure in 1905 to become one of Woodrow Wilson’s preceptors at Princeton. His successor was Adna W. Risley, A.B., Colgate, 1894, who had studied at Chicago and whose modern approach is indicated by the “Catalogue” (1906-07) statement that the basic course in political science emphasized “practical citizenship” rather than “Theoretical government” and featured student reports on the government of their own localities.

Additions to the Science and Mathematics staff included: Roy B. Smith of the University of Michigan, who had studied at Heidelberg, in Chemistry; Arthur W. Smith, Chicago, in mathematics; and Harold O. Whitnall, Ph.B., Colgate, 1900, who did postgraduate work at Harvard, in geology and biology. They were promising young men hired to assist Professors McGregory, Taylor and Brigham, and were to round out their own careers as worthy successors to the earlier generation. Herman T. R. Aude, Colgate, 1905, who was in the group from 1905 to 1907, returned in 1920 to teach mathematics until his retirement in 1949. Mention should be made also of Albert B. Stewart, more nearly a contemporary of Taylor’s, a graduate of Bucknell, who came into the Department of Mathematics in 1909, after a career which covered secondary education in Pennsylvania and at Colgate Academy.

No newcomer of the Merrill period made a greater mark on Colgate than Ellery C. Huntington who arrived in the fall of 1900 to take the place of George W. Banning as Instructor in Physiology and Hygiene and Director of the Gymnasium. Inheriting the title of “Doc” from his predecessor who was an M.D., he quickly won the esteem and affec-