Tag Archives: George R. Berry

p. 269 – The Bryan Period, 1908-1922

College, 9 for the Seminary, and 6 for the Academy while the second includes 42 for the College, or double the number for 1908, and 6 for the Seminary. The salary scale gradually rose so that by 1921 it ranged from $1,600 for instructors to $3,500 for professors. In the absence of a systematic plan for retirement or for pensions it was customary for men to retire on half salary at the age of seventy.

Four Colgate faculty members were among the charter members of the national American Association of University Professors which first met in 1915; they were Dean Crawshaw and Professors Brigham, Child, and Berry. Believing their number too small as a basis for interesting local discussion meetings they recommended colleagues for membership in the organization and founded the Colgate Chapter late in 1917 or early in 1918.

Experience with the elective system at Colgate, as at other colleges, had made clear that the freedom of choice brought abuses. Dean Crawshaw asserted that the lack of concentration and continuity failed to give a well-balanced education adapted to individual needs and advocated a curriculum organized to give a student “mastery over certain subjects” rather than a superficial sampling. Primarily because of his, efforts, the faculty in 1909 adopted a program of majors and minors and the next year Professor John Greene, as Associate Dean, assisted Dean Cranshaw in giving students personal advice in selecting their courses. To supplement the program, the faculty in 1912 instituted a distribution requirement which provided that a student must complete a minimum of work in two groups, or subject-matter areas, outside that in which his major was listed. The groups were: Languages and Literature, Mathematics and Natural Science, and Mental and Social Science.

During the period immediately after World War I, the faculty felt that scholastic standards at Colgate, in common with other colleges, were declining or being maintained with increasing difficulty. Probable causes for the situation were thought to be the general unrest of the time, the non-intellectual reasons which induced many young people to go to college, extracurricular activities, ease of access to nearby cities, and the practice of the public and many alumni of rating an institution in terms of athletic victories. The two senior honorary societies, also, were concerned and so informed the faculty. In 1920 a committee headed by Dean Crawshaw reported after careful investi-

p. 231 – Colgate in the 1890’s

1891 to succeed Dr. Beebee as Professor of Homiletics. An alumnus of Hamilton College, he had been minister at churches in Waterford and Newburgh. Dr. George R. Berry came in 1896 from the University of Chicago, where he had received his Ph.D., to teach the Semitic languages. In 1897 Dr. Edward Judson, who had been a member of the faculty as a Latin and modern language professor (1867-74), relieved Dr. Jones of pastoral theology which he had taught in addition to homiletics following Dr. Harvey’s death in 1893. Judson came to the campus on a part-time basis since he continued to hold the pastorate of the large Judson Memorial Baptist Church in New York.

Morale in the Seminary faculty and to some extent among teachers in the College and Academy suffered in the nineties because of the dismissal of Professor Nathaniel Schmidt. It occurred against the background of theological controversy in the United States brought about by the application of higher criticism in Biblical studies as expounded by German scholars. Among the Baptists, the new scientific and literary analysis of the Scriptures made headway in the 1880’s and, like the Presbyterians and Congregationalists, they found it necessary to remove at least two professors from theological seminaries for their unorthodox teachings.

The difficulty at Colgate comes as a surprise, however, when one remembers Dr. Dodge’s liberal views and Dr. Clarke’s progressive theology. Had there been a strong man of Dodge’s stripe in the presidency to give forceful leadership, it might not have arisen. Schmidt had been one of the President’s favorite students and freely acknowledged his mentor’s emancipating influence. In 1891 at the age of twenty-nine and after only three years of teaching he was made Professor of Semitic Languages and Literature, in view of the Trustees’ appreciation of his “marked attainments” as a scholar, linguist, and teacher. He was an editor, also, having induced his associates to establish in 1892 the Seminary Journal, a ten-page quarterly, which he directed for its one-year existence; it carried scholarly articles and book reviews and kept alumni in touch with the Seminary.

Word had spread abroad, meanwhile, that Professor Schmidt denied the divine inspiration and “inerrancy” of the Bible. This was a serious charge when leveled against a seminary professor because he was in a strategic position for corrupting the denomination’s theology at its source. Dr. Hinton S. Loyd, Executive Secretary of the Education