Tag Archives: John James Lewis

p. 198 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

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Prof. Eugene P. Sisson, Henry Hill Photographs-10, p198Prof. Hezekiah Harvey, '45, Henry Hill Photographs-10, p198Dean Sylvester Burnham, Henry Hill Photographs-10, p198

 

 

In the early 1880’s Professor Lewis and others had suggested changing the name of the University from Madison to Colgate. It was not until the close of the decade, however, that sufficient sentiment had generated among alumni and friends to make such a move possible. The arguments for it were clear. The Colgate family had been intimately and devotedly associated with the institution since 1823 as trustees and benefactors and their wise counsel and financial assistance had been of great importance for nearly seventy years. Of the estimated $850,000 of capital assets of the University in 1889, $605,000 represented their gifts. In addition, they had been generous contributors for current expenses. Those who wanted the change could cite many precedents for expressing gratitude to benefactors by attaching their names to colleges, as for example, Colby, Bucknell, and Brown, as well as Harvard and Yale. Then, too, they pointed to the confusion of Madison University with the University of Wisconsin at Madison which annoyed alumni in the West. In the East there was a Methodist theological seminary at Madison, New Jersey, which could mislead the unknowing, and also neighboring Hamilton College at Clinton which was frequently mistaken for Madison University since Madison University was often loosely identified as “Hamilton” from its location in the village of that name. The arguments against the change rested

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Phi Beta Kappa (p. 194)

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four years in college and were designed to provide them a set of standards for meeting problems of religion and of public and private morality. His role as teacher, he filled as effectively as that of president. He encouraged students to examine all kinds of ideas without restraint. One observer and friend stated, “Most fervently did he believe in free thought. He held it to be an indispensable requisite to large discovery of truth. Fetters on the mind he utterly abhorred, and he would have cut off his own right hand before he would have helped to bind them upon any human being.”

Professor Beebee gave most of his attention to his courses in homiletics in the Seminary but he did teach logic to college juniors. Professor Sylvester Burnham, appointed to the Seminary faculty in 1875, by student request, first offered an elective course in Biblical Literature for college seniors in 1887. His approach was an analysis of the Bible as national literature in comparison with other ancient literatures. The course won acceptance and was adopted by other colleges.

Academic incentives in the form of prize competitions numbered three in 1869 and twelve in 1890, and at the latter date rewarded distinguished achievement in the classics, chemistry, history, mathematics, English composition, public speaking, and debate. Professor Lewis had been active in instigating and promoting those in the last three areas. He also encouraged the University to join the Intercollegiate Literary Association in 1876. This organization staged an annual contest among the colleges for the best essays, orations, and examinations in literature which to some extent rivaled in interest the intercollegiate athletic contests of the time. Madison entrants were among the winners in 1878, 1879, and 1880.

The University’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, Eta of New York, owes its existence primarily to Professor Lewis. He forwarded an application for a charter to the Union College chapter, Alpha of New York, in 1873 but, apparently through inadvertance, favorable action was delayed until 1878 when Alpha complied. Associated with him as founding members were President Dodge and Professors Maynard, Burnham and Judson and they in turn elected to membership six seniors, the seven remaining faculty members, and 21 alumni.

Throughout the Dodge period the Seminary curriculum retained its major divisions of Old and New Testament, ecclesiastical history,

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p. 192 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

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creative of them and had a wide adoption. His second was College Algebra, 1889; five more were published in the next two decades.

From 1888 to 1891 the curriculum included engineering, taught by William C. Eaton, ’69, son of President George W. Eaton. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a member of the Navy’s engineering corps, he had been detailed for this assignment. Apparently for lack of interest, engineering was dropped after his departure.

Perhaps the most cultivated faculty member was the Professor of Civil History, English Literature, and Oratory, John James Lewis, whom colleagues and students alike loved and admired. An intense and zealous Welshman, he won the reputation of being, in the words of the faculty’s resolution passed at his death in 1884, “a competent and rare instructor.” In addition to his skill, industry and patience in teaching public speaking and composition, he grounded his students in literature and gave lectures on architecture, sculpture, and painting, which he supplemented at least once by a field trip to an “Art Gallery” in Utica in 1878. His courses in English, European, and American History, the first of their kind at Madison, had a good student response, particularly those in American history which were introduced in 1880-81. This year also saw the appearance of his course in international law.

Professor Lewis’s successor was Benjamin S. Terry, ’78. The youngest member of the faculty in 1885, genial, witty, scholarly and progressive, he with Professor McGregory and a few others took the lead in modernizing the curriculum. After his first year he divested himself of responsibility for rhetoric and elocution to concentrate on his real interest, history. Lectures and readings, often in reprints of original sources, took the place of recitations and he instituted seminars for advanced students which called for investigation, essays, and critical discussion. At his instigation the Bushnell Prizes were established for the best senior essays which were later published and distributed. He represented advanced approaches to instruction. To many of his faculty colleagues it must have been no great surprise that he resigned in 1892 after a year in Germany where he had earned a Ph.D. at Freiburg to go to rapidly expanding University of Chicago.

To relieve Professor Terry of his work in rhetoric and elocution, William H. Crawshaw, Class of 1887, was made an instructor in those subjects almost immediately on graduating; he had already taught a

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p. 188 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

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and Seminary faculty was only $1,300 to $2,200 and, for teachers in the Academy, $800 to $2000. President Dodge and one or two others had independent means but most faculty members managed by rigid economies to subsist on their salaries. Several had vegetable gardens and kept chickens and a cow or two; Professor Osborn had a farm a few miles north of the village.

Faculty social life seems to have been quite limited when compared with that of the 1840’s. The Dodges seldom entertained at their large yellow, pillared President’s House except at commencement but Professor and Mrs. Lewis and Dr. Walter R. Brooks, who joined the faculty in 1874, and his wife occasionally had guests. All faculty members and their families were members of the village Baptist Church which served as a social outlet and brought them into contact with the local community. Several were very active as church officers and from time to time preached from its pulpit.

The tone and coloration of the University’s purpose for the next two decades were quite well established at President Dodge’s inauguration in 1868. On this occasion James B. Colgate recalled that the University had its origin in the need for educating young men for the Baptist ministry and maintained “It were better that it should cease to exist than that its future should prove false to its origin.” In his response, the President stressed the necessity for the best possible faculty who should be able not only to impart knowledge but also to inspire students to the highest ideals in an atmosphere of faith and freedom. For him, the University as representing the Baptist viewpoint was an amalgam of culture and religion.

Within the denomination a new interest in higher education had been developing in the late 1860’s which stressed the need for an educated laity as well as a trained clergy. Unless opportunities for laymen were available in Baptist institutions it was feared they would be lost to other denominations which held education in greater esteem and were in step with the times. The faculty and trustees could not help but endorse these views. As early as 1866, the Catalogue had stated “The College aims to impart the largest discipline and power to the mental faculties, and thus in the best manner to prepare the student for professional studies, or for other pursuits of life.” From 1871 to 1874, the Catalogue read “By personal contact and influence, discipline of heart is sought, as well as discipline of the mind. A

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p. 156 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

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competence in teaching and his “high moral worth” made a most favorable impression, it was made permanent by request of his colleagues. He read and spoke French, German, Spanish, and Italian and had a good knowledge of Russian and Arabic. For use in his courses he produced a French grammar and reader. In 1865 the Trustees regretfully accepted his resignation. His career was to include professorships at Vassar, Yale and the University of Chicago.

Professor Ezra S. Gallup, who had taught the Classical languages since 1850, left in 1867. Newton L. Andrews, Class of 1862 and a Seminary graduate, Principal of the Grammar School since 1864 and Latin Professor since 1865, and Edward Judson, then studying in the theological department, took over Gallup’s classes. Andrews became Professor of Greek in 1868; a position he was to hold with great distinction for fifty years. Judson, son of Adoniram Judson, the noted missionary to Burma, had lived as a boy in Professor Dodge’s home and after three years in the college transferred to Brown where he graduated in 1865. He was Professor of Latin and Modern Languages at Madison from 1868 to 1874.

Three more appointments made in. 1868 completed the faculty roster: John J. Lewis, Professor of Logic and English Literature; Albert S. Bickmore, Professor of Natural History; and James M. Taylor, Instructor .in Mathematics. Lewis a former student at Madison (1860-63) and a Hamilton College alumnus of the Class of 1864, assumed part of the instruction formerly given by Professor Beebee so that the latter might devote all his time to civil and ecclesiastical history. He was an effective and highly esteemed member of the faculty until his death in 1884. Professor Bickmore, Class of 1860 at Dartmouth, had been an assistant to Louis Agassiz at Harvard and was well-known for his scientific articles and his Travels in the East Indian Archipelago. His two-year stay on the campus gave a notable impetus to instruction in science. Taylor, the last of the appointees, on graduating from-the College in 1867 had entered the Seminary where he completed the course two years later. It was in mathematics, however, that his real bent lay as his career of over fifty years as teacher and author revealed.

Most appointments to the faculty from 1850 to 1869 were made to the rank of full professor; there were exceptions-“adjunct professor,” lecturer, instructor, and tutor-for a few men who held these positions

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