Tag Archives: Ralph W. Thomas

p. 252 – The Merrill Presidency, 1899-1908

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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-

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p. 240 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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First University Band, 1895.
First band, 1895

behavior. The Executive Committee informed the Trustees in December 1893 that the students on the athletic field “have conducted themselves in a manner which has reflected credit upon our institution, and the interest in athletics has helped the general tone of college life.” Many Colgate supporters regarded achievements in sports as especially valuable for enhancing the University’s reputation.

Other enterprises for making Colgate more widely known enlisted considerable faculty and student support. Professor Thomas was particularly active in several. He aided students in 1892 in organizing a Press Club to supply newspapers with stories on all phases of campus life and, incidentally, to give the undergraduates journalistic experience. He took the lead in establishing the Department of University Extension (1892-96) as a part of the New York State educational system to  provide neighboring communities with lecture courses taught by the faculty. With Professors Thurber, Taylor, and a Norwich printer, he formed the Colgate University Press in 1894 which in its less than two-year existence published the Salmagundi and Colgate Catalogues, among other items. Professor Brigham initiated a series of

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p. 228 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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that the teacher of English literature should stress appreciation rather than scientific critical analysis and that he should not rest satisfied until his students began to love and appreciate the best the writers have to offer. Much of his approach he explained in his little book, The Interpretation of Literature (1896).

Professor Thomas had been appointed Registrar and Librarian in 1892 and continued in those positions after assuming his teaching duties a year later. An alumnus of Madison in the Class of 1883, he had taught at the Albany Academy while studying law and being admitted to the bar; subsequently he took graduate work in English at Columbia and returned to Albany as Chief Regents Examiner in English for the University of the State of New York. His instruction in public speaking was most effective and won wide commendation.

Professor Terry introduced a rich variety of offerings in history and they were continued under his successors, George W. Smith and Charles W. Spencer. Professor Spencer was in effect the spiritual ancestor of the modern Social Science Division, having taught all but one of its disciplines, i.e., education, and having instituted three: economics, political science, and sociology. By training a historian, he was a graduate of Colby College and had studied at Chicago and Columbia, where he was to take a Ph.D. in American Colonial History in 1905.

The Department of Philosophy emerges as an entity in 1890 with Professors Andrews, Beebee, and Burnham giving instruction, part of which had been in the province of the late Dr. Dodge. Two years later the first “Professor of Philosophy” was appointed, Ferdinand C. French, a Brown alumnus and a Cornell Ph. D. During his brief two-year tenure (he was to return for two subsequent periods) he introduced a course in the history of modern philosophy. French’s successor was Melbourne S. Read, a graduate of Acadia College, Nova Scotia, and also a Ph.D. from Cornell. In addition to philosophy he taught psychology and education.

With the completion of the gymnasium required academic courses in physiology and hygiene consisting of textbook reading and lectures were instituted. The instructor, George W. Banning, first Director of the Gymnasium, had studied at the YMCA College in Springfield, Mass., and had an M.D. from Columbia. His experience included appointments as director of gymnasiums and athletic programs and as baseball and football coach for city YMCAs and two large New York

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p. 227 – Colgate in the 1890’s

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Wyoming County village in the western part of the state and later his teacher at Madison. Following graduation in 1879, and study in the Seminary and ordination, he served churches in Stillwater and Utica. In 1888 he published a study of the geology of Oneida County and the next year joined the Harvard Summer School of Geology on a field trip in the Genesee Valley and the Catskills. This experience caused him to decide on his new vocation. In preparation for his duties at Colgate he took a year of graduate work at Harvard where his teachers included the famous William S. Shaler and William M. Davis and where he received his Master’s degree in 1892. “Brig” brought to his new position industry, enthusiasm, energy, imagination and was to demonstrate “unsurpassed ability in the portrayal of his subject and the stimulation” of his students. They gave him their best efforts and warm affection. He stressed field trips as an especially rewarding method for studying the rich variety of geological formations of the Hamilton area. Laboratory work, likewise, was emphasized and he was active in building up the museum collection of rocks and minerals. Somehow he found time for research and writing and by 1899 he had published 17 articles and syllabi. Brigham’s close associate in his department was Wayland M. Chester, ’94, who had earned a Master’s degree in 1896 under his direction and who taught the courses in Biology.

The increased attention being given to modern languages led to the appointment of Robert W. Moore in 1890 to give full time to teaching German and French. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he had studied a year at Strassburg and Berlin before coming to Colgate. For him the purpose of language instruction was to develop reading ability and to give the student background in literary history and the life and customs of the people; any conversational proficiency gained seems to have been incidental. He built up a large collection of stereoptican slides to supplement his lectures.

When Professor Ralph W. Thomas, appointed in 1893, took over instruction in public speaking and rhetoric, Professor Crawshaw was free to pursue his real interest, literature. “Craw” ranks with Brigham as one of the outstanding teachers of his generation, one whom his students held in high esteem which sometimes verged on awe, especially if they had not seen his “human side.” Without the advantages of graduate study, he had acquired a vast knowledge in his field from reading and travel which enriched his lectures and writings. He held

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