Tag Archives: Stephen W. Taylor

First gymnasium (p. 223)

Posted on June 14, 2012 by | Comments Off on First gymnasium (p. 223)
Old Gymnasium, A1000-45 Folder 11, p223

enthusiasm ground was broken on May 13th, 1893, on a site where the present James C. Colgate Student Union now stands, and on June 18th, 1894, the building was dedicated.

To accommodate the four Academy fraternities the University in 1891 purchased the home of the late President Stephen W. Taylor which he had built about 1840 “with such careful oversight that local wits insisted that he inspected personally every brick that went into its making.” Reconditioning it involved removing an east wing, converting the interior into four large rooms-two on each floor-and adding broad porches on the front and back. Known as Taylor Hall, it was used by the Academy fraternities until 1912 when it became the YMCA student center, and later was converted to a campus post office and subsequently faculty club.

The faculty of the University increased from 23 in 1890 to 27 in 1899; the number in the College had grown from 11 to 13 and in both

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p. 154 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

Posted on May 3, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 154 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

Gallup, a member of the Class of 1843 and a Seminary graduate. Eaton shared the Theological Department with Turney and taught intellectual and moral philosophy in the College. Spear became Professor of Hebrew and Latin and Gallup held the chair of Greek. William T. Biddle, Class of 1859, remembered as the leader in organizing students opposed to Removal and who was now preparing for a missionary career, was appointed tutor in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy for one year. The Trustees also retained Dr. William Mather to lecture in chemistry and geology.

The ablest of the new staff was Beebee. Though originally called to teach logic and English literature he subsequently had classes in sacred rhetoric and ecclesiastical and civil history. As a young man he attracted attention with his handsome strong features, keen eyes, and brown curly hair. Students in the ’50’s, particularly those underclassmen whose stumbling recitations sorely tried his patience, feared him as no other professor. His relations with students improved with the years though the undergraduates always held him in awe. His sensitivity to the correct use of language made taking an essay or oration to him for criticism an ordeal to be remembered. Vulgarity or unrestrained humor in his classes he refused to tolerate. “To lead the student on with alluring gentleness and graceful tact, or to burn out his dross with consuming fire, was equally within his power. He was a master of sarcasm but never used it to hurt.”

President Taylor, in his capacity as Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, took over Tutor Biddle’s classes in 1851. At the President’s request, Lucien M. Osborn was brought in to assist in mathematics and to have charge of the Preparatory Department, or Grammar School. A classmate of Professor Beebee’s and for one year a student in the Seminary, he had been principal of the Hamilton and Morrisville Academies. Except for the brief experience as disciplinary officer under President Eaton, his main interest was natural science. He was a very modest man and pitched his instruction at a rather elementary level. His course in astronomy inspired students with “the majesty of the Author of nature and life.” One of them also remembered the exceptionally high spiritual tone he imparted to the chapel services which he occasionally conducted.

The most noteworthy of the post-Removal faculty was Ebenezer Dodge. His selection in 1853 to succeed Edmund Turney as Professor

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Stephen W. Taylor become first formal president (p. 142)

Posted on May 3, 2012 by | Comments Off on Stephen W. Taylor become first formal president (p. 142)

As their first step in rebuilding the University, the two sets of Trustees in August, 1850, jointly appointed new faculty members to work with Professors Eaton and Spear to ensure that instruction would be provided in the autumn without interruption and made announce­ments to that effect in the press. It was with much anxiety, however, that the friends of Hamilton awaited the new academic year. When faculty and students assembled on the 24th of October at the ringing of the chapel bell, both were conscious that this was no ordinary beginning of a fall term. To their great satisfaction, however, they discovered that thirty-three young men were present and that this group included representatives of all classes of the collegiate, theological, and academic departments. Immensely cheered, they listened to appropriate remarks by Professor Eaton and joined in a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving. The auspices for recovery were more favorable than anyone had dared hope.

Though now assured of a student body and a faculty with which to resume operations, Madison University sorely needed a vigorous and wise executive, not only to direct affairs on the campus but also to restore the confidence of former patrons. There had been no such leader since illness and death removed Nathaniel Kendrick’s steadying hand. In Stephen W. Taylor, who was then, in effect President of the University at Lewisburg (Bucknell), the Trustees found a man mea­suring up to the requirements of the office.

Taylor’s career in shaping the nascent Pennsylvania institution had not belied his reputation for practical common sense and indomitable energy, gained as a member of the faculty at Hamilton from 1834 to 1845. On being invited in August 1850, to return as Professor of Mathematics and Natural History, he declined, but gave some hope that he would consider a call to the Presidency. Knowing that no formal provision existed for the office, he insisted that its duties and salary be specified and that he have unanimous Trustee and faculty approval. He had no intention of stepping into a situation where divisive elements were at work nor was he a man to tolerate them should they germinate. He understood rather completely the painful history of the last few years and recognized that united support for its leader was essential to the University’s recovery.

Agreeable to Dr. Taylor’s stipulations, the Trustees on February 6, 1851, created the office of President of Madison University and asked him to take it and the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy at

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p. 140 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

Posted on May 3, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 140 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

Chapter VIII – RECOVERY AND EXPANSION 1850-1869

As the embers of the Removal Controversy cooled, the friends of Madison University turned their energy to repairing the serious damage which that intense and bitter conflict had done. Under Stephen W. Taylor’s vigorous presidency, 1851-56, they achieved for it a large measure of recovery. His successor, George W. Eaton, who served from 1856 to 1868, though not so strong a leader, brought the institution through the Civil War years with comparatively slight dislocation. During Eaton’s tenure also, resources and facilities so expanded that the university in 1869, under President Ebenezer Dodge, had every expectation of prosperity and usefulness greater than it had experienced during its first half century.

In the interim between August 1850, when the Anti-Removalists gained control of the University and the Education Society’s Boards, and Taylor’s assumption of office a year later, Professors Eaton and Spear acted as temporary executives. The one “kept his hand upon the helm and his eye upon the starless heavens, the other stood guard over the treasury and cargo.” Final authority and responsibility, of course, rested with the Trustees. Professor Spear, Secretary of both Boards, complained that the Removalist Trustees delayed resigning until August, 1850, even though the injunction against removal had been granted three months previously, because until they should do so and permit the friends of Hamilton to have control, no arrangements for the next year could be made.

The new Trustees, all solid, substantial business men from Hamilton or vicinity, represented the conservative element among the Baptists loyal to Madison University. They and their associates could be expected to perpetuate it with little deviation from the pattern followed hitherto. The President of the Board from 1850 to 1864 was Henry

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p. 76 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

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Fairfield, New York, gave his course of lectures in chemistry, both on the Hill and at the Hamilton Academy. Professor Taylor took over chemistry instruction in 1843. Astronomy always had a place in the curriculum throughout this period, but geology and mineralogy seem to have been offered only in 1836. A course in biology based on William Smellie’s Philosophy of Natural History was given from 1833 to 1835.

Unfortunately, when Professor Taylor had gotten the work in science nicely developed he resigned and recent graduates added to the faculty as tutors attempted to carry on in his place. The students resented this makeshift arrangement which was to last until the 1850’s.

The quality of instruction in the Institution’s two-year preparatory course proved to be so good in the mid-’40’s that the Hamilton Academy, which a decade before had been rated second in the state by the Board of Regents, suffered severely from the competition. The office of principal was abolished in 1838 and the regular faculty assumed responsibility for the elementary work in their respective fields and either conducted classes themselves or directed advanced students who served as assistants.

The eight-year course embracing the three departments of the Institution had no counterpart. Professor Raymond wrote of it in the Society’s Annual Report in 1842:

 

The organization is certainly unique-strikingly so. Its precise model is not to be found, we believe, in any other school, secular or religious, at home or abroad. But the Board…did not feel bound by existing models. Their eye was fixed on the specific wants of our own zion; and, while they were not negligent of, the lights of experience or unsolicitous to secure the counsels of the wise, their measures were all finally adopted with exclusive reference to those wants. The result of many years anxious and prayerful deliberation, of very many distinct and cautious and (almost invariably). unanimous decisions, is before us in the plan of the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution- a place so manifestly the work of Divine Providence and so susceptible of justification in all its essential features, that we think none but the most ureflecting could condemn it on the irrelevant, ground of non-conformity to institutions formed under different circumstances for different ends.

The efforts of the faculty and trustees to build up the library failed to advance with the development and improvement of the curriculum. At the Education Society’s annual meeting in 1833 William Colgate

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p. 71 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 71 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

country for his violent and dramatic sermons which swayed thousands. His lurid admonition to the unregenerate that sinners would have to plow the hottest regions of hell with a shingle and two bobtailed rats is still remembered in Hamilton. Following his graduation from the Institution in 1824, he had introduced his revival methods among Baptist churches with great success. In 1835 he returned to the village to locate his family while he went out to preach wherever his services were requested. The large amount of property he was acquiring in the work of “saving souls” as well as his spectacular technique excited considerable comment and criticism among Baptists and non-Baptists alike. When he asked the local church in 1843 to grant him a letter of commendation that his standing might be assured in the denomination, the storm broke. Fiery Professor Maginnis, motivated by disapproval of Knapp’s preaching methods and for personal reasons, led those who objected to granting the letter. Out of this issue developed involved investigations and bitter discussions of Knapp’s character and behavior which were protracted over six months. When finally the church by a vote of 32 to 16 gave Knapp their approbation, all the faculty save Professor Taylor were found in the minority.

While the uproar was subsiding, Dr. Kendrick wrote ambiguously to a friend that the faculty had objected neither to Knapp’s success as a revivalist nor to the methods he employed so long as his meetings were “properly conducted.” The professors had tried to do their duty when the case was before the church and now that it was over they would “leave the whole affair with things that are behind.”*Some of the Trustees of the Education Society had “considered the propriety & practibility of forming a church in the Seminary” and a few months after the Knapp case the Board recommended that the faculty take such a step. Accordingly, in September 1845, they and their families withdrew in a body from the village church to establish their own on the Hill. Professor Taylor whose stand in the Knapp case had not differed from that of his colleagues had avoided the embarrassment by resigning in the spring.

The professors and their families, Deacon Seneca B. Burchard, President of the Education Society Trustees, and his wife, both of whom had also left the village church, and one student, gathered on a snowy Sabbath in Professor Raymond’s classroom, and formally orga-

*Nathaniel Kendrick to James Edmunds, New York, N.Y., Mar. 7, 1845.

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p. 62 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 62 – The expanded program, 1833-1846

natural philosophy to ecclesiastical and civil history, intellectual and moral philosophy, or theology, as the needs of the curriculum dictated; he seemed to be at home with each. His tall commanding figure, kind, demonstrative nature, gracious manner, and ready anecdote or biting sarcasm attracted and held attention. A clear memory and natural eloquence made him an apt and forceful speaker, while his facile pen gave his ideas expression equally vigorous.

Students liked to have Eaton speak at their gatherings. One of his best addresses, The Duty and Rewards of Original Thinking, he gave at a literary, society meeting in 1841. In a practical and forthright approach to his subject he urged the members to throwaway intellectual crutches and think “independently of direct aid from other minds.” Anyone resigning his thinking to “authorities,” Eaton felt, dishonored God and his own lofty nature as a rational being. The student whose compositions were mere compilations from books and lectures was “nothing more than a cistern, if not a broken one; for the contents which he has gathered from outward sources can be exhausted and leave him empty and dry…” Original intellectual activity, he maintained, yielded rich rewards in personal respect and dignity and in power over other men. Even today most of the address would be stimulating advice for a college community.

Stephen W. Taylor, who had distinguished himself by bringing order out of chaos in the Preparatory Department after his appointment as principal in 1834, succeeded Eaton as Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy four years later. A native of Massachusetts and valedictorian, of the Class of 1817 at Hamilton College, he came to the Institution after several years’ experience as head of the Lowville Academy, Lowville, New York. By nature and inclination a poet, he suppressed his aesthetic tendencies in the interest of mathematics and science, fields which he thoroughly mastered. A born teacher, he had a way of dealing with boys by which he enforced discipline and yet at the same time retained their affection. One alumnus recalled:

I used to regard him as the most perfect model for young men forming a character, and I still think no one can imitate his regularity, promptness and rigid division & improvement of time without being a hundredfold better prepared for the stern duties of life….*

When he resigned in 1845 despite the unanimous wish of the Trustees,

*Ira, J. Stoddard, Nowgong, Assam, to Eastern Association, Aug. 11, 1851.

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14 accepted for ministerial training (p. 14)

Posted on March 15, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Meanwhile, the Executive Committee had been receiving several applications for assistance from young men desiring ministerial training. By May, 1820, fourteen had been accepted as beneficiaries of the Society, that is, all or part of their expenses were paid out of its treasury. Since the Society did not yet have its own institution, they studied with Hascall, Kendrick, Clark, and the Rev. Elon Galusha in Whitesboro.

With the selection of Hamilton as the site for the school, it became necessary to obtain a full-time instructor. The Executive Committee sought in vain to engage at least three of the most promising young men in the denomination, one of whom, Stephen W. Taylor, some years later, became an outstanding teacher and president of their institution as well as the first executive officer of Lewisburg (Bucknell) University. The Committee finally fell back on Daniel Hascall “whose services thus far have been acceptable.” With ten young men, he began formal instruction on May 1st, 1820. Meeting in the third story over the Hamilton Academy, erected by the citizens of the village as per their agreement, Hascall, his students, and classroom represented the embodiment of the ideal cherished by the founders of the Education Society since 1817.

Colgate University had now come into being, though in a form vastly different from that of 1969. The first stage in its development was over. Daniel Hascall, Nathaniel Kendrick and their associates on the Executive Committee could report that though they were conscious “of a want of wisdom, to manage with any correctness, the unadjusted and complicated concerns of this infant Institution” they had “been much encouraged in the belief, that God has hitherto made it the care of his fostering providence.”*

* Baptist Education Society, Annual Report, 1820, 3, 7.

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