Tag Archives: Walter R. Brooks

p. 226 – Colgate in the 1890’s

Posted on June 14, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 226 – Colgate in the 1890’s

ship to each other. Students and a majority of the faculty accepted the more flexible curriculum with enthusiasm. On the basis of a careful statistical study, Professor Brigham concluded in 1897 that the students had not abused it by taking a large number of easy courses and that they kept their programs in balance without heavy specialization in a few departments.

Disturbed by the extent of cribbing in examinations, the students of the College persuaded the faculty in 1895 to adopt an honor system which lasted for two years. Unsatisfactory implementation for its enforcement seems to explain abandoning the experiment. It was not to be revived until nearly a decade later when campus sentiment, in line with that in other colleges, once again favored its re-adoption.

Graduate study won only slight faculty endorsement, particularly in view of the limited library and laboratory facilities and the demands of the undergraduate program. The faculty, however, was at pains to encourage able students, especially those expecting to teach, or to go into science, to take advanced courses in the large universities.

The subject matter and instruction of the science departments seemed to be increasingly attractive and relevant to students. Ernest Fox Nichols, fresh from graduate study at Cornell, followed Dr. Osborn in the Physics Department from 1892 to 1898. A very able research scholar, he was responsible for purchasing several pieces of apparatus for the department and for introducing laboratory work which he felt to be of particular value for training in “accuracy of observation, the power of close and exact reasoning, and a discrimination in judging the weight which each cause shall have in making up the main result.” His successor, Clement D. Child, with a Ph.D. from Cornell, came to Colgate in 1898 to carryon in the Nichols pattern. Professor McGregory’s chemistry courses drew such large enrollments that he turned to promising young graduates for instructors or assistants, some of whom were to have eminent careers in the field. Among them were: Edward Ellery, ’90; John B. Ekeley, ’91; and Thomas J. Bryan, ’93.

Albert Perry Brigham, geologist and geographer, began his eminent career at Colgate as teacher and scholar in 1892 when he took over the Department of Geology and Natural History. As a boy in Perry, New York, he came under the decisive influence of “a nature-loving and nature-knowing preacher,” Walter R. Brooks, then pastor in that

Comments Off on p. 226 – Colgate in the 1890’s

Posted in Chapter 11, Colgate in the 1890's, p. 226

Tagged , , , , ,

p. 207 – Student Life, 1869-1890

Posted on June 14, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 207 – Student Life, 1869-1890

lenged. In 1878 the Democrats objected to their voting and three were arrested. On the grounds that they had severed their connections with their former homes and lived in Hamilton and supported themselves by their own efforts and with scholarship assistance it was later held they met the residence qualifications for the franchise. With the approach of presidential elections students organized their own political clubs and in one campaign, at least, went out stump-speaking for their candidates.

Townspeople and most of the students and faculty attended the regular Sunday service at the Baptist Church; classes of the three divisions of the University had their assigned seats in the gallery. The pastors of the period-Walter R. Brooks, James M. Stiller, Stephen H. Stackpole and William Newton Clarke-were popular with the stu-

First Baptist Church c. 1900, Hamilton History 2, Folder 62, p207

Comments Off on p. 207 – Student Life, 1869-1890

Posted in Chapter 10, p. 207, Student Life, 1869-1890

Tagged , , ,

p. 195 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

Posted on June 14, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 195 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

theology, pastoral theology and homiletics. During the 1880’s, innovations began to reflect the new Biblical criticism and the interpretations of leading scholars both within and outside the Baptist denomination. There was renewed stress on the languages of the Bible by Professor Burnham, a specialist in Old Testament Hebrew, and by Professor Nathaniel Schmidt, also an expert in Biblical Greek and the Semitic languages, who joined the faculty in 1888. A native-born Swede, he had attended Stockholm University and in 1884-87 he studied at the Seminary where Dr. Dodge’s liberal attitudes had profoundly shaped his own views.

Professor Burnham, a Bowdoin graduate in 1862, had studied at Heidelberg, Gottingen, and Leipzig. He had also been a pastor and was closely associated with William Rainey Harper in the field of Old Testament scholarship. One student remembered that “His raven locks and beard, his large features, his vigor of body, mind and spirit, made him a veritable Elijah as he stood before his classes.” By the middle ’80’s he seems to have arrived at the position of constructive criticism of the orthodox view. In less than a decade, however, he was to take the role of the conservative in a bitter dispute with his younger associate, Professor Schmidt.

The advances of science were not overlooked in the Seminary. In 1887-88 Dr. Brooks gave a series of lectures on the relations of science and religion and after his death, his widow maintained the series in his memory until 1900. Dr. Alexander Winchell, eminent geologist of the University of Michigan who had been expelled from Vanderbilt University some years previously for his liberal views, lectured in 1889 and in 1890; his topics included: “The Place of Man in Creation” and “The Theistic Interpretation of Evolution.” So great an impression did he make that the Seminary faculty in 1891, on learning of his death, extended condolences to the President of the University of Michigan and noted his passing as “a most serious loss to the cause of religion & science.”

A sign in the direction of liberalization is to be found in a statement which first appeared in 1885 in a Seminary Catalogue that the object of instruction “has been, not to impress a common stamp upon the minds of its students, but to secure the best development of individual power consecrated to Christ.” The Trustees of the Baptist Education

Comments Off on p. 195 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

Posted in Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era, Chapter 9, p. 195

Tagged ,

p. 190 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

Posted on June 14, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 190 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

Colgate Years: “It might almost be said we were being swept along by a restless current and that we dragged our oars once in a while to keep from being carried too fast or too far.”

Madison University experienced no serious conflicts between science and religion. ;President Dodge, though primarily a theologian, kept up with the broad outlines of current scientific trends. His attitude profoundly affected the intellectual climate of the campus making it hospitable to :new data and theories.

The senior science professor, Lucien M. Osborn, who at various times taught; physics, astronomy, and chemistry, was a profoundly religious man. He saw science as revealing the Creator’s hand and inspired his students with his own reverential but undogmatic approach. His course in astronomy, taught with a rather simple telescope, met with their enthusiastic approbation.

The appointment of Professor McGregory to the new chemistry chair in 1883 and the construction of a building for his department mark a major; advance in science teaching. An Amherst graduate in the Class of 1880, he proved to be an ideal man for the position which he was to hold for 46 years. His qualifications included, in addition to membership in the Baptist church, a thorough grounding in science at Amherst, two years experience as a chemistry instructor at his Alma Mater, and study at Gottingen and Heidelberg where his professors included H. Huebner and Victor Meyer. He had an aptness for teaching, and an understanding and affection for students. When he met his classes in the fall of 1884, after an additional year of graduate work in Germany, he at once won their admiration. Though the laboratory facilities of the new building were not to be available for nearly six months, the students found that their new professor enlivened a subject they had expected would be dull and soon it became one of the most highly regarded in the curriculum. In discussing the role of his department in 1893, Professor McGregory stated that all branches of science should be viewed as parts of a liberal education. He had no desire, he said, to make the college in any way a scientific school but stressed thorough instruction and a broad foundation as preparation for graduate study elsewhere. Many of his students were to prove the soundness of this approach as they moved on into eminence in chemistry and related fields.

For Dr. Walter R. Brooks, former pastor of the First Baptist Church

Comments Off on p. 190 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

Posted in Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era, Chapter 9, p. 190

Tagged ,

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

Posted on June 14, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 188 – Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era

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

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

Posted in Administration, Faculty, and Instruction in the Dodge Era, Chapter 9, p. 188

Tagged , ,

p. 161 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

Posted on May 3, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 161 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

The Steward also provided furnishings and bedding for the dormito­ry rooms until the late ’50’s; the occupants were left to supply wood or coal for their stoves and tallow· candles and sperm oil lamps for illumination. Flowers and plants, occasionally found in the windows, afforded a homelike touch. Bathing facilities consisted bf a bath house to which spring water was piped down the hill. In winter some Spartan youths took morning showers in the ice-cold water, roaring with pain at the shock, and then wrapped in overcoats, they dashed to their warm rooms to recover.

To relieve the tedium of study in the long winter months, there were innocent amusements such as skating on the Chenango Canal, coasting, or bees to fill the Steward’s ice-house, followed by a savory supper. In summer, students took long walks, often stopping to pick strawberries, or went on brief camping trips to nearby ponds. Then, too, there were opportunities throughout the year for the companionship of the young ladies in the Hamilton Female Seminary, or “Ham Fem Sem” as it was popularly known, which local citizens had established in 1856. Its receptions were social highlights to which the young men eagerly sought invitations and reciprocated by taking the girls to campus events such as the literary societies’ public exhibitions and baseball games. Some village homes, especially Deacon Charles C. Payne’s, welcomed the boys from the Hill. They also found diversion and stimulation at public lectures by such noted men as Emerson, Beecher, Gough, and George William Curtis.

The pronounced religious atmosphere which had pervaded campus life from the 1820’s moderated somewhat after 1850 as a result of the growing number of non-ministerial students and of outside pressures, particularly the issues which led to the Civil War and the effects of that conflict. Most students were church members, however, and participated in prayer meetings and other religious exercises; the Students Association annually elected a theologue to deliver a sermon at one of its assemblies. With the dissolution of the Seminary Church in 1851, all members of the University attended morning services with the village Baptist congregation and shared in their five stirring re­vivals in the ’50’s and ’60’s. Frequently the faculty supplied the pulpit, but Walker R. Brooks, pastor from 1856 to 1873, made the most profound intellectual and spiritual impression. William Newton Clarke, Class of 1861, who was to become one of the most eminent theologians of the Baptists, once said that sometimes as he sat in the

Comments Off on p. 161 – Recovery and expansion, 1850-1869

Posted in Chapter 8, p. 161, Recovery and Expansion, 1850-1869

Tagged , , , , ,