The author David Foster Wallace began his commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005 with a brief didactic story. Two young fish are swimming in the water when they pass by an older fish. The older fish greets the younger pair by saying, “Morning, how’s the water?” The two fish swim onwards for a time until one of them turns to the other and says, “What the hell is water?”
The point of the parable is that, often, the most obvious realities of life are the most difficult to grasp. It is easy to miss the unchanging underpinnings of life. History — much like water — surrounds us. It is an inescapable aspect of our reality, but one just as easy to ignore. Amongst the monotony of collegiate life, the sandstone of academic and residential buildings can blur together until they are entirely detached from the rich history entwined with them. Yet, an exploration of this storied history is a deeply enriching experience. The present cannot exist without the past.
On March 5, I had the privilege of attending a talk and dinner with James Allen Smith, author of “Becoming Colgate: A Bicentennial History.” Smith, who graduated from Colgate University in 1970, wrote the book to honor the 200th anniversary of the University’s founding. In 400 pages, Smith traces Colgate from its founding as a Baptist literary and theological institute to its modern status as a preeminent liberal arts college.
The date of Smith’s talk serves as a meaningful anniversary for Colgate University. On March 5, 1819, the New York State assembly granted a charter for the institution. However, Smith does not begin his bicentennial history on that date. Instead, he traces the roots of Colgate back to its very geological formation. His history begins with the line, “before there was a college, there was a hill.” The hill began to solidify two and a half million years ago as glaciers melted and receded – leaving behind peaks and valleys.
In 1794, Samuel Payne began to shape the hill that would become Colgate University. As a marker on the academic quad outside Alumni Hall notes, it was reportedly on that spot where Payne felled the first tree as he cleared the land. Payne would become forever enshrined in Colgate’s historical lore when he met with a group of 12 other men at the Olmstead House to establish a university. If there is one historical phrase Colgate students are likely to know, it is the one that describes a fateful meeting on Sept. 24, 1817: “thirteen men, thirteen dollars, thirteen prayers.”
As the poetic adage suggests, the circumstances of Colgate’s founding drastically differ from the present condition of the university. Colgate weathered a variety of crises to attain its current form. In 1847, five of seven faculty members and two-thirds of the student body opted to separate from the university in Hamilton to form the University of Rochester. In the separatists’ opinion, the growing city of Rochester, N.Y., provided a more promising location for the university. Only through a series of legal injunctions and the dedication of the town of Hamilton was the university able to remain in existence. Additionally, the university has weathered a civil war and two world wars, each of which drastically diminished its student body. Each time, through rugged determination, a committed town of Hamilton and strong leadership, Colgate has endured.
In his well-researched and eloquently written style, Smith highlights a variety of continuities and discontinuities throughout the history of the university. The university has held three names: The Hamilton Literary and Theological Institute, Madison University and finally Colgate University. It once was composed of three separate institutions: a college, a seminary and a grammar school. Only the college remains. Similarly, the curriculum has greatly changed over the years. Early courses focused on religious education, necessary for a career as a minister and the classic languages of Greek and Latin. However, even here, continuity exists. The core curriculum ensures that all students have some sort of uniformity and many still read Plato’s dialogues (even if not in the original Greek). Similarly, Colgate students have always been passionate and dedicated to their academic pursuits. Many of the earliest students became missionaries and traveled as far as Burma (now Myanmar), a precursor to the variety of academic travel and post-graduate work that Colgate students pursue today.
The most tangible symbols of this deep history lie in the architecture of the campus itself. The first buildings, East Hall, West Hall and Alumni Hall, were all built with sandstone gathered from the quarry at the summit of the hill. Taylor Lake was constructed from a marshland at the bottom of the hill, adjacent to Payne Creek. In the 1890s, efforts to beautify the campus added a bridge and a willow path over the creek. Under the guidance of Professor James Taylor and architect Ernest W. Bowditch, a carefully manicured Oak Lane was established to welcome visitors and students alike to the hill.
For over two centuries, students have walked the paths up the hill pursuing an education. As I walk along these paths today, I try to remember those who have come before me. As I glimpse the golden dome of the chapel, the sandstone gathered from the quarry or the hills receding in the distance, I contemplate the dedication necessary to create Colgate. I would encourage every student to read Smith’s comprehensive history during their time on campus, and I hope that it proves to be as enriching an experience as it has been for me.
Like Wallace’s metaphorical water, history is deeply intertwined with the collegiate experience. I find that the more I read about the institution itself, the deeper my appreciation for Colgate becomes. Perhaps Colgate’s fourth president, Ebenezer Dodge, most eloquently summarized the grandeur of the university. In 1868, nearing the institution’s 50th anniversary, he recalled a couplet that had often been repeated in the literary societies: “and so to this valley is graciously given / a little of earth and a great deal of heaven.”
