Journal of Richard Austin Rice, 1878 - 1887

1881

February 20. Mr. Carter, having been elected to the Presidency of Williams College, has proposed my name to the faculty of Yale as his successor there in the professorship of German Literature. He urges me to send in all available recommendations as "there is a cabal of the older men opposed to me since I failed to maintain an oration grade when a student" and "one of the younger men who professes to be friendly to Carter's proposition is really working for himself." So far as the "oration grade" is concerned, the hayfever was mainly responsible for the loss of that. Personally, I have no keen desire to teach at Yale, but I should value the milder climate for Marion, and the nearness to my parents and our friends in Connecticut and New York City. A Yale professor of wide reputation, Louisbury, has conveyed to me his disgust at the grounds of opposition "to my name". With such men present qualifications do not count. Beyond sending a few letters to Mr. Carter from President Buckham, Professor Torrey, and Perkins (Yale '67), Mr. Ware, Mr. Phelps, and Senator Edmunds I shall do nothing in the matter.

April 30. Jim and Sallie have sailed for Liverpool on the White Star "Germania." We shall miss them much this summer.

May 10. As the "cabal" in the Yale faculty has succeeded in preventing my election, (as also that of my friend who "is working for himself"), Mr. Carter offers me the professorship of Modern Languages at Williams College, and if "I am inclined to accept", he asks me to go to Williamstown, Mass., to look the ground over, and then have an interview with him in New Haven.

I have decided to go to Williamstown tomorrow by a train, the only one leaving at eight A.M. When I told my class in Goethe's "Faust" today that I should be away over the next exercise, a deputation came to me to ask if I would allow the class to come to my house at a quarter before seven tomorrow morning so that they might not forgo the exercise in the poem. To this rather unusual proposition I naturally agreed very willingly, though at the moment I did not know when or how I was to get any breakfast.

May 16. The class was promptly on hand at the appointed time and the session was duly held. Nor did I have to shorten it more than five minutes in order to reach the train station in time for the train. Our devoted Sarah had my breakfast ready by twenty minutes past six and put up a good lunch for the journey. I arrived in Williamstown early in the afternoon, stopping overnight with professor Griffin and his wife, who is a sister of Mrs. Spencer Marsh. He was my guide about the village and introduced me to Professors Fernald and Perry. I had never been in Williamstown before except to pass near it on the railway, but this is a mile from the village in the center of which are the college buildings. These are not at all impressive, though built of stone instead of brick as at Burlington. There are three times as many students in the academic courses as in the corresponding ones in the University of Vermont and this gave a much livelier aspect to the college campus which was not unpleasing. Other contrasts were apparent. Except for a small summer colony whose houses are on the outskirts of the village, the college faculty make up the whole society, as the buildings dominate the place. The remainder seemed to exist in virtue of the college, which is not at all the fact in Burlington. Equally striking was the difference in landscape. The immediate surroundings of the College and village are much more picturesque, but there is no outlook. Hills and mountains enclose the valley and give it the effect of an irregular bowl. There is no horizon in any direction, and there can be little to compare with the glorious views from the college campus in Burlington. Owing to the change in administration I was unable to get any definite idea of the status of the college in scholarship. The new president was expected to bring in several new professors and instructors who might put more life into it, for I gathered that it was actually at a low ebb. So long as Dr. Mark Hopkins had been president, his personality had inspired generations of students to earnest effort, but President Chadbourne, his successor, had not maintained the ideals of the college very effectively, and things were "at loose ends." The students in the freshmen and sophomore classes were held to a rigid course of Latin, Greek, and Mathematics, but in the senior and junior years there had been of late a marked falling off of discipline and of scholarly interest. Where we were to live if we should decide to accept the offer of Mr. Carter was another vital question to which the answer was as vague as to the previous one. The hotel was impossible. In the two boarding houses it would be difficult to obtain sufficient room. There was one house available for rent temporarily but it might be possible, Griffin said, to preempt three or four rooms in the second story of the college dining house. With this prospect I had to be content for the present. The next morning I went to New Haven and found our house as usual filled with relatives, but there was still room for me. They were pleased to hear that we might be coming to live somewhat nearer to them. The following day I had the interview with Mr. Carter. He agreed that there should be an elective class in German during the Senior year so as to make a two-year course in that subject, though for the first year of his administration it would not begin until November. This would give me eleven hours of classroom work each week for two terms and thirteen hours for the summer term. In addition, I would be expected to take charge of college prayers one morning a week and preach at least eight times a year on Sunday mornings. For this the salary would be two thousand yearly with ten dollars extra compensation for each sermon preached in the College Chapel, making about six hundred dollars more than I am getting here. Day before yesterday I returned home and yesterday I had a talk with President Buckham. He said: "I cannot raise your salary as I cannot raise all the salaries, but apart from that what would induce you to remain with us?" I told him that my lease would expire the last day of July as the owner wished to sell the place and would not rent it any longer, that if the college would buy it, make some necessary repairs in the house, and lease it to me at a fair rental, I would stay. I felt sure it would prove a good financial investment and he agreed with me. He then went off to discuss the matter with the college treasurer. We cannot afford to buy the place ourselves and there is no other at present available on the hill near the college. It can now be had for a moderate price and as the values of real estate in this section of the city are not decreasing there can be little risk in the venture.

May 18. President Buckham has had two or three discussions with the treasurer, who is apparently vested with an independent authority by the trustees, and as he is an old and very timid man he refuses to invest the college funds in this property. Accordingly, though with many regrets for what I am leaving behind me here, I sent to President Carter today my acceptance of the offer of a professorship in Williams College. This college is so poor in annual income that there is no prospect of increase in salary. Its alumni are not active in adding to the endowment, the number of students does not grow from year to year, and the library is stationary - altogether a limited outlook for a scholar. It is probably well to move. Marion's health may be benefited by a change and she will be much nearer to her relatives in Boston, New York, and Geneva. Then at Williams, while present conditions may be little if at all superior to those in this college, the new president is bent on lifting it to a higher plane of scholarship, and has a wide acquaintance among men who he feels sure will aid in increasing the endowment. Social life will be much restricted since it is practically confined to the faculty, while here our associations have been largely with families outside the (family circle) college circle. The hardest rub will come in parting with Ware, for scarcely a day passes that does not bring us together and this signifies more than can be expressed in words.

May 26th. Miss Loomis's birthday. She intended to come over for luncheon, but as she was making herself ready her strength failed and Ware had to come alone. He told me that my Faust class wished to give me a book for remembrance and if I would make a choice he would procure it. I said I would like Alfred Sensier's "Life of J.F. Millet" just published in Paris, and he will send for it. I shall cherish it as a tangible souvenier but surely no more vivid one could have been furnished than the early morning meeting two weeks ago. We dined this evening with Mr. and Mrs. Phelps and met Dr. and Mrs. Roosa.

June 1st. Dr. Roosa is a New York oculist and is holding a clinic at the Mary Fletcher hospital for a week or more by invitation from the medical department of the University. Marion's eyes required attention and as I was with her at the examination he tested my eyes "out of curiosity," he said.

June 18. My final examinations are over, which ends my college work of six years in this place. It is a pleasant retrospect, for my students have always been willing to work beyond the requirement, and the majority of them have shown a real interest in the subjects of instruction. With a graduate, Miss D--, who had become a teacher of German, I read a year ago Goethe's "Herman and Dorothea" during her spring vacation. The kind of interpretation she desired showed her interest in the poetical quality of the work, but I wondered how much use she could make of it in a secondary school. Possibly she was hopeful of obtaining a college position.

June 26. President Buckham preached his Baccalaureate sermon, the last one I shall hear. It was, if possible, finer than ever. I have collected those that have been reported in the "Free Press" and I have urged upon some of the alumni the question of having a selection printed to form a memorial volume. To me this sermon is the event of commencement, far surpassing in interest and abiding value all the other functions.

July 2. The attempted assassination of President Garfield is the absorbing topic on the street and in the house. He is a Williams College graduate and President Carter has been expecting great benefits to accrue to the college from this fact and the influence he might exert in its behalf.

July 4. Ned Rawson has come for a visit of a fortnight.

July 19th. Now that Ned's visit is over we must begin to pack our belongings as we have to quit the house on August first.

July 22. We have made our farewell calls and our friends and acquaintances have come to say goodbye.

July 25. Marion has finished her packing and gone with little Dick and the nurse to Magnolia where I hope to join them in about two weeks. The workmen are in the house packing the furniture.

August 1. The furniture was shipped tonight to Williamstown, a freight car full of stuff. Burnap is going to take care of the dog until we are settled in our new quarters there. I am to stay with Ware till the car arrives in Williamstown.

August 4. Goodbye to Ware and Miss Loomis. Words cannot express what this means to me.

August 7. The household stuff is now unloaded and stored till the rooms I have secured are renovated. It has been a very hot period, the mercury 92 - 97 deg. each day. My room at the hotel is stifling. It was never thus in Burlington.

August 8. I came to Magnolia last night and found the family settled in pleasant rooms near Willow Cottage where we take our meals. Mr. and Mrs. Brown, old friends from Stanford, and one other acquaintance are at our table.

August 10. I have excavated a fireplace in our sitting room, which is also my workroom, and we shall have a fire on the hearth this evening. I am at work on my first sermon for the college chapel.

August 15. We are delighted with this place. The drives are most attractive and there is a safe place for Dickie to play on. The bathing we enjoy, too, though the tide generally brings in a mass of seaweed which Marion finds entangling.

September 1. I returned to Williamstown today to get our rooms into readiness for the family. We are to have three in the second story of College Hall, later in the year a fourth one will be vacated and made available for us.

September 8. Marion and Dickie, with Martha, arrived this afternoon. The college year began this morning. I have the Juniors in French and German. We have our meals at present at Professor Mears' across the street and close to the college chapel.

September 10. Dr. Charles F. Smith, also a new professor, has rooms on the same floor as ours. He is a Southern man. His wife and child will not be with him till Spring.

October 1. We have arranged to have meals served in a private room at College Hall, or the "Hash-house", as the students call it. Mr. and Mrs. Gould with their children are on the floor above us. They, along with Smith and Sam Clarke, professor of Biology, will share the dining room with us. A student is the general caterer. The service is very slow.

October 5. We have a faculty meeting almost every day, which is a great bore, but in a change of administration with which the reform of many abuses is connected, friction is to be expected, the more as there is much divergence of opinion between the old and the new men. The whole machinery goes much less smoothly here than in Burlington.

October 6. Fritz has now been sent down in his kennel from Burlington. Burnap would have liked to keep him, but we could not bear to give him up. Smith and I walk together every day and Fritz adds much to our fun.

October 12. Marion's mother and her sisters Katy and Lizzie have come for a visit and are staying at Miss Bardwell's, a boarding house on Main Street. While they remain we take our meals there also. Marion and Dickie spend the day with them.

October 15. Jim and Sallie have returned from Europe.

October 21. The news of Dr. Elster's death has just come. When I bade him goodbye the last day of April, 1875, he looked so frail it hardly seemed possible he would survive the rigors of another winter, but he has outlived all probabilities and was eighty one in May. Lena is now twenty-one and has already a good musical education. She will soon, with her mother's help, try to set up a school in music for young girls. During these six years I have had many letters from them and a few from the old doctor, who was much pleased at the fulfillment of his prediction that I would sometime become an interpreter of Goethe's "Faust". To Dr. Elster I owe more intellectually and spiritually than to any other man. He had a clearness of mental process which made his instruction convincing and most attractive, while his tolerance and idealism, his force of imagination, made him an inspiring teacher. I count the day in July, 1870, that brought me to him one of the happiest in my whole life. It belongs to the eternities.

October 26. The mother and sisters have gone to New York for a visit with Sallie. Marion and Dickie will go in about a month as our establishment is not at all comfortable for them and I shall get on more easily in the struggle for more definite standards of scholarship in the college.

November 2. I began work with the elective class of seniors in German. We are to read first a selection of Goethe's lyrical poems. There has been much opposition to the elective scheme on the part of the students and some older members of the faculty, but I think the President will win out. Ware is with us for a short visit. The weather is not agreeable for driving, but we have been able to show him a little of the picturesque possibilities of this valley. He is perfectly contented to sit quiet in our room and talk or read. He enjoys much the hours Mrs. Griffin passes with us, for she has long been one of his dearest friends.

November 10. The hours I enjoy most are those of my daily walks with Smith and my dog, who makes much sport for both of us. He is a very powerful creature, and if we throw a log into the river that is about as heavy as we two can lift, he will bring it out upon the bank wagging his tail with glee, till we throw it in again.

November 24. The Griffins and Fernalds have been most kind and attentive since our arrival in town. Today the Fernalds invited us to their Thanksgiving Day dinner. Mrs. Fernald's mother, Mrs. Lathrop, lives with them, a charming old lady. We have the usual three or four days recess at this time.

December 15. Marion and Dickie have gone to New York for a few days on their way to New Haven, where I shall join them as soon as the term's work is finished.

December 29. New Haven. Today my sister was married to Dr. William T. Sedgewick of Johns Hopkins University. He was a student in the Sheffield School here and they became engaged March 15, 1879. I have never met him but once or twice. He is a fine scholar and has a rare attractive personality. The rain fell in torrents at the time, but the house was filled with friends. Little Dick was a picture. He was dressed in white with a rose-bud pinned on his coat. His golden hair gleamed like a crown. Will and May started for Baltimore in the evening. One of the great events of the past year has been the publication of the Revised Version of the Bible. It has met with considerable criticism for its frequent lapses in literary style from the version of King James, but also with hearty welcome from those who care more for the truth than a fetish.

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