Zoölogy, Professor Phillips in Greek, not to mention others. Professor Hopkins built, largely at his own expense, the first astronomical observatory permanently connected with a college; and much interest was awakened in natural history. While the institution experienced some uncomfortable vicissitudes between 1836 and 1872, particularly in 1841, when East College burned down, and again in 1861, when the Civil War broke out and the number of students fell off to an alarming extent, yet on the whole there was gratifying progress in material equipment, in the corps of instructors, and in public recognition.
If the election of Dr. Hopkins to the presidency made an epoch in the history of the college, his retirement had no less significance. He was not the sort of man for whom successors can be readily found. "None of us will ever see his like," said President Carter at his funeral. To succeed a leader whose unique genius had constituted so large a part of the college was no easy matter, and to succeed him in a period of transition when great changes were afoot in the educational world aggravated the difficulty. Professor Paul A. Chadbourne undertook the task and struggled with it for nine years. He was a man of many accomplishments, alert, enthusiastic, and wholly confident in his own resources. As a teacher he ranked easily among the best. His lectures, though they may not have gone much below the surface, never failed to be interesting or to furnish students with good working outlines. He entered upon the task of reorganizing and readjusting the college with characteristic zeal and assurance, and certainly did service of no small importance. Yet his success was abridged by a certain restlessness of mind which seemed to drive him from one thing to another, which prevented the concentration and continuity of effort that all difficult enterprises demand. He performed the office, and ordinarily it is not a particularly comfortable one, of connecting link between the old and the new.
The administration of President Carter began in 1882. Since that event, in the twelve years which have elapsed, the resources of the college have been greatly enlarged in every direction, — the entire sum of money raised for it being not less than $1,000,000. Seven new buildings have been erected, — the Field Memorial Observatory, the Gymnasium, Morgan Hall, Hopkins Hall, and the three Thompson Laboratories, — while large additions have been made to the general fund. And there has been a corresponding increase of students. During the administration of President Fitch the average number of graduates was 22; of President Moore, 15; of President Griffin, 21; of President Hopkins, 41; of President Chadbourne, 34; of President Carter, 51. In the catalogue of 1880 there are eleven names on the faculty list; in that of 1893 there are thirty.
The college begins the second century of its existence under conditions very different from those that surrounded it a hundred years ago. It is no longer in the wilderness. The isolation has been gradually giving way. In 1846 the railroad had come within five miles of it, and in 1859 it reached the village itself. The community, which consisted for nearly seventy-five years of the town and college, each living its own life and having little to do with the other, has been enlarged by the advent of summer residents, whose pleasant villas dot the landscape here and there. President Fitch thought that the profound seclusion of his day was "highly favorable to the improvement and morals of the youth," and he hoped that the same "happy consequence would be experienced "through every successive generation of students." Whatever the effect may be of throwing a college community back upon itself so completely as was the case at Williams, — and doubtless much that was helpful resulted from it, — that state of things no longer exists. The institution, so far as its location is concerned, has the advantages and disadvantages of a country town whose beautiful scenery attracts hundreds of visitors in the summer and whose wealth of geologic formations has attracted more attention from the United States Geologic Survey
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