Elijah Kellogg, the Man and His Work / Chapters from His Life and Selections from His Writings

by Unknown

Thy body from thy mind unscrewed,

To bleach beneath the snow.

By hill and valley, dale and stream,

The rats shall frisk and frolic,

Crying ’Hurrah, we’ll lick the cream

Since pussy’s got the colic.’”

During the latter part of President Allen’s administration discipline was lax; intemperance prevailed to a fearful extent in college as it did in the community. There were no railroads, and people came to Commencement and remained in Brunswick till the close. It was then customary for the graduating class to set tables in the rooms in which were liquors and other refreshments, and entertain their relatives and friends. At one time there was a room in North College in which a table was set with liquors and other refreshments, and straw was put upon the floor, and over the door a sign bearing the inscription, “Entertainment for Man and Beast.” But even at that time there was a body of students composing the college church or Praying Circle, as it was termed, the greater number of whom were persons of the most decided religious character. They held meetings and taught Sabbath-schools in different parts of the town, and were in sympathy with every good work; but between them and the majority of the other students there was a line of demarcation. Each party travelled their own road, and they had little to do with one another. But after 1838 there was a change; a deep religious interest began and continued, the herald of a better day. Since that day Christian associations have exerted a salutary influence, and, like the Gulf Stream sending its warm current through the cold waters of the Atlantic, have imparted a more genial tone to the intercourse of the students. Athletic exercises have likewise laid a strong hand upon much of the time formerly devoted to more questionable recreations. Although the present furor in these sports has its dangers and the matter is liable to abuse, yet they fill the bill as nothing else ever did, and when pruned of their excrescences will become a power for good. Young men of real stamina, however full of blue veins and vitriol and however enamoured of baseball, football, and boating, and hurried to extremes for the moment, will yet recall and heed the words of Cicero who represents Milo of Crotona, the greatest athlete of ancient times, who could kill an ox with a blow of his fist, shedding idiotic tears as in his old age he looked upon his flabby skin and shrunken muscles, and wept because he could no longer contend and conquer in the Olympic games. Milo had muscle and nothing else. May it never be said of Bowdoin students that they have muscle and nothing else, and certainly not that they are destitute of it.

Great was the change when President Woods succeeded President Allen. Never will the upper classes of that year forget the day of his inauguration. When he took his stand upon the platform to deliver his address, he laid upon the table before him a manuscript as thick as a three-inch plank. A riband was passed through it, dividing it into equal parts. But he never looked at it from the beginning to the close, except that, when halfway through, he opened at the riband but made no use of it. For more than two hours, without the hesitation of a moment or the lapse of a word, he held that audience spellbound. I have never known the man who could produce the impression—and a permanent one—upon a wild boy that he could. There are many living, distinguished and beloved, and many here present who will never forget their obligations to Leonard Woods.

For a poor boy smitten with the love of knowledge to work his way through college was once a formidable task. The only methods of doing it were keeping school in the long winter vacation, manual labor as they went along, or hiring money with the result of being burdened with debt at graduation. The Education Society could do but little, and there were no scholarships as at present. I walked seventy-five miles over the frozen ground after Christmas to the Penobscot to keep school, and back again through the mud in March, because I was too poor to ride; and I had to hire a watch in Brunswick to keep school with.