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1889
and 1890: The Two Missing Classes
Written
by Charles Francis Clark, ’91 in 1948. The class of ’91 had six
graduates. In 1948 only Clark and W. H. Jordan were still living. Clark
wrote this document to explain what happened at Coe in the late 1880’s.
Many people in recent years have wondered why
there were no Coe graduates in 1889 or 1890. Perhaps a record of the
reason should be made while two or three of us who were in school at
that time still survive.
Coe College was incorporated in 1881 and Dr.
Stephen Phelps became the first President, setting until September,
1887, when he resigned and Dr. James Marshall took his place. I do not
recall, even if I ever knew, what was the reason of the change. Dr.
Phelps was a very lovable character and had the affection of all of his
students and no one could have taken his place.
I might digress at this time to relate an
incident which took place in November, 1884, when Grover Cleveland was
elected President of the United States. The Democratic students were
greatly in the minority, but they got up early and decorated Old Main
with flags in commemoration of the victory. The stairway to the roof
led from the third floor, between the western part of Old Main, which
was then the college library, and the eastern part, which was the
chapel. Dr. Phelps was still in the fifties, but his hair and beard
were as white as the driven snow. He was a man of slight stature and
when the struggle began to remove the objectionable flags, the students
on both sides, all of whom were larger physically than he, simply
pushed him to one side. A fierce struggle ensued, but resulted in the
Republican students removing the objectionable flags. Quite a struggle
took place on the roof to secure the flags and it is wonderful that
there were no casualties.
Dr. Marshall came on the campus in September
of 1887. Prior to that time he had been the head of a girls’ school or
ladies’ academy somewhere in the East. He believed in discipline with a
capitol “D”. He was never known to have smiled, but always looked at
the students with a fierce frown over his glasses. His beard was
trimmed in the manner which we see in the ancient pictures when
Sennacherib was King of Assyria. His hair hung down in carefully curled
ringlets which might have been the envy of any of the ladies of that
time.
One of the first mornings that he came upon
the campus, he saw a sight which filled him with horror. It was a
beautiful September morning and eight or ten young people of both sexes
were seated or standing and visiting at the entrance of Old Main, then
the only college building on the campus, with the exception if
Williston Hall. He fiercely attacked the students and when chapel
convened gave them to understand that co-education meant only that boys
and girls could belong to and recite in the came classes, but no social
affair was to be permitted beyond that.
Three of us thought we would stir him up a
little. The class periods were called by the ringing on the steps of
Old Main of a hand bell such as auctioneers used at that time. This we
did not think appropriate for a collegiate institution and we broke
into the college one night and hid the bell. Every morning for the next
week the new President read a lecture on discipline to the students
assembled at chapel, and threatened dire vengeance on the perpetrators
of this outrage. No one ever round out who did it. However, about a
week later he received though the mail an anonymous letter, advising
him that if he would ask the janitor to empty the waste paper basket in
the President’s office that he would find the bell right there where it
had been all the time.
Of course, this was only a joke. By the time
Halloween came along, the situation had got beyond the joking stage. At
that time there were very tall telegraph poles, with wires, going along
First Avenue past the college. A group of us got together and decided
that it would be very appropriate to hang his “Royal Nibs” in effigy on
these telegraph wires. We did a good job of it. We got an old,
long-tailed Prince Albert coat, put on the Sennacherib whiskers and the
glasses, behind a frown which was visible from the street. We put the
effigy on the wire and then with a cord pulled it along midway between
the two poles, so that there was no way in which it could be removed
until the Fire Department came about noon the following day and removed
it from public view.
Things went on from bad to worse so far as
the relationship of the President and students were concerned. About
the beginning of the Spring term the men in the college classes (not
including prepatory department) decided that the condition of affairs
should be called to the attention of the Board of Trustees. A real
“Round Robin” was prepared so that no one’s name appeared at the head
of the list, but it was signed by every man in the college and some of
the women. In terms such as those that were used by Thomas Jefferson in
the Declaration of Independence, we called attention to our grievances
and asked that the Trustees make an investigation and that we be
permitted to submit our case before them.
This document went to Dr. Avery at Vinton,
then President of the Board of Trustees, and a copy of it was soon
forwarded to the President of the college. A faculty meeting was
immediately called and each of all of the men in the three upper
classes were expelled from the institution. The ladies were not
included in this; neither were the writer and W. H. Jordan who were
members of the freshman class as it was assumed that we had been
wrongfully persuaded by our elders to sign this. Of course, that did
not leave much of a college and there was a meeting of the Trustees
immediately called. I recall that United States Senator William B.
Allison of Dubuque was then a member of the Board and attended this
meeting
The Board convened at early candle light and
did not adjourn until about 2:00 o’clock the next morning. We never
knew just what took place in the Board meeting, but it resulted in the
expelled students all being reinstated. As Commencement Day was not far
away, the seniors came back to get their diplomas. I might add that of
the men in the three upper classes who were summarily expelled in this
manner, the majority were students for the ministry and several of the
afterwards became quite prominent as pastors of Presbyterian churches.
The seniors came back, but the juniors and
sophomores never did return, so that when college convened in the fall
of 1888 there were no junior or senior classes, but the sophomore class
was the head of the school. There were five sophomores, four men and
one young lady, Miss Mabel Armstrong. She left school at the end of
that year, and at that time the two Littell brothers, who afterwards
were quite prominent as ministers of the United Presbyterian Church,
joined the class, so that the class of 1891 consisted of six men and no
women. This resulted in the writer of this history heading the list of
students of the college in three consecutive catalogs.
As that time the gown and mortar board had
not made its way from the English universities as far west as Cedar
Rapids, and the classical garb for seniors on state occasions was a
long Prince Albert coat, a tall silk hat and a cane. As we Sophs were
head of the school, we at once assumed the Senior garb. When we first
appeared with this uniform I was a callow youth of sixteen years and it
must have been a sight for gods and men.
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