Denison University - Adytum Yearbook (Granville, OH)

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Page Three Dcnlson University, Granville, Ohio lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll PRESIDENT CHAMBERLAIN THE trustees of Denison Univ ersity have always regarded the Presidency as a position of serious responsibility, requiring a man of conspicuous ability, high peVsonal character and sound scholastic attainments. For the first twenty years, they turned to the graduates of Brown Umversity for such men. Presidents Pratt, Going and Bailey each carried the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Brown, which of course explains the strong influence exercised by Brown upon the development of Denison. President Hall, though without a baccalaureate degree, was a man of broad mental attainments and intellectual power, continuing in Denison the New England traditions appropriate to his birth and his surroundings during the first thirty years of his life. It was not until 1 863, during the stress brought upon the college by the Civil War, that the Board placed the duties and responsibilities of the Presidency in the hands of a man of western birth and training — Samson Talbot, born on a farm near Urbana, Ohio, and graduated from Denison under the administration of President Bailey. Every student of the history of Denison knows that the result was a striking justification of the wisdom of the Board in making such a selection. Ten years of scholarly and impressive work in the class-room, of deep and lasting moral and religious influence upon the student body and the community, and of wise planning for the future so effectively brought home to the Baptists of Ohio as to win their confidence and support, — all this from the young alumnus left Denison with a far easier path to further attainment than she had ever known before. The over-strained bow broke at the end of these ten years, but the growth of President Talbot ' s administration had been too firm to be lost by his departure. Two New Englanders followed him — Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews, a graduate of Brown again, and Dr. Alfred Owen, who took his degree from Waterville College, now Cclby. Of the three men who have held the position since Dr. Owen ' s resignation. Dr. Anderson and Dr. Hunt were of New York birth and graduates of Rochester University. Dr. Purinton, coming between the two, was born in the eastern part of what is now the state of West Virginia, ' and educated in the University of West Virginia. And now again, after a lapse of ju.it fifty years since the election of Samson Talbot, the trustees have seen fit to place an alumnus in the chair which Dr. Talbot so signally honored. Clark Wells Chamberlain too was a farmer ' s son, born in northern Ohio. He entered the Academv under the administration of Principal J. D. S. Riggs, in 1 888, and was graduated from the college with the class of 1 894. Of his college days it is sufficient here to say that he was not only an earnest and energetic student, slighting no branch of study included in his course but an active and influential participant in various lines of legitimate student activity outside the curriculum, including the work of the Young Men ' .? Ch ristian Association, inter-collegiate oratory, and athletics. For three years after graduation, he taught in the Western Reserve Academy. In September, 1897, he entered the Graduate School of the University of Chicago, holding a fellowship in the Department of Physics. It was during his work there that he hit upon the idea which led to his invention of the Compound Interferometer, one of the most delicate instruments known for minute measurements in physical research. Illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillillilllilli Illllllllllllllllilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllli

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The Nineteen Fourteen Advtum Page Four llllillllllllllliliiiillllilili From the University of Chicago he was called to the chair of Physics in Colby College in the Fall of 1900, but resigned the position a year later to take the chair of Chemistry and Physics in Denison, left vacant by the call of Professor A. D. Cole to Ohio State University. The work in Chemistry, done by an assistant under his oversight, was later separated entirely from his chair leaving him the opportunity to devote his time wholly to Physics. During the latter part of his service in this chair he was Treasurer of the University and upon him fell a great deal of the responsibility of oversight in the rebuilding of Barney Memorial Hall, after its almost complete destruction by fire. He also served as Faculty representative on the Athletic Board and was for a time a member of tiie Granville Council. In 1908, he resighed his position in Denison to accept the chair of Physics in Vassar College, which he held for five years, until his acceptance of the Presidency of Denison during the past Summer. By an arrangement between the authorities of Vassar College and Co- lumbia University, he was permitted to spend a portion of his time in special research in Columbia, and from Columbia he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. In addition to his high standing as a physicist and his success as a teacher, the President and Board of Vassar placed a high value upon his administrative ability, and his discriminating appreciation of the conditions and needs of the institution as a whole. From this brief sketch it will be seen that President Chamberlain comes to Denison with a character and training well fitted to justify the confidence which the trustees have placed m him. The Editors of The Adytum take peculiar pleasure in dedicating the issue of this year to President Chamberlain. It is true that a college cannot keep itself rightly in touch with the educational currents of the time without the introduction into its faculty of a fair proportion of men whose undergrade work has been done elsewhere; but when the proper man is forthcoming, there is a great advantage in having an alumnus at the head. President Chamberlain comes to his work with an intimate first-hand knowledge of eveiy department of the institution placed under his care. As a student and later as a professor he has already made the personal acquaintance of a large body of its alumni and former students, its Faculty and its Board. Its traditions are ingrained into his nature. We would not question or depreciate the loyalty and affection which many a man or woman forms in later years for a college other than his own, but every man who has ever had a really normal experience of undergraduate college life will accept without controversy the statement that President Chamberlain is bound to Denison by a tie such as no man forms but once in a lifetime. But if this intimate relation of knowledge, of kinship, of sympathy, is a great advantage, it is still true that others must do their part to get out of these conditions the potential value that lies in them. The AdytUM bespeaks for President Chamberlain a warm-hearted, sympa- thetic and unremitting support on the part of every student and alumnus of Denison. We know that his aim is the solid upward growth of the college on the foundation of all that is good in its past, and even the somewhat selfish consideration of the influence of such growth upon the future value of our present or prospective Denison diplomas would counsel us to lead willing aid to every earnest effort in that direction. But does a Denison student or alumnus need that lower motive? NO! For love of all that Denison has meant to generations of loyal students in the past, for love of all that her name means to us of the present day. The Adytum pledges to President Chamberlain the support of one and all in his every effort to make our Alma Mater even more worthy of our devotion in the years to come. illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllliy