On July 29, 1804, with the country still reeling from the death of Alexander Hamilton at the hands of Aaron Burr, a young minister took the pulpit of Albany's North Dutch Church to condemn the nation's complacency over the practice of dueling and to charge “the polite and polished orders of society” with complicity in Hamilton's death.
The minister, thirty-one-year-old Eliphalet Nott, was already a rising star. Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Albany, he was named chaplain of the New York State Legislature, and chosen by the Albany Common Council to deliver the official Albany eulogy for Hamilton.
The speech would thrust Nott into the national spotlight and bring offers for pastorates in the largest cities. But Nott had other plans to advance the nation: education. A month later, he became president of Union College, a job he would hold for the next sixty-two years (still the longest tenure of an American college president).
On Sunday, July 25, 2004, the First Presbyterian Church of Albany hosted a commemorative reading of Nott's discourse by David Cotter, professor of sociology, who portrayed Nott in period costume. Also participating from the College were Byron Nichols, professor of political science, who gave a background and introduction, and Jeremy Dibbell '04, who organized the event and prepared much of the program material. Dibbell also is planning a number of events at Union to commemorate the bicentennial of Nott's inauguration.
Nott's discourse would be a staple of the anti-dueling movement for the next three decades. It was widely reprinted in newspapers and pamphlets up and down the East Coast, and was still being excerpted in declamation books into the 1880s.The editor of the Federalist New York Evening Post urged his readers “'APPROACH AND BEHOLD' how elegant, how deeply affecting, how sublime he is! Perhaps a passage of equal length is not to be anywhere found in our language superior to this.”
As president of Union, Nott was a revolutionary educator who changed the methods and content of higher education, introducing American history, modern languages, and engineering. He was a prime example for his students of the involved life he urged them to take up: an inventor of stoves and steamship engines, he remained throughout his long life a pragmatic advocate of political and moral reforms including temperance, abolition, and universal education.
Eliphalet Nott is best remembered today for his efforts to revolutionize higher education and increase its relevance to American students in the first half of the nineteenth century. In this bicentennial year of the beginning of Nott's long tenure as president of Union, however, it is important to recall the contributions that Nott made to other areas of public policy during his lifetime as a strong proponent of political and social reforms.
In three areas particularly -universal public education, temperance, and the abolition of slavery-Nott played a leading role at both state and regional levels. He was also active, but to a lesser extent, in the promotion of human rights and the expansion of democratic ideals, as evidenced by his strong support for the Hungarian revolutionary Lajos (Louis) Kossuth.
The winds of political and social reform began blowing across the United States in the late 1830s, and continued to swirl for several decades. Nott quickly embraced the cries of those who called for change, while maintaining a pragmatic attitude that fundamentally shaped his approach to the changes he advocated. Nott, described as “a practical man of idealistic declarations” by scholar Edward Everett Hale, Jr., understood the political and social realities of American life more clearly than many others in the various reform movements with which he associated himself, and put that understanding to use when making his case for change.
Almost immediately upon his arrival in Schenectady as president of Union in the late summer of 1804, Nott began taking steps to support public education both in the city and beyond. He assisted in the formation of a training academy that later became a part of the Schenectady Lyceum, designed to prepare local students for higher education at Union. In 1855, when Schenectady's first free public school was established, it was not only housed in the old West College building at the present entrance to the Stockade (which Union had sold to the city), but was called the “Union School,” and was for a time run by a member of the College faculty.
Looking more broadly, Nott in late 1839 joined his former pupil William H. Seward, Class of 1820, newly-elected governor of New York, and New York City Methodist Rev. Samuel Luckey in putting forth a proposal to provide for the free public education of immigrant children, particularly Roman Catholic Irish in New York City. The plan failed to gain passage in the state legislature, and was derided by Seward's political opponents as either a ploy to win immigrant votes or a scheme to impose Catholic teachings upon the children of the state.
Nott biographer Codman Hislop concludes that while Seward, Nott, and Luckey had devised their blueprint “to meet a genuine human need on the basis of a compromise reasonable men should accept,” the doctor's political acumen must have failed him, or he and the others surely would have recognized the difficulties that their plan would face in the rough and tumble atmosphere of New York politics.
The proposal to educate immigrants, however, was just one proposal that Nott had urged upon the Seward gubernatorial administration. On Feb. 6, 1839, he had written to the new secretary of New York State, John Canfield Spencer (Union Class of 1806) and urged him to establish the post of “minister of public education,” an action which would, he added, “confer great benefits on the Republic” and also to whichever political party dared take such a step. Most of Nott's suggested reforms were not carried out until the late 1840s and into the early 1850s, but the legislature did adopt a sectarian school system for New York City in 1842, and Nott's voice must be included among those most influential in securing the benefits of public education for New York's children.
While idealistic to some degree on education, Nott was a master of pragmatism when it came to two other areas of reform-temperance and abolition. This can be best explained by Nott's fundamental attitude to reform -that education was the keystone without which other reforms would be impossible. To Edward “Cornelius” Delavan, a leader of the national temperance movement, Nott wrote in 1855 criticizing reformer and abolitionist Gerrit Smith's calls for laws against intemperance and slavery: “under a despotic government his reasoning would be conclusive,” Nott wrote. In America, however, “the governed are the governors, and to secure the enactment of good laws, the law givers must first be educated.”
Hislop says Nott's “cardinal principle” was that “it is useless to go very far beyond public opinion,” so to achieve the reforms he thought necessary, Nott set out to shape that opinion. He first delivered his “Ten Lectures on the Use of Intoxicating Liquors” before the Schenectady Temperance Society in late 1838 and early 1839, and later gave the same addresses in major cities throughout the Northeast, from Philadelphia to Albany to Boston, dozens of times. Nott took massive amounts of evidence to make a case for reasonable temperance, drawing on anecdotal evidence of drunkards spontaneously combusting, or falling into ruin, as well as on Scriptural references to the use of liquor.
Nott was no teetotaler, however. He did not criticize the use of alcohol in religious ceremonies and understood the impossibility of removing it completely from American life. Nott did not even try to obtain from his students a pledge of complete abstinence, only asking that they refrain from the use of liquor during the term and on the roads; they were not bound to their pledge during vacations or after they graduated from Union. His pragmatism brought no praise from the most ardent partisans of reform-they accused him of trying to bring down the movement for total abstinence.
Nott's efforts at persuasion on the temperance front extended to Seward as well. In late 1840, Nott wrote to encourage the then-governor that perhaps his upcoming State of the State address could include “one sentence” in support of the cause. While leaving calls for temperance from his official speeches, Seward did sign an abstinence pledge early in 1842, but soon missed his evening glass of wine and “quickly regretted his dalliance with the prohibitionists,” as Seward biographer John M. Taylor writes. He abandoned the pledge and resumed his habit. Seward understood a few years earlier than Nott that temperance was a losing proposition; it would be another decade and a half before Nott gave up the ghost on this particular reform and criticized those who continued on its behalf.
While the temperance movement was largely unsuccessful in the long run, Nott's stance on the abolition of slavery in the United States proved more mainstream. An early opponent of slavery, Nott eulogized English abolitionists Howard, Clarkson, and Sharpe in his 1811 baccalaureate address. Of Clarkson, Nott asked “Where is this man, whose fame I had rather inherit than that of Caesar?” By 1824, Nott had become convinced that slavery “cannot stand against the progress of society,” and was sure that “the diffusion of science” would result in the practice's demise.
As he was with the teetotalers, so was Nott also with the abolitionists-he despised the radical tactics espoused by men like Horace Greeley and Wendell Phillips, and went through a period of favoring various and hopeful compromises. For many years he spoke favorably of an effort to recolonize slaves to Africa; other proponents of this step included John W. Taylor, a Union alumnus who became Speaker of the House of Representatives and was the first congressman to speak against slavery on the House floor, and the budding Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln. At Union, Nott encouraged frequent discussions on the issue, and throughout Seward's career his former teacher urged him to maintain his opposition to the institution of slavery.
Nott is known to have considered Lincoln a moderate on the issue like himself, and although unwell at the time, made sure to make his way to a polling place in November, 1860, and vote for the Republican candidate. Throughout the following “Secession Winter” to the outbreak of the Civil War the following spring, Nott called for compromise, supporting compensated emancipation or even graduated freedom in order to preserve the union.
Nott spoke on the issue with the zeal of the converted. He told Professor Jonathan Pearson in 1845 that he had himself once owned a slave: “I once was so benighted on the subject of slavery as to own a slave. I bought one of one Van Eps out here on the Mohawk Flats when I preached in Albany, and didn't think there was any harm in it of course,” as Pearson recorded it in his diary. Moses Viney, an escaped slave, was long employed by Nott at Union, and it was Nott who arranged for the purchase of his freedom when his former master attempted to return him to bondage.
Eliphalet Nott was no radical reformer-not by a long shot. While believing firmly in the reforms he supported, his tactics were those of a supreme pragmatist and were based on his strong presumption that lasting reforms would only come when supported by an educated and enlightened public.
The best source for information on Eliphalet Nott remains the comprehensive biography by Codman Hislop (Wesleyan University Press, 1971). Wayne Somers's Encyclopedia of Union College History (Union College Press, 2003) is an indispensable resource, as is the diary of Jonathan Pearson. The papers of William Seward, held at Schaffer Library in microfilm form, contain numerous letters between Seward and Dr. Nott. Collections of Nott's speeches and various other materials can be found at Special Collections in Schaffer Library.
One of the annual highlights of Homecoming and Family Weekend is the volunteer appreciation dinner, when the College honors the many alumni who volunteer their help. Recognized this year were:
Alumni Gold Medal for “passionate and dedicated commitment to Union”:
William Burns '54 Estelle Cooke-Sampson '74 James Lippman '79
Special Appreciation Award “to recognize service and unswerving loyalty to Union and the Alumni Council”:
Donald M. Bentrovato '69
Distinguished Service to Union Award to alumni who have made “significant and diverse contributions to the College over their lifetime”:
John Moses '53
Recognized this year for extraordinary levels of Annual Fund support were:
The Bicentennial Cup: To the class with the largest combined annual, capital, and planned gift total-Class of 1938, William Male, head agent, with $689,028.
Third Century of Excellence Award: To the class with the highest combined percentages of ReUnion attendance and Annual Fund participation -Class of 1944, Rex Moon, head agent, with a combined rating of 123 percent. William Jaffee Cup: To the class with the largest Annual Fund dollar total-Class of 1974, Richard Samuels and James Brennan, head agents, with $133,113.
Class of 1944 Award: To the class with the most Terrace Council members (gifts of $2,000 or greater)-Class of 1976, Arnold Hiller and Jean Skolnik, head agents, with 23 Terrace Council members.
Dixon Ryan Fox Cup: To the class with the highest percentage of participation that has not yet celebrated its 50th ReUnion-Class of 1957, Howard Rosenkrantz, head agent, with 72.85 percent.
Class of 1930 Bowl: To the class that has graduated in the last decade and has the highest percentage of participation-Class of 1995, Michelle Spaziani, head agent, with 25.66 percent.
Clowe Stevenson Wyatt Prize: To the class with the highest participation among the four most recently graduated class and the senior class-Class of 2004, Lindsay Homenick and Chris Lamanna, committee co-chairs, with 75.49 percent.
Dr. Joseph E. Milano '36 Award: To the class with the most improved Minerva standing-Class of 1944, Rex Moon, head agent.
Also honored were the following 2004 Minerva's Race award winners (with class giving chairs):
1930s: First-Class of 1932, Gordon Bennett; Second-Class of 1939; Third-Class of 1930
1940s: First-Class of 1944, Rex Moon; Second-Class of 1941, Larry Schwartz; Third -Class of 1943, Robert Bishop
1950s: First-Class of 1953, John Moses; Second-Class of 1951, Richard Killeen; Third-Class of 1954, Fred Emery
1960s: First-Class of 1961, George Thompson; Second-Class of 1963, Cliff Mastrangelo, Neil Kleinman; Third-Class of 1960, Paul Cohen
1970s: First-Class of 1974, Richard Samuels, James Brennan; Second-Class of 1970, Edward Buzak; Third-Class of 1973, Tim McCabe
1980s: First-Class of 1981, John Sciortino; Second-Class of 1980, Thomas Buiocchi; Third-Class of 1885, Timothy Hesler, Suzanne Rice
1990s: First-Class of 1995, Michelle Spaziani; Second-Class of 1990, Kristen Ryan Mozayeni; Third-Class of 1993, Roxanne Shapiro
2000s: First-Class of 2000, Phoebe Burr, Peter Melito; Second-Class of 2001, Mary Comerford, Oliivia Leong; Third-Class of 2002
A Homecoming highlight was the dedication of two of the seven Minerva houses-Beuth House, named to honor Phil Beuth '54, and Wold House, named in honor of former Professor of Physics Peter Wold by his son, John Wold '38, and his wife, Jane.
Steve Ciesinski '70, chairman of the College's Board of Trustees, expressed appreciation to Beuth, whose gift on the 50th anniversary of his graduation made the house possible. “I think it's especially heartwarming to know that the building we dedicate tonight was Phil's home when he was president of Psi Upsilon fraternity,” Ciesinski said.
John Wold, a trustee emeritus, is a former Congressman and a scientist and businessman. “John's has been a familiar face on campus for more years than most of us,” Ciesinski said. “His father, Peter, was head of the College's Physics Department from 1919 to 1945, and John's memories of Union go back to his childhood living in the faculty residence in North College.”
President Roger Hull called the kick off of the Minerva Houses the most important innovation in campus life since Union went co-ed in 1970. “As Eliphalet Nott, inaugurated as Union president 200 years ago, said, 'A college must never be stationary, but always progressive.' Our coming here this evening to dedicate these buildings is proof that his mission continues to be honored.”
Alumni and friends are invited to make commitments to the You Are Union Campaign. Gifts may be made in cash, in appreciated securities, or in other property, such as real estate. Generous payment periods spanning the duration of the campaign, or longer, may be arranged.
A variety of planned giving vehicles, which offer significant tax savings and yield generous incomes to the donors or beneficiaries, are also available. Usually funded by gifts of long term appreciated property, these include the pooled income fund, the charitable remainder trust, and the charitable gift annuity.
All gifts to Union College are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. For information about these and other methods of making a gift to Union and the You Are Union Campaign, please contact:
The 2003-2004 fiscal year continued Union College's long tradition of balanced budgets and improving financial strength. Highlights of the College's financial position include:
Union is rated A1 by Moody's Investor Service.
The total market value of the endowment and similar funds was approximately $276,400,000.
The endowment's total return was 18.64 percent, putting Union in the top 15 percentile of the Wilshire universe.
The College's 2004-2005 operating budget is approximately $100 million, and the budget has been consistently balanced for the past 15 years.
Fixed assets grew approximately $21 million in 2003-2004 due to the Minerva House system.
Expendable resources covered outstanding debt by more than 2.5 times, and expendable resources covered total operations by more than 2 times.
