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John H. Finley at CCNY—1903–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Marvin E. Gettleman
Marvin E. Gettleman*
Affiliation:
Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn
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Extract

By the Fall of 1902, in their search for a new college president, the trustees of the City College of New York had become particularly interested in John Huston Finley, a Princeton University Professor, who had earlier served as President of Knox College in Illinois. Alexander Stewart Webb, who had long presided over CCNY (founded as the Free Academy in 1847), (1) made clear his intention to retire. It was not easy to replace him. Administering the busy College in the midst of the bustling metropolis demanded a man of ability. Yet the presidency of an institution that could hardly boast of being a center of scholarly distinction had limited appeal. To be sure CCNY functioned well as an avenue for the social mobility of New York's lower-middle class. Especially to children of recent immigrants, the free-tuition College represented a hospitable America in which dreams and ambitions could be realized. But not everyone appreciated this function.

Type
Education in the South
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , Winter 1970 , pp. 423 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 History of Education Quarterly 

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References

Notes

1. All throughout this article, I have made extensive use of S[olomon] Willis Rudy's The College of the City of New York: A History, 1847–1947 (New York: The City College Press, 1949), hereafter cited as: Rudy, CCNY. For the founding and early development of the College, see Chapters I–XV.Google Scholar

2. Butler made the claim in his “commemorative tribute [to John Huston Finley] read at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, November 14, 1940,” Archives of the American Academy, New York City. (Finley's name will hereafter be cited as: JHF.)Google Scholar

3. See Farrell, James A., “John Huston Finley,” CCNY Alumnus, XXVI (December 1930), 163–65. On Shepard, see D[onald] A. R[oberts], “Edward Morse Shepard,” Dictionary of American Biography, 22 vols. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928–1958), XVII, 72–73. On JHF's relations with Grover Cleveland, see Martha Boyden Finley, “Memories of My Married Life” (MSS, 1950), pp. 10–11; Nevins, Allan, Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1933), p. 736.Google Scholar

4. Shepard to Burlingham, Charles C. (September 16, 1902), Special Collections, Morris Raphael Cohen Library, The City College of New York.Google Scholar

5. JHF to Burlingham, Charles C. (December 11, 1902), Cohen Library, CCNY.Google Scholar

6. , Shepard to JHF (January 7, 12, 14, 22; February 24; March 26, 30; April 17, 20, 1903), JHF Papers, New York Public Library. The apology is from the January 22 letter. (Hereafter references to this collection shall be cited: JHF P/NYPL.)Google Scholar

7. , Remsen to JHF (April 2, 1903), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

8. , Pratt to JHF (April 10, 1903), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

9. He confided these misgivings to his friend, Watson Gilder, Richard, editor of The Century. See Gilder to JHF (May 7, 1903), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

10. , Shepard to JHF (March 26, 1903), JHF P/NYPL. On the $4,000 Princeton salary, see Patton, Francis L. to JHF (June 15, 1900), Patton Letterbooks, vol. 14, University Archives, Princeton University Library. On the 1890s, see Gettleman, Marvin E., “College President on the Prairie: John H. Finley and Knox College in the 1890s ” History of Education Quarterly, IX, 2 (Summer 1969), 129–54.Google Scholar

11. Which was coordinated with a wave of political reform, in which CCNY men played an important role. See Rudy, CCNY, chapter XVI.Google Scholar

12. Shepard, to JHF (March 26, 1903), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

13. Twice before JHF had lived in New York City: in 1889–1892, when he held the post of secretary of the New York State Charities Aid Association, and in 1899, when he had accepted an abortive editorial venture proposed by McClure, S. S. See Gettleman, Marvin E., “John H. Finley and The Academic Origins of American Social Work,” Studies in History and Society, II (Fall 1969/Spring 1970), pp. 13–26; Lyon, Peter, Success Story: The Life and Times of S. S. McClure (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963), pp. 159–74.Google Scholar

14. , Shepard to JHF (April 20, 1903), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

15. The Installation of JHF, LL.D., As President of the College of the City of New York… (New York: The City College Press, 1903).Google Scholar

16. See The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), pp. 23–25. Sinclair (class of 1889) to his credit resisted the invitation to join one of the exclusive Anglo-Saxon fraternities.Google Scholar

17. Duggan, Stephen P., A Professor at Large (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1943), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

18. “The Man Behind” (editorial), The Campus [CCNY undergraduate publication], VII (November 23, 1910), [8]–9.Google Scholar

19. Robert, A. Steps ('09), reflecting on the differences between CCNY and Cornell, in ibid., IV (April 14, 1909), [1]–2.Google Scholar

20. JHF's remarks, quoted in New York Evening Sun (May 13, 1913); various undated CCNY addresses of JHF, JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

21. I shall omit discussion of JHF's oratory in this article; it is dealt with at length in Gettleman, Marvin E., “Attic Democracy in New York: John Finley's College Rhetoric” (forthcoming).Google Scholar

22. JHF's incoming correspondence is full of anti-Semitic remarks. See for examples: Jesse Lynch Williams to JHF (August 2, 1901); Schneider, Henry G. to JHF (New Year's Day, 1914); Van Dyke, Henry to JHF (May 14, 1919); Bancroft, Edgar A. to JHF (July 19, 1920), etc. The surviving outgoing correspondence contains no anti-Semitic remarks, although JHF did send a copy of Houston Stewart Chamberlain's racist Foundations of the Nineteenth Century to a friend (Thacher, George H. to JHF [February 20, 1914].) All letters in JHF P/NYPL. For a perceptive discussion of the genteel racism prevalent in Anglo-Saxon America, see Digby Baltzell, E., The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America (New York: Random House, 1964).Google Scholar

23. JHF, address to the Quill Club, New York City (November 17, 1914), in JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

24. JHF's “College President's Prayer” in JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

25. Rosenberg, Abraham L. to this author (June 24, 1962).Google Scholar

26. See the letter of one: Kraus, David to JHF (July 28, 1913), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

27. See for example, Grossman, Daniel to this author (September 18, 1963).Google Scholar

28. The correspondence in JHF P/NYPL, is filled with records of JHF's attempts to find jobs for CCNY boys, and with grateful letters from those who believed they owed their advancement to him.Google Scholar

29. Lodato, August to this author (September 15, 1962).Google Scholar

30. Kaplan, Nathan J. to JHF (October 23, 1909), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

31. JHF, , diary entry (January 27, 1913), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

32. Ibid. (January 12, 14, 1912), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

33. JHF to Tidsley, John L. Dr. (March 4, 1909), JHF P/NYPL; Rudy, CCNY, pp. 251–52.Google Scholar

34. JHF, many diary entries after 1908, JHF P/NYPL; William, C. O'Brien to this author (September 19, 1963).Google Scholar

35. JHF, notes for an address marking the opening of the CCNY evening session [1909]; JHF, diary entry (April 1, 1910), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

36. Anecdotes about JHF's great pedestrian feats abound. He would occasionally walk from New York to Princeton to visit the Clevelands by taking the subway to the Battery, the ferry to Staten Island, and tramp from George, St. to Elizabeth, N.J., and on through Rahway (where he was once “held up by pol[ice]”) and New Brunswick to Princeton. In 1912 it took him nine hours, starting at 11 p.m. JHF, diary entry (March 18, 1912), JHF P/NYPL. This marks him as a rapid walker. A year later he would note that he took 52 minutes to walk from 59th street to CCNY. (Diary entry, February 28, 1913; Grossman, Daniel to this author, September 18, 1963; etc.) He continued his pedestrian exploits everywhere he found himself: Rico, Puerto (1900), Palestine, (1917), on summer vacations in New Hampshire. JHF's own philosophical reflections on walking may be found in his “Long Highroad Beckons to the Walker,” The New York Times Magazine (April 12, 1925), p. 5. Cf. Rudy, CCNY, pp. 250–51.Google Scholar

37. Campus, VI (March 16, 1910), p. 6 (The Manhattan Side of the Bridge was meant).Google Scholar

38. Interview with Professor and Salwyn Schapiro, J. Mrs. (May 11, 1962); Schapiro, J. S. to JHF (November 22, 1913; February 20, 1914), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

39. JHF to Brown, Carrol N. (November 8, 1918), Brown to JHF (November 17, [1918]), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

40. Davis, George S. to JHF (June 7, 1909), JHF to Wheeler, Everett P. (January 9, 1912), JHF P/NYPL. JHF himself had gained entry into the Century Club (which to this day shows many marks of his activity) in 1902 as the protégé of a distinguished group of New Yorkers. See DeForest, Robert W. to Albert Shaw (February 26, 1902), Shaw Papers, NYPL. On this club, see Baltzell, The Protestant Establishment, pp. 369–73.Google Scholar

41. Duggan, , Professor at Large pp. 9–10; Rudy, CCNY, pp. 314–15. Duggan was the director of the evening division for many years.Google Scholar

42. Parmly, Charles H., “The New Curriculum,” CCNY Quarterly, IX (March 1913), 66–72; Rudy, CCNY, pp. 320–23.Google Scholar

43. See Gettleman, Marvin E., “John Finley's Illinois Education,” Journal of The State Historical Society of Illinois, XLII (Summer 1969), pp. 147–169.Google Scholar

44. Rudy, CCNY, p. 271.Google Scholar

45. P[aul] Schmidt, George, The Old Time College President [Columbia University, Studies in History…, 317] (New York: Columbia University Press, 1930), p. 11; Veblen, Thorstein, The Higher Learning in America… (New York: Heubsch, 1918).Google Scholar

46. See Schmidt, , The Old Time College President, passim for a portrait of the type.Google Scholar

47. JHF to General Tremaine, Henry E. (October 16, 1909), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

48. Campus, VII (November 2, 1910), [1], (November 9, 1910), pp. [1]–2; CCNY Quarterly, VIII (June 1912), 147–48. The lighthearted and whimsical lectures JHF delivered, mostly drawn from the historical writings of Francis Parkman, were published as The Trench in the Heart of America (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915), and in a French translation a year later.Google Scholar

49. August Lodato to this author (September 15, 1962).Google Scholar

50. Rudy, CCNY, pp. 287–92.Google Scholar

51. No entry for CCNY before Minerva: Jahrbuch der gelehrten Welt, 1911–1912 (Strassburg, 1912), p. 1429.Google Scholar

52. Campus, II (May 27, 1908), 4.Google Scholar

53. JHF, “Sons of the City,” baccalaureate address in CCNY Quarterly, V (June 1909), 87; Cf. JHF's address at the dedication ceremonies of the Nicholas heights, St., ibid., IV (June 1908), 93–95; etc. For more extended treatment of JHF's college rhetoric, see Gettleman, “Attic Democracy in New York.”Google Scholar

54. The entire dispute, along with excerpts from the correspondence, appears in Campus, I (October 14, 28, 1907).Google Scholar

55. Rudy, CCNY, p. 303.Google Scholar

56. Miller, Theodore F. to JHF; JHF to Miller, (October 22, 1908), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

57. JHF, undated address of CCNY, JHF P/NYPL. College students themselves held an attitude that oscillated between affection and contempt for the hordes of little Townsend Harris boys. See, for example, Campus, I (November 3, 1907), 6.Google Scholar

58. See Rudy, , CCNY pp. 308–9; extensive correspondence with Maxwell and Pritchett in JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

59. Cf. Boorstin, Daniel J., The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1964).Google Scholar

60. See Gettleman, “College President on the Prairie.”Google Scholar

61. See Rudolph, Frederick, The American College and University: A History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), p. 217.Google Scholar

62. CCNY Quarterly, I (June 1905), [7]–74; Rudy, CCNY, pp. 303–04. The event of 1905 included inspirational speeches as well as a student debate on the trusts, and a baseball game which the faculty lost to the students 13 to 7.Google Scholar

63. Campus, II (May 20, 1908), [18]–19; CCNY Quarterly, IV (June 1908), 108; The New York Times (May 15, 1908), p. 5: 1–4.Google Scholar

64. CCNY Quarterly, VII (June 1912), 147–48.Google Scholar

65. Cf. Rudy, , CCNY pp. 302–08.Google Scholar

66. Shepard to JHF (December 30, 1904), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

67. Perry Morris, George, “Men in the Public Eye: John H. Finley ” The Journal of Education (October 30, 1919), p. 429. The editor of this Journal regarded the article by Morris (President of the Twentieth Century Club, Boston) as favorable, and apparently so did JHF. See Winship, A. E. to JHF (November 12, 1919), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

68. Allen, Joseph to Koch, Theodore W. (May 9, 1909), in Sawyer, Walter H. papers, Michigan Historical Collections of the University of Michigan Library.Google Scholar

69. Wilson to Sawyer, Walter H. (May 5, 1909), in ibid. Google Scholar

70. JHF to Boyden, Albert (January 13, 1917), JHF P/NYPL.Google Scholar

71. Thwing, Charles F., The College President (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926), p. 20.Google Scholar