Colgate University 1939 Yearbook (Hamilton, NY) - Full Access

Faculty and ~dministration Facts The Colgate Professor under the Colgate Plan and infused with t.he Colgate Spirit is more than a teacher to the Colgate man. From the day that the raw Frosh arrives at Lake Moraine and plays volley ball with the Philosophy department or swims with the man who will lecture to him in hem or dicussess the place of fraternitie with an instructor in Eco– nomics, he learns that, unlike the pedagogues who too often maintained that academic aloofne s during his prep 01· high school days, the Colgate prof is an all-round good fellow. He learns that whenever he wants to shed some light on those seemingly unsolvable problem , no maHer what they pertain to, he can invariably think of some man on the Colgate faculty who will be more (han willing to "bull" the maHer out with him. It may be t.he preceptor, ' hom e\'ery freshman must. have under the Colgate Plan, or it may be the sophomore advisor, his tutor or the man whom he has met and walked with on the Willow Path or met and talked with in a Seminar Room in the Librar . Finally, when he graduates, the Colgate student stops and thinks with almost as much remorse about the connections he is severing with some professor as he does about those he is severing in his fraternity house or dormitm·y. onsequently, for at least a few years afler graduation, the typical Colgate man retains the professorial contacts of his undergraduate da s. No father could ask his son to spend his college days under a beUer innuence and emerge with such wholesome friend– ship . This spring Colgate loses two of its most dignified personages, who for the past two decades in one case and since before the turn of the centu1·y in the other, have served faithfully so that Colgate youth might benefit by their eruditecoun l. They are Dr. Frank Carman Ewart, professor of Romanic Languages, and a member of the faculty since 1899, and Dr. harles Worthen Spencer, Llurarian since 1921. Dr. E, arl, of the alert step and twinkling eye, may retire from his classrooms and lecture halls, but he will ne er retire from the hearts and minds of those of us who trudged into his French classes and were carried across t.he seas to a land, the simple beauty of which he loved to relate. ymbolizing the spirit and tradition that is Colgate's, the be– loved teacher has inspired his pupils with the desire for knowledge and an appreciaUon for the charm and beauty that lies in foreign lands. Colgate may wait many years before it witnesses a truer charad.er than that diffused by Dr. Ewart during his forty year stay. To tho e v.·ho have watched our librar grow during the past eighteen years, "Doc" Spencer will eternally remain as t.he man, more than any other single individual, responsible for bringing culture to the Colgate campus. For those of us who wandered in his wake among the stacks during Freshman Orientation \veek and listened to his delightful witticisms and wise epigrams, he will always liYe as a (rue scholar, whose very life seemed (o revolve around hi books and the knowledge that. they imparted. A true "gentleman of the old school," this distinguished, gray-haired professor with his typical moustache and goatee may resign from the college faculty, but. he will never cease t.o be an essential part of t.he ideals that. are Colgate's. tudents will miss his friendly smile when they enter the library, but. some– how, the walls will seem to whisper his name, the rooms to be filled with his very spirit. 17