A Landmark Is Gone
Professor Colby Was Enduring Part of Hanover Scene In His Long and Distinguished Career
JAMES F. COLBY, Parker Professor of Law and Political Science Emeritus in Dartmouth College, died at Hanover, on October 21.
Professor Colby has long been a Dartmouth institution, associated in the minds of the older alumni with the more permanent features of the college environment, the giant elm on the campus or the rock ledges on Observatory Hill.
His own memories of the campus went back to 1863 and beyond that, through his father James K. Colby of the class of 1838 to the small college of a century ago. He exercised a profound influence on the successive classes passing under his direct instruction during thirty years' service on the Dartmouth faculty. He was an influential member of various professional and learned societies and a valued friend and correspondent of scholars and civic leaders at home and abroad. He was deeply interested in local and state affairs. He participated in the movement for preservation of New Hampshire forests and scenery and took a prominent part in the establishment of the Pine Park reservation at Hanover. He gave devoted service as a trustee of the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and was a constant consultant in civic matters whether they called for advice in drafting statutes and ordinances of organizational effort.
In one respect his career was a triumph over physical handicap. A baseball injury in youth left him with badly impaired vision and he was forced to depend, in part, on the assistance of readers in preparing his lectures and manuscripts. Many of the students and friends who served him in this capacity still regard it as one of their most valuable educational experiences. During the last ten years of his life his sight had failed completely, but callers found his mind as alert as ever and came away marveling at his keen grasp and encyclopedic knowledge of current affairs. Commencement week always saw a stream of visitors on their way to his home behind the Baker Library, many of them former students, now prominent in law, divinity, scholarship or public service, anxious to pay their respects to a revered instructor of former years.
He was an essayist of note in the fields of law and politics, and a contributor to The Nation in the days of the redoubtable Godkin. Of late years he made several contributions to the Dictionary of American Biography, including a notable sketch of Luke P. Poland. In his list of sources for the latter article he was able to include "personal recollections," having been closely associated with that great Vermonter while a student in Washington and as a clerk of the House committee on revision of the laws in the 43rd Congress. He edited manuals of the New Hampshire constitution in 1902 and 1912 which have been in constant use by constitutional conventions and students of New Hampshire affairs. His edition of Maitland and Montague, "Sketch of English Legal History" (1915) is still in use as a textbook.
He was an able teacher and while his primary interests were law and government he was trained in an era when lines of demarcation in the social sciences were less sharply drawn and brought to his formal instruction in law and political science a profound knowledge of history and economics and a philosophy which was the product of a mind of unusual originality and the best cultural traditions of New England.
Professor Colby was born on November 18, 1850 at St. Johnsbury, Vt., where his father was principal of the Academy. He prepared for college at this school to which he later rendered important service on the board of trustees. Graduating at Dartmouth in 1872 where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon and Phi Beta Kappa, he studied law in Washington, D. C., receiving his degree from George Washington University in 1875. Two years later he received the degree of M.A. from Yale. From 1878 to 1885 he practiced law in New Haven, Conn., also teaching history and economics in the Sheffield Scientific School, international law in the Yale Law School, and forming a lasting friendship with the late William Graham Sumner. During these years he was a member of an informal discussion group which long survived his departure from New Haven as "the Colby Club" and until the early twenties held occasional reunions in Hanover or New Haven. Professor (later President) Arthur T. Hadley, the Farnam brothers, George L. Fox, and other Yale worthies were members, and shortly before his death the late Professor H. W. Farnam prepared a manuscript sketch of "the club" and its members for deposit in the historical records of Yale University. Professor Colby was the last survivor.
In 1885 he was invited to fill the newly established Parker professorship of law and political science at Dartmouth and held this chair until retirement in 1916. Dartmouth honored him with the LL.D. degree in 1901. For many years he combined with his services at Dartmouth a lectureship for jurisprudence and international law in the law school of Boston University, holding the latter post for some years after his retirement from Dartmouth.
Professor Colby was unmarried. His sister, Miss Lucy J. Colby, for many years head of his Hanover household and a devoted and untiring assistant in his professional and scholarly work, died at Hanover in 1932. His younger brother, Edward A. Colby, a graduate of Sheffield Scientific School, and prominent electrical engineer, died at Newark, N. J., in 1935. His nearest surviving relative is a cousin, Miss Gail H. Pierce of Washington, D. C.
Professor Colby had been in failing health since September, 1937, when he sustained a severe fall in his home on Elm Street, but had been fairly active until early in October when pneumonia developed and he was removed to Dick's House where death occurred on the morning of October 21.
The funeral services at the White Church October 23 were largely attended. Among out-of-town attendants were exSenator George Moses, Chief Justice S. R. Moulton of Vermont, Professor George Grafton Wilson of Harvard University. Reverend C. B. Fisk conducted the services both in Hanover and at Mount Pleasant Cemetery at St. Johnsbury, assisted at the latter service by the Reverend Mr. Sargent of the South Congregational Church, with which the Colby family was long connected. The trustees of the Academy and members of the Fairbanks and Colby families were present. Six members of the Political Science Department officiated as bearers at the Hanover service and Principal S. R. Oldham of St. Johnsbury Academy and five senior members of the Academy faculty assisted at the committal service.
His Friends Speak
THE EDITORS asked several of Professor Colby's friends, among his most intimate associates, to comment on his personal characteristics and career. Arnold K. Borden, formerly reference librarian at Baker Library, was Mr. Colby's reader and companion for several years. George H. Moses '90 is the former U. S. Senator from New Hampshire. Robert Lincoln O'Brien '91, was chairman of the U. S. Tariff Commission, 1931-37- James P. Richardson '99, Parker Professor of Political Science in the College, succeeded Professor Colby in this Chair upon the latter's retirement in 1916. With the exception of Mr. Borden, the authors of the following statements were undergraduate students of Mr. Colby.
"HAPPINESS IN THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE
Professor Colby's life was built around mind and character, both fibered by that conscience which belongs to New England and a scholar. He achieved completeness and happiness in the intellectual life. His word was like currency in Hanover, and his loyalty intense to friends, town, college, church, hospital, and various public trusts.
During the years which I knew Professor Colby intimately-many for me, but he was already 70 when we first met—his day began and ended with books. His sister, friends, students, read to him in relays. He never forgot what he read. He gave his reader a running commentary on the text with additions and illustrations derived from memory. His knowledge of history, English and American, and especially of the lives of men, was precise and detailed.
He was most expansive in the course of long daily walks. He admired Lord Bryce perhaps more than any other man. He seemed to know the whole life story of every individual that saluted him on the street. Although he looked askance at the "personals" column of the Hanover Gazette (quietly read, however, by his sister who retailed the news to him bit by bit during following days), his habit of careful questioning kept him well informed. He checked the accuracy of all reports by the simple process of giving to each narrator no indication that he had heard the story before. A reporter with imagination often later found himself in an embarrassing position.
Professor Colby was a political conservative, but he held his representatives to strict accountability for their votes. He explored all points of view, including those of the liberal and "left" weekly magazines.
He kept in close touch by correspondence with many prominent individuals, particularly in New Haven. They were his frequent visitors.
During the last hour or two of the day, Professor Colby's sister (like Dorothy Wordsworth, she was his "eyes and ears ) read to him poetry and novels. Their favorites were Trollope and the OxfordBook of English Verse. The mellow mood —with plenty of good humor and many stories—which then settled on the house at 3 Elm Street revealed the lesser known Professor Colby who had sincere affection for friends and community.
ARNOLD K. BORDEN
His HELPFUL SPIRIT"
Professor Colby in my day was the junior member of the Faculty to hold an endowed chair; and upon my graduation he had hardly oriented himself in the place which he came to occupy in the regard of the college body both at Hanover and throughout the field of the alumni.
As an instructor he was more compelling than inspiring; and he seems to me to have fitted well into that phrase which has lately been applied to Lord Halifax: simple to the point of being a bit professorial.
Less than three years after my graduation I was thrown into a more intimate relationship with him by reason of each of us having been appointed to membership upon a minor Commission in the State Government. There began a contact which lasted to the end of his days, and which, in each succeeding year, became closer and more affectionate. The broadness of his mind and the wealth of his heart became more real to me with each of our comings together and with each exchange of letters; and his helpful spirit never failed to give me the word of caution and of insight in connection with public problems which he perceived me to need and which I warmly welcomed and made use of.
He was for me the last link with that Dartmouth which I knew as a youngster and to which I look with so much admiration in the evening of my days. It is good to have known him through these years.
GEORGE H. MOSES '90
"SPRING OF HUMOR"
Since Professor Colby's death, I have frequently heard the adjective "austere" applied to him.
I understand, of course, the reasons for this, and to some extent the use of the term is justifiable. But it is far from telling the whole truth. Some considerable number of people are aware of his innate kindliness, and thoughtfulness for others; he was one of the most considerate people I have ever known. But probably only a few were ever privileged to discover that behind the reserve and the dignity for which he was so marked, there was always bubbling a little spring of humor, persistent in quantity and delightful in quality, which would on occasions come to the surface. In all Mr. Colby's long life he was never a defendant in a law-suit; but just a few (four or five) years ago he was threatened by an irate woman with a suit for defamation of character. The scanty facts which were the foundation (alleged) for this claim were that he had advised a relative not to put too much trust and confidence in this person. But the threat was made, in rather violent fashion, and he was naturally somewhat disturbed. After he and I had discussed the situation at some length, he reflected over it, and then turned to me with "It is curious, Mr. Richardson, that at the end of a long life free from litigation, I should be confronted with a suit for damages of this character; but I suppose I ought to be thankful that the claim is not one for breach of promise!"
On another occasion his thoughts turned back to the days of his youth. Said he, "in those days a favorite diversion in the win- ter season took the form of what we called 'sleighing parties,' but after indulging in this so-called pastime on two or three oc- casions, I came to the conclusion that one could acquire practically all the same sensations, and at very considerably smaller expense, by remaining peacefully at home, and immersing one's feet in a tub of ice-water!"
I hope no one will think that because I have at this time chosen to write in what might be called a "lighter vein," I have failed to show a proper respect for my revered teacher and predecessor. I admired him and I loved him; and I do not enjoy going through Elm Street any more; for there is a great gap at the quiet old red house.
JAMES P. RICHARDSON '99
"MOST VALUABLE COURSE'
In the winter of '87-88 when Mr. James F. Colby (he seemed even then not to like to be called "Professor" Colby) lived at the President Smith House on the right hand side of the highway leading from the Village Square to the Norwich railroad station, I had the privilege of reading to him nearly every evening and taking notes in shorthand for his lectures. We read the New York Nation, then under the editorship of E. Lawrence Godkin, with great thoroughness, besides a wide variety of books ranging from Von Hoist's Constitutional History of the UnitedStates, to Merriam's Life of Samuel Bowles. Mr. Colby's selection, with the occasional comments on what had been read, and his directions as to what to "skip" made this evening service of mine probably the most valuable course I took in the College, at least in its public relations. He was the most exact of scholars. The reason he spoke so slowly—though less so in those days than in his later years—was due to his purpose to say exactly the right word and to give with unerring accuracy the impression which he sought to make. His going to President Bartlett to say that on account of eye deficiency he believed he was capable of doing only two-thirds of the work normally done by a professor, and so requesting that his salary should never be above that percentage of the normal salary of his position, was in keeping with an over-exacting sense of justice and all too cautious appraisal of his own physical deficiencies. He proved one of the most loyal of friends, not only to me but to a very wide circle of those who came under his influence. He was courteous to the last degree, in all respects—a gentleman of the old school.
PROFESSOR COLBY AT 1887's FIFTIETH REUNION Emerson Rice (left), Edward A. Burnett, Mr. Colby, and the late Edward W. Knight.
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
