3 Ch. 2 – The Duniway Years – 1908 – 1912 by H. G. Merriam

The following article is an excerpt from The University of Montana, A History, by H. G. Merriam, published by the University of Montana Press in 1970. I have a special interest in the Duniway Presidency in that my grandmother, born in Bozeman, was a member of the University of Montana class of 1908. Her sister was also in attendance at the same time. Both became Montana teachers. – Don Gilder

 

The Duniway Years

1908 – 1912

As Montana develops so does its University – Clyde A. Duniway

 

            The foundations of the University were reshaped and at least the beginnings of the superstructure erected during the Spartan years of the second president. Dr. Clyde A. Duniway, a graduate of Cornell University holding a doctor’s degree from Harvard, with eleven years as a professor of History and Economics at Stanford University where, under President David Starr Jordan, standards were stern, came to the infant University of Montana harboring those high standards.[1] He had a thorough knowledge of what a university should be and an eagerness to carry Montana’s young institution swiftly along the path toward the ideal. His clear insight into needs, the sweep of his ideas, his outspokenness and his sense of urgency came upon the Board of Education, the faculty, the student and the statespeople with a shock that must have been stunning. As early as the end of his third year in office it became apparent to many people that the State, the Board of Education, some of the faculty and many people over the State were not ready for so insistent a man with such positive and forward-looking ideas. At the end of his fourth year Dr. Duniway was summarily dismissed.

            The new President’s moral energy and insight were shown in his first report to the Board of Education, written just three months after his arrival on the campus in the autumn of 1908. Two weeks before writing it he had attended a meeting of the National Association of State Universities in Washington D. C., at which standards for American universities had been adopted. In his report Dr. Duniway stated these standards – for admission, four years of high school work; in its curriculum, two years of general or liberal work followed by two years of advanced work looking toward the bachelor’s degree; and beyond that, professional courses in law or medicine or engineering and graduate study leading to the doctor’s degree. “It may be desirable,” Dr. Duniway mildly concluded in his report, “to organize and develop the University of Montana along the general lines indicated by the action of the Association.” This is exactly what he set for himself, the faculty and the students to do.

            In his first three months, as the report shows, he had looked critically at the finances of the University, at the conditions under which the faculty and students were working, at the courses of study, at the affairs of the student, and, less widely and deeply, at the interests of the State of Montana. As a result, the budget, he asserted, should be jumped at once from $60,000 to $100,000, especially in view of the fact that the University could use aid from the Carnegie Foundation, which helped only State institutions with budgets of that sum or larger. The course of study should be revised: the Department of Physics and Geology should be divided into two departments; a new Department of Biology and Forestry should be established – “opportunities of the most unusual sort” being present in Missoula for work in forestry; a Department of Law should be organized at once, in the year 1908-09. In addition, an excellent summer school should be set up, an Extension Division, and steps should be taken to develop the Biological Station on Flathead Lake. These were all sound suggestions, coming upon people a bit breathtakingly.

            Turning his attention to the faculty he noted that, with the Preparatory School discontinued, its members had the opportunity not only to teach classes of an advanced character but also to maintain, as heretofore they could not, “their ideals as specialists.” Low salaries should, of course, be raised immediately from $2,100 to $2,500, with a policy of raises every two years to a maximum of $3,000. Comparative permanence of tenure “to compensate a university professor for the modest scale of income with the rewards of professional men of similar education who are engaged in commercial or semi-commercial life” should be adopted. Since “a comparative lack of leisure for research and intellectual growth . . . may introduce a kind of professional stagnation,” the University might “well follow the lead of other universities and establish sabbatical leaves of absence.” These suggestions, too, were fresh, cool winds blowing in upon the State. Ultimately, every one of them was adopted, though not in Dr. Duniway’s years. The Board of Education could not move so fast and in so many directions.

            As if these suggestions were not enough, this first report announced, not recommended, that the President and the faculty had abolished all prescribed rules relating to conduct of students, especially since they had been set up with preparatory students in mind; in athletics they had established strict rules of eligibility for playing on teams and had voted not to employ paid professional coaches and had forbidden use of “migratory athletes.” He commandingly wrote that ASUM and other student organizations were administering effectively to the needs of students. The faculty, he stated, was ready to cooperate in the proposed geological survey of the State. The high schools of Montana should be inspected – “I consider it my duty for the present year to visit every high school in the State.” Like President Craig, he became the official Inspector of High Schools.[2] Lastly, teachers with degrees from the University should be granted the right to teach without having to take State examinations.

            Such a whirlwind of recommendations and announcements, though presented with reason and expressed simply and strongly, was certain to blow up disturbances. For instance, for the townspeople, alumni and students with a keen interest in sports, the new regulations sounded like a death knell for victories. Indeed, in the intercollegiate field it did, although the 1909 football team, playing only Montana teams, was undefeated and was scored upon only once. The President set forth his views on athletics in an October, 1908, issue of The Kaimin: “Competitive sport should minister to the needs of virile young men for physical development, for the spirit of play, for the recreation of mind. Such games should not become drilling drudgery and moral debauchery . . . the fun of [them] comprehends many purposes and they are all good. So let us have clean athletics, the means to strength, the occasion for loyalty and enthusiasm.” The ideas seemed to the students reasonable, if a bit idealistic and probably unworkable, so that, in grading Kaimin articles, they marked this one “OK.” It was a wait-and-see approval.

            Again, to the faculty holding over from the Craig years the placing of full responsibility upon students for their conduct no doubt seemed foolhardy. The President insisted that college students are men and women, not children – “It would serve a useful purpose,” he commented in his Inaugural Address, “to establish the tradition that one does not ‘go to school’ in a university. Our young men and women ‘go to college’ or ‘take university work.’”[3]

            For a few years previous to the coming of Dr. Duniway the University had been running along without fuss or feather; now here was a newcomer wanting to make over the University and proceeding to do so. People were resentful of newcomers who brought ideas that upset the status quo.

            Dr. Duniway’s ideal for the University he clearly set forth in his 1910 report to the Board of Education: “A State university should first be a good standard teaching college . . . then maintain professional departments of high efficiency . . . [should] foster love of sound learning, the spirit of scholarship, the scientific love of truth, in all its members . . . yet the university must transcend all these functions, for it must furnish leadership in all the higher fields of intellectual, professional, industrial, and social activity.” This was high thinking for the struggling University.

            Movement toward improvement, however, was rapid. In the President’s first month ten faculty meetings were held and more than sixty motions were made, most of them adopted. Many of them looked toward tightening the regulations concerning scholarship, the grading system, course requirements. The President appointed standing faculty committees instead of waiting for conditions to arise that demanded committee action. Faculty men and women turned attention toward the upgrading of their teaching and the increase of knowledge in their fields of study. The President gave attention to even the smallest details of administration. Together he and the faculty were busy revising the courses of study so that the new plan “would combine elements of group, elective, and major department systems” with the “major” not declared until the junior year. They were also revising requirements for admission to the University and for graduation.[4] The tasks of 1908-12 were like those of an engineer whose machine needs overhauling and some rebuilding so that it may be in prime working condition.

            When the President asked the faculty for information about the needs of their departments the most frequent request was for books for the Library. Professor Louis Plant needed complete sets of certain mathematical journals and called for more thorough work in astronomy. Dr. William Book, Department of Education and Philosophy, gratefully acknowledged relief with the addition of Professor Howard Stoutemeyer to the department staff, which made possible his attendance at county institutes of teachers. He saw, however, need for two psychological experts “to investigate all problems of learning . . . for systematic and concerted work on the problem of school legislation.” Dr. M. J. Elrod needed books for advanced students in biology, larger funds for publication of scientific papers and courses in meteorology and stricter weather observations.[5] He urged the organization of a two-year pre-medic course and noted that the Biological Station had 160 acres in three tracts on Flathead Lake but no building and no money with which to build one. Professor Joseph Kirkwood, a man of fine scholarship and with ideas and a strength of character much like the President’s, needed books and charts and equipment for study and research, expanded forestry experimentation, an enlarged nursery and a greenhouse. Dr. William Harkins,[6] professor of Chemistry, noted equipment needs and added: “If the University can train a few great men it will justify all of the expenditures which have been made for it.”[7]

            These listings of needs indicated an aliveness in the faculty which no doubt pleased the President and boded well for the University. The requests were acted upon in whatever measure finances allowed. In particular, the Library was strengthened by an increased purchase of books and at the same time by becoming a depository for government documents through the efforts of U. S. Senator Joseph Dixon. Again, money was made available in 1912 for a small building at the Biological Station.[8] The President repeatedly recommended to the Board of Education a pre-medical course, one in preventive medicine, expansion of the School of Engineering, publication of scientific studies. He urged adoption of modern systems of accounting in the Business Office and of academic records in the Registrar’s, a loan fund for students, an honor scholarship for every accredited high school in Montana, a building for the natural sciences, an addition to the machine shop, again increased faculty salaries, a larger campus, and a men’s dormitory.

            In regard to the dormitory he argued that it “would materially reduce the cost of living for men students just as Woman’s Hall serves the same purpose for young women. At present the price of comfortable rooms and good board in Missoula is higher than it ought to be for young men of moderate means who desire to attend the University. The very prosperity of the community, the constant growing demand for houses, operate against the interests of students from a distance.” A year later he added that “a dormitory would provide a better means of supervising the welfare of the young men who leave their homes to take up residence in an unfamiliar city with unaccustomed freedom from the conservative influences of their homes.[9]

            In 1910 the faculty of 27, including the president, the librarian and the registrar, had nine professors with the Ph.D. degree. Development of research, however, was not a declared purpose; on the contrary, the President in an undated news release stated: “This is a teaching college of undergraduates. The faculty will themselves engage in research and they may lead a few choice students into original investigation, but this cannot be a main feature of their work.”

            Three particularly able persons were brought onto the faculty by Dr. Duniway, namely, Dr. Joseph Kirkwood, a botanist who immediately began work also in forestry, Dr. Paul C. Phillips as Professor of History, and Miss Mary Steward, Instructor in Languages and Dean of Women.[10] Professors of the early years who were still on the faculty were Aber, Harkins, Elrod, Book, who, probably with Underwood, welcomed the new emphasis on scholarship and the strong if stern leadership of Dr. Duniway, and Scheuch, Corbin, Knowles, Rowe, and Buckhouse, who seem to have felt less responsive to his program and especially to his urgency. Dr. Duniway lacked the warm personality that draws people toward one; though always a gentleman he seemed severe, with his mind always on the University.

            By December 1910 the number of students had increased to 176, in 1912 to 203. Two of their interests, health and employment, had been looked after by the assigning of a cottage for care of the contagious diseases and by the establishing of an employment bureau. In general, student affairs were freed from the close control that had existed since 1895. The dormitory was self-governed. The Kaimin, now a weekly newspaper, began to enjoy unusual freedom in comment and criticism. Student organizations were running strong – the two original literary societies, the Oratorical League and the Debate League, the fraternities (Sigma Nu and Sigma Chi) and sororities (Kappa Alpha Theta, Delta Gamma, Kappa Kappa Gamma and a local one) a YMCA, a YWCA, five musical groups, Penetralia and Silent Sentinel,[11] clubs in drama, chemistry, engineering.[12]

            The students were accepting the rulings for athletics with difficulty, complaining in their publications that the rules caused teams, coached by volunteers (Mr. White, Dr. Warren, Mr. George Weisel, Sr.), to get down to work late and that few games were played with teams outside of Montana. From 1908 through the 1912 season the football team won twelve games, lost five and tied two, and against the State College had won twice, lost once and tied twice. All three of the out-of-state games were lost.

            In spite of the downhilling of athletics the students were aware of progress being made in the University. The Kaimin in 1909 wrote: “It is gratifying to learn that the University is putting emphasis where it belongs – on the development of the individual student,” and again, “The trend toward a high-class institution which has characterized the University of Montana during the present academic year has borne fruit likewise among student enterprises,” and added that maybe that was the cause of the existing weak college spirit. In 1911 the paper reported that “there is a fine spirit of work in the college,” and in a December issue of the same year an editorial stated that results had been accomplished at the University which “three years before were thought impossible.” The 1912 Sentinel, reviewing the past year, recognized the advance the University had made – the freshman class the largest in the institution’s history, expanded departments and newly formed ones, increased extension work, education and culture fostered over the State. The old school spirit, it noted, had merged into “the magnificent University spirit.”

            Accomplishments there certainly were. A short course in elementary law was taught by fourteen lecturers, principally local lawyers, another in public hygiene was handled by twelve practicing physicians, and a third in forestry was taught by seven employees of the U.S. Forest Service, District 1. These were prime adventures for the University, bringing the town and gown together and looking toward more regular work in the three fields.

            The School of Law was under way by 1911. It was the second professional school for the University, the first being the School of Engineering, which in the next University administration was traded to the State College. The School of Law was excellent from the beginning, at first through Dr. Duniway’s insistence upon excellent faculty men. “In 1908,” reads an account in The History of the Law School prepared for the dedication of the School’s new building (1961), “President Craig was succeeded by Clyde Augustus Duniway, who repeatedly urged the necessity of offering Montanans legal training in their own State. During the University’s Charter Day exercises on February 17, 1911, President Duniway read a telegram from the Missoula County delegation in the Legislature, stating that the bill for the Law School had been signed by Governor Norris. The audience cheered wildly, whereupon the President remarked: “The best of all birthday gifts is a vote of confidence. The State has given us that. I feel sure that we shall prove worthy of it.” At the conclusion of the convocation a large celebration was held on the Oval, complete with bonfire. The Legislature appropriated $6,000 for maintenance. Mrs. Dixon, widow of W. N. Dixon, a prominent lawyer, at the suggestion of Senator Dixon (no relation) had decided to aid a law school at the University and did so (1916). The Dixon law library became, in 1911, the nucleus of the School’s library.[13]

            The outlook for the Law School was promising, but difficulties lay ahead. The selection of the School’s faculty the Board of Education left to its University committee, C. H. Hall, a Missoula attorney, its chairman. His wish and that of some of the members of the Board of Education and of some lawyers in the State was to appoint Montana lawyers, but Dr. Duniway had seen enough of the working of politics in University matters. He was also determined that only men of professional excellence, no matter where they might hail from, should receive appointment to the faculty. He had his mind set on Harvard graduates. The minutes of the Board of Education show that the names of G. G. Bogart and A. N. Whitlock had been before it, that on July 31 Dr. Duniway asked to withdraw those names, and that on the following day he recommended Judge J. B. Clayberg, who had served as Montana’s Attorney General and as a State Supreme Court judge, to be “Emeritus Dean” of the law school and Professor of Mining and Irrigation Law and Montana Code Practice, that H. W. Ballantine, LL.B. from Harvard University and a practicing attorney in San Francisco, be Dean and A. N. Whitlock, a Kentuckian fresh from LL.B work at Harvard University, be an assistant professor. The wishes of Hall and of an alumnus who had desired appointment were thwarted when the Board accepted the President’s recommendations; they seem never to have forgiven him.[14]

            That, however, is not the whole story. Dr. Duniway had recommended earlier in 1911 that R. L. Henry, Jr., a Rhodes Scholar with an Oxford University degree in law and the J.D. from the University of Chicago, be made the dean. The special Board Committee on the Law Faculty questioned whether the President had the initiative in recommending selection of the Law faculty and passed the touchy matter on to the Board. At its July, 1911, meeting the Board discussed the policy of giving the presidents of the several state units of the University System such initiative and referred the matter to a committee. Later, that privilege was allowed. This whole action is one instance of a tight rein that was held on President Duniway. The local Executive committee, although the President was its chairman, could and at times, did hamper and obstruct his work, for, as has been noted, it could employ and dismiss faculty members and determine their salaries.

            As a matter of fact, the duties and responsibilities of the State Board of Education, of the Board’s University committee, of the local Executive committee and of the President were loosely defined. In the spring of 1909 the legislature somewhat enlarged the duties of the Board, tempered those of the two committees, but left the President with too little initiative and authority.[15]

            Dr. Duniway also questioned the wisdom of putting into the hands of a politically elected group, the State Board of Examiners, the power of prorating Legislative appropriations among the four units of the University System thus controlling education through the control of money. Were elected officials, he queried, likely to be men knowledgeable in educational matters? More tactfully he wrote: “The working out of the larger problems of financial control of educational institutions by a non-educational board may well be subject to careful consideration.” Unfortunately, he added (and deleted in a later report): “If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, it is not too early to begin to consider amendments to a system which might, under some future administration, put the educational interests of the State in jeopardy through the partisanship of any two out of three members of a politically elected board with complete power of the purse.”[16] His pressing of this matter was occasioned by such treatment as the University was dealt by the Board of Examiners in 1911. The Legislature appropriated for the maintenance of the University for the biennium 1911-13 $175,000, for extension work $2,000, for the summer session $10,000, for the Law School $12,000, for the purchase of land to extend the campus $40,000, for an engineering building $50,000, for a building at the Biological Station $5,000. The legislature had hardly more than adjourned when Dr. Duniway received, March 25, a letter from the clerk of the Board of Examiners stating that the appropriations for the engineering building, for the summer school and for the purchase of land had been “suspended” and the sum for the Biological Station had been reduced to $2,000. In all $103,000 had been withheld, $93,000 for buildings and land and $10,000 for maintenance.

            Soon after arrival on the campus the President espoused the cause of consolidation or, if that was not feasible, a closer meshing of the work of the four units. He had urged this cause for the next three years, not vigorously as his successor did, but strongly. Division of available money among the four units had promoted rivalry. Waste of money through duplication of work was inevitable. If, he said, it was too late for consolidation surely administrative unity could be brought about. In the end, nothing about these matters happened during his presidency.

            The President’s several stands on matters which he considered of importance to the University drew opposition from certain members of the faculty, from some politically elected officials of the State government, from some townspeople and statespeople, enough to cause rumors in the fall of 1911 that the administration was under investigation. C. H. Hall, the Missoula member of the Board of Education, was at the time marshaling forces against Dr. Duniway, but he denied the rumor published in The Kaimin. He knew that a letter had been sent to Governor Norris signed by two alumni and three undergraduates asking that a committee to discuss conditions at the University be sent to the campus. The Governor and the Board of Education turned the matter over to its University committee, whose chairman was C. H. Hall. The committee summoned some faculty members before it, a few alumni, some students to consult with it in Missoula. At the Board’s meeting on December 5 Hall reported to the Board of Education a spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction among the students, a lack of cooperation between the President and a large portion of the faculty – “so much so as to retard the growth of the University.” [A footnote #17 appears at the bottom of the page containing this paragraph, but it is not subscribed anywhere in the body of the work] [17] (This was stated in the face of an increase in student enrollment.) The President, he said, was unpopular among high school students (he was the official High School Inspector and without doubt his inspections were scrupulous) and was a reason for secondary school graduates leaving the State to attend eastern universities. The Board, without giving the President a hearing, without additional investigation, and stating no reasons, adopted the committee’s recommendation that Dr. Duniway be dismissed from office. On the same day the secretary of the executive session of the Board wrote to Dr. Duniway:  “I am instructed by the State Board of Education in executive session to notify you that the following resolution was unanimously adopted: ‘that President Duniway’s contract not be renewed on September 12, 1912.’” This was star chamber action.

            Curiously enough, only six months previously, at the Board’s June 6 meeting, C. H. Hall had recommended, in behalf of the University committee, that Dr. Duniway be reelected and that “we express our commendation and approval of the highly efficient manner in which he has conducted the affairs of the State University and that we express our appreciation of the executive and administrative ability shown by him since he has been president of said University.” At that time the President’s salary was raised from $4,000 to $4,500.

            Upon receipt of the clerk’s note of his dismissal Dr. Duniway,  having to leave town for a meeting in Spokane the next day and preferring that the faculty should hear the news from him rather than through a newspaper story, called a faculty meeting. “The receipt of this letter,” which he had read, “is my first intimation that such action was in contemplation or that it had been taken. I was not informed of it in Helena. I was not called before the Board: there was no conference with me in Helena.[18] He added: “The University is bigger than any man or set of men, any faculty or any board . . . I shall endeavor to administer the affairs of the University as in the past, with proper loyalty to my superiors, the Board of Education. If any explanation is to come, it must come from those who have taken the action . . . It is going to be a difficult year, difficult for me and difficult, I suppose, for you; difficult in our relations with the students and with the public; but the only thing to do . . . is to be sure to do only what is best.”

            C. H. Hall, in the same issue of The Missoulian which announced the dismissal of the President, defended the Board’s action: “Each speaker at the Board’s meeting paid the highest tribute to the high scholarship of Dr. Duniway and to his sincerity and earnestness of purpose. High regard was expressed for him personally [but] Dr. Duniway’s  administrative ideas did not agree with what the Board considers should be the policy of the State university . . . the impossibility of avoiding friction between himself and the board had become apparent.” This sugary explanation did not satisfy editors of the State’s papers; puzzled, they spread publicity widely. The seniors at Helena High School denied the charge that Dr. Duniway was unpopular among high school students, as did students at Corvallis. Alumnus George Greenwood, ’04, a man with a sense of justice, addressed a letter to the Governor objecting to the manner of the dismissal and asking reasons for the action. He sent copies to 200 alumni for their signatures – 80 signed and many, in addition, wrote letters to the Governor, 11 abstained from signing, and the rest of the 200 remained silent.

            Surprisingly, the Board of Education at its April meeting of 1912 moved to reconsider dismissal of the President. He, being present, was asked to state his case, which he did “in a short talk,” then communications from the alumni were read, after which the Board unanimously voted to sustain its action of dismissal.[19]

            Eloise Knowles, a member of the early University faculty, wrote in a letter to George Greenwood:  “Dr. Duniway is inefficient; he is a millstone about our necks.” Professor Aber wrote to Greenwood: “Some good men are opposed to Duniway, though I have not yet heard a good reason from one of them . . . Duniway is a strong, square man and a courageous gentleman and has behaved like one all the way through.” Alumnus Robert C. Line wrote to “JB” (Speer) from Harvard University, where he was a graduate student, “We know it’s not true that Duniway and the alumni don’t get along or that Duniway and the students don’t.”[20]  A staunch Duniway admirer, J. B. Speer, who became secretary to the President in 1909 and Registrar, wrote in a letter many years later: “Duniway was a crusader frequently intolerant of those who did not agree with him, particularly on moral issues . . . he lacked the astuteness of Craig, the popular appeal of Craighead, the bonhomie of Scheuch, the graciousness of Sisson, the fellowship and camaraderie of Clapp.”[21] However, at the time of the dismissal he defended Duniway stoutly and resigned his offices: “he has created an organization,” he stated, “first-class in every respect.” The Kaimin, somewhat belatedly, wrote: “The University is losing a competent and brilliant educator, and later, “The regents would have had to look far and wide to find a better man.”

            In his last report to the Board of Education Dr. Duniway summarized the advances which the University had made during his four years of administration: the faculty had increased in number from 18 to 32, the faculty maximum salary had risen from $2,100  to $2,500, the maintenance resources from $64,310 to $105,584.25, including provision for the summer school; a Law School had been established and University Extension work increased. The number of students had moved from 150 regular college students to 203. Dr. Duniway listed “features of the University organization and standards not introduced in 1908” – eighteen of them.[22]

            Dr. Duniway left the presidency without bitterness. He even endowed an honor scholarship and a permanent student aid fund. He knew that his years on the campus had been good for the University and that many of the proposals which he had made to the Legislature and the Board of Education would ultimately be acted upon. He knew that he had set in the minds of the faculty and of the statespeople high standards for every function of the University. He had enjoyed the cooperation of the people he respected, faculty, students, people over the State. He left Montana to become President of the University of Wyoming.

 


 

[1] Dr. Duniway was highly recommended by three presidents of large and famous universities, David Starr Jordan of Stanford, Andrew D. White of Cornell and Charles W. Eliot of Harvard.

[2] He was meticulous, no doubt, in his examination of schools but surely not unreasonable. He expected standards to be high and this could cause resentment. High schools did not exist, this President declared, primarily to serve as preparatory departments for universities; they had more important self-justification in educational service for the great majority of young people who did not seek collegiate and professional training.

[3] That was a sound suggestion for that day as it is for today. Professors still speak of college “boys and girls” or even “Kids.”

[4] Both of the patterns arrived at have survived in only a slightly revised form for more than fifty years.

[5] He himself had been officially keeping such records with the help of a student since 1907 when the Weather Bureau at Fort Missoula had been abandoned.

[6] The University’s most distinguished professor at that time. In 1910-11 he was engaged in research for a firm in Karlsruhe, Germany, and again by the Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C., and had been appointed Research Assistant in Physical Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Like Dr. Elrod, he suffered reprisal for testifying for the plaintiffs at the trial of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company occasioned by the harmful effects of fumes from the Anaconda smelter on crops and cattle. He was refused tenure, was given a leave of absence and thus an able professor was lost to the University. Dr. Elrod was dismissed in the spring and reinstated in September at the suggestion of Dr. Duniway.

[7] The University has produced men and women of character and significant achievement, among several Harold Urey, Clarence Streit, Jesse Bierman, Mike Mansfield, Russell Niles.

[8] Dr. Elrod asked W. A. Clark for support of the Station and for a few years received $250 annually.

[9] It was not obtained until the Clapp years. Perhaps 50 to 75 men lived in fraternity houses.

[10] Dr. Kirkwood was brought in and made Chairman of the Department of Botany when Dr. Elrod had asked to have his Department of Biology divided into Zoology and Botany. In 1910 he organized a short course for forest rangers, who attended in number. Dr. Phillips had studied in London and Paris. Miss Stewart was a modish woman of attractive personality and decisive in mind and action. Her independence later brought on unpleasant rumors .

[11] Silent Sentinel disbanded for a while since President Duniway was opposed to its secrecy.

[12] A campaign against smoking seems to have been undertaken, for The Kaimin in 1912 stated that the names of men who smoked on the campus would be published in its columns. An editorial asked a series of questions, among them this one: “Don’t you think we owe it to the women to keep our cigarets [his spelling] and pipes out of sight?” The student store began selling cigarets in October, 1919.

[13] The History of the School of Law, p. 24, states: “Founding of the Law School was made possible through the generosity of the widow of a lawyer whose professional career had for many years been intimately connected with Montana history, and who had himself advocated establishment of a law school at the University.” For additional information about the law school see the Law School Bulletin of 1919, the Silver Anniversary Bulletin of 1936-37, and the Dedication and History, School of Law, 1961.

[14] Undoubtedly this fact played some part in the dismissal of Dr. Duniway. Professor Aber wrote to George Greenwood, “C. H. Hall . . . was disgruntled because Duniway would not appoint to the law faulty his nominee.” John A. Jones, President of he Alumni Association, was disgruntled “because Duniway would not appoint him to the law faculty.”

[15] Dr. Duniway wrote to U. S. Senator Joseph Dixon, January 9, 1909, stating that he had proposed [undoubtedly to the State Board of Education] abolition of all local boards and resting of full control in the Board. Also, he proposed a board of University Regents, subject to the Board of Education, which could meet often. The Senator approved. At that time the Board was meeting only twice a year.

[16] The criticism of the Board of Examiners must have weighed heavily with the Board of Education when dismissal of Dr. Duniway was being considered.

[17] H. C. Pickens, a member of the committee, stated: “The members of the faculty did not make any definite charge. It was what was left unsaid rather than what was said that convinced the committee there was a lack of cooperation in the institution between its president and the faculty.”

[18] He had been in Helena and had received from the Board approval of some recommendations before it went into the executive session at which he was dismissed.

[19] The Board of Education has several times taken summary action without hearings and adequate investigations, against both presidents and faculty members.

[20] Robert C. Line, ’10, had been business manager of The Kaimin and President of the student body, became a member of the State Board of Education and later Dean of the School of Business Administration.

[21] J. B. Speer, an alumnus, became acting Registrar in July, 1909, and Registrar the next year; he resigned in 1912 when Duniway was dismissed, and returned as Registrar in February, 1918; was Business Manager from May, 1920 to July, 1945; became Controller in July, 1945, and retired in 1953. He died in 1957. He gave steady, loyal support to the University, alert to its best interests.

[22] The report contained two paragraphs which, in printing, the Board omitted as “not pertinent to existing conditions nor conducive to the best interests of the institution.” One paragraph concerned “the defects in the system of divided units and their government in Montana;” the other paragraph concerned faculty salaries, sabbatical leaves of absence and tenure.

Contacts:
Posted by: Don Gilder on