Granite Monthly Article dated May, 1913
Kimball Union Academy
The Part That a New Hampshire Academy is Playing in the Movement for Better
Rural Conditions; a Pioneer Undertaking at the Opening of Its Second Century.
By Harry B. Preston
The history of the parish of Meriden, a village in the town of Plainfield, for the last one hundred years has been closely linked with the history of the Kimball Union Academy, within its limits. It is fitting, then, that the members of the community join with the Academy in the centennial of its founding, to be held in June of this year. Already preparations are under way for an elaborate celebration which will consist of formal exercises in connection with the annual commencement and on the afternoons of June twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth, a community pageant. This pageant will seek to set forth the rich history of the school and community, its present work and life and its aspiration for the future. A central theme of the pageant will emphasize the part that education, and particularly this Academy, has played and is playing in the better rural conditions in the communities which it seeks to serve.
Meriden was settled in 1769. Among the early pioneers who came to the new community were Benjamin Kimball and his son Daniel. The rough pioneer family relation which constituted the education of the time had these two redeeming features. The father gave to his son the best he himself had and gave it directly, at first hand. In the second place, such education had the advantage of fitting the man for his life work on a New Hampshire farm. Such was the education Daniel Kimball received from his father as he grew to manhood. That it was an efficient one is proven by the fact that he became a well-to-do farmer and accumulated a considerable fortune. Later in life, responding to the need for a higher form of education than he himself had, this fortune he gave as the nucleus of the principal fund of the Academy that bears his name.
It was but natural in a time of religious leadership like the early days of the nineteenth century that any movement for more advanced education should have its beginning with the clergy. At a conference of Congregational and Presbyterian ministers, held at Piermont, NH, in June, 1913(sic), the foundation of the present Kimball Union Academy was laid. Together with the representative clergymen at this meeting, were several professors from Yale and Dartmouth Colleges. Their object was to establish an institution to provide education for young men who aimed to enter the Christian ministry and incidentally other "poor and pious young men." The name given to the new school was the Union Academy, a name derived from the fact, that both the conferences of Vermont and New Hampshire were to have a part in its maintenance. This name has since been changed only by prefixing the name of the principal donor. The liberal gift of money from Hon. Daniel Kimball of Meriden determined both the location and the final name of the institution.
The first building for the school was dedicated in September 1815, and in the same month the first session was held. Twice the principal building of the school has been destroyed by fire. The present commodious, brick structure was erected in 1891, after its predecessor had been destroyed.
About 1840, through the efforts of Madame Kimball, widow of Daniel Kimball, a seminary for young women was founded and soon united with the Academy, and since that time the institution has been fully co-educational.
The days of '61 to '65 were stirring days in the life of the old school as well as in the life of the nation. Many of the students marched away to join the Union forces, and many of the graduates have enviable war records. Just after the war the fortunes of the Academy were at their height. For thirty-five years (1835-1870) the able work of Dr. Cyrus Smith Richards, the principal of the school, counted both in numbers and character of the students. The long roll of distinguished men and women in all walks of life who have done honorable service in this country and in the world, attest the excellent work of the school under this high-minded Christian educator. In unnumbered homes, as well, lives less widely known have been strong and fruitful because of the years spent on Meriden Hill.
About 1888, the Academy was at the lowest point in number of students in its history. Various causes contributed to this. The movement toward the cities of a considerable number of the rural population was an important factor. Another evident cause was the growth of high schools, very generally throughout the state. Still another was that the railroads had passed the village of Meriden by. For a community without railroad facilities was a greater calamity twenty years ago, than now, because of the introduction of the automobile. At that time, it looked to all as if this old New England academy, in spite of its splendid history and traditions and its high ideals, was doomed. Its trustees and friends were almost ready to close its doors and abandon the struggle.
But at the point of greatest discouragement, a scheme was devised which has succeeded in making the last two decades of the first century of the school's history the very best in its history. This was the so-called One Hundred Dollar plan. By it, students of limited means, but of high character, were given an opportunity to obtain an education at the total expense of one hundred dollars per year. The plan required from each student one hour of labor per day about the grounds and buildings. The outlook brightened immediately upon the adoption of this plan. The very boys and girls whom the founders had intended to serve began to come to the school in increasing numbers. And to the present this class are chiefly sought for students. With changing conditions and the increased cost of living, the one hundred dollar plan has been somewhat modified, but still a very large number of students are enabled to finance their own education.
The last advance in the life of the Academy has been its attempt to adjust its service to the needs of the communities, which lie around about it. Most of these villages are away from the railroad and their first knowledge of a movement for better rural conditions has come from the Academy. In this work, it has become a pioneer among the secondary schools of New England. Meriden is a center for civic and rural betterment. Several conferences of the boys from nearby towns have been held during vacation periods. They have been largely attended by the young men from that part of the state, and have proved sources of much profit. Here have assembled, in conference, the coming generation of New Hampshire farmers, together with educators from the State College and agricultural experts from other states. In this the Young Men's Christian Association has co-operated, so that these boys who work all the year on the farms have been given a week of real inspiration. From this period of inspiration the newer ideas and the better ones have been carried back to the parents. Thus, not alone to its students, but to the larger public in the vicinity has the Academy carried this message of a larger, better and finer civic life.
For a number of years the need of a farm for laboratory purposes in connection with courses in agriculture has been apparent to the trustees. Without it, the practical application of the principals of rural development, which the Academy is teaching, lost much of their force. Such a farm has been one of the anniversary gifts to the Academy. Hon. Alfred S. Hall of Boston, an alumnus and trustee of the school, has presented his alma mater a seventy acre farm in memory of his son, Francis C. Hall. It is especially desirable and well situated, near the school.
Upon a hillside in a beautiful grove of white pine on this farm will be held the coming Pageant of Meriden. It is fitting that the first crop from the Academy's farm should be the joy, art and inspiration of the pageant.
The modern pageant, as it has been developed in England and America, has aimed, not alone, at a mere pictorial representation of the past, though this has been one of its functions. The history of Meriden and of Kimball Union Academy, as herein outlined, will furnish a rich fund of such material. Neither does the pageant stop with the presentation of the present life and activity of a community, efficient as it may be. The pageant, at its best, seeks to give a decided impetus to lines of betterment already begun, as it looks forward into the future. The Pageant of Meriden will emphasize particularly the functions of a secondary school in the New Country Life. Its final scene will show the Academy and town of 1920, when the various lines of activity now being set on foot are firmly established and bearing fruit. For instance, it will suggest the boys from its agricultural and manual courses as successful farmers and artisans and its girls as efficient home makers. Both will appear possessed of a fine culture, not the culture of the classics only, but the culture of a vigorous outdoor life, which fits rather than unfits them for active leadership in rural affairs.
Mr. William Chauncey Langdon, president of the American Pageant Association, who has written the Pageant of Meriden and will direct it, is a most enthusiastic worker for better rural conditions. Two pageants directed by him have had as their basic theme this subject; the Pageant of Thetford (Vermont) of 1911, and the Pageant of St. Johnsbury of 1912. The former of these dealt with a typical farming community situated among the Vermont hills and with its problems, while the latter presented the history and aspirations of a rural industrial center. Both of these were artistically and practically successful and their effect has been felt for good in the respective communities. With these two the Pageant of Meriden will from the third in the Country Life Trilogy. Here education will be the new central idea.
Preparations are going on actively under the direction of Charles Alden Tracy, Principal of the Academy, assisted by a large committee, the members of which have shown their sympathy with the Academy's work and ideals and especially with the pageant by accepting membership on this committee. Among the well-known members are the following: President Ernest Fox Nichols, Professors Homer Eaton Keyes, Herbert Darling Foster, and Walter Van Dyke Bingham of Dartmouth College; President E. P. Fairchild of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture; Hon. Henry C. Morrison, Superintendent of Public Instruction of New Hampshire; Percy Mackaye, Cambridge, Mass; Winston Churchill and Robert Barrett of Cornish; Herbert E. Adams and Louis E. Shipman of Plainfield; Robert Treat Paine and Mrs. George Rublee of New York.
The music for the pageant will be composed by Arthur Farwell, Supervisor of Municipal Music of New York City. In most cases, the music for such an occasion is compiled, collected and arranged from various sources, but it is Mr. Farwell's aim to make the music for the Pageant of Meriden entirely original, fitted to the scene and dialogue exactly like an opera. Mr. Farwell will direct a large orchestra and chorus in their rehearsals and final performance of his music.
Not the least of the helpful benefits that are expected to come from this community festival will be the closer relation between the Academy and the men and women of Meriden and the surrounding villages. For a hundred years this relation has been a pleasant one, full of mutual helpfulness, but the getting together even for the short time of the pageant, and the common interest in the portrayal of the best in the past, present and future of their common life should stimulate both school and community to renewed endeavor. The school must realize its responsibility. It must see that its work is for New Hampshire and for her people. Not the distant city, but the local farming communities that nestle all about Meriden are to be the hope of the nation's future. On the other hand members of the community must come to realize that the school is truly working for their benefit. Its hundred years have not been without mistakes; it has often taken steps along lines that had to be retraced. But in the past, in the present and in its aspirations for the future there is a continuity of high ideals, a real disposition to be of service and a belief that it has a part to play in the solution of America's most vital problems.
History of New Hampshire
By Everett S. Stackpole.
Volume III, Page 222-3
One of the oldest and most flourishing academies for a full century is the Kimball Union Academy of Meriden, endowed by Hon. Daniel Kimball and named in his honor. It has been a noted fitting school for Dartmouth College. Until the year 1839 it was for young men only; since then it has been coeducational. Two of its early principals were Rev. Israel Newell and Cyrus S. Richards. The former served thirteen years and the latter thirty-six. For a long time it had between two hundred and three hundred students annually, but the statistics of 1913 show only one hundred and forty-four in attendance. It has an agricultural department. Before the close of the last century it had graduated 1,750 students, of whom 333 became clergymen, 26 foreign missionaries, 211 physicians, 313 lawyers, 36 editors, 431 teachers, 7 college presidents, 34 professors, 4 members of congress, and 3 judges of the higher courts. It is still in a flourishing condition, with good buildings and considerable endowment.