Volume CXXXII, Number 5 October 18, 2002 f

The Life of Casey Sills
KID WONGSRICHANALAI
COLUMNIST

The author has decided to drop "The Campus on the Hill" piece of this series, as it would be fairly repetative for most Bowdoin students since the place has not changed much since the 1930s. Here, then is the next chapter in the World War II series.

From across the quad one could already see that he was a great and noble man. Perhaps there was something about the way he stood or how his face showed only the glowing qualities of human kindness mingled with the sharp wit of a scholar and a poet. From across the quad on sunny and cloudy days alike one could not mistake his distinctive walk, his unique bearing as he strode across the campus that had made a symbiotic pact with him.

On this day he was a man filled with great pain and great loss. In his heart there was now a scar that would never heal; a scar that would bury itself deep inside him and till the end of his days, motivate him to preserve and guide the college that his mentor and friend had loved so dearly.

As he faced the open ground before him, Appleton Hall rising behind his turned back, he could feel the weight of the great responsibility that had been placed on his shoulders. In his pocket was a watch that Mrs. William DeWitt Hyde had given him.

"It has not stopped," she said of her husband's timepiece, "Will you wear it and keep it going?" Keep it going; keep the Bowdoin College of William DeWitt Hyde going. That seemed like such a simple task and yet for Kenneth Charles Morton Sills it was not one that he could easily accept. "He was the greatest president Bowdoin ever had or is ever likely to have," Sills had written of his predecessor, now buried in a cemetery that would also be the final resting place of Kenneth Sills.

A task and a great college filled with brimming energy and undiminished pride lay before him. Slowly he turned as the workers continued to build the new dormitory the College would name in honor of Hyde. Keep it going, he thought to himself. It was a great task and he was sure going to do his best.

Kenneth Charles Morton Sills-or as generations of Bowdoin students called him, Casey-was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia on December 5, 1879. Less than a year later, his family moved to Portland, Maine where his father, the reverend Charles Morton Sills accepted the post of Canon of St. Luke's Cathedral. It was in this burgeoning coastal city that the young Casey grew up. Along its hilly streets and lush green walkways was a community tuned to the rhythm of the sea. The Atlantic Ocean swept up to its piers, bearing its bountiful offerings to the community of fishermen and business owners who found themselves a part of a historical town. Along the stony roads which led up to State Street and the grand buildings of another era once walked such a refined politician as William Pitt Fessenden-himself a Bowdoin graduate and a former Secretary of the Treasury. Here too one could find, at the end of his days, Maine's greatest Civil War hero, General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, retiring after a troubled tenure as Bowdoin's head. In this era of growth, optimism, and development, Casey Sills grew up dreaming of the firemen and their equipment in Engine House 4.

Casey Sills did not grow up too soon. He enjoyed his time in the lazy Maine summers and looked to the future when he could move beyond his Portland days. In the summer of 1891 he took a memorable trip thirty miles from his home; it was Casey Sills' first visit to Bowdoin College. He toured the campus, staying in Appleton Hall, and walked down to the Delta, where a game of baseball was being played. He sat in on a class and even attended morning chapel. The young man must have enjoyed himself for he was later to become a member of the Bowdoin Class of 1901.

In high school, he had already been acknowledged as a scholar and a budding academic. A member of the debating club, a tennis player, and editor of the high school magazine, young Casey was happiest when he was with his books. Early on he had written, "A school is judged … not by the football games its team wins, not by the school paper its scholars edit, not by the drills of its military battalion, but by the characters of the pupils in the school, and their ability to do the work set forth for them." Performing superbly in high school, Bowdoin was Sills' obvious next step. On September 13, 1897, Kenneth Sills and his boyhood friend Rip Dana arrived on campus and began their Bowdoin experience. Pledging to Delta Kappa Epsilon, Sills lived his first year in Appleton Hall. At the sum of $330 per year, the Canadian born scholar received the best education Bowdoin could offer.

The Bowdoin of Sills' student days was also the Bowdoin of William DeWitt Hyde. Assuming office in 1885, Hyde was a Harvard graduate and a long-time educational theorist. 26 years old when he came to Bowdoin, Hyde had served for two years as a pastor in a New Jersey. Athletic, optimistic, determined, and full of energy the young president brought Bowdoin successfully into the 20th century. Under his guidance, the College expanded its history, government, economics, and sociology departments. There were new spots for bright young faculty members as well as new entrance exams for those who wanted to join Bowdoin's ranks. A new gymnasium to help promote the health of undergraduates was built along with the Walker Art Museum. Historian Charles C. Calhoun wrote of the period:

William DeWitt Hyde was to transform Bowdoin from a failing country college into an exemplar of a style of higher education that was to challenge the domination that the large universities exercised over American higher education in the last decades of the nineteenth century.

To be continued next week...