The president of the University of Maine had a long wish list in the spring of 1906. He wanted a central power and heating plant, a larger assembly hall and a central building for the agriculture program. He wanted financial support to train high school teachers. He wanted more faculty to meet the needs of a rapidly growing student body, and he wanted more money to pay professors. Their salaries were the lowest among New England land grant institutions. To do all this and more, President George E. Fellows wanted the Legislature to impose a “fractional mill tax,” the proceeds of which would be dedicated to UM.

Despite his brave words, however, President Fellows knew UM might be fighting for its life. The reactionaries were on the march again. If the supporters of Bowdoin, Bates and Colby had their way, the university would get rid of its courses in Greek and Latin and be phased back to a cow college in short order.

The Maine State College, founded 40 years earlier, had achieved university status only in 1897 after a hard-fought battle. Opposition had come from the private colleges worried about competition from the upstart in Orono. It also came from powerful farming interests that feared loss of control of the campus if its agricultural mission was diluted. One result of all this fighting, which was stoked further by sectionalism – the old “two Maines” issue – was erratic state appropriations sometimes varying by thousands of dollars from year to year, making long-term planning impossible.

The latest round in the ongoing battle came to a head in 1906 when a legislative commission investigated the university’s relationship with the state. “The questions which the committee are to report upon are whether or not the state is doing too much for the university and whether or not the university is doing more than her charter calls for in granting courses, especially the one leading to the B.A. degree,” said the Bangor Daily Commercial on May 23, the same day as a highly publicized hearing in Portland a century ago tomorrow.

The chief figure among UM’s detractors was Bowdoin’s president, William DeWitt Hyde. He was described as having an “aristocratic, autocratic, dictatorial bearing” in a Commercial editorial on May 26. The issue at hand was “a plain business question,” argued Hyde. Should UM be allowed to keep adding tax-supported courses and departments whether or not they were needed? “Maine has no educational funds to throw away or waste in needless duplication,” he said.

He cited pharmacy courses, the new law school and a proposed teacher-training college as examples of programs that were added without proper study and consultation. He also cited liberal arts courses leading to bachelor of arts degrees, which already were offered by Bowdoin, Bates and Colby.

He questioned the quality of these newer courses as well. “You cannot develop a general course in liberal arts by tacking a professor of Greek, a professor of Latin, and a professor of philosophy onto agricultural and engineering courses,” he said. “A college of liberal arts involves on the part of both professors and students a different spirit, attitude and atmosphere from that appropriate to a technical school.”

Left unstated was the fact that Bowdoin and the other two private colleges had vied for the federal funds that established the Maine State College under the Morrill Land Grant College Act in 1863. The institution that became UM was established at Orono as a separate institution after years of debate.

President Fellows’ rebuttal as reported in Bangor’s two daily newspapers was simple: UM students had just as much right to take liberal arts courses as those attending the private colleges. “It is unfair to have only technical education and have those who wish to study the liberal arts compelled to go elsewhere,” he said. “It was never intended to force farmers’ boys to go in and come out farmers.”

The question of inclusion entered the debate. Could poor farm boys or members of minority religious and ethnic groups gain entrance to the expensive private schools? Hyde argued that the private colleges were accessible to even the poorest students through scholarships and summer work opportunities. Fellows said enrollment at UM represented students from 139 “occupations of the people of Maine” and from almost every Christian denomination. The campus enrolled 15 Catholic students and two Catholic professors, he said. No mention was made in Bangor press reports of women, African-Americans, Jews or the thousands of immigrants then settling in Maine.

In the months that followed, an immense lobbying campaign was conducted by both sides. While hoping for a special tax to fund the university, realists understood they would have much to celebrate if they could save the campus’ university designation and its bachelor of arts offerings. In the seesaw legislative battle that followed early in 1907, the university won another victory, retaining its status and getting some extra money as well.

“Again the university had won out over those forces hoping to limit its activities to agriculture and technology,” wrote David C. Smith, whose book “The First Century: A History of the University of Maine, 1865-1965” is a good place to trace these travails. Of course, anyone who has followed UM history knows that the same conflicts remain with us today. How the University of Maine System spends its money and how much it spends will always be among the Legislature’s favorite political footballs.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.