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DIKE, son of George Dike and Hannah Waters Snow, was born February 13, 1839,
in Thompson, Connecticut, and is a descendant of Captain Anthony Dike, who came to
the Plymouth colony on board the ship Ann in 1623. His boyhood was spent on his
father's farm, and he was prepared for college, after leaving the district school of his
home, in Nichols Academy, Dudley, Massachusetts, and then entered our Class in the
autumn of 1859. Dike joined the Equitable fraternity while in college; was a
member of the 'Logian Literary Society and one of its vice-presidents during Senior year; a member
of Mills Society and served as one of its corresponding secretaries. He had the
appointment of English oration on Junior exhibition. He took high rank as a scholar,
being a first class honor man and was assigned the metaphysical oration on the Commencement program, and by virtue of his honor rank became a member of the Phi
Beta Kappa fraternity when the Williams chapter was formed in 1864.
After graduation, Dike studied theology two years at East Windsor Hill Seminary,
since removed to Hartford, Connecticut, and one year at Andover, Massachusetts, where
he was graduated in 1866. After completing his academical education, Dike was for
some months in charge of the Congregational church in Pomfret, Connecticut, and in
occasional supply of pulpits until he began, January 5, 1868, what proved to be a service
of nearly ten years in the pastorate of the Congregational church at West Randolph,
Vermont. At his own request he was dismissed from this church, contrary to the wishes
of a large majority of the membership, November 7, 1877. Two years later, in 1879, he
settled in Royalton, Vermont, not far from his first parish, and was in charge there until
September, 1882, when he gave up the pastorate to devote his whole time to the work in
which he is now engaged and in which our classmate has won more than a national reputation. Since 1887, Dike's residence has been in Auburndale, Massachusetts. Dike's
work while in the pastorate was in the line of improving the institutional life in church
and community. The church, the schools, and all the civic interests were by his active
mind quickened and guided to better methods of work. It was during his year at Andover that our classmate's attention was attracted to the investigation of the origin
and growth of society, and to the problems of the family, and, a little later, to those
concerning property. While in Vermont, at Randolph, and especially while living in
Royalton, Dike wrote a good deal for the leading religious newspaper of the state and
the secular press, upon certain aspects of the questions which were beginning to absorb
his interest and claim his services. His first article, on The Family," was published in
1875, and that on "Divorce" about three years later. His first lecture was given in the
Monday lectureship the year that the late ex-President Hopkins and others took the
place of Joseph Cook, the originator of this lectureship, while he was abroad. The late
ex-President Woolsey and other leading men whose attention had been drawn to Dike's
work, some of whom had been led by their own study of the times to realize the importance of the questions absorbing his mind, united in forming the New England
Divorce Reform League. This soon became broadened in its field to the National Divorce Reform League, and is now the National League for the Protection of the
Family, with Dike as corresponding secretary, its leading spirit and active worker. This
organization has held the confidence of many of the most thoughtful people in the
country and is also favorably known in foreign countries for its careful and broad work.
Besides the annual reports of the league, which are often a general survey and discussion
of the progress of thought for the year on the family and kindred topics, Dike has
written for many newspapers and periodicals. His review and magazine articles cover
some thirty-five titles. Two principles have shaped and controlled this work: a Christian
aim and a scientific method. There has been in it a conviction, almost from the first,
that the family, to quote the Right Hon. James Bryce, M.P., "is almost the fundamental
and permanent problem of human society," and that divorce is only a part of the problem. He early reached the conclusion that the conditions of this problem can only
be understood in the light of the history of the trend of our entire Western civilization.
The home and the communal form of association are held to be to the sociologist what
the cell and tissue are in biology.
Dike's work under the guidance of the principles just indicated and along various
lines of activity may be summarized in their chief results as it is attempted under the
following heads. In his chosen department of sociological research, our classmate has
done much original work and is entitled to the credit and authority that have been
accorded him.
1. In the annual reports of the organization, of which he has been a most efficient
secretary from its beginning. Allusion has been made to these.
2. In his contributions to the daily press, to magazines, quarterlies, and other
periodicals of the first class. These also have been mentioned. Dike has chosen
deliberately to reach and influence public opinion by this method rather than through
more elaborate treatises. 3. In lectures and addresses before churches and other assemblies, especially before
educational institutions. In this line of work he has reached more than fifty universities,
colleges, and seminaries, appearing in some cases repeatedly.
The subjects of his leading articles and lectures have centered around the domestic
and communal types of society; the problems of the family, its place in the history of
Christianity; its theory, the historic relations of the divorce question, the place of the
family in reference to religion, education, economics and philanthropy. This line of
treatment led to many articles on the religious problem of the country town, and the
extension of the work of the Sunday school beyond its weekly session through the Home
Department of this school a scheme originating with Dike the ideal of which is to bring
every family into touch with the religious activities of a given church's sphere of
influence.
4. Direct efforts to reach public sentiment have been successful and have almost
completely turned the tide of lax legislation on marriage and divorce. They have led to
many changes for the better. One of the best results on this line has been in the work of
bringing forth and classifying the facts regarding the family, especially as it is effected by
the State laws on marriage and divorce. This movement produced the "Report of the
United States Commissioner of Labor on Marriage and Divorce in the United States and
Europe," in 1889. In this work Dike had a leading part. Through the revelations of the
good and the bad in our marriage laws throughout the country, there has come general
improvement all along the line at the points where great laxity was revealed. This
improvement has been gained, not through seeking legislation by the national Congress,
but by endeavoring, often successfully, to promote State cooperation through Commissions on Uniform Legislation on Marriage and Divorce, and in other directions.
So far thirty-four states have joined in this work with excellent results.
Dike's work on these somewhat abstruse (to the lay mind, at least) sociological
questions has brought him into prominence among scientific bodies whose specialties are
in the line of his activity. In 1888, our college have him the degree of Doctor of Laws in
recognition of "attainments in political science and sociology." He was elected among the
first of the honorary non-resident members of the Washington Academy of Sciences for
"contributions and attainments in science." He is or has been a member of several other
scientific bodies, as American Social Science Association, American Academy of Social
and Political Science, American Economic Association, and American Statistical Association, to most of which he has contributed papers and discussions. Since 1888, he
has been a member of a body, to which such able citizens as Bishop Potter, Mayor Low,
and Gladden of our alumni belonging, known as the "Sociological Group," fifteen in
number, which has aimed to discuss, in the Century and other leading magazines, some
"Present Day Problems." By request this body took up the drink problem, formed the
"Committee of Fifty" and through instituted a most thorough and scientific research
which has led to publications of rare value. This is almost the first piece of genuine
work on this most difficult social question. Dike has been a member from its organization of the Twentieth Century Club of Boston, Massachusetts. He has been
president of the alumni associations of Andover and Hartford Seminaries, and of the
Williams Alumni Association of Boston and vicinity. In 1895-96 he was alumni visitor to
Williams and made the report to the Alumni Association at its annual meeting in 1896, a
report of special value in that it sought to bring about closer relations between the
college and its constituency.
Dr. Dike married Miss Augusta Margaret Smith, of Montpelier, Vermont, daughter
of Jacob and Althea Bates Smith, October 29, 1872.
They have had four children. The two daughters, Alice Norton and Elizabeth
Anderson, are graduates of Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. The elder son,
George Phillips Dike, a graduate of Williams of the Class of 1897, spent two years in the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and three years in Harvard Law School, where he
was graduated in 1902. He is now with a leading patent law firm in Boston. The
younger son, Theodore Williams Dike, is a member of this year's graduating class at
Williams.
Source:
Class of Sixty-Three Williams College Fortieth Year Report, by
the Class Historian, Thomas Todd Printer, Boston, 1903
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