SIXTY-FIVE TEAES IN THE 
 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
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SIXTY-FIVE YEAKS IN THE 
 LIFE OF A TEACHEK 
 
 1841-1906 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWAKD HICKS MAGILL 
 
 Ex-President of Swarthmore College 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY 
 
 (2tbe 0itoer?ide ptt^^, €amhtiti^t 
 
 1907 
 
 ^ OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
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 GENERAL 
 
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 COPYRIGHT 1907 BY EDWARD HICKS MAGILL 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published March iqcfj 
 
TO 
 SUCH YOUNG TEACHERS AS MAT FIND 
 THE EXPERIENCES HERE NARRATED AN 
 ENCOURAGEMENT IN THEIR WORK, THIS 
 BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 175627 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 I 
 
 Edward H. Magill, Ex-President of Swarth- 
 
 MORE College, 1906 Frontispiece 
 
 Jonathan Paxson Magill 2 
 
 Maby Watson Magill 4 
 
 Benjamin Hallowell 24 
 
 WiLLiSTON Seminary, in 1849 28 
 
 WiLLiSTON Seminary, in 1906 30 
 
 Edward H. Magill at Yale, in 1850 .... 32 
 
 Prof. James Hadley 34 
 
 Dr. Francis Wayland 40 
 
 Prof. John Larkin Lincoln, LL. D 62 
 
 Francis Gardner, LL. D \ . . . . 76 
 
 Swarthmore College (Parrish Hall), in 1869 . . 142 
 
 Joseph Leidy, M. D., LL. D 154 
 
 Joseph Thomas, M.D., LL.D 160 
 
 Edward H. Magill, Professor Emeritus, in 1901 186 
 
 Swarthmore College (Parrish Hall) in ruins, 1881 216 
 Swarthmore College (Parrish Hall) rebuilt, 1882- 
 
 1906 218 
 
SIXTY-FIVE TEARS IN THE 
 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 1841-1906 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION 
 1825-1841 
 
 SOME description of the preparation for my 
 life as a teacher, in the various stages of 
 that profession, may not be altogether unin- 
 teresting or unprofitable to those of my read- 
 ers who are engaged, or especially interested, 
 in that laborious, but, to me, always attractive 
 occupation. My parents, Jonathan Paxson 
 and Mary Watson Magill, well-to-do farmers 
 in the township of Solebury, Bucks County, 
 Pennsylvania, felt that the earliest education 
 of their children should, whenever practicable, 
 be conducted at home, in the bosom of the 
 family. I was born on the 24th of Septem- 
 ber, 1825. As children, beginning at the age 
 of two or three years, my brother, four sisters. 
 
2 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 and myself were taught and trained by pri- 
 vate teachers, young women whom my parents 
 employed. They gradually admitted some of 
 the neighbors who desired to enjoy the same 
 opportunity for home instruction, and our 
 little family school, kept in the second story 
 of our country farmhouse, grew to be a school 
 of eight or ten pupils, and later reached about 
 twenty. This instruction lasted, for me, until 
 I was about twelve years of age, when I was 
 sent — for two years — to a public school of 
 some forty pupils, a short distance from home. 
 But while I was thus sent forth for each school 
 day, away from the first home influences, my 
 parents, and especially my mother, kept over 
 me a truly guarded care. I cannot conceive it 
 possible for any mother to feel more deeply 
 and constantly exercised for the best welfare 
 of her children. At first, my brother Watson 
 (our mother's family name) and myself were 
 the only ones thus trusted so far out of her 
 sight as the country schoolhouse; and I may 
 say that our mother had the highest hopes 
 for the success and well-doing of us both. 
 
 I differed much in temperament from my 
 dark-haired brother, two years my junior, and 
 my hair was so white that I was sometimes 
 
JONATHAN PAXSON MAGILL 
 
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BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION : 1825-41 3 
 
 dubbed by my fellow-students "tow-head." 
 My headj too, was of an unusual shape, being 
 high above the ears and almost square on the 
 top, with a somewhat projecting forehead. In 
 this connection I remember an incident which 
 occurred when I was about eight and my bro- 
 ther six years of age. We were playing at the 
 end of our long lane, some distance from the 
 house. A gentleman, a friend of the family, 
 who passed and saw us, asked my mother es- 
 pecially about me, and told her that with that 
 head of mine I ought to do much good in the 
 world. She told this in my presence afterward, 
 and thus early the feeling was aroused in me 
 that much was expected of me, and that I 
 must not disappoint my friends and especially 
 my mother. I early learned that it does a 
 child good to be well thought of, for to have 
 parents and friends expect of him important 
 work in the world gives him strength and 
 courage in many an hour of weakness or 
 temptation. 
 
 Another evidence of my precious mother's 
 care comes before me, at this moment, as I 
 write. It was customary in those days to have 
 cider on farmers' tables and in the field for 
 the laborers at their work. My mother soon 
 
4 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 foufid that I was in danger of taking it to ex- 
 cess, and on perceiving this, she at once ceased 
 to have it furnished, and I have no doubt that 
 this decided act of hers, and the reason she 
 then gave me for it, saved me from the dan- 
 ger of excess of this kind in later Kfe. 
 
 Like other farmers' boys, my brother and 
 myself went to school only in the winter. In 
 summer we worked with the hired men on the 
 farm. During these first fourteen years of my 
 life I developed a special fondness for the study 
 of numbers. My parents encouraged this, and 
 my father offered me a prize of eight dollars 
 if I would " cipher " through Pike's Arithme- 
 tic (then in common use) before I was eight 
 years old; for each week that passed after I 
 was eight before that Arithmetic was finished, 
 I should forfeit one dollar. I well recall the 
 three anxious weeks after my eighth birthday, 
 when I do believe that I would have "ci- 
 phered '^ all night, if my careful mother had 
 permitted it. I finished the book just in time 
 to receive five dollars instead of eight. With 
 that sum I made the best investment that I 
 have ever made in my life : I bought of my 
 father a pretty white calf with red ears, and 
 after feeding it three years, sold it for twenty- 
 
MARY WATSON MAGILL 
 

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. BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION: 1825-41 5 
 
 four dollars — a percentage of profit that I 
 have never reached in any other bargain. But 
 I should add that I was not charged with the 
 keep of the calf, for, if I had been, I fear that 
 my profit would have been .small. 
 
 About this time I joined the "Lyceum" 
 held for many years at the schoolhouse at 
 Buckingham Meeting. All questions of nat- 
 ural history greatly interested me. A family 
 friend, William H. Johnson, a superior teacher 
 and my father's earnest co-worker in the anti- 
 slavery cause, was then president of the Ly- 
 ceum. Noticing my tendency toward the study 
 of nature, he appointed me to collect speci- 
 mens of all the native woods of Solebury, and I 
 well recall the earnestness with which I went 
 to work. I carefully split each small piece of 
 wood collected, to show the grain as well as 
 the bark, cleaned the bark, and polished the 
 split side. I was a proud boy when, in a few 
 weeks, I presented to the Lyceum a bag of 
 carefully prepared specimens. This experience 
 and my later study of botany were the source 
 of great pleasure for me through a long life. 
 
 At the age of fourteen my parents felt that 
 I ought to have the advantage of a boarding- 
 school, and for that purpose, as interested 
 
6 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 members of the Eeligious Society of Friends, 
 they selected Westtown. There I was placed 
 for two years. My studies were confined to 
 the English branches, my parents not consid- 
 ering the study of foreign languages of any 
 advantage to a farmer's son, who was then 
 expected to follow his father's occupation on 
 the farm. My leading studies were arithmetic, 
 algebra, mensuration, and geometry. As I 
 was fond of these studies and of my teachers, 
 — especially of Howard Yarnall and Hugh D. 
 Vail, whom I distinctly recall, — I made rapid 
 progress. Next to these, in my estimation, 
 came James Emlen, our teacher of penman- 
 ship, father of Samuel Emlen. The latter, 
 although then quite a mischievous little boy, 
 is known to-day as an influential minister in 
 the Eeligious Society of Friends. Next to 
 these three teachers, I recall, with very kind 
 regard, Master Davis, as he was then called, 
 whose discipline was strict and formal, but 
 who had the good-will of the students gener- 
 ally. The discipline and the care of the study- 
 room (no easy task) fell to his share. Out of 
 school hours, especially on holidays, he took 
 us on long walks and botanical excursions over 
 much of Chester County, and I studied with 
 
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION: 1825-41 7 
 
 care and great interest DarKngton's "Flora 
 Cestrica," and made a large herbarium of care- 
 fully pressed plants. This turned my mind 
 early to the study of wayside trees, plants, and 
 flowers, — a habit which has been a source 
 of much pleasure to me, both when traveUng 
 at home and in foreign lands. For this, in a 
 special manner, I shall always feel deeply in- 
 debted to our zealous teacher and governor, 
 Master Davis. 
 
 Another of the outdoor exercises of which 
 he had the oversight was the nut-gathering 
 in the autumn. There were many fine hick- 
 ory-nut trees on our large Westtown grounds, 
 which then covered, I think, four hundred 
 acres. No one was permitted to touch a nut 
 tree until an appointed day. Then, at a given 
 signal (a tap of the school-bell upon the stile), 
 all the boys ran for the tree that each consid- 
 ered the most desirable, and no one but the 
 one who reached the tree first was permitted 
 to gather the nuts. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TEACHING m COUNTRY SCHOOLS 
 1841-1844: 
 
 AFTER about two years spent at West- 
 town, in the summer of 1841 I returned 
 to my father's farm. It was in the early au- 
 tumn of that year, at the age of sixteen, that 
 I first stood before a class as their appointed 
 teacher. The scene was the unceiled low room 
 of the wagon-house loft on my father's farm. 
 In my early years the free-school system had 
 been adopted, and I was appointed teacher by 
 the board of managers of my native township, 
 and to these managers, and not to the parents, 
 I must look for my monthly payments. In the 
 earlier times, before the introduction of the 
 free-school system, each parent or guardian 
 received a bill from the teacher ; these bills he 
 must severally collect, the charge being three 
 cents for each day's attendance of each pupil. 
 Of the work in the schoolroom, I may say 
 that such work would astonish and confound 
 
COUNTRY SCHOOLS: 1841-44 9 
 
 any young teacher of the present day. Arith- 
 metic was "ciphered" individually, on slates, 
 without any class instruction or use of black- 
 boards or charts, and the chief aim was to 
 "get the answer," without much attempt at 
 reasoning as to the processes employed to 
 obtain it. In penmanship, the copies were 
 "set" by the teacher's hand, at the top of 
 each page of the copy-book, and without any 
 aid from printed or engraved slips or copies. 
 Steel pens, too, were not yet in common use; 
 quill pens were almost universally employed. 
 As teacher of the art of penmanship, I see 
 myself now, walking about the small, low-ceiled 
 room, criticising the forms of the letters, 
 keeping the pens mended, penknife in hand, 
 with a bunch of new-made pens sticking be- 
 hind my ear. 
 
 The discipline was generally maintained in 
 those days by the fear of corporal punishment, 
 though some of us teachers refrained from 
 this, except in a few extreme cases. In some 
 instances dismissals for misconduct were made, 
 but as the schooling was paid for out of the 
 school-tax, there was often a contention on the 
 part of parents and teachers as to whether the 
 latter could dismiss, or even suspend, a pupil 
 
10 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 from a free school. Although these things 
 may seem trivial and unworthy of note, in 
 practice in that early time they sometimes pre- 
 sented to teachers insoluble difficulties. 
 
 With reference to the corporal punishment 
 of children in school, I observe with regret a 
 tendency in some of our schools to revive 
 that ancient practice of a semi-barbarous age. 
 It was on the occasion of the first winter that 
 I spent in Paris that I heard a professor of 
 English in a class at the Sorbonne explain a 
 reference in the English book they were read- 
 ing, by saying to his French boys that it was 
 the practice in England to whip children at 
 school; a practice which had been unknown 
 in France since the French Revolution. To one 
 who, Uke myself, knew something of this prac- 
 tice in my own country, the astonishment of 
 the young French boys seemed strange indeed. 
 I perceived the truth of the words of the great 
 critic, Sainte-Beuve : "C'est bon de voyager 
 quelquefois; cela etend les id^es et rabat 
 Tamour propre." 
 
 But to return to my first winter's teaching, 
 in 1841-42 : I followed the usual practice of 
 that time, working on the farm in the sum- 
 mer, teaching only in the late fall and winter 
 
COUNTRY SCHOOLS: 1841-44 11 
 
 months, and closing in time for corn-planting 
 and other farm work in the spring. From the 
 opening of the school I engaged with my 
 pupils in games of ball, snow-balling, etc., 
 during the recess, just as one of them, but 
 was careful to put on the serious and resolute 
 schoolmaster's face when I rang the bell for 
 them to reassemble. This acting a double part, 
 as master and student, was made all the more 
 difficult because my pupils were my own per- 
 sonal friends, relatives, and near neighbors, 
 and a number of them, both boys and girls, 
 were my seniors by several years. A few years 
 ago, when on a visit to the old Solebury farm, 
 — still retained in the family, — I went up 
 the old, steep, rickety steps to the wagon- 
 house loft, now used as a tool-shop, and looked 
 out from the south windows over the narrow 
 limits of the lane, where the ball-ground was. 
 On the top of the lower frame of the window 
 I saw still the marks of my penknife, where I 
 had constructed a species of home-made dial. 
 Having no watch of my own at that time, I 
 borrowed one from a student, and by it noted 
 and marked the shadow falling on sunny days 
 upon the lower frame, indicating by a notch 
 the hour for the opening and closing of 
 
12 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 school, and for the recesses in the morning and 
 afternoon. Of course these marks did not in- 
 dicate quite the same hour at different seasons; 
 but they answered their purpose for those two 
 winters, and, for aught I know, are still there 
 on that lower sash to tell the tale of more 
 than half a century ago. 
 
 Two winters were thus passed. For the win- 
 ter of 1843-44 I accepted an offer from the 
 school board to take charge of the school at 
 the Friends' meeting-house in Solebury, about 
 four miles from our house. That being too 
 far to walk each day, I took board with a 
 pleasant family of Friends near the meeting- 
 house, and walked the four miles only on 
 Second-day (Monday) mornings and Seventh- 
 day (Saturday) evenings, for I took my First- 
 day (Sunday) board at home. This year's ex- 
 perience — the third — was much like that of 
 the first two years at home. 
 
 In the fourth autumn ('44-'45) I accepted an 
 offer to take charge of a larger school, with a 
 larger salary ; this being based, as before, upon 
 the number of pupils. This, my third school, 
 was on the Friends' meeting-house grounds at 
 Abington, Montgomery County, and about 
 twenty miles from home. I shall never forget 
 
COUNTRY SCHOOLS : 1841-44 13 
 
 the solicitude of my devoted and faithful 
 mother, who, now that I was to teach a whole 
 year away from home and her influence, gave 
 me one or two hours of very serious advice, 
 which has often and often come up before me 
 in hours of trial and temptation; and I still 
 feel, as I did then, that there is no earthly 
 influence for good at all to be compared with 
 that of a devoted and tender mother. I hear 
 her voice as I write, though considerably more 
 than half a century has passed since then. 
 
 I have said that this, my third school, was 
 in the Friends' schoolhouse at Abington, on 
 those delightfully shaded grounds. I had a 
 large and pleasant school, and felt at once quite 
 master of the situation, but my labors here 
 were doomed to be brief, for I soon learned, 
 what I did not at first understand, that I must 
 take the children to the midweek meeting of 
 Friends. To this I strongly objected, for, on 
 account of the hostility of Friends generally at 
 that time to those of pronounced anti-slavery 
 views, my parents and near relatives had lost 
 much of their interest in the meeting, and my 
 own feeling on this subject was so decided 
 that, without a formal withdrawal, I had prac- 
 tically separated myself from Friends. So I 
 
14 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 told the Abington Friends that I was not will- 
 ing to bring the children to meeting, and they 
 asked me to resign my place in the school 
 rather than allow me to keep the children at 
 school on midweek meeting-day. In this crisis 
 some good friends, Jesse and Elizabeth New- 
 port, invited me to their pleasant home on a 
 farm quite near, and gathered together from 
 the immediate neighborhood a small school, 
 including their own children, — except David, 
 the eldest son, who was absent from home. 
 Thus passed my fourth winter in teaching 
 school. I most vividly recall those quiet morn- 
 ings and afternoons with my little class of boys 
 and girls, and the evenings spent in reading 
 and study in that well-ordered household.^ 
 
 * Several members of this interesting class have since 
 become efficient laborers in the meetings of the Religious 
 Society of Friends. Martha married Jonathan Travilla of 
 West Chester, Pennsylvania, and was as active as her mother 
 Elizabeth had been, and both possessed a remarkable gift 
 of prophecy. I recall most vividly some few of Martha's 
 religious visits at Swarthmore, and her sittings there with 
 some of our private families. Her children came to the col- 
 lege, and among them Mary has become widely known 
 among Friends by her gift in the ministry. John and Ellison 
 died early. The only survivor of the large family at Abing- 
 ton, who is still, though in advanced life, a good thinker and 
 active participant in our yearly meetings, is the eldest son, 
 David, to whom I have referred as absent from home during 
 my winter there. 
 
COUNTRY SCHOOLS : 1841-44 15 
 
 The experience gained thus in my fourth 
 winter's teaching was, of course, quite dijBEer- 
 ent from that of the larger schools the first 
 three years. But all went together to make 
 up the slow preparation which I was uncon- 
 sciously undergoing for the principal work of 
 my life, as I now must ever regard it. In all 
 the changes I began early to see and acknow- 
 ledge a guiding hand that insensibly has led 
 me on ; a consciousness of which is now ever 
 present with me. 
 
CHAPTER m 
 
 TEACHIKG IN BOARDmG AND CITY SCHOOLS 
 
 1844-1848 
 
 AS usual, I returned to the farm in Sole- 
 bury in the spring, and as I had often 
 done before, went to market in Philadelphia 
 with my father, he being very deaf, and I 
 serving him instead of ears. On one of these 
 trips we met with my cousins, Yardley and 
 Edwin Buckman ; and as they were then en- 
 gaged in keeping a large boarding-school at 
 Clermont Academy, near Frankford, they 
 employed me to aid them as assistant teacher 
 in their school. Here I had, this fifth winter, 
 a very pleasant home, with congenial work, 
 and relatives who were wide readers and good 
 students. This year's teaching was, of course, 
 with its care of students at night as well as by 
 day, quite a varied experience from my first 
 three winters in Solebury and my fourth year 
 in the Newport family. The oversight of a 
 number of boarding pupils gave me a famil- 
 
BOARDING AND CITY SCHOOLS: 1844-48 17 
 
 iarity with their daily habits, and a better 
 control of the time which they gave to the 
 preparation of their studies. This added ex- 
 perience was continued through a sixth year, 
 including both a winter and a summer, when 
 my cousins, the Buckmans, removed their 
 school to a place known as " White Hall," 
 on the Delaware Eiver, a few miles below 
 Bristol. It was in this school that I first saw 
 taught what was then called " Naylor's System 
 of. Singing Geography." A teacher named 
 Henry Warriner, who went from place to place 
 teaching this system, met with considerable 
 success in securing the memorizing of long 
 lists of names; for instance, the towns on 
 either side of the Mississippi River, from its 
 mouth to the last of its smallest branches. 
 Certain faint echoes of this peculiar chant 
 come back to me as if it were but yesterday. 
 But, like many other fads, it had its day ; and 
 I think, if my memory serves me rightly, it 
 was a brief day indeed. I have long since lost 
 sight of our traveling teacher and his system, 
 but I recall vividly one of his favorite illus- 
 trations of the benefit of his " rapid " pro- 
 cesses of memory. He illustrated his theory 
 by saying that if you turn a large wheel, with 
 
18 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 a loose band on it, very slowly, the band will 
 slip and remain cool, but if you turn it rap- 
 idly, while the band slips, it can soon be made 
 to take fire. In modern teaching, reasoning is 
 largely substituted for memory in all subjects, 
 and yet rapidity in committing to memory has 
 its value in these brief lives of ours, and 
 should never be wholly displaced by the slower 
 reasoning process. 
 
 One incident connected with this year at 
 White Hall I will mention here. In company 
 with the students I was indulging in a re- 
 freshing bath in the Delaware, near the pier 
 where the passing steamboats stopped. It was 
 about sunset, and the time for our bath nearly 
 over. My ability to swim was but slight, and 
 I kept carefuUy on the familiar sandbanks 
 beneath the water. Suddenly I slipped off of 
 one of these into a pool many feet in depth, 
 and at once sank. I was, of course, greatly 
 alarmed, as nearly all had left the water. Af- 
 ter a struggle of a few moments I felt that I 
 should rise no more to the surface. At that 
 moment there was presented to my sight a 
 most vivid picture of every moment of my 
 past life; I saw each event, and even each 
 hidden thought, as in a poUshed mirror. The 
 
BOARDING AND CITY SCHOOLS : 1844-48 19 
 
 great extent, yet the minuteness of the vision 
 was like nothing that I had ever known be- 
 fore, and, as I think of it now, like nothing 
 that I have known in the almost sixty inter- 
 vening years. At length, just as the last boy 
 was leaving the wharf, by a desperate effort — 
 the sudden concentration of all my strength — 
 I pressed my feet upon the sand below and 
 made an upward spring ; and with great dif- 
 ficulty struggled toward the shore into shallow 
 water, and reached terra jirma with an inex- 
 pressible sense of relief. I relate this experience 
 as so remarkable for its vivid, comprehensive, 
 and instantaneous view of my whole life up to 
 that point. 
 
 Toward the close of my year at White Hall, 
 I was offered the place of first assistant in 
 Friends' Central School, Philadelphia, at that 
 time kept in Cherry Street, and of latter years 
 known as Friends' Central, or more familiarly 
 the Race Street School. No higher posi- 
 tion in a Friends' school than the mastership 
 of this school was known in the country. As 
 I now recall the circumstances of my invi- 
 tation, it was through the late M. Fisher 
 Longstreth — of whom I shall speak more 
 fully later — that this position was offered 
 
20 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 me. The discipline of the school had fallen 
 to a low ebb by the practical failure of the 
 principal to control the pupils the previous 
 year. As my position was only that of first 
 assistant, I had some misgivings about ac- 
 cepting the place, the more so as I had heard 
 that the new principal was not very likely to 
 succeed. But I felt that the position was an 
 important advance on any previously held by 
 me, and resolved to make the trial ; for I 
 was always ready for a real advance when it 
 came to me, as in this case, unsought, and 
 never willing to take what could in any sense 
 be called a backward step. This has been a 
 precept with me, and in no important move- 
 ment of my life do I now recall action incon- 
 sistent with it. 
 
 My feeling of discouragement, on hearing 
 what I must expect in the man under whom 
 I was to serve at the Cherry Street School 
 was, I confess, very great indeed. But the 
 good motto, " Do thy best, and leave the rest," 
 helped me pass this crisis, as it has helped me 
 pass many since. In the autumn of 1847, at 
 the age of twenty-two, I entered upon my 
 duties in the large Cherry Street School, fully 
 resolved to make no semblance of a failure if 
 
BOARDING AND CITY SCHOOLS: 1844-48 21 
 
 success was to be found at all within my reach. 
 I was therefore established in my boarding- 
 house in Philadelphia, had obtained what sug- 
 gestions I could by inquiry — and especially 
 by some visits to Dr. Longstreth — as to the 
 position and duties expected of me, and was 
 at the schoolhouse at an early hour on what 
 was to be to me the eventful morning of my 
 first teaching in a large city school. To be al- 
 ways prompt at the appointed time, and even 
 a little in advance, was then, as since, a fixed 
 rule of my life. This rule, carefully observed, 
 and the good effect of my promptness upon 
 others as well as on myself, had carried me 
 successfully through my six years of teaching 
 in country schools. My one failure thus far 
 to carry out a contract was in the case of the 
 Abington school previously referred to. 
 
 On entering upon my work at the Cherry 
 Street School, I constantly considered that no 
 past punctuality and thoroughness in my work 
 could avail me in the future ; I resolved to 
 continue this punctuality and thoroughness 
 with each passing day. At that time mathe- 
 matics was my favorite study, and if my mem- 
 ory serves me, some of the classes in arith- 
 metic, algebra, and geometry were assigned to 
 
22 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 me by our principal. Of all languages except 
 my own I was absolutely ignorant, for reasons 
 already stated. As soon as I ascertained the 
 progress of the classes under my care, I en- 
 tered at once upon the practice — always kept 
 up until then, and never abandoned since — 
 of a careful, critical examination of each 
 lesson for the following day, so that my mem- 
 ory should be refreshed and that I might 
 think over the very best methods to impress 
 these lessons, in their full significance, upon 
 the minds of my students. I am sure that 
 during the first year in a large city school I 
 studied harder and burned more midnight oil 
 than any student in my classes. 
 
 I very soon saw the reason why our prin- 
 cipal was not a successful head of a school. 
 His method of discipline was wholly by force, 
 never by persuasion. I am not sure that he 
 ever whipped any of the students, but he had 
 a most elaborate system of " demerits," and 
 these he showered down upon the students in 
 a most boisterous manner. Whenever he saw, 
 in the general study-room, of which he had 
 charge as principal, a student violating any 
 of his elaborate rules, he would cry out from 
 his desk the name of the boy and the number 
 
BOARDING AND CITY SCHOOLS: 1844-48 23 
 
 of demerits that lie was to receive. This was 
 heard with evident obstinacy by the student, 
 who often uttered some response, doubtless 
 with the intent to renew the offense if occa- 
 sion seemed to offer. The principal's manner 
 with his students was so harsh, severe, and 
 boisterous that I could but wonder that he 
 had ever been appointed teacher in a Friends' 
 school. Being only an assistant, I was, of 
 course, very careful to notice none of these 
 things, but I was so much affected by them 
 that they are recalled as if it were but yester- 
 day. This form of government met with less 
 disapproval from the school committee than 
 it would to-day ; but with all of his brusque 
 and severe manner with his students, our prin- 
 cipal was a good and highly respected man. 
 Some of his students are doubtless still living, 
 and however much they may feel that he was 
 worthy of respect as a good and honest man, 
 they will surely admit that this, my pen-and- 
 ink sketch of him, as he impressed me, his 
 first assistant, is not overdrawn. He was not 
 long continued as principal of the school, and 
 I think that soon after the position was ac- 
 cepted by Aaron B. Ivins, who was for many 
 years at the head of the school, and whose 
 
24 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 methods o£ teaching — especially arithmetic 
 — were excellent, and were sure to make a 
 lifelofig impression upon the minds of the 
 students. Many of these would doubtless say 
 to-day that he was the best teacher they ever 
 had, or had ever known, although his methods 
 of government were by no means always mild 
 and persuasive. It is now but a few years since, 
 full of years and honors, he passed on to the 
 higher life. 
 
 While at the Cherry Street School, some 
 time before the close of the first year, I re- 
 ceived a kind and pressing invitation from 
 Benjamin Hallowell to come to Alexandria, 
 Virginia, and be one of the assistants in his 
 large and excellent boarding-school for boys 
 in that city. As he was well known as a supe- 
 rior mathematician and a very able teacher 
 of boys, I did not long hesitate, and accepted 
 an invitation which, as we shall see, proved 
 the turning-point of my life. This accept- 
 ance I have never had cause to regret. I 
 entered upon my work with him in the fall of 
 1848, in my twenty-third year, and my year 
 with him was a memorable one indeed. His 
 other two assistants during that year were his 
 eldest son, Henry C. Hallowell, and one who 
 
BENJAMIN HALLOWELL 
 
BOARDING AND CITY SCHOOLS: 1844-48 25 
 
 afterwards became his son-in-law (marrying 
 his only daughter, Caroline), Francis Miller, 
 son of Robert Miller, of a highly esteemed 
 family at that time living in Alexandria. The 
 influence exerted upon me by these two most 
 estimable young men was very great. They 
 have both, some years since, passed on to the 
 life beyond. These men soon convinced me 
 that I had entered upon my work as a teacher 
 with a wholly inadequate preparation. I had 
 felt this deeply, at different times, during the 
 seven years of my teaching ; but now I came 
 to reaKze fully that a mistake had been made, 
 and that if my vocation was really that of a 
 teacher, I must for a time abandon the profes- 
 sion entered upon, and not return to it unless 
 I should succeed in preparing myself to teach 
 in educational institutions of any grade. 
 
 While teaching, my two associates kept up 
 a regular course of study of their own, and 
 especially in the Latin and Greek languages : 
 they were hoping to enter Yale College the 
 following year. I at once secured the needed 
 books, and began the study of these two lan- 
 guages without a teacher. With no knowledge 
 of any language but English, and being then 
 twenty-three years old, the task seemed to me 
 
26 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 for a time impracticable and even desperate. 
 But my two young associates encouraged me 
 in the attempt, and were always most kind and 
 ready to help me unravel difficult sentences. 
 They did not fail to point out to me the beauty 
 of the style, and the inevitable effect upon my 
 command of my own language, when I should 
 become familiar with the language of Caesar, 
 of Pliny and Demosthenes, of Horace and 
 Hesiod, of Livy and Lucretius. Their kind- 
 ness, as well as that of Benjamin Hallo well 
 himself, kept my courage up during a hard 
 year of teaching, and among a class of boys, 
 many of them pampered sons of Southern 
 slaveholders, and who, I doubt not, from 
 early habits in their Southern homes, much 
 preferred governing to being governed. Us 
 teachers some of these boys were inclined to 
 consider as menials, as we were working for 
 a living ; a thing which they had never done, 
 and without doubt never would have done but 
 for the Civil War. The great conflict was 
 then brooding and dark clouds and lightning 
 flashes on the horizon of our country already 
 began to give fearful evidence of the approach- 
 ing storm. Even Benjamin Hallowell himself, 
 with his courteous and gentle manners and 
 
BOARDING AND CITY SCHOOLS: 1844-48 27 
 
 calm dignity, not infrequently found these 
 slaveholders' sons, whose fathers came to Con- 
 gress and left their boys under his care and 
 tutelage, quite beyond his power of control. 
 I well remember one of these boys, in a fit of 
 anger, seizing the door of a hot " ten-plate 
 stove" in the middle of the study-room and 
 hurling it violently across the room at a com- 
 panion with whom he had some cause of con- 
 tention. One may readily imagine that the 
 government of these boys being hard, and 
 the teaching of them not always easy, I found 
 that my extra study of Latin and Greek was 
 far from an easy task. But now, as I wished to 
 enter Yale, where my two associates were go- 
 ing the following year, I felt that I must make 
 up by hard study for never before having 
 taken a lesson in either Latin or Greek. With 
 the extra labor and anxiety which this year of 
 teaching, governing, and study had caused me, 
 I was much worn, and by spring I felt that 
 my mother's kind care at home and an entire 
 release from teaching were necessary to put 
 me in a condition to go on with my studies 
 and make myself master of the profession 
 which I had chosen. 
 
 Moreover, the cholera came as an epidemic 
 
28 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 that spring, and I witnessed the death of one 
 man, who fell in the street. He was at once 
 taken up by the patrol wagon and buried; 
 others were reputed to have met with a similar 
 fate, and to prevent spreading of the scourge, 
 they were at once buried. These reports of the 
 ravages of this frightful epidemic were an 
 added cause of my sudden departure for my 
 home. Therefore, with Benjamin Hallowell's 
 full permission, I did not remain until the 
 close of the term, but returned to the farm in 
 the early spring. 
 
 That season on the farm, with light work, 
 and in the open air, was what I needed, and 
 I made this change just in time. But I fre- 
 quently felt the effects of my past overwork 
 and anxiety, and that summer I noticed symp- 
 toms I had never observed before. Several 
 times, from exertion in the sun in the hay and 
 harvest field, I fell unconscious, and was car- 
 ried to the house. The doctors pronounced it 
 a sunstroke once or twice ; but I soon passed 
 by that crisis, and only once since have I had 
 a return of similar symptoms. They were 
 chiefly, no doubt, the result of my overwork 
 in Alexandria, and the worry there — which 
 is worse, if possible, than overwork. 
 
00 
 
 m 
 
 O 
 H 
 
 CG 
 

 C'J 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 STUDENT IN WILLISTON SEMINARY AND YALE 
 
 1848-1851 
 
 IN the early fall I went to Easthampton, 
 Massachusetts, and entered Williston Sem- 
 inary, where my sister Rebecca and her friend 
 Sarah Warner Beans (who later became my 
 wife) had spent the previous year. On enter- 
 ing Easthampton, under good instructors in 
 Latin and Greek, I found my progress very 
 different from what it had been at Alexandria. 
 I felt very much restricted in money matters, 
 as I wished to depend as much as possible 
 upon the small amount that I had saved dur- 
 ing the seven years of my teaching, drawing 
 as little as possible upon my parents, who 
 could not well afford to furnish me with funds, 
 though always glad to do so to the best of 
 their ability. I practiced great economy, and 
 being trained by my mother in Graham's sys- 
 tem of diet, I used Graham bread, which I 
 weighed to prevent overeating. I bought mo- 
 
 A«\ 
 
30 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 lasses, and kept myself on bread and molasses 
 only, for many weeks at a time. My expenses 
 were thus reduced to about fifty or sixty cents 
 a week. For a time, after I took regular board, 
 I split wood in the cellar for my landlady, in 
 part payment. 
 
 At Easthampton I met with a serious ac- 
 cident. With other boys I was practicing on 
 the trapeze, and we four went flying around, 
 the ropes stretched almost to a horizontal line. 
 In the midst of this I lost my hold on the rope, 
 and of course went flying through the air, half 
 way across the large playground. I fell on 
 my outstretched right arm, and made a bad 
 break near the elbow, the broken end of the 
 bone being forced through the flesh and skin. 
 We called in the doctor (there were no sur- 
 geons there then), who placed me on a chair 
 with my face toward the back, and by main 
 force pulled my arm around the back of the 
 chair until he said it was " in place," and then 
 bound it up. Of course the pain was excru- 
 ciating. That day the lesson which had been 
 assigned us covered all the forms of the Greek 
 verb. I soothed my pain by walking the floor 
 the entire night, committing those Greek forms, 
 with all of the printed accents, which must be 
 
o 
 
 < 
 
 02 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 03 
 

 v^^ 
 
 ^^^''^ 
 
WILLISTON SEMINARY AND YALE: 1848-51 31 
 
 carefully given. When morning dawned I felt 
 that I had mastered the difficult lesson. When 
 recitation hour came I repeated the forms 
 without an error. 
 
 I presented myself at Yale for examination 
 at the end of my year at Easthampton, and 
 was admitted to the Freshman class without 
 a condition 5 passing a successful examination 
 on my twenty-fifth birthday, September 24, 
 1850. My friends, Henry C. Hallowell and 
 Francis Miller, entered as Sophomores that 
 fall, they having been ready for the examina- 
 tions the previous year. The class of 1853, 
 which they entered, has some names on the 
 list well known in this country. Of these I 
 may mention Andrew D. White, since presi- 
 dent of Cornell University and ambassador 
 to Russia and Germany, the distinguished 
 statesman Wayne MacVeagh, and Edmund 
 C. Stedman, who was the class poet and is one 
 of the most gifted of our living literary men. 
 In the class of 1852 were Homer B. Sprague, 
 a leading educator, and Daniel C. Gilman, the 
 first president of Johns Hopkins University, 
 and until recently at the head of the new Car- 
 negie Institute in Washington. 
 
 At Easthampton, though not robust, I en- 
 
32 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 joyed fair health, and considered myself well 
 when I entered Yale. This good health, I 
 think/would have continued and been fully 
 confirmed, but for the fact that, by the advice 
 of my physician, I had acquired the habit of 
 smoking before leaving Easthampton for 
 Yale. There I had -a Sophomore for a room- 
 mate who was an inveterate smoker. I well 
 recall one evening early in that year when the 
 annual attempt of the Sophomores was made 
 to haze the Freshmen by smoking them out. 
 In most of the rooms which they visited they 
 met with their usual success, but those who 
 came to our room found us their match, for 
 we both sat and smoked with them till the 
 small hours of the night, when at last, some 
 of our visitors becoming sick, they retired in 
 a body, and left us masters of the situation. 
 Of course the experiment was never repeated. 
 But some time before the year was over, I 
 was convinced that smoking was injuring my 
 nerves, and I abandoned it without the seri- 
 ous difficulty that many have experienced. 
 I have never resumed the practice, and have 
 done all that I could to discourage it, espe- 
 cially among the young, who are more injured 
 by it, I am sure, than those past middle life, 
 
EDWARD H. MAGILL AT YALK, IN 1850 
 
\ 
 
 \^ 
 
 ^^J^RV^ 
 
 OP 
 
 th£ 
 
 UNW^ 
 
 RS\tV 
 
 of 
 
 CAL\fQ£ 
 
 \>i^' 
 
WILLISTON SEMINARY AND YALE : 1848-51 33 
 
 but I must say that for all it is a practice 
 more honored in the breach than in the ob- 
 servance. So at least my own experience and 
 careful observation have taught me. 
 
 Having finished all the mathematical studies 
 then required at Yale before entering college, 
 while I recited mathematics with my class and 
 passed the usual examinations, I naturally gave 
 the most of my time and attention to Greek 
 and Latin, — those three studies, in that day, 
 being the sum and substance of undergradu- 
 ate work. Being so deficient in the two ancient 
 languages, I worked hardest upon them, and 
 did only the required work, never presenting 
 myself for a prize either in Greek or Latin. 
 Mathematics were, indeed, more like play to 
 me than work. They were a real relief from 
 my classical studies. While at Alexandria, 
 Benjamin Hallowell had rarely left us a day 
 without some original mathematical problem 
 of his own to solve; and this was an occupa- 
 tion in which he took especial delight. The 
 result of all this was that in Yale I pre- 
 sented myself for the prize in mathematics, 
 with many, or perhaps most, of our class of 
 one hundred and seven. As a result I obtained 
 the first prize in that study for the Freshman 
 
34 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 year. In consequence of the irregular and 
 hurried character of my later courses, this was 
 the only prize I ever received in college. The 
 prize was a book of our own selection, and I 
 chose the two volumes of Chambers's " Ency- 
 clopaedia of English Literature," in which 
 President Theodore Woolsey wrote with his 
 own hand the fact that it was the " First Prize 
 in Mathematics of the Freshman year of the 
 class of 1854." But a classmate, William H. 
 Eastman, who was one of the youngest of our 
 class, and who is now connected with the State 
 Library of New York, came out even with me, 
 so that we were both regarded as recipients of 
 the prize in mathematics. 
 
 Of all the professors under whom I studied 
 that year in Yale, I always regarded James 
 Hadley, professor of Greek, as the most thor- 
 ough and accurate drillmaster that I had ever 
 known. He was the well-known author of 
 Hadley's Greek Grammar; and the present 
 successful President Hadley of Yale is his 
 only child — worthy son of a most worthy 
 father. How well I remember those thor- 
 ough drills in " The Formation of the Greek 
 "Verb," in the early morning classes. In 
 those days we had one recitation in the morn- 
 
PROF. JAMES HADLEY 
 

 OF 
 
 CAL 
 
 ,FQS^ 
 
WILLISTON SEMINARY AND YALE : 1848-51 35 
 
 ing before breakfast, by " early candlelight/' 
 the light upon our books falling from the 
 tallow dips in their tin candle frames hanging 
 around the wall, for it was before the general 
 introduction of gaslight, and much before the 
 means of using the brilliant hght of electricity 
 was invented. In 1850-51, the electrical ex- 
 periments at Yale, as elsewhere, were confined 
 to those with Leyden jars. These were coated 
 inside and out with tin-foil, the electricity 
 being generated by a glass cylinder turned by 
 hand and collected in the jars. The only other 
 exhibitions of electricity were the flashes of 
 lightning in a summer thunderstorm ; but the 
 idea of harnessing that power for the various 
 purposes to which it is now applied was not 
 among the most visionary dreams of the most 
 enthusiastic student of nature. Even Frank- 
 lin's early experiments with his kite in West 
 Philadelphia had not led to the further inves- 
 tigations which have since produced such mar- 
 velous results. 
 
 In that, my Freshman year at Yale, I had 
 no lessons with President Woolsey, and rarely 
 heard him speak except in church on the Sab- 
 bath day, and a few times when he called the 
 students together on the occasion of some 
 
36 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 general violation of the rules. As a preacher 
 his sermons were usually very practical and 
 very impressive ; and, as a Friend, I have 
 always felt that the attendance required of 
 the students was a real advantage to me, 
 making me realize more fully what indeed I 
 had already often thought — that I could bet- 
 ter learn religious truth by hearing preachers 
 of different denominations than by confining 
 myself to the meetings of our small Society. 
 This was still more deeply impressed upon me 
 in the following year, when, for reasons here- 
 after to be explained, I was a member, for 
 the time, of the congregation of the Baptists, 
 under President Francis Wayland : thus hear- 
 ing regularly a Congregationalist one year 
 and a Baptist the next. I was, I think, a 
 better Friend when later I returned among 
 Friends, than I ever could have been without 
 this varied experience. 
 
 One of the special occasions when I heard 
 an address of President Woolsey's to our class, 
 I very distinctly remember. We were called 
 together to settle some case of disorder, which 
 boys and young men are not always averse to 
 causing, even when under good management. 
 The exact circumstance I do not now recall, 
 
WILLISTON SEMINARY AND YALE : 1848-51 37 
 
 but one statement of our honored president 
 made an indelible impression upon my mind. 
 We had been told that unless the disorder was 
 promptly explained, and proper apologies were 
 made before a given time in the near future, 
 the whole class would be sent home for the 
 remainder of the college year ; and he added : 
 "Gentlemen, I suppose you may think that 
 your presence here is essential to the existence 
 of the college. If we should send you all home 
 and lose your tuition money, the college would 
 be financially the gainer, for it depends upon 
 its endowments, and not upon your tuition 
 fees; and if you all dropped out for a year 
 the college would suffer no loss, for it costs 
 much more to keep you here than the fees for 
 tuition which you pay ; so that it may be said 
 that you are all Kving here at the expense of 
 the college, and in that sense you are, each 
 and all of you, beneficiary students." What- 
 ever the disorder may have been, which I 
 never knew, I well remember that soon after 
 this address of the president it was satisfac- 
 torily settled. 
 
 A practice of Professor Hadley's with his 
 Greek class is worthy of mention here. We 
 read with him the last six books of Homer's 
 
38 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 Odyssey, and I once asked him why we began 
 with Book XIX instead of Book I. " Well/' 
 he replied, " that is just as well for you, as I 
 give you from time to time the outline of the 
 earlier books that you may better appreciate 
 the close ; and for my own personal pleasure 
 I like to read the books in order; so I take 
 six books of the twenty-four each year, and 
 your class happens to be the fourth one with 
 which the pleasant experiment has been tried." 
 This revealed the thorough and live student, 
 which he never ceased to be, and of which he 
 was always for us so fine an example. To live 
 one year under the direct influence of so in- 
 spiring a teacher has been to me, I am sure, 
 as to many another, a lifelong source of good. 
 He was the second of the truly great teachers 
 I am fortunate enough to have had in my 
 life's experience, the first being Benjamin 
 Hallowell. Of the other three I shall have oc- 
 casion to say a good deal — and of the causes 
 of their greatness — as I proceed with this 
 history. 
 
 Toward the close of this, my Freshman year 
 at Yale, I felt that to go through the full 
 course there, and graduate with my class in 
 1854, would take too long a time, and I be- 
 
WILLISTON SEMINARY AND YALE: 1848-^1 39 
 
 gan to devise methods for shortening it with- 
 out losing my coveted degree. The course 
 could perhaps be made up by later study after 
 I again returned to teaching. I should be 
 twenty-six soon after the close of my Freshman 
 year, and nearly twenty-nine when I should 
 receive my degree from Yale, and I really felt 
 that the age of twenty-nine would be rather 
 late to resume the profession for which I was 
 preparing. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 STUDENT IN BROWN UNIVERSITY 
 1851-1852 
 
 JUST at the period of my annual examina- 
 tion at Yale, by one of those strange cir- 
 cumstances which seem accidental, but which 
 I have long felt to be providential, a pamphlet 
 fell into my hands, published by Dr. Francis 
 Wayland, president of Brown University, im- 
 mediately after his return from abroad, where 
 he had made a special study of the colleges of 
 Europe. This pamphlet gave a clear and at- 
 tractive exposition of what the author called 
 ^^The New College System." This system pre- 
 sented more elective studies — before scarcely 
 known in our colleges — and gave the de- 
 gree of A. B. for a three instead of four years' 
 course. It also abandoned the old practice of 
 giving the second degree of A.M. simply " on 
 time," or " in course," but gave it only after 
 a further study of three courses in one year, 
 or one course in three years. This was indeed 
 
DR. FRANCIS WAYLAND 
 
V" OF THE 
 
 \J 
 
 ^WERS\TV 
 
 OF 
 
 CALIFO^ 
 
 t^:^ 
 
BROWN UNIVERSITY: 1851-52 41 
 
 laying the axe at the root of the tree, and 
 proposing radical and much-needed changes, 
 which few, if any, without the strong person- 
 ality of Dr. Wayland, would have dared to pro- 
 pose. This variety of electives made the college 
 courses practicable for a greater number of 
 young men than they ever reached before. I 
 say young me/i ; for as yet, even the progres- 
 sive and brave Dr. Wayland had not reached 
 that point of progress which makes equal pro- 
 vision in college for young women and young 
 men. But the world moves on, and the very 
 instrumentalities which Dr. Wayland organized 
 without an idea as to such a result have en- 
 abled Brown University to take the fine stand 
 which it maintains to-day, in admitting young 
 women to a college course of study more lib- 
 eral than any offered to college students of the 
 past generation. 
 
 As soon as I had read this remarkable pam- 
 phlet of Dr. Wayland's, I lost no time, after 
 full admission to the Sophomore class at Yale, 
 in visiting Dr. Wayland in his home in Provi- 
 dence. I laid before him my condition quite 
 fully, and said that having just been admitted 
 without conditions to the Sophomore class at 
 Yale, I desired to go to Brown in the autumn. 
 
42 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 take up a certain number of electlves — largely 
 in Greek and Latin — and get my degree of 
 A. B. at the following commencement in 1852 
 — or two years before my class at Yale. He 
 heard me through patiently, and then said, in 
 his rather stern, forbidding manner : " Young 
 man, what you propose to do is possible, but 
 not probable." " Well," I replied, " if you 
 regard it as possible, I wish to undertake it ; " 
 and he said that I might make the trial. Quite 
 elated with my success thus far, I was about 
 to leave his study (that familiar northeast 
 room of the then president's house, at the 
 head of College Street), and as I turned to go 
 he stopped me and said : " There is one thing 
 more to be said before you are admitted to 
 the college; all are required to attend church 
 regularly here, and they may select in the be- 
 ginning which one it shall be." I hesitated a 
 moment, knowing that our branch of Friends 
 was not represented in New England, and I 
 was considering whether I should select the 
 Unitarian church, where Frederic H. Hedge 
 was then the popular minister, or attend the 
 meeting of the " Orthodox " Friends, or the 
 Baptist services in the chapel of the university. 
 The doctor's keen eyes, shining through his 
 
BROWN UNIVERSITY : 1851-52 43 
 
 heavy bushy eyebrows, caught my hesitation 
 and he said at once : " Young man, when 
 a man has lost his rehgion, I tell him that 
 Providence is the place to come and find it, 
 for we have all sorts here." I at once rephed : 
 " Please put my name down on your list, as 
 I will attend the chapel and hear you." And 
 never have I had cause to regret that prompt 
 decision. So, as I have said before, my year 
 at Yale, under the ministry of President Wool- 
 sey of the Congregational church, and my 
 year at Brown at the Baptist church, under 
 the ministry of President Wayland, aided much 
 in giving me a wider view of the religious 
 thought of the world. From that time I have 
 become more and more attached to the beau- 
 tiful, simple, and practical religion of the Re- 
 ligious Society of Friends, in which I was 
 born. 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1851 that, having 
 been admitted to Brown University, I entered 
 upon my studies in what was to be, if my plans 
 matured, the last year of my college prepara- 
 tion for my life's work. As I had done during 
 the two previous years of study, I planned my 
 work and made my selection of courses with 
 great care, taking under Dr. Wayland his 
 
44 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 course in mental and moral philosophy ; with 
 Professor George I. Chace the course in chem- 
 istry ; with Professor Wheeler the course in 
 Greek ; with Professor Robinson P. Dunn the 
 course in elocution and English ; with Profes- 
 sor John L. Lincoln the course in Latin, and 
 with Professor Samuel S. Green the course 
 in pedagogics — this last subject being then 
 v^ introduced for the first time into a college of 
 this country. 
 
 It was to this course that I was largely 
 indebted for the position of teacher, which I 
 secured so promptly in the autumn of 1852, 
 immediately after my graduation. Professor 
 Green had been the superintendent of the 
 pubKc schools in Providence, and I was placed 
 by him, in connection with his successor in 
 that office, Daniel Leach, at the head of the 
 Boys' Classical High School. 
 
 During my year at Brown I had good op- 
 portunity to see that I must place President 
 Wayland among the very few really superior 
 teachers whom I had yet known. I have al- 
 ready referred to Benjamin Hallowell as first 
 among these ; Dr. Wayland was the third in 
 point of time, but by no means in quality. No 
 one of them was eminently successful in gov- 
 
BROWN UNIVERSITY: 1851-52 45 
 
 erning either men or boys, but as real living 
 teachers I had never then seen their superior. 
 Their love of study and studious habits, and 
 their control o£ the minds of their students in 
 study hours, were all that could be desired. 
 In our class in moral philosophy, I remember 
 a course pursued by Dr. Wayland which gave 
 us good training and a thorough mastery of 
 the subject in hand. We usually had for a 
 lesson from ten to fifteen pages of his volume 
 on Moral Philosophy, and the doctor did but 
 little talking himself until we had all been 
 heard. He called upon us regularly in the 
 order in which we sat, and the first one (be- 
 ginning at different parts of the class at dif- 
 ferent times) he would ask to give an analysis 
 of the lesson. This the student was expected 
 to do without question or suggestion. Then 
 he would call each one to take up the topics 
 in their order. When we had all thus been 
 heard, the doctor would spend say one third 
 of the hour at its close, in a general talk on 
 the subjects of the lesson and their practical 
 bearing upon our lives, conduct, and character. 
 These closing talks of his were always most 
 impressive. They have left upon my mind 
 most valuable and varied impressions that 
 
46 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 seem to make an essential part of what I am 
 to-day, and which are very vivid after the 
 lapse of half a century. It seems to me that no 
 teacher could ever expect to pass down to suc- 
 ceeding generations important convictions of 
 his own more successfully than did this truly 
 great teacher. 
 
 One instance in connection with Dr. Way- 
 land's methods in recitation rises before me 
 vividly. One of our class had fallen into the 
 habit, quite early in the year, of coming a lit- 
 tle late to recitation. One morning he came 
 in as usual, but it was just after the student 
 whose place was next above his had recited and 
 taken his seat. A moment after the deUnquent 
 had sat down. Dr. Wayland said, as usual : 
 ^' The next will discuss the next topic." The 
 tardy student looked a little dazed, and rose 
 without knowing what to do. The doctor simply 
 said, " You may proceed with the discussion of 
 the next topic." The delinquent replied, in 
 some confusion, " I did not hear the last topic 
 discussed." Whereupon the doctor said at 
 once, " That will do; the next will please pro- 
 ceed," and of course gave the delinquent a zero 
 for that day. It may well be supposed that 
 the tardy student in question never again was 
 
BROWN UNIVERSITY: 1851-52 47 
 
 delinquent that year, or at least not in the 
 doctor's classes. That was a lesson taught with- 
 out words. Once when the doctor was giving 
 us his admirable and clear summing up of the 
 subject of the entire lesson, — which he rarely 
 if ever omitted, — for some reason his remarks 
 were not followed by the usual fixed attention 
 of all. I shall never forget the kindness of the 
 tone in which he rebuked the class, saying that 
 he had always enjoyed giving his time to the 
 teaching of appreciative classes, and how much 
 wounded he always was by seeming indiffer- 
 ence or inattention. He did not fail to remind 
 us that while he enjoyed the personal inter- 
 course with earnest and attentive students, if 
 he could not secure that, he much preferred 
 having audiences of hundreds and thousands, 
 as he could readily do by giving up personal 
 teaching, and writing books. It was very sel- 
 dom indeed that our class was open to such a 
 rebuke. 
 
 I have spoken of Dr. Wayland's strict dis- 
 cipline as not being always productive of the 
 desired eflPect. During the year preceding my 
 admission to Brown, the year 1850-51, the 
 doctor had decided that more constant over- 
 sight of the men who roomed in college was 
 
48 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 essential, and that the professors must spend 
 a part of their evenings in domiciliary visits 
 to the students pursuing their studies in their 
 college rooms. This was distasteful to most 
 professors, and certain of them declined to do 
 their appointed part in these visits ; but the 
 doctor persisting, some two or three of the 
 professors left the university and sought work 
 elsewhere. These changes were felt at the time 
 to be a real loss to the university. The loss 
 of the oversight of these professors did not 
 afEect me, as, in common with many others, I 
 took rooms in a private house in the city, and 
 never roomed in the college halls. 
 
 Another incident was currently reported 
 among the students during my year at Brown. 
 It was said by some that Dr. Wayland's 
 method of discipline was illustrated by a case 
 which occurred in his own family. The report 
 was as follows : The doctor's severity and 
 firmness passed by inheritance to a son who, 
 at that time, was quite young. This boy asked 
 his mother for something upon the table. The 
 mother, being quite busy, asked the doctor to 
 wait on the boy. This he offered to do, but 
 the little fellow refused food from the hands 
 of his father, and insisted on being waited upon 
 
BROWN UNIVERSITY: 1851-52 49 
 
 by his mother. To this the doctor objected, 
 and told the boy that he must take the food 
 from him. The little fellow continuing the 
 opposition, the doctor said that he should 
 have no more until he would take it from his 
 hands. It was said that the boy refused all 
 nourishment on such conditions, and remained 
 without food some days, until a physician was 
 consulted to see how long it would be safe to 
 continue to insist. The story went that the 
 boy finally yielded and saved his life. The 
 story always seemed to me doubtful, and it has 
 sometimes occurred to me that this, and also 
 much that was said about the doctor's unrea- 
 sonableness with his professors, was greatly 
 exaggerated, if not altogether untrue. 
 
 I am the more inclined to this conclusion 
 by all of his kindness toward myself ; and, 
 although I called upon him a number of times, 
 I never had occasion to think him harsh, severe, 
 or discourteous. His brave action in whatever 
 he deemed to be right was plainly manifested 
 in his pamphlet, " The New College System," 
 already mentioned. This system, inaugurated 
 at Brown by Dr. Wayland, has become almost 
 universal since his day ; but to stand up against 
 public opinion and start the movement required 
 
60 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 an able and strong-willed man — and that is 
 what the doctor certainly was. I may remark 
 here that some few years later, the doctor's 
 health making it necessary for him to resign 
 the presidency, his place was taken by the Rev- 
 erend Barnas Sears, a fine scholar, especially 
 in Greek, and a most worthy man, but not in 
 sympathy with Dr. Wayland's " new system," 
 and the old order of things was restored. 
 
 Being so situated after graduation that I 
 could conveniently take up a three years' course 
 (one subject a day for the time) to get the full 
 A. M. degree, I did so ; and I know of no one 
 besides myself who ever took full advantage 
 of the doctor's change. There may have been 
 others, but I think not. In a few years Dr. 
 Sears resigned, having been appointed to take 
 charge of the Peabody Educational Fund. 
 
 With reference to Dr. Wayland's nature, 
 which was really kind and courteous at heart, 
 I vividly recall my last visit to him, some time 
 after my graduation. I thought the time might 
 come when I should desire to seek another 
 situation as teacher, and I called upon the 
 doctor at his home, where I found him at work 
 in the garden, among his flowers, and asked 
 him for a letter of recommendation. He 
 
BROWN UNIVERSITY: 1861-52 61 
 
 stopped his work, kindly invited me into his 
 study, and after a short conversation wrote 
 these words, as nearly as I can now remember 
 them : " This is to certify that the bearer, Ed- 
 ward H. Magill, was graduated with honor at 
 Brown University, with the degree of A. B., 
 in 1852, and that he is well qualified to teach 
 any subject upon which he himself shall claim 
 to be qualified." This unique form I have 
 myself adopted for some especially worthy 
 applicants, at different times; and I may add 
 that I have never had occasion to make use of 
 the doctor's kind recommendation myself. 
 
 I have spoken of Professor George I. Chace 
 as my instructor in chemistry. He was one of 
 the most indefatigable and painstaking teach- 
 ers that I ever knew. He was never known, 
 I believe, to fail in a chemical experiment be- 
 fore his class, for he invariably tried every one 
 of them before the class came in. Thus he 
 never had occasion to repeat the words so of- 
 ten heard from some lecturers: "Gentlemen, 
 the experiment fails, but the principle is true 
 notwithstanding." Professor Chace always 
 opened his lectures by a thorough quiz upon 
 the previous lecture. He expected us to be 
 ready, and he was so uniform in this that we 
 
62 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 were very sure to be prepared for it. I recall 
 one case of a student whose answers were 
 usually the result of shrewd guesses rather 
 than of careful study. The professor was ask- 
 ing him how indigo acted in a certain mixture, 
 and the guessing student said in reply : " The 
 indigo floated or sank, I am not sure which ; 
 but I am sure it was one way or the other." 
 "Young man," said Professor Chace, rather 
 sternly, though he was usually gentle, " every- 
 thing in life is one way or the other, and what 
 you come to college for is to find out which 
 way it isJ' I never observed that this sharp 
 reprimand made a material change in this 
 young man's habit ; and even in his law cases 
 (for he became a lawyer) I suppose that he 
 went on guessing to the end of his short life. 
 If chemistry had been a favorite study of mine, 
 I should, no doubt, put down George I. Chace 
 among my few truly great teachers. 
 
 Owing to the great importance of Latin in 
 every college course in those days, and to the 
 deficiency of my early preparation in it, I 
 found it necessary to devote a large portion of 
 my time to Latin. My teacher was Professor 
 John L. Lincoln, and him I must name as the 
 fourth in point of time, of my truly great 
 
PROF. JOHN LARKIN LINCOLN, LL. D. 
 
V 
 
 iB»^ R V 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 ^/\LIF0H^ 
 
BROWN UNIVERSITY: 1861-62 53 
 
 teachers. He carefully explained to us how 
 to unravel difficult constructions; but while 
 teaching words, he was no teacher of words 
 alone without the thought. With him, the 
 thought of an author was the main thing, 
 while the form of expression was not without 
 its importance. All who are familiar with his 
 excellent edition of the works of Horace, 
 that model of a class volume, will appreciate 
 what I say. With him, a lesson to be good 
 must be as good as the student could possibly 
 prepare ; and he had a remarkable faculty for 
 gauging the mind of a student. With him a 
 lesson that would pass for a good one from 
 one student would be but an indifferent one 
 from another. When he translated for us — 
 as he occasionally did — some of the odes or 
 epistles of Horace, the words and phrases 
 which fell from his lips were those of a mas- 
 ter of English speech. On one occasion, 
 when we were to have one of his searching 
 and thorough examinations on all of the Odes 
 of Horace, I resolved that I would not allow 
 one ode, or one verse or line of an ode, to 
 escape a careful rendering into the best Eng- 
 lish that I could then command. To secure 
 this end, I spent on that single occasion the 
 
54 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 entire previous twenty-four consecutive hours 
 in going over every ode, and in recaUing every 
 rendering that he had given us, and every 
 collateral note upon it. For the examination 
 on the following day, I well recall his giving 
 me 100, or the full maximum mark. He 
 spoke to me of it afterward, and asked how 
 I had so well recalled every point of a study 
 of some months; and when I told him, he 
 said such an effort as that was surely worth a 
 record of 100; and added that he did not 
 remember having given the mark before. He 
 was never noted for the high-marking of his 
 students. I made up my loss of sleep by a 
 sleep nearly as long as my wakeful period of 
 twenty-four hours, and was then quite myself 
 again, and ready for work. 
 
 On one other occasion I remember such a 
 Kip van Winkle sleep. It was during my work 
 in the Providence High School, and after a 
 long written examination of a large class and 
 the mass of papers involved. I returned home 
 on Seventh-day (Saturday) evening, and slept, 
 with scarcely a conscious waking, until Second- 
 day (Monday) morning. It seems almost in- 
 credible, but it was actually so once, and but 
 once in my life. I recalled afterwards a par- 
 
BROWN UNIVERSITY: 1851-52 65 
 
 tial waking, about twilight on First'day (Sun- 
 day) evening, but was soon again lost in sleep. 
 Throughout my active life I have been able, 
 when very weary, to sleep under almost any 
 circumstances or amid any surroundings ; and 
 doubtless it has been one of the means of 
 preserving my almost phenomenal health 
 through a life which has at times required 
 unusual exertion. 
 
 I must say a few more words about my ex- 
 cellent friend and able teacher, John L. Lin- 
 coln. During the course of my teaching in 
 the Providence High School, my former Latin 
 professor came in to see me train one of my 
 classes in Latin grammar. I was in the habit 
 of requiring the committal of long rules to 
 memory, with long lists of exceptions — a 
 practice then in vogue in teaching Latin, and 
 which I saw in full operation later, in the Bos- 
 ton Latin School. The professor remarked to 
 me, dryly, after the class, that it was "well to 
 catch boys young to teach them to repeat 
 such lists, and before they were old enough 
 to know better." 
 
 Some time after my graduation at Brown, 
 Professor Lincoln sent me word that I had 
 stood high enough in my class at graduation 
 
66 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 to be eligible to election in Phi Beta Kappa, 
 but that I had not then been elected because 
 I was an irregular student, being one of Dr. 
 Wayland's " new course " men ; that he had 
 proposed me to the society for membership 
 notwithstanding, on the ground of my success 
 in college; and that I had been elected. I 
 was, certainly, very grateful to him for thus 
 remembering me when I had not a wholly 
 legitimate ground for such election to mem- 
 bership in that time-honored literary society. 
 It was soon after taking my degree in 
 Brown that I was elected by the school board 
 of Providence as classical teacher in the High 
 School. This was done without any solicita- 
 tion on my part, but at the suggestion, as 
 I have said, of Professor Samuel S. Greene. 
 I returned to my home in Solebury, Bucks 
 County, for that summer vacation, feeling that 
 the three years of my special preparation for 
 my life's work at Williston, Yale, and Brown 
 were now completed, and that the earnest 
 work itself was about to begin. After an 
 engagement of five years, I now prepared for 
 my marriage with Sarah Warner Beans in the 
 autumn. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 PRINCIPAL OP PROVIDENCE CLASSICAL HIGH 
 
 SCHOOL 
 
 1852-1859 
 
 WHEN the summer vacation was over 
 I returned to New England, and en- 
 tered upon my duties in the Providence High 
 School. There were at first three classes of 
 boys, Rooms I, H, and HI. As the last teacher 
 appointed, I began in Room HI. We soon 
 divided the school into two departments, called 
 the English and Classical departments. Before 
 that first year was over, the teacher at the head 
 of the classical department left, and I suc- 
 ceeded him. 
 
 I had a hard year's work before me, for 
 besides my school work I had arranged with 
 a professor in the university to take with him 
 one lesson a day, and thus go on with the work 
 necessary to secure the degree of A. M., the 
 A. B. having been conferred at the past com- 
 mencement. By Dr. Wayland's system, as I 
 have said, to get the second degree I must 
 
68 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 take one course for three years or three courses 
 for one year. Naturally, I chose the first of 
 these, for one course was quite all I could 
 carry while engaged in teaching. 
 
 The head of the Providence High School, 
 before my connection with it, was one who, 
 later, has been well known as an author and 
 educator, and who now, after a long service, 
 is professor emeritus of Brown University, 
 Albert Harkness. At that time he had gone 
 to Europe for further study and fuller prepa- 
 ration for his work. After the division of the 
 High School into the two departments, English 
 and Classical, I was at last happy in, and satis- 
 fied with, my work, finding it each year more 
 congenial and attractive. Of course Latin was 
 the leading study, and for this I had now be- 
 come reasonably well prepared. 
 
 During the first three years of my teaching, 
 the young men and boys occupied one end 
 of the building, the young women and girls 
 the other. The two schools were quite as dis- 
 tinct and separate as though they had been in 
 different parts of the city. At that time Miss 
 Shaw was the able and successful head of the 
 young women's rooms. Of their division into 
 Classical and English rooms, like the boys', 
 
PROVIDENCE HIGH SCHOOL: 1852-59 59 
 
 I had no knowledge ; but there was a general 
 closing-day — a species of commencement 
 which ended the school year, with public 
 speaking as the principal exercise. For this 
 the men teachers prepared the boys, and the 
 women teachers the girls. There was a pecul- 
 iar arrangement adopted for these exercises. 
 The young men prepared written addresses, 
 which they committed to memory and deliv- 
 ered from the platform. The young women's 
 productions were always called " essays," and 
 never " orations," like those of the young 
 men. Although the young men stood on the 
 platform to speak, this was not considered 
 proper for the young women ; they read their 
 essays standing on the lowest of the three 
 steps leading to the platform, thus signifying 
 the humbler position to be taken by woman. 
 
 Indeed, the movement giving to women the 
 opportunity of a high-school education was 
 then in its infancy, even in progressive New 
 England. It was but a few years earlier that 
 the girls of Boston were first admitted to the 
 High School, and not, at first, to high schools 
 of their own ; but it was voted by the school 
 board that the girls could be admitted to 
 " occupy the seats made vacant by the boys " 
 
60 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 in summer only, when many of the boys were 
 kept at home to work. It hardly seems pos- 
 sible now that such educational conditions 
 could have existed in our country within the 
 memory of those still living. But the world 
 is moving on, and we sometimes feel that our 
 own country is in the advance guard of this 
 movement; in some respects this is undoubt- 
 edly true. 
 
 A few weeks after the opening of my school 
 in 1852, 1 had a few days of vacation given 
 me by our board, to return to my native place 
 to be married. I did not, on that occasion, do 
 as I often did later, when absent from the 
 school, leave the students under the care of 
 one of their number as monitor, or even some- 
 times under their own care, depending upon 
 their honor and allowing them to go on with 
 their studies alone. I had not thus early se- 
 cured the full control of my students. In later 
 years, I could depend upon their hours being 
 well spent under absolute self-control. I oc- 
 casionally visited other schools, and even some 
 in neighboring towns, while my students 
 were under entire self-government. On more 
 than one such occasion committee-men had 
 visited my school, and had said pleasantly 
 
PROVIDENCE HIGH SCHOOL: 1852-59 61 
 
 afterwards that they were not sure but that I 
 had better remain away permanently, as they 
 noticed better order, if possible, in my absence 
 than in my presence. These conditions I be- 
 gan to labor to establish during this the first 
 year after my graduation, and they were based 
 upon the cultivation of friendly feeling and of 
 perfect confidence between my students and 
 myself. To do this I left them not infrequently 
 for short periods, on their honor ; and when 
 such a relation is once established between a 
 teacher and his students, the confidence placed 
 in them by a teacher is rarely misplaced. I 
 never attempted to establish the rule of no 
 whispering among them, such a rule always 
 having the effect, and very soon, of destroying 
 the relation of confidence which is so desir- 
 able. I remember some who were occasional 
 visitors and who did not know my methods, 
 looking a little worried, and having their at- 
 tention distracted from the recitation by their 
 close watch of students in the back part of 
 the room. Occasionally, after the visit of such 
 a watcher, he would say as he left, after an 
 hour's visit, as though he thought he was giv- 
 ing me valuable information, " I think that I 
 have seen a few words exchanged in the back 
 
62 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 part of the room during this visit." I told 
 him, indifferently, that if he had seen every 
 student in the back part of the room exchange 
 words with another while studying, I should 
 not have been at all surprised, as my only rule 
 was that they should occupy themselves with 
 earnest study during study hours, and not 
 speak unless they found it necessary, and then 
 not too frequently and in a low voice. The 
 machine teachers who visited me at this time 
 found my classes live boys and young men, 
 and not mere dead automatons. I have known 
 teachers to cultivate the habit of falsehood in 
 their students by their arbitrary rules as to 
 whispering, calling the roll at the close of each 
 day, and requiring the students to report the 
 number of their violations of the rule. 
 
 With this kindly relation early established 
 between my students and myself, I found the 
 months and years of my teaching in Provi- 
 dence among the most pleasant that I had ever 
 known ; and as weeks passed on into months, 
 and months into years, I felt that now at last 
 — my preparation for my profession being 
 finished, except in so far as I could continue 
 it myself during my work — it was certain that 
 I had made no mistake in choosing my occu- 
 
PROVIDENCE HIGH SCHOOL: 1852-59 63 
 
 pation in life. I can still say that I can con- 
 ceive of no regular life-work more attractive 
 than that of a teacher whose life is devoted to 
 it. One result of this harmonious relation be- 
 tween myself and my students has been that 
 now, long after reaching full manhood and 
 womanhood, they consider me among the best 
 friends of their earlier years ; and it is a joy 
 indeed, after the long separation, to meet them 
 again, and to hear, by tongue or by pen, the 
 accounts of their happy and successful lives, 
 and of their vivid memories of those early days 
 in school or college. 
 
 One of the members of our school board 
 in those days was a teacher of long experience, 
 who kept, quite near the High School, " Kings- 
 bury's Private School for Girls." He was so 
 popular that students could never be sure of 
 a place without having their names entered a 
 full year in advance. He might soon have 
 doubled or trebled the size of his school, but 
 he wished to have every student under his own 
 personal management and instruction, and I 
 do not think that he ever employed an assist- 
 ant teacher. His personality was dignified, 
 courteous, yet affable and kind in tone and 
 manner, and he impressed me as a model 
 
64 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 teacher. He often visited my school in his 
 capacity as director, and once or twice, hardly 
 more, I had the great privilege of looking in 
 upon him at his work in school hours. He 
 gave me many a useful hint drawn from his 
 early experience. He once told me that he 
 noticed that on Monday mornings he always 
 observed more restlessness and inattention 
 among his students than at other times, and 
 wondered, at jSrst, what was the cause. Then 
 he observed that when he had sickness in his 
 family, and his nights had been thus disturbed, 
 his students, the next day, were restless and 
 inattentive, and he could not, for a time, ac- 
 count for the apparent connection of his stu- 
 dents with his own affairs at home. Gradually, 
 however, it dawned upon his mind that the 
 restlessness was in himself, and was uncon- 
 sciously transferred to his pupils. When he 
 became fully convinced of this and resolved 
 to correct it and bring his own mind under 
 proper control, all went well, whatever might 
 be the day of the week, and whatever the 
 condition of his family at home. Few lessons 
 received from other teachers have proved as 
 serviceable to me as this implied lesson from 
 Dr. Kingsbury. 
 
PROVIDENCE HIGH SCHOOL: 1852-59 65 
 
 The charter of Brown University is so drawn 
 that its board must consist of a certain num- 
 ber from each of the religious denominations 
 in Rhode Island, and among these the Society 
 of Friends had a fair representation. Dr. 
 Kingsbury told me that, although he was, I 
 think, a Baptist, he had been chosen as the 
 representative of the Friends, there being no 
 suitable Friend presented for the vacancy. 
 I am sure that no one felt that the name of so 
 gentle and cultured a man as Dr. Kingsbury 
 would ever be disapproved by any one, and 
 that no disapproval was ever expressed or en- 
 tertained. 
 
 Of course my professor of pedagogics in 
 Brown, Professor Samuel S. Green, followed 
 me quite closely in my school work, as I was one 
 of the first in this country to be graduated in 
 the then new course of pedagogics. My obli- 
 gation to him for his training in the college 
 class-room, and his many suggestions to me 
 afterwards, when he saw me at work, I always 
 recall with a feeling of gratitude. 
 
 Although I made my home quite near the 
 school that first year after my marriage, I soon 
 found that it would be better for my health 
 to be located farther from the school, and thus 
 
66 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 get more exercise in walking to and fro. By 
 a strange tendency of human nature, health 
 seems to be better preserved by forming and 
 following good habits as to diet, drink, and 
 exercise, without having the object of health 
 too prominently before the mind. Many, both 
 early and late in life, are prone to forget this, 
 or not to act upon it, and they never fail to 
 sujffer for it. 
 
 My preparation for the lessons of the next 
 day was usually made in the evening hours 
 at home, and I early learned that no success 
 worthy of the name could be secured without 
 minute and careful preparation. I thus ac- 
 quired the habit of retiring not much before 
 midnight, and to make sure of leaving home 
 in time to avoid the danger of late arrival at 
 school, early rising was necessary. But the 
 old copy-book motto was ever before me, — 
 " Labor omnia vincit," — and my heart was 
 in my little home and in my work. 
 
 The board of managers in Providence I 
 shall ever remember as being most kind and 
 considerate, helping me by their good counsel 
 in many ways, and fully appreciating the ef- 
 forts I made. I began my small housekeeping 
 on one of the meagre salaries of those days, 
 
PROVIDENCE HIGH SCHOOL: 1852-59 67 
 
 six hundred dollars a year, worth then perhaps 
 about what one thousand would be to-day. 
 The kindness of the board showed itself early 
 in an unexpected and welcome manner. As 
 soon as they heard of the birth of my first 
 child, without a request on my part, they added 
 one hundred dollars to my salary. The same 
 thing was done on the birth of my second 
 child. It will be seen later that they had not 
 the opportunity to continue this as my family 
 increased. 
 
 Our first home was in a small rented house 
 toward what was then called the Red Bridge, 
 and quite near the rock which was said to have 
 been the landing-place of Roger Williams, 
 when taking flight from the religious perse- 
 cution to which he was subjected by the "Pil- 
 grim Fathers." But we were not long satisfied 
 with this small house on the Seekonk River, 
 of which, small as it was, we could afford to 
 occupy only one half (the second story), and I 
 soon bought a few acres of land north of the 
 city, near Pawtucket, and there built a house 
 of convenient size on what has since been 
 called Magill Street, as our home was the first 
 residence erected upon it. With the house 
 I included about three acres or more which I 
 
68 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 early planted with pears, and with some hired 
 assistance I made here a pleasant home for 
 the f onr years we were yet to remain in Prov- 
 idence. As I found enough exercise here with- 
 out walking to and from the school, now some 
 three to four miles away, I rode in the omni- 
 bus mornings and evenings, no trolleys or 
 electric roads of any kind having as yet of 
 course been heard of . 
 
 It was about or soon after this time that my 
 third year in the Providence school was com- 
 pleted ; and the three years of necessary study 
 (one lesson a day in college) coming to a close, 
 I presented myself to Professor Gammel for 
 examination on my three years' work. This 
 had been largely in history and political econ- 
 omy, including especially Guizot's " History 
 of Civilization." I never considered that this 
 final test for my second degree was a severe 
 one, as the professor knew well of my work in 
 Brown the first year, and my work in the High 
 School the three succeeding years. He was 
 one of those who considered that earnest work 
 carried on systematically and patiently, year 
 after year, was far more significant in deter- 
 mining worthiness of a degree than any sudden 
 and spasmodic effort on a final examination 
 
PROVIDENCE HIGH SCHOOL: 1852-59 69 
 
 day. The examination seems to me now, as I 
 recall it (in the private parlor of Professor 
 Gammel's house), rather a general conversation 
 on Guizot's "History of Civilization/' and on 
 general topics of historical interest, than a 
 formal and rigid test. The examination was 
 wholly oral. I was not required to write a 
 word during the two or more hours that I 
 spent with the professor on that memorable 
 morning. On parting he said to me kindly, 
 that he was prepared to recommend me for 
 the second degree, but that his mind had been 
 fully made up as to the recommendation by 
 keeping careful note of my work in the three 
 years just passed. 
 
 When I left him I was sure that the goal so 
 long aimed at through six anxious and labo- 
 rious years since I left Benjamin Hallowell's 
 school in Alexandria was fully reached at 
 last, and that now my life as a teacher, how- 
 ever imperfectly prepared for at first, could be 
 said to have a most auspicious beginning. 
 That night on returning to my little home 
 near Pawtucket, I was a happy man indeed, 
 and, as often, I called up my daughter, then 
 not quite two years old. As usual I found her 
 already put to bed by her careful mother, who 
 
70 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 feared that it would injure her to awaken her 
 from her early sleep; but this evening the 
 mother made no objection, and we three en- 
 joyed a happy evening in the knowledge that 
 the second degree had been won at last. How 
 much our eldest born appreciated the cause 
 of my joy I could not say, but later, when her 
 degrees were earned, she came to appreciate 
 it to the full. In the following month my 
 second daughter was born, the first child born 
 in the new house. Even with the added one 
 hundred dollars, the eight hundred dollars 
 now received was a frugal sum even then for 
 the support of a family ; and it goes without 
 saying, that my lot was bought and the house 
 built on borrowed capital, to be repaid after 
 my income became sufiBciently large to remove 
 the debt and support my family. 
 
 Some time after we were settled in North 
 Providence, when at work on my grounds, 
 I was exposed to a late autumn rain. My 
 interest in my garden and grounds was such 
 that I continued the exposure too long, and 
 took a severe cold, the result of which was 
 an attack of typhoid fever. Winter was ap- 
 proaching, and now for the first time in my 
 life I saw before me a long illness. With the 
 
PROVIDENCE HIGH SCHOOL: 1852-69 71 
 
 kind consent of my committee, I appointed 
 a trusty student as monitor, and left the 
 school entirely to him. That was to me a 
 most depressing winter, and there were times 
 when I felt that my life's work as a teacher, 
 which I already loved so well, would come to 
 an early termination. But by careful nursing, 
 and the employment of what was then called a 
 " cold water doctor," who 4ealt much more with 
 baths and douches than with medicine, I was 
 ready to return (after more than three months 
 of illness) to my school on the first of April. 
 How delightful the sensation of returning to 
 my beloved classes and my attractive work ! 
 I recall the moment of my reappearance on 
 that familiar scene as though it were but yes- 
 terday. As I opened the door of my school- 
 room, every student rose to receive me, and 
 remained standing until I took my seat. At 
 first I made a short visit, and expressed my 
 feelings toward them in a few grateful words. 
 Each day thereafter I made a visit, gave some 
 necessary directions, got "the run" of the 
 lessons, and by the end of a week I was on full 
 duty again. I have never since, so long as 
 my teaching of classes lasted, had such an in- 
 terruption. With the kind cooperation of all. 
 
72 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 committee, parents, students, and fellow-teach- 
 ers, I rapidly gained my full strength, and 
 went on as before. 
 
 Soon after my return I met my good old 
 friend Dr. Wayland, who through failing 
 health had yielded his place as president to 
 his successor. Dr. Barnas Sears. He addressed 
 me most cordially, and I well recall his earnest- 
 ness of manner when he warned me against 
 weariness from overdoing in intellectual work ; 
 *^for," he added, "when one wearies from 
 physical exertion, he is warned in time to de- 
 sist, but weariness from overwork of the mind 
 is far more dangerous, because then the wea- 
 riness is often not perceptible until too late." 
 It is very possible that this valuable counsel 
 came from his consciousness of having too 
 much taxed his own mind in the struggle 
 through which he had passed in introducing 
 his "New College System." Be that as it 
 may, the country may well honor him now, 
 as it does, for the great change which he was 
 among the first to inaugurate in our educa- 
 tional conditions. 
 
 An important case of discipline in the 
 Providence High School comes to my mind as 
 I write. I will give it as typical, suggesting one 
 
PROVIDENCE HIGH SCHOOL: 1852-59 73 
 
 of the important means of securing the cordial 
 cooperation of students. In cases of absence 
 from school, a note from the parent was 
 required, giving the cause of absence. One 
 student lost much time, and yet the note of 
 excuse was always presented on his return, 
 signed regularly by his mother. Feeling anx- 
 ious about so much loss of time by one in ap- 
 parent good health, I called upon the mother 
 and had a private conversation with her, show- 
 ing her the numerous notes signed with her 
 name. She was shocked and grieved beyond 
 expression. She told me that the notes were 
 all forged, and she did not see how I could 
 ever receive her son into the school again. 
 The boy was called in and acknowleged his 
 falsehood, and said he could not ask for read- 
 mission. I left and carefully considered the 
 case over night, having promised to call the 
 next day and decide — a species of delay in 
 an important case which I have usually fol- 
 lowed through life. When I met the mother 
 and the boy there were three sad hearts in 
 that room. Although the boy was not fond 
 of study, he had always been a good boy in 
 other respects. I said that I had decided to 
 consult no one, and by my own authority I 
 
74 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 would readmit him, and that he would not 
 lose caste among his fellows, for his fault 
 should never be revealed. After that I could 
 not wish for a better friend or more faithful 
 student ; and to this day the secret has been 
 kept. He became later an honored minister 
 in one of the large cities of this country. 
 Both he and his mother passed on, some years 
 since, to the higher life. 
 
 Our first little country home near Pawtucket 
 became in time a favorite visiting place for 
 my students, who were usually invited out at 
 least twice every year. The first time was 
 to a strawberry festival, when my large straw- 
 berries were in their glory, the vines being 
 loaded down with the ripe, luscious fruit of 
 the most approved varieties ; for my gardening 
 was my pleasure and relaxation on holidays, 
 and during the term in the early morning and 
 late evening hours. The other festival came 
 about commencement time, before we sepa- 
 rated for the summer vacation. I remember 
 one of these occasions when the students were 
 out in large numbers. Among their sports they 
 took delight in bringing out our eldest daugh- 
 ter, then about five years old. There was a 
 large haycock in the front yard, and they 
 
PROVIDENCE HIGH SCHOOL: 1852-59 76 
 
 placed her upon this and told her to make 
 them an address. Not at all abashed, she stood 
 up in her place, spread out her Uttle hands 
 and began the repetition in Greek of the ora- 
 tion which one of them had been trained to 
 speak at commencement. When she began, 
 the boy who had thus placed her as the 
 orator of the day, cried out, " Why, you are 
 making my speech! " and he has since referred 
 to this occurrence when we have met at distant 
 intervals. We, her fond parents, little foresaw 
 that she, our eldest, would be among the first 
 of the women who have taken a university 
 degree in this country, and that Latin and 
 Greek would be among her favorite studies. 
 
 Much as I enjoyed my work in the Provi- 
 dence High School, I saw no opportunity of 
 rising higher in that position, nor of com- 
 manding more than the small sum of one 
 thousand dollars a year, which for one with a 
 growing family, and largely dependent upon 
 his salary, seemed very inadequate. I was be- 
 ginning to think that I might soon feel like 
 using Dr. Wayland's kind recommendation, 
 and seek a place elsewhere, without waiting 
 for the place to seek me. 
 
 About this time, quite to my surprise, I re- 
 
70 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 ceived word from Dr. Francis Gardner, then 
 the distinguished head of the Boston Latin 
 School, that he would like to visit me in my 
 school, of which he said he had heard good 
 reports. Of course I opened the way for him 
 to do so, and he came one morning, and spent 
 the entire school day hearing different classes 
 recite and witnessing some written examina- 
 tions. He was a keen observer, and no word 
 was uttered, or order given, that did not 
 arrest his eager attention. I well recall his 
 volunteered criticism on my method of teach- 
 ing the scanning of Virgil's iEneid and the 
 Eclogues. I had long felt that the rhythmical 
 and monotonous chant so generally adopted 
 in reading Latin verses was wholly artificial 
 and unnatural, and I strove to combine the 
 expression of thought of the author with the 
 metrical reading. It seemed to me so extremely 
 unlikely that in the days of Virgil and Lucre- 
 tius there should have been so vast a differ- 
 ence between reading according to the sense 
 and reading according to the metre. I was 
 somewhat proud of my success in this combi- 
 nation, largely my own device, and I showed, 
 plainly to Dr. Gardner just what I was doing, 
 and why. His reply, given in his brusque and 
 
FRANCIS GARDNER, LL. D. 
 
OF tmf: 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
PROVIDENCE HIGH SCHOOL: 1852-59 77 
 
 impulsive manner, was simply this : '' When 
 my students read Latin they read it ; and 
 when they scan it they scan it; they never 
 mix them." Of course that brusque reply 
 seemed " a settler/' and I considered that my 
 day's work with him was a failure, and that I 
 should hear of him no more. 
 
 What then was my surprise and pleasure a 
 few days later to have a letter from him invit- 
 ing me to come to Boston and take the position 
 of First Submaster in the Latin School, when 
 it should reopen in the fall. I have said that 
 some change had been thought of by me as 
 soon to be desired, but to go from my attrac- 
 tive work in Providence to the position next 
 to the head of the most distinguished classical 
 school in New England was far beyond my 
 highest hopes and dreams. My attachment to 
 my students in Providence, the invariable 
 kindness and courtesy of the members of my 
 committee, and what then seemed to me very 
 important — the immediate proximity of my 
 Alma Mater, where I was so well known — 
 all of these considerations rose before me 
 and made my decision an exceedingly diffi- 
 cult one. But I soon saw clearly that the way 
 thus unexpectedly opening before me was 
 
78 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 really providential and not accidental, and I 
 accepted the position. That I did so thus 
 promptly was one of the best things that I re- 
 member. I had then taught eight years with- 
 out adequate preparation, taken three years to 
 complete the preparation, and had now served 
 seven years in the position for which I had 
 been laboriously prepared, and the next step 
 — Boston and the Latin School — was plain 
 before me. 
 
CHAPTER Vn 
 
 SUBMASTER IN BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL 
 
 1859-1867 
 
 ONE circumstance caused me some anxiety 
 during the summer vacation of 1859. 
 This was that as I was to have charge of the 
 second class in the Latin School, a class with 
 but one year more before entering college, 
 most of them going to Harvard, I must teach 
 these forty students, in two divisions, not one 
 or two subjects only, but all the studies they 
 pursued. This was Dr. Gardner's method — 
 to divide the classes as to age and numbers, 
 but not make a division among the teachers 
 of the various studies pursued. Now I felt 
 sufiiciently famihar with all the subjects re- 
 quired except one, and in that I knew I should 
 have to work hard to give satisfaction. This 
 was French. I had studied French very im- 
 perfectly in Brown, and felt that through that 
 summer vacation I must practically begin 
 anew. But I employed an excellent French 
 
80 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 teacher, and to French I gave every moment 
 of that summer that I could possibly spare. 
 Even then, when September came, I dreaded 
 the French far more than any other study in- 
 trusted to my care. But we had a model of 
 French pronunciation before us at every reci- 
 tation. This was " Professor " Montrachy. He 
 knew very little English and simply read the 
 French and corrected the students' pronuncia- 
 tion as they read after him. My great trouble 
 was the pronunciation, which can be learned 
 better from speech than from books. 
 
 During the summer of 1859 I was prepar- 
 ing for my removal from Providence to Bos- 
 ton. Although I was fully conscious that this 
 change was a material advance in my profes- 
 sion, — to prepare for which I had spent so 
 much time and all of my limited means, still, 
 the change of locahty and surroundings was 
 painful to me. I had never failed since my 
 graduation from Brown in 1852 to be present 
 at the annual commencements. I felt then, as 
 I have felt more and more deeply with each 
 passing year, that my obligation to my Alma 
 Mater, with all the wider outlook on the world 
 which it had given me, was one which no gift of 
 money could ever adequately repay, and that the 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1869-^7 81 
 
 very least I could do would be to be present on 
 these public occasions and encourage by my pre- 
 sence, and by my words if need be, this work. 
 I had resolved to encourage young men and 
 boys who were to come under my influence to 
 obtain, when possible, a college education and 
 not an abbreviated one, if that could possibly 
 be avoided. But when I reflected that the 
 school into which I was now about to enter 
 was a very important one in the preparation 
 of young men for the earliest established and 
 at that time the most advanced of all the col- 
 leges in our country, the thought made the 
 separation from familiar friends and a settled 
 home somewhat easier to bear. Therefore, 
 after disposing of the first home of our own 
 which we had established, where our second 
 daughter was born, and where the third daugh- 
 ter had been recently added to our family, we 
 chartered a freight car, loaded it with our 
 movable worldly belongings, bade adieu to 
 our good friends — the Sissons on one side, 
 the Anthonys on the other, and the Chaces a 
 little farther away at Valley Falls — and took 
 train for Jamaica Plain, a few miles out of 
 Boston, where we had rented a pleasant home. 
 Another circumstance which I call provi- 
 
82 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 dential was that this new home of ours was 
 but a few minutes' walk from the residence of 
 one whom I have always regarded as one of 
 the best, most clear-sighted and conscientious 
 men I have ever known — James Freeman 
 Clarke. No words of mine can do full justice 
 to the excellent influence exercised by him and 
 his family over myself and mine. There were 
 no meetings of our branch of the Religious 
 Society of Friends in or near Boston, and 
 it was not long before the "Church of the 
 Disciples," of which James Freeman Clarke 
 was the pastor, became our rehgious home. 
 Our creed was a simple one. It read, as I 
 recall the words : " We beHeve in God, and 
 unite for the study and practice of Christian- 
 ity." That surely ought to be a creed which 
 any Christian, no matter to what denomina- 
 tion he may belong, could consistently adopt. 
 So at least it seemed to us, and we were early 
 connected with this church, and in the Sun- 
 day-school there my eldest daughters were 
 trained during most of the eight years of our 
 residence near Boston. 
 
 How vividly, after forty-six years, I recall 
 the day when we, my wife and three daughters 
 — the youngest in her mother's arms — and 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 83 
 
 myself, with all our worldly possessions, ar- 
 rived at our new home in Jamaica Plain, to 
 take up the burdens of life among strangers. 
 In the midst of the preparations for removal 
 — the sale of real estate, the packing of our 
 household goods, and the making of farewell 
 visits to our few warm friends — I had never 
 had the duties of the new position, and espe- 
 cially the difficulty about the French classes 
 (for which I was then so imperfectly prepared) 
 out of my mind for two consecutive waking 
 hours ; nor were they wholly absent from my 
 troubled dreams. Of course we were weary 
 and glad of rest when we reached the new 
 house; but, as the time to open the school 
 was fast approaching, the unpacking and set- 
 tUng required the utmost exertion of ourselves 
 and a domestic. The Sunday which followed 
 our arrival could not be devoted to anything 
 but household affairs. No church service could 
 be thought of, and when the opening day of 
 the school came and I left home by train, to 
 ride the few miles into Boston and meet Dr. 
 Gardner and my classes in the Latin School, 
 then located on Bedford Street, two squares 
 from the Common, it was with an anxiety 
 which no words can adequately describe. 
 
84 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 In my first brief talk with Dr. Gardner he 
 suggested that he would go into my class with 
 me, and make a few introductory remarks. I 
 asked him what he would say to the class ; he 
 replied : " I would not say much ; but simply 
 introduce you, and say that you had been at 
 the head of the Providence High School since 
 your graduation in Brown University seven 
 years ago ; and if you boys can, in any way, 
 get ahead of him, you are welcome to try. I 
 assure you that he will be quite ready for you 
 to attempt it." I thanked him for his proposed 
 introduction, but said that I would not trouble 
 him, but that, with his permission, I would in- 
 troduce myself. I had learned before from the 
 doctor that the class had given considerable 
 trouble to previous teachers ; it was natural, 
 therefore, for him to think that such a warn- 
 ing as he proposed might be necessary to give 
 me proper standing with them. But I felt that 
 my own method was preferable for myself. 
 
 On meeting the boys I said a very few 
 words, expressing my pleasure in meeting a 
 class which had been for three years under the 
 excellent training of the Latin School, and who 
 were now within two years of entering Har- 
 vard, which I hoped they all might do in 1861, 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 85 
 
 without conditions. I assured them that I 
 would do anything in my power the present 
 year to bring about this result, and then, as 
 usual, turn them over to Dr. Gardner for their 
 last year of training. I made no allusion, by 
 word or act, to discipline, taking it for granted 
 that good order and cooperation with me in 
 my labors for their good were to be expected 
 of all. Then I entered upon the classifica- 
 tion and assignment of lessons in the various 
 studies pursued. They seemed to take well 
 what I said, but I soon found that there was 
 a spirit of activity and restlessness among 
 them, and that they were likely to prove a 
 very different class of boys from that which I 
 had taught in the Providence High School for 
 seven years past. They were evidently disposed 
 to test the mettle of the new teacher. Little 
 unexpected occurrences would distract them 
 from their study, and some, even among the 
 best of the scholars, were evidently ready for 
 an outbreak ; they were not the gentle, sym- 
 pathetic students I had left in Providence. 
 
 The day wore on, and I had a class before 
 me in the beginning of the -^neid. Suddenly 
 a word which I had read to them was called 
 out loudly by a dozen voices at once, fairly 
 
86 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 startling me. When I inquired what they 
 meant, they told me, in a triumphant tone, 
 that Dr. Gardner trained all the classes to cor- 
 rect every error in pronunciation which they 
 heard. To make them quick to detect false 
 quantities, he gave a credit to the one whose 
 voice he first distinguished in the correction. 
 This, as I afterwards learned, was like a cus- 
 tom of the English Parliament, where a mis- 
 take in quantity in quoting a Latin author is 
 greeted with derision. Of course, the doctor 
 had directed them to correct each other in that 
 way ; but they were not expected to have 
 teachers who would be Hable to such correction. 
 I saw at once that I must be absolutely sure 
 of the quantity of every Latin word before I 
 ventured to read aloud before the class. No 
 further outbreak occurred that first day. 
 
 The session closed at the usual hour, and 
 all were dismissed, there being but one session. 
 An extra afternoon session was given to all 
 the delinquents of the morning, whom the 
 teacher must always meet. Before the after- 
 noon delinquent session closed, I saw that the 
 quiet persistent spirit of hard study and good 
 order was by no means as manifest in this 
 mercurial company of Boston boys as in that 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 87 
 
 to which I had so long been accustomed ; but 
 I did not reflect that it had taken me seven 
 years of patient labor in Providence to secure 
 the result there, and in my new position, where 
 I was scarcely known, I could not expect to 
 begin with boys having the same spirit as 
 those whom I had left behind me. Hence, on 
 this first night, when I returned to my little 
 family at Jamaica Plain, I quite broke down, 
 expressed bitter regret that I had made the 
 change, and felt that a disgraceful failure was 
 before me, such as some of my predecessors 
 had met with — Phillips Brooks among the 
 number. But the next morning, after a good 
 night's rest, I felt quite myself again, and I 
 am sure that never after, in all my experience 
 as teacher, professor, and president, has the 
 fear of absolute failure so haunted me as it 
 did after that first day in the Boston Latin 
 School. I firmly resolved that from that day 
 on there should be in my vocabulary no such 
 word as failj and it was not long before my 
 earnest efforts were rewarded with all the 
 success I could desire. When the students 
 saw that force was to be met not by force, but 
 by gentleness and kind expostulation, they 
 showed themselves as amenable to ordinary 
 
88 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 human sympathies as I could reasonably ex- 
 pect. 
 
 It was the habit of our master, Dr. Gard- 
 ner, to visit and examine our classes at rather 
 frequent and irregular intervals, and at first 
 I dreaded these tests ; but it was not many 
 months before I was glad of his visits, for I 
 caught the thorough spirit of our great mas- 
 ter, and his comments were an efficient means 
 of keeping my students well up to their 
 work. 
 
 Our organization was peculiar : our five 
 rooms (later six rooms), of about forty stu- 
 dents each, were divided into two classes, 
 called first and second divisions. The whole 
 forty, on promotion, were about on an equality 
 as to the ground gone over in the year, but 
 the difference was in the thoroughness of the 
 work, depending upon natural ability and 
 incHnation. This arrangement applied to all 
 the classes in the school, and when the course 
 was ended and our first division went to Har- 
 vard, the doctor gave them all what he called 
 a "clean bill of health." These men had for 
 years been admitted to Harvard without " con- 
 ditions." The second division men were, of 
 course, more or less conditioned, and occasion- 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 89 
 
 ally rejected. The doctor used to boast that 
 for years no first division man that he had 
 sent up had received a single condition. 
 
 Dr. Gardner's system of organization, re- 
 quiring each teacher to instruct his own class 
 in all of the branches studied during the year, 
 had the great advantage of making us very 
 familiar with the character and habits of the 
 students under our care. It also required us 
 to keep up and advance our scholarship in a 
 number of subjects. The more modern method 
 of giving only one subject to each teacher — 
 or the departmental method — may be the 
 most favorable for obtaining a mastery, on 
 the part of both teachers and students, of the 
 subjects taught. I confess, however, that the 
 desirability of knowing well and appreciating 
 the character of our students inclines me still, 
 after much subsequent reflection and observa- 
 tion, to prefer the doctor's to the more modern 
 method, at least in preparatory schools ; it may 
 be hardly practicable in a college course. 
 
 Dr. Gardner had a most striking method of 
 presenting his thought on all subjects, and I 
 have never forgotten his three requirements 
 for a thoroughly good and successful teacher. 
 They were, first, "integrity;" second, "power 
 
90 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 of control;" and third, and least important 
 (he would add for emphasis), " knowledge of 
 the subject to be taught." Of course he did 
 not regard a thorough knowledge of his sub- 
 ject as by any means unimportant for the suc- 
 cessful teacher. 
 
 The three qualities which he thus named I 
 am sure that he himself possessed in a very 
 high degree. He surely did a good work 
 among the young by naming integrity, the 
 foundation of character, as the essential thing. 
 He would make fine scholars of all who passed 
 under his influence during those formative 
 years, but he was more concerned to make 
 noble men of his boys than have them gain 
 any amount of scholarship by poring over 
 books. Fortunately, the two things are by no 
 means inconsistent with each other, and when 
 harmoniously blended they make well-rounded 
 men and women. 
 
 Here let me say that while our good doctor 
 was engaged in training men only, as the 
 Latin School admitted only boys, he did not 
 discourage me, before my eight years in the 
 school were much more than half over, from 
 bringing to the school with me my eldest 
 daughter. He allowed her for several years to 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 91 
 
 receive the far-famed Latin School training in 
 classes where she was the only girl. I then 
 had no sons, but four years after I began as 
 Dr. Gardner's submaster, my only son was 
 born — in 1863; we had no hesitation in 
 naming him Francis Gardner Magill. I must 
 not dwell here upon what has been a bright 
 and hopeful period of my life, but can only 
 say that this boy, after the promise of a bright 
 future, passed on to the life beyond, at the 
 age of nine years — our only loss in a family 
 of six children. 
 
 But to return to my experiences in the 
 Latin School. I learned early a peculiar method 
 of marking recitations, adopted by Dr. Gard- 
 ner, which did much to secure accurate scholar- 
 ship. Lessons were marked on a scale of five, 
 that being the highest mark. The students 
 exchanged places in class by a regrading at 
 the end of each month, standing for a month 
 in the places won the previous month. The 
 questions were passed around rapidly by the 
 teacher, and every failure to answer reduced 
 by one the maximum mark of five. When the 
 question was answered correctly by one lower 
 down in the class, the next question went back 
 to the one who first missed ; thus no one could 
 
92 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 escape his turn until he had given a correct 
 answer. If five of these mistakes had been 
 made, the student was sent back to his seat to 
 study, and was further required to return to 
 the delinquent session in the afternoon. No 
 answers partially right were accepted, and the 
 doctor used to quote a distinguished teacher 
 of that day, George Sumner, as saying that 
 '^ a middling good recitation was like a mid- 
 dling good egg, i. e. good for nothing." This 
 illustrates the rapid and precise work that was 
 required in the Latin School. 
 
 With all Dr. Gardner's severity, he was al- 
 ways scrupulously just, and no teacher could 
 hope to secure greater respect from or greater 
 influence over his students than he. Each of 
 the eight successive years that I passed under 
 him, I saw more and more the source of his 
 power, and the excellent character of the man. 
 He was the last of the five truly great teachers 
 of whom I have spoken ; and although it is 
 dif&cult to compare men so different in quali- 
 ties of mind and character as were these five, 
 I should not do justice to my own feelings 
 and convictions if I placed Dr. Gardner last 
 among them in ability, as he happened to be 
 in point of time. 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 93 
 
 A very important cause of whatever success 
 I attained in the Latin School was that I was 
 building on another man's foundation, and 
 that foundation was the work of one of the 
 most patient and painstaking teachers I have 
 ever known, Charles J. Capen. He had entered 
 upon the submastership in 1852, and was head 
 of the Third Eoom when I came, in 1859. 
 Dr. Gardner's methods aimed at more rapid 
 progress than Mr. Capen's, and I soon saw I 
 must secure the same capacity for rapid work 
 before I sent the classes to the head of the 
 school. In a recent letter from Mr. Capen, 
 he says : " I have completed fifty-four years 
 of service in the Latin School without being 
 absent a minute on account of sickness or 
 other disabihty, nor have I ever been tardy 
 on account of my own neglect, but only when 
 the cars have failed to be on time on account 
 of snow." What an unprecedented record !^ 
 
 The method of preparing the lesson and the 
 rapid pace of the recitation in the Latin School 
 under the regime of Dr. Gardner are worthy 
 
 1 Mr. Capen is now one of the oldest and most highly 
 honored members of the Boston Public School Association. 
 His former students and colleagues have presented the 
 school with an excellent portrait of him, to commemorate 
 the completion of his fiftieth year of service. 
 
9^ LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 of a passing notice. Accurate scholarship, 
 readiness in quotation, making their knowledge 
 their own for all purposes, and knowing just 
 what they knew and what they did not know, 
 became in those days a marked characteristic 
 of the students of the Latin School. This ac- 
 curacy, precision, and readiness, thus culti- 
 vated, made our Latin School boys who decided 
 to enter business instead of pursuing a college 
 course eagerly sought for by leading business 
 men. The English High School, occupying 
 one side of the building on Bedford Street, 
 in which we worked, was especially designed 
 to give the boys business training; but the 
 Latin School, at the period of which I speak, 
 1859-67, had the reputation of preparing 
 boys, even for business, better than they were 
 prepared elsewhere. Of this distinction I saw 
 that the doctor was reasonably proud, after his 
 lifelong work at the head of the school. He 
 had a habit of saying that even a Latin School 
 dunce was different from any other dunce, for 
 although he might know but little, he knew 
 well what little he knew; and, what is very 
 important, he knew at once that he did not 
 know what he did not know. Hence the most 
 thorough preparation of every lesson was con- 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 96 
 
 stantly impressed upon the boys as a matter 
 of the highest importance. 
 
 Every class in the Latin School in my time 
 was known by the name (or names) of its 
 recognized head (or heads) in the matter of 
 scholarship. The class that I first met in the 
 fall of 1859 soon came to have two recognized 
 leaders, and was called Paine and Mifflin's 
 class. Sumner Paine and George H. Mifflin 
 ran a pretty even race, and would exchange 
 places as to first and second with almost every 
 new month. I was soon made proud of that 
 first class of mine, for after a few attempts to 
 give the new teacher trouble, they seemed to 
 vie with each other to see who could behave 
 the best. 
 
 Forty-six years have passed since then, and 
 where are those two leaders now? Of the two, 
 Paine had an early and tragic death. The class 
 entered Harvard in the summer of 1861. The 
 country was then just on the eve of the War 
 of the Eebellion, brought on by the cruel 
 system of slavery. Young men from different 
 colleges throughout the North put aside their 
 books and were enrolled for war. Of these 
 Paine was among the first ; he enlisted in a 
 company headed by his cousin, Oliver Wendell 
 
96 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 Holmes, Jr. There was no first lieutenant, and 
 Paine was chosen second lieutenant. Robert 
 Treat Paine, now so well known for his advo- 
 cacy of the peace cause among other good 
 causes, and who is the president of the Amer- 
 ican Peace Society, has lately written me of 
 his brother Sumner's fate. He says : " Sumner 
 went into the war with tremendous enthusi- 
 asm. That was just the way in which he did 
 everything ; nothing by halves. He joined the 
 army the evening before the battle of Chan- 
 cellorsville. He was the second lieutenant in 
 the company of which his cousin, Oliver Wen- 
 dell Holmes, Jr., was captain, there being at 
 that time no first lieutenant with the regiment. 
 When therefore, as the battle began. Holmes 
 was wounded and carried from the field, Sum- 
 ner was left in command of his company in a 
 pitched battle, before he had been in the army 
 twenty-four hours — and he a boy of eighteen 
 years of age. 
 
 " Then followed the six weeks' retreat to 
 Gettysburg, where Sumner was killed. It was 
 on the third day, on Friday afternoon. Pick- 
 ett's division had just made its great charge 
 upon our lines, and had broken through them 
 at a little to the right of where Sumner's regi- 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 97 
 
 ment was posted. A charge was ordered, and 
 Sumner was out in front of his company lead- 
 ing on his men, with his sword waved on high ; 
 and his last word was ' Forward ! ' when he 
 was struck, and fell, shot dead in a moment 
 of victory at the culminating moment of the 
 war." 
 
 Of the other rival for the headship of my 
 first Latin School class, in 1859-60, I need 
 only say that he is now the head of the 
 publishing firm who are bringing out this 
 booh. After a separation of more than forty 
 years, I have recently met him, and find him 
 in heart the same enthusiastic boy of those 
 distant days. Among many other evidences 
 of this, I may very properly mention the fact 
 that I taught him phonography, and though 
 the knowledge then acquired of this beauti- 
 ful art had lain dormant in his mind through 
 all of these many intervening years, it had 
 so fixed his attention that he recalled it very 
 soon after we met. In spite of his many con- 
 fining business cares, he quickly took it up 
 again, and visited me in New York, after 
 sending me certain phonographic letters of 
 mine, preserved in his manuscript volume of 
 "Memorabilia of the Latin School." We 
 
98 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 at once reestablished our correspondence in 
 phonography, using this original style taught 
 by Benn Pitman and Jerome B. Howard in 
 their Phonographic Institute in Cincinnati, 
 and we have kept up this correspondence to 
 the present hour. How he has been able to do 
 so, with all of his other cares and labors, is a 
 mystery to me, but at this moment, as I write, 
 he is a more perfect adept in the practice of 
 this beautiful system than I have ever been. 
 
 Another of the eight classes which I taught 
 in the Latin School, from 1859 to 1867, was 
 called Gallagher's class ; in that good class 
 Gallagher had no rival. His scholarship was 
 of that degree of perfection which comes from 
 the rapid mental training through which our 
 system carried them, implying a complete mas- 
 tery of the subject in hand. Dr. Gardner said 
 of Gallagher what was true to some extent 
 of the other good scholars : " Gallagher could 
 commit a lesson in one half the time required 
 by any other boy, and yet he spent upon his 
 lessons double the time of any other." In- 
 deed, Gallagher always said that when he had 
 " gotten out " his lesson (in Greek or Latin 
 chiefly) he was just ready to begin his study 
 of it. I had the habit of timing the students 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 99 
 
 in their recitations, and the question before 
 us was not merely, did they know the lesson 
 passably, but how rapidly and correctly could 
 they recite it. It was not uncommon for the 
 better scholars of the class to recite their 
 translations of Virgil, as literally as the use 
 of good English would allow, at the rate of 
 one hundred lines in eight minutes, I holding 
 my watch to time them. 
 
 After leaving college, Gallagher became 
 the successful head of the Williston Seminary 
 at Easthampton, where, as I have said, I 
 passed the year 1849-50 in preparation for 
 Yale. He occupied his position with fine suc- 
 cess, as so thorough a worker was sure to do, 
 until he felt that he could do better in his 
 profession by accepting the mastership of the 
 High School in Braintree, Massachusetts. 
 About the time I was penning these lines in 
 my present home in New York city, a card 
 was handed me, and I saw on it with delight 
 the famiKar name of William Gallagher. It 
 may well be supposed that our meeting was a 
 most cordial one, we having met but once, at 
 Swarthmore, since I left the Latin School in 
 1867, thirty-eight years ago. Certainly one of 
 the greatest pleasures of a teacher's life is to 
 
100 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 meet grateful and appreciative students, who 
 feel that their lives have been made more use- 
 ful by what they learned at school. Such ex- 
 periences would be more frequent were there 
 among students more Gallaghers than the 
 world has thus far produced. 
 
 I recall vividly two others of my especially 
 apt pupils in the Latin School, Brooks and 
 Ames ; two warm friends, who worked a great 
 deal together. I have not met Ames since I 
 left the Latin School, but have had recent 
 word from him, and am not surprised to learn 
 that he stands high at Harvard in the profes- 
 sion of the law. Brooks was a brother of Phil- 
 lips Brooks, whose useful life and brilhant 
 career as a pulpit orator the world knows 
 well. Arthur Brooks, the brother, who was in 
 my Latin School class, became a successful 
 preacher in New York, where I met him a few 
 years ago ; but now he too has passed on with 
 the rest. A younger brother of the Brooks 
 family was for a short time with me in the 
 Latin School, but he died the day his class 
 was graduated. 
 
 I have referred to my anxiety about my 
 new work in the Latin School, and have said 
 that the cause of it was largely my imperfect 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 101 
 
 preparation in French. Feeling my deficiency 
 so deeply caused me to enter, as vigorously 
 as my constant duties in my class-work would 
 permit, upon a thorough study of this lan- 
 guage, including the translation of French 
 into English, and careful observation and imi- 
 tation of the pronunciation of " Professor " 
 Montrachy, our French teacher, who gave my 
 class two lessons a week. At first the model 
 was not a teacher, but a mere model, like an 
 automaton. No doubt his was correct Pari- 
 sian French, but later, when the place came 
 to be occupied by Professor Ferdinand Bocher, 
 the conditions were greatly changed and im- 
 proved. He could do far more than serve 
 as a model, for he was an able teacher. His 
 years at the Latin School proved of great 
 service to me; he was one of the very few 
 Frenchmen I have known who were good 
 teachers of English-speaking students. But, 
 as he told me, he had spoken English from his 
 youth up, being a Frenchman born of French 
 parents in New Orleans. In his youth he 
 spent much time in France, and hence, know- 
 ing the two languages almost equally well, he 
 did not experience the usual difficulty of French 
 teachers in controlling his students. With us, 
 
102 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 too, he was engaged in a school thoroughly 
 governed by Dr. Gardner and his submasters, 
 and this of course greatly aided him. Later, 
 he was appointed professor of French at Har- 
 vard University, where he filled the chair hon- 
 orably until his death, which occurred several 
 years since. 
 
 The necessity which compelled me to turn 
 my attention to the study of French has pro- 
 duced, as a result, an aquaintance with that 
 beautiful language far better, in my later 
 years, than my knowledge of Latin and Greek. 
 I have had the rather unusual experience of 
 being very fond of mathematics in early life, 
 and preferring it then to any other study ; 
 later acquiring a great interest in the clas- 
 sical languages, and making them the most 
 important part of my teaching; and lastly, 
 turning my attention to a modern foreign lan- 
 guage more vigorously, if possible, and more 
 successfully that I had studied and taught the 
 classical languages. 
 
 I studied, and for a time taught, French in 
 a somewhat arbitrary method, applying to it 
 what I had learned, especially in Latin gram- 
 mar. This situation turned my attention to 
 the production of a French grammar — the 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 103 
 
 first volume I ever published. To this work 
 I gave every spare moment for several years, 
 but the spare moments I found all too few in 
 my strenuous life. Many a night, after a hard 
 day's work at teaching, I could be found at 
 work on the French grammar, long after the 
 small hours had begun. I got all the neces- 
 sary books of reference from the Latin School 
 library, and from Dr. Gardner's private library, 
 and these I read with care, from cover to 
 cover. . Once when I returned one of the doc- 
 tor's books, he asked me how much of it I 
 had read. I replied that there was not a word 
 in the book from beginning to end that had 
 escaped my notice. "Well," he replied, "that 
 is just like you; you ought to be well pre- 
 pared to get out your ' Complete French Gram- 
 mar* after you have read all my French books 
 in that way." 
 
 This being the first book I ever published, 
 I felt very solicitous that nothing essential to 
 its success should be omitted; at that time, 
 the idea of reducing the study of grammar to 
 a minimum had scarcely been thought of in 
 this country. Hence in this, my first volume, 
 the treatment was far too minute, and included 
 much that might be characterized as curious 
 
104 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 and interesting, rather than as practically val- 
 uable ; the American student usually desired 
 a knowledge of French rather for the purpose 
 of getting possession of the key to the trea- 
 sures of its literature. Among other curious 
 and redundant features of this volume was one 
 which I never have seen in any other French 
 grammar, viz., an alphabetical list of many 
 pages, giving the corresponding words in the 
 three languages, Latin, French, and English. 
 Of this I have had very little occasion to make 
 use in my teaching, and I dare say that other 
 French teachers of that day had the same 
 experience. Another feature of the book was 
 the introduction of a different naming of the 
 tenses. With Dr. Gardner and a number of 
 others, I decided that what is called by 
 French grammarians the " past definite '' tense 
 really referred to indefinite time in the past ; 
 and, vice versa, their " past indefinite " seemed 
 to us to refer to definite time. These changes 
 would seem to betray youth and inexperience 
 more than anything else, and, in my own 
 teaching, I soon gave up endeavoring to re- 
 form grammatical terminology. I have often 
 wondered since that I escaped scathing criti- 
 cism on this point, but no such criticism has 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 105 
 
 ever come to my notice. The work, first pub- 
 lished in Boston in 1866, was pretty widely 
 circulated for a few years, running through 
 many editions, but later, other and more con- 
 cise works have taken its place. 
 
 My eight years in Boston, 1859-67, covered 
 a sad and critical time in our country. The 
 question of human slavery was approaching 
 its crisis. After long agitation, begun in Bos- 
 ton by William Lloyd Garrison in his out- 
 spoken paper, ^^The Liberator," it was contin- 
 ued and kept alive by the platform eloquence 
 of Wendell Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, Stephen 
 S. Foster, and Abby Kelly Foster, his wife; of 
 Frederick Douglass, Charles Lenox Kemond, 
 and Eobert Purvis — the three leading colored 
 men of that time ; of James and Lucretia Mott, 
 most worthy representatives of our Eeligious 
 Society of Friends ; of Charles C. Burleigh, 
 Thomas Earl, and many others, all of whom 
 I had heard in public many times. The crisis 
 was hastened by the John Brown raid in Vir- 
 ginia, and his tragic death upon the gallows. 
 The time was near at hand when the war was 
 opened by the firing on Sumter, and the call- 
 ing out of seventy thousand national troops 
 by President Lincoln. How vividly I recall 
 
108 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 reading tlie morning paper on the way to 
 schopl in the spring of 1861, and the thrill 
 that ran through my heart at the news of the 
 actual opening of the war by the attack on 
 Fort Sumter. From that time, however they 
 may have differed before, the people of the 
 North were a united people, and the call for 
 troops was promptly answered. Our boys held 
 an improvised meeting in the general hall of 
 the Latin School ; this taking the place, I 
 think, of all other exercises that morning. 
 They had one very impressive speaker among 
 them, who was ever ready with needed words 
 when the occasion called them forth, and 
 surely no one of us, old or young, had ever 
 seen a time when the proper spoken word was 
 more needed. This young and ready speaker 
 was Samuel H. Virgin, then, I think, a mem- 
 ber of the senior class. Virgin outdid himself 
 on this thrilling occasion, and delivered as 
 fiery an address as any of those so often heard 
 in those days in the halls of Congress, en- 
 treating that no voice give an uncertain sound, 
 but that all be ready at once to leave school 
 and start for the war when called out by Pre- 
 sident Lincoln to defend the honor of the 
 national flag. 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 107 
 
 Since then, through all of these interven- 
 ing years, I had lost sight of Virgin. A few 
 months ago, or forty-four years after, a letter 
 of mine on the study of phonography was seen 
 by him in the " New York Tribune." As this 
 letter gave my New York address, he lost no 
 time in calling upon me, and talking over these 
 experiences of the past. I found that he had 
 been a well-known clergyman in this city for 
 many years, and had lived a highly honorable 
 and useful life. Our pleasure at meeting after 
 this long interval can be more readily imagined 
 than described. 
 
 It was not long after this stirring address 
 of Virgin that William Everett, son of Edward 
 Everett and a graduate a few years before of 
 the Latin School, addressed our boys in a sim- 
 ilar strain. Scholarship during those early 
 months of girding themselves for the national 
 combat seemed a matter of quite secondary im- 
 portance, and Dr. Gardner himself was as en- 
 thusiastic as any of his two hundred and fifty 
 boys. Evening meetings were called in the 
 public halls of Boston, and the most eloquent 
 of American orators, Wendell Phillips, and his 
 warm friend and co-worker, William Lloyd 
 Garrison, both of whom had been threatened, 
 
108 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 a few months before, with lynch law, these and 
 other great leaders were now gladly listened 
 to by the almost infuriated people of Boston. 
 I recall the first time that Phillips spoke after 
 the breaking out of the war, how enthusiasti- 
 cally all his words were received, and how the 
 audience, wild with excitement, rose en masse 
 and threw their hats as high as they could, 
 regardless of their possible loss in coming 
 down. One of his ringing sentences, that 
 sounded strangely from one who had always 
 before recommended peaceful measures, fairly 
 startled me — his peroration was, " This ques- 
 tion will never be rightly settled until every 
 Southern slaveholder is beneath the sod!" 
 That was no time for what Voltaire once 
 called "the summer soldier and the sunshine 
 patriot " to secure patient listeners. 
 
 When I began these memoirs I felt that I 
 should give an account of my life only as con- 
 nected with the profession of teaching ; but I 
 see that I can do this better by dwelling more 
 or less upon my varied experiences and upon 
 what they have taught me, than if I confined 
 myself too closely to my personal experiences 
 in the science and art of teaching. Let me 
 say now, therefore, that one great lesson which 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1869-67 109 
 
 I would leave behind me is the importance 
 of laying a thorough foundation, without too 
 great anxiety to gain time by short and irregu- 
 lar courses, and also the importance of having 
 one definite occupation in life. Here I have 
 laid myself open to the charge of being " a 
 man of remorseless mental activity," as a very 
 good friend has recently called me. Change 
 for the sake of change is always objection- 
 able, but may properly be made at times for a 
 laudable purpose. I have never, in a long life, 
 resigned a position except when invited to a 
 more important work. I tell young men who 
 go out to seek their fortunes never to try for 
 a higher position until they can fill well the 
 position at present occupied. That they have 
 done this, and made their services indispensa- 
 ble where they are, is the best possible recom- 
 mendation for the next higher place. No one 
 in seeking a teacher (of course I speak of my 
 own profession) seeks among the unoccupied 
 the man or the woman needed, but among 
 those already filling well their present posi- 
 tions. Few lessons in securing success in life 
 will be found of greater value than this. 
 
 When my " Complete French Grammar " was 
 fairly before the public, I turned my attention 
 
110 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 to the preparation of my second work, to be 
 called an " Introductory French Eeader." For 
 this I made a careful examination of modern 
 French literature, and selected such passages 
 as would give the students, by brief study, a 
 specimen of the style of the different writers ; 
 upon these I prepared a full body of explana- 
 tory notes, clearing up difficult constructions, 
 and referring the student very often to those 
 paragraphs in my grammar which these pas- 
 sages would illustrate. I also prepared a com- 
 plete vocabulary of all the words and phrases 
 used in this reader. This vocabulary was 
 neither more nor less than a full dictionary 
 for any reader of the volume ; besides the ex- 
 planations of the words and phrases, I gave 
 the Latin derivations in the case of words de- 
 rived from that language. This became a great 
 aid to my students in the Latin School, and 
 the reader was very generally used for some 
 years by students studying at the same time 
 Latin and French. I am sure that no book I 
 ever published required such persistent and 
 patient labor as did this vocabulary of my 
 " Introductory French Reader." To prepare 
 it and see it safely through the press occupied 
 every moment of time that I could spare from 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 111 
 
 my class-work, including the greater part o£ 
 the vacations, for fully three years. 
 
 Thus my determination to correct my de- 
 ficiencies in Trench resulted, within five or 
 six years, in my publishing those first two 
 volumes that I had given to the public, and 
 cultivated my abihty to remove serious ob- 
 stacles by persistent labor. In this work I 
 had schooled myself to work in my study at 
 home, with a family of growing children 
 around me, all separately or together interested 
 in their lessons or their amusements. I was no 
 more disturbed by them than I should have 
 been had I shut myself up, away from the 
 cheerful influences of my family, and burned 
 my midnight oil in a separate " den " of my 
 own. I can now say, long after that little 
 circle has been broken by death and the ex- 
 periences of adult life, that I have always re- 
 joiced thus to have mingled with them while 
 it was possible to do so. 
 
 One pecuUar habit of Dr. Gardner in his 
 teaching showed how much he depended upon 
 being natural, and being himself. He always 
 had great success in training his students in 
 elocution, a subject which they mastered well 
 in the school, and in which they generally took 
 
112 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 good positions or prizes in their courses at 
 Harvard or elsewhere. I once said to him, 
 "How is it that you, who are no public 
 speaker yourself, make such good speakers 
 of your Latin School boys?" "Oh," he re- 
 plied, in his brusque and ofE-hand manner, 
 *^ there is nothing more simple than that. I 
 never teach them gestures or any of the para- 
 phernalia of the teachers of elocution. I tell 
 them to study their speeches well, to be sure 
 not to fail in a single word in their commit- 
 tal, to understand perfectly what the authors 
 mean, and to make that knowledge fully their 
 own ; then I put them on their pins and tell 
 them to ' strike out,' and they simply cannot 
 fail to do well." These are the exact words 
 of the doctor, and they are really a key to 
 much of his fine success as a teacher. He 
 insisted on perfect committal, and no prompt- 
 ing was ever allowed. 
 
 As a governor, although kind and consider- 
 ate and never giving way to anger or excite- 
 ment with unruly boys, he was resolute and 
 determined; and he used at times, for one 
 species of offense only — truancy — a royal 
 remedy, which I never knew to fail. I remem- 
 ber but four or five cases of truancy in that 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 113 
 
 large school, and each case was thus treated : 
 the teachers of the five rooms, with all their 
 classes, were called together in the large upper 
 room where the doctor's classes were regularly 
 held. When all were seated, the culprit was 
 brought in. Then the doctor, taking a heavy- 
 ruler in hand, stepped out and took the hand 
 of the culprit, thus addressing him : " You 
 have been guilty of truancy. I do not use this 
 ruler to reform you ; I know that it cannot do 
 that ; but only to make you hold still while 
 other influences can be brought to bear upon 
 you. Hold out your hand." He would then 
 inflict several severe blows on the palm of the 
 hand. It is scarcely necessary for me to add 
 that I was never in the least converted by the 
 doctor to this method of using force, being 
 always satisfied that kindness, and considera- 
 tion for the feelings of the student and his 
 family, worked in all possible cases a reform 
 more lasting and effectual. 
 
 But with all his brusqueness and abrupt- 
 ness of manner, he was a nobleman in that he 
 was a most noble, truly kind, and generous 
 man. I often wondered that he remained all 
 his life a bachelor, and I feared that some 
 domestic tragedy had darkened his life. After 
 
114 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 I knew him, he had a favorite niece who kept 
 house for him, and a faithful old colored 
 woman who was cook and general housemaid. 
 These constituted his entire household. He 
 went out very Httle, if at all, into general so- 
 ciety, and rarely attended even an educational 
 meeting. The reason for this was his thorough 
 belief that teachers were born, not made. 
 He would change the Latin maxim, ''poeta 
 nascitur non fit/' into ''magister nascitur 
 non JitJ' In consequence of this he had no 
 patience with the normal schools then spring- 
 ing up everywhere in New England, and said 
 that they wanted to make all the teachers 
 into smooth round marbles, all alike and all 
 equally destitute of character and originality. 
 Of one of these who had been a teacher in 
 a neighboring town, and who aspired to be 
 elected to the state superintendency for Mas- 
 sachusetts, he said that in the small town 
 where he Hved and taught he " did well 
 enough, but he would be very thin when 
 spread out over the whole State." On account 
 of this dependence wholly upon native inborn 
 talent, and this disposition to condemn special 
 professional training for our work. Dr. Gard- 
 ner had several strong enemies in the school 
 
BOSTON PUBLIC LATIN SCHOOL: 1859-67 115 
 
 board, and year after year, when the annual 
 election came, these strove to unseat him. But 
 his genius for teaching, his absolute devotion 
 to the work which seemed his whole life, his 
 powerful personality and the good results he 
 secured for his classes in the colleges which 
 they entered, — Harvard especially, — kept 
 down this opposition, and after the stormy 
 annual meetings of the board he came out 
 each year victorious. The exact length of his 
 rule after the death of his able predecessor. 
 Master Dixwell, I do not now remember. It 
 was my admiration for, and sympathy with, 
 the man that led us to call our only son by 
 his name. 
 
 I will not anticipate here further than to 
 add that some years after my son's death at 
 the age of nine, and after Dr. Gardner had 
 crossed the Hudson for the first time in his 
 life, visiting us in our Swarthmore home, I 
 heard that that iron frame of his had given 
 way at last, that he was very ill, and that he 
 had expressed to his nurse a desire to see me, 
 his devoted submaster. I shall never forget 
 the sad and feeble tone in which he said, as I 
 quietly entered the sick-room in his unpre- 
 tending home in West Cedar Street : " Mr. 
 
116 LIFE OF £ TEACHER 
 
 Magill, I have been hoping to receive you 
 here in my home for some time past, but this 
 is not the reception that I had hoped to give 
 you." He was so feeble that his physician for- 
 bade a long stay ; and I am sure that I never 
 took a sadder farewell of any one, out of my 
 own immediate family, than I did that day 
 of Dr. Gardner. I returned promptly to my 
 duties at Swarthmore, for which he had done 
 so much to give me a thorough preparation, 
 and heard, a few days after, that he had passed 
 gently and peacefully away. With him I lost 
 one of the best friends of my earlier years, 
 and one who vaUantly did his part, often amid 
 obloquy and reproach, to secure to the gen- 
 eration to follow him the most thorough, pro- 
 found, and accurate scholarship. We differed 
 in views upon many things, but we agreed to 
 differ; and, each confiding wholly in the oth- 
 er's good intentions, we passed together eight 
 of the most profitable years of my life. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD 
 1867-1868 
 
 IT was early in the spring of 1867 that I had 
 an entirely unexpected visit at our home 
 in Jamaica Plain, from Edward Parrish, of 
 Philadelphia, who informed me of his great 
 interest in a college to be established by cer- 
 tain members of the Society of Friends, and 
 then in process of construction. Of this col- 
 lege he had been chosen, a few years earlier, 
 by the board of managers, the first president. 
 He informed me that as our Friends had had 
 no college previous to this, it must be, for a 
 time at least, rather a preparatory school than 
 a college. Of this preparatory school, his 
 friend and mine, Rachel T. Jackson, — wife 
 of the well-known minister, John Jackson, — 
 had suggested to him that he obtain my aid 
 as principal. 
 
 This was a wholly unexpected opening, and 
 at first I scarcely knew what to think of it. 
 
118 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 After a night's reflection, I saw in this an im- 
 portant opportunity to do a good work for our 
 Religious Society, which was now each year 
 becoming more in need of such a school ; for 
 at that time there were very few young men 
 in our Society who had had the educational 
 advantages which I had enjoyed since I left 
 Benjamin Hallowell's school to prepare for 
 Yale. I felt that, since that time, my life had 
 been so ordered as to give me the best fitting 
 possible for a place among my own people 
 such as that to which I was now called. After 
 the night's rest and prayerful reflection, I 
 answered Edward Parrish that I would accept 
 the position oiBPered. 
 
 I promptly tendered my resignation to the 
 board of the Latin School, to take effect at 
 the coming summer vacation. As the college 
 would not open until the autumn of 1869, I 
 felt that I must spend the intervening two 
 years in study abroad, and in making in Paris 
 the selections needed for my third volume, 
 already well under way, to be called "French 
 Prose and Poetry." Thus prepared, I should 
 enter upon my work at the new college with 
 twenty-eight years' experience in teaching, 
 study, and travel. I hoped that my later 
 
TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD: 1867-68 119 
 
 wide and varied experience would atone for 
 my premature beginning at the age of six- 
 teen. 
 
 Accordingly, with my wife and eldest 
 daughter, Helen, and with two friends, Ann 
 Eliza Cooke, a teacher in the Philadelphia 
 Friends' School, and Arnold B. Chace, a pri- 
 vate student of mine in Providence, I went 
 abroad at the end of the summer of 1869, 
 placing our four other children with relatives, 
 where we felt that they would be under kind 
 and watchful care. This was our first experi- 
 ence on the sea. We set sail from New York 
 in the Cella, a wee steamer, with some dozen 
 first-class passengers and a much larger num- 
 ber in the steerage. We took care to be 
 well provided with books to read and study, 
 and, being on our way to France where we 
 planned to spend the winter, we did what we 
 could to familiarize ourselves still more with 
 the French language. Without intercourse 
 with those who spoke French the progress 
 made in this was necessarily slow and painful, 
 though in the fifteen days taken to cross the 
 Atlantic at that time the progress was per- 
 haps perceptible. 
 
 Our daughter of fourteen gained faster than 
 
120 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 her mother and father, which is natural, as at 
 that age a new language is acquired far more 
 readily than later in life. We missed this 
 daughter the first night after we were fairly 
 out at sea. She left us while we were reading 
 French, and in a few minutes, as she did not 
 return as we expected, we went out on the 
 upper deck, little supposing, however, that 
 she would venture up there alone. The night 
 was fine, such a night as we had rarely seen 
 on land. As Whittier says : — 
 
 *' The stars had all come out, the sky had not a stain of crim- 
 son on. 
 
 And in its cold fixed purity, the pale and quiet moonlight 
 shone." 
 
 In a few moments we saw the little girl perched 
 on the side of the steamer, looking out over 
 the rail into the sparkhng waters. As soon 
 as she saw us she cried out, "Oh, come here, 
 mamma and papa, and see the ship running 
 through the moonlight ! " Our reHef was so 
 great that we did not even scold her, but her 
 mother warned her not to go out of her sight 
 again while we were at sea. She seemed en- 
 tirely free from fear, though a sudden lurch 
 of the vessel might easily have made her slip 
 under the rail, which was not so well pro- 
 
TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD: 1867-68 121 
 
 tected with strong netting as in the steamers 
 of more modern date. 
 
 That, my first sea voyage, is memorable to 
 me for many things, but nothing is more pro- 
 minent in my mind than my feehng of reKef, 
 as we lay out on the deck on our rugs through 
 those long early autumn days and starlit and 
 moonlit nights, when I remembered that I was 
 beginning my first real vacation, released from 
 the cares of schoolrooms and the preparation 
 for them. I now had before me two full years 
 of comparative freedom before beginning my 
 work in Swarthmore College. 
 
 As our little steamer was to touch at Brest 
 on the way to London, we were quite a dis- 
 tance to the south of the ordinary line of 
 ocean travel, and for that reason we saw few 
 passing sails. At one time seven whole days 
 and nights were passed without a sail in sight. 
 This was quite different from my idea of the 
 ocean, as I had supposed that in these days 
 of commerce the ocean was far from being 
 a lonely place, and that we should see the 
 "white wings of commerce dotting every sea." 
 At last, on a Sabbath morning — our third 
 Sabbath since we sailed from New York — 
 we came into the harbor of Brest, after a 
 
122 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 stormy night on the proverbially rough Bay 
 of Biscay. 
 
 Although we had intended to remain on 
 board and go on to London, we suddenly con- 
 eluded to join a few others who were going 
 ashore at Brest, and, by thus shortening our 
 route to Paris, to visit the great Exposition of 
 1867 — one of the first of the great World's 
 Expositions, now become so common — in 
 time to see it at least a few days before its 
 close. Brest was the first fortified town we 
 had ever seen, and as we wound up the steep 
 hillside between high walls, we could easily 
 see how a small body of defenders could pre- 
 vent the approach of an invading army. I 
 think that green fields never impressed me 
 more than the charming shaded meadows 
 which we saw on the islands in the harbor; 
 refreshing, indeed, they were after our fifteen 
 days and nights upon the sea. That night, at 
 the Hotel Boule d'Or, our beds were at last 
 steady ; but, after those fifteen nights of rock- 
 ing, they seemed to rock even more than our 
 berths had done upon the sea. 
 
 It will be remembered that at the time of 
 our arrival France was under the government 
 of Louis Napoleon, and we had early evidence 
 
TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD; 1867-68 123 
 
 of the strong hand with which the state and 
 city were governed, — the hand that had seized 
 the reins of government by the memorable 
 coup d'etat of 1852. 
 
 One of the first indications that struck us 
 was the great number of officers in uniform 
 in the streets; we seemed never to be out 
 of sight of one or more. Whenever a group, 
 however small, stopped in the street (which 
 was forbidden) the cry was promptly heard, 
 " En avant, ces messieurs, en avant I " We 
 noticed this on the night of our arrival, and 
 indeed throughout our stay in Paris. So far 
 was it from being any proof of strength in 
 the government, it was really a sign of fear 
 and weakness. Throughout our stay that win- 
 ter the iron hand of the law was in evidence 
 in other ways. If a crowd collected at a meet- 
 ing for any purpose, the slightest exhibition 
 of rough conduct was followed by arrest by 
 an armed officer. 
 
 I may mention another evidence of the 
 personal power of Napoleon III. During the 
 winter we had failed to gain admittance to 
 several places of interest, notably to the beau- 
 tiful chateau of St. Cloud, soon to be destroyed 
 in the siege of Paris. I told my family that I 
 
124 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 had a mind to write to the Emperor and ask 
 his aid. They all laughed at the idea, but I 
 wrote hnd mailed the letter. Two days later 
 I was called to the door of the hotel, where I 
 found a brilliantly accoutred oflficer, who cour- 
 teously handed me a letter which he had been 
 directed to give into my hands. It was from 
 the Emperor, and I found it an infallible 
 "Open, Sesame" during all of our stay in 
 Paris. 
 
 We arrived in the capital as we expected, 
 just in time to see the great exhibition on the 
 Champ de Mars for two or three days before 
 its close. To us it was a wonder indeed. Al- 
 though the speech of all around us was the 
 language which I had been teaching for the 
 past eight years in Boston, and although I had 
 published a French grammar and a French 
 reader, yet so far from practical had been my 
 instruction (all grammar and practically no 
 language) that for a time I could not under- 
 stand a single sentence addressed to me ; much 
 less could I use my tongue to make an unpre- 
 meditated reply. On our ride by rail from 
 Brest to Paris, it struck me as strange that 
 the sounds made by every animal that we saw 
 on the road — the lowing of cows, the bleat- 
 
TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD: 1867-68 125 
 
 ing of sheep, the grunting of hogs, the bark- 
 ing of dogs, the mewing of eats, the cackle of 
 hens, the crowing of cocks, and even the cry- 
 ing of a child — that while all these noises 
 and many more were the same as we had heard 
 at home, the moment a spoken word was ut- 
 tered by man, woman, or child it was wholly 
 unintelligible to me. It would almost seem to 
 indicate some special cause for this confusion 
 in the spoken word of the human race, Hke 
 that of which we have an account in the legend 
 of the tower of Babel. 
 
 Lest it be considered strange that I, a 
 teacher of French, and the author of a French 
 grammar and reader, should have been so be- 
 wildered when I first heard the language spoken 
 by all around me, I will quote a few words 
 from one who was a far better authority on 
 language than I — James Eussell Lowell. On 
 his first visit to Paris, Lowell thus soliloquized 
 in his hotel on the morning after his arrival, 
 ^' Here am I, in Paris, after years of teaching 
 French in Harvard, and I cannot use French 
 enough this morning to call a servant and ask 
 him to black my boots." 
 
 As one of our leading motives was to be- 
 come familiar with the French language, we 
 
126 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 avoided English-speaking families, and took 
 up our quarters for the winter in a small pri- 
 vate family hotel, then called Hotel de la 
 Haute Vienne. Here we were the only regu- 
 lar boarders, and the family of four — father, 
 mother, son, and daughter — spoke no lan- 
 guage but French. Of course French was the 
 language spoken at table. We sometimes 
 spoke English among ourselves, but when we 
 did so our hosts, who had knowledge of only a 
 few English words, would say to us, " We can 
 never understand you English people, because 
 you speak so fast and run your words so closely 
 together." We certainly felt the same about 
 their French, and the fact is, it is the same 
 when one hears any unfamiliar language 
 spoken. Walking on the Boulevard des Ital- 
 iens one day, I saw in a window a small book 
 which attracted my attention. The words and 
 phrases in the book were arranged in three 
 columns; the first was in English, the second 
 in French, and the third in what seemed a 
 strange language to me. After a little exam- 
 ination, I found that the third column was an 
 attempt to show French children how to pro- 
 nounce English. It was so curious that I ought 
 to have secured it^ as I might have done for a 
 
TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD: 1867-68 127 
 
 franc or two, but I omitted to do so, which I 
 often afterwards regretted. 
 
 As our eldest daughter could learn the new 
 language much faster than her parents, we 
 placed her for the winter in an excellent pen- 
 sion, a short distance outside the city walls, 
 at Neuilly-sur-Seine. We often met her on 
 Saturday evenings, and kept her with us at 
 our hotel until Monday morning. From week 
 to week her progress in French astonished 
 us. I often recall my pleasant walks with her 
 between her school and the hotel. As she 
 chattered away like a magpie, I could but envy 
 our little girl the fluency of her speech, and 
 I wished that I could have had her opportuni- 
 ties in my early life. Not having had them, 
 I felt I must make up by hard study what 
 seemed to come so easily to her, for I learned 
 early the lesson that it is a very poor expen- 
 diture of valuable time to dwell upon past 
 shortcomings or upon vain dreams of what 
 might have been. 
 
 I soon located myself in one of the many 
 libraries, which were free and open to all who 
 desired to use them. All the books I could 
 wish were suppUed me on request, and I found 
 that my opportunities for private reading and 
 
128 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 study, and for making the selections for my 
 third volume, "French Prose and Poetry," 
 were unsurpassed. My wife and her friend 
 occupied much time in shopping and in at- 
 tending lectures at the Sorbonne and the Col- 
 lege de France. My young friend, as well as 
 myself, when not occupied with study, also 
 attended the lectures ; after a time, we gener- 
 ally spent the days in the lecture-room and the 
 evenings in the libraries. For the first few 
 weeks I hstened to three, four, or five lectures 
 per day, of an hour each, and yet covdd follow 
 very little of the thought ; but after a month 
 they began to clear and my progress then in 
 following them was rapid. I found certain 
 speakers more distinct than others, and I al- 
 ways listened with especial pleasure and profit 
 to Edouard Laboulaye. He was professor 
 of comparative legislation in the College de 
 France, and his latest work, " The United 
 States and France," had made his name dear 
 to every lover of liberty in our country. 
 About this time he was dismissed through 
 the influence of Napoleon, who could not 
 endure so popular a lover of free institutions. 
 The students took his part, and only the 
 ever-present iron hand of Napoleon "The 
 
TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD: 1867-68 129 
 
 Little/' as Victor Hugo calls him, restrained 
 them. But the day of reckoning was fast 
 approaching. In a few years Sedan ended 
 the Emperor's aspirations, as well as those 
 of his ambitious empress, who is said to have 
 urged him on to his fate. It was then custom- 
 ary for the Emperor and Empress to appear 
 on the balcony of the Tuileries palace on 
 New Year's morning. This appearance we 
 witnessed that winter, and it was the next to 
 their last. Even within a few months the sky 
 of the usurping Emperor was overclouded, 
 and his downfall followed soon after. 
 
 A few more winters in Paris like that of 
 1867-68 would have made the French lan- 
 guage, with my previous study of it in Boston, 
 nearly as familiar as my mother tongue. It 
 was my pleasure and good fortune to make the 
 p acquaintance of M. BeschereUe, the author 
 of that scholarly work, the " Dictionnaire Na- 
 tional de la Langue Frangaise." When he had 
 explained to me his method in preparing this 
 great work, and had shown me the hundreds 
 of small drawers arranged on all sides of his 
 large study, in which he had accumulated for 
 many years the illustrative sentences used in 
 his volumes, I was more thoroughly impressed 
 
130 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 with the necessity of close study, profound re- 
 search, and wide scholarship as a preparation 
 for such literary labor, than I could have been 
 in any other way. I visited him several times, 
 and before I bade him farewell for the last 
 time, he promised to write me an introduction 
 to my French Grammar, then coming into 
 pretty general use. That excellent preface, 
 as he wrote it, I published in the subsequent 
 editions of the work. 
 
 A mistake which this great man made — 
 probably attributable to age and failing 
 strength — came very near costing me rather 
 dear. His preface being unfinished when I 
 left Paris in the spring for Italy, he agreed 
 to forward it to me in America by mail. 
 Later, when this reached me at our post-office 
 in my native place in Pennsylvania, I found, 
 to my astonishment, that his written matter, 
 had been placed between the leaves of my book, 
 subjecting the whole to letter postage, and 
 this, too, was doubled, because not prepaid. 
 The whole amount charged was nearly fifty 
 dollars. I declined to take it from the post- 
 office until I heard from friends connected 
 with the post-office department in Washing- 
 ton, who succeeded in having the mistake 
 
TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD: 1867-68 131 
 
 corrected, reducing the charge to some three 
 or four dollars. M. Bescherelle died soon 
 after, and never heard of his mistake. 
 
 In the spring of 1868 we proposed to visit 
 southern France and Italy. We planned to 
 leave our good friends of the Hotel de la 
 Haute Vienne on the thirteenth of April ; but 
 our landlord assured us that he could not con- 
 sent to our leaving his house on the thirteenth ; 
 he said we might go on the twelfth or the four- 
 teenth, but not on the thirteenth. He added 
 that they had no room in their house numbered 
 thirteen, for they found their guests unwilling 
 to risk that unlucky number. Without shar- 
 ing in their superstition, we willingly complied 
 with their entreaties and set out on the four- 
 teenth. We travelled slowly through France, 
 taking about a week to reach Marseilles, and 
 from there we took a coastwise steamer to 
 Naples, whence we saw the great crater of 
 Vesuvius, which was pouring forth smoke and 
 flame ; later, when we visited it, the stream of 
 lava was running down the side of the moun- 
 tain into the dark valley between the higher 
 and lower peaks. After a midnight visit to 
 this mountain, preceded by a careful visit on 
 the previous day to the wonderful buried city 
 
132 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 of Pompeii near its base, as the season was 
 advancing we set out for Eome. On reaching 
 there we took rooms on the Piazza di Spagna, 
 which was a favorite place for foreigners. The 
 weather was already very warm, and we feared 
 that we must hasten northward to escape the 
 Eoman fever. But the natives assured us that 
 the fever was only to be feared in the autumn, 
 after the leaves on the Campagna and else- 
 where began to fall. So after a brief sojourn 
 there to see the Vatican, St. Peter's, and a 
 few of the other leading churches and picture 
 galleries, my young friend, Arnold B. Chace, 
 and myself set out on a tour on foot through 
 the Papal States, leaving the ladies of our 
 company to spend the time in reading and in 
 seeing the various sights of Rome during our 
 absence. 
 
 The great interest of a walking tour con- 
 sisted largely in the opportunity given to see 
 places and people quite out of the way of 
 ordinary travelers. On account of the state 
 of society in those later days of Pope Pius 
 IX, when the temporal power of the Pope 
 was rapidly approaching its downfall, the 
 mountains around were infested with ban- 
 ditti, some of whom we narrowly escaped en- 
 
TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD: 1867-68 133 
 
 countering. During one night that I clearly 
 recall a horseman was on guard under the 
 "windows of our little hotel, and an attack on 
 a small town in a neighboring district was 
 currently reported the following day. Occa- 
 sionally we hired mules to ride for a day, 
 when too weary to proceed on foot. There was 
 one occasion when we met a man working in 
 a field, and he asked us where we came from ; 
 and when told that we came from over the 
 sea, in America, he looked at us as a country- 
 man might be supposed to gaze upon one 
 just descended from the moon, on a brief 
 visit to this terrestrial sphere. 
 
 During this tour afoot it was a strange 
 experience to feel that we were the foreigners, 
 and from our general unkempt appearance 
 objects of sympathy or suspicion to those 
 who met us by day, or to those with whom we 
 sought lodging by night. We visited, among 
 other places, the Sabine farm of Horace, and 
 found, or thought we found, in an open field, 
 the threshold of the door of his home, where 
 the great poet passed in and out in those now 
 far distant days. Of course echoes of those 
 days came back to us in the form of the fa- 
 miliar words of his " Odes " and " Epistles." 
 
134 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 After our return to Eome we soon left the 
 Eternal City, and passed on to Florence with 
 its wonderful picture galleries ; Pisa with its 
 leaning tower; and Venice, that wonderful 
 city of the sea. How vividly I recall the 
 morning after our arrival in Venice, when 
 we heard no rolling sound in the streets, but 
 only the splashing of the oars of the gondolas 
 beneath our chamber windows. I have good 
 reason to remember that morning, for it was 
 the fourth of July, so noisy at home, but so 
 quiet there. 
 
 As my letters had fallen behind us in 
 our rapid travel through Italy, at Venice I 
 hastened to the post-ofBce early in the morn- 
 ing. There I found a letter from my brother 
 at home, announcing the instantaneous death 
 of our dear father; he had been gone more 
 than a month, during which we had so much 
 enjoyed our travels, all unconscious of our 
 sad loss. He had fallen dead while plowing 
 in the field. I was so stunned and bewildered 
 that I did not know what to say or think. I 
 felt that my mother must be comforted in 
 her bereavement by our instant return, and I 
 sought a telegraph office, intending to send 
 a cable message. But cable messages were 
 
TRAVEL AND STUDY ABROAD: 1867-68 135 
 
 then a new thing and the cost (about thirty 
 dollars) was more than I could well afford. 
 I had to be content with a letter, which I sent 
 at once to my mother, promising a prompt 
 return. Up to that time we had hoped to 
 spend a second winter in Paris before return- 
 ing, but now that was out of the question. 
 
 We spent a few days more in Venice — all 
 too few for that wonderful city, which we 
 had come so far to visit; then returned across 
 northern Italy, spending one night in Milan, 
 crossing into Switzerland over the Simplon 
 Pass ; spent a short time at Chamounix, sur- 
 rounded by icy mountain peaks; passed 
 through Geneva and down the lovely Ehine, 
 with many a castle-covered crag on either 
 side ; through Strasburg, getting only a brief 
 ghmpse of its wonderful cathedral; thence to 
 Antwerp and down the "lazy Scheldt," with 
 its great windmills on either side pumping 
 the waters of that low country high enough 
 to run into the sea; across the North Sea to 
 Harwich; and thence to London. We were 
 seeing London for the first time, but of the 
 glories of its Westminster Abbey and its 
 Tower of London we had only glimpses. 
 From Liverpool we set sail at last for home 
 
136 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 in the steamer Aleppo — not one of the fast- 
 est, but a great contrast to the poor little 
 Cella, in which we had. crossed the previous 
 year. We arrived safely in New York after 
 a smooth and pleasant passage, and lost no 
 time in reaching our Bucks County home, 
 where my lonesome mother was anxiously 
 awaiting the arrival of her eldest son. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR OPENING SWARTHMORE 
 
 COLLEGE 
 
 1868-1869 
 
 AFTER our return from Europe there was 
 still a little more than a year left before 
 the opening of Swarthmore College. This 
 period I spent in settling my father's estate, 
 in earing for and watching over my afflicted 
 mother, in arranging for the organization of 
 the preparatory school; also in writing and 
 delivering, in Philadelphia and elsewhere, lec- 
 tures on ^^The Coeducation of the Sexes" and 
 on other subjects connected with the organiza- 
 tion of the college. I occasionally visited the 
 college grounds, looking after the finishing 
 work yet to be done, the supplying of needed 
 books and desks, etc. I met the new faculty 
 occasionally in Philadelphia at the house of 
 our president, Edward Parrish, and attended 
 to a mass of detail which the great work before 
 us involved. As I look back upon this time, 
 
138 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 now so far in the past, I can scarcely under- 
 stand how so many important and unavoidable 
 engagements could have been crowded into 
 that one last preparatory year of 1868-69. 
 
 I also spent much time with our dear 
 mother through that, her last winter upon 
 earth. She was not in our home at " Shady 
 Bank," but with my youngest sister, Matilda, 
 not far away, at " Seven Pines ; " in the late 
 fall and early winter she lived at the quiet and 
 charming home of my brother-in-law, J. S. 
 Williams, at "The Hedges." As she grew 
 weaker, she wished to be more with her young- 
 est daughter. She felt a great interest in 
 Swarthmore College, where I was to begin my 
 work the following autumn. Many a night I 
 passed the long hours at her bedside, and she 
 would often soothe her pain by repeating 
 aloud snatches of verse which, from her lips, 
 had been famiUar to me in my childhood. Her 
 last words to me when I first left home, at 
 nineteen years of age, seemed ever before me. 
 She had told me then that I was starting out 
 for myself in the world, that I must be very 
 careful, even in little things, to do that which 
 I felt to be right, no matter what advantage 
 it might seem to me at the time to take any 
 
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE: 1868-69 139 
 
 other course. Her religious teaching had no- 
 thing to do with creeds or belief s, but referred 
 always to conduct, to the performance of the 
 day's duties to-day, I could but feel that I 
 owed more to my mother and to her influence 
 than to any teacher or professor under whose 
 instruction I had passed. Surely there is no 
 influence in life more potent than a mother's, 
 and no voice so long remembered as a mother's 
 voice. 
 
 In our preliminary faculty meetings during 
 this year, one of the subjects which caused 
 much discussion was the decision to be made 
 on the use of tobacco by the students. Al- 
 though at first the members of our little 
 faculty of six (only five of whom constituted 
 the faculty proper in the beginning) were not 
 all of one mind about the advisability of pro- 
 hibiting its use, we came in the end to the 
 unanimous agreement that we must take a 
 decided stand on the subject. Our meetings 
 were then usually attended by Edward Parrish 
 and his wife Margaret, Anna and Emily Hal- 
 lowell, the dean (then denominated matron), 
 Helen G. Longstreth, and Clement L. Smith. 
 Of these, Emily Hallowell, being the youngest, 
 was not included in the faculty when it was 
 
140 LIFE OP A TEACHER 
 
 fully organized. 0£ the original members of 
 the faculty, but two now survive. These are 
 Clement L. Smith, our first secretary, who, 
 after one year's service at Swarthmore, was 
 called to a professorship at Harvard, where 
 he has since had a successful career of more 
 than thirty years, and myself. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 OPENING OF SWARTHMORE COLLEGE AND PRE- 
 PARATORY SCHOOL 
 
 1869-1870 
 
 WE had hoped to open the college in 
 September, about the usual time for 
 opening after the summer vacation, but when 
 the time came the roof was not finished on 
 the main building, which has since been ap- 
 propriately called Parrish Hall, after the first 
 president. Various inside arrangements also 
 were incomplete ; in particular, the central 
 hall, which was to be used as a study-room for 
 the preparatory school, was not yet equipped 
 with seats and desks. The delay had been 
 caused by a postponement of the work in 
 the summer, the funds collected being ex- 
 hausted, and an additional supply having to 
 be raised by subscription ; for the cautious 
 Friends did not wish to incumber the pro- 
 perty with a mortgage. We issued a circular, 
 a copy of which is preserved in the room 
 
142 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 now called "Friends' Historical Library," 
 but then known as " The Anson Lapham 
 Eepository/' from the name of its founder. 
 This circular shows that our opening did not 
 occur until early in November. Even to do 
 that, our cautious attitude during the years 
 of building the college had to be abandoned, 
 and a small mortgage was executed upon 
 the property. This was long since Uquidated 
 by an undesirable procedure to be later ex- 
 plained. 
 
 When the time for opening came, the fac- 
 ulty, whom I have already named, were all 
 present, ready to receive and classify the stu- 
 dents, and to begin work. 
 
 The first task before us was to examine and 
 make a partial classification of the applicants, 
 about one hundred and twenty-five or one 
 hundred and thirty in number. In the be- 
 ginning we could not reject any, but must 
 determine their places in class, and record 
 their names. We soon found that very few 
 of the number presented were properly qual- 
 ified to enter a college class, and yet in the 
 beginning we had hoped to enter a large num- 
 ber as Freshmen, as these would necessarily 
 form the entire college proper for the first 
 
00 
 
 1^ 
 
 < 
 
 w 
 
 w 
 
 O 
 
 P^ 
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 (4 
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 H 
 
 CO 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 CAL1F0H2 
 
OPENING OF SWARTHMORE : 1869-70 143 
 
 year. Of the few who entered this first Fresh- 
 man class, several dropped out in the course 
 of four years, and in 1873, or four years later, 
 but six — five young women and one young, 
 man — were ready to receive a degree. The 
 causes for this, if not self-evident, will be 
 made clear as we proceed. The whole number 
 who presented themselves were registered in 
 the president's office, to be classified later. 
 All the examinations for the classification 
 were in writing. Then came the great labor, 
 with our small faculty, of making a tentative 
 classification, first into freshman and prepar- 
 atory students ; and then the latter were to 
 be divided into three classes. A, B, and C. 
 Each of these was further divided into two or 
 three sections, as qualifications seemed to re- 
 quire. Cornell University had opened the pre- 
 vious year, and one difficulty was encountered 
 there which we escaped, small college though 
 we were. One young man, who had been a 
 teamster, came into the preliminary examina- 
 tion, and when questioned said that he could 
 neither read nor write. When asked why he 
 came to college, he quoted the words of Ezra 
 Cornell, the founder, who had said, "I would 
 found a literary institution where any person 
 
144 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 may receive instruction on any subject," and 
 he added, " I would like to learn to read and 
 write." Of course he was promptly advised 
 to enter a common school. 
 
 Our preliminary examinations and classifi- 
 cations occupied three days ; another day was 
 devoted to distributing the books required. 
 These were at first furnished at the expense 
 of the college, without charge for use, to be 
 returned to the book-room when done with. 
 This unusual practice was not continued many 
 years ; but it required some time before par- 
 ents among Friends were satisfied to incur the 
 expense of furnishing books, especially when 
 the college required studies which they did 
 not desire. They seemed to think that if we 
 required certain studies we should furnish, at 
 our own expense, the necessary books. I recall 
 vividly, at this moment, the appearance of 
 our chemical laboratory, so called, just back 
 of what was later called the collecting-room, 
 when that first year closed, in 1870. Students 
 were told to return their books to this room, 
 then empty, and to put them on the floor on 
 the west side. By the time the students had 
 left for the summer vacation, the west side of 
 this room was filled nearly to the ceiling with 
 
OPENING OP SWARTHMORE: 1869-70 145 
 
 books, not regularly piled but thrown in pell- 
 mell, and the pile sloped down toward the floor 
 on the east side. Of course the destruction of 
 books thus treated was great : the difficulty 
 was that they were understood to be college 
 property, and not to belong to those who used 
 them. Not many years passed before books 
 were supplied as needed, but for their use 
 there was a regular charge. This rather trivial 
 matter gives some idea of the countless details 
 needing attention in that early time. 
 
 The one class in the college proper was 
 very small that opening year, the number 
 found to be even fairly prepared to be Fresh- 
 men scarcely reaching twenty. In 1873, when 
 we graduated the first class, these were reduced 
 to six. This class always had the distinction 
 of being called the First Class during its en- 
 tire four years in college ; a distinction, it is 
 unnecessary to say, which they did not fail 
 to appreciate. When their graduation came, 
 in 1873, all six were appointed to speak, and 
 the exercises were so dignified and well pre- 
 pared, and gave so much pleasure to our good 
 friend Samuel Willets (then president of the 
 board of managers), that he ordered all the 
 addresses to be printed in pamphlet form at 
 
146 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 his own expense. From the first he had ever 
 been ready to aid us financially. But for his lib- 
 eral aid, so generously extended, the opening 
 of Swarthmore College would probably have 
 been postponed several years. The pamphlet 
 just mentioned was widely distributed, and I 
 felt at the time that it was an excellent mea- 
 sure, for it did much to encourage Friends 
 to seek a college education for their chil- 
 dren.^ We followed at first what was then the 
 usual college practice, and appointed the best 
 scholar, not necessarily the best speaker, as 
 valedictorian. In this class, Maria C. Pierce 
 was valedictorian. She was one of the three 
 appointed as teachers at graduation, and was 
 soon after married to Professor Samuel S. 
 Green. Her early death we all greatly deplored, 
 for she died during their travels abroad, the 
 first year after their marriage. The other two 
 teachers, Ehzabeth C. Miller and Esther T. 
 Moore, some years later, married professors 
 in the college. The student who stood next 
 in scholarship to Maria C. Pierce was Helen 
 Magill, my eldest daughter, of whose two to 
 
 ^ A copy of this pamphlet is preserved in the Friends* 
 Historical Library at the college. It is an interesting relic 
 of those early days. 
 
OPENING OF SWARTHMORE: 1869-70 147 
 
 three years' study in the Public Latin School 
 of Boston — a school for boys only — and of 
 whose studies in Paris during our first visit 
 abroad I have already spoken. After her 
 graduation at Swarthmore, she pursued a uni- 
 versity course in Boston University, taking xX 
 there the degree of Ph. D., being the first wo- 
 man in this country upon whom that degree 
 was conferred. She then spent nearly four 
 years at Newnham College, Cambridge, Eng- 
 land, taking the classical Tripos Examination, 
 and became later, after a few years of teach- 
 ing, the wife of the Hon. Andrew D. White, 
 of Ithaca, New York. 
 
 From the very first the idea was impressed 
 upon our students that, after graduation at 
 Swarthmore, they should add to their educa- 
 tion with us, whenever at all possible, univer- 
 sity studies for a higher degree. Beginning 
 with this idea, the college has never aimed to 
 do university work, but to confine itself to the 
 legitimate work of a small college, feeling that 
 in this way, at least for many years to come, 
 it could do best and most thoroughly its pro- 
 per work. As it was organized by Friends, it 
 may be supposed to be of a somewhat denom- 
 inational character. This, however, is not true. 
 
148 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 All the officers and students of the college may 
 be of any or of no denomination, but Friends 
 only may constitute its board of managers. 
 This provision was made in our charter to pre- 
 vent the institution from ever falling into the 
 hands of those who might make it a sectarian 
 college. The religion taught in the college is 
 that of life, conduct, and character, rather than 
 the narrower tenets of any particular form of 
 religious belief. As a result, the college has 
 been patronized by all denominations, and no 
 effort to proselyte has ever been made. 
 
 Our fixed position as a small coUege, doing 
 as well as we could the proper work of a small 
 college and never aiming at post-graduate or 
 university work, had the advantage of ena- 
 bling us to do well what we aimed to do. The 
 moderate size of the student body enabled all 
 to come in close touch with, and be influenced 
 by, those occupying positions in our faculty. 
 I write these words just after the college has 
 graduated its thirty-fifth class, and throughout 
 this more than a third of a century this ob- 
 ject has been borne steadily in mind. 
 
 We also flatter ourselves that our young 
 college has done its full share in bringing 
 about such educational conditions in our coun- 
 
OPENING OF SWARTHMORE: 1869-70 149 
 
 try that professors and teachers must have 
 good training in an institution of a higher 
 grade than that in which they are employed. 
 So long as teaching the young is used merely 
 as a convenient stepping-stone to some more 
 lucrative position, teaching can never become 
 a profession, strictly speaking. Teachers of 
 common schools should have at least a high- 
 school education; those of high schools, a 
 college education, and all college profes- 
 sors should have a university degree with the 
 major study the specialty which they profess. 
 Some of us advocated this grading of teachers 
 as long ago as the founding of Swarthmore 
 College. At that time it was regarded by 
 many as chimerical and visionary, but little by 
 little, as our educational system has developed, 
 it has become a generally accepted theory. 
 
 In the early years of our college, before the 
 first graduating class went out, but few stu- 
 dents entered Swarthmore with the idea of even 
 a four years' college education. Many Friends, 
 iiideed I may say most Friends, considered the 
 college to be of the same grade as Westtown, 
 or any other boarding-school. Naturally, in 
 such schools the courses were very irregular, 
 and students were entered for two or three 
 
150 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 years at most. Those entering Swarthmore at 
 that early period came with the same idea, and 
 although from the beginning our courses were 
 laid out to cover three years in the prepara- 
 tory department and four years in the college, 
 not one in ten of those who entered the low- 
 est class expected their education to cover that 
 number of years. In this, as in many other 
 things at that time, a proper public sentiment 
 had to be created, not merely among the stu- 
 dents, but, through them, among their parents 
 
 v/ at home. At first many left after two or three 
 preparatory years without ever entering the 
 college, and the idea that a very low grade of 
 scholarship prevailed at Swarthmore was quite 
 naturally entertained. Some of those who at 
 first entered the college proper started the cus- 
 tom of taking a two years' course, leaving at 
 the end of the Sophomore year. If, however, 
 they passed that point and entered the Junior 
 class, they usually took a degree, very few 
 leaving if they passed their examinations and 
 
 •^ were promoted to the Senior class. It may be 
 difficult now to realize fully the magnitude 
 of the obstacles with which we had to contend 
 in creating a public opinion among Friends in 
 favor of a full four years' course. 
 
OPENING OF SWARTHMORE: 1869-70 161 
 
 Perhaps an even greater difficulty in those 
 days was the application of different kinds of 
 discipline in the school and in the college, 
 both kept under one roof. It was absolutely v/ 
 necessary to maintain this combination of 
 schools at that time; the college could never 
 have been started among Friends without the 
 preparatory school. Let it be understood that 
 I do not mention this arrangement to criticise 
 it, for, considering the condition of education 
 among Friends at that time, it was clearly 
 unavoidable. 
 
 During the first year, 1869-70, and the 
 first part of the second year, Edward Parrish 
 was president. That he had heavy and re- 
 sponsible duties in getting the institution 
 started on a truly college basis, I had abun- 
 dant reason to know, both before and after 
 the opening. His volume on "Education in 
 the Eeligious Society of Friends," his numer- 
 ous lectures among Friends and others, before 
 and after the opening, and his voluminous 
 correspondence, all bore testimony to this 
 weighty care and responsibility. He was an 
 excellent lecturer on his favorite subject, 
 chemistry, a field in which previous study 
 and training had well prepared him. He was 
 
152 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 always gentlemanly, kind, and courteous in 
 his treatment of his students, and was de- 
 servedly beloved by them. He did a very 
 large share of the labor of soliciting the pecu- 
 niary aid necessary to the estabhshment of 
 the college, and but for his long and patient 
 labors it is exceedingly doubtful whether the 
 college could have been opened at that time. 
 President Parrish had a serious difficulty to 
 contend with which I must not omit to mention 
 here. This was the apparent fear on the part 
 of a number of the leading managers that a 
 college president might become too strong for 
 their democratic ideas ; hence a disposition to 
 thwart some of his favorite plans. It is by 
 no means a pleasant duty to refer to these 
 difficulties encountered by our first president, 
 but I do not feel that I should perform my 
 duty to-day if I passed over the matter in dis- 
 creet silence. Those who opposed him were 
 doubtless as honest in their convictions as he; 
 they felt it their duty to prevent too much 
 power from falling into the hands of one man ; 
 and they have now, most of them, passed on 
 to the life beyond, with duties, as they under- 
 stood them, well performed. It has now come 
 to be well understood among us that the 
 
OPENING OF SWARTHMOKE: 1869-70 153 
 
 power of a president, if he is to be successful, 
 must be fully recognized, and that the part 
 of the managers is not so much to direct as 
 to approve or disapprove his course. If he 
 and his managers come to be too much at 
 variance on important points, his successor 
 must be chosen by those authorized to do so. 
 These various causes of difficulty, combined, 
 wore heavily upon President Parrish, and 
 through that second winter, 1870-71, he was 
 a deeply disappointed man. His health suf- 
 fered in consequence, and early in the spring 
 of 1871 he resigned the presidency. After the 
 sudden death of his wife, Margaret Parrish, 
 the amiable first social head of the household, 
 he accepted an appointment under President 
 Grant, who sought especially Friends for ser- 
 vice among the Indians. A few months later, 
 his gentle, genial, and lovely life came to an 
 end in the far West. This was indeed a sad 
 episode in Swarthmore's early history. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 SOME EAJRLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 
 
 COLLEGE 
 
 I HAVE spoken of our first President, Ed- 
 ward Parrish, and of the various influences 
 which he brought to bear to insure the suc- 
 cess of Swarthmore College in those early days. 
 Recognizing the fact which President Oilman, 
 the first president of Johns Hopkins Univer- 
 sity, made so prominent in the beginnings 
 of that university, — that a great educational 
 institution is made up of able men and not of 
 bricks, stone, and mortar, — he sought out 
 carefully the right persons for the Faculty of 
 instruction. 
 
 First to be named among these is Joseph 
 Leidy, who as an authority in natural science 
 was scarcely second to Agassiz, and who served 
 the college faithfully and successfully, as non- 
 resident professor, for many years. His lec- 
 tures on natural history — zoology, botany, 
 and mineralogy — were very popular. They 
 
JOSEPH LEIDY, M. D., LL. D. 
 
A JR. 
 ^ UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 «t4Nj 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 155 
 
 were attended by many visitors, and by stu- 
 dents whose special courses did not include 
 those studies. He was more largely instrumen- 
 tal than all the rest of us combined in collect- 
 ing, and property arranging for instruction, a 
 museum of natural history. His lectures, in- 
 volving a profound knowledge of all he taught, 
 were presented in so simple and attractive a 
 form that even children could understand his 
 descriptions, and followed his courses, when 
 permitted to be present, with the greatest 
 pleasure. I may mention, as an illustration, 
 my youngest daughter, then some five or six 
 years old, who never lost an opportunity to 
 hear "Dr. Leidy's lecture," for her the great 
 event of the week. On one occasion, running 
 on the asphalt walk in front of the college, 
 she fell and hurt her knee. When asked what 
 she had fallen on to cut it so, she repUed : 
 ^' Oh, I don't know, but I think it was a piece 
 of quartz ! " 
 
 Dr. Leidy's home in Philadelphia, where I 
 often met him, was an interesting place, a kind 
 of museum of natural history. He kept in his 
 study, and of ttimes in other rooms, reptiles of 
 various kinds, which he was feeding and ex- 
 perimenting with, and they often seemed to 
 
156 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 wander, quite at will, into other parts of the 
 house. I have heard that his wife never re- 
 tired to bed at night without first turning 
 down the sheets with great care, to make sure 
 that no toads, mice, snakes, lizards, or other 
 reptiles as yet without a name, were taking 
 shelter between them. Dr. Leidj used to say 
 to me that he never lost a moment in waiting 
 at a station for a coming train ; for he walked 
 out along the fencerows or ponds and rarely 
 passed thus an imoccupied quarter of an hour 
 without making some discovery, or seeing 
 something of which he had never read or heard 
 before. A pond near the station at Swarth- 
 more, long ago filled and graded over, was 
 to the doctor a fruitful field of discovery; he 
 found creatures there, with or without fins or 
 eyes or hmbs, of which I would not venture 
 to pronounce or spell the names. On one oc- 
 casion he brought some small turtles from a 
 pond at South Street Station, Philadelphia, 
 to be used as illustrations in his class. He was 
 asked to put them in this pond at Swarth- 
 more, but he said that he had promised them 
 to put them back in their own pond, and 
 could not, of course, break his promise. 
 With reference to names used by students of 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 157 
 
 natural history, the doctor always advocated 
 the study of Greek, at least enough, he used 
 to say, to enable them to look up in a Greek 
 dictionary the terms used in their studies. 
 
 Our museum, which was the doctor's great- 
 est pleasure when with us, was remarkable for 
 its richness and especially for its excellent ar- 
 rangement for purposes of instruction. After 
 the great fire in the autumn of 1881, Dr. 
 Leidy was stepping on board a ferryboat to 
 go to Camden, when he saw in a morning 
 paper the startling announcement, "Swarth- 
 more College totally destroyed by fire." He 
 at once turned back and took the first train 
 for Swarthmore; as he stepped out of the 
 train and started up the asphalt walk toward 
 the bare and blackened walls, he said : " There 
 are ten years of my life gone forever." And 
 well he might say it, for no one had been de- 
 voted more than he to the work of building 
 up Swarthmore in all that pertained to his 
 department. 
 
 Some years later, after the death of the 
 great Agassiz, Dr. Leidy very naturally was 
 invited to follow him at Harvard, and we 
 feared greatly that we were to lose his ser- 
 vices. These cost the college very little in 
 
158 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 money, aside from his too meagre salary, as 
 Joseph Jeanes, of Philadelphia, never failed 
 to give him fifty, a hundred, or even five hun- 
 dred dollars, when a sum was needed to pur- 
 chase collections for his department. Our 
 fears were not realized, for, after a brief con- 
 sideration, he declined the offer from Harvard. 
 He afterwards told me that a rose-tree or 
 a small shrub could be transplanted, but the 
 same experiment tried upon an oak-tree would 
 prove a failure ; after his years of labor in 
 the University of Pennsylvania and in Swarth- 
 more, he felt too well planted to risk trans- 
 planting from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts. 
 Of course we all rejoiced, and for several 
 years he continued his work with us, until he 
 found that the increasing demands upon him 
 at the University of Pennsylvania, under the 
 then thriving presidency of Dr. Wilham Pep- 
 per, required him to give his whole time to 
 one institution. His picture adorns the walls 
 of our assembly room to-day, but a large, 
 full-length portrait would be more appropriate 
 for him who rightly holds, in the eyes of the 
 world, the first place among our professors. 
 
 Since the loss of Dr. Leidy, Swarthmore 
 has been fortunate in making but two changes 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 159 
 
 in that department. Charles E. Dolley, and 
 the present occupant of the chair, Spencer 
 Trotter, are two younger men whose names, 
 in the future, may shine scarcely second to 
 that of their illustrious predecessor. 
 
 For another of our early professors we 
 are indebted to Edward Parrish. This was Jo- 
 seph Thomas, non-resident professor of Eng- 
 lish literature. His great work entitled "A 
 Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Bio- 
 graphy and Mythology " was pubHshed by the 
 Lippincotts of Philadelphia in 1870-71, in 
 two volumes. It will be observed that the first 
 edition was about to appear on the opening of 
 the college in 1869. This work was known to 
 Edward Parrish, and it was this that led him 
 to select its author as a non-resident profes- 
 sor at the opening of the college, or a short 
 time after. Of this remarkable work " The Na- 
 tion " said : " This is the best as well as the 
 most comprehensive book of its description 
 emanating from the pen of one writer, in any 
 language, which has come under our notice." 
 Dr. Thomas also pubhshed, in 1886, " A Com- 
 plete Pronouncing Medical Dictionary." 
 
 Dr. Thomas was born in 1811, in Cayuga 
 County, New York; was educated at Yale 
 
160 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 and at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 
 and later graduated in medicine in Philadel- 
 phia. He spent many of the best years of his 
 life upon the works just named. The repre- 
 sentation of the proper pronunciation of the 
 names, which was indicated by ingenious de- 
 vices of his own, gave great charm to this 
 difficult part of his work. He employed many 
 assistants, one of whom was my eldest sister, 
 and his long and late hours of labor were 
 quite familiar to me. To obtain the needed 
 data he traveled in many lands, and often 
 sent by his friends, who were going abroad, 
 specific questions to well-known personages. 
 On my first visit to Europe, in 1867-68, he 
 intrusted to me several of these questions, and 
 so far as possible I saw the individual mem- 
 bers of the families from whom he desired 
 information. One of the names on my list was 
 that of Frangois Guizot, the distinguished 
 author of the " History of Civilization," a work 
 which, as I have said, constituted my major 
 study for my degree of A. M. in Brown Uni- 
 versity. One of the lecturers at the Sorbonne 
 to whom I listened with much pleasure in that 
 memorable winter of 1867-68, was Guillaume 
 Guizot, son of the historian, whose personal 
 
JOSEPH THOMAS, M. D., LL. D. 
 
V OfTHC \ 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 161 
 
 acquaintance I made. He informed me that 
 there were two recognized pronunciations of 
 their name. Their family, which came origi- 
 nally from the south of France, pronounced 
 the name Ghizo, but his father, from his resi- 
 dence in Paris, had acquired the habit of 
 saying Gwizo, 
 
 Dr. Thomas's lectures on English litera- 
 ture were excellent and well appreciated. As 
 he was rather feeble, at my suggestion he sat 
 while he lectured, a practice more uncommon 
 then than to-day. He was fond of giving 
 neat and concise forms of expression to a 
 valuable thought, and these he would have 
 the students fix firmly in their minds. A 
 favorite quotation of his was : " Trifles make 
 perfection, but perfection, my young friends, 
 is no trifle." I have said that he traveled 
 much; this he had done to prepare for his 
 great work. The Biographical Dictionary and 
 the expenses of travel involved him in a heavy 
 debt, which was a burden to him to the end 
 of his life. Of this he assured me on my last 
 visit to him, just before his death. 
 
 The saddest thing to me about the history 
 of this good man was that, having, with others, 
 taken refuge in a fort in India, in a great 
 
162 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 uprising which occurred not long after the 
 Sepoy rebellion, and having used arms to help 
 defend the fort, and save the lives of the men, 
 women, and children who had taken refuge 
 there, he was disciplined for this in his meet- 
 ing of the Society of Friends, and disowned 
 (that is, excluded from membership) for the 
 violation of their testimony against bearing 
 arms. Much as he loved the Society and its 
 leading college, he felt this to be treatment 
 which he could never forget. I frequently 
 heard him speak of this, and he always felt 
 that I had for him a sincere sympathy. 
 Closer relations than ours were seldom felt 
 between a president and a member of his 
 faculty. He had been professor of Greek 
 and Latin in Haverford College in its open- 
 ing years; later he was lecturer there on his- 
 tory, and he kept a warm and sympathetic 
 interest in that college to the end of his life. 
 It is proper to mention, in this connection, 
 that the two colleges, Haverford and Swarth- 
 more, being but ten miles apart, felt an interest 
 in and sympathy with each other from the time 
 of our opening in 1869, when Haverford was 
 of exactly the same age that Swarthmore is as 
 I write these lines, i. e. thirty-six years. At our 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 163 
 
 opening. President Gummere was at the head 
 of Haverford, and he it was who first induced 
 me to join the Brown University Club in Phil- 
 adelphia, as we were both Brown alumni, and 
 my interest in that club, over which I presided 
 one year, is continued to the present day. 
 Later, when President Chase succeeded Presi- 
 dent Gummere, the two colleges continued to 
 feel that it was their place to do what they 
 could to heal the wounds caused by the divi- 
 sion of the Society of Friends in 1827. It was 
 our view that differences should be overlooked 
 and forgotten. The same feeling continued 
 after the accession of President Sharpless, and 
 continues to this day. At the time of the cele- 
 bration of the semi-centennial of Haverford, 
 as president of Swarthmore I was invited to 
 attend and make one of the addresses. I trust 
 that, if I should be living at the time of the 
 first semi-centennial of Swarthmore, in 1919, 
 I shall see, at that celebration, the president 
 of Haverford College, and that he will be spe- 
 cially invited to take part in the exercises. 
 These two leading colleges of the two branches 
 of our Society have done much, in my opinion, 
 toward the restoration of the harmony which 
 was so sadly broken by the separation of 1827. 
 
164 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 They have both been established since that un- 
 happy early day, and if they had both existed 
 at that time, I beheve that I make no mistake 
 in saying that the separation would never have 
 occurred. 
 
 I must mention another of our early profes- 
 sors whom President Parrish was the means 
 of securing for Swarthmore, not by his direct 
 influence but by referring me to him. Speak- 
 ing, as he often did, of the importance of 
 having handwork introduced early as a part 
 of our curriculum, he told me that a certain 
 recent graduate of the Eensselaer Polytechnic 
 Institute was the man to secure for this de- 
 partment. In our early financial condition, 
 however, we were not able to offer this young 
 man a salary that would secure his services. 
 About that time he found a satisfactory 
 opening in the University of Minnesota, at 
 Minneapolis, then a new and rising institution, 
 and there he made a successful beginning, of 
 a department of civil engineering. But after 
 some two or three years' service at Minnesota, 
 there was such a lack of harmonious action 
 among the members of the faculty that he felt 
 inclined to resign. On hearing of this, and 
 remembering President Parrish's favorable 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 165 
 
 report of him, I opened communication with 
 this young man, through a member of our 
 board, in reference to a proposed department 
 at Swarthmore similar to the one in which he 
 was engaged in Minneapolis. It was not long 
 before we came to satisfactory terms, and this 
 was the beginning of the work of Professor 
 Arthur Beardsley at Swarthmore. 
 
 At that time we had no college buildings 
 but the one since called Parrish Hall and a 
 wooden structure to the north of it called 
 a gymnasium and built of wood. To make a 
 place for the training in practical shop-work, 
 a part of this gymnasium was divided off, and 
 there for a few years the work of Professor 
 Beardsley was carried on. As President Par- 
 rish had early predicted, this department was 
 soon so popular that the space devoted to it be- 
 came wholly inadequate. Professor Beardsley 
 was therefore constantly urging the erection of 
 a new building to accommodate the subjects 
 of Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering. It 
 was not many years before he induced Samuel 
 WiUets, the president of our board, and Jo- 
 seph Wharton, to unite in giving a sum large 
 enough to erect and equip what was called the 
 Science Building. This building served the 
 
166 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 purpose for a number of years ; recently, to 
 give the needed added room, the subject of 
 Chemistry has been assigned to a new build- 
 ing erected between the Science Building and 
 the Meeting-house. 
 
 Soon after his graduation, Professor Beards- 
 ley had taken an important part in superintend- 
 ing the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel, the 
 first tunnel of magnitude built in this country. 
 The work upon this first great tunnel was di- 
 rected in so skillful a manner that (which was 
 then a great wonder) two companies of labor- 
 ers in two tunnels, starting on opposite sides 
 of the mountain, nearly five miles apart, came 
 together in the middle, under the mountain, 
 with but a fraction of an inch in variation. 
 Much success has attended Professor Beardsley 
 throughout his career at Swarthmore, but, 
 most unfortunately for the college, his eye- 
 sight gradually failed him, and his superior 
 work was forever at an end. At various times 
 during his career as head of the department 
 of engineering he has been offered elsewhere 
 very considerable advances over what Swarth- 
 more could afford to pay him, but his love 
 for the college and its work impelled him to 
 decline these offers. He has remained a most 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 167 
 
 valuable member of our faculty. Aided by 
 one of his daughters, he has the care of the 
 Friends' Historical Library, which now con- 
 tains several thousand volumes, all Friends' 
 books, collected largely by his constant care 
 and solicitation. It is safe to say that there is 
 no more complete collection of books written 
 and published by Friends anywhere in this 
 country, and with one exception not in all 
 the world, than the collection made and care- 
 fully guarded by Professor Beardsley in the 
 Friends' Historical Library at Swarthmore. 
 
 Another of our professors in the early years 
 has been so closely connected with the work 
 of my life as to require special mention. Dur- 
 ing the years spent in Providence, Khode Is- 
 land, after my graduation in Brown in 1852, 
 there came into my class-room early one morn- 
 ing, to become my pupils, two boys of thirteen 
 and fifteen. One of the first questions asked 
 by the elder was whether the books on the 
 open corner shelves of the small library were 
 mine, or whether they belonged to the school. 
 I told him that most of them belonged to the 
 school, but that all were there for the use of 
 my class whenever they wished to refer to 
 them. With this answer the bright boy seemed 
 
168 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 much pleased, and in the recesses and after 
 school he was of tener near that corner Hbrary, 
 poring over the books, than in the yard play- 
 ing with his classmates. His studious habits 
 were conspicuous from the first, and before 
 I left the school the results of these habits 
 were apparent. He ultimately entered Har- 
 vard College, while his younger brother went 
 to Brown University. In Harvard this elder 
 brother was very successful in his studies. 
 He was especially fond of Greek, and in 
 his Junior year received the Bowdoin Prize 
 offered in that department. After graduation, 
 and a brief experience as teacher in Boston, 
 he received an appointment at Harvard as 
 tutor in Greek, and served the college in this 
 capacity for two years. At the end of this 
 period he went abroad, where he spent two 
 years, chiefly at the imiversities of Berlin and 
 Bonn. Meanwhile we had quite lost sight of 
 each other. 
 
 A few years after the opening of Swarth- 
 more, in arranging for the coming year, I 
 desired to secure a good teacher. In those 
 early days the college could not pay for pro- 
 fessors in every department, and the condi- 
 tions required the combination of Greek and 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 169 
 
 German under one professor. I concluded 
 that, as the annual meeting of the Philolo- 
 gical Association, which I had taken part in 
 organizing at Poughkeepsie a few years be- 
 fore, was to be held in Providence that year, 
 I would attend the meeting for the special 
 purpose of learning there of a suitable pro- 
 fessor of Greek and German. After a night 
 upon the Sound, on entering the train after 
 leaving the boat, to my great surprise and 
 pleasure, I met the young man whom I had 
 known several years before in the Providence 
 High School. When I told him of my spe- 
 cial mission in attending the meeting of the 
 Philological Association in Providence, he 
 immediately said that he had just passed two 
 years abroad in studying the very languages 
 I wanted, Greek and German, and before we 
 reached Providence the engagement was com- 
 pleted which resulted in giving to Swarth- 
 more one of its strongest men. His refined 
 and scholarly influence is still felt at Swarth- 
 more, where he is engaged in teaching Greek. 
 This man is William Hyde Appleton, whose 
 culture, superior scholarship, and charming 
 personality have greatly endeared him to 
 his pupils and colleagues. 
 
170 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 I must add here, by way of anticipation, 
 that when I retired from the presidency of 
 Swarthmore, I could not feel satisfied to do so 
 until I had some one in mind to fill my place. 
 The simplest way to do this seemed to be to 
 induce Professor Appleton to take my place, 
 and give me the desired opportunity for a 
 year's study abroad, before entering upon the 
 professorship of French. After some urging 
 he consented to be acting president for the 
 year of my absence. His duties as professor 
 were so attractive that he reluctantly con- 
 sented to act, and only because I, his good 
 friend, so much desired it. On my return to 
 the French professorship, a year later, the 
 board strongly urged Professor Appleton to 
 accept the position of president, which he 
 finally did, with the understanding that he 
 should be relieved of the office as soon as a 
 successor could be found. This successor was 
 found at the end of another year, in Charles 
 De Garmo. 
 
 The department of pure mathematics being 
 one of great importance in the eyes of Friends, 
 it was the desire of President Parrish to secure 
 a head for this department who would so di- 
 rect it from the beginning as to insure perfect 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 171 
 
 success. A young woman, who knew of the 
 opening of a college by Friends, applied to 
 President Parrish for the position of teacher 
 of mathematics. She had gone to Vassar 
 College, and placed herself there under the 
 able instruction of Professor Maria Mitchell. 
 Later, as I was about to take charge of the 
 preparatory school, in which most of her teach- 
 ing would be done. President Parrish advised 
 me to visit Vassar and interview Professor 
 Mitchell as to the capacity of this young wo- 
 man. I was well satisfied, on making this visit, 
 and she was accordingly engaged. This young 
 woman was Susan J. Cunningham. 
 
 When the time for the opening came, in 
 the fall of 1869, she was one of the first to 
 present herself on the ground. The main 
 building being then in an unfinished state, 
 sleeping accommodations could not be ob- 
 tained at the college, so she went each night 
 to West Chester, returning in the morning. 
 Being on the ground before the arrival of 
 the first students, she was ready and willing 
 to do any of the preliminary work, and made 
 herself very useful in that busy and anxious 
 season. She showed thus early her willing- 
 ness to work, in season and out of season, 
 
172 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 and she has continued to show this disposi- 
 tion in her class-room. Not only has she taken 
 all the class-room work that her programme 
 called for, but she has filled many vacant 
 hours with work for backward students, with 
 a patience and perseverance that have been 
 truly remarkable. When the time came for 
 the building of an observatory, she collected 
 over seven thousand dollars, and gave from 
 her own purse nearly four hundred dollars 
 to the project; later she gave one thousand 
 dollars toward the endowment of the chair of 
 Mathematics. Professor Cunningham built a 
 house on the college grounds under the con- 
 tract that she should keep it in order while 
 she lived in it; when she leaves the college 
 she leaves the house, and receives then from 
 the college two hundred dollars a year during 
 the rest of her hfe; at her death it becomes 
 college property. The building of this house 
 cost her four thousand dollars. 
 
 Professor Cunningham also gave two hun- 
 dred dollars to aid in the erection of Somerville 
 Hall. On the opening day of that hall she 
 was appointed to represent the honorary mem- 
 bers of the Somerville Society, and made an 
 opening address in their behalf. On that oc- 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 173 
 
 casion she said that a face and form rose be- 
 fore her to the exclusion of all others — the 
 face and form of Lucretia Mott. She con- 
 tinued : " I remember Lucretia Mott so well 
 when she last met with you on an occasion 
 like this, so frail in body, but with a face so 
 angelic in expression that we felt then that 
 she was giving us her last service and counsel. 
 I remember, too, what a noble woman she 
 was, how she labored and spoke always for 
 the downtrodden and oppressed, for the equal 
 rights of men and women, and for all good 
 works; and I said to myself, ^Your society 
 has done itself honor by naming the society 
 and this beautiful building after a rare woman, 
 Mary Somerville, who worked in one intel- 
 lectual direction. Why could not the life, 
 associate, and honorary members found today 
 a fellowship honored by the name of Lu- 
 cretia Mott, a fellowship by means of which 
 one woman-member of our graduating class 
 could go to some university, either in this 
 country or abroad, and devote a year to ad- 
 vanced study, so that these two names — Mary 
 Somerville and Lucretia Mott — may live to 
 the students of Swarthmore as long as your 
 society stands?'" She then reviewed the 
 
174 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 scholarships and fellowships given at other 
 colleges for women ; after this she proposed 
 that all the life members of the Somerville 
 Society should pay a small sum annually, thus 
 making up a purse of five hundred and twenty- 
 five dollars, to be awarded each year to the 
 woman of the graduating class who should be 
 the most worthy to be aided in advanced work. 
 It was thus, at the suggestion of Professor 
 Cunningham, that the Somerville Literary 
 Society founded the Lucretia Mott fellowship, 
 which is a fitting memorial to a most noble 
 woman. 
 
 Professor Cunningham was never satisfied 
 with mediocre scholarship, either for herself 
 or for her students. To advance herself in 
 her profession she has spent in study abroad 
 many of her vacations ; she has also worked 
 in the observatories at Harvard, Princeton, 
 ^y Chicago, and in California. When President 
 Swain agreed to come to Swarthmore on con- 
 dition that the endowment should be raised 
 from four hundred thousand dollars to one 
 million dollars, — which has since been done, 
 — she subscribed fifteen hundred dollars to- 
 ward that increase, and paid fourteen hundred 
 of it herself, a friend and former student pay- 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 175 
 
 ing the remaining one hundred dollars. For 
 ten years she maintained one student at the 
 college, besides obtaining money towards the 
 tuition of from one to three others each year 
 for many years. I must repeat in this con- 
 nection what I have said before, that the time 
 will come when women will receive salaries 
 equal to those of men when they perform 
 equally well the same services. It should be 
 so, and Swarthmore would do well to take the 
 lead of our American colleges in granting to 
 this extent equal rights to women and men. 
 At my time of life I can hardly hope to see 
 this result, but it is sure to come. 
 
 When we began work late in the autumn 
 of 1869, besides the matron (later called dean), 
 Helen G. Longstreth, there was but one other 
 woman in our faculty of five. This was Anna 
 Hallo well, whose health unfortunately was soon 
 after found to be insufficient for the work re- 
 quired ; her place was taken by her brother, 
 Norwood Hallowell. He was with us for only 
 a brief period, and the work in history and 
 literature was intrusted, in February, 1870, to 
 Maria L. Sanford, who was made a member of 
 the faculty. She had come from New England 
 a few years before this, and had been very 
 
176 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 successful as superintendent of the public 
 schools in a neighboring county. Hearing of 
 the vacancy at Swarthmore, she made applica- 
 tion for the position. Her excellent work and 
 her enthusiasm in her profession were well 
 known to Clement Biddle, of Chadd's Ford, 
 Pennsylvania, and through him, as chairman 
 of our instruction committee, the appointment 
 was made. Her zeal in her work knew no 
 bounds, and she proved a most inspiring 
 teacher. At that time history had not been 
 given the place which its great importance 
 demands. About twenty years before, when I 
 was a student in Yale, it was considered as a 
 secondary study in the curriculum, small place 
 being left for it by the great trio, Latin, Greek, 
 and mathematics. I learned soon after, under 
 Dr. Wayland, the mistake of such an arrange- 
 ment. It was in this, as in other ways, that my 
 course at Brown had taught me to vary ma- 
 terially at Swarthmore from the old regime. 
 
 In that day Swarthmore was too poor to 
 have a separate professor for each important 
 study, and the proper duties of several pro- 
 fessors were sometimes intrusted to one. In 
 the case of Professor Sanford, history and lit- 
 erature were confided to her care. These she 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 177 
 
 very ingeniously combined, making one tell 
 upon the other, as she trained the students in 
 literature by requiring long essays on histor- 
 ical subjects; in her zeal she was often in 
 danger of encroaching upon the time due other 
 departments. While thus getting a good deal 
 of work from her classes, she never spared 
 herself. Her lectures, on history especially, 
 gave her a reputation, and she was invited to 
 give lectures, and sometimes short courses, 
 elsewhere. These invitations she often ac- 
 cepted, and in doing so was not always care- 
 ful to secure in advance the consent of the 
 instruction committee. As a result she gave 
 dissatisfaction to this committee, and decided 
 at length to send in her resignation, which 
 was accepted. She was not long in securing 
 another position, in the University of Minne- 
 sota, where, under President Folwell, she took 
 the chair of elocution and history. There her 
 public lectures have been regarded as a great 
 advantage to the university, and for many 
 years she was the only woman on their faculty. 
 Obviously, her work has been very satisfactory 
 in Minnesota, for she is still very popular there. 
 If she had remained at Swarthmore, I cannot 
 doubt that her work with us would eventually 
 
178 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 have been as satisfactory as it is in the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota.- 
 
 Before concluding this chapter on some of 
 the early professors of Swarthmore, I feel that 
 it vrill be in place to give some impressions of 
 those early years left upon the mind of a stu- 
 dent, Phebe A. Field, who came to us among 
 those best prepared, but who was called away 
 at the end of her Sophomore year. Various 
 causes combined to decimate our ranks and 
 diminish the size of our graduating classes in 
 those days. But I permit her to speak for her- 
 self. 
 
 ^^My days at Swarthmore ended with my 
 Sophomore year. I passed the examinations 
 for the Junior class, but the feeble health of 
 my mother made it best for me to return home^ 
 although I shall never forget thy kindness, and 
 that of Samuel Willets, nor the temptation 
 that I felt to go on ; but I have found a satis- 
 faction in being with my parents in their later 
 years. 
 
 " I remember, very distinctly, Professor 
 Goldwin Smith being at Swarthmore. It was 
 a great pleasure at Toronto last summer to 
 look upon him and to Hsten to his voice again 
 after the lapse of years. I regretted that my 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 179 
 
 illness at the time of Maria Mitchell's visit to 
 Swarthmore prevented me from hearing her 
 learned discourse on the ^ Spots on the Sun.' 
 
 " Lucretia Mott gave us most beautiful coun- 
 sel on First-day morning in Meeting in the 
 early part of the Fourth Month, 1871. I had 
 never heard her speak so well, and many of 
 us felt that in all probability we should never 
 have the privilege of listening to her again. 
 
 "Clarkson Taylor exhibited some very fine 
 stereoscopic views of California, and gave an 
 interesting description of the scenery. Thomas 
 Foulke, of New York, gave his lecture on the 
 Yosemite Valley about Third Month of the 
 previous year. 
 
 *^Hugh Foulke also addressed us, and I re- 
 member f eehng surprised that he spoke so well. 
 He was a very modest and unassuming man, 
 and few understood his real worth. 
 
 " I also remember Miller McKim. His ear- 
 nest address made a deep and lasting impres- 
 sion. Best of all was Dr. Thomas, and his 
 recollections of India. I never forgot his de- 
 scription of the rhododendrons on the sides 
 of the Himalaya mountains. Perhaps they 
 appeared to him clothed with more than ordi- 
 nary beauty, as they were a place of refuge 
 
180 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 and peace during the horrors of the terrible 
 Sepoy rebellion. 
 
 '^ Many things in that early day were crude, 
 I know; and I remember thy dismay at the 
 irregularity of our Freshman class. But we 
 were willing to work, and tried to make up 
 some of our deficiencies." 
 
 I must add that we rejoiced in the spirit 
 shown by this class, and in the success of the 
 few who remained with us until their gradua- 
 tion in 1873. 
 
 I have spoken, in chapter vii, of our con- 
 nection with the Church of the Disciples, of 
 which James Freeman Clarke was the hon- 
 ored head and founder, and where our eldest 
 daughters were trained in the Sunday-school. 
 Our membership in that liberal church brought 
 us in touch with many noble men and women ; 
 among them John A. Andrew, our war gov- 
 ernor, and in an especial manner with Julia 
 Ward Howe. The governor sent a kind mes- 
 sage to those having charge of the dead who 
 fell first, in Baltimore, in our sad war of the 
 EebeUion, " to send their bodies home tenderly 
 for interment." With Julia Ward Howe we 
 became connected, entertaining as we did views 
 in so many ways similar to hers. In those 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 181 
 
 early days of the war she visited Washington, 
 and after her return she presented in MS., and 
 read to us in the mid-week vestry meeting, her 
 lines now so well known as the " Battle-Hymn 
 of the Republic." Desiring to hear as to her 
 addresses at Swarthmore College in its early 
 years, I addressed her a note and have just 
 received from her summer home in Newport 
 the following reply, which will, I am sure, be 
 read with interest by our early students, and 
 by all friends of the college, far and near. 
 She writes : — 
 
 Dear Mr. Magill, — I should be very un- 
 grateful if I did not well remember your hos- 
 pitality, by which I have profited more than 
 once. I send you with this a printed copy of 
 my battle-hymn, which gives it exactly as first 
 printed. I remember giving my lecture on 
 Paris at Swarthmore. I think that I spoke 
 there twice while you were in the chair, but 
 am not quite sure. I remember with pleasure 
 visiting the great Exposition of 1876 in your 
 company and that of your wife. 
 
 Believe me, yours with kind and grateful 
 remembrance, 
 
 Julia Ward Howe. 
 
182 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 I believe that It will be of interest to my 
 readers to see the copy of the Battle-Hymn 
 " exactly as first printed/' and they can com- 
 pare it with some of the later forms, as modi- 
 fied by the soldiers, to suit their own purposes. 
 It is as follows, printed as Mrs. Howe first 
 showed it to us : — 
 
 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord : 
 He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath 
 
 are stored; 
 He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift 
 
 sword: 
 
 His truth is marching on. 
 
 I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling 
 
 camps ; 
 They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and 
 
 damps; 
 I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring 
 
 lamps. 
 
 His day is marching on. 
 
 I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: 
 " As ye deal with my contemners so with you my grace 
 
 shall deal; 
 Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his 
 
 heel, 
 
 Since God is marching on." 
 
 He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call 
 retreat; 
 
 He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment- 
 seat: 
 
 « 
 
EARLY PROFESSORS OF SWARTHMORE 183 
 
 Oh 1 be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! 
 Our God is marching on. 
 
 In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 
 With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: 
 As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 
 While God is marching on. 
 
 Mrs. Howe published a few years ago a 
 most remarkable volume of " Reminiscences," 
 covering a period of eighty years, 1819-99, 
 in which volume all that I have said of her 
 as a member of our Church of the Disciples, 
 under the ministry of that sweet-spirited and 
 liberal minister, James Freeman Clarke, is 
 fully confirmed. This volume, published by 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Co., is truly a record of a 
 long and most useful life, and should be found 
 in every public library of our country. Her 
 facile pen is busy, at her home at Newport in 
 the summer and on Beacon Street in Boston 
 in the winter, and at the age of eighty-seven 
 she is so much occupied in writing that she 
 says in a recent letter that she is engaged on 
 " time work." Surely she is likely to add much 
 of great interest and value for an equally in- 
 teresting post mortem volume, if indeed she 
 be not spared, as we hope, to issue it in her 
 own lifetime. Her long life has been full of 
 
184 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 work of various kinds for the betterment of the 
 world, and the general progress of mankind, 
 and especially for the equal rights of the sexes, 
 of which she is, to-day, the most able living 
 advocate, at least among those who write the 
 English language. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE COLLEGE 
 
 1871-1890 i^^ 
 
 AFTER the resignation of President Par- 
 rish, I was left for some time in charge 
 of both the college and the preparatory school. 
 It became obvious to me that the separate 
 organizations could not be successfully main- 
 tained for many years under one roof. While 
 accepting the situation as inevitable at the 
 time, I did so with the fixed intention, when 
 conditions should permit, to have the school 
 and college conducted as separate institutions. 
 Toward that end my labors were directed from 
 the first. There being at that time in the col- 
 lege proper only two small classes, the Sopho- 
 more and the Freshman, it was clear that the 
 separation, however desirable, would be pre- 
 mature. Before this could be safely done, the 
 four regular college classes must at least be 
 organized and at their work. That the college 
 must be self-sustaining was a thought ever 
 
186 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 prominent in the minds of the managers, a 
 thought which arose from their lack of experi- 
 ence In college management. In my annual 
 report to the managers I repeated year after 
 year that as a college gave to the public much 
 more than it received from the public in re- 
 turn, it could not be expected to be seK-sus- 
 taining. In the report made by the managers 
 to the stockholders, which was based upon my 
 report, this thought was as regularly eliminated 
 from year to year. Now, at last, after years 
 of labor, the fact is fully understood and ap- 
 preciated by the board. 
 %/ Of course, under the circumstances, the 
 
 number of students secured each year was a 
 matter of the first importance, and very few 
 ^ of those presenting themselves were rejected, 
 however poorly qualified. Those not prepared 
 for the Freshman class could enter the prepara- 
 tory school. In that school there were some- 
 times, besides the three classes. A, B, and C, 
 subdivisions of those classes, making from six 
 to nine preparatory classes, and in the lowest 
 of these almost any applicant could be placed, 
 if not prepared to go higher. Sometimes stu- 
 dents in these lower classes failed of promotion, 
 and appeared in the same class the following 
 
EDWARD H. MAGILL 
 Professor Emeritus, in 1901 
 
( 
 
 OF / 
 
 CALM 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 187 
 
 year. The time came at last, in the class that 
 entered in 1881, or twelve years after the 
 opening, when we felt that we must make the 
 college classes one grade higher. This was 
 done by not admitting class A to the Fresh- 
 man class, but keeping all the class back a 
 year. The result was that only four of the 
 best were passed on as Freshmen, and thus it 
 was that in 1886 we graduated but four, — 
 the smallest class ever graduated at the college. 
 This attempt to raise the grade of the college, 
 although felt by the faculty to be a necessity, 
 caused much dissatisfaction among some of 
 the active managers. But the faculty stood 
 firm, and time has fully justified their action. 
 Connected with the desire on the part of 
 several of our most active managers to keep 
 permanently, as a part of the college, a school 
 for small children, was the idea that we should 
 make Swarthmore essentially a training-school 
 for teachers, and use the youngest classes as 
 a species of model school. This thought was 
 earnestly urged upon the board by a few man- 
 agers, the plan was actually adopted, and we, 
 as a faculty, were directed to carry it out. To 
 make this model school attractive, one of the 
 largest class-rooms was set aside, and the floor 
 
188 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 was nicely carpeted, not merely stained or 
 painted, as was that of the other rooms. No- 
 tices were sent out to the general public dur- 
 ing the summer vacation. With a few of the 
 faculty, I was expected to make these invita- 
 tions and arrangements our especial care ; and 
 not even a week's intermission or rest did we 
 enjoy that summer. Finding it inevitable, I 
 entered into the scheme as heartily as possible, 
 and when September came we had a largely 
 increased list of applicants for the coming year. 
 The woman employed to teach this model 
 school had had considerable experience of a 
 , similar kind elsewhere, and that autumn saw 
 Swarthmore with a largely increased number 
 of students, many of them intending to teach 
 after a year's training, and ready to go out as 
 substitutes even during that one year. There 
 was also an increase in the number of little 
 J children upon whom, poor innocents, the ex- 
 periment of " normalizing " Swarthmore was 
 to be tried. I did as directed by the managers 
 who were especially interested in this work, 
 but from the first I felt that the year would 
 be a lost year in the development of Swarth- 
 more College. Of course, little attention was 
 paid to the fitness of applicants if they reported 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 189 
 
 that they came for study and practice in the 
 normal department. Children, too, were freely 
 received with less than the usual amount of 
 schooling to enter class C, for they would make 
 good subjects for experiment in the model 
 school. 
 
 During that year I made it my business to 
 see how the normal department was doing its 
 work, and in the matter of my personal atten- 
 tion to other departments of the college I 
 necessarily fell short of that given in other 
 years. Previously I had made it a rule, to be 
 followed as closely as possible, to see every 
 teacher's and every professor's work at least 
 a few minutes every working day. This year 
 that rule was frequently and necessarily dis- 
 regarded. As the last term drew near its close, 
 I felt that I must draw up and present to the 
 board a full statement describing the organ- 
 ization of the normal department, its effect 
 in lowering the standard of new applicants, 
 its disastrous effect on the small children who 
 were experimented upon, and the standing of v/ 
 Swarthmore among the other colleges of our 
 state and country. I closed by earnestly urg- 
 ing the board to return to the idea of a col- 
 lege as a college 3 and to fill up, as fast as 
 
 tV 
 
190 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 possible, the college classes with well-prepared 
 students; to stand firm against admitting 
 children under twelve years of age ; to raise 
 the age of admission as soon as practicable, 
 and to encourage the establishment, in our 
 neighborhood, of a good preparatory school, 
 not under the care of our board. Such a 
 school, I urged, would enable parents who 
 sent their older children to the college to 
 bring with them, and place near us, in an en- 
 tirely separate institution, their younger chil- 
 dren, to enter college when they were pro- 
 perly prepared. I put my whole heart and soul 
 into this report on that disastrous normal 
 school experiment, and, to my great relief, 
 the report was very kindly received by the 
 managers. Their action soon showed plainly 
 that the short reign of normal school {versus 
 college) was gone forever. I should add that 
 the excellent preparatory school directed by 
 Arthur H. Tomlinson is now a realization of 
 what my report then called for. This school, 
 together with the well-managed system of pub- 
 lic schools in the town (some of the school 
 directors being professors in the college), has 
 now placed the college upon a more solid foun- 
 dation. 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 191 
 
 During the presidency of Edward Parrish 
 I had little if any direct communication with 
 the board. When, some months after his re- 
 signation, I was appointed president early in 
 1871, I came into direct relations with that 
 body, and it seems proper, at this time, to 
 give some account of their organization and 
 methods of management. While the man- 
 agers were a body directly responsible to the 
 stockholders, and appointed all the ofl&cers of 
 the college, the faculty naturally decided as 
 to the courses of study, the classification and 
 promotion of the students, their government, 
 and the general management of all afiPairs that 
 immediately concerned the life of the students 
 in the college family. A close supervision of 
 the whole was maintained by the board, es? 
 pecially by its executive committee, and a few 
 of these, known as the weekly committee, vis- 
 ited the college every week. 
 
 The faculty, instead of making reports at 
 stated periods, sent to the managers, at each 
 meeting of either the general board or the 
 executive committee, their minute-book. The 
 minutes being read in the managers' meeting, 
 caused every act of the faculty, including the 
 details of management, to claim the attention 
 
192 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 of the managers. This had been a plan of my 
 own, made with the design of securing har- 
 mony between the two governing bodies. I am 
 convinced now that it was an error, and that a 
 regular written report to each meeting of the 
 managers would have been more likely to se- 
 cure the harmony so essential to the well-being 
 of the college. It was sometimes found neces- 
 sary for the faculty, on certain occasions of 
 disorder, either to remove students from the 
 college permanently or to suspend them for a 
 longer or shorter period. The good order of 
 the college seemed to require this, and there 
 were sometimes conflicting views, which made 
 the government of that mixed body of college 
 and preparatory students exceedingly difficult. 
 The use of tobacco by the students, which 
 was strictly forbidden in the college from the 
 first, was one of these causes of difference, 
 but it was generally found that those who 
 persisted in its use, after entering with a full 
 understanding that it was forbidden, were 
 undesirable students in other respects. 
 
 The matter of hazing, especially in a col- 
 lege like Swarthmore, where all Hved in one 
 home, was considered, from the first, as suffi- 
 cient cause for prompt dismissal. One serious 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 193 
 
 case of the kind occurred early and was met 
 by instant dismissal. This was for years taken 
 as a precedent, and as a result hazing has 
 rarely been indulged in since. The effort was 
 made, not without success, to make the stu- 
 dents see how much their own comfort was 
 promoted by our strict observance of this 
 rule. 
 
 One of the early cases of discipline was due 
 to the traditional feud between the Sophomore 
 and Freshmen classes. With us this feud as- 
 sumed the form of a strife between the classes 
 over the planting of the class tree, which took 
 place early in the Sophomore year. The men 
 of the first Sophomore class, i. e. that of 
 '74 ('73 having but one man in the class), had 
 originated the practice, and the Freshmen of 
 that year had decided to do their part by pull- 
 ing the tree up, cutting it into small pieces, 
 and appearing at breakfast the next morn- 
 ing with bits in their buttonholes, — if they 
 could. The practice thus inaugurated, the 
 night of the planting of the Sophomore tree 
 was the signal for strife between Freshmen 
 and Sophomores. The Sophomores watched 
 their tree until sunrise the next morning, 
 the rule being that after the first night the 
 
194 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 Freshmen never disturbed it if it had been 
 successfully defended by the Sophomores until 
 sunrise. Once or twice the Sophomores built 
 a three-cornered pile of fence-rails very high 
 around the tree, to make its defense easier. 
 
 For several years this annual contest was 
 continued, and one night, while losing my 
 night's rest sitting in the east arbor, watching 
 for the hostile movements of the two classes, 
 I decided upon a plan to turn this foolish 
 strife into a profitable channel. The next 
 morning I had the two classes assemble, and 
 promised them that if they would give up the 
 tree-pulling, we would have an annual decla- 
 mation contest between the two classes, and I 
 would, personally, present the victorious class 
 with a prize of fifty dollars; but if any at- 
 tempt was made to continue the strife about 
 the class tree, the class making it should have 
 no opportunity to contest for a prize that year. 
 This attempt to change a struggle of brute 
 force into one of intellectual supremacy was 
 a complete success, and was the origin of the 
 President's Prize for Public Speaking, which, 
 in different forms, has been given to the suc- 
 cessful classes by the presidents who have fol- 
 lowed me. I little knew that that quiet hour 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 195 
 
 of thought at midnight, in the east arbor of 
 the Swarthmore lawn, would prove so far- 
 reaching in its consequences. 
 
 Among those who were often active in their 
 opposition to the president in the early days — 
 men all thoroughly honest in their purposes, 
 and desiring only the best interests of the col- 
 lege as they understood them — I may men- 
 tion here Hugh McUvain, Edward Hoopes, 
 Clement M. Biddle, Clement Biddle, and Dr. 
 M. Fisher Longstreth — all of whom have 
 now passed on to the life beyond, leaving de- 
 scendants who retain their deep interest in 
 the college. None of these will, I trust, feel 
 wounded by this allusion of mine to the work 
 of their fathers, inspired as these all were with 
 an affection for the college, and with a de- 
 termination, as far as in them lay, to further 
 its best interests. One of them once said to 
 me : " All the fault that we have to find with 
 thee, Edward, is that thou hast seemed deter- 
 mined to get rid of the younger classes, and 
 make of Swarthmore a college only, without 
 a preparatory school." This was said by one 
 who had been for several years chairman of 
 our instruction committee. He was succeeded 
 by Eli M. Lamb, whose views on this subject 
 
196 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 coincided with my own, and by whose aid and 
 encouragement I felt that my ultimate success 
 was achieved. 
 
 The gradual working out of this change 
 from a mixed school and college to a college 
 is thus graphically set forth by EH M. Lamb, 
 in a report which he recently sent me, at my 
 request, from records in his possession. 
 
 NUMBER OF STUDENTS. 
 
 Tear. 
 
 Preparatory School. 
 
 College. 
 
 1882-83 
 
 192 
 
 82 
 
 1883-84 
 
 216 
 
 83 
 
 1884-85 
 
 158 
 
 112 
 
 1885-86 
 
 112 
 
 123 
 
 1886-87 
 
 117 
 
 123 
 
 1887-88 
 
 85 
 
 170 
 
 1888-89 
 
 82 
 
 165 
 
 1889-90 
 
 80 
 
 163 
 
 In the year 1884-85 class C was dropped. 
 In the year 1889-90 class B was dropped. 
 In the year 1890-91 class A was dropped. 
 
 After one year when there was one college 
 preparatory class the final change came, and 
 since 1891-92 college students only have 
 been admitted. Those ten years of struggle 
 were to me memorable years. I quote further 
 from the recent letter of Eli M. Lamb : — 
 
 "To produce this result required much 
 work and a good deal of diplomacy, for many 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 197 
 
 Friends, notably our good minister, Clement 
 Biddle, of Chadd's Ford, and his not small 
 following, clung tenaciously, and with very 
 great sincerity, to the boarding-school (like 
 Westtown) idea. These persons were to us 
 Scylla and Charybdis, both of which were 
 dangerous and had to be shunned. After care- 
 ful steering for a long time, the craft sailed 
 with rapidity through that narrow channel." 
 I feel it to be a duty, as well as a great plea- 
 sure, to speak of the services of Eli M. Lamb, 
 who, from the beginning of his work with us 
 as a manager, did everything in his power to 
 bring about the result to which he has here 
 referred. Having been long and successfully 
 engaged in the work of education, there was 
 no one better qualified than he to enter upon 
 duty as a manager. In his position as chair- 
 man of the instruction committee he enabled 
 me greatly to simplify my work, and to ad- 
 vance toward the end desired, with the ap- 
 proval of the board. Although very closely 
 occupied with his well-known successful school, 
 the Friends' Elementary and High School in 
 Baltimore, — a school which prepares many 
 students for Johns Hopkins University, — he 
 was ever ready, at critical periods, to leave his 
 
198 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 work at brief notice and come to Swarthmore 
 to offer his personal counsel. When it was 
 impossible for him to come, he would send 
 me hopeful and encouraging words by the first 
 mail. Often have I sent for him in the after- 
 noon, and he would reach the college that 
 night in the midnight train, once or twice in 
 the midst of a blinding snowstorm. We con- 
 ferred into the small hours, and he returned 
 to his own school by the first train next 
 morning. In those days I kept filed, in a case 
 constructed for the purpose, the vast number 
 of letters which I received in connection with 
 college affairs, and the pigeonhole labeled L 
 was usually full to overflowing. I am safe in 
 saying that these letters, if published, would 
 make a volume of no inconsiderable size and 
 value.^ 
 
 One of my most firm and constant friends 
 among the managers did not enter upon duty 
 until Twelfth Month (December), 1873, a few 
 
 1 It has been a great satisfaction to me that aU of Eli M. 
 Lamb's daughters received the advantages of the full college 
 course at Swarthmore, though all three of them were too late 
 for me to have the pleasure of signing their diplomas during 
 my presidency, two of them graduating in 1894, and one in 
 1902. Had his valuable services for the college been of an 
 earlier date, doubtless his two sons would have been glad to 
 avail themselves of the same privilege. 
 
r 
 
 PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE: 1871-90 199 
 
 months after the graduation of our first class. 
 Many of the early misunderstandings between 
 the managers and myself, as president, were 
 then over, but from that date until the pre- 
 sent hour I have found in Isaac H. Clothier 
 a firm friend and supporter in my plans and 
 trials. He came into the board by being ap- 
 pointed one of the clerks of the stockholders' 
 meeting. We soon became very intimate, I 
 having long well known and highly esteemed 
 his father, Caleb Clothier, who for many years 
 was one of the most active and esteemed 
 members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of 
 Friends, at a time when he, with William 
 Dorsey and George Truman, were among 
 those occupying gallery seats — then a mark 
 of more distinction between the "weighty 
 members " and those occupying the floor 
 seats than now. Isaac H. Clothier's position 
 as clerk of the stockholders' meeting gave 
 him a place as a member of the board, and 
 his connection with the college in that capa- 
 city began in the winter of 1873-74. What- 
 ever changes seemed to me necessary for the 
 good of the college, I invariably talked over 
 with him before taking action, and through 
 him I approached the board in many cases 
 
200 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 where alone I should have hesitated about 
 doing so. In those days he lived at Sharon 
 Hill, with Clement M. Biddle on one side 
 and Dr. M. Fisher Longs treth on the other. 
 It was a good horseback ride to the homes 
 of these three active managers, and many an 
 anxious evening have I passed with them 
 talking over college affairs. I used to bring 
 any new matter about which I felt doubt to 
 Isaac H. Clothier first; if he approved, then, 
 often on the same evening but sometimes 
 later, I went to the others, and if all agreed, 
 I felt confident that I could go to the board 
 with every prospect of success. As Dr. Long- 
 streth was a man quite difficult to convince, 
 Isaac H. Clothier had a habit of saying, 
 pleasantly, that whenever he wished for har- 
 mony he always got between his uncle Fisher 
 and myself and thus prevented a quarrel. 
 
 Although Clement M. Biddle was the young- 
 est of us four, he too was often hard to con- 
 vince, and especially when we opposed any 
 pet theory of his own. His death we all most 
 deeply deplored ; but this occurred after the 
 days of my presidency were over. In my 
 year's absence abroad, before entering upon 
 the professorship of French, he furnished me 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 201 
 
 •with funds necessary to buy for the college a 
 number of French books which I desired to 
 use. This resulted in quite an important addi- 
 tion to our French library. He would often 
 enter into an agreement with alumni or others, 
 that if they would contribute a certain sum 
 named for books or other needs of the college, 
 he would add to the sum of their contributions 
 several hundred dollars, and sometimes even 
 thousands. By his sudden death Swarth- 
 more lost one of her earliest, most energetic, 
 and most devoted friends. 
 
 I much regretted when the Sharon Hill trio 
 was broken up, and my staunch friend, Isaac 
 H. Clothier, moved to his new home, " Bal- 
 lytore," at Wynnewood. Soon after that he 
 and I began to take long horseback rides 
 together on holiday afternoons. There were 
 nearly ten miles between us, but we rode 
 upon certain roads agreed upon, and when we 
 met, each took his turn in riding home with 
 the other and coming back alone. Many im- 
 portant Swarthmore affairs were talked over 
 in those long rides, which we both, I am sure, 
 remember. Whenever the board of managers 
 met, and I had any especially important ques- 
 tion to occupy their attention, I always looked 
 
202 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 anxiously for his arrival, feeling sure that the 
 subject would receive from him careful and 
 considerate attention. On several occasions I 
 went to his charming new home, at his or his 
 wife's invitation, to address a social neighbor- 
 hood meeting on some topic of special interest.* 
 Although from the first Swarthmore had 
 admitted both sexes as students, and admitted 
 them together to all classes, giving to both 
 the same degrees, yet, thus far, very few 
 women had been members of the faculty. Our 
 faculty was formed in a peculiar way : only 
 two officers, the president and the dean, were 
 members ex officio; all others had to be 
 elected by special vote of the board after their 
 appointment to a professorship. This was 
 done, at first, to prevent too large a propor- 
 tion of the faculty being those who were not 
 members of the Society of Friends, and thus 
 
 1 Of Isaac H. Clothier's large family of children, boys 
 and girls, one and all have received their education at 
 Swarthmore. The eldest son, Morris L. Clothier, has been 
 for some years at the head of the firm of Strawbridge & 
 Clothier, his father having retired from active participation 
 in the business. Morris was a graduate of the last class 
 whose diplomas I signed, as president, in 1890. Fifteen 
 years later, as will be seen, he gave the sum of fifty thou- 
 sand dollars for the endowment of the professorship of 
 Physics. 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 203 
 
 to keep the college more fully under the con- 
 trol of the managers. In later years, the ten- 
 dency has been growing toward making all 
 professors and teachers, ex officiisy acting 
 members of the faculty. This is well, and it is 
 an important advance upon the original organ- 
 ization. By the charter, all the board must be 
 members of our Religious Society; and this 
 too is well, for, as I have already said, the 
 purpose of this provision was not to make the 
 college a sectarian institution, but to prevent 
 it from falling into the hands of those who 
 might make it sectarian. Swarthmore is, and 
 must continue to be, a non-sectarian college. 
 
 At first the only degree conferred by the 
 college was that of A. B. This was conferred 
 upon all graduates. In the confusion incident 
 to the beginning of any great work, provision 
 had not been made for the conferring of other 
 degrees ; but it was intended to confer others 
 later, and for these some science courses had 
 been introduced. When the second class came 
 to graduation in 1874, five of the seven grad- 
 uates received the degree of A. B., and two 
 that of B. S., one of these two taking the 
 simple B. S., and the other taking the degree 
 called then " B. S. in Engineering." 
 
204 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 From the beginning of my presidency I 
 had resolved that as fast as conditions, finan- 
 cial and otherwise, would warrant, I would 
 have new courses established, giving a choice 
 of at least three degrees at graduation. My 
 experience in Brown University under Dr. 
 Wayland had convinced me that the time had 
 come to vary from the old classical curriculum, 
 and bring the college up to the growing de- 
 mands of modern times. Had I remained at 
 Yale, under the old regime^ I should have 
 been graduated in 1854, instead of 1852, and 
 been far less prepared for the problems con- 
 fronting me at Swarthmore. If one is careful 
 to follow the leading, when it seems clear, 
 without too much asking why, that leading is 
 likely to produce the best results, and often 
 those which were not at all foreseen. Thus 
 at least it was in my case. 
 
 Our first modification of the old curriculum 
 was to give the degree of B. S. ; moreover, this 
 was decided and announced as B. S. in Science, 
 and B. S. in Engineering. Of course, our de- 
 grees in science and civil engineering were of 
 much less real value than the degrees given in 
 these subjects in later times. They were ten- 
 tative and served their purpose in their day. 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 205 
 
 But the beginning of an innovation in a long 
 established practice is usually the hardest 
 part, and to me those were indeed anxious 
 days. At one time I had almost decided to 
 let the students take what they chose, year 
 by year, only requiring a properly filled pro- 
 gramme, and at the end giving the degree 
 most appropriate to the subjects chosen. But 
 I had not progressed so far as some institu- 
 tions of modern times, which give the degree 
 of A. B., whatever the subject chosen. Of the 
 wisdom of this modern movement I must let 
 others decide. 
 
 One innovation which we made from the 
 beginning was to require no Greek for the 
 A. B. degree, the difEerence in amount of lan- 
 guage training being made up by two years of 
 French and two years of German. This was 
 a startling innovation then, but the plan is 
 now adopted by many other colleges and uni- 
 versities, including the oldest and best-known 
 college in our country. 
 
 Our plan of educating the sexes together 
 in the same classes, in all the subjects which 
 they elected, subjected us to much criticism. 
 To explain our policy I had given in Philadel- 
 phia, and various other places, a lecture on 
 
206 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 "The Coeducation of the Sexes." Upon this 
 question, as upon some others, we stood upon 
 new ground. At that period very few colleges 
 offered a college course of study to women ; 
 in thus uniting them in the same educational 
 home and in the same classes as the men, we 
 stood almost, if not entirely, alone. To-day 
 women can enter most of our best colleges 
 on the same conditions, and receive the same 
 degrees, as the men. This is indeed a great 
 change to occur within the limits of a single 
 lifetime. Even conservative Yale has given 
 this year (1905) a number of higher degrees 
 to women, and as they walked up with the 
 men to receive them at the hands of President 
 Hadley, they were loudly applauded by the 
 vast audience. What would the president's 
 father, my favorite professor in Greek in 
 1850-51, have thought, if he had foreseen his 
 son a prominent actor in such a scene ? Surely 
 the world is moving on. 
 
 I shall not make mention of the successive 
 classes graduated since that early day, nor of 
 the positions which the students have occupied 
 since graduation, to the great credit of them- 
 selves in almost all cases, and to that of their 
 Alma Mater. This will be shown in detail in 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 207 
 
 the Historical Catalogue, first prepared by m^ ^ 
 during this year (1905) or thirty-six years after 
 the opening of the college, which gives, in 
 some detail, the brief autobiographies of those 
 who graduated in the first twenty classes, from 
 1873 to 1892 inclusive. This catalogue is to 
 be followed by future decennial installments, 
 so that in the future the record of all grad- 
 uates, both the living and those who are de- 
 ceased, may be carefully preserved among the 
 college archives and distributed among the 
 large and increasing number of the patrons of 
 the college. These records will furnish many 
 important data for future historians ; for the 
 history of a college is largely a record of the 
 actions of the men and women who have been 
 educated there. 
 
 A few other colleges in this country have 
 pursued, in a general way, the course here 
 noted, and among these are Haverford, Am- 
 herst, and some others; but the one which 
 has done it most thoroughly and completely 
 is my Alma Mater, Brown University.^ 
 
 1 Brown first put forth such a catalogue in 1895, covering 
 the one hundred and thirty years of her history (1764-1894), 
 — a truly monumental work. This year they are preparing 
 a revised and corrected edition, adding ten more years (1895- 
 1905) ; and the editions are to continue hereafter decennially. 
 
208 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 The organization of our board of managers 
 was, to some extent, sui geiieris, and needs to 
 be described if the work of the president and 
 the faculty is to be fully understood. The 
 board consisted of thirty-two persons, men 
 and women, the sexes being equally divided 
 and having equal power. In this, as in other 
 things, the equal rights, privileges, and duties 
 of men and women were scrupulously regarded. 
 Lest there should be any misunderstanding on 
 this point, the board took steps to have the 
 charter so amended as to make this poHcy 
 clear to all future generations. It had been 
 noticed that in some institutions sudden 
 changes, much to the disadvantage of the in- 
 stitution, were occasionally made. To prevent 
 this very undesirable possibility, the revised 
 charter was drawn with great care, and all 
 possible doubts as to its intention were re- 
 moved. 
 
 Our managers, as a body, never having 
 been accustomed to the management of a col- 
 lege, were sometimes inclined to act like a 
 school committee ; they were unwilling to leave 
 
 They, however, have not done what we propose to do, i. e. 
 require the youngest class included to have been out of 
 college ten years ; we wait for a class to make some history 
 before it is written. 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 209 
 
 the internal management of the college, in- 
 cluding the discipline, the class-room teaching, 
 the selection of appropriate books, etc., en- 
 tirely to the president and his faculty, where 
 such authority properly belongs. The members 
 of our board are not to be blamed for this ; far 
 from it, for they were all devoted to the best in- 
 terests of the college as they understood them, 
 and acted according to their light. What they 
 did was but the natural result of views on 
 education and educational institutions then 
 prevalent in the Eeligious Society of Friends. 
 They were always ready to contribute liber- 
 ally, as far as their individual means would 
 allow, toward the expenses of the college. If 
 their views were not all in accord with those 
 of the faculty, they gained in liberality in their 
 direction of the college year by year. In the 
 course of the many years I spent under the 
 direction of that body, I can truly say that 
 my treatment at their hands, as well as that 
 of the faculty, was kind, hberal, and courte- 
 ous ; and for this I can but express the grate- 
 ful feeUng within my heart, as I look back 
 into the now distant past. 
 
 In these memoirs, I could not name all the 
 managers under whose oversight we labored, 
 
210 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 but I shall mention^ as being especially active 
 among them, Samuel Willets, Hugh Mcll- 
 vain and wife, Edward Hoopes, Clement Bid- 
 die, Edward H. Ogden, Clement M. Biddle, 
 James V. Watson, Jane P. Downing, Eli M. 
 Lamb, Isaac Stephens and wife, Daniel Under- 
 bill, John D. Hicks, and Hannah W. Hay- 
 dock, the larger number of whom are not now 
 living. They often disagreed with me as to 
 the proper ways and means of managing the 
 college, as they did also with our first presi- 
 dent, Edward Parrish ; but they were honest 
 in their convictions, and with such men and 
 women there should be, and really could be, 
 no contention or controversy. 
 
 Samuel Willets, of New York, was then too 
 old and feeble to be very active in the college 
 work, but he was deeply interested in it, and 
 gave largely of his means, which was most 
 essential for our early success ; he was, from 
 the first, president of the board. I well re- 
 call a walk taken with him over the college 
 grounds to "inspect the buildings; " a curi- 
 ous expression, for, except the one general 
 building, Parrish Hall, there were then no 
 other buildings to inspect. When he had seen 
 all, and heard what was proposed for later 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 211 
 
 development, he expressed pleasure in the 
 excellence of our location. Standing at the 
 edge of the girls' grove, where the Meeting- 
 house now is, he looked around on the well- 
 cultivated and nicely-mown fields, and said : 
 " Edward, in all the early part of my life I 
 was closely occupied in doing that " (and he 
 closed his fist firmly as he spoke). Then, 
 slowly opening wide his hand, he added : " I 
 have been trying, all the latter part of my 
 life, to do thaL''^ From the first he was a 
 noble and generous friend of the college, and 
 many times, when we needed a few thousand 
 dollars for some special purpose, he would 
 say, " Raise one half that sum in the limits of 
 the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and I will 
 be responsible that the other half, from the 
 Friends in New York, shall be ready." This 
 latter half frequently came as a personal gift 
 from himself. 
 
 One of the latest acts in the noble and use- 
 ful life of Samuel Willets was the signing of 
 a check for a large sum to make good our 
 great loss by fire, which destroyed our entire 
 college building, about twelve years after the 
 opening, in the autumn of 1881. After our 
 painful and long-continued efforts to provide 
 
212 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 the means to put up this first building, which 
 cost about two hundred and thirty thousand 
 dollars, to lose it with insurance upon it for 
 less than half its cost — which was an acci- 
 dental oversight of the chairman of our build- 
 ing committee — this was indeed hard to bear. 
 Coming thus suddenly, the disaster almost dis- 
 heartened us. Each summer vacation we had 
 made additional improvements, and in that 
 fatal summer of 1881 we had just completed 
 the painting of the walls of the long halls 
 and rooms, and were rejoicing in our success- 
 ful preparation for our thirteenth year. 
 
 On a certain First-day (Sunday) afternoon 
 in September, 1881, I rode on horseback by 
 the front of Parrish Hall on the way, so often 
 traveled, to meet my friend, Isaac H. Clothier, 
 at his pleasant home at Sharon Hill. As I 
 passed the front I said to myself, "The year 
 before us looks most hopeful. The halls and 
 rooms are nicely papered, and there is an 
 entrance list of about two hundred and forty 
 students." Little did I think how soon or 
 how suddenly our bright prospects were to 
 be blasted. It was near midnight on my 
 return, and again I rode past the front of 
 Parrish Hall on the way home, and the same 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 213 
 
 happy feelings filled my heart, increased by 
 a hopeful and encouraging talk with my friend 
 at Sharon Hill. The one-armed watchman — 
 the faithful servant who went on duty and 
 saved us anxiety at night for many a year — 
 William Mullen — was standing at the front 
 door as I passed, and, as often before, he went 
 with me to see my horse housed in the stable. 
 He returned to the college and I entered my 
 house. Just as I was preparing to retire, a 
 deafening report reached my ears; looking 
 from our chamber window toward the college, 
 I saw a stream of fire issuing like a rocket 
 from the great dome, toward the northwest. 
 I ran to the college to aid and direct in what- 
 ever relief was possible. 
 
 The great tank at the top of the building 
 proved to be nearly empty, and the hose de- 
 livered only a feeble stream. Seeing that all 
 hope of saving the building was gone, we 
 roused the men students, who were buried in 
 the first deep sleep of night. In the women's 
 end the matron did the same, assembling the 
 young women in her rooms and telling them 
 not to venture upstairs again. Meanwhile the 
 young men, of their own motion, formed a 
 double line, one line up the northwest stair- 
 
214 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 way, the other down the southwest. Thus they 
 carried out all their belongings upon which 
 they could lay hands. They had previously 
 thrown their matresses onto the front lawn. 
 In an hour or so the house was cleared, and 
 the front lawn was covered with mattresses and 
 other bedding. The young men saved most 
 of their belongings ; the girls lost nearly all 
 of theirs. But in that fearful confusion of 
 midnight, not one life was lost, nor was one 
 person seriously injured, although two hun- 
 dred and nineteen students had returned from 
 their homes after the vacation. 
 
 Some students had hastened to the station 
 and telegraphed to Philadelphia for a fire com- 
 pany, but it arrived about five o'clock in the 
 morning, when only the bare walls of our be- 
 loved college stood, a smoking ruin. Even at 
 that late hour, the firemen wished to connect 
 their hose with Crum Creek, and throw water 
 on the ruined walls. We forbade them to do 
 so and thus saved the walls from cracking 
 and falKng. This in the end proved a saving 
 of almost one hundred thousand dollars in the 
 rebuilding. 
 
 The board of managers had visited us on 
 Seventh-day (Saturday) just before the great 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 215 
 
 disaster, and had staked out the lines for 
 a Science Building, between the president's 
 house and Parrish Hall. As we stumbled over 
 those stakes on that fearful night, we said to 
 ourselves, "This site so near the main build- 
 ing can never be thought of again, on account 
 of danger by fire ; " and it never was. Later, 
 when Science Hall was constructed, it took its 
 natural place to the northeast of the college. 
 
 The cause of this disastrous fire has never 
 been satisfactorily explained. I quote the fol- 
 lowing from a letter recently received from 
 Charles B. Doron, a member of the class of 
 1881, who had graduated a few months before 
 the fire. 
 
 " I remember meeting Dr. Leidy, who, with 
 tears in his eyes, asked me why I had left 
 chemicals in my dark room off the museum, 
 and had thus set fire to the building, through 
 spontaneous combustion. This report, I be- 
 lieve, was published in the ^ Public Ledger ' 
 of Philadelphia, and for many years I was 
 credited with the disaster. Fortunately for my 
 record, I had removed everything from that 
 closet before vacation commenced, and the 
 closet was empty. Just before commencement 
 I had emptied a barrel of alcohol into two 
 
216 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 glass carboys, and these were in the closet 
 next to the glass-room. These probably caused 
 the two explosions that were heard, and also 
 spread the fire rapidly. The alcohol had been 
 sent there for museum purposes, and I made 
 the change by the direction of Dr. Leidy." 
 
 In a later letter Mr. Doron says that he is 
 at a loss to account for the origin of the fire, 
 as, so far as he knows, there was nothing any- 
 where in that vicinity that could take fire by 
 spontaneous combustion. My own theory has 
 always been different and is as follows : The 
 supply gas pipe went up through the south- 
 west corner of the dining and study rooms to 
 the museum above. Some leakage in this gen- 
 eral supply pipe was occasionally found and 
 repaired. An undiscovered leak must have 
 gradually filled with gas the space behind the 
 plastered partitions, and this gas, escaping 
 into the museum, had reached a small light 
 kept burning there, thus causing the explo- 
 sions heard, and, perhaps, with the alcohol, the 
 rapid spread of the fire. My own mind was 
 promptly made up at the time that the fire 
 had no other cause. 
 
 Discouraging as was this unforeseen disas- 
 ter, we did not lose hope. A large and efi&cient 
 
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 00 
 
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 h^) 
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 P5 
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PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 217 
 
 committee was appointed by the board to col- 
 lect funds, the necessary means were subscribed 
 by Friends and others, and in one year from 
 the date of the fire the college exercises were 
 resumed in the new building. The amount 
 raised was sufficient to make the needed re- 
 pairs, pay all expenses, and have enough over 
 to liquidate a mortgage of some twelve thou- 
 sand dollars, the only mortgage that was ever 
 placed upon the college. A check of Samuel 
 Willets, signed upon his deathbed, completed 
 the amount necessary to cover our loss by the 
 great fire. 
 
 Six years after the fire, 1887-88, I felt 
 that the time had come for the endowment of 
 some of our professorships. We had, as yet, 
 no alumni old enough to enable us to look to 
 them for this aid. I talked the matter over 
 with several of our managers and other friends 
 of the college, and at length William Mar- 
 shall, of Milwaukee, suggested to me the 
 idea of a conditional subscription, and papers 
 were sent out just after the commencement 
 of 1887, asking for subscriptions of large 
 or small sums toward the endowment of one 
 professorship with forty thousand dollars. 
 
218 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 The subscription papers were so drawn that 
 all subscriptions would be void if the full 
 amount was not subscribed before commence- 
 ment day of 1888, the next year. Even very 
 small subscriptions were received ; the amounts 
 varied from small sums to fifty dollars, one 
 hundred dollars, etc., a few reaching the one- 
 thousand-dollar mark. Samuel Marshall him- 
 self contributed seven thousand dollars, and 
 Daniel Underbill, Sr., subscribed one thou- 
 sand dollars, if we came within that amount 
 of the forty thousand dollars before the com- 
 ing commencement. As time passed I sent 
 out other and more urgent subscription pa- 
 pers, naming the sum reached and reminding 
 our friends of the danger of losing it all if 
 the required amount should not be reached 
 within the time named. Within about three 
 weeks of commencement some thirty thousand 
 dollars had been secured. At this time the 
 board appointed a collection committee to aid 
 in raising the last ten thousand dollars. Soon 
 after I met and urged two of our most wealthy 
 members to subscribe, they having not yet 
 done so, to my very great surprise. They put 
 me off without an absolute refusal, but were 
 '' not quite ready to do so yet." 
 
I 
 
 88 
 
 H 
 
 I— I 
 
 w 
 
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 P5 
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 C5 
 
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PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 219 
 
 Commencement day now drew very near, and 
 still I saw no prospect of a successful close of 
 the forty-thousand-dollar subscription. But 
 finally word came to me that the board had 
 assumed responsibility for the amount needed 
 to make my own collections valid. 
 
 About this time, a few days before com- 
 mencement, Isaac H. Clothier invited me to 
 dine with him at his home at Wynnewood, 
 and after dinner he explained to me the sit- 
 uation, which was substantially this : he and 
 Joseph Wharton had seen Isaiah V. Wil- 
 liamson (later the founder of the Williamson 
 Free School of Mechanical Trades at Elwyn, 
 Pa.) and they three had agreed that if the 
 board would assume responsibility for the 
 sum necessary to make up my subscriptions 
 to forty thousand dollars, they would each 
 give forty thousand dollars additional, thus 
 securing the endowment of four professor- 
 ships instead of one. This good news I was 
 authorized to announce at commencement. 
 
 Since that year, 1888, seventeen years have 
 passed, and until the present year no addi- 
 tional endowment had been obtained. But 
 now, through the influence and labor of Presi- 
 dent Swain, the general endowment fund has 
 
 v/ 
 
 ^ 
 
220 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 been increased until it has reached one mil- 
 lion dollars. As already stated elsewhere, the 
 eldest son of my friend Isaac H. Clothier has 
 endowed the chair of Physics with fifty thou- 
 sand dollars. He is the first alumnus to con- 
 tribute to the college such a sum ; but he is 
 likely to be far from the last, as time will show. 
 I may mention another notable instance of 
 the kind of support that I have received from 
 Isaac H. Clothier in times of need through 
 the laborious and anxious years devoted to the 
 building up of our new college. Soon after 
 the opening, through the aid of Benjamin 
 Lippincott, a friend in Washington connected 
 with the post-oflBce department, I secured the 
 establishment of a post-ofBce at our railroad 
 station. Of this I was appointed postmaster. 
 At that time the salaries of third-class post- 
 masters were based upon the income from the 
 stamps sold by the office. Several members 
 of the board, and others residing elsewhere, 
 patronized the office by purchasing their 
 stamps of us instead of buying at their offices 
 near home. This increased the amount of the 
 postmaster's salary until it amounted to over 
 two thousand dollars a year. Receiving my 
 salary as president, I felt that my time was 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 221 
 
 the property of the college, and that I could 
 not honorably draw another salary at the 
 same time. I hired, from the first, an excel- 
 lent assistant, Thomas J. Dolphin, paying him 
 well for so small an ofBce, and put the work 
 practically in his hands, as my time was full 
 of college duties. Even his salary used but 
 a small part of the amount received from the 
 sale of stamps, so I kept an accurate separate 
 account of these receipts, and used the bal- 
 ance in various ways to procure what seemed 
 most needed by the college. This I continued 
 to do until the close of my presidency in 
 1890. 
 
 My accounts as postmaster were, of course, 
 sent in regularly to Washington at the times 
 required by law. One day, word came from 
 Washington to one of our managers that I 
 was about two thousand two hundred dollars 
 behind in my account with the department. 
 Of course I had sureties, as the law required, 
 in the sum of several thousand dollars each. 
 My friend on the board, who had heard of 
 the deficiency, saw Isaac H. Clothier, and 
 proposed to refer the matter at once to my 
 sureties. But Isaac kindly said : " I must see 
 Edward first, and hear what he has to say," 
 
222 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 and he lost no time in coming to me. I was 
 almost completely stunned when I heard the 
 charges, and said at once that I had paid reg- 
 ularly every term as the payments came due, 
 and that I had filed the receipts from Wash- 
 ington. This was some time after our great 
 fire. At the time of the fire I had gone back 
 into the college after all had left it, while the 
 fire was still raging, and, by the aid of a 
 powerful and always willing laborer (John 
 Kane), had entered my office and secured the 
 package of papers which contained my post- 
 office accounts. By these, which had so nar- 
 rowly escaped destruction, I soon showed my 
 friend that there had been some mistake in 
 Washington. At his suggestion I left home 
 at once and went directly to Washington. 
 
 In the capital I found my friend Benjamin 
 Lippincott, of the post-office department, who 
 had so kindly aided me in establishing the 
 Swarthmore post-office, and he went over the 
 accounts carefully with me. This occupied two 
 or three days, and I then had the satisfaction 
 of returning home with the evidence that in- 
 stead of my owing the department over two 
 thousand two hundred dollars, there were a 
 few cents due me from the department. 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 223 
 
 The cause of the mistake neither my friend 
 nor myself ever discovered, but we supposed 
 that some one in the Washington office, or on 
 the road, had intercepted some papers, perhaps 
 with the desire of securing an appointment 
 for himself. 
 
 It was during the year when Swarthmore 
 College was located at Media — the year after 
 the fire — that our first college paper of any 
 importance, " The Phoenix," was started by the 
 students. Up to that time the faculty had felt 
 that, with so many young people in the pre- 
 paratory school, the responsibility of a regular 
 paper could not well be intrusted to them. 
 But the idea of a student paper had been 
 growing for several years, and during that 
 year, or immediately after, it became a reality. 
 The paper was called "The Phoenix," as com- ^ 
 ing from a college which had just risen from 
 its ashes ; it might have symbolized also the 
 marvelous and sudden growth of the college, 
 due to the renewed interest of Friends in it 
 on account of the recent calamity. For some 
 time we had a committee of the faculty to 
 whom the " copy " of the new paper had to 
 be presented for approval. For a time this 
 regulation caused considerable friction, and 
 
224 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 the committee in charge was not always suffi- 
 ciently consulted. The ideal condition seems 
 to me to have been attained this year (1905) : 
 ^^The Swarthmorean " has been established, 
 uniting with it " The Phcenix," the two papers 
 being under the joint management of members 
 of the faculty and students. 
 \/ It seems that the time of the fire was a 
 period of beginning new movements. I may 
 properly mention here the matter of athletics, 
 and the exchange of games between Swarth- 
 more and the neighboring colleges and schools. 
 Up to this time little liberty had been allowed 
 the students in this respect, and an occasional 
 surreptitious game at Media or Chester, with 
 the young fellows of ShortHdge's School, or 
 the cadets at Colonel Hyatt's Military Acad- 
 emy, was a cause of anxiety. I saw plainly 
 that the time was near for greater liberty to 
 be given the students in this matter. Some 
 of the active members of our board, however, 
 held altogether different views, and to see 
 occasional reports in the papers of games of 
 this kind played by Swarthmore students was 
 a cause of great anxiety to me. 
 
 Just about this time an infraction of our 
 rules occurred by our students playing a game 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 225 
 
 with the cadets at Colonel Hyatt's Military 
 Academy. I saw that the time had come when 
 such games, under proper rules, must be al- 
 lowed, including, of course, return games on 
 our own grounds. After consideration, the 
 faculty yielded this point, to the great satis- 
 faction of the students, and to the disgust of 
 at least a few of the managers. Indeed, we 
 soon felt that by requiring the visiting stu- 
 dents to observe our rules as to smoking, 
 betting, and profanity, Swarthmore was really 
 exercising a good influence among the sur- 
 rounding schools. This institution of intercol- 
 legiate sports was another move toward giving 
 Swarthmore an honored and well-known place 
 among her sister colleges. The strict regula- 
 tions of the early days were due to the num- 
 ber of students in our preparatory school, 
 already referred to, which was then so large 
 that many, who did not understand us or our 
 ultimate aims, said that Swarthmore was not 
 and must not become a college. 
 
 It was during the year 1886 that some of 
 us were much exercised on the subject of state 
 taxation of college property. As most colleges 
 were supported largely by endowments, and 
 as the cost of a college education was likely to 
 
 xy 
 
226 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 grow less as the colleges were more liberally 
 endowed, we felt increasingly, year by year, 
 that a change in our laws should be made, en- 
 tirely releasing from taxation all colleges that 
 were supported mainly by their endowments. 
 
 During the winter of 1886 I traveled much 
 among the colleges of Pennsylvania, especially 
 in the eastern part of the State, and advo- 
 cated such a change in our state laws. As I 
 passed from college to college I found a feel- 
 ing prevailing among them that such a change 
 in our laws was reasonable and desirable ; and 
 furthermore, that the endowed colleges should 
 even receive state aid, such as was then ex- 
 tended to the normal schools. Indeed, we fur- 
 ther maintained that a coUege degree should 
 be preferred to the degrees of the normal 
 schools as evidence of fitness for positions as 
 teachers in the public schools. It will be seen 
 that we aimed high, and, as we might have 
 expected, our time-serving legislators were 
 not ready to take ground so advanced. As a 
 result, we were not able to move the legisla- 
 tive committees to whom our claims were pre- 
 sented, and that work was necessarily left to 
 the slower development of time. 
 
 But another and quite as important a result 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 227 
 
 followed from my calling together the college 
 officers during that winter. This was the for- 
 mation of an Association of the Colleges of 
 Pennsylvania, similar to that already existing 
 among the New England colleges ; New Eng- 
 land at that time being quite in advance of 
 the Middle, Southern, or Western States, 
 Michigan perhaps excepted, in educational 
 matters. On February 16, 1887, we issued 
 a call for a conference of the colleges of the 
 State of Pennsylvania, to be held at Harris- 
 burg on March 1 of that year. Ten of the 
 state colleges were represented at this first 
 meeting, one half of these being represented 
 by their presidents and one half by both 
 their presidents and the presidents of their 
 boards. This meeting prepared a proposed 
 supplement to what was called "An Act to 
 exempt from taxation public property," and 
 which had been approved March 14, 1874. 
 I am confident that the proposition will yet 
 be admitted to be a proper and reasonable 
 one, but public sentiment — to which our 
 legislators are ever ready to bow assent — was 
 not then and is not yet prepared for such an 
 exemption as we proposed for the colleges of 
 the State. 
 
228 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 Among my papers is the report of President 
 Seip of Muhlenburg College, who was made 
 secretary of the new organization, stating that 
 I drew up a constitution for the association, 
 which was considered and approved at a sec- 
 ond meeting held at Franklin and Marshall 
 College, at Lancaster, on July 5 and 6, 1887. 
 The papers prepared for this meeting by Pre- 
 sident Apple and myself were presented and 
 more or less fully considered. This may be 
 regarded as the first regular meeting of the 
 association. 
 
 President Apple's paper was on " The Idea 
 of a Liberal Education." It was a masterly 
 effort, and took ground quite in advance of 
 the popular idea of a liberal education at that 
 time. He took the word '' liberal " in its larg- 
 est sense, covering the whole area of human 
 knowledge, " so far as this knowledge has been 
 reduced to scientific expression." Soon after 
 we met with a great loss in the death of Pre- 
 sident Apple, but his ideas have entered into 
 the common thought of leading educators of 
 the present day. 
 
 My own paper discussed " The Proper Eela- 
 tions of Colleges to the Educational Influences 
 of the State." A public meeting was held that 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 229 
 
 evening in the court-house at Lancaster, the 
 principal address being made by Professor 
 Edmund J. James of the University of Penn- 
 sylvania, who has recently been called to the 
 presidency of the University of Illinois. His 
 address was a powerful one, and in his clear 
 insight into conditions present and future I 
 believe that I have rarely, if ever, heard it 
 surpassed. 
 
 President Apple's address and my own are 
 printed in full in the pamphlet which gives 
 the history of our first year's work; they will 
 show what great progress has been made in 
 educational matters during the eighteen years 
 of the existence of the association. The hopes 
 therein expressed by us for the future of our 
 educational system will be seen to have been 
 largely realized in that period. 
 
 But ample room for progress in the same 
 direction is left. One lifetime, however long, 
 is infinitesimally short in considering the pro- 
 gress of the race. This we may hope to see 
 ever advancing, but may never hope to see 
 perfected, for each step upward gives us a 
 wider range of vision, and each generation 
 stands for its outlook, so to speak, upon the 
 shoulders of generations past. When we feel. 
 
230 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 as individuals, that there is nothing more for 
 us to do in the way of progress, then it be- 
 comes plain that our work is nearly ended. 
 
 I have made but a brief reference to the 
 very important meeting at Lancaster. Now, 
 as a more complete organization, " The Asso- 
 ciation of the Colleges and Preparatory Schools 
 of the Middle States and Maryland " is next 
 to the largest educational association in this 
 country, being surpassed in size only by " The 
 National Teachers' Association," which some- 
 times assembles over twenty thousand mem- 
 bers at its annual meeting, a number reached 
 during the past year at the meeting at Asbury 
 Park. 
 
 I should state here that, having in mind the 
 tendency of Friends in those days to decline 
 to work with others, I secured the introduc- 
 tion into the constitution of the association of 
 the clause : " All the decisions of this Associa- 
 tion are to be considered advisory and not 
 compulsory in their application." This was 
 evidently quite a relief to our managers, and 
 I meant that it should be. When the expenses 
 of the meetings were apportioned among the 
 colleges represented, I presented this bill to 
 our board with some fear, but I had fully 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 231 
 
 resolved to pay it myself if our auditing com- 
 mittee threw it out. But they did not, and I 
 felt that a victory had been gained, one which 
 would eventually be more valuable to the col- 
 lege than any other achieved up to that time. 
 After a few years, I felt that, Swarthmore 
 being now fairly enrolled in the list of the 
 state colleges and working in harmony with 
 them, it would be a good step to invite the 
 new association to meet at the college during 
 the summer vacation. By that means I was 
 confident our young college would become 
 much more generally and favorably known. 
 At first there was some opposition to this plan 
 among the managers, but at length they en- 
 tered into it heartily. President Seth Low of 
 Columbia University was our presiding offi- 
 cer that year, and Nicholas Murray Butler, 
 now his successor, was one of the most active 
 of the members present. It was a busy and 
 happy week for me, for naturally I was proud 
 to show to the college men of our State just 
 what Swarthmore had become (being one of 
 the youngest of the colleges of Pennsylvania), 
 and how well she could act the liberal host 
 with the large number of guests that thronged 
 her halls. 
 
232 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 During the week the Schoolmasters' Asso- 
 ciation sent a delegation to one of our sessions, 
 with the request that they be admitted to mem- 
 bership with us. At the suggestion of Provost 
 Pepper of the University of Pennsylvania it 
 was proposed to change our constitution 
 and to call the association " The Association 
 of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the 
 Middle States and Maryland." So it stands 
 to this day. 
 
 My labors during the years 1888 and 1889, 
 aside from what I had been able to accom- 
 plish within the college itself, having done 
 much to place Swarthmore in its true position 
 among the colleges of our State and nation, 
 I began to consider carefully, but without 
 consulting others, the subject of drawing to 
 a close my labors as president. Having found 
 and recommended to the board a suitable 
 successor, I planned to spend the remaining 
 years of my laborious life in the less burden- 
 some duties of a professorship. My health 
 had been mercifully preserved thus far, amid 
 all my cares and anxieties ; occupying myself 
 for several of the busiest years wholly in the 
 management of the general affairs of the col- 
 lege, without class-room work, doubtless con- 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 233 
 
 tributed to this end. The funds available for 
 the college at that time were insufficient to 
 maintain the necessary professors in the vari- 
 ous departments, but in rearranging the work 
 about this time, I had found that by releasing 
 the professor at the head of the French de- 
 partment and taking his duties myself, with 
 the aid of a young and inexperienced assist- 
 ant, I could make out the new " budget " in 
 a way that would be satisfactory to the man- 
 agers. As the result of this arrangement at 
 the close of a laborious year, my assistant in 
 French having been compelled to withdraw 
 on account of ill health, I had been forced 
 for two or three months near the end of the 
 year to carry his duties, my own class-room 
 work, and the general management of the 
 college. On commencement day, just after 
 the close of the exercises, I fell heavily in the 
 hallway, totally unconscious, and was revived 
 with difficulty. 
 
 The following vacation was not a restful 
 one to me, although we spent it all, as we had 
 some others, at a charming seaside retreat, 
 East Gloucester, Massachusetts. My nervous 
 prostration wore off, even there, but slowly, 
 and, all things considered, I felt that it would 
 
234 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 be wise for me to resign the presidency. To 
 save the managers trouble about properly 
 filling the place, I resolved that I would take 
 the step if Professor William Hyde Appleton 
 would consent to accept the position. My 
 interviews with him were frequent and my 
 persuasions earnest, but he felt that the duties 
 of his' own professorship were too congenial 
 for him to exchange them for the presidency. 
 At length, however, as I have stated before, 
 I prevailed upon him to do so ; but he would 
 consent to act for only one year, or until a 
 permanent president could be secured. By 
 private interviews with some of the more ac- 
 tive managers, I found that I could carry out 
 my desire to resign in that way. 
 
 When it became known that I had ten- 
 dered my resignation, the general remark 
 was : " Why need he retire so soon ? " But 
 I preferred to have that said of me rather 
 than, " Why did he not resign sooner ? " The 
 board expressed their regret, but I could not 
 feel it right, or even safe, for me to take any 
 other course. They accepted my resignation, 
 to take effect in one year, and gave me leave of 
 absence for that year, with my regular salary. 
 I felt that this recognition of my services was 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 235 
 
 an ample reward for all the opposition I had 
 met with on account of my differing views as 
 to the management of the college. They also 
 appointed me to the professorship of French, 
 to be assumed at the close of my year's ab- 
 sence. 
 
 The following extract from the minutes of 
 the managers of the college will show how 
 fully my labors as president were appreci- 
 ated : — 
 
 At a meeting of the Board of Managers of 
 Swarthmore College, held Sixth Month, sev- 
 enteenth, 1889. 
 
 A communication was received from Ed- 
 ward H. Magill, President of Swarthmore 
 College, in which he respectfully offered his 
 resignation thereof, to take effect at such time 
 as the Board may elect, and on motion the 
 following resolutions were adopted, to wit : 
 
 Resolved^ that the resignation of Edward 
 H. Magill as President of this College be ac- 
 cepted, to take effect on Commencement Day, 
 1890, leave of absence being granted mean- 
 while, with full pay. 
 
 Resolved, that Edward H. Magill be and 
 is hereby appointed to the position on the 
 
236 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 College Faculty of Professor of the French 
 Language and Literature, at a salary of three 
 thousand dollars ($3,000) per annum, begin- 
 ning with the commencement of the College 
 year, the Autumn of 1890. 
 
 Resolved^ that the Board place on record 
 their appreciation of the ability, the diUgence, 
 the devoted enthusiasm to the College ser- 
 vice, the faithful and zealous conduct of af- 
 fairs, which for eighteen years have marked 
 the administration of Edward H. Magill, as 
 President of this College. 
 
 Resolved, that the Secretary be instructed 
 to transmit to him a copy of these resolutions, 
 with the best wishes of the Board for the 
 restoration of his health and for his future 
 welfare. 
 
 M. Fisher Longstreth, Secretary. 
 
 Ever since the date of these resolutions, 
 Sixth Month, 1889, I have kept among my 
 treasures the original copy sent me. I have 
 also a first copy in the handwriting of my 
 lifelong friend and supporter, Isaac H. Clo- 
 thier, by whom they were drawn up. The 
 second copy is in the hand of the Secretary, 
 Dr. M. Fisher Longstreth, who will be re- 
 
PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMORE : 1871-90 237 
 
 membered as the friend most active in encour- 
 aging my appointment as submaster in Cherry 
 Street School, Philadelphia. Is it surprising 
 that now, as the end of my life is approaching, 
 I should revert with a deep sense of gratitude 
 to the names of Isaac H. Clothier and his 
 uncle, Dr. M. Fisher Longstreth? 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A year's leave of absence 
 
 1890-1891 
 
 AFTER commencement, In the summer 
 of 1889, we made the necessary prepara- 
 tions for a year abroad, in accordance with the 
 leave of absence granted by the board of man- 
 agers. All our daughters had been abroad, ex- 
 cept our second daughter, Eudora, and I was 
 determined to give her the benefit of a year's 
 travel and study. Near the end of August 
 we three, my wife, daughter Eudora, and my- 
 self, took passage for Glasgow on the steamer 
 Circassia of the Anchor Line. We selected 
 this line because, though slow, it was reputed 
 safe, and after a voyage of a little over a 
 week we reached the north coast of Ireland, 
 and passed quite near. This was the first time 
 we had seen the Irish coast near at hand, and 
 as we steamed by the Giant's Causeway, the 
 weather being fine, the captain kindly slowed 
 down the vessel that we might approach near 
 
A YEAR'S LEAVE OF ABSENCE : 1890-91 239 
 
 enough to see it to the best advantage. It was 
 truly a wonderful sight, from the low base of 
 those great columns of basaltic rock. We were 
 told that the best way to see this great work 
 of nature is to land, and walk in among the 
 columns, as in this way their regularity and 
 enormous size are more apparent. 
 
 Near nightfall we reached the mouth of the 
 River Clyde, which winds through its rocky 
 bed ; there we cast anchor for some hours to 
 await the tide. At Glasgow we saw the cathe- 
 dral, and especially the Necropolis, the city of 
 the dead, with the remarkable inscription over 
 the gate. We could tarry at Glasgow but a 
 single night. We went thence by rail to Bal- 
 loch, then sailed up Loch Lomond, with the 
 dark side of Ben Nevis rising upon our right 
 and coming down steep to the water's edge. 
 Some miles to the north we landed and took 
 the stage to the east side to Loch Katrine, 
 where we again took boat and sailed among 
 the many lovely small islands, rich in their 
 bright autumn coloring, among them the 
 charming Ellen's Isle. We wished we had 
 brought with us our Scott that we might read 
 ^' The Lady of the Lake " on the ground. 
 
 We passed by coach through the lovely 
 
240 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 shaded region of the Trossaehs where we 
 should have been glad to spend a few days to 
 enjoy the scenery, but we passed directly on 
 to Aberf oyle, and thence by train to Stirling, 
 where we stopped over night. In the early 
 morning we walked up to the castle, whence a 
 fine view can be had over a lovely country 
 of hill and vale and distant mountains, but 
 the morning being very misty we missed that 
 charming view. 
 
 At Edinburgh, we stopped at a pleasant 
 hotel on Princess Street, where the fine statue 
 of Walter Scott almost looked into our second 
 story window. The next day we attended ser- 
 vice at St. Giles's, and in the afternoon took 
 a long drive, visiting Arthur's Seat, and Craig- 
 muUar Castle, near the University. The fol- 
 lowing day we turned our steps southward, 
 leaving Scotland to be revisited in later years. 
 
 After a last look at Holyrood Castle and 
 Arthur's Seat, visiting, or rather glancing 
 at, Melrose Abbey, Abbotsford, Carlisle with 
 its castles and dungeons, and UUswater, we 
 reached Morland. Here we passed a night 
 with our friend Charles Thompson — a friend 
 who had manifested much interest in Swarth- 
 more College in its early days, and who had 
 
A YEAR'S LEAVE OF ABSENCE: 1890-91 241 
 
 presented a number of rare and Interesting 
 volumes to the Friends' Historical Library. 
 
 As the year of absence had been given me 
 by the board for purposes of preparation for 
 my labor in the French professorship, I felt 
 that I ought to get settled in Paris and at 
 work on my French — studying the language 
 and selecting books for the college library. 
 With these plans in mind, we passed, with very 
 brief visits, Keswick, Derwent Water, Helvel- 
 lyn, Thurlmere, Grasmere, Ambleside, Lake 
 Windermere, TJlverston, Swarthmore meeting 
 and Swarthmore Hall, Liverpool, Chester, 
 Eugby, Warwick, Stratford-on-Avon, Charle- 
 cote, Kenilworth, Stoneleigh Abbey, and 
 Leamington. At London we visited the Tower, 
 Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, Guild Hall, 
 the South Kensington Museum, and the 
 British Museum. Thence we proceeded by 
 way of Newhaven and Dieppe to Rouen, 
 where we had resolved to spend a few weeks 
 in the study of French, before going on to 
 Paris. As we left for home on the twenty- 
 fourth of August and reached Rouen on the 
 twenty-first of September, it will be seen that 
 we had crowded much of great interest into 
 four weeks. 
 
242 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 Having heard much of Eouen, and read 
 Victor Hugo's many references to this " City 
 of Old Streets," I was glad to be able to spend 
 some time there ; this we could do and still 
 reach Paris before the winter lecture courses 
 fairly began. 
 
 Besides the curious old city itself, I was 
 especially interested in the statue of Jeanne 
 Dare, standing near the spot where she was 
 burned at the stake, and in the home of the 
 tragedian Corneille, over the door of which is 
 painted his birth-day, 6 June, 1606. There 
 is also a statue of Corneille, who was the real 
 founder of French tragedy, and whose great 
 work was " The Cid ; " after him the prin- 
 cipal street of the city is named. Near the 
 city is a lofty hill from which there is a fine 
 view of the Seine entering through a gorge 
 in the mountains on the one side, then after 
 graceful windings through fertile meadows, 
 disappearing through another mountain gorge 
 to the north. Few landscape views are more 
 lovely and impressive than this. On this com- 
 manding height has been lately erected a fine 
 statue to the memory of Jeanne Dare. 
 
 The cathedral of Rouen, St. Ouen, is one 
 of the finest in Europe, and contains within 
 
A TEAR'S LEAVE OF ABSENCE: 1890-91 243 
 
 it the tomb of Kichard Coeur de Lion, with a 
 casket containing his heart. I much enjoyed 
 the curious ancient streets, each story of the 
 houses projecting farther out than the one 
 below it, until but a very narrow strip of sky 
 was to be seen from the street — one would 
 suppose a most unhealthy manner of building 
 a narrow street. With much of interest in 
 that old town still unexplored, late in October 
 we turned our steps toward Paris. Before 
 night we were settled there, and ready to give 
 some days to the great Exposition before the 
 courses of lectures reopened at the Sorbonne 
 and the College de France. 
 
 Besides some further study of French, and 
 the selection of French books for our library, 
 I had in mind the selection of certain works 
 suitable for a series of French text-books for 
 class-room use, which I intended to publish. 
 For my wife, daughter, and self, I employed 
 a good French teacher, as I had done in our 
 month at Rouen. The lectures claimed our 
 chief attention in the daytime ; evenings were 
 spent in reading French works, from which 
 I must make the selections for my " Modern 
 French Series." When a volume was decided 
 upon, I made it a point to see or correspond 
 
244 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 with the author, and obtain his or her per- 
 mission to reproduce the book with notes of 
 my own. I knew that many books had been 
 thus reproduced in America (through lack of 
 a proper international copyright law) without 
 the permission of the author, but I resolved 
 that this should not be said of any volume of 
 mine. I arranged with several pubhshers to 
 take home a valiseful of books to examine, 
 which involved a great deal of reading. 
 
 The first of the volumes which I chose 
 for the series was " Le Piano de Jeanne/' an 
 interesting and amusing story by the dis- 
 tinguished dramatic critic and lecturer, Fran- 
 cisque Sarcey. I visited him and had some 
 difficulty with my imperfect French (for he 
 could speak no English) in making him un- 
 derstand just what kind of permission I de- 
 sired. At length when I displayed a paper 
 for his signature he spoke up severely, saying, 
 " Ah, Monsieur Magill, je me defie de vous a 
 present ; " which in my confusion I took to 
 mean, " Now I defy you," instead of "I am 
 suspicious of you now." The conversation 
 was abruptly broken off, but I promised to 
 call again and bring with me a friend who 
 spoke both French and English. This friend 
 
A YEAR'S LEAVE OF ABSENCE: 1890-91 245 
 
 was Professor Emile Levasseur, a lecturer at 
 the College de France, and a profound stu- 
 dent and most indefatigable worker with whom 
 I had been acquainted for several years 
 through an introduction by Hon. Andrew D. 
 White. When we returned on a subsequent 
 evening. Professor Levasseur had no trouble, 
 of course, in making M. Sarcey understand 
 exactly what I wanted. 
 
 After that incident I had in M. Sarcey a 
 good friend and supporter until the time 
 of his death, a few years later. The three 
 other authors chosen were Mme. de Witt, 
 the daughter of the distinguished historian, 
 Frangois Guizot ; Anatole France, a very able 
 writer, since made an Academician ; and Jules 
 Claretie, then the eminent director of the 
 Comedie Frangaise. From each of these four 
 writers, with their permission, I selected one 
 of the four volumes which now constitute my 
 " Modern French Series." 
 
 During this winter we heard several sermons 
 by the well-known Pere Hyacinthe, and found 
 him, as we expected, a most interesting man. 
 He could speak no English, as we learned on 
 calling upon him, but he had married in New 
 York a young American lady, whom we found 
 
246 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 a very entertaining conversationist. Her hus- 
 band left the conversation of the evening 
 mostly to her. He was fully convinced that the 
 celibacy required of the Catholic clergy was 
 a serious error; and he called his church in 
 Paris, the "Free Catholic Church." He seemed 
 at that time to have a pretty large following, 
 and we found him an excellent pulpit orator. 
 
 In the latter part of the winter we had with 
 us at our boarding-house Agnes Kemp and 
 her daughter Marie, who later became profes- 
 sor of German at Swarthmore College. 
 
 As spring and the milder weather came on, 
 we visited various places of interest in and 
 near Paris. From Antwerp we sailed for home 
 on the tenth of May ; the year of preparation 
 for my work at Swarthmore as professor of 
 French was over, and I felt that it had been 
 a successful year. After a delightful passage 
 of eleven days, we reached home the twenty- 
 first. We were met at the station by the pro- 
 fessors and young njen, and escorted up the 
 asphalt walk to the front of the college, where 
 the young women were gathered to greet us, 
 and after a brief address of welcome by Act- 
 ing^President Appleton, and the singing of 
 " Home, Sweet Home," we were accompanied 
 
A YEAR'S LEAVE OF ABSENCE : 1890-91 247 
 
 to our porch, where the good-nights were ex- 
 changed. 
 
 Soon after our return, as my duties were 
 not to begin until autumn, with my daughter 
 Beatrice I attended the Indian conference 
 at Lake Mohonk, on the invitation of Al- 
 bert Smiley, — as I had done several times 
 before and continued to do for some years 
 longer. Before leaving home I gave a recep- 
 tion to my French classes, which was fully 
 attended, and much enjoyed by us all. My 
 fine strawberry-beds of several varieties were 
 just in their prime, and did their full share in 
 furnishing provisions for this and later recep- 
 tions. After our return from Mohonk we 
 enjoyed numerous social occasions with the 
 students at our home and in the college, and 
 received many visits from friends and neigh- 
 bors. 
 
 My time was much occupied in arranging 
 the French books brought from abroad, and 
 in getting ready for my new duties. The pros- 
 pect of this work, with no confining presidential 
 duties to occupy my attention, I found really 
 dehghtful. The very thought of it was restful, 
 after the laborious and anxious years toward 
 the close of my presidency. I have often 
 
248 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 thought and spoken of those years as a period 
 in which I was never occupied for a moment 
 that I did not feel that several other duties 
 claimed my attention at the same time. The 
 question was, from early morning till late in 
 the evening, Which of the half-dozen impera- 
 tive duties shall I perform first, and which of 
 them can best wait its turn on a later day ? 
 The wonder to me now is that in such a dis- 
 tracted condition of mind I did not lose my 
 mental powers. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 PBOFESSOE OF FRENCH IN SWARTHMORE 
 
 COLLEGE 
 
 1891-1901 
 
 ON beginning my French classes in the 
 autumn of 1891, it was apparent to me 
 that the French grammars then in use would 
 not answer my purpose, as I wanted to teach 
 by a much simpler system than any of those 
 employed, and to make use of many rules and 
 short cuts of my own devising. Especially 
 did I find that the forms of the verbs could 
 be more readily taught by a classification of 
 my own. As long before as the later of the 
 eight years of my submastership in the Bos- 
 ton Public Latin School, I had taken several 
 bright students through the shorter methods 
 of which I speak, and some of these did better 
 later with the master, Dr. Gardner, and after- 
 wards at Harvard, than those who had pur- 
 sued the regular course. When I suggested 
 my plan to Dr. Gardner he replied kindly, but 
 
260 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 in his brusque manner, "Teach them your 
 own way, Mr. Magill ; I don't care how you 
 get the knowledge into them, if it is only 
 there." I found that my own " Complete 
 French Grammar," published in the latter 
 years of Latin School work, would not answer 
 my purpose at all, full as it was of matters of 
 detail. I now preferred a much shorter course, 
 and this I outhned in MS. It was not long 
 before I got out another French grammar; 
 and because I taught only the essentials in it, 
 I called it a " Reading French Grammar." 
 
 I taught one or two of my classes from 
 my MS., and when the new grammar was 
 ready it was a relief. The particular method 
 of presenting the French verbs and the for- 
 mation of the parts from the few forms called 
 ^^The Principal Parts" were at that time not 
 to be found in so simple a form in any of 
 the French grammars which I had seen, but 
 the idea has been adopted in several grammars 
 which have appeared since mine. Perhaps I 
 may have suggested the idea to some of their 
 authors, but of that I naturally do not feel 
 sure. It matters not ; it was the better way, 
 and the question as to who may have origi- 
 nated it I make no concern of mine. 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 251 
 
 With the aid of this "Reading French 
 Grammar " I soon taught my classes to begin 
 reading before the end of the first week's 
 study ; and all my teaching was directed to- 
 ward this practical end, thus making the lan- 
 guage far more interesting and attractive. 
 
 The truth would seem to be that our pre- 
 sent methods of acquiring a foreign language 
 are unreasonable, and destined to disappear 
 from the class-room in the near future. Who 
 studies classified lists of names in natural his- 
 tory, for example, without any previous know- 
 ledge of the things represented by these 
 names? It is just so in studying foreign 
 words ; words express ideas, and these must 
 be in sentences, long or short, before the idea 
 can be expressed. Students should see French 
 words for the first time, not in a grammar or 
 a dictionary, but in the sentences where they 
 belong. I am very sure that this Une of 
 thought will be followed out by the generation 
 of teachers now coming on the stage. 
 
 I might not be so well convinced of this had 
 I not made practical appUcation of it in the 
 case of one of mature mind — who could read 
 ordinary French in a few months, and who, in 
 the past two years, has read the New Testa- 
 
262 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 ment in French, and a good deal of the Old 
 Testament, besides several French works of 
 well-known authors. This person has not had 
 a verb to conjugate, or been forced to learn 
 any of the details commonly found in our 
 grammars. Nor is this student deficient in 
 understanding the language when the appeal 
 is made to the ear instead of the eye. Of 
 course I speak of a mature and well-trained 
 mind, yet this has been accomplished in the 
 midst of many duties and cares. 
 
 After my " Reading French Grammar " was 
 completed I turned my attention to obtaining 
 good and interesting reading matter for my 
 classes, and for this purpose my "Modern 
 French Series " of four volumes was brought 
 out. To complete the series more easily, I 
 spent several vacation-times in Paris. These 
 volumes were so selected that the students 
 would be inclined to read them, primarily, for 
 the story told, and would, in a measure, forget 
 that the object of the lesson was training the 
 eye, ear, and hand in the French language. 
 First came the training of the eye to know 
 the words as used in sentences, when seen ; 
 then the ear, to recognize the same words and 
 sentences when heard 3 and lastly the hand, 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 253 
 
 to write the language when it was read or 
 spoken. The primary part of this teaching 
 was begun after two or three lessons spent in 
 explaining the sounds, and accustoming the ear 
 to hear and the tongue to utter these sounds, 
 the first practice being upon the French alpha- 
 bet, which the students were trained to repeat, 
 singly and in concert, in the first few lessons. 
 Others may find fault with this system, but I 
 think that my course was different in several 
 respects from that usually followed. 
 
 Brief conversations on other topics than 
 those in the book were gradually introduced. 
 Soon after the first few weeks, brief dictees 
 would be written — short test sentences from 
 the lesson of the day, in modified forms. Jn 
 using my own " Reading French Grammar " 
 I required all the French examples to be trans- 
 lated both ways — from French into English 
 and from English into French ; this was done 
 viva voce when seen or heard. 
 
 Another feature of the book was that the 
 exercises were so arranged that I spent no 
 time out of class in correcting written exer- 
 cises. This labor, or rather drudgery, I always 
 considered the least productive of good results. 
 But such corrections must be made, and how ? 
 
254 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 By a proper use of the blackboards. These I 
 had permanently ruled in columns and num- 
 bered. Out of class I put on slips of paper 
 English sentences covering the points to be 
 illustrated in the lesson, and placed one of 
 these papers at the foot of each ruled column, 
 on the chalk-shelf. In my forty-five minutes 
 (the length of our class periods) I called on 
 the pupils to go to the board, place their 
 names at the head of the ruled columns, and 
 put the English sentences on the papers into 
 good idiomatic French. Of these columns there 
 were twelve ; — in this way, I could call on 
 all of a class of twenty-four in the forty-five 
 minutes, have the French written on the 
 board, and, what is of the greatest importance, 
 have it all corrected before the class, giving 
 the reasons for each correction. Thus I 
 wasted no time out of class in poring over 
 papers to be carefully corrected and returned 
 to the student, with complicated explanations. 
 These many students never even look at, but 
 consign to the fire unread. 
 
 The interest thus inspired in a class is truly 
 remarkable, and the progress is rapid. The 
 attention of all, while each correction is being 
 made and explained, makes a profound im- 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 255 
 
 pression, and saves a great deal of time. Others 
 may follow similar courses now, but I have 
 never been present in a school where such a 
 system was practiced. I give this here as an 
 important feature of my work in French. 
 
 It was quite early in the opening year of 
 my professorship of French that I introduced 
 a system of international correspondence be- 
 tween our students of French and French 
 students in France who were studying Eng- 
 lish. It was a system devised by Professor 
 Mieille in southern France, and had made con- 
 siderable headway among students of French 
 in Eno^land and those in France who were 
 studying English. But the length of time 
 required to cross the ocean had prevented 
 its earlier introduction here. Each student 
 wrote a letter in the foreign language and 
 sent it abroad to a student in the foreign 
 country whose name and address had been 
 given him. A general bureau in each country, 
 where letters were sought, being established, 
 the students being once paired, each received 
 the foreign letter, written in his own language, 
 and sent it back to the writer properly cor- 
 rected. In this way the idioms in common use 
 in both languages were taught to the foreign 
 
256 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 student^ instead of the more formal mode of 
 speech found in books. A slight attempt had 
 been made in this direction by my son-in-law, 
 Professor Thomas A. Jenkins, while teaching 
 French in Vanderbilt University, and so far 
 as known his was the first work of this kind 
 attempted in this country; but we got it into 
 working order at Swarthmore, and after start- 
 ing thus in the French department, it was 
 also undertaken in the department of Ger- 
 man — the bureau of the United States being 
 thus established at Swarthmore. A slight 
 charge, to cover actual expenses of postage 
 and stationery, was made. This work became 
 after a time so laborious, although very pro- 
 fitable to the students, that I arranged later 
 with Professor B. L. Battin of the German 
 department and Professor Isabel Bronk of the 
 French department to give assistance in their 
 respective departments. It was thus carried 
 on successfully for some time, and was recog- 
 nized by the Modern Language Association 
 of America, in which we were appointed a 
 committee on this subject, and in the course 
 of a few years several thousand students in 
 France, Germany, England, and the United 
 States were thus paired, and gained many de- 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 257 
 
 cided advantages in the study of the foreign 
 language. But to give attention to all the 
 needed details involved so much labor, both 
 in term time and vacation, that for the past 
 few years it has been entirely given up, and 
 the committee of the Modern Language Asso- 
 ciation has been released at their own request. 
 I mention here this work in the hope that 
 some of my readers may see a more practical 
 and simple way of introducing this interchange 
 of letters in various countries, and thus, in 
 time, the nations may be more closely united 
 — and universal peace come as a natural re- 
 sult — for 
 
 ** Mountains interposed make enemies of nations, 
 Who had else like kindred drops been mingled into one." 
 
 Before passing to a further consideration of 
 the work of my regular professorship, I may 
 say that there were other interests connected 
 with that opening year, some wholly personal, 
 and others affecting the welfare of the college 
 in a larger sense than could any personal af- 
 fairs of my own. It was the year of Professor 
 Appleton's incumbency of the presidency, as 
 he had accepted the appointment for that year 
 alone. 
 
 About the time of the opening in Septem- 
 
258 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 ber, my eldest daughter, Helen, who has been 
 named as one of the six graduates of our first 
 class in 1873, was married to the Hon. An- 
 drew D. White. The marriage took place in 
 the president's house, which we occupied that 
 year. The ceremony was in the usual form of 
 Friends, and it had been arranged for Edward 
 Everett Hale to read the marriage certificate, 
 but he being necessarily absent, that impres- 
 sive service was performed, at my request, by 
 my friend Isaac H. Clothier. 
 
 After the wedding I turned with renewed 
 interest to my duties in the college as a simple 
 professor. Having had so many subjects re- 
 ferred to me during my presidency, on enter- 
 ing upon these later duties I resolved that it 
 should never be said of me that I assumed, by 
 the slightest impHcation, any authority which 
 belonged properly to the president. When 
 my counsel was asked by our president, or the 
 faculty, I gave them the best that my experi- 
 ence enabled, and felt that the counsel asked 
 being thus given, I had no authority to carry 
 it farther. 
 
 ■ It is so often seen and said that one in the 
 position of ex-president through former habit 
 is in danger of giving counsel unasked ; and, 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 259 
 
 "what is even worse for all concerned, of en- 
 deavoring to urge this counsel unduly. Of 
 course, I observed with great interest what had 
 been my work in the past now progressing un- 
 der the direction of others, and nothing could 
 be more encouraging or pleasant to me than 
 to see theirs, from added experience, surpassing 
 my own, as time passed on. I may say here 
 that I have never had cause to regret, for a 
 single day, my laying down the presidency, 
 and having it pass into other hands. 
 
 In the way of retrospect, at this writing 
 (1905), or sixteen years later, I may say that 
 the constant progress of the college has be- 
 come to me increasing cause for gratitude and 
 consolation. How often have I said that one 
 of our best and most active managers, John 
 D. Hicks, spoke with truly prophetic vision 
 when he said that in the time to come the 
 early founders would find that they were 
 ^^ building better than they knew." 
 
 Aside from my duties as professor of 
 French, I was deeply impressed with the re- 
 ligious situation » of the college. This being 
 the case, I was called to speak to our students 
 in our First-day (Sunday) morning meetings 
 on subjects connected with their highest 
 
260 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 interests, and upon which I felt at times that, 
 whether professor or president, I could not 
 keep*silent. In addressing the students I had 
 a constant desire to speak as if assuming no 
 authority but such as any concerned Friend 
 on the faculty might properly exercise. I be- 
 lieve that in this statement all the presidents 
 who have followed me — Presidents Appleton, 
 De Garmo, Birdsall, and President Swain now 
 in ofi&ce — would unanimously agree. As the 
 last decade of the nineteenth century passed, 
 and the first of the twentieth approached, this 
 religious concern seemed to grow upon me, 
 and up to the hour of this writing it has con- 
 tinued with me. I had no fixed and formal 
 creed to promulgate, no really new truths to 
 utter; the burden seemed to be the impropri- 
 ety of narrow sectarian preaching and of the 
 promulgation of fixed forms of creed. I urged 
 that our religion should be one involving our 
 lives, conduct, and character. 
 
 It was at this period that I endeavored to 
 secure in our town of Swarthmore (and, as a 
 means to this end, with the approval of the 
 president of the college) the union of the 
 various churches in the services of Thanks- 
 giving day. Dr. Jackson, minister of the Pres- 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 261 
 
 byterian church, was from the beginning my 
 zealous supporter in this undertaking; and 
 the first of these union meetings was held 
 in his church. I was appointed to give the 
 Thanksgiving sermon. 
 
 The next year a similar union Thanks- 
 giving service was held in the Union church, 
 and Dr. Jackson delivered the sermon. The 
 church was well filled with representatives 
 of all the denominations except, I think, the 
 EpiscopaUans. They thought it right to hold, 
 as on the previous year, separate services in 
 their own church. 
 
 The following year I proposed that the 
 Friends should come next in turn. After 
 obtaining the consent of our president, I ap- 
 plied next to the managers; and their con- 
 sent being obtained, the house was opened — 
 it being the first time, so far as I can learn, 
 that a meeting-house of ours had been opened 
 for such a purpose. The meeting was a most 
 impressive one, and the house was well filled 
 with our own members and members of all 
 the other churches in town, except the Episco- 
 paUans. There were seven or eight who spoke, 
 and our Friends and others said of it that it 
 was a very satisfactory and impressive service. 
 
• 262 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 It was desired by the committee in charge 
 that the services in each church should be 
 the same in form as that observed by the 
 denomination. The fourth year it seemed 
 that the time had now come for us to hold 
 the services in the Episcopal church, if the 
 members would consent and unite with us. 
 The rector, Mr. Matos, said he could not give 
 permission without consulting the bishop. On 
 making the request, the bishop replied that 
 he, as bishop, could not, by their rules, give 
 consent, but if Mr. Matos thought that the 
 conditions in the neighborhood made it de- 
 sirable to open the church for that purpose, 
 he would not forbid it, but leave it to the 
 discretion of the minister in charge. We 
 three, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Matos, and myself, 
 met in a committee, and made the arrange- 
 ments for opening the church, it being under- 
 stood that the Episcopalians would hold a 
 separate service of their own at an earlier 
 hour on Thanksgiving morning. We also 
 decided to ask President Birdsall to make the 
 address. Thanksgiving day came, and all went 
 ofP as arranged ; the house, being small, was 
 crowded, seats and aisles, to the door. The 
 services were such as Episcopalians would ap- 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 263 
 
 prove, with singing, responses, etc., and Presi- 
 dent Birdsall made a wise, careful, and in 
 every way most satisfactory address. After 
 the meeting was over, general congratulations 
 were in order and freely expressed. We felt 
 assured that now, since the four churches had 
 each been thus opened on four Thanksgiving 
 days, a movement toward church unity, at 
 least in Swarthmore, had been fairly made. 
 Thus the union service, at Swarthmore, on 
 Thanksgiving day was established. In this 
 work, tending to bring the various denomi- 
 nations nearer together, and to make them 
 see more clearly that, whatever their forms of 
 worship may be, they are really one in spirit, 
 my heart was deeply interested. 
 
 During my year's leave of absence, at the 
 close of my presidency, as Professor Appleton 
 had accepted the presidency only temporarily, 
 the board naturally felt some anxiety as to 
 my permanent successor. They were con- 
 stantly on the lookout for a suitable person ; 
 but no one was presented who, in every re- 
 spect, satisfied the wishes of that governing 
 body. The same anxiety continued after my 
 return. In the fall of that year, 1890, a suit- 
 able man was found. This man was William 
 
264 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 Dudley Foulke, son of Thomas Foulke, of New 
 York; he was elected to the office Twelfth 
 Month (December) first, 1890. On Second 
 Month (February) twenty-eighth, his brother- 
 in-law was accidentally killed on the railroad, 
 and the duties of administrator of the large 
 property of the wife devolved upon him. On 
 the same day, Clement M. Biddle met the 
 faculty and students, and announced that 
 President-elect Foulke had withdrawn; this 
 was after the invitations had been already 
 issued for his inauguration. It was a great 
 disappointment, as all were rejoicing in the 
 prospect of a permanent president, especially 
 as the man chosen was a well-known member 
 of the Foulke family — a family known as con- 
 nected, for some generations, with school and 
 meeting interests among Friends. Perhaps 
 the best known of this family was, next to 
 William D. Foulke, Joseph Foulke, whose 
 boys' school, and whose ministry in our So- 
 ciety, were very widely known. One of this 
 family, too, had been almost the first of 
 Swarthmore's superintendents — the genial, 
 kindly spirited Thomas S. Foulke, whose wife, 
 Phebe W., was the matron of the college in 
 its earlier years, being the successor of the 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 265 
 
 first year's matron, Helen G. Longstreth. All 
 of these connections had made our board feel 
 well satisfied in the anticipated inauguration 
 of one so well known and so highly esteemed 
 for himself, and of such a family, as William 
 Dudley Foulke. 
 
 The board now began to feel anxious lest 
 the ofSce of president would not be filled in 
 time to make the necessary preparations for 
 the next college year, and I was requested by 
 some of the more active members of the board 
 to aid them in finding a good successor to 
 President Appleton. To do this I found it 
 expedient to close my French classes early, 
 and to start West to see, before commence- 
 ment-time, some desirable men of whom I 
 knew through my connection with various 
 educational associations. I wished to judge 
 of their work before they had left for the 
 summer vacation. 
 
 After visiting several of these who, in my 
 mind, were promising candidates, I heard of 
 one who seemed to me the most promising. 
 After some correspondence with this profes- 
 sor, I arranged for a meeting with him at 
 the Palmer House, Chicago. This man was 
 Charles De Garmo. Although not a Friend 
 
266 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 in name, he was one in principle, and I felt 
 assured that his being of a Friends' family 
 would help him with our board. That he was 
 of such a family I considered to be of impor- 
 tance on their account; but that he was a 
 scholar and a born educator was what I quickly 
 discovered. This, in my mind, was of far 
 greater importance than the family to which 
 he belonged, if he was to attempt to make our 
 college take an honored place among the col- 
 leges of our State and country. 
 
 Professor De Garmo was a graduate of the 
 State Normal University of Normal, Illinois. 
 He had been principal of the public shools of 
 Naples, Illinois, for three years ; then assist- 
 ant training-teacher at the State Normal Uni- 
 versity. He had studied in Germany, and 
 taken the degree of Ph. D. at Halle Univer- 
 sity; he had then been professor of modern 
 languages for several years in his Alma Mater, 
 and had been professor of psychology there 
 one year when we met in Chicago. All these 
 facts, and the strong personality of the man 
 himself, decided me very soon to request 
 Clement M. Biddle, then one of the most ac- 
 tive members of our board, to telegraph Pro- 
 fessor De Garmo at once to meet the board at 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 267 
 
 Swarthmore. Upon this he promptly started 
 east, met the board, and was elected, after the 
 first interview, without a dissenting voice. 
 
 I may mention here that Clement M. Biddle 
 added to his many favors before rendered the 
 gift of a sum of money to pay my travel- 
 ing expenses that summer, when in search of 
 a president. I am not sure that any other 
 person knows, to this day, of this but myself. 
 Thus he consistently followed the precept: 
 ^^Let not thy right hand know what thy left 
 hand doeth." This was all the more noble in 
 one with whom I had been compelled to dif- 
 fer so often in important matters connected 
 with the management of the college. 
 
 I have always felt that in securing Charles 
 De Garmo as our president I did a real ser- 
 vice to the college. His services were well 
 appreciated by the board and the faculty, and 
 he was successful as a governor of young 
 men. Through his influence in the West a 
 number of excellent students were attracted to 
 Swarthmore. His ability to train teachers, as 
 shown by his excellent classes in pedagogics, 
 was highly appreciated by the board, and by 
 all of us who were associated with him. 
 
 Not many years after the appointment of 
 
268 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 Dr. De Garmo, who each year better satisfied 
 me that our board had made no mistake in 
 his appointment, he called me into his office 
 one day and informed me that he had been in- 
 vited to accept a professorship of pedagogics 
 at Cornell University. Situated as he was at 
 Swarthmore, and knowing how much I de- 
 sired him to remain, he was at first inchned 
 to refuse this flattering offer ; but because 
 at Cornell he would be in charge of the very 
 department in which he felt the most interest, 
 he had concluded to resign the presidency and 
 accept the position at Cornell. Deeply disap- 
 pointed though I was, I could see, knowing the 
 situation and all the circumstances as I did, 
 that I should have done the same were our 
 positions reversed. I could not censure him ; 
 and one of the first questions that I asked 
 him was whom he considered as best qualified 
 to take his place. He at once named William 
 W. Birdsall, whose successful work as princi- 
 pal of Friends' School at Fifteenth and Kace 
 streets he had noted and admired. I saw Wil- 
 liam W. Birdsall at once, and asked him if he 
 would accept the presidency if it were offered 
 him, and although quite hesitant at first, he 
 promised to accept if elected by the board. 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 269 
 
 The result is well-known. President Bird- 
 sail gave us a few years of good service, both 
 by his work in the college and whenever he 
 spoke in public meetings on matters of col- 
 lege concern. At length, finding that the 
 work of a college — to which he was not 
 accustomed — was not well suited to him, he 
 was released at his own request. Some two 
 years later he accepted the headship of the 
 Girls' High School in Philadelphia, a highly 
 important and influential position. 
 
 At the beginning of my professorship of 
 French, with my warm friend for many years, 
 Professor Appleton, as president, with work 
 no longer scattered and distracting, and with 
 health renewed by a year's respite from labor, 
 I could repeat with deep feeling the words 
 of the Psalmist: "My lines have fallen in 
 pleasant places ; I have a goodly heritage." 
 With renewed health and courage I looked 
 forward to the future of the college, and an- 
 ticipated for it a fulfillment of the highest 
 hopes of its early founders. It seemed not un- 
 reasonable to suppose that I might yet, within 
 the limits of my own lifetime, see those earnest 
 hopes fulfilled. Knowing how long it had 
 taken the two leading colleges at that time, 
 
270 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 Yale and Harvard, to develop into colleges of 
 the highest grade before claiming the name 
 of universities, I felt that our comparatively 
 rapid growth was now cause for gratitude to 
 the Great Giver of all things. 
 
 I have already spoken of my great interest 
 in my class-room work, and my desire to make 
 the work there easy, pleasant, and attractive 
 to the students. I had at this time frequent 
 talks with President Appleton about the old 
 idea of making work hard for students. We 
 agreed that the great business of the teacher 
 should be to make more smooth and plain 
 the road to the temple of knowledge, and not 
 to increase the stumbling-blocks on the way. 
 Culture, we were also agreed, was not advanced 
 by many features of the antique methods. 
 Hence it was that in my "Modern French 
 Series " I made the notes full and clear. So 
 much attention did I give to this that a re- 
 viewer of my books, Mr. Talcott Williams, 
 speaking of my notes, called them the 
 " crutches which I offered to help students on 
 their way." I was not in the least troubled by 
 this criticism, for I believed that " crutches " 
 to aid were far preferable to stumbling-blocks 
 to hinder — which latter would be in accord- 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH : 1891-1901 271 
 
 ance with the old idea of giving the mind 
 strength by heavy work. 
 
 To select the four volumes for my "Modern 
 Series " of which I have spoken, I passed the 
 summer of 1893 in Paris, with my future son- 
 in-law, Thomas A. Jenkins, a graduate of our 
 class of 1887, engaged since his graduation to 
 my youngest daughter. His marriage, which 
 had been postponed some years that he might 
 complete his education at Johns Hopkins Uni- 
 versity, took place at our Swarthmore home 
 in June of the following year (1894). He 
 was soon after appointed to a professorship of 
 Romance languages at Vanderbilt University, 
 Nashville, Tennessee. 
 
 After teaching French several years, the 
 work, including the necessary correction of 
 papers, began to wear upon me, and I saw that 
 some assistance would soon be necessary. I 
 decided that I had better resign the professor- 
 ship of French, and ask to retain connection 
 with the college as lecturer on French litera- 
 ture. In suggesting a successor (although I 
 have always feared the nepotism which some 
 men have indulged in) I could not lose the 
 opportunity of securing a good professor be- 
 cause he was my son-in-law. I urged President 
 
272 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 Birdsall to go and see Professor Jenkins at 
 his work in Vanderbilt University, in which 
 I had been assured he was making good suc- 
 cess. I offered to aid the department by a 
 course of lectures, at a much reduced salary, 
 as I knew the college could not pay a pro- 
 fessor properly and continue my salary after 
 my partial retirement. On President Bird- 
 sail's return he reported to me that his visit 
 had been a satisfactory one. I felt sure, 
 although, with his usual caution, he did not 
 say so, that I should be released and that my 
 place would be taken as I proposed. 
 
 I had spent the summer vacation of 1899 
 with my son-in-law and his family in Nash- 
 ville, and found there comfort and consolation 
 after the death of my wife, who passed away 
 a few months before, after a long and painful 
 illness. Under the circumstances the com- 
 panionship of my youngest daughter, Marian, 
 her husband, and their three children, was a 
 comfort and a solace, and the memory of 
 that sad but happy summer is ever before me. 
 I returned to Swarthmore, where my third 
 daughter, Beatrice, then at the head of our 
 department of art, as she had been for several 
 years, spent with me the following year in 
 
PROFESSOR OF FRENCH: 1891-1901 273 
 
 the pleasant home of my good friend, Profes- 
 sor Beardsley, of whom I have spoken in these 
 memoirs. Although supplied with an assistant 
 and with aid in correcting the written work in 
 French, my work wore upon me very much, 
 and I spent weeks confined to my chamber — 
 the first time I had lost so many consecutive 
 days since the opening of the college in 1869. 
 The vacation of the following summer, 1900, 
 I spent at the University of Chicago, with the 
 family of Professor Jenkins, who had left 
 Vanderbilt University, and by the invitation 
 of President Harper was teaching in the sum- 
 mer session of Chicago University. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 PROFESSOR EMERITUS 
 1901 
 
 IT had been decided that Professor Jenkins 
 should assume my place at Swarthmore in 
 the autumn, and we had much to confer upon, 
 busy though he was with his summer's work 
 at Chicago. During these conferences I was 
 more convinced than ever that with him as 
 permanent head the department would fall 
 into safe hands. It was especially satisfactory 
 to me that my successor was one of our own 
 graduates. 
 
 My health was still somewhat frail from 
 overwork, but by care I gave my course of 
 lectures to general satisfaction. During the 
 winter President Harper, who had carefully 
 observed Professor Jenkins's work at Chi- 
 cago, and being ever on the lookout for good 
 teachers, sent him an invitation to accept 
 a professorship of Romance languages in the 
 University of Chicago. As my son-in-law was 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 275 
 
 thus invited to go up higher, and with a 
 salary considerably in advance of what we 
 could then afford, he did not feel at liberty to 
 decline the offer. Nor could I urge him to do 
 so. I saw then, as I had seen for some time 
 past, that unless Swarthmore had much larger 
 endowments than she had as yet secured, 
 we should lose our best professors, year by 
 year, as they would receive better offers else- 
 where. 
 
 Thus it was that one year was all that it 
 was permitted us to enjoy together in our 
 home on Elm Street. To succeed my son-in- 
 law, the board secured the services of Dr. 
 Isabel Bronk, who had completed a post-grad- 
 uate course in Chicago and taken there the 
 doctor's degree. But the reader will ask. How 
 could so competent a person be thus readily 
 obtained, to fill a position left vacant by one 
 who had gone up higher ? Much as I regret 
 to say it, it was because the services of women 
 are still underpaid ; they are not yet paid (as 
 they surely will be at no distant day) the same 
 salaries as men, though they do the same 
 work. Indeed, I must assert that with equal 
 educational opportunities, if there be any dif- 
 ference in the quality of the work done by 
 
276 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 professors or teachers, it is likely to be in 
 favor of women. This positive statement may 
 be denied to-day, but the time is coming, and 
 is not far distant, when it will be no longer 
 questioned. But with the resources of the col- 
 lege so limited, Swarthmore could not then 
 take this stand. 
 
 My daughter and her family must now leave 
 me to make their home in Chicago, where, at 
 the university, the work of her husband was 
 likely to be required for many years. With 
 Professor Bronk to train the classes in French, 
 when the summer vacation began, all seemed 
 plain for the coming year. It was arranged 
 that my daughter Beatrice should reside with 
 me in Elm Street, where we had spent the 
 previous year. 
 
 It was during the vacation of 1901 that I 
 renewed my acquaintance with one who had 
 for a number of years made a happy home for 
 my second daughter, Eudora, in New York 
 city, where the latter is employed in the astro- 
 nomical department of Columbia University. 
 Little had I dreamed that, as the evening of 
 a busy life was approaching, there was still 
 reserved for me the glory of the evening star, 
 in the prospect of a renewal of domestic life. 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS : 1901 277 
 
 As a result, my health, much broken by the 
 anxieties and sorrows of the few preceding 
 years, rapidly recovered, and after the sum- 
 mer vacation was over I returned to my work 
 as lecturer on the French language and lit- 
 erature for the following year. My daughter 
 Beatrice and myself, with our housekeeper, 
 now constituted the family. As we were both 
 lecturers at the college, we read our lectures 
 to each other, and profited mutually by our 
 criticisms of each other's work. 
 
 By permission of President Birdsall, my 
 course of lectures was slightly shortened to 
 prepare for my marriage, which took place on 
 the twenty-fourth of April, 1902. Two days 
 later my wife and I set sail for Europe, to 
 spend about four months in traveling in 
 Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Holland, 
 Germany, France, and England. Many of the 
 places we then visited were seen by myself for 
 the second or third time, but all were new to 
 my wife. 
 
 During those four months of travel we read 
 a great deal together, and I found that my 
 " life as a teacher " was far from ended ; I 
 now resolved to put into practice what I had 
 come to beUeve in more and more, i. e. that 
 
278 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 In studying a new language no grammar 
 should be taught ; or rather not until facility 
 in reading and some facility in speaking be 
 first attained. I began at once with an easy 
 and interesting specimen of the literature of 
 the French language ; told my wife the mean- 
 ing of the words as she first saw them in their 
 places in the text, translating them at once 
 into English, without pronouncing the French. 
 Before our journey of four months was over, 
 she had read a number of French books, un- 
 derstanding them as well as though they were 
 written in English. Thus the eye was first 
 trained. 
 
 Later on, after our return, I taught her the 
 pronunciation of the words ; and notwithstand- 
 ing the many cares of a very busy life, she 
 could soon recognize the words without seeing 
 them when they were pronounced, the ear be- 
 ing thus trained after the eye. It is true that 
 the mind with which I had to deal was a mind 
 naturally very bright and active, and that my 
 wife had had excellent training in her own 
 language in her earlier years. With the prac- 
 tice that she has had in French thus far, she 
 reads and understands French books, without 
 translation, about as well as she could were 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 279 
 
 they printed in English, and this too without 
 a conscious attempt to express the thought in 
 Enghsh words. - 
 
 I may remark, in passing, that a friend re- 
 cently from Paris brought us four little vol- 
 umes by Claude Marcel, pubHshed by Larousse, 
 by which the French are taught English in 
 the way I have here described.^ M. Marcel 
 explains in detail the natural course to pursue 
 in teaching English to French people ; in his 
 simple reasoning he follows exactly the course 
 which I have pursued, and for similar reasons. 
 To teach the reading, speaking, and writing 
 of any new language, this is the method that 
 is destined to be generally adopted in the 
 future. Although at one time I was inclined 
 to ridicule Dr. Sauveur and his system of 
 teaching, attacking first the language as it is 
 spoken, before analyzing it and dwelHng upon 
 the theory of its construction, I am now in- 
 clined to beheve that he was right, and that 
 the rapid methods of the Berlitz schools of 
 languages are based upon a sound and sensible 
 foundation. 
 
 ^ This is the title of the little series : Methode RationellCy 
 suivant pas a pas la marche de la nature pour apprendre a lirCf 
 a entendre, a parler, et a ecrire C anglais. 
 
280 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 During our four months abroad, President 
 Birdsall having resigned, the board were seek- 
 ing a proper person to assume the presidency 
 of Swarthmore. I had had no word from the 
 college since we left New York at the end of 
 April, and as I was sitting on the upper deck 
 of a small steamer on Lake Como, some one 
 who knew me placed upon the table before me 
 a copy of an American newspaper. On tak- 
 _^ ing it up, a marked article showed the reason. 
 \y It was a notice that the board of managers 
 of Swarthmore College had offered the presi- 
 dency to Joseph Swain, president of Indiana 
 University, who had been well known to me 
 for several years. His response to the offer 
 was stated to be that he would accept only on 
 condition that an effort should be made to 
 raise six hundred thousand dollars additional 
 endowment within three years. At that time 
 the college had an endowment of four hundred 
 thousand dollars, about two hundred thousand 
 dollars of which was not general endowment, 
 but was for scholarships. The additional six 
 hundred thousand dollars proposed would 
 bring our total endowment up to a million 
 -^dollars. 
 
 I wrote President Swain immediately, urg- 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS : 1901 281 
 
 ing his acceptance only on the terms which he 
 had named, as such endowment was absolutely 
 essential to the proper growth and development 
 of the college. He has since informed me that 
 he received my encouraging note, but as his 
 conditions had already been made, it was rather 
 in the nature of a confirmation of the policy al- 
 ready determined upon, than otherwise. That, 
 however, was all I expected to accomplish. 
 
 The stipulated period of three years ended 
 at the commencement of 1905, and six hun- 
 dred and seventeen thousand five hundred 
 dollars had been raised within that time. 
 Thus the million-dollar limit which had been 
 set was considerably more than reached within 
 the time designated. About one hundred 
 thousand dollars of the addition has been used 
 to build Wharton Hall for the accommodation 
 of the young men, for a Hall of Chemistry, 
 and for new shops for the engineering depart- 
 ment. There was a general rejoicing at the ^ 
 commencement of 1905, for then, at last, after 
 its long struggles, Swarthmore had become 
 one of the few colleges in our country which 
 have an endowment of a million dollars. 
 
 When the news of the probable appointment 
 of President Swain reached us, we were, as I 
 
282 , LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 have said, in northern Italy on Lake Como. 
 We had crossed the ocean in a North German 
 Lloyd steamer, going direct to Naples. Being 
 south of the usual line of travel, we saw the 
 charming shores of the Azores. At Gibraltar 
 we longed to stop and at least set foot on the 
 great rock which with the rock on the Afri- 
 can coast opposite were called by the ancients 
 the Pillars of Hercules, and beUeved to be 
 the western limit of the earth. But there 
 was only time for a short stop at Gibraltar, 
 and the next day but one we were safely 
 landed in Naples. Here we were met by a 
 very superior guide, interpreter, and lecturer 
 employed by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Paine, in 
 whose party we traveled. He took efficient 
 charge of us at once, relieving us all of the 
 anxiety attendant upon traveling arrange- 
 ments abroad. 
 
 We visited the principal places in Italy : 
 Naples, Pompeii, and Sorrento; then Rome, 
 Florence, Pisa, and Venice; then the Italian 
 Lakes, crossing the Simplon Pass and visit- 
 ing Mont Blanc, Chamounix, Geneva, Inter- 
 laken (whence I cabled congratulations to 
 the Swarthmoreans on their commencement 
 day), the Righi with its steep ascent and cold 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 283 
 
 snowy summit, where we had the usual ex- 
 perience of failing to see the sun rise the next 
 morning. 
 
 From Interlaken we went directly to Mu- 
 nich, where we took leave of our party to make 
 a detour of a day to see Nuremberg. We had 
 counted much on having the companionship 
 of my daughter Helen and her family during 
 some weeks, and we felt especially fortunate 
 in this, as it was the last year that Mr. White 
 would be in Germany, he having decided to 
 resign after his long diplomatic career. Mrs. 
 White had advised us to see Nuremberg on 
 the way to join them. It was time well spent, 
 and few if any days of our travel were more 
 rich in interest. 
 
 The house of Albrecht Diirer, the great 
 painter, sculptor, and engraver, was one of 
 the first places we visited. It is no longer 
 private property, but has been purchased by 
 the government. A house near it, once the 
 elegant home of the wealthy Peller family, is 
 now stored with antiquities and curiosities of 
 all kinds for sale. The old walls, moats, and 
 ancient gates, relics of a bygone age, are of 
 great interest. The moats, no longer filled with 
 water, are now flower gardens and pleasant 
 
284 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 walks, forming seeming fragments of a small 
 park. In the various museums, private and 
 public, are relics of a former barbarous age in 
 the shape of horrible instruments of torture 
 of every kind; we saw several churches cen- 
 turies old, which were originally Catholic but 
 changed into Protestant churches at the time 
 of the Reformation, with the stipulation that 
 they should be preserved in the gorgeous style 
 in which they were first built. 
 
 Nuremberg was for a time the residence of 
 Melanchthon, the follower and fellow-laborer 
 of Luther. In the afternoon of this our one 
 day at Nuremberg, where one could well have 
 spent a month, we took trolley and rode a 
 short distance to the cemetery. There we saw 
 evidences in abundance of the honor in which 
 labor was held by this people. The chief orna- 
 ments on the tombs were the forms of objects 
 most closely connected with the life of the 
 sleeper below: anvils for blacksmiths; plows 
 for farmers; lap-stones for shoemakers; 
 saddles for harness-makers. On the tomb of 
 Albrecht Diirer was carved in large letters the 
 single word ^' EmigravitJ^ The following 
 lines of Longfellow are beautifully descrip- 
 tive : — 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 285 
 
 " Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent 
 
 heart, 
 Lived and labored Albrecht Diirer, the Evangelist of Art ; 
 
 " Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand, 
 Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land. 
 
 "Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he 
 
 lies ; 
 Dead he is not, but departed, — for the artist never dies. 
 
 " Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more 
 
 fair, 
 That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has 
 
 breathed its air." 
 
 Hans Sachs, the cobbler poet and satirist, 
 was, next to Diirer, the most famous citizen of 
 Nuremberg in the earlier days. 
 
 The following day we joined Mr. and Mrs. 
 White at Schandau on the Elbe, where they 
 were resting and recruiting in a delightfully 
 quiet retreat in the heart of the remarkably 
 picturesque region of Swiss Saxony. We took 
 a long carriage ride the next day, passing 
 through deep valleys. The clifPs on either side 
 of the valleys rose to a great height, some of 
 them a thousand feet or more. The tops of 
 these mountains looked like great castles, and 
 when seen from a distance seemed constructed 
 by human hands. 
 
286 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 We soon decided that it would be better to 
 locate for a time in Dresden. Mr. White was 
 called to Berlin on business, and the rest of 
 us took up our quarters in the Hotel Bellevue 
 in Dresden, situated on the Opernplatz. We 
 went to hear Wagner's " Die Meistersinger," 
 and, the opera being a long one, the curtain 
 rose according to custom at six o'clock. Just 
 at the opening of the third of the four acts, 
 in the middle of a scene, we were startled by 
 the sudden dropping of the curtain, and in 
 a moment a man stepped before it and an- 
 nounced the death of King Albert of Saxony. 
 He had been very ill for some time and his 
 death had been hourly expected. The opera 
 house was at once closed, and the city was 
 in mourning for days. The body was brought 
 to Dresden from his summer home in Silesia, 
 and the procession which formed in the streets 
 made that portion of the city where we were 
 almost impassable. On the day of the funeral 
 there were many thousands of strangers 
 thronging the streets of Dresden. Conspicu- 
 ous among them were the diplomats of most 
 of the countries of Europe in their gorgeous 
 court costume, among whom Mr. White, in 
 simple citizen's dress, represented the Ameri- 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS : 1901 287 
 
 can Republic. The funeral services were 
 in the cathedral, where the body had lain in 
 state for two days, in which space of time 
 the number of persons who passed through in 
 long procession certainly amounted to many 
 thousands. 
 
 The kings of Saxony have been Catholics 
 for several generations, though their subjects 
 are largely Protestant. When Germany ac- 
 quired Poland, it was agreed that Saxony, to 
 which that part of Poland belonged, should 
 be always under a Catholic king. It was 
 stipulated in the compromise that every king, 
 should bring up one of his children in the 
 Protestant faith ; but no king since then has 
 left any children, and the late king was suc- 
 ceeded by his nephew, who on accepting the 
 crown must become a Catholic. What a mock- 
 ery upon religion, which should be a matter 
 involving the daily life and personal charac- 
 ter without reference to the form of belief. 
 But the world advances slowly, and it is likely 
 that many generations will pass before religion 
 and the actual life are identical. 
 
 We did not remain long in Dresden after 
 the funeral of King Albert, making another 
 visit to the remarkable shores of the Elbe near 
 
288 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 s 
 
 and above Schandau. Before the end of June 
 we reached Berlin with Mrs. White. We 
 found the American ambassador temporarily- 
 located at the Kaiserhof ; an office elsewhere 
 answering the purposes of the embassy. Our 
 government was the only one represented at 
 Berlin which had not provided a residence for 
 its ambassador. Mr. White had so planned his 
 business that he could give us a good deal of 
 time in the last days of June and the first 
 days of July. 
 
 On the twenty-ninth Mr. and Mrs. White 
 took us for a long drive through Berlin and 
 its suburbs. Mr. White pointed out to us the 
 countless palaces and statues, the more an- 
 cient dating back to the time of Frederick 
 the Great, long before Prussia became a part 
 of the German Empire. A great deal of the 
 modern statuary that adorns the streets has 
 been set up since the Franco-Prussian war. 
 I have never seen any other city so profusely 
 adorned with statuary, much of it equestrian. 
 Many of these statues were pointed out to us 
 as the finest of their kind in the entire world. 
 We took supper in the evening in an open- 
 air restaurant. The number of persons pre- 
 sent, enjoying the music, the promenade, the 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 289 
 
 grove, and the eating and drinking, must 
 have been many hundreds, perhaps thousands. 
 There were many such places open in differ* 
 ent parts of the city during the fine weather 
 of the warm season. We soon saw that the 
 enjoyment of the few weeks before us in Ber- 
 lin was likely to be far beyond what we had 
 imagined. 
 
 On the first Sunday after our arrival we at- 
 tended the American Church and heard Dr. 
 Dickie, who had done so much here at home 
 in America and abroad to build it up. There 
 we met several former students of Swarthmore 
 College who had come to Berlin to complete 
 their education. With them we met Frau Dr. 
 Hempel, who was guiding many of them in 
 their advanced studies. We saw much of her 
 before our final departure from Berlin. She 
 impressed us as one of the most cultivated 
 and best-educated women we had met in 
 Germany. Students coming abroad esteemed 
 themselves fortunate in securing her services. 
 
 We found in the Industrial Museum a 
 number of interesting collections showing 
 the progress of the industrial arts for several 
 hundred years. We much enjoyed visiting 
 the wonderful porcelain works at Meissen, and 
 
290 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 the great ancestral castles of the Saxon kings 
 near by. 
 
 Our stay with my daughter, Mrs. White, 
 including the visit at Schandau, the Elbe 
 valley, Dresden, Meissen, Berlin, Potsdam 
 and vicinity, occupied us two delightful 
 weeks. She went on with us to Wittenberg, 
 Weimar, and Eisenach, taking as our guides 
 Dr. Dickie and Frau Dr. Kempel. At Wit- 
 tenberg we saw much connected with the 
 two great leaders of the Reformation, Luther 
 and Melanchthon, visiting the houses where 
 they spent most of their lives, and where they 
 died, and their tombs in the principal church 
 of the little town. The life-sized statues of 
 both stand in the entrance court of the town- 
 hall. Of these great leaders the townspeople 
 are reasonably proud. Their forms and faces 
 indicate the character of the two men. Lu- 
 ther's burly, lusty form and his large, full, 
 German face show the man to blaze the way 
 through the impenetrable forests of the super- 
 stition of his time. Melanchthon's slender 
 figure and refined face, and his gentle benign 
 expression indicate the loving spirit of the 
 man who was so much pained by the contro- 
 versies in what professed to be the church of 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 291 
 
 Christ, that when asked on his deathbed what 
 he most desired he replied, " That I might 
 see perfect harmony restored between the 
 members of the church of Christ." 
 
 Our Weimar visit greatly increased our 
 interest in Goethe and Schiller as being the 
 place where they spent a large part of their 
 lives, and wrote their imperishable works. To 
 walk the streets where they walked, and 
 breathe the air which they breathed, gives one 
 a thrilling sense of delight indescribable in 
 words. It has been said that Luther, in a way, 
 constructed the German language by his trans- 
 lation of the Scriptures and by his numerous 
 other works, and it may be said that while 
 Luther gave permanent form and rugged 
 thought to the language, Goethe and Schiller 
 gave it the beauty which it not improperly 
 claims. 
 
 The tombs of Goethe and Schiller are not 
 shown, as they are in a vault at a distance 
 from the city, which was made especially 
 for the reigning dukes of Weimar. Schiller, 
 being poor when he died, was at first interred 
 in a kind of compartment vault, which was 
 then considered more respectable than being 
 buried in the cemetery. No memorial marks 
 
292 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 the site. After ten years, when the burial 
 vault was built for the ducal family, Goethe 
 had the remains of Schiller removed to it, and 
 there arose some confusion about the skull. 
 Goethe had three skulls before him on his 
 table, trying to discover which was genuine, 
 a question finally decided on the evidence 
 of an old servant who judged by the teeth. 
 If Schiller had not died so young he would 
 doubtless have received as much attention as 
 Goethe. Although he is a more popular poet 
 to-day in Germany, both are idolized. There 
 is a great archive building in Weimar devoted 
 to their works and the literature connected 
 with them: there is much more relating to 
 Goethe than to Schiller. It is well known 
 that Goethe occupied a prominent place in 
 Weimar, was appointed to important positions 
 by the grand duke, and was financially very 
 differently situated from his intimate friend 
 Schiller. 
 
 On leaving Weimar we visited Eisenach, 
 where the ancient castle on a high peak 
 near the town and a walk through a wonder- 
 ful valley were the greatest attractions. The 
 castle was in charge of Major von Cranach 
 (a descendant of the great painter) to whom 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 293 
 
 Mrs. White had given us a letter of introduc- 
 tion when she left us to join Mr. White at 
 Leipsic, where he was to give a Fourth of July 
 address the following day. As we wound up 
 the zigzag road reaching the height where 
 the castle stood, a man coming down met us 
 and inquired if we had a letter to the major. 
 We gave him the letter, and he soon disap- 
 peared. On reaching the castle we found 
 quite a company of travelers there, and after 
 waiting some time the doors were opened and 
 a guide appeared, who took the whole com- 
 pany into the castle, conducting us through 
 the various rooms, explaining what we saw in 
 German. But German, alas, was a sealed book 
 to us. We saw the fine pictures and statuary, 
 the ancient walls and furniture, and enjoyed 
 the fine views from some of the windows, 
 though we felt disappointed to hear no word 
 from the major. But as we came out the 
 major's man met us at the door, and when I 
 gave him my card he took us back through 
 several rooms to which the general company 
 had not been admitted, and informed us that 
 the major had been called away that morning 
 after receiving our telegraphic message, and 
 had directed him to take his place and give us 
 
294 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 special attention. The rooms then shown us 
 were those of the grand duke, and were oc- 
 cupied by Goethe when he was a student in 
 Eisenach ; we saw also a number of pictures 
 of the Goethe family. It was a most interest- 
 ing supplement to the visit to Weimar the 
 previous day. 
 
 We afterwards took the walk through the 
 deep narrow valley called the Drachenslust, 
 and the Hohe Sonne, and it was a strange 
 experience indeed. For a part of the way 
 there was a narrow footpath, the cliflPs rising 
 almost perpendicular several hundred feet, 
 the sides, as high up as the eye could reach, 
 covered with green moss, and so near together 
 that the path was often too narrow for two 
 persons to walk abreast. We both felt that 
 there was some remote danger of a loosened 
 stone falling upon us from above. 
 
 Our next objective point was Frankf ort-on- 
 the-Main ; here we stopped at the Frankfurter 
 Hof. The next morning we drove some hours 
 about the city, visiting the house of Goethe's 
 father, were shown the room where the poet 
 first saw the light, a room now devoted to an 
 exhibit of many things connected with his 
 early life ; saw pictures of him and his parents 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 295 
 
 at different periods of their lives, and went 
 through the garden which, as a child, he so 
 much enjoyed ; drove over the Main to the 
 museum, and passed rather rapidly through Its 
 many rooms of fine paintings, seeing several 
 of Albrecht Diirer's and some exquisite Dutch 
 interiors by various .artists. In three of the 
 open squares of the city are famous monu- 
 ments, one a statue of Goethe, one of Schil- 
 ler, and one on which are placed standing the 
 three claimants to the honor of the Invention 
 of movable types for printing — men without 
 whose Invention the works of the two great 
 poets, Goethe and Schiller, could never have 
 been so widely known. These three men. In 
 the order of merit as here understood; are 
 Gutenberg, Faust, and Schoeffer. 
 
 In the afternoon we took cars for Homburg, 
 about forty minutes' ride, where the German 
 emperor has a schloss or castle. It Is a re- 
 storation of an ancient castle, done In the most 
 gorgeous style. We were shown through the 
 sumptuously adorned rooms. The floors were 
 as smooth as mirrors; at the entrance were 
 long rows of slippers, a pair of which each 
 of us was required to put on over our shoes 
 to save the floors. When at Homburg we 
 
296 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 had not learned of an old Roman camp hav- 
 ing been discovered within a few years. It 
 was uncovered when digging some wells, and 
 much work had been done to restore it to its 
 original condition. In a museum here we saw 
 many things found in these excavations. 
 
 From Frankfort we visited Heidelberg and 
 its ruined castle, well known to be the most 
 striking and impressive pile of ruins in Europe. 
 The broad view over the fertile fields of the 
 valley of the Neckar, with the distant Rhine 
 on the western horizon, once seen is never 
 to be forgotten. 
 
 We took steamer on the Rhine on our way 
 to Cologne, not stopping even at the attrac- 
 tive heights of St. Goar and Rhinefels, as I 
 had done on my first visit, in 1868. In some 
 respects the Hudson surpasses the Rhine, but 
 the castles and towers make the latter far 
 more impressive, because, in connection with 
 natural scenery, they give evidence of the 
 work of human hands. One always experi- 
 ences, when traveling, a sense of added beauty 
 when natural scenery is vivified by human 
 interests. That day's trip upon the Rhine in- 
 cluded the most interesting part of the valley. 
 
 At Cologne we visited the cathedral, with 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 297 
 
 its gorgeous stained-glass windows and its fine 
 pictures. We went up on the outside to high 
 points, and found very curious and interesting 
 the great flying buttresses, the statues, and 
 the great bells, the largest rung only four 
 times a year and requiring the labor of twenty- 
 four men. From the highest story we had an 
 extensive view of the Rhine, the city, and the 
 surrounding country. In traveling one should 
 always get as many views from high places 
 as possible, as they fix in the mind the various 
 objects seen, and give one pictures which hang 
 forever, while life lasts, on memory's wall. 
 
 At Antwerp we made but a brief stay, but 
 saw some of the works of the two great paint- 
 ers, Rubens and his pupil Van Dyke. We 
 greatly enjoyed Ruben s's Elevation of the 
 Cross, and his Descent from the Cross in the 
 cathedral ; and in the museum the Crucifixion 
 and the Adoration. These four pictures, with 
 their brilliant coloring, are truly wonderful 
 and wholly baffle description. In the Cruci- 
 fixion one can almost in reality see the blood 
 gushing from the side, as the Roman soldier 
 plunges in his spear. 
 
 We now had Paris before us, and as we 
 wished to spend some weeks there, our journey 
 
298 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 must continue as direct as possible, although 
 we were sorely tempted to turn aside and visit 
 Ghent and Bruges. But these, like so many- 
 other places and objects of interest, had to be 
 reserved for a future visit. As I wished to 
 make our Paris visit as profitable as possible 
 to the one student upon whom my principal 
 teaching was now exercised, my wife, we de- 
 cided to take up our quarters near the Arc de 
 Triomphe, at the home of Professor Charles 
 Marchand, who had been recommended to us as 
 a good teacher of his native language, and to 
 whom many teachers, professors, and diplomats 
 from America have gone to acquire a practi- 
 cal speaking knowledge of French. But we 
 found that if we were to do the sight-seeing 
 that we planned during a stay of three weeks 
 in Paris, we could not spend much time with 
 a French teacher except in conversation at 
 table. As the new Paris subway, the Metro- 
 politan, passed our door in Avenue Kleber, 
 and thence under the Avenue of the Champs 
 Elysees, we used it almost daily to visit the 
 Place de la Concorde, the Louvre, the Made- 
 leine, the Chatelet, the Tour St. Jacques, which 
 commands a wide view over the city, the Pan- 
 theon, Notre Dame, the garden of the Tuile- 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 299 
 
 ries, the Saint-Chapelle, the Palais de Justice, 
 the Eiffel Tower, the Eue de la Paix, the 
 Opera, and countless other places of interest 
 in that great city, which the French have some 
 reason to consider the capital of the world. 
 
 We made a visit to my friend and corre- 
 spondent of several years. Professor Gaston 
 Mouchet, who teaches English and French to 
 French students in the Ecole Colbert. He had 
 been my efficient assistant in carrying on the 
 international correspondence between students 
 in French and American colleges. We dined 
 on another occasion with Professor E. Levas- 
 seur, of the College de France, who has been 
 one of my correspondents for many years, and 
 who once spent a week with us at Swarthmore, 
 when he came over as a representative of his 
 government to visit and report upon the Ex- 
 position at Chicago. 
 
 We crossed to England by the Straits of 
 Dover, usually a very rough passage, but now 
 perfectly smooth, not a passenger being ill — 
 a great contrast with my first trip in 1869. 
 Now, for the first time, we went to Canter- 
 bury, where we found the cathedral the most 
 magnificent building we had ever beheld. 
 Whoever goes to England ought to see this 
 
300 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 great cathedral. To describe its ancient mag- 
 nificence would require a volume. 
 
 In London we took quarters for our few 
 weeks' stay at a boarding-house frequented 
 much by teachers from abroad, on St. Ste- 
 phens's Road, Bayswater, W. ; and the "Tube" 
 (the deep underground railroad) being not far 
 from us, we could enter this and be in the 
 centres of interest in a short time. But to see 
 London one must not be too closely confined 
 to travel in " tubes," — from fifty to one 
 hundred feet below the surface, — but must 
 frequently take cabs and other surface convey- 
 ances. Through the winding and intricate 
 streets it was difficult to find our way alone. 
 London being a great conglomeration of an- 
 cient villages, the streets seem to run toward 
 every possible point of the compass. 
 
 Not long after our arrival in London we had 
 a call from Miss E. A. Lawrence, the secre- 
 tary of Mr. William T. Stead of the London 
 "Review of Reviews." She had been a corre- 
 spondent of mine for some years in the matter 
 of the international correspondence of teach- 
 ers and students, and during our entire stay 
 in London she was very kind, doing what she 
 could to make our visit as satisfactory as pos- 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 301 
 
 sible. She accompanied us to St. Paul's, and 
 spent some time with us in visiting that his- 
 torical monument, where lie buried so many 
 great men of the past : Turner, the artist ; 
 John Howard, the great prison reformer; in 
 the crypt Sir Christopher Wren, the great 
 architect of the church, and Benjamin West, 
 whose name ought to be familiar to every 
 Swarthmorean, as our " West House " is 
 named for this painter, Swarthmore being the 
 place where he was born. 
 
 We visited one day the great department 
 store of Whitely, which is of immense size. In 
 his various departments he employs between 
 five and six thousand persons. One of his fore- 
 men kindly gave us much information about 
 this great enterprise, a type of store in which 
 Whitely was the leader, though his example 
 has been followed by a number of others in 
 London, and indeed throughout the world. 
 
 One day we took the only boat line then 
 ascending the Thames above London, seeing 
 the city from the river, and spending a day 
 at Hampton Court, where I had seen West's 
 pictures on my first visit abroad. They have 
 been removed and now hang elsewhere, a num- 
 ber of them in Kensington Palace. 
 
302 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 Later we visited the Tower of London, 
 of which, if I should write fully, this book 
 would be chiefly an account. A line from 
 Miss Lawrence to the governor of the Tower 
 secured us one of the best of guides, whose 
 mind was full of the dark and bloody his- 
 tory of the early days in England, and who 
 told us much of it in a very clear and satisfac- 
 tory manner. The great prison-house seemed 
 a more dreadful place than we had imagined, 
 and our connection with a barbarous ancestry 
 closer than we had realized. 
 
 The coronation of Edward VII occurred 
 during our visit. Tickets to well located seats 
 were sent us by Mrs. Stead, the wife of 
 William T. Stead's son Alfred, with whom, 
 together with Miss Lawrence, we took tea on 
 the previous evening. Our seats commanded 
 a fine view of Parliament Street, with the 
 Parliament Houses on our right and West- 
 minster Abbey in our rear. We reached our 
 places a little before nine a. m., and sat spell- 
 bound by the brilliance of the great proces- 
 sion passing into and later out of the Abbey, 
 where the coronation took place. Soldiers in 
 gay attire were lined up in all directions, 
 twenty-three thousand in number. Between 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS : 1901 303 
 
 them filed in and out the carriages and horse- 
 men. An hour later, after the coronation cere- 
 monies in the cathedral were over, the lines 
 were reversed, and they returned to the pal- 
 ace and their several places. The whole gor- 
 geous pageant lasted about six hours, and 
 more glitter and gold and brilliant colors of 
 every hue never, I am sure, met our eyes be- 
 fore. 
 
 We saw, of course, the new king and queen 
 in their royal carriage, drawn by eight cream- 
 colored horses, with four riders on the horses, 
 eight footmen walking by them, two men 
 standing behind, and the driver, all dressed 
 in brilliant yellow and black. The king looked 
 greatly changed from the boy whom I had 
 seen on his visit to Boston in 1860, and the 
 queen seemed many years his junior. They 
 are certainly very popular, and with good 
 reason, with the EngHsh people. 
 
 As our London visit was drawing toward a 
 close we spent a delightful Sabbath afternoon 
 in visiting the home of William T. Stead, 
 a zealous, and at times much persecuted, 
 worker in so many causes for the progress 
 of humanity. His home is at Wimbledon, a 
 pleasant village a few miles up the river. We 
 
304 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 met here Mr. Kirkup, a very thoughtful con- 
 tributor to the " Review of Reviews," in 
 whom we became much interested. Mr. Stead 
 himself had been called away, and left his 
 regrets that he and his wife could not meet 
 us. Miss Lawrence and one of the sons were 
 at home to welcome us. The charming little 
 town of Wimbledon is made up of a number 
 of pleasant villas ; between these and London 
 the broad green fields of the valley of the 
 Thames are interspersed with pleasant homes. 
 We had passed through the same valley on 
 our way to Hampton Court. 
 
 At Guild Hall we were greatly interested 
 in the antiquities which have been discovered 
 many feet below the surface in London, in- 
 cluding reHcs of the Roman walls. These 
 "were most curious and interesting, and con- 
 sisted of coins, pottery, and tombstones with 
 inscriptions. At the British Museum, in the 
 brief time which we could spare, we saw pic- 
 tures of the coronations of the kings and 
 queens, a subject of deep interest in England 
 at that time, because of the recent coronation 
 of Edward VII and his queen Alexandra ; also 
 the original Elgin marbles, brought from the 
 Parthenon by Lord Elgin. It seems to me a 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 305 
 
 subject of much regret that these marbles 
 could not have been left in the place where 
 they were discovered, but it is scarcely likely 
 that if they had been they could have escaped 
 the mutilation and destruction of modern 
 travelers, in their eagerness to gather relics 
 and specimens of the distant past. In this 
 view it was well that they were brought away, 
 and thus carefully preserved in this great 
 museum. 
 
 Toward the close of our stay in London we 
 attended one of the oldest Friends' meetings in 
 England. Although we belong to the branch 
 of Friends not represented there, we were 
 kindly received. Three brief addresses were 
 given, and a prayer offered. William Talleck, 
 a well-known writer on penology, long secre- 
 tary of the Howard Association, cordially 
 invited us home to dine. We had another 
 engagement, but made the visit, a most inter- 
 esting one, a few days later. We felt that the 
 harmonious relations of Friends of the two 
 branches were increasing. 
 
 On one occasion we visited Kensington 
 Palace, the birthplace of Queen Victoria, and 
 greatly enjoyed the rooms filled with memo- 
 rials of her and her long and useful reign. 
 
306 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 From the windows the views of the gardens 
 and extensive grounds were very attractive. 
 One of the rooms in this palace was filled with 
 Benjamin West's pictures, which hung for a 
 long time in Hampton Court. Another day 
 we spent in Kew Gardens — that great col- 
 lection of plants and trees from all parts of 
 the world. 
 
 From Southampton we took the steamer 
 Philadelphia for New York, ninety-one more 
 passengers being brought out to us on a 
 lighter from Cherbourg. Among our com- 
 pany were Chauncey M. Depew and his young 
 wife, and William L. Elkins and wife, of Phila- 
 delphia, whom I had long known, their son 
 William L. having been one of our Swarth- 
 more students, and later a successful business 
 man. We had on board apparatus for sending 
 Marconi wireless messages, and the captain 
 kindly had me shown the room devoted to 
 this purpose. We conversed by it with passen- 
 gers on the steamer Lucania, bound for Eng- 
 land, more than ten miles distant, and some 
 sent back messages to their friends. This is 
 certainly a great advance in telegraphy ; in a 
 few years it will banish much of the loneli- 
 ness of the sea. 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 307 
 
 During the latter part of the voyage we 
 were engaged in reading Moliere's play, " Le 
 Tartuffe/' which we found most interesting. 
 We arrived at New York on the twenty-fourth 
 of August, after an absence of almost four 
 months. 
 
 It was understood at Swarthmore that I 
 would give, from time to time, lectures on 
 French literature, thus lightening the heavy 
 work which now fell upon Professor Bronk. 
 These were regularly given twice a week dur- 
 ing that winter, and I found the pleasure of 
 thus meeting the classes on that familiar 
 ground, the scene of my labors for so many 
 years, a most congenial and attractive occu- 
 pation. These lectures I have kept on file, 
 where they now constitute a considerable part 
 of my unpublished manuscripts, and it will 
 probably be left for my heirs to consider, at a 
 later day, the best way to make final dispo- 
 sition of them. They cover a good deal of 
 ground in the history of French literature, 
 and should they interest others as much as 
 they interested me, they might be found, at 
 some future time, worthy of publication. 
 
 In the spring of 1903 I decided that living 
 as I did in New York, there was too much 
 
308 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 exposure involved in continuing a regular 
 course of semi-weekly or weekly lectures at 
 Swarthmore, and, at my request, I was kindly 
 released by President Swain, with the consent 
 of the board. I could now progress more 
 satisfactorily with my translations from lead- 
 ing French dramatists, in which I had been 
 increasingly interested for several years past. 
 By the advice of James Russell Lowell, whom 
 I consulted the year before his death, I had 
 translated three plays into English verse, in 
 a metre similar to that of the original, — Cor- 
 neille's "Le Cid," Racine's " Athalie,"and Mo- 
 liere's ^^Le Misanthrope." For several years 
 I had given these translations in lectures of 
 about an hour each, to my classes in French, 
 and had several times been asked to repeat 
 them, both at the college and elsewhere. In 
 these translations I had selected the most 
 thrilling passages of the play for rendition 
 into English verse, and had given the ordinary 
 
 descriptions and explanatory connections in 
 prose. 
 
 As I was about to begin Victor Hugo's 
 "Hernani" in the same way, by the advice of 
 a friend I attempted a complete rendering of 
 this great drama in Enghsh verse, introducing 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 309 
 
 no explanations in English. Several months 
 were spent on this tragedy, and, as I had 
 feared from the beginning, it lacked, when 
 done, the clearness and the interest for Eng- 
 lish-speaking people that the first three works 
 had inspired. This error I hope to correct, 
 and to bring the " Hernani " within the reason- 
 able compass of one long or two short lectures. 
 Thus treated, this famous drama is calculated 
 to awaken even greater interest than the three 
 previously treated. If successful in this I shall 
 probably follow it with Victor Hugo's second 
 great play, " Kuy Bias," especially as these two 
 plays have a certain connection with each other. 
 I have been thinking of presenting all the 
 translations spoken of under the title of "Half 
 Hours with the Leading French Dramatists." 
 It will be seen that my plans involve no idle 
 inactivity ; I prefer to wear out rather than to 
 rust out. 
 
 In the autumn of 1903 I issued a circular 
 letter to the surviving students of the first 
 twenty classes of Swarthmore College, asking 
 them certain questions as to their lives and oc- 
 cupations since their graduation. At first this 
 act was inspired entirely by an earnest desire 
 to renew my acquaintance with these young 
 
310 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 men and women graduates, and, in an especial 
 manner, to see how well they had followed my 
 oft-repeated counsel to decide early as to their 
 occupation in life, and never change without 
 very good reasons, or unless compelled by cir- 
 cumstances to do so. I found it very interest- 
 ing thus to renew in memory the early days. 
 I had not proceeded far with this investiga- 
 tion before it was suggested to me, by one of 
 our earlier students, that I should collect in a 
 volume, to be distributed among them, the re- 
 sults derived from this investigation. I took 
 up the suggestion at once, as I considered it 
 a good one, and the result is before the public 
 in the form of the first issue of our " Alumni 
 Historical Catalogue." The correspondence 
 necessary to do this work well occupied me 
 very closely for ten or eleven months, and the 
 care and anxiety of it brought on a serious ill- 
 ness which nearly cost me my life. Through 
 these months I had spent from ten to twelve 
 hours a day over the difficult and complicated 
 task. At length the doctor practically forbade 
 the work by limiting me to not more than one 
 hour a day spent in literary labor of any kind. 
 Of course I obeyed, and passed the results of 
 my work over to Professors Ferris Wc Price and 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 311 
 
 William I. Hull, who classified and arranged 
 it and saw it through the press. Through 
 their kind aid the first historical catalogue of 
 the Swarthmore alumni has now been widely 
 circulated, to the great satisfaction of all. The 
 series is to be continued hereafter every tenth 
 year. I had signed as president the diplomas 
 of eighteen of these twenty classes, but I began 
 with twenty, that a decimal arrangement might 
 be easily followed. 
 
 In the autumn of 1904 I received from my 
 friend and former student, George H. Miflin, 
 a package containing what he called " Memo- 
 rabilia of the Latin School." Among the 
 various interesting relics within it, I found 
 some exercises of his in phonography, and 
 letters from me to him on the contents. As I 
 studied phonography during my year in Phila- 
 delphia, 184:7-4:8, under the lectures of Oliver 
 Dyer, I used, of course, the original vowel 
 scale of Isaac Pitman. This has been variously 
 changed and modified by later students and 
 teachers of phonography, and I soon learned, 
 with great pleasure, that there is a firm whose 
 works, from the beginning, have followed the 
 original vowel scale, — a firm doing a very 
 extensive business in the publication of pho- 
 
312 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 nographic books. This is the firm of Benn 
 Pitman and Jerome B. Howard of the Pho- 
 nographic Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio. For the 
 past two years Mr. Mifflin and myself have 
 been exchanging letters and postal cards in 
 phonography, using only the original vowel 
 scale as published by the Cincinnati firm. Of 
 course, in this correspondence, Mr. Mifflin's 
 familiarity with the system is now much 
 greater than my own, and so it is a case of a 
 teacher taught, as in this progressive age it 
 ought to be. 
 \/ The one recent step taken toward the ad- 
 vancement of the college to which so much 
 of my life has been devoted is the establish- 
 ment of a new fireproof hbrary on the college 
 grounds. This has been done through the 
 liberality of Andrew Carnegie, who offered 
 $50,000 to erect the building on condition of 
 $50,000 more being raised for its proper ad- 
 vance and maintenance. This added $50,000 
 was promptly secured from graduates and 
 other friends of the college, and as this volume 
 goes to press at the opening of the new col- 
 lege year 1906-07, the building is finished, 
 properly constructed to permit needed exten- 
 sion in future years, and the volumes so long 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS: 1901 313 
 
 exposed to the danger of fire in their crowded 
 storage in Parrish Hall are now open to the 
 use of students in its more convenient and 
 capacious rooms. 
 
 As soon as restored health and strength 
 permitted, I turned my attention to this ac- 
 count of my sixty-five years as a teacher. Al- 
 though I had then not quite reached my 
 eightieth year, it seemed that with the proper 
 care of my health, the preparation of these 
 memoirs need not require any haste on my 
 part. I have kept no connected diary or record 
 of the events of my long life, and have de- 
 pended entirely upon memory, with an occa- 
 sional reference to a friend or companion. 
 Hence this last work has advanced but slowly, 
 often awaiting the result of correspondence to 
 make important parts clear and plain. 
 
 To the thousands of students whom I have 
 taught within the limits of the past half cen- 
 tury, I may be permitted to repeat : Never 
 seek a change of position, but always strive to 
 do your work so well where you are that 
 the new place will seek you, instead of being 
 sought by you. Any educator who desires 
 to aid in an important position will be sure to 
 seek those already employed, in preference to 
 
314 LIFE OF A TEACHER 
 
 those unoccupied and seeking a place. This 
 is one of the important lessons which I have 
 learned in my sixty-five years of the life of a 
 teacher. 
 
 Greater evidence of growth and progress 
 than that of Swarthmore College has rarely 
 if ever been seen. Beginning in 1869,' with 
 practically no college, and a large preparatory 
 school, its career was slow and painful at first, 
 and often a cause of deep discouragement. It 
 has now eliminated the preparatory school, 
 which is carried on by able and willing hands 
 near by ; the number of the college students 
 is at present nearly three hundred ; the vari- 
 ous departments of the college are increased 
 in number and efficiency, and its semi-centen- 
 nial, to be celebrated in 1919, bids fair to be 
 one of great rejoicing. 
 
 As this volume is addressed largely to those 
 who are disposed to devote themselves to ed- 
 ucation in the various grades, from the common 
 or public schools up to the high schools, col- 
 leges, and the universities, let me say that it 
 should be the constant aim of the teacher and 
 professor to make his or her own life all that 
 he or she would desire to see imitated in those 
 who have passed under his or her instruction ; 
 
PROFESSOR EMERITUS : 1901 315 
 
 and not as teachers only but in whatever oc- 
 cupation they may follow ; and thus develop 
 in them the highest type of manhood or 
 womanhood. I may properly add that it is 
 my earnest conviction that no other college 
 in this country has accomplished a greater 
 work in its first half century, in the general 
 diffusion of education, mental, moral, and 
 spiritual, given to both sexes alike from the 
 beginning, than Swarthmore College. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Albert, King of Saxony, death 
 
 of, 286. 
 Ames, James Barr, Boston Latin 
 
 School pupil, 100. 
 Andrew, John A., acquaintance 
 
 with, 180. 
 Anson Lapham Kepository, 142. 
 Anti-slavery leaders, 105. 
 Apple, President, gives address 
 
 on education, 228. 
 Appleton, William Hyde, his 
 
 work at Swarthmore College, 
 
 167-170, 234, 263. 
 Association oiE the Colleges and 
 
 Preparatory Schools of the 
 
 Middle States and Maryland, 
 
 230-232. 
 Association of the Colleges of 
 
 Pennsylvania, formation and 
 
 early meetings of, 227-229. 
 
 Battin, B. L., professor in 
 Swarthmore College, 256. 
 
 Beans, Sarah Warner, 29 ; be- 
 comes Mrs. Magill, 56, 60; 
 death of, 272. 
 
 Beardsley, Arthur, his work at 
 Swarthmore College and else- 
 where, 164-167. 
 
 Berlin, visit to, 288. 
 
 Bescherelle, M., writes preface 
 for Magill's Complete French 
 Grammar, 129. 
 
 Biddle, Clement M., 195 ; his 
 work as a manager of Swarth- 
 more College, 200, 210, 267. 
 
 Birdsall, William W., his presi- 
 dency of Swarthmore College, 
 268. 
 
 Bocher, Ferdinand, teacher in 
 
 Boston Latin School and Har-* 
 vard University, 101, 102. 
 
 Boston Latin School, 1859-1867, 
 83-108. 
 
 Bronk, Isabel, teacher of French 
 at Swarthmore College, 256, 
 275,307. 
 
 Brooks, Arthur, Boston Latin 
 School pupil, 100. 
 
 Brooks, PhiUips, 87. 
 
 Brown University, Dr. Magill a 
 student at, 40-56; reference 
 to charter of, 65 ; feeling of 
 obligation to, 80; historical 
 catsdogue of, 207. 
 
 Brown University Club in Phila- 
 delphia, 163. 
 
 Buckman, Yardley and Edwin, 
 their boarding-school, 16-18. 
 
 Canterbury cathedral, 299. 
 
 Capen, Charles J., his work in 
 the Boston Latin School, 93. 
 
 Carnegie, Andrew, aids Swarth- 
 more College to build library, 
 312. 
 
 Chace, Arnold B., travels with 
 MagiU family, 119, 132. 
 
 Chace, Prof. George I., 44 ; as 
 a teacher, 51. 
 
 Cherry Street School, Philadel- 
 phia, 19-24. 
 
 Cholera in Alexandria, Va., 27. 
 
 Churches of Swarthmore, union 
 services of, 260-263. 
 
 " City of Old Streets," 242. 
 
 Civil War, outbreak of, 95, 96, 
 105 ; war spirit aroused in the 
 Boston Latin School, 106, 
 107. 
 
318 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Clarke, James Freeman, 82, 
 180, 183. 
 
 Class feuds at Swarthmore Col- 
 lege,' 193. 
 
 Clothier, Isaac H., his work as 
 a manager of Swarthmore 
 College, 199-202 ; makes gift 
 of forty thousand dollars, 219; 
 a stanch friend, 220, 221; 
 mention of, 236; performs 
 marriage service for Miss Ma- 
 gill, 258. 
 
 Clothier, Morris L., graduate 
 and benefactor of Swarthmore 
 College, 202 (note), 220. 
 
 Coeducation of the sexes, lec- 
 tures on, 137, 205. 
 
 Cologne cathedral, 296. 
 
 Cooke, Ann Eliza, travels with 
 Magill family, 119. 
 
 Corneille, visit to home of, 242. 
 
 Cornell University, anecdote 
 concerning, 143. 
 
 Coronation of Edward VII, 302. 
 
 Corporal punishment, 9, 10. 
 
 Correspondence between foreign 
 and American students of 
 language, 255-257. 
 
 Cunningham, Susan J., her work 
 at Swarthmore College, 171- 
 175. 
 
 Dare, Jeanne, statue of, in 
 Rouen, 242. 
 
 Davis, Master, at Westtown, 6. 
 
 De Garmo, Charles, his work as 
 president of Swarthmore Col- 
 lege, 26.5-268 ; appointed pro- 
 fessor at Cornell, 268. 
 
 Dickie, Dr., in Berlin, 289, 290. 
 
 Discipline in school, 60-63, 72. 
 
 Dolley, Charles E., professor at 
 Swarthmore College, 159. 
 
 Doron, Charles B., extract from 
 letter of, 215. 
 
 Dresden, visit to, 286. 
 
 Drowning, sensation of, 18. 
 
 Diirer, Albrecht, home of, 283. 
 
 Eastman, William H., prize-win- 
 ner at Yale, 34. 
 
 Edward VII, coronation of, 302. 
 
 Eisenach, visit to, 292-294. 
 
 Elective system in colleges, 40, 
 49. ^ 
 
 Elocution, Dr. Gardner's success 
 in teaching. 111. 
 
 Emlen, James, 6. 
 
 Emlen, Samuel, 6. 
 
 Europe, visits to, 119-136, 238- 
 246, 252, 277-307. 
 
 Everett, William, addresses Bos- 
 ton Latin School, 107. 
 
 Field, Phebe A., reminiscences of 
 life at Swarthmore, 178-180. 
 
 Foreign travel, in 1867-68, 119- 
 136; in 1890-91, 238-246; in 
 1902, 277-307. 
 
 Foulke, William Dudley, elected 
 president of Swarthmore Col- 
 lege, 263. 
 
 Foulke family, 264. 
 
 France, travel and study in, 119- 
 131, 241-246. 
 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main, visit to, 
 294. 
 
 " Free Catholic Church," 246. 
 
 French Grammar, Magill's Com- 
 plete, publication of, 102-105 ; 
 M. Bescherelle writes preface 
 for, 129. 
 
 French Grammar, Magill's 
 Reading, publication of, 249- 
 253. 
 
 French language, methods of 
 teaching, 249-257, 277-279. 
 
 Friends, Society of, Magill fam- 
 ily members of, 6 ; attitude on 
 slavery, 13; E. H. Magill's 
 relations to, 13, 36, 42, 43; 
 establishment of Swarthmore 
 College, 117-153; visit to 
 Friends' meeting in London, 
 305. 
 
 Friends' Central School, Phila- 
 delphia, 19-24. 
 
INDEX 
 
 319 
 
 Friends* Historical Library, 
 Swarthmore College, 142, 
 167, 241. 
 
 Gallagher, William, in Boston 
 Latin School, 98 ; as a teacher, 
 99. 
 
 Gardner, Francis, 76 ; his work 
 in the Boston Latin School, 
 84-93, 111-115 ; death of, 116. 
 
 Garrison, William Lloyd, 105, 
 107. 
 
 Giant's Causeway, 288. 
 
 Gilman, Daniel C., 31, 154. 
 
 Goethe, at Weimar, 291, 292; 
 memorials of him at Eisenach 
 and Frankfort-on-the-Main, 
 294. 
 
 Green, Samnel S., professor at 
 Brown University and super- 
 intendent of schools, 44, 56, 
 65. 
 
 Gnizot, Guillanme, 160. 
 
 Hadley, Prof. James, as a 
 teacher, 34, 37. 
 
 Hale, Edward Everett, 258. 
 
 Hallowell, Benjamin, 24, 26 ; his 
 love of mathematics, 33 ; rank 
 as a teacher, 38, 44. 
 
 Hallowell, Henry C, 24-26, 31. 
 
 Hallowell family, several mem- 
 bers of, teachers in Swarth- 
 more College, 139, 175. 
 
 Harkness, Albert, 58. 
 
 Haverford College, its relations 
 with Swarthmore, 162-164. 
 
 Hazing, 192. 
 
 Hicks, John D., a manager of 
 Swarthmore College, 259. 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 
 captain in the Civil War, 95, 
 96. 
 
 Homburg, the emperor's castle 
 at, 295. 
 
 Howe, Julia Ward, association 
 with the Magill family, 180; 
 letter from, 181 ; her Battle- 
 
 Hymn, 182 ; reference to her 
 "Reminiscences," 183. 
 
 Hull, William I., assists in pre- 
 paration of the " Alumni His- 
 torical Catalogue," 311. 
 
 Hyacinthe, P6re, 245. 
 
 Italy, travel in, 131-135, 282. 
 Ivins, Aaron B., principal of 
 Cherry Street School, 23. 
 
 Jackson, Kachel T., 117. 
 
 James, Edmund J. , 229. 
 
 Jeanes, Joseph, aids Swarth- 
 more College, 158. 
 
 Jenkins, Thomas A. , his work as 
 a teacher of French, 256 ; mar- 
 riage to Miss Marian Magill 
 and appointment at Vander- 
 bilt University, 271 ; summer 
 work at Chicago University 
 and appointment at Swarth- 
 more College, 271-274; ap- 
 pointment at Chicago Univer- 
 sity, 274. 
 
 Johnson, William H., 5. 
 
 Kemp, Agnes and Marie, 246. 
 Kempel, Frau Dr., 289, 290. 
 Kingsbury's Private School for 
 Girls, 63-65. 
 
 Laboulaye, Edouard, 128. 
 Lamb, Eli M., his work as a 
 
 manager of Swarthmore Col- 
 lege, 195-198, 210. 
 Lawrence, Miss E. A., courtesies 
 
 of, in England, 300. 
 Leidy, Joseph, his work at 
 
 Swarthmore College, 154- 
 
 158. 
 Levasseur, Emile, acquaintance 
 
 with, 245-299. 
 Lincoln, Prof. John L., 44 ; as a 
 
 teacher, 52-55. 
 Loch Katrine, 239. 
 London, visit to, 300-305. 
 Longstreth, Helen G., first dean 
 
320 
 
 INDEX 
 
 of Swaxthmore College, 139, 
 
 175, 265. 
 Longstreth, M. Fisher, 19, 21, 
 
 195 ; his work as a manager 
 
 of Swarthmore College, 200, 
 
 236, 237. 
 Louis Napoleon. See Napoleon 
 
 III. 
 Lowell, James Russell, quoted 
 
 on use of the French language, 
 
 125 ; mention of, 308. 
 Lucretia Mott fellowship at 
 
 Swarthmore'College, 173, 174. 
 Luther, Martin, at Wittenberg, 
 
 290. 
 Lyceum, held at Buckingham 
 
 Meeting, 5. 
 
 MacVeagh, Wayne, 31. 
 
 Magill, Beatrice, daughter of 
 Edward H., 247; teacher at 
 Swarthmore, 272, 276, 277. 
 
 Magill, Edward H., birth, 1 ; 
 early training and education, 
 2-7 ; begins teaching, 8-15 ; 
 teaches at Clermont Academy 
 and White Hall, 16-18; in 
 Friends' Central School, Phila- 
 delphia, 19-24 ; at Alexandria, 
 Va., 24-27; feels need of 
 more education, 25 - 27 ; 
 studies at Williston Seminary, 
 29-31 ; at Yale College, 31- 
 41 ; at Brown University, 40- 
 55 ; election to Phi Beta 
 Kappa, 56 ; appointment as 
 teacher in Providence High 
 School, 44, 56 ; marriage, 56, 
 60 ; life in Providence, 57-78 ; 
 attainment of second degree, 
 57, 68 ; birth of children, 67, 
 70, 81, 91; iUness, 70; ap- 
 pointment in Boston Latin 
 School, 76 ; removal to Ja- 
 maica Plain, 81; work in Latin 
 School, 83-105; study of 
 French, 79, 101 ; publication 
 of French grammar, 102-105 ; 
 
 of French reader, 110 ; invita- 
 tion to Swarthmore, 117 ; re- 
 signation from Boston Latin 
 School, 118 ; trip to Europe, 
 119-136 ; difficulty in imder- 
 standing French in Paris, 124 ; 
 gathering of material for 
 "French Prose and Poetry," 
 118, 128; acquaintance with 
 M.Bescherelle, 129-131 ; trav- 
 els in southern France and 
 Italy, 131-135; return to 
 America, 136 ; preparations 
 for opening of Swarthmore 
 College, 137-142 ; work in 
 the College as professor, 
 142-184; as president, 185- 
 234 ; appointment as post- 
 master at Swarthmore, 220 ; 
 resignation of presidency and 
 appointment as professor of 
 French, 232-237; a year 
 abroad, 238-248 ; preparation 
 of "Modern French Series," 
 243-245; publication of the 
 " Reading French Grammar," 
 249-251 ; methods of teaching 
 French, 250-257 ; marriage of 
 eldest daughter, 258; work 
 as professor of French, 258, 
 259, 270-273 ; religious work 
 among students, and efforts 
 for church unity, 259-263 ; 
 trip West in search of new 
 president, 265, 266; summer 
 in Paris, 271 ; summer in 
 Nashville, 272; summer in 
 Chicago, 273; resignation of 
 professorship, with retention 
 of lectureship, 274; second 
 marriage, 276, 277 ; trip 
 abroad, 277-307 ; resignation 
 of lectureship, 307; transla- 
 tion of French plays, 308 ; 
 preparation of " Alumni His- 
 torical Catalogue " of Swarth- 
 more College, 309-311 ; clos- 
 ing words, 313-315. 
 
INDEX 
 
 321 
 
 Magill, Eudora, daughter of 
 Edward H., 238, 276. 
 
 Magill, Francis Gardner, son of 
 Edward H., 91. 
 
 Magill, Helen, anecdote of her 
 childhood, 74 ; attends Boston 
 Latin School, 90 ; goes abroad 
 with parents, 119, 127 ; later 
 education and marriage, 146, 
 258 ; visit to, in Europe, 283, 
 285-290. 
 
 Magill, Jonathan Paxson, father 
 of Edward H., 1, 4 ; death of, 
 134. 
 
 Magill, Marian, daughter of Ed- 
 ward H., marriage to Thomas 
 A. Jenkins, and residence in 
 Nashville and elsewhere, 271- 
 276. 
 
 Magill, Mary Watson, mother of 
 Edward H., 1-4, 13, 138. 
 
 Managers, Board of, of Swarth- 
 more College, brief mention 
 of various members, 195, 209. 
 
 Marcel, Claude, his method of 
 teaching English, 279. 
 
 Marchand, Charles, 298. 
 
 Marshall, Samuel, aids inSwarth- 
 more endowment fund, 217, 
 218. 
 
 Melanchthon, at Wittenberg, 
 290. 
 
 Mieille, Prof., his correspond- 
 ence system of teaching, 255. 
 
 Mifflin, George H., in Boston 
 Latin School and later, 95, 97, 
 311. 
 
 Miller, Elizabeth C, graduate 
 of, and teacher in, Swarth- 
 more College, 146. 
 
 MUler, Francis, 25, 26, 31. 
 
 Mitchell, Maria, 171. 
 
 " Modern French Series," pre- 
 paration of, 243-245, 252, 
 270,271. 
 
 Modem Language Association, 
 a committee of, established at 
 Swarthmore, 256. 
 
 Montrachy, " Professor," his 
 
 work in Boston Latin School, 
 
 80, 101. 
 Moore, Esther T., graduate of, 
 
 and teacher in, Swarthmore 
 
 College, 146. 
 Mott, Lucretia, 173, 179. 
 Mouchet, Gaston, visit to, 299. 
 
 Napoleon III, 122, 123, 128. ^ 
 "Naylor's System of Singing 
 
 Geography," 17. 
 " New College System," 40, 49, 
 
 50, 72. 
 Newport, Jesse, and family, 14. 
 Nuremberg, visit to, 283-285. 
 
 Paine, Robert Treat, extract 
 from letter of, 96. 
 
 Paine, Sumner, in Boston Latin 
 School and the Civil War, 95- 
 97. 
 
 Paris, visits to, 122-131, 243- 
 246, 252, 297-299. 
 
 Paris Exposition of 1867, 122, 124. 
 
 Parrish, Edward, first president 
 of Swarthmore College, 117, 
 137, 139, 151. 
 
 Pedagogics, first introduced as 
 a study in college, 44. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 105, 107. 
 
 Phonography, teaching of, and 
 later renewal of practice, 97, 
 311. 
 
 Pierce, Maria C, valedictorian 
 of first class graduated at 
 Swarthmore College, 146. 
 
 President's Prize for Public 
 Speaking, at Swarthmore, 194. 
 
 Price, Ferris W., assists in pre- 
 paration of the " Alumni His- 
 torical Catalogue," 310. 
 
 Providence High School, 57-63. 
 
 Race Street School, Philadel- 
 phia, 19. 
 
 Rhine, the, compared with the 
 Hudson, 296. 
 
322 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Rouen, visit to, 241-243. 
 
 Rubens's paintings, 297. 
 
 * 
 
 Sabine farm, Horace's, a visit 
 to, 133. 
 
 Sachs, Hans, at Nuremberg, 
 285. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, quoted, 10. 
 
 Sanford, Maria L., her work at 
 Swarthmore College and the 
 University of Minnesota, Vlo- 
 178. 
 
 Sarcey,Francisque, acquaintance 
 with, 244, 245. 
 
 Schiller, at Weimar, 291, 292. 
 
 Scotland, travels in, 239. 
 
 Sears, Bamas, president of 
 Brown University, 50. 
 
 Sepoy Rebellion, Dr. Joseph 
 Thomas's experience in, 161, 
 162. 
 
 Smith, Clement L., secretary of 
 Swarthmore College, 139, 140. 
 
 Smoking, 32 ; forbidden in 
 Swarflmiore College, 139, 192, 
 225. 
 
 Society of Friends. 5ec Friends, 
 Society of. 
 
 Somerville Literary Society, 
 172-174. 
 
 Sprague, Homer B., 31. 
 
 Stead, WiUiam T., visit to the 
 home of, 303. 
 
 Stedman, Edmund C, 31. 
 
 Sumner, George, quoted, 92. 
 
 Sun-dial, homemade, 11. 
 
 Swain, Joseph, president of 
 Swarthmore College, 280, 281. 
 
 Swarthmore College, establish- 
 ment of, 117, 137-145 ; aims 
 of, 147-149 ; difBculties of the 
 early years, 149-151 ; Presi- 
 dent Parrish, 151-153; some 
 early professors, 154-184 ; 
 Prof. Magill made president, 
 185 ; grading of classes, 186 ; 
 the experiment of * ' normal- 
 izing " Swarthmore, 187-190 ; 
 
 management and organization, 
 191-211 ; composition of the 
 faculty, 202 ; of the board of 
 managers, 203 ; degrees, 203 ; 
 coeducation, 205 ; plan of the 
 Historical Catalogue, 207 ; 
 building destroyed by fire, 
 211-216 ; new building, 217 ; 
 endowment, 217-220 ; college 
 papers, " The Phoenix," " The 
 Swarthmorean," 223, 224 ; 
 athletics, 224 ; the college en- 
 tertains " The Association of 
 the Colleges and Preparatory 
 Schools of the Middle States 
 and Maryland," 231 ; resolu- 
 tions passed on resignation of 
 Pres. Magill, 235 ; work of 
 French department, 249-257 ; 
 presidency of William Hyde 
 Appleton, 263 ; of Charles De 
 Garmo, 265-268; of William 
 W. Birdsall, 268; of Joseph 
 Swain, 280; additional en- 
 dowment, 280, 281 ; publica- 
 tion of the "Alumni Historical 
 Catalogue," 310 ; building of 
 fireproof library, 312 ; sum- 
 mary of progress, 314. 
 
 Taxation of college property, 
 
 225, 227. 
 Thomas, Dr. Joseph, professor 
 
 at Swarthmore College, 159- 
 
 162. 
 Thompson, Charles, visit to, 240. 
 Tobacco, use of, forbidden in 
 
 Swarthmore CoUege, 139, 192, 
 
 225. 
 Travel abroad, in 1867-68, 119- 
 
 136 ; in 1890-91, 238-246 ; in 
 
 1902, 277-307. 
 Trotter, Spencer, professor at 
 
 Swarthmore College, 159. 
 
 Underbill, Daniel, Sr., aids in 
 Swarthmore endowment fund, 
 218. 
 
INDEX 
 
 323 
 
 Union services in Swarthmore 
 churches, 260-263. 
 
 Vail, Hugh D., teacher at West- 
 town, 6. 
 Virgpin, Samuel H., 106. 
 
 War of the Rebellion. See Civil 
 War. 
 
 Warriner, Henry, teacher of 
 geography, 17. 
 
 Wayland, Francis, 36 ; his ad- 
 vocacy of the elective system, 
 40, 41 ; as president of Brown 
 University, 40-51, 72. 
 
 Weimar, visit to, 291. 
 
 Westtown school, 6, 7. 
 
 Wharton, Joseph, aids Swarth- 
 more College, 165, 219. 
 
 White, Andrew D., 31 ; marries 
 Miss Magill, 147, 258; visit 
 to, in Europe, 283, 285-290. 
 
 Whitely's department store in 
 London, 301. 
 
 Willets, Samuel, president of 
 board of managers of Swarth- 
 more College, 145, 165, 210, 
 211, 217. 
 
 Williams, Talcott, quoted, 270. 
 
 Williamson, Isaiah V., aids 
 Swarthmore College, 219. 
 
 Williston Seminary, 29-31. 
 
 Wittenberg, visit to, 290. 
 
 Women, education of, in Brown 
 University, 41 ; in Providence 
 High School, 58; in Boston, 
 59 ; in Swarthmore College, 
 202,206; in Yale, 206. 
 
 Woolsey, Pres. Theodore, 34- 
 37. 
 
 Yale College, 31-41. 
 Yamall, Howard, teacher at 
 Westtown, 6. 
 
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