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 MEMOIR OF PHILIP LINDSLEY
 
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 A SKETCH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LIFE AND EDUCATIONAL LABORS 
 
 OF 
 
 PHILIP LINDSLEY, D.l)., 
 
 LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UKI ERSITY OF NASHVILLE. 
 
 BY LEROY J. HALSEY, D. D., 
 
 FKOFESSOE IX THEOLOGICAL SEMIXAKY OF THE KORTH-TVEST, AUTHOH OF LITERARY 
 ATTEACTIOXS OF THE BIBLE, ETC. 
 
 REPUBLISHED 
 FROM BxiRNAJRD'S AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 
 
 FOR SEPTEMBER, 
 
 18 5 9.
 
 PKE86 OF WILLIAMS. -WILEY & TLRSEK. 152 ASYLIM-ST.. IIARTFOBD. rONX.
 
 Luu. »uv of Nashville in 1836, ana <^evoted hiu.- 
 self to the study of languages. »-^;^.^' "»f 'V - iv- ■ 
 
 Encvclo-Lexicon ot the >^nS i-li xV"\l .f, 'e^unbei- 
 1859 he received the degree ot LL. \\- "'^^;;! V,j, 
 land university.-Another bon, J ol u «U»i^ ; 
 
 physician ^^^^^^^ F i:£'lh^(^\S, 
 Sfh; m^It S;e m^i^ia^^partmentof the Uni- 
 vSsity of pSinsvlvarua. He was appmntcd pro- LL Y . 
 
 lessor of chemist T in the University ot Nashvil e 
 
 KlSTO and held that chair until 1878 meanwhile 
 -^uS- the medical departments of that univer- 1^^,^ ^ ^-^ ^ ^^^^ president of 
 
 fSr^i^'^'^^?^^^^^^ ^"^^^ i^^ ^^"^'' '^^-^ ^""^ ^''^ ■ 
 unarmed during the ciiiTvvar ; and also was pro- Lpreciated at ench of those 
 ^SofdiemMrymth. medical depax^me^^ of God, he 
 
 he providence of God, he 
 is this true of Nashville, 
 may be said to have been 
 re, for a quarter of a cen- 
 m the cause of education, 
 lie South West. Whether 
 e began his labors in Ten- 
 rare qualifications for the 
 Inch a man, in such a cause, 
 
 UrTver itfof Tennessee in 1880-2 He was a rn^^ 
 ber of the Nashville board of edpition m -TH5 
 
 -'60 held the otHce of ^^^^^^^^f^^ 
 
 V. 1, i,i iviHf! nnd was secretary oi tne suul 
 
 f ^°'i^ f bTlJ.tum in IST.V'ST. "He was health 
 
 S;;S!rfih^Ss^sr:hS?»?i;s 
 
 been^Ltivey connected with other scientific so- 
 beeii dCLivc ^y received the degree of D. D. 
 
 ?rorPrinceton He Ss contributefl articles on 
 Pnmberland Presbyterian history to the " l^uartei- g^j^^ ^ j^jg generation. 
 
 "'JXr nf Sv "£"• The s«or,d ami „„,,(;„„, „e eve- looted 
 
 if " f Sthe' '|£5i^:'" "'* - 1 -»^'-' - -'"■ ""^^•' 
 
 Sd of Health" (TB5DTWei^a-ired by him, also L^.j^j^h crowned his efforts, 
 ?The Military Annals of Tennessee, Confederate |^^,,,^^^^,.^ ^, ^,^„ ^,^^ ^^^, 
 ^first series, Nashville, 1886). icns- 
 
 TINFN .Tames, poet, b. in Scotland m 1808, 
 d in New York Sty, 20 Nov., 1873. He emigrated 
 tVthe United States, and for many years earned 
 on a llr^^rbookindiW establishment inNe^^^^^^^^ 
 ^ftv Uater he spent some years m California, wheie 
 heU ^n active^member of the Scottish l-^v^l^nt 
 societies. His last years were passed m ^^ J^^^ 
 Sv He contributed poems, mostly m thf^cotch 
 Sect, to the " Knickerbocker Magazine and^^^^^ 
 " Scottish American Journal and otnei nt|| 
 
 p^^ers and published - ^^^^^f XrToems'' (S w 
 of " Songs ot the Seasons and other Poe'ns ( ^ ew 
 York 1852) A large collection ot his _/oeiicai 
 S^^S^ritings^SanFrancisco^l86o was Al- 
 lowed by a smaller one (New '^'^,%^^^^)' 
 published also "The Golden Gate (lb6. ) 
 
 LINGAN, James Maecubin, soldiei b. m 
 Mai'w about 1752 ; d. i" ^..-re gd^;^^^ 
 .July, 1812. He was employed in a stoie in Gem e 
 town, U.C, when at the begmmng of th^ Rc^olu 
 tion he obtained a commission m the a m>. ue 
 fought at Long Island, York 1^1'}"^' i^^^^ ^ 
 Wasiiington. where he was take^i P"«o^^«,^Xpame 
 fined in a prison-ship. After the war 1 c beca^nt 
 cUector of the port of Georgetown and, as lejs 
 given the title of "general" P™\"1 J^ "«tamea 
 this rank in the militia. He was l^i^v the mob 
 more iail, where he had taken refuge, bv tjie mob 
 that destroyed the office of ^^ ^f^'^r':^^^^];^ 
 in- been one of those who rallied to the suppoit ot 
 the editor. (See Hanson. A t,^,x * ndkr C.) 
 
 educators of our age and 
 
 rive some account of him 
 
 ibor — to tell of his plans, 
 
 1 educator of youth. In 
 
 of his character, both as 
 
 what we have to say of 
 
 iphical sketch, which we 
 
 American PulpitP 
 
 1786, near Morristown, 
 ctraction ; the Lindsleys 
 of Morristown, and in- 
 youth was spent in his 
 n his thirteenth year he 
 ley, of that place, with 
 entered the junior class 
 302, and was graduated
 
 PRE86 OK WII.I.I 
 
 LINDSEY, Wii; : I -e county, 
 
 Va 4 Sept l^oJ. He received an education in 
 tlH«"sclio<)ls'"of his nutive place, and in 1854 re- 
 moved to Jlickman county, Ky., where he taught, 
 studied hiw. and \vas admitted to practice in 18o». 
 Vt tlie openiuir of the civil war he entered the 
 (•onfoderate annv as lieutenant, and was soon 
 made captain in 'tlie 2:2d Tennessee infantry. He 
 served as stalf-olTieer with Gen. Buford and Gen. 
 Lvon, and remained with the 2d Kentucky brigade 
 until paroled as a prisoner of war early in 1865, at 
 Columbus, Miss. At the close of hostilities he re; 
 turned to Clinton, Ky., resumed the practice of his 
 profession, and was elected to the state senate in 
 18()7. In 1870 he was chosen to the highest judi- 
 cial bench in the state, and in September, 1876, he 
 became chief justice of Kentucky, leaving the 
 bench two years afterward with a high reputation. 
 He declined a renomination, and has since followed 
 the profession of law at Frankfort. 
 
 LiNDSLEY, PliiUp, educator, b. in Morristown, 
 N. J., 21 Dec, 1786 ; d. in Nashville, Tenn., 25 May, 
 1855.' He was graduated at Princeton in 1804, 
 and after teaching he was appointed in 1807 tutor 
 in Latin and Greek at Princeton. Meanwhile he 
 studied theology, 
 and was licensed 
 to preach in April, 
 1810. In 1812 
 he returned to 
 Princeton, after 
 preaching in va- 
 rious places, as 
 senior tutor. He 
 was made profes- 
 sor of languages 
 in 181;^, ami at 
 the same time be- 
 came secretary of 
 the board of trus- 
 tees. In 1817 
 he was elected 
 vice-president of 
 Princeton, and, 
 after the resigna- 
 tion of Ashbel 
 (irreen in 1822, he 
 was for one year 
 acting president, but in the succeeding year was 
 chosen president of Cumberland college (now Uni- 
 versity of Nashville), and also of Princeton, both of 
 which he decrfned ; but later he was again offered 
 the presidency of Cumberland. He was finally in- 
 duced to visit Nashville, and the result of his trip 
 was his acceptance of the office in 1824. He con- 
 tinued his relations with that college until 1850, 
 when he accepted the professorship of archseology 
 and church polity in the Presbyterian theological 
 seminary in New Albany, Ind., which he held until 
 185:5. Meanwhile he declined the presidency of 
 numerous colleges. He was chosen moderator in 
 1834 of the genei-al assembly of the Presbyterian 
 church, held in Philadelphia, and in 1855 commis- 
 sioner of the presbytery to the general assembly in 
 Nashville. In 1825 he received the degree of D. I), 
 from Dickinson college. His publications, consist- 
 ing chiefly of l)accalaureate addresses and occasion- 
 al sermons, were collected by Leroy J. Halsey, and 
 published as " Dr. Lindsley's Complete Works and 
 a Biography" (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1868). See 
 also " A Sketch of the Life and Educational La- 
 bors of Philip Lindslev," by Leroy J. Halsey (Hart-" 
 ford, 1859). — His son, Nathaniel Lawrence, edu- 
 cator, b. in Princeton, N. J., 11 Sept., 1816; d. near 
 Lebanon, Tenn.. 10 Oct., 1868, was graduated at the
 
 
 PHILIP LINDSLEY. 
 
 The eminent services of Philip Lindsle}-, D, D., late president of 
 the University of Nashville, as an educator of youth, have been widely 
 known in our countiy, and most highly appreciated at each of those 
 points or- centers of influence where, in the providence of God, he 
 was successively called to labor. Especially is this true of Nashville, 
 and the surrounding region, in whicli lie may be said to have been 
 the pioneer of classical learning, and where, for a quarter of a cen- 
 tury, he exerted a controlling influence upon the cause of education, 
 not only in Tennessee, but through the whole South West. Whether 
 we consider the auspicious time at which he began his labors in Ten- 
 nessee, their long continuance, or his own rare qualifications for the 
 work, it could not be otherwise than that such a man, in such a cause, 
 should make a deep and permanent impression upon his generation. 
 lie seems from an early period to have regarded himself as set apart 
 to the cause of the higher or more liberal education. He ever looked 
 upon it as the great work of his life. The steadfast zeal with which 
 he pursued it, and the distinguished success which crowned his eftorts, 
 entitle him to a place among the foremost educators of our age and 
 country. And it is our present purpose to give some account of him 
 and his work in this his chosen field of labor — to tell of his plans, 
 purposes, opinions, trialsj and triumphs, as an educator of youth. In 
 order, however, to form some just conception of his character, both as 
 a man and a minister, we .shall first preface what we have to say of 
 him as an educator with the following biographical sketch, which we 
 abridge from Dr. Sprague's " Annah of (he American Pidpit.'^ 
 
 I. OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 Philip Lindsley was born December 21st, 1786, near Morristown, 
 N.J. His parents were both of English extraction; the Lindsleys 
 and Condicts being among the earliest settlers of Morristown, and in- 
 fluential Whigs of the Revolution. His early youth was spent in his 
 father's family, at Basking Ridge, N. J., and in his thirteenth year he 
 entered the academy of the Rev. Robert Finley, of that place, with 
 whom he continued nearly three years. He entered the junior class 
 of the College of New Jersey in November, 1802, and was graduated 
 
 550538
 
 8 PHILIP LINDSLEY. 
 
 in September, 1804. After graduating he became an assistant 
 teacher, first in Mr, Stevenson's school at Morristown, and then in Mr. 
 Finley's at Basking Ridge. He resigned his phxce with the latter in 
 1807, and about the same time became a member of Mr. Finley's 
 church, and a candidate for the ministry, under the care of presby- 
 tery. He was then for two years Latin and Greek tutor in the col- 
 lege at Princeton, where he devoted himself to the study of theology, 
 chiefly under the direction of its president. Dr. Samuel Stanhope 
 Smith. On the 24th of April, 1810, he was licensed to preach the 
 gospel by the presbytery of New Brunswick. 
 
 Continuing his theological studies during the next two years, and 
 also preaching a while at Newtown, L. I., where he declined overtures 
 for a settlement, he made an excursion into Virginia, and afterward 
 to New England, and in November, 1812, returned to Princeton, in 
 the capacity of senior tutor in the college. In 1813 he was trans- 
 ferred from the tutorship to the professorship of languages, and at 
 the same time was chosen secretary of the board of trustees. He 
 also held the offices of librarian and inspector of the college during 
 his connection with the institution. In October of this year he was 
 married to Margaret Elizabeth, daughter of the Hon. Nathaniel Law- 
 rence, attorney-general of the State of New York. 
 
 In 1817 he was twice chosen president of Transylvania University, 
 Kentucky, but in both instances declined. In the same year he was 
 ordained, sine titulo, by the presbytery of New Brunswick, and was 
 also elected vice-president of the College of New Jersey. In 1822, 
 after Dr. Green's resignation, he was for one year its acting president. 
 The next year he was chosen president of Cumberland College, Ten- 
 nessee, and also of the College of New Jersey, but he declined both 
 appointments. The same year, the degree of Doctor of Divinity 
 was conferred upon him, by Dickinson College, then under the presi- 
 dency of Dr. J. M. Mason. 
 
 After refusing to consider overtures concerning the Dresidency of 
 Ohio University, at Athens, he was again offered the presidency of 
 Cumberland College, and finally induced to visit Nashville ; the result 
 of which was that he at last signified his acceptance of the office in 
 1824. During his absence, the board of trustees of Dickinson Col- 
 lege had sent a deputy to Princeton, to induce him to consent to be^ 
 come president of that institution. On the 24th of December he ar- 
 rived in Nashville with his family — the college having then been in 
 operation a few weeks, with about thirty students. He was inaugu- 
 rated with much pomp and ceremony, on the 12tli of January, 1825. 
 His address, delivered on the occasion, was published and very widely 
 circulated. It was a noble effort, and was regarded as auspicious of
 
 Pini.IP LINDSLEY. 
 
 an eminently useful and brilliant career. The corporate name of tlu- 
 college was changed the next year to "The University of Nashville." 
 In May, 1834, Dr. Linilsley was unanimously elected moderator 
 of the general assembly of the I'resbyterian church of the United 
 States, then holding its sessions at Philadelphia, He was elected a 
 member of the " Royal Society of Northern Antiquarians," at Copen- 
 hagen, in 1837. 
 
 In 1845, Mrs. Lindsley was taken from him by death, after a most 
 hapi>y union of about thirty-two years. In 1849 lie was married to 
 Mrs. Mary Ann Avers, the widow of a kinsman — Elias Ayers, the 
 founder of the New Albany Theological Seminary — a daughter of the 
 late Major William Silliman, of Fairfield, Conn., and a niece of the 
 venerable Professor Silliman of Yale College. In May, 1850, he was 
 elected professor of ecclesiastical polity and biblical arcluuology in the 
 New Albany Theological Seminary ; and, having resigned the presi 
 dency of the University of Nashville in October following, he re- 
 moved to New Albany in December, and entered on the duties of the 
 professorship at the beginning of the next year. Here he continued 
 usefully and acceptably employed until April, 1853, when he resigned 
 the office, contrary to the unanimous wish of the board. 
 
 The remaining two years of his life were spent chiefly in study, de- 
 votion, and intercourse with his friends. A few weeks before the 
 meeting of the general assembly in 1855, he was asked if he would 
 consent to serve the presbytery, as a commissioner to the assembly, 
 and his reply was, " I have never sought any appointment, and when 
 God has placed upon me a duty, I endeavor to discharge it." lie 
 was accordingly ajjpointed ; but he seemed afterward to doubt 
 whether it was liis duty to attempt to fulfill the appointment ; and 
 he remarked, the morning that he left home, as if from a premonition 
 of what was before liim, "I think it probable I shall never return — I 
 may die before I reach Nashville." lie, however, did reach Nashville, 
 though he reached it only to die. 
 
 On Wednesday morning, the 23d of May, while he was sitting at 
 the breakfast-table, surrounded by his children, the conversation 
 turned upon the danger of aged men traveling from home; and Dr. 
 Lindsley expressed the opinion that it was unwise, and tliat they 
 thereby often put their lives in jeopardy. A guest at the table 
 pleasantly inquired, "Is not your advice inconsistent with your own 
 lonely journey to this place ? " " No." he replied, " no ; I am liere 
 also at home — as well die here as any where." And in a few min- 
 utes he was struck with apoplexy, and passed instantly into a state 
 of unconsciousness, in which he remained till his death, which oc- 
 curred at one o'clock the next Friday morning. 
 
 I
 
 10 nil MP J.INDSLEY. 
 
 Wlien tlio tidings of liis alarming illness were communicated to tlie 
 general assembly, special prayers were immediately offered in liis be- 
 half, and a committee appointed to visit him, and express the sympa- 
 thy of the assembly with his afflicted faniily. Wlien liis departure 
 was announced, the most tender and respectful notice was taken of it, 
 and tlic funeral solemnities, which took place on the succeeding Mon- 
 day, and were conducted by distinguished members of the assembly, 
 bore witness to the gratitude and veneration with which his character 
 and services were regarded. His remains were deposited by the side 
 of his first wife and his youngest son. 
 
 Dr. Lindsley left five cliildren — three sons and two daughters. All 
 his sons were graduated at tlie University of Nashville. One of them, 
 Adrian Van Sinderen, is a lawyer; another, Natlianiel Lawrence, was 
 formerly professor of languages in Cumberland University, Tenn., and 
 more recently engaged in literary pursuits at Cambridge, Mass, ; and 
 the third, John Berrien, is an ordained minister of tlie Presbyterian 
 Church, chancellor of the University of Nashville, and professor of 
 chemistry in the medical department of the same institution. 
 
 II. ins CHIEF WORK AT NASHVILLE. 
 
 It will thus be seen that there were three principal fields of labor 
 on which Dr. Lindsley, at different periods of life, made his influence 
 felt as an educator: the first in his native state, and within the walls 
 of his own Abna Mater, where he devoted fifteen years of his early 
 prime, with unsurpassed energy and ardor, to the work of classical 
 instruction, gradually but easily winning his way up, from a tutorship if 
 
 to the presidency of the college ; the second at the capital of the then ^1 
 
 young and rising state of Tennessee, where, for twenty-six years, he 
 gave the whole force of his intellect and character to the furtherance 
 of all popular and liberal education ; and the third at New Albany, 
 where, for a few years, he imparted to candidates for the gospel min- 
 istry the well-matured results of his experience and scholarship. Of 
 this last field we shall not now speak. His period of labor there was 
 too short, and the circumstances of the institution too much embar- 
 rassed, to admit of much development. Nor need we dwell long on 
 the first field, in New Jersey. Brilliant as had been his successes there, 
 both as a scholar and a teacher, there can be no rpiestion that the 
 great work of liis life, both as it regards its intrinsic labor and its 
 lasting usefulness, was performed in Tennessee. 
 
 Of this first period, however, we may give, in passing, the testi- 
 mony of an eye-witness. Dr. Maclean, the present (1859) president 
 of the college at Princeton. " l^r. Lindsley,'' says he, " was one of 
 the best teachers of whom T have any knowledge. He had, in a 
 high degree, tlie hap|»v f'afiiltv of impnrting to his pupils some of his
 
 PH11.1P LINDSLEV. j j 
 
 uwii ardor lor tlic stmliL's of lii.s dejiartiiuMit. Tlivy were taught to 
 give close attention to graiumatical nicctie<s, as well as to the style and 
 sentiments of the autliors studied. For youth in colle^-e, as well as 
 for youth in classical schools, he insisted upon the importance of con- 
 stant reference to the grammar and the dietionary, and of a thorough 
 analysis of the words, as requisite to a full appreciation of the bean- 
 ties of style and thought. His favorite Greek authors, if I mistake 
 not, were Homer, Aristotle, and Longinus; and to his fondness for 
 them may be traced some of the characteristics of his own style." 
 
 It is known that he declined the highest position in the gift of his 
 Alma Mater, and cast his lot in the West, contrary to the wishes, 
 and indeed with the deep regret, of his friends at the East. Who can 
 tell the career of honor and usefulness whieh might have awaited 
 him there had he accepted that important i)osition ? Who can say 
 that a presidency at Nassau Hall, running through a quarter of a 
 century, would not have presented a career of usefulness fully equal 
 to that of Dwight at Yale, or Nott at Union, or any other which 
 our country has yet afforded. Still we hesitate not to think that he 
 acted wisely and well in going just when he did to what might then 
 be called the wild woods of Tennessee. We have no manner of 
 doubt that he there achieved a greater and more important work fui' 
 his generation than he could possibly have ever done at I'rineeton, 
 New Haven, or any other eastern seat of learning. The heart of man 
 deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. A great state was 
 just emerging from the wilderness — building its churches and school- 
 houses, constructing its works of internal improvement, bringing its 
 virgin soil into cultivation, and just ready to lay the foundations of 
 its literary and scientific institutions. The greatest work Avhich any 
 slate can ever do for its children in all time to come, that of forming 
 and putting into operation its systems of liberal and popular educa- 
 tion, was here to be done. A master-workman was needed for the 
 occasion — one who had the knowledge to grasp the problem, and the 
 genius, energy, and enthusiasm to solve it. That master-spirit was 
 found in Philip Lindsley. It is not too much to say that, if Cum- 
 berland College had made her selection from the entire circle of the 
 eastern colleges, she could not probably have found any man more 
 coujpetent and better furnished for the task, better prepared, by all his 
 tastes, studies, and attainments, to be the very 2>ioneer, missionary, 
 atid champion of collegiate or university education at the South West. 
 
 Having thus selected his ground, and driven down his stakes, at a 
 point which was then the extreme south-western outpost of educa- 
 tional institutions, he determined once for all not to abandon it. 
 Nothing is more striking in all his history, and indicative of that firm-
 
 J 2 I'llil.lP LINUSLKV. 
 
 ness ot" j)urpose wliicli constituted so iini)Oitaiit an element in bis 
 character, than tlie fixed and persistent determination which kept him 
 from ever leaving Nasluille till his work was done. No inducement 
 from abroad, and no amount of difficulty at borne, could ever wean 
 him from this his first love of western life. There was scarcely a year 
 of the twenty-six when he might not have gone to other posts of 
 usefulness and honor. Oft'ers came to him unsolicited, from the East, 
 the North, the South. To those who understood the discouragements 
 which he had to encounter at Nashville, and the repeated liberal in- 
 ducements held out to him from other quarters, there was a touch of 
 the heroic and sublime in that steady, unalterable resolve which kept 
 him at his chosen post so long, and from first to last so confident of 
 success. 
 
 Says Dr. Sprague, " Though Dr. Lindsley never, directly or indi- 
 rectly, sought an appointment from any literary institution, such was 
 bis reputation that he was solicited to the presidency of such institu- 
 tions more frequently perhaps than any other man who has ever lived 
 in this country. In addition to the cases already mentioned (in New 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio,) he was chosen to the presidency of 
 Washington College, Lexington, Va., and of Dickinson College, Car- 
 lisle, in 1829; was chosen twice to the presidency of the University 
 of Alabama, at Tuscaloosa, in 1830; was chosen provost of the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, and president of the College 
 of Louisiana, at Jackson, in 1834 ; president of Soutli Alabama Col- 
 lege, at Marion, in 1837; and president of Transylvania University, 
 in 1839 : all which appointments be promptly declined, though he 
 was greatly ui-ged to accept them." 
 
 Now the ex])lanation of all this is, that lie saw from the first, with 
 the clear intuition of his strong, practical mind, that there was a great 
 work to do in Tennessee — one not to be finished in a day or a year, 
 but demanding the labor of a life-time; and accordingly, instead of 
 frittering away his energies on half a dozen different schemes and 
 points of influence, be determined to make the most of life by devot- 
 ing it all to that one work, and never to leave it, until those who 
 should come after him might be able, upon the foundation which he 
 bad laid, to rear a noble and lasting structure. 
 
 III. IIIB PLANS AND rURPOSES AS TO A UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Coming to Nashville in the full vigor of his well-matured faculties, 
 at a time when there was scarcely any thing worthy of the name 
 of college in all the South West, it was natural that Dr. Lindsley 
 should at once form the design of establishing an institution on a 
 broad and permanent bas's, fully equal, if not superior, to any thing
 
 PHILIP LINDSLEY. 13 
 
 of the kind in our country, lie was too well versed in all the essen- 
 tial elements that constitute the life of a college, ever to suppose that 
 this could be done imniediatelv. But we tiiid the inagMiticent con- 
 ception taking [lossossioii of his mind from the very begiiuiing — of 
 building u]) an institution of the first order, not only for 'J\MiiK'.-s(.'f, 
 but the wlnjje South West. Accordingly, in his first public address 
 at Nashville, in 182.5, on his inauguration as president — which was 
 throughout a nK)st masterly plea tor "Co/Ay /«/e A'(/«cu</o)t " as the 
 very life of a free people — he expressed his views in such terms as 
 the following : — 
 
 Till- grand ixpL-riiiient is idmnt to be made wlietiior tliis college sliall be organ- 
 ized on a perinarifiit and respeetable basis, or whether it again be destined to a 
 temporary existcnei', and to ultimate faihn-e, from tlie want of duo eiieouiagement 
 and patronage from the wealtliy eilizens of West Tennessee and the adjaeenl 
 states. It is desirable that, in a college, piovision should be made for instruction 
 in all the sciences, and in every department of philosophy and literature. To the 
 ultimate attainment of this desideratum we must direct our views. We hope to 
 see tlic day, or that our successors may see it, when in Cumberland, or in the 
 tiniversity of Nashville, shall be found such an array of able professors, sueli 
 l.braries and apparatus, sueh cabinets of curiosities and of natural history, such 
 botanical gardens, astronomical obscrvatt)ries. and chemical laboratories, as sliall 
 insure to the student every advantage w liieh the oldest and noblest European 
 institutions can boast. So that no branch of experimental or physical, of moral 
 or political science, (»f ancient or modern languages and literature, shall be neg- 
 lected. 
 
 In his first baccalaureate address, entitled " The Cause of Educa- 
 tion hi Tennessee,''^ and delivered oti the first commencement of the 
 University, in 1826, we find him developing still further the magnifi- 
 cent educational scheme which he had projected, lie says : — 
 
 The trustees of Cumberlanil College have pureliascd one hundred and twenty 
 acres of land, to meet the various purposes of their contemplated university. It 
 is proposed immediately to commence the erection of a series of buildings for the 
 accommodation of students, instructors, and stewards ; consisting of five additional 
 colleges, each sufficiently commodious for a hundred students, and. three assistant 
 professors or tutoi's, and of seven houses for as many princijjal or liead-professors. 
 We shall then liave six colleges, and twenty-five instructors, and accommodations 
 for six hundred |)upils. To each college will be attached a refectory or boardmg- 
 housc, with eiiflit or ten acres of land for gardening and exercise. The colleges 
 will be erected at sueh distances from each other as to prevent the usual evils 
 resulting from the congregation of largo numbers of youth at the .^ame j)lace. 
 Professors will occupy houses on the intervening lots ; and there will be at least 
 three officers resident within the walls of each college. We shall thus liave 
 six distinct and separate families, so far as regards domestic economy, internal 
 police, and social onU'r ; while one scnatus acadcmicus will superintend and 
 control the wliole. 
 
 A more eligible or healthful site, for such an establi.shment, can not be found 
 in the western country. Here is the place, and now is the time, for genei'oiLs 
 i-nterprise. Here let us erect a university so decidedly and confessedly superior 
 in every department that a rival or eon)petitor ni'ed not be feared. Let us make 
 ample provision for every species of instruction — seientitic, literary, professional — 
 which our country demands. Let education be extended to the physical and 
 moral, as well as to the mental, faculties. Ix-t agriculture, horticulture, civil and 
 military engineering, gymnastics, the liberal and the nu'chanical arts — whatever 
 may tend to impart vigor, dignity, grace, activity, health to the body — whatever 
 may tend to purify the heart, im|>rove the morals and manners, discipline the
 
 14 
 
 I'lIlI.U' LINDSJLEY. 
 
 iiiUlli-cl, .umI tu ruiiiis-li it with f(>|>i<>iis stores ol' usdiil, (.liiiiciitaiy kiiowlfdgt — 
 obtain tluir npiiropriatc plaoo and rank, and ncc-ivt- niiritcd attention, in our 
 seminary ; so tliat paniits may, witli conlidnu-e, commit their sons to our oare, 
 ;ussured that tliey will ho in safe ami skilit'uliiands — under a government eijuitable, 
 paternal, mild, firm, viijilant, and faitiiful — where their every interest will be con- 
 sultid, their every laculty bo duly cultivated, and where every eflorl will be made 
 to render them intellii,'eiit, virtuous, accomplished citizens. 
 
 Ill liis ^^ Baccalaureate^^ of 1829, he jJeads still more urgently the 
 cause of a great university, including all the dejjailments of law, 
 medicine, divinity, science, literature, and the arts, and remarks: — 
 " Scarcely any portion of the civilized Christian world is so poorly \tro- 
 vided with the moans of a liberal education as are the five millions 
 of Americans within the great valley of the Mississippi. In casting 
 my eye over the map of Tennessee, it struck me from the first that 
 this was precisely the place destined by Providence for a great iini 
 versity, if ever such an institution were to exist in the state. And 
 in this opinion I am fully confirmed by several years' observation and 
 experience. I am entirely satisfied that it is physically impossible to 
 maintain a inuocrsitij (I am not now speaking of an ordinary college,) 
 in any other town in the state. And for this single good reason, were 
 there no other, namely, a medical school, which may be regarded as 
 an essential and as the most important part of a real university, can 
 never be sustained except in a lai'ge town or city, and the larger the 
 l)etter. Nashville is tlie only place where a medical school would even 
 be thought of; and physicians know full well that sucli is the fact. 
 If Tennessee tlien is to have such a school, it must be established in 
 Nashville." 
 
 The cit>j of Memphis was not tlieii in existence, and it is remark- 
 able how well the present flourishing medical school at Nashville, 
 with its four lumdred students, its able faculty, its spacious and well- 
 arranged laboratories, museum, library, and general apparatus, hardly 
 inferior to any in the Union, vindicates the sagacity of this early 
 opinion and prediction. 
 
 In his commencement speech of 1837, which was one of the 
 longest and ablest of all liis educational discourses, after giving an 
 uutline of the various systems of collegiate and university education 
 ill England, Scotland, Continental Europe, and our own country, lie 
 proceeds to present a sketch or summary of the scheme which he 
 wisfied to carry out at Nashville. After expressing the opinion that, 
 for the 2^ur2)ose of educating hoijs, generally between the ages of fifteen 
 and twenty -one, our isolated American colleges are, as a system, to be 
 preferred either to the English or German universities, provided they 
 be made in fact what they are in name, he says : — 
 
 But I would not stop hero. While I would duly encourage and improve tlio 
 ommon college, as we should the common school, there ought to be in every
 
 PHILIP I.INDSLEY. 15 
 
 state, at least ia each of Ihc larger states, one institution of the highest onlor ami 
 most comprehensive and commanding character. If wc can not achieve this 
 object in five or twenty years, it may be done perhaps in fifty or five hundred. 
 If we can not hope in our day to rival Berlin, Munich, Ciiittingen, Leipzig, 
 Copeidiagen, Vienna, ilalle, Lcyden, Paris, Moscow, or even St. Petersburg, we 
 may commence the enterprise, and leave posterity to carry it onward toward 
 completion. For complete, in the nature of things, it never can be. It must \u- 
 growing, advancing, enlarging, aceuiimlating, till the end of time. No university 
 in Europe is complete — not even in any one department. 
 
 Having described the neces.sary collections and fixtures, ho then 
 goes on to say : — 
 
 Our university must have the requisite teaching force also. Professors of 
 every language, dead and living — of every science, in all its branches and sid)di- 
 visions, in all its bearings and applications. To bo more jjarticular, there should 
 h.> |)rofessors or teachers 
 
 Of ancient classical languages and literature ; 
 
 Of oriental languages and literature ; 
 
 Of modern European languages and literature ; 
 
 Of mathematics, natural philosophy, astronomy ; 
 
 Of chemistry, geology, mineralogy, comparative anatomy ; 
 
 Of archaeology — in reference to ancient nations, governments, jurispru- 
 dence, geography, mythology, arts, sciences, and still-existing monu- 
 ments ; 
 
 Of philology, eloquence, poetry, history ; 
 
 Of physiology — vegetable, animal, and comparative ; 
 
 Of ethics, polities, logic, metaphysics ; 
 
 Of constitutional and international law ; 
 
 Of political economy and national statistics ; 
 
 Of architecture, sculpture, painting, drawing, engraving, music ; 
 
 Of engineering — civil, military, and naval ; 
 
 Of mechanics — principles and practice ; 
 
 Of agriculture, commerce, manufactures ; 
 
 Of fencing, riding, swimming, and other manly and healthful gymnastics ; 
 
 Of natural history in every department ; 
 
 Of all the liberal professions ; 
 
 Of biblical literature ; 
 
 And of religion, in sueli forms and modes as may be .satisfactory to the 
 judicious and reflecting portion of the conmiunity. 
 There should be schools, in short, for all the sciences, arts, languages, and pro- 
 fessions. So that no youth need ever cross the ocean, to study and learn what 
 ought to be much more safely and advantiigeously taught at home. Tiie above is 
 not given either as a complete enumeration or proper grouping of the subji-ets 
 for professorships, but rather as a brief sunnnary or outline of the more obvious 
 and important. 
 
 Further on, he remarks — after reducing his scale for Nashville ti) 
 what might at all events emulate the universities of Geneva, of New 
 York, or Virginia — "Our first efl'ort here in Nashville should donld- 
 loss be to elevate the only department which we have hithorlo at- 
 tempted to establish ; that is, the college for undergraduates, or the 
 faculty of arts, sciences, and literature. It is desirable to have profes- 
 sors of German, French, Italian, Spanish — perhaps of some other 
 modern languages ; though a knowledge of none of them has been 
 made indispensable to graduation in any college." 
 
 In a word, his plan was to build up an institution, where boys 
 might be trained, under skillful teachers, in all science and literature, 
 before graduating; and where, after graduation, they might still pur-
 
 IQ PHILIP LINDSLEY. 
 
 sue their studies, to any extent, and in every thing that man needs to 
 know; to combine for the pujtil all tlie advantages of the Enghsh 
 and American college, and for the scliohir all the aids of the Ger- 
 man university. 
 
 Of his undertaking he speaks as follows : — " Now the University of 
 Nashville, compared with my own beau ideal of such an estahlish- 
 ment, is but an element — a mere atom — a foundation — a nucleus — a 
 corner-stone — a first essay toward the gloiious consummation and 
 perfection of my own cherished hopes and anticipations. And I 
 could say little more of any other university in our country. I re- 
 gard them all as being still in their infancy, or at most in their early 
 youth ; and that their ri(/ht to the title of university is yet to be 
 proved and confirmed by their future growth to vigorous manliood 
 and generous maturity." 
 
 But that he would succeed ultimately in accomplishing his plan, 
 in despite of all obstacles, he seemed never to have a doubt. We 
 remember well his look of sublimity and his tone of determination, 
 when in 1834, in one of his most eloquent moods, he gave utterance 
 to these strong, triumphant words: — "We count not on the state's 
 treasury, nor upon legislative indemnification. We rely not upon 
 ecclesiastical patronage, or sectarian zeal, or individual munificence ; 
 nor, indeed, upon any of the usual sources of pecujiiary revenue which 
 have reared and sustained so many flourishing institutions in other 
 sections of our happy republic. We belong to no sect or party in 
 church or state. We open our poi'tals wide, and proffer our instruc- 
 tions freely to enterprising, moral youth of every political and religious 
 creed in the land. Literature and science, language and philosophy, 
 morals and virtue, unalloyed and unclouded by the dogmas of any 
 sect or school, we inculcate and exemplify as best we can. And we 
 ap|>eal to the common sense and equity of mankind for the wisdom 
 of our system and the honesty of our proceedings. We are the 
 staunch, uncompromising advocate of genuine religion — of pure, un- 
 adulterated Christianity — but, in all matters which distinguish one 
 class or sect or church from another, we leave our pupils to parental 
 guidance and discretion ; and to the ministerial cares of the clergy 
 in our city to whom they severally yield a voluntary preference. 
 
 " Where then is the ground of our hope and of our encouragement ? 
 It is in the growing strength and moral influence of our own enlightened, 
 loyal, and patriotic sons, who issue, year after year, from our classic 
 halls, imbued with the chivalrous spirit and republican virtue of the 
 brightest age of Greek and Roman glory — and animated by the celes- . 
 tial principles of Christian magnanimity and benevolence — and whose 
 voice shall yet be heard by a generous and honest, though hitherto
 
 PHILIP LINDSLEY. | 7 
 
 much abused and misguided people. It is in these, under the pro- 
 pitious smiles and overruling providence of the Most High, that we 
 place our con6dence, and garner up our soul's fondest aspirations. 
 They will never prove recreant or traitorous. The claims of Alma 
 Mater upon their affections, their zeal, their labors, their influence, 
 their talents, and their wealth, will ever be acknowledged as of para- 
 mount and everlasting obligation. 
 
 "We say — or rather let the university proudly say — there are our 
 sons. We send them forth into the world. And by the world's 
 spontaneous verdict upon their training and their bearing will we 
 abide. We calmly and confidently await the world's decision ; and 
 we feel assured of no mortifying disappointment. Our faith is strong, 
 unwavering, invincible. And our purpose to persevere in the good 
 work, which has thus f;ir been signally prospered in the midst of every 
 species of hinderance and discouragement, can not be shaken. The 
 tongue which now speaks our high resolve, and bids defiance to scru- 
 tiny, to prejudice, to jealousy, to cowardice, to calumny, to malevo- 
 lence, may be silent in the tomb long ere the glorious victory shall 
 be achieved. But WE, the UNIVERSITY, live forever ! And gen- 
 erations yet unborn shall rejoice in our triumphs, and pronounce the 
 eulogium which our labors will have nobly won." 
 
 Nothing could exceed the zeal and ardor with which, on all 
 private and all public occasions, Doctor Lindsley was found battling 
 against popular prejudices, and defending the great enterprise to which 
 he had consecrated his life. The college — the higher learning — 
 university education became his abiding theme, on which he was ever 
 ready to pour out the full treasures of bis classical and accomplished 
 mind. Probably some of the finest and most triumphant vindications 
 of learning that ever fell from the lips of man were made by him 
 during this period. We subjoin a few specimens: — 
 
 Ignorance never dul any good, and never will or can do any good. Ignorant 
 men are good for nothing, except so far as they are governed and directed by 
 intelligent superiors. Hence it is the order of Providence, that in every well-reg- 
 ulated community children and all grossly ignorant persons are held in subjection 
 to age and wisdom and experience. No species or portion, even of the humblest 
 manual or mechanical labor, can be performed until the party be taught how to 
 do it. 
 
 If it be said that the Deity has no need of human learning to propagate his 
 religion, it may be replied that neither lias he any need of human ignorance. 
 lie could, if he chose, dispense with human agency altogetlier. But we have 
 yet to learn that Infinite Wisdom lias ever selected an insufficient and inadequate 
 asency for any purpose wliatever. In the days of prophecy and miracle, from 
 Moses to Paul, htj never employed human ignorance in the work of instruction. 
 If they were not all educated in the universities of Egypt, as was Moses, or of 
 Judea, as was Isaiah, or of Babylon, as was Daniel, or at the feet of Gamaliel, 
 as was Paul, they were well-trained somewhere, and by competent masters, as 
 were the fishermen of Galilee by Christ himself, besides being endowed with the 
 gift of tongues, and extraordinary communications for every emerofcncy.
 
 18 
 
 PIIIMP LINDSLRV. 
 
 I use the term university as equivalent to the host possible system of educa- 
 tion, and in reference to the highest order and degree of intellectual and moral 
 cultivation. Wherever, and by whatever process, the human mind is most effectual 
 ly imbued and enriched with the purest treasures of science and knowledge, and 
 where the whole man is duly trained and qualified for the greatest usefulness, there 
 is »ny university. 
 
 I affirm then that the university, as just explained, ever has been, is now, and 
 i'ver will be, the grand conservative principle of civilization, of truth, virtue, 
 learning, liberty, religion, and good government among mankind. To the wni- 
 versity are we indebted for all the useful arts, laws, morals, enjoyments, comforts, 
 conveniences, and blessings of civilized society. There has never been a nation 
 or community, higlily enlightened and civilized, where the university did not dis- 
 pense its kindly influences, or where it did not occupy a commanding position. 
 The nations of antiquity degenerated, or sunk into barbarism, just as the univers- 
 ity, or higher learning, was neglected or became extinct among them. It has 
 never been found among savages or barbai-ians ; and all the nations and tribes 
 upon our globe arc barbarians or savages at this day where the university is not, 
 or where its cheering and illuminating beams have not penetrated. 
 
 If to this broad statement it be objected, that science, literature, and refinement 
 abound in regions wliere no university has been established ; I answer, that the 
 beneficial effects of the university are oftentimes experienced at great distances 
 from its actual location. The universities of Egypt extended their salutary and 
 redeeming spirit even to barbarous Greece. Those of Europe are felt in Amer- 
 ica. And those of Massachusetts and Virginia may operate in Tennessee and 
 Texas. In the present condition of the commercial and missionar}^ world, the 
 influence of the university is visible in almost every quarter — in New Holland 
 and the South Sea Islands — on the banks of the Ganges and the Congo and the 
 Amazon — and wherever European and American civilization has acquired even a 
 partial or temporary resting-place. 
 
 If again we be directed to self-taught and self-made men as a triumphant neg- 
 ative to our whole theory ; I tell you, that self-taught men (as they are styled,) 
 such as Franklin, Ferguson, Shakspeare, Watt, Arkwright, Henry, Fulton, 
 Davy, are, or were, just as much indebted to the university as were Bacon, Sel- 
 den, Newton, Burke, Jefierson, Jay, Madison, or Whitney. The latter drank 
 at the fountain, the former at the streams which issue from it. Had Franklin 
 oeen born and bred among savages, he might have become the first among the 
 prophets and chiefs of his tribe ; but he would not have been enrolled among the 
 greatest philosophers and statesmen of the civilized world. Washington too might 
 have been the Tecumseh or Black Hawk of the wilderness, but not the saviour, 
 the founder, the father of a mighty republic of enlightened and happy freemen. 
 He had studied in the school of Locke and Rlilton, of Sidney and Hampden, of 
 Tell and Phocion ; and like them was liberally educated. He was not a scholar 
 in the strict, technical meaning of the term, though his scholarship was respect- 
 able and far superior to that of many a college graduate. 
 
 In the eloquent appeals which he was constantly making in behalf 
 of this grand enterprise, Dr. Lindsley was sometimes deemed a vis- 
 ionary and enthusiast by the short-sighted politicians of his day. 
 But there was nothing visionary about him. Never was any man 
 blest with a more practical mind, or a larger stock of good English 
 common sense. He knew precisely what he was abotit from the be- 
 ginning. He knew that the way to build up a great institution at 
 Nashville was to secure first a yood and broad foundation in the 
 soil. And in that he was not mistaken. There is no manner of 
 doubt that he could have accomiilished, and would have accomplished, 
 in his own life-time— nay, at an early period of his career— all that 
 he had projected, if he had only succeeded in bringing the legisla- 
 ture or tlie people of Tennessee to his own views. He told them
 
 PHILIP LINDSLEY. jq 
 
 from tlie beginning tliat a " university would be an expensive con- 
 cern ; " but he demonstrated that it was a concern which would 
 paij — both intellectually and morally. ITe demonstrated that it would 
 bring benefits both to the rich and the poor, to the citizens of Nasli- 
 ville and the people of Tennessee, to themselves and their children, 
 in all time to come. The visionaries were those who thought it 
 would not jxi)/, and that it was foolish to spend a few hundred thou- 
 sand dollars, to build up a Cambridge or an Oxford, a Harvard or 
 Yale, in the Far West. 
 
 In carrying forward so great a work, he had expected at one time 
 io secure both the public aid of the state and the private co-opera- 
 tion and munificence of the citizens of Nashville. The result proved 
 that he had to rely solely on the latter. In the address of 1832, 
 after again unfolding his scheme of a university, he says : " This would 
 be a species of internal improvement worthy of the republic, and 
 which would elevate Tennessee to a rank never yet attained by any 
 people. And the legislature, which shall boldly lay the corner-stone 
 of such a magnificent temple of popular instruction, will deserve and 
 w'ill gain a glorious immortality, whatever may be the verdict of their 
 constituents or of their cotemporarios. Their magnanimous and en- 
 lightened patriotism will be celebrated a thousand lustrums after the 
 petty interests and conflicts of this selfish generation shall be for- 
 gotten." 
 
 But finding, after a few }'ears' tiial, that he could neither depend 
 on state aid nor secure from individual munificence such an endow- 
 ment as his scheme demanded, he then set to work manfully to make 
 of his university as good an institution as the limited means at his 
 disposal and the steadfast co-operation of his coadjutors at Nashville 
 would admit. In this spirit, ever ready to Jiiodify his views to exist- 
 ing circumstances, and never for a moment despairing of ultimate 
 success, we find him giving utterance to the following words : — "In in- 
 augurating the establishment of a university at Nashville, the honest 
 purpose was fondly cherished from the beginning to render it in fact 
 all that the name imports. Its friends desired to lay its foundations 
 deep and broad. They felt that they were going to build for poster- 
 ity as well as for the living. That kind of ephemeral popularity 
 which is so cheaply purchased, au.d which is never worth the 
 cheapest purchase, they neither sought nor coveted. They did not 
 expect to see the gilded domes and lofty turrets of their university 
 suddenly rising in splendor, and dazzling the eye of every beholder. 
 They knew that they could, at best, achieve little more than the com- 
 mencement of a work, which must be fostered, and enlarged, and 
 matured, in the progress perhaps of ages to come." 
 
 These quiet words indicated the right spirit — the spirit of a truo
 
 20 PHILIP LINDSLEY. 
 
 and faithful worker, who had learned how " to labor and to wait " — 
 a spirit which every man must have who would succeed in instructing 
 the young, or building up a literary institution. And although, for 
 want of funds, Dr. Lindsley did not accomplish in his own life-time 
 the precise thing which he first piojocted at Nashville, yet he did 
 succeed, in despite of manifold drawbacks and discouragements, in 
 building up an institution which, as it regards the standard of schol- 
 arship in its professors and the attainments and subsequent usefulness of 
 its alumni, stood, as long as he was at the head of it, second to none in 
 the Mississippi valley. Nor did lie leave it until he felt that he could 
 safely intrust it into the hands of one who, though young to receive 
 such a father's mantle, was fully competent, both by education and 
 endowment, to enter into all his plans and carry forward all his work. 
 Qui facit 2>ci' alios facit per se is as true of a good work as of the re- 
 verse. An educator's work is never fully done, nor can his influence 
 be fully measured, short of what his pupils and his children shall do. 
 And hence there is no improbability that Dr. Lindsley may yet, by 
 his perpetuated influence and laboi', accomplish the realization of that 
 splendid beau ideal of a great university which rose up before his 
 imagination as he first surveyed the beautiful city of rocks and cedars 
 on the banks of the Cumberland. 
 
 But be this as it may, there can be no question that his earnest 
 and persevering eftbrts to found a great university at Nashville did 
 in a manner train the public mind in Tennessee to large and liberal 
 views of education. By aiming at great things he inspired the lead- 
 ing minds around him with somewhat of his own enthusiastic admi- 
 ration for the higher learning; and these imparted his views to others. 
 By keeping the subject of collegiate education prominently before 
 the public for a quarter of a century, and availing himself of every 
 opportunity to magnify its importance, he gave a noble impulse to 
 the whole work of education in every department of it — an impulse 
 which was soon felt over the whole region around him, and is still 
 working mightily. It is a striking illustration of his power and 
 success as a teacher, that he never failed to leaven his pupils with his 
 own doctrines on all educational subjects — at least those of them 
 who were with hini any length of time, and were cajjable of under- 
 standing and appreciating his opinions. He was sure to inspire them 
 with elevated and liberal sentiments on the whole subject of learning ; 
 and his own example taught them to expect great things and to 
 attempt great things. He was peculiarly fortunate too in the circum- 
 st-ance that all his sons, graduating at the university, under his own 
 immediate instructions, partook of his spirit, and stood ready to adopt 
 and carry forward all his long cherished plans of education. The
 
 I'lllJ.ll' M.NDSLIJY. 
 
 21 
 
 eldest, graduating with high distiiictiuii in a class remarkable for 
 talents, and settling at Nashville in the profession of the law, became 
 one of the most active and inHiiential of all her alumni in sustaining 
 the honor of Alma Mater, and thus fui'thering the great work to 
 which tlic father's life had been consecrated. The two vounger, 
 entering the profession of their choice, that of the educator, in com- 
 parative youth, have ever since devoted themselves to its high and 
 arduous responsibilities, and have already, on different tields, won a 
 distinguished reputation as practical instructors. For while one, as 
 before indicated, remains at Nashville, the chancellor of its university, 
 carrying forwai'd with signal success the great work marked out by 
 the father ; the other,* after teaching several years in one of the chairs 
 of the university, and after it had become manifest that the good 
 people of Tennessee demanded not one or two only but many colleges, 
 was called to bear a laborious and impoitant part in building up the 
 Cumberland University, at Lebanon, in the same state. In full 
 accordance with his father's counsel in the matter, he accepted the 
 professorship of ancient languages and literature in that young 
 and rising institution, and for several years contributed his whole 
 talents and influence to give it that character which it has attained 
 amongst the foremost institutions of the West; holding now by its 
 law department the same commanding position among the schools of 
 our country which the university at Nashville holds by its medical 
 department. But, resigning this important post, he has since founded 
 the Greenwood Seminary, tor young ladies, near Lebanon, over which 
 he now presides with eminent ability, gracefully commingling a 
 genial care of the young with an enthusiastic devotion to literary 
 pursuits. And thus, while the great and gifted author of all these 
 large and liberal schemes of culture for the youth of Tennessee has 
 himself passed from the field of his labors, it is gratifying to know 
 that his work still goes on, in the hands of his pupils and his children. 
 So true is it, that the good men do, when it is well done, lives after 
 them. 
 
 No State west of the mountains is better supplied with colleges 
 than Tennessee, especially all that part wliich has had a more imme- 
 diate connection with Nashville. To show the contrast between the 
 present facilities for collegiate and even professional education and 
 those which existed in the same region thirty-five years ago, when 
 E>r. Lindsley went to Nashville, it will be sufficient to glance at the 
 latest catalogues of the more prominent institutions in Middle and 
 East Tennessee.! 
 
 *Prof. N. Lawrence Lindsley. 
 
 tOn his resignation, the University of Nashville was suspended a few years, in order to erect 
 new buildings. It was reorganized and opened again in 1853. In the mean time, the medical de-
 
 22 
 
 PHILIP LINDSLEY. 
 
 IV. HIS SPOKEN AND PUBLISHED ADDHESSES. 
 
 The published writings of Dr. Lindsley consist chiefly of his 
 baccalaureate addresses and occasional sermons. His great theme, 
 even in his sermons, was education and its kindred topics. In one of 
 his ablest published discourses, delivered at the installation of Dr. Edgar, 
 in Nashville, in 1833, he speaks of his preaching in the following 
 terms, indicating a far humbler estimate of it, in his own mind, than 
 the public were accustomed to take : — " My own particular sphere of 
 ministerial duty has ever been extremely humble and limited, as it 
 regards age and numbers, thougli not unimportant in reference to the 
 ultimate welfare of the church and the public. My province too has 
 always demanded a different kind and form of preaching from that 
 which obtains in a popular assembly. A word in season — a 
 little liere and a Ittle there — and something every day to one or a 
 dozen, as occasion offered or suggested — without touching on points 
 of theological or ecclesiastical controrer-sy, and without the formal 
 method of regular sermonizing — has been the fashion of my own very 
 imperfect essays in the good work of the gospel ministry." And 
 hence it was that, always regarding himself as an educator of the 
 voung, he was often, even in his public discourses on the Sabbath, 
 found pleading the cause of education. 
 
 Dr. Sprague gives the following list of his publications: — "^4 Plea for 
 
 imrtmeiit had been founded in 1850. The number of students matriculated in this department, for 
 the first three years, was as follows: — First session, 121; second, 152; third, 220. There has 
 been a steady increase to the present time, when it has risen to .above 400. The graduates already 
 ruind)er (iCS). The number of law students we are not able to give. Cumberland University, at 
 Lebanon, hus a law department, under the instruction of Judges Nathan Green and Abram Caru- 
 ihers. The whole number of students, including law and other departments, is about 500. We 
 have not the means of giving a full and exact statement ; but, from such data as are at hand, «e 
 condense the following tabular summary, which can not be far from the truth, and will be sufficient 
 to give an idea of the more prominent Tennessee colleges, and of the progress of learning in that» 
 whole region, net to mention those of the adjoining states, nor the numerous seminaries for young 
 ladies, which have every where kept pace with the colleges. Many of the latter have in a great 
 measure been modeled after the old Female Academy, at Nashville, which, dating back almost to 
 ilie origin of the University, and having an average attendance of three or four hundred, has no 
 dunbt educated more young ladies than any institution in the West. 
 
 University of Nashville, Rev. J. B. Lindsley, JVLJ)., chancellor: Classical students, 104; Medi- 
 cal, 4:J6. Total, 540. Volumes in library, 9,066. 
 
 Cumberland University, Kev. T. C. Anderson, D. D., president: Classical students, 171 ; Law, 
 IH8; Theology, 3; Science, 6; Preparatory, 94. Total, 462. Volumes, 4,000. 
 
 U'nion College, at Murfreesboro', J. H. Eaton, LL. D., president: Students, 160. Volumes, 
 4,500. 
 
 .lacksou College, at Columbia, B. F. Mitchell, president : Students, 84. Volumes, 4,400. 
 
 Franklin College, near Nashville, T. Fanning, president: Students, 106. Volumes, 3,500. 
 
 East Tennessee College, at Knoxville, Rev. W. D. Carnes, president: Alumni, 169. Volumes, 
 8,000. 
 
 Besides these, the lingraiige College, at Lagrange, only about two years old, had on its first cata 
 logue 113 students, under the presidency of Rev. John H. Gray, D. D., assisted by four able protess- 
 ors : and, still more recently, the Stewart College, at Charksville, with a completed endowment of 
 $100,000, has gone into operation, under the presidency of Rev. R. B. McMullen, D. D., assisted by 
 tour professors.
 
 PHILIP LINDSLEY. 
 
 23 
 
 the Theological Seminary at Princeton, (several editions,) 1821;" 
 '■'■Early Piety Recommended in a sermon delivered in the college chapel, 
 Princeton, 1821 ;" '■'■The Duty of Observing the Sabbath explained and 
 enforced in a sermon addressed more particular!}' to the young, 1821 ; 
 ^^Improvement of Time — two discourses delivered in the chapel of '' 
 College of New Jersey, 1822;" " yl Fareivell Sermon, delivered in 
 the chapel of the College of New Jersey', 1824 ; " "J/i Address at his 
 Inauguration as president of Cumberland College, 1825;" "The 
 Cause of Education in Tennessee ; " " A Baccalaureate Address, 
 1826;" "A Baccalaureate Address, 1827;" "A Baccalaureate 
 Address, 1829;" "■ A Bacculaiireate Address, 1831 ;" '' A Baccalau- 
 reate Address, 1832 ;" " An Address on the Centennial Birthday of 
 George Washington, 1832;" "A Discourse at the Installation of 
 the Rev. John T. Edgar, Nashville, 1833 ;" "-A Baccalaureate, en- 
 titled ' Speech in behalf of the University of Nashville,' 1837 ;" ''A 
 Lecture an Popular Education, 1837 ;" "A Baccalaureate Address, 
 entitled ' Speech about Colleges,' 1848."* 
 
 Besides these he wrote various articles on education fur the public 
 prints, and contrilnited two learned and able papers to the "Americati 
 Biblical Repository,''' on the Primitive State of Mankind, which 
 excited much attention at the time both in this country and in Europe. 
 Indeed he was one of the first, if not the very first, scholar of our times to 
 take the ground, which has since become so common, and has recent- 
 ly been so ably argued in Kitto's '■'•Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature,^' 
 viz., that man's primeval condition was not that of a savage, but a 
 civilized being. Says Dr. Kitto, (Art. Antediluvians^ " That a de- 
 gree of cultivation was the primitive condition of man, from which 
 savageism in particular quarters was a degeneracy, and that he has 
 not, as too generally has been supposed, worked himself up from an 
 original savage state to his present position, has been powerfully ar- 
 gued by Dr. Lindsley, and is strongly corroborated by the conclusions 
 of modern ethnographical research." Indeed we find Dr. Lindslev 
 "powerfully" defending this view, (for it was a fevorite theme with 
 him, which he held with all the tenacity of a discoverer,) not only in 
 \\\Q '■'■ Biblical Repository,"' hwt as far back as 1825, in his inaugural 
 address, in which he shows that the old infidel idea of a man's being 
 
 ■ These educational discourses, together with that of 1850 on the " Life and Character of 
 Ur. Gerard Troost," his last baccalaureate, have just been issued, in elegant style, from the 
 press of J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, forming an octavo of 588 pages. It is the first 
 <if a series of volumes, soon to follow, containing IJr. Lindsley's Complete Works and a 
 Biography. This first of the scries is itself a noble contribution to our literature, whether 
 we regard it as a compendium of strong, original, and well matured views on the great sub- 
 ject of education, or as the actual, connected history of agiffed mind in its efforts to enlighten 
 the public. No educator can read it without having his spirit .stirred to new zfal in his high 
 calling.
 
 24 
 
 PIIII.IP I.IXDSLEY. 
 
 at the stait a sort of noble savage is contradicted alike by reason, 
 revelation, and history. 
 
 But this point would load us tuo far fi'oiii our present purpose. 
 Besides these publications, Dr. Lindsley left other valuable writings, 
 in carefully-prepared manuscript, bearing on the same general topics 
 discussed in those already mentioned. The writer heard many of 
 these baccalaureate and other addresses, when they were delivered, 
 and can bear witness to the powerful impression which they produced. 
 It is questionable whether any man in our country has ever made 
 more of the baccalaureate address, and done a more effective service 
 with it, than Dr. Lindsley. They were always prepared with the ut- 
 most care, and charged with liis maturest and weightiest thoughts. 
 They were generally delivered to the largest audiences ever assembled 
 in Nashville — consisting often of legislators, judges, professional gen- 
 tlemen fi'om all parts of the state, and the very elite of the city. He 
 had made it a point in the start never to speak in public till he liad 
 something to say, and was fully prepared to say it. And such was 
 his reputation, after a few efforts of this kind, that both in the college 
 and the city, the baccalaureate was looked forward to as the 
 great occasion of the year. He seemed never so much in his true 
 element as on the commencement stage. And he came forth on these 
 occasions, and delivered this heavy artillery of learning and eloquence 
 with much of the power and success exhibited by our ablest states- 
 men in their set speeches in Congress. There was in tact scarcely 
 any one instrumentality employed by Dr. Lindsley, during his whole 
 career at Nashville, through which he seemed to exert a deeper, 
 wider, and more wholesome influence on the public mind than these 
 addresses. They were for the most part published in pamphlet form, 
 and some of them passed through several editions. Thus heard and 
 read by the leading men of Tennessee, and incorporated, as so much 
 established truth, into the living thought of all his pupils, they 
 were reproduced in a thousand different forms, and became part and 
 parcel of the public sentiment in all the educated circles of the state. 
 
 And they were well deserving of the honor. We have just now 
 had occasion to read most of them over again, after the lapse of 
 many years. xVnd we have been more than ever impressed with 
 their wisdom and beauty. We know not where to find, in the same 
 compass, within our whole range of reading, so much sound doctrine, 
 wise counsel, and soul-stirring sentiment, on the subject of the educa 
 tion of the young. There are some persons who look with disparage 
 ment upon our pamphlet literature, and shrink, with a sort of digni 
 fied contempt, from the idea of a great man's burying himself in a 
 pamphlet, as the common saying is. But no man can read the pam-
 
 PHIMP I.INDSI.RY. 25 
 
 plilet addresses of l)r. Liiidsley — especially if lie had ever had the 
 good fortune to see and hear him in the delivery of one of theiu — 
 without feeling that they were, in liis hands, a powerful engine of 
 doing good. If he liad spent liis life in writing large and learned 
 books, he could doubtless have filled a wider sphere and gained a 
 more extended fame ; but we have no idea that he could ever thus 
 have reached and indoctrinated the leading minds of Tennessee, as he 
 did by tliese apparently ephemeral but really effective spoken and 
 published addresses. We consider his example, in this respect, wor- 
 thy of all praise and all imitation on the part of those who, called to 
 the presidency of ouj; struggling colleges, will find it necessary, not 
 only to supply tlie demand for instruction witliin the college-walls, 
 but continually to create a demand for that supply without, by inspir- 
 ing the people with enthusiasm for learning, and indoctrinating them 
 into large and liberal views of the subject. 
 
 By these annual tracts on education, containing the condensed re- 
 sults of his own reflection, reading, and experience, fraught with the 
 living spirit of his own burning enthusiasm for knowledge, and sent 
 forth with the liigh indorsement of his acknowledged scholarship, lie 
 gave a dignity to the teacher's office in Tennessee, and elevated the 
 whole standard of popular instruction in the South West, to an ex- 
 tent whicli is none the less real and salutary because it was done so 
 gradually that the public mind, even to this day, is scarcely conscious 
 of the change, or to whom it is most indebted for the elevating influ- 
 ence. By this we do not mean to affirm that Dr. Lindsley did all the 
 work alone ; nor to detract aught from the valuable services of his 
 coadjutors and predecessors. There were men before him at Nasli- 
 ville, preparing materials for the temple of learning, even in the 
 wilderness : as the well-known and honored names of Priestly and 
 Hume can bear witness. And there were men with him at Nash- 
 \ille — men worthy of their high calling, and master-builders, each in 
 his several department — who stood by him and nobly seconded all his 
 efforts: such men as Troost, and IFamilton, and Thomson, and Cross, 
 whose names will long remain as a tower of strength in Tennessee. 
 But what we mean to say is, that Dr. Lindsley, from the time he set 
 foot in Xashville, was the mainspring of the movement — the master- 
 spirit of the great work of liberal and popular education. The very 
 fact that he gathered around him, and through all embarrassment 
 and discouragement ever kept at his side, a corps of instructors fully 
 equal to any in our countr}', is ])roof itself of the important part we 
 have ascribed to him. The fact that literary and scientific men, and 
 many eminent teachers, attracted by his influence, soon found tlieir 
 way to Tennessee — that rare and costly standard works, and book-
 
 2g PHI UP LINDSLEY. 
 
 stores on a scale not then known any wliere else in tlie West, began 
 to be mnltiplied at Nashville — is additional proof of it. Certain it i;; 
 tliat, under his leadership, there was an influence exerted and a work 
 done which to this day could not have been realized, unless indeed 
 Go<l had raised up some other leader of like spirit and ability, 
 
 V. HIS VIEWS AND OPINIONS AS AN EDUCATOR. 
 
 It would be impossible, within the compass of this article, to give 
 any thing like a full and exhaustive statement of Dr. Lindsley's most 
 cherislied principles, maxims, and methods, as a practical teacher. 
 This in fact would be almost to reproduce his whole published and 
 unpublished writings. Still it is due to any thing like a complete 
 memoir of the man, that we should attempt, at least, some brief 
 account of those views ami opinions which he held with so much 
 tenacity and defended with so much abilit}'. 
 
 We may notice first his exaltal conception of the teacliei-'s vocation. 
 No man could well liave a higher estimate of its importance. And 
 no man perhaps in our country, certainly none in the West, ever did 
 more, both by precept and example, to honor and magnify the office. 
 Tn his inaugural address he says : — 
 
 I fearlessly put the question to any man of liberal feelings and .sound judgment, 
 and I challenge him to assign even a plausible pretext for thus degrading a teacher 
 to the level of a drudge, or for employing none but those who are content to be 
 drudges, and who are fit for no higher rank in society. If there be one vocation 
 more important to tlie community than any other, or than all others, it is that of 
 the instructor of youth. Every such man deserves well of his country, and is 
 more justly entitled to her lasting gratitude than multitudes of those whom she 
 most delights to honor. Our country needs seminaries purposely to train up and 
 qualify young men for the profession of teaching. We have our theological sem- 
 inaries, our medical and law schools, which receive the graduates of our colleges, 
 and fit them for their respective professions. And whenever the profession of 
 teaching shall be duly honored and appreciated, it is not doubted but that it will 
 receive similar attention, and be favored with equal advantages. I again repeat, 
 regardless of all prejudices and defying all rational contradiction, that in a repub- 
 lic, where knowledge is the soul of liberty, no profession ought to be more gener- 
 ously cherished, honored, and rewarded than that of the worthy instructor of 
 youth. 
 
 In this connection we cite Dr. Lindsley's early advocacy of normal 
 schools or teachers' seminaries^ from the same address. 
 
 Though the idea perhaps may be novel to some persons, yet the propriety and 
 importance of such a provision will scarcely be questioned by any competent 
 judges. The Seminarium Philologicum of the late celebrated Heyne, at Got- 
 tingen, though a private institution in the midst of a great university, furnished 
 to the continent of Europe, during a period of nearly half a century, many of its 
 most eminent and successful classical professors and teachers. * *. * 
 
 At present, the great mass of our teachers are mere adventurers — either young 
 men who are looking forward to some less laborious and more respectable voca- 
 tion, and who, of course, have no ambition to excel in the business of teaching, 
 and no motive to exertion but inmiediate and temporary relief from pecuniary 
 embarrassment; or men who despair of doing better, or who have failed in other 
 pursuits, or who are wandering from place to place, teaching a year here and a 
 year there, and gathering up what they can from the ignorance and credulity of
 
 Pini.IP L1NDSI,E\. 
 
 27 
 
 their eniplojers. Thai there are many worthy exceptiwiis to tlii.s Hweepiiig sen- 
 tence is clieerrully adniitteih That wo liave some well-quahtied anil most deserv- 
 ing instructors we are proud to acknowledge — and as large a proportion probably 
 in this section of our country as in the older states. Still, tlie number is compar- 
 atively small ; and the wliole subject demands the most serious attention of the 
 good people of this connnunity. 
 
 Now, it is soiiictiines the f;itiliiun to adiiiit all this in theory and 
 behe it in practice. But Dr. Lindsley here practiced what he 
 preaclied. He carried tlie sacred dignity of tlie teaclier's high calling 
 into all the walk and conversation of life, lie acknowledged no su- 
 periority ill mortal man over his own work. And, in all his public 
 efforts, as also in all his social intercourse, he threw such a fascination 
 around the work of education as to make every m;in, woman, and 
 child, that came in contact with him, feel that it was a noble, honor- 
 able, glorious, nay, even divine thing to be a teacher of youth. It 
 was under the deep and solemn inipression of this sentiitient tliat he 
 uttered the following weighty and eloquent words, at the close of the 
 inaugural just named. 
 
 When I consider tlie value of a single individual in reference to this life, and 
 still more in reference to a future world, and that his character and his destiny 
 may be fixed forever in this seminary, I involuntarily shrink from the awful charge. 
 What then must be the sensation created by the contemplation of the hundreds 
 and the thousands who will here imbibe those principles, and acquire those habits, 
 which must i-ender them blessings or curses, to themselves and to the world .' 
 Who is sufKcient for these things ? No unassisted mortal, assuredly. To God 
 we must lunnbly and devoutly look — to the infinite Fountain of grace and wisdom I 
 must continually look — to the Eternal Giver of every good and perfect gift we 
 must all look, for that support and direction which we so eminently need. 
 
 We notice next his favorite opinion that education is the rightful 
 inheritance of every human being, and ought to be sought not merely 
 as the means of making a livelihood, but as a great good in itself. 
 He denounced the narrow and selfish cui bono principle, when applied 
 to education, as a lieresy originating in the feudal ages, when men 
 thought that none but gentlemen of wealth and leisure, or the 
 learned professions, needed a liberal education. He held that men 
 ought to be educated, to the extent of their opportunities, because 
 God had endowed them with minds capable of being improved and 
 made happy by knowledge ; and, hence, that education was the gi-eat 
 equalizer of society, and the special heritage of the poor. He con- 
 tended that every individual, who wished to rise, or wished his child 
 to rise, above the level of the mere laborer at task-work, ought to en- 
 deavor to obtain a liberal education ; that, as man was an intellectual, 
 moral, and immortal being, so all his noblest faculties ought to be 
 cultivated, independently of the sordid motive or prospect of pecuni- 
 ary gain. " Educate your son," said he, " in the best possible manner, 
 because you expect him to be a MAN, and not a horse or an ox. You 
 can not tell what good he may achieve or what important offices he
 
 28 PHILIP I.IiNDSLEY. 
 
 may discharge in his day. For aught vuii know, he may, it" you do 
 your duty by him, become the jtresident of the United States. At 
 any rate he lias reason and understanding, \vhi(;h ought to be cuUi- 
 vated for their own sake. Besides, learning is itself a treasure — an 
 estate — of which no adverse fortune can ever deprive its possessor. 
 It will accompany, and console, and support him to the world's end, 
 and to the close of life." There was no theme which he loved more 
 Uian this. And never did he appear more earnest, eloquent, and con- 
 vincing than when pleading for collegiate education as essential to all 
 popular education, and popular education as essential to the very sal- 
 vation of our country. " None but the eneniies of the people," said 
 he, " will ever gravely maintain that a common school education, in 
 the ordinary meaning of the phrase, is all they need. This would be 
 virtually telling them to be hewers of wood and drawers of water 
 under political ta.skmasters forever." And he never ceased to hold up 
 the college, or that learning of which the college is the exponent, as 
 being, through all past history, the staunchest defender of the liberty 
 of the people, the truest friend and benefactor of the children of the 
 poor. 
 
 xAnother .settled opinion of Dr. Lindsley, analogous to this, was 
 that the college or unicersity is essential to the existence of ant/ thing 
 like a perfect system of 2irimary or common school edncution. With- 
 out this higher learning, acting as a stimulus to all other departments 
 of knowledge, and leading the van of popular imjirovement, it is im- 
 possible to create any general demand for education among the people, 
 or to supply it with adequate teachers, even if it existed. The stream 
 can not rise higher than the fountain, nor the day be brighter than 
 its sun. To talk of the common education of any people, without 
 this higher collegiate education — ever pouring abroad its fertilizing 
 waters, or shining down like a sun in mid-heaven — would be like ini- 
 gating a country with a fountain lower than the land, or creating a 
 day without any sun. 
 
 As education extends, tlic de.sire and demand for it incuease. AVlioever licard 
 of a liberally educated man, who was not the hearty, devoted supporter of every 
 judicious common school system 1 Such an anomaly our country lias not yet pro- 
 duced. Our most illustrious patriots and sages have been the founders of colleges 
 and apostles in the cause of universal education. Far be it from me to utter a 
 syllable in opposition to primary schools. They are indispensable — and ought to 
 je found in every neighborhood. But the best mode of encouraging and multi- 
 plying these is carefully to foster the higher seminaries ; because the latter must, 
 or ought to, furnish teachers to the former. The greater the number of liberally 
 educated in any country the better the chance of obtaining suitable instructors for 
 the inferior institutions. In this way the state would soon be supplied with accom- 
 plished schoolmasters. For be it known and remembered that nowhere on earth 
 does there e.xist a good and eflicient system of common schools, except where 
 colleges and universities are most generously cherished, and where the largest 
 number of poor youths are found among their alumni. These become teachers
 
 FHIl.ll' I.INUSLKY. 
 
 29 
 
 of necessity. This is ;i matter u( l;iot, of univcisal exiKrieiici.', and the iniwt in- 
 genious special pleader in behalf of popular eilueatioii can not eite an exceptimi 
 to the rule. The truth is, the eaii.-^o of oollej^a's ami of schools of all sorts is one 
 and indivisible. And he who shoul.l attempt to establish good eomnion schools, 
 without colleges, would be compelled to import a monthly cargo of foreign teach- 
 ers, or stand before the public a convicted Utopian visionary. 
 
 Still more emphatically does he express this view in the groat 
 speech of 1837. 
 
 1 hold the attempt to create and foster common schools without the aid of 
 the university to be utterly vain and nugatory. It can not be done. Hut estab- 
 lish an efficient, free-working university, any where — whether among the Turks, 
 the Tartars, or the Hottentots — and the connnon school will spontaneously grow 
 up around it, and beneath its influence: as certainly as light and heat flow from 
 the sun in the firmament. The common school is the child and not the parent, 
 the efteel and not the cause, of the university. 
 
 So also, ill his lecture on popular education, of the same year, he 
 says :— 
 
 The best and speediest mode of enlightening a community, is to provide ac- 
 complished teachers for the children and youth of such a community. One 
 brilliant, blazing SUN in the firmament will shed around and beneath inHnitely 
 more light than a thousand twinkling stars. Plant a noble univei-sity in our 
 midst, and from its portals will issue streams of cheering light upon every daik 
 corner of the land. AVJiereas, if you are content to get up a few scores of old- 
 field schools, that is of mere farthing candles or feeble rush-lights, at various dis- 
 tant points in the wilderness, you will but render the darkness more visible and 
 lepulsive. No country was ever enliglitened or elevated by sucli a process. 
 Light flows only from the sun. The moon and the stars do but reflect and diffuse 
 the luster derived from this original fountain. 
 
 Home education was always a favorite idea with Dr. Liiidsley. 
 He held that every family ought to be a school : that the family fire- 
 side was the first and most important of all schools; the jiarent the 
 tiist and best of all teachers. This is the true infant school. In his 
 lecture on popular education, we find this view presented with 
 much earnestness and ability. 
 
 To distinguish this from the common school pystein, I liavc heretofore, on 
 divers occasions, denominate«] it the social or domestic system of education. 
 And while it seems singularly adapted to the wants and condition of the great 
 mass of the poor and ignorant, the wealthier and more cultivated classes may 
 avail themselves of its benefits also. Might not the domestic system, in its stiiet- 
 est sense, be made to supersede tlie public coiimion school system altogether ? 
 Why should a little child ever be sent to school, who has a mother at home ca- 
 pable of teaching. A mother who can teach, and who possesses the genuine 
 spirit of maternity, is always tlie best possible instructress of her cliildren, until 
 they reach the age of ten or twelve. She can teach them all that is expected 
 from a common school infinitely better than any schoolmaster. This she might 
 do without interfering with the business or comforts of a well-ordered domestic 
 establishment. Children ought never to be closely confined at an age when they 
 can not study. Do young children study while constrained to .sit. book in hand, 
 through fear of the birch, during six long hours, upon a bench (and such a 
 6encA.') at school ? They have not yet learned how to study ; and, of cour.se, 
 must either go to sleep or passively submit to llie daily irks.)me and stupifying 
 penance of doing nothing. At home, and un<ler the eye of their mother, they 
 can play, or work, or receive instruction, as she directs, ami as best suits their 
 years, capacity, and disposition. By far the larger proportion of schools for boy.s 
 under twelve years of age, with which T have been acquainted in the course of
 
 30 
 
 PHILIP LINDSLEY. 
 
 my litV', 1 would not hesitate td denounce as nuisances and impositions. 1 have 
 seen them in cverj- part of our coui}tiy, from Maine to Tennessee •, and I feel 
 confident that most parents miiiht, if they would, form a domestic school at home, 
 a thousand-fold preferable to ninety-nine out of a hundred, on an average, of the 
 whole numbei' of common schools in tlic Ihiited States at tliis moment. Such 
 has been my lionest, delib^'rate, and avowed opinion for many years past. 
 
 Aiiutlier groat doctrine, wliicli lie never ceased to urge, was the 
 usefulness of all learnlny, primary and i)rofe.ssional, literary and 
 scientific, sacred and secular, English and classical. Regarding edu- 
 cation as the best fortune a parent could give a child, he held that 
 nu labor or expense should be spared in its attainment. He held that 
 life was a great school, in which it was never too late to learn some- 
 thing : that in school and college we only learned hoio to learn, and 
 that we should ever live to learn. As life is given for improvement 
 and usefulness, so our youth should not be hurried too rapidly over 
 their studies. "Let us not seek to make children youth, and youth 
 men, and men lawyers, ])hysicians, cleigymen, or politicians, too fast. 
 Let us ket'p our pupils at their proper work, and carry them as far as 
 they can safely and surely go, and no further. Better teach them 
 one thing well than twenty things imperfectly. Their education will 
 then be valuable as far as it extends." In his baccalaureate of 1848, 
 when speaking of the prevailing evils in our American colleges, he 
 says: — "In two words, om* lads enter college too young, and without 
 due preparation. They ought seldom, if ever, to graduate under 
 twenty years ; and, consequently, should not enter the freshman or 
 lowest class younger than sixteen. Up to this period ample work 
 might be provided for them in the |irimai'y and classical school, or by 
 the parental fireside. Lot them be thoroughly drilled in Greek and 
 Latin — in arithhietic, algebra, geometry, geography — in one or more 
 modern languages, when practicable — at all events, in the English, so 
 as to be able to speak and write their own vernacular with grammat- 
 ical accuracy and idiomatic propriety." 
 
 Probably no educator in our country ever set a higher estimate 
 uj)on the value of the ancient classics, as a part of edncaiion, than 
 Dr. Lindsley. Certainly none ever read them with a keener relish, 
 or taught them with a higher enthusiasm. It would have been 
 enough to have filled the soul of Homer, Plato, or Tully with a 
 glow of honest and patriotic pride, could tliey have come back and 
 heard their immortal pages read and exi)ounded by one who seemed 
 to give utterance to their matchless music Avith all the acctiracy and 
 emphasis of his mother-tongue. He maintained that there could be 
 now no finished scholarship and no thorough mental discipline with- 
 out a knowledge of the mathematics, languages, and sciences. 
 "Classical learning," said he, "is so interwoven with the very texture 
 
 I
 
 PHIMP I.IXDSI.EY. 
 
 01 
 
 of modern science, literature, an.l language, that it is vain to oxiiol-I 
 scliolarsliip without it, and ei[ually vain for ignorjinco and prejudico 
 nny longer to denounce it.'' As a teacher of the classics, lie re.juin'd 
 of the pupil a thorough mastery of the grammar, and the most mi- 
 nute and accurate acquaintance with all tla- forms, inllcctions, and 
 niceties of the language. This verbal study alone could prepan- tin- 
 way for a full appreciation of the rich treasures of thought and h.-au- 
 ty that lay hidden in the classic tongues. Indeed this was his modi' 
 of instruction in every department. Accuracy — absolute and unhe>i- 
 tating accuracy — was the grand characteristic of liis own schularshi]> : 
 and be required his pupils not only to learn a given lesson, but In 
 know that they knew It. It was a maxim with liim that there was 
 nothing worthy of being done, and nothing worthy of being known, 
 that was not worthy of being known and done well, lie liad no 
 manner of patience with the smatterer, and the mere guesser at 
 knowledge, or the man who nndertook to do wliat he had never 
 learned. "No man," said he, "can teach more than he knows him- 
 self. Every man can teacli all that he does know. The more he 
 knows, the more useful he will be." Whilst he despised the quack 
 and the pretender, no man ever went beyond him in profound respect 
 for all real knowledge — whether that knowledge was to shoe a horse, 
 or amputate a leg, or teach a boy hie, hiec, hoc. 
 
 In accordance with sentiments such as these, we hear him address- 
 ing his first graduates in 1S20 in the following terms of paternal and 
 wholesome counsel. 
 
 Young Gentlemen : — Your acaJcmical career is now ended ; and you have 
 just received the usual honors and testimonials of this institution. According to 
 the opinion which too generally prevails, you have completed your studies. This 
 I am persuaded is not your own opinion. You have already made a justor esti- 
 mate of your attainments, and of the vast and variegated field for future investi- 
 gation which still lies hefore you, and wliich invites your assiduous cultivation. 
 If you have learned hoto to study, and have acquired a thirst for knowledge, you 
 will continue to study and to learn while you live This indeed is tiie grand aim 
 and object of all elementary education. It is to discipline the mind, to develop 
 faculty, to mature the judgment, to refine the taste, to chasten the moral sense, 
 to awaken and invigorate intellectual energy, and to furnish tlie rci|uisite mate- 
 rials upon which to erect the noblest superstructure. Jlitherto ynu iiavc been 
 laying the foundation, and serving that kind of apprenticeship, which may en- 
 able you to march forward by your own diligent and persevering ert()rts. 1 )o 
 not imagine therefore that your woik is done. You have only commenced your 
 studies. Whatever may be your future profession, pursuit, business, or destina- 
 tion, let books, science, and literature be your constant companions. Every man. 
 who intends to do the greatest possible good in his day and generation, will 
 every day seek to acquire additional information, lie will gather it from every 
 source within his reach. His experience, his observation, his intereour.se w ith the 
 world with men and tilings, his daily occupations, his incidental assoei.ations, tlie 
 great volume of nature ever open and spread out to his view, tlie intellectual 
 treasures of a hundred generations which have passed away, tlie reconls of 
 heavenly truth and wisdom — all will conspire to increase his slorts. and to qual- 
 ify him for a greater and a wider sjihere of useful and virtuous exertion. All the 
 great and good men, who have enlightened, adorned, ;ind purified the worlil by
 
 32 
 
 PHILIP LINDSI.EY. 
 
 their labors iiiid their counsels, have been indefatigable in the pursuit of knowl- 
 tdwc, up to the last moment of their existence. Despise not, neglect not, any 
 department of liiimaii learning, whenever and wherever it can be consistently 
 cultivated. No man ever denounces as useless or superfluous any science or lan- 
 guage with which he is himself acquainted. The ignorant only condemn ; and 
 they condemn what they do not understand, and because they do not undeistand 
 it. " Whenever, therefore, you hear a man declaiming against any literary or 
 scientific pur.suit, you may rest assured that he knows nothing of the matter ; 
 and you will need no better evidence of his total incompetency to sit in judgment 
 upon the case. 
 
 Wc notice next liis views as to tlie government and disc'q)Une of 
 youth in college. His settled conviction was that peiyetiiol vif/ilonce 
 on tlie jiart of tlie teaclier, and constant employment on the part of 
 the pupil, were alike essential in college-life. This he denominated 
 the parental and domestic system. In the inaugural address his 
 views on this point are thus stated : — " That system which should 
 provide complete employment of a proper kind for all the time of 
 every individual, would in my opinion be the best system, and might 
 perhaps be fairly denominated a perfect system. And every approxi- 
 mation to it will, to the same extent, be an approach to perfection in 
 this all-important concern. Keep youth busy and you keep them out 
 of harm's way. You render them contented, virtuous, and happy. 
 In general it may be remarked that the government of a college 
 ought to be, as far as practicable, strictly parental. Every instructor 
 ought to conduct toward liis pupils, and to be esteemed by them, as 
 a father or ehler brother. They ought to regard him as their best 
 friend, and to confide in him as such. Wherever this mutual confi- 
 dence and aftectionate intercourse do not obtain, the connection will 
 neither be happv nor beneficial." On a subsequent occasion, in the 
 baccalaureate of 1829, he brings out this view still more emphatic- 
 ally. " From my own humble experience in the business of educa- 
 tion, and from all the information which I have been able to procure 
 on the subject, I do believe that the only efficient system for the com- 
 plete attainment of every desirable end, is that which kee2is youth 
 constantly employed, body and mind, and which exercises nnceasing 
 vigilance and absolute control day and night — which excludes all vi- 
 cious and vitiating associates and practices — which superintends all 
 the amusements and social intercourse of the pupils — and which, con- 
 sequently, requires strong walls and numerous guards, or a large 
 body of faithful, prudent, devoted mentors, to counsel, direct, restrain, 
 and instruct them at all times, in all places, and under all circum- 
 stances.'' 
 
 He adds, liowever, that he has no expectation of ever seeing such 
 a system put into operation : first, because the expense would be ob- 
 jected to by a people who can aftbrd money for every fashionable 
 folly and extravagance ; and, secondly, its strictness, however parental
 
 I'HII.IP I.INDSI.EV. j^g 
 
 and salutary, would be coinplaincd of by a people who scarcely sulj- 
 ject their children to any restraint whatever. Dr. Lindsley delivered 
 some of his ablest appeals in favor of university education about tlie 
 time that Tennessee and many of our states began to inau^urale 
 their costly penitentiary systems. He not unfrequently alluded to 
 this fact, while pleading for the education of the people as the best 
 and cheapest method of i)reventing crime. In view of the lavisji ex- 
 penditure of the state in building costly palaces for the comfortabK- 
 safe-keeping of her culprits, which he called the bir/ stale iiniversili/ — 
 and her unwillingness to give a dollar to provide for the education of 
 her own noble sons — he used sometimes to pour out the vials of his 
 keen sarcasm and invective after the following style : — 
 
 Give to the colleges at Nashville and Knoxville an organization similar to the 
 Auburn prison — so far, I mean, as regards the safe-keeping, moral diseipline, 
 healthful exercise, and constant employment of their inmates, and their absolute 
 exclusion from all external evil influences — and bestow upon each of them only a 
 moiety of the sum which Pennsylvania has already expended upon the outer yard- 
 walls of but one of her incipient penitentiaries — (said walls have cost $200,0t)IJ) — 
 and they shall render the state more service in twenty years than all the prisons 
 of Pennsylvania will achieve in a thousand ages, or than a score of penitentiaries 
 will effect in Tennessee to the end of time. And yet. probably, before the lapse 
 of fifty years, half a million of dollars will be expended, and with the best inten- 
 tions too, by tiiis state, agreeably to the prevailing fashion, upon such estjiblish- 
 menfs for the comfortable accommodation of a few hundred criminals, who have 
 forfeited all claim to public indulgence, and certainly to the public pur^e— who 
 ought to be punished, not rewarded. 
 
 Dr. Lindsley lield the opinion — contrary to the views of many emi- 
 nent educators in our country — that a larpe tow?i or city is greatly to 
 be preferred, for the scat of a college or university, to a small town or 
 village. We need not here stop to point out the reasons which he 
 assigns for this opinion — such as the presence of literary and scien 
 tific men, cliurches and other institutions, large libraries, the empire 
 of public opinion, the restraints of refined society, the stimulus of 
 numbers, and the check of the strong arm of the law. "Experi- 
 ence,'' says he, "has fully proved in Europe, and in the older states 
 of this Union, that large towns or cities are greatly preferable to small 
 ones for such institutions. All the capitals and most of the second- 
 rate cities of Europe have their universities. And wherever they 
 have been established in small towns, the students are proverbially 
 more riotous and ungovernal)le in their conduct, more boorisli and 
 savage in their manners, and ni<>i(^ dissolute and licentious in their 
 habits.'" 
 
 He was also of the decided opinion that it was not wise to stimn 
 late his students to exertion by the usual honors and rewards of 
 other colleges — appealing, as they always do, to the seltish ambition 
 of a few to the necessary discouragement of the great majority, who 
 soon despair of such distinctions. He laid aside every tiling of this
 
 34 
 
 PHir.IP LINDSI-EY. 
 
 sort at Nashville, from the very beginning, and sought to instill into 
 every pupil an enthusiastic love of knowledge for its own sake, and 
 an ambition only to be useful. His testimony on this point, given in 
 the appendix to one of liis baccalaureates, is valuable. "This is be- 
 lieved to be the first college in the Union, and is still probably the 
 onl}' one, which lias utterly discarded the old system of honorary pre- 
 miums and distinctions, as incentives to industry and scholarship* 
 This species of emulation and excitement is here unknown. Each 
 individual is encouraged and assisted in making the best possible use 
 of his time and talents and, in acquiring knowledge for its own sake 
 and for future usefulness. At the close of each session, or half-year, 
 all the classes are publicly examined on the studies of the previous 
 session. These examinations usually occupy seven or eight days, and 
 are conducted with such vigorous strictness and impartiality that it is 
 impossible for ignorance or idleness to escape detection and exposure. 
 But no aspiring youth is impelled, by the hope of a prize, to un- 
 due and dangerous exertions ; and none subjected to the mortification 
 of disappointed ambition, or of an inequitable decision. This is not 
 the place to enlarge on these topics. But fi'om a long experimental 
 acquaintance with the ancient usage in other institutions, and from 
 an eight years' trial of the present system here, I do not hesitate to 
 give the latter a most decided preference. A much larger proportion 
 of every class become good scholars — and much greater peace, har- 
 mony, contentment, order, industry, and moral decorum prevail than 
 it had ever been my lot to remark at seminaries east of the mount- 
 ains." He also abolished the custom, so much in vogue at other col- 
 leges, of allowing the senior class a vacation or holiday previous to 
 graduation, and remarks that they found no difficulty in preparing 
 appropriate exercises for the public commencement while going on 
 with their regular studies to the end of the term. The number and 
 ability of the speeches of his graduating classes at every commence- 
 ment fully vindicated the correctness of this opinion. 
 
 Another important doctrine inculcated by Dr. Lindsley, which we 
 must not omit in this enumeration, was that religious 2)rindple is an 
 essential element of all education, and ought never to be divorced 
 from it. This runs through all his discourses. He was never more 
 eloquent and impressive than when urging upon his pupils the fear 
 of God, and an humble imitation of the example of Jesus Christ. 
 And never did the advice seem to come with more winning grace, or 
 more convincing power, than when thus enforced from the lips of a 
 man whom all his pupils were constrained to look upon as the very 
 Coryphceus of learning, philosophy, and eloquence. On these high 
 themes, the most common and femiliar sentiments, coming from him,
 
 Jo 
 
 seemed to poss^ess m-.w wisdom ;iiid licautv . His >liurt and >imi)k- 
 words — so plain, so obvious that any child might grasp them — often, 
 on commencement day, brouglit tears to the eyes of the most thuUL,dit- 
 less graduate, and of the veteran professor, as he spoke of the vanilv 
 of all earthly things, and the blessedness of the Christian's hope. In 
 one of his addresses, after exhorting to the lifedong pursuit of knuwl- 
 edge, he adds this timely caution. "Be not, however, the blind idol- 
 aters of genius, or of science. Both may e.\ist where not one lovely 
 or commendable trait of character can be found. The loftiest intel- 
 lect, without virtue, is but archangel ruined. In God only do we be- 
 hold the perfection of understanding, of wisdom, of knowledge, of 
 holiness. And lie is that perfect standard whieh we are commanded 
 to aim at. Keligion, wliieh requires us to be like God, constitutes the 
 whole of moral excellence. And in pro]>ortion as religion influences 
 the heart and life, will be the moral worth of any individual. There 
 can be no principle of integrity, of truth, of kindness, of justice, in- 
 dependently of religion. Nothing does, nothing can, nothing ever 
 will, restrain any mortal from any indulgence, pursuit, gain, or abom- 
 ination which he covets, and to which no disgrace is attached, except 
 the fear of God— or what is the same tiling, RELIGIOUS PRIN- 
 CIPLE." 
 
 In his discourse on popular education, of 1837, which contains a 
 pretty full summary of his peculiar and long-cberished views on the 
 wdiole subject of education, speaking of the want of religious instruc- 
 tion in some of the common school systems in our eastern states, he 
 says :— 
 
 It adds another to the thousand milancholy proofs alrcadj' before tlie world, 
 that no species of ment:il cultivation can ever be truly beneficial, where the pupils 
 do not, at the same time, acquire moral and religious principles and liabits. 
 Every teacher in every school, from the infant nursery up to the university, 
 ought to be deeply imbued with the purest spirit of christian morality, and to la- 
 bor assiduously in molding the hearts and lives of his youthful charge aareeably 
 to the only standard of virtue and integrity « hieh is recognized among Christian 
 ni-n. To educate Christian youth as heathens or atheists is at once absurd and 
 monstrous. To expect such youth to become good, moral, peaceful, ordeily, re- 
 ligious men is to expect a miracle. 
 
 No man could well have a higher appreciation than L>r. Liudsley 
 of the necessity of a thorough training on the part of all those who 
 undertake the difficult and important work of teaching the young. 
 Being himself so well versed in all the methods of past ages, and so 
 constantly informed as to all the improvements of the present time, 
 he never ceased to insist on high qualifications in all teacher.s, from 
 the common school up to the university. It was one grand object of 
 all his eftbrts at Nashville to rai.se up and send out accomplished 
 teachers. ''Education itself," says he, in the lecture just referred to, 
 "has become a science: and it deserves the most profotind study of
 
 gg PHILIP LINUSLEY. 
 
 all wLo wish to be esteemed skillful and thorough educators. Educa- 
 tion is indeed a topic about which every body feels competent to 
 speculate and to dogmatize — while few comprehend the nature or 
 philosophy of the process." 
 
 He describes the good teacher as one who understands perfectly, 
 himself, all that he assumes to teach. He must be able and ivilling, 
 or apt to teach. He must possess the requisite intellectual furniture, 
 and also moral principle, or he can not be trustworthy. He must 
 be able to do the work, and he must also love the work. " He will 
 borrow light and information from every quarter — will combine the 
 good properties, as far as practicable, of all the known systems — and 
 yet will teach in a manner peculiar to himself. He will constrain his 
 pupils to love their studies. He will make it their delight to ad- 
 vance in knowledge and wisdom. And (as Milton has it) will insens- 
 ibly lead them up the hill-side of science, usually indeed laborious 
 and difficult at the first ascent; but, uiider his kindly guidance, it will 
 appear so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious 
 sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus could not be more 
 charming." But he adds, "The principal officer or commander-in- 
 chief of every great literary institution, or seminary for juvenile in- 
 struction, ought to possess a large measure of the wisdom of Solo- 
 mon, the learning of Selden, and the patience of Job.'' 
 
 Akin to this idea of constant religious training, he also held that 
 the siiuhj of the Scriptures Avas essential to all right education, and 
 should have a place in every seminary of youth. He was accustomed 
 to address his graduating class with such words as these : — " Let the 
 Bible be the companion of your future lives and studies. Read it 
 daily, and with humble prayer for the illuminating influences of that 
 blessed Spirit who first inspired and revealed it. It will be a lamp to 
 your feet, and a light to your faith, and a joy to your hearts, in all 
 your wanderings through life's checkered scenery and through death's 
 dark valley. It will teach you how to value and how to improve 
 time, talent, learning, and wealth — how to be honest — how to be re- 
 ligious — how to be useful — how to be happy — how to live and how 
 to die." In that masterly inaugural address, which has been so 
 often referred to, we find him laying down his doctrine on this point 
 in the following passage, which, for the justness of its sentiment and 
 its chaste and classic diction, we regard as one of the finest passages 
 in all his writings. 
 
 The Bible ouglit to be studied, and its lessons of wisdom diligently enforced 
 and practically exemplified. I say nothing of creeds, or confessions, or systems 
 of doctrine. I speak of the Bible — the grand charter of our holy religion — of our 
 common Christianity. And who of the great Christian family can object \f) this 
 In the heathen schools youth were always taught the religion of their country^ 
 
 1
 
 PHILIP MNDSI.EY 
 
 37 
 
 Every Mussulman is required to be a iiiastur ol iIil Koran. And shall Lhristiiin 
 youth be less favored than the Pagan and Mohannnedan .' Have we a book bear- 
 ing the impress of Heaven — confessedly embodying the purest morality ever yet 
 known in the world — the only authentic record of the origin of our race, and" of 
 the most stupendous events which have occurred upon our globe — tilled willi 
 sct-ncs of real life the most instructive, with biograjdiieal incident the most extra- 
 ordinary and pathetic, with strains of eloquence and jioctry the nutft melting and 
 sublime — and withal professing to bo, and acknowledged to be, our oidy safe gui.le 
 through life, and the foundation of all our hopes of a blessed immorUility — -shall 
 this book be excluded from our seminaries, and withheld from our youth, at the very 
 period too when they most need its salutary restraints and purifying intlueiiee .' 
 And this lest, peradventure, some speculative error, or some sectarian opinion, 
 might be imbibed I As if worse errors, and more inveterate prejudices, and tlie 
 must pernicious principles, will not be sure to tind their way into that heart which 
 remains a stranger to the hallowed i)rece|)ts of the sacred volume. But 1 intern! 
 to orter no formal argument upon this point just now. In every place of educa- 
 tion the Bible ought to be the daily companion of every individual; and no man 
 ought to be suffered to teach at all, who refuses to teach the Bible. '' Train up a 
 child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not de|)art from it," is 
 tile doctrine of revelation, of reason, and of experience. 
 
 We must add yet another point. It was a favorite o|)inion witli 
 Dr. Lindsley, or rather a great general idea for wliioh he battled 
 bravely througit all his presidency at Nashville, that education, while 
 it should be most distincthj religions and Christian, need not he secta- 
 rian or even denouiinutional. It was one of his fondest conceptions 
 from the beginning, and it became one of the leading objects of his 
 life, to build up at Nashville a great educational institute, founded 
 upon the broad basis of the Bible, and as avowedly religious and 
 Christian as the Bible itself, which yet should be in no sense sectarian, 
 but worthy of the confidence and patronage of all evangelical denom- 
 inations — being at the same time open and free to all others, whether 
 in the church or out of it. It was just to carry out in collegiate or 
 university education that great idea, on which our American common 
 school system is founded, of teaching the Bible without teaching any 
 particular church creed. Going to Tennessee when he did, before any 
 thing like a denominational college existed in the state, it was per- 
 fectly natural that he should entertain this conception, and that he 
 should hope — breathing as he ever did the most enla'"ged spirit of 
 Christian liberality and charity — to rally all denominations of Chris- 
 tians around his rising university. And there is not a d :)ubt, had 
 they done so, but that he would speedily have accomplished all he 
 aimed at, and, notwithstanding every obstacle, have made, somewhat 
 on the plan of the Christian and yet unsectarian College of New Jer- 
 sey, an institution which would have been an honor to the state and 
 a blessing to every church. He did this even as it was — but on a 
 scale altogether meager comj)ared with what he would have, done, 
 with the cordial co-operation and support of all Christian denomina 
 tions in Tennessee. 
 
 Instead of adopting his plan of endowing one great university at
 
 ^g PHILIP LINDSLEY. 
 
 Nashville, and another at Knoxville, and perhaps ultimately one at 
 Memphis, the contrary policy prevailed of having a college in every 
 large town and county, and one or more for every particular denom- 
 ination of Christians. Bravely and long did he battle against this 
 policy. " A public college," said he, " that is, a literary and scientific 
 college, designed for the use of the public generally, ought to be inde- 
 pendent of all religious sectarian bias, or tendency, or influence. 
 iScience and philosophy ought to know no party in church or state. 
 They are degraded by every such connection. Christianity, indeed, 
 if rightly int?rpreted, breathes a pure, angelic charity, and is as much 
 a stranger to the strife, and intrigue, and rancor, and intolerance, and 
 pharisaism of party as science and philosopliy can be." 
 
 But it Avas all in vain. The denominational currents were too 
 strong for him. From having no college in Tennessee, colleges got 
 to be the order of the day. His very success at Nashville embold- 
 ened many to go and do likewise : colleges sprang up in all quarters 
 faster than they were needed. In popular estimation, it was easier to 
 build twenty colleges in the West than it had been to build one in 
 New Jersey. After fighting against this folly for twenty-three years, 
 he gives us the result of it all in the following statement, taken from 
 the address of 1848. "When this college was revived and reorgan- 
 ized, at the close of 1824, there were no similar institutions, in actual 
 operation, within two hundred miles of Nashville. There Avere none 
 in Alabama, ^Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Middle or West 
 Tennessee. There are now some thirty or more within that distance, 
 (of two hundred miles.) and nine within fifty miles of our city. These 
 all claim to be our superiors, and to be equal at least to old Harvard 
 and Yale. Of course, we can not expect nmch '•'■custom,^'' or to com- 
 mand a large range of what is miscalled patronage. I have a list 
 now before me of twenty colleges or universities in Tennessee alone. 
 Several of these belong exclusively to indi\iduals, and are bought and 
 sold in open market like any other species of private property. They 
 are invested with the usual corporate powers, and may confer all uni- 
 versity degrees at pleasure. This is probably a new thing under the 
 sun ; but Solomon's geography did not extend to America." 
 
 It must uot be inferred from this that Dr. Lindsley was the enemy 
 of denominational education, or of institutions for that purpose. He 
 disavowed any feeling of that kind. He only contended that, for 
 rudimental and collegiate learning, the churches might have secured 
 all they needed by combining in the support of one Christian institu- 
 tion ; as was certainly done at Princeton, N. J. Nor must it be in- 
 ferred that he was at all indifterent as to the distinctive creed of his 
 own church. He was no latitudinarian. If any ever thought him
 
 i 
 
 PIIII.IP I.INDSI.KY. ^Cf 
 
 sucli, judging by his iVoijuout il«uiincialioiis of all roligious bigotry 
 and sectarianism, and his hearty coniniondation of the largest liberality 
 and charity, it was because they wholly misunderstood him. Tlu-n- 
 was perhaps not a minister in the Presbyterian church who luld all 
 the peculiar and distinctive doctrines of her standards witli a niiT.- 
 settled and unwavering faith. "We venture to say, there is not a 
 sentiment, in all his published or unpublished writings, which conHicts 
 with one jot or tittle of them. His religious character, molded 
 throughout on the Westminster Confession of faith, was a perfect 
 refutation of the slander that a man must needs be a bigot because 
 he is a Calvinist. He was, to all who knew liim, a living witness <it 
 the great fact tliat the soundest and most uncompromising orthodoxy 
 need be no stranger to that philantliropy wliich can look upon every 
 fellow-man as a brother, and that genial charity which can embrace 
 every humble follower of Christ, of every name, as a fellow Christian. 
 
 VI. RESULTS AND INFLUE.NCES OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 Having now gone over some of the more prominent and character- 
 istic views which distinguished r)r. Lindsley as an educator, and in 
 which we have aimed, as much as possible, to let liim speak for him- 
 self, it only remains for us to set forth tlie sum or result of liis labors. 
 Of course nothing but an approximate, and at best inadequate, esti- 
 mate can be given. It is not for us to know here the sum total of 
 any mortal life ; much less to tell all that lies beyond, and takes hold 
 upon the immortal. Still we are accustomed to form some relative 
 value of the labors of our fellow-men, from what we have seen of 
 them, and as we compare them with others. We have, to some ex- 
 tent, already anticipated this part of the subject, in what has been 
 said. But yet it may be ^vell to bring out a little more distinctly the 
 results and influences of such a hfe. It is a debt which we, tlie liv- 
 ing, owe to those who are to come after us — to record the deeds and 
 tell of the eminent virtues of those who have gone before us, that 
 they, being dead, may yet speak. 
 
 We may form some conception of his work and influence if we 
 consider the number and character of the pupils whom he educated. 
 We are not able to state the whole number; but we find in liis ad- 
 dress of 1848 one important item. Up to that time there had boeii 
 three hundred and ninety-eight regular graduates of the university, 
 and fifteen hundred others had received instruction without graduat- 
 ing. Here then we have an aggregate of nearly nineteen hundred 
 youths receiving the elements of an accomplished collegiate education ; 
 nearly four hundred of whom completed the whole literary and scien- 
 tific course. These were from all parts of Tennessee, and from all
 
 40 PHILIP LINDST.EY. 
 
 classes of the people — nay, from all parts of the South West. A 
 lar^e number of them were sons of prominent and wealthy citizens. 
 But the rich and the poor here met together and, pari passu, strug- 
 gled upward to the high places of knowledge and power. It mattered 
 not, when they went forth, fi'om what rank they had sprung. They 
 went forth brothers and e(juals — all to take the foremost rank and 
 become themselves heads and leaders of the people. They went forth 
 into all parts of the great South West — furnished with the panoply 
 of liberal learning, and fired with the enthusiasm of the Gamaliel at 
 whose feet tiiey liad been sitting — to plead the great cause of educa- 
 tion, to take part in laying the foundations of new states, new col- 
 leges and seminaries, and every where, from Tennessee to Texas and 
 California, to till the highest positions of honor and usefulness in the 
 state and the church. 
 
 The writer has had occasion to know something of these gi'eat 
 south-western states — something of the men who have founded 
 their institutions, and of the influences which liave molded the char- 
 acter of their people during the last quarter of a century — and, with- 
 out wishing to detract a jot or tittle from other eminent and useful 
 laborers, he can bear witness that he has visited no point in all this 
 vast region where the influence of Philip Lindsley had not been felt 
 and where some of his pujiils were not found in the foremost rank of 
 honorable men, bravely battling for the true and the good. Often, 
 while weary himself with the heat and burden of the day, in some 
 humble and distant corner of the field, has he felt his own heart 
 cheered to renewed activity, as he has looked back to that unpretend- 
 ing college hillside at Nasliville, and thought of the master-magician 
 there — the very Arnold of our western colleges — who, quietly, unob- 
 served by the world, and wielding a power greater than that of Pros- 
 pero in the Tempest, was sending forth his influences to bless and 
 save his country. Wliat an illustration of the power of knowledge — 
 of the way in which a good man m.ay perpetuate his influence! 
 Many of these nineteen hundred pupils have become educators. 
 Through them the head-master is still teaching — teaching in the col- 
 leges, universities, high schools, common schools, medical and law 
 schools — teaching in the pulpit, the press, the courts of justice, the 
 legislative halls — teaching at the firesides, in the counting-rooms, in 
 the workshops, in the banking-houses of this great Mississippi valley. 
 The waves of popular and liberal education, thus created, as by a 
 great central elevating force, are still rolling, and ever widening as 
 they roll ! It was fortunate, it was providential, for the South West, 
 that such a force should be applied just when and where it was. 
 
 We may also form some conception of the extent of his influence
 
 PHILIP LI NDSLEY. ^^ 
 
 from another consideration. It is tlie statement already given 
 respecting the unprecedented multiplication of colleges in Tennessee. 
 In twenty-three years the two colleges in Tennes.see had multii.li.-d 
 to twenty — nine of them within fifty miles of Nasliville. For onco 
 it might be said that the schoolmaster was fairly abroad among tin- 
 people. Though this result was far from being what he had be^-n 
 contending for, while pleading the cause of education in Tennessee, 
 yet there can be no question that his influence had much to do, at 
 least, as the occasion of it. Some of his own pupils, fascinated 1)V 
 his genius and learning, and stimulated by his success to do a great 
 work for their particular region, or their particular denomination, 
 embarked in this work of college-building. Nor can there be anv 
 question that this furor for colleges, however it retarded his own ..)> 
 erations at Nashville, was in the main a great gain to the cause of 
 education. Collegiate education is so important that it is better to 
 have any thing — even a storm of popular feeling about it — than to 
 have a dead calm of indifterenee. This increase of colleges was not 
 the best thing — for from it ; but it was infinitely better than nothing. 
 We suppose all thinking men in Tennessee, even those at the head 
 of her colleges, -would now agree that Dr. Lindsley was right — that 
 to-day it would be better to have one, two, or three great Christian 
 institutions, like Nassua Hall or Yale, well-manned and well-endowed, 
 than to have things as they are. But inasmuch as that was not to 
 be — though all his talents and wisdom were staked upon it — then 
 the next best thing was the result which followed — to have every 
 wealthy district, and every religious denomination, laboring ■with 
 might and main for its own college. 
 
 But perhaps the most striking illustration of his influence as an 
 educator is seen at Nashville itself — the scene of his longest labors — 
 the home of his adoption — the resting-place where his aslies slee]). 
 We have no citizenship at Nashville ; and hence can not be accused 
 of partiality in what we are about to say. But of all we have se'Mi 
 and known, we may safely say, there is no city west of the mount- 
 ains which seems to us so justly entitled to be called the Athens of 
 the West, as Nashville. And for that distinction we think there is 
 no man to whom Nashville is so much indebted as Dr. Lindsley. It' 
 any man ever made his mark, deep and ineffaceable, upon a placf 
 and people, he made it at Nashville. We say this too with a full 
 knowledge and appreciation of the eminent labors of his compeers 
 and predecessors. There were many faithful laborers with him and 
 before him, whose names the people of Nashville will not willingly lot 
 die — serving well their generation in all the professions and vocations 
 of life — Priestly, Hume, Jennings, Weller, Trimble, Lawrence, Tronsf,
 
 42 
 
 PHILIP LINDSLEY. 
 
 Hamilton, Stevens, Berry, Craighead, Crutcher, Porter, Yeatinaii, 
 Woods, Shelby, McGavock, Ewing, Foster, Nichol, Mc Nairy, Gibbs, 
 Robertson, Roane, Overton, Rutledge, Hunt, Tannehill, Campbell, 
 Polk, Grundy, Fletcher, Cannon, Carrol, Jackson, and many others — 
 all intimately associated with the reputation of the city abroad and 
 her prosperity at liome. But among all these eminent and honored 
 citizens, we doubt not that, for deep, wide, and lasting influence, the 
 foremost place is due to Dr. Lindsley. 
 
 To appreciate this influence we have only to contrast Nashville as 
 it now is with what it was when Dr. Lindsley became the president 
 of Cumberland College — an interval of more than thirty years. 
 
 We had occasion to visit it for the first time in 1830, in the sixth 
 year of liis presidency, and recollect distinctly what it then was, as 
 from an adjoining hill, and on an autumn morning, we saw its rocks, 
 and cedars, and housetops, partially co.vered with the first fall of snow, 
 and glittering like a mount of diamonds in the light of the rising 
 sun. rt was a compact liitle city of some five or six thousand souls, 
 confined pretty much to a single hill or bluff" on the left bank of the 
 Cumberland. But it was beautiful even then — set like a gem in the 
 green casket of the surrounding hill-country. It stood just at the 
 outer apex of a long curve in the river, where, after sweeping west- 
 ward, through a rich valley, and striking the elevated bluflfs of strat- 
 ified limestone rocks underlying the city, it flows gracefully and 
 slowly away, in a long stretch to the north, as if its waters lingered 
 to look upon a spot of so much beauty. It was precisely such a spot 
 as the old classic Greeks and Romans would have chosen to build a 
 city. It was a site of gently-rising and conterminous hills, almost as 
 numerous and quite as elevated as the seven hills of Rome ; and 
 each of their summits at that time wore the green crown of a dense 
 cedar grove — while from the midst of the city, seemingly out of its 
 very housetops, rose one central and higher hill, like Alp on Alp, 
 uverlooking all the scene, and not unworthy of the Athenian Acro- 
 polis. In that central cedar-crowned hill the old Greeks would have 
 imagined the r/enii loci to dwell. And if the traveler had chanced 
 to visit the spot some fifty years earlier than we did, he might in- 
 deed have found there the real genius of the place — not some fabled 
 (irecian goddess, but a wild Cherokee Indian. The Thtiversity was 
 then a single, plain, unpretending building, ninety feet long and 
 three stories high, situated on what was called College Hill, to the 
 south of the city, and commanding a fine view both of the city and 
 the river. In the books of that day, the seat of all this natural 
 beauty was described as a " Post-town, the capital of Davidson 
 county, containing a court-house, a jail, a market-house, a branch
 
 PHII.IP LINDSLEY. 43 
 
 bank of the United States, the respeetable j)rivate bank of Veatnian, 
 Woods & Co., a valuable public library, a respectable female aeadoiny, 
 and houses of public worship for rresbyterians, Methodists, and 
 Baptists."' 
 
 Such was the capital of Tennessee thirty years ago. And what is it 
 now ? Now it is a busy city of nearly thirty-two thousaml souls, on 
 both sides of the river, and sprc-ad out over all the hills and valleys fur 
 miles around. Xow it has sixteen Protestant cliurehes, three lines of 
 railroad, a hundred steamboats, and an annual trade, including its 
 manufactures, of twenty-tive millions. The long, rude bo.\ of a bridge, 
 \\hich once connected the banks of the river, has given jilace to twu 
 magniticent structures, one for railroad and the other for ordinary use 
 — such as the Tiber never boasted, and which would have tilk-d the 
 old Romans with mingled wonder and delight. Those beautiful green 
 cedars, once the glory of winter, have disappeared from all the hill- 
 tops, and iu their place have sprung up the maible mansions of wealtli 
 or the neat cottages of the artisan. That central summit, where in 
 olden times dwelt the wild genii of the woods, is now surmounted 
 with the capitol of Tennessee — the temple of law and justice, built 
 of native marble, whose massive proportions, rising without an ob- 
 strui'tion, and seen from every direction, as if projected against the 
 very sky, would have done honor to the Athenian Acropolis in the 
 proudest days of Pericles. And there too, looking from the broad 
 terraces and steps of the capitol, the spectator beholds, across the city 
 at the distance of a mile to the south, that old and famous College 
 Hill — once "so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects and 
 melodious sounds," but now environed by a dense and busy popula- 
 tion — where for twenty-six years, by day and night, went on the great 
 work we have taken in hand to estimate — the work of training some 
 two thousand immortal minds in all high and liberal learning. That 
 hill is now set apart to the medical department of the university, with 
 its spacious buildings, its costly museum, its laboratory, library, lec- 
 ture-rooms, and four hundred students, gathered from all quarters of 
 the South West. But further on in the same southern direction, and 
 in the ample and elevated grounds which L>r. Lindsley had the wis- 
 dom to secure for such purposes at an early day, are now seen the 
 still more costly and magniticent new buildings of the literary depart- 
 ment, which have been erected since his resignation, through the en- 
 ergetic and untiring exertions of his son. the present chancellor of the 
 universitv. From the capitol is also seen another commanding edifice 
 — the public high school of the city — a noble enterprise both in its 
 conception and execution, for which Nashville was greatly indebted 
 to one of her own university alumni — the lamented AltVed Uume ;
 
 ^^ PHILIP LINDSLEY. 
 
 while a little fmtlier on to the west still stands that large and flour- 
 ishing female academy, over which his venerated father, William 
 Hume, so long and so successfully presided. 
 
 Such is Nashville, such her institutions, such her enterprise 
 and enlargement in 1859. And now, we ask, to whom is she 
 more indebted for all this prosperity and improvement — this intel- 
 lectual, moral, social, educational, and even material development, 
 than to the man who, even at the darkest hour of her temporary de- 
 pi-ession, when her own sons were ready to forsake her, would never 
 leave her ; but clung to her through all vicissitudes, determined nei- 
 ther to give up her univeisity, nor suffer its real estate to be sacri- 
 ticed ? We had an opportunity, only a few years ago, of visiting 
 Nashville, and while there, of comparing her past and present condi 
 tion. We examined somewhat closely into the influences whijch have 
 been at work to make her what she is. In all we saw and heard, we 
 were more and more impressed with the conviction that the promi- 
 nent elements and agencies of her growth, and of her present ele- 
 vated character as a city, w^ere those which had originated on that 
 same College Hill. We found that the " Old University," though 
 for a season suspended, Avas in fact still governing the city. We 
 found that most of the leading men, in all the learned professions, 
 mercantile pursuits, and even mechanic trades, had, in one way or 
 another, been connected with the university, and in a measure edt(- 
 cated by it. We found that many of her most gifted alumni from 
 other parts of the slate, and even from other states, after rising to 
 wealth and influence at home, had worked their way back to Nash- 
 ville, and wei-e now contributing all the resources of their talents, 
 their experience, their attainments, and their fortunes to the onward 
 and upward growth of the city. We found that thus, congregating 
 at Nashville, and throwing the whole weight of their character, their 
 public spirit, their enterprise, their love of education into all the in- 
 tercourse of society, and all the walks of business, and the whole 
 public administration of the city, they were not only making the capi- 
 tal of Tennessee an emporium of wealth and an Athens of learning, 
 but sending forth an influence over all the surrounding region — nay, 
 one that must be felt in every nook and corner of the state. We 
 found that thus there was a great elevating moral power at Nash- 
 ville — the power of letters — the power of education — the power of 
 her own university. And when we saw all this — saw how the city 
 had grown, and whij it had grown, to its present enviable position of 
 intellectual and moral power — we remembered some of those match- 
 less appeals, and arguments, and vindications in favor of the higher 
 learning as the nucleus of all that was great and good, which, for
 
 PHILIP LINDSLEV. 45 
 
 twenty-six years, Nasliville had never faileil to laar. Tlie jireJictions 
 were all fulfilled or fulfilling, tliougli the eloquent toiir,'ue that sjioko 
 them was now silent. And we fit that, if Nashville should over 
 erect a public monument to any man, the honor was due to her emi- 
 nent educator— rillLIP LIXDSLKV. 
 
 Whether then we measure the results of his great life-work by its 
 special effect upon the city of his adoption, or by its wider influence 
 upon the progress of education in Tennessee, or by its still wider im- 
 pression upon the whole South West, through the influence of his pu- 
 pils — not to speak of his writings and general influence abroad — we 
 think it can not be questioned that he has left his mark, deep and 
 ineflaceable, upon his country and his generation. And we doubt 
 not that, as it regards all that earlier portion of his labors, at the 
 east, of which we have here said nothing, there are men still living in 
 various parts of our country — once his pnpils, but now leading citi- 
 zens — statesmen, jurists, divines, educators — who could bear witness 
 to his eminent abilities and to his important influence upon their own 
 character and destiny. It can not be qnestioned that he was among 
 the leading spirits of our times, and possessed one of the most acute, 
 thoroughly disciplined, and accomplished minds in our country. He 
 was himself a living illustration — and a noble one — of that higher 
 culture and scholarship of which hi was, through life, the eloquent 
 advocate and defender. He never crossed the waters; but, had he 
 gone, there can be no doubt that, as a Grecian and a savant, he would 
 have done honor to his country in any circle of the European literati. 
 Devoting all his fine powers and his ripe scholarship to the great 
 work of education, and casting in his lot for life with the people of 
 the West, he has set a noble example of consecration to all young 
 men of genius. Nor will the example be lost. A great state will 
 not soon forget the memory of her adopted son, who so early came 
 to her help, and so long labored for her good, in the very front rank 
 of her scholars and educators. 
 
 But our task is done. It has been to us a labor of love. Would 
 that we could have made it a worthier tribute to his memory. We 
 have at least been able to group together some of his own glowing 
 and weighty thoughts. It was a striking and fitting Providence that 
 he should be permitted to return and die on the very scene of his 
 ];il^ors — in the ])resenee of his fellow-citizens — in the midst of his 
 brethren of the general assembly of the church — in the arms of his 
 children. Such an exit, after such a life, was more blessed and more 
 glorious than that of the soldier on the field of his fame, and in the 
 very onset of victory. It was the ready and sublime ascent of the 
 veteran teacher from the bosom of his early pupils, and at the sum-
 
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 have been gathered there. In that quiet valley of the dead, from 
 which spreads out in the distance the living panorama of the city — 
 the spires and turrets of its churches, the graceful sweep of its 
 bridges, the classic walls of its university, its medical and high 
 schools, the proud dome of its capitol towering to the sky, the gentle 
 flow of the Cumberland toward the setting sun, and over all the blue 
 vault of heaven — there, with his compeers and predecessors, his 
 friends and pupils, dues his body await in hope the resurrection of 
 the just, lie rests from his labors, and his works do follow him. 
 
 Such a life, when we consider its trinmphs, its trials, its influences, 
 and its issues, both temporal and eternal, may well be called a great 
 epic. Well may it inspire the young with ])atriotic ardor, and with 
 hii'h resolves to excel in every honorable and useful calling. Well 
 may it cheer the faithful fellow-laborer with God in the fields of edu- 
 (,'alion, through all the heat and burden of the day. Xobly and im- 
 pressively does it teach the grand moral Icbsoii that we labor not in 
 vain, when we labor in the Lord and for the good of our fellow-men. 
 Let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap, 
 if we faint not. 
 
 " Lives of great nieu all remind us 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on the sands of time ; 
 
 " Footprints, that perhaps another, 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother. 
 Seeing, shall take heart aerain." 
 
 THE L^^^^^^^MIA 
 LOS ANGl
 
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 UCSOUTHERr,iit(