USA > Connecticut > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 3
USA > Rhode Island > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 3
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After graduating in 1831, Mr. Porter became the rector of the ancient Latin School in New Haven, which had been founded in 1660, and which is known as the Hopkins Grammar School. Here he gained an honorable reputation for his ability as an instructor, and especially for his success in administering discipline in a school which had been traditionally somewhat unruly.
In 1833 he was elected tutor in Yale College, and served in that capacity for two years as the instructor of the somewhat famous class of 1837 in Greek. While tutor he pursued the regular course of study in theology in the Yale Divin- ity School under Rev. Dr. Nathaniel W. Taylor.
In 1836 he became the pastor of the Congregational Church in New Milford, Connecticut, being ordained in April of that year; and about the same time he was married to Mary, the eldest daughter of Dr. Taylor. Mr. Porter's pastorate in New Milford was a laborious one. The church was one of the largest in the State, and its members, many of whom were farmers, were scattered over a town which by the road was sixteen miles from north to south, and nine from east to west. For nearly seven years he had the charge of this important church, where he acquired reputation for his ability in the pulpit, and for the energy and faithful- ness with which he discharged all the duties of a pastor, riding diligently at all seasons over the long hills to visit his parishioners, and holding stated meetings in the most remote districts of the town. It was while settled in this country parish that he began by his contributions, published in the leading periodicals of the day, to attract attention as an original and vigorous thinker on theological and philosophical subjects.
In 1843 he became the pastor of the South Congregational Church in Spring- field, Massachusetts, where he remained for four years, when he was chosen, in 1846, Clark Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in Yale College. After occupying this chair for twenty-five years, on the resignation of President Woolsey, in 1871, he was elected President.
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It was considered at the time to be a fortunate circumstanee that a President was secured who was acquainted with all the traditions of the college, and was in thorough sympathy with them. President Porter's views on the subject of collegiate education were set forth in his inaugural address, and in his work on American Colleges. They are conservative, though he is by no means indisposed to seek for improvements on the past, as is shown by the faet that during his administration very important changes have been made in the methods of instruction, The college during his presidency has been very prosperous. Several costly buildings have been ereeted ; the corps of instructors has been much enlarged ; the Department of Philosophy and the Arts has been reconstructed so as to induee instruetion for graduate students ; and the different departments of the college have been officially recognized by the Corporation as having "attained to the form of a university."
President Porter during all his life has been a very voluminous writer. His published works, consisting of reviews, essays, addresses, sermons, are too numerous to mention here even by their titles. He is a constant contributor to the press and to the most important magazines and reviews. He is the editor of all the later editions of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. His most elaborate work is a treatise on the Human Intellect (New York, 1868; 8vo, pp. 673), of which Professor Benjamin N. Martin, his reviewer, says (New Englander, January, 1869) : "In comprehensivencss of plan and in elaborate faithfulness of execution the work is far before any other in the language." He adds: " For such a labor of years, and such an example of enthusiasm in the pursuit of abstraet truth, the author's countrymen may well be proud of him ; and . their grateful appreciation of an aim so high, and so well sustained, will rank him, perhaps, foremost among our Ameriean scholars in the loftiest and most difficult walk of investigation."
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ASWELL, ALEXIS, D.D., LL.D., ex-President of Brown University, Providence, R. I. Born at Taunton, Mass., January 29th. 1799. His father, Samuel Caswell, belonged to the yeomanry of New England, . and was descended through a worthy ancestry of Taunton farmers from
Thomas Caswell, one of the first settlers of that town. On the mother's sidc he was descended from Peregrine White, who was born on board the Mayflower, in November, 1620, and who derived his name, Peregrine, from his having been the first child of English descent born in America-a country so foreign at that time to the Pilgrim Fathers. From this truly distinguished parentage Dr. Caswell derived his somewhat severe nature, strong good sense, clear intelligence, and warm family feeling. In youth he was a model of dutiful affection, and exhibited not a little of that filial awc of parents which characterized the best days of Puritan family life. His mother, we are told by Professor J. L. Lincoln, "was a woman of native refine- ment, quitc in advance of her surroundings, and of a sweetness and gentleness of nature" that seemed to have passed into her son. Her life, at home and abroad, was under the control of deep and genuine piety, that blessed her immediate surroundings, and also the entire neighborhood. Her husband, who survived her death for more than thirty years, never attempted to fill her place, and never could speak of her to his children with "a steady voice or an undimmed cye."
In this genuine Christian home Alexis Caswell-onc of a family of nine children-grew up into boyhood and youth. Here he was trained to those habits of self-denial and honest labor which quicken the mental facultics and develop manly character, while they maturc and invigorate the body. His father's two chief heroes were Washington and Franklin. "Poor Richard's Maxims," framed by the latter, were commended to the adoption of the boys; and the patriotic virtues and valor of the " Father of his Country" were also proposed for their imitation. Their secular education was the subject of constant solicitude. In the long winter evenings he acquainted himself with the exact stage of their progress in the studies pursued at the district school, and stimulated their ambition by arithmetical puzzles of his own devising. This paternal interest in his intellectual culture doubtless fostered the desire to obtain a liberal cducation. With his father's consent he entered upon a course of study preparatory to admission at college, in the Bristol Acad- cmy at Taunton, under the instruction of the Rev. Simcon Doggett. Attendance at that institution involved a five miles' walk every morning and evening-a walk in which the study of his lessons, and of the deepcr and morc lasting truths taught by beautiful and changing nature, were alternately enjoycd.
Preliminary acquisitions obtained, young Caswell presented himself for matricu- lation at Brown University, in September, 1818. Athletic, bright, attractive, he at
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once formed friendships that were subsequently " unchanged, undimmed by the lapse of time." Among his fellows he stood conspicuous by his vigorous mind, serious purpose, and love of excellence in all the departments of learning. He had the gift for labor and intent study which marks the naturally talented, and which also augurs their future success. All college tasks were performed to the
best of his ability. In the ancient classics hc achieved honorable distinction, won favorable remark as a speaker and writer, but was more renowned for scientific than for literary attainments. " In the mathematics he rose to eminence as a scholar in his first year, and subsequently held a like rank in natural philosophy." Later on in
his course he became specially interested in ethics and metaphysics. Admired for his superiority in all these departments of thought and labor, and beloved for his genial social qualities, he was no less eminent for excellence in the play and sport of college life. "The tradition comes down to us that he could wrestle successfully with the strongest men on the college campus, and that he was a match for the best in all other athletic sports."
The ordinary temptations of a college career were powerless to turn him aside from his chosen path, but it was not until about the middle of it "that he came into the experience alike of the moral restraints and the peaceful freedom of that Christian faith" which were always associated with his subsequent life. " There was a day in the spring term of his Sophomore year which he was wont to count as his spiritual birthday," and which was noted above all previous days by " a believ- ing acceptance of Christ as a Saviour and Lord," and in which "he felt himself to be a renewed child of God, a redeemed disciple of Christ, and consecrated to his ser- vicc." In July of the same year he was baptized by the Rev. Dr. Gano, and received into the membership of the First Baptist Church in Providence, of which he con- tinued to be an honored and most useful member to the close of life.
Discipleship to Christ he found to be consistent with the highest honors and grandest successes of human life, and indeed directly conducive to them. The mem- bers of his class felt "that Caswell would have its highest honors on the day of gradua- tion," a presentiment which was justified by his appointment to deliver an oration at commencement with the valedictory addresses. On that occasion he acquitted him- self with usual credit. After graduation he intended to enter upon a course of theo- logical study, and to make the work of the Christian ministry his special pursuit. But natural fitness and Divine Providence had otherwise determined. He was soon ap- pointed to a tutorship in Columbian College, Washington, D. C., and entered upon the duties of his office in January, 1823. Two years afterward, in 1825, he was elected to the Professorship of Ancient Languages. The institution itself had been established under the direction of the Baptist General Convention of the United States, with the
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specific end in view of training Christian young men for the work of the ministry. Under the name of Columbian University, it now takes high rank among the learned institutions of the country. Several young men, who afterward became eminent, were among his carly professional associates. Chief, perhaps, among them was Thomas J. Conant, " just beginning that career as a linguist, which has since become so illus- trious," in the domain of American biblical scholarship. Professor Caswell proved himself to be an able and successful teacher, and one who commanded the confidence and love of his pupils by the kindly interest evinced in their progress and welfare.
While thus engaged as a teacher he did not lose sight of his ultimate goal-the ministry of the Gospel of Christ-but pursued his theological studies under the direc- tion of the President of the college, the learned and eloquent Dr. William Staughton. Hebrew was diligently studied at the same time, with the help of Dr. Irah Chase, Theological Professor of the institution. There, too, he received license to preach, shared the duty of conducting Sunday academic service in the college chapel, and occasionally preached in some of the church pulpits in Washington. His style of min- istration was direct and practical, simple and calm, and full of that earnestness which carries conviction to the minds of the hearers of the speaker's own faith in the doc- trines he enounces, and of the truth of the doctrines themselves.
In 1827 he resigned his professorship and returned to New England, and in Sep- tember of the same year accompanied Dr. Irah Chase-then a professor in the New- ton Theological Seminary-on a journey to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in order to assist in the formation of a Baptist church. This he did, and afterward yielded to the solicita- tions of the new organization to remain for a time at Halifax, and labor among them as their minister. As such he needed ordination, and received that solemn consecra- tion to the ministry of Christ on Sunday, October 7th. Ten days after his arrival in Halifax he was exercising the functions of an ordained minister, and that too with universal acceptance and success. The Rev. Dr. E. A. Crawley, his successor in the pastorate, and then one of his parishioners, says that "he was a popular and attractive preacher, and that his discourses, which were written, but preached without the use of notes, attracted full and even overflowing houses." Kindly, sympathetic, and acquainted with the ordinary course of worldly affairs, he was no less successful as a pastor. A large congregation was gathered, and from it accessions were made to the church, which continues to this day to be a fountain of spiritual and moral blessing to the entire community in which it is situated.
While thus beneficently occupied, Professor Caswell was invited to take the Pro- fessorship of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Waterville College, now Colby University, at Waterville, Maine, but did not feel at liberty to accept the call. Toward the end of July, 1828, he was invited by the First Baptist Church in Providence to
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supply their pulpit during the month of August. The vencrable Dr. Gano had then resigned the pastoral care of the church, after a fruitful ministry of thirty-six years, and his successor had not yet been chosen. But whatever his expectations or the desires of the church may have been, an unexpected and decisive turn was given to his plans, and to his whole life, by the proffer of the Professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Brown University-just vacated by the resignation of Rev. Alva Woods, D.D. He accepted the offer, and assumed the duties of his office at the be- ginning of the academic year.
President Wayland was in office at the time, and in all his noble cares and un- wearied efforts for the good of the institution found none among his associates on whom he could more fully rely for intelligent and zealous co-operation than Professor Caswell. The good sense and admirably-poised judgment, the sincerity and integrity, the fidelity and many-sided ability of the latter made him an invaluable counsellor. In his new position he was for several years responsible for all the scientific instruction of the college. In 1850 the style of his professorship was changed to that of mathe- matics and astronomy, and his professional labors were thenceforward restricted to mathe- ematics, and sciences germanc to the objects of his chair. "Though he did not by original thought makc contributions to the science of quantity, he was a well-read and learned mathematician ; he had studied and mastered the works of some of the greatest writers of the science, and was conversant with the results of their researches." His opinions on the value of mathematical studies, as means of intellectual disci- pline, were fully unfolded in his discourse before the Rhode Island Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, entitled, The Mathematical Studies as a Branch of Liberal Edu- cation, with an exactness of method, a straightforward sequence from the premises to the conclusions, and an energy of diction that beautifully illustrated his own theory.
Astronomy, the oldest and grandcst of the natural seienees, was that for which Professor Caswell had a special predilection and a growing mental fondness. " Here was the centre of his choieest scientific thinking and service; here he was at home as a laborious and successful student ; and it was a truc and satisfying home for his mind, where its noblest eares and most, studious labors were em- ployed, where the scientific and the ethical tendencies of his nature met and united in harmonious action." To ethical and theological inquiries he had a strong native tendency. Butler's Analogy was a favorite book with him ; for, while fully appre- ciating the superiority of demonstrative reasoning in respect to the certainty of its conclusions, he was no less alive to the sovereign authority of probability as the guide of human life in its gravest concerns. At the scientific meeting in Mont- real in 1857, at which he presided, he astonished an English clergyman by quoting a passage from the Analogy without deviating in a single word from the well-
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known peculiar style of that work. In 1858 he delivered a course of four lectures on astronomy at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, which were deemed so valuable by the secretary of that establishment that he published them in an appendix to his Annual Report of that year. As a meteorologist he was still more celebrated. For forty years his observations were almost continuous; and those which cover a period of twenty-nine years, from 1831 to 1860, were published in full in the twelfth volume of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, covering nearly two hundred quarto pages. Professor Henry, Secretary of the Institution, wished to have them in permanent form, "being impressed with the service which they would render to the progress of meteorological research."
Professor Caswell's acknowledged scientific eminence won him distinction in many ways. In 1850 he was elected Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and bore an active part in the discussions at its annual meetings. He presided at the meeting of the association held in Montreal in 1857, and " sustained the credit of his country on a foreign soil by his dignified presence and his manly eloquence, to the great satisfaction of all his associates." In 1858, also, he was elected to the presidency, and in 1859, at Springfield, delivered an address, on his retirement from office, that was aptly characterized as " admirable in thought, spirit, and style." It maintained the doctrine that true science is the minister and interpreter of religion and of the Christian revelation. " I shall not hesitate," he said, "to declare here my profound conviction that true science is in harmony with the Bible, rightly interpreted. Any seeming dis- crepancy which baffles the resources of ingenuity to reconcile is but the varying ripple in the mighty swell of the ocean, whose exact form no power of analysis can express, and no skill of pencil can sketch." The fact that on the establish- ment of the National Academy of Sciences by Congress, in 1863, he was one of the fifty men of science in the United States who were selected by the Govern- ment as its original corporators, shows the national scientific reputation he had already achieved.
The very affluence of Professor Caswell's erudition, and the copiousness of its outflow in the professional chair, seems to have operated somewhat against his highest possible efficiency as an educator by preventing due stimulation of the minds of his pupils. Those who were willing and anxious to learn found in him one of the best possible helpers; those who were inclined to indolence found escape from the necessity of severe intellectual exertion in the very abundance of his thorough and interesting instructions. The ingenious devices and inventions of the latter class of students never escaped his notice, and sometimes met with rebuke that was the more keenly felt because it was so kindly and benevolent.
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From a Christian point of view, Professor Caswell was a model educator. Like Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, he believed that the function of a teacher, no less than of a parish minister, is the cure of souls; that " only by holding right personal rela- tions to their Creator and to the Saviour of the world, through the renewing grace of the Gospel," could his students " be prepared as educated men to serve their generation by the will of God" Such educators are inestimable.
Thus, teaching, preaching, and moulding individual characters by precept and benign example, Professor Caswell spent a little more than thirty-five of the years of his useful life. After President Wayland's administration had ended, Dr. Caswell continucd to serve the college with fidelity and zeal during the eight years of President Sears's eminently successful administration. In the academic year of 1840-41, while Dr. Wayland was in Europe, he discharged the duties of President pro tempore. In 1841 he received from the university the well-earned degree of Doctor of Divinity. In June, 1860, he commenced a year's tour of travel and observation in Europe, visiting England and the Continent, and spending the winter in Italy. In England and Scotland he was the recipient of marked attention from scientific circles, and especially from distinguished mathematicians and astronomers connected with the universities and royal observatories of those countries.
In November, 1863, Dr. Caswell, then at the age of sixty-four, resigned his pro- fessorship. In 1868 he was summoned by the voice of the Corporation to the presideney of the university, and accepted the call. On the morning of February 17th he was inducted into office by the chancellor of the university, in the presence of members of the Corporation, the Faculty, and the undergraduates, and immediately entered upon his new official duties.
President Caswell opened the exercises of his first commencement by gathering the alumni in Manning Hall, to consult and plan with him for the promotion of the interests of their common Alma Mater. There the Alumni Association was formed, and of it he was elected the first president. Under his presidency the resources of the college were enlarged, and new departments of study were organized and pro- vided with means of instruction. The Museum of Natural History owes its origin and establishment to his judicious efforts. The library also is largely indebted to his exertions. The duties of his position were always discharged in the spirit of manly independence, and with ideal faithfulness to the responsibilities devolved upon him. To the students he was a kind and courteous friend, and to all an affable and noble Christian gentleman. At the end of 1871 he resigned the presidency; but, at the, request of the class of 1872, delivered a Baccalaureate sermon to them on the after- noon of the Sabbath preceding commencement. He was then in his seventy-fourth year, had graduated half a century before, and crystallized all the advices growing out
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of his experiences in the words of the Hebrew preacher: "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." The sermon was one that will ever live in the memory of the audience.
President Caswell was a many-sided man, and therefore a man of publie spirit, broad views, and catholic sympathies. Nothing pertaining to the welfare of humanity was foreign to his thoughts and efforts. He was one of the principal agents in the establishment of the Providence system of public instruction, and was for many years a member of the School Committee. He was one of the earliest friends of the Providence Athenæum, and for eight years was one of the Board of Directors, and for eight years more was vice-president of the institution. He was one of the original trustees of the Rhode Island Hospital, and a member of the Building Com- mittee. In November, 1875, he was elected president of that institution, and retained the office until the day of his death. His connection with the hospital is perma- nently commemorated by the " President Caswell Free Bed," which was established by the liberal contributions of his friends, who were also friends to the institution.
Faithfulness in all things was one of the grand characteristics of Alexis Caswell. He both understood and illustrated the sublime idea of duty. To him the Church turned instinctively in seasons of pastorless destitution. To him the sorrowing repaired for counsel and comfort in hours of weakness and suffering. He forgot himself in seeking the welfare of others. He counted all his colaborers for the common good as fellow-servants with himself of one Master, and reckoned him only to be the first and chief who was willing to be last of all and servant of all. In all great Chris- tian enterprises he was most deeply interested, and in the institutions organized to insure their success. An earnest advocate of an educated ministry, he was, through all his life, one of the most efficient friends of the Newton Theological Institution. He was the third president of its Board of Trustees, and for many years a member of the board. By acting on committees of examination, as well as by liberal con- tributions, hc also sought to promote its usefulness and success.
No enterprise of the Church of Christ was more dear to his heart than that of foreign missions. With its origin, history, progress, and prospects he was thoroughly familiar. " He attended, whenever it was possible, the annual meetings of the Baptist Missionary Union, in which he bore a prominent part. He was chosen president of the Union at its meetings in 1867, and was re-elected in 1868, and presided at the memorable annual meeting held the next year in Boston."
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