USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Andover: symbol of New England; the evolution of a town > Part 18
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
When Pearson came to Andover, through Phillips' influence,
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as master of the town grammar school, the two men lost no time in planning a boarding school based in part on the concepts which they had found at Dummer. Although they were unfa- miliar with the great English public school foundations at Win- chester, Eton, Harrow, and Rugby, they were acquainted with some of the appropriate literature and evidently had read not only Milton and Locke but even Montaigne and Rousseau. But when they considered the founding of a school fitted to New England rather than Old England, they used their ingenuity and imagination to adapt it to the needs of their locality. They were at heart practical men, and their academy was indigenous, a truly native product.
The new institution was essentially a family enterprise, the funds for which were supplied by young Phillips' opulent rela- tives. Their gifts made it possible for him to realize his dreams. Over a considerable period the family might have been called the "Marrying Phillipses," for the men chose wives blessed with money, either present or future. John Phillips, of Exeter, at the age of twenty-three married a widow of forty-one who had in- herited 8,000 pounds. Aided by this, he entered business, grew wealthy, and developed into the most liberal philanthropist of the eighteenth century in America, giving large sums not only to Andover but also to Dartmouth College and the Phillips Exe- ter Academy, opened on May 1, 1783. He had no children, and his brother, Esquire Phillips, who had also married a rich wom- an, had only one son, to whom he was devoted. It was Dr. John Phillips who once declared, "The logical conclusion of Religion is Education"; and it was for him that Eliphalet Pearson com- posed the epitaph, "Without natural issue, he made posterity his heir." The third son of the Reverend Samuel Phillips was William Phillips, of Boston, who married his merchant employ- er's eldest daughter and became a partner in the firm. While he did not join in the founding of Phillips Academy, he was later one of its most generous donors.
In all his planning, then, Samuel Phillips, Jr., had strong sup-
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port. His father and his uncle were ready to guarantee the fi- nancing of the project, and members of the family for more than thirty years helped to meet deficits when they occurred. Four of the original members of the board of trustees, all Phillipses, be- came in turn the first four presidents of the board. Several rela- tives were influential sponsors. Phillips School began as a family enterprise and was continued as a matter of family pride.
Much informal discussion took place before the details were arranged. Phillips himself for some reason had no high opinion of Latin and Roman authors, but Pearson argued him out of this prejudice, and the school started strongly classical. Phillips orig- inally preferred a site near Lake Cochichawicke, but not enough land was available; and he finally purchased, in the name of his father and uncle, various pieces of real estate on Andover Hill aggregating more than one hundred and forty acres. Thus the South Parish became the seat of the new academy. It is interest- ing to speculate as to what might have happened if the location near the lake had been possible.
It was early decided to place the holding power, not in private hands, but in a board of trustees, which should renew itself in perpetuity. A Deed of Gift, or constitution, signed on April 21, 1778, by the two brothers, Esquire Samuel Phillips and Dr. John Phillips, was mainly the composition of Samuel Phillips, Jr., with suggestions from Pearson, whose fearless counsel had al- ready modified in some degree the educational theories of his friend. The document has a substantial unity which proves it to have been basically the conception of a single mind.
In this constitution, which is one of the most important items in the history of American education, it was stated explicitly in memorable phrasing that "the first and principal object of this institution is the promotion of true Piety and Virtue"; and this injunction, derived in part from John Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693), was reiterated so that no one in the future could mistake the desire and intent of the founders. It was stipulated "that the Master's attention to the disposition
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of the minds and morals of the youth, under his charge, will ex- ceed every other care." This ethical purpose was the very es- sence of that Puritanism which, even up to and beyond the Rev- olution, still permeated the thought of large sections of New England.
Responsive to their inherited dogmatic Calvinistic theology, the founders enjoined the as yet mythical master to inculcate upon his pupils "the great and important Scripture doctrines of the existence of One True God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost -of the Fall of Man-the Depravity of Human Nature-the Necessity of an Atonement-and of our being Renewed in the Spirit of our Minds." They moved even further into the field of creedal mysticism by repudiating "the erroneous and dangerous doctrine of Justification by our own merit," preferring, with Jonathan Edwards, that of "Justification by the Free Grace of God, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ." Fortunate- ly for the future of their institution, the founders also expressed their broader aim as being the establishment of "a public free school or Academy for the purpose of instructing youth, not only in english & latin grammar, writing, arithmetic, and those Sci- ences wherein they are commonly taught, but more especially to learn them the great end and real business of living." This final phrase, italicized in the original draft, is the core of the matter, the terse and lucid statement of a noble ideal.
The day was to come when few of the trustees could under- stand, and none could approve, the theological subtleties in the Deed of Gift. One provision-"Protestants only shall ever be concerned in the Trust or Instruction of this Seminary"-was informally but positively abrogated during a later headmaster- ship. Future generations were willing to forget the Calvinistical creed and remember chiefly the Christian hope of the founders. No headmaster today could or would subscribe without reserva- tions to the Academy Constitution of 1778. But it is only just to add that over the years the trustees have not found it difficult to maintain the truly religious spirit beneath the written words.
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Although the constitution was a clear and forthright statement of guiding principles, everything depended on the man selected to put them into practice. Education is a personal matter involv- ing a direct relationship between teacher and taught. From the inception of the project it was assumed that Eliphalet Pearson would be the first master. At the time he was living in the home of Mrs. Edward Holyoke, widow of a former president of Har- vard College, taking charge of the Andover grammar school, reading extensively in science and theology, preaching now and then in neighboring pulpits, and helping with his knowledge of chemistry to make the Phillips powder mill more productive. He was shortly to stabilize his financial position by marrying Miss Holyoke, twelve years older than he but with a dowry of 8,000 dollars.
Pearson was a thickset, powerful man, who was to be nick- named "Elephant" by his pupils. With an impatient, domineer- ing temperament, he would not tolerate levity and was rather pleased over his reputation as a martinet. He was unquestion- ably a gifted and many-sided personality, qualified to command men as well as boys, but he inspired awe rather than affection. During his eight years at Phillips Academy he set it on the right path, established high standards of scholarship, and fulfilled its motto, Finis Origine Pendet.
The beginning was certainly modest. An old carpenter's shop included in the original purchase of land had been moved to the corner of "the old road to the meeting house" (now Andover's broad Main Street) and the lane which has since become Phillips Street. On this site, today occupied by the Academy's Archaeo- logical Museum, the primitive structure, one storey in height and about thirty-five feet by twenty in floor space, made of unpainted boards, was fitted up temporarily for school purposes. There Pearson turned from making powder to making scholars.
Phillips School opened on Thursday morning, April 30, 1778, with thirteen pupils present for the first recitations. It was in the very midst of those Revolutionary times which so grimly
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tried men's souls. Washington and his dwindling army had just passed through the ghastly winter at Valley Forge; and the heart- ening news of the treaty with France, signed February 6, which was to mean so much to the hard-pressed colonists, had barely reached our shores. Several of the trustees were there to encour- age Master Pearson and his assistant, Joseph Mottey; and the Reverend Jonathan French, who had helped to plan and pro- mote the project, came up from the South Church parsonage to deliver a dedicatory sermon. By the end of the month, thirty pupils were in attendance, and before the year closed fifty-one boys had enrolled. Some curiosity was aroused, but none of the townspeople could have envisioned what the unpretentious little schoolhouse would become.
On October 4, 1780, the school was legally incorporated as Phillips Academy, through the last act of the expiring Provincial Massachusetts Court, signed in the flowing hand of John Han- cock, Speaker of the House of Representatives. In 1782, Judge Oliver Wendell and John Lowell, of the trustees, presented to the school an official seal, engraved and cast by Paul Revere, representing a hive with the bees swarming to and fro, and an effulgent sun above. Within the sun and its spreading rays were the words Non Sibi, and below around the rim was the traditional motto of Samuel Phillips, Jr., Finis Origine Pendet, which con- tinued to seem appropriate.
Today in that same area magnificent buildings are named for Samuel Phillips, Jr., his wife, Phoebe Foxcroft, Eliphalet Pear- son, Paul Revere, and of course, George Washington. John Han- cock has not been thus commemorated, mainly because a twen- tieth-century president of the board of trustees, a Harvard graduate and professor, could not forget Hancock's inexcusable carelessness, as treasurer, with the college funds. When the Acad- emy acquired a copy of Copley's portrait of Hancock, it was promptly consigned to the basement, where presumably it is still concealed.
For some months the young school seemed very little different
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from any Massachusetts grammar school. Master Pearson merely moved to the old carpenter's shop, where the pupils he faced were mostly from the vicinity or relatives of the trustees and their friends. But the founders had taken pains to leave the way open for expansion. The Academy was to be "ever equally open to youth, of requisite qualifications, from every quarter." To guard against parochialism, it was stipulated that a majority of the trustees must always be laymen. As a protection against in- sularity, it was provided that a major part of the members could not be inhabitants of the town in which the school was located. Thus, except for the hardly avoidable emphasis on doctrinal theology, the trustees were left unhampered by any petty or vex- atious conditions. Samuel Phillips, Jr., and his advisers looked beyond the provincial to the national. The wise elasticity of the school's constitution has permitted adjustment to new and changed conditions without any marked deviation from the in- tent of the founders.
The Academy's reputation grew slowly. It was wartime, and parents could not plan with any certainty for their children. Not for some years did students arrive from other areas. The first pupil from outside New England was John Callender, from Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1782. In 1785, from the same city, came Howell Lewis, nephew of George Washington, who had confidence in a school established by his friend, Samuel Phillips, Jr. In 1789, as we have seen, President Washington paid a visit to Andover, inspected the school, and talked with the master. He must have received a good impression, for in 1795 he en- rolled four grandnephews: Augustine and Bushrod Washing- ton, sons of Colonel William Augustine Washington, who were accompanied from Virginia by their cousins, Cassius and Francis Lightfoot Lee, sons of the patriot, Richard Henry Lee, who had died in 1794, leaving them in Washington's care. This was pa- tronage of a very distinguished type. Four other members of the Washington family arrived in 1803, sent there by Judge Bushrod Washington, who was their legal guardian. It was quite proper
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that the modern administrative center of the school, completed in 1926, should be named George Washington Hall and should contain his portrait by Gilbert Stuart.
Nevertheless of the thirty-seven new boys registered in 1795 at Phillips Academy, the two Washingtons and the two Lees were the only ones not from Massachusetts or New Hampshire; and ten were from the town of Andover itself, including three Abbots. Of the fifty-two applicants admitted in 1804, all but ten were from Massachusetts, and only two from outside New Eng- land. Not until the coming of the railroad and more rapid trans- portation in the 1830's did the Academy become a really na- tional school.
Before Pearson left in 1786, to become Hancock Professor of Hebrew and the Oriental Languages at Harvard, the trustees had completed a new and more commodious school building on the southwest corner of what is now the main campus, on a site in front of the present Oliver Wendell Holmes Library. The as- sembly hall on the second floor was sixty-four feet long and thirty- three feet wide, and on the ground floor was a museum of "nat- ural and artificial curiosities" which attracted many visitors. The cost of the construction of this building and of the land to the south available for a training field was 950 pounds, which was contributed in equal shares by the three Phillips brothers, Sam- uel, John, and William. This was the home of the school at the time of President Washington's visit, and it served its purpose well until it was destroyed by fire on January 30, 1818.
For many years the south end had been outstripping the North Parish in population; and now the new and unique Phil- lips Academy gave it additional prestige in the world outside. While still relatively young, Samuel Phillips, Jr., had become one of the Commonwealth's foremost citizens, with a wide ac- quaintance and many close friends among Boston's elite. Among the twelve original trustees were Oliver Wendell, grandfather of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and John Lowell, grandfather of James Russell Lowell. They were well-known figures, whose
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presence in Andover on formal occasions stirred the pride of the residents, as did that of Colonel Henry L. Stimson in the twen- tieth century. With them came the Reverend Josiah Stearns, of Epping, and the Reverend Elias Smith, of Middleton, who were among the most eminent of New England clergymen. The trus- tees were a unified group, all born and brought up in the Cal- vinist faith; and all but two, William Phillips and Nehemiah Abbot, were Harvard graduates, who talked the same conserva- tive social and economic language. The reaction in the town to visits from men of this caliber was naturally one of satisfaction. The Academy was a fine example of what well-directed private philanthropy can accomplish in a democracy.
The congregations which listened to the Reverend Jonathan French in the South Parish church, augmented by the presence of Phillips Academy boys, were increasingly larger than those which sat under the Reverend William Symmes, in the north end. Each Sunday morning the pupils marched down the hill to occupy the three back rows in the lower front gallery and take notes on the sermon. The annual exhibitions of the Academy, corresponding to the modern commencements, were colorful gatherings, also held in the church. Samuel Phillips, grandson of the founder of the Academy, left an account of what sometimes went on:
The attendance at the Exhibitions used to be very large, and on one occasion I remember the scene was enlivened by music. And such Music! We had no brass or brigade band in those days; and so a sturdy member of the school, one Abijah Cross, performing on a bass viol, and Henry B. Pearson (son of the professor, an incipient flute player) combined their power, and entertained the audience with "Roslyn Castle" and "O dear! what can the matter be?"
Obviously the mood of the South Parish was changing some- what from the austere Puritanism of the first proprietors. But outwardly the village had not altered very much. Morse's Geog- raphy (1803) says of Phillips Academy, "It is encompassed with
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a salubrious air, and commands an extensive prospect." To the south, on the Woburn-Boston Road, Judge Phillips had as his nearest neighbor Moses Abbot, who dwelt in the old red house which Phillips had for some years occupied. To the north lived Joseph Phelps, who carried on a store and boarded Academy students in a simple residence which Judge Phillips had built on the south corner of Main and Phillips streets. Between this and the South Church, along the "meeting-house road," there was not a single building. The site of Abbot Academy, now on School Street, was then a wood lot. The present Main Street to the foot of the hill was not yet opened. On Salem Street stood the "Blunt Tavern," occupied by Captain Isaac Blunt before 1765. A portion of the present Hardy House, then owned by a Captain Towne, was standing on its present site on Salem Street; and across the road to the north was the home of Deacon Amos Blan- chard, who took Phillips Academy students as boarders and made a good living from it. The old house has recently been moved to Hidden Field. To the south of the new Academy building stretched the level area used as a training field for the town mili- tia. This is the spot where the Memorial Tower, with its carillon of thirty-seven bells, stands to attract the attention of motorists driving north from Boston and Reading.
The formidable Pearson was succeeded as principal in 1786 by the mild-mannered, courteous Ebenezer Pemberton, who had been valedictorian of the Class of 1765 at the College of New Jersey. He emphasized high scholarship as well as decent be- havior, and although his pupils spoke of him as gentle and con- ciliatory, they regarded him highly. After seven years in of- fice, he incurred the displeasure of Judge Phillips because of a love affair and found it advisable to resign. After an in- terim period, Mark Newman, in 1794, became the third prin- cipal and remained until 1810, through a period of gradual de- cline, both in attendance and in prestige. Indeed in the winter of 1809, when war with England seemed imminent, the Academy had only eighteen pupils. In the following year Newman es-
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caped from a position which had become intolerable, but con- tinued as clerk of the board of trustees and built up a remuner- ative business in Andover as bookseller and publisher of reli- gious treatises.
By this time the founders of Phillips Academy, with the excep- tion of Eliphalet Pearson, were all dead. During its first thirty- two years it had enrolled 1,031 students, of whom 371, or rather more than one-third, had gone to college. In Pearson's time 76 out of 89 went to Harvard, in Pemberton's 76 out of 84, and in Newman's 150 out of 198. Although under Newman 17 Phillips graduates chose Dartmouth and 13 Yale, the school was mainly a feeder for Harvard.
John Adams, elected principal of Phillips Academy in 1810, was a man of impressive appearance and personality, who looked like the pedagogical monarch that he was. His fourteen years of teaching experience gave him the confidence needed to deal wise- ly with the situation, and the Academy entered upon a prosper- ous era of growth and intensification. The foundation of An- dover Theological Seminary two years before he arrived had made the town the center of Calvinistic orthodoxy; and Adams, with his deep religious convictions, is said to have "imparted an impulse which will never die to the institution into which he came as a moral force." Harvard, during the first decade of the nineteenth century, had been increasingly sympathetic with Unitarianism, and this trend, coupled with the advent of a Yale graduate as principal, caused a decided decline in the number of Phillips Academy boys who chose the Cambridge college. Dur- ing Adams' twenty years, 143 Andover men went to Harvard, but 197 chose Yale, 83 Dartmouth, 45 Amherst, 43 Brown, 36 Union, 23 Middlebury, 13 Williams, and 15 other institutions. The founding of several new colleges with Congregationalist leanings also had something to do with the changed attitude.
In 1818, when the wooden main building was burned, a new brick hall, with the eminent Charles Bulfinch as its architect, was constructed on a knoll to the southeast, exactly in line with
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dormitories recently erected for Andover Theological Seminary. This "Brick Academy" was immortalized by Oliver Wendell Holmes, of the Class of 1825, in his poem, "The School-Boy," read at the centennial of Phillips Academy in 1878:
How all comes back! The upward slanting floor, The masters' thrones that flank the central door, The long outstretching alleys that divide The rows of desks that stand on either side, The staring boys, a face to every desk,
Bright, dull, pale, blooming, common, picturesque.
After having been replaced in 1865 by another and much less distinguished building and being degraded to a headquarters for wrestling and bowling, this structure was remodeled in the 1930's through a gift from Edward S. Harkness and now, re- named Bulfinch Hall, is the home of the Academy's department of English. It is one of three beautiful Bulfinch masterpieces on Andover Hill, the other two being Pearson Hall (originally the Seminary's Bartlet Chapel) and the wooden Headmaster's House.
By 1830, younger, supposedly more progressive men were molding the policies of the Academy; and Adams, conservative by nature, found it difficult to adjust himself to the age of Jack- son and the changes which it symbolized. With proposals for an English department, or teachers' seminary, he was out of sym- pathy, seeing in them only concessions to a new materialism. He seems to have lost the confidence of the trustees, who in 1832 forced his resignation. Like Calvin Coolidge at a later date, and for much the same reason, he could have complained, "I do not fit with these times."
After his compulsory departure from Andover, Adams moved to Illinois, where he became an agent of the American Sunday School Union, driving in a "buggy" from one county to another doing the will of God. In 1854, when he reached the age of eighty, Yale made her alumnus an honorary Doctor of Laws. He died in 1863, in his ninety-second year, having long been known
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in the Middle West as "Father Adams." With his broad-brimmed hat and heavy ivory-headed cane, he was a stately, impressive per- sonage. If he met with apparent failure at Phillips Academy, it was because he would not yield on matters of principle to trus- tees who wished to experiment with vocational education.
The conspicuous success of the privately endowed Phillips Academy at a time when most town grammar schools had sunk to a low level led inevitably to similar enterprises in other New England communities, although none of them except the Phillips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire, had the same wealthy and distinguished sponsorship. By 1797, fifteen acade- mies had been incorporated in Massachusetts alone, of which seven had been granted by the General Court a full township of state land. Meanwhile some well-to-do residents of the North Parish in Andover had been considering plans, with the result that in 1799 Jonathan Stevens, a prosperous farmer and currier of leather, offered land for a school on the hill north of the meet- ing house and several of his friends agreed to supply the neces- sary money. A building was erected on what is now called Acad- emy Road, and the project was incorporated in 1801 as the North Parish Free School. Two years later the name was changed to Franklin Academy, presumably after the colonial statesman, diplomat, and scientist who had died in 1790.
Considering that Phillips Academy was barely three miles away, this was an audacious venture, but the original conception was somewhat different. Franklin Academy, intended for both sexes, was the first incorporated academy in the Commonwealth to admit girls. It was constructed with two rooms of equal size, the north room for the male department and its preceptor and the south room for the "females" with their preceptress. Further- more Franklin Academy was not, like Phillips Academy, pre- paratory for college, but rather aimed, like many of the nine- teenth-century academies, to meet the practical needs of the neighborhood. Although it kept only meager records, the inde-
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