USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Brunswick > General catalogue of Bowdoin College and the Medical School of Maine, 1794-1894 > Part 6
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" When a man's duty and his inclination go hand in hand surely he has no small reason to rejoice, no feeble stimulus to act. The truth of this I feel. I regard the profession of a teacher in a far more noble and elevated point of view than many do. I can not help believing that he who bends in a right direction the pliant disposition of the young and trains up the ductile mind to a vigorous and healthy growth, does some- thing for the welfare of his country and something for the great interests of humanity. I cannot regard the study of a language as the pastime of a listless hour. To trace the progress of the human mind through the progressive development of language, to learn how other nations thought and felt and spoke, to enrich the understanding by opening upon it new sources of knowledge and by speaking many tongues to become a citizen of the world, these are objects worthy the exertion their attainment demands at our hands. The mere acquisi- tion of a language then is not the ultimate object, it is a means to be employed in the acquisition of something which lies beyond. I should therefore deem my duty but half performed were I to limit my exertions to the narrow bounds of grammatical rules, nay, that I had done little for the intellectual culture of a pupil, when I had merely put an instru- ment into his hands withoat explaining to him its most important uses. It is little to point one to the portals of the magic gardens and enchanted halls of learning and to teach him certain cabalistic words at whose utterance the golden hinges of its gates shall turn :- he must be led through the glittering halls and fragrant bowers and shown where the richest treasures lie and where the clearest fountains spring. And it will be my aim not only to teach the turns and idioms of a language, but according to my ability and as soon as time and circumstances shall permit, to direct the student into the literature of those nations whose languages he is studying."
It is believed that under Professor Longfellow, Bowdoin was the first New England college to give that prominence to modern languages as a part of the required course which has since become so general. The appointment of Professor Ticknor at Harvard antedates his by a dozen years, but the duties assigned to the former in the work of instruction were far less. At Yale, during this period, teachers in French and Spanish were recommended
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by the faculty, but the students paid extra fees for such instruction, and the study of modern languages was not required for a degree. After his resignation in 1836 to accept a corresponding position at Harvard, the character and traditions of the professorship were worthily maintained for nearly twenty years by Daniel Raynes Goodwin, afterwards provost of the University of Pennsylvania, who, like Mr. Longfellow, had prepared himself for his duties by residence and study abroad.
The academic faculty which President Allen gathered around him continued, with the exceptions already noted, to be the teaching force for two-score years. The services of Cleaveland, Newman, Upham, Packard, and Smyth, continuing on an average upwards of forty-five years, gave a peculiar individuality to the institution for the first half of its existence. They were men of marked and varying personality. Their characters have been thus portrayed by one who knew them well, both as pupil and as colleague : 1
" There was the impassive, inflexible Allen, precise, stately, stiff ; but just and kind and faithful ; antiqua homo virtute et fide; more learned than apt to teach ; a good ruler for all but the unruly. There is a maxim of college government emanating from the school of the cele- brated and excellent Dr. Nott, which reads something like this : ‘Be sure you make friends of the scoundrels, you need have no fear from the good men'; or, in its earlier and naïve pagan version, 'Keep on good terms with the Devil, and God will do you no harm.' President Allen never adopted the detestable maxim. He never courted popu- larity, and so, perhaps, he never deserved it. With a warm and gener- ous heart beating unseen and unsuspected beneath the cold exterior, living in all good conscience before God every day, he met abuse and obloquy with the invincible bravery of Christian meekness. Late he has gone to his rest.
"There, too, was the gentle Newman, the faithful friend, the classical scholar, the skillful and patient teacher, the accomplished Christian gentleman ;- beautiful, delicate, pure as the opening flower of spring, he faded early from our sight ; but he left the fragrance of a good man's name behind.
1 Rev. Dr. Daniel R. Goodwin, in his Alumni Address of July 8, 1873. The graceful tribute to Professor Packard, who was present, is omitted, as it does not attempt to characterize the man.
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" There was the magnificent and massive Cleaveland, clarum et ven- erabile nomen, - totus, teres atque rotundus,-with stuff enough in him to make a dozen men; exuberant in intellectual powers, in labor inde- fatigable, of eagle vision, masterly in construction, wise in selection, lucid in exposition, a true lover of science, but an inveterate hater of theory ; as a lecturer unequaled, as a teacher unsurpassed; the model professor, joining gravity and playfulness in one, making knowledge attractive and study a delight ; in government claiming severity as his own exclusive privilege, yet always shrinking from its actual exercise ; forgetting nothing, remembering everybody ; among the fathers and founders of the college, yet the genial brother of all her sons. He fell bravely in the harness ; and never did college suffer a sorer bereave- ment.
"There was the indomitable and uncompromising Smyth : justus, propositi tenax, stern in principle, rough in exterior, yet of finest sensibilities, a great heart in courage and in kindness, a Bayard in chivalrous sentiments, of more than feminine tenderness and delicacy, unselfish, uncalculating, often the best friend of those who took him for their enemy. To be first a man and then a gentleman, esse quam videri, was the motto of his life. He was a conscious enemy to no one. His was a fierce and fiery nature, but its intensest heats had their focus in the intellect and the conscience, in the clear apprehension and deep sense of right, and not in any violence of passion. His greatest fault was that, born an enthusiast, he was made a professor of mathematics. He loved his family with a peculiar strength of affection,-so he loved his friends, so he loved his church, so he loved his country, and so he loved the college. Whatever he felt, he felt through and through ; whatever he did, he did with all his might. The college had no more devoted and zealous servant or benefactor than Professor Smyth. For the college he lived and for the college he died.
"There, too, was the sensitive and saintly Upham, who has but just passed away from his earthly labors ;- half hermit, half man of the world ; a most extraordinary combination of weakness and strength, of simplicity and astuteness, of bashful modesty and unflinching boldness, shrinking as the mimosa, not only from human touch but from the very gaze of human eyes, yet ready to march fearlessly to the cannon's mouth-in the dark ; a poet, a philosopher, a philanthropist, a mystic, the very apostle of universal love ; prolific in plans, exhaustless in expedients, in effort unwearied, as versatile and many -sided as Ulysses,-but to the right and the good as steady at heart as the needle
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to the pole ; often, perhaps habitually, driven by sheer modesty out of the straightforward high road into by-paths and circuitous ways. Of large and varied learning, and of the broadest human sympathies, genial, and generous to a fault, he sought to find what was good in everybody,-even in the oddest and most anomalous specimens of human kind. He did as much as any man to give a high reputation to Bowdoin College. He knew no vacation when any work was to be done in her behalf, and that he might increase her endowment, he impoverished himself."
To give at the same time a definite and an accurate account of the work these men did and of the curriculum as it existed under President Allen, the following tabular statement has been pre- pared from the annual reports to the visiting committee for the year 1833. It should be noted that Professor Newman had charge of the chapel services in the absence of the President, and that Professor Longfellow was college librarian, a position requiring his attendance at the library from twelve to one each day. Occasional lectures not mentioned in their reports were given by him and by Professor Packard, for which probably some regular recitation was omitted. The average length of the three terms was a little more than twelve weeks.
DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.
FIRST TERM. Seniors, 74 recitations in Astronomy and Spherical Trigonometry, including Nautical Astronomy, with exercises on globes, tellurion and other apparatus. SECOND TERM. Seniors, 74 recitations in Chemistry ..
THIRD TERM.
Medical Class, Seniors, Juniors, 62 lectures on Chem- istry. Seniors, 49 recitations in Natural History. Seniors, 41 lectures on Mineralogy and Geology. Seniors, 33 lectures on Natural Philosophy.
Professor Cleaveland's famous lectures on chemistry must not be mentioned without describing them. "After an early breakfast, it was his invariable custom, continued to the last years of his life, to go to his laboratory, and employ the whole intervening time in preparing for the lecture of the day, laying out his topics, performing beforehand every experiment, and practicing every manipulation. These prepara-
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tions were interrupted only by the frugal repast sent to him from his house in a small basket when the dinner hour had arrived. In these preparations he always had one or more assistants. When at length the hour of the lecture had arrived, and the eager and punctual audience had assembled, and, after seven minutes by the watch, the door was closed, and silence prevailed, and the Professor stood forth amidst his batteries and retorts, master of his subject and of the mighty agents he had to deal with, he was then indeed in his element and in his glory. Though clad in garments almost rustic, he had a dignity of appearance and an air of command, by which the eye of every student was kept fixed, and all listlessness and inattention were banished. His stern and venerable features were lit up with a glow of genuine enthusiasm. Forgetful of himself he became wholly absorbed in his subject. He professed no great discoveries, he propounded no new theories, he made no pedantic display of learning ; but with the modesty of true wisdom aimed only to exhibit those certain facts and obvious inductions, which constitute the elements of his science. Having clearly conceived of these, and having them well arranged in his own mind, he produced them in a clear and orderly manner. There was no confusion in his thoughts, and none in his discourse. By his clear and simple style and its easy and uninterrupted flow, by his lucid order, by the earnestness of his manner, by the interest with which he seemed to regard the smallest and most common things pertaining to his theme, by his happy illustrations and never-failing experiments, and by his occasional sallies of wit and good humor, he carried along the delighted attention of his hearers without weariness to the end of the hour, making plain to them what had been obscure, investing even trivial things, by a salutary illusion, with an air of importance, and in short accomplishing in a manner which has never been surpassed, the great object of conveying to the mind of the learner definite notions and useful knowledge on the subject under consideration." 1
DEPARTMENT OF RHETORIC, ORATORY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY. FIRST TERM. Seniors, 120 themes, of which 80 are corrected and returned.
Juniors, 300 themes, of which 250 are corrected and returned.
Sophomores, 330 translations, which are corrected and returned.
1 Rev. Dr. Leonard Woods, in his Address on Life and Character of Parker Cleaveland.
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SECOND TERM. Seniors, 74 recitations in Political Economy. Seniors, 120 themes, of which 80 are corrected and returned.
Juniors, 300 themes, of which 250 are corrected and returned.
Sophomores, 330 translations, which are corrected and returned.
THIRD TERM. Juniors, 300 themes, of which 250 are corrected and returned.
Sophomores, 330 translations, which are corrected and returned.
Sophomores, 36 recitations in Rhetoric. Freshmen, 72 exercises in Elocution.
Public declamations were conducted every Wednesday afternoon in the first and third terms, and private declamations on Fridays in the same terms.
DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHIY.
FIRST TERM. Seniors, 62 recitations in Stewart's Philosophy. Seniors, 48 recitations in Vattel's Law of Nations. Freshmen, 72 recitations in Latin.
SECOND TERM. Seniors, 48 recitations in Hebrew. Juniors, 62 recitations in Upham's Mental Philosophy. Freshmen, 72 recitations in Livy and Roman Antiqui- ties.
THIRD TERM. Seniors, 20 recitations in Butler's Analogy. Seniors, 40 recitations in Hebrew. Juniors, 30 recitations in Upham's Mental Philosophy. Juniors, 30 recitations in Rawle's Constitution of United States. Freshmen, 36 recitations in Latin.
Freshmen, 30 recitations in Hedge's Logic.
Forensics by the Seniors during the first two terms and by the . Juniors during the third term were under the charge of Professor Upham.
FIRST TERM.
DEPARTMENT OF ANCIENT LANGUAGES. Juniors, 48 recitations in Juvenal. Juniors, 60 recitations in Homer. Sophomores, 72 recitations in Græca Majora and Excerpta Latina. Freshmen, 72 recitations in Greek Historians. .
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SECOND TERM. Seniors, 48 recitations in Virgil. Juniors, 60 recitations in Homer.
Sophomores, 72 recitations in Græca Majora and Horace.
Freshmen, 72 recitations in Græca Majora.
THIRD TERM.
Juniors, 24 recitations in Greek.
Sophomores, 36 recitations in Græca Majora and Horace.
Freshmen, 72 recitations in Greek Orators. Optional class, 18 recitations in Latin.
As Professor Packard frequently heard his classes in two divisions, it was practically impossible for him to conduct the work of the Fresh- men in Latin, which was for many years assumed by Professor Uphani.
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS,
FIRST TERM. Juniors, 72 recitations in Mechanics.
Sophomores, 72 recitations in Plane Trigonometry. Freshinen, 60 recitations in Algebra.
SECOND TERM. Juniors, 72 recitations in Electricity, Magnetism, and Optics.
Sophomores, 72 recitations in Surveying and Naviga- tion.
THIRD TERM.
Freshmen, 60 recitations in Algebra. Juniors, 72 recitations in Calculus.
Sophomores, 72 recitations in Projections and Leveling. Freshmen, 60 recitations in Geometry.
In this department also the Sophomores and Freshmen recited for a portion of the year in two divisions cach, so that Professor Smyth had on the whole an average of four recitations a day during the academic year.
DEPARTMENT OF MODERN LANGUAGES.
FIRST TERM. Juniors, 66 recitations in Spanish. Sophomores, 60 recitations in French.
SECOND TERM. Seniors, 48 recitations in German.
THIRD TERM.
Seniors, 48 recitations in Italian. Juniors, 66 recitations in Spanish. Sophomores, 60 recitations in French. Seniors, 32 recitations in German. Seniors, 32 recitations in Italian. Juniors, 66 recitations in Spanish. Sophomores, 60 recitations in French.
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According to the printed regulations the life of a student during this administration was marked by a. healthful regularity in the hours of work and play. He rose with the ringing of the chapel bell at six. Immediately after morning prayers, held in a building that was deemed by the Faculty too cold during the winter term for any exercise lasting more than fifteen minutes, he attended the first recitation of the day. At its close came break- fast in Commons Hall.1 As the association which conducted Commons was under student management and only charged a shilling a day for board, it is fair to assume that the average collegian did not tarry long, and consequently had an hour and a half for play before the nine o'clock bell called him to his room for study. At eleven came the midday recitation. After that he had the opportunity of consulting the college library, open for an hour. Since no under-graduate could borrow books oftener than once in three weeks, and Freshmen were limited to one book at a time, this opportunity did not keep many from dinner, which was served at about the same time. Study hours began again at two o'clock and continued till the afternoon recitation, which preceded evening prayers by an hour. These two daily religious exercises were conducted by the President. After prayers the third period for exercise and relaxation extended to eight o'clock. It is probable, however, that some tolerably good as well as the bad boys did " without permission of the executive Government go a shooting or fishing," while many of the hours so carefully allotted to study and to sleep were spent in concocting and executing various "scrapes " which the published memoirs of graduates and college tradition have made sufficiently familiar.2
President Allen's administration, which opened with a distinct advance in the character of the institution and the number of its pupils, was clouded towards the end of its first decade by his personal unpopularity with a majority of the Boards, and by the
1 This brick building on Bath Street was erected in 1829 at a cost of $1,750. It was used for this purpose for several years and has since served successively as a gymnasium, chemical laboratory, and store-house.
2 Interesting accounts of student life at Bowdoin may be found in Abbott's New England and her Institutions, in Hamlin's My Life and Times, and in Kellogg's Whispering Pine Series.
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unjust measures taken to secure his removal. His stately and reserved bearing concealed a warm and generous heart, yet few realized this save his intimate friends. His manners were those of his own college days, when President Willard had but to show himself in the college yard, and students and tutors alike kept their heads uncovered till he was out of sight. With this out- ward coldness of demeanor was combined a firm and inflexible will which followed what seemed the right course, with no attempt to avoid or lessen the personal opposition his decisions would arouse. These circumstances, coupled with denominational jealousies, led to a singular piece of special legislation. In March, 1831, a law was enacted, providing " that no person now holding the office of president in any college in this state shall hold said office beyond the day of the next Commencement unless he shall be re-elected. No person shall be elected or re-elected to the office of president unless he shall receive in each board two-thirds of all the votes given on the question of his election." It was not concealed by the advocates of this measure that their sole desire was to remove Dr. Allen from the position which he had been chosen to hold "during good behavior." At the next meeting of the Trustees, of seventeen votes cast for president, Dr. Allen had seven. It was manifestly impossible under the law to choose his successor, and overtures were made to him that he should be re-elected and then resign. He refused to consider this proposition, and prepared to bring the legality of the act of the legislature before the courts. He removed his family to Newburyport, Mass., and as a resident of another state began an action in the U. S. Circuit Court against the college treasurer for his salary and fees. The case was argued before Judge Story in May, 1833, Hon. Simon Greenleaf appearing for the plaintiff, and Hon. Stephen Longfellow for the college treas- urer. The decision of Judge Story not only re-instated Dr. Allen in his office, but also restored the institution to the independent position secured by the article in the Act of Separation, under which Maine became a new state. For it held that the attempted surrender of rights therein reserved had not been carried out, and incidentally showed that the act of 1821, increasing the member-
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ship of the Boards, and that of 1826, making the governor of the state an ex officio Trustee, were unconstitutional. The decision was largely influenced by the famous Dartmouth College case of 1819, and it is a noteworthy coincidence that the same principle of law that removed President Allen from the short-lived Dart- mouth University should have restored him, a few years later, to the same position at Bowdoin.
As to its effect upon their membership, the Boards viewed the decision in different lights. The Overseers resolved that an appointment under the Act of 1821 gave no right to a seat in their body, that certain subsequent elections were invalid, that only forty persons were now lawfully members, and that there were five vacancies. The Trustees, on the other hand, disregarded this portion of the decision as extra-judicial, and although it was tacitly understood that no new elections should be made, it was twelve years before their number was reduced, by death and resignation, to the thirteen provided for in the charter, and over forty years before the last trustee appointed by Governor King, ceased to meet with the Board.
Few American colleges have suffered less by fire during a hundred years than has Bowdoin. This circumstance will perhaps warrant the insertion of a full account of the second and last serious conflagration it has met with, taken from the private letter of a young Sophomore :
FEBRUARY 17th, 1836.
DEAR FATHER :
I suppose that you will have heard of the fire here before this reaches you. It began about two o'clock this morning in the north- east corner of Maine Hall, either in the cellar or on the lower floor ; the room has lately had a new fire-place, and it is supposed to have originated in some defect in this. It was occupied by Richardson a freshman ; as his bed was out of order in some way, he came to McKeen Hall1 and slept with Scamman; if he had not he would undoubtedly been smothered by the dense smoke. One of the students in the fourth story was the first to smell the smoke, he jumped up and without stopping to attempt to save anything ran down stairs breaking open all
1 McKeen Hall was a wooden building on the corner of Main and Cleaveland Streets, which had rooms for students in the second story.
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the students' doors as he passed them. All the students in that end lost everything but the clothes they wore, most of them leaving their outside garments and watches even. Dr. Adams, the tutor, roomed in that end, and believing when he awaked that the staircase was in flames, he jumped ont of the window and broke his leg just above the ankle; he was found lying on the ground by some of the students who carried him into New College. Silsbee, one of the two who walked to Portland and back the same day, knew that there was a letter for his chum in the fourth story of that entry containing a hundred dollars. The staircase was by this time entirely destroyed, but the room happened to be a middle one, and he went into the one next to it in the other end, climbed around the double wall separating the two ends, passing from one window to the other, got the letter and returned in safety. This was very difficult and dangerous on account of the thickness of the college walls and what no other fellow could have done.
The flames were communicated by the roof to the other half of the building, and beginning at the top, of course consumed it very slowly ; everything was saved from this end even the doors and windows. The Peucinian library was saved with very little injury, losing only those books which were in the students' rooms in the north-western end. The Athenaan library containing over three thousand volumes, many very valuable, was entirely destroyed with the exception of such as are out.
One or two of the students who slept at home came in the morning to attend prayers and were quite " struck aback " to see nothing of the great building but the blackened, windowless, doorless, roofless walls ; they had heard the cry, but thought it was nothing but the yaggers' houses. There will be no recitations to-day as the recitation rooms are all burned, and the government are all busy finding quarters for the students.
Give my love to mother and believe me your affectionate son EDWARD.
President Allen resumed his college duties in 1833 with much of the favor that accompanies a firm and successful defense of one's rights. The prejudice against him, however, on the part of influential members of the Boards continued as strong as ever. Unfortunately, within a few years, his unpopularity with the students increased to an extent that rendered his position unpleas- ant. In deference to the opinion of friends, who believed this
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