History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 132

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358

USA > Missouri > St Louis County > St Louis City > History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men > Part 132

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The late Thomas Allen was what might be called a born newspaper man, and if his fortunes had required it he could readily have made his living as editor, leader-writer, correspondent, or literary contributor. He had the talent, the aptitude, the training, and the taste which go to make the first-class utility man for the press. Part of one of his letters to Andrew Jack- son Downing, of the Horticulturist, quoted in another part of this work, reveals what must be considered as a rare faculty for the delicate and difficult parts of authorship. He was in boyhood a pupil of Mark Hopkins, and that great teacher never had better material put under his hands to shape. Allen began to write from the jump, and edited a juvenile Miscel- lany before he was sixteen. While studying law his pen earned his support, and he edited a family maga- zine so well that he ran it up to twenty thousand subscribers. In 1837 he started a newspaper in Washington City, and got the public printing, in spite of Blair & Rives and Gales & Seaton. In 1842 he came to St. Louis. Here, without identifying him- self with the press, he wrote much, and his pamph- lets are notable for the apposite manner and force with which the marrow of a subject is probed. None ever knew better than Mr. Allen how to say the right thing in the right place, and to say it forcibly without offense, and genially without dulling the edge of the argument.

Hon. John Fletcher Darby rounded up the leisure and slippered ease of a long and useful life in St. Louis by contributing his " Personal Recollections" to the press. These were collected into a neat and comely volume before he died, and this kindly and single-hearted old gentleman could not have a more appropriate or better monument. The book is as unpretentious as it is valuable, sueli a fund of rem-

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iniscenee as each succeeding age will treasure the more dearly as it recedes from the present.

Dr. M. L. Linton, a professor in the St. Louis University, medical department, and a leading physi- cian, established the St. Louis Medical Journal in 1843, and has written professional works which bear the stamp of great ability. Of sueh is his "Out- lines of Pathology," a text-book in several colleges, and consulted both East and West. Dr. Charles A. Popc, Linton's colleague, classmate, and contempo- rary, is at least his equal in literary ability, and his su- perior in wide-spread surgical renown. As the eighth president of the American Medical Association, he took a position which was national in its prominence.

It was in the school of Benton, Geyer, Easton, and the other brilliant luminaries of the St. Louis bar that Judge Wilson Primm learned to embellish his legal attainments with the decorative apparatus of literature. Well did he weave the ornamental and the useful together, so that one could searee distin- guish the essential from the non-essential in his speeches and addresses, full of fire and flow, full of scholarship, and full, also, of quaint antiquarian lore, such as only the enthusiast would think of gathering together from the disjointed memories and babbling lips of granddames and nurses. Out of these, however, Primm was skillful to frame a con- neeted and coherent narrative, and capable to launeh it with sensational effeet upon his roused and excited audienees. Probably nothing ever did so much towards rousing a genuine inquiry and a sympa- thetie interest in the eradle period of St. Louis as the several commemorative addresses of Wilson Primm, which, in addition to their sincerity and fire, are literary productions of merit and value, em- bellished with neat classical touches, and not too florid in style for the theme and the oeeasion. It was upon one of these very occasions, by the way, if we mistake not, or a nearly similar one, that the Abbé Adrian Rouquette, of Louisiana, seminarian of New Orleans, and reeluse of Mandeville, St. Tammany, de- livered his animated and eloquent French diseoursc at the St. Louis Cathedral, keeping up and re- newing, with singular appropriateness and exeellent effect, the old connection and kinship between Upper and Lower Louisiana. Judge John Marshall Krum, one of Primm's associates and contemporaries, was the author of a most laborious work, " Missouri Jus- tice." Mann Butler, the original and vigorous his- torian of Kentucky, was practicing law in St. Louis at the time he began the preparation of his work, to complete which he had to remove to Louisville, in order to consult the State's records.

Right Rev. Cicero Stephens Hawks, D.D., Bishop of Missouri of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was another seholar of comprehensive and signal ability, worthy representative of a family eminent in literature and the church. He was eonseerated Bishop of Mis- souri at the early age of thirty-two years, and he wrote some things which make us regret that the church had superior claims upon him to literature. Two of the brightest of our early juvenile series, quite the pioneers in that diffieult but most faseinating walk of letters, were edited by him,-Harpers' " Boys' and Girls' Library" and Appleton's "Library for my Young Countrymen," the latter one of the best of the kind ever published anywhere. Dr. Hawks also wrote several of the volumes of " Unele Philip's Con- versations," and was the author of " Friday Chris- tian, the First-Born of Pitcairn's Island." Old boys of fifty will remember these books with the kindliest and most friendly interest, as the friends whom they took to bed with them that they might hold eonverse together by surreptitious eandle-light.

Rev. N. L. Riee, D.D., was pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of St. Louis. Dr. Rice wrote many traets and pamphlets, revealing profound ae- quaintance with theology, skill in dialectie fence, and that gaudia certamini's which drives so many of his brethren to plunge to the neek in the hot waters of polemical controversy. His " Debates on Baptism," his " Debates on Slavery and Universal Salvation," and his traet against " Romanism" are still remem- bered by persons of his way of thinking. Rev. Wil- liam Stephen Potts, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, president of Marion College, ete., whose con- neetion with St. Louis began in 1828, published many sermons and addresses, and he is ranked very high among divines of literary ability by Dr. Sprague in his " Annals of the Pulpit."

In 1867 died Edward William Johnston, a littera- teur and newspaper writer of very rare and unusual talent and experience. He was sixty-eight years old, native of Virginia, brother of Gen. Joseph E. John- ston, and a man of very high culture and delicate literary perceptions. In early youth he was Professor of History and Belles-Lettres in the University of South Carolina, but abandoned the professor's chair for journalism. He was first associated with John Hampden Pleasants in the editorial management of the Richmond Whig. Afterwards, for ten years, he was associated with the National Intelligencer as lit- erary editor of that journal. He was subsequently connected with the editorial staff of the New York Times, and is remembered for his brilliant correspond- ence with the Philadelphia North American and the

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

Louisville Journal. In 1855 he came to St. Louis, and was associated with Mr. Mitchell in the editorial direction of the Intelligencer. When the Leader was established, Mr. Johnston was invited to take the place of associate editor of that journal. He continued in that relation till the paper closed its career, when he was elected librarian of the Mercantile Library in 1858, occupying that post for three years. In that capacity his rare knowledge of books and his famil- iarity with the whole range of literature, his judgment and taste made him a most valuable auxiliary in build- ing up that magnificent library, and establishing its character as one of solid and substantial value in the various departments of science, philosophy, history, and general literature. - A catalogue of the library was compiled by him, the principle of its arrange- ment and classification being his own.

Mr. Johnston was conspicuous for the versatility and range of his knowledge, for his refined, discern- ing taste, and his ripe, masculine judgment. He thought robustly, had the courage of his opinions, and could state them with suave courtesy in a style as cor- rect and graceful as it was brilliant and vigorous.

The history of St. Louis University is elsewhere written, but it deserves mention here in connection with the development and promotion of literature and culture in the city. The people who founded this university were highly educated, and as capable of appreciating the value of education as any religious denomination in the world. The Jesuit, indeed, counts upon ruling the world as much by force of superior knowledge and wisdom as by the superior quality of his faith. St. Louis was the Western outpost of civilization, and the church and it should be strongly guarded. Bishop Dubourg, Bishop Rosatti, the neighboring bishops, Flaget, of Bards- town, and Bruté, of Vincennes, and Fathers Van Quickenbourne, Verhaegen, Vandervelde, Ellet, Car- roll, Van Assche, and De Smet, who were all associ- ated with the foundation of the university, were men of exceptional learning and culture, well bred, highly educated, and many of them born to affluence and rank. Who does not know the history, the labor, the toils and triumphs of De Smet, a Jesuit worthy to be the successor of Brébauf and L'Alle- mand, of Jogues and Marquette ? His simple and naïve account of his mission work has all the attrac- tiveness of a romance. Is it not a romance,-the romance of religious devotion ? Dc Smet slceps and is at rest in beautiful Florissant, but his work goes nobly on. We will not pretend to enumerate the literary achievements of the professors and graduates of St. Louis University.

Does Oscar W. Collet, now the genial secretary of the Missouri Historical Society, recollect the speech which, in 1837, while he was still a student, he fired off at Daniel Webster when that statesman visited the University ? It was young then, like Mr. Collet. It has reached a grown age now, like Mr. Collet, and doubtless can look back upon its past career with a satisfactory amount of complacency. To-day the institution is doing very good work, never better, and it deserves the esteem in which it is held.

Among the fine scholars who have taught in this university we may name Professor Rudolph Leonard Tafel, Ph.D., who emigrated to the United States in 1847, and became Professor of Modern Languages and Comparative Philology in the university. He has written an " English Pronunciation and Orthog- raphy," translated Le Bois de Guays' " Letters" into German, and written a volume on Emanuel Sweden- borg. In conjunction with his father, he published in 1860 a work on " Latin Pronunciation and the Latin Alphabet," and he has written several articles for the " Bibliotheca Sacra." John Frederick Leonard Tafel, his father, has a still more considerable record. He too lived in St. Louis, after having been Professor ·of Languages at Urbana (Ohio) University. Be- fore emigrating to the United States he taught in the Gymnasiums of Ulm and Stuttgart and the Aead- emy of Schorndorf, being an alumnus of Tübingen. In 1836 he wrote a book in defense of the Hamil- tonian system of teaching, and he published many text-books on the modern languages in accordance with this system. The subject of school reform and radical changes in all the principles and practices of pedagogy engaged his earnest attention. He edited and published a complete edition of Livy, and made German translations of Xenophon's Anabasis, Dio Cassius, the greater part of Scott's novels, with one each of Cooper's, Dickens', and Thackeray's. He also wrote two theological works, “ Staat und Christ- enthum" and " Der Christ und der Atheist," and at different times was editor of the Ausland (published by Cotta), the Reichstag Zeitung, and the Beobachter. To crown all, he published a "New and Complete English-German and German-English Pocket Dic- tionary."

We have already alluded indirectly to some of the work of Professor Walter H. Hill, S.J., who fills the chair of moral philosophy in the St. Louis Uni- versity. He has written a treatise on " General Metaphysics, or Logic and Ontology," in addition to his " Moral Philosophy," and is, moreover, the his- toriographer of the institution,-a man profoundly read in the works upon the scholastic philosophy, and

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with quite a faculty for direet logical statement. In- deed, it would be impossible for any one to reason more close to the line. He follows the syllogism as closely as the plowman follows the plow in the newly-opened furrow. It is seldom that we come across text-books so learned as those two tractates of Professor Hill. They arc founded upon Aristotle, to the Latin versions of whom there are continual mar- ginal references ; but the references do not stop here. They show an acquaintance with all the commentators and with all the shining lights of the scholastic phi- losophy. Irenæus, Billuart, Suarez, Lessius, Mill, Blackstone, St. Augustine, Becanus, Gonat, Des Charmes, Gotti, St. Thomas Aquinas, Gregory Ni- eensis, Jeremy Bentliam, Brande, Aulus Gellius, Sir John Fortescue, Kent, Sir Francis Palgrave, Jus- tinian, Tacitus, Plato, Seneca, Isidore, Paley, Bar- tolus, Cajalan, Cardinalis, Toleti, Wheaton, Vattel, Judge Dillon, Timothy Walker, De Maistre, Hobbes, Rousseau, Monboddo, Cornelius à Lapide, Bellar- mine, Bishop Ullathorne, Orestes A. Brownson, Pub- lius Syrus, Cardinal Manning, each in his turn, ancient or modern, renowned or obscure, is made to contribute something to strengthen the learned author's argument or illustrate his position.

It must be confessed that the above is a rather meagre record to cover the literary performances of nearly forty years. But it was, as we have said be- fore, the period of action and muscular growth, and not the period of brain-work, and especially the re- flective work of the brain. As the eloquent William Henry Milburn, the blind preacher, said in one of his lectures, " The demands upon American mind have been of too pressing and urgent a character to allow it to devote much time or attention to the spe- cifie pursuit of letters. Here was a continent to sub- due; a wilderness to be reclaimed ; mountains to be scaled ; lakes, oceans, and gulfs to be joined together ; and meantime the supplies for daily necessity and daily consumption to be raised and conveyed to mar- ket. Men must have bread before books. Men must build barns before they establish colleges. Men must learn the language of the rifle, the axe, and the plow before they learn the lessons of Grecian and Roman philosophy and history ; and to these pursuits was the early American intelleet obliged to devote itself by a sort of simple and hearty and constant consecration. There was no possibility of eseape, no freedom or exemption from this obligation."

This exactly fits the case of the transition period we have been describing in the history of the litera- ture of St. Louis. For the period which succeeded it, the modern and contemporary period, we present

the following record, prepared for the present work by Professor H. H. Morgan, of St. Louis. We must say that in many instances we do not accept Mr. Morgan's conclusions, and are far from approving his judgments, though we do not for a moment question his sincerity. But his facts have been carefully gathered, and are laboriously put together and skill- fully grouped, and with these facts before him (the essential matter, after all) the reader will easily be able to form his own conclusions.

Mr. Morgan thinks and contends that "the lit- erary interests of St. Louis arc recent. For a long period politics, the press, and occasions of cere- mony absorbed all the energies of our writers. To be sure, there have always been individual citizens who, like Dr. Eliot, have kept alive their enthusiasm for literature and the other fine arts; but the influ- ence of these individuals, while uniformly great, could not make short the period which elapsed be -. fore the results of their labors should become mani- fest. Continuous progress began about 1857, when Dr. W. T. Harris removed to St. Louis and formed the acquaintance of Governor Brockmeyer, whose stimulating influence has counted for so much in our city, while at the same time his written work has been anything but voluminous. This acquaintance led to an active interest in metaphysics, and was directly productive of the Philosophical Society. The original membership of this body embraced Governor Broekmeyer, Dr. Harris, D. J. Snider, Judge Jones, Dr. Hall, Dr. Walters, C. F. Childs, Professor Howison, Dr. Hammer, and B. A. Hill, and their efforts had sufficient validity to justify visits from Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. Bronson Al- cott, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, and others of the spec- ulative illuminati of the East. Out of this society there naturally grew the publication of The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, the earliest Western peri- odieal of more than local reputation and influence. Through his work upon the Journal, and his ad- dresses and reports while acting as superintendent of our publie schools, Dr. Harris gave to much of the literary effort of St. Louis a distinctive character, and drew around him, either for co-operation or oppo- sition, almost all who were interested in intellectual activity. The third step was the publication of The Western, in 1875, a miscellaneous magazine, begun by those who recognized Dr. Harris as the most emi- nent figure in our local life. The welcome given both by the Journal and by the Western to sterling contributions, irrespective of the section from which they proceeded, soon made St. Louis known to stu- dents throughout the country.

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" The fourth step in this movement was the estab- lishment of clubs, which drew together men like Gov- ernor Brockmeyer, W. T. Harris, F. L. Soldan, Pro- fessor Howison, D. J. Snider, A. E. Kroeger, Thomas Davidson, B. V. B. Dixon, F. E. Cook, H. H. Morgan, William M. Bryant; and from among the ladies of the city, Miss Mary E. Beedy, Miss A. C. Brackett, Miss Grace C. Bibb, Miss Fannie M. Bacon, Miss Sue V. Beeson, Miss Julia A. Dutro, Mrs. E. S. Morgan, Miss Gertrude Garrigues, and Miss Hope Goodson. The fifth stage was the formation of classes of ladies by Dr. Harris, D. J. Snider, F. L. Soldan, W. M. Bryant, B. V. B. Dixon, Professor J. K. Hosmer, and Rev. J. C. Learned. These classes, having chosen one of these gentlemen as director, studied the philosophy of history, the philosophy of art, Shakespeare, Grcek poetry, or German, French, and Italian literature. Simultaneous with this period was the beginning of clubs which do or do not represent the direct influ- ence of Dr. Harris and his co-laborers. The Novel Club flourished for several years, and, under the lead- ership of Rev. John Snyder, Professor J. K. Hosmer, Professor M. S. Snow, Judge Thayer, and Mrs. Hope Goodson Reed, accomplished much of value. Subse- quently, but sufficiently near in time to find this a proper place for mention, there were formed numerous clubs of ladies, who met to pursue some study. A club met at the house of Mrs. Charles Nagel and pur- sued the study of Greek history, specially Greek literary history. Another group of ladies gathered around Mrs. Dr. W. E. Fischel and took up the mediæval history. Other associations of similar char- acter were carried on at the homes of Mrs. Nathan Stevens, Mrs. Dr. Briggs, and Mrs. William Ware.

"The sixth stage introduced classes which met under the special conduct of gentlemen such as Dr. Harris, D. J. Snider, William M. Bryant, Professor J. K. Hosmer, F. L. Soldan, and B. V. B. Dixon. Miss Susie Blow, Mrs. J. W. Noble, and Mrs. R. J. Lackland were the most earnest movers for this spe- cial activity. The seventh and present stage has in- troduced the formation of similar classes upon the part of gentlemen, and these classes include many of our most capable students as well as large numbers of our most promising young men.

" These stages represent what has sometimes been called the 'St. Louis movement.' To Governor Brockmeyer is due the honor of its inauguration and the responsibility for its special characteristics ; to Dr. Harris is due the credit of working out in con- crete form and upon a large scale an influence which in its inception was wholly individual. The ‘St. Louis movement' may be sufficiently characterized as

an attempt to find the idea which inspires and con- trols all rhetorical and literary forms which are not empty, and this characteristic will be traceable in the writings of all the co-laborers, no matter how diverse the nature of their specialties.

"" The educational efforts to which also St. Louis owes much of its literary activity began earlier than the period which we are considering, but owe much of their value to Dr. Harris and the others whom we have had occasion to mention.

" The earliest name of note in our educational history is doubtless that of the Rev. W. G. Eliot, whose direct efforts began during his connection with the Board of Public Schools, and have since been continued through his services in connection with the university of which he is the chancellor. While this is not the proper place for the full discussion of our educational history, yet as to an unusually large extent the laborers in the fields of literature and art have been found among our professors and teachers, the most eminent must receive mention. Beginning with teachers such as Dr. Eliot, J. H. Tice, Ira Divoll, W. T. Harris, Miss Mary E. Beedy, Miss Sue V. Becson, W. M. Bryant, T. R. Vickroy, Miss A. C. Brackett, Miss Grace C. Bibb, Miss Kate Wil- son, Miss Hope Goodson, Miss Fannie M. Bacon, Miss Julia A. Dutro, F. L. Soldan, Thomas David- son, B. V. B. Dixon, E. H. Long, D. J. Snider, George B. McClellan, W. H. Rosenstengel, William Deutsch, 'Chancellor Hoyt, Chancellor Chauvenet, Professor Waterhouse, and Professor Howison, the , incitements to intellectual efforts were communicated first to those who were affected by these teachers, and later to those outside of their direct influence.

" More recently, as the Washington University has matured, it has contributed much through the efforts of Professors Hosmer, Snow, Woodward, Ives, Nipher, Engler, and Curtis. Popular lectures have been in- augurated by the university, and for three years our Public Library has maintained a free lyceum.

" The activity represented by Dr. Harris and those who have gathered around him has been literary, philosophical, and æsthetic, dominated, as has been said, by one leading idea. It is probably no over- statement to say that by this activity St. Louis is known away from home. The services rendered by Professor Hosmer, Professor Woodward, and others are, like those of Judge Holmes, special, and can be most fitly discussed each by itself.

" To this there must be made the exception of Dr. Eliot and of Professor Waterhouse, for in time they antedate Dr. Harris, and share with him the credit of exciting all the activity which has taken place since they

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began their labors. Dr. W. G. Eliot has, during his long residence in our city, unremittingly sought to build up all interests, moral and intellectual. To him directly is due the residence of many of our brain-workers and their constant incitement to labor.

" Professor Waterhouse has not only felt an ab- sorbing interest in political economy, or social science, but through a long period of years he has, by his pro- found comprehension of his subjects and his clear pre- sentment of his views, been an influence as strong as he has been individual.

"To conclude this general survey, it may be said that the past twenty-five years liave, in spite of the interruptions caused in our city by the civil war, com- prised an intellectual history of which any city might be proud ; and the future can but add to the influences which must make St. Louis well known in circles other than those of commerce.

" Separate mention is due to such of the gentlemen and ladies who most specifically represent the activity whose history has been recited. For this purpose it will be convenient to arrange the names in the order of the several movements.

" Dr. W. G. Eliot's activity has been so incessant and so varied that his ready sympathy with the claims of higher culture has been but a phase of his life. His own literary efforts have mostly taken the form of sermons and addresses, although he has drawn upon his scanty leisure to prepare for publication several miscellaneous works. Through his care as chancellor of the university he has gathered around him a number of earnest, capable, and indefatigable workers, who have in various ways contributed to the intellectual development of our city.

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History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 132

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1358

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358