USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 1 > Part 38
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In the midst of his arduous college duties, President Cattell found time to de- liver frequent addresses at Educational Conventions and Teachers' Institutes in various parts of the country which have been widely noticed, especially his address before the Pennsylvania State Teachers' Convention in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, upon the place of the " Christian Latin and Greek in Class- ical Education," and the address before the same body at West Chester, on
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" Technical Education." In 1860 he delivered the commencement oration before the literary societies of his Alma Mater at Princeton. His speech at the great ceremony of the inauguration of the statue of General Lafayette in Union Square, New York, was reprinted in France. Among the many articles from his busy pen that show his thorough work upon the subjects taken in hand may be mentioned his monograph upon what are called the German Peace Churches of Pennsylvania, contributed to the " Schaff-Hertzog Encyclopedia," under the title "Tunkers."
President Cattell's interest in all educational matters has made him many friends among the teachers in our public schools, with whom he has always been in hearty sympathy. Hence, when he was tendered the appointment by Gov- ernor Hoyt of the position of State Superintendent of Instruction, the friends of the common-school system looked hopefully for his acceptance. But the inter- ests of Lafayette College were too dear to him, and though the work was conge- nial, he declined the appointment. A rumor of his appointment to this office having gained currency a year or two before, called forth the following protest against his leaving Lafayette by the editor of The Presbyterian, of Philadelphia :
We know that the men who cannot he spared from the places they are filling are just the men who are sought after for other places; but clearly, Lafayette College has the first mortgage on Dr. Cattell. Ile has linked his name so thoroughly with its growth and its splendid success that he ought not to be sepa- rated from it, and therefore, while we recognize the wise forecast of those who have named him for the import.int post of Superintendent of Public Education in the Commonwealth, we make earnest protest in advance against any movement which will remove Dr. Cattell from the post which he fills so worthily and so usefully.
The Lafayette College Journal, published by the students, quotes the above and adds :
We thank our friends of The Presbyterian for this graceful and well deserved compliment paid to our worthy President, and we assure them the Doctor will never leave Lafayette and "his boys." We can- not think of Lafayette without thinking of her genial President, nor do we see how the two could be dis- connected. The true prosperity of the college dates from his inauguration as President. Since then he has toiled unceasingly for her advancement ; and all who have watched the progress of the institution for the last ten years can tell with what success his labors have been crowned. He has infused new life and energy into every department ; he has enlisted the sympathy of friends on all sides and has attracted munificent endowments from wealthy benefactors.
More than this, he takes great interest in the personal welfare of the students. His sympathies also enter into our sports and pastimes, and he enjoys keenly to witness the healthy, vigorous games on the college campus. lle is proud to see " his boys" win applause by their muscular feals, and encourages them in that as well as in their more intellectual efforts. The students think of our President not as does the world, simply as a most successful financier and as an able executive, but as a warm personal fri .n.l. Contrary to the usual relations existing between college officers and students, there is, on the part of our boys, a strong attachment to our worthy President. In fact, we love the kind-hearted man who has ever encouraged us with his smiles, his words, his counsel, his purse and his prayers.
This loving, hearty testimony of the students fairly illustrates the cordial rela- tions existing between the President of Lafayette and the young men he is accus- tomed to speak of as his "boys." They knew that in him they had not only a
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wise mentor and a careful conscientious instructor, but a warm and sympathizing friend. They found in him a man who, in the midst of the serious work of his life, still retained the quick sympathies, the kindly heart and the "wondrous winning ways" of his youth. He has always used his power of personal mag- netism to lift his students, whom he so much loves, into sympathy with all that is good and pure and just and righteous; and he has been truly fortunate in inspiring affection such as is seldom seen between men outside the family rela- tion. There are hundreds of young men, scattered all over the land, and many of them occupying high positions, who never speak of him but with grateful love. Professor Owen, who was one of his students, says in the " Historical Sketches:" " Ilis best work after all will not be recorded in the history of great buildings, of swelling endowments and new courses of study, but in the hearts and lives of the hundreds of young men whose characters were moulded under his personal influence. These will never forget the kind-hearted president, endeared to them alike as a faithful friend, a wise counsellor, and an eminent example of a life devoted with Christian fidelity to a great and good work."
President Cattell makes no secret of his joy and pride in being thus held in loving remembrance by " his boys; " and even in this brief sketch of his life and character we must make room for a few sentences from his address at a banquet tendered to him by the Seniors on his return from Europe in 1882, as they so well illustrate the peculiarly happy relations always existing between him and the students. The address is published, with a report of the other exercises upon this pleasant occasion, in the College Journal of March, 1882 :
I am glad and grateful to be home again ; and very pleasant to me has been the cordial welcome I have received from my friends in Easton, where I have spent more than twenty-five years of my life, and from my colleagues in the faculty, with whom I have been so long and so pleasantly associated. But I am touched even more deeply by the hearty welcome from the students of the college, which has met me at every turn in private, and which culminates this evening in the public and official greeting you have extended to me as a class. . . .
And let me assure you, my dear young friends, that, after all, it is just this intimate and cordial relation between the students and myself-of which this evening is such a happy illustration-that has chiefly sustained and nerved me in the exhausting work and heavy responsibility which my position, as pre-i- dent of the college, necessarily involves. I know the many and great opportunities for usefulness this position gives, and no man should lightly regard the call of Providence to such a work. I know also that to be at the head of a great college, like Lafayette, is generally regarded as an honorable distinction, and few men would acknowledge themselves indifferent to this; yet, let me again assure you, that the sustaining force which has kept me at work for Lafayette during all these years of toil and care has not been so much these things as the happy life I have led here among " my boys." . . And I hold that no other college president has a greater right to be proud of the character and conduct of his boys than I have to be proud of mine, or who has reason to love them more-let me rather say, to love them as much. (Great applause.)
On Sunday, June 24, 1883, President Cattell preached in the college chapel his last baccalaureate sermon, and on Wednesday presided for the last time at the public exercises of Commencement Day, and conferred the Degrees.
The Lafayette College Journal, edited and published by the students, devotes
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a large part of its issue for July to the subject of President Cattell's resignation, which, the editors say, " was not wholly unexpected, but it causes none the less sorrow." And this " sorrow " was expressed in many of the addresses reported in this number of the fournal made by the alumni who had gathered at the annual festival, under the shadow of this great loss to the college. A missionary from China, Rev. Charles R. Mills, D. D., of the class of 1853, said, at the alumni meeting on Tuesday, " the four sad days of his life were those on which he heard of the assassination of Lincoln, the burning of Pardee Hall, the murder of Garfield, and the resignation of President Cattell." The Alumni Association, by " a rising vote," adopted a minute expressing "their hearty appreciation of his distinguished services," and they put upon record "their fervent wish that some arrangement may be effected by the trustees and the faculty by which a season of prolonged rest may be secured to the President without severing his official connection with the college, and they earnestly hope that he will consent to any reasonable measures to this end." In the Journal's report of the alumni dinner the next day these tributes to the retiring President are renewed. The venerable and beloved Dean of the college, Dr. Traill Green, who presided, "eloquently alluded to President Cattell's great worth; he had served with six college presidents (at Lafayette and other colleges), and he knew none such as Dr. Cattell." The Hon. R. P. Allen, of the class of '55, in responding for the trustees, "spoke of the regret and grief with which they had accepted the resignation of President Cattell -- their only comfort being that he had left the college in such a prosperous condition ;" and the Hon. Wm. A. Porter, of the class of '39, formerly of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, " eulogized President Cattell, saying he had advised him twenty years ago not to accept the presidency, believing the condition of the college to be utterly hopeless! He rejoiced that he had been mistaken; but he believed that no other man living could have done what President Cattell has done."
The following is the minute adopted by the trustees of the college :
The Board of Trustees has received the resignation of President Cattell with emotions of profound sorrow. The Board has most earnestly used its utmost endeavors to persuade Dr. Cattell to withdraw his resignation and accept an indefinite leave of absence, with entire relief from all care and responsi- bility of the college, but considerations of his health, manifestly broken, have obliged him to decline their most urgent overtures.
The Board therefore most reluctantly accepts his resignation, to take effect on the twenty-fourth day of October next, on which day he will complete the twentieth year of his presidency. In this action the Board yields to a most painful necessity, and again-t its strongest wishes that an Administration so fruit- ful only of good to the college should be continued as long as its distinguished, honored and beloved President lives. It yields its own wishes in the fond hope that relief from care may speedily bring back health and strength to its cherished friend, and to this only. The Board rejoices that though Dr. Cat- lull feels obliged to retire from the Presidency of the Faculty, it will still retain him as one of its mem- ber-, and thu, have the great benefit of his wise counsels and earnest devotion in the administration of the alf irs of the college.
Resolved, "That a committee be appointed to report at a future meeting a suitable minute expressive of the Board's appreciation of the great work for the college performed by Dr. Cattell, and their deep grief at this sad transaction; and that this report and minute, with Dr. Cattell's letter, be published in the next college catalogue.
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Dr. Cattell presided at the public exercises in Pardee Hall on Founders' Day, October 24, 1883. This was his last official act as President of the college. The following week, with his family, he sailed for Europe. His departure was the occasion for many heartfelt tributes in the public journals, one of them, in The Presbyterian, November 12, by a graduate of the college, Rev. Dr. McFet- ridge (then a pastor in Philadelphia, afterwards Professor in Macalester College), from which we quote a few sentences. Describing the scene upon the deck of the steamer, where " members of the Board of Trustees of the college and of the Lafayette Alumni Association of New York, and other friends of Dr. Cattell from Easton and elsewhere," had gathered to bid the ex-President good-bye, Dr. McFetridge says :
Twenty years ago, as a member of the Senior Class of Lafayette, we welcomed Dr. Cattell to Easton as our new President. Since then what changes have taken place with that institution -great and grand changes, that have been wrought as by magic under the hand of him who now takes his departure. Could we keep out the thoughts that crowded upon us or prevent the unbilden tear ? Other eyes were moist as well as ours, and other tongues faltered as they bade our beloved friend and President " good- bye." Truly it was a " God-be-with-thee " in the fullest, heartiest sense.
Who can estimate the worth of such a man !-- a man in the truest, noblest sense. Can the Presbyte- rian Church ever estimate or prize as she ought the work that this man has done ? She may sing his praises ever so loudly ; she may cherish his name and memory ever so sacredly; she might load him with riches and honors, and then she would not hive recompensed him. And can the friends of Chris- tian education ever set high enough value on his services? He has shed a lustre on education, and made the position of in-tructor doubly honorable. And now as he bids adieu to his native land, and to the position in which he cheerfully sacrificed health and thousands of dollars of his private means, and in which he won the hearts of so many noble men, and of so many young men who came under his personal influence, he can be assured that he will be remembered as the great benefactor of Lafayette College so long as the college endures.
Dr. Cattell spent the winter among the snow-clad mountains of Switzerland, at the noted health resort of Davos-Platz. With returning health in the early summer he visited his numerous friends in different parts of Europe, especially in Bohemia, and then went to Belfast to attend the sessions of the Presbyterian Alliance, to which he had been appointed a Delegate by the Presbyterian Church in America. The remainder of the year was spent in the further pursuit of health in the quiet and restful region of the " Lake country " in the north of England and in travelling leisurely through Scotland.
But at the age of fifty-seven Dr. Cattell's work was not yet done. The follow- ing announcement in the journals of the Presbyterian Church at the close of the year shows that during his absence in Europe he " was elected with cordial unan- imity " as the executive of a Board to which the General Assembly of the Pres- byterian Church has committed a most important and sacred trust :
The Board of Ministerial Relief hereby announces officially to the churches that the REV. WILLIAM C. CATTELL, D. D., LL. D., was elected with corchal unanimity as Corresponding Secretary at the annual meeting in June. 1884. This election took place during Dr. Cattell's absence in Europe. In October he returned to this country, and after making some preliminary acquaintance with the duties of his new office, he entered upon their discharge December 1. The favorable record of his past services, espe-
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cially as President for many years of Lafayette College, is so well known to our churches that the Board is well assured of favorable response in now commending him to their confidence, as intrusted with this new and sacred responsibility.
Into this tender, delicate and arduous work of caring for his ministerial breth- ren worn out in the service of the church, Dr. Cattell has thrown himself with . the same enthusiasm and with the same marked results that characterized his administration at Lafayette : and this sketch may fitly close with a recent com- munication in The Presbyterian, which gracefully brings into a connected view these two careers. It is from the pen of that eminent scholar and divine, Rev. George Burrowes, D. D., who was Dr. Cattell's predecessor in the Chair of An- cient Languages at Lafayette, and who has been for many years Professor in the Theological Seminary at San Francisco. Referring to Dr. Cattell's recent visit to California in the interests of his present work, Professor Burrowes says :
The presence of Dr. Cattell in our Synod and churches is a great refreshment and blessing, not only to his personal friends of earlier years, but to all hearts who have felt the touching power of his words and admired the example shown in his laborious devotion to the noble cause engaging the closing years of a useful and devoted life. He presented this cause in Los Angeles on Sabbath, October 2, reached San Francisco on the following Tuesday, and closed the busy engagements of that week with an able and telling address in behalf of his grand cause on Saturday night before the Synod of the Pacific in Oakland.
On Sabbath morning he presented the same subject in a very able discourse to a large congregation in Calvary Church, in this city. On the evening of that day he opened up the same great cause in the First Church, Dr. Mackenzie's, crowded to the utmost capacity. The next morning he took the steamer for Portland, to attend the Synod of Oregon. It will thus be seen that his work is engros ing and laborious. It receives his whole attention, without any time needlessly lost even in intercourse with old friends.
While listening to him in Calvary Church we were glad to thank God for raising up a man so emi- nently qualified as Dr. Cattell for managing with such wisdom, vigor and success the Board of Ministe- rial Relief. As his predecessor in his Professorship at Easton, Pa., we knew full well the labor before him in undertaking to build up and develop that institution. With the experience got while five years there as Professor of Latin and Greek, with eminent ability, and with his growth in grace matured by a successful pastorate of three years in the large l'ine Street Church, in Ilarrisburg, he brought to his great and laborious work in Lafayette College a talent for business seldom equalled, and enjoyed " the confi- dential friendship of Jesus " to a degree sufficient to give him wisdom in every perplexity, strength in every effort, and perseverance under every toil.
His work there speaks for itself. Under his management that institution developed by a steady growth into its present healthful manhood, a peer of which Princeton need not be ashamed, counting their students by hundreds, and numbering in their Faculty Professors among the first in the land. To Dr. Cattell as the President has this great success been due. With many another man in his place the result- would have been very different.
Yet after accomplishing so great and glorious a work at Easton, in the midst of success assured, and amid co-workers glad to see him ever thus at their head till the end of his days, Dr. Cattell volunta- rily resigns this post of honor and usefulness, and takes the laboring and self-sacrificing post at the head of the Board of Ministerial Relief. As we listened, in Calvary Church, to his able and touching address, while the heart was swelling with emotion, and through eyes dim with tears, we saw the whole congre- gation was equally moved-none of us could do otherwise than honor the man who thus voluntarily de- vote, his ripe and rich old age to such a service, and feel it a privilege to fall into the ranks after such a leader, and follow him even into the hardest of the struggle, glad to go in such a duty wherever his voice and example may point the way.
JAMES HALL MASON KNOX, D.D.
REV. JAMES HALL MASON KNOX, D. D., LL. D.
R EV. JAMES HALL MASON KNOX, D. D., LL. D., President of Lafayette Col- lege, was born in New York, June 10, 1824. If ancestry determines life and character, it would not have been difficult to predict for him the marked carcer of usefulness in the church which he has already had. His father was Dr. John Knox, for more than forty years senior pastor of the Collegiate Re- formed Dutch Church, of New York, and his mother was the daughter of Dr. John M. Mason, the eminent Presbyterian divine.
He was graduated from Columbia College at the age of seventeen, and after a year's interval entered the theological seminary of the Dutch Reformed Church at New Brunswick, N. J., and was at the completion of his course ordained to the gospel ministry. Among other calls then received, he accepted one from German Valley, Presbytery of Newton, N. J. Before entering upon his pastorate there, he was married to Miss Louise Wakeman, daughter of Burr Wakeman, Esq, of New York.
He remained at German Valley five years, when he removed to Easton, Pa., in response to a call from the Reformed Dutch Church of that city, Classis of New Brunswick. His pastorate at Easton, although only two years in duration, was eminently successful, and his people, as before, parted from him with deep regret. His next church was the First Presbyterian, of Germantown, l'a., Sec- ond Presbytery of Philadelphia, now Presbytery of Philadelphia North. Here he spent sixteen years of useful and devoted labor. It was during his stay here that Mrs. Knox died, after many years of ill health, leaving two daughters, one of whom now survives. Six years later he was married to Miss Helen R. Thompson, daughter of Judge Oswald Thompson, long distinguished at the Philadelphia Bar and on its bench. Miss Thompson was a lady who added rare social and intellectual gifts to her domestic virtues, and has been a fitting help- meet to the Doctor, both in his pastoral life and in the larger field to which he has since been called. Their son, James H. M. Knox, Jr., is a bright lad, now well on in his preparation for college.
For ten years succeeding his pastorate at Germantown Dr. Knox was settled over the Presbyterian Church of Bristol, Pa., a people to whom he became deeply attached, and who were equally devoted to him. Nor was it otherwise in his former fields. Dr. Knox has everywhere won confidence and love. A man of scholarly tastes and of more than common ability as a preacher, he has a still higher fitness for the work of the Master in his sincerity and manly char- acter, his warm and sympathetic heart. It has been his aim to present the gos- pel with simplicity and earnestness, with singleness of purpose, hiding himself behind the word of God. And he has had good fruits of his ministry in the growth of his churches. The congregations under his charge had been trained to liberal giving and to activity in various lines of Christian work.
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In addition to the cares of his own church, Dr. Knox has been connected with many of the Boards and Committees of the church at large, showing in every office of the kind great wisdom, ripe judgment, and marked executive ability. He has represented his Presbytery several times in the meetings of the General Assembly, and has invariably been an influential member of that body.
Along with his other activities, he was for twenty years a member of the Board of Trustees of Lafayette College ; had been a factor in the recent striking growth of that institution, and so important a factor that, at the resignation of Dr. Cattell in 1883, the Board turned to him with the offer of the Presidency of the college. Dr. Knox was far from aspiring to such a position; indeed, he accepted it only with the utmost reluctance. No one was more familiar than he with the great work of his predecessor, and no one knew better than he what gifts of experience and tact and geniality of temperament Dr. Cattell had brought to its performance; but the cordial unanimity of the Board overcame his reluc- tance, and brought the work before him as one to which he was amply called.
During the twenty years of Dr. Cattell's administration the college had advanced well toward the first rank. New departments of instruction were added, new buildings put up. The Faculty was increased to correspond with the larger attendance of the students. Upon the retirement of Dr. Cattell, in consequence of his broken health due to the long and continuous strain put upon him during his twenty years' service as President, Dr. Knox was elected as his successor. The good work, so auspiciously begun and so energetically pursued, has been continued by Dr. Knox, and with the same earnest efforts to enlarge the endow- ments and increase the efficiency of the institution.
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