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Edward Tyrrel Channing (search for this): chapter 4
estion, both in stimulus and in attractions, the English course of Professor Edward Tyrrel Channing. Professor Wendell has lately spoken of the present standard of trr had reason to think it any new departure as compared with that given by Professor Channing down to 1841 at least. The evidence would seem to be that between that period and 1846, when Professor Child graduated, Professor Channing had in some way lost his hold upon his pupils as his years advanced; so that when Professor Child sve I had to meet such exacting criticism on anything written as came from Professor Channing, and never have I had any praise so encouraging as his. My marks were ofter had greatly helped in that particular sentence. When it is considered that Channing's method reared most of the well-known writers whom New England was then produness and vigor beyond what I can now trace in any of the themes of which Professor Channing thought so well. There is no greater mark of progress in the university
Stephen Higginson (search for this): chapter 4
on it in detail. The streets were filled with people, arriving from far and near; there were booths, fairs, horseraces, encampments of alleged gamblers in outlying groves. Perhaps the most striking single illustrations of the day's importance lay in the fact that the banks in Boston were closed on that day, and that Boston gentlemen, even if not graduates of the college, often came to Cambridge for a day or two, at that time, taking rooms and receiving their friends. My grandfather, Stephen Higginson, used to come over from Brookline, take quarters in this way at Porter's tavern (the Boylston Street Porter), and keep open house, with probable punchbowl. The practice had ceased before the period of my recollection, but my cousin, the Rev. William Henry Channing, has vividly described the way in which my grandfather must have set out on these expeditions.1 Owing doubtless to the fact that, following the universal fashion of gentlemen of his position in that period, he wore his g
1846 AD (search for this): chapter 4
's teaching came, without question, both in stimulus and in attractions, the English course of Professor Edward Tyrrel Channing. Professor Wendell has lately spoken of the present standard of training in English composition at Harvard as if it were quite a new thing; but with some opportunity of observing it, I have never had reason to think it any new departure as compared with that given by Professor Channing down to 1841 at least. The evidence would seem to be that between that period and 1846, when Professor Child graduated, Professor Channing had in some way lost his hold upon his pupils as his years advanced; so that when Professor Child succeeded to the chair, in 1851, it was with a profound distrust in the whole affair, insomuch that the very department of rhetoric and oratory came near being wiped out of existence, and was saved by the indignant protest of the late Charles Francis Adams. Certain it is that this department was, in my time, by far the most potent influence i
December 31st (search for this): chapter 4
tion for his grave. Thaxter was about my age, though he was, like Perkins, two years younger in college; he was not a high scholar, but he was an ardent student of literature, and came much under the influence of his cousin, Maria White, and of Lowell, her betrothed. Thaxter first led me to Emerson and to Hazlitt; the latter being for both of us a temporary and the former a lifelong source of influence. We were both lovers of Longfellow, also, and used to sit at the open window every New Year's Eve and read aloud his Midnight Mass to the dying year. Thaxter was an enthusiastic naturalist, which was another bond of union, and he bequeathed this taste to his youngest son, now an assistant professor of botany in Harvard University. To Thaxter I owe, finally, the great privilege of borrowing from Maria White the first thin volumes of Tennyson's poems, which seemed to us, as was once said of Keats, to double the value of words; and we both became, a few years later, subscribers to the
1851 AD (search for this): chapter 4
andard of training in English composition at Harvard as if it were quite a new thing; but with some opportunity of observing it, I have never had reason to think it any new departure as compared with that given by Professor Channing down to 1841 at least. The evidence would seem to be that between that period and 1846, when Professor Child graduated, Professor Channing had in some way lost his hold upon his pupils as his years advanced; so that when Professor Child succeeded to the chair, in 1851, it was with a profound distrust in the whole affair, insomuch that the very department of rhetoric and oratory came near being wiped out of existence, and was saved by the indignant protest of the late Charles Francis Adams. Certain it is that this department was, in my time, by far the most potent influence in determining college rank, and therefore in stimulating ambition. We wrote themes every fortnight and forensics once a month; and as these were marked on a scale of 48, and ordina
1800 AD (search for this): chapter 4
r the early drinking habits of society still flourished, and the modern temperance agitation was but beginning. When Allston, the painter, kept the records of the Hasty Pudding Club, in rhyme, he thus described the close of the annual dinner of that frugal body:--And each one to evince his spunk Vied with his neighbor to get drunk; Nor tedious was the mighty strife With these true-blooded blades of life, For less than hours two had gone When roaring mad was every one. Allston left college in 1800, forty years before my day; yet it was in my own time that the Rev. Dr. John Pierce recorded in his Diary that he had seen men intoxicated at · B K dinners — this society being composed only of the best scholars in each class — who were never seen in this condition at any other time. We boys used to watch the Harvard Washington Corps on its return from the dinner at Porter's, quite secure that some of our acquaintances would stagger out of the ranks and find lodgment in the gutter. The reg
1837 AD (search for this): chapter 4
nto a kind of privacy, except that three days of Exhibition --a sort of minor Commencement, with public exercises — were distributed through the terms, and brought together many strangers. At ordinary times the external status of the college was more like that of some country academy than that of an embryo university. There were but seven buildings inside the college yard, and but one outside. There are now about 3000 students, of various grades and departments, registered in Cambridge; in 1837, when I entered college, there were but 305 such students; and in 1841, when I graduated, but 366. In like manner, Cambridge is now a city of some 85,000 inhabitants, whereas in 1840 it had but 8409, distributed among three villages, of which Old Cambridge, grouped round the college buildings, had less than half. Yet, after all, these figures make little difference to the boy; a crowd is a crowd, whether it be counted by hundreds or thousands, since you see at the most only those immediate
1840 AD (search for this): chapter 4
ers. At ordinary times the external status of the college was more like that of some country academy than that of an embryo university. There were but seven buildings inside the college yard, and but one outside. There are now about 3000 students, of various grades and departments, registered in Cambridge; in 1837, when I entered college, there were but 305 such students; and in 1841, when I graduated, but 366. In like manner, Cambridge is now a city of some 85,000 inhabitants, whereas in 1840 it had but 8409, distributed among three villages, of which Old Cambridge, grouped round the college buildings, had less than half. Yet, after all, these figures make little difference to the boy; a crowd is a crowd, whether it be counted by hundreds or thousands, since you see at the most only those immediately pressing round you. For us, I repeat, the college was a world; whether larger or smaller on the outskirts was of secondary importance. It is mistakenly assumed by clergymen and e
1842 AD (search for this): chapter 4
st experiment was, unluckily, discontinued in a few years under a more conservative president. Meanwhile, the class of 1841 was one of the very few which enjoyed its benefits. Under the guidance of George Ticknor, the method had long been applied to the modern languages; but we were informed one day, to our delight, that it was to be extended also to mathematics, with a prospect of further expansion. As a matter of fact, the word elective did not appear on the college catalogues until 1841-42, but for two years previous this special announcement about mathematics had been given in a footnote. The spirit of a new freedom began at once to make itself felt in other departments; the Latin and Greek professors, for instance, beginning to give lectures, though in an irregular way, in addition to their usual duty of extracting from us what small knowledge we possessed. The reason why the experiment was made with mathematics was understood to be that Professor Peirce had grown weary of d
July (search for this): chapter 4
r games, their individual haunts;--we watched them at football or cricket; had our favorites and our aversions; waited anxiously for the time when, once or twice a year, the professor of chemistry gave many of them exhilarating gas, as it was called, on the triangle then known as the Delta, and they gesticulated, made speeches, or recited poetry, as unconscious of their self-revelation as an autobiographer. Sometimes in summer evenings — for the college term then lasted until the middle of July--we would amuse ourselves by selecting in the street some single student, and trailing him from place to place, like the Indians of whom we had read in Cooper's novels; following wherever he went, watching, waiting, often losing and then finding him again, and perhaps delaying our own early bedtime that we might see him through some prolonged evening call, though he was all unconscious of our watchful care. I can still breathe the aroma of the lilac-bushes among which we ensconced ourselves
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