The first serious disappointment which John Eliot, the Indian Apostle,
experienced, was in his efforts for the instruction of the Indian youth
in the classic languages; many of the ablest and most promising among
them were set apart for this purpose; his ambition was to bring them
up “with our English youth in university learning.” Where was the use
of this? Eliot’s best purposes were prone to be carried to excess. He
gave away a whole year’s salary, at a wretched cottage, while his wife
was probably expecting it at home for household demands. He had learned
his Indians to read and write; many could read English well; and now he
wished to give them a polite education, that must have sat as gracefully
on them as the full-sleeved gown and bands of the divine. Considerable
sums were expended in their board and education: a substantial building
of brick, which cost between three and four hundred pounds, was erected;
it was large enough to accommodate twenty scholars. It must have been
Spartan discipline to the heads as well as hearts of the poor Indians,
to labour morn and night through the Greek and Roman authors, to try to
discover and relish the beauties of style and the splendour of imagery.
No doubt, their thoughts sometimes fled away to their deserts, where
their fathers roved in dignity and freedom, and books never came. The
design might be praiseworthy, but Providence did not smile upon it, most
of these young men died when they had made great proficiency in their
studies, as if the languages wore out their hearts; others abandoned
their books, even when they were prepared to enter Harvard College, in
the town of Cambridge; their patience was probably exhausted, and the
boon of literary dignity could lure them no further. A few of these,
passing from one extreme to the other, burst their bonds at once; and
as if mind and body panted together to be free, hastened back to the
wilderness again, into its wigwams and swamps; where neither Homer nor
Ovid was like to follow them.
“These circumstances proved very discouraging to the godly in New
England,” says a contemporary. “Some were so far affected by them, as to
conceive that they were manifest tokens of the Divine disapprobation. Mr.
Eliot, however, whose faith was more vigorous, considered them merely as
trials, to which they ought to submit without reluctance.” In consequence
of the death and failure of those who entered the aforesaid building, it
was soon after chiefly occupied by the English. Only one of these Indian
students appears to have obtained his degree at Harvard College; and at
the conclusion of two Latin and Greek elegies, which he composed on the
death of an eminent minister, subscribed himself “Cheesecaumuk, Senior
Sophista.” What an incongruous blending of sounds!
Eliot at last saw his error, and, instead of the classics, applied with
fresh ardour to his more useful translations, of which the circulation
was so rapid, that he printed a fresh edition of the “Practice of
Piety.” He also soon after established a lecture at Naticke, in which he
explained the leading doctrines of theology and logic: here he was on
safe ground, and his labours were eminently useful. During the summer
months they assembled eagerly once a fortnight, and many of them gained
much knowledge; yet he was far from being satisfied with his oral
instructions, and he printed a thousand copies of a logic primer, and
made little systems of all the liberal arts, for the use of the Indians.
The same minds that had pined and sunk beneath the study of the classic
tongues, embraced these things with ardour.
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