CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT BROWN.--TRIBUTES BY PROFESSOR HADDOCK AND RUFUS
CHOATE.
In Sprague's "Annals of the American Pulpit," we find, in substance,
the following notice of President Brown:
Francis Brown was the son of Benjamin and Prudence (Kelley) Brown, and
was born at Chester, Rockingham County, N. H., January 11, 1784. His
father was a merchant, and had a highly respectable standing in
society. His mother was a person of superior intellect and heart, and,
though she died when he had only reached his tenth year, she had
impressed upon him some of the most striking of her own
characteristics; particularly her uncommon love of order and
propriety, even in the most minute concerns, and her uncompromising
adherence to her own convictions of truth and right. In his early
boyhood he evinced the utmost eagerness in the pursuit of knowledge,
and never suffered any opportunity for intellectual improvement to
escape him. At the age of fourteen, he ventured to ask his father to
furnish him with the means of a collegiate education; but, in
consideration of his somewhat straitened circumstances, he felt
constrained to deny the request. By a subsequent marriage, however,
his circumstances were improved; and the new mother of young Brown,
with most commendable generosity, assumed the pecuniary responsibility
of his going to college. He always cherished the most grateful
recollection of her kindness; and, but a few days before his death, he
said to her with the deepest filial sensibility, "My dear mother,
whatever good I have done in the world, and whatever honor I have
received, I owe it all to you."
In his sixteenth year he became a member of Atkinson Academy, then
under the care of the Hon. John Vose, and among the most respectable
institutions of the kind in New England. His instructor has rendered
the following testimony concerning him at that period: "Though he made
no pretensions to piety during his residence at the academy, he was
exceedingly amiable in his affections and moral in his deportment. It
is very rare we find an individual in whom so many excellencies
centre. To a sweet disposition was united a strong mind; to an
accuracy which examined the minutiae of everything a depth of
investigation which penetrated the most profound. I recollect that
when I wrote recommending him to college, I informed Dr. Wheelock I
had sent him an Addison."
Of the formation of his religious character little more is known than
that it was of silent, yet steady growth. It was not till the year
that he became a tutor in college that he made a public profession of
his faith, by connecting himself with the church in his native place.
In the spring of 1802 he joined the Freshman class of Dartmouth
College, and, during the whole period of his collegiate course, was a
model of persevering diligence, of gentle and winning manners, and
pure and elevated morality. From college he carried with him the
respect and love of both teachers and students. Having spent the year
succeeding his graduation as a private tutor in the family of the
venerable Judge Paine, of Williamstown, Vt., he was appointed to a
tutorship in the college at which he had graduated. This office he
accepted, and for three years discharged its duties with great ability
and fidelity, while, at the same time, he was pursuing theological
studies with reference to his future profession.
Having received license to preach from the Grafton Association, he
resigned his tutorship at the Commencement in 1809, with a view to
give himself solely to the work of the ministry. After declining
several flattering applications for his services, he accepted an
invitation from the Congregational Church in North Yarmouth, Me., to
become their pastor; and he was accordingly ordained there on his
birthday, January 11, 1810. Within a few months from this time, he was
chosen Professor of Languages at Dartmouth College; but this
appointment he was pleased, greatly to the joy of his parishioners, to
decline. For the succeeding five years he labored with great zeal and
success among his people, while his influence was sensibly felt in
sustaining and advancing the interests of learning and religion
throughout the State. He was the intimate friend of the lamented
President Appleton; and no one, perhaps, co-operated with the president
more vigrously than he, in increasing the resources and extending the
influence of Bowdoin College.
He was inaugurated President of Dartmouth College, on the 27th of
September, 1815.
During the period when the college controversy was at its height, and
it seemed difficult to predict its issue, Mr. Brown was invited to the
presidency of Hamilton College,--a respectable and flourishing
institution in the State of New York. He did not, however, feel at
liberty to accept the invitation, considering himself so identified
with the college with which he was then connected that he must share
either its sinking or rising fortunes.
President Brown's labors were too severe for his constitution. He was
not only almost constantly engaged during the week in the instruction
and general supervision of the college, but most of his Sabbaths were
spent in preaching to destitute congregations in the neighborhood;
and, during his vacations, he was generally traveling with a view to
increase the college funds. Soon after the Commencement in 1818, he
began to show some symptoms of pulmonary disease, and these symptoms
continued, and assumed a more aggravated form, under the best medical
prescriptions. His last effort in the pulpit was at Thetford, Vt.,
October 6, 1818. In the hope of recovering from his disease, he
traveled into the western part of New York, but no substantial relief
was obtained. In the fall of 1819, with a view to try the effect of a
milder climate, he journeyed as far south as South Carolina and
Georgia, where he spent the following winter and spring. He returned
in the month of June, and, though he was greeted by his friends and
pupils with the most affectionate welcome, they all saw, from his
pallid countenance and emaciated form, that he had only come home to
die. As he was unable to appear in public, he invited the Senior
class, who were about to leave college at the commencement of their
last vacation, to visit him in his chamber; and there he addressed to
them, with the solemnity of a spirit just ready to take its flight,
the most pertinent and affectionate farewell counsels, which they
received with every expression of gratitude, veneration, and love. In
his last days and hours he evinced the most humble, trusting,
child-like spirit, willing to live as long as God was pleased to
detain him, but evidently considering it far better to depart and be
with Christ. His last words were, "Glorious Redeemer, take my spirit."
He died July 27, 1820.
His wife Elisabeth, daughter of the Rev. Tristram Gilman, a lady whose
fine intellectual, moral, and Christian qualities adorned every
station in which she was placed, survived him many years, and died on
the 5th of September, 1851. They had three children, one of whom,
Samuel Gilman [now President Brown], is a professor in Dartmouth
College.
The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon President Brown by
both Hamilton and Williams Colleges, in 1819.
The following is a list of President Brown's published works: "An
Address on Music," delivered before the Handel Society of Dartmouth
College, 1809. "The Faithful Steward:" A Sermon delivered at the
ordination of Allen Greeley, 1810. "A Sermon delivered before the
Maine Missionary Society, 1814." "Calvin and Calvinism;" defended
against certain injurious representations contained in a pamphlet
entitled "A Sketch of the Life and Doctrine of the Celebrated John
Calvin;" of which Rev. Martin Ruter claims to be the author, 1815. "A
Reply to the Rev. Martin Ruter's Letter relating to Calvin and
Calvinism, 1815." "A Sermon delivered at Concord before the Convention
of Congregational and Presbyterian Ministers of New Hampshire, 1818."
The following is from Prof. Charles B. Haddock, D.D.: "My acquaintance
with the President was, for the most part, that of a pupil with his
teacher; an undergraduate with the head of the college. And yet it was
somewhat more than this; for it was my happiness, during my Senior
year, to have lodgings in the same house with him, and to eat at the
same table, in the family of one of the professors, and as one of a
small circle, all connected with college, and a good deal remarkable
for the freedom and vivacity of their conversation. After graduating,
I saw him only occasionally, until the last few months of his life,
which he passed here, near the close of my first year's residence at
the college as a teacher,--months in which the greatness of his
character was still more signally manifest than in any other
circumstances in which I had seen him.
"In recording my youthful impressions of so uncommon a personage, I
may, therefore, hope to be thought to speak not altogether without
knowledge, though it should be with enthusiasm.
"Dr. Brown came to preside over the college at the age of less than
thirty-two, and in circumstances to attract unusual attention to his
administration. It was during a violent contest of opposing parties
for the control of its affairs, and immediately after the removal of
his predecessor from office. His qualifications and his official acts
were, of course, exposed to severe scrutiny, and could command the
respect of the community at large only by approving themselves to the
candid judgment even of the adverse party. And I suppose it would be
admitted, even in New Hampshire, that no man ever commended himself to
general favor, I may say to general admiration, by a wiser, more
prudent, or more honorable bearing, amid the greatest and most trying
difficulties. Indeed, such was his conduct of affairs, and such the
nobleness of his whole character, as displayed in his intercourse with
the government of the State, with a rival institution under the public
authority, and with all classes of men, that not a few who began with
zeal for the college over which he presided, came at last to act even
more from zeal for the MAN who presided over it.
"The mind of Dr. Brown was of the very highest order,--profound,
comprehensive, and discriminating. Its action was deliberate,
circumspect, and sure. He made no mistakes; he left nothing in doubt
where certainty was possible; he never conjectured where there were
means of knowledge; he had no obscure glimpses among his ideas of
truth and duty. Always sound and always luminous, his opinions were
never uttered without being understood, and never understood without
being regarded. There was a dignity and weight in his judgments which
seem to me not unlike what constitutes the patriarchal authority of
Washington and Marshall.
"If not already a man of learning, in the larger sense of that term,
it was only because the duties of the pastoral relation had so long
attracted his attention to the objects of more particular interest in
his profession. Had his life been spared, however, he would have been
learned in the highest and rarest sense. His habits of study were
liberal, patient, and eminently philosophical; and within the sphere
which his inquiries covered, his knowledge was accurate and choice,
and his taste faultless. The entire form of his literary character was
beautiful--strong without being dogmatic; delicate without being
fastidious.
"His heart was large. Great objects alone could fill it; and it was
full of great objects. There was no littleness of thought, or purpose,
or ambition, in him--nothing little. The range of his literary
sympathies was as wide as the world of mind; his benevolence as
universal as the wants of man.
"His person was commanding. Gentle in his manners, affable, courteous,
he yet, unconsciously, partly by the natural dignity of his figure,
and still more by the greatness visibly impressed on his features,
exacted from us all a deference, a veneration even, that seemed as
natural as it was inevitable. His very presence was a restraint upon
everything like levity or frivolity, and diffused a thoughtful and
composed, if not always grave, air about him, which, never ceasing to
be cheerful and bright, never failed to dignify the objects of pursuit
and elevate the intercourse of life. A gentleman in the primitive
sense of the word, he was, without seeking to be thought so, always
felt to be of a superior order of men.
"On the whole, it has been my fortune to know no man whose entire
character has appeared to me so near perfection, none, whom it would
so satisfy me in all things to resemble.
"How much we lost in him it is now impossible to estimate, and it
would, perhaps, be useless to know. His early death extinguished great
hopes. But his memory is a treasure, which even death cannot take from
us."
Hon. Rufus Choate writes thus: "It happened that my whole time at
college coincided with the period of President Brown's administration.
He was inducted into office in the autumn of 1815, my Freshman year,
and he died in the summer of 1820. It is not the want, therefore, but
the throng, of recollections of him that creates any difficulty in
complying with your request. He was still young at the time of his
inauguration--not more than thirty-one--and he had passed those few
years, after having been for three of them a tutor in Dartmouth
College, in the care of a parish in North Yarmouth, in Maine; but he
had already, in an extraordinary degree, dignity of person and
sentiment; rare beauty,--almost youthful beauty, of countenance; a
sweet, deep, commanding tone of voice; a grave but graceful and
attractive demeanor--all the traits and all the qualities, completely
ripe, which make up and express weight of character; and all the
address and firmness and knowledge of youth, men, and affairs which
constitute what we call administrative talent. For that form of
talent, and for the greatness which belongs to character, he was
doubtless remarkable. He must have been distinguished for this among
the eminent. From his first appearance before the students on the day
of his inauguration, when he delivered a brief and grave address in
Latin, prepared we were told, the evening before, until they followed
the bier, mourning, to his untimely grave, he governed them perfectly
and always, through their love and veneration; the love and veneration
of the 'willing soul.' Other arts of government were, indeed, just
then, scarcely practicable. The college was in a crisis which relaxed
discipline, and would have placed a weak instructor, or an instructor
unbeloved, or loved with no more than ordinary regard, in the power of
classes which would have abused it. It was a crisis which demanded a
great man for President, and it found such an one in him. In 1816, the
Legislature of New Hampshire passed the acts which changed the Charter
of the institution, abolished the old corporation of Trustees, created
a new one, extinguished the legal identity of the college, and
reconstructed it or set up another under a different and more
ambitious name and a different government. The old Trustees, with
President Brown at their head, denied the validity of these acts, and
resisted their administration. A dominant political party had passed
or adopted them; and thereupon a controversy arose between the college
and a majority of the State; conducted in part in the courts of law of
New Hampshire, and of the Union; in part by the press; sometimes by
the students of the old institution and the new in personal collision,
or the menace of personal collision, within the very gardens of the
academy; which was not terminated until the Supreme Court of the
United States adjudged the acts unconstitutional and void. This
decision was pronounced in 1819; and then, and not till then, had
President Brown peace,--a brief peace made happy by letters, by
religion, by the consciousness of a great duty performed for law, for
literature, and for the Constitution,--happy even in prospect of
premature death. This contest tried him and the college with extreme
and various severity. To induce students to remain in a school
disturbed and menaced; to engage and inform public sentiment, the true
patron and effective founder, by showing forth that the principles of
a sound political morality, as well as of law, prescribed the action
of the old Trustees; to confer with the counsel of the college, two of
whom--Mr. Mason and Mr. Webster--have often declared to me their
admiration of the intellectual force and practical good sense which he
brought to those conferences,--this all, while it withdrew him
somewhat from the proper studies and proper cares of his office,
created a necessity for the display of the very rarest qualities of
temper, discretion, tact, and command, and he met it with consummate
ability and fortune. One of his addresses to the students in the
chapel at the darkest moment of the struggle, presenting the condition
and prospects of the college, and the embarrassments of all kinds
which surrounded its instructors, and appealing to the manliness and
affection and good principles of the students to help 'by whatsoever
things were honest, lovely, or of good report,' occurs to recollection
as of extraordinary persuasiveness and influence.
"There can be no doubt that he had very eminent intellectual ability,
true love of the beautiful in all things, and a taste trained to
discover, enjoy, and judge it, and that his acquirements were
competent and increasing. It was the 'keenness' of his mind of which
Mr. Mason always spoke to me as remarkable in any man of any
profession. He met him only in consultation as a client; but others,
students, all nearer his age, and admitted to his fuller intimacy,
must have been struck rather with the sobriety and soundness of his
thoughts, the solidity and large grasp of his understanding, and the
harmonized culture of all its parts. He wrote a pure and clear English
style, and he judged of elegant literature with a catholic and
appreciative but chastised taste. The recollections of a student of
the learning of a beloved and venerated president of a college, whom
he sees only as a boy sees a man, and his testimony concerning it,
will have little value; but I know that he was esteemed an excellent
Greek and Latin scholar, and our recitations of Horace, which the
poverty of the college and the small number of its teachers induced
him to superintend, though we were Sophomores only, were the most
agreeable and instructive exercises of the whole college classical
course.
"Of studies more professional he seemed master. Locke, Stewart, with
whose liberality and tolerance and hopeful and rational philanthropy
he sympathized warmly, Butler, Edwards, and the writers on natural law
and moral philosophy, he expounded with the ease and freedom of one
habitually trained and wholly equal to these larger meditations.
"His term of office was short and troubled; but the historian of the
college will record of his administration a two-fold honor; first,
that it was marked by a noble vindication of its chartered rights; and
second, that it was marked also by a real advancement of its learning;
by collections of ampler libraries, and by displays of a riper
scholarship."