PROGRESS FROM 1820 TO 1828.--ADMINISTRATIONS OF PRESIDENT DANA AND
PRESIDENT TYLER.
It was not an easy matter, especially in the impoverished condition of
the college, to find a worthy successor of President Brown.
During the period of President Brown's illness, and at different
periods after his death, Professor Ebenezer Adams, a gentleman of
decided and energetic character, and (in years) the senior professor
in the college, was acting president.
Rev. Daniel Dana of Newburyport, Massachusetts, was elected the fourth
president of the college in August, 1820.
The substance of the next few pages is from the "Life of President
Dana," published in 1866.
The following is one of many letters addressed to him, urging his
acceptance of the presidency:
"Dartmouth College, Sept. 7, 1820.
"Rev. and dear Sir:--Not having heard from any of our friends what is
the prospect in regard to your acceptance of the appointment made by
our Trustees, I cannot help troubling you with a line.
"I need not tell you that our solicitude would rise to extreme
distress were we seriously apprehensive that you might decide in the
negative. Oh, sir, remember the desolations of Zion here, and have
compassion. The friends of the college look to you, and to you only,
to repair the waste places. When you know that the voice of the
Trustees conspires with that of the clergy and of the public at large,
and when this same voice is echoed from the tomb of our late beloved
and much lamented President Brown, can you hesitate? That good man, in
his last days, with almost the confidence and ardor of prophecy,
declared his belief in the future prosperity and usefulness of
Dartmouth College. You have, I hope, been informed of the strong
manner in which he, last autumn, expressed himself in relation to a
successor; and of the same decided and unwavering opinion which came
from his mouth a few days before his death. 'I have,' said he, 'but
one candidate, and that is Dr. Dana. Whom do they talk of for a
successor? My opinion is exactly the same as when I conversed with you
last fall.'
"I do pray, my dear sir, that Divine Providence may not permit you to
fail of coming.
"I should be grieved if, on making the trial, you should not find
yourself pleasantly situated here. I verily believe that you would
find a disposition on the part of the people of the village, including
all the college Faculty, to render your situation comfortable and
pleasant.
"We shall watch every mail and ask every friend, till we learn the
decision, or rather what we may expect the decision to be.
With great respect,
"Your obedient servant,
"R. D. M."[34]
[34] Professor R. D. Mussey.
* * * * *
What is here stated as to President Brown, was also true of President
Appleton of Bowdoin College. Each had desired that Dr. Dana should be
his successor. No stronger proof could be given of the confidence felt
in him, than these concurrent last wishes of two such men. Each had
brought to the office he held not merely intellectual pre-eminence, but
a dignity and elevation of character, and a singleness of purpose,
rarely equaled; and to each the future welfare of the institution over
which he presided was an object of the deepest solicitude.
Dr. Dana's letter of acceptance is as follows:
* * * * *
"To the Rev. and Honorable Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College,
"Gentlemen:--I have received, with deep sensibility, not unmingled
with surprise, the notice of the appointment with which you have
honored me, to the presidency of the institution under your care.
"The consideration of a subject of such magnitude has been attended
with no small degree of perplexity and distress.
"The character and objects of Dartmouth College; its intimate
connection with the great interests of the Church and of human
society; the important services it has long rendered to both; its
recent arduous struggle for existence, with the attending
embarrassments, and auspicious issue; the claims it possesses on the
community, and especially on its own sons; the unanimity of your
suffrages in the present case; these with other affecting
circumstances have been carefully considered, and I trust duly
appreciated.
"Considerations of a different kind have likewise presented. My long
and intimate connection with a most beloved and affectionate people--a
connection rendered interesting not only by its duties and delights
but by its very solicitudes and afflictions--a diffidence of my powers
to meet the expectations of the Trustees, and the demands of the
college; the exchange, at my age, of a sphere whose duties, though
arduous and exhausting, are yet familiar, for another in which new
duties, new responsibilities, new anxieties arise; in which likewise
success is uncertain, and failure would be distressing--these
considerations, with a variety of others scarcely possible to be
detailed have at times come over me with an almost appalling
influence.
"In these circumstances I have not dared trust my feelings, nor even
my judgment, with the decision of the case.
"One resource remained,--to seek advice through the regular
ecclesiastical channel--and this with a full determination to consider
the judgment of the presbytery as the most intelligible expression
which I could hope to obtain of the mind and will of Heaven,
respecting my duty; to this measure my church and people gave their
consent.
"The presbytery having determined, by nearly a unanimous vote, in
favor of the dissolution of my pastoral relation, and my acceptance of
the appointment, my duty is of course decided. I now, therefore,
declare my compliance with your invitation.
"I devote the residue of my life to the interests of the institution
committed to your care.
"This I do with deep solicitude, yet not without an animating hope
that He whose prerogative and glory it is to operate important effects
by feeble instruments, may be pleased, even through me, to give a
blessing to a seminary which has so signally enjoyed His protecting
and fostering care.
"Providence permitting, I shall be at Hanover on the fourth Wednesday
of the present month, with a view to attend the solemnities of
inauguration. It will then be necessary, considering the advanced
season, and other circumstances, for me to return without delay, that
I may arrange my affairs and remove my family.
"Gentlemen, my resolution on this great subject has been taken in the
full confidence of experiencing, in all future time, what I shall so
much need, your liberal candor, and your cordial, energetic support.
Suffer me, in addition, to request, in my behalf, your devout
supplications to Him who is the Father of Lights and the munificent
bestower of every blessing.
"I am, gentlemen, with every sentiment of esteem and respect,
"Your devoted friend and servant,
"Daniel Dana.
"Newburyport, Oct. 3, 1820."
* * * * *
"Allusion is made in his farewell sermon at Newburyport, to his
'recently impaired health.' This was premonitory. Scarcely had he
removed his family to Hanover, and entered on his new duties, before
the crisis came to which, doubtless, the wasting cares and anxieties
of preceding years and the recent severe pressure upon his
sensibilities, had been silently but inevitably tending. His health
gave way, and great depression of spirits accompanied his bodily
languor. He took more than one long journey in the vain effort to
recruit his energies. He writes to a friend of being 'in a state of
great and very uncommon debility, undoubtedly to be attributed to the
protracted operation of distressing causes, both on mind and frame.'
He also states, that, whilst absent from Hanover in accordance with
the advice of his physician, he still hoped to be able, after his
strength was recruited, to accomplish something in the matter of
soliciting aid to the funds of the college; a work which, however
uncongenial to his tastes, he found would necessarily be devolved on
its president.
"The winter months passed by, and there was still little or no
improvement in his health. When it became known that he was agitating
the question of resigning his office, many urgent requests were made
to him not to decide hastily. He delayed only till April, and then
called a meeting of the Trustees, to be held early in May, for the
purpose of receiving and acting upon his resignation of his office. He
wished it to be considered as 'absolute and final.' The notification
to a member of the Board with whom he was specially intimate, was
accompanied by a letter in which he says:
"'You will naturally conclude that the resolution which I have taken
has cost me many a struggle, and much severe distress. This is the
fact. The last seven months have been with me a scene of suffering
indeed. I have fondly hoped that repeated journeyings would give me
relief. But their effect has been only partial and temporary. Such is
my prostration at this moment, that the duties of my office, and not
less its cares and its responsibilities, seem a burden quite beyond my
power of bearing. Had it pleased God to make me an instrument of
important good to the college, I should have esteemed myself
privileged indeed; but this privilege, though denied to me, awaits, I
confidently hope, some more favored instrument of the Divine
benevolence. I earnestly pray, that, in what pertains to this great
concern, the Trustees may be favored with much heavenly wisdom and
direction.'
"He now took a long journey to Ohio, visiting at Athens the brother
who had been the companion of his early years. Under these favorable
influences, his health began more decidedly to improve. At their
meeting, July 4, the Trustees of the college, by unanimous resolution,
requested him to withdraw his resignation; but he declined to do so,
though 'gratefully acknowledging the kindness expressed in their
communication.'
"Many years after these events, the Rev. Dr. Lord, so long and so
honorably the president of Dartmouth College, thus referred to Dr.
Dana's connection with the institution:
"'He was chosen president for his well-known excellence as a scholar
and theologian, and his extraordinary ministerial qualifications. He
was honored the country over, in these respects. It was not doubted
that he would be equally honorable as president of the college, should
his health endure.
"'That he would have been, had he been able to retain his place,
everybody well understood, as well from his auspicious beginning, as
his distinguished qualities. He made a deep impression upon the
college during the short period of his actual service.
"'But his sensitive nature had received a great shock in the breaking
up of his many and most endearing relations at Newburyport and the
country around. He began here with health seriously impaired, and in
great depression of spirit. The change of scene, of society, labor,
and responsibility, was too much for his disordered frame. He sought
relief by travel. But he gained little or nothing, and was driven to
the conclusion that his life could probably be saved only by
resignation. He could not consent to make such an office as he held a
sinecure, or to see the college labor through its severe adversities
without greater vigor of administration than his infirmities admitted.
With great conscientiousness and magnanimity, he chose to put himself
at a seeming disadvantage, rather than to risk the interests of the
college upon what he judged to be the doubtful chances of his
recovery.
"'He left with the profound respect and sincere regret of the Trustees
and Faculty. Their confidence in him was unshaken; and they never
doubted, that, had he been more favorable to himself, and borne his
new burdens with less solicitude, till he could regain his health, he
would have been as distinguished here as elsewhere, and raised the
college to a corresponding usefulness and dignity.
"'Most men judge superficially and unwisely in such cases. So far as I
know, the most competent judges of Dr. Dana's relations to Dartmouth
see nothing that does not redound to his honor. It is understood that
he accepted the presidency with great reluctance, on account of his
other responsibilities and attachments, and with distrust of his
physical ability to perform its duties; that, while he performed them,
it was with characteristic ability and effect; and that, when his best
efforts to regain his health failed, and he saw reason to fear, that,
even if his life should not be a sacrifice, his increasing infirmities
would be to the disadvantage of a struggling institution, he
generously, and entirely of his own accord, resigned. To my
apprehension, all this is significant of great moral strength under
the pressure of bodily disease, and a memorable instance of that
Christian heroism for which he has always been remarkable. "_Maluit
esse quam videri bonus._"'"
The subsequent labors of President Dana in the ministry, and the high
esteem of all who best knew him till his death, August 26, 1859, are
matters of permanent record. His first wife, Mrs. Elizabeth (Coombs)
Dana, and the second, Mrs. Sarah (Emery) Dana, had died previous to
his residence at Hanover.
President Dana's brief but earnest labors for the college having
closed in 1821, the fifth president was Rev. Bennet Tyler, who was
called from a pastorate in Southbury, Conn.
We quote in substance some passages relating to this subject from his
"Memoir," by his son-in-law, Rev. Nahum Gale, D.D.
"Early in 1822, Mr. Tyler was appointed president of Dartmouth
College. It was to him a mystery why he should be selected for that
station. Located in a retired country parish, he had been devoted to
the duties of the ministry, and had paid little attention to science
or literature. He was strongly attached to his people and his home,
for there had arisen, as 'olive plants,' around his table, three sons
and four daughters.
"But he was recommended to the Trustees of Dartmouth by Dr. Porter, of
Andover, and others, in whose judgment he had great confidence; his
brethren around him in the ministry, and the consociation with which
he was connected, believed it to be his duty to accept the
appointment. Accordingly, he broke away from an endeared people, was
inaugurated at Dartmouth in March, and entered upon the duties of his
office the following June. In the autumn of 1822, the newly-elected
president was honored by the degree of D.D., from Middlebury College.
Of his connection with Dartmouth College, Dr. Tyler has left the
following record:
"'I was among strangers, and engaged in duties to which I was
unaccustomed. But I found myself surrounded by able professors, who
treated me with great kindness, and rendered me all the assistance in
their power. My situation was much more pleasant than I anticipated;
and through the assistance of a gracious Providence, I was enabled to
discharge the duties which devolved upon me with acceptance. I have
never had any reason to doubt that I was in the path of duty when I
accepted the appointment. My labor in the service of the college, I
humbly trust, was not altogether in vain. I had the satisfaction to
know that I left it in a more prosperous condition than I found it. It
was no part of my duty, as president of the college, to preach on the
Sabbath; but the health of the professor of Divinity failing soon
after my inauguration, I found it necessary to supply his place; and
during the whole period of my presidency I preached a considerable
part of the time. In the year 1826, there was a very interesting
revival of religion, both among the students and the inhabitants of
the village, which will be remembered by not a few, while "immortality
endures."
"'I was connected with the college six years; and, although I never
felt so much at home as in the duties of the ministry, still I had no
serious thoughts of relinquishing my station, till, very unexpectedly,
I received a call from the Second Church in Portland. When I received
this call, I felt a new desire for the duties and joys of the pastoral
life, and believing I could resign my office without putting in
jeopardy the interests of the college, I concluded to do so. I parted
with the Trustees, Faculty, and students, with feelings of great
cordiality, and I had reason to believe that the feelings were
reciprocated.'
"The following letter from the venerable Professor Shurtleff,
addressed to Rev. John E. Tyler, will give the impressions of one
associated with Dr. Tyler during his presidency at Hanover.
"Hanover, N. H., September 22, 1858.
"Reverend and very dear Friend: Permit me thus to address you; for I
can truly say that I regarded you with much interest and affection
during the whole time of your residence here, and I may also add that
your venerated parents had no friends in Hanover more sincere and
ardent than Mrs. Shurtleff and myself.
"When your dear father was appointed president of Dartmouth College,
he had been little heard of in New Hampshire. His first appearance,
however, was very prepossessing, and his preaching was much admired.
His popularity was so general in this region, that a gentleman of a
neighboring town inquired, 'Why, if he is such a man as they say, was
he not heard of before?' To which I replied, if you will allow me to
quote my own words, that 'the Lord had kept him concealed in an
obscure parish for a blessing to our college.' The impression which
his first appearance made was not lowered by further acquaintance. I
do not recollect hearing a complaint of him from any member of the
college. All his intercourse with them was tempered with the utmost
kindness, while he was punctual and faithful in every official duty. I
think he originated the project of raising, by subscription, a fund of
ten thousand dollars for the aid of indigent students seeking an
education for the ministry.
"This object he not only conceived, but completed by his own personal
efforts. For this, as well as for other services, he should be
gratefully remembered by the college, by the church, and by the
public.
"But the religious influence of Dr. Tyler, while president of
Dartmouth, will never be forgotten. In the summer of 1825, the
professor of Divinity was arrested by a severe and protracted
affection of the lungs. The president at once took the services of the
sanctuary; and the following spring term was rendered memorable by a
revival of religion, which issued in adding to the Lord many students
and inhabitants of the village.
"During his residence here we had a class of students in their
professional studies, who wished to enter the ministry earlier than
they could by entering a public seminary. We met with them once in a
week, heard their dissertations on subjects that had been assigned,
and each of us spoke on the performances, and on the subjects. The
young gentlemen were all licensed to preach after about two years, and
became useful ministers of the gospel. By these exercises, as well as
by long intimacy, I was convinced that Dr. Tyler had peculiarly clear
and discriminating views of the doctrines of the gospel, and an
uncommon facility in explaining and defending them; and I have often
remarked in years past, that with the exception of my friend, Dr.
Woods, of Andover, I would sooner recommend him to young men as a
teacher of Theology than any other clergyman in the circle of my
acquaintance.
"With many pleasing reminiscences, I remain your friend and brother in
the gospel,
Roswell Shurtleff."
Dr. Asa D. Smith writes thus:
"New York, December 14, 1858.
"Rev. J. E. Tyler,--
"My dear Sir: You ask for my recollections of your honored father, as
president of my Alma Mater. I regret that I can furnish but little in
that relation. He remained at the head of the institution some two
years only after I was matriculated.
"The two lower classes had, of course, much less intercourse with him
than those more advanced. You could doubtless obtain more ample
information from those who were Seniors under him, and who had more
largely the benefit of his instruction. Such impressions as I have,
however, I am happy to give.
"It was when a member of Kimball Union Academy, in preparation for
college, if I mistake not, that I first set eyes on his commanding
form, and listened to the impressive tones of his voice. That academy,
as you know, is about a dozen miles from Hanover. Not long before the
graduation of one of its classes, he visited the place, and preached
on the Sabbath. It is not impossible that his visit had some reference
to the fact that there were among us so many candidates for college
life. It was, at all events, well for Dartmouth that he came. Judging
from the influence on my mind, I cannot doubt that not a few were the
more inclined, for what they saw of him, to connect themselves with
the institution over which he presided.
"It was the year before I entered college, I think, that is, in
1825-26, that Dartmouth was blessed with one of the most remarkable
revivals of religion it has ever enjoyed. Transformations of character
were wrought then which have borne the test of decades of years. Some
of the finest minds in college were brought under the power of the
gospel--minds that have since shone as bright lights in the world.
"When I entered the college, I found him dignified, yet affable and
fatherly in his bearing. His preaching then, as we often heard him in
the village church, was marked by the same simplicity, clearness, and
logical force, the same scripturalness, fullness of doctrine, and
evangelical earnestness, that characterized his subsequent
ministrations. He preached not to the fancy, but to the conscience and
the heart. He confined not himself to hortatory appeals, nor did he,
in any wise, skim over the surface of things; but, as both my notes
and recollections of his college sermons assure me, he was apt to
handle, and that vigorously, the high topics of theology. He gave us
not milk alone, but strong meat. Yet have I seldom known a man so
remarkable for making an abstruse subject plain to every hearer."
* * * * *
Rev. George Punchard, of Boston, and Rev. Nathaniel Folsom, D.D.,
professor in Meadville College, Pa., have furnished their
recollections respecting the revival in Dartmouth College, in the year
1826, to which allusion is made by Dr. Smith.
The former says:
"Boston, February 16, 1859.
"Rev. John E. Tyler,--
"My dear Sir: Your venerable father was president of Dartmouth College
during my whole collegiate course--from 1822 to 1826. My earliest
recollections of him are those only which a thoughtless boy of sixteen
would be likely to have of a grave and reverend divine, and are of
little value.
"It was not until near the close of my college life that I began
really to know him. At that time the college was visited by a revival
of religion of uncommon power, and my reverend president suddenly
awoke (at least to my view) in an entirely new character.
"He came to the students with a power and unction which were quite
irresistible, and manifested a depth of religious feeling for us which
made us at once love him and admire him. He seemed to have found his
appropriate sphere of labor; to have got into an atmosphere which
filled his soul and body with life and energy; to have work to do
which was congenial, which he loved, and which he knew how to do as
few men did. He was at once a son of thunder and a son of consolation.
His discourses, which had always been able and instructive, and
characterized by simplicity of arrangement and neatness and purity of
style, had now the additional attraction of an animated and energetic
delivery.
"And yet, perhaps, the conference room and the prayer-meeting were the
places in which, at that time, Dr. Tyler specially excelled. He was
naturally rather heavy and lethargic in his manner of speaking, and it
required a good deal to excite and warm him thoroughly. But the scenes
and duties incident to a powerful revival of religion, in which a
hundred or more young men were more or less interested, supplied the
necessary stimulus, and the strong man was fully waked up, and in his
extemporaneous addresses particularly, poured out streams of Christian
eloquence which he seldom equaled in his more carefully prepared
public discourses, and which few men whom I have ever heard, could
excel or equal.
"His labors, however, were not confined to the pulpit and the
conference meeting. He cheerfully and heartily did the work of a
pastor among the students, going from room to room, instructing and
exhorting his beloved pupils, and praying with them. He was among us,
not as the grave and dignified head of the college, but rather as a
loving, anxious father, seeking to instruct and save his children; or,
as an elder brother, tenderly solicitous for our spiritual welfare. He
was gentle among us, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. And God,
I verily believe, gave him spiritual children from among our number,
as the reward of his fidelity; children who never ceased to love him
while he lived, and who will cherish his memory with gratitude to
their dying hours."
Professor Folsom says:
"Dartmouth College was fortunate in getting Mr. Tyler to stand in the
line of its excellent presidents. Each of them was different from the
rest in special qualifications, in work performed, in kind and force
of influence exerted; but each did what made his administration an
important period in the history of the college, and extended its fame
and usefulness. Dr. Tyler was inferior to none of them in the depth
and extent to which he affected the character of the students for
good, and through them, wherever the Divine Providence called them to
live and labor, promoted the welfare of the country; the enlightenment
and moral activity, and power, and happiness of the people.
"His splendid physique, in which he surpassed everybody in the region;
his noble stature and well-proportioned form; his head finely poised,
and around it a halo of parental benignity, its perpetual and unfading
crown; these struck every one at first sight, and prepossessed all in
his favor. I know of none with whom to compare him in these respects
except Ezekiel Webster. In his whole spirit and mien, in look and word
and action, he was a father, and his whole administration was parental
in the best sense of the word. This benignity, as we learn from his
'Memoir,' marked his subsequent career as president of the East
Windsor Theological School. His biographer, taking notice of the fact
that 'the perversities of human nature make their appearance in such
institutions as well as elsewhere,' observes that 'the strong
affections of the father in him occasionally swayed the firmness of
the tutor and governor, and rendered him indulgent and yielding in
cases where there was call for the peremptory and authoritative.' In
the first two years of our college life, from the fall of 1824 to the
spring of 1826, two or three instances of wrongdoing passed unnoticed
which perhaps deserved such a mode of treatment. There were, moreover,
it is to be confessed, irregularities and bad practices among students
in all the classes at that period, but they were exceptional, so far
as my knowledge of them extended, and would have required a system of
espionage to detect them, or informers from the guilty ones
themselves. Dartmouth however, at its worst, in that period, was not
one whit behind any other college in New England, in its general tone
of morals, in observance of law, in habits of study and in scholarly
attainments. There were not a few whose sense of honor was very high,
and as they were popular and influential, they in some degree
necessarily gave tone to others. Nay, surrounded by such an atmosphere
of benignity--of which every student was more or less conscious,
feeling it not only in the presence of the president, but also more or
less in our connection with every other officer of the college without
exception--I think there was far less tendency to excess, far less of
the irritation of inclination against prohibition of law; and
assuredly there was never apparent a disposition to rebel from hope of
impunity through the recognized forbearance of our teachers.
"In the spring of the year 1828, a higher influence was brought to
bear, reinforcing and extending the moral element throughout the
college; recovering not a few from irregularities of conduct and waste
of talent; awakening the religious nature; giving birth to new
motives, and leading many to noble and useful lives. From that period
until our class graduated in 1828, I cannot recall an act deserving
special even animadversion, nor remember an instance of a student
obnoxious to discipline for indolent of other censurable habits. But I
remember several young men of exemplary deportment and distinguished
ability, among them Salmon P. Chase, who though not publicly regarded
as 'subjects of the work,' were greatly affected, their future being
largely determined by it. They all subsequently exhibited deep moral
and religious purpose, and were foremost in philanthropic action.
Without the preaching of Dr. Tyler as its great instrument, and
without such a man presiding over it, and guiding it, there is no
reason to suppose that the revival would have taken place, or would
have been so extensive and powerful.
"It is by looking at Dr. Tyler from every point of view that we alone
can form a just estimate of his qualities. His greatest power was
that of preacher, and he was most at home in this office. He did not
seek it, but it providentially came to him in the illness of Professor
Shurtleff, the professor of Theology, and he retired from it when in
the year 1827, Professor George Howe succeeded Professor Shurtleff. He
had risen in it to the very height of the duty he attempted to
discharge, and was majestic in it. His mode of delivery and gesture
were beyond criticism, and at times sublime. I never heard a student
speak of him in this capacity without the highest praise; and his
power ended not simply in producing admiration, but in influencing his
hearers to duty. The great object aimed at in his preaching was to
induce his hearers to be willing, unconditionally, to do and submit to
the revealed Divine will. He who succeeds in persuading his fellow-men
to faithfully and perseveringly try to do this, does the highest
Christian work, and most for the benefit of man. No one who has sat in
the presidential chair of Dartmouth, or of any other college, during
an equal length of time, has done more in this direction than Bennet
Tyler."
The librarian says:
"In 1819, Isaiah Thomas of Worcester, Massachusetts, presented the
college library 470 volumes, which were perhaps an equivalent for the
books recently lost, as Professor Haddock makes the statement that
there were probably no more books in 1820 than in 1815. In 1820 the
Trustees appropriated $400. The three libraries at this time must have
numbered not far from 8,000 volumes. In 1826, the 'Social Friends'
obtained a Charter, and one was granted to the United Fraternity'
during the following year. These Charters gave the societies the right
to hold property, and transact business, and made necessary the
consent of a majority of the existing members in order to dispose of
the libraries. The society libraries had been increasing more rapidly
than the college library, and at this time they had reached it in size
as well as exceeded it in practical value and in circulation. It is
quite noticeable that these three libraries for the twenty-five years
following were kept so nearly equal, by additions and losses, that at
no time the number of books actually upon their shelves differed by
more than a few hundred.
"The work and influence of the societies was neither small nor to be
lightly estimated, and in that work the libraries had no small share.
Professor Crosby, in speaking of the college life of the class of
1827, says: 'The college library was small, and had been so collected
that it contained few books which either the instructors or students
wished to read. The chief dependence of the latter was upon the
society libraries, in which they took much pride, and to the increase
of which they contributed with so great liberality in proportion to
their means. During the first years of our course, the library of the
"United Fraternity" occupied a place in the north entry of the
college, corresponding to that of the "Social Friends" library in the
south entry. The libraries were open only on Wednesdays and Saturdays
from 1 to 2 P. M., for the delivery and return of books, and the
students at these times gathered around the barred entrances to be
waited on in turn by the librarians and their assistants. The rooms
were so small that only three or four others were admitted at a time
within the bar for the examination of the books upon the shelves. The
opening of the philological room and of a reading-room about the same
time by the members of the "Fraternity" led to the great enlargement
of the library rooms, and great increase of library advantages, which
took place in the latter part of our course. The ample rooms were now
opened daily, instead of twice a week, for the delivery and return of
books.'
"The college library is spoken of as, at that time, being open once in
two weeks, and occupying a narrow room on the second floor of the
college."
The marked advance in the course of study and general advantages of
college life, during this period, are too well known to many living
readers to require especial notice in this connection. The leading
facts will be developed upon succeeding pages.
The following paragraphs from a member of Dr. Tyler's family are
worthy of perusal.
"My first recollections of importance regarding Dartmouth College were
my father's great concern for its financial interests. There was great
need of money at this time for new buildings and scientific apparatus,
and no one was found willing to assume the responsibility of
soliciting funds except President Tyler, who in his vacations
undertook the matter, and was eminently successful in the work. When
he first started upon his mission he called upon the late Hon. Isaac
Hill, at that time editor of the New Hampshire 'Patriot,' which paper
had been, as some thought, opposed to the interests of the college.
This gentleman had attended a Commencement at Dartmouth, and had an
interview with the new president, and being pleased, had spoken highly
of the college and its president in his paper. This emboldened
President Tyler to ask Mr. Hill to head the list of subscribers to the
college, and to his surprise he did so, pledging himself for one
hundred dollars. Mr. Hill's signature was worth many thousands of
dollars to the college.
"During one of his winter vacations, President Tyler started with his
own horse and sleigh on his mission, going through the State of
Vermont into New York. He returned after six weeks' earnest and
arduous labor, having been very successful in his mission.
"Dr. Tyler's invaluable services to the church were continued, in
various spheres, till his death May 14, 1858, his wife, Mrs. Esther
(Stone) Tyler, surviving him only one week."