PROFESSOR WILLIAM CHAMBERLAIN.--PROFESSOR DANIEL OLIVER.--PROFESSOR
JAMES FREEMAN DANA.
William Chamberlain, the successor of Professor Moore in the chair of
Languages, was the son of General William and Jane (Eastman)
Chamberlain, and was born at Peacham, Vt., May 24, 1797. From a
reliable source we have the following account of him:
Perhaps there is on record no more worthy and comprehensive testimony
to his character and his work than the few lines which the late
President Lord furnished for the inscription on his tombstone. They
read:
"William Chamberlain, Jr., A. M., Professor of Languages in Dartmouth
College. A man of strong intellect, distinguished literary
attainments, and moral worth.
"He added respectability to the institution, by prudence, efficiency,
and a well-earned reputation; and contributed largely to promote its
interests. By disinterested and unwearied labors, with fidelity in all
his relations, beloved and honored, he filled up the measure of a
short but useful life, and died with humble confidence in the Divine
mercy, through the atonement of Jesus Christ, July 11, 1830, aged 33."
He gave to the college for ten years the unremitting labor of his
life, and we may say his life itself. To his abundant and complete
work as a teacher he added the labor of overseeing the material
affairs of the college,--a labor devolved upon him, perhaps, on
account of his superior executive ability.
Thus he superintended the building of Thornton and Wentworth Halls,
and employed his vacations, and particularly the long winter
vacation, in travelling over what was then the wilderness of northern
New Hampshire and Vermont, in care of the wild lands belonging to the
college. Stricken with pneumonia on one of these journeys,--he would
not wait for a complete convalescence before returning to duty,--his
malady assumed the chronic form, and terminated his life in about six
months after its first invasion.
The influences of his early life were such as may well have conduced
to a broad and strong character.
His mother belonged to a family long identified with the early history
of southern New Hampshire.
His father, General William Chamberlain, after serving in the armies
of the Revolution, became a pioneer settler of northern Vermont, where
he acquired a handsome estate and a prominent public position. He
became Lieutenant Governor of the State, and represented it in
Congress for several terms. Among his public services may be mentioned
his care for the Caledonia County Grammar School, where his sons were
fitted for college. This school was at that time taught by Ezra
Carter, a man greatly respected for his attainments and dignity of
character.
Thus the future professor grew up amid the versatile life of the
frontier, surrounded by the contests and traditions of public service.
Distinguished for scholarship in college, a bold but prudent leader
among his classmates in their conflicts with the University,[43]
immediately after graduation he became the preceptor of Moors Charity
School, and a year later entered, as a student of law, the office of
Daniel Webster in Boston. Thence, in his twenty-fourth year he was
recalled to the college as professor of Languages, and in the ordinary
and extraordinary service of the institution he was intensely occupied
for the remainder of his short life.
[43] The Rev. Daniel Lancaster, of the Class of 1821, supplies the
following recollections of the assault upon the college
libraries, made by a band of towns-people, under the guidance
of Professors Carter and Dean of the University. They had
forced the doors only to find that the books had already been
removed, and themselves thus inclosed, the prisoners of the
college students, led, among others, by senior Chamberlain.
Mr. Lancaster continues: "Having stationed three or four of
his classmates at the door of the library to prevent ingress
or egress, he ascended a few steps on the flight of steps
leading to the next floor, and called the excited throng to
order. He then spoke in substance as follows: 'Fellow
students, we are in the midst of a desperate emergency. The
door of our library has been demolished. The vandals have
entered and taken possession, but we have met the enemy. They
are our prisoners and the library is safe. I have come from
the president, who wishes me to say to you that he is
confident you will conduct yourselves as gentlemen--using no
violence or insult--in all the arrangements to be adopted,
until order and quiet are restored.'
"He then proceeded to marshal them in two files, beginning at
the door of the library, and extending down stairs to the
lower floor, through which files the University professors
were conducted, each under escort of three students, to
their homes."
General H. K. Oliver, of Massachusetts, a member of the then
Senior class, gives substantially the same account. He adds:
"Having released the roughs on condition of good behavior,
we exacted a promise of the learned professors of Mathematics
and Dead Languages, 'that they would do so no more.'
Classmates Fox, Shirley, and I then escorted Professor Carter
home. Dean was escorted by Crosby (Hon. Nathan Crosby) and
others. He (Carter) was very polite to us, invited us in, and
treated us with wine and cake."
A life so brief and active leaves behind it little but its example.
Yet I shall venture to extract a few paragraphs from an address
delivered by him on the 4th of July, 1826, the end of the first half
century of our national life.
Remembering that they were written at a period before the great
problems which have since controlled our history were recognized or
appreciated among the people at large, they will be found to indicate
a moral tone and a political prescience quite remarkable in a young
man of twenty-eight years.
... "I have already alluded to it as the first of the appropriate
duties of this day, to turn to Heaven in the exercise of devout
gratitude, and render thanksgiving and praise to Him who was the God
of our fathers in the day of their trial; who gave to them and has
continued to us a fairer portion than was ever allotted to any other
people. Is there one in this consecrated temple of the Almighty who
would not join in the offering? I know it is unusual to dwell long
upon such considerations at a time like this, but surely, if there
ever were a call for a nation's gratitude to God, and ever a proper
occasion for expressing it, we are the people in whose hearts that
emotion should be deep and permanent, and this is a time to give it
utterance."...
"We must do all in our power to promote liberal feelings among the
several communities and sections of our federal republic, so as to
preserve inviolate the Union of the States. Were this Union now in
danger, it would call forth a more authoritative voice than mine; yet
it may be in danger before the close of another half century. I will
only speak my own conviction, that the States cannot be separated
without the destruction of the country. They lie together on the bosom
of this vast continent, a protection and an ornament, each to the
other, and all to each, like the gems on the breast-plate of the
Jewish Hierarch, indicative of the union of the Tribes, mutually
lending and receiving lustre."...
"We must root out from among ourselves the institution of domestic
slavery, or, before the close of another half century, we may have to
abide the consequences of a servile war. In effecting this
all-important object, we must indeed proceed gradually, temperately,
in the observance of all good faith and good feeling toward the people
of that portion of our Union on which the curse was entailed by the
colonial policy of the mother country.
"It is a work which demands the full concurrence of all the States,
and, sooner or later, it must be accomplished. Common sense will not
cease to upbraid us with inconsistency, humanity will not be
satisfied, nor Heaven fully propitiated, while we hold up boastfully
in one hand this declaration, affirming that "all men are created
equal," and grasp with the other the manacles and the scourge.
"Whatever may have been inferred by reason from a difference of
physical attributes, and whatever may have been forced by criticism
out of the word of God, the traffic in human flesh is _contraband_ by
the law of Nature written in our hearts, and _forbidden_ by the whole
tenor and spirit of the religion revealed in the Gospel.
"Even in the darker and imperfect dispensation of the ancient Jews,
every fiftieth year, at least, brought freedom to _all_ the
inhabitants of the land. It is almost needless to say, that, if he who
first procured the slave and brought him hither had no right to do so,
then neither could he who bought him acquire a rightful ownership.
There is no _property_ to a private man in the life or the natural
faculties of another; no right can accrue by purchase, or vest by
possession, and no inheritance on either side descend. A title, which
by its very nature was void from the beginning, can never be made
good; a dominion which Heaven never gave, must be perpetuated, if at
all, by means which it will never sanction."...
Surely, the trumpet of this youth gave no "uncertain sound."
"One blast upon that bugle horn.
Were worth ten thousand men."
To the recognition of such qualities it was due, probably, that in
1829 he was called to New York city to assume the editorship of a
journal ("Journal of Commerce") founded by an association of
gentlemen, and which afterwards exerted great influence upon public
opinion. He declined the offer, unwilling to leave his Alma Mater at a
critical epoch in her history. He stayed by her to die in her service.
His widow, Mrs. Sarah L. (Gilman) Chamberlain, daughter of Dr. Joseph
Gilman, of Wells, Me., and niece of Mrs. President Brown, survived him
twenty years, residing at Hanover. The memory of her moral,
intellectual, and social worth is warmly cherished by all who knew
her.
Mr. Lancaster adds: "Professor Chamberlain was tall, erect, square
built, well-proportioned, and of graceful mien and bearing,--such a
man as the eye could rest upon with pleasure. His voice was clear,
sonorous, yet smooth and agreeable."
Professor Folsom says:
"Professor Chamberlain, the youngest member of the Faculty, who was
only twenty-three years old when, in 1820, he entered on his
professorship of the Latin and Greek Languages and Literature, and
only thirty-three when he died, was much admired and loved and
reverenced by many of us. To myself, whenever I think of Dartmouth,
his image invariably appears, and he stands out among the objects
presenting themselves second only to that of Dr. Tyler, as the latter
appeared when at his best and noblest in the pulpit. It was indeed in
that same pulpit, and before I came under his instruction, that I
first heard him, when he delivered an oration on the Fourth of July
in the year 1826. It was to a crowded audience, filling the floor and
the galleries. I doubt whether there is one survivor of that number,
whether student or townsman, from whose recollection can have faded
away the image of the orator, his form and attitude, his voice and
action, and some of his thrilling words, especially when he described
the nation holding in one hand the Declaration of Independence which
proclaims human equality, and with the other grasping the manacles and
scourge to torture millions of human beings bought and sold, and
compelled to labor in slavery.
Professor Chamberlain took charge of the Class of 1828 in Latin and
Greek when they entered on their Junior year. As soon as our class met
him in the east recitation-room--he being seated at a small table on
his left, and the class in lines of a half-parallelogram extending on
the right and in front of him--we felt that we had come under a noble
teacher. Some of us who loved the languages that he taught, and also
had become acquainted with the best of the upper classes, carried with
us none other than very high anticipations of a most profitable and
pleasant term of study. And so it proved. How he used to electrify us
at times by repeating something that had just been recited, as at the
close of the Agricola of Tacitus, his strongly marked face all lighted
up, new significance and something like inspiration being given us,
when with his deliberate, distinct, emphatic, rhythmical, rich
utterance, flowed out that prophetic sentence in the world's
literature, 'Quidquid ex Agricola amavimus, quidquid mirati sumus,
manet mansurumque in animis hominum, in aeternitate temporum, in fama
rerum!'
"I remember that while my class were in the Oedipus Tyrannus of
Sophocles and the Medea of Euripides, I was suffering from weak eyes,
and went to the recitation-room with no other preparation than that of
hearing each lesson twice read to me by two different students, who
did me the kindness to perform that service. But with Professor
Chamberlain's luminous explanation and comment, no Greek of my whole
college course more deeply interested and helped me.
"He heard the rehearsal of my Commencement oration, and some of his
words on that occasion I have not ceased to remember with gratitude.
Nor was I the only one who received from him words of encouragement
that proved of most valuable service in our subsequent career. Still
it was the _moral_ element that constituted his highest power of
influencing young men, and was his distinguishing personality. May I
say, for one, that in this moral and spiritual personality he has
again and again come to me since his departure, and been a present
helper toward whatever of good I have attained in life.
"A single anecdote will serve to illustrate the _love_ with which his
pupils cherish his memory. I cannot but think that every survivor of
my class must have some recollection of the fact, and share all my
feelings in regard to it. He had been occasionally late at recitation,
and the class, to give him a lesson of promptness, one morning having
assembled as usual after service in chapel, and waited some four
minutes past the hour, carried the vote to go to our rooms; and so,
the professor just turning the corner, and hastening up the slope, and
his approach being announced by some on the lookout, we dashed out,
through the rear doors, or up the stairways, and not a solitary member
of the class remained in the room. The next morning he was already
there when we reached the place, made no remark on the occurrence of
the previous day, and none of us could discern in him the faintest
trace of displeasure. When, two years after we graduated, I heard of
his death, I remembered a slight, hacking cough which he had, and that
slightly bent, spare, though large and tall frame, and always placid
face, and realized for the first time that what we imputed to him as a
fault was the hindrance of disease, and possibly of sleepless nights;
and I would have given a world for an opportunity to ask his
forgiveness."[44]
[44] The writer did not know until a few years ago that he was
related, though somewhat distantly, to the wife of Professor
Chamberlain. He was personally acquainted with her from his
Sophomore year. He then boarded and roomed at Mrs. President
Brown's (Mrs. C.'s aunt). Her paternal great-grandfather,
Rev. Nicholas Gilman, of Durham, N. H., and the writer's
paternal great-grandfather (as well as maternal
great-great-grandfather), Dr. Josiah Gilman, of Exeter,
N. H., were brothers. He has felt, ever since he knew this
fact, like having a clearer right of inheritance in Professor
Chamberlain.
Another pupil says of Professor Chamberlain:
"He was well-proportioned, tall, active, and energetic. His expression
was dignified and commanding. In his word there was power. Integrity
marked all his life. His word was as good as his bond. His principles
were firmly grasped and implicitly followed. His intellectual powers
were of a high order. He impressed every acquaintance with his
intellectual greatness. His discourse was lofty but impressive.
"His religious life was less marked in public. He united with no
church, though he was a man of prayer and from his dying bed sent a
religious message to the students."
* * * * *
From a reliable source we have the following notice of another of
Dartmouth's eminent and honored teachers:
Daniel Oliver, whose name appears on the list of teachers of past
years in both the Medical and Academical departments of Dartmouth
College, was born on the 9th of September, 1787. He was the third son
of the Rev. Thomas Fitch Oliver, at that time rector of St. Michael's,
Marblehead, and belonged to a family distinguished in the history of
Massachusetts from the earliest period of the colony. He was a direct
descendant of Mr. Thomas Oliver, whom Winthrop calls "an experienced
and very skilful surgeon," and who acted as one of the ruling elders
of the church in Boston soon after his arrival in 1632. Through his
mother he was descended from William Pynchon, one of the founders of
the Massachusetts Colony, and the Rev. William Hubbard, the historian
of New England; and, through his paternal grandmother he was a
descendant of the Rev. John Eliot, the noted Indian missionary.
After the death of his father, which took place at Garrison Forest,
near Baltimore, before he had attained his tenth year, he was placed
in the care of Colonel Lloyd Rogers, of that city, and almost
immediately commenced his preparatory course for college, applying
himself to his studies with great diligence, and entered. Harvard
College in 1802. Although fond of study, and possessed of a mind of
unusual vigor and brilliancy, the ambitions of college life do not
seem to have dimmed the memories of his forest home in the South, and
in his letters, while at Cambridge, he more than once recalls the
pleasant hours when living within its shades, in a strain at once
suggestive of a refined and poetic nature.
To one of his thoughtful and contemplative mind it is not strange
that, suddenly transferred from the quiet of home life to the turmoil
of college scenes, he should have found much that was distasteful; and
the following extract from a letter to him from the late Mr. Justice
Story, at that time betrothed to his eldest sister, and with whom he
was on terms of intimacy, would seem to imply no little disquietude on
the part of his student friend during the earlier years of his life at
Cambridge.
"You can hardly imagine with what delight I recur to the days which I
spent at Cambridge. In the delightful seclusion from noisy vulgarity,
in the sweet interchange of kind sentiments, and in the mutual
competition of classic pursuits, I possessed a unity and tranquillity
of purpose far beyond the merits of my later years. My first years
there were not marked with this peculiar character. It was in my
Junior and Senior years that, from forming a choice of friends, and
participating in the higher views of literature, I felt that happiness
resulted in the activity of intellect and possession of friendship.
That period will in future be yours; and though you may start with
surprise at the thought at this moment, that period will be marked out
in the calendar of your years as among the _dies fortunatos_. You and
I are not widely distinct in years, and you can therefore readily
believe that this attachment is not the moral relation of comparison
and experience; no, it was reality which charmed me when present, and
reflects a lustre in remembrance. Go on, then, my dear fellow, in the
academic course with awakened hope. A high destiny awaits you. The
joys of youth shall give spirit to the exertions of manhood, and the
pursuits of literature yield a permanent felicity attainable only by
the votaries of taste. Sweet are the attainments which accomplish the
wishes of friends. Our reliance upon you is founded on a belief that
ambition and literature will unite us in as close bonds as sympathy
and affinity.
"On a subject so interesting to me as my collegiate course I seldom
reflect without melancholy; not a harsh and dark brooding, but a soft
and tender pensiveness which
"'Sheds o'er the soul a sympathetic gloom.'
"The thousand associations of festivity, pleasantry, study, and
recreation live to hallow the whole. The picture, by its distance,
loses its defects, and retains only the strong colorings of primitive
impression. Never do I cast my eyes on that dear seat of letters but I
exclaim involuntarily with Gray:
"'Ah! happy fields, ah! pleasing shade,
Ah! groves beloved in vain,
Where once my careless childhood strayed,
A stranger yet to pain;
I feel the gales that round ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow.'
"By the way, when you are at leisure and feel a little dull, I advise
you to take up some of our good-natured writers, such as Dr. Moore,
Goldsmith, Coleman, Cervantes, Don Quixote, Smollett's novels, or the
pleasant and airy productions of the muse. These I have always found a
powerful anti-splenetic; and, although I am not a professed physician,
I will venture to prescribe to you in this instance with all the
confidence of Hippocrates. The whole system of nostrums from that
arch-quack, the old serpent, down to the far-famed Stoughton of our
own day, does not present so powerful a remedy, amid all its _antis_,
as cheerful reading to a heavy spirit. I will venture to say, in the
spirit of Montesquieu, that an hour of such reading will place one
quietly in his elbow chair in all the tranquillity of a Platonic
lover."
It is probable that Mr. Story's influence was not without its effect
in reconciling his young friend to college life, for he was very soon
to be found among the foremost in the race for honorable distinction.
He was graduated with distinguished honor, in 1806, in a class of
remarkable ability, among whom were the late Hon. Alexander Everett,
Judge William P. Preble, Professor J. G. Cogswell, and the venerable
Dr. Jacob Bigelow, its last surviving member.
After leaving college he began the study of law under the direction of
Mr. Story, but very soon abandoned it, and entered the office of his
uncle, the late Dr. B. Lynde Oliver, of Salem, as a student of
medicine. In 1809, he entered the University of Pennsylvania, at that
time distinguished by the names of Rush, Wistar, and Physick, and by
his talents and attainments soon attracted the notice of Dr. Rush,
whose favorite pupil and warm friend he afterwards became. On
receiving his medical degree, the following letter, written in terms
of the highest compliment, was addressed by Dr. Rush to his uncle and
former instructor.
"Philadelphia, May 1, 1810.
"Dear Sir: I sit down with great pleasure to answer your letter by
your nephew, now Dr. Oliver, and to inform you at the same time that
he has received the honor of a doctor's degree in our university much
to his credit and the satisfaction of his teachers. From his singular
talents, and from his acquirements and manners, he cannot fail of
becoming eminent in his profession. Long, very long, may he live to
reflect honor upon all who are related to him, or who have been
instrumental in opening and directing his acute and capacious mind in
the prosecution of his studies! Be assured he carries with him my
highest respect and sincere affection.
"With respectful compliments to the venerable patriarch of medicine,
Dr. Holyoke (if not translated to a better world),
"I am, dear sir, very sincerely yours,
"Benjamin Rush.
"Dr. B. Lynde Oliver."
On his return to Salem, Dr. Oliver commenced the practice of medicine,
and in July, 1811, as appears from his diary, he connected himself
with Dr. R. D. Mussey, then a rising young surgeon, and with whom he
was afterwards so long associated. From the following entry in the
diary referred to, under date of July 12, 1812, may be learned
somewhat of his tastes at this time, and his mode of passing the
waiting hours of an early professional life:
"This day completed the first year of my connection in the medical
profession with Dr. R. D. Massey. On reviewing this period, I am
sensible of a great loss of time, and of a degree of professional and
literary improvement altogether inadequate to such an extent of time.
Some improvement, however, has I hope, been made. With respect to the
books which I have read during the past year, the most important are
Mosheim's 'Ecclesiastical History,' which I have not yet quite
completed,--a learned and judicious outline of the history of the
church, embracing many collateral topics of learning and
philosophy ...; Homer's 'Iliad' in Greek, with the exception of
the last book; the 'Aeneid' except the last two; two or three books
of Livy, and several of Juvenal's 'Satires.'
"The most important literary enterprise which I have undertaken and
accomplished has been the delivery of a course of lectures on
Chemistry in connection with Dr. Mussey. In Anatomy, also, we have
executed something. Medicine will, in future, claim more of my
attention, but not to the neglect of the two important collateral
branches above mentioned."
In the autumn of 1815, Dr. Oliver was appointed to deliver a course of
chemical lectures before the medical class at Dartmouth College.
Although he had thus far pursued the study of chemistry as a
collateral branch of medical science, he felt warranted in accepting
the appointment, without, however, proposing to himself a more
permanent position in this department.
In 1817, he was married to Miss Mary Robinson Pulling, the only
daughter of Edward Pulling, Esq., an eminent barrister of Salem, and
almost immediately went again to Philadelphia to avail himself of the
advantages of that seat of medical learning, returning to Salem in the
spring of 1818.
In the following year he was induced to undertake, in connection with
the Hon. John Pickering, the preparation of a Greek lexicon, a work
involving much labor and research, and the larger portion of which
fell to his lot. Although mainly based on the Latin of Schrevelius,
many of the interpretations were new, and there were added more than
two thousand new articles. The magnitude of the task and its
successful accomplishment at once raised him to a conspicuous rank
among the scholars of his day.
In the summer of 1820 he accepted an appointment to the professorship
of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, and of Materia Medica and
Therapeutics in Dartmouth College, where he delivered his first course
of lectures in the following autumn. He was also made Professor of
Botany, and his lectures upon Physiology were among his most valuable
contributions to medical literature. He took up his permanent
residence in Hanover, in August, 1821, and from this time to the close
of his connection with the college he was most faithful to all its
interests. In 1825 he was appointed to the chair of Intellectual
Philosophy in the Academical department of the college, a position
which he filled with the ability that distinguished him elsewhere. The
address delivered by him on the occasion of his induction into this
professorship, upon the "Comparative Importance of the Study of Mental
Science," was thus far, perhaps, his most successful literary effort.
Clear, comprehensive, and abounding in passages of remarkable beauty
and force, it established the reputation of its author both as a
writer and a metaphysician.
In 1835 was published his "First Lines in Physiology," a treatise
which received the highest commendation both at home and abroad. It
passed through three editions, and although the rapid advance in
physiological science since its publication has long since led to its
disuse, it will still be admired by medical scholars for the purity of
its style and the learning it everywhere displays.
In the spring of 1837, Dr. Oliver closed his connection with the
college, and returned to Cambridge, where he was temporarily residing
at the time of his appointment, again to resume the practice of his
profession. He, however, delivered a course of lectures at the
Dartmouth Medical School in the autumn of this and the following year.
He was also induced, in 1840, after declining professorships both in
St. Mary's College, Baltimore, and in Pennsylvania University, to
deliver a course of lectures on Materia Medica at the Medical College
of Ohio, but he resigned the chair at the close of the session, and
returned again to Cambridge, where he resided to the close of his
life. Although in declining health at this time, he did not relinquish
professional practice until within a few months of his death, which
took place on the 1st of June, 1842.
During his comparatively brief career, Dr. Oliver had become widely
known as a medical and general scholar. As a teacher in the various
departments of medical science with which he was connected he was also
eminently successful. His lectures, always prepared with great care,
were written with remarkable clearness and elegance, and were often
listened to with attention by many outside the ranks of the
profession. "His lectures to the under-graduates of the college," says
a contemporary,[45] "would be thought, I am persuaded, still more
remarkable than those upon Physiology. They were intended to exhibit
the present state of mental philosophy. And the singular clearness
with which he discriminated the settled points of absolute knowledge
in this comprehensive and yet imperfect science, his happy development
of intricate and complicated principles, and the beautiful colors
which a true poetic spirit enabled him now and then to throw over the
bald peaks and angles of this cold region, entitle him to a rank among
metaphysicians as eminent as he maintained in his appropriate
profession."
[45] Eulogy on Daniel Oliver, delivered by Rev. C. B. Haddock,
professor of Belles Lettres.
"The intellectual character of Dr. Oliver," the same writer afterwards
adds, in language admirably chosen, "came nearer than it has been my
fortune to observe in almost any other instance to the idea of a
perfect scholar. He was at once profound, comprehensive, and elegant.
Upon no subject which he had considered was his knowledge fragmentary
or partial. A philosophic, systematic habit of mind led him always to
seek for the principles of things, and to be satisfied only with the
truth. The compass of his inquiries was as extraordinary as their
depth. He had investigated with care a surprising extent of knowledge.
A master of his own language, and minutely acquainted with all its
principal productions, he was also thoroughly versed in the Greek, and
familiar with the original works which have given to that tongue the
first place among human dialects. The German he read with facility,
and had pursued his favorite studies in the masters of its profound
learning. Of French and Italian he was not ignorant. Music, both as a
science and an art, was his delight and recreation. In the arts of
painting and sculpture his information was liberal and his taste said
to be excellent. Morals and politics he had studied in their theory,
and in the history of the world. His acquaintance with civil history
was among the most extraordinary of his attainments. The beautiful in
Nature, in life, or in art or literature, few men have so exquisitely
enjoyed or so justly appreciated.
"Thus, the principal elements of a perfect mind seem to have been
singularly united and harmonized in him,--exactness of knowledge,
liberal learning, and true taste."
Bred from infancy in the Church of England, Dr. Oliver continued to
the end a faithful member of that communion, and few persons have had
a firmer faith in the sublime truths of revealed religion. It was no
less to his deeply religious and truthful spirit than to his innate
love of right that may be ascribed that regard for things sacred, that
singular modesty, that unfailing courtesy, and the high sense of
personal honor that distinguished him. It had been his desire, at a
late period of his life, to become a candidate for Holy Orders, a step
for which his ripe theological scholarship and his critical knowledge
of Greek and Hebrew had already prepared him, but his age deterred
him.
Dr. Oliver had published little. Besides the treatise on Physiology
already mentioned, there are a few pamphlets containing addresses
delivered on various occasions, the most important of which are one
before the New Hampshire Historical Society in 1836, and that before
the college at the time of his induction into the professorship of
Moral and Intellectual Philosophy.
Among his medical manuscripts may be mentioned an unfinished work on
General Pathology, which, had he lived to complete, would have added
to his reputation as a medical author. Among his papers were also a
few unpublished addresses and a few short and fragmentary poems, the
effusions of his earlier years, all characterized by that elegance of
style and fine poetic taste and feeling that marked their author.
A member of many learned literary and medical societies at home, Dr.
Oliver was honored in 1835 with a diploma from the Academy of Sciences
and Belles Lettres of Palermo, and in 1838 received the degree of
Doctor of Laws.
The following notice of a gentleman of rare eminence in the scientific
world, is from a reliable source:
James Freeman Dana, who was connected as a teacher with both the
Academical and Medical departments of Dartmouth College, was born at
Amherst, N. H., September 23, 1793. He was the eldest son of Luther
and Lucy (Giddings) Dana, and grandson of Rev. and Hon. Samuel Dana.
On the father's side he was descended from Richard Dana, who was among
the early settlers in Massachusetts; on that of his mother he was a
descendant in the seventh generation from Rev. John Robinson, the
pastor of the noble band of Pilgrims who founded Plymouth, Mass.
Dana was fitted for college at Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H.,
entered Harvard in 1809, and graduated in 1813, his name standing on
the catalogue as Jonathan Freeman Dana; the first name, by which,
however, he had never been known, was changed to James, by act of
legislature.
Immediately after entering Harvard, Dana showed a decided partiality
for scientific pursuits. To Natural Philosophy, Natural History, and
Chemistry, he mainly devoted his attention, making excursions into the
surrounding country for the purpose of examining its geological
structure, and collecting mineralogical and other specimens. The
result of these rambles was embodied in a small volume, published in
conjunction with his brother Dr. S. L. Dana, in 1819, entitled
"Mineralogy and Geology of Boston and its Environs." While in college
he formed, together with his brother and several classmates, a society
for the cultivation of Natural Science and Philosophy, named at first
for two distinguished French chemists, but afterward known as the
Hermetic Society. Towards the close of his collegiate course he was
appointed to assist Dr. Gorham, the professor of Chemistry, in
preparing his experiments. That eminent physician and chemist soon
became so much interested in the pupil who displayed such assiduity in
scientific researches, that finding he intended to pursue the study of
medicine, he kindly invited him to do so under his tuition.
In 1813, Mr. Dana commenced his studies with Dr. Gorham, attending
lectures at the Medical College, but though he became well acquainted
with the principles and practice of the profession, he never
relinquished his preference for Chemistry and Mineralogy. He became an
active member of the Boston Linnaean Society, and the first paper read
before it, entitled "An Analysis of the Incrustation formed upon the
Basket of Eggs from Derbyshire, England" (presented by Judge Davis),
was read by him. In the spring of 1813, the Corporation of Harvard
College employed Mr. Dana to visit England in order to procure
suitable apparatus for its chemical department. During his stay abroad
he studied, for a time, under the instruction of the somewhat
distinguished Frederic Accum. In consequence of this absence he did
not receive his degree of M.D. till 1817, that of A. M. having been
previously conferred.
In the autumn of 1817, Dr. Dana was appointed to deliver a course of
chemical lectures to the medical students of Dartmouth College. The
professors in the Medical School were Dr. R. D. Mussey and Dr. Cyrus
Perkins. These lectures were so satisfactory that the appointment was
continued, and during the autumns of 1818, 1819, and 1820, he lectured
at Dartmouth, residing during the intervals at Cambridge, where, in
January, 1818, he was united in marriage with Matilda, third daughter
of Samuel Webber, D.D., late president of Harvard College.
In 1821, being appointed professor at Dartmouth, Dr. Dana removed to
Hanover, where, relinquishing the practice of medicine, he devoted his
whole attention to his favorite studies, to which was now added
Botany, upon which he delivered some courses of lectures.
Dr. Perkins, the Professor of Materia Medica, removed to New York
after the dissolution of the "University of New Hampshire," and the
late admired and lamented Dr. Daniel Oliver, of Salem, was appointed
to the professorship. Dr. Mussey, celebrated for his surgical
knowledge and skill, remained as the head of the Medical School, and
among these gentlemen, differing widely as they did in many
characteristics, the warmest friendship subsisted. During the
intervals of leisure from strictly professional duties, Dr. Dana
occupied himself in continuing to write for "Silliman's Journal," and
in frequent excursions to various parts of New Hampshire, for the
purpose of analyzing the ores and waters of mines and springs. His
published analysis of the waters of a spring in Burton, N. H., was
considered so scientific a production, that he was written to as to
accepting a professorship in the University of Virginia. Not wishing
the appointment, he declined becoming a candidate.
In the latter part of 1825, Professor Dana published "An Epitome of
Chemical Philosophy," designed as a text-book for his own classes, but
which was afterwards adopted as such in two other institutions. In
1826, he was appointed one of the visitors of West Point Military
Academy, and soon after his return was chosen to the chair of
Chemistry, in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the University
of New York, to which city he then removed. He was elected member of
the Linnaean Society of New York, and accepted an invitation to deliver
a course of lectures before the Athenaeeum.
During his residence at Hanover, Professor Dana had been much
interested in Electro-magnetism, then a new science, and in preparing
apparatus for exhibiting its wonders, freely stating his conviction
that it would produce more astonishing results than any power
previously known. When surprise was expressed at his selecting for his
Athenaeeum lectures this subject, so little known even in Europe, and
in which so few in this country would feel any interest, Dr. Dana
replied that he had chosen it for those reasons; that he thought it
time for public attention to be directed to it, as he was certain it
would lead to most valuable results, and that he should endeavor to
render it popular. How far he succeeded, the delighted audiences that
crowded to hear him bore evidence. Of the truth of his prediction as
to the results to be wrought out by the science, the marvels of the
electro-magnetic telegraph bear witness to the world.
Samuel F. B. Morse was then following his profession as a painter in
New York, and lectured upon art before the Athenaeeum. An intimacy
sprang up between him and Dr. Dana, whose lectures he attended, and
whom he used to visit in his laboratory, thus becoming familiar with
his views on scientific subjects. Morse's published statements as to
the origin of his knowledge of electro-magnetism are as follows:
"I learned from Professor Dana, in 1827, the rationale of the
electro-magnet, which' latter was exhibited in action. I witnessed the
effects of the conjunctive wires in the different forms described in
his lectures, and exhibited to his audience. The electro-magnet was
put in action by an intensity battery; it was made to sustain the
weight of its armature, when the conjunctive wire was connected with
the poles of the battery or the circuit was closed; and it was made to
'drop its load' upon opening the circuit. These, with many other
principles of electro-magnetism were all illustrated experimentally to
his audience. These being the facts, to whom do I owe the first
knowledge which I obtained of the science of electro-magnetism bearing
upon the practical development of the telegraph? Professor Dana had
publicly demonstrated in my hearing and to my sight all the facts
necessary to be known respecting the electro-magnet.... The volute
modification of the helix to show the concentration of magnetism at
its centre, adapted to the electric magnet, the modification since
universally adopted in the construction of the electro-magnet, is
justly due, I think, to the inventive mind of Prof. James Freeman
Dana. Death, in striking him down at the threshold of his fame, not
only extinguished a brilliant light in science--one which gave the
highest promise of future distinction--but the suddenness of the
stroke put to peril the just credit due him for discoveries he had
already made. Dana had not only mastered all of the science of
electro-magnetism then given to the world, a science in which he was
an enthusiast, but, standing on the confines that separate the known
from the unknown, was at the time of his decease preparing for new
explorations and new discoveries. I could not mention his name in this
connection without at least rendering this slight but inadequate
homage to one of the most liberal of men and amiable of friends, as
well as promising philosophers of his age."
The delivery of these lectures was amongst Dr. Dana's last public
efforts. A severe cold, resulting in an attack of erysipelas affecting
the brain, terminated his brief life of thirty-three years, on the
15th of April, 1827.
In the various relations of private life he had won the warm
attachment of all who knew him. To the charm of a buoyant and
affectionate disposition he added Christian principle and character.
During his student life at Harvard, he had become a communicant of the
Episcopal Church, and continued a devout worshipper according to her
liturgy. Her Burial Service was read over his remains, by his friend
Dr. Wainwright, the funeral rites being performed at Grace Church, on
the 17th of April.
When it was proposed, in 1871, by the National Telegraph Monument
Association to erect a monument to Professor Morse, at Washington, the
family of Dr. Dana furnished, at its request, a portrait of him from
which a likeness was to be cast for one of the faces at the base of
the monument. Since the death of Professor Morse, no progress seems to
have been made in the effort to erect this memorial of scientific
progress.