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