網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

my childish recollections and associations are of, and with, the house and scenery of this my happy home. Oh! how I loved my grandfather, my father, my two grandmothers, and my ever-blessed mother! The only misery that I ever knew, during my younger years, was caused by separation from my loved mother, when at boarding-school. To see her to sit by her to listen to her voice-to share her smiles and caresses—was all that my heart coveted. With her I was as happy as I could be. When absent, I used to count the weary days and nights to be endured before I could see her. Time then seemed to have no wings. Why do mothers ever suffer their fond, delicate little ones to go from home, to be entrusted to strangers, mercenary, perhaps heartless and repulsive? After all, my mother was incomparably my ablest teacher. In consequence of there being no good school in my father's neighbourhood, I was sent away, when a little child, just beginning to spell the first lessons in Dilworth, to board among strangers, and to rough it among rude boys. I had a hard time of it. It pains me to think of it even now.

"After three months' absence, I returned to my happy home. I was again sent to a boarding-school for a few months-though I used to come home on Saturdays, and remain until Monday morning. This was not so severe a trial as the first. With the above exceptions, I lived at home, and went to school at New Vernon, about a mile from my father's residence, until I began, in my thirteenth year, to attend the classical academy of the Rev. Robert Finley, at Baskingridge.

"The country about my father's residence was singularly beautiful, variegated, and picturesque. The most lovely and striking scenery was ever in view; and I greatly enjoyed it. I have seldom since been equally impressed with the natural localities of any portion of our country with which I am acquainted. I was, like most lads, fond of hunting, fishing, skating and other rural sports-though these never interfered with my studies. I always loved books and intelligent people. I eagerly read history, biography, voyages, travels-everything which I could get hold of. I read the Bible (the gift of my mother) through, long before I went to Mr. Finley's school. I soon

learned by heart the catechism, and various hymns, etc. These I repeated to my mother, again and again. She taught me to pray before I could read. And I dared not go to sleep without repeating 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me down to sleep,' etc.

"At school I generally got the premium or prize, for being at the head of my class, (a little book or penknife,) and the pleasure it seemed to afford my mother was my chief reward. While at home, I read, among other books, the whole of Rollin's Ancient History. This I procured, by riding on horseback ten miles, of an uncle, who loaned me one volume at a time, and who questioned me about the contents, and closely inspected each returned volume, to see that I had not injured or soiled it. Thus, in due time, I got through the ten volumes. My delight in reading it was unbounded--and yet, I then knew nothing of geography.

[ocr errors]

"It was in the autumn of 1799 that I began to go to school to Mr. Finley. He commenced teaching soon after his marriage. I was one of his first six pupils, and was present on the first day. He taught a year in his own house. I boarded with him. He was one of the best teachers I have ever known. His school obtained great celebrity. Here, on the first day of my entering the school, I began the study of Latin. I continued at Mr. Finley's Academy, as it was called, three years, with the exception of three months (one winter) at Morristown, under the tuition of Mr. James Stevenson, also a distinguished teacher. After the first year, Mr. Finley employed an usher, or assistant, built a school-house, etc. He devoted several hours daily to the school, during the whole period of its continuance; that is, until he resigned his pastoral charge in 1817-having been appointed President of the University of Georgia. Thither he went, and there he died October third of the same year. The degree of D.D. had been conferred on him by the College of New Jersey in April of that year. I was then a Professor in the College, and Secretary of the Board of Trustees."

The fullest account we find of his early classical studies and his first attempts at teaching is in a letter (copied into one of his manuscript volumes) addressed to Rev. P. E. Stevenson, of Wyoming, Pennsyl

vania, son of the gentleman mentioned in the preceding extract. It is under date of New Albany, Indiana, June 23d, 1853, and is in answer to a letter from Mr. Stevenson, who had requested him to furnish some reminiscences of his father. The whole letter is one of great interest, alike honourable to the character of the preceptor and the heart of the pupil. We give here some extracts bearing on the matter of his studies, and incipient labours as an educator. Speaking of Mr. Finley's Academy, he says:—

"I used to walk to school from home (a distance of three miles) during the summer, or rather during all the year except the real winter season. I was connected with said school three years, excepting one winter, that of 1801-2, which I passed at your father's Academy in Morristown. While there, (at your father's Academy,) among other things, I read several books of Homer's Iliad. In the spring I returned to Baskingridge. At the close of three years, we, that is myself and classmates, (Samuel L. Southard, Theodore Frelinghuysen, and Jacob Kirkpatrick, now D.D.,) entered the Junior Class at Princeton, namely, in November, 1802.

"Immediately after graduation in 1804, Mr. Stevenson came to my father's to engage me to assist him in the English department of his school-then kept in his own house on Bridge Street. His Academy had been burnt down some time before. I was not eighteen years old by some three months, and had an awful dread of the magisterial dignity thus pressed upon me. He offered me board in his family, and to teach me French, as compensation. I was perfectly satisfied with the terms, and only feared lest I should fail to meet his expectations. Thus in October or November, 1804, I began to work. At the close of the quarter or session, (about the middle or end of March, I think,) Mr. Stevenson very kindly expressed his obligations, with his regrets that he could not do for me more than our contract impliedand at the same time handed me a ten-dollar bank-bill! This last was wholly unexpected, and, as I felt, undeserved. It was my first earning: and did more (with his gracious words and manner) to encourage me to go ahead and to rely on myself, than all other influences and considerations combined.

"In the April following (1805) I began to serve as usher or assistant in the school of Mr. Finley, at a salary of $300, without board. There I continued two years. I spent the summer of 1807 at home in bad health. On taking the degree of A.M. at the college commencement of September, 1807, I was prevailed on by President Smith to accept the Junior Tutorship in Nassau Hall. Thus my three most respected teachers successively sought me out in my humble obscurity, and almost compelled me to enter upon the course of labour and study which I have followed to the present day.

"But your good father gave me the start-put me in the right place, at the A B C of the art and mystery which he so admirably adorned and ennobled. Had I begun at a higher post-with big boys and Latin and Greek, I should probably have broken down or given up in despair and disgust. He used to aid me-show me how to get along-and so kindly and wisely! without seeming to interfere, or even to assume any superiority. In the long evenings, after tea, he generally came to my room for an hour or two, or more—when all sorts of things were talked about besides French, which was my chief study. Perrin's Grammar and Exercises were soon mastered, Telemaque read through, and other books looked into. We occasionally took up a Greek or Latin poet, or rather he did—and then to hear him read! I could have listened all night without dreaming or weariness. He was a thorough prosodist, and a capital reader of English, Greek, Latin and French-especially of the finest poetic passages. In all these languages he seemed perfectly at home. His scholarship was minutely accurate--extending to, and embracing every grammatical nicety and idiomatic peculiarity. Among the many good teachers with whom I have been acquainted during the last fifty years, the two who constantly loom up in memory, as decidedly first and highest in my estimation, are James Stevenson and Robert Finley. They were, and are, my model educators. Their superiors I have not known. Their equals I could not name. And yet they were most unlike each other."

After drawing a graphic picture of the peculiar excellencies of this good man, as the father and companion of his pupils, who could talk,

laugh and play with them "without compromising a particle of true dignity," he says in conclusion:

"His eminent worth as a teacher has ever exalted him, in my view, as facile princeps among the nomina clara of that meritorious class of benefactors to which he professionally belonged. I regret to have written so largely of myself and so little of your father.

N.B. This is altogether a private communication, and not for the public. With my best wishes for the happiness and prosperity of all the living representatives of our lamented and revered father, I remain, very truly and respectfully, your Christian brother and most obedient servant."

II. STUDIES AND ATTAINMENTS AT PRINCETON.

The period of Dr. Lindsley's residence at Princeton, from his acceptance of a Tutorship in 1807 to his final resignation and removal to Nashville in 1824, was one of vigorous intellectual growth. During these seventeen years-fourteen of them being spent in official connection with the College, and the rest, including a few brief absences and excursions, in theological study-his course was steadily and rapidly onward and upward. It was the period which determined and fixed his whole subsequent career as an educator. It placed him at the headfacile princeps-of one of the three oldest and most important of our Northern colleges, and gave him an extended and enviable reputation, both as a scholar and an instructor. We have often heard him refer to the enthusiasm and delight with which he pursued the studies and discharged the duties of this period. Especially was he in his element as Librarian of the institution. There everything was systematized and arranged with absolute perfection. It was his home, his sanctuary, his society. He knew every author familiarly, and every author's precise place on the shelves. He knew all the different editions, and was not satisfied with any but the best editions, and in all old standard authors, regarded it as a great point, to procure the "Editiones Principes."

But, not to go into anything like a detailed account of the various studies and attainments of this period, it will be sufficient to give the

« 上一頁繼續 »