The History of Dartmouth CollegeSmith, Baxter Perry
History
The History of Dartmouth College
Smith, Baxter Perry
Dartmouth College -- History
"When they first came to my school they had read enough of Virgil and
the lower Latin classics, together with a sufficient knowledge of the
Greek Testament, to enable them to pass into any of the colleges as
Freshmen. But when their fathers informed me that they intended their
residence only for two years, and that they expected, if they were
under my care, I would qualify them in all the parts of the Freshman
and Sophomore years, so as they might with honor and ability enter the
Junior class, with mature deliberation, I undertook the arduous task.
The first year I confined their studies to Virgil, Cicero's
'Orations,' together with their improvement in Geography, Rhetoric,
and occasional declamations, etc. This second year they have been
reading Homer and Horace, Cicero de Oratore, and a part of Xenophon. I
have also carefully instructed them in all the four parts of Logic
from Doctor Finlay's 'Latin Compend,' expounding the same by familiar
lectures, for the most part extracted from Mr. Locke and Doctor Watts.
There is one kind of study which this last year they have been much
employed in,--I mean double translation,--their improvement therein
will appear to you by casting your eye on their various manuscripts. I
would observe to you that I have not introduced them to the knowledge
of mathematical learning, knowing it is most usual in colleges to put
them to those studies in the Junior year."
In reply President Wheelock says: "We have examined the youth you
sent, and find them deficient in several parts of learning which the
[Junior] class have made some proficiency in, viz., Mathematics,
Geography, and parsing Greek. They have studied Tullie de Oratore, and
Xenophon, and some in Homer, more than that class have done. On the
whole I have concluded to take them into that class, only with this
condition, that they recite those things in which they are deficient
with the Sophomore class while their own class recite other parts in
which they exceed them." The studies of the Senior year do not appear
to have differed materially from those of other colleges, of that
period. Jonathan Edwards was a favorite author in metaphysics and
theology.
President Wheelock in his "Narrative," for 1771, gives the following
lucid statement of the policy and aims of the school and college: "It
is earnestly recommended to the students both in college and school,
"1. That all the English students in the college and school treat the
Indian children with care, tenderness and kindness, as younger
brethren, and as may be most conducive to the great ends proposed.
"2. That they turn the course of their diversions and exercises for
their health to the practice of some manual arts, or cultivation of
gardens, and other lands, at the proper hours of leisure and
intermission from study and vacancies in the college and school.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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