CALEB MILLS, EDUCATOR
The Wabash College Record for January contains an article about Caleb Mills of the class of 1828, "the Horace Mann of Indiana". Since much of this article is of interest to the alumni of Dartmouth as well as of Wabash, we reprint the following portions of it with the kind permission of its author, Orpheus M. Gregg, Wabash '70, a son-in-law of Professor Mills.
Caleb Mills was born at Dunbarton, New Hampshire, July 29, 1806. He was early inured to the hardships' and toil incident to farm life as then experienced by boys on New England farms. He availed himself of such limited school facilities as the neighborhood afforded. He had an ambition to secure a good education. In 1824 he entered Dartmouth College, and graduated from that institution in 1828. Later he entered Andover Theological Seminary, and graduated in the class of 1833. In the fall of that same year, he was married to Sarah Marshall, a young lady who had been reared on a neighboring farm at Dunbarton. Miss Marshall had just graduated from the Young Ladies' Seminary at Ipswich, New Hampshire.
Edmund O. Hovey, [Dartmouth '28] was one of the founders and original trustees of Wabash College. It was at his suggestion that his classmate, Caleb Mills, was appointed the first Principal of the institution which later became the College.
Soon after their marriage, Caleb Mills and his bride started on their long and tedious journey, partly by stage coach and partly by canal, to their new home in the Wabash country. They arrived in Crawfordsville in November, 1833. Caleb Mills was not altogether a stranger to this new country, for while connected with the Theological Seminary, he had served two years (1830-1832) as Sunday School Missionary agent, making extensive journeys in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, including the Wabash region.
Caleb Mills's life work divides itself into two parts; namely, his work for Wabash College, and his work for the public schools of Indiana. In this article I have time to refer only to his connection with the College, and to his home life. Those who are interested in the work he did for the public schools of Indiana should read the admirable volume entitled "Caleb Mills and the Indiana School System," prepared for the Indiana Historical Society by the Honorable Charles W. Moores '82.
Professors Hovey and Mills purchased adjoining tracts of land of about three acres each, just at the northwest corner of the College Campus, and there erected their homes, reared their families, and continued to be neighbors, friends, and co-workers in the College until they were separated by death almost a half-century after they took up their work.
On the following month after his arrival in Crawfordsville, that is, December, 1833, Professor Mills opened the new institution with twelve students. The first college building was located upon the high ground in the north part of the city in the vicinity of what is now known as Bluff Hill. It was an attractive site, overlooking the valley below with the rippling waters of Sugar Creek in the not far distance. This building was later torn down and the timbers were removed and used in the construction of the building located on the Campus and known as Forest Hall. Professor Mills was not only the first teacher at Wabash, but for a time the only teacher. His was the department of English.
As the number of students increased, other men were added from time to time to the faculty. The chair of Greek Language was assigned to Professor. Mills, and it is as Professor of Greek that the students of his day best remember him.
He was an earnest, kind, and sympathetic teacher. No worthy student ever went to him for advice or help without receiving wise counsel, and substantial aid if needed. He had a wonderful hold upon young men. He seemed to know just how to get their fullest, confidence, and by that means he had a great influence upon them for good.
Professor Mills's desire and principal purpose in the development of Wabash College was that here young men could be educated and qualified to become some of them teachers in the public schools, and others ministers of the gospel, to the end that the ignorance and superstition then existing in this state might be dispelled.
The thrift learned in the old New England home stood Professor Mills and his wife in good stead in the new country in which they had settled, for his only compensation as first teacher of the College was "such term bills as may be paid." Later, after Professors Hovey and Thomson were added to the faculty, the salaries were fixed at four hundred dollars per annum. These moderate salaries meant the practice of economy for their recipients if they lived within their incomes....
It will be noted that Professor Mills lived the greater part of his active life before the Civil War. He loved his country, and was greatly interested in the important political discussions of the day. He hated the institution of slavery. After the fury of fraternal strife broke upon the country, he rarely conducted chapel exercises without fervently praying that the Union might be preserved and that the God of battles would crown the Northern armies with victory. His only son, Marshall Mills, left his college books, as did many another Wabash man, and went to the front. Professor Mills offered his own services to Governor Morton as a chaplain. There was no personal sacrifice too great for him to make in order that his country might live. He was a sterling patriot.....
In 1872, on account of his increasing age and the feeling that a younger man should succeed him in the chair of Greek, which he had so long and so honorably filled, he took active charge of the College Library. He was greatly interested in this work and during his administration of the library added ten thousand volumes to its shelves. One fine October day, while working in the library among his beloved books, he contracted a heavy cold, which . terminated in pneumonia; and after a brief illness passed away October 17, 1879.
His life and character may well be summed up, it seems to me. in an appreciation written by Mr. Edward Daniels, Wabash '75, and quoted in Mr. Moore's volume on "Caleb Mills and the Indiana School System":
"To every student in his classes he was at once man and boy; but acquaintance did not lessen our respect or vulgarize our love. We know that he made every foot of his garden and orchard pay in cold cash, yet it was whispered that the needy student who was worthy always found in him a helping friend. He accepted with a bold literalism every word of the Westminster catechism, but in practical life he somehow seemed to squint at principles which savored of Universalism. I remember that we set him down as the apostle of the strenuous life when, in the first week of the freshman year, he advised us to read the eighteen volumes of Grote's History of Greece; but the next week we changed our opinion when he told us that 'John Halifax' was one .of the best novels ever written and that we should make haste to read it. I recall the stories that were repeated, never by himself, of his acts of patriotism in the dark days of 'the sixties'; how the government had nowhere a better recruiting sergeant than this clerical professor; how he said 'the college may die if needs be, but the Union shall never die'. I remember the flash of his deep-browed eye, and I remember as well its merry twinkle. I recall his brisk walk and his speech and the kindliness of his voice. I recall his love of books simply as books, and also his high esteem of learning, and I remember how he made his appreciation of knowledge a thing tangible and practical by becoming in effect the founder of the common school system of Indiana. His piety and patriotism, his thrift and charity, his perseverance and patience, his energy and human sympathy, his zeal for knowledge, his devotion to duty, and his old-fashioned altruism make him a type of the American Puritan."
