EDWARD TUCK '62

Edward Tuck, second son and fifth child of Amos and Sarah Ann (Nudd) Tuck, was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, August 25, 1842; He was fitted for College at Phillips Academy (Exeter), entered Dartmouth College and was graduated with the class of 1862.

After graduation he began the study of law in his father's office at Exeter, but owing to trouble with his eyes he went abroad for travel and recreation. A few months later while sojourning in Switzerland, Mr. Tuck to his surprise received an appointment as Consular Clerk at Paris. The Hon. John Bigelow was at the time consul general and the Hon. William L. Dayton was minister to France. Within a year of Mr. Tuck's appointment Mr. Dayton died, and Mr. Bigelow became Charge d'Affaires, leaving Mr. Tuck in charge of the Consulate. Upon Mr. Bigelow's appointment as Charge d'Affaires Mr. Tuck was appointed vice-consul, and assumed the duties of acting consul, at Paris.

Mr. Bigelow in his "Retrospections," savs this of Edward Tuck:

"Unfortunately, Mr. Brooks, whom it would have delighted me to have placed in charge of the Consulate, has left for the United States with the remains of our late minister. In the office was a bright young man by the name of Edward Tuck, a son of Hon. Amos Tuck of New Hampshire. I had helped to examine him as consular pupil, and he had been assigned to duty at my consulate. I appointed him Vice-Consul and Acting Counsul, and thus relieved myself in a measure from a class of duties which I could no longer properly discharge.

"Mr. Tuck held the appointment until the arrival of Mr. Nicolay, who had been one of the Secretaries of President Lincoln. He was then invited to enter the banking house of John Munroe & Company. His subsequent career has been a perpetual vindication of my choice. I am most happy to have contributed in some slight degree to promote the fortunes of one, who aside from his own admirable qualities, and character, was the son of a firm and efficient friend of Free Soil in the dark days of 1848-61.

Mr. Tuck remained in the consular service about two years when he was invited by the banking house of Munroe & Co. to enter their service which he did. He at once entered the New York branch of John Munroe & Co., remaining there for fifteen years with frequent visits to Paris. Mr. Tuck retired from the banking business in 1881.

Mr. Tuck was married in 1872 at St. George's Church. London, to Julia Stell, daughter of William Shorter Stell, Esquire, of Philadelphia, but then residing at Manchester. England.

The career of Mr. Tuck both in the consular service and in banking has been remarkable for the rapidity of his advancement—within two years from his graduation from college, vice-consul at Paris, and within twelve years, head of the New York branch of one of the largest and most honorable of the international banking houses of the time, able at the age of thirty-nine to retire from active business. The success attending his career has in it, however, no trace whatever of "high finance." No words can better describe his own business principles and methods than the words in which he set forth the principles and methods which he wished to have adopted in the conduct of the Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance, which represents a part of his benefaction to Dartmouth College.

"In the conduct of the School to which you have done my father's memory the honor of attaching his name, I trust that certain elementary but vital principles, on which he greatly dwelt in his advice to young men, whether entering upon a professional or business career, may not be lost sight of in the variety of technical subjects of which the regular curriculum is composed. Briefly, these principles are: Absolute devotion to the career which one selects, and to the interests of one's superior officers or employers; the desire and determination to do more rather than less than one's required duties; perfect accuracy and promptness in all undertakings, and absence from one's vocabulary of the word 'forget'; never to vary a hair's breadth from the truth nor from that path of strictest honesty and honor, with perfect confidence in the wisdom of doing right as the surest means of achieving success. To the maxim that honesty is the best policy should be added another: That altruism is the highest and best form of egoism as a principle of conduct to be followed by those who strive for success and happiness in public or business relations as well as in those of private life."

Although Mr. Tuck has withdrawn from active business he retains a personal interest in financial affairs and frequently contributes articles to the London Economist, and Statist, and to TheNineteenth Century. Naturally Mr. Tuck's advice is much sought by foreign capitalists particularly in reference to investments in American securities.

Mr. Tuck has kept alive his early interest in literature and art. His leisure, if such it may be called, is only the larger opportunity for the exercise of a well trained mind. Few men are better informed in regard to political as well as economic .and monetary conditions in this country. Through his long residence in Paris, Mr. Tuck's home has become one of the social and official centers in the American Colony, and it is no less recognized in the social life of the city. In 1906 he was made Chevalier, later Officer of the French Legion of Honor.

The most noticeable characteristic of Mr. Tuck is his desire that those within the range of his friendship should share in the good fortune which has attended his efforts. His private benefactions are constant and generous, though discriminating. Of his public benefactions the most significant and far-reaching are his gifts to Dartmouth College, from which he was graduated in 1862. These gifts have been large, both in number and amount. Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Tuck has shown his unselfishness and unerring capacity to analyze complex conditions and to give support to large, permanent and worthy needs. Of the temporary and minor interests of the College he has given only to such as contribute to larger and more lasting results.

To the Amos Tuck Endowment Fund, established in memory of his father, a graduate of the College in the Class of 1835 and later (1857 to 1866) a trustee, Mr. Tuck has given sums amounting to a million dollars. The income of this fund he far-sightedly designated for the improvement of instruction. When the Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance, the first graduate school of Business Administration in America, was founded by Dartmouth College in 1.900, Mr. Tuck gave a handsome and imposing building for this pioneer enterprise in an enlarged field of practical education, an enterprise which has since achieved renown and been imitated in several of our largest and strongest universities.

In his gifts to the College as elsewhere Mr. Tuck has shown his deep affection for both the land of his birth and the land in which he has so long made his home, by his desire and effort to interpret each nation to the other.

In a letter written by Mr. Tuck to the President of the College in 1913 he says in part: "Having long felt an affectionate interest in the French people as well as in Dartmouth College, I wish to promote among the students of the College a more intimate knowledge of the French language and of French thought and civilization. My desire is that our graduates, in so far as it may be given them to influence public opinion concerning the French nation, may from their fuller understanding and appreciation of French culture and ideals assist to bring about an ever closer friendship between two peoples already united by many bonds of sympathy and of historic association, and separated only by difference of speech.

"I purpose, therefore, to establish a fund, the income of which shall be used in the development of the French department of the College. I wish a portion of the income from this fund to be expended for the salary of a native assistant or associate professor of the French language, to be selected from time to time with a view of exceptional qualifications through the intermediary of the French Ministry of Public Instruction for terms of not too long duration. I wish, also, that a portion of the income be devoted to defraying the expense of a series of 'Conferences' or lectures to be delivered annually at Hanover by Frenchmen of distinction who come to America."

In the gift of Tuck Drive, the new and rarely beautiful highway connecting the College with the Connecticut River, Mr. Tuck has provided another example of his love for his Alma Mater and his enthusiasm for harmonizing art and utility.

The foregoing are only Mr. Tuck's larger gifts to Dartmouth, but they show clearly some of the outstanding traits of his personality—his love and reverence for the memory of his honored father, his loyal and generous affection for his Alma Mater, his love for the French people, as well as an ardent and patriotic attachment to his native land, his discriminating and abiding satisfaction in the higher achievements of intellect and art.

Mr. Tuck has been constantly mindful of his native town of Exeter, New Hampshire. A commodious cottage hospital, thoroughly equipped, is merely the public manifestation of a love that he feels for the home of his youth—a love that has bestowed innumerable private benefactions, unknown to the outside world, upon those associated with him in early years. The needs of Phillips Exeter Academy, Mr. Tuck has always met with an open hand. Between him and the late Dr. Amen, principal of the Academy, subsisted a cordial friendship, Dr. Amen always relied upon Mr. Tuck's hearty response and cooperation in developing the growth of this ancient institution. Few graduates have remembered their preparatory school more continuously and generously than has Mr. Tuck.

Concord, New Hampshire, is fortunate enough to be the home of the most notable building which Edward Tuck has erected in America. This is the library of the New Hampshire Historical Society, whose total cost amounts to nearly half a million dollars. The corner stone was laid on June 9, 1909 and the completed structure was dedicated. November 23, 1911. In beauty of design and excellence of construction this building is unsurpassed among buildings of equal size and purpose in this country. It was my great privilege to act as chairman of the building committee; and to fulfil the trust of developing the structure in accordance with the ideas of Mr. and Mrs. Tuck.

Guy Lowell of Boston, an eminent architect, was commissioned to prepare the plans and make the design. Mr. Tuck expressed himself respecting this work: "I want this building to be pure Greek embodying the best of its kind in architecture and artistic beauty, and in all its appointment to be unsurpassed, making the structure ever a joy to visit. Mrs. Tuck and myself want the building to be the best of its kind, of distinctive character, and of the best design." Visitors from all over the country constantly inspect and admire the beautiful construction and design of this noble building.

The exterior is of the finest Concord granite, quarried from Rattlesnake Hill. The design is Greek in spirit with details of the Doric order;. Massive bronze doors open upon a vestibule which leads to the central rotunda of Old Convent Sienna marble. The beautiful and imposing staircase of Hauteville marble is worthy of an Italian palace. The balustrades and doors are of solid bronze and mahogany. Above the main entrance is a beautiful ideal group representing Ancient and Modern History, the work of Daniel Chester French, the most eminent living sculptor of American birth. At the head of the grand staircase is a bronze tablet, commemorating the gratitude of the society for the munificence of Mr. Tuck.

When the building was dedicated, November 23, 1911, it was made the occasion for one of the most distinguished assemblies ever gathered in New Hampshire. Eminent guests from all parts of the country were present. Between five and six hundred people sat down to the banquet in the Auditorium. The addresses made on that occasion have been gathered into a notable memorial volume.

The following extracts from letters of regret received at that time admirably characterize the life and work of Edward Tuck:

From the French ambassador at Washington, Mr. Jusserand:

"But I want to say that we in France in no way yield to any one, nay not even you, in our admiration and gratitude for this model citizen of the other great Republic, a man of few words and many deeds, who is welcome to be as modest as he chooses, but of whom you and we may be truly proud:—an upholder, wherever he lives, of liberal ideas, of that peculiar kind of liberalism which combines with warmth of heart an ever ready generosity."

From General Horace Porter of New York City:

"The gift of this building is very characteristic of him. His generosity and liberality displayed upon so many occasions in Paris and elsewhere have endeared him to the hearts of all the Americans abroad as well as the French. His charities have been princely."

From Baron D'Estournelles de Constant of Paris, member of the French Senate:

"Indeed I knew absolutely nothing of the great work which our mutual friend Mr. Tuck has been preparing for several years in America; I see him often; I thought I knew most of his efforts for supporting the great causes; but I confess that he never said a word about Concord, and about your Society, except for praising warmly what his friends do there, exactly as if he had done nothing himself.

"Very likely you are unaware in America that he is doing in France all that is in his power to help, to serve, to encourage and to help so many people people who need assistance.

"One country was not enough for the expansion of his heart; you honor him as an American citizen; we love him as a Frenchman.

"His devotion to so many different duties is fortified and multiplied by the constant co-operation of his wife, Mrs. Tuck, always ready to agree with him in order to give not only materially, but morally, her life and his life to liberal and human enterprises.

"The difficulty is to know who is the first of them to start these enterprises, as they never speak of them; but the less they speak, the more their friends have the duty to give them, as you have done by organizing your banquet, an example."

July 29, 1914, the New Hampshire Historical Society met on Star Island, one of the Isles of Shoals to dedicate another gift of Mr. Tuck's. This certainly, was a gift rare and uncommon. During the middle years of the Eigh-teenth Century when the Island support- ed several hundred inhabitants, the Rev. John Tucke, a young Harvard graduate cast his lot among that hardy people, ministering to soul and body, self-denying and uncomplaining all his life until his death.

Beginning his labors in 1732, he died in 1773 and was buried among his flock. His grave forgotten many decades was at length identified and suitably marked, but nothing more was done. The life of the old minister and his neglected grave moved Edward Tuck to manifest an interest in preserving the memory of his remote kinsman. ? On that bleak and deserted island stands today a granite monument ten feet square at the base and forty-six feet high beneath which repose the remains of the Rev. John Tucke, the memorial erected by this philanthropic son of New Hampshire. Still another gift connects Mr. Tuck with Star Island. To assist certain religious societies to acquire the island for the purpose of holding summer conferences Mr. Tuck gave generously to accomplish the worthy purpose.

A man of eminent ability, princely generosity, wholehearted in his devotion to his friends, simple and unassuming, Edward Tuck has made life happier for thousands on both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps his crowning benefaction to humanity is his work in the great European war.

Since the awful cataclysm broke over Europe in 1914, Mr. and Mrs. Tuck have devoted nearly their whole time to the alleviation of suffering. For years Mrs. Tuck has been noted for her charities among the sick and the orphans of Paris. Some time ago she established a hospital near their country home Vert-Mont in the town of Rueil. Soon after the beginning of the war this hospital was enlarged to sixty beds; in 1915, to ninety beds; and it is wholly devoted to the care of the wounded. When the score or more men employed on Mr. Tuck's country estate iV en Mont left for the front, he fitted them out, continued their wages to their families, and has made permanent pensions to those whose support has been taken away by death.

Mr. and Mrs. Tuck aid in the maintenance of the American Ambulance Hospital, and in many societies, French and English, in Paris, whose mission is to help the suffering. They have sent thousands of packages of supplies to the soldiers in the trenches. They personally visit the sick and wounded and provide for them. With the exception of brief periods of rest in the south of France necessary for recuperation from strenuous physical strain, Mr. and Mrs. Tuck have incessantly given their time, their money and themselves to save and succor the victims of the awful tragedy which has engulfed Europe. Since the days of Lafayette no American has done more to cement the bonds of friendship existing between France and the United States than has Edward Tuck.

Preeminently a man of genius—like-wise an individual devoted to the interests of humanity, a philanthropist of the noblest type.

In time of peace a munificent patron of learning and the arts; in time of war a tower of strength to the just cause, a loyal brother to the man in the trenches, an embodiment of the spirit immortalized by Lowell:

"Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungry neighbor and me."

Contributed by Benjamin A. Kimball '54, an intimate friend of Mr. Tuck