COLLEGE NEWS

PROF. LEMUEL S. HASTINGS '70 VICTIM OF ACCIDENT

Professor Lemuel S. Hastings, a member of the Department of Public Speaking at Dartmouth from 1906-1920 and secretary of his class, was struck by an automobile in Kensington, Maryland, on Tuesday, January 3, and died in the hospital shortly after. Since retiring from active teaching he has made his home in Hanover but of recent years had been spending the winters in the south with his son, Alfred, who is in the Forestry Service of the Federal government.

Professor Hastings was born at St. Johnsbury, Vermont, on September 26, 1848, graduated from Dartmouth in 1870, was a tutor in mathematics from 1873-1874, and also attended Yale Divinity School where he received the degree of B. D. in 1876. He was successively the principal of high schools in Framingham, Massachusetts, Claremont, New Hampshire, and Nashua, New Hampshire, from 1877-1905. In the following year he became a member of the Department of Public Speaking at Dartmouth from which he retired in 1920. He is survived by his widow and two sons, Harold R. '00 and Alfred B. '04. A daughter, Myra, died in 1921. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Psi Upsilon.

The following appreciation is from the pen of Professor James F. Colby '72, a life-long friend and associate:

IMy acquaintance with Lemuel Spencer Hastings began in our native village in school boy days. It early issued a friendship which has gathered strength through all the intervening years utitil now, when his voice is hushed, I can venture to speak of him only as a beloved elder brother. Prepared for college by my father, Principal of St. Johnsbury Academy, young Hastings then appeared to me, two classes below him, by reason of his attractive person, alert mind and definite purpose, to be the real leader in most of the activities of the whole school. His large native gifts united with diligence enabled him easily to win highest rank in scholarship in his class, especially in Latin, Mathematics and Public Speaking. Though never a prig he seemed to have an instinct for right conduct and his genial nature and winsome manners made him a social favorite.

The record of Mr. Hastings' life as a collegian and a member of the exceptionally able Dartmouth class of 1870 was that of his preparatory school "writ large." Upon entering college in the middle of his course I found Hastings an influential member of a group of his classmates, including among others, Ethelbert Talbot, Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Sanford H. Steele, the brilliant lawyer and donor of the Chemical Laboratory, Francis Brown, President of Union Theological Seminary, sometime trustee of the college, and Robert B. Parkinson, eminent patent lawyer, all of whom remained his steadfast friends through life. Perhaps he became best known to the whole undergraduate body during his senior year by a notable exhibition of his oratorical power when he addressed it in the old college chapel. Upon graduation, having ranked second in scholarship during his whole course, he was appointed to deliver the Salutatory Oration in Latin. During the 28 years, 1876-1905, of his career as a Master of High Schools in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Mr. Hastings established his reputation as a thorough teacher, skilled in his methods, and always exercising the most salutary influences in moulding the character of his pupils. The testimony to this fact of the leading citizens of the several communities he thus served is emphatic. The Superintendent of Public Instruction in New Hampshire so often drafted him to aid in the conduct of Teachers' Institutes and the summer sessions of the Normal School at Plymouth that when, in 1893, that office became vacant, Mr. Hastings was widely recognized as the best qualified man in the state to succeed to it, but, unhappily, his appointment was defeated, so it was alleged, by the efforts of a few active politicians of the dominant party who had come to know that he was an independent in politics. Upon returning to his academic home for a brief sojourn after spending a year of delightful travel and study in Europe, President Tucker, recognizing the advantage of securing his services for the college, appointed him to the only position then open in the English department, that of instructor in Public Speaking. His early studies in composition and oratory and his continued practice in public speaking from the time he entered college enabled him to fill this new position successfully and to promote the art of public speaking among the students where it was tending to become lost. Promoted in 1910 to be Assistant Professor he continued to serve in that office, by request of the college, for a full year after reaching the age prescribed for retirement in 1920.

The life of Prof. Hastings, like that of most teachers, was uneventful. His professional work, divided as it was between Public School and College brought him less distinction than he might have gained if that Unspiritual God, Circumstance, had allowed him to pursue that work continuously in either sphere. He never seemed ambitious for high place or its emoluments, the fine grain of his nature, his modesty and his strong dislike of any personal contention disinclining him to struggle with others for favor or precedence. Further, he believed that the truly happy life would be most surely realized by accepting whatever position opened naturally for the exercise of his powers, if only he strove therein to serve well his day and generation. Always and everywhere admired by those who knew him for his varied talents and personal charm, the deepest impression which Prof. Hastings made upon all who met him along life's pathway probably was due to his manifest interest in his fellowmen, his charitable judgments, his mental calm whatever his perplexities or personal burdens, and above all to the strength of his symetrically developed character. His religious character which gave direction and force to his whole life found its formal expression after his return to Hanover in 1906 through St. Thomas Church of which he became a veritable pillar and long served it as Senior Warden and Lay Reader and its representative in Diocesan and other church assemblies. The spirit which animated all these activities doubtless revealed itself most distinctly, as his colleague, Prof. Urban has said, in his lay sermons in listening to which "we realized that we were in touch with an understanding mind and a deep and living faith." No finer tribute can be paid to this now completed life of Prof. Hastings than that added by the same intimate friend, "he had become almost a symbol to me and many others for all that is most beautiful in age."

Prof. L. S. Hastings '70