1897
THE DARTMOUTH FACULTY IN 1897 AS SEEN BY OBSERVANT SENIORS.
Charles Darwin Adams. The story is doubtless without foundation that Professor Adams preached one Sunday in Thetford and instructed the Deity by declaring "paradoxical as it may seem, O Lord, it is nevertheless true," etc. Whether the tale can or can not be documented, Prof. Adams had studied theology and in a high pitched voice occasionally preached. It is also recalled that on all moot subjects he was absolutely right. This pontifical attitude was discouraging to students, except broad-browed ones like Johnson, Pringle, and Marshall, who took all Greek courses offered and asked for more. In the classroom he had an effective working knowledge of psychology. He was a skilled teacher in school and college before he obtained his doctor's degree at Kiel.
Frank Johnson, superintendent of schools in Ayer and "entirely well fixed now, thank you," was in college a poor boy from that extreme part of Maine which God left unfinished and F. D. R. failed to finish. He was Prof. Adams' valet, and as such mowed the lawn, took out ashes, curried the horse, spaded for cabbages, and disciplined the children. With a warm heart he recalls Charles D.'s liberality, his friendliness, and the family charm.
Those of us who read the Oration for the Crown with Adams remember his adroit escape when asked by Blunt whether this was not a greater oration than the Reply to Hayne. As a Hellenist Adams had to stand by Demosthenes, as a Dartmouth graduate by Webster. Adams replied, "We shall give the decision to Webster. Demosthenes was arguing for himself, Webster for New England."
Henry Griswold Jesup. Professor Jesup, a thin, elderly man, was our teacher of botany. I think he had been a clergyman who drifted into teaching. He was precise, distant, and competent, a solitary man. His subject and his mannerisms made applicable the descriptive name, "Auntie" Jesup.
In 1897 the college was small. Students had to go to church, and professors wanted to go. Accordingly all professors had to us an ecclesiastical setting. We recall the family groups, the Shermans with son and daughter, the Worthen family with movable boys, the very attractive Emerson daughters, and the entirely approved Prof, and Mrs. Emery. Prof. Jesup may have had a family that occupied a pew and a half, but I can remember no one. Somewhere it is stated that Melchizedek was "without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end." Auntie impressed me as a Melchizedek of a man.
Jesup knew his woods at Thoreau knew his. He classified all the plants in Grafton county with their habitat. He must have walked hundreds of miles, climbed thou- sands of fences, waded swamps unnumbered, but he never seemed hurried or disheveled. His directions were most admirable, and whether it was Labrador Tea in the "Bottomless Pit" on the Lebanon road, Squirrel Corn from Beaver Brook in Norwich, or Fringed Gentian from Whipple Hill in Lyme, no student went out and returned empty-handed.
In his classes botany meant specimens in complete order, each plant eradicated, dessicated, stretched on a white sheet, and left there for all eternity. It was science, but after I had performed post mortems on shy hepaticas and viewed their vitals with vulgar curiosity, they never looked like flowers again. It made me shrink from slaughter. It had the contrary effect upon Auntie's prize pupils, Bailey, Cushman, Dascomb, and Jim Woodworth. The course was hardly ended when they enlisted for the Spanish-American war.
Edwin Brant Frost. When I entered college I had the impression that Astronomy and the Apocrypha should be closely joined. Not exactly Holy Writ, but valuable for instruction and edification. I had no school knowledge of astronomy. My high school course was narrow and traditional, but I supplemented it by reading college texts of an earlier period. On the family shelves I had found Burritt's Astronomy and his Geography of the Heavens. Burritt's luminous text was embellished with Scriptural allusions and exhortations. Every comet and each para- bolic curve attested Divine goodness. In his pages he called in the Lord so frequently that it constituted an imper- tinence. So I elected astronomy and Eddie Frost, and soon found myself skidding out of complacency and as mildly distressed as a sophomore can be. Frost talked of cosines and spectra. He quoted Charles A. Young. He never mentioned the Lord, and I was not certain he had ever heard of him. The course made me neither wiser nor better, for I continued to like Orion and dislike parallaxes. I have forgotten the instruction of that winter, I remember no class exercises, but I have a strong impression that I was taught by a scholarly gentleman who knew his subject and taught it ably. It is a test of great teaching that great students result. In the Shattuck Observatory there was such teaching. "Pa" Rollins of sound memory has written:
"Our astronomy department at Dartmouth has been very strong. I cannot lay down that remarkable book which we studied in college, Young's Astronomy, without a feeling of admiration and affection for its author. And Eddie Frost, who taught his difficult subject in so simple a way, and later, while blind, started the World's Fair at Chicago with a beam of light from Arcturus, was a remarkable man. 'Twinkle' Young's book and Eddie Frost's teaching produced John Poor, who had one of the most interesting and stimulating minds that we have ever had the privilege of knowing and whom we miss so much, and Pete Adams, who has received recognition from the learned bodies of the world."
They were taught by great men in a department with ante-bellum equipment. Accordingly we alumni are agreed that Dartmouth needs squash courts more than a man-size telescope. Dartmouth was astronomically minded in our day, and preCopernican. "Upward where the stars are turning" was sung with vigor in college and chapel choirs by silvery voiced Rowe, Temple, and McFee. The literary group, Boyd, Taylor, and Shaw, made expressive its fulminations by effective reference to the "four corners of the earth" and "binding the Pleiades," and the prayer-meeting boys—Sunday at 13:15—Cass, Tracy, and John Meserve, held that the shadow actually went back on the dial of Ahaz.
Edwin Brant Frost, unvaried, in this atmosphere moved in his perihelion orbit, a scientist who remained a scientist.
The Washington Star of October 8 found and published a very clear picture of the freshman football team of 1897. Handsome boys all, and of these only one half are now living,—Marshall, Morrill, Kelly, S. C. Smith, Hotchkiss, McCornack, and F. W. Perkins. Those who are dead are Blunt, Lewis, O'Brien, Sisk, G. A. Adams, "Kid" Folsom, and "Joe" Towle.
When Kelly retires, physician in Indianapolis whose patients are determined that he shall not retire, he plans to make his home in Connecticut. With the aid of his daughter he has obtained a 70-acre farm in New Milford.
Mrs. Paul Clay has charge of a home for women maintained by the Episcopal church. The location is at 273 Clarendon St., Boston, and classmates should call.
In the summer Dr. and Mrs. Roy Ward of Worcester attended the convention of the American Medical Association in San Francisco and were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Selden C. Smith at their restful Berkeley home. Ward has written and all agree that one of the factors in Smith's successful career is his geniality and cordial friendship for everyone. Selden has made a good recovery from his prolonged and serious illness.
Last May Foss was married to Mrs. Sipe of Lehigh, Pa. At Harrisburg Foss continues his successful work as secretary of the state Chamber of Commerce. The home is at 1015 North Front St., Harrisburg.
Secretary, 74 Newport Ave., West Hartford, Conn.
