A Human Humanist
"Are you willing to write an appreciation of what his influence in those early days meant to you?"
So the letter read, telling me of the Charles E. Putney memorial. And shall I be frank enough to add that for a moment the question rather floored me? For while youth is very susceptible to influences, of many sorts, youth is not much more conscious of them than the beanstalk of the pole. Yet almost immediately it came back to me that a few days before that letter arrived, a group of men were chatting in a Washington club—among other things, about the value and results of formal education. And, agreeing that few people ever pick up at school or college anything which in later life they can put their finger on, that for many people the so-called higher education is a pure waste of time, I added, "The only man who ever taught me anything was a Greek teacher I had at a preparatory school in Vermont."
That Greek teacher was Mr. Putney. Perhaps Greek is no longer taught at the Academy. I don't know. It is not the fashion nowadays. But I am somewhat concerned that it has ceased to be the fashion. And the foundation of the feeling I have about it was laid, in great part, at St. Johnsbury. On that, at any rate, I can put my finger. It may not have been Mr. Putney who first sowed in the mind of one of his pupils the consciousness that history is a very long drawn out affair; that it did not begin in A. D. 1776, or in A. D. 1492, or even in A. D. 1. For before that pupil trod the banks of the Passumpsic he happened to have visited the shores of the Ægean. To him, consequently, the Anabasis and Homer were more real than otherwise they might have seemed—though Mr. Putney had the gift of making those old stories real.
But of one thing I am quite sure. Mr. Putney gave me my first sense of language as a living and growing organism, come from far beginnings; and he first made me see in the English language, in particular, a stream of many confluents. This is the chief reason why it seems to me a disaster that the classics are passing out of fashion. For with them all true understanding of our rich and noble tongue seems fated to pass out of fashion. To be too much bound to the past is of course an unhappy thing. Each generation must live by and largely for itself. Yet does it not profit a man to be aware that knowledge is an ancient and gradual accumulation, to gain an outlook upon the cycles of history and upon the human experiments that have succeeded or failed, to be able to trace the sources of this or that element in science, in law, in art? And how shall he really know the language he speaks without some acquaintance with the languages which have chiefly enriched it—not only French and German, but Latin and Greek as well?
This Mr. Putney had the art of making his pupils feel. I remember how he used to pick words to pieces and squeeze out for us the inner essence of their meaning. One example in particular has always stuck in my memory: pernicious. And I can still hear Mr. Putney's voice translating it for us: "Most completely full of that which produces death." That word has had an interest for me ever since—akin to the respect which Henry James later instilled into me for the adjective poignant, which he declared should be used only once or twice in a lifetime. What is more, I have never lost the habit Mr. Putney enticed us to form, of picking words to pieces for ourselves. There is no better way of extracting shades of meaning. But that way is closed to those who have no Greek.
Mr. Putney was, in short, my first humanist—though that word didn't come to me till another day, when I began to read about the Renaissance. But he was more than a humanist. He was humane. He was human. That underlay the fact that, with the affectionate disrespect of youth, he was known among ourselves as "Put." Disrespect, however, was never what we felt toward the principal of the Academy. Indeed, the first time I ever saw him, when I was a new boy of sixteen, he impressed me as being a rather awesome person. As long as I knew him his dignity and his firmness never failed to impress me. Yet about that dignity there was nothing aloof. That firmness was not hardness; it had no cutting edge. He meant what he said. That was all. No idle or disobedient boy flattered himself that "Put" was to be trifled with. Every boy felt, however, that "Put" was just. Firm as he was, he had too a great gentleness. And I think he had the kindest and most patient eyes I ever looked into. They were very shrewd. They could look through a boy as if he were made of glass. But they were also very wise, and they knew how to overlook a great deal of folly and thoughtlessness. Moreover there was in the bottom of them a twinkle—of a most individual kind. It was no broad Irish twinkle, nor yet an ironic Latin twinkle. You saw it sometimes when you had made a particularly egregious translation; but it didn't dishearten you.
I have never forgotten that quiet, that comprehending, that rare twinkle. After all, what happier light could a man cast on the cloudy ways of youth—or shed upon his own character?
H. G. Dwight, '94.
Coming East from Dubuque to Chicago, it is inspiring to an Eastern man to see how the life of this busy metropolis of the West is guided and influenced by the Eastern-trained man and woman. On the same street with the great University of Chicago is Chicago Theological Seminary. I had a delightful interview with the man who presides over this institution, training the virile young men of the West for the work of the Christian ministry and also for work in the mission field. This man is Dr. Ozora S. Davis, a graduate of St. Johnsbury Academy and of Dartmouth College. Dr. Davis attended St. Johnsbury Academy during the principalship of that gifted and consecrated Christian gentleman, Charles E. Putney, Ph. D. A powerful influence for righteousness exerted by the quiet but inspiring personality of this educational leader is now felt throughout the world. Truly the fourth verse of the nineteenth Psalm is applicable to this former principal of a New England academy: "Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world."
H. Philip Patey, '86.
Journal of Education.
It is fitting that Mr. Putney's work and influence as an officer in the church in whose service he was so constant and faithful should receive some mention. While serving as principal of St. Johnsbury Academy during some of its most prosperous years and largest enrollment, he found time to serve actively on the board of deacons of the South Church, to teach a large class of students in the Sunday school, and to be unfailing in attendance upon the mid-week meeting. He was a pillar in the church he loved. And while in the Academy he maintained the religious traditions on which it was founded, he recognized that it was in the church that these traditions found their source and inspiration.
On his removal to Burlington he took up similar relations with the College Street Church, and continued them to the end of his career, loyal to its interests and liberal in its support. If fine distinctions are to be made between vocation and avocation it would be difficult to determine to which institution the terms should be applied as his life is reviewed.
C. H. Merrill,
Vermont Missionary.
It was not my privilege to sit at the feet of Mr. Putney as a student. In about the year 1870, I attended prize-speaking at the high school of Norwich, Vermont, and was told that the young principal was a Mr. Putney. Something about the man appealed to my boyish senses and I wished that I might know him, but lack of confidence prevented my making myself known. An acquaintance was formed three or four years later at St. Johnsbury. For a time, I was associated with Mr. Putney in certain lay-religious work and came to know him well, if not intimately,—a friendship which ever after continued. After the death of Mrs. Hazen, I received a beautiful letter from Mr. Putney, written laboriously by a shaking hand, but it expressed so much in a few words, characteristic of his genuineness, it is a letter that will ever be preserved among my most cherished possessions.
What was the subtle something that so appealed to me that long-ago evening at Norwich? It seems to me it was the unspoken sympathy of the man which touched the lives of all who came in contact with him even as the fragrance of a flower permeates the atmosphere. Surely he lived a life that is well "worth the telling."
Perley F. Hazen.
I want to join in the chorus of love and tender remembrance which you are hearing from all sides in regard to your father.
He was my first teacher, at Norwich, when for the first time I went to school, and his kindness and consideration helped me over the strangeness and discomfort of the new experience. He taught me Latin and I began Greek with him.
He was a most delightful principal of the school, and thought of the pleasantest things for us boys and girls to do, in and out of the classrooms; for instance, long walks together in which he accompanied us.
All my life I have thought of him with warmth and pleasure, and on the few occasions when I have seen him the old gratitude and confidence have been renewed. He was so good and so delightful all at once.
Sincerely yours,
Katherine Morris Cone.