Dr. Thayer says of his classical studies:
"He recited each day, in review, the whole of the past lesson from memory, without book, first the Latin or Greek and then the English. At each lesson questions were asked which, if he could not answer, he was required to answer at the next recitation, from various helps furnished him. This often led to long and varied investigations. He wrote as much as he read,—perhaps more.
"If those studying with him might smile a little at his want of athletic zeal and vigor, there was no room for smiling when it came to Greek, or indeed any mental exercise. Besides, his wit, though gentle, could gleam, and then they all respected him for his character, and loved him for his winning spirit."
In the autumn of 1840, he entered the Sophomore class of this college, ready to make full use of the ample opportunities granted him. With what modesty and beauty he bore himself here, with what fidelity in every relation, with what admirable scholarship, with what generous aims, with what simplicity and purity of motive, with what love of learning, and desire not merely of meeting the claims of the recitation-room, but of perfecting himself in every branch of liberal culture, how constantly this noble desire possessed him from his first day among us down to the closing hour when he discoursed so fitly and with such maturity on "Poetry—an instinctive philosophy," those know best who were most familiar with his college life. One testimony to this is so full and generous, and of such weighty authority, that I cannot forbear to give it. It is from the accomplished scholar who filled the chair of Greek for many years before Professor Putnam.[46]
[46] Professor Alpheus Crosby.
"I could not hope," he says, "to express, by any words at my command, the peculiar charm which Professor Putnam's scholarship and character had for me. I never heard him recite without being impressed with the wonderful perfection of his scholarship. His translation was so faultlessly accurate, and yet in such exquisite taste, his analysis and parsing were so philosophical and minutely exact, and his information upon illustrative points of history, biography, antiquities, and literature, was so full and ready, that I listened with admiration, and to become myself a learner. How often I had the feeling that we ought to change places I and when I had decided to resign my situation in the college, my mind immediately turned to him as a successor, assured that the college would be most fortunate if it could secure his services." It need not be said how fully Professor Putnam reciprocated this esteem, nor what value he attached to the exact and thorough discipline of his instructor.
Nor was it in the department of languages alone that he was distinguished, but almost equally in every other, as much in those studies which demand the independent and original action of the mind as those which mainly require close attention, and the faculty of acquisition. His modesty was then, as always, so marked, and his ideal of excellence so high, that it required some sense of duty to bring his powers to a public test. He never thrust himself into a place of responsibility, or sought distinction for distinction's sake.
He had in college the desire and purpose which he always retained,—to complete himself in every art and every manly exercise. Hence his study of music, not only as a recreation, but as a discipline; not merely to gratify the ear, though exquisitely fond of the art, and receiving from it a refined and exalted pleasure, but also that he might become acquainted with the thoughts and conceptions of men great in musical genius. The Handel Society, which, from the constant changes of its members, must necessarily fluctuate,—the annual losses not always being met by corresponding gains,—was then in a high state of efficiency. For the sake of study and musical acquisition, it boldly grappled with the difficult works of eminent masters, and with whatever necessary imperfectness of actual performance, it was with sure and lasting results of musical ability and taste and knowledge. It was in this society, I suppose, that Professor Putnam first became practically acquainted with some of the great works of Handel and Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart, and with the lighter but yet substantial excellencies of some of the English masters. Here he cultivated and disciplined his nice ear to the instinctive perception of the hidden harmonies of poetry, to the feeling of those finer beauties which hardly admit of expression in anything so clumsy as our actual speech.
The desire for physical accomplishment led him to join a military company then existing in college, although he had no love for such things, but rather a native repugnance to them, and there was then no special demand for the discipline.
The six years following his graduation were divided between instruction in Leicester, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode Island, and pursuing his professional studies in the Theological Seminary at Andover. During this time he reviewed and consolidated his knowledge. He brought himself into nearer contact with practical and common life. He enlarged his sphere of observation and the circle of his studies, and was looking forward with great satisfaction to the actual performance of the duties of his profession, when he was invited to the chair of Greek in this college. It was a position entirely suited to his tastes, his capacities, his studies. He brought to it not only ample learning and tastes delicate and cultivated, but the enlarged and generous spirit of a true scholar, and the aptness of an accomplished instructor. His ideal of attainment and of duty was very high, and he aimed at once to fit himself, by the most generous courses of study, to illustrate the more perfectly to his classes the poetry, the eloquence, the philosophy, of the wisest and most refined people of the whole ancient world.