"Professor Woodman was county commissioner of schools, and secretary of the New Hampshire Board of Education, during the year 1850. He was again county commissioner during the years 1852 and 1853. In 1854 he was commissioner and chairman of the board which was composed of the commissioners of the several counties. In the opinion of the most competent judges, Professor Woodman was one of the wisest and most efficient state school officers New Hampshire has ever had. He was admirably qualified for the work of an educator, not only by the cast of his methodical, organizing mind, but by his varied experience and scholastic attainments. He was eminently practical in all his plans for the improvement of the schools, and he knew well how to adapt means to ends. His reports, both as commissioner and secretary, were of a high order of excellence, and they were highly beneficial in promoting the cause of education in the State."
Professor Woodman married Mary Ann, daughter of Stephen Perkins Chesley, of Durham, and adopted daughter of Edward Pendexter. He died at Durham, N. H., May 9, 1871.
In 1853, Professor Clement Long, who was the son of Samuel and Mary (Clement) Long, and was born at Hopkinton, N. H., December, 31, 1806, was called to the chair of Intellectual Philosophy which had been vacated by the resignation of Professor Haddock. He was a thorough teacher. Being himself a most profound thinker, he deemed it his duty to exact a thorough knowledge of every day's lesson by the student. If he had not made himself master of the subject, by learning all that was to be learned from the text-book, any attempt to supply the deficiency, by drawing upon his own resources, would be sure to be followed by the plainest marks of dissatisfaction or merited rebuke on the part of Professor Long. Never indulging in the diffuse or the discursive himself, he never tolerated such a course on the part of the student. A mere glance at the man was sufficient to indicate the richest and most solid type of mind. Those who sat under his instruction, and were capable of appreciating it, will ever remember his efforts in their behalf with the liveliest gratitude.
In a commemorative "Discourse," President Lord says: "He was graduated at this college in 1828, a classmate and intimate friend of the late and lamented Professor Young, and a worthy associate of the many honorable men by whom the class of that year has been distinguished.
"It was here, in a time of unusual religious awakening among the students, that he became a Christian, and, with several of his classmates, made profession of his faith,—a profession ever afterwards honored by a singular devotedness to his Saviour. That he was a regenerate man, and true to his Christian calling, no one who knew him ever doubted. It was manifested by the perhaps best of all evidences, as construed by experienced observers,—the uniform prevalence of an unworldly and super-worldly spirit. He affected nothing, he pretended nothing; but whatever he said or did significant of religious character was traceable, and traceable only, to a believing and loving mind. If any thought him severely religious, that may have been the fault of his critics rather than his own.
"After leaving college, he was for three years a preceptor, principally at Randolph, Vt.; then, for two years, a theological student at Andover. Before completing his term at that institution, he was called, in 1833, to the professorship of Intellectual Philosophy in Western Reserve College, at Hudson, Ohio. After a short term of service he was elected to the professorship of Theology, in the same institution, and received ordination as a minister of the gospel. These changes are all significant of early and distinguished worth.
"In 1851 he received and accepted the appointment of professor of Theology in the Seminary at Auburn, N. Y."
His classmate Professor Folsom says:
"Professor Long was like a precious stone kept long in the lapidary's hands before its brilliancy met the public gaze. I had my home under his father's roof, and sat daily at table with him, during my Junior year. We were colleagues afterwards, together with our classmate Jarvis Gregg, in the Western Reserve College; and they both were members of my family there. We had been Handelians at Dartmouth (as also Peabody), and almost every evening we sang together, at our fireside, from Zeuner's "Harp." How precious the memory of those hours! How often has the uplifting power of all our intercourse been felt! Professor Long, like Professor Young, joined the love of Mathematics with that of Metaphysics, but the bent of his genius was strongly in the direction of the latter, and not least in theological and moral science. He had the enthusiastic regard both of the Faculty and students of the Western Reserve College. He was also a very suggestive and quickening preacher, often at my request taking my place in the pulpit of the chapel. His great modesty, and not easily satisfied ideal, kept him from publishing much in his lifetime; but I have wondered that some of his writings did not find their way into print after his death. He once told me, when urging him to this step, that he hoped, in the course of ten years or so, to be able to prepare something which the ear of the public might not be careless to hear. He had the same clear-cut features that marked Professor Peabody, though of a different pattern,—the latter with outward, the former with inward, gaze."