Carlyle's laugh, and other surprises

by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Oxford, June 6, 1818.

I have been over two Months in England, and am now visiting Oxford, having passed a Week in Cambridge. There is more teaching and more learning in our American Cambridge than there is in both the English Universities together, tho’ between them they have four times Our number of Students. The misfortune for us is that our subjects are not so hopeful. We are obliged to do at Cambridge [U. S.] that which is done at Eton and Westminster, at Winchester, Rugby, and Harrow, as well as at Oxford and Cambridge. Boys may go to Eton at 6, and do go often at 8, 10, and of Necessity before 12. They stay there under excellent Masters, 6 Years, and then come to the University. Whereas a smart clever boy with us, will learn out, even at Mr. Gould’s, in 4 Years, and it was the boast of a very distinguished Man Named Bird [Samuel Bird, H. C., 1809], who was two Years before me at Cambridge, that he had fitted in 160 days. And I really think that I could, in six months teach a mature lad, who was willing to work hard, all the Latin and Greek requisite for admission.

This letter from Cogswell refers to George Bancroft, who was subsequently sent out by Harvard College, after his graduation in 1817, that he might be trained for the service of the institution.

Göttingen, May 4th, 1819.

It was truly generous and noble in the corporation to send out young Bancroft in the manner I understand they did; he will reward them for it. I thought very much of him, when I had him under my charge at Cambridge, and now he appears to me to promise a great deal more. I know not at whose suggestion this was done, but from the wisdom of the measure, I should conclude it must be the President’s; it is applying the remedy exactly when it is most wanted, a taste once created for classical learning at the College, and the means furnished for cultivating it, and the long desired reform in education in my opinion is virtually made; knowledge of every other kind may be as well acquired among us, as the purposes to which it is to be applied demand. We are not wanting in good lawyers or good physicians, and if we could but form a body of men of taste and letters, our literary reputation would not long remain at the low stand which it now is.

It appears from a letter of my father’s, fourteen years later (November 21, 1833), that, after four years abroad, Mr. Bancroft’s college career was a disappointment, and he was evidently regarded as a man spoiled by vanity and self-consciousness, and not commanding a strong influence over his pupils. My father wrote of these two teachers:—

Cambridge, Mass., 21 Nov., 1833.

Cogswell at New York to negotiate. He is much better fitted for a City. He loves society, bustle, fashion, polish, and good living. He would do best in some Mercantile House as a partner, say to Bankers like Prime, Ward, and King. He was at first a Scholar, a Lawyer in Maine. His wife dying,—sister to Dr. Nichols’ wife (Gilman),—Mr. C. went abroad. Was supercargo, then a residing agent of Wm. Gray’s in Europe, Holland, France, and Italy; was a good Merchant; expensive in his habits, he did not accumulate; tired of roving, he accepted the office of Librarian here. He would not manage things under control of others, and so left College and sat up Round Hill School. His partner, Bancroft,—an unsuccessful scholar, pet of Dr. Kirkland’s, who like Everett had four years abroad, mostly Germany, and at expense of College,—came here unfit for anything. His manners, style of writing, Theology, etc., bad, and as a Tutor only the laughing butt of all College. Such an one was easily marked as unfit for a School.

From whatever cause, he remained as tutor for one year only (1822-23), leaving Cambridge for the Round Hill School.

It would be curious to dwell on the later influence upon the college of the other men from whom so much was reasonably expected. Ticknor, the only one who was not a Harvard graduate, probably did most for Harvard of them all, for he became professor of Modern Languages, and introduced in that department the elective system, which there became really the nucleus of the expanded system of later days. Everett, when President, actually set himself against that method when the attempt had been made to enlarge it under Quincy. Cogswell was librarian from 1821 to 1823; left Harvard for the Round Hill School, and became ultimately the organizer of the Astor Library. Frederic Henry Hedge, who had studied in Göttingen as a schoolboy and belonged to a younger circle, did not become professor until many years later.