More rounded in itself, and more complete.”
“From Seniors to Freshmen,” says Mr. Kellogg, “all believed in, loved, and were proud of the reputation of the scholarly, kind-hearted, democratic, and, at times, compassionate professor.” And at the close of the chapter which is devoted to illustrations of Professor Cleaveland’s eccentric ways and beneficent influence, Mr. Kellogg is moved to this earnest and affectionate expression of his reverence: “Blessings on thy memory, faithful one,—faithful even unto death,—to whom was committed the gift to stir young hearts to noble enterprise and manly effort; who knew how to train the youthful eye to look upon, and the heart to pant after, the goal thou hadst reached! Those most amused with thy peculiarities loved thee best. From hence removed to the presence and enjoyment of Him whose wisdom, power, and goodness, manifested in the material world, thou to us didst so worthily explain and illustrate, we shall behold thy form and press thy hand no more; but only with life shall we surrender the memory of him who united the attributes of both teacher and friend.”
It is impossible that under the personal influence of these teachers, and of their instruction, young Kellogg, with his frank and susceptible nature, should not have been stimulated to intellectual effort, and to moral earnestness, and that he should not have retained in subsequent life some impress from their vigorous and scholarly and noble characters. How much he owed them in the direction and the development of his powers we may not say. It is never possible to measure, or to estimate exactly, the total influence of a teacher’s life and work upon his pupils. It acts often in ways that do not disclose themselves to our perception; it touches the young men at points and moments of which we do not know the responsive or the repelling significance; it often produces effects which are the very opposite of what we should predict; it falls into the ground and dies, as it were, and years afterward springs up and bears fruit in a form so changed that we do not recognize the seed in the resulting harvest; it is often hidden in the hearts of the young men, and works by way of impulse or restraint so subtly that they themselves are not conscious of it; and so we can never tell to what extent a young man’s character has been formed or modified by the influence of his teachers. But there is certainly some indication of Mr. Kellogg’s own estimate of what he owed to college instruction and stimulus in the ardent and unwavering affection which he always exhibited for his Alma Mater, and which was abundantly reciprocated in the reverent honor accorded to him by the college, and by all its students and alumni. At the one-hundredth anniversary of the college, in 1894, there were more than a thousand graduates assembled at the banquet in a mammoth tent on the campus. Mr. Kellogg had, with some difficulty, been persuaded to be present. He was, of course, called upon for a speech; and when he rose to respond, every graduate, young and old, in the great company was instantly on his feet, cheering and shouting a glad salute. It was a touching and memorable ovation, and the flush of troubled happiness that flitted across his bronzed and wrinkled face was something long to be remembered, as was also his glowing tribute of affection for the college, which was his answer to the welcome of his brethren.
In Mr. Kellogg’s student days the chief literary interest and activity of the undergraduates, and no small part of their more formal social life, centred about two societies, the Peucinean and the Athenæan. Between these two societies there was intense rivalry in securing accessions from among the more desirable members of newly entering classes, in public exhibitions and anniversary exercises, and in the distribution of college and class honors. Each society possessed a considerable library of carefully selected books, and each held regular weekly meetings for literary exercises consisting of essays, poems, declamations, and debates. Kellogg was an active and esteemed member of the Peucinean society, and contributed not a little to the interest of its meetings in the several features of their literary programmes. Mr. Henry H. Boody, of the class of 1842, and subsequently professor of rhetoric and oratory in the college from 1845 to 1854, recalls the fact that at the meetings of the Peucinean society, “we used to consider a poem by Kellogg as a very rare treat,” and then adds that perhaps “our liking for the man influenced our judgment as to the merit of his productions in that line.” However that may be, it is evident that his gifts of tongue and pen were freely exercised during his undergraduate days, and that the charm of them was felt and acknowledged by his college associates.
In Mr. Kellogg’s Junior year a literary magazine, the second venture of the kind at Bowdoin, was projected by some of the students, and made its first appearance, under the name of the Bowdoin Portfolio, in April, 1839. Its advent was heralded, in a manner somewhat figurative and characteristic of the time, by an editorial note, of which the following are some of the first sentences:—
“A short time since, as we were sitting quietly in our room discussing the common topics of the day, we were suddenly surprised and pleased by the entrance of a comely youth, of an ideal nature, that is, made up of the immaterial mind, but who had embodied himself in a visible form. He was arrayed in a neat, simple garb, evidently preferring pure simplicity to ostentatious splendor, and wishing to attract notice, not so much by a showy dress and gorgeous outward appearance, as by the spiritual within, made clear and comprehensible by the outward representation. On his front he bore the name of ’Bowdoin Portfolio,’ and in communing with him we found a most entertaining and agreeable companion. He was just making his debut into the literary world, and it was with modesty and timidity that he declared to us his intentions of speedily making his bow, and paying court to the public.”
There is no indication that Mr. Kellogg was connected with the editorial board of the Portfolio, but there are contributions from him in three of the seven numbers that were published, and all his contributions are of verse. This fact recalls the testimony that has been quoted as to the pleasure with which his poems were received at the meetings of the Peucinean society. Altogether it seems as if, during his college days, his tastes led him to the cultivation of poetry, and as if the impression he made upon his college mates was rather by his verse than by his prose.
One of the poems in the Portfolio is a clever translation of a Latin epitaph upon a moth miller which “came bustling through the window directly into the editorial taper, and fell lifeless upon the sheet of paper.” A part of the epitaph in Kellogg’s verse is as follows:—
“Whose greatest crime was to intrude