U.CSB LIBRARY THE TEACHER A COMMEMORATIVE SERMON PREACHED IN THE SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF EXETER, N, H,, BY JOHN H. MORISON. BOSTON : PRESS OF GEORGE H. ELLIS. 1879. THE TEACHER. ISAIAH \iv., 13.— Aud all thy children shall be taught of the Lord ; and great shall be the peace of thy children. God is our great Teacher. In calling out the faculties with which he has endowed us through the instincts and longings which he has implanted within us, in the adapta- tion of the outward universe to the soul of man, in the varied experiences and discipline of life, in the order of society and the influence of its members one upon another, by his revelations of divine truth and in the direct influ- ences of his spirit, he is teaching us from the first opening of our eyes till they are closed in death. The world is one vast school, and he is our teacher, — directly and through the ten thousand agents employed by him to train and edu- cate his children. The first condition of success, therefore, in any school of ours must be found in its conformity to the divine method. The best teacher is the man whose teachings are most entirely in harmony with the teachings of God, adapting themselves most entirely to the laws of development in the human mind. Boys untrained, undisciplined, unconscious of their own powers, often with very confused and imperfect ideas of right and wrong, come into a great school, not merely to learn a little of this and a little of that, so as to lay it up for future use, but to be taught in such a way that their whole 4 The Teacher. natures, moral, intellectual, and religious, may be quickened into activity. He who best helps them in this process of transformation is the ablest and best teacher. He awakens in them the love of knowledge, and teaches them how to study. He helps to throw around them an atmosphere of manliness and gentleness, of moral purity, of social refine- ment, and of spiritual aspiration, so as to call out what is best within them, and to bring them into sympathy with the laws and the spirit of God. He who does this work on a large scale faithfully and wisely may be numbered among the distinguished benefactors of his race. I think that our English ancestors, and their successors in this country also, were slow to recognize what ought to be the leading purpose of education. In the Gospels, the word didashalos (teacher) occurs forty-eight times, and yet in our English version we find it rendered by the word teacher only twice, and by the word master forty-six times. When Dr. Johnson was asked how he came to have so exact a knowledge of Latin, he said, " My master whipped me very well. Without that I should have done nothing." While this master was flogging his boj's unmercifully, he used to sa}^ " And this I do to save you from the gallows." The idea seems to have been that education — contrary to its literal meaning — did not consist in drawing out the boy's faculties, but in whipping knowledge into him and whipping the devil out of him, a twofold process more exciting than agreeable or salutary to the parties concerned. This idea and the practice resulting from it found their way into most of our classical schools, and vitiated in no small degree their methods and their teachings. It may well, be a matter of devout thankfulness to all who have enjoyed its benefits, that the Phillips Exeter Academy has never had a master. The Teacher. 5 This is something more than a verbal peculiarity. It indi- cates the character of the school, and of those who have made it what it is. Nowhere in the United States, so far as I know, is there a great classical preparatory school in which so large a liberty is given to the students. But where there is so much freedom from external restraint, there must be a greater moral and personal influence; and, for more than ninety years, that higher influence has not been wanting. What are the qualities which best fit a man to be at the head of such an institution ? Dr. Arnold, in seeking for a teacher, said, " What I want is a Christian and a gentleman, and one who has common- sense and understands boys." " Activity of mind," also he emphasizes. Activity of mind, more than learning, is an essential quality. There is so much of routine in a school, and the lessons, taken by themselves, cover so small a space in the world of inquiry, that there is always danger lest the teacher should be too easily satisfied with himself, and become indo- lent, and thus degenerate into something hardly better than a machine. But in any profession, when a man ceases to strive after new attainments and to grow intellectually he ceases to be a living power. Virtue, no longer generated within him, ceases to go out from him. The sceptre falls from his hand. His work becomes tedious to himself and his pupils. .He must be as wide-awake as a general in the midst of a campaign. Any one who has visited the Hampton Institute in Virginia, and witnessed the celerity and never- ceasing activity with which Mr. Armstrong throws himself into everything, as a motive power which makes itself felt in every mind there, will understand the supreme importance of activity and quickness of mind in the head of a great edu- cational institution. Delicacy of mental and moral texture, 6 The Teacher. as well as, constant activity and -alertness, is also a quality which I think I have always found in teachers of the highest order. Only through the finest qualities in themselves can ^ they appreciate and encourage the finest natures which th&y are to train and educate. We sometimes forget what keen- ness of intellect, what ready sympathies, what sensitiveness of personal and moral feeling, must be kept in constant exercise by the teacher who would have the best influence over his pupils. He must read each boy's mind and charac- ter, — a more difficult and far more important task than to get at the meaning of a dijfficult passage in ^schylus or Thucydides ; he must divine what is in him, and how to bring it out. And this, not with one alone, but with all, by a sort of omnipresence, through which his eye, his mind, and his personal influence are felt by every boy under his charge. In this way he gives a character to the school. His life enters into it. His spirit pervades it. The man who fills such a place must be a man of intelligence, a man of tact, a man of inflexible truthfulness, and with a nice sense of honor. No coarseness or meanness should enter into his composition. His refinement of taste should not only go with him in his studies, but characterize the man in his per- sonal deportment and in his relations with others. " He should," as Dr. Arnold says, "study 'things lovely and of good report'; that is, he should be jDublic spirited, liberal, and entering heartily into the interest, honor, and general respectability and distinction of the society which he has joined." Above all, he is to carry with him the spirit of a Christian gentleman. He ought to be a man of profound religious convictions. I do not speak of speculative theology or specific articles of faith. And that I think the founder of this school understood, when, waiving any formal examina- The Teacher. 7 tion, he placed at its head a man whose doctrinal opinions he well knew did not accord with his own. What we want « is a man whose life is informed and inspired by the thought and the feeling of God, and who lives in an atmosphere per- vaded by Christian ideas and sentiments. Such a man lives in a presence greater than his own, and carries it with him. He may not talk much about it. But the sentiment of love and reverence for God and sacred things, which has so deep a place in his heart, gives its coloring to his speech and con- duct, and invests him with a grace, a dignity, an authority, and a silent influence for good such as nothing else can give. Here are the three great elements — intellectual, moral, and religious — which unite in the making up of the man. No one of them stands alone or obtrudes itself upon ■ us, but each in its appropriate place is joined with all the rest, and all combine to create in him a personality which charac- terizes whatever he says or does, and enables him to speak and to act quietly and gently, but "as one having authority." Personal influence is something that cannot be analyzed, and yet it is the one essential thing in a Christian minister or teacher. As with animal or vegetable life, when we seek to find out its secret it eludes us and escapes. But we feel its power. We see how it attaches itself to the slightest word or act. We repeat the impressive word that we have heard, but the subtle fire with which it glowed and which it kindled in us is gone. They who heard Daniel Webster at the Abbot Festival in Exeter, forty years ago, with sup- pressed utterance and tears which he could not suppress, speaking of his obligations to his teachers, especially to Joseph Stevens Buckminster, will remember how that great- est personality of this century gave to a few simple words a 8 The Teacher. pathos and a power which no words of themselves could ever have. The personal influence of a great teacher is greater than anything that he says or does. It gives that a meaning which it cannot have in itself. When Dr. Abbot entered the academy yard, or lifted his hat, as he did to every student he met, it was as if the benignant spirit of a Chris- tian gentleman diffused itself visibly around him, and gently touched the boy's mind with a new sense of personal dignity and kindness. Where these great qualities are, there smaller things associated with them partake of their influence. There culture tells. There refinement of manners tells. There elegance of speech tells for something more than mere grammatical correctness. I remember a young man of liberal education in Exeter more than fifty years ago whose language came from his lips with such sweetness and beauty that it seemed to me a symbol of his own spiritual purity and sweetness. So it seemed then, and so it seems to me now whenever I think of him, though he has long been " numbered among the saints in glory everlasting." What a man z's, that, to some degree at least, he imparts. Take a series of lessons in Latin or Greek, under the influ- ence of such a teacher as I have endeavored to describe. The boy gets at the literal meaning of a passage and its grammatical relations, and perhaps understands some of its allusions. But that is all. Now there is not much nutri- ment here for his finer and nobler faculties ; and there are some thorough teachers who add nothing to this meagre fare. Day by day he brings to them his little budget of newly acquired knowledge, and day by day he goes away none the better for what he gets from them. But, instead of such as they are, a true teacher meets him. The bare contact with The Teacher. 9 such a man stimulates his faculties and helps to refine his taste and his manners. Gradually his mind opens with a keen delight to see nice distinctions of meaning and hidden graces of speech. Under that new sun, the barren sod is covered with grass and violets. New and touching associa- tions spring up around the poet's words. We who are his boys hardly know how it is done ; but by some mysterious processes these lessons touch a new chord within us, call out new powers of appreciation, and bring us itito more vital and sympathetic relations with what is great and beau- tiful. And so the most perfect works of pagan genius may help to prepare us for the highest Christian ideas. Even Plato has given some notion of this ascent upwards. "The true order of going," he says, "is to use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts upwards " till he reaches the absolute beauty. And then " he has hold, not of an image, but of a reality; and bringing forth and educating true virtue " he learns how "to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may."' If even an old Greek philosopher could thus find in earthly beauty steps by which to rise into a higher worship and an immortal life, how much more ma}'" a Christian teacher so use the most perfect productions of human genius as to call out the deeper facul- ties and emotions of our nature, and prepare us for the still higher and richer precepts of the Gospel ! When I was in the gallery of the Vatican at Rome, which contains the most beautiful and perfect statues in the world, a lady who was with us burst into tears, being entirely over- come with the emotions of love and reverence excited in her by the marvellous beauty around her. Another friend told me that under similar circumstances he felt as if he must throw himself upon his knees and worship. So, by the most perfect examples of artistic excellence in the great poets of 10 The Teacher, Greece,, or in Plato or Demosthenes, where the loftiest ideas and examples are brought before us, emotions may be awakened which carry us beyond all that those great men knew, and prepare us to appreciate and profit by the richer, diviner revelations of the gospel of Christ. What a Chris- tian poet has said of the Odyssey is not confined to that : — " Great tale of wisdom, may thy choice be mine ! The lesson in thee stored is half-divine ; Sweetly yet sternly, softly yet severe, Like solemn music in some ancient shrine, Insinuating high and holy fear, And teaching greater things than reach the eye or ear." Something of this I used to feel in the studies which I pursued under the direction and inspiration of the honored teacher who so long presided over the academy in this town, and who has just gone to his reward. Little was said. The lessons were short. But by some means or other an interest was excited — an enthusiasm, a sense of something greater than the words before us — such as I never experienced afterwards in the more advanced walks of our university studies. To teach a little Latin or a litde Greek or mathematics is no great matter. But to teach them in such a way as to reach the inmost life of a boy, to awaken in him a generous and noble ambition for knowledge and virtue, to quicken his love of truth and his sense of duty, to infuse a Christian spirit into a great school, and open to the young visions of intellectual and moral advancement which find their end in no earthly attainments or success, but lead on beyond them all to the Cross as the truest emblem of the love and service which they owe to man and to God, — this ie a great work^ and it requires a man of very rare gifts and accomplishments, aided by the grace and the spirit of God, to do it. He who fills this office and does this work, not for a single class, but The Teacher. 11 for a succession of classes, and continues his work throufrh a period of more than half a century, should hold a place of honor in the minds of those who care for the highest well- being of man and society. "But this ideal picture," it may be said, "is very dis- couraging to teachers." So is the Christian religion very discouraging. But in the loftiest and apparently most im- practicable of its precepts, such as, " Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect," there is an inspiration which stimulates and strengthens us, at the same time that it subdues and humiliates us with a sense of our insufficiency and our shortcomings. "The perfect," as I once heard Di. Channing say, "is what we must always strive after, but never expect to reach." With such an ideal, there is hope and encouragement even in our failures. We fall, to rise again. This was the feeling of St. Paul when he said, "Not as tlioagh I had already attained, either were already perfect." I have been drawing very slightly au outline of what a teacher — the head of a great school — should be. Two men have been constantly before me, — men very unlike in person and in natural temperament, yet so connected in my mind with the best instruction that I ever received, and associated together through so many years, that I cannot separate them in their methods or their influence. Dr. Abbot gave its peculiar character to the institution.* Dr. Soule entered into his labors, and carried on the work which his teacher had begun. But they worked together so long and so har- *In any account of the influences which have formed the Academy at Exeter, it would be unfair not to refer to the many eminent men who have filled there, for a longer or shorter period, the subordinate posts of instnietioa. Among tlir-m we tiud the names of Daniel Dana, Abiel Abbot, Peter (). Thacher, Nicholas Emery, Jo eph S. Buckmiuster, Ashur Ware, Nathan Hale, Hosea Hildreth, Alexander H. Everett, Nathaniel A. Haven, Jr., Nathan Lord, Henry H. Fuller, Henry Ware, Jr., James Walscer, William B. O. and Oliver W. B. Peabody, Joseph Hale Abbot, Francis Bowen, Joseph Gibson Hoyt, and Paul Ansel Chadbourne, to say nothing of the important services rendered by those who are still engaged in its duties. 12 The Teacher. moniously, each making and adopting suggestions and throwing his own life into the work, that it is difficult to say where one dynasty ended and the other began, or what are to-day the essential features which are due to one or the other of these distinguished teachers, as it is hard to say pre- cisely what the great river below St. Louis owes to the Mississippi and what to the Missouri. I would not say that either of the two filled out entirely our ideal of what a teacher might be. No man does that. The most faithful, the most gifted and successful life is more a prophecy than a fulfilment. Dr. Arnold fell painfully short of his own ideal. But most of what I have said applies to these two men. Dr. Soule was, like his predecessor, a Christian gentleman. He had an active mind. Twenty years after he began to teach here, he took up the Latin language, as if it were a new study to be carried out in the light contributed by the higher scholarship of the day. But especially was his mind active in reading the minds of those before him and adapting himself to them. He knew what was in them and how to make the most of it. There was a singular fineness of texture in his mental organization. He could not be coarse or harsh or vulgar without doing vio- lence to himself. He was a man of erect and lofty bearing. But he put on no airs. There was no pride in all this lofti- ness, but rather a "high humility." He identified himself with his office. He felt its weighty and solemn responsibili- ties, and the dignity of deportment which it demanded of him. Would that more of our public men had a fitting sense of the conduct becoming their great office I He hon- ored his high calling. The teacher's chair was his throne. He governed without effort. The school had become a law to itself. But constant vigilance was needed to keep it up to its own standard. Dangerous infiuences had to be antici- The Teacher. 13 pated and quietly removed before the mischief was done. In the unfledged and undeveloped specimens of humanity that came before him he was quick to see their capabilities, and he looked upon them with something like reverence. He "loved them while they were yet unlovely." For in them he saw, not only the possible law-makers, judges, rulers, the great merchants, physicians, divines, who were to mould the coming age, but, more and greater than all this, he saw before him children of God entrusted to him that they might grow up to be a joy and blessing to themselves and to all around them. In them, with his prophetic eye, he saw men of large hearts, of well-trained minds, of just views, of sterling integrity, — men who, in the breadth and loftiness of their attainments and the severity of their moral convictions, would one day sit in judgment on him and the work which he was doing. Here, more than in any other single thing, was the secret of his success. He believed and he rejoiced in boys. No eye of suspicion was needlessly turned" upon them. Because he believed in them, they believed in him, and strove not to disappoint him. A single incident will illustrate what I mean. Nearly twenty years ago, one night many of the gates in the academy village disappeared. It was not an act that required much originality or wit. But boys have a keen appetite for fun, and probably they got, or at least expected to get, some enjoyment out of it. But the town's people whose gates had been stolen did not see it exactly in that light. They regarded it as a public outrage, and were very indignant. Some of them angrily remonstrated with Dr. Soule, and insisted upon it that the police should be .called in, and summary punishment inflicted on the culprits who had taken part in this high-handed proceeding. Dr. Soule calmly listened to them, and told them they had better wait. 14 The Teacher. That evening, after prayers, he made a little address to the students on the conduct which a nice sense of honor requires of gentlemen towards those whom they have injured. Precisely what redress should be made must depend on the relation of the parties to one another, and on other circumstances. He instanced the case of a friend of his who had spoken harshly to his man for bringing his horse to the door a quarter of an hour after the time, and who afterwards learned that it was not the man's fault, and therefore made him a small present of mone}^ as an acknowl- edgment. But from one gentleman to another this could not be done. There are cases, however, he said, where imme- diate and entire reparation can be made. His object was to impress them with the idea that a gentleman owes it to him- self to repair as soon as possible any injury that he has done to another. He then dismissed the school, and was himself detained a short time in his place. When he went out, it was raining and just at nightfall. But he saw in the academy yard students moving in little groups, each with a gate on his shoulder ; and thus every gate found its way back to the place where it had belonged. He believed in his boys, and here, as elsewhere, faith is wonderfully eifective. In this, I should say, has been the one marked feature in the management of the Exeter Acad- emy. The students are trusted. Character and scholar- ship are the two things which Dr. Soule, like his predecessor, valued and honored. To secure and advance them in every student, was the one prayer and purpose of his life. Wealth, family, political or social distinction, had no place in his heart to influence him in the treatment of Iws boys. The only distinction which he recognized was that of character- and scholarship. And this sentiment became, more than I have ever found it anywhere else, a part of the common law of the school. Work there was always honorable, idleness The Teacher. 15 alwa3's a disgrace. A boy who was known deliberately to tell a lie, whether to a student or a teacher, and had the stigma of falsehood branded upon him, could hardly remain among the students, whatever might be his social position at home. It needed no formal expulsion to separate him from the school. He had expelled himself. An old student tells me that the only time he ever saw Dr. Soule angry was when he discovered that a boy had been lying to him. Both Dr. Abbot and Dr. Soule always looked with extreme jealousy on any influence that might find its way into the academy through lavish expenditures of money by the students. They wisely deprecated everything of that kind as evil in itself and of evil example. Hence it was, in no small measure, that the public spirit of the place was on the side of truth and of learning. They who did not love and cherish them had no title to the associations and privileges of the place. I speak of the school as I knew it more than fifty years ago, and as I have known it from time to time since then, with its enlarged resources and its improved methods of study. Dr. Soule retired from its head in 1873. His heart was still in his work. Its interests were dearer to him than his own. When, a few years before, the venerable building in which he had studied as a boy, and in which he had been so long the presiding genius, was burned, he wept as he would not have done if it had been his own personal property. When he withdrew from its beloved labors and cares, he watched from his windows the students — "my boys," he used to call them still — as they went to their recitations, and turned always with a fatherly fondness and yearning towards them. Hundreds there are who honor and bless his name. Some of them, men of the highest intelligence, powers for good on 16 The Teacher, a large scale in all that pertains to the best interests of society, think of him as their greatest benefactor, — as the man who first revealed them to themselves and taught them how to make themselves what they are. Hundreds of his boys went before him to that world where he now is, and I can imagine them reverently approaching him, as Dante represents the spirits of the dead, and saying, " Honor to our lofty teacher ! " Of all that multitude, I do not believe there are any who call to mind a single lesson taught by him which it grieves them now to remember, even in that holy presence. He was a very distinguished teacher. He entered into what was already a great office, and left it greater than he found it. No mercenary motive was ever mixed up with its sacred duties, to degrade or vitiate his work. He loved it with his whole heart. He taught with singular precision and dis- crimination, and in such a way as to stimulate the mind and call its faculties into play. He taught by his word and with his intellect, but, more effectively and to a higher purpose, by that pervasive, life-giving influence which, like the spirit of God, proceeds from a quickening, beneficent, com- manding personality. In his access to the mind of God were the " hidings" of a power which made him what he was and what no man can be of himself alone, — enabling him to train his boys, not only for places of usefulness and trust and honor on earth, but that their names' might be written in the book of life. Thus he became a co-worker with God, taught by Him as a lowly disciple of Jesus, and dispensing to others what he learned. So do all our best instructors teach what they have learned from God. And so may we always be able to say to Him, " All thy children shall be taught of the Lord ; and great shall be the peace of thy children." The Teacher. 17 APPENDIX. Through the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Street, Dr. Soule's pastor, I was invited to pi'each a commemorative sermon in the Second Congregational Church in Exeter, on the afternoon of the 8tli of June. At a meeting of the trustees of the Academy it was Voted, That the Reverend Dr. Morisou be requested to allow the trus- tees of Phillips Exeter Academy to publish the discourse given by him in Exeter commemorative of the late Dr. Soule, and that he be asked to prepare for it a biograijhical appendix. I have not at hand the materials for even a slight biograjihical sketch of Dr. Soule. He was born in Freeport, Me., the 25th of July, 1796. He entered the Academy at Exeter in 1813, remained there three years, entered as junior at Bowdoin College in 1816, and graduated in 1818. He then came to the Academy as assistant teacher, remaining a little more than a year. He returned again in 1822, was instructor till 1838, when he was elected principal, which office he resigned in 1873, having been a teacher in the Academy fifty-two years, and at its head thirty-five years. He died May 28, 1879. When I was admitted to the Academy in 1825, Mr. Soule was twenty-nine years old. In his gait and personal appearance, in his bearing towards the students and his mode of teaching, as well as in the tones of his voice, he was then very much the same that he always was afterwards. There was nothing like self- assertion in his demeanor. He moved and spoke calmly and deliberately. I do not remember that I ever saw him out of temper. But there was something about him which gave the impression, that, while he was both quick and exact in his mental operations, he was also equally quick in his feelings, and that he was a man with whom it would not be safe to take any undue liberties. I never saw a flash, but we all felt that the lightning was there, ready to check at the instant any appi'oach to disobe- dience or disrespect. 18 Appendix. Dr, Abbot was then, and continued for thirteen years after- wards to be, at the head of the institution. He had been asso- ciated with very able and accomplished assistant instructors, — men who as teachers and in other walks held the highest posts of usefulness and honor. But while with him, they spontaneously looked up to him as their superior, not only in official dignity, but in the easy and natural ascendancy which he maintained in the government of the school. Outside of that, as a neighbor, a citizen, or a friend, he was apparently the meekest of men, diffi- dent, hesitating, distrustful of himself. But no admiral on the quarter-deck of his flag-ship was, more than he in his school, the impersonation of decision, firmness, and authority. Mr. Soule as an assistant teacher filled his post modestly and grandly. He knew how to subdue a fi'actious or self-important student without seeming to come into collision with him. Such an one, new to the school, and full of the ideas, gained at home, of his own superiority, in coming up to recite with his class for the first time, pressed by them very obtrusively, and took the foremost seat. In the recitation, Mr. Soule quietly put to him questions which only the best scholars could answer; and when he had broken down entirely on them, they were passed on to the next students and answered by them as a matter of course. At the recitation on the following day, he was careful to be behind his class and to take the lowest place. Years afterwards, he spoke of that mortifying experience as the most valuable lesson he had ever learned. But there was no look of harshness and no word of rebuke to indicate that there had been anything out of the usual routine in the recitation. There was nothing to irritate the boy and thus excite a needless opposition, and nothing to discourage him by adding gratuitously to the mortification of defeat. Under Dr. Soule the government of the Academy was never obtrusive. It was as gentle and as unvarying as a law of Nature. Its decrees executed themselves without noise. Nothing was said about government. Young gentlemen were expected to be a Appendix. 19 law to themselves. But unfortunately all boys are not of this sort. And there were vigilant eyes keenly turned on every new- comer, and quick tt) see when any dangerous element had entered the fold. "That boy," said Dr. Soule to me of a boy respecting whom I was inquiring, "had not been here a week before he had the school under his control; and not for its good." No charge was made against him, but he was quietly taken away by his father. To foresee and remove an evil before it had come to a head was always and wisely the practice here. A gentle but far- seeing and prompt observance of the maxim, '■'■Obsta j^rincipiis^^'' resist the beginnings of evil, has saved a vast deal of trouble in the management of the Academy. But it requires a remarkable insight into character, a rare sense of justice, and great prompt- ness of decision, as well as kindliness of heart and manner, to carry it out. At Exeter there have been unusual facilities in this respect. It is a school founded for the advanced education of those who, with talents " above mediocrity," desire to learn. It has, therefore, more than any common school, the power of selecting its students. Dr. Abbot and Dr. Soule both considered it a privilege for any one to become a member of the school. They delighted to welcome all promising boys to its advantages. Except perhaps the senior class in our colleges, there are no persons in the land who feel more the dignity of their position than the students of Phillips Exeter Academy. And this sense of nobility imposes its obligations. Daniel Webster said that no honor ever bestowed on him produced such an emotion in his mind as he felt when his teacher, Mr. Nicholas Emery, told him that he was the best scholar in his class, — a class of three. Under Dr. Soule, with a new board of trustees, the Academy more than maintained its high position among institutions of its kind. The number of students was doubled. But he was able to keep every student in his mind, and to follow him after he left the school. He had a remarkable faculty of recognizing those who had once been his boys, when he met tlicni even after a lapse of many years. This personal knowledge and remembrance V-''7(:>e>34- 20 Appendix. is of great value to a teacher, guiding him in his work and bind- ing him and his pupils to one another. Dr. Soule was associated in his office with vwy able men. But he easily maintained his ascendancy as the legitimate head of the school. For eighteen years Joseph Gibson Hoyt was the Pro- fessor of Mathematics. He was a man of vai-ious and uncommon gifts and accomplishments, and would have been eminent in any calling. We have heard those most competent to judge, who had been his pupils, say that, in his department, he was the best teacher they had ever known. But he was not merely a teacher. He impressed any one who met him by his brilliant and striking qualities as a man of mark and influence. His death was a serious loss to the cause of education. He left Exeter to become the Chancellor of Washington University, in St. Louis. By him and by those who were not unworthy to be his associates, the superior qualifications of Dr. Soule for the office which he held were always recognized. And so the wise and good man continued at the head of the school, in fact as well as in name, till a serious attack of illness admonished him that he could no longer depend upon himself. Then, at the mature age of seventy- seven, he resigned his office and withdrew from the duties of oversight and instruction which, in one form or another, had connected him with the Phillips Exeter Academy for more than fifty-two years. Dr. Soule was fortunate and hai»])y in his domestic relations. His widow still lives, with faculties unimpaired, in the sweetness and serenity of affections which have always been a joy and com- fort to those around her. Two daughters died almost in their infancy, and left always the light of a tender and holy memory in the home which they gladdened for a little while. Three sons survive, — one a lawyer in New York, one a teacher, formerly in Cincinnati, but during these latter years residing witii his father, and one a judge on the bench of the Supreme Court of Massachu- setts. In the light of what he was about to do and to be and enjoy, it might well have been said to him in his youth, as God said to Abraham, "I will bless thee, and thou shalt he a blessing." *^\yVvcrv*>-<3»'"''-'^ - Gideon Lane Soule, LL.D.