There exists abundant evidence, to which the present writer can add personal testimony, in regard to Longfellow’s success as an organizer of his immediate department of Harvard University and in dealing with his especial classes. He was assigned, for some reason, a room in University Hall which was also employed for faculty meetings, and was therefore a little less dreary than the ordinary class-room of those days. It seemed most appropriate that an instructor of Longfellow’s well-bred aspect and ever-courteous manners should simply sit at the head of the table with his scholars, as if they were guests, instead of putting between him and them the restrictive demarcation of a teacher’s desk. We read with him, I remember, first the little book he edited, “Proverbes Dramatiques,” and afterwards something of Racine and Molière, in which his faculty of finding equivalent phrases was an admirable example for us. When afterwards, during an abortive rebellion in the college yard, the students who had refused to 177 listen to others yielded to the demand of their ringleader, “Let us hear Professor Longfellow; he always treats us like gentlemen,” the youthful rebel unconsciously recognized a step forward in academical discipline. Longfellow did not cultivate us much personally, or ask us to his house, but he remembered us and acknowledged our salutations. He was, I think, the first Harvard instructor who addressed the individual student with the prefix “Mr.” I recall the clearness of his questions, the simplicity of his explanations, the well-bred and skilful propriety with which he led us past certain indiscreet phrases in our French authors, as for instance in Balzac’s “Peau de Chagrin.” Most of all comes back to memory the sense of triumph with which we saw the proof-sheets of “Voices of the Night” brought in by the printer’s devil and laid at his elbow. We felt that we also had lived in literary society, little dreaming, in our youthful innocence, how large a part of such society would prove far below the standard of courtesy that prevailed in Professor Longfellow’s recitation room.
Yet the work of this room was, in those days of dawning changes, but a small part of the function of a professor. Longfellow was, both by inclination and circumstances, committed to the reform initiated by his predecessor, George 178 Ticknor. He had inherited from this predecessor a sort of pioneership in position relative to the elective system just on trial as an experiment in college. There exists an impression in some quarters that this system came in for the first time under President Walker about 1853; but it had been, as a matter of fact, tried much earlier,—twenty years, at least,—in the Modern Language Department under Ticknor, and had been extended much more widely in 1839 under President Quincy. The facts are well known to me, as I was in college at that period and enjoyed the beneficent effects of the change, since it placed the whole college, in some degree, for a time at least, on a university basis. The change took the form, first, of a discontinuance of mathematics as a required study after the first year, and then the wider application of the elective system in history, natural history, and the classics, this greater liberty being enjoyed, though with some reaction, under President Everett, and practically abolished about 1849 under President Sparks, when what may be called the High School system was temporarily restored. An illustration of this reactionary tendency may be found in a letter addressed by Longfellow to the President and Fellows, placing him distinctly on the side of freedom of choice. The circumstances are these: Students had for some time been 179 permitted to take more than one modern language among the electives, and I myself, before receiving my degree of A. B. in 1841, had studied two such languages simultaneously for three years of college course. It appears, however, from the following letter, that this privilege had already been reduced to one such language, and that Longfellow was at once found remonstrating against it, though at first ineffectually.
Cambridge, June 24, 1845.
Gentlemen,—In arranging the studies for the next year, the Faculty have voted, as will be seen from the enclosed Tabular view, that “no student will be allowed to take more than one Modern Language at a time, except for special reasons assigned, & by express vote of the Faculty.”
You will see that this is the only Department upon which any bar or prohibition is laid. And when the decision was made, the Latin & Greek Departments were allowed two votes each, & the Department of Modern Languages but one vote.
As I foresaw at the time, this arrangement has proved very disadvantageous to the Department, & has reduced the number of pupils, at once, more than one half. During this year the whole number of students in the Department 180 has been 224. The applications for the next term do not amount to 100; nor, when all have been received, can it reach 110. I therefore, Gentlemen, appeal to you, for your interference in this matter, requesting that the restriction may be removed, & this Department put upon the footing of the others in this particular. Otherwise, I fear that as at present organized, it cannot exist another year.
I have the honor to be,
Gentlemen, your ob’dt. servant
Henry W. Longfellow.[71]
[Addressed externally to the President and Fellows of Harvard College.]
[REPORT OF COMMITTEE.]
Corporation of Harvard College, July 26, 1845.
The Committee to whom was referred the Memorial of Professor Longfellow on the subject of the arrangement of the studies of the undergraduates by the faculty of the College, & desiring that the restriction as to the number of modern languages that may be studied at once should be removed, have attended to the subject, & ask leave to report, that they have, in common with the other members of the Corporation already considered the general subject of the 181 arrangement of the studies of the undergraduates, with especial reference to the recommendations of the board of overseers; & that they were convinced by the examination of the details they made at that time that the business of ordering the times & the amount of study & recitation for the young men at Cambridge is not only a very complicated & difficult affair, but one which is in the hands of those best qualified, & considering all their relations, most truly interested to lead the students to give as much labor as is safe for them to the studies suitable to College years, & to distribute it in such manner as shall be most just & effective. The committee would not feel themselves authorized to change one part of a system, all the parts of which are intricately dependent upon each other, without they felt a confidence they do not possess that they could recommend one which should work better as a whole. They therefore must decline, so far as depends upon them, adopting a measure the ulterior effects of which they may not foresee with accuracy, & they express the belief that it will be well to allow the present arrangement to continue for a time, even at the risk, apprehended by Profr. Longfellow, of its producing an injurious effect upon his department. They cannot but hope, however, that the evils he fears may be avoided, or 182 if not, that they may be compensated by equivalent advantages.
Saml. A. Eliot
J. A. Lowell
}
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