Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/384

 DWIGHT

DWIGHT

licensed to preach in 1777 and served as cliaplain inParstin's i»rij;aile of the Connecticut line, 1777- 7S. The death of liis father called him home and he took charge of the farm, occasionally preach- ing in the neighborhood churches. 1778-83. At the same time he conducted a day school and while New Haven was in the hands of tiie British, he liad under his care seA'eral of the refugeed Yale students. He was a representative in the "Massachusetts legis- lature, 1782, and re- fused a nomination as representative in congress. He was pastor of the church at Greenfield Hill, Fairfield, Conn., 1783- 95, and established there his celebrated academy and became the pioneer of higher education of women, placing both sexes on an equal footing in his school. During this period he secured the union of the Congregational and Presbyterian churches in New England. He was president of Yale college from Sept. S, 1795, to Jan. 11, 1817, and Livingston professor of divinity pro tempore, 1795-1805, and by elec- tion, 1805-1817. He found the college with a narrow and pedantic curriculum, with the bitterest of feeling existing between the fresh- men and the upper-class men, and between the students and the faculty, and with the burden of a primary system. These he reformed, and at his death the 110 students liad increased to 313 and the college had taken rank as one of the model university schools in America. He was married in March, 1777, to Marv', daughter of Benjamin WooLsey of Long Island and they had eight sons, the elde.st of whom, Timothy (1778- 1884), was a merchant in New Haven and gave $5000 to endow the Dwight profes.sorship of didactic theologj- at Yale. He received from the college of New Jersey the degree of S.T.D. in 1787. and from Harvard that of LL.D. in 1810. His master di.ssertation was*: Jlintory, Eloquence and Poetrij of the. Bible; while a chaplain in the army he wrote the patriotic song Columbia; his most ambitious work was his epic TJie Conquest of Canaan and his most popular pastoral poem was Greenttf'hl IliU (1794). He reviseil Watts's psalms with additions of his own and made a selec- tion of hymns, introduced in the worship of the Presbj-terian churclies by the General assembly. His published books include: Trnrcln in Netn Eng- land and ytio York (4 vols., 1821); Theology Ex-

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phiincd and Defended in a Course of 173 Sermons (5 voLs., 1818); The Genuineness and Authentieitij of the .Vew Testament (1793); Discourse on the Char- acter of Washington (1800); Observations on Lan- (litarie (1816); Essay on Light (1816). See Memoir by the Rev. Sereno Edwards Dwight (1846). He died in New Haven, Conn., Jan. 11, 1817.

DWIGHT, Timothy, educator, was born in Norwich. Conn., Nov. 16. 1828: son of James and Susan (Breed) Dwight; grandson of President Timothy and Mary (Woolsey) Dwight; great- grandson of Maj. Timothy and Mary (Edwards) Dwight; and great^ grandson of Jonatlian and Sarah (Pierpont) Ed- wards. He was grad- uated at Yale in 1849, studied theology

there, 1851-53, and was licensed to preach. He was tutor at Yale, 1851-55; stud- ied in the universities of Bonn and Berlin, 1856-58, and on his return was elected Buckingham profes- sor of sacred litera- ture at Yale, serving, 1858-86. He was or- dained a minister of the gospel, Sept. 15,1861. He was elected president of the corporation of Yale college as successor to Noah Porter, July 1. 1886, serving as president of the college, 1886-87, and as president of Yale university from May 25, 1887, at which time the act of the legislature of Connecti- cut, as pas.sed in January, 1887, making the col- lege a university, was accepted by the president and fellows of the corporation. The re])ort of the president of Yale for the year ending Dec. 31, 1896, shows that within the ten years, from 1886, fifteen new universit}^ buildings had been erected; five of the older buildings had been altered and enlarged and one building had been purchased; additional land had been secured in tiie vicinity of the academic campus for future use as sites for additional buildings; the number of students had increased from 1076 in 1886. to 2415 in 1896; the instructors from 114 to 238; the permanent fund had increased two-fold; and the gifts for all purposes amounted to more tlian four millions of dollars. He resigned the presi- dency of Yale university Nov. 17. 1898, but did not discontinue his services until the close of the class year, 1H99. and at the commencement exer- cises he introduced as his successor. Arthur Twin- ing Hadley, who then held the chair of political economy. President Dwight was elected in 1890 a fellow of the American academy of arts and sciences. He received the degree of D.D. from