SKETCH OF LIFE.

My acquaintance with Professor Hinsdale dates from the spring of 1868. I remember, as though it were yesterday, the blustering March day when he knocked at the door of my student quarters in what is now the north wing of University hall. He came at the request of the President of the projected college at Alliance, Ohio, to look at me and my record and to report on my fitness for a place in the Faculty of the new Institution with which he had already identified his own fortunes. As a result of this visit, I found myself the following autumn working side by side with him, he in the Chair of History, I in the Chair of Greek. The next year he was called to Hiram College, and on his accession to the Presidency in 1870, I joined him as Professor of Ancient Languages. For the thirty-two years and more since our first meeting we have been neighbors and colleagues for a large part of the time, and always fast friends. Our early struggles, our common tastes and aims, knit us together, and seldom through all these years did we fail to see eye to eye; and so I find myself hesitating to praise him in adequate terms lest by so doing I should seem to praise myself. Yet this may be said, that no man ever found him anything but highminded, just, and true.

He was born in Wadsworth, Ohio, March 31, 1837, the second of five children and the eldest son. His father, Albert Hinsdale, was a native of Torrington, Conn., and came to the Western Reserve with his family when a mere lad. The mother, Clarinda Eyles, also of a Connecticut family, was born at Akron about a year after her parents reached Ohio.

These young people grew up in the same neighborhood, and had such opportunities for culture as the new country afforded. They had little school training, but both possessed sturdy qualities of body and mind,— physical endurance, insight, firmness, courage, hopefulness, moral and spiritual elevation, the richest inherit ance that can fall to children. Shortly after their marriage, in 1834, they settled on the land in Medina county which was to be their home for the rest of their days. In this farmer's household the young Burke grew up to manhood, always bearing cheerfully and loyally his share in the labors and privations incident to such a life. Many tender memories gathered around the spot for him, and he made frequent pilgrimages to it throughout his life.

Up to his seventeenth year his educational advantages had been confined to the district school. In 1850 the body known as the Disciples of Christ had opened the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute on Hiram Hill, about forty miles from the Hinsdale home. The fame of this school soon spread throughout the region and beyond. Hither in 1853 came the young Hinsdale, and hither he continued to come at intervals for some years thereafter, as his means would permit, till he had completed the course. During his later years at Hiram he taught some classes in the Institute while pursuing his own studies.

At Hiram he formed a friendship with the young Garfield which was destined to have a large influence on his own career. Garfield was a few years his senior and more advanced in his studies; but a close intimacy gradually sprang up between them

which ripened into a firm and lasting friendship. Each found in the other what he himself in a measure lacked. Garfield's richly suggestive and ardent nature greatly stimulated the younger man, while Hinsdale's clearness of insight and steady judgment often held in check the enthusiasms of the elder.

He was married at twenty-five, and the same year entered actively on the pursuits of the Christian ministry. He preached regularly at Solon for a few years, where he also conducted a private school, and later at Cleveland, where he was associate editor of The Christian Standard. He continued to preach occasionally in the pulpit of his own and other denominations throughout his life as there was need. He was a clear, forcible, and acceptable preacher, but his true sphere was the school; and to this work he returned in 1868, never again to relinquish it.

In the Presidency of Hiram College, which he assumed at the age of thirty-three, he found a field that called into play all his versatile powers. His physical and mental resources at this period were prodigious, and he did well the work of several men during the twelve years of his incumbency. As a result the Institution received from his administration an impetus that it can never lose.

On the nomination of General Garfield for the Presidency of the United States in 1880, Hinsdale naturally became deeply interested in the result of the election, and at the request of the National Republican Committee he prepared a "Campaign Text-book" and made numerous speeches in the states of Ohio and Indiana. Had President Garfield lived, it is by no means unlikely that Hinsdale would have been drawn into the diplomatic service of the country; but fortunately for the cause of education this was not to be.

BURKE A. HINSDALE, AT 30.

provement in methods and aims. His annual reports during the four years of his superintendency contained the results of these studies and at once attracted the favorable attention of educators throughout the country. And so when the Chair of the Science and Art of Teaching at this university fell vacant in 1887 by the resignation of Professor Payne, the sentiment among the public school men of our own state at once pointed to him as a fitting successor.

His Ann Arbor life proved highly agreeable to him for several reasons, but especially because he found here release from much of

the administrative drudgery that had weighed him down for so many years. He now found more time for research and authorship, for which he had a remarkable aptıtude. During the Hiram period he had published at least three books, all on ecclesiastical subjects. The tragedy of 1881 called forth two works from him: "Garfield and Education," with a biographical introduction (1882), and a collected edition of General Garfield's works in two octavo volumes (1883). In 1884 appeared "Schools and Studies," and in 1888 "The Old Northwest," one of his most original and sustained performances. The Ann Arbor period, for reasons natned above, has been especiaily prolific. The following are the principal titles: "The American Government" (1891, and revised from time to time); "How to Study and Teach History" (1893), "Jesus as a Teacher" (1895), "Teaching the Language Arts" (1896), "Studies in Education" (1896), “The C.vil Government of Ohio" (1896), "Life of Horace Mann" (1898), and "The Art of Study" (1900). A History of the University of Michigan, on which he bestowed much labor, is now in the hands of the printer. Besides these he published numerous reviews, pamphle's and editorials, which if collected would fill many volumes. All this work bears the impress of his clear, forcible and richly stored mind. Other works were in contemplation when he was stricken by his last illness, but these plans, alas, now sleep withi him. While we mourn his untimely end, we have this consolation, that he lived to accomplish so much, and to impress himself upon his generation in a way so beneficent and so honorable.

ISAAC N. DEMMON.

University of Michigan.

AS PRESIDENT OF HIRAM COLLEGE.

To Hiram College and its interests, Dr. B. A. Hinsdale gave some of the best years and the best work of his life. Its value can never be adequately measured in this world. His administration was noted for wisdom in the selection of teachers and the high grade of intellect in the advanced students. High over all and dwarfing all by comparison, was the mind of the President. To listen to him for one or two hours a day for a year seemed to us equivalent to a full course of study in schools even of high grade. He tolerated no sham, shoddy, or shiftlessness. He had no use for veneerers or their work. From the profundity of his research and learning, even twentyfive years ago, he drew material richer than any text-book offered and fed our hungry minds. We went to him narrow, prejudiced, and blind as to the vastness of the field of culture. We left him broadened, liberalized and eager to explore the illimitable domain of knowledge. How he expounded civics and politics, interpreted history, revealed the beauties of literature, and guided us through processes of psychology! None better than he knew how to separate the true from the false, the valuable from the worthless. His insight into the reasons of things and his exposition of them seemed to us then and still seems unsurpassable. His personality and methods as an instructor abide with us in life's conflicts as a gracious influence. His pupils during the '70's have always regarded him as one of the most learned men and one of the greatest educators this country has produced. To us, his regime, measured not by brick and mortar, or money, or number of students, was the golden age of Hiram. The eye of Garfield may have surveyed a wider horizon, but the eve of Hinsdale fathomed the

greater depths. If he was such to Hiram, what must he have been to Michigan! Words cannot express the gratitude and love in our hearts, or the praise on the threshold of our lips, as we contemplate the memory of past association with President Hinsdale, or the glory of his present fame. He was our greatest teacher in our golden college days. Our grief at his loss is immeasurable and unspeakable.

W. H. C. NEWINGTON,

Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio

HIS WORK AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
MICHIGAN.

The appreciation of Professor Hinsdale in his connection with the University of Michigan was cont nually deepened, especially in the later years of his service, until now our sense of personal loss is mingled with the feeling, expressed on every hand, that we have lost from the counsels of the University a presence and power that can hardly be replaced. Without attempting to pass in review the qualities that made him great, I am glad to offer the simple tribute of one who came, even though slowly, to know his worth.

The influence exerted by Professor Hinsdale was due primarily to his own strong character. True, he came to us with an honorable record; he was a thoughtful and prolific writer on various important subjects, and was a recognized authority in his own sphere of study; yet this has been true of many who have never gained the lasting confidence of their associates. His was the single eye that makes the whole being full of light. He saw clearly, because he thought bonestly and with the full power of an untrammeled and vigorous mind, and he constantly gained in power because he fearlessly and impartially followed the results of his.

BURKE A. HINSDALE, AT 48. more to be said. An adversary to be dreaded when it became his duty to expose a fallacy or a sham, he was the embodiment of fairness, and those who have tried his kindness know how deep it was. My last interview with him brings up a picture of his earnest solicitude in a case that he would gladly have decided on grounds of sympathy. His sense of justice carried the day, but he said, "These appeals wring my heart."

He was one of the great teachers who are remembered even more for what they are than what they have taught. He taught with originality and power, but his lectures were