Some men pass noiselessly through life, as the sun through the heavens, shedding a constant light to the end of their course, and after they are gone, leave a brightness to be seen in others, as the sunbeams reflected from the moon. This is pre-eminently true of Dr. Dwight. Though possessed of no extraordinary genius, such as dazzles and captivates the million, he was distinguished, beyond most men of his day, for profound and varied learning, and for skill in so imparting it to others, as to mould them after his own liking. He was born on the 14th of May, 1752, at Northampton, Massachusetts, of parents alike respected for refined cultivation, fervent piety and good acquirements. His father had been educated at Yale College, and though he followed the business of a merchant, he was fond of the pursuit of learning and cultivated the acquaintance of men of letters both from Europe and this country. His mother, the daughter of the distinguished Jonathan Edwards, President of Princeton College, was a lady of superior mental endowments, dignified manners and excellent worth. Young Dwight grew up like a tender plant, trained with the utmost care and protected from the danger of early blight. His education in the rudiments, was left wholly to the care of his mother, who, by the time he was six years of age, had imparted to him such an amount of instruction in the common branches of learning, that he was considered competent to enter upon the study of Latin. He accordingly, took up the study, at that early period, unknown to his father, who feared that he was too young to make progress in it, or that his taste for it in the future might thus be destroyed. He however made such proficiency that he is said to have been nearly prepared for college by the time he was eight years old. The grammar school where he attended having been discontinued, he again came under his mother's instruction, and was taught by her geography and history, both ancient and modern, with great success. He passed nearly three years at home, enjoying meanwhile the society of cultivated men, and the best domestic instruction. At the age of eleven he was placed in the charge of the Rev. Enoch Huntington, at Middletown, Connecticut, where he applied himself with great diligence to the studies preparatory to a collegiate course. His knowledge of the Latin and Greek, at the age of thirteen, was considered adequate to his admission into the Junior Class in Yale College. On account of his extreme youth he entered the Freshman Class, at that institution, in 1765. His thorough preparation, however, proved to be an injury rather than an advantage to him during the first two years of the collegiate course, as it left him comparatively little to do, to accomplish the daily amount of study required of him. His amiability and vivacity of spirits, made him a favorite among his classmates, particularly those who loved sociality in college better than study. At the commencement of his junior year, heeding the advice of his excellent tutor, he thoroughly changed his desultory course, applying himself ever after, with the closest attention. He graduated in the summer of 1769 with equal honor with the valedictorian of his class, who was his superior only in point of age. So great was the enthusiasm with which he devoted himself to study during the last two years of college life, that he nearly ruined his eyesight. It was the occasion of great suffering to him through life. Dr. Dwight, soon after he graduated, commenced at the grammar school in New Haven, the employment of teaching, which was his principal occupation for life. Having passed two years in that situation with great success, at the age of nineteen he was chosen tutor in Yale College. During his tutorship, which he held for six years, Dr. Dwight gained the reputation of a disciplinarian and instructor of the highest order. Rhetoric and oratory, branches which had been hitherto greatly neglected in college, received by him special attention. He gave a course of lectures on the former subject, and taught the art of speaking by actual example on the stage. He carried his pupils, as many of them as chose, through the higher branches of mathematics, embracing the Principia of Newton, with which he was as familiar as with the alphabet. The great respect with which he was regarded by the students is shown in the fact, that even while he was tutor, they, as a body, drew up and signed a petition to be presented to the corporation, requesting that he might be chosen President of the College, as that office was about to be vacated. In the spring of 1777, College being broken up, in consequence of the Revolution, the students, with their respective tutors, repaired to places less exposed to the inroads of the enemy. Dr. Dwight took a portion of them to Weathersfield. In the autumn of the same year he threw up his tutorship, and having been previously licensed as a preacher, was appointed Chaplain in the United States army. He joined General Putnam's division at West Point, and continued in this office a little more than one year when he was obliged to resign it, on account of the death of his father, and return to Northampton to take charge of the bereaved family. |