Erika Lindemann
Faculty members and students do not often discuss their academic
experiences, which makes it difficult to reconstruct precisely what went on in
antebellum classrooms. Moreover, some elements of teaching and
learning—misbehavior in the classroom, for example—receive
proportionately greater attention in the documents examined for this project
than the normal behavior of responsible, diligent students, about whom we hear
almost nothing. However, the 1840s is a particularly rich decade for examining
antebellum student writing at the
University because there is so much of it.
The Eli West Hall
Papers (SHC), for example, contain seventeen compositions that
Hall
wrote while at the
University, an impressive portfolio by a member of the Class
of 1847.
1 Large
class sets of compositions also have survived. The
North Carolina Collection houses 365 essays written by every
member of the junior class from 1839 to 1846.
2 These
"junior compositions" represent the work of 240 students, each
writing one or two essays to be filed in the
University's archives. A valuable collection of fifteen
senior speeches by members of the Class of 1846, preserved in the
University
Archives, provides important information about the expectations students
and faculty members had for these formal, public addresses. The amount of
student writing from the 1840s is extraordinary and deserves further study
because it can tell us much about the literate practices of antebellum
students.
Diaries of this period offer another important resource for
understanding antebellum classrooms. Because students were writing for
themselves, they used a conversational style, not the formal, elevated diction
that characterizes senior speeches and class compositions. Though the diaries
of the 1840s all record significant events in the academic lives of their
authors, they differ in their approach.
David
Alexander Barnes
and
Thomas
Garrett
, for example, tended to treat their journals as extensions of
their studies, often summarizing and responding to books they were reading
outside class.
William Mullins
and
James Dusenbery
focused on their relationships with their
friends, describing with remarkable candor the significant people and
extracurricular activities that defined, for them, what was memorable about
being a college student.
Edmund Covington
commenced and re-commenced his journal
several times, but it served as a repository for his creative writing,
especially his poetry. Regardless of their focus, students' diaries reveal
their attitudes towards their studies, their impressions of faculty members,
and their views of academic milestones such as senior speaking and
commencement.
Teaching and learning during the antebellum period were conducted
primarily by lecture and recitation. Most students attended classes for fifteen
hours per week, including one hour's recitation on the
Bible on Sunday.
Seniors, excused from the early morning recitation, were in class for eleven
hours a week. Students prepared their lessons by studying their textbooks and
memorizing enough of the material to be able to answer the professor's
questions about it. Some textbooks of the period contain the sorts of questions
a teacher might ask and presuppose that students will answer them by quoting
portions of the book. Except by permission of a faculty member, students could
not bring their textbooks to class, making it all the more crucial that
students be able to memorize the material.
In the 1840s students sat on rows of benches in the classroom, in
alphabetical order, and when called on came to the teacher's desk to answer his
questions. Poor
Jesse
Irvine
several times refused to "come to the table whenever called
upon to recite" and was dismissed (
Faculty Minutes 4:41, UA). Some faculty
members were so predictable in calling on students in alphabetical order that
the young men could avoid studying their lessons until they knew that they
would be "taken up."
Garrett
reports in his diary, "This morning our
lesson was in Philosophy, and as I expected to be called upon to recite, I
commited verry thoroughly. I was called upon as I expected and made a pretty
good recitation. I am now free for three or four lessons" (
Thomas Miles
Garrett Papers, SHC).
Faculty members had the duty of going to the recitation room at
"a reasonable time before the hour for the bell to ring, to prevent
assemblages of Students before the proper time, and to see that the Recitation
Room is in a proper condition for the reception of the class" (
Acts 9). Every student was obliged to "observe a
strict propriety of conduct at recitation or lecture; refraining from every
thing which shall interrupt business, or divert the attention of others; he
shall not recline or lounge upon the benches, nor be employed in reading
newspapers, nor any book or paper whatever, except such as the Professor or
Tutor at the time shall direct" (
Acts 12). Minutes
of faculty meetings reveal, however, that students often were cited for
misconduct in the recitation room: throwing a shoe into
Professor
Roberts'
classroom, lobbing a firecracker into
Professor
Fetter's
class, throwing acorns into
Professor Green's
class, spitting tobacco juice on the floor of
Professor Hooper's
recitation room, pushing students out
of their assigned seats, rocking a bench and refusing to move to another,
sticking a knife into a bench, coming to class intoxicated, refusing to give up
a book when told that it was forbidden in the classroom, and circulating a note
that read "All hands sing out, 'that's all'. Pass it on." Penalties
for these infractions ranged from being admonished to being suspended for a few
weeks (
Faculty Minutes Vol. 4, UA).
Suspended students were obliged to leave campus for two to six
weeks, depending on the nature of their offense. A faculty member also wrote to
the student's parents explaining the circumstances that resulted in the
suspension. Suspensions customarily were handed out for repeated offenses
involving drunkenness or resisting faculty authority. Though classmates were
not to associate with suspended students,
Dusenbery
describes in his diary helping two students set
up alternate living quarters a few miles outside
Chapel
Hill. Suspension gave some students time to read, hunt, fish, and enjoy
the company of young ladies—an enviable vacation.
Faculty members kept scrupulous records of students' attendance at
recitations, prayers, and Sunday services. The semi-annual and annual reports
submitted to the
trustees in the 1840s contain charts, spread across two
pages, that record not only every senior's standing but also the number of
times that he was absent from prayers, recitations, and church services during
the four years of college. An important claim to fame for
Matt
Ransom
, who graduated with first honors in 1847, is that he did not miss
one of nearly 5,600 "exercises" during his four years of college.
Fellow graduate
Dudley
Clanton
, however, had the worst attendance record for his class; he was
absent from morning prayers 383 times, from recitation 225 times, and from
church 21 times during his career as a student (
Faculty Minutes 4:366-67,
UA).
In reconstructing the expectations for academic work during this
period, it is necessary to distinguish between so-called "academic
writing" and writing done for the debating societies. The distinction is
admittedly artificial. Even though faculty members were barred from membership
in the debating societies, they certainly were aware of the requirements to
declaim, compose, and debate weekly, which doubtless shaped expectations for
the written work they assigned students. Topics debated in society meetings
also sometimes reappeared in such academic exercises as senior speeches and
commencement addresses. Conversely, students obviously used their knowledge of
rhetorical principles, gained from lectures and recitations, in framing society
speeches and compositions. Some students even submitted to the society work
that they had previously written for class, even though such a short-cut was
frowned upon.
3 On the
one hand, then, students' work for the professor of rhetoric benefited from
their activities as members of the debating societies and vice versa.
On the other hand, marked differences characterize the work in both
arenas. Students typically approached their society "duties" with
greater enthusiasm than they did their work in the classroom. Consequently,
their writing is different—in subject matter, genre, and style. Students
received diplomas from their debating societies as well as from the
University, and it is sometimes difficult to judge which
they valued more. For some students being a
Di or
a
Phi was more important then being a
University graduate.
Though diaries and letters from the 1840s permit us to infer
generally what was expected of students academically, a single valuable
document helps us understand how much and what kind of writing antebellum
students produced:
Professor William Mercer Green's
grade book.
4 Teachers
keep grade books solely for their own use, never expecting others to read them.
Yet every teacher knows how devastating it would be to lose a grade book
because it provides crucial information about courses and the work of students.
Green's
grade book is no exception. It is laid out like a
contemporary grade book. Students' names are listed in alphabetical order down
the left side of the page. Columns for recitation grades are marked off from
left to right across a two-page spread, continuing to the right of the gutter,
with wider summary columns marked off on the far right of the right-hand
page.
As we might expect,
Green's
grade book reveals what subjects he taught and how
many students were enrolled in each class. In Fall 1848
Green
was responsible for a "Junior Class in Rhetoric
& Composition" (twenty-eight students), a "Freshman Class in the
Scriptures" (thirty students), and a "Sophomore Class in
Composition" (fifty-five students). In Spring 1849 he instructed a
"Junior Class in History & Logic" (twenty-six students), a
"Freshman Class in Scripture & Elocution" (thirty-one students),
and a "Sophomore Class in Composition" (fifty students).
Green
met with over 100 students per term. Moreover, in
the 1848-49 academic year he provided various kinds of instruction for every
student in the
University. In addition to meeting formal classes,
Green
also conferred with every senior about his senior
speech. The topics or titles of these speeches for the thirty-six members of
the Class of 1849 appear under the heading "Subjects of Senior Speeches
April 1849."
5 The
placement of this list between the fall and spring sections of the grade book
indicates that seniors discussed their topics with
Green
in late fall, even though the speeches were not
delivered until the following April.
Green
also supervised the preparation of commencement
addresses, which were delivered by a smaller group of thirteen seniors
graduating with honors. He recorded the names of these students and their
topics on a page headed "Senior Speeches at Commencement June 7,
1849."
6
Another page of the grade book lists twenty names of first- and second-year
students chosen as "Declaimers for Commencement 1849," together with
brief titles of the pieces they intended to deliver.
7 To say
that
Green
had a significant amount of student writing to
review in the spring semester is an understatement.
Students in
Green's
courses received two grades at the end of the
term, one for scholarship and one for deportment. The grading scale for both
was the same: very good, good, very respectable, respectable, tolerable, bad,
and very bad. These grades did not appear on individual students' papers; they
were used only in the faculty's semi-annual and annual reports to the
trustees and in the reports sent to parents.
8 I have
found no evidence that any student ever earned "very bad," but
"bad" appears occasionally in the faculty reports.
Green
used only
vg,
g,
vr,
r, and (rarely)
t, though he
sometimes added plus and minus signs to these five grades. His daily recitation
grades represent an altogether different alphabet of
f,
e,
i,
h,
a,
x,
t, and
o. These letters
doubtless represent qualitative judgments, but their meaning is unclear.
E, for example, could stand for "excellent"
or "excused absence."
To determine a student's standing at the end of each semester, the
entire faculty would meet to discuss each student's performance in individual
classes, then vote to decide who merited first, second or third distinctions.
9
Faculty minutes reveal that distinctions were awarded in all classes, from the
"fresh" to the seniors, and that it was "customary to
distinguish about one third of the [seniors]" (
3:342, UA).
Green's
grade book gives evidence that he shared with his
colleagues information about his students' performance. At the bottom of each
junior-class roster he created a separate alphabetical list of the names of all
students who had earned
vg or
g
in both scholarship and deportment for that semester. He evidently put forward
for distinction ten (of twenty-eight) juniors in Fall 1848 and thirteen (of
twenty-six) juniors in Spring 1849.
How much and what kinds of writing did these students do—apart
from their work in the debating societies? First-year students did very little.
Occupied primarily with Latin, Greek, and mathematics, first-year students
prepared translations and recited from their textbooks. Prior to 1846, the
"Fresh" (as well as sophomores and juniors) were "required to
declaim in private before the Professor of Rhetoric, and afterwards in the
presence of the Faculty" (1845-46 Catalogue 17). Faculty members heard
these declamations, a few at a time, late every afternoon in the chapel after
prayers. By 1846, however, first-year students attended in the spring term
"a weekly recitation on the Elementary Principles of Elocution,
accompanied with exercises in Reading Prose and Poetry, and in Declaiming in
the Recitation room" (1846-47 Catalogue 23). The academic work of
first-year students, then, was primarily oral.
Sophomores wrote a composition approximately every three weeks.
Green's
students evidently wrote five compositions in Fall
1848 and four in Spring 1849. Though he made four columns in his grade book for
each student each semester, few marks appear in these columns.
Green
most likely commented on the strengths and
weaknesses of this written work as he read excerpts aloud, either in class or
in individual conferences with students.
Green
listed possible topics for his composition
assignments at the end of each semester's sophomore roster. He numbered some of
them to indicate the order in which students would complete that semester's
assignments. In Fall 1848 the following topics are listed:
1 Filial Affection
5 Value of Time, and its Uses
Letter of Advice to a Young Friend at School
Necessity of Controlling the Passions
3 Dangers of College Life10
2 Delights of Home
The "Child is the Father of the Man" [Wordsworth]
4 What constitutes the True Gentleman
Is a virtuous character essential to the highest attainments
in Literature
In Spring 1849
Green
pencilled the following four topics into his grade
book:
1 I have lost a day [Tacitus]
2 The Child is the Father of the Man [Wordsworth]
3 He that ruleth [h]is Spirit is better than he that taketh a
city [Proverbs
16:32]
4 What course of instruction is best adapted to fit one for
the greatest usefulness
As scholars of nineteenth-century composition instruction have
observed, "students were expected to learn to write by responding either
to single-word topics or by amplifying on apothegms provided by the
teacher" (
Connors,
Composition-Rhetoric
303).
11
Green's
sequence of assignments follows this common
practice, which derives from a system of "regular subjects" and
"themes" first appearing in
John
Walker's
Teacher's Assistant in English Composition
(1801)
and popularized in many textbooks of the period, among them
R. G.
Parker's
Progressive Exercises in English
Composition
(1832).
12
Though
Parker calls the two types of compositions simple and
complex themes, his definitions of them are borrowed directly from
Walker. A
simple theme involves a subject "generally expressed in a single word,
term or phrase" (73).
Green's
"Filial Affection" and "Dangers of College Life" are examples of simple themes. "A complex theme is a
proposition, or assertion, which relates to a simple subject; an exhortation to
practise some particular virtue, or action, or to avoid some particular vice,
or deed; or, it is the proving of some truth" (73). "The Child is the
Father of the Man" and "He that ruleth [h]is Spirit is better than he
that taketh a city" are examples of complex themes, which call for
argumentation. For each kind of theme
Parker prescribes a structure that also serves as a system
of invention.
13
Though
Green
sequences his composition assignments from simple to
complex themes, I have found no evidence that he required students to organize
their essays according to
Parker's scheme. Nevertheless, there is a logic to
Green's
sequence.
Green's
topics begin with the familiar—literally,
having to do with home and family—but become progressively more abstract
through the sophomore year. They first call on memory, requiring students to
recollect family relationships and the pleasures of home but also to moralize
on these past experiences. Then students practice definition or
characterization, defining "the True Gentleman" for example. This
assignment entails generalizing from contemporary or historical figures and
presumably prepared
Richard
T. Weaver
to write his senior speech, an extended encomium on
Dr. John
Howard
. Next, students take up classical and
Christian proverbs or maxims. Maxims represent the
common knowledge of a culture, the generalizations that most people would
assent to. They are fundamental to
Aristotelian
argument. Implicit in such topics as the "Value of Time, and its
Uses" or "The Child is the Father of the Man" are moral precepts
that a Western,
Christian audience would support as warrants for
arguments on countless other subjects. Finally, with Assignment Four in the
Spring 1849 semester—"What course of instruction is best adapted to
fit one for the greatest usefulness?"—students must advance a
full-blown argument, bringing to bear both the knowledge drawn from personal
experience and the knowledge residing in the proverbial truths of a culture on
the topic of "useful education." This sequence of assignments for
sophomores is reminiscent of the
progymnasmata of
classical rhetoric, a curriculum for the young orator.
Juniors studied rhetoric, logic, and history, reciting in the fall
Hugh
Blair's
Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
, a textbook
in use since the
University opened, and in the spring, a logic text (
Hedge's
Elements of Logick
or
Whately's
Elements of Logic
) as well as
Worcester's
Elements of History
.
14
Blair's
belletristic approach to rhetoric sought to cultivate taste by the critical
study of a broad range of genres, works that would exercise the faculties of
imagination and taste in order to help students acquire intellectual, moral,
and civic virtue. Consistent with this view is the belief that introducing
students to great works of literature provides important models for them to
emulate. Imitating excellent examples of prose style was a prominent method of
teaching people to write well. Despite claims in
University catalogues that "The recitations in Rhetoric
and Logic are accompanied by informal lectures and copious illustrations"
(1846-47 Catalogue 23),
Green's
students seem to have read and imitated only those
literary models appearing in their textbooks.
Garrett
, writing in his diary, explains that
Green's
students merely recited
Blair's
Rhetoric
by answering his questions about it, but
Swain
, serving as a substitute teacher for
Green
for a few weeks in 1849, introduced students to
contemporary models of rhetorical excellence: "
Gov.
Swain
instead of making the lesson in Rhetoric the subject of the
recitation, took occasion to read to us a portion of the address delivered by
Judge
Gaston
at this place together with a sermon delivered by
Dr Wm Hooper
" (
Thomas Miles
Garrett Papers, SHC). Whereas
Swain
employed models of effective rhetorical strategies,
Green
evidently did not.
The absence of literature from the formal curriculum does not mean
that students did not read. Some read a great deal, as their diaries and
compositions for the debating societies demonstrate.
Theodore Bryant Kingsbury
, for example, not only was
exceptionally well-read for his generation, but his composition on American
literature, composed for the
Dialectic
Society, also demonstrates the critical judgment and writing ability for
which he would become well known as an adult. Reading literature, however, was
regarded as a leisure activity, a profitable way to spend the hours outside the
classroom.
Juniors, like sophomores, also wrote a composition every three
weeks. Unfortunately,
Green
did not list topics for his "Junior Class in
Rhetoric & Composition" in his grade book, and reconstructing what
they might have been from compositions that survive would be sheer speculation.
But in addition to the writing requirements for
Green's
course, juniors also were required to submit one
or two essays "for the archives," at least from Fall 1839 through
Spring 1846.
15 Most
of the surviving compositions are short. At least one is addressed "
Gov.
Swain
," and another contains the endorsement "Written for the
archives of the
University."
Swain's
role in this junior-composition requirement (as I
call it) is unclear. He had an interest in history and worked to establish an
archives for the
University, so perhaps he wanted to record for posterity the
work of students who would lead society and win fame as
University graduates. Though
Swain
appears to have initiated the project, helping
students meet the requirement was the responsibility of
Charles
Force Deems
, adjunct professor of rhetoric from 1842 to 1848. Either
Swain
or
Deems
devised the topics on which students wrote
16 and
collected the compositions, which subsequently were bound in volumes now housed
in the
University's
North Carolina Collection.
In addition to satisfying the junior-composition requirement, some
juniors represented their debating societies during commencement exercises.
These society representatives, customarily three from each society, prepared
speeches to deliver on Wednesday before commencement in front of a public
audience that included students, their guests, and local townspeople.
R. Don
Wilson's
1841 address,
"On the Influence of Women," is an
example of such a speech. The custom was abandoned in 1842 because the speeches
had become too long and because students refused to shorten them.
Seniors wrote a great deal, especially if they were graduating with
distinction. Until 1842 seniors were required to give two senior speeches, one
each semester. As enrollments grew, however, the time devoted to preparing and
hearing so many speeches must have made the exercise cumbersome, especially for
the professor of rhetoric and logic. In August 1842 and again in September
1843, seniors were excused from giving senior speeches in the fall semester
(
Faculty Minutes 4:390, 444, UA).
17
Senior speeches were significant pieces of writing. Topics were
discussed beforehand with the professor of rhetoric, who also had to approve a
draft, usually returning it to the student within a week. Speeches could not
allude "to the Faculty of the
University whether as individuals or collectively"
(
Faculty Minutes 3:329, UA), and "Nothing indecent, profane or
immoral" could be delivered on the public stage (
Acts 13). Once approved, speeches had to be delivered
without alteration from memory. Students could not refer to them during their
delivery.
18
Approximately eight speeches would be heard at a time, sometimes with musical
interludes between speeches. It took several days to hear them all, and as
William Mullins
relates in his diary, students did not
always respond respectfully to their classmates' work. Seniors graduating with
honors also had to prepare a commencement address. A senior elected president
of his debating society also delivered an inaugural address on assuming the
chair. And although seniors were excused from declamation and composition
during society meetings, the "duty" regularly to compose debates
continued throughout the senior year. For most graduating seniors, then, the
final year of college involved considerable writing.
At the same time, the work of the previous four years, both in the
classroom and in the debating societies, presumably prepared students for such
responsibilities. First-year students may have written little for professors,
but they practiced declamation and composition in the debating societies,
gaining familiarity with model speeches of great men. Some of these students
would be chosen as commencement declaimers. As sophomores, students wrote
approximately nine or ten compositions for the professor of rhetoric. In the
debating societies they continued declamation and composition as well as taking
a more active role in debate. Juniors continued writing compositions as they
also undertook the formal study of rhetoric, logic, and history. For a time
they also submitted one or two essays on set topics to
Gov.
Swain
for the archives. Together with
Edmund Covington
, they may have helped launch
The North Carolina University
Magazine
or submitted some of their writing to it. Together with
William Mullins
, they may have joined a "
Junior Phi
Club," a subgroup of the
Philanthropic Society encouraging students to practice the
skills of debate valued in the larger debating society. Juniors also might
introduce debates and assume the presidency of their society. By the time they
were seniors, students could be expected to prepare their own speeches and
deliver them to a public audience. For four years they not only had observed
other students performing senior speeches and commencement addresses, but every
student also had practiced the skills of composing, argumentation, and delivery
that distinguished effective public speakers.
Antebellum students lived in an academic culture steeped in public
address—and the writing that made effective oratory possible. They
listened to Sunday sermons, faculty lectures, and addresses by visiting
political figures and commencement orators, which helped define the rhetorical
strategies appropriate for different occasions. Students also read carefully
the speeches printed under the auspices of the debating societies or published
in newspapers. They checked out books from the society libraries—fiction
and poetry to be sure, but also histories, biographies, and political and
philosophical works. By listening and reading, students came to understand what
subjects were worth considering; what requirements of length, arrangement,
evidence, and style applied to effective speeches and essays; and what
practices ensured a commanding delivery. They learned by imitation and
practice, eventually becoming successful writers and public speakers.
Endnotes:
1.
The Eli West Hall Papers, SHC, include four compositions dated
1841 and 1842 and written while
Hall
attended preparatory school, seventeen pieces written during his collegiate
career, and one oration dated 1848, a year after
Hall
graduated. Eight of
Hall's
college compositions are undated; the rest, representing every year in which he
was enrolled, include class compositions, society exercises, and senior
speeches.
2.
Senior and Junior Orations
, (1839-42)
and (1842-46), NCC. Though catalogued as orations, the writings in these
volumes are unmistakably student compositions, arranged by semester and then
roughly in alphabetical order.
3. That students sometimes submitted academic writing as debating
society exercises is supported by the endnote on
Eli West
Hall's
composition, "The effects of the discovery of
America upon
the World" (
Eli West Hall Papers, SHC). Though undated, it probably was
written as a required junior composition for Adjunct
Professor
Charles Deems
, then submitted to the student
"correctors" in the
Dialectic
Society:
Although the composition has passed through the hands of
the
adjunct proff of Rhetoric
I hope the gentleman will not
consider it presumption in me to add something to the "criticisms"
already made. The mechanical part of the composition is executed with great
neatness, but the orthography is not by any means faultless (arising I presume
from carelessness rather than otherwise) In this particular the gentleman will
find corrections on the face of the piece. The mark against the 2
nd & 3
rd lines was made on account of
the change from bright to dazzling which is not elegant
4.
William Mercer Green Papers, SHC. The small leather-bound
notebook measures 3 3/4 by 6 1/8 inches. The volume includes some of
Green's
financial accounts as well as records of his
classes during the 1848-49 academic year. One two-page spread of his grade book
is reserved for "Remarkable Extracts from Speeches, Compositions,
&c." and the last two pages contain a prayer
Green
wrote for a faculty meeting.
Green
, professor of rhetoric and logic from 1838 to 1849,
also was an
Episcopalian minister and founder of
Chapel
Hill's
Church of the Atonement (now
Chapel of the Cross). He appears to have entrusted the
grade book together with an account book for the church to
James
Phillips
, also an
Episcopalian, so that
Phillips
could manage affairs after
Green
had left town.
5. The list of subjects is arranged in two columns. Students'
names are not in alphabetical order, perhaps because students came to see
Green
at various times to discuss their topics with him
individually. The names and subjects are as follows:
Dick—Poetry of
America,
Towles—Glances at
America,
Jno Johnston—Military Glory,
Brevard—
William
Wallace,
Corbett—The Press,
Robinson—Harmony of Nature,
B.
Whitfield—
Morality taught by
Nature Harmony of Natural & Revealed Truth,
Bryan—Influence of Commerce on Destinies of Nations,
J
McNair—Responsibility of Amer. Statesmen,
Battle
—Decline of the English Drama,
Haigh—
The West,
Lowther—American Policy,
E
Mallette—Memory of the Past,
George—Our Country,
Hill—De Omnibus Rebus et Quibus,
Hines—
Mexico,
Arrington—Origin & Progress of Popular Liberty,
Scales[—]Poetry of
Middle
Ages,
Johnson—Astronomy,
M
McNair—Eulogy on
Dr
Chalmers,
Dusenbery
—
Morman,
Banks—Mutability of National Fortune,
Hale
—Political & Intellectual Power,
J.
Whitfield—Immortality of the Soul,
McLean—
Scotland,
Dortch
—Excesses of Revolutions no Argument against
them,
Jones—National Pride,
De Berniere—The Future,
Saunders—Revealed Truth,
Beene—Virtue the Basis of Liberty,
Thomas—Instability of Repub. Governments,
N.
Whitfield—Woman,
Cunningham—Morality, no less than Intelligence
essential to the Stability of Government,
Iredell—Female Heroism,
Young—
The South:-her
present portion, and her duty,
Pool [no topic listed]
6.
Green's
list of students and the titles of their
commencement addresses is arranged as follows:
Battle |
Valedictory |
Arrington
|
Association—The true Principle of Human
Progress |
George
|
Authors—Their Influence &
Responsibility |
Haigh
|
Love of Country |
Hale |
Latin Salutatory |
Lowther
|
Influence & Position of
America
|
J. C. McNair
|
Influence of
Scotland upon Civil & Religious Liberty |
Pool
|
War |
Robinson
|
Palestine
|
Scales
|
Poetry of the
Middle Ages
|
Thomas
|
Christianity & Civilization |
J. Whitfield
|
Public Opinion |
N. Whitfield
|
Agriculture as Essential
to National Prosperity
|
In the Class of 1849,
Kemp P.
Battle
,
Peter M.
Hale
, and
Thomas
Jefferson Robinson earned the first distinction;
Thomas D.
Haigh,
James M.
Johnson,
Charles Eden
Lowther, and
John A.
Whitfield held the second distinction; and
William B.
Dortch
,
Peter E.
Hines,
J. Calvin
McNair,
Malcolm McNair,
William C.
Pool,
Charles R.
Thomas, and
Needham B.
Whitfield, the third distinction. The faculty excused
Hines,
Johnson,
and
Malcolm McNair
from giving their commencement speeches and substituted
Thomas M.
Arrington,
James Pinckney
Scales, and
Fourney George
in their places (
Battle 1:522).
Dortch
, a third-honor man whose standing may not have been
clear until later in the spring, does not appear in
Green's
list; nevertheless, he spoke at commencement on "The Dependence of Liberty
on Law."
7. "
Carter
(excused);
Fuller
,
Chatham on Address to the
Throne 1770;
McDuffie, Church's oration on
Boston
Massacre;
McKay,
Prentiss's Addr. to volunt. on return from
War;
Norcom, Address to Ursa Major;
Patterson
,
McDowell
on
California
Bill;
Patton
,
Preston on
California
Bill;
Sanders,
Curran's Defence of
Finnerty;
Shober
,
Webster on
Foote's Resolution;
Terry,
Adams' supposed
Speech (by
Webster);
Barnes
,
Dickinson on
California
Bill;
T.
Burton
,
Griffin on Irish of Cheetham;
Carrigan,
Webster in
Reply to
Calhoun;
Gilliam
,
Akenside
(Greatness of Man);
Kittrell
,
Oration before
P. Henry Society, of Wm & Mary by
Austin
[Trible]
Cambuling's Reply to
Everett;
Manning,
Hannigan on
Mexican War;
W.
Moore, Education (Phillips);
Slade
,
Judge Story
(Disc. Settlement of Saturn 1828);
Thompson,
Cataline's Speech to
Roman Senate;
Waddell, Phillips's Letter to the King." The first
ten students in this list are sophomores, who typically would have performed on
Tuesday night of commencement week; the next ten names belong to first-year
students, who would have declaimed on Monday night. All of the declaimers
except
Kittrell
and
Moore
eventually graduated.
8. When this scale first came to be used in the reports to parents is
unclear. The earliest reference I have found appears in a December 26, 1837,
grade report sent to the parents of
Tod
Caldwell
(
John Caldwell Papers, SHC). Prior to the late 1830s reports
sent to parents reveal only how often students were absent from prayers and
recitations. They do not evaluate academic performance.
Caldwell's
report, however, in addition to tallying his
absences, adds the sentence "His relative gradation of scholarship in his
class is considered very good." "Very good" in this context may
not refer to the grading scale (though I believe it does), but the scale
certainly was in place by March 18, 1841, when
Andrew I.
Polk wrote to his mother, "I thought my report would be '
respectable' (one grade higher than '
tolerable') but I was mistaken. However, I have this one
consolation which is. that there were twenty two in the class whose report was
'
tolerable'" (
Polk and Yeatman Papers,
SHC).
9.
Battle
, a student from 1845 to 1849, reports that
"Those who obtained 'very good' in all, or nearly all, their studies had
the first distinction. Those who averaged 'good' obtained the second
distinction. The 'very respectable' had the third distinction"
(1:553).
11. On nineteenth-century theme topics, see especially
Robert J.
Connors, "Invention and Assignments in Composition-Rhetoric,"
Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and
Pedagogy (Pittsburgh Series in Composition, Literacy, and Culture;
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997), 296-327; and
David
Jolliffe,
"The Moral Subject in College Composition: A Conceptual
Framework and the Case of Harvard, 1865-1900,"
College English
51 (February 1989):
163-73.
12.
Richard
Green Parker's
Progressive Exercises in English Composition
(Boston: Lincoln and Emands, 1832).
Green
may have known
Parker's work. "On Time," "Filial
Affection," and "Necessity of Controlling the Passions" appear
among the suggested topics in
Progressive Exercises in
English Composition (80, 87, 92). However, these topics might also have
been suggested by lists in other textbooks.
Bartholomew
Fuller's
"The Dangers of a College Life" does not follow
Parker's prescription for developing simple
themes.
13. Simple themes (Walker's"regular subjects") were to be developed by stating the definition of
the topic, the cause, its antiquity or novelty, its universality or locality,
the effects, the antithesis, and a conclusion and comparison (70). Complex
themes (Walker's"themes") were to use a seven-part arrangement drawn from classical
rhetoric: the proposition or narrative, the reason, the confirmation, the
simile or comparison, the example, the testimony or quotation, and the
conclusion (75).
14.
Joseph
Emerson Worcester,
Elements of History (Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, Gray,
Little, and Wilkins, 1826).
15. The bound volumes of
Senior and Junior Orations
, NCC, omit
junior compositions written during the fall semester after 1842, either because
they have not survived or because the requirement was reduced from two to one
composition, written in the spring semester. Only one composition survives for
each junior in the Classes of 1846 and 1847.
16. The following list includes most of the topics juniors addressed: Is
it likely that poetry will ever attain a high degree of excellence in the
United States?
(Fall 1839, Spring 1841, Spring 1842); Ought literary honors to be awarded in
seminaries of learning as incentive to intellectual exertion? (Spring 1840);
Has climate an influence in the formation of character? (Fall 1840); Are public
festivals as celebrated at the present day beneficial? (Fall 1841); The
influence of climate on the physical and mental powers of man (Fall 1842,
Spring 1846); Should capital punishment be stricken from our penal code?
(Spring 1843); The individual influence of students in college (Spring 1843);
Influence of the discovery of
America on the world
(Spring 1844); Everyone the architect of his own fortune (Spring
1844).
17.
University catalogues continued to stipulate that seniors
"deliver Orations of their own composition" twice a year until 1856,
when the published requirement became one oration "at the close of the
second term." The catalogue, however, was not always consistent with
current practice.
Battle
, a member of the Class of 1845, claims that
students in his day gave only one senior speech (1:555), and
Green's
grade book implies that only one senior speech was
required of students in the Class of 1849.
18. Faculty minutes for November 26, 1844, record the plight of
Samuel James
Calvert, who made the mistake of consulting the text of his speech as he
was giving it: "
Mr.
Calvert, Senior, was before the Faculty for a misdemeanor on the stage,
at Senior speaking. He plead ignorance of the law.
Dr
Mitchell
, and Professors
Green
and
Deems
were appointed a Committee to inform the classes that the law demand
eds the dismission of a Senior who shall take his
speech out when on the rostrum. (
Mr.
C.'s offence.)" (
4:225, UA).