Timothy Dwight V (November 16, 1828 – May 26, 1916) was an American academic, educator, Congregational minister, and President of Yale University (1886–1898).[1] During his years as the school's president, Yale's schools first organized as a university. His grandfather was Timothy Dwight IV, who served as President of Yale College ninety years before his grandson's tenure.
Dwight was born in Norwich, Connecticut, the son of James Dwight. His paternal grandfather, Timothy Dwight IV, served as president of Yale College from 1795 to 1817. He was the great-grandson of Major Timothy Dwight and Mary (Edwards) Dwight, the latter's father being the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the third president of Princeton University. His mother was Susan, daughter of John McLaren Breed, by his second wife Rebecca (Walker) Breed, who was the daughter of Robert Walker, a judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut.
Timothy Dwight entered Yale in 1845, and during his undergraduate course received prizes in mathematics and Latin, and was a member of the Linonian Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and Skull and Bones.[2]:50 As the Clark Scholar, he spent the period from 1849 to 1851 in graduate work at Yale, in the fall of the latter year entering the Theological Department, where he studied for two years. He served as a tutor in the College from 1851 to 1855, and then went abroad to continue his studies at the universities of Bonn and Berlin.
Career
Returning to America in July 1858, he became professor of sacred literature at Yale at the opening of the next college year. His work in the Divinity School continued until 1886, when he was elected president of Yale College. Yale had begun to develop the departments of professional study—particularly of theology and medicine—at the beginning of the nineteenth century, during the administration of the elder President Dwight; and the institution, long a University in fact, became one in name at the inauguration of the younger Dwight. During the thirteen years of his presidency, from 1886 to 1899, the University began that rapid development in scope, in numbers of students and faculty, in material prosperity, and in national influence.
Dwight was licensed to preach May 22, 1855, and ordained to the ministry of the Congregational Church six years later. In 1869, Chicago Theological Seminary conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity upon him, and Yale honored him with a similar degree in 1886. He also received the degree of LLD from Harvard in 1886 and from Princeton in 1888. He was an associate member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and elected an honorary member of the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati in 1895.
Dwight was a member of the American committee for the revision of the English version of the Bible, and for a number of years he was one of the editors of the New Englander. He had contributed extensively to various publications on theological and educational subjects. In 1886, he translated and edited, with additional notes, Frédéric Louis Godet's Commentary on the Gospel of John, and he had also edited several of Meyer's commentaries, including those on Romans, on several other Pauline Epistles, on Hebrews, and on the Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude.
He was the author of "Thoughts of and for the Inner Life" (1899), and in 1903 published "Memories of Yale Life and Men"Address Delivered at the Funeral of President Porter (1892) and a Commemorative Address in honor of W. D. Whitney and J. D. Dana (1895).
Dwight played an important role in the founding and early growth of the Hotchkiss School, a college preparatoryboarding school located in Lakeville, Connecticut. After Maria Bissell Hotchkiss received a large inheritance from her husband, Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, Dwight approached her with the idea that she "finance a school that would prepare young men for college—for Yale, to be precise."[3] Dwight was one of the incorporators and original trustees of Hotchkiss when the school was founded in 1891,[4] and he continued to serve as a trustee for 25 years until his death in 1916, when the school's board noted in a resolution that the institution "in a large sense was the child of his creation... [and] that it was his wisdom that largely dominated its inception, creation, and upbuilding."[5]
He served as Secretary of the Class of 1849 continuously from graduation until his death, which occurred, without warning, at his home in New Haven, May 26, 1916, as the result of infirmities incident to his advanced age. Burial was in Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven.
Dwight's full-length portrait by Edmund C. Tarbell hangs in the stairwell of Woodbridge Hall, the Yale administration building.
Family
He was married in that city[where?], December 31, 1866, to Jane Wakeman, daughter of Roger Sherman Skinner, who graduated from Yale in 1813, and Mary Lockwood (DeForest) Skinner. She survived him with their son, Winthrop Edwards (B.A. 1893, Ph.D. 1895, LL.B. 1896). Their daughter, Helen Rood, died October 16, 1909. John Breed Dwight, a graduate of Yale in 1840, and James McLaren Breed Dwight (B.A. 1846, LL.B. Columbia 1861) were his brothers. He was a cousin of Theodore Dwight Woolsey (B.A. 1820), who for 25 years was the president of Yale. In 1935, Yale constructed the ninth of its twelve residential colleges, Timothy Dwight College. It was named for Dwight and his grandfather, who were both regarded as particularly important presidents of Yale.[6]
Jane Wakeman (Skinner) Dwight was the great-granddaughter of American founding father Roger Sherman.
Timothy Dwight was an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He was the eighth president of Yale College (1795–1817).
Noah Thomas Porter III was an American Congregational minister, academic, philosopher, author, lexicographer and an outspoken anti-slavery activist. Porter Mountain, of the Adirondack Mountains, was named for him after he was the first to climb it in 1875. He was President of Yale College (1871–1886).
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, when its schools were confederated and the institution was renamed Yale University.
Thomas Clap or Thomas Clapp was an American academic and educator, a Congregational minister, and college administrator. He was both the fifth rector and the earliest official to be called "president" of Yale College (1740–1766). He is best known for his successful reform of Yale in the 1740s, partnering with the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson to restructure the forty-year-old institution along more modern lines. He convinced the Connecticut Assembly to exempt Yale from paying taxes. He opened a second college house and doubled the size of the college.
Grove Street Cemetery or Grove Street Burial Ground is a cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, that is surrounded by the Yale University campus. It was organized in 1796 as the New Haven Burying Ground and incorporated in October 1797 to replace the crowded burial ground on the New Haven Green. The first private, nonprofit cemetery in the world, it was one of the earliest burial grounds to have a planned layout, with plots permanently owned by individual families, a structured arrangement of ornamental plantings, and paved and named streets and avenues. By introducing ideas like permanent memorials and the sanctity of the deceased body, the cemetery became "a real turning point... a whole redefinition of how people viewed death and dying", according to historian Peter Dobkin Hall. Many notable Yale and New Haven luminaries are buried in the Grove Street Cemetery, including 14 Yale presidents; nevertheless, it was not restricted to members of the upper class, and was open to all.
Simeon Eben Baldwin was an American jurist, law professor, and politician who served as the 65th governor of Connecticut.
Daniel Coit Gilman was an American educator and academic. Gilman was instrumental in founding the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale College, and subsequently served as the second president of the University of California, Berkeley, as the first president of Johns Hopkins University, and as founding president of the Carnegie Institution.
The Hotchkiss School is a private college-preparatory day and boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut. It educates approximately 600 students in grades 9–12, plus postgraduates. Founded in 1891, it was one of the first English-style boarding schools in the United States and an early proponent of student financial aid, having accepted scholarship students since its inception.
Theodore Dwight Woolsey was an American academic, author and President of Yale College from 1846 through 1871.
Chauncey Allen Goodrich was an American clergyman, educator and lexicographer. He was the son-in-law of Noah Webster and edited his Dictionary after his father-in-law's death.
Arthur Twining Hadley was an American economist who served as President of Yale University from 1899 to 1921.
Jeremiah Day was an American academic, a Congregational minister and President of Yale College (1817–1846).
Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss was one of the leading American ordnance engineers of his day.
Maria Harrison Hotchkiss was an American educator, heiress, and philanthropist. She was married to wealthy munitions maker Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, though long estranged. Upon receiving his inheritance she founded The Hotchkiss School, a private boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut, in 1891.
Edward Johnson Phelps family had been settled in Massachusetts from the earliest times and are alleged to be of noble descent. Edward's father, the Rev. Austin Phelps was a graduated of the University of Pennsylvania and studied for a year at the Yale Divinity School. Austin was professor of sacred rhetoric at the Andover Theological Seminary for over thirty years.
Charles Coolidge Haight was an American architect who practiced in New York City. He designed most of the buildings at Columbia College's now-demolished old campus on Madison Avenue, and designed numerous buildings at Yale University, many of which have survived. He designed the master plan and many of the buildings on the campus of the General Theological Seminary in Chelsea, New York, most of which have survived. Haight's architectural drawings and photographs are held in the Dept. of Drawings and Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University in New York City.
Thomas Anthony Thacher was an American classicist and college administrator.
Linonia is a literary and debating society founded in 1753 at Yale University. It is the university's second-oldest secret society.
Samuel Harris was the fifth president of Bowdoin College and the first to be an alumnus. After having left Bowdoin in 1871, he went on to teach at Yale Divinity School for 25 years.
Lyman Hotchkiss Atwater was an American Presbyterian philosopher.
↑ Robbins, Alexandra (2002). Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN0-316-72091-7.
↑ "Act of the Legislature of the State of Connecticut, Incorporating the Maria H. Hotchkiss School Association, June 14, 1893". Press of the Millerton Telegram. Millerton, NY. 1895.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
