Читать книгу John E. Parsons - Paul DeForest Hicks - Страница 8

When John Parsons finished secondary school in 1844 he was only fourteen, but his uncle and schoolmaster, Samuel Berrian, was sure that he had the academic ability and maturity to do well in college. A year earlier, Berrian had written Matilda Parsons that her son was already better prepared for college than one of his older students who had just gained advanced standing at Yale.

In addition to Yale, a likely choice for Parsons might have been Princeton (then known as the College of New Jersey), whose strong ties to the Presbyterian Church would have pleased his grandfather. However, it was a long trip to both New Haven and Princeton in the days before railroad connections, and Matilda must have preferred to have him educated somewhere nearer to her and his siblings in New York City.

Columbia would also have been a likely choice, because of its history (its name had been changed from King’s College after the Revolution) and its convenient location, which was then near the present site of City Hall. If he needed a recommendation for Columbia, Parsons could have received one from their Rye neighbor, Dr. John Clarkson Jay, who had inherited the family estate when his father, Peter Augustus Jay, died in 1843. Like his grandfather, John Jay, and his father, Dr. Jay was an alumnus of Columbia College as well as of its medical school, the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

View of the University of the City of New York, circa 1850 (courtesy of New York Public Library)

The prospect of Parsons enrolling at Columbia would not have appealed to a staunch Calvinist like Ebenezer Clark in view of its heavy emphasis on teaching classics to students destined for careers in the Episcopal clergy. Even worse was the possibility that Parsons might be influenced to abandon the Presbyterian Church and become an Episcopalian, as was the case with the noted diarist, George Templeton Strong, who attended Columbia during the1830s.

Ultimately, it was decided that Parsons should attend the University of the City of New York (renamed New York University in 1896), which offered an innovative alternative to the more traditional colleges. When NYU was chartered in 1831, the founders planned to build a university that would capitalize on the intellectual and cultural resources of New York City while admitting students on merit and not on the basis of family background or sectarian beliefs. It remained, nonetheless, predominantly a Christian and Protestant institution for many years.

A prospectus published for the new university in 1832 stated that the curriculum was developed for students who “are designed for the more practical pursuits of life, and who would desire to become masters of those branches of knowledge most immediately connected with their respective professions or employments.” Despite the different approaches to curriculum and admissions taken by NYU, the new university was seen as a serious threat by the administration and trustees of Columbia. Attempts to persuade the state legislature to deny a charter to NYU were unsuccessful, and it received broad support from business, financial and professional leaders in New York City.

Nonetheless, NYU got off to a rocky start when Albert Gallatin, the first president of the university council (board of trustees), resigned after serving only one year. He was frustrated that the Chancellor, Reverend James Matthews, was not moving quickly enough to combine the classical curriculum with more modern subjects. Also, the fiscally conservative Gallatin opposed using a large part of NYU’s meager endowment to purchase land on the east side of Washington Square as the site for the university’s main building.

Washington Square had only recently been converted from a potter’s field to a military parade ground and public park when construction of the large neo-Gothic University Building was begun. In spite of cost overruns, battles with city officials and a riot by stone cutters, the building was completed in 1835. Influenced by the architectural style of Oxford and Cambridge, it housed all of NYU’s academic and administrative facilities, including a library that provided space for the New York Historical Society’s collection for a number of years.

In order to obtain much-needed revenue, NYU rented unused space in the upper part of the University Building to some remarkable academic and artistic tenants who taught courses and added luster to the university’s faculty. Most notable was the inventor and painter, Samuel F. B. Morse, whose first successful demonstration of the telegraph occurred there in 1838. As one historian describes the time and place: “Over the years, these floors became a combination of apartment house, scientific laboratory, clubhouse of the Hudson River School and haven for one of the city’s earliest bohemian communities.”

Around Washington Square a growing number of stylish row houses were built and occupied in the 1830s by some of New York’s most substantial families. Henry James, who was born at 21 Washington Place in 1843, described one such home in his novel, Washington Square, as “a handsome, modern, wide-fronted house, with a big balcony before the drawing-room windows, and a flight of white marble steps ascending to a portal …”

There were no dormitory rooms for students when Parsons entered NYU in October 1844, and a university rule required that “Students whose parents reside in the city are supposed to live in their own families.” For more than two years he lived with his mother and siblings at 15 Clifton Place, which was only a few blocks from the university. When their town house was sold during his junior year, he roomed nearby in a house on Eighth Street owned by a widowed friend of his mother, Mrs. Charles Jesup. A great benefit of the lodging arrangement for Parsons was the close and lasting friendship he developed with her son, Morris Ketchum Jesup, who became a railroad financier, philanthropist and first president of the American Museum of Natural History.

Both homes were close to the University Place Presbyterian Church, which Parsons regularly attended when he was not visiting his family in Rye. If he was feeling less pious, he could enjoy performances of opera and theater at the nearby Astor Place Opera House, which opened in November 1847 with a performance of Verdi’s Ernani. Although he could not afford tickets to the expensive sections with upholstered seats, there were many seats available on benches that he could afford often enough to become a lifelong lover of opera.

Although he was fortunate to live in one of the more fashionable residential neighborhoods of New York, the rough and tumble sections of Five Points and the Bowery were not far away. That was made all too clear by the riot that occurred at the Astor Place Opera House on the night of May 10, 1849. It began when members of the Bowery Boys and other gangs of hooligans filled the galleries and, because of their nationalistic prejudices, broke up a performance of Macbeth by an English actor, W. C. Macready.

Outside the opera house, paving stones were thrown at police; the militia arrived; shots were fired and before the riot was over, twenty-two people had been killed. Although the event happened a year after Parsons graduated, the social and cultural forces that triggered it were part of a real-life education that students could find beyond the ivy-covered walls of NYU. Fortunately, Parsons managed to strike a good balance between the distractions of the city and the demands of his courses.

To gain admission to NYU, Parsons had to pass examinations in English grammar, geography, elements of history, arithmetic and algebra (through simple equations), Caesar’s Commentaries, Virgil’s Aeneid, The Orations of Marcus Tillius Cicero, Sallust, Greek New Testament, Xenophon’s Cycropaedia and Homer’s Iliad. It was a demanding set of requirements for such a young scholar, but the training he received at Samuel Berrian’s school prepared him well to handle the academic challenges.

During freshman year, students were required to recite daily in Latin, Greek and mathematics, which appear from comments in his student diary to have been among Parsons’s favorite classes along with upper-class courses in intellectual philosophy, history and belle-lettres. His study of political economy (the original name for the subject of economics) helped shape his later views as one of the country’s leading business lawyers and antitrust experts.

The faculty included seven full-time professors and several part-time instructors, including Samuel F. B. Morse, who gave a course called Literature of the Arts of Design. Lectures and recitations occurred only in the mornings, leaving the afternoons and evenings free for students to study and socialize. There were no organized sports programs so the main extra-curricular activities revolved around the student-run societies and fraternities.

In the early part of the nineteenth century many colleges encouraged the formation of literary and debating societies on their campuses (often with Greek names) to promote both intellectual development and competitive school spirit. Princeton had the American Whig and Cliosophic societies, while at Columbia they were called the Philolexian and Peithologian societies. At NYU, there was a choice between the Eucleian and Philomathean societies.

Parsons decided to join the Philomathean Society, which occupied a room on the fourth floor of the University Building with its own library where the members held small meetings. Larger events, including debates and musical recitals, were held in the NYU chapel or the University Place Church. One of the notable participants in the Philomathean programs was Edgar Allan Poe, who lived near the university on Greenwich Street in the 1840s.

While he devoted much of his spare time to Philomathean affairs (serving as president for one term in his senior year), Parsons was also active in the Sigma Phi Society, a fraternity and secret society which originated at Union College in 1827. It was followed by the formation of sister chapters at Hamilton College, NYU, and on numerous other campuses.

Over the years, Parsons maintained close ties with a number of his fraternity brothers, especially his good friend, Elihu Root, a leading lawyer in New York, who became a United States senator, served as both secretary of war and secretary of state under President Theodore Roosevelt, and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The college’s finances and governance strengthened under the sound leadership of Theodore Frelinghuysen, who was appointed Chancellor in 1839 after James Matthews was forced to resign. Frelinghuysen was a distinguished lawyer and Presbyterian layman, who had served as U.S. senator from New Jersey from 1829 to 1835. In 1844 he was nominated to run for vice president on the Whig Party ticket, headed by Henry Clay. When James K. Polk and the Democratic Party won the election, NYU was spared the loss of its Chancellor.

During Parsons’s years at NYU, the number of undergraduates grew from 131 to 153. The relatively small size of the student body gave Chancellor Frelinghuysen an opportunity to know a number of the undergraduates personally, especially those in classes he taught when the regular instructor was absent. Parsons’s diary notes that on several occasions he “recited to the Chancellor,” in a course called “Evidences of Revealed Religion.” Even though NYU was non-sectarian, it was very much a Christian institution, requiring chapel attendance each morning before classes began.

Having acquired the habit of church-going from his devout Presbyterian grandfather, Parsons not only attended NYU chapel services during the week but also worshipped at the University Place Presbyterian Church twice on many Sundays. Throughout his adult life he played a leading role in various Protestant religious organizations, perhaps influenced by Chancellor Frelinghuysen, who was president of both the American Bible Society and the American Tract Society while he was at NYU.

The demands of his studies and frequent church attendance as well as his commitments to the Philomathean and Sigma Phi societies seemed all-consuming. Yet Parsons managed to find enough extra time to enjoy reading novels for pleasure and exploring New York City in search of useful, interesting and amusing diversions from the halls of NYU, as indicated by these excerpts from his diary, which were published in a 1954 issue of the New-York Historical Society Quarterly:

READING

Read “Nicholas Nickleby” [a story by Charles Dickens of a young man who has to support his mother and sister after his father dies that must have resonated strongly with John].

Commenced the “The Antiquary” [a gothic novel by Sir Walter Scott. In one week he read three other novels by Scott].

Read “Ten Thousand a Year” [written by an English barrister, Samuel Warren, whose commentary on details of the Common Law may have helped to spark Parsons’s interest in a legal career. In senior year, he took a course that required reading Joseph Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States].

Read the first volume of “Gil Blas” [a novel by Alain-René Lesage that depicts a young man who rises through the social and professional ranks through his wits and connections and retires to a castle, similar in many respects to John’s own later life].

Read “Ernest Multravers” & the sequel “Alice” [by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton] and vowed to give up reading novels [but he kept up his voracious reading].

Stayed up till 12 reading the “Quiet Husband” [a novel by Elizabeth Pickering, an English writer of light novels].

Got Omoo, also Typee [both by Herman Melville, published in 1847 and 1846, respectively].

Samuel Berrian corresponded with Parsons about his studies, sending him a lengthy scolia or commentary in Greek on the Medea of Euripides on January 2, 1846. In a postscript he added: “My dear child, it does not sound well to hear that you are so fond of light reading, and I am half glad to hear that Prof. Lewis punished you for it, making you work harder on your Euripides.”

EXERCISE AND RECREATION

Chopped wood and walked for exercise [he maintained his love of country life at his homes in Rye and Lenox, Massachusetts, until his death].

Dr. Henry not there the first hour: spent in snowballing. It snowed all day pretty fast making good sleighing.

Went round to the University … and then took the stage for 86th St. Borrowed … a pair of skates and went to a pond, a large though very rough pond. They were cutting ice out and while I was skating very fast over the bumps, looking up I saw myself not three feet from the hole. I couldn’t stop so I kept on very fast and nearly cleared the hole (6 ft.). Went in about up to my armpits and came out wringing [he caught a bad cold afterwards].

At 4 AM got up and went for a horseback ride [he still rode when he was in his seventies, especially at his farm in Lenox].

Walked out to the new rail-depot [walking remained one of his passions, and on this occasion he walked more than twenty-five blocks up to the New York and Harlem railroad station at Thirty-second Street].

Went round to the Society in the evening but quickly returned to play chess with Morris [Jesup].

In the evening Captain Ottinger was here to tell me to be ready at 1 tomorrow to take a cruise in the Taney with the Russian Consul General. [Captain Douglass Ottinger was a U.S. Coast Guard officer who is credited with building the first life-saving stations on the Atlantic coast and may have been a family friend. They sailed for a week on Long Island Sound].

CULTURE

Went down to the Gallery of Fine Arts in the afternoon [he continued his interest in art as a collector and patron in later years].

In the evening went to the American Museum but was little pleased. [P.T. Barnum opened this museum in 1842 and ran it as a combination of zoo, waxworks, museum, theater and freak show].

To the [National] Academy of Design where I bought a season ticket and stayed a couple of hours [founded in 1825 by a group of artists including Samuel F. B. Morse].

In the evening to see Christy’s Minstrels [a popular blackface group], which pleased us very much.

In the evening we all went round to the tabernacle to hear the Juvenile Oratorio Flora’s Festival. Much pleased with the Hutchinsons. I believe we concluded the entertainment with some fine ballads [he continued to love vocal music and for many years was a box holder at the Metropolitan Opera].

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL

Went over to Hadden’s to order a coat and vest for Mrs. Smith’s blow out [several diary entries indicate his interest in clothes].

In the evening went to Mrs. Smith’s party. Did not dance and enjoyed myself but little. About 150 to 200 there. Splendid supper [he also mentions enjoying new peas and strawberries when they came into season, and later in life he grew prize-winning vegetables at his Lenox farm].

At night before bedtime bathed my eyes in brandy and took an inward application also but they closed in the night [only mention of his drinking alcohol].

Received no valentines and wrote none.

Spent the evening most delightfully with her [no other information appears about “her” in the diary].

In June, 1848, Parsons graduated from NYU with a Bachelor of Arts degree and was chosen to give a commencement address as the English Salutatorian in a ceremony held at the University Place Presbyterian Church. One of the youngest members of his class, he graduated third in academic ranking and was awarded the top prize in mathematics. Unfortunately, Ebenezer Clark was not on hand to see his grandson receive his university degree, as he had died the previous September.

In 1851, Parsons received an AM degree from NYU (as well as an honorary AM from Yale the same year). He was a frequent lecturer at the NYU law school and for thirty-three years (1865–1898) served as a member of the council of the university. The introduction to the published edition of Parsons’s student diary notes, “This young graduate never really left the university as his loyalty was to constantly show itself officially and unofficially, through his long life.”

Though his college years in Gotham had been a great success, Parsons had yet to experience much of the wider world. As a young boy, he once wrote his mother of his desire to see “the great world we live on.” In 1852, he realized that goal when he took an extended trip to Washington, Charleston and Cuba, returning to New York via New Orleans and along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Some of the excerpts from the journal he kept of the journey provide interesting insights into his views as a young adult:

When we are always kept in one place our thoughts seem unable to pass a certain compass, and as we enlarge the objects for our thoughts … we make them the fertile soil in which ideas are ever springing up. I have been particularly fastened to my home by my position as head of our family and by that love of our dear mother …

Delaware is by far the finest land I have seen since leaving NY … the farms appear neat [and] are usually cultivated by slave labor. It is here that I made my first acquaintance with the peculiar institution of the south. The farmers are careless and improvident and their negroes are being rapidly sold to the South to pay the debts of their extravagant masters …

The Capitol [in Washington] and its grounds are adorned with paintings and statuary … a historical painting which is designed chiefly to preserve national portraits … is seldom pleasing as a painting. Still, the associations connected with such scenes, and the thoughts that cluster around them inflame even my cold blood and make me glow with a patriotic pride … [his favorite painting is the Embarkation of the Pilgrims by Robert Weir]

It is a noble sight to see the pride of European soldiers and the haughtiness of European aristocracy humbled before [those] who in their devotion to grand and universal principles of right were invincible before their enemies. Happy will we be as a nation if we follow the glorious example which they have set for us and go on in this road which they have opened …

There is seen here [North Carolina] none of those objects which lend so great a charm to those shores and hills of New England. No pretty white houses and neat yards here tell of comfort and happiness—no village spires ever point up to heaven—there is no activity—I very much mistake if slavery is not the root and mother of all this … slavery is the bane of the earth, sinking the masters fast into that degradation which must result from so close intercourse and communion with those they have so much degraded …

We do not enjoy things half so much as we would if we had some ear to tell our enjoyment … you particularly desire and need a lady friend to accompany you. After being confined to the company of your own sex for a while, you get barbarous, selfish, ill-mannered and lose all that polish and considerate feeling, which communion with women gives and strengthens.

Steam has annihilated space and we measure distance now in time. We leave Charleston … and arrive here [Havana] after a voyage of 76 hours. I have made almost my first experience of the sea, and with disappointment I love the water … in its storms and calm … [despite the tragic drowning of his father in the shipwreck].

In fact, the ladies of Havana are hidden in real Spanish seclusion, and can only be seen behind the curtains of a volante, at church or at the opera. There seems to be little need of this imprisonment, as the women I have seen have been almost without exception not only not pretty, but ugly. They have always bright eyes, with no softness of expression, dark complexion and hair and awkward figures … but [there was] one whom I thought was beautiful, and her face has haunted me ever since … I like their dress generally, which is far more modest than that of our ladies at home—not so much exposure of person.

At the NYU graduation ceremonies four years before, Parsons and his classmates had a somewhat less conservative view of their ideal woman when they sang:

But now New York I leave, sir,

To breast the waves of life.

I’m going to serve my country

And sport a pretty wife …

With the Mexican War behind them and the Civil War not yet on the horizon, the graduates of the class of 1848 had reason to be quite optimistic about their futures.