Henry Leland Chapman

It was in 1836, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, that Elijah Kellogg entered Bowdoin College as a Freshman. His father had been one of the earliest and firmest friends of the college. As one of the Cumberland County Association of Ministers he had joined in the petition to the General Court of Massachusetts for the establishment of a collegiate institution in the province of Maine. When in answer to the petition of the ministers, and of the Court of Sessions of Cumberland County, the college was incorporated in 1794, Mr. Kellogg was named as one of the first board of overseers. Four years later he became a trustee, and continued to hold that official relation to the college until 1824. During his boyhood, therefore, and before he cherished any purpose or desire to enjoy its privileges, Elijah must have heard, within the family circle, much about the college which was so great an object of interest and pride to his father, as it was, indeed, to the whole community. It was but natural, therefore, when his purpose was seriously formed to seek a college training in preparation for his father’s calling of the ministry, that Bowdoin, aside from its proximity to his home, should be the college of his choice. But his course collegeward was interrupted and delayed by various circumstances, and particularly by personal tastes that were quite other than scholastic. Always a lover of the sea, and delighting in the tales of sea life and adventure to which he listened from the lips of sailors themselves along the Portland wharves, it is not strange that the call of the sea sounded louder than any other in his ears. So, listening to the call, he shipped before the mast, and for three years lived the hard and perilous life of a sailor. It is true that the experience, which may have been useful to him in other ways also, was an admirable preparation for the brilliant service which he afterwards performed as chaplain of the Sailor’s Home in Boston, but in the meantime it made him late in entering upon his college life. It is to be said, however, that of his thirty classmates six were as old as himself.

We must look to certain volumes of the Whispering Pines series, and particularly to the volumes entitled “The Spark of Genius,” “The Sophomores of Radcliffe,” and “The Whispering Pine,” for a picture of his college life, true in its general features, and graphic like everything from Mr. Kellogg’s pen. These books, which have been read with eager interest by so many generations of boys, describe Bowdoin College, its professors, students, customs, and manners as they were known to Elijah Kellogg during the years of his residence there from 1836 to 1840. If they seem to be devoted largely to a recital of pranks and mischief and practical jokes among the students, it is partly because such things made a stronger appeal to scheming brains, and youthful fellowship, and leisure hours in those days, before athletic sports enlisted, as they have since enlisted, the restless energy and high spirits and intense rivalry of college boys; and partly, also, it was because his native sense of humor and love of fun, his spirit of adventure and personal courage, constituted an ever present temptation to him to share or lead in enterprises which demanded wariness and cunning and pluck, and which promised the discomfiture of some boastful and unloved fellow-student, or the perplexed disapproval of the college authorities, or the entertainment of a college community always keenly appreciative of a diverting sensation. So alive was he to this phase of student activity, and so conspicuous was he among his mates for resourcefulness and courage, that he became, in the popular opinion of his time and in subsequent tradition, the hero of many an escapade with which he had no connection. One instance, however, of strenuous effort quite outside his college duties seems to be well authenticated, and will serve to show the kind of mischievous exploit which was attractive enough to enlist his cooperation.

The president of the college during the first three years of Kellogg’s course was a man of great dignity and reserve. He held himself quite aloof from the students, neither inviting nor allowing any freedom of social intercourse. Partly on this account he was unpopular with the student body, and the solemn reserve in which he intrenched himself seemed, in their eyes, to make any infringement, however slight, of his personal dignity particularly humorous. There was much irreverent laughter, therefore, when it was whispered about on one occasion that the silk hat which the president was accustomed to wear, and which seemed the very crown and symbol of his formal stateliness, had been stolen, and was in the hands of some of the students. When it came to the ears of Kellogg he remarked that if he knew the boys that had the hat he would put it on the top of the chapel spire. Of course the interesting information was not long withheld from him, and in the darkness of a showery night he climbed sturdily up by the slender and insecure pathway of the lightning-rod, and placed the hat on the very top, where, in the morning, it met the dismayed vision of the president, and received the boisterous salutations of the college. That was Kellogg’s contribution to the deed of mischief. To steal the hat was a petty and foolish trick, such as might be perpetrated by a half-witted person, a coward, or a thief; but to carry it through the darkness to the top of the chapel spire required a clear head, a stout heart, good muscle, and nerve, and these Elijah Kellogg possessed, both in youth and manhood.

In reading these books, which tell the substantial history of his life at Bowdoin, it is quite evident that, with all the interest he took in the pastimes and pranks of his associates, he was not unmindful of the high and serious purpose of a college course. He maintained a consistent ideal of personal integrity and helpfulness and truth. It is the repeated testimony of those who were in college with him that his influence upon his fellow-students was in a high degree stimulating and wholesome. “He was,” says one who knew him well in the intimacy of college association, “universally popular, but he had his own chosen favorites, and one characteristic of him was his strong personal affection for them. His soul burned with love to those whom he loved. This was one secret of his power for good, for his influence upon them was always good.” An unaffected scorn of what was mean or false, and an eagerness to recognize and to make the most of every good and generous trait in his companions, were as characteristic of him as was his light-hearted, fun-loving disposition, and it is easy to see why he won both the respect and love of those who were admitted to his friendship.

These engaging qualities of his youth were no less those of his age, and they made him throughout life the friend of boys and the favorite of boys. He never lost the spirit of sympathy and comradeship with young men, and as his home, during the later years of his life, was not far from the college that he loved, he had a double motive to revisit, from time to time, the scene of those labors and frolics and friendships which he had so charmingly depicted in the Whispering Pine books. Accordingly he presented himself, now and then, either unexpectedly or upon invitation, at the door of some undergraduate member of his college fraternity, the Alpha Delta Phi, and became, for as long as he would stay, a welcome and honored guest.

It did not take long for the news to spread that Elijah Kellogg was in college; and then the hospitable room would be visited by many callers, eager to greet the shy, weather-beaten little man, whose heart was always warm for boys, and even the mazy wrinkles of whose face seemed to speak less of age than of kindness. And by the evening lamp an interested circle of students forgot the morrow’s lessons as they listened to stories of olden time, and to quaint words of counsel and comment as they fell from the visitor’s lips. When the circle finally dissolved, and Mr. Kellogg and his entertainers were left alone, a psalm, which seemed somehow to gain new meaning from his reading of it, and a simple earnest prayer, brought the long evening to a fitting and memorable close.

It is interesting, moreover, to notice, as an evidence of the profound regard and affection which the Bowdoin students felt for Mr. Kellogg, that when, in 1901, they published a volume of Bowdoin tales, no other dedication of the book was thought of than the one which inscribes it to the memory of Elijah Kellogg, “who celebrated his Alma Mater in story, honored her by practical piety, and won the hearts of her boys, his brethren.” If he was not eminent in the prescribed studies of the college, neither was he neglectful of them, nor unfaithful to them. Perhaps his enjoyment of college fellowships and his love of fun interfered to some extent with his devotion to the classics and mathematics, which made up a large part of the curriculum, and, in addition, the necessity under which he lay of providing for his own expenses must have diverted a part of his energies from study to manual toil. But whether at work, at play, or at study, he was hearty and resourceful. An incident, as told by himself, illustrates this trait of his character, and, incidentally, introduces the president whose sombre dignity provoked the stealing and subsequent disposal of his hat, as already related.

“I had to work my way through college,” said Mr. Kellogg, “and I boarded with a woman named Susan Dunning. I came to her house one Saturday. There was a deep snow on the ground, and college was to open Monday. She was feeling very blue because her well-sweep had broken. I told her not to mind, I’d fix it. The snow was too deep to get the cattle out, so I took a sled, and going to a wood-lot cut a big, heavy pole, it took a big one, too, for an old well-sweep. I put it on the sled, and tried to haul it back; but the long end dragging in the deep snow made that impossible. So, instead of hauling it, I took hold of the end and started pushing it home. It was hard work, but to make it worse President Allen met me and remarked, ‘Well, Kellogg, I have heard of putting the cart before the horse, but I never saw it done before;’ then he burst into a hearty laugh, and that’s the only time I ever saw him even smile in all the years I knew him.”

Besides President Allen, who was a man of learning and piety, as well as soberness, and whose single laugh, as chronicled by Mr. Kellogg, may perhaps be extenuated on the ground that it was indulged in before the term began, it was a notable group of men under whose influence and instruction Mr. Kellogg came during his residence at Bowdoin. There was Professor Alpheus S. Packard, whose elegant culture and kindly heart and beautiful face relieved the tedium of the Greek class-room, and impressed themselves upon the grateful memories of not less than sixty classes of Bowdoin students. There was Professor Thomas C. Upham, the quaint and shy philosopher, who had in himself so much of the mystic and seer combined with the patient metaphysical analyst that it sent him from time to time into bursts of religious song, and assured his name an honored place among the hymn-writers as well as among the philosophers. There was Professor Samuel P. Newman, who, by precept and criticism, imparted as much as can be imparted of the art of rhetoric, in which Mr. Kellogg was to become so much of a proficient. There was Professor William Smyth, rugged, impetuous, and true, an apostle of abolition, an enthusiastic champion of popular education and, indeed, of every good cause, and, above all, a profound and famous mathematician, about whom Mr. Kellogg relates the somewhat apocryphal story of the “Mathematician in Shafts,” not, as may be seen, to suggest ridicule, but in a sort of fond and amused recognition of his unique and vigorous personality. And finally, not to make the catalogue too long, there was Professor Parker Cleaveland, the distinguished scholar and teacher of chemistry and mineralogy, and a man of idiosyncrasies as striking as were his gifts. In a beautiful memorial sonnet Longfellow said of him:—

“From Seniors to Freshmen,” says Mr. Kellogg, “all believed in, loved, and were proud of the reputation of the scholarly, kind-hearted, democratic, and, at times, compassionate professor.” And at the close of the chapter which is devoted to illustrations of Professor Cleaveland’s eccentric ways and beneficent influence, Mr. Kellogg is moved to this earnest and affectionate expression of his reverence: “Blessings on thy memory, faithful one,—faithful even unto death,—to whom was committed the gift to stir young hearts to noble enterprise and manly effort; who knew how to train the youthful eye to look upon, and the heart to pant after, the goal thou hadst reached! Those most amused with thy peculiarities loved thee best. From hence removed to the presence and enjoyment of Him whose wisdom, power, and goodness, manifested in the material world, thou to us didst so worthily explain and illustrate, we shall behold thy form and press thy hand no more; but only with life shall we surrender the memory of him who united the attributes of both teacher and friend.”

It is impossible that under the personal influence of these teachers, and of their instruction, young Kellogg, with his frank and susceptible nature, should not have been stimulated to intellectual effort, and to moral earnestness, and that he should not have retained in subsequent life some impress from their vigorous and scholarly and noble characters. How much he owed them in the direction and the development of his powers we may not say. It is never possible to measure, or to estimate exactly, the total influence of a teacher’s life and work upon his pupils. It acts often in ways that do not disclose themselves to our perception; it touches the young men at points and moments of which we do not know the responsive or the repelling significance; it often produces effects which are the very opposite of what we should predict; it falls into the ground and dies, as it were, and years afterward springs up and bears fruit in a form so changed that we do not recognize the seed in the resulting harvest; it is often hidden in the hearts of the young men, and works by way of impulse or restraint so subtly that they themselves are not conscious of it; and so we can never tell to what extent a young man’s character has been formed or modified by the influence of his teachers. But there is certainly some indication of Mr. Kellogg’s own estimate of what he owed to college instruction and stimulus in the ardent and unwavering affection which he always exhibited for his Alma Mater, and which was abundantly reciprocated in the reverent honor accorded to him by the college, and by all its students and alumni. At the one-hundredth anniversary of the college, in 1894, there were more than a thousand graduates assembled at the banquet in a mammoth tent on the campus. Mr. Kellogg had, with some difficulty, been persuaded to be present. He was, of course, called upon for a speech; and when he rose to respond, every graduate, young and old, in the great company was instantly on his feet, cheering and shouting a glad salute. It was a touching and memorable ovation, and the flush of troubled happiness that flitted across his bronzed and wrinkled face was something long to be remembered, as was also his glowing tribute of affection for the college, which was his answer to the welcome of his brethren.

In Mr. Kellogg’s student days the chief literary interest and activity of the undergraduates, and no small part of their more formal social life, centred about two societies, the Peucinean and the AthenÆan. Between these two societies there was intense rivalry in securing accessions from among the more desirable members of newly entering classes, in public exhibitions and anniversary exercises, and in the distribution of college and class honors. Each society possessed a considerable library of carefully selected books, and each held regular weekly meetings for literary exercises consisting of essays, poems, declamations, and debates. Kellogg was an active and esteemed member of the Peucinean society, and contributed not a little to the interest of its meetings in the several features of their literary programmes. Mr. Henry H. Boody, of the class of 1842, and subsequently professor of rhetoric and oratory in the college from 1845 to 1854, recalls the fact that at the meetings of the Peucinean society, “we used to consider a poem by Kellogg as a very rare treat,” and then adds that perhaps “our liking for the man influenced our judgment as to the merit of his productions in that line.” However that may be, it is evident that his gifts of tongue and pen were freely exercised during his undergraduate days, and that the charm of them was felt and acknowledged by his college associates.

In Mr. Kellogg’s Junior year a literary magazine, the second venture of the kind at Bowdoin, was projected by some of the students, and made its first appearance, under the name of the Bowdoin Portfolio, in April, 1839. Its advent was heralded, in a manner somewhat figurative and characteristic of the time, by an editorial note, of which the following are some of the first sentences:—

“A short time since, as we were sitting quietly in our room discussing the common topics of the day, we were suddenly surprised and pleased by the entrance of a comely youth, of an ideal nature, that is, made up of the immaterial mind, but who had embodied himself in a visible form. He was arrayed in a neat, simple garb, evidently preferring pure simplicity to ostentatious splendor, and wishing to attract notice, not so much by a showy dress and gorgeous outward appearance, as by the spiritual within, made clear and comprehensible by the outward representation. On his front he bore the name of ’Bowdoin Portfolio,’ and in communing with him we found a most entertaining and agreeable companion. He was just making his debut into the literary world, and it was with modesty and timidity that he declared to us his intentions of speedily making his bow, and paying court to the public.”

There is no indication that Mr. Kellogg was connected with the editorial board of the Portfolio, but there are contributions from him in three of the seven numbers that were published, and all his contributions are of verse. This fact recalls the testimony that has been quoted as to the pleasure with which his poems were received at the meetings of the Peucinean society. Altogether it seems as if, during his college days, his tastes led him to the cultivation of poetry, and as if the impression he made upon his college mates was rather by his verse than by his prose.

One of the poems in the Portfolio is a clever translation of a Latin epitaph upon a moth miller which “came bustling through the window directly into the editorial taper, and fell lifeless upon the sheet of paper.” A part of the epitaph in Kellogg’s verse is as follows:—

The Latin of the epitaph is of that obvious kind which an American college boy is likely to write, and there is really more distinction in Kellogg’s translation than in the original.

The other poems contributed by Kellogg to the Portfolio are entitled, “The Phantoms of the Mind,” and “The Demon of the Sea.” They are both vigorous in sentiment and correct in form, and the opening lines of the latter remind us of the author’s early, and, indeed, lifelong passion for the sea:—

It is not altogether fancy that recognizes in such lines as these hints of the impetuous and stirring rhetoric of Mr. Kellogg’s later prose, especially on occasions when his deepest feelings were moved, and he spoke of love and duty, of character and destiny, of life and immortality, out of the fulness of his conviction, and with the ardor and eloquence of his sensitive and poetic nature.

So passed his college days, in the keen enjoyment of generous comradeship, in the instinctive indulgence of his fondness for fun and frolic, in the cheerful acceptance of the burden of defraying his own expenses, in manly fidelity to the appointed studies of the course, and in the voluntary and congenial exercise of the literary gifts with which he was endowed, and through which he has made so many of us his debtors. And through it all he preserved the unaffected simplicity and purity of heart, the reverence for truth, and the consideration and charity for his fellows, which were the winning characteristics of his whole life.

Mr. Kellogg’s theological training in immediate preparation for the ministry was received at Andover Theological Seminary from 1840 to 1843. The intellectual and social conditions which prevail at the professional school are quite unlike those of the college. It does not have the same atmosphere of venerated tradition and compelling custom, nor is it the scene of a life so varied and buoyant. The students are older, more sedate, and more intent upon the special studies of the place. They have passed through the period of boyish effervescence and frolic, of ardent and generous comradeship, of steadfast friendships and changing schemes of life, of relative unconcern for what lies beyond the horizon of the college world—and the period is not to be repeated. They are committed to common pursuits and ambitions, and are sobered by the duties and responsibilities of life to which they are sensibly drawing near.

In his college life Mr. Kellogg found the material for a series of sparkling stories, evidently as congenial to himself as they have been interesting to his readers; but of life in the seminary he has given us no picture. This is not to the discredit of the honored school of theology to which he went, nor does it imply that he did not enter into its studies and its life with heartiness and joy, but it is a natural result of the distinction which has been suggested between the college and the professional school. The picturesque nook or landscape attracts the pencil or the brush of the artist, but his choice does not discredit the thousand scenes of field and pasture and hill and woodland which he passes by as unsuited to his artistic purpose.

It is enough to mention the names of Moses Stuart, Bela Edwards, Leonard Woods, Ralph Emerson, and Edwards Park, to show that Mr. Kellogg was as fortunate in his teachers at the seminary as he had been at the college. They were men of profound learning, of stimulating influence, of consecrated character, and of great and deserved reputation. They could not fail to quicken and enrich both his intellectual and his spiritual nature, and to send him forth fully instructed, as well as profoundly eager, to preach with persuasiveness and power, as he did preach for nearly half a century.

It was while he was a student in the seminary that Mr. Kellogg wrote the famous declamation, “Spartacus to the Gladiators,” as well as some others, almost equally famous, of the same general character. It was written for one of the prescribed rhetorical exercises of the course, at which the writer or speaker was publicly criticised by members of the student body, and also by the professor in charge. Mr. Kellogg, always timid at the prospect of open and formal criticism of his writing or speech, greatly dreaded the ordeal, and resolved to write something which should so interest his hearers by its unusual subject-matter as to divert their minds from the thought of criticism. His scheme was completely successful. The students listened with breathless attention, and were dumb when the speech was concluded. To the inquiry of Professor Park if there were any criticisms to be offered, not a voice was raised; and the professor himself remarked that though there were some things, perhaps, that might be said in criticism, yet it was so admirable a specimen of masterful rhetoric that he should say nothing. It has been considered so much of a masterpiece in its kind, that at Andover they still point out No. 20 Bartlett Hall as the room in which it was written.

There is an unmistakable dramatic quality in the conception and speech of “Spartacus,” as there were hints of such a dramatic quality in some of Mr. Kellogg’s sermons in later years, and it is interesting to note that, in his Senior year at Andover, he wrote a “dialogue,” or brief play, called “The Honest Deserter,” which was performed by the Philomathean Society of Phillips Academy. The occasion of its presentation was considered of so much interest and importance that an elm tree was planted in the Phillips yard in commemoration of the event.

When in his Senior year as a theological student Mr. Kellogg went to Harpswell to preach for some weeks, his personality and his preaching, his love of the sea and his kindly human qualities, so won the hearts of the Harpswell people that they besought him to return to Harpswell after his graduation, and become their pastor. To their urgent request he yielded, being himself much attracted by the people and their home by the sea. It was in 1844 that he was publicly installed over the church, and the official tie of pastor to the Harpswell church was severed only by his death.