PROFESSOR STEPHEN CHASE.—PROFESSOR DAVID PEABODY.—PROFESSOR WILLIAM COGSWELL.

Professor Stephen Chase, who succeeded Professor Young in the chair of Mathematics, the latter retaining the department of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, was the son of Benjamin Pike and Mary (Chase) Chase, and was born at Chester, N. H., August 30, 1813.

The following notice of this distinguished mathematician is from a commemorative "Discourse" by President Lord:—

"In the first class that entered the college, after my connection with it, nearly twenty-three years ago, a young man, spare, tall, as yet unformed in manner, soon engaged the attention of his teachers. We marked his mild, serene, yet quick and penetrating eye, his independent, unaffected, yet modest and regulated movement, his lively, versatile, earnest, and comprehensive mind, his cheerful and honest diligence, his punctual attendance upon the exercises of the college, his respectful, but unstudied and confiding deportment towards his superiors, his frank and generous, but reserved intercourse with his fellow students, his care in selecting his most intimate associates, and his quiet, unpretending, yet exact and intelligent performance of all the studies of the course. An indifferent stranger would not have noticed him, except, perhaps, to criticize his unique exterior; and his fellow students, as is natural to young persons who are most impressed by Æsthetical manner and accomplishment, did not dignify him as a leader or an oracle. But a deeper insight convinced his teachers that, whatever partial observers might think wanting in respect to artistic excellence, was well supplied by more substantial and enduring qualities. Their eye followed him, while here, as a sound-minded, true-hearted young man, and a thorough scholar; and, after he had graduated, as a teacher at the South, and in two of the oldest academies of New England. In these different relations he fully justified the good name which he had left behind him at the college, till, the proper occasions serving, he was called back to be first a tutor, and then professor of the Mathematics. The subsequent course of Mr. Chase proved that his instructors had not miscalculated his powers, nor over-estimated his qualifications for one of the most difficult and trying positions in a learned institution.

"Professor Chase performed the duties of his office without interruption till the close of the last term, during a period of about thirteen years; and died, after a short illness, in vacation, while yet a young man. He was scarcely thirty-eight years of age. Yet he was old, if we measure time, as scholars should, not by the motion of the heavenly bodies, but the succession of ideas. He had made great proficiency in knowledge. Well he might; for he had great susceptibilities. His temperament was ardent, his instincts were lively, his perceptions keen, his thoughts rapid, his reasoning faculties sharp, his imagination fiery, and his will determined. No man has all his active powers proportioned; for that would constitute perfection, which exists not in this world any more in physical than in moral natures. But his balance was less disturbed than most, and, consequently, he was capable of various and large attainments. What he could he did, for his spirit was earnest, and his industry untiring. He had become well founded and extensively versed in most departments of liberal study, and it would be difficult to say in what branch of knowledge he would have been most competent to excel. He was not a genius; that is, no one power of the mind absorbed the others, and his culture was not unequal. Therefore he would not have glared for a while, like a meteor, and then exploded, but he would have stood one of the pillars of learning, and a true conservator of society.

"A man of excellent constitutional faculties, like Mr. Chase, must use them, if Providence gives him opportunity. He has a self-moving power. He cannot be still. Use of the faculties increases their facility and productiveness; and the increase of products increases the love of acquisition. His gains, and his consequent love of gain, will be according to the Providential direction which he takes, whether to a trade, an art, a profession, to the pursuit of wealth, or power, or general knowledge. Mr. Chase's direction was to knowledge. He acquired it easily, his stores rapidly increased, and the love of it became a passion. He loved knowledge as some men love pleasure, and others gold, for its own sake. Yet not exclusively, for he was genial, warm-hearted, and humane. He appreciated the enjoyments of personal, domestic, and social life. No man could be more affectionate, kind, generous, or public-spirited. He was never a recluse or an ascetic. He was ready to take anything in hand, and liked to have his hands full. He desired an estate, he studied a profession, he amused himself with useful arts, he loved a farm, a garden, an orchard, a fruitery, an apiary; and occasionally, to do the work proper to them all himself; and he did it well. But knowledge, science, in the largest sense, was his beau ideal.

"Professor Chase, as might be expected, had great excellence as a teacher and governor of college. His ideal of education may be inferred from his personal culture. This had always been general and liberal. He omitted no branch of important knowledge. He accepted nothing partial. He believed in none of the romantic expedients which are often hastily adopted, and successively abandoned, for making scholars without materials, and forcing public institutions of learning, for a present popular effect, off from the methods which nature has prescribed, and experience has sanctioned. He regarded a college as a place not so much of learning, as of preparation for learning,—a school of discipline, to bring the student up to manhood with ability to perform thenceforth the hard work of a man in his particular profession. To that end no part of fundamental study could be spared. He would as soon have judged that young men could be trained to excellence in the mechanic arts, while they disused any important organ of the body; or a sculptor elaborate a perfect model by chiseling only the limbs. He would not expect such a mechanic, or artist, or educators of the same school, to find either honorable or lucrative employment, when society, though temporarily blinded by ingenious but visionary projects of improvement, should learn the practical difference between the whole of anything and its parts. He would not have consented that any other department of college study should be sacrificed even to the Mathematics.

"But he would have the Mathematics lie, physically, where God has placed it, at the foundation. He would have the student early settled and accustomed to the most approved methods and varieties of demonstrative science. He would discipline the mind among the certainties of numbers, that it might better search for truth among the probabilities of things; just as we learn to swim where we can touch bottom before it is safe to plunge into the deep. He judged soundly that one must learn to use his reason before he can wisely apply it to the purposes of life; and that without this preliminary training nothing else can be learned well; and that whatever otherwise seem to be accomplishments, turn out, at length, to be fantasies that vanish in the turmoil and struggle of life, or mislead men into a false and fickle management of affairs. Wherefore he felt the peculiar responsibility of his position with all the intenseness of his earnest and far-reaching mind. He knew that his department, though most difficult to be commended to young men in general, was most indispensable to their success, and he sought accordingly to magnify his office. That he was a complete master of it is out of question. Of this he has left enduring monuments; and not the least, I am happy to say, in minds which he had trained.

"His own perception of relations was like intuition, and hence he was sometimes uneasy at the embarrassments of students, even when involuntary, and much more, when the result of indifference or neglect, even though they might at times be increased by the rapidity of his own illustrations. I should have dreaded to be taken by Professor Chase to the blackboard, unless I had a good lesson, or a good conscience; and I could not have been sure that the latter would avail me without the former. But though I should have shrunk from the criticism, I should have respected the man. If I feared him in the lecture-room, I should honor him in his study; for there his warm heart would open to the story of my mental trials, and he would lead me, and help me to bear my burdens, with the kindness of an elder brother. He was exacting, but he was humane; he was impatient, but full of generous sympathies. These qualities might not always be tempered in the hurry of an occasion, but found their balance in the leisure and quiet intercourse of retirement. He was just and faithful. He had strong likes, but he would yield a favorite when he must; and strong dislikes, but he was incapable of hate. He stopped short of all extremes. You could move him easily either way on the current of the sympathies; but you could not tempt him to do wrong. As with the judgment, so with the sensibilities; they were led by conscience. As with the love of knowledge, so with the passions; they were subject to the love of truth. Whatever the occasional excitement of the intellect or the feelings, there was that in his mind which made it impossible for him to be an enemy of God or man. The soul had been harmonized by grace.

"Mr. Chase had a pious ancestry, and was brought up by Christian parents in the fear of God. An excellent mother, an invalid in his childhood, sat much in her arm-chair with the Bible on her knee. She used it with her little boy as she would a primer. Before he was four years old he had learned to read it, and read through the New Testament; and that particular volume now remains the best part of his estate. He was ever afterwards a diligent student of the Bible, and never ceased to honor the father and mother who had led him in this way of life. Filial reverence was one of his most beautiful and characteristic traits. It was a natural step to the fear of God; and the early fear of God is likely to be succeeded, according to the covenant, by that love of God which, when perfected, casteth out fear. During his third year at college he became, as he hoped, regenerate, and professed his faith in Christ. It is said that his religious awakening at that time was unusually deep; his awe of the Divine government and his sense of sin profound; his acknowledgment of God's justice and general sovereignty unreserved; and his trust in Christ for justification free and unqualified. That sheet-anchor saved him. It brought him up, subsequently, in the hour of danger. When the fitful and rough winds of the spirit of the power of the air beat upon him, and the swelling waters went over his soul, it dragged, but it held. It was cast within the veil. That New Testament in his childhood, that subjection to his parents, that conversion at college,—they were blessings to him and to us that can be measured only by eternity.

"It was a sorrowful day when, in the solitude and stillness of the winter vacation, we laid him in the tomb. It was sorrowful in that house where he had been the joy and hope of loving and trusting hearts, and had found rest from the cares and vexations of official life; where a sincere, unworldly, unartificial hospitality always reigned; whence tokens of kindness went freely round to friends, and compassionate charity to the poor. It was sorrowful to his colleagues, for we trusted him, his knowledge and judgment, his integrity and zeal, his faithfulness and efficiency, his independence and courage. We knew that he was above pretense, artifice, and duplicity; that in his keeping, righteous principle was safe, and over his application of it wisdom, benevolence, and firmness would preside. It was sorrowful to the village, for he was known to be a just man, a kind neighbor, and a good citizen. He was always ready to do what he could for the common welfare, and to bear his proportion of the common burdens. Every man in the community felt that he had lost a friend."

The scientific world could have no better demonstration of Professor Chase's rare mathematical talents than his text book on Algebra, which is still used in one department of the college.

Professor Chase married Sarah Thompson, daughter of Ichabod Goodwin, and granddaughter of General Ichabod Goodwin, of South Berwick, Me. He died at Hanover, January 7, 1851.

In "Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit," we find the following notice—furnished by the kindness of Rev. Daniel L. Furbur, D.D.—of a gentleman of great worth, whose early death was a serious loss to the college:

"David Peabody, the youngest son of John and Lydia (Balch) Peabody, was born at Topsfield, Mass., April 16, 1805. He was employed more or less upon his father's farm till he was fifteen or sixteen years of age; but as his physical constitution was thought to be not well suited to agricultural life, and as his early tastes were more than ordinarily intellectual, and he had a strong desire for a collegiate education, his father consented to gratify him; and, in the spring of 1821, he commenced the study of Latin at Dummer Academy, Byfield. The same year his thoughts were earnestly directed to the great subject of his own salvation, though he did not feel so much confidence in the genuineness of his religious exercises as to make a public profession of his faith until three years afterwards. In 1824, he united with the Congregational Church in his native place, and in the autumn of the same year joined the Freshman class in Dartmouth College.

"By severe labor during his collegiate course, he overtasked his naturally feeble constitution, and thus prepared the way for much future debility and suffering. He was graduated in 1828, on which occasion he delivered the valedictory oration.

"After spending a few weeks in recruiting his health at his father's, he became, for a short time, assistant editor of the 'New Hampshire Observer,' at Portsmouth, but before the close of 1828 he entered the Theological Seminary at Andover. In the spring of 1829, he accepted an invitation to take charge of a Young Ladies' Select School at Portsmouth; but in the autumn of 1830 his declining health obliged him to relinquish it, and to seek a Southern residence. He went to Prince Edward County, Virginia, and secured a situation as teacher in an excellent family,—that of Dr. Morton, and at the same time entered the Union Theological Seminary, of which the Rev. Dr. John H. Rice was the founder and principal professor. He remained in the family of Dr. Morton till he had completed the prescribed course of study, and was licensed to preach by the West Hanover Presbytery in April, 1831; after which he supplied the church at Scottsville for six months. So acceptable were his services, that the congregation would gladly have retained him as their pastor; but, as he preferred a Northern residence, he declined all overtures for a settlement, and returned to New England, with his health much improved, in 1832. In November of the same year he was ordained pastor of the First Church in Lynn, Mass. In September, 1834, he was married to Maria, daughter of Lincoln Brigham, then of Cambridge, but formerly of Southborough, Mass. In January, 1835, he was attacked with a severe hemorrhage, which greatly reduced his strength, and obliged him for a season to intermit his labors. Finding the climate unfavorable, he reluctantly came to the determination to resign his pastoral charge, with a view of seeking an inland home, when his health should be sufficiently recruited to justify him in resuming the stated duties of the ministry.

"Accordingly, in the spring of 1835, he was dismissed, after which he spent some time in traveling for the benefit of his health, at the same time acting as an agent for the Massachusetts Sabbath-school Society. His health now rapidly improved, and on the 15th of July succeeding his dismission, he was installed as pastor of the Calvinist Church in Worcester.

"The change of climate seemed, for a time, highly beneficial, and had begun to induce the hope that his health might become fully established; but, in the winter of 1835-36, he was prostrated by another attack of hemorrhage, which again clouded his prospects of ministerial usefulness. In the spring of 1836, his health had so far improved that he resumed his ministerial labors and continued them through the summer; but in September, his symptoms again became more unfavorable, and he determined, in accordance with medical advice, to try the effect of a sea voyage and a winter in the South. Accordingly, he sailed in November for New Orleans; and, on arriving there, decided on going to St. Francisville, a village on the Mississippi. Here he remained during the winter, preaching to both the white and colored population, as his strength would allow. In the spring, he returned to his pastoral charge, with his health considerably invigorated. He labored pretty constantly, though not without much debility, until the succeeding spring (1838), when he found it necessary again to desist from his labors, and take a season of rest. In company with a friend, he journeyed through a part of Vermont and New Hampshire, and on reaching Hanover, the day after Commencement, was surprised to learn that he had been appointed professor of Rhetoric in Dartmouth College. Conscious of his inability to meet any longer the claims of a pastoral charge, and hoping that his health might be adequate to the lighter duties of a professorship, he could not doubt that the indications of Providence were in favor of his accepting the appointment. He did accept it, and shortly after resigned his charge at Worcester, amidst many expressions of affection and regret on the part of his people, and, in October following, entered on the duties of his professorship.

"The change of labor proved highly beneficial, and during the winter of 1838-39, he enjoyed a degree of health which he had not known for many previous years. In March, he was so much encouraged in respect to himself that he remarked to a friend that he thought God would indulge the cherished wish of his heart, and permit him again to labor as a minister. But another cloud quickly appeared in his horizon, which proved ominous of the destruction of all his earthly hopes. In April following, he suffered from an attack of pleurisy, which was followed by lung fever; and, though he so far recovered as to be able to attend to his college duties till the September following, it became manifest to all that his disease was, on the whole, advancing towards a fatal termination. He died at the age of thirty-four years and six months, on the 17th of October, 1839. His last days were rendered eminently tranquil by the blessed hopes and consolations of the gospel. His funeral sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Lord, President of Dartmouth College, and was published. He left no children.

"Mr. Peabody's published works are a brief 'Memoir of Horace Bassett Morse,' 1830; a Discourse on 'The Conduct of Men Considered in Contrast with the Law of God,' 1836; a 'Sermon on the Sin of Covetousness, Considered in Respect to Intemperance, Indian Oppression, Slavery,' etc., 1838; the 'Patriarch of Hebron, or the History of Abraham' (posthumous), 1841."

We are indebted to "Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit" for yet another notice—furnished by the kindness of Rev. Daniel Lancaster—of a gentleman widely known to the friends of education and religion.

"William Cogswell, the son of Dr. William and Judith (Badger) Cogswell, was born in Atkinson, N. H., June 5, 1787. He was a descendant from John Cogswell, of Westbury, Wiltshire, England, who, with his family, sailed from Bristol in a vessel called the 'Angel Gabriel,' June 4, 1635, and was wrecked at Pemaquid (now Bristol), Maine. He settled at Chebacco, now Essex, then a part of Ipswich, Mass., where he died November 29, 1669, about fifty-eight years old. His father was distinguished as a physician and a magistrate, and held the office of hospital surgeon in the army during the war that gave us our Independence. His mother was a daughter of the Hon. Joseph Badger, of Gilmanton, a gentleman of great respectability and for a long time in public life.

"Under the influence of good parental instruction, his mind was early formed to a deep sense of the importance of religion; but it was not till he was fitting for college at Atkinson, that he received those particular religious impressions which he considered as marking the commencement of his Christian life. He did not make a public profession of religion until the close of his Junior year, September, 1810; at that time he, with both his parents, and all his brothers and sisters, nine in number, received baptism, and were admitted to the church on the same day, in his native place, by the Rev. Stephen Peabody.

"He became a member of Dartmouth College in 1807. Having maintained a highly respectable standing in a class that has since numbered an unusual proportion of distinguished men, he graduated in 1811. For two years after leaving college, he was occupied in teaching in the Atkinson and Hampton Academies. But, during this time, having resolved to enter the ministry, he commenced the study of Theology under the direction of the Rev. Mr. Webster of Hampton, and subsequently continued it under Dr. Dana of Newburyport, and Dr. Worcester of Salem,—chiefly the latter. Having received license to preach from the Piscataqua Association, September 29, 1813, he performed a tour of missionary service in New Hampshire, and at the close of December, 1813, returned to Massachusetts, and accepted an invitation to preach as a candidate for settlement, in the south parish in Dedham. After laboring there a few weeks, he received a unanimous call, which, in due time, he accepted, and on the 20th of April, 1815, he was duly set apart to the pastoral office. Here he continued laboriously and usefully employed about fourteen years, during which time the church under his care was doubled in numbers, and enjoyed a high degree of spiritual prosperity.

"In June, 1829, he was appointed general agent of the American Education Society, and he accordingly resigned his pastoral charge with a view to an acceptance of the place. He entered upon the duties of his new office in August following, and so acceptable were his services, and so well adapted was he found to be to such a field of labor, that in January, 1832, he was elected secretary and director of the Society. His duties now became exceedingly arduous, and his situation one of vast responsibility. In addition to all the other labors incident to his situation, he had an important agency in conducting the 'Quarterly Journal and Register of the American Education Society,'—a work that required great research, and that has preserved much for the benefit of posterity which would otherwise have been irrecoverably lost.

"In 1833, he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity, by Williams College.

"It became manifest, after a few years, that Dr. Cogswell's physical constitution was gradually yielding to the immense pressure to which it was subjected. He accordingly signified to the Board of Directors of the Education Society his intention to resign his office as secretary, as soon as a successor could be found. He was induced, however, by their urgent solicitation, to withhold his resignation for a short time; though in April, 1841, his purpose was carried out, and his resignation accepted. The Board with which he had been connected, rendered, on his taking leave of them, the most honorable testimony to the ability and fidelity with which he had discharged the duties of his office.

"On the same month that he determined on resigning his place in the Education Society, he was appointed by the Trustees of Dartmouth College, professor of History and National Education. Here again his labors were very oppressive, as he was obliged not only to prepare a course of lectures on a subject comparatively new, but to perform much other service, especially in the way of collecting funds to endow his professorship. He was chiefly instrumental, at this time, in establishing the Northern Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of gathering for it a library of about two thousand volumes.

"But while he was thus actively and usefully engaged, he was invited to the presidency of the Theological Seminary at Gilmanton, in connection also with the professorship of Theology, and a general agency in collecting funds. There were many circumstances that led him to think favorably of the proposal, and finally to accept it. He accordingly removed his family to Gilmanton, in January, 1844.

"His expectations in this last field of labor seem scarcely to have been realized. The removal of one of the professors to another institution, devolved upon him an amount of labor which he had not anticipated, and he found it impossible to attend to the business of instruction, and at the same time to be abroad among the churches soliciting pecuniary aid. At length, finding that the public mind was greatly divided as to the expediency of making any further efforts to sustain the institution, he recommended that its operations should, for the time being, be suspended; though he considered it as only a suspension, and confidently believed that it had yet an important work to perform. He held himself ready after this to give private instruction in Theology, whenever it was desired.

"In 1848, Dr. Cogswell suffered a severe domestic affliction in the death of his only son,—a young man of rare promise, at the age of twenty. This seemed to give a shock to his constitution from which he never afterwards fully recovered. He acted as a stated supply to the First Church in Gilmanton until the early part of January, 1850, when he was suddenly overtaken with a disease of the heart that eventually terminated his life. He preached on the succeeding Sabbath (January 13), but it was for the last time. He performed some literary labor after this, and read the concluding proof sheet of a work that he was carrying through the press for the New Hampshire Historical Society. When he found that death was approaching, though at first he seemed to wish to live, that he might carry out some of his plans of usefulness, not yet accomplished, he soon became perfectly reconciled to the prospect of his departure. He died in serene triumph,—connecting all his hopes of salvation with the truths he had preached,—April 18, 1850. His funeral sermon was preached by the Rev. Daniel Lancaster of Gilmanton, and was published.

"Dr. Cogswell was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, of the American Antiquarian Society, and of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. He was also an Honorary Member of the Historical Societies of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, and a Corresponding Member of the National Institution for the Promotion of Science at Washington.

"The following is a list of Dr. Cogswell's publications 'A Sermon on the Nature and Extent of the Atonement,' 1816. 'A Sermon containing the History of the South Parish, Dedham,' 1816. 'A Sermon on the Suppression of Intemperance,' 1818. 'A Catechism on the Doctrines and Duties of Religion,' 1818. 'A Sermon on the Nature and Evidences of the Inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures,' 1819. 'A Sermon before the Auxiliary Education Society of Norfolk County,' 1826. 'Assistant to Family Religion,' 1826. 'A Sermon on Religious Liberty,' 1828. 'A Valedictory Discourse to the South Parish, Dedham,' 1829. 'Theological Class Book,' 1831. 'Harbinger of the Millennium,' 1833. 'Letters to Young Men Preparing for the Ministry,' 1837. In addition to the above, Dr. Cogswell wrote the 'Reports of the American Education Society' for eight years—from 1833 to 1840; and two 'Reports of the Northern Academy.' He was the principal editor of the 'American Quarterly Register' for several years; was editor also of the 'New Hampshire Repository,' published at Gilmanton, N. H.; of the first volume of the 'New England, Historical and Genealogical Register;' of a paper in Georgetown, Mass., called the 'Massachusetts Observer,' for a short time; and of the sixth volume of the 'New Hampshire Historical Collections.'

"Dr. Cogswell was married on the 11th of November, 1818, to Joanna, daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Strong, D.D., of Randolph, Mass. They had three children,—one son and two daughters.