DWIGHT, TIMOTHY
(14 May 1752, Northampton, MA-11 January 1817, New Haven, Cn. Education: B.A., Yale College, 1769; postgraduate study, Yale, 1769-7l. Career: Tutor, Yale College, 1771-77; chaplain, Connecticut Continental Brigade, 1777-78; farmer, teacher, state legislator, 1781-83; supply preacher, Northampton, MA, 1778-83; minister and schoolmaster, Greenfield Hill, CT, 1783-95; president, Yale College, 1795-1817.
"His departure was as serene and beautiful as the going down of the sun in a cloudless sky."
This statement, written by a man who served under Timothy Dwight as a Yale tutor, suggests the veneration Yale's ninth president inspired in persons who knew him. It may also suggest something about Dwight's character, for his serenity in death belies the fact that he died of a painful cancer. Dwight actually followed several careers: minister, poet, professor, and college president. In each role he was the sort of man who makes an impression by the force of personality. A brilliant youngster, he is said to have learned the alphabet in one sitting, and he began reading the Bible when he was four. He entered Yale at thirteen and devoted himself to studying fourteen hours per day. His efforts ap_ parently weakened his eyesight, and during his later life he could "read" and write only with the help of secretaries. And yet he wrote prolifically, preached, taught, and administered.
Dwight took inspiration from his mother, Mary, a woman so small that it was said her muscular husband could hold her in the palm of his hand. A daughter of Jonathan Edwards·, she tried to pass on to her children the moral values and theological vision of her father. In Timothy Dwight's case, the lessons took. This energetic man was most energized by the thought that he must save New England from the twin threats of atheism and anarchism. When Dwight became president of Yale in 1795, both seemed prolific, represented most clearly to Federalists like Dwight by the French Revolution and Jeffersonian-Democratic politics. In addition to being president, Dwight taught theology and preached twice each Sunday. His sermons took his students through the whole of Christian doctrine, as he understood it, every four years. He is credited with inspiring a student revival at Yale in 1802.
Dwight's alternative to the rationalism that seemed to threaten Puritan values was a reassertion of Edwardsean principles. But Dwight is generally identified with a moderate branch of the New Divinity, made more explicit by his protege, Nathaniel William Taylor*. Dwight diverged from Edwards in accepting the idea of man's moral ability and rejecting the doctrine that God was the author of sin. He portrayed religion as a "system of duties." But in his system he left room for the religion of the heart. He was most like his grandfather when he described regeneration as the human mind's "relish for spiritual objects, communicated to it by the power of the Holy Ghost." Dwight was an impressive pulpit orator, inspiring one observer to write breathlessly that "his eloquence resembled a mighty stream, flowing majestically through meadows of living verdure or groves of spices and golden fruits."
Dwight's theology was influential, but his career does not resolve itself solely into his religious ideas. A literary man, he was one of the learned "Hartford Wits" in the 1770s, and in 1785 he wrote America's first epic poem, Conquest of Canaan. The poem is seen now as an historical oddity, but other works by Dwight are more memorable. He composed patriotic songs for the revolutionary army while serving as chaplain, including the popular "Columbia, Columbia, to Glory Arise." His hymn, "I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord," is regarded as one of the best written at that time. And Dwight's Travels in New England and New York is a classic description of a vanishing way of life. As Yale president Dwight did much to change a college into a university, initiating advanced courses in law, theology, and medicine.
Dwight communicated many traditional Puritan values to a new generation: piety, diligence, scholarship. He did this by example and also through his warmth. Many students and friends remembered his personal attention-his knowing them. This personal grace lends credibility to Dwight's epitaph.
Bibliography
A: The Conquest of Canaan: A Poem in Eleven Books (Hartford, 1785); The Triumph of Infidelity (London, 1791); A Discourse on the Genuineness and Authenticity of the New Testament (New York, 1794); The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy (New Haven, 1798); Theology Explained and Defended, 5 vols. (Middletown, Conn., 1818; and many subsequent editions); Travels in New England and New York, 4 vols. (New Haven, 1822); Sermons, 2 vols. (New Haven, 1828).
B: AAP 2, 1252-65; DAB 5,573-77; DARB, 137-38; NCAB, 1, 168; RHAP, 418- 19; SH 4, 41; Charles E. Cunningham, Timothy Dwight, /752-18/7: A Biography (New York, 1942); Kenneth Silverman, Timothy Dwight (New York, 1969); Stephen E. Berks, Calvinism versus Democracy: Timothy Dwight and the Origins of American Evangelical Orthodoxy (Hamden, Conn., 1974); L. Douglas Good, 'The Christian Nation in the Mind of Timothy Dwight," Fides et History, 7 (1974), 1-18; Peter K. Kafer, "The Making of Timothy Dwight: A Connecticut Morality Tale," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 47 (1990), 189-209.
"His departure was as serene and beautiful as the going down of the sun in a cloudless sky."
This statement, written by a man who served under Timothy Dwight as a Yale tutor, suggests the veneration Yale's ninth president inspired in persons who knew him. It may also suggest something about Dwight's character, for his serenity in death belies the fact that he died of a painful cancer. Dwight actually followed several careers: minister, poet, professor, and college president. In each role he was the sort of man who makes an impression by the force of personality. A brilliant youngster, he is said to have learned the alphabet in one sitting, and he began reading the Bible when he was four. He entered Yale at thirteen and devoted himself to studying fourteen hours per day. His efforts ap_ parently weakened his eyesight, and during his later life he could "read" and write only with the help of secretaries. And yet he wrote prolifically, preached, taught, and administered.
Dwight took inspiration from his mother, Mary, a woman so small that it was said her muscular husband could hold her in the palm of his hand. A daughter of Jonathan Edwards·, she tried to pass on to her children the moral values and theological vision of her father. In Timothy Dwight's case, the lessons took. This energetic man was most energized by the thought that he must save New England from the twin threats of atheism and anarchism. When Dwight became president of Yale in 1795, both seemed prolific, represented most clearly to Federalists like Dwight by the French Revolution and Jeffersonian-Democratic politics. In addition to being president, Dwight taught theology and preached twice each Sunday. His sermons took his students through the whole of Christian doctrine, as he understood it, every four years. He is credited with inspiring a student revival at Yale in 1802.
Dwight's alternative to the rationalism that seemed to threaten Puritan values was a reassertion of Edwardsean principles. But Dwight is generally identified with a moderate branch of the New Divinity, made more explicit by his protege, Nathaniel William Taylor*. Dwight diverged from Edwards in accepting the idea of man's moral ability and rejecting the doctrine that God was the author of sin. He portrayed religion as a "system of duties." But in his system he left room for the religion of the heart. He was most like his grandfather when he described regeneration as the human mind's "relish for spiritual objects, communicated to it by the power of the Holy Ghost." Dwight was an impressive pulpit orator, inspiring one observer to write breathlessly that "his eloquence resembled a mighty stream, flowing majestically through meadows of living verdure or groves of spices and golden fruits."
Dwight's theology was influential, but his career does not resolve itself solely into his religious ideas. A literary man, he was one of the learned "Hartford Wits" in the 1770s, and in 1785 he wrote America's first epic poem, Conquest of Canaan. The poem is seen now as an historical oddity, but other works by Dwight are more memorable. He composed patriotic songs for the revolutionary army while serving as chaplain, including the popular "Columbia, Columbia, to Glory Arise." His hymn, "I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord," is regarded as one of the best written at that time. And Dwight's Travels in New England and New York is a classic description of a vanishing way of life. As Yale president Dwight did much to change a college into a university, initiating advanced courses in law, theology, and medicine.
Dwight communicated many traditional Puritan values to a new generation: piety, diligence, scholarship. He did this by example and also through his warmth. Many students and friends remembered his personal attention-his knowing them. This personal grace lends credibility to Dwight's epitaph.
Bibliography
A: The Conquest of Canaan: A Poem in Eleven Books (Hartford, 1785); The Triumph of Infidelity (London, 1791); A Discourse on the Genuineness and Authenticity of the New Testament (New York, 1794); The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy (New Haven, 1798); Theology Explained and Defended, 5 vols. (Middletown, Conn., 1818; and many subsequent editions); Travels in New England and New York, 4 vols. (New Haven, 1822); Sermons, 2 vols. (New Haven, 1828).
B: AAP 2, 1252-65; DAB 5,573-77; DARB, 137-38; NCAB, 1, 168; RHAP, 418- 19; SH 4, 41; Charles E. Cunningham, Timothy Dwight, /752-18/7: A Biography (New York, 1942); Kenneth Silverman, Timothy Dwight (New York, 1969); Stephen E. Berks, Calvinism versus Democracy: Timothy Dwight and the Origins of American Evangelical Orthodoxy (Hamden, Conn., 1974); L. Douglas Good, 'The Christian Nation in the Mind of Timothy Dwight," Fides et History, 7 (1974), 1-18; Peter K. Kafer, "The Making of Timothy Dwight: A Connecticut Morality Tale," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 47 (1990), 189-209.