Tag Archives: Eugenio Kincaid

The Institution becomes Madison University (p. 92)

Posted on May 2, 2012 by | Comments Off on The Institution becomes Madison University (p. 92)

rangements for male voices, which included original tunes bearing such local names as, “Kendrick,” “Chenango,” “Maginnis Chant,” “Conant,” and “Taylor.” William Roney, a senior in the collegiate department, succeeded Raymond and Wright in 1843. Under his direction the Sacred Music Society gave an ambitious concert on Christmas Night 1843 which featured selections from Handel, Mozart, Rossini, and Beethoven. Isaac N. Loomis, Class of 1845, took over the baton and tuning fork when he began graduate work in the fall of that year. The editor of the local Democratic Reflector commented in 1846 that perhaps no division of the University had improved more rapidly in the past decade than the music department.

Commencement, the high point of each year, changed little in character from that of the first in 1822. The date was moved in 1835 from June to August to accommodate businessmen who had to settle their mid-year accounts and for those who wished to attend the annual meetings of the various benevolent societies which usually came in the late spring or early summer. Preparations for the festivities involved town and gown. Village homes were thrown open to the visitors and the Baptist Church was used for some of their meetings. The Students Association took charge of music, ushering, printing of programs, flowers and evergreens for the chapel, building the speakers’ platform, and supervising campus peddlers who sold provisions.

Visitors’ comments abound with praise for the tasteful decorations, fine choral music, and well-delivered orations. On two occasions, at least, they complained that the program was much too long. The theological commencement of 1843 was notable for the great mission­ary convention Baptists from the Northern states held at the same time. When the chapel proved too small, an overflow crowd gathered in one of the nearby ravines to listen to Eugenio Kincaid, Class of 1822, who had recently returned from Burma, give the principal address which one hearer remembered over fifty years later for its marvelous magnetic power.

The Commencement of 1846 is memorable as the first held after the Institution had become Madison University and empowered to confer its own degrees. Professors A. C. Kendrick and Richardson prepared the Latin formula for the diplomas and it has remained in use ever since. They, with Professor Raymond, and three University Trustees, also devised the University seal, consisting of a hand grasping a torch

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p. 55 – Teaching and learning, 1820-1833

Posted on May 1, 2012 by | Comments Off on p. 55 – Teaching and learning, 1820-1833

 

Jonathan Wade, p55, image taken from the First Half Century of Madison University

Eugenio Kincaid, p55

books in them, edited Adoniram Judson’s noted Burmese dictionary, and compiled a Karen dictionary which he hoped would equal Judson’s in scope and value. Eugenio Kincaid, Wade’s classmate and fellow worker, achieved a reputation nearly comparable to Wade’s. He became so well known for his tact and ability that the Burmese king made him his diplomatic agent at Washington in 1856. He was also a successful fund-raiser for the institution at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, which was to become Bucknell University. A third member of the Class of 1822, John Glazier Steams, deserves notice as a leader among New York Baptists and a writer on anti-Masonry and church polity.

Alumni of later classes who should be mentioned in passing include: John Newton Brown, 1823, prominent New Hampshire pastor and educational secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society; Pharcellus Church, 1824, Rochester minister, author, and editor of important denominational journals; Jacob Knapp, 1824, well-known evangelist and indirectly father of Washingtonian temperance move­ment; and Jabez Swan, 1827 who was almost as renowned as Knapp for his work as a revivalist. William Dean, Grover S. Comstock, Hosea Howard and Justis H. Vinton, all of the Class of 1833, and Samuel S. Day, Class of 1836, were celebrated missionaries in the Far East.

Professor Hascall, John G. Stearns, and a few others, at a meeting in Utica in 1825, organized the Institution’s graduates into the Society of

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Missionary Society forms (p. 52)

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out that all of them had returned to orthodoxy to the great rejoicing of the whole community. This episode would seem to indicate skill in stimulating searching examination of theological beliefs.

The rise and development of student societies follow the pattern for such extracurricular activities at other American colleges and seminaries in organization, interests, and program. The first was the Philomathesian, founded in August, 1821, probably with the particular approval of Hascall who had belonged to a group somewhat like this one during his college days at Middlebury. Its interests were literary and theological and its objectives included training in public speaking, maintenance of a library, correspondence with missionaries and with similar organizations on other campuses, and an “inquiry into the most eligible fields of ministerial labor.” Designated members delivered sermons at weekly meetings which the audience and a student critic commented upon. The secretaries conducted an active correspondence with missionaries and the societies at Amherst, Williams, Hamilton, Andover, and other institutions. The library of over fifty volumes consisted chiefly of gifts and included not only religious books and periodicals but also many secular items and newspapers. The secretaries occasionally solicited subscriptions from editors in return for communications. The library served as a useful supplement to the Seminary’s meager collection of books and its remnants, distinguished by the society’s bookplate, may be located today on the University Library’s shelves.

The consecration of Wade and Kincaid, “first fruits of the Institution,” to missionary service in Burma gave a strong impetus to student interest in missions which resulted in the formation of the Missionary Society in 1824. It resembled the Philomathesian Society, which it absorbed seven years later, though its primary concern was missionary work. Besides seeking “the religious improvement of its members” and raising funds for missions it sought “information relative to the climate, productions, civil government, &c of the various nations of the earth “… [and also a] detailed account of their present moral condition and of the obstacles or the successes with which the introduction of the gospel in probability would be met.” In 1832 the organization changed its name to Society for Inquiry though its purpose remained, in general, the same. The members were divided into, nine groups in accordance with the months of the academic year. Each group investigated a

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p. 46 – Teaching and learning, 1820-1833

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Education Society had been organized and more than a year before the Trustees located the Institution at Hamilton. Hascall took him into his home and taught him Latin, the instructor’s bedroom serving as a classroom. Before he graduated, Wade became convinced that he should go to Burma as a missionary. After studying Burmese a year he and his wife, a village girl whom he had met at church, were formally consecrated for their work by the leading Baptist ministers of Central New York. No missionary in the denomination, save Judson, achieved greater fame than Jonathan Wade.

Eugenio Kincaid, the second student, also became a well-known missionary to Burma. While teaching school in northwestern Pennsylvania, he became interested in the proper mode of baptism and on learning of a Baptist church at DeKalb, New York, went there to discuss the subject with the pastor. Soon after he joined the church he decided to become a preacher and to study with Hascall at Hamilton, 160 miles away. He set out on foot, his possessions in a handkerchief, and twenty-five cents in his pocket. On the way he chopped wood for his meals and lodging. When he reached Hamilton he found Wade already studying with Hascall and earning expenses by working on his farm, an arrangement he himself had hoped to make. The kind­ hearted Hascall, on hearing his story, responded “My boy, I will take you and we will do the best we can.” Kincaid’s student days were marked by constant struggle with poverty. Often he had to wait three months after a letter from his mother arrived at the post office because he lacked the 25¢ postage. Eight years after graduation, he followed Wade to the Far East.

The experiences of Jabez Swan, Class of 1827, also illustrate the Spartan life of the early students. Coming to the Seminary on horseback from Connecticut in 1824, he soon left for lack of funds, but the next year he came back with his wife. To earn his expenses he worked in the fields in the afternoons and on Sundays preached at a country church. Sometimes he bought standing timber which he converted into firewood for his own use and to sell One day when he and Justus H. Vinton, Class of 1833, were having trouble splitting tough blocks of hard maple, Swan went after a beetle and wedges. Returning, he found Vinton talking to Professor Kendrick who had happened by and split the wood for his students. Vinton, who had been amazed at the professor’s height, strength and skill, some time later remarked, “I never saw an axe lifted so near the heavens before.” Denison, 59-62

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