Professor Cornelius Conway Felton
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PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN PEOPLE OF WALDEN: PROFESSOR CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project People of Walden: Prof. Cornelius Conway Felton HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: PROF. CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN WALDEN: There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not PEOPLE OF philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once WALDEN admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier- like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men? CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: PROF. CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1807 November 6, Friday: Cornelius Conway Felton was born in West Newbury, Massachusetts to Cornelius Conway Felton and Anna Morse Felton.1 Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6 day 6 of 11 M / Our friends have generally return’d from Quarterly Meeting, I understand they had a very good meeting, & some of them refreshed in the best sense Spent the eveng at O Ws & was rather humoursly entertaine’d by B H’s storys the time passed pleasantly but I apprehend not so proffitably as it might have done. I hope no harm will come of it & if I had done nothing this eveng to be dissatisfied with, but that, I believe I should be better quallified to write than I am now RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT 1. The elder Cornelius Conway Felton had been born on June 28, 1784 to Thomas Felton and Martha Conway Felton, and would die on July 23, 1849. He had gotten married first with Lucy Torrey Boyton and then with Anna Morse, daughter of Abigail Bridges. This 2d marriage produced not only Cornelius Conway Felton (Junior) on November 5, 1807 but also, on July 17, 1809, a younger son Samuel Morse Felton. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: PROF. CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1826 Heinrich Heine’s DIE HARZREISE (THE HARZ JOURNEY). The 2d American edition of Edward Everett’s English translation of Professor Philip Karl Buttmann’s GRIECHISCHE SCHUL-GRAMMATIK, titled GREEK GRAMMAR FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS, FROM THE GERMAN OF PHILIP BUTTMANN (Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, and Company), prepared by George Bancroft and George Henry Bode at the Round Hill School in Northampton. Harvard College student Cornelius Conway Felton was at least in part supporting himself during his education by teaching one winter in Bolton and another winter in Concord, and at the Round Hill School in Northampton. During the two years 1827 to 1829 he would have charge of the high school in Livingston County, New York. He must have been an exceedingly disciplined scholar for also, in this his senior year, he was serving as one of the conductors of a student periodical, the Harvard Register. (At the Concord Free Public Library, under Accession # 10443, is Henry David Thoreau’s personal copy, presented to the library by Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau in 1874. On the front free endpaper is inscribed “D.H. Thoreau / Cambridge / Mass 1833.”)2 AS STUDIED BY THOREAU 2. During this year Professor Buttmann was issuing his ÜBER DIE ENTSTEHUNG DER STERNBILDER AUF DER GRIECHISCHEN SFÄRE. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: PROF. CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1827 William Davis Ticknor left his home on a farm just outside Lebanon, New Hampshire at the age of 17, to work in the brokerage house of his uncle Benjamin Ticknor in Boston. Professor Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert was made a professor at the University of München. In this post, attempting to produce a religiously grounded interpretation of the cosmos, he would arouse the antagonism of Lorenz Oken. Cornelius Conway Felton, who had been at least in part working his way through his education by teaching in Concord and in Boston, and at the Round Hill School in Northampton, at this point graduated from Harvard College. Horatio Wood graduated (his copious and carefully written notes on French and Spanish literature per the lectures of Professor George Ticknor, fresh from the German universities, would be preserved, and under the influence of Dr. Karl Follen, Horatio would persist in being a strenuous runner until the 7th decade of his life). At the Divinity School, the following gentlemen commenced their studies: • Julian Abbot • Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch (A.B. Col. [Columbia College?]) • Francis Cunningham • Joseph Hawley Dorr (A.B. Bowdoin College) • George Washington Hosmer • Josiah Moore • John Owen (A.B. Bowdoin College) • Ephraim Peabody (A.B. Brown University) • Allen Putnam • George Putnam • John Turner Sargent • David Southard • Oliver Stearns (In these early years of the divinity school there were no formal class graduations, as students would be in the habit of remaining until they wrangled the offer of an appropriate pulpit.) NEW “HARVARD MEN” LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project People of Walden: Prof. Cornelius Conway Felton HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: PROF. CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1829 Josiah Quincy, Sr. was appointed President of Harvard College. After having taught for a couple of years in the Livingstone High School of Geneseo, New York, Cornelius Conway Felton became a tutor at Harvard. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project People of Walden: Prof. Cornelius Conway Felton HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: PROF. CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1830 Augustus Addison Gould received the degree of MD at the Harvard Medical School. He would eventually become a doctor and have a successful practice in Boston, but first he needed to make some money (for the grand sum of $50 he would, for instance, catalog some 50,000 pamphlets at the Boston Athenæum into four large folio volumes). Meanwhile he was making the most careful study of natural history, and for two years would teach botany and zoology at Harvard College. He would become a well known specialist in conchology. Cornelius Conway Felton became a tutor of Greek at Harvard (he would in 1832 be promoted to Professor). Dr. John Abercrombie’s INQUIRIES CONCERNING THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF MAN AND THE INVESTIGATION OF TRUTH (London). This treatise would eventually be found to have contained nothing of any novelty, and would have no lasting place in the literature of philosophy. It would, however, have a place in Henry Thoreau’s formal education at Harvard, and would guide him toward his negative inference “There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers”: DR. JOHN ABERCROMBIE WALDEN: There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier- like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men? HARVARD CATALOG HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: PROF. CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1832 Cornelius Conway Felton became Harvard College’s professor of Greek. Henry Whitney Bellows graduated. He would go on into the Divinity School. At the Divinity School, the following gentlemen were completing their studies: John Quimby Day Joseph Angier Charles Babbidge Reuben Bates of Concord Curtis Cutler Charles Andrews Farley Rufus A. Johnson Henry A. Miles (A.B. Brown University) Andrew Preston Peabody John Davis Sweet (A.B. Brown University) Josiah Kendall Waite Horatio Wood JOHN G. P ALFREY THEOLOGY SCHOOLS NEW “HARVARD MEN” THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project People of Walden: Prof.