WHITMAN COLLEGE 359 WHITNEY the expression of simple religious faith and household virtues that we find in Longfellow; and he uses difficult, un- usual, often bizarre diction, so that though he sets up the claim to be the poet of democracy he has never found wide audience among the people whom he wished to represent. Whitman's wide sympathy for all sorts and conditions of men was quickened by experience during the Civil War. He be- came a hospital nurse in Washington. In his prose "Specimen Days" he has re- corded many of his experiences. Others found verse form in a collection named "Drum Taps." This whole experience was summed up in the series of poems that he wrote on the death of Lincoln, whom he tenderly loved. These portions of his work reveal the kindness and human sympathy of the man, the beauty of humble service rendered to suffering boys on both sides of the great conflict, a deep pathos mingled with "Clear notes of faith and triumph." In "Democratic Vistas," a collection of prose pieces, he put his thoughts about America and her destiny, themes also found in "Leaves of Grass." His vivid sense of the two laws of individuality and comradeship, the keynote of his poetry, finds, when applied to his theory of the nation, a counterpart in his doctrine of the sacred individuality of the States, or separate units, as merged in the larger personality of the nation. This idea he develops mystically and with great earnestness; it becomes the means by which he prophesies a higher evolution in which the nations of men shall be as the states in a larger union, a league of nation- states, uniting all the world in a common brotherhood. "Great as they are," he says, "and greater far to be, the United States, too, are but a series of steps in the eternal process of creative thought." Whitman's rise to fame was slow. As was to be expected in the case of one who so openly flouted convention, he was al- ternately derided and made the basis of a cult. The poems were recognized sooner in Europe than in America. But gradually his fame has increased. His peculiarities of diction and form, his mequality, his constant repetition, his need of revision and compression, seem less important as the propheti ; elements of his work become more apparent. Since his death, at Camden, N. J., in 1892, his circle of readers has constantly increased. WHITMAN COLLEGE, an institution for higher education, founded at Walla Walla, Washington, in 1859. It has an endowment of about $1,000,000. In 1919 there were 25 instructors and 310 stu- dents. President, S. B. L. Penrose, D. D. WHITNEY, ADELINE BUTTON (TRAIN), an American author; born in Boston, Mass., Sept. 15, 1824. Besides writing a great deal for magazines, she published: "Footsteps on the Seas: A Poem" (1857) ; "Mother Goose for Grown Folks" (1860; revised ed. 1882); "The Boys at Chequasset" (1862) ; "Faith Gartney's Girlhood" (1863) ; "The Gay- worthies: A story of Threads and Thrums" (1865) ; "A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life" (1866); "Patience Strong's Outings" (1868); "Hitherto: A Story of Yesterdays" (1869); "Real Folks" (1872); "Pansies" (1872), verse; "The Other Girls" (1873) ; "Sights and Insights" (1876) ; "Bonnyborough" (1885); "Homespun Yarns" (1887); and two volumes of poems, "Bird Talk" (1887) and "Daffodils" (1887) ; "Square Pegs." She died March 20, 1906. WHITNEY, ELI, an American inven- tor; born in Westboro, Mass., Dec. 8, 1765; was graduated at Yale College, in 1792, where he paid his expenses partly by school teaching, partly by mechanical labor. He went to Georgia as a teacher, but finding a generous patron in the widow of General Greene, of the Revolu- tionary army, he resided on her estate and studied law. The cotton culture at this period, especially that of the best kind, the "green seed," was limited by the slow and difficult work of separating the cotton from the seed by hand. Whitney set to work to remedy this under great disadvantages, for he had to make his own tools; but the reports of his suc- cess prompted some lawless people to break into his workshop and steal his machine, and get others made before he could secure a patent. He, however, formed a partnership with one Miller in 1793, and went to Connecticut to man- ufacture cotton gins; but the lawsuits in defense of his rights carried off all his profits and $50,000 voted him by the State of South Carolina. Finally in 1798 he got a Government contract for the manu- facture of firearms, and was the first to effect the division of labor by which each part was made separately. He made a fortune by this manufacture, carried out with ingenious machinery at Whitney- ville. Conn.; while he received little credit for the perfection of the gin, one of the most important of the whole series of inventions connected with the cotton manufacture. He died in New Haven, Conn., Jan. 8, 1825. WHITNEY, JOSIAH DWIGHT, an American geologist; born in Northamp- ton, Mass., Nov. 23, 1819; was graduated at Yale in 1839, and the year after joined the survey of New Hampshire. The years 1842-1847 he spent in study
