DWIGHT
DWIGHT
licensed to preach in 1777 and served as cliaplain
inParstin's i»rij;aile of the Connecticut line, 1777-
7S. The death of liis father called him home and
he took charge of the farm, occasionally preach-
ing in the neighborhood churches. 1778-83. At
the same time he conducted a day school and
while New Haven
was in the hands of
tiie British, he liad
under his care seA'eral
of the refugeed Yale
students. He was a
representative in the
"Massachusetts legis-
lature, 1782, and re-
fused a nomination
as representative in
congress. He was
pastor of the church
at Greenfield Hill,
Fairfield, Conn., 1783-
95, and established
there his celebrated
academy and became the pioneer of higher
education of women, placing both sexes on an
equal footing in his school. During this period
he secured the union of the Congregational and
Presbyterian churches in New England. He
was president of Yale college from Sept. S,
1795, to Jan. 11, 1817, and Livingston professor
of divinity pro tempore, 1795-1805, and by elec-
tion, 1805-1817. He found the college with
a narrow and pedantic curriculum, with the
bitterest of feeling existing between the fresh-
men and the upper-class men, and between the
students and the faculty, and with the burden
of a primary system. These he reformed, and
at his death the 110 students liad increased to
313 and the college had taken rank as one of
the model university schools in America. He
was married in March, 1777, to Marv', daughter of
Benjamin WooLsey of Long Island and they had
eight sons, the elde.st of whom, Timothy (1778-
1884), was a merchant in New Haven and gave
$5000 to endow the Dwight profes.sorship of
didactic theologj- at Yale. He received from the
college of New Jersey the degree of S.T.D. in
1787. and from Harvard that of LL.D. in 1810.
His master di.ssertation was*: Jlintory, Eloquence
and Poetrij of the. Bible; while a chaplain in the
army he wrote the patriotic song Columbia; his
most ambitious work was his epic TJie Conquest
of Canaan and his most popular pastoral poem
was Greenttf'hl IliU (1794). He reviseil Watts's
psalms with additions of his own and made a selec-
tion of hymns, introduced in the worship of the
Presbj-terian churclies by the General assembly.
His published books include: Trnrcln in Netn Eng-
land and ytio York (4 vols., 1821); Theology Ex-
S -_.
phiincd and Defended in a Course of 173 Sermons
(5 voLs., 1818); The Genuineness and Authentieitij
of the .Vew Testament (1793); Discourse on the Char-
acter of Washington (1800); Observations on Lan-
(litarie (1816); Essay on Light (1816). See Memoir
by the Rev. Sereno Edwards Dwight (1846). He
died in New Haven, Conn., Jan. 11, 1817.
DWIGHT, Timothy, educator, was born in Norwich. Conn., Nov. 16. 1828: son of James and Susan (Breed) Dwight; grandson of President Timothy and Mary (Woolsey) Dwight; great- grandson of Maj. Timothy and Mary (Edwards) Dwight; and great^ grandson of Jonatlian and Sarah (Pierpont) Ed- wards. He was grad- uated at Yale in 1849, studied theology
there, 1851-53, and was licensed to preach. He was tutor at Yale, 1851-55; stud- ied in the universities of Bonn and Berlin, 1856-58, and on his return was elected Buckingham profes- sor of sacred litera- ture at Yale, serving, 1858-86. He was or- dained a minister of the gospel, Sept. 15,1861. He was elected president of the corporation of Yale college as successor to Noah Porter, July 1. 1886, serving as president of the college, 1886-87, and as president of Yale university from May 25, 1887, at which time the act of the legislature of Connecti- cut, as pas.sed in January, 1887, making the col- lege a university, was accepted by the president and fellows of the corporation. The re])ort of the president of Yale for the year ending Dec. 31, 1896, shows that within the ten years, from 1886, fifteen new universit}^ buildings had been erected; five of the older buildings had been altered and enlarged and one building had been purchased; additional land had been secured in tiie vicinity of the academic campus for future use as sites for additional buildings; the number of students had increased from 1076 in 1886. to 2415 in 1896; the instructors from 114 to 238; the permanent fund had increased two-fold; and the gifts for all purposes amounted to more tlian four millions of dollars. He resigned the presi- dency of Yale university Nov. 17. 1898, but did not discontinue his services until the close of the class year, 1H99. and at the commencement exer- cises he introduced as his successor. Arthur Twin- ing Hadley, who then held the chair of political economy. President Dwight was elected in 1890 a fellow of the American academy of arts and sciences. He received the degree of D.D. from