Description:

Harvard University

3pp bifold ALS with integral address leaf inscribed overall and signed by future 15th President of Harvard University John Thornton Kirkland (1770-1840) as "J.T. Kirkland" at bottom right of third page. In very good condition. Expected paper folds, some brittle and damaged. Professional repairs along gutter. Overall light toning and isolated wax seal loss. Pages measure 6" x 7.25". Accompanied with an almost complete typed transcript.


John Thornton Kirkland wrote this ALS to fellow Harvard University graduate and Massachusetts clergyman Abiel Abbot (1770-1828) from Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 29, 1793. Kirkland, who graduated from Harvard in 1789, had been appointed a tutor of Logic and Metaphysics at his alma mater in 1792. While teaching in Cambridge, Kirkland also delivered sermons at Boston's New South Church; he would serve as its minister from 1794-1810.


Kirkland's correspondent Abbot had evidently teased his former classmate about teaching at Harvard. The New England university was facetiously characterized as a "'great centre of scientific light'", "'surrounded with the solids of Science, [and] decorated with the most beautiful flowers'". Its faculty were "learned authors … and friends, all combining to explore the arena of the universe … '" Kirkland portrayed himself as the antithesis of the noble scholar; his "indolence, apathy, dejections, [and] procrastination … " prevented him from shedding any "rays of knowledge" on Abbot.


Kirkland continued: "We move on with regularity in College System at present. The time for excentricities [sic] I think must soon arrive. May Kind Heaven postpone it". Kirkland's comment that Harvard still experienced growing pains foreshadowed the critical role he later played as its 15th President. Kirkland's formative presidency from 1810-1828 is often viewed as the Golden Age of the institution. Under his leadership, new professors were hired, new departments were formed and auxiliary schools established, buildings were renovated and constructed, and the campus was beautified. Under Kirkland's administration, Harvard University had finally secured its national reputation as a formidable institution of higher learning.


The life of the Massachusetts preacher had its challenges, as Kirkland also explained in his letter. Kirkland likened delivering sermons to the process of childbirth: "Brother Abbot, I am a preacher, as well as you. The Sixth Sabbath since I was delivered of my first born has past: & I had as few throes & pangs as, I suppose, usually accompany theological parturition in the first instance". While practitioners enjoyed Kirkland's sermons, he developed the reputation of being rather disorganized. Oral tradition maintains that Kirkland stored all of his unnumbered sermons in a barrel!


Abiel Abbot graduated from Harvard in 1787, accepting his first ministry in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He served as minister of First Church in Beverly, Massachusetts from 1796-1828.


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