Early in the month of February I went to Hanover,
New Hampshire, to attend a meeting of the Dartmouth
Trustees. At that meeting President Bartlett, then in his
seventy-fifth year, resigned, the resignation to take effect
at the close of the academic year, and I was at once elected
to the presidency. The election took place without pre-
vious consultation with me, and in the brief discussion
which preceded it, against my earnest protest. I urged
that the conditions at Andover did not warrant my with-
drawal. My colleagues urged in turn that, in view of the
decision of the court in the Andover case, conditions at
Dartmouth should have first consideration, and proceeded
to a ballot. When the vote was announced, I formally
declined the election, but my colleagues insisted that in
the circumstances their action was justified, and at least
called for a suspension of judgment on my part. Their
argument was direct and personal. "You are a trustee of
fifteen years' standing; you are an alumnus of the College
ANDOVER AND DARTMOUTH 223
and specially identified with the alumni movement now
going into effect, upon the success of which the immediate
future of the College so largely depends. Your election is
quite a different matter in present circumstances from the
election of an outsider. Your declination will have a dif-
ferent effect upon the College from the declination of an
outsider. The fair obligation rests upon you to at least give
the matter more thought than a peremptory answer will
allow. Our action has been well considered; you should not
act upon your immediate impulses or even convictions."
Naturally the situation grew more and more embarrass-
ing under discussion. Had the Andover case been still in
litigation, I could not honorably have consented even to
this claim for time; but the decision of the Supreme Court
of Massachusetts having virtually closed the case, though
the Visitors had not dismissed it, I could not altogether
deny its justice. But as the allowance of the claim would
bring the whole situation before the public I foresaw an
increasing embarrassment. It would naturally be assumed,
as I was a trustee and present at the meeting of the Board
when I was elected, that I was consenting to the election
and would accept it. Still nothing remained, having ad-
mitted the reasonableness of the claim of the Trustees,
but to discount as far as possible the publicity of the sit-
uation, and take the question back with me to Andover,
and submit it fully to that court of last resort, one's own
judgment and conscience.
Of the many letters which came to me after my return,
a few were of a general character giving an estimate by
the writers of the relative honor and dignity of the two
positions. These letters were for the most part quite ir-
relevant. I had little interest in the question of relative
224 MY GENERATION
honor or dignity. Each position was of so high and serious
intent as to subordinate all thought of personal advantage
to the one really pertinent question of effective service.
Other letters of a very different sort revealed the earnest-
ness and genuine concern of the writers for the College or
the Seminary, or for the things which each represented
to them. Such were the letters from the Dartmouth
Faculty and from many of the alumni, in which one could
read at least between the lines the hopes and fears, the
restraint of enthusiasm or of disappointment in view of
the uncertainty of the result. And such especially were
some of the letters from stanch and loyal friends of the
Seminary, who had patiently borne the years of dis-
heartening controversy, and were now jealous of any
interference with the promise of its enlarged activities.
Letters of this kind naturally intensified one's feelings,
without helping in any corresponding degree to clear one's
judgment. In my state of mind, the most helpful words
were those of persons who seemed to me to be able to
judge with fairness and discrimination in regard to my
fitness for the respective positions before me. I found that
the question of fitness took precedence more and more of
other questions. I do not know that I had ever lacked the
courage to enter upon the new and untried. In fact the
spirit of venture was seldom dormant. But in so grave a
matter as that now at issue, I felt that a new responsibility
should not be assumed in the adventurous spirit. My
earlier and later training had been for professional not
academic studies, and though I did not shrink from
administrative work, or underestimate its relative value
(much higher than that of most of my friends), I had yet
to assure myself of a sufficiently evident or conscious fit-
ANDOVER AND DARTMOUTH 225
ness for it to compensate for the manifest loss of a con-
siderable amount of acquired power. Whatever power of
initiative I had, had gone out in a given direction. Was it
wise to arrest it, apparently well under way but so far from
its goal.' As an old classmate wrote me in Biblical figure —
"God has given you your vision. You have got the tab-
ernacle under way. Turn your back on it, and it will neces-
sitate the evolution of another man." Or as the one of
my colleagues, with whom I had the most in common
in intellectual outlook, put it — "To make the proposed
change would be the transfer of yourself out of a work for
which you are made by special creation, into that to which
at best you would be adapted by forcing." While I recog-
nized a certain exaggeration in the terms in which these
views were expressed, I could not deny what was on the
whole the real fact as it then appeared, namely, that the
commitment to a specialized work had given it such
rights and advantages as to make it of determinative
importance. In the sense of the obligation which had been
thus created, I wrote the following letter to the Trustees
of Dartmouth College:
To the Trustees of Dartmouth College:
Gentlemen: The circumstances, in which you put upon me
the very high honor and duty of serving the College as President,
have greatly increased the responsibility attending my present
decision. You will recall the strenuous endeavor which I made
to anticipate and arrest your action, upon the first intimation
of it, owing to my conviction that my future work was already
determined. The fact, however, that you thought it wise, in view
of the interests of the College, to overrule my judgment, taken in
connection with the expressed feeling of a large number of the
Faculty and Alumni, have led me to reexamine my position
with the utmost seriousness. I have accepted in its full signifi-
226 MY GENERATION
cance the private statement of one of the Board that " this con-
sensus of judgment and feehng has created a new condition,"
It has been to me, I can assure you, a far more serious matter
to attempt to determine my duty in the light of your action and
of the opinions of others, than in the hght simply of my own
convictions. Still after the most deliberate and anxious thought,
I am constrained to abide by the conviction which I first de-
clared to you, and to return to you the election to the Presidency
of the College.
It is due to you and to those who are vitally concerned in this
decision, that I should state briefly but clearly the reasons
which have led to it. The fact that these reasons center in my
personal thought and circumstance may make them less con-
vincing to you, while more imperative to me.
Twelve years ago I gave up the pastorate to enter upon the
work of training men for the ministry. The change was not
made without a struggle, but it was made intelligently, and with
the determination to take part with those who were seeking to
broaden and adjust the Christian Church to its new relations to
society and the world. There were signs at the time that this ex-
pansion and adjustment would be accompanied by much discus-
sion, perhaps by dissensions. The signs were soon verified. The
past years have been years of theological and religious contro-
versy. I have no doubt that more rapid progress has been made
in this way than could have been made by any other method.
But the end of controversy, when it is reached, is not rest;
it is not freedom even; it is opportunity. The chief object
which, with others, I cherished at the beginning, has not been
accomplished; it has simply been made possible. It remains for
those who contended for freedom to apply the larger Christian-
ity thus gained to the great social needs to which it is fitted;
and especially to lead out young men who are entering the min-
istry, who are for this very reason entering the ministry, into
those wide and influential relations in which a Christian min-
ister may now stand toward society.
One distinct outcome of recent theological movements, the
one outcome in which I am most directly concerned, is the
ANDOVER AND DARTiMOUTH 227
creation of the department of Christian Sociology. Your sum-
mons, therefore, to the service of the College finds me so far
committed to an idea at the time of its opportunity, and to such
definite and far-reaching plans for its accomplishment, that I
have not been able to assure myself that I could carry over
to the administration of the College those first great enthusi-
asms which are the necessary condition of all noble and effec-
tive service.
Beyond this commitment to an idea, to which I have devoted
myself, lies my sense of obligation to the institution with which
I am connected. It has been, as you are aware, the fortune of
Andover Seminary to suffer more severely than other institu-
tions of like character under the dissensions of the past years.
The legal difficulties attending the theological controversy are
over, and the controversy itself is practically at an end, but the
Seminary now needs and demands the most loyal devotion of
those who stand for its reconstruction and enlargement. My
responsibility to Andover is not only that of an alumnus, but
also that of an active participator in the events which have
brought about the present condition of affairs. Knowing, as I
do, all the facts in reference to the College and the Seminary, I /
have no hesitancy in saying that the Seminary calls for more
arduous service in its behalf for the next years than the College.
It would be inappropriate for me to specify in this connection
its particular needs, but they are such as to create in the minds
of my associates the same sense of obligation which I have
avowed for myself. The unity which has thus far characterized
our action is not only the expression of loyalty to a common
idea, but the acknowledgment of a common obligation to an
institution through which that idea has been maintained in
courage and sacrifice.
You will allow me to remind you of the advantage which I
have had, in considering the question before me, from my
knowledge, as a member of the Board, of the condition of the
College. According to that knowledge nothing, in my opinion,
justifies any fear for its future. The confidence which you have
reposed in me by your election, and the general unanimity of
228 MY GENERATION
the friends of the College in accepting your choice, have deeply-
affected me. Under other personal conditions I should respond
to your call with the greatest alacrity — not however because
it represents a present necessity, but rather because it represents
to my mind a clear and most alluring opportunity. Dartmouth
College was never in a better condition to honor any man by
its choice. As you well know, the finances of the College are
upon a sound basis and its financial prospects are assuring. The
Faculty is more complete and represents a higher standard of
instruction than at any time in the history of the College. The
Alumni have been brought into active participation in the man-
agement of its affairs. And the Board of Trustees is, as has been
proved by recent acts, thoroughly united and harmonious. Shar-
ing with you the responsibility for the immediate future of the
College, I express my confident assurance of its peace and
prosperity.
I am, in most respectful acknowledgment of your action
as a Board, and in the highest personal esteem to you as my
colleagues.
Very sincerely yours
William Jewett Tucker
Andover, Mass., March 15, 1892
Wlien the decision embodied in this letter had been
made and announced, I began to be aware of the strength
of the personal ties which bound me to Andover. I had not
been conscious of any undue assertion of sentiment while
the question of professional duty was pending. But the
decision once made, I began to realize what it would have
meant to leave Andover upon such sudden notice. I have
refrained thus far from introducing those experiences
which center in the home into these professional "Notes."
But it is quite impossible to recall the Andover period
without referring to experiences in the home within that
time, which were vitally related to whatever had gone be-
fore in my professional life, and to whatever was to follow.
ANDOVER AND DARTMOUTH 229
In changing from the pastorate to service in connection
with an institution, it was naturally to be assumed that
there would be much greater permanency of the home.
This assumption was justified in regard to residence at
Andover by the fact that certain friends of the family and
of the Seminary had given the Trustees a fund for build-
ing a home for my occupancy. But the house thus provided
was hardly occupied before it was consecrated by a great
sorrow, the greatest which can fall upon a home — the
death of the wife and mother. The death of Mrs. Tucker,
though not sudden, was altogether unexpected. It was
preceded by a year of declining strength, but it was im-
mediately preceded on the advice of our physicians by a
summer in England, which was not without its quiet en-
joyments. But she came home only to die, leaving to me
the remembrance and the influence of twelve years of a com-
plete companionship reaching into all the aspirations and
plans of my early manhood, and leaving upon all those
with whom she came into contact the lasting impress of
her high spirit and social charm, equally at home and in
place in society, and among those needing her sympathy
and cheer.
My marriage to Charlotte, daughter of John Rogers,
Esq., of Plymouth, New Hampshire, took place on June
22, 1870, in the third year of my pastorate at Manchester,
and her death occurred on September 15, 1882, in the
third year of our life in Andover. Twice again the Andover
home was broken in upon — by the death, ten years apart,
of Mr. and Mrs. Jewett, to whom I have had occasion to
refer often in terms of filial affection. They had spent their
winters with us in New York, and the Andover home was
theirs to the end. These three of the family who died at
230 MY GENERATION
Andover have their final resting place in the goodly com-
pany of those who lie in the burial place of the Seminary,
across the grounds to the east of the home.
Immediately upon the death of Mrs. Tucker, my sister
came to Andover from her Brooklyn home to take charge
of the young children — Alice Lester, now Mrs. Frank H.
Dixon, and Margaret, now Mrs. Nelson P. Brown; and as
Mrs. Jewett's health declined, to take the full charge of
the household. Her presence brought untold comfort and
cheer, and as the years went by, enabled the home to re-
sume much of its wonted hospitality. This most happy
service she was able to render for five years, till her mar-
riage to Professor Wells, then of Phillips Academy, and
later of Bowdoin and Dartmouth.
Of the renewal of the home, and in the deepest possible
sense, of my own life through my marriage to Charlotte,
daughter of Dr. Henry T. Cheever, of Worcester, I can
hardly write except in terms of the present. But I cannot
forget, though thirty-two years have since passed, that it
was into the Andover home that she brought those rare
gifts of mind and heart which were to make her hfe so
personal and distinctive through the coming years, and
yet so unreservedly and so vitally a part of my own; the
perfect sincerity underlying the engaging frankness of her
manners, the maturity of her understanding and her quick
intelhgence, her unaffected loyalty to things right and
true, her just appreciation of others, and the steadfastness
of her personal devotion.
The Andover home gave us Elizabeth Washburn, now
Mrs. Frank W. Cushwa, of Exeter, her marriage making
the family circle of that generation complete — a family
circle now greatly extended and enlivened by the nine
THE TUCKER HOME AT ANDOVEIl
THE SEMINARY GROUNDS OPPOSITE THE HOUSE
THE NEW YORK
3L1C LIBRARY
A^TOR, LENOX
jj^pPj^ P-OUNDATIONS^
ANDOVER AND DARTMOUTH
231
grandchildren who throng our home at Christmas and on
all intermediate "occasions."
I began this apparent digression into the life of the
home during the Andover period, to show reason for the
contentment I felt when it appeared to be unnecessary
and unw^ise to break the ties which held me to Andover.
But in so doing I have been able, I trust, to reveal some-
thing of my sense of the personal indebtedness to those
who have been in so large a degree the inspiration and
support of my professional life. The Andover home was
the meeting-place of sacred memories and of restored
hopes, which in their backward and forward reach covered
nearly the whole of my professional career.
During the weeks occupied in making the Dartmouth
decision, it was impossible to do more than to keep up the
routine of the classroom and to carry on one's necessary
correspondence.
Meanwhile certain important matters were necessarily
laid aside or held in abeyance. I had hoped to give
considerable time to the Andover House, which had
been opened on the 1st of January at 6 Rollins Street.
The work as it had begun to develop under the man-
agement of Mr. Woods was most interesting. One could
not enter the "House" without being impressed with
its object, and infected with the quiet enthusiasm of the
residents. It lacked all the characteristics of an insti-
tution. The whole atmosphere was personal. It was neces-
sary, however, to interpret the "House" to some whom
we wished to identify with it. This necessity called for
much correspondence and for a good many interviews. It
was pleasant to be able to resume this supporting service
in behalf of the "House" while the home life was getting
232 MY GENERATION
under way, and the approach to the neighborhood was
being studied and carried on experimentally.
Two other matters of a different nature demanded more
urgent attention. In January I had received an invitation
to give a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute the
following winter, and also an invitation to give the Phi
Beta Kappa Oration at the next Harvard Commencement.
I had accepted both invitations, not anticipating so se-
rious a draft upon my time and thought as that involved
in the Dartmouth decision. The Lowell Institute course
was not due till the ensuing winter (the course was actually
postponed through the kindness of Mr. Lowell to the
succeeding winter), but the preparation of the Phi Beta
Kappa Address was urgent. It was my intention in this
address to attempt an interpretation of those tendencies
which were leading the way into the new social order. I
hoped to be able to show the meaning of those ideas which
had been gaining force and were gradually being resolved
into a single ruling idea The subject of the address as it
finally took shape in my mind, was in the form of a gener-
alization, "The New Movement in Humanity — From
Liberty to Unity." I was well aware that it is a bold
experiment to generalize in the presence of an audience
accustomed to close, and for the most part to specialized
thinking, but I believed that the timeliness, almost the
necessity, of the subject warranted the attempt. As the
"Boston Advertiser" remarked editorially on the morn-
ing after the delivery of the address — "There was noth-
ing surprising in the choice of such a subject for such an
occasion. It was bound to come sooner or later."
To my very great gratification, the address was received
by the audience which heard it and later by the press, in
ANDOVER AND DARTMOUTH 233
the spirit in which it was prepared and delivered. It was
generally, and I may add in many cases gratefully, re-
garded as an interpretation of what many were not only
thinking but feeling. It may be a sad commentary on
present international conditions to quote the remark of
Professor H. Grimm, of Berlin, into whose hands the
address had fallen, but the remark was not out of keeping
with the spirit of the times. He wrote to an American
friend in Boston: "I have been reading Professor Tucker's
Cambridge address once more and shall probably read it
again. . . . He expresses in words what many may have
felt before, who will now believe that themselves had
thought these things first." Even before the War, however,
the movement toward unity had been arrested to make a
larger place for equality. Of this fact I took account in an
article in the "Atlantic" under date of October, 1913, but
the thesis first put forth still indicated the working trend
of human progress. I think that in spite of the terrible
contentions and enmities of the time, unity remains the
ruling craving of the world, and that it will appear in due
time to be its ultimate goal.^
The summer of 1892 was spent at Cushing's Island in
Portland Harbor. Rumors reached us early in the season
at our various vacation resorts, that a renewal of the
"Amended Complaint" was to be made to the Visitors
by the remaining complainants. These rumors were later
1 This address, after its quite general publication in the daily and weekly
press, was revised for publication in the October number, 189£, — the first
issue — of the Harvard Graduates' Magazine, and was later issued in pamphlet
form by Houghton, Mifflin & Company. The address was widely accepted as an
exposition of the deeper significance of the social movement, and as such served
to give to the movement both consistency and scope. As it is now out of print,
this address has been included in The New Reservation of Time — a book of
later essays.
234 MY GENERATION
verified, causing further conference and preparation for
the renewed attack; but this final action of the complain-
ants was disposed of, as has been shown, by the dismissal
of their case by the Visitors before the opening of the
academic year. When the Seminary opened in the fall it
was free, for the first time in ten years, of the actualities
or threats of conflict. A large class presented itself for
entrance. The Seminary resumed its work with undivided
attention to its normal activities.
In my personal outlook, however, the prospect was not
so clear and undisturbed; for it was at this juncture that
I began to be made aware of my growing responsibility
in Dartmouth affairs. At the meeting of the Dartmouth
Trustees following my declination of the presidency, I was
appointed chairman of the committee to nominate to the
Board a candidate for the position. I knew, of course,
that the work of this committee would necessitate much
correspondence and general investigation, but I was to
learn only through experience of the various embarrass-
ments and complications which it involved. To make plain
the results of my experience, I must refer in some detail to
the peculiar situation then existing at Dartmouth growing
out of what was known as the "Alumni Movement," the
immediate object of which was to secure adequate repre-
sentation upon the Governing Board. By the terms of its
charter, the government of the College was vested in a
single and self-perpetuating Board, of twelve members,
including the Governor of the State of New Hampshire
ex officio. The President of the College became by his
election a member of the Board, and by usage its President.
The charter provided that eight members should be res-
idents of New Hampshire, and that seven members should
f
ANDOVER AND DARTMOUTH 235
be laj^men. This last provision was apparently out of
keeping with the usage of the time, but had its probable
explanation in the ecclesiastical complications attending
the English benefactions at the time of the founding of the
College.
Various efforts had been made from time to time to
secure direct alumni participation in the government of
the College, but it was not a simple matter to gain legal
entrance into the Board of Trustees, even by its own con-
sent or through its own cooperation. In 1876 an agree-