Hamilton College - Hamiltonian Yearbook (Clinton, NY)

Page 11 text:

HAMILTON COLLEGE 9 of Palmyra, lVlo. So it happened that he taught on week-days, and preached on Sundays in the Presbyterian churches of Glasgow and Salisbury, Mo. In 1880 he went back to College Hill to stay, having been appointed assistant to his father in the Department of Mathematics. On the death of the father Dr. Root became full professor of mathematics and the head of the department. He was always in great demand as an oc- casional preacher all over the State of New York, and in 1889 he was called to the pastorate of Christ Dutch Re- formed Church, of Utica. He continued in that pastorate until 18694, carrying on his college work at the same time. The burden of the double work becoming too heavy, he gave up his church to give all his time to the classroom. Dr. Root is the author of many addresses, sermons and speeches, and was the editor of the Columbian and Frank- lin Speakers and the Hamilton Declamation Quarterly. He is the author of an elementary trigonometry, and, with his father, the reviser of Robinson's Surveying. He received the degree of D.D. from Rutgers College in 1890, and that of L.H.D. from Union College at its Centennial in 1895. In the world of science, Dr. Root will be best remem- bered as a mathematician, one of the most brilliant this country has ever produced, and as a teacher. No one who has ever seen him in the pulpit and heard that marvelous eloquence of which he is so consummate a master will gainsay the statement that he is a great preacher. Had he so elected, he might have been a great lawyer, and then we should have known whether there could have been in the same family two as great lawyers as Elihu Root. But teacher, preacher, orator, lawyer-what you will-to the men of Hamilton and the College on the Hill he will be ever and always just plain U Square Root.

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8 THE HAMILTONIAN why? Sir, if you brought in the whole book, you would not know how to use it. That was very handsome speaking, Mr. Blank, very handsome speaking. And the tabasco sauce from the aureole dripped down over the Freshman as the figure of sweetness and light strode down through the campus and over the way through the gates of The Hemlocksf, Dr. Root was born on May 18, 1828, in Syracuse, N. Y. He couldn't help that. It was one of those natural accidents of birth. The same thing has happened to many Hamilton men. He entered Hamilton with the class of 1856, and was graduated No. 1 in his class. After studying at the Hamilton College law school under the late Theodore Dwight for one year, he moved to Milwaukee, Wis., became managing clerk in the oflice of Mariner 86 Pratt, and, in June, 1858, he was admitted to the Wisconsin bar in Milwaukee, and began practice in the oH'ice of Butler, Buttrick 85 Cottrell. But teaching must have been inbred in the man, for, after practising law for a year, he was appointed princi- pal of the high school at Monroe, Mich., in the autumn of 1859 and accepted the job. In the following year he was called to Hamilton College as an instructor in math- ematics, and two years later, he went to Rome, N. Y., to accept the principalship of the academy there. In 1866 he was called to the chair of English in the University of Missouri. He accepted the call, and to this day stories are told out there of the wonderful young orator who came out of the East to give to the young men of Missouri a notion of what oratory really was. For a time he was superintendent of schools at Car- rollton, Mo., and, from 1873 to 1876, he was president of Pritchett College, at Glasgow, Mo. In 1874. he was licensed to preach Presbyterian doctrine by the Presbytery

Page 12 text:

mssmk WHEEL- NVQ ' - . - . A :- .V f1'i1f11ff2e1:f? 3 '31, Nfzqz ' '. . ,Q ' ia: ' -1:25 - +422 , . . .Qi-Earn :Siva . '.:4.... Y' - V z-'..:f1 -gzg 5-21.5 v,..rgs::,:fg1qq 29 , 5, .-1, If -'35 ,, F FT? ' , -f - .- ' . N N' -. 2324 V, 7.1 - - -2 - '- th. 1- .. . 4:31 .Q-'Si' ., ,il fflraistfzliila: -T7 . . .. . . . , . .. . MELANcTHoN WOOLSEY STRYKER. A.B., Hamilton, 1872. D.D., Hamilton and Lafayette, 1889. LL.D., Lafayette, 1892. C1DBKgECD. Presielent qt Hamilton College, 1892, Walcott Prcyfessor WF Theistie and Christian Eizielenees, ana' gf Ethiesg Pastor gf College Chnreh CDREN RooT. A.B., Hamilton, I 856. D.D., Rutgers, 1892. L.H.D., Union, I 895. CDBKQECD. Pratt Prqfessor WF Mathematics, 1880, Registrar.