St Johns College - Yearbook (Annapolis, MD)

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But it is eminently proper that a review of St. Iohn's history should be read before its sons and others in celebration of the One Hund- i i I more correctly speaking perhaps, its baptismal day, albeit such history is so well known by its alumni presento My onlv regret is, therefore, that someone more competent to do the full measure of iustice to the subject should not have been selected for the historic work of the day. b , . Bolingbroke says in his letters on the Study and Uses of History-attributing the remarks to Dionysius of Halicarnassus-that history is philosophy teaching by examples. If this be so, then, indeed, Brother Alumni, the history of our Alma Mater, from her earliest past, is part and parcel of a grand philosophy teaching all the virtues that.go to make the patriot, the statesman, and the man, and we may not too warmly nor too Jealously cherish the deeds and memories ofher distinguished sons, as well as the times quorum magna pars fueruntf' It is needless to remind this audience that the names of many of St.john's sons are enrolled not alone in the annals of the State, but in those of the nation as well. They have given their Alma Mater a historic place in the temple of fame as enduring as the temple itself. As an alumnus bearing the reverend name of Pinkney so felicitously said on commencement day in 1855, when coupling the name of Key with the College-- She has given the 'Star-Spangled Banner' to the nation, and made other offerings of which it is not necessary for me to speak. A college necrology has also, fortunately, been preserved which perpetuates, in the archives of the Alumni, the memory of the virtues of deceased brethren. This necrology, first suggested and its preparation personally begun by a .former principal, Dr. Humphreys, has been extended and continued-you need not be reminded how faith- fully-by the facile pen of Mr. John G. Proud, of the Class of '34, whose name, alas! now adorns that roll of the dead upon which his labors of love and painstaking research had stamped the seal of truth. May the Alumni ever cherish the memory of this brother, who by tongue and pen, both in forcible ,prose and graceful verse, has expressed so much devotion to St. John's and her sons. , It passed successfully through the perturbations of the Revolutionary War, and educated for the State and nation sons distinguished in the early history of the country. Among its pupils Williaiii Pinkney, whose fame, too broad to be appropriated by any one State, is an heritage unto the nation. In 1793, at its first commencement, St. John's conferred the degree of B. A. upon three graduates, Charles Alexander, John Addison Carr and ,VVil1iam Long, but the Alumni credited to this class number in all sixteen, of which number one became Governor of the State, one a Judge of the Court of Appeals, two Associate Judges of a judicial district, one the clerk of the Executive Council, one a Register of Wills, and one a Visitor and Governor of the College. The Historical Society of Anne Arundel County is authority for the following, to say the least, remarkable summary of the earlier work of St. Iohn's: From its hrst commencement, held in I7Q3, to that of 1806, a brief period of thirteen years, we ind among the names ofits graduates those ofno less than four Governors of Maryland, one Governor of Liberia, seven members of the Executive Council, three United States Senators, five members of the United States House of Representatives, four Judges o-f the Court of Appeals CGeneral Courtb, eight Judges of other courts, one Attorney- General of the United States, one United States District Attorney, one Auditor of the United States Treasury, six State Senators and fifteen members of the House of Delegates, besides foreign consuls, officers of the Navy and Army, physicians and surgeons, distin- guished lawyers Qincludng a Chancellor of South Carolinaj, college professors and others. redth Anniversary of its natal collegiate day, or, 34

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Q, N4-4 1.5 A BUPTI' PC 1 kiucxh 73? 1905? L ihiwavf AV - HE following are extracts from the speech of Mr. Philip Randall Voorhees, I l ,55,.de1ivered at the one hundredth anniversary of St. Iohn's College, in which he mentions a few of the alumni of the college: Ladies cmd Ge1ztle111e11,, B1'0the1's Alzmmi and Students of St. f01m's: Wlien the com- mittee, appointed to arrange a programme of commemorative ceremonies appropriate to the centenary of St. Iohn's College, requested me, through'President Fell, to prepare and deliver before you, as part of said programme for Alumni Day, a historical sketch of the College, I felt at first no ordinary embarrassment. Nevertheless, impelled by a sense of duty, I promptly accepted the honor conferred. But, though painfully conscious then of my lack of literary qualifications, as my mind dwelt more upon the subject and the occa- sion, and as I refreshed my recollections of St. J'ohn's antecedents by the perusal of the authorities at my command, my first embarrassment was increased tenfold. I can, there- fore only pray you to bear patiently the detention which I shall impose upon you by covering with the mantle of your charity myytemerity in appearing before you in any other capacity than that of a hearer and learner. VVere it not that the task assigned to me is to do but little more than chronicle in one paper, in as orderly sequence as I may, events which have been more or less reparatively or segregatively reviewed before you at different times. I could not have assentedlto stand here in the footsteps of those Alumni, and others distinguished in letters, who have in such numbers heretofore addressed audiences such as this, nor to break silence by any words of mine, while mindful of the stirring eloquence of those who have so often urged upon the people of the State, and their representatives in General Assem- bly, the merits ofthis venerable-institution of learning and its claims to their fostering care. 33

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Among this array of learning and worth it will not be invidious to mention the name of one of the Class of 1802, David Hoffman, LL. D., author, historian and jurist, a citizen of Maryland, eminent in his own and a neighboring State, as well as broad, and upon whom degrees were conferred by the Universities at Oxford and Gottingen. Dr. Hoffman was both a patron and a Visitor and Governor of St. John's. Of the pupils of St. John's in its early days, the 'fMaryland Collegian -of March, 1878, states: We find from an examination of the old matriculating register that between the years 1789 and ISOS it shows not only representatives of every county of Maryland and the city of Baltimo-re, but also from the States of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana. -VVe' find there representatives from no less than nine counties of the State of Virginia, and the followng well-known Virginia names: Washington, Custis, Dulany, Alexander, Thompson, Clark, Herbert, Comax, Taylor, Benson, Gibbon, Lore, Blackburn, Burwell, Mercer, and others. Theisame authority finds the names of two students from England, one from France, three from the West Indies, one from Portugal, and, omitting as many quite as distinguished, the 'following Maryland names of Jennings, Dulany, Carroll, Stone, Pinkney, Lloyd, Chase, Ogle, Harrison, Thomas, Murray, Ridgley, Key, Dorsey, Snowden, Harwood, Sewart, Lee and Howard. The Custis above named among the Virginians refers to George Washington Parke Custis. the step- son and ward of Washington, who, it is said, took a great interest in St. John's, which he manifested by sending there his own ward as a pupil. The genial old gentleman, Mr. Custis, was at one time a member of the Class of 1799, and survived long enough to be personally known to several of my brother Alumni present. Memorable among the distinguished names of graduates during the peri-o-d above named, stands the names of Francis Scott Key, B. A., and John Shaw, B. A., M. D. It is said that Mr. Higginbottom took great pride' in exhibiting before visitors the accomplish- ments of these students and others, who with them formed the graduating class of 1796. From the next year, 1811, to 1830, inclusive, among the graduates and Alumni of St. John's appear names of men distinguished in the State and nation, and of these, in the order'of class years, the names of Reverdy Johnson, United States Senator, Attorney- General of the United States and Minister to England, Thomas Stockett Alexander, LL. D., John Johnson, Chancellor of the State, Hon. Alexander Randall, M. A., member of Congress and Attorney-General of Maryland, John Henry Alexander, LL. D., Right Rev. William Pinkney, LL. D., Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Maryland and the District of Columbia, the Hon. William H. Tuck, M. A., Judge of the Court of Appeals of Maryand, and Surgeon Vivian Pinkney, LL. D., medical director, United States Navy. The versatile genius of John Henry Alexander, distinguished in the church, in letters, science and the muses, who was graduated in 1827, when less than fifteen years of age, has illumined both Europe and America. The mere mention of these names shows that St. John's can boast of more jewels than did Cornelia. The Gracchi were but a single pair, but their Alma Mater, in the persons of the two brothers Johnson, the brothers Alexander and the brothers Pinkney, has given the State a diadem of brilliants as a crown forever. The name of another alumnus must be added to this period and linked with that of one of the Class of 1799. I allude to Judges Nicholas Brewer and Thomas Beale Dorsey, citizens respectively of Annapolis and of the county. Judges Dorsey and Brewer were so long associated on the bench, their faces, for years, were so familiar to the citizens of this judicial circuit, that their names are indissol- ubly associated together by its bar and citizens. These gentlemen belong among the brightest 35