Swarthmore College - Halcyon Yearbook (Swarthmore, PA)

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Xife of 2)1-. IftagiU. R. EDWARD H. MAGILL was born on the 24th of September, 1825, in Solebury, Bucks County, Pennsylvania; the son of Jonathan P. and Mary W. Magill, both active members and ministers in the Society of Friends. Until 1839 he studied in the family and public schools of the neighborhood ; in that year he went to Westtown Boarding School, where he remained two years. Immediately after leaving Westtown, at the age of sixteen, he began the long career of teaching, which he has continued with his never-failing enthusiasm — with breaks of several years at a time, for college and foreign travel and study — for a period of fifty seven years. During the early time, after leaving Westtown, he taught in the Friends ' School, Race Street, Philadelphia, and in Benjamin Hallowell ' s School, at Ale.Kandria, Virginia. In the year 1849 he went to Williston Seminary, at Easthampton, Massachusetts, for a special preparation for college, entering Yale in 1850. A year only was spent at Yale. Just at this time Dr. Francis Wayland, President of Brown University, coming home from Europe, published his pamphlet on the elective system, then not in use, but since universally adopted in the college curriculum. This system attracted Dr. Magill to Brown, where he graduated in 1852, with the degree of A. B., taking his A. M. one year later by examination, a new method at that time. His experience of the working of the elective system at Brown had an important influence in his shaping the college course at Swarthmore, in the early years of the college. After graduating at Brown, Dr. Magill was for seven years Principal of the Classical Department of the Providence High School, and from there he went to the famous Boston Public Latin School, where he was sub- Master for eight years. In 1867 he went abroad for travel and study, chiefly in Italy and in France, where he

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COLLEGE CLASSES LITERARY SOCIETIES FRATERNITIES COLLEGE ORGANIZATIONS RECEPTIONS CLASS SUPPERS CLUBS ATHLETICS LITERARY DEPARTMENT

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attended lectures at the College de France and the Sorbonne, in preparation for his French books, then in process of publication. In 1869, at the opening of the College, he came to Swarthmore, as Principal of the Preparatory School. In 1870 he was appointed President of the College, a position which he filled for nineteen years, until the year 1889. At that time he again went abroad for a year of rest and study, and on his return — having resigned the position of President, the arduous duties of which had begun to wear on him after so many years — he took the chair of Professor of French, which he has filled ever since. While still at Boston Latin School Dr. Magill published a series of French text-books, a Grammar, a Reader. and selections of French Prose and Poetry. While at Swarthmore he has published a Reading French Grammar, and edited, with notes, four volumes of modern French literature. Dr. Magill was made a member of the Phi Beta Kappa on graduating at Brown, and is an active member of the Modern Language Association. About ten years ago he recommended, in a series of lectures delivered in the colleges of the State, the formation of the College Association, which has since grown and become an important factor in the life of the colleges and universities ; having been extended to embrace all the colleges of the Middle States and of Maryland, as well as the preparatory schools. The degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Haverford College some years ago. 10