Reforming Witherspoon's Legacy at Princeton: John Witherspoon, Samuel Stanhope Smith and James McCosh on Didactic Enlightenment, 1768–1888

Summary

The College of New Jersey (which later became Princeton University) provides an example of how Scottish philosophy influenced American higher education in an institutional context during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This article compares the administrations of John Witherspoon (served from 1768 to 1794), Samuel Stanhope Smith (served from 1795 to 1812) and James McCosh (served from 1868 to 1888) at Princeton and examines their use of Scottish philosophy in restructuring the curriculum and reforming its institutional purpose. While presiding over Princeton during its most significant transitional moments, these philosophers of the Scottish School of Common Sense instituted different versions of moral education. Meanwhile, Witherspoon's legacy of balancing the interests of Evangelicalism and Scottish philosophy as Princeton's driving purpose influenced the creation and reception of nineteenth-century programmes of moral education. The broader question this article addresses is: how did the interconnecting points among Scottish philosophy, Calvinism and moral education inform notions of didactic Enlightenment at Princeton across a century?

Keywords:

• Scottish philosophy
• John Witherspoon
• Samuel Stanhope Smith
• James McCosh
• education
• Evangelicalism

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies for their support. I would also like to thank Thomas Ahnert and Frank Cogliano for commenting on an earlier draft of this article and for the excellent advice offered by the referees as well as the thorough work of the copyeditor.

Notes

¹ See Mark Noll, Princeton and the Republic, 1768–1822: The Search for a Christian Enlightenment in the Era of Samuel Stanhope Smith (Vancouver, BC, 1989), 294.

² Henry May's seminal work on the Enlightenment in America traces the differences among ‘The Moderate Enlightenment, 1688–1787’, ‘The Skeptical Enlightenment, 1750–1789’, ‘The Revolutionary Enlightenment, 1776–1800’, and ‘The Didactic Enlightenment’; see Henry May, The Enlightenment in America (Oxford, 1976). My treatment of the didactic Enlightenment at Princeton suggests that the Enlightenment interests of cultivating the mind through Common Sense philosophy spanned the Revolutionary period through the New Republic and emerged once again during the Reconstruction period. At the same time, Common Sense philosophers who were active in these periods diverged in their use of moral education that informed this type of Enlightenment. Thus, Witherspoon, Smith and McCosh instituted different designs for didactic Enlightenment in a pedagogical context whilst upholding a shared enthusiasm for Scottish philosophy.

³ See Thomas Kidd, The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America (New Haven, CT, 2007), 43–47.

⁴ See Marilyn J. Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625–1760 (Oxford, 1988), 15–30.

⁵ See Douglas Sweeney, ‘Evangelical Tradition in America’, in The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, edited by Stephen Stein (Cambridge, 2007), 217–38.

⁶ Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (Boston, MA, 1746), 114.

⁷ See Amy Schrager Lang, ‘“A Flood of Errors”: Chauncy and Edwards in the Great Awakening’, in Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience, edited by Nathan Hatch and Harry Stout (Oxford, 1988), 160–77.

⁸ Lang, ‘“Flood of Errors”’, in Edwards and the American Experience, edited by Hatch and Stout; Ned Landsman, From Colonials to Provincials: American Thought and Culture, 1680–1760 (Ithaca, NY, 2000), 120.

⁹ See Douglas Sloan, The Scottish Enlightenment and the American College Ideal (New York, 1971), 36–72.

¹⁰ Sloan, Scottish Enlightenment and American College Ideal, 36–72.

¹¹ Princeton Board of Trustee Minutes, in Princeton University Mudd Seeley Archive [hereafter PUA] AC120, 128.

¹² John Maclean Jr., History of the College of New Jersey from its Origin in 1746 to the Commencement of 1854, 2 vols (Princeton, NJ, 1877), I, 300.

¹³ See Edmund Morgan, The Birth of the Republic, 1763-89, revised edition (Chicago, IL, 1977), 14–41.

¹⁴ See Gideon Mailer, ‘Anglo-Scottish Union and John Witherspoon's American Revolution’, William and Mary Quarterly, 67 (2010), 709–46.

¹⁵ John Witherspoon, ‘The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men’, a sermon preached at Princeton, on the 17th of May, 1776, second edition (Philadelphia, PA and Glasgow, 1777), 9, 28.

¹⁶ See Scott Segrest, America and the Political Philosophy of Common Sense (Columbia, MO, 2010), 64–100.

¹⁷ John Witherspoon, ‘An Address to the Students of the Senior Class at the 23 September 1775 Princeton Commencement’, in The Works of Rev. John Witherspoon, edited by Samuel Stanhope Smith, second edition, 4 vols (Philadelphia, PA, 1802), 3, 105. See also Richard Sher, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1985), 328; Thomas Ahnert, ‘Clergymen as Polite Philosophers: Douglas and the Conflict between Moderates and Orthodox in the Scottish Enlightenment’, Intellectual History Review, 18 (2008), 375–83.

¹⁸ This does not imply that America's revolutionary period was insignificant in developing Witherspoon's legacy, nor does it diminish his prominent political role as a signer of the Declaration of Independence and through his service in the Second Continual Congress. Jeffrey Morrison and Scott Segrest convincingly illustrate Witherspoon's importance to this pivotal period in teaching statesmen such as James Madison and later mentoring the likes of Alexander Hamilton; see Jeffrey Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic (Notre Dame, 2007), 1–132; Segrest, America and the Political Philosophy of Common Sense, 64–100. Indeed, the education of future statesmen ranked highly on Witherspoon's objectives at Princeton. This interest in America's future politics, however, did not displace Princeton's primary institutional purpose of producing enlightened ministers during Witherspoon's administration.

¹⁹ Noll, Princeton and the Republic, 294.

²⁰ Phillip Lindsley, ‘Samuel Stanhope Smith, D.D., LLD’, in Annals of the American Pulpit from the Early Settlement of the Country to the Close of the Year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-Five, vols 1–8, 1857–1865, edited by William Buell Sprague (New York, 1859), III, 336.

²¹ See John Witherspoon, ‘Remarks on an Essay on Human Liberty’, The Scots Magazine, April 1753, 165–70.

²² John Witherspoon, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, edited by Ashbel Green (Philadelphia, PA, 1822), 50.

²³ Beattie wrote that ‘it is indeed impossible to understand the doctrines of our religion, and not to wish at least that they may be true: for they exhibit the most comfortable views of God and his providence; they recommend the purest and most perfect morality; and they breathe nothing throughout, but benevolence, equity, and peace. And one may venture to affirm, that no man ever wished the gospel to be true, who did not find it so’; see James Beattie, Elements of Moral Science, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1790), I, 402–03).

²⁴ Witherspoon, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 7.

²⁵ Witherspoon, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 28.

²⁶ Witherspoon, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 24.

²⁷ Witherspoon, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 50.

²⁸ Witherspoon, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 50.

²⁹ Witherspoon, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 6.

³⁰ Witherspoon, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 21.

³¹ Similar to Edinburgh University, where he had studied alongside William Robertson and Hugh Blair, Princeton's curriculum under Witherspoon was as follows: the first year involved studying Greek Testament, Sallust, Lucian, Cicero, and Mair's introduction to Latin syntax; in the second year, students studied Xenophon, Cicero, Homer, Horace, Roman antiquities, geography, arithmetic, English grammar and composition; then third year students studied algebra, geometry, trigonometry, practical geometry, conic sections, natural philosophy, and English grammar and composition; in the final year, students studied natural and moral philosophy, criticism, chronology (history), logic, and the classics; see Maclean, History of the College of New Jersey, I, 367. For Edinburgh's curriculum at this time, see Nicholas Phillipson, ‘The Making of an Enlightened University’, in The University of Edinburgh, edited by Robert Anderson, Michael Lynch and Nicholas Phillipson (Edinburgh, 2003), 51–102.

³² On his return from a 1783/4 fundraising tour of Britain, Witherspoon lost the sight of one eye during an accident aboard the ship. In the final years of his life, he lost the use of his other eye after falling from his horse; see Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, ‘John Witherspoon, Father of American Presbyterianism; Maker of Statesmen’, in The Lives of Eighteen from Princeton, edited by William Thorp (Princeton, NJ, 1946), 83.

³³ Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800 (Oxford, 1993), 309–10.

³⁴ See Charles Bradford Bow, ‘Samuel Stanhope Smith and Common Sense Philosophy at Princeton’, Journal of Scottish Philosophy, 8 (2010), 189–209.

³⁵ Samuel Stanhope Smith, The Lectures, Corrected and Improved, which have been Delivered for a Series of Years, in the College of New Jersey; On the Subjects of Moral and Political Philosophy, 2 vols (Trenton, NJ, 1812), I, 139.

³⁶ Smith, Lectures in the College of New Jersey, I, 25.

³⁷ Samuel Stanhope Smith to Benjamin Rush, 19 August 1787, in Princeton University Library [hereafter PUL] MS14428.

³⁸ Smith to Rush, 27 August 1787, in PUL MS14429.

³⁹ See Steven Novak, The Rights of Youth: American Colleges and Student Revolt, 1798–1815 (Cambridge, MA, 1977), 95–156; Gordon Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (Oxford, 2009), 323.

⁴⁰ Smith to Rush, 1796, quoted in Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, Princeton, 1746–1896 (Princeton, NJ, 1946), 123.

⁴¹ ‘Memorial’ of the College of New Jersey petitioned to the New Jersey Legislature, January 1796, in Maclean, History of the College of New Jersey, II, 15.

⁴² ‘Memorial’ petitioned to New Jersey Legislature, in Maclean, History of the College of New Jersey, II, 15.

⁴³ ‘Memorial’ petitioned to New Jersey Legislature, in Maclean, History of the College of New Jersey, II, 15.

⁴⁴ Princeton 1796 Charter amendments, in PUA AC120.

⁴⁵ Princeton University Board of Trustees Minutes (TM), PUA AC120, 33.

⁴⁶ Noll, Princeton and the Republic, 189; Sloan, Scottish Enlightenment and American College Ideal, 153–54.

⁴⁷ Samuel Stanhope Smith, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 1806, notes taken by J. H. Reade, in PUA Box 53 Folder 1.

⁴⁸ Smith, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 1806, notes taken by Reade, in PUA Box 53 Folder 1.

⁴⁹ Hunter 1804 report, in TM, 126.

⁵⁰ Smith, Lectures in the College of New Jersey, I, 311–12.

⁵¹ Ashbel Green, Diary, 04 March 1791, in PUL MS16045.

⁵² Green, Diary, 04 March 1791, in PUL MS16045.

⁵³ Green, Diary, 04 March 1791, in PUL MS16045.

⁵⁴ Joseph Reade to his father, 15 August 1795, in PUL C1272 MS15031.

⁵⁵ Green, Diary, in PUL C0257 MS16045.

⁵⁶ See Mark Noll, ‘The Princeton Trustees of 1807: New Men and New Directions’, Princeton University Library Chronicles, 41 (1980), 208–30.

⁵⁷ Ashbel Green, The Life of Ashbel Green, V.D.M., Begun to be Written by Himself in His Eighty-Second Year and Continued to His Eighty-Fourth, edited by Joseph H. Jones (New York, 1849), 146–47.

⁵⁸ Ashbel Green, Lectures on the Shorter Catechism of the Presbyterian Church, in the United States of America, 2 vols (Philadelphia, PA, 1829), I, vi.

⁵⁹ See Charles Bradford Bow, ‘The Science of Applied Ethics at Edinburgh University: Dugald Stewart on Moral Education and the “Auxiliary Principles of the Moral Faculty”’, Intellectual History Review, 22 (2012), forthcoming (issue 4).

⁶⁰ Smith, Lectures in the College of New Jersey, I, 300–01. According to Reid, ‘the testimony of our moral faculty, like that of the external sense, is the testimony of nature, and we have the same reason to rely upon it’; see Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man (Edinburgh, 1788), 238.

⁶¹ Smith, Lectures in the College of New Jersey, I, 304. See also Novak, Rights of Youth, 95–156.

⁶² William Hill to Ashbel Green, 20 January 1804, in PUL C0257.

⁶³ Green to John Bradford, January 1804, in PUL MS2740.

⁶⁴ Green to Bradford, January 1804, in PUL MS2740.

⁶⁵ Bradford to Green, 04 February 1804, in PUL MS2434. See also Sloan, Scottish Enlightenment and American College Ideal, 164–66.

⁶⁶ Smith, Lectures in the College of New Jersey, II, 117–41.

⁶⁷ Smith, Lectures in the College of New Jersey, II, 119–20.

⁶⁸ Smith, Lectures in the College of New Jersey, II, 126.

⁶⁹ Smith, Lectures in the College of New Jersey, II, 123.

⁷⁰ Green to Bradford, 01 July 1804, in PUL MS2740.

⁷¹ Smith to Rush, 27 September 1812, in PUL C0028.

⁷² See Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 221.

⁷³ Quoted in Ezra Gillett, The History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 2 vols (Philadelphia, PA, 1864). See also Green, Lectures on a Shorter Catechism of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, (Philadelphia, PA, 1829), II, 223 note.

⁷⁴ Maclean, History of the College of New Jersey, II, 134.

⁷⁵ McCosh's prominent role in establishing the Free Church of Scotland during the so-called Disruption of 1843 elevated his reputation as a staunch defender of Evangelicalism; see Richard Brown, Church and State in Modern Britain, 1700–1850 (London, 1991), 285–87. On McCosh's use of Scottish philosophy as professor at Queen's College, see William Patton, James McCosh: The Making of a Reputation. A Study of the Life and Work of Rev. Dr. James McCosh in Ireland, from His Appointment as a Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Queen's College Belfast 1851, to His Appointment as President of Princeton College, New Jersey, and Professor of Philosophy, in 1868 (Belfast, 1993).

⁷⁶ James Pollock, ‘Address on Behalf of the Alumni’, in Inauguration of James McCosh, D.D., LL.D., as President of the College of New Jersey, Princeton (New York, 1868), 28–29.

⁷⁷ James McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton College: Being Farewell Address (New York, 1888), 6.

⁷⁸ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 8–9.

⁷⁹ William Alexander, ‘Congratulatory Address to the Alumni and Friends of the College’, in Inauguration of McCosh, 21–23.

⁸⁰ John Maclean Jr., ‘Speech on the Delivery of the Charter and Keys’, in Inauguration of McCosh, 32–33.

⁸¹ John Maclean Jr. to A.B. Brown, 11 December 1852, in Letters on the True Relations of Church and State to Schools and Colleges, edited by Matthew Hope (Princeton, NJ, 1853), 7.

⁸² McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 8.

⁸³ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 16–17.

⁸⁴ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 24.

⁸⁵ James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy: Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (New York, 1875), 2.

⁸⁶ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 28.

⁸⁷ See Charles Hodge, What is Darwinism? (New York, 1874).

⁸⁸ James McCosh, The Religious Aspect of Evolution (New York, 1888), x–xi.

⁸⁹ James McCosh, First and Fundamental Truth: Being a Treatise on Metaphysics (New York, 1889), 250.

⁹⁰ James McCosh, The Life of James McCosh, a Record Chiefly Autobiographical, edited by William Milligan Sloane (New York, 1896), 40.

⁹¹ See Segrest, America and the Political Philosophy of Common Sense, 102–03.

⁹² James McCosh, Syllabus of Lectures on Philosophy (Princeton, NJ, 1882), 129.

⁹³ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 29–30.

⁹⁴ On the early foundations of the ‘Positivist’ tradition, see John Wright, ‘The Scientific Reception of Hume's Theory of Causation: Establishing the Positivist Interpretation in Early Nineteenth-Century Scotland’, in The Reception of David Hume in Europe, edited by Peter Jones (New York, 2005), 327–47.

⁹⁵ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 30.

⁹⁶ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 62.

⁹⁷ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 62.

⁹⁸ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 20. Dugald Stewart taught that ‘the system of education which is proper to be adopted in particular cases, ought, undoubtedly, to have some reference to [the particular] circumstances; and to be calculated, as much as possible, to develop and to cherish those intellectual and active principles, in which a natural deficiency is most to be apprehended; see Dugald Stewart, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (Edinburgh, 1792), 25.

⁹⁹ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 22.

¹⁰⁰ At the time of McCosh's resignation, Princeton had ‘three professors of Mental Philosophy, two of Greek, two of Latin, three of Mathematics, three of English including oratory, two of History and Political Science, three of modern Languages, two of Physics, two of Astronomy, two of Chemistry, three of natural Sciences, including Botany, Zoology, and Geography, three of Engineering, and two of Art’; see McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 23.

¹⁰¹ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 24.

¹⁰² James McCosh, A New Departure in College Education, Being a Reply to President Eliot's Defence of it in New York (New York, 1885), 16.

¹⁰³ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 19.

¹⁰⁴ W. B. Carnochan, The Battleground of the Curriculum: Liberal Education and American Experience (Palo Alto, CA, 1994), 21.

¹⁰⁵ Carnochan, Battleground of the Curriculum, 19.

¹⁰⁶ McCosh, New Departure in College Education, 3.

¹⁰⁷ Carnochan, Battleground of the Curriculum, 9.

¹⁰⁸ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 48.

¹⁰⁹ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 22.

¹¹⁰ Edward Thomas to Nicolas Biddle, 27 February 1802, in PUL MS12822.

¹¹¹ Maclean, History of the College of New Jersey, II, 113–17.

¹¹² Maclean, History of the College of New Jersey, II, 112.

¹¹³ J. David Hoeveler, James McCosh and the Scottish Intellectual Tradition: From Glasgow to Princeton (Princeton, NJ, 1981), ix.

¹¹⁴ McCosh, Twenty Years of Princeton, 28–29, 66.