MARK HOPKINS. 345 



with the students individually, and thus adapt himself to their respective 

 modes and measures of receptivity. While he was President, his 

 method was to take the Freshmen specially under his charge for the 

 first term, and in the form of a recitation from some simple manual 

 that required no elaborate study on their part or exposition on his, to 

 talk to them and with them on a wide range of subjects bearing on their 

 scholarship, character, and aims in life. His endeavor was to become 

 thoroughly acquainted with them, and to bring them into intimate inter- 

 course with himself. In subsequent portions of the college course, he 

 frequently attended the recitations of the other teachers, and in case of 

 their illness or absence was wont to serve as their substitute. In the 

 Senior year he again took possession of the class, and in two or three 

 separate courses he was their sole instructor. He trained them to 

 think, and to express their opinions freely, on a wide range of subjects 

 in mental philosophy, ethics, sociology, and civil polity. One of the 

 results was that the essays on the stage at the Williams College Com- 

 mencement showed a maturity and vigor of intellect that seemed hardly 

 to belong to scholars still in their novitiate. Many strong and eminent 

 men were trained under him, and there was not one of them who did 

 not regard the educational services of President Hopkins as among the 

 most important factors of his intellectual and moral character, and of his 

 success in life. 



Dr. Hopkins, after returning to Williams College, prepared himself 

 for the Christian ministry, and received ordination. As a preacher he 

 combined to a rare degree strength and beauty. His style is eminently 

 forceful, yet rich in the unstudied graces of a mind attuned to all har- 

 monies and endowed with the keenest aesthetic intuition. His services 

 as a preacher were eagerly sought, and his published discourses have a 

 permanent value, equally for the great themes that constitute their 

 subjects and for the masterly treatment of those themes, whether in 

 argument, illustration, or appeal to the individual conscience. He also 

 published a series of Lowell Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, 

 and several series of Lectures on subjects belonging to the department 

 of Ethics, — all of which are indicative of his profoundness of thought 

 and of his didactic power. 



Dr. Hopkins was for several years President of the American Board of 

 Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and presided at the annual meeting 

 next preceding his death, when he endeavored to act as mediator be- 

 tween the contending parties, though without the success that was justly 

 due to his weight of character, his judicial fairness and impartiality, and 

 the reverence which a presence like his could not fail to inspire. 



