RECORDS OF MEETINGS. 09 1 



upon his office," he declares that his " taste for youthful studies is de- 

 creasing" and pleads for a "more retired situation." The next day a 

 meeting of the Overseers was called, no discussion seems to have fol- 

 lowed, no regrets were expressed, the Overseers simply voted their 

 thanks and acknowledged the value of his services, and the resignation 

 was accepted. It reads as if the Corporation and Overseers were so 

 accustomed to presidential resignations that no formalities were thought 

 necessary, and the only thing to do was to choose a new head and start 

 afresh. 



What did it all mean 1 Of course there was more than appeared 

 upon the surface, and by degrees a situation disclosed itself altogether 

 unique in the annals of the college. So far as appears the relation of the 

 president to his students was friendly and their respect for his scholar- 

 ship and learning was great ; but religious and political dissensions were 

 rife, and the students caught many of the catch- words of their elders. 

 He was thought skeptical and called by some a deist. Apparently a 

 small body of students, otherwise discontented, took up these charges 

 and formed a combination against him. A meeting of the three upper 

 classes was called, and resolutions were unanimously passed, charging 

 President Langdon with "impiety, heterodoxy, unfitness for the office ot 

 preacher of the Christian religion, and still more for that of President." 

 Twelve students were appointed to wait upon the President and invite 

 him to resign his office. Two days afterwards he detained the stu- 

 dents after morning prayers and, with unexampled humility, told them 

 that he should resign (Quincy ii. 179). At once, the solemn crisis 

 having passed, these same students, with equal unanimity, passed reso- 

 lutions of entire confidence in his ability and character, and great 

 sympathy with his needs. 



In this extraordinary episode it is easy for those who are acquainted 

 with student life to trace fairly well the probable course of events. 

 With all sympathy with the weary and tormented president, we cannot 

 help detecting in his immediate surrender to the situation, in the very 

 absence of recrimination or reproach, and his quick retirement from the 

 contest, the evidence of fine scholarly instincts perhaps, but of a man 

 consciously out of place amid the rudenesses and frequent brutalities of 

 college life. It was evidently President Langdon's misfortune to be 

 called out of the quiet of a country parsonage into the turmoil of the 

 American Revolution. With these singular incidents in our thoughts, 

 it is easy to understand why one of his biographers, cited by Quincy, 

 declared that President Langdon "wanted dignity and authority," 

 another "that he wanted judgment and a spirit of government." 



With this single event of Samuel Langdon's career, almost the only 



