MARK HOPKINS - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 10/08/1844 - HFSID 17998

MARK HOPKINS
Theologian Mark Hopkins wrote this letter in 1844, when he was president of Williams College, to state that someone was a regular churchgoer in good standing.
Autograph letter signed "M. Hopkins". 1 page, 8x10, ruled paper, docketed on verso. Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, Oct. 8, 1844.In full: "I hereby certify that Mr. Job Pierson Jun. is a member of [illegible] Cong. Church in this college in good and regular standing.". President James A. Garfield once said of Hopkins (1802-1887), his former teacher: "Give me a log hut, with only a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on one end and I on the other, and you may have all the buildings, apparatus, and libraries without him." Hopkins, who taught moral philosophy and rhetoric at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts from 1830 and was college president from 1836 to 1872, emphasized self-education and the Socratic method of teaching, with teacher and student questioning each other, over dogmatic learning. He was also a theologian and, despite having no formal training in theology, was ordained a Congregationalist minister in 1836. His theology valued piety and morality to be as important as the intellect and emphasized material prosperity (which he said should be considered stewardship rather than an end in and of itself). His lectures on Christianity at Lowell University in Boston, Massachusetts were collected into four volumes, the first of which, 1846's Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, was used by American Christian apologetics and was reprinted until 1909. Folds and creases through "H" of "Hopkins" in signature. Lightly stained near left edge. Wax seal remnants and paper loss on verso with light show-through (does not touch signature or handwriting). Otherwise in fine condition.