MARK HOPKINS - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED - HFSID 178036
Sale Price $275.00
Reg. $340.00
MARK HOPKINS
Mark Hopkins wrote this short letter in response to a professor who
wrote him twice, despite his inability to help.
Autograph letter signed "Mark Hopkins". Pencil notations on
verso in unknown hand. 1 page, 5x8, ruled paper. Addressed to Professor Botta.
In full: "Dear Sir, I was written to previous to your meeting, but
being so [illegible] did not feel that I could aid you. As you
seem to think otherwise and write again I send the enclosed which may do with as
you please. Truly Yours,". 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. Irregular left edge. Ink transfer at bottom margin
(does not touch signature or handwriting). Folds and creases (not near
signature). Light tear at top edge along fold. Otherwise in fine
condition.
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