Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Rauch, Friedrich August

RAUCH, Friedrich August, educator, b. in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, 27 July, 1806; d. in Mercersburg, Pa., 2 March, 1841. He was graduated at the University of Marburg, afterward studied at Giessen and Heidelberg, and became extraordinary professor at the University of Giessen. He fled from the country on account of a public utterance on some political subject, and landed in the United States in 1831, learned English in Easton, Pa., where he gave lessons on the pianoforte, was professor of German in Lafayette college for a short time, was then chosen as principal of a classical school that had been established by the authorities of the German Reformed church at York, Pa., and a few months later was ordained to the ministry and appointed professor of biblical literature in the theological seminary at York, while retaining charge of the academy, which, in 1835, was removed to Mercersburg. Under his management the school flourished, and in 1836 was transformed into Marshall college, of which he became the first president. He published “Psychology, or a View of the Human Soul” (New York, 1840), and left in an unfinished state works on “Christian Ethics” and “Æsthetics.” A volume of his sermons, edited by Emanuel V. Gerhart, was published under the title of “The Inner Life of the Christian” (Philadelphia, 1856).