JOHN SMITH WOODMAN.
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��forts there was an indescribable charm. It might seem that all these things would interfere with his college duties, or at least absorb the time that should be devoted to mathematical studies ; but Prof. Woodman was an indefatiga- ble worker, and outside matters receiv- ed very little attention except during vacation. He was an efficient, thorough and popular instructor, and greatly re- spected by his classes. In token of their appreciation of 'his labors in their behalf, the sophomore class in the autumn of 1852, presented him a handsome silver pitcher. Though eminently successful as an instructor, Prof. Woodman wished for a wider field of activity than a chair of mathe- matics offered, and accordingly resign- ing his professorship, in July, 1856, he resumed the practice of law in Boston.
In 1 85 1 the Chandler Scientific Department of Dartmouth college had been established by the trustees, in accepting the sum of fifty thousand dollars, bequeathed to them by Abiel Chandler, Esq., a native of Concord, N. H. It had been opened in 1852, under the charge of the faculty, with ex-Senator James W. Patterson, then a tutor in the college, as executive officer. In 1853 Mr. Patterson was made Chandler Professor of Mathematics, and in 1856, on the retirement of Prof. Woodman, succeeded him as professor of mathematics in the old college, still teaching in the Chandler Scientific Department, and remaining as its executive officer.
The course of study in the Chandler Department had been at first but three years, and young men had been ad- mitted with but a very limited prepara- tion. To carry out the intent of the founder, and meet more fully the de- mands of the times, the trustees saw the advisability of raising the require- ments for admission, and extending the three years to four. To carry out this new programme, Prof. Patterson, being already much overworked, another professor was needed, and the board invited Mr. Woodman to the chair of civil engineering, and to the
��general charge of the Chandler Scien- tific Department. He entered on the discharge of his duties at the opening of the college year 1857-8. At this time there were but three scientific schools in the country. The Poly- technic, at Troy, the Sheffield, at Yale, and the Lawrence, at Harvard ; the two latter still in their infancy, not as yet having demonstrated their right to exist. The old time college course, excellent in itself, and which had serv- ed a noble purpose, was still maintained in its integrity. Optional courses ex- isted in but few colleges, and only to a very limited extent. Dartmouth had a professorship of geology and chemis- try, filled by one of the ablest scientiffe men of the time, Prof. O. P. Hubbard, a distinguished pupil of Silliman ; and another of natural philosophy and astronomy, the incumbent of which was Prof. Ira Young, the father of Prof. Charles A. Young, the celebrated astronomer ; and though but a limited amount of time could be devoted to these subjects, yet she was fully abreast of other great colleges in science teaching. The modern languages were not taught at all in the required course at Dartmouth, though some opportunity was afforded for their study in the short winter term, attendance on which was entirely voluntary. Without trenching seriously on the domain of the Latin, Greek, and Phi- losophy, very little attention could be given to either the sciences or the modern languages. Prof. Woodman, like many others, felt that to take more time from the old course of study would be to weaken it, if not to endan- ger its very existence. But the field of learning had become so enlarged that it could no longer be compassed by a single course of study. It seemed to him best that the old should remain substantially as it was, and that by it there should be built up a liberal train- ing, based mainly on the sciences, mathematics, and the modern languages. President Lord was greatly surprised and distressed, when, on the 27th of March, 185 1, he received a communi-
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