page_title: Osgood Johnson
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Osgood Johnson / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Latin Commons dormitories on Phillips Street on the Phillips Academy campus.
context_page_description: Osgood Johnson was an American educator and 5th Principal of Phillips Academy Andover from 1833 to 1837.
context_section_description: After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1828, he remained in Hanover as a tutor at Moor's Charity School, a part of Dartmouth.  A year later in 1829 he took on an assistant teaching role under then Principal John Adams at Phillips Academy.  Over the next couple of years Adams would come to depend on Johnson for his "extraordinary gifts as a teacher".  In 1831 Johnson and his family moved into Samaritan House, then on Chapel Avenue on campus.
  Upon Adams' resignation on November 22, 1832, he requested Johnson take his place.  Johnson became acting Principal until January 1, 1833 when he was given a permanent position.  He officially took office when he accepted in a letter to the Trustees dated March 20, 1833.  The Trustees were looking for someone young and progressive, and the thirty year old Johnson was the person they were looking for.  Thus from this point he would begin his brief term, entrusted in modernizing and reforming the school.
  Despite the wishes of the Trustees, very little changed under Johnson.  He was satisfied with the current academic curriculum and administrative procedures and was by no means an innovator.  In the first year of his administration the school dealt with financial issues and debated whether the cost for teachers and assistants should be paid separately by the school or taken out of Johnson's salary.  Samuel Farrar Esq., Treasurer of the Board of Trustees, proposed the latter as well as a plan to encourage more paying students and increase the size of the student body.  Johnson fought Squire Farrar's plans, deeming them unjust and dangerous.  In addition, he was according to others "too honest to resort to unscrupulous methods in enlarging the school."  On April 28, 1834, the Trustees resolved that Johnson would simply earn $1000 each year, essentially abandoning Farrar's plan.  Since then Principals have not held the responsibility to deal with financial matters.
  As a teacher Johnson varied greatly from his predecessors.  He was kind, gentle, and rarely resorted to harshness or corporal punishment.  He was an efficient teacher, rarely bringing books to class as he had already memorized them beforehand.  There are a number of accounts of his classes and teaching style from his former students and colleagues.  Chiefly is the account by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. in his poem, The School-boy:
  "His was the charm magnetic, the bright look
  That sheds its sunshine on the dreariest book;
  A loving soul to every task he brought
  That sweetly mingled with the lore he taught;
  Sprung from a saintly race that never could
  From youth to age be anything but good,
  His few brief years in holiest labors spent,
  Earth lost too soon the treasure heaven had lent."
  Another comes from Isaac P. Langworthy, a former student of Johnson's and founding President of the student-run Society of Inquiry on his teaching style:
  "As a teacher, I never knew one more thorough, lucid, patient, or inspiring.  I never saw him disconcerted.  He was always self -poised, awake to every emergency; and having full command of his varied and broad resources, he could meet every exigency incident to his responsible position with most admirable tact and skill....When he became Principal, he at once began the gradual elevation of the standard of scholarship, keeping it abreast, if not in advance, of the best Academies in the country."
  After the establishment of William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator slavery became a heated issue in New England and as a result in 1835, the "Anti-Slavery Rebellion" rose in popularity, including among Phillips Academy students.  Teachers at the Andover Theological Seminary as well as Johnson who opposed abolition, banned anti-slavery societies, their reason being "such organizations would bring odium on the institutions, and keep away Southern students."  Despite warnings students went off campus to listen to anti-slavery talks, known as "theologues" or "cads", including ones by English anti-slavery orators Sir Robert Peel and George Thompson, and Garrison himself, who visited Andover during lecture tours of Mass
caption: Latin Commons on Phillips Street
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