Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1869-05-21

| a man who, above all others I ever knew,
| never allowed question of eXpediency to
| interfere with his notions of right.
HIS AIMS.
| He came to North Carolina in 1926, and
| his first impressions of the University re-
suited rather in disappointment I have
heard him say that for several years he
would have been glad to get away at any
| time, and nothing but his attachment to
| Dr. Caldwell, and the influence which the
President exerted on him, kept him at the
place. He was an ardent and enthusiastic
| Mathematician, and he wanted to intro
duce new methods of study, and more Of ii,
| than young North Carolinians, as a body
| (either then or since) was willing to accept.
| He believed then, and to the last of his
| life, in the discipline of the mind resulting
from the study of the exact sciences, as the
most important Of all aids in its cultiVa-
ton.
He gave himself to hard study, to close
and patient investigation of the great
Problems whose solution the higher Math-
ematics holds out to its enthusiastic vota-
res as its most splendid rewards. His Ii
| brary showed that the books which he
gathered around him forty years ago were
| the great folios of the Masters, La Place,
La Lande, and Delambre, of Newton, and
Ferguson, and Hutton. He went to the well
| heads always. Among his MSS. are many
| translations of the French Mathematical
works written with an elegance and pre-
| cision that defy criticism. His elaborate
| lectures on Natural Philosophy for his
| of the hundred of his MSS. sermons, not
one showed q blot, or an erasure, or an
| interlineation.
In his early years he was very active in
person, gay and curt in his address, and
| fond of good society and of good cheer.
But as his concentration upon the absorb
| ing studies which he loved increased, and
as years came on, he gradually gave up
| one by one his out door exercises and set
tied himself to his work and his study
For many years the steady light in his
| library window was the last seen at night
in the village.
| Whatever DIR. Phillips undertook to do,
he would do conscientiously. He prepared
and thought over every recitation he was
to hear in College as carefully to the very
last day of his life as if he were himself to
recite it to higher master. He studied
every sermon he was to preach to coun-
try congregation as if it were to be his
last and it was owing to this that exact
and unvarying as the routine OF his life
was for many years, he never fell into
altar and in the College Chapel were al
ways fresh and ardent.
Ii he read o book it was done exhaus
lively and he seldom needed to read il
twice. If he wrote to a neighbor, or let
ter to friend, the same deliberate ele
gance marked every line and letter. His
punctuality in the performance of his Col
lege duties was proverbial. He invariably
left his study at quarter before the reel
tation hour, and cane in hand, might be
seen crossing the campus at precisely ter
minutes. Very unlike his forty years col
league, DR.. Mitchell, he did not like to
have many irons in the fire at once. III
wanted his work we'll defined and uncrowd
ed. He liked not to give advice, or to med
die in other mems business. He preferred
q quiet smoke and talk with friend, b,
way of recreation, to a ten mile breez,
walk over hill and dale.
| HIS LIBRARY.
His reading was not so miscellaneous a
DR.. Mitchelps, nor was his library so ex
tensive. DR.. Mitchell bought many book
merely from curiosity-books that he found
were worth only " dip" into. DIR. Phil
lips accumulated books more slowly, bu
there were very few among the two thou
sand that he left behind whose value wa
not standard. And few that he had not a
Lord Bacon advises, thoroughly chewet
and digested."
THE EXAMINATION PAPERS.
That library has been broken up onl.
this past winter. Passing by the hous'
one day when the debris and litter of fort,
years accumulation were being swept out
picked up paper which proved to b,
one OF the Examination Papers prepared
. for the classes fifteen or twenty years ago
the questions in DR.. Phillips own rnmis
taxable handwriting. With a SIGH and !,
smile one looks over such a reminder of ,
day that is dead. How many of the Alum
nj to whom these sketches are dedicated
viii solve these questions now 7 "a cone