Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1869-05-14

| Ahs
ceptng Professorship in her College a
Columbia. OF late years he has resided
with his children at Wilson, Edgecomb,
county, n. q.
| WHAT MAY WE SAY OF HIM NOW
Dr. Hooper is still living (serus redeatJ
and there is an absurd cannon prevailing
in letters, believe. that we must moi
praise man to his face, but wait till i
cannot possibly afford him the slightes
qualification before we offer O tribute O.
reverence and gratitude. DIR. Hooper
however, belongs rather to the past gen
Grafton than the present, and at anv rate
an anonymous newspaper writer may ster
beyond the pale of conventionalities su
perfuous as it may appear to attempt tc
add anything to such n reputation and in
significant though the memorialist be. II
is impossible in any record of DR.. Hooper's
contemporaries to omit all mention of him,
than whom no more finished and elegant
scholar and writer has ever departed from
Chapel Hill, no better exemplar as teacher
and preacher, no finer Christian gentle
man. There has always appeared to me
something peculiarly Anthenidn in the turn
of DR.. Hooper's mind, in the quality of his
intellect. Acute calm and penetrating, il
was favored with a most rare and delicate
humor that would have held its own in the
best days of Attic supremacy. His life.
with all his rare gifts and high attainments
has been devoted TO the good of his fellow.
men. No sordid aims or selfish ambition
has ever characterized him. That genius
which wonld have secured him the highest
honors of the forum or the Bar, has been
consecrated to the Pulpit and the Academy.
Eternity alone will fully reveal the good
such q man does. My heart goes out to
salute him, as [ write of him. May it yet
be years that we shall keep this venerable
form in sight-last of a circle whose man
full endeavor has blessed the State in the
example they have set us, and in the result
of their work May it be yet years before
he shall be called to rejoin his ancient COM
rades and make one of that ''solemn troop
and sweet society" above.
''Ihen, all this earthly grossness quit,
Attired with stars they shall forever sit
Trumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee
o Time"
MRS. HOOPER.
DR.. Hooper married Frances Pollock,
daughter of Edward Jones. Esq, of Pitts
boro. Mrs. Hooper died in the spring of
1868. She had beauty and grace, and
great amiability and kindness of heart
These gifts, with her gentle piety, her re-
fined tastes, her love of flowers and the
profusion of them she always cultivated
around her, her love of painting and draw
ing, arts in which she. eXcelled, -these set
her memory in a lovely and gracious light
among the ladies of her day. Mrs. DIR.
Mitchell and Mrs. DR.. James Phillips are
the only two left of that circle of lively
and intellectual young women. They
busted themselves with their flowers, with
reading, with educating their children,
with carrying on a Union Sunday School
IN tho village school house, which was
built by subscriptions from all denomina-
tons, and used by all in turn for weekly
lectures and prayer meetings, and Sunday
night. Mrs. Hooper and Mr.. Mitchell,
and Mrs. Phillips organized the first Sun
day School in that part of the country, and
carried it OF successfully for many years.
There are gray-haired citizens ins Chapel
Hill now who were among their first schol-
ars. They held it first in Gerard Hall,
where [ happen to know that the shorter
with proofs was diligently re-
CURED of us. If the youngsters of these
days get the Shorter Catechism
alone, it is regarded as a triumph.
TEACHING IN THOSE DAYS.
Thoroughness above all seemed to be the
of teaching in school and
church. Thcroughness and a strict adhe-
renee to the text book. What we got was
in Jumps of pure ore, and we had to dig it
out for ourselves besides. The rod was
freely used IS an incentive to the '1ove Of
virtue, liberty and science" DR.. Hooper
says, speaking of the Prep School attach
ed to the University, 81 can recollect some
of my classmates, grown young men, on
whose backs our teacher tried blister
roo5o Of ol,ipnuorip hOrL tO n0ioE-
en- the topper of the brain" The modern
invention of spreading small amount of
gold over very large surface in the fash
ionable Lecture, was not then thought Of.
was close and laborious, and
le arning was not q fiovery path. Aids
there were none; textbooks were few
DIR. Caldwell, DR.. Phillips and DR.. Mitch
ell had each to prepare their own text
books for use in College. They all be-
lieved in ''Self- Help"
GERARD HALL.
Gerard Hall was building of universal
use and application in those early days.
There, as old inhabitants aver, DIR. Cald-
we'll danced at Commencement Balls in the
first years of the century. There L remem
Der to have seen him baptize candidates
for admission into the church, and twice a
year administer the Holy Communion
There all peripatetic ventriloquists. conf u-
rers, harp players, and the Siamese Twins
themselves, exhibited; and there were held
for many years all Commencement Exer-
cises, the sessions CT the two Literary So
cieties and the like, when the blue and the
white ribbons family Swallowed forth the
opposing claims and rivalries of the repre-
sentatives of the Di and Phi Societies. All!
those rosettes and broad floating satin rib
bins attached to the left breast No gorge
GUS tinselled regalia of later times have
ever had half the significance of these sim
pie and taseful badges.
It was not till many years after that
Clubs exercised their baneful influences on
the fair aud healthful emulation of the
Literary Societies, and it began to be
thought higher honor to be, say, the Eta
Of the Pi, Pi, Pie Club, than to be junior
debater before the Society, on Wednesday
night of Commencement week.
A FALSE QUANTITY.
However, to be junior debater, accord
ing to the best of my recollection, some
times conferred Immortality of a wrong
sort. AS when one of our Di. Debaters,
in the palmy days when Badger, and Hay
wood, and Ruffin, and Graham, and Man
ly, and Weldon Edwards, and Mebane, and