Joseph Cogswell

Joseph Cogswell
1853 bust by Eugène Lequesne

Joseph Green Cogswell (September 27, 1786 Ipswich, Massachusetts - November 26, 1871 Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a librarian, bibliographer and an innovative educator.

Education

Cogswell received a grammar school education in Ipswich, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy.^[1] He graduated from Harvard in 1806, and studied law from 1807 to 1809.^[1] After making a voyage to India as supercargo of the vessel in which he sailed, Cogswell studied law with Fisher Ames in Dedham,^[2] and practised for a few years in Belfast, Maine. In 1812 he married Mary, the daughter of Gov. John Taylor Gilman. She died in 1813. Her death, and a distaste for the profession, led him to abandon the practice of law.^[2]

From 1813 till 1815 he was a tutor at Harvard. In 1816 he went to Europe, and, in company with George Ticknor, spent two years at the University of Göttingen, where he paid special attention to the methods and principles of instruction.^[3] Two more years were passed in Europe, chiefly on the continent, in the principal capitals, and in the study of educational problems and bibliography. During part of this time, Edward Everett was his companion. He was, with his friend Ticknor, the guest of Sir Walter Scott, at Abbotsford. He also contributed to Blackwood's Magazine (February, March 1819) two anonymous essays critically examining education in the United States.^[1]

Educator

Returning to the United States in 1820, he was appointed professor of geology and mineralogy, and college librarian at Harvard. In 1823, having resigned his chair in Harvard, he, in connection with George Bancroft, the historian, established Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachusetts. The plan of the institution was novel, and based on an examination of the best English and German systems of education. After Bancroft's departure from the school in 1830, Cogswell continued the work. It was too much for him alone, and he closed the doors of the school in 1834.^[4] He then assumed the charge of a similar institution in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ill health and incompatibility with Southern culture led to his resignation after two years at Raleigh.^[1]

Editor and librarian

In 1836, he entered the family of banker Samuel Ward (father of Julia Ward Howe and Samuel Cutler Ward) in New York City. Three of Ward's sons had been students at Round Hill School.^[4] Cogswell also became editor of the New York Review, one of the leading American critical journals of the time. He remained as editor until its suspension in 1842. Through Ward, he became the friend and companion of John Jacob Astor, upon whom he urged the project of a library.^[4] Succeeding in this promotion, Cogswell, in conjunction with Astor, Washington Irving and Fitz-Greene Halleck, arranged the plan of the Astor Library. With Halleck, Irving, and others, Cogswell was appointed a trustee of the fund for its creation.

Joseph Cogswell c. 1870

When Washington Irving was appointed minister to Spain, he was anxious that his friend Cogswell should accompany him as secretary of legation, and accordingly wrote to Washington, requesting his appointment. “He is,” said Irving, “a gentleman with whom I am on terms of confidential intimacy, and I know no one who, by his various acquirements, his prompt sagacity, his knowledge of the world, his habits of business, and his obliging disposition, is so calculated to give me that counsel, aid, and companionship, so important in Madrid, where a stranger is more isolated than in any other capital of Europe.”

Cogswell received the appointment, and would probably have accepted it, but, Astor finding that he was likely to lose his invaluable services, made him superintendent of the embryo library. After the rich merchant's death, in 1848, he went abroad to purchase books; and it may safely be said that no library in the land was founded with more discrimination and economy. Just by 1900, the books he purchased would have sold for ten times the amount that he expended, and many of them could not have been purchased at any price. His general bibliographical knowledge was of great service to the Astor Library, one great work undertaken by him being the preparation of an analytical and alphabetical catalogue of the collection.^[3] He also gave the Astor Library his own valuable series of works relating to bibliography, as he had before united with a friend in presenting Harvard with a rare cabinet of minerals and numerous botanical specimens.

He continued the duties of superintendent, which he performed with singular industry and fidelity, until the pressure of advancing years induced him to retire in 1861.^[5] Two years later, having chosen a residence at Cambridge, he also resigned the office of trustee. In accepting his resignation, the board passed a resolution highly complimentary to his talents, great learning, and spotless character. All who enjoyed the privilege of Cogswell's acquaintance, and the thousands of seekers after information who remember the patience and urbanity with which he was ever ready to aid them in their researches, will most cordially unite in the richly merited tribute to his learning, amiability, and unsullied life.

While his physical strength gradually failed, his intellectual powers remained unimpaired, and his sparkling table talk was as interesting as in earlier years. He had, in his frequent visits to Europe, met many of the most distinguished men of the 19th century, including Johann von Goethe, Alexander von Humboldt, Pierre-Jean de Béranger, Lord Byron, Walter Scott, Jeffrey, and the brilliant circle that thronged Gore House in Lady Blessington's palmy days. From his moderate fortune, Cogswell left $4,000 to a school in Ipswich, where he was buried by the side of his mother's grave, and where a handsome monument was erected by his Round Hill pupils, no one of whom ever left the school without carrying away with him a strong affection for the faithful friend and teacher.

He received the degree of LL.D. from Trinity in 1842, and from Harvard in 1863. He was a frequent contributor to the magazines, including Blackwood's, North American Review, Monthly Anthology, and New York Review.

Further reading

• Anna E. Ticknor, ed., Life of Jos. Green Cogswell as Sketched in his Letters (printed privately, Boston, 1874).

Notes

References

•  Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). "Cogswell, Joseph Green". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton