Moses Waddel
Moses Waddel | |
|---|---|
| File:MosesWaddel-Hargrett.jpg | |
| 5th | |
| In office 1819 – August 1829 | |
| Preceded by | Robert Finley |
| Succeeded by | Alonzo S. Church |
| Personal details | |
| Born | June 20, 1770 Rowan County, North Carolina |
| Died | July 21, 1840 (aged 70) Athens, Georgia |
| Profession | Educator |
Moses Waddel (June 20, 1770 - July 21, 1840) [1] was an American educator and minister in antebellum Georgia and South Carolina. Famous as a teacher during his life, Moses Waddel was author of the bestselling book Memoirs of the Life of Miss Caroline Elizabeth Smelt.[2]
Life and work
Born in 1770 in Rowan County, North Carolina, Waddel graduated in 1791 from Hampden-Sydney College with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Hanover.
Waddel (pronounced Waddle) began his ministry in the low country of South Carolina, but coming to view Charleston, South Carolina sophistication as sinful, departed for the backwoods 'upcountry'. In 1794, he founded his first 'log cabin academy' at Carmel near Appling in Columbia County, Georgia. In 1801, Waddel moved to Vienna and then Willington, South Carolina, where he founded the famous Willington Academy in 1804. These prep schools trained the future elite of Georgia and South Carolina with a strict classical education, in an environment shrewdly calculated by Waddel to foster self reliance and self motivation. Graduates generally entered university at the Junior year. The Debating Society in Augustus Baldwin Longstreet's Georgia Scenes takes place at Willington and, as written by Longstreet himself, "is as literally true as the frailty of memory would allow it to be."
In 1819, Waddel further enlarged his fame with Memoirs of the Life of Miss Caroline Elizabeth Smelt.[2] Difficult reading today for its overwrought and pious sentimentality, Memoirs was a smash bestseller reprinted in the U.S. and Great Britain.
Waddel's Willington Academy was considered the high-point of his career. The school was often called "Eaton in the woods' as a comparison to Eaton in the UK that produced the leadership our Britain. As unbelievable as it sounds – ever student was required to memorize, translate, and recite 250 lines of classic Greek or Latin every night – and they did, often several times more. Later SC Governor George McDuffie, who once recited 2,212 lines of Horace, held the record.
Considered the foremost educator in the South, Waddel "received an urgent and persistent invitation" to revitalize the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens.[3] He became the fifth president and served from 1819 until his resignation in August 1829.[1] Waddel found the school "nearly extinct, consisting of only seven students with three professors". With great industry he scoured the state and soon built enrollment to one hundred students.[1] He acquired money for the library, garnered state funding, and raised three new buildings: Philosophical Hall (1821), New College (1823) and Demosthenian Hall (1824).[1] As said by Longstreet, "The effect of his coming to this Institution was magical. It rose instantly to a rank which it had never held before, and which, I am happy to add, it has maintained ever since."[4]
Waddel was said to possess only an ordinary intellect but combined with an iron will. This 'Cromwell of the Classroom' produced a generation of Southern leaders including William H. Crawford, Madison’s Secretary of the Treasury and 1824 US Presidential candidate; Hugh S. Legaré, editor of the Southern Review; Governor and U.S. Senator George McDuffie of South Carolina; Judge James L. Petigru, the Unionist who famously stated that South Carolina was too small to be a nation and too large for an insane asylum; Governor George Rockingham Gilmer of Georgia; Judge Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, author of Georgia Scenes and president of two universities, and John C. Calhoun. Andrew Jackson is said to have (perhaps mistakenly) claimed Waddel's influence.[5][6]
According to Dr James McLeod's book 'The Great Doctor Waddell' (page 8) the list of students from all of Waddell's schools includes: two Vice-Presidents, three Secretaries of State, three Secretaries of War, one Assistant Secretary of War, one US Attorney-general, Ministers to France, Spain and Russia, one US Supreme Court Justice, eleven governors, seven US Senators, thirty two members of the US House of Representatives, twenty two judges, eight college presidents, seventeen editors of newspapers or authors, five members of the Confederate Congress, two bishops, three Brigadier-generals, and one authentic Christian martyr.
More on Waddel's students: At one time five SC governors in a row were his students. In the Presidential election of 1824, three of the five candidates were his students. And, when the electoral dust settled, the winning President and Vice President were both South Carolinians and both had studied under Waddel – Andrew Jackson and John C Calhoun.
Waddel died on July 21, 1840, in Athens, Georgia.[1]
Waddell Street in Athens, Georgia is named in honor of Waddel.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e "From Ahmedunggar to Lavonia: Presidents at the University of Georgia 1785-1997". Athens, Georgia: GHargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Georgia. March 13, 2001. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
- ^ a b "USC Special Collections: Women in the Quaker Tracts" (books), Melinda K. Hayes, Librarian, Specialized Libraries & Archival Collections, University of Southern California, 2006-11-22, webpage: USC.
- ^ Waddel, John Newton (1891). Memorials of Academic Life: Being an Historical Sketch of the Waddel Family. Richmond, Virginia: Presbyterian Committee of Publication. p. 69.
- ^ Wadell, p.76
- ^ Parton. Life of Andrew Jackson. Vol. 1. pp. 62–63.
- ^ Wadell, p.68
References
- Waddel, John Newton (1891). Memorials of Academic Life: Being an Historical Sketch of the Waddel Family. Richmond, Virginia: Presbyterian Committee of Publication.
- MacLeod, James Lewis (1985). The Great Doctor Waddel (pronounced Waddle). Southern Historical Press. ISBN 0-8930-8546-4.]
- Boney, F. N. (2000). A Pictorial History of the University of Georgia. University of Georgia Press. pp. 14–16. ISBN 0-8203-2198-2.
External links
- The Debating Society (pp. 133-144) from Longstreet's Georgia Scenes.
- Memoirs of the Life of Miss Caroline Elizabeth Smelt, by Moses Waddel 1818 Retrieved from Google Books