Joseph Green Cogswell

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Joseph Green Cogswell (born September 27, 1786 in Ipswich (Massachusetts) , † November 26, 1871 in Cambridge (Massachusetts) ) was an American librarian , bibliographer and innovative educator .

Life

Joseph Green Cogswell attended high school in Ipswich, Massachusetts, then Phillips Exeter Academy, and graduated from Harvard College , Cambridge in 1806 . From 1807 to 1809 he studied law. Then he went on a boat trip to India in the role of supercargo and then worked for a few years as a lawyer in Belfast (Maine) . In 1812 he married Mary, the daughter of Governor John Taylor Gilman , but she died the following year. From 1813 to 1816 he taught at Harvard.

In 1816, Cogswell was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In the same year he went to Europe with his friends George Ticknor and Edward Everett , where he attended the University of Göttingen for two years , then lived another two years in various large cities and devoted himself to the study of education and bibliography with particular zeal . With Ticknor he was a guest of Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford for some time . In February and March 1819, he also wrote two anonymous articles in Blackwood's Magazine that were critical of the United States' educational system.

Upon his return home, Cogswell was Professor of Mineralogy and Geology and Librarian at Harvard University in 1820 . In 1823 he resigned to found the Round Hill School in Northampton (Massachusetts) together with George Bancroft , which he headed first for five years with Bancroft and, after his retirement, for five years alone until 1834. Then he set up an institution similar to Raleigh , North Carolina . Both institutes were excellent teaching establishments based on German principles. However, Cogswell's efforts to introduce German teaching standards in the United States were ultimately unsuccessful. Because of his poor health and rejection of southern culture, he gave up his post in Raleigh in 1836.

Cogswell then moved to New York City and got in touch with the family of the banker Samuel Ward , whose three sons had studied at Round Hill School. He also took over the publication of the New York Review until it was discontinued in 1842 and became acquainted with Johann Jakob Astor , whom he helped establish the famous Astor Library with Washington Irving and Fitz-Greene Halleck . When Washington Irving was appointed Ambassador of the United States to Spain in 1842, he managed to get Cogswell to accompany him as Legation Secretary; but Astor did not want to do without Cogswell's services and entrusted him with the preparations for the establishment of his library, which he would then also be in charge of. After Astor's death in 1848, Cogswell undertook three trips to Europe in the interests of the library, bought valuable books in Germany and Paris and also headed the non-profit institution that opened in 1854 and headed it until 1861. He donated his own collection of bibliographical works to the library and prepared a catalog of their book holdings. From this Catalog of the Astor library 4 volumes (New York 1857-61) appeared, which recorded around 115,000 volumes, and in 1866 a supplementary volume.

In 1862 Cogswell, who had met important personalities such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Alexander von Humboldt , Pierre-Jean de Béranger , Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott on his European trips, retired to Cambridge in Massachusetts. While his physical constitution gradually deteriorated, he remained mentally active.

He died in Cambridge on November 26, 1871 at the age of 85 and was buried next to his mother's grave, where his former students at the Round Hill School erected a stately memorial for him. From his modest fortune, he bequeathed $ 4,000 to a school in his birthplace.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter C. (PDF; 1.3 MB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Accessed March 5, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Cogswell, Joseph Green
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American librarian, bibliographer, and educator
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1786
PLACE OF BIRTH Ipswich, Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH November 26, 1871
Place of death Cambridge, Massachusetts