Charles Sprague Smith

Background

He was born on April 27, 1853 at Andover, Massachussets, United States, the son of Charles and Caroline Louisa (Sprague) Smith. His childhood and youth were precocious.

Education

He graduated from Phillips Academy, being valedictorian and class poet, at the age of fifteen, but delayed his entrance to college for two years. In 1874 he received the degree of bachelor of arts from Amherst College.

Going abroad in 1875, he spent five years in the study of languages and literature: first at the University of Berlin, where he delivered a "Centenary Poem" at a gathering of American students and residents, then at the Sorbonne; later at various institutions in Italy and Spain; and finally at Oxford University, from which he received a certificate stating that "No one of his years had accomplished as much as he in his chosen field of language and literature. "

Career

In 1880 he returned to the United States to become an instructor at Columbia, where he gave the first course in Icelandic ever offered in an American university. In the same year he was raised to the Gebhard professorship of German, a position which he retained for eleven years.

After resigning from Columbia in 1891, he continued to lecture there occasionally, as well as at Harvard and elsewhere, but he was more and more impressed with the inadequacy of the American educational system in so far as the cultural development of the masses was concerned. In 1895 he organized the Comparative Literature Society.

A more important undertaking was his founding, in 1897, of the People's Institute, at Cooper Union, an institution established by Peter Cooper in 1857-59 for the education of the working classes but until Smith's time never effectively organized to that end. Smith succeeded in making the People's Institute a community center which exercised great influence, by its example, on like movements in other places, while in New York City itself it was the parent of many similar local enterprises.

In addition to his work at the People's Institute, in 1908 he served on the Wall Street Commission to investigate the stock exchange, and in 1909 he acted as executive chairman of the National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures until his death in the following year.

Achievements

• Charles Sprague Smith organized the Comparative Literature Society in an effort to maintain and integrate the different racial cultures of immigrants to the United States. He was the founder and director of the People's Institute, thanks to him The Cooper Union Forum, the People's Church, the People's Lobby, and the Wage Workers' Social Club were established within the Institute. He also organized the Ethical Social League, National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures. He was the author of Barbizon Days (1902); Working with the People (1904); and Poems (1908).

Works

More photos

• book

  • Poems

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • Barbizon Days; Millet, Corot, Rousseau, Barye

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

Views

He considered that the United States possessed a divine cosmic mission to realize the gospel of liberty and fraternity.

Personality

He was idealistic and romantic. Although keenly alive to questions of social justice, Smith was humanitarian rather than socialistic in his outlook. He was a fervent patriot and intensely religious in an unorthodox manner, being considerably affected by Hindu literature.

Connections

On November 11, 1884, he was married to Isabella Jane, daughter of Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight of Clinton, New York. They had a daughter, Hilda.

Father:

Charles Smith

Mother:

Caroline Louisa (Sprague) Smith

Spouse:

Isabella Jane Dwight

father-in-law:

Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight

Daughter:

Hilda Smith