James Ogilvie

Background

James Ogilvie was born in 1774, in Aberdeen, Scotland, and emigrated to Virginia at the age of nineteen.

Career

James Ogilvie opened an academy at Milton, in Albemarle County, where he taught the entire curriculum, from grammar and geography to literature, ethics, natural philosophy, and political economy. Later, he moved to Richmond and there, as at Milton, had for pupils the sons of the most prominent families. With the maturer students he employed the lecture, or "expostulatory and explanatory" method, admirably suited to his emotional temperament, his high enthusiasm, and his flair for oratory. Another innovation of his was the "semi-annual academical examinations and exhibitions; at which, his pupils exhibited specimens of their proficiency and skill in composition and elocution. " On these public occasions he delivered sample orations of his own. Their enthusiastic reception encouraged him to plan a weekly course of orations for the people of the vicinity. President Thomas Jefferson attended one of these and was so favorably impressed that he sent Ogilvie an elegant edition of the works of Cicero and later gave other evidences of interest and regard. Popular applause proving far more stimulating and gratifying to his eccentric, if not psychopathic, mind, than the drudgery of teaching, which even a liberal use of opium did not relieve, he conceived the plan of abandoning teaching altogether and devoting himself exclusively to public lecturing. Accordingly, in 1809 he closed his school and put his plan into execution.

Marked success in his new undertaking was outrun by a still greater ambition, and forthwith he conceived the idea of establishing in all the American colleges professorships of rhetoric, and of having erected in each of the large cities a spacious and magnificent hall for the exhibition of oratory. In pursuance of this idea, after delivering orations in many cities, he arrived in Columbia, South Carolina, and was invited by President Jonathan Maxcy of the South Carolina College to deliver three orations in the chapel of that institution. Their success was phenomenal. In March 1815 he returned to the college and gave oratorical lectures for the remainder of the session. During this time he delivered an oration before the legislature, making an impassioned plea for the establishment of a professorship of oratory at the college.

"In vain! The feelings of his respectable auditors, after venting themselves in a loud and protracted plaudit, evaporated 'into thin air'. " This and other bitter disappointments suffered during seven years of struggle to win support for his project convinced him that further efforts would be futile, unless he could manage to acquire a "permanent and extended celebrity, as a philosophical writer. " The need of a greater prestige than would be accorded even the best elocutionist and the urgings of an ever-mounting ambition called for the display of "other and higher qualifications and accomplishments, than those of a popular declaimer. " Despite misgivings as to his philosophical competency and the handicap of his reputation as an elocutionist, he set to work, therefore, to win fame as a philosopher. In a few months the three essays, which were to bring the much hoped-for renown, were completed, and these together with "Copious Notes. A Supplementary Narrative, with an Appendix, " he published in one volume, Philosophical Essays, at Philadelphia, in 1816. The second essay, "On The Nature, Extent, and Limits of Human Knowledge, So Far As It Is Founded in the Relation of Cause and Effect, and Concerns Mind and Matter" - the only one that could possibly lay claim to the term philosophical - was a restatement of Hume's skepticism. The few reviews the book received condemned both its substance and its style.

In 1820 he embarked for London on his way to Scotland, to prosecute his claim to the earldom of Findlater. During his stay in London he was invited to lecture before a distinguished audience, but the effort (owing perhaps to the effect of opium) was a dismal failure. His claim to the earldom was not entertained, and in September 1820 he committed suicide at Aberdeen.

Achievements

• James Ogilvie was a well known orator of his time, even president Thomas Jefferson was impressed by his speech and sent Ogilvie an elegant edition of the works of Cicero. Ogilvie's most prominent work was Philosophical Essays (1816).

Works

More photos

• book

  • Philosophical Essays: To Which Are Subjoined, Copious Notes, Critical and Explanatory, and a Supplementary Narrative; With an Appendix (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Philosophical Essays: To Which Are Subjoined...)