Theodore William Dwight was born on July 18, 1822 at Catskill, New York, United States. He was the second son of Dr. Benjamin Woolsey Dwight and his wife, Sophia Woodbridge Strong, sister of Theodore Strong, the eminent mathematician. Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight was his elder brother. The family moved to Clinton, New York, in 1831. As a boy Theodore William was an omnivorous reader and possessed an exceptionally retentive memory.
In 1837 Dwight entered Hamilton College, graduating with honors in 1840. He then studied physics in New York City for a short time, later becoming instructor in classics at Utica Academy. He had discovered, however, that “as all roads lead to Rome, so all intellectual aspiration may lead to law, ” and in 1841 he entered the Yale Law School.
In 1842, Theodore William Dwight was appointed tutor in Hamilton College, a position which he held for four years, at the same time initiating and conducting an informal class for instruction in law. In 1845 he was admitted to the New York bar.
In 1846 Dwight was appointed to the Maynard Professorship of Law, History, Civil Polity, and Political Economy at Hamilton, and during his twelve years’ tenure of this chair, laid the foundations for the work with which his name will always be associated. The instruction in law at Hamilton had been perfunctory and did not contemplate any graduate study, but he systematized and extended the course, obtained recognition of a regular department of law in 1853, and laid down the principles upon which it was to be conducted: “The great object aimed at is to store the mind of the student with the fundamental principles of law. ” His method involved an extensive use of authoritative text-books from which the student obtained a grasp of the principles, and then was taught how to apply them. Cases were only used as illustrations of the propositions formulated in the books.
In 1855 the Hamilton Law School was incorporated and he became its head, continuing to hold the Maynard Professorship. Up to this time there had been no law school in New York City, and, in order to supply the want, the trustees of Columbia College in 1858 established the Columbia Law School, offering Dwight the professorship of municipal law in connection therewith. He accepted and in November of that year commenced his initial course of lectures, which were an immediate success, and students enrolled in large numbers. For fourteen years he continued unassisted to lecture on all the topics embraced in private law, justifying the comment that “he was himself the Columbia Law School, ” and though there was no progress during the Civil War, on its termination the classes became crowded. In addition to his heavy duties at Columbia, he lectured on constitutional law at Cornell, 1869-71, and at Amherst College, 1870-72.
In 1873 he was assisted by George Chase, who was that year appointed instructor, becoming assistant professor of municipal law in 1875. The reputation of the school had now spread far and wide, and the increase of students was such that five professorships were created in 1878. He remained head of the school till June 1891. In that year the trustees of Columbia University determined upon a revolutionary change of policy, involving the adoption of the system, then in vogue at Harvard Law School, of studying law by considering principles as evolved from decided cases, i. e. , the “case system. ” This was the antipodes of the method which he had successfully pursued for thirty-three years, and he accordingly resigned, being, however, appointed professor emeritus. The tradition of his teaching was perpetuated in the establishment of the New York Law School under the auspices of former pupils, with his colleague, George Chase, as dean. His interests had not been confined to the Columbia Law School, and for years he was an active figure in state matters.
In 1866 he and E. C. Wines were appointed a committee to examine the prison systems of the state of New York and the following year they published a Report on the Prisons and Reformatories of the United States and Canada, which was replete with valuable suggestions.
He was appointed by Gov. Dix a member of the commission of appeals, which assisted the New York court of appeals in disposing of its badly congested cause list, and in this capacity his all-round legal learning showed to great advantage. Maintaining his interest in prison reform and social well-being, he became vice-president of the state board of public charities and president of the state Prison Association, and in 1878 was state commissioner to the International Prison Congress at Stockholm. In his early days at Columbia he had been associated as referee or counsel with important testamentary litigation, particularly the Rose and Hoyt Will Cases. In 1886 he was retained as counsel for five professors at Andover Theological Seminary against whom complaints of heterodoxy had been made, and the display of learning, historical and legal, in his argument on their behalf was impressive. His appearances as counsel were rare, however, and only in exceptional cases. There was a theoretical cast to his mind and an absence of the practical which would have been a serious obstacle to successful practise.
In addition to a number of academic addresses which were later issued in pamphlet form, he published: Cases Extracted from the Reports of the Commissioners of Charities, in England, and from the Calendars in Chancery (1863); James Harrington and his Influence upon American Political Institutions and Political Thought (1887); and an Introduction to Maine’s Ancient Law, prefixed to the first American edition of that work (1864).
For a number of years he was associate editor of the American Law Register, and he was legal editor of Johnson’s Cyclopcedia of Literature and Science, contributing many articles thereto.
Dwight was a delegate to the state constitutional convention and served upon its judiciary committee. He took a prominent part in the municipal reform movement in New York City consequent upon the operations of the Tweed Ring, and in 1873 was chairman of the legislative committee of the Committee of Seventy.
Sympathetic, courteous, and always accessible, Dwight possessed a singularly attractive personality, and his influence over his pupils, during their academic careers and in after life, was extraordinary.
Theodore William Dwight was married to Mary Bond.They had three children.
