GEORGE

See also:

• GEORGE TICKNOR (1791—1871)

TICKNOR (1791—1871)  , American educator and author, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the rat of August 1791 . He received his early education from his father, Elisha Ticknor (1757—1821), who had been principal of the Franklin public school and was a founder of the Massachusetts Mutual Fire Insurance Company, of the system of free primary schools in Boston, and of the first New England savings bank . In 18os the son entered the junior class at Dartmouth, where he graduated in 1807 . During the next three years he studied Latin and Greek with Rev . Dr John Sylvester Gardiner, rector of Trinity, Boston, and a pupil of Dr Samuel Parr . In 1810 Ticknor began the study of law, and he was admitted to the bar in 1813 . He opened an office in Boston, but practised for only one year . He went to Europe in 1815 and for nearly two years studed at the university of Gottingen . In 1817 he became Smith professor of French and Spanish languages and literatures (a chair founded in 1816), and professor of belles-lettres at Harvard, and began his work of teaching in 1819 after travel and study in France, Spain and Portugal . During his professorship Ticknor, advocated the creation of departments, the grouping of students in divisions according to proficiency, and the establishment of the elective system, and reorganized his own department . In 1835 he resigned his chair, in ;which he was succeeded in 1836 by Professor H . W .

Longfellow; and he was again in Europe in 1835—1838 . After his return he devoted himself to the chief work of his life, the history and criticism of Spanish literature, in many respects a new subject at that time even in Europe, there being no adequate treatment of the literature as a whole in Spanish, and both Bouterwek and Sismoridi having worked with scanty or second-hand resources . Ticknor developed in his college lectures the scheme of his more permanent work, which he published es the History of Spanish Literature (New York and London, 3 vols., 1849) . The book is not merely a story of Spanish letters, but, more broadly, of Spanish civilization and manners . The History is exhaustive and exact in scholarship, and direct and unpretentious in style . It gives many illustrative passages from representative works, and copious bibliographical references . It was soon translated into Spanish (1851—1857) by de Gayangos and de Vedia; French (1864—1872), a poor version by Magnabal; and German (1852—1867), by N . H . Julius and Ferdinand Wolf . The second American edition appeared in 1854; the third corrected and enlarged, in 1863; the fourth, containing the author's last revision, in 1872, under the supervision of George S . Hillard; and the sixth in 1888 . Ticknor had succeeded his father as a member of the Primary School Board in 1822, and held this position until 1825; he was a trustee of the Boston Atheneum in 1823—1832, and was vice-president in 1833; and he was a director (1827—1835) and vice-president (1841—1862) of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company, and a trustee of the Massachusetts General Hospital (1826—183o) and of the Boston Provident Institution for Savings (1833—185o), the bank that his father had helped to found .

He was especially active in the establishment of the Boston Public Library (1852), and served in 1852—1866 on its board of trustees, of which he was president in 1865 . In its behalf he spent fifteen months abroad in 1856—1857, at his own expense, and to it he gave at various times

money and books; a special feature of his plan was a free circulating department . He left to the library his own collection, which was particularly strong in Spanish and Portuguese literatures . He died in Boston on the 26th of January 1871 . Ticknor's minor works include, besides occasional reviews and papers, Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the History and Criticism of Spanish Literature (1823) ; Outline of the Principal Events in the Life of General Lafayette (1825) ; Remarks on Changes Lately Proposed or Adopted in Harvard University (1825) ; The Remains of Nathan Appleton Haven, with a Memoir of his Life (1827) ; Remarks on the Life and Writings of Daniel Webster (1831); Lecture on the Best Methods of Teaching the Living Languages, delivered, in 1832, before the American Institute of Education; and the Life of William Hickling Prescott (1864) . See Life, Letters and Journals of George Ticknor (2 vols., 1876), by George S . Hillard and Mrs Anna (Eliot) Ticknor and Miss Anna Eliot Ticknor . This book was edited, with a critical introduction, in 1909, by Ferris Greenslet .