Porter, Noah

PORTER, NOAH: Congregationalist; b. at Farmington, Conn., Dec. 14, 1811; d. at New Haven, Conn., Mar. 4, 1892. He graduated at Yale College (1831), was master of Hopkins Grammar School, New Haven (1831–33); tutor at Yale (1833–1835); pastor at New Milford, Conn. (1836–43); at Springfield, Mass. (1843–46); Clark professor of metaphysics and moral philosophy at Yale College (1846–71); and president of Yale College (1871–1886). His presidency was a period of great expansion and progress, and his wide fame as a scholar was equalled by his popularity and influence at home. He was the author of Historical Discourse at Farmington, Nov. 4, 1840, commemorating the two-hundredth anniversary of its settlement (Hartford, 1841); The Educational Systems of the Puritans and Jesuits compared (New York, 1851); The Human Intellect (1868, and many others); Books and Reading (1870; 6th ed., 1881); American Colleges and the American Public (1870); Elements of Intellectual Science (1871); Sciences of Nature versus the Science of Man (1871); Evangeline: the Place, the Story, and the Poem (1882); The Elements of Moral Science, Theoretical and Practical (1885); Bishop Berkeley (1885); Kant's Ethics, a Critical Exposition (Chicago, 1886); and Fifteen Years in the Chapel of Yale College (Sermons, 1871–86; New York, 1887). He was the principal editor of the revised editions of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (Springfield, 1864, 1880).

Bibliography: G. S. Merriam, Noah Porter: a Memorial by Friends, New York, 1893 (contains bibliography); W. Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 559–581, ib. 1893.