Rauch, Frederick Augustus

RAUCH, rauH, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS: German Reformed educator; b. at Kirchbracht, Hesse-Darmstadt, July 27, 1806; d. at Mercersburg, Pa. Mar. 2, 1841. He entered the University of Marburg in 1824, and studied philosophy and theology at Giessen and Heidelberg; was extraordinary professor of philosophy at Giessen one year and was appointed ordinary professor at Heidelberg; but on account of some political utterance which evoked the displeasure of the government he fled to America in 1831. He obtained a livelihood for a while by giving lessons on the pianoforte at Easton, Pa.; but was soon made professor of German in Lafayette College. In 1832 he assumed charge of a classical academy established by the German Reformed Church at York, Pa., and a few months later was ordained and appointed professor of Biblical literature in the theological seminary, while retaining charge of the academy, which in 1835 was transferred to Mercersburg and in 1836 transformed to Mercersburg College, of which he was the first president, 1836–41. Rauch was an eminent scholar in classical literature, mental and moral science, and esthetics; and it was his ambition to organize upon American soil an Anglo-German system of thought. He published only Psychology, or a View of the Human Soul, including Anthropology (New York, 1840; 3d ed.,1844); his Inner Life of the Christian appeared posthumously (ed. E. V. Gerhart, Philadelphia, 1856).

Bibliography: A eulogy by J. W. Nevin is in Mercersburg Review, xi (1859), 456 sqq. Consult also J. H. Dubbs, in American Church History Series, viii. 355, 357 sqq., 364–368, New York, 1895.