1891

Philips Brooks Made Honorary Class Member

Philips Brooks is made an honorary member of the class of 1891, for whom he wrote a class song and converted a student who later became president of one of Wheaton’s Alumnae Clubs.

Trustee, Rev. Albert H. Plumb, wrote of one of Rev. Brooks’ visits to Wheaton:

I recall a memorable afternoon spent at the Seminary by the late Bishop Brooks, the result of which gave Mrs. Wheaton extreme and lasting satisfaction. It chanced that Lucy Larcom was also our guest that day. As we sat with a group of the teachers around the open fire in the drawing-room, the conversation turned upon the subject of penmanship, in view of my praise of the clear and open specimen shown in a recent letter from the Bishop. ‘I hold it immoral to write poorly,’ he said. ‘What right has any one to impose upon his correspondent the irksome task of deciphering an illegible scrawl?’ Well, the great preacher had the gift of writing plainly upon souls, for his sermon that day [was] on the Saviour’s words, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’.”

Quoted in Paine, p. 266.