Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 59:234 (Apr 1902)
Article: President James H. Fairchild
Author: Anonymous

BSac 59:234 (April 1902) p. 375

President James H. Fairchild

The death, on the 19th of March, of President James Harris Fairchild removes from Oberlin its most commanding figure, and from the world one whom President McCosh once pronounced to be among the profoundest philosophers and theologians of the present generation.

President Fairchild was born in Stockbridge, Mass., on the 25th of November, 1817. When he was one year old, his parents removed, with the great tide of emigrants that was then setting from New England to Northern Ohio, and settled in the wilderness on an uncleared farm in the township of Brownhelm. But it is significant of the character of the emigration, that, when the boy was twelve years old, a classical school was opened in the neighborhood, where he could begin the study of Latin and Greek; while, a few miles away, a high school was within his reach, with an accomplished scholar at its head who was amply prepared to fit pupils for college.

Just as young Fairchild was ready to enter college, Oberlin was founded in the wilderness seven miles away. Thither he repaired, and became a member of the first Freshman class in 1834, and in Oberlin he remained in continuous connection with the college until the day of his death, a period of sixty-eight years. Graduating from the college course in 1838, and from the Theological Seminary in 1841, he became first a tutor in languages, teaching Hebrew, in which he was specially proficient, having had as an instructor a highly educated Jew. For five years he was professor of classical languages, teaching Latin and Greek; in 1847 he was transferred to the chair of mathematics, in which he attained equal success. Meanwhile increasing responsibilities relating to the administrative details were thrown upon him from year to year. In 1858 he was elected to the chair of associate professor of theology and moral philosophy, President Finney still holding the first place in this department. In 1865 he was elected president, and continued to fill that office until 1889, when he resigned his administrative work, but still taught theology and moral philosophy,—a work from which he did not wholly retire until shortly before his death.

Those who enjoyed the privileges of his personal instruction,—and they include almost the entire body of Oberlin students for a period of sixty years,—felt for him a degree of personal love and admiration such as few teachers have ever been able to win from their pupils. But of his personal characteristics this is not the proper place to speak, and we have space at present to say but a few things concerning his system of philosophy and theology.

President Fairchild’s publications are not conspicuous for their number or their size, and they are peculiarly devoid of rhetoric; but they are preeminen...