Dwight
Dwight names 4 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Dwight THEODORE WILLIAM, an American educator
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
THEODORE WILLIAM, an American educator, jurist, and editor; born in Catskill, N. Y., July 18, 1822; was educated at Hamilton , and pursued the study of law at the College Yale Law School; was Professor of Law in Hamilton College and subsequently in Columbia College, in each of which he founded a law school. He received the degree of doctor of laws from both Rutgers and Columbia colleges, and was (non-resident) Professor of Constitutional Law in Cornell University. He was also interested in philanthropic work, and served as president of the New York Prison Association, vice-president of the New York Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities, and as a member of the "Committee of Seventy," of New York City. In collaboration with Rev. E. C. Wines, D. D., he published "Prisons and Reformatories in the United States," and was associate editor of the "American Law Register." He died in Clinton, N. Y., June 28, 1892.
Dwight dwit, Timothy (1752-1817)
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
dwit, Timothy (1752-1817), an American clergyman. He was born at Norwich, Connecticut. His father was a merchant. His mother was a daughter of the famous Jonathan Edwards. It is said that he was able to read the Bible fluently at the age of four. He was graduated at Yale at the age of seventeen. He taught in a grammar school, tutored in Yale, and served as a chaplain in the Revolutionary army. After the close of the war he opened an academy. In 1795 he was selected president of Yale College, a position which he held until his death. He is considered one of the ablest of a long line of Yale presidents. His published writings, which reach seven volumes, consist chiefly of theological essays and sermons. A grandson of the same name, a noted Greek and Biblical scholar, became president of Yale in 1886.
Dwight TIMOTHY, an American Congregational clergyman
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
TIMOTHY, an American Congregational clergyman; born in He Northampton, Mass., May of Yale ay was president College from 14, 1752. 1795 to 1817, and was a very conspicuous figure in theology and education. His "Theology Explained and Defended" consists of a course of 173 sermons which has passed through as many as 100 editions. In addition to theological works he wrote "Essay on Light"; "Observations on Language"; "Travels in New England and New York," which is still widely quoted. He also wrote verse; an epic called "The Conquest of Canaan"; "Greenfield Hill," a pastoral; "The Triumph of Infidelity," a satire. He died in New Haven, Conn., Jan. 11, 1817.
Dwight HARRISON GRAY OTIS, an American missionary
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
HARRISON GRAY OTIS, an American missionary; born in Con. way, Mass., Nov. 22, 1803; was graduated at Hamilton College, New York, in 1825, and became a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1820 to the Armenians, making Constantinople the center of his field of operations. "Researches of Smith and Dwight in Armenia" and "Christianity Revived in the East." He died Jan. 25, 1862.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical facts here still stand, with one correction: Aiton's 1910 entry puts Timothy Dwight's birth at Norwich, Connecticut, while Collier's has it right — he was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1752. Aiton's grandson "of the same name" was Timothy Dwight V, who served as Yale's president until 1899 and died in 1916, and both men are now commemorated by Timothy Dwight College, one of Yale's residential colleges since the 1930s. Theodore William Dwight's Columbia law school, founded in 1858, is today Columbia Law School; his recitation-based "Dwight method" of instruction lost out to the Harvard case method in the years before his 1891 retirement, which is why his name survives among legal historians rather than in classrooms. The elder Timothy Dwight's 100-edition "Theology Explained and Defended" is now read chiefly by specialists, but his "Travels in New England and New York" remains, as Collier's said, widely quoted — it is a standard primary source for early republic social history.
Written for this edition, 2026.