Thomas Anthony Thacher
| Thomas Anthony Thacher | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
January 11, 1815 Hartford, Connecticut |
| Died | April 7, 1886 (aged 71) |
| Alma mater | Yale College |
| Occupation | Classicist |
| Employer | Yale College |
| Children |
Thomas Thacher Sherman Day Thacher William Larned Thacher Elizabeth Sherman Thacher |
Thomas Anthony Thacher (January 11, 1815 – April 7, 1886) was an American classicist and college administrator.
Thomas A. Thacher was born in Hartford, Conn., the son of Anne (née Parks) and Peter Thacher. His first American ancestor on his father's side was Thomas Thacher who emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1635, and later became minister of the Old South Church in Boston; on his mother's side he was descended from the Rev. Thomas Buckingham of Saybrook, one of the founders of the Collegiate School of Connecticut, since known as Yale College. He had his preparatory training at the Hopkins Grammar School, Hartford, and graduated from Yale with the class of 1835; where he was a member of Skull and Bones.
For a short time he held a temporary teaching position in New Canaan, Connecticut, and then went to a school in Georgia, which was later to become Oglethorpe University. In all he spent three years teaching in two academies in Georgia, returning to Yale College on Dec. 1, 1838, to take the position of tutor. He was appointed assistant professor of Latin and Greek in 1842 and one year later the title was restricted to Latin and he was given a year's leave of absence for study in Europe. This year was eventually extended to two years and from 1843 to 1845 he studied in Germany and Italy. While in Berlin he instructed the Crown Prince of Prussia, and his cousin, Prince Frederick Charles. Six years after his return to Yale he was made professor of Latin. He was long a trustee of Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven and was a member of the state board of education 1866-77. He was on the committee for building the Yale Art School, serving with President Noah Porter and Professor Daniel Coit Gilman [qq.v.].
Thacher was identified with Yale College more closely than any of his contemporaries. President Timothy Dwight V said of him, "His influence with the Faculty and the Corporation equaled or even surpassed that of any other College officer." This extraordinary position was due not primarily to his scholarship, although he had the reputation of being a sound and thorough scholar, but to his keen interest and constant activity in the management of college affairs both faculty and undergraduate. Before the day of deans, Thacher did much of the work which a dean would perform today. He was known as one of the best disciplinarians that the college ever had and yet he retained the devotion and affection of undergraduates to an extraordinary degree. As an undergraduate he had been "exuberant in spirit," and one who was a student under him in Yale writes of "Tutor Thacher, the florid and fiery, of perpetual youth and enthusiasm."
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