Timothy Dwight V
Encyclopedia
Timothy Dwight V was an American academic, an educator, a Congregational minister, and president of Yale College
Yale College
Yale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges.-Residential colleges:...

 (1886–1898). During his years as head of the institution, Yale developed as a university.

Biography

Dwight was born in Norwich, Connecticut
Norwich, Connecticut
Regular steamship service between New York and Boston helped Norwich to prosper as a shipping center through the early part of the 20th century. During the Civil War, Norwich once again rallied and saw the growth of its textile, armaments, and specialty item manufacturing...

, the son of James Dwight, whose father, Timothy Dwight IV
Timothy Dwight IV
Timothy Dwight was an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author...

, served as president of Yale College
Yale College
Yale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges.-Residential colleges:...

 from 1795 to 1817. He was the great-grandson of Major Timothy Dwight and Mary (Edwards) Dwight, the latter's father being Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the third president of Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

. His mother was Susan, daughter of John McLaren Breed, by his second wife Rebecca (Walker) Breed, who was the daughter of Robert Walker, a judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut.

Timothy Dwight entered Yale in 1845, and during his undergraduate course received prizes in mathematics and Latin, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is a traditional peer society to Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head, as the three senior class 'landed societies' at Yale....

. As the Clark Scholar, he spent the period from 1849 to 1851 in graduate work at Yale, in the fall of the latter year entering the Theological Department, where he studied for two years. He served as a tutor in the College from 1851 to 1855, and then went abroad to continue his studies at the Universities of Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

 and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

.

Career

Returning to America in July, 1858, he became professor of sacred literature at Yale at the opening of the next college year. His work in the Divinity School continued until 1886, when he was elected president of Yale College. Yale had begun to develop the departments of professional study—particularly of theology and medicine—at the beginning of the nineteenth century, during the administration of the elder President Dwight; and the institution, long a University in fact, became one in name at the inauguration of the younger Dwight. During the thirteen years of his presidency, from 1886 to 1899, the University began that rapid development in scope, in numbers of students and faculty, in material prosperity, and in national influence.

Dr. Dwight was licensed to preach May 22, 1855; and ordained to the ministry of the Congregational Church six years later. In 1869, Chicago Theological Seminary
Chicago Theological Seminary
The Chicago Theological Seminary is a seminary of the United Church of Christ. It prepares women and men for leadership in the church and society through Master of Divinity , Master of Arts in Religious Studies , Master of Sacred Theology , Doctor of Ministry , and Doctor of Philosophy programs...

 conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity upon him, and Yale honored him with a similar degree in 1886. He also received the degree of LLD from Harvard in 1886 and from Princeton in 1888. He was an associate member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an honorary member of the Society of the Cincinnati.

Dr. Dwight was a member of the American committee for the revision of the English version of the Bible, and for a number of years he was one of the editors of the New Englander. He had contributed extensively to various publications on theological and educational subjects. In 1886, he translated and edited, with additional notes, Frédéric Louis Godet
Frédéric Louis Godet
Frédéric Louis Godet was a Swiss Protestant theologian. After studying theology at Neuchâtel, Bonn and Berlin, he was in 1850 appointed professor of theology at Neuchâtel. From 1851 to 1866 he also held a pastorate...

's Commentary on the Gospel of John, and he had also edited several of Meyer's commentaries, including those on Romans, on several other Pauline Epistles, on Hebrews, and on the Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude. He was the author of "Thoughts of and for the Inner Life" (1899), and in 1903 published "Memories of Yale Life and Men" Address Delivered at the Funeral of President Porter (1892) and a Commemorative Address in honor of W. D. Whitney
William Dwight Whitney
William Dwight Whitney was an American linguist, philologist, and lexicographer who edited The Century Dictionary.-Life:William Dwight Whitney was born in Northampton, Massachusetts on February 9, 1827. His father was Josiah Dwight Whitney of the New England Dwight family...

 and J. D. Dana
James Dwight Dana
James Dwight Dana was an American geologist, mineralogist and zoologist. He made pioneering studies of mountain-building, volcanic activity, and the origin and structure of continents and oceans around the world.-Early life and career:...

 (1895). He served as Secretary of the Class of 1849 continuously from graduation until his death, which occurred, without warning, at his home in New Haven, May 26, 1916, as the result of infirmities incident to his advanced age. Burial was in Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven.

Dwight's full-length portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

 by Edmund C. Tarbell hangs in the stairwell of Woodbridge Hall, the Yale administration building.

Family

He was married in that city, December 31, 1866, to Jane Wakeman, daughter of Roger Sherman Skinner, who graduated from the Yale in 1813, and Mary Lockwood (DeForest) Skinner. She survived him with their son, Winthrop Edwards (BA 1893, Ph D 1895, LL B 1896). Their daughter, Helen Rood, died October 16, 1909. John Breed Dwight, a graduate of the Yale in 1840, and James McLaren Breed Dwight (BA 1846, LL.B. Columbia 1861) were his brothers. He was a cousin of Theodore Dwight Woolsey
Theodore Dwight Woolsey
Theodore Dwight Woolsey was an American academic, author and president of Yale College from 1846 through 1871.-Biography:Theodore Dwight Woolsey was born October 31, 1801 in New York City...

 (B.A. 1820), who for twenty-five years was the president of Yale. In 1935, Yale constructed the ninth of its twelve residential colleges, Timothy Dwight College
Timothy Dwight College
Timothy Dwight College, commonly abbreviated and referred to as "TD", is a residential college at Yale University named after two university presidents, Timothy Dwight IV and Timothy Dwight V. The college was designed in 1935 by James Gamble Rogers in the Federal-style architecture popular during...

. It was named for Dwight and his father, who were both regarded as particularly important presidents of Yale.

Jane Wakeman (Skinner) Dwight was the great-granddaughter of American founding father Roger Sherman
Roger Sherman
Roger Sherman was an early American lawyer and politician, as well as a founding father. He served as the first mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, and served on the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and was also a representative and senator in the new republic...

.
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