oundations in college. They were honored as
teachers, as divines, and as legislators. The condition of the college
and the country gave them abundant opportunities for appreciating the
inscription on the armor of the Dartmouth family: "Gaudet tentamine
virtus."

Instead of burning the "midnight oil" of the modern student, they kept
the midnight watch against savage foes, at least at certain periods.
To us, this all looks like romance. To them, it was stern reality.

In a fitting tribute to President Wheelock,[31] Rev. Dr. Allen says:

[31] Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit.

"If it should be asked what success attended the efforts of Dr.
Wheelock to communicate the gospel to the Indian nations, it may be
replied that he accomplished something for their benefit, and that
great and insuperable obstacles in the providence of God prevented him
from accomplishing more. It was soon after he sent out missionaries
into the wilderness, that the controversy with Great Britain blighted
his fair and encouraging prospects. During the last four years of his
life there was actual war, in which many of the Indian tribes acted
with the enemy. Yet the Oneidas, to whom Mr. Kirkland was sent as a
missionary, kept the hatchet buried during the whole Revolutionary
struggle, and by means of this mission, probably, were a multitude of
frontier settlements saved from the tomahawk and the scalping-knife.
But even if nothing had been accomplished for the benefit of the
Indians, yet the zeal which chiefly sought their good, reared up a
venerable institution of science, in which many strong minds have been
disciplined and made to grow stronger, and nerved for professional
toils and public labors, and in which hundreds of ministers have been
nurtured for the church of Christ.

"For enlarged views and indomitable energy, and persevering and most
arduous toils, and for the great results of his labors in the cause of
religion and learning, Dr. Wheelock must ever be held in high honor.
He early placed one great object before him, and that object held
his undivided attention for nearly half a century. It is not
easy to describe the variety of his cares and the extent of his
toils. When he removed to Hanover his labors were doubled. The two
institutions--the school and the college--were ever kept distinct; in
both he was a teacher; of both he was the chief governor. He was also
the preacher of the college and village. In the government of