Portrait of William Giles Goddard, by Jean Paul Selinger, date unknown. Portrait from Brown University Portrait Collection
Professor William Giles Goddard wrote, and planned to read the address at the dedication of RI Hall on 4th September 1840. The address was entitled 'The Social Influence of the Higher Institutions of Learning', but Goddard was unable to read it due to illness, and The Reverend Nathan B. Crocker was called upon to read it instead.
This illness would cause him to resign his teaching post in 1842, and he died four years later in Providence. Goddard graduated from Brown in 1812, and in 1825 was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics. In 1834 he was appointed another teaching post, as Professor of belles-letres. President Wayland wrote of him:
The manners of Professor Goddard were courteous and refined. His personal habits, without being painfully exact, were scrupulously neat, and in perfect harmony with the character of a literary citizen. His conversation, sometimes playful, never frivolous, was always instructive, and at time singularly forcible, captivating and eloquent. His tastes were simple and easily gratified; and I think that he preferred a book in his study, or a conversation at the fireside with a friend, to any form of more exciting and outdoor enjoyment.''
The information on this page is indebted to the Encyclopedia Brunoniana by Martha Mitchell, copyright ©1993 by the Brown University Library.
