James G. Croswell

A rare soul severed temporal relationships with many friends on earth when James Greenleaf Croswell died. A descendant of preachers and teachers, he was born at Brunswick, Maine, in 1852, and graduated from Harvard in 1873. He was tutor at St. Mark’s School and at Harvard, then went to Germany for further study, and returned to become Assistant Professor of Greek and Latin at Harvard. In 1887 he came to New York to take the headmastership of the Brearley School for girls, and married Letitia Brace. Hundreds of the best young women in the city will testify to the sensible discipline, the sanity of life, the enlarging suggestion, which came to them from one whose understanding of girlhood was unique and delightful.

It is for us to speak of what he was to men. Croswell was an intellect; not a creative one in the way of bookmaking, but one rejoicing in things intellectual and the entertaining subtleties of human temperament. He was a lovely scholar; not a tremendous or repelling one. His mind, disciplined and furnished with classical standards, ranged unvitiated throughout the ill-regulated world of literature. So well equipped with knowledge, gifted with sensitive and friendly sympathy, Croswell was one from whom his friends were sure of an appreciation which might be over-kindly, and yet always touched the right point. Frequently he saw more than the other man had been conscious of intending. His criticisms were suggestions. And praise from Croswell never shamed the giver or receiver. His mind played caressingly about the productions and personalities of his friends; it was busy with its sympathies and appreciations, never with itself. Most of us know what egotism is, and have to recognize ourselves as filled with it. One would look far to find an intellectual man as devoid of egotism as Croswell. And how beautifully did his sweet amenity suggest to his friends that they should try to understand each other more sympathetically, and so more profoundly, with that kind of understanding which is an aid alike to him who understands and him who is understood. Those with whom Croswell was intimate will feel their lives narrowed and the significance of their work diminished through his death.

Henry Osborn Taylor
1916 Century Association Yearbook