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Note: Arthur Charles Howland was the son of Charles Howland and Maria Alida Bassett. He was born in a white clapboard farm house in South Danby, New York on Dec 24, 1869, assisted by a neighbor as there was never a doctor on those occasions. He was one of six children, two of whom died at birth. His brother Rufus was almost 20 years older and there were two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary. They were a close, loving family and remained so all their lives, helping each other as best they could in times of need. Life must have been hard on the farm. The land was poor and there was little cash. Dad used to say that because of its remoteness, they lived like and used the equipment of an earlier generation. Arthur delighted in telling stories about his childhood and the characters who lived on neighboring farms. Some of these stories are recorded in his Family Recollections which he wrote when he was 80 years old. One not there was of the terrible tempered Francis Van de Bogart. He had lost his temper and was doing something outrageous and foolish when his wife grabbed the butcher knife and chased him under the bed. She demanded he come out and he answered, "I have too much grit to come out." Dad used to tell about an uncle by marriage, Clark Lounsbury, who used to visit them. Lounsbury had nine children, seven of whom died in infancy. He never really supported his family. He was a fanatic abolitionist and later temperance agitator. Dad would recall how excited Uncle Clark would get on the subject of temperance. He would froth at the mouth and pound on the table about the evils of drink. The ministers who served the little Methodist Church in South Danby were often ardent but ignorant men. Even as a young boy, Dad could be amused at the preacher, talking of the sins of the wicked as described in the Bible, declaring in a loud voice, "And Egypt that great city, whar is she?" Since Arthur was already reading everything he could get his hands on, no wonder his religious skepticism began to grow. He notes in his recollections the beginning of skepticism at age six. Apparently he had a pair of new trousers -- probably the first new ones he had ever had. He wore them for the first time going to church. When he knelt for the prayers, he prayed that the knees would not get dirty. But when he got up he found that his prayer had not been answered. Arthur and his sister, Mary, attended a little one room school. When he was 13, there was a very inadequate teacher. She had been told by the man who hired her not to hesitate to whip the children. She did a lot of that, but was not well enough educated to teach them anything. After a few weeks Arthur and Mary grew disgusted. One day Arthur put a small stone under the window so it would not lock. After supper he returned to the school house, got in through the window, removed his and Mary's books and took them home telling his parents they would not go back to school unless they insisted. They must have understood the situation for Mary did not go back until the following term when there was another teacher. Arthur went to the nearest high school which was in Ithaca (where he lived with Emma Howland King on Buffalo St. in Ithaca) and from there to Wyoming Seminary where his brother Rufus was dean of boys. Arthur was not cut out to be a farmer. When he he helped with the work on the farm, he carried a Latin text book in his pocket and studied paradigms when the horses were resting. This was at age 12. He walked three miles twice a week to the home of a neighbor to recite Latin lessons. When he was nine, his father was having a discussion with a friend on politics and some point in American history came up about with both men were uncertain. He astonished them by innocently remarking they were both wrong and given them the correct facts. He was already very fond of reading history. Arthur would sometimes walk over to Mr. Simms' farm to visit with him. Mr. Simms had escaped slavery and come north from Virginia in 1859. At age 15, Arthur took notes on Simms' story and the write up was posted on the internet for Tompkins county Rootsweb project. When Arthur attended Wyoming Seminary, his job was to ring the bell which awoke the students in the morning, called them to classes, etc. The other boys would sometimes turn the bill upside down and fill it with water. Arthur soon learned to be cautious. After graduation from the Seminary, he taught school a year and then entered Cornell, graduating in the class of 1893. It was at Cornell that he met Emily Wycoff Berry whom he married 3 September 1902. Much of their courtship was by letter as he graduated two years before she did. During the academic year 1894-95, he had a fellowship to study at Gottingen and Leipzig; while later Emily W. Berry taught in Corning while Arthur was in New York City. Arthur lived with a German family and liked the Germans very much, finding them friendly and good company. The hate against the Germans in this country by World War I upset him, and Hitler and World War II must have shaken him still more. While working on the research for his Ph.D. thesis, he was hired to index Andrew D. White's Warfare of Science with Dogmatic Theology. White had been president of Cornell. He was growing feeble and his site took over the management of his affairs. Mrs. White paid Arthur $.15 or $.20 per hour, but began to make difficulty about payments arguing that they were too much, and that she was over paying him. Arthur's comment in his recollections was that she got a mighty good bargain. The index was an excellent piece of work and it was the kind of work that took considerable expert knowledge and required much exactness and accuracy. He considered Mrs. White a cantankerous old woman. One or two of her sisters had the same reputation in Swarthmore, were the family lived, her father having been president of Swarthmore College. After that time Arthur always thought of Quakers as a tight fisted bunch. Professors were poorly paid. In 1911, Arthur was made a full professor, he was earning only $2,400 a year, not much even in those days with which to support a family of five. He added a little to his income teaching in summer school every year, and also with what his wife called "pot boilers" - reading college entrance exams and giving courses at the Villa Maria Convent in West Chester. The nuns thought very highly of him. One said, "Professor Howland knows so much. It is too bad de doesn't know just a little more and become Catholic." After receiving his Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1897, Arthur Howland served as an instructor of European History at the University of Illinois for a year and then taught at Teachers College, Columbia University for five years. In 1904 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Medieval History at the University of Pennsylvania and became a full professor in 1911. In 1934 he was appointed to the Henry Charles Lea professorship which post he held until his retirement in 1940. It was that year that the University awarded him the honorary degree of Litt. D. His daughter Emily well remembers the occasion. President Roosevelt the President of the United States appeared upon the stage and everyone in the huge hall rose in his honor. In those days the President did not appear nightly on a television screen and it was a rare privilege to see him. When Arthur's successor was called to active military duty in World War II, he resumed teaching as Lecturer in Medieval History 1942-43. He was also curator of the Henry Charles Lea Library. Henry Charles Lea was a distinguished historian whose specialty was witchcraft which was also on of Arthur's fields, as he had worked with Lea. Mr. Lea's Library with its collection of 15,000 books had been moved in its entirety from his home to the University of Pennsylvania. It is a beautiful room of black walnut panelling with a gallery running around it. Arthur had a wonder sense of humor, was witty and loved to tell a good story. He was respected by his colleagues and the library staff and admired and loved by his students. He was often approached by a former student and greeted warmly. Arthur held an honorary position as Advisor to the Library Committee of the University Club of Philadelphia of which he was a member for many years. In 1952 the Committee passed the following Resolution: "Unaffected simplicity of demeanor, with a sense of quizzical humor ever ready to mellow the established authority of his scholarship, gave a special tang to the personality of Arthur C. Howland, whose recent death deprives the Library Committee of a much valued member. In hereby registering an estimate of its loss, the Committee especially notes that Dr. Howland wore his academic honors 'with a difference.' He taught history at Penn and had had charge there of the remarkable Henry C. Lea Library. But significant as these achievements were, they do not imply a finished portrait. They do not indicate the measure of his charm. A historian can be stuffy. Dr. Howland certainly can be absolved on that score. You could scarcely have gauged the scope of his accomplishments by his delightful informal commentary on people and books and cabbages and kings. As a friend (who happens also to be a savant) he will be much missed." Emily Hinton Howland said of her parents, they were fine parents to their three children, Charles Berry, Arthur Lloyd and Emily Hinton. Because of being a teacher, Dad was able to spend more time with his children than many fathers. He answered all questions frankly and honestly and without seeming to lecture and taught us honesty, consideration for others - that is, good morals. one of the highlights of the day was when he read to us in the evenings. My brothers loved Treasure Island and similar stories. I remember one summer Dad prepared a treasure hunt for the boys with various clues to follow which finally led to the digging up of the treasure. I don't remember what the treasure was. The pursuit of the clues was the fun. Dad taught us to recognize the various kinds of birds and their songs. He didn't like to get up early, but I remember one morning in Trumansburg he got up at 5 A.M. to take Budge (Arthur Lloyd) and me (Emily) to Taughannock park to hear and spot the birds. How the country has changed since those days. At Taughannock there were no paved roads and no park attendant to collect a parking fee. A dirt road with grass growing down the middle ran close to the edge of the gorge. No signs told you to keep away from the edge. It was assumed you had a little common sense or had a parent with you who did. There were fossils to be picked up in the gorge or along the shores of Cayuga lake. As a young man Dad played the banjo and mandolin. He loved music. The family used to sing a lot and one of the happy memories of Emily's childhood is of sitting by the fireplace on Christmas Eve singing Christmas carols.
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