{"id":1436,"date":"2012-11-30T15:33:37","date_gmt":"2012-11-30T19:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/?p=1436"},"modified":"2014-06-07T07:57:03","modified_gmt":"2014-06-07T11:57:03","slug":"the-impossible-mr-tibbets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/the-impossible-mr-tibbets\/","title":{"rendered":"The Impossible Mr. Tibbets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There was a time, only a generation or two back, when private schools were expected to have a few Great Eccentrics on their faculties.\u00a0 In an era when people much more frequently kept the same job for a lifetime, and when residential faculty were discouraged from marrying, schools became, in a sense, havens for a few talented individuals who, for whatever reason, could not or would not easily thrive in outside society.\u00a0 Williston Seminary was no exception.\u00a0 Even so, for an unholy combination of inspired teaching and rampant misanthropy, one name stands out.<\/p>\n

George Parsons Tibbets taught Mathematics at Williston Seminary from 1890-1926.\u00a0 Over six feet tall, \u201ca great body topped with a strong face and crowned with a flaming thatch of red hair,\u201d he was \u201ca marked man in any crowd.\u201d\u00a0 (Holyoke Transcript,<\/em> April 7, 1926) And that was before one discovered that he had no talent for, or perhaps interest in, what most people considered normal social skills.\u00a0 Even his best friend and faculty colleague of 36 years, Sidney Nelson Morse, noted \u2013 in Tibbets’ eulogy, no less — that he was \u201cat times insistently importunate, imperious, and impertinent.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHis attitude was a perpetual challenge to all whom he met.\u201d\u00a0 Tibbets tended to get straight to the point with what he called the \u201cbasal virtues\u201d of his argument: \u201cConversation with him was seldom a smooth and halcyon sea of conventional phrases \u2013 there were wrinkles in it, made by the fusillade of his pelting comments.\u201d\u00a0 (S. N. Morse, Eulogy, corrected typescript and Williston Bulletin,<\/em> November 1926.)<\/p>\n

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A Tibbets exam, 1918. How much geometry do you remember? (Click all images to enlarge.) Math teachers Stan Samuelson and Alan Lipp have both commented that Tibbets’ expectations of what his students could do seem exceptionally high.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perhaps Morse is describing a man whose mind was working so fast that his mouth couldn\u2019t keep up within the bounds of \u201cnormal\u201d etiquette.\u00a0 Another longtime colleague, Charles A. Buffum, recalled that beyond Tibbets\u2019 area of unquestioned expertise, mathematics, there was the mind of a perpetual student, a polymath who, though \u201cnot a great reader, made himself familiar with the world\u2019s best literature, the world\u2019s best art and the world\u2019s best music,\u201d who took to reading philosophy for recreation, who had even taken medical school courses over several summers.\u00a0 \u201cI could name a score of such subjects to which he devoted himself ardently and almost exclusively for a time, until he had mastered them . . . when he would dismiss them from his thoughts altogether and turn to some new problem.\u00a0 Some of these were intended merely for diversion, like banjo-playing, billiards, or bridge; others were more serious or strictly professional, like flash-light photography, stereopticon slides, music . . . artillery practice, bridge-building, and the automobile.\u201d\u00a0 (C. A. Buffum, corrected typescript and Williston Bulletin<\/em>, November 1926.)\u00a0 Whether or not he considered music a diversion, Tibbets, according to an obituary in an unidentified newspaper, was described by Buffum as \u201cone of the best banjo players that could be found among either amateurs or professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Memorandum concerning dormitory furnishings. Apparently Tibbets had a talent for self-parody.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is difficult to contemplate Tibbets\u2019 conversation at the bridge table.\u00a0 And he didn\u2019t relish, or probably even understand, relationships with the rest of humanity.\u00a0 He typically purchased three theater tickets so that he wouldn\u2019t have to sit with anyone.\u00a0 He attempted to have sofas and extra chairs removed from his dormitory to discourage loafers.\u00a0 But underlying the risible attributes of his persona, there was something terribly sad.\u00a0 Buffum wrote, \u201cHe chose to make the game of life a game of solitaire. [His friends] could not but realize that some of the sweetest and holiest relations of life he was missing altogether . . . though in his life there was no lack of motion, his emotions he did his best to hide.\u00a0 I believe he was in reality a man of deep feeling and genuine sympathy, but he seemed determined that nobody should find it out.\u201d\u00a0 But as shall be seen, that wasn\u2019t quite true.\u00a0 Tibbets\u2019 students knew a different man.<\/p>\n

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From Tibbets’ College Requirements in Algebra, 1892. Tibbets also published a newsletter for secondary school math teachers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tibbets was a unique, and uniquely demanding, math teacher who employed methods that would be considered innovative a century later.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t like to lecture.\u00a0 Learning and teaching were meant to be collaborative.\u00a0 His students, having prepared \u2013 exhaustively, if they knew what was good for them \u2013\u00a0 the night before, would take their stations at the blackboards surrounding the classroom.\u00a0 Each had a problem which he would attempt to explain, with encouragement and assistance from his fellows.\u00a0 Tibbets would guide, cajole, suggest . . . it was a voyage of mutual discovery.<\/p>\n

Indeed, according to Robert Wood, class of 1900, Tibbets loved the opportunity to draw further discussion from the class: \u201cI can answer that, but I can\u2019t answer it now.\u201d\u00a0 While surviving teaching materials confirm that he expected accurate answers, they really weren’t the point at all.\u00a0 He would declare to his classes, \u201cAlgebra?\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 Geometry?\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 The problem?\u00a0 Everything!\u201d\u00a0 (Unnamed alumnus, Williston Bulletin,<\/em> November 1926.)\u00a0 Years later, alumni recalled what it was worth.\u00a0 Among many dozens of encomiums, that of Ward Van B. Hart, class of 1910, is typical: “As one who first learned from you the spirit of mathematics as opposed to mere technical adroitness in manipulation of figures . . .”\u00a0 (Hart, letter to Tibbets, 1926)<\/p>\n

Tibbets could be hilariously scathing toward anyone he suspected wasn\u2019t keeping up.\u00a0 Wood writes, \u201c\u2018Now, Gentlemen\u2019 . . . : At those two words the blood seemed to congeal in my veins . . . When he started off like that and some hapless fellow was standing, I knew it was possibly the signal for the class to hear what the professor thought of that man\u2019s effort or lack of it.\u00a0 No, he would not say outright that so-and-so was deficient . . . he used more finesse than that.\u201d\u00a0 But Wood soon learned that terror was only incidental to Tibbets\u2019 agenda.\u00a0 \u201cNever again did I suffer stage fright in class or in examination, thanks to the humanity of that wonderful man, from whose courses I derived the utmost pleasure, satisfaction, and profit.\u00a0 I almost adored the ground upon which he trod.\u201d\u00a0 (Robert F. Wood, Recollections of Williston in the Eighteen-Nineties,<\/em>Typescript, 1956)<\/p>\n

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From a placard of “buck rules,” satirical “commandments” for new students, ca. 1912.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Adored?\u00a0 Humanity?\u00a0 Is this the same person?\u00a0 Yet the files are full of similar recollections from alumni.\u00a0 At a time when most faculty were rarely seen or heard in their students\u2019 lives outside of class, Williston students flocked to Tibbets for advice.\u00a0 He was an extraordinary listener.\u00a0 They knew they could count on him for honesty \u2013 perhaps too much of it.\u00a0 And he had a special talent for clearing away irrelevancy and getting straight to the point.\u00a0 One might wonder what advice a man who apparently didn\u2019t comprehend the art of living might give.\u00a0 But Tibbets had a youthful past he could draw from, one barely known to his adult colleagues.\u00a0 Charles Buffum wrote that in 1889, when Tibbets interviewed for his eventual position at Williston, he gave as his references \u201cThe Professors of Amherst College, provided you ask about nothing previous to the end of Sophomore year.\u201d\u00a0 It eventually became known that Amherst Professor Richard H. Mather, later a member of the Williston Board of Trustees, had taken a \u201ccareless and pleasure-loving boy\u201d under his wing and set him on a different path.\u00a0 Tibbets, shepherding his students, was doing no more than paying his debt to Mather.<\/p>\n

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Clipping saved by Tibbets during his final illness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Indeed, wrote Morse, Tibbets\u2019 was \u201ca name to conjure with.\u00a0 In a company of Williston [alumni], no other name could so instantaneously wake the mirth and enthusiasm of the crowd as that of Professor Tibbets \u2013 a man who has left the impress of his character upon thousands of boys \u2013 a teacher whose far reaching influence can never be measured.\u201d\u00a0 And Robert Wood recalled that while a student at Williams College, he was told by the head of the mathematics department that he could always spot a Tibbets prot\u00e9g\u00e9 in his classes by his \u201cfundamental conception of the meaning of accuracy and meticulous care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tibbets would have liked that.\u00a0 Frequently recruited by college faculties that could offer better pay and prestige, he was adamant.\u00a0 \u201cMy mission in life is to teach the younger boys.\u201d\u00a0 (Wood)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In April of 1926 Tibbets suddenly retired, effective at the close of the school year.\u00a0 He told the Holyoke Transcript<\/em> that he was \u201ctired of teaching.\u201d There was a suggestion that a faction on the Board had engineered his departure.\u00a0 Neither was remotely true.\u00a0 The reality was that he\u2019d been in failing health for several years \u2013 possibly heart trouble.\u00a0 Typically, wishing neither sympathy nor intrusive attention, he hadn\u2019t told anyone. A bout with influenza had weakened him.\u00a0 To give the impression that he was returning, he left his possessions in his Easthampton apartment and gave Headmaster Archibald Galbraith an envelope containing his financial records, will, and instructions for paying the bills.\u00a0 He entered a sanitarium in Lynn, Mass., and died on June 20, aged 62.<\/p>\n

Who among your teachers was especially memorable?<\/span>\u00a0 Please click to take our survey!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Another extract from Tibbets’ College Requirements in Algebra, 1892. The volume presented actual college entrance exams, including those from women’s colleges as well as Harvard and MIT.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Your comments and questions are welcome! Please use the form below.<\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a time, only a generation or two back, when private schools were expected to have a few Great Eccentrics on their faculties.\u00a0 In an era when people much more frequently kept the same job for a lifetime, and when residential faculty were discouraged from marrying, schools became, in a sense, havens for a … Continue reading The Impossible Mr. Tibbets<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[164,25],"tags":[175,168,172,166,170,173,174,169,167,171],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty","category-williston-seminary","tag-archibald-victor-galbraith","tag-charles-a-buffum","tag-eccentrics","tag-george-parsons-tibbets","tag-mathematics","tag-misanthropy","tag-richard-henry-mather","tag-robert-f-wood","tag-sidney-nelson-morse","tag-teaching"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2643,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions\/2643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}