Bio of NORTHROP, Cyrus (b.1834), Hennepin Co., MN
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EXTRACTED FROM: History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest; 
Chicago-Minneapolis, The S J Clarke Publishing Co, 1923; Edited by: Rev. 
Marion Daniel Shutter, D.D., LL.D.; Volume I - Shutter (Historical); 
volume II - Biographical; volume III - Biographical
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Vol III, pg 441-446
Vol I, pg 415 - Photo
CYRUS NORTHROP
There is perhaps no division of labor in which man has so potent an influence
over the lives of his fellows as in the profession of teaching and that
influence, exerted wisely and well through the twenty-seven years of his
presidency in the University of Minnesota, made Cyrus Northrop one of the
outstanding figures in the history of this state. So strong and virile was his
intellect, so broad his vision, so keen his sympathy and so great his love for
mankind that there was perhaps not a single student in the university, who did
not acknowledge his indebtedness to the head of the institution, not only for
inspirational teaching but also for those inspirational personal qualities which
stimulate to the development of character and the adoption of high ideals.
Cyrus Northrop was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut, September 30, 1834, his
parents being Cyrus and Polly (Fancher) Northrop, in whose family of three sons
and three daughters he was the youngest child. His father died at the age of
ninety-four, his mother when eighty-six years of age, and that he came of
ancestry noted for longevity is further indicated in the fact that his
grandmother in the maternal line lived to the advanced age of one hundred and
one. His youthful experiences were those of the home farm and when but four and
a half years of age he began attending the district school of the neighborhood,
carrying his dinner in a little tin pail and learning his lessons out of such
textbooks as were then in vogue. When he was ten years of age he became a pupil
in a boarding school situated a quarter of a mile from the village of
Ridgefield. While attending there he became a student of Latin and Greek. When a
lad of but fifteen years he was elected teacher of the central district school
in Ridgefield and he always remem­bered this and other early experiences in his
native village with pleasure, including his membership in a debating society and
the instruction which he received in the Congregational church of which his
family were regular attendants. In the autumn of 1851 he was sent to college,
entering Williston Seminary at Easthampton, Mas­sachusetts. Having completed his
preparatory work, he entered Yale in September, 1852, where he was a classmate
of many young men who later won distinction. Mr. Northrop continued as a student
at Yale for two terms and then suffered a severe illness but in the spring of
1854 returned to college as a member of the class of 1857, in which he was
graduated three years later.
The next step in his business career was to accept the position of classical
teacher in the boarding school of Hon. A. N. Skinner of New Haven. His duties
occupied but half a day and the remainder of the time was given to the study of
law at Yale, in which he continued until he had completed the course. He entered
upon law practice and became active in politics almost simultaneously, being
admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1860, while in the same year he made many
political addresses under the direction of the Republican Club of Brooklyn, New
York. In the spring of 1861 he was elected assistant clerk of the Connecticut
house of representatives, was chosen clerk the following year and in the
succeeding year was elected clerk of the senate. In the meantime he opened a law
office in Norwalk, Connecticut, but later removed to South Norwalk. With his
retirement from the position of legislative clerk he accepted the proffered
editorship of the New Haven Palladium and while thus engaged he one day met
Professor Noah Porter, after­ward president of Yale, who informed Mr. Northrop
that Yale College had chosen him for the position of professor of rhetoric. Thus
he entered upon what really became his life work. He remained professor of
rhetoric and English literature at Yale from 1863 until 1884. It was during this
period, when Yale salaries were not of princely proportions, that he also
accepted a position as collector of customs for the New Haven district, serving
during the administrations of Presidents Grant and Hayes.
His active connection with his alma mater was concluded in 1884, when he
accepted the presidency of the University of Minnesota as successor of William
Watts Folwell. He was married in 1862 to Miss Anna Warren of Stamford and with
his removal to Minnesota the family home was established in Minneapolis, where
Dr. Northrop continued to reside throughout his remaining days. The State
University as it is today is largely the outcome of the labors of him who
remained as presi­dent for twenty-seven years. In this connection it has been
said: "When Dr. Northrop came to Minnesota, he found an actual registration of
less than one hundred, although the records had totaled an enrollment of two
hundred and eighty-eight; a faculty of thirty; two buildings on the main campus,
the old main and the so-called Agricultural building. He found that the student
fee receipts amounted to something between one and two thousand dollars yearly;
that the permanent endowment of the University was seven hundred and sixteen
thousand dollars; that up to 1884 the state had contributed three hundred and
thirteen thousand dollars toward the general support of the University. When
President Northrop retired in 1910 the enrollment totaled six thousand
thirty-eight; the faculty had been increased to four hundred and forty-two;
their salaries had been increased from forty-one thousand two hundred and fifty
dollars to six hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars; the buildings numbered
more than fifty; fee receipts, during 1909, amounted to one hundred and
seventy-five thousand dollars; the permanent endowment fund at the close of the
same year had grown to one million four hundred and fourteen thousand dollars;
the state had contributed, between 1884 and 1909, nine million dollars for the
support of the University. What is more important, the institution had found its
place as one of the great centers of learning in America. Dr. Northrop never
believed in an education that shielded the student too securely from temptations
and mistakes. He recognized the incalculable difference between knowing things
and understanding them, and it was his faith that even hardships and
disadvantages during student days might easily be blessings in disguise. Much of
his 'reign' was spent amidst a rugged campus atmosphere: students were older,
poorer financially, less sophisticated as freshmen and less susceptible to
metropolitan distractions afterwards; but withal healthier-certainly more
fractious-animals than the students of today. It will be long before the last
appreciative story has been told of how he managed to keep up discipline simply
through the genial, straightforward friendliness of his own relationship. Many
an alumnus looks back to Dr. Northrop as a four-year foster father, yet
paternalism in its every sense he hated. Fraternalism he felt to be a real
ideal; but paternalism was a case of too much work for any human
constitution-and work to no good end. He was even known to oppose the building
of dormitories on the ground that the policy might lead to over-systematic
regulation of a student's private life. A very penetrating observation,
certainly-and hinting at a danger about which our dormitory builders of tomorrow
will do well to speculate. It would be untrue, though, to leave the impression
that his last opinions were the hardened prejudices of an earlier day. Less than
three months ago he held enthusiastic discourse with the writer of these words
about the remarkable new group of student dwellings which his own alma mater is
bringing to completion, and remarked that changing times bring with them
everywhere their train of strange and different necessities. Nor did he
personally lack appreciation. Called on for speeches from every portion of the
country, it was he who founded Minnesota's oratorical tradition. Four times the
honorary Doctor of Laws was granted him: by the University of Wisconsin in 1904,
Illinois College in 1904, South Carolina College in 1905, and Carleton College
in 1917. This gives but the merest skeleton of achievement, the barest branches
of the tree that Dr. Northrop nourished to such comparatively luxuriant
fruition."
Dr. Northrop retired from the presidency of the University in 1912 but not to a
life of idleness. He was constantly before the public as a speaker, a
benefactor, a philosopher, and his life continued to have the same inspirational
value to those with whom he came into contact as it had in former years. One who
knew him long and well wrote of him: "His wisdom was consummate. He had no airy
romantic schemes of education; but taking people-and especially young people-as
he saw them with his unclouded vision, he strove to make the most of existing
facilities as approved by experience. Taking regents and faculties as he found
them, he planned no revolution, but with unerring sagacity secured the best of
in­dividual effort and general cooperation. He appreciated science, he
appreciated literature and art, but what he most desired was to have the
University remain a
place of training for character, noble aspiration, and devotion to service. What
he thus inspired by precept he taught by example. It is not easy to single out
for mention particular traits in so rounded a personality as that of President
Northrop. The one which has ever most impressed the writer was his magnanimity,
his great-mindedness. He took no narrow technical views of men and things, but
ever the large, the generous, the tolerant view. Guided by settled principles,
he did not need to invent a new policy for every emergency. His colleagues and
his students always knew where he stood; this made it easy and comfortable to
work with him and under him. If there was, however, a phase of his life of
supreme importance it was his absolute devotedness to the gospel and person of
Jesus Christ, who was to him literally the guide of his life. From that source
came his philosophy of life, his rules of conduct, and his principles of
action."
One of the strongest characteristics of Dr. Northrop was manifest in his
personal interest in his students and his effective effort to assist them in
every possible way. One of the alumni of the school, speaking of this, said: "He
was not only a most efficient president of the University, but a kind father to
all his students. His interest in them never faltered. All who attended the
University at the time President Northrop was in the chair consider it an
inestimable privilege and a great good fortune to have been under his guidance.
A man of great learning, unblemished character, kindly spirit, and simple
tastes, forbearing, patient, industrious, persevering, easily approachable, and
besides a fluent and witty speaker, who always said something that was worth
remembering. He was revered by all, and his work with the University of
Minnesota has left its influence on all graduates here and throughout the United
States. His loss is personal to a multitude of friends, and in their
consciousness his place can never be filled. He was truly a great man."
When Dr. Northrop passed on, the board of regents of the University penned the
following: "Be it resolved that we, the Board of Regents of the University of
Minnesota, which Cyrus Northrop builded in troubled years and imbued with his
spirit of love and service, acknowledge our gratitude to Almighty God for the
gift of his life. His labors enshrined him and the University in the affections
of the student body and the state. The memory of President Northrop abides in
all his works and in the lives he lifted to higher planes and nobler purposes.
The clasp of his hand, the sound of his voice, the kindly smile, his word of
commendation have changed the course of countless human lives and directed them
to better things. His work as president of the University of Minnesota is
written in the history of its advance between 1884 and 1911 from a small college
to a great and complex institution ministering to the varied educational needs
of an imperial state. Wise in counsel, kindly in administration, high minded in
the conception of aims, he unified all the agencies of the University into the
creation of the greatest asset of a commonwealth, men and women of intelligence
and character. We are grateful for his closing years when he dwelt among us,
cheery and unbroken in spirit. He is gone in body, but his spirit and memory
rest upon us like a benediction. They bid us, whether regent, citizen, or
student, to go forward in the labors he loved against the day when our wealth
shall be counted not in the riches of factory and mine or the cattle on a
thousand hills but in the eternities of an untroubled con­science, an unbroken
spirit, and an unspotted character."
A member of the faculty of the State University characterized Dr. Northrop in
the following words: "A lover of truth for the truth's sake, a man whose rugged
honesty compelled all men to take him at the full measure of his honest worth,
whose keen sense of justice was mated with the quality of mercy, of that rare
com­pany of the pure in heart who do not wait their entry to another world to
see God, -who stand in the conscious daily presence of the Divine; a spirit of
so great loveliness that it seemed to command love, his high soul so strongly
self-possessing that his good report of all men was a matter of course, these
are the things we think on in thinking of him. He was a great scholar born of a
sturdy strain of intelligence and bred in a great school; a boon companion of
scholars, catholic at every point of contact with his fellows; a great teacher
alike of literature and of righteousness; a preacher, not by ordination, but by
spiritual power. He led men to the waters of healing and now and then he took
them up with him to the Mount of the Great Transfiguration. He was an orator,
not by grace alone of his keen humor, his ready wit, his fervent speech: by
grace rather of that great voice of humanity speaking through him that fell upon
the waiting ears of every multitude he met. The wireless waves of his human
sympathy carried straight to the heart of his great public. Like the Man of
Galilee the people heard him gladly. He be­came the first citizen of his adopted
state, the Grand Old Man of Minnesota. They hailed him so, because they
recognized the simple greatness of Cyrus Northrop's soul; because, meeting him,
they felt not only the clasp of a brother's hand, but the mystic grip of the
great Brotherhood of Men. He was a lover of men, whom men loved. Perhaps his
greatest forte lay in his personal human contacts. Students, faculty, citizens
came to him to find a counsellor, an arbiter, a leader, an Inspirer, and finding
all they sought for, they found a friend. The twin keys to the secret of his
personal influence were his tact and his tenderness. They were the grand-master
keys that would unlock all the doors behind which hid the human nature of his
interviewer. Unlocked, he laid his hand upon the strength and the weaknesses
they revealed. His fine humor analyzed human motive. He did not hesitate to
rebuke evil. His modest righteousness put meanness to shame. He consented to no
conscious wrong to any man. He spared nothing of the full measure of his
forgiveness. He healed the hurts of social intolerance. He restored in others
the sense of right proportion. In his walk and in his word he taught the meaning
of that large charity which bears the name and wears the likeness of Love. He
left upon his desk when he died the notes of an address he was soon to make upon
the campus and the theme of it is 'Love.' Love was the Alpha and Omega of his
personal creed. Perhaps he could not have so lived and so exemplified Love,
perhaps he could not have so touched men with his warm hand of tenderness, had
he not greatly suffered. For to few men is it given to know so well the mys­tery
and the ministry of suffering. And pain and sorrow served only to mellow the
sweetness of him. No 'melancholy ever marked him for her own.' Perhaps his
nature was fathomed only in the deeps of his great tenderness. That tenderness
was profoundly personal. In the family room of his home there stands a
diminutive rocking chair beneath the portrait of his first-born little girl whom
he lost well-nigh fifty years ago. She used to sit in that little chair and he
has cherished it tenderly ever since. She did not return to him, but he held
firm the faith that he would go to her and he left behind him that little chair
to tell the way that he has gone. His love extended to all humankind. With a
profound contempt for pacifism he was, nevertheless, a devout follower of the
Prince of Peace! Doubtless, he found his human Gethsemane in the World war. He
passed along in agony of soul as those 'great, gray years' went by. With the
tenacity of love he lived in the hope that history would prove it to be the
final Armageddon of the race, the last fierce fire of purification for the world
of men he loved. Through the all of life, he learned the great secret, not of
happiness, but of that something greater than happiness that is human
blessedness. And there are thousands of his Boys and Girls, his men and women,
of Minnesota, who will rise up before his memory in all their coming years and
call him Blessed. There is nothing the biographer may add that will change their
already rendered judgment of the man. The tale of his life has, indeed, been
told in his own words. The spirit of it has been known and read of all men."
There is nothing that indicates more clearly how close was the relation of Dr.
Northrop to his pupils than the fact he was always called "Prexy"-a term that
came to mean respect, honor, affection and love. It is only those who come close
to our lives, who find a place in our hearts, to whom we thus apply a nickname;
and Dr. Northrop became "Prexy" to all his pupils. His influence through his
Christian faith is shown in a little anonymous poem written by a member of the
class of 1901 under title "When Prexy Prays" as follows:
"When Prexy Prays
Our heads all bow, A sense of Peace
Smooths every brow, Our hearts deep stirred
No whispers raise, At chapel time
When Prexy Prays.
When Prexy Prays
All hearts unite, And closer draws
The Infinite;
No thoughtless wit
Himself displays, At chapel time
When Prexy Prays.
When Prexy Prays,
Our better self Is raised above
All thoughts of pelf; To nobler lives
Incline our ways, At chapel time,
When Prexy Prays."
Another beautiful tribute was penned by one of his students under the caption
"Prexy's Face."
"Ideals of youth, once cherished and forgot,
Or rudely crushed and trampled in life's race,
Come back to me unbidden, when I look
In Prexy's face.
In Prexy's face
Are many stories-some of them are glad,
Told in a smile for youthful joy and mirth;
And some of them are tender, having birth
In tears of sympathy when hearts are sad.
Power and strength and comfort, all are there,
And even a dim, soft shadow, sorrow's trace.
With these the hand of time has set love's seal
In Prexy's face."
At the funeral service of Dr. Northrop, the Rev. Russell H. Stafford said: "I am
not competent or disposed to attempt at this time an appraisal of the public
career of him in whose honor we are gathered. There is none here but knows as
well as I the salient elements of that career, in its two main phases, at Yale
and at Minnesota. It is significant of more than achievement, however, that at
New Haven, and wherever else the traditions of that noble Mother of Learning are
kept warm in the hearts of the sons of Eli, he is still and will always be
Northrop of Yale; while to thousands of the loyal sons of Minnesota, at home and
under all the alien skies, he is distinctively, and with peculiarly affectionate
connotation, 'Prexie.' It is as a spokesman of this personal attachment which
Cyrus Northrop knew how to inspire that I would speak now of him. Yet perhaps
all that I would say of him is summed up in one word: he was a man. Great was
the strength of his manhood. He had power over himself: the passionate energy of
his splendid virility was checked and harnessed by a will uncompromising in its
devotion to righteousness. Will and energy combined to make him a creative
force, not only at the University with which most of us associate his name, but
also throughout the state, and in relation to most of its groups and problems. A
hundred years hence, Minnesota will still owe much of what she has become, in so
far as it is good, to the strong mind and working of Cyrus Northrop. And in
these latter years, since he has been laid by from most of the active duties of
life, while trials and sorrows have come upon him in distressing measure, we
have had the opportunity to observe his strength in the form of fortitude,
heroic resistance, not only to the blows of ill fortune, but to the moods of
depression as well, which are wont to follow them, so that on the darkest days
he still remembered how to smile. This fortitude was that intermediate aspect of
his strength which blended it with the gentleness which was its counterpoise. It
was for his gentleness, perhaps, that we loved him most. Never was a man more
friendly or more truly modest. He had, indeed, an appropriate sense of his
position and accomplishments as a public servant; but he would have been the
last to attribute these to any personal qualities, the first to deprecate them
as due more to circumstances than to himself. He was righteous, but not
self-righteous; so he knew how to be a friend. He liked people. There was no
taint of any sort of snobbery in him;. anyone with a reason­able degree of
courtesy and good sense might approach him with assurance of cor­diality on his
part. He especially liked young people; and this trait, indispensable in an
educator, persisted so long as he lived. Sometimes undergraduates with favors to
ask of 'Prexie' have come to me for intercession with him; I have always sent
them to him direct, because I knew that his gentleness was an advance guarantee
of a gracious reception, and that he would like to meet them and to talk with
them just because he loved and understood youth. As gentleness balanced
strength, so simplicity balanced depth in this good man. There was none who ever
knew the full measure of his mind, or plumbed the profundities of his thought,
always searching for new truth and contemplating life under aspects freshly
dis­covered. Yet it was characteristic of the man that he used short and easy
words; his diction in speech and print manifested mastery of the monosyllable.
His man­ner was as simple as his utterance, straightforward, verging indeed
sometimes on the abrupt, but markedly sincere, and with a transparent purpose of
kindness. President Northrop was a pious man. It is too bad that that fine old
word has fallen into contempt through misuse. He was not sanctimonious; indeed,
I think I never knew a man with a more wholesome contempt for mere religiosity
than he had. But he possessed and was possessed by a sturdy faith in God and
immortality; and Christ was real to him-a living Master whom he loyally served.
That he was a familiar of the spiritual word, none of us need to be told who
knew him in college days and remember when 'Prexie' prayed. Heaven came near to
us then, because even then he was near heaven, though not so near as he is,
thank God, today. He has long been an influential dignitary among the churches
of the Pilgrim faith and order; as long ago as 1889 he received the highest
honor in the gift of the Congregational church, the office of moderator of the
National council. At the time of his death, he was still the first vice
president of the American Bible Society, and also the honorary vice president,
after having served effectively as president of that eminently religious
institution, the Children's Home; and, for something more than a year past, he
has been one of the deacons of this church, an office which he was with
difficulty persuaded to accept because, said he, he was not good enough to be a
deacon. I surmise, however, and certainly I hope that in this statement he was
conscious of a sparkle of that wit which in his mental constitution kept piety
from undue excess. One of the happiest memories he has left is his keen
appreciation of a good story and his gift for the clever unexpected word at just
the right point. If he had not been a more than conventionally religious man,
this wit of his might easily have been mordant; but its keen flash was ever
without the edge of malice, because he liked people more than he liked fun, and
never made fun of people unkindly. It is strange to remember how varied have
been the moods of the many visits I have had with him in recent years. Some of
them have been hours of heavenly enlightenment; some have been pervaded with his
subtle and infectious humor, and saturated in laughter. All have been times of
refreshment and inspiration."