1835.19

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An "Out-door Professor" is Appreciated by Former Student Ballplayers of Base, Cricket

Salience Noteworthy
City/State/Country: NY, United States
Game Cricket, Base
Immediacy of Report Retrospective
Age of Players Youth
Text

["A  classics instructor and "great friend of school boys, he] "was a species of out-door Professor of Languages at the Academy; under him we were all Philosophers of the Peripatetic sect, walking constantly about the play grounds, and bestowing on Fives, Base, Cricket and Foot Ball the 'irreperabile tempus' due to the wise men of Greece.  -- Hence he was quite a troublous fellow to the in-door Professors.  They found nothing classical in his 'bacchant ar.'  They loved him not, and wished him far away."

Sources

[A] Long Island Farmer, and Queens County Advertiser [Jamaica, NY] , December 16, 1835, page 2, column 2.  [B] Also found by David Block in Long Island Star, December 31, 1835.

Warning

This reference can be taken as an indication that "base" was played years before 1835, possibly in the New York area, but the date it was played, and the location of play, is impossible to discern from this account.

Comment

NoteIn the following paragraph, the man is called "Joseph Haywood". This is a reminisce of a fellow student in boyhood, Jos. Haywood, at a school where one Ephraim Johnson was the teacher. It is probably fictional. Haywood loved to spout Greek and Latin and inspired his fellow students to apply Greek and Latin phrases to their schoolboy games. I've searched both names and can't find anything suitable in NY.

David Block, 6/1/2021: An "article extolling fellow student at an unnamed school."

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Query

 

Is there any way we can zero in on the date and location of this pastime?

Do we know what was meant by "Foot Ball" in the early 19th Century?

Can we determine what "the Academy" was, and the ages of its students?

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Submitted by [A] Tom Shieber, 4/24/2015; [B] David Block, 6/1/2021
Submission Note E-Mails with selected text.



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