Barnas Sears papers (MS.1C.5)

Biographical note

Barnas Sear, the fifth president of Brown University, was born in Sandisfield in the Berkshires, Massachusetts, on November 19, 1802. From the age of fifteen, determined to work his way through college, he worked in the summer and taught school in the winter. He began to prepare for college and the ministry under Parson Cooley in East Granville, Massachusetts, and later entered the University Grammar School in Providence.

He entered Brown in 1822 and graduated in 1825, supporting himself by teaching school in the winter vacation and building stone walls in the summer. He borrowed his textbooks from the Philendean Society, which provided books for poor students, and once walked to Boston and back to borrow money. At Commencement in 1825 he delivered an oration on "The Influence of Association Upon the Intellectual Character."

After graduation he studied at the Newton Theological Institution. In 1827 he was named pastor of the First Baptist Church in Hartford. He resigned in 1829 because of his health, and became professor of ancient languages at Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution. He was appointed professor of biblical theology, for which he prepared himself by study in Germany from 1833 to 1835. He returned to teach for about a year at Hamilton before becoming professor of Christian theology at Newton Theological Institution in 1836. He taught at Newton until 1848, and was also president from 1839. In 1848 he succeeded Horace Mann (Brown class of 1819) as secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. In September 1855 he replaced Francis Wayland as president of Brown University. He left Brown and Providence on September 19, 1867. He died on July 9, 1880 in Saratoga Springs, New York.