Radio Script #347
Little Talks On Common Things
September 22, 1957
Last week I referred to the rise from small beginnings of an American pubIi sh i ng fi rm, Rand & McNa Ily. Toni ght I want to te II you about another company, Dun and Bradstreet.
When the UniTed States first won its independence, the chief souroe of credit for business men in the new nation were British merchants and bankers, who were able to charge high interest rates and demand unusual security. Within the United States, as population expanded, it became increasingly difficult to do business safely with strangers. There was badly needed an impartial source of i nformati on about prospecti ve credi t customers.
In 1841 a man named Lewis Tappan, a New York si Ik merchant, set up a company for the express purpose of making independenT and impartial credit investigati ons so that busi ness men wou I d not have to re Iv upon letters of reference and recommendation, which were too easi Iy faked.
Tappan set up a kind of centralized store of trading experience accessible to business men who pooled their information. He added the local opinions and data of confidential agents. He enlisted large numbers of attorneys in different cities to become his correspondents. In an amazingly short time less than two years — Tappan had sufficient data regarding the standing of businesses in other ciTies, towns and hamlets to enable New York wholesalers to determine the amount of credit that could be granted with a reasonable area of risk.
Eight years after Tappan’s venture, a simi far organization was started in Cincinnati by John M. Bradstreet. Later the Tappan firm became the R. G. Dun and Company. For more than 80 years the two organizations were in active competi ti on, but fi na I Iy in 1933 they were merged into Dun and Bradstreet.
Today a business in New York, San Francisco, or any American community between the two coasts, can obtain comprehensive credit information within a few hours regarding any business in the United States, and on many thousands of firms in foreign countries. Dun and Bradstreet’s traveling reporters cover every one of the 3,068 counties in the nation and all the provinces in Canada.
including the trading posts inside the Arctic Circle. The reporter interviews sma I I mi ne owners in West Vi rg in i a, market gardeners in New Jersey, f i she rmen off the Maine coast.
Among Dun and Bradstreet’s important publications is its bi-monthly Reference Book, the commercial Bible of American trade. Another is its monthly Review and Modern Industry, which circulates 125,000 copies every month.
Today modern industry is protected to a high de~ree by the organization of Dun and Bradstreet, wh i ch a I I started 116 years ago because a dea ler ins ilks in old, downtown New York got tired having himself and his fellow merchants persistently defrauded by false letters of recommendation.
There are persons sti r I I i vi ng who remember James l-bbbs Hanson, the famous head of Coburn Classical Institute for many years during the nineteenth century. want to tel I you tonight a bit about that famous Maine educator and his fami Iy.
James H. Hanson came of early colonial stock. His first American ancestor had been a relative of the wife of the Plymouth colonist, Wi Iliam Bradford, and in 1693 that man, Thomas Hanson, had taken up a grant of 100 acres at what is now Sa lmon Falls, New Hampshi reo By 1724’hl-s~-sonJ6hrF’Hanson :was. tne~-,owner of the homestead. One day in that year, whi Ie John was away from home, Indians surprised and attacked his wife and six chi Idren, ki Iling two of the latter; and burning the house. The Indians took the wife and the four remaining chi 1- dren to Canada as captives. John Hanson made two trips to Canada in attempts to ransom his fami Iy. He finally succeeded in getting back all but one daugh-ter, whom he never saw again.
About 1800 the fami Iy moved across the New Hampshi re line into the Distri ct of r·1ai ne at Berwi ck. There a’ great grandson of the John Hanson of the Indian episode, a man named James Hanson, settled as a farmer and tai lor. He served in the War of 1812 with the mi Ii tary force that went from Western Mai ne to Casti ne. In 1816 the fami I y moved from B3rW i ck to the Centra I Ma i ne regi on, into what is now the town of China. There on June 26, 1816 James I-bbbs Hanson was born.
No membe r of the Hanson fami I y had eve r shown scho I ar I yin te rests. They had all been farmers or artisans. How did it happen that James became a scholarly teacher and educational administrator? The answer lies, as it so often does 1 in the i nsp irati on spa’l’Jked by another man.
In the second class to graduate from Watervi lie College (now Colby), the Class of 1823, was Henry Paine, who had come from his Connecticut home to Watervi I Ie to study for the mi ni stry under Jeremi ah Chap I in. I nstead of entering the ministry~ he became an inspiring teacher, first at Eastport Academy, then at Windsor, Vermont, then back in Maine at Monmouth Academy, and from 1831 to 1835 principal of Watervi lie Academy, the very school over which James Hanson wou I d afterward so long presi de. Then in 1835 Pai ne left Watervi lie to become the head of Chi na Academy, where he rama ined for nine years. From 1844 to 1849 he taught at Rockland, then for seven years was principal of Thomaston Academy, whe re he was sti I I a teacher when death c I aimed him in 1868 at the age of 75.
Whi Ie Paine was conducting China Academy, he discovered a bright and responsive lad in the person of young James Hanson. Two years earlier the boy’s father had died and James had been obliged to drop out of school. Though he was now nearly 20 years old, Paine assured the youth it was not too late to comp lete hi s educati on. So it was arranged that he cou I d enter Ch ina Academy} where in three years he completed the requirements for admission into Water- vi lie Co I lege , entering the co liege ha II sin 1838 and rece i ving his degree in 1842. He was then 26 years old, but in those days many a fellow was even older when he graduated.
Paine had convinced Hanson that the lad was cut out to be a teacher. So: i mrredi ate I y after his co I lege graduat ion, Hanson taught th ree terms at Hampden Academy. I t was a di sappoi nti ng experi ence and Hanson was led to -doubt the accuracy of Paine’s diagnosis, and he returned to the home farm in China, half convinced That the teacher’s life was not for him. But in the autumn came temptation he could not resist. To the China farm went Samuel Plaisted, whom Henry Paine had Told that James Hanson was the man Plaisted and his fellow trustees shou I d secure to revi ve the near Iy defunct Watervi lie Academy.
That schoo I had been founded in 1829, and its first pri nci pa I had been the very Henry Paine who had persuaded James Hanson to prepare for a teaching career.
In 1834 the schoo I had an enro II ment of 205 — 131 boys and 74 gi rl s. But such prosperi ty did not conti nue long, and the reason lay i n two causes: first, frequent change of principals, as many as three in one year; and second, the establi shmenT of a ri va I school.
During the first half of the nineteenth century the two leading religious denomi nati ons in Watervi lie were the Bapti sts and the Un i versa lists, two groups which in theology were far apart, the BaptisTs representing the conservative hard-shells of the day, and the Universal ists the allegedly heathen liberals.
In its foundation and support, the Watervi I Ie Academy was avowedly a Baptist schoo I. The Un i versa lists deci ded they must have a schoo I of the i r own, and in 1838 they estab I i shed the Watervi lie Li bera I I nsti tute at what is now the corner of Elm and School Streets. Under sound leadership it immediately flourished and so thorough Iy attracted pupi Is away from the older Watervi lie Academy that for two years from June 1839, to September, 1841 the latter was closed. Attempt at revi va I was made that fa II, but the schoo I was sti I I strugg ling for survi va I, with a handful of pupi Is when Samuel Plaisted visited the Hanson farm in China in 1843.
When Hanson inquired what his salary would be, Plaisted told him the trustees would follow their practice of many years. They would repair the school bui Idi ng and provi de the fue I, but Hanson must pay a II other expenses out of the receipts from tuiTion. What was left over after paying the expenses would be Hanson’s sa I ary.
Recalling the success of the school under Henry Paine, Hanson accepted the challenge. Perhaps here was the chance for him to prove that he could bui Id up a decadent schoo I. I-bw he ever persuaded hi mse I f to stay on after one year at Watervi I Ie Academy is a mystery, for he ended that year 1843-44 with no salary at a II, and actua I I Y out of pocket $40 because expenses exceeded tu i ti on receipts by that amount. But he had indeed improved The enrollment. When he took over in September there had been only five pupi Is, with nearly 200 enrolled at the rival Liberal Institute. At the end of the year in June the Academy numbers had reached 30.
When finances proved to be little better in 1844-45, Hanson decided he had had enough and was ready to take a subordinate posiTion under Henry Paine at China Academy. WiTh a little action and a lot of promises, however, the Watervi lie Trustees persuaded him to remain, and he di d so unti I 1854, gi vi ng the school a wide favorable reputation and boosting the enrollment to more than 300.
Worn out by his hard labor, Hanson left Watervi lie in 1854 to teach at Eastport, then to become principal of the Boys’ High School in Portland. Watervi I Ie Academy was not the same place without James Hanson. It proceeded steadi Iy to decl i ne. Presi dent Ctlamp lin of the college, whi ch had itse I f been gi ven a new lease on life by Gardner Colby’s splendid gift in 1864, was determined that the former chief source of students, Watervi I Ie Academy, should be thorough Iy i nvi gorated. He ins j”sted that the man to do it was J ames Hanson. Dr. Champlin was a very persuasive man, and in spite of qualms as to whether his health would stand the strain, Hanson :accepted, and in 1865 began his second stretch as principal, which continued unti I his death in 1894.
In 1883, because of generous gifts of a new bui Iding and substantial endowment from Governor Abner Coburn, ,the name of Watervi lie Academy was changed to Cob urn C I as sica I In sti tute • J ames Hanson made it the “besT ~knewn and the best attended private academy in Maine. Its principal rivals were Gorham, Hebron and Kents Hi II, but none of them at that time quite equalled in qual ity and enro 11- ment, or financial prosperity, the Coburn of Hanson’s day.
James Hanson was an untiring worker. He devoted ten hours a day to continuous ~aching. He sometimes began a class at six o’clock in the morning and often had another reci tati on we I I into the even i ng. In his first years at the Academy in the 1840′ s, he was too poor to hire assi stants on the schoo I ‘s de f icit financing; so he did everything himself. Even during the more prosperous days in the 1870’s, the annual tuition receipts seldom exceeded $3,000, and out of that Hanson had to pay his assistants.
Nelson Dingley, Maine’s distinguished Governor and Congressman, told a story illustrative of Hanson’s versati lity and eagerness to teach. Dingley said that as a boy he went to WaTervi lie to enter Hanson’s school, but by mi stake he arri ved a who Ie week before the term was schedu led to begi n. Hanson assured the youth that it made no difference, and since he was on the grounds, he might as wei I begin his studies at once; and Hanson, who was busy enough preparing for the school’s opening, heard Dingley recite every day during The interval.
Hanson was a noted classical scholar. How he ever got time to pursue such studies beyond the demands of the classroom it is diffic~lt to explain. But pursue them he did, probably with plentiful consumption of midnight oi I. He published a collection of Latin prose and another of the Latin poets, and he edited editions of Caesar, Cicero and Vi rgi I. His books were used in Arne ri can schoo I s for many years.
There is a trite out-worn saying that an institution is but the lengthened shadow of a man. Wei I, I can assure you that of one institution that is true.
Coburn Classical Institute, \A/atervi lie’s 128 year old private school.~ is the lengthened shadow of a remarkab Ie man named J aires Hobbs Hanson.
Year: 1957