Henry Philip Tappan
Henry Philip Tappan [1]
a distinguished educator, was born at Rhinebeck on the Hudson, April 23, 1805. He graduated from Union College in 1825, and from Auburn Theological Seminary in 1827; became assistant to the Reverend Dr. Van Vechten, in the Reformed Dutch Church at Schenectady; the next year was settled as pastor of the Congregational Church at Pittsfield, Massachusetts; and in 1831 was compelled by ill-health to resign. In 1832 he was appointed professor of moral and intellectual philosophy in the University of the City of New York, and resigned in 1838. During the next few years he spent most of his time in writing books and conducting a private seminary in New York city. He published, A Review of Edward's Inquiry into. the Freedom of the Will (1839): — The Doctrine of the Freedom of the Will Determined by an Appeal to Consciousness (1840): — The Doctrine of the Freedom of the Will applied to Moral Agency and Responsibility (1841): — Elements of Logic, with an Introductory View of Philosophy in General, and a Preliminary View of the Reason (1844): — a treatise on University Education (1851). In the latter year he went to Europe, and on his return in 1852 published A Step from the New World to the Old. He was president of the University of Michigan from 1852 to 1863, and gave it a new life by his administration. After his retirement from this school he lived almost entirely abroad, and died November 15, 1881, at Vevay, Switzerland.
