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| A depiction of Heidelberg in the 19th century From A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain |
Heidelberg, which was to be the home of T. E. Hart for the next five years, was a college town nestled in a river valley in the Odenwald mountains. While the city was German, Germany, at the time, was a patchwork of small predominately German-speaking states. Heidelberg was part of the Grand Duchy of Baden which was approximately the location of the modern federal state of Baden.
Beyond a name, Heidelberg University had little in common with American universities. While American universities largely focused on imparting to young men a basic knowledge of academic subjects, Heidelberg, like most German universities, was place where people not only disseminated but also created knowledge. Heidelberg University was one of the oldest in Germany, and it had long been a major center for for scholarship in subjects like political science, law, and German studies. The 1850s saw major growth in math and scientific. The chemist Robert Bunsen (the man the Bunsen burner is named after) was employed in 1852, and his colleague, the physicist Gustav Kirchhoff, was brought in two years later. In 1856, they were joined by Kirchoff's former supervisor, the mathematician Otto Hesse.
The university was a much more ambitious institution than the universities T. E. was familiar with. Like American schools such as Furman, the university was run by its faculty, but the Heidelberg faculty were much more accomplished. The typical professor had been elected to his chair after completing a dissertation and spending years, if not decades, holding in low-level educational and research positions. Except for the title, American professors had little in common with their German counterparts.
Student life was also quite different in Germany. While American college students typically lived on campus under close supervision by the faculty and studied a narrow, manditory curriculum, German students enjoyed a great degree of freedom. At Heidelberg, students had to pay a small fee to enroll and were then allowed to attend whatever lectures they found interesting. Most students had completed the German gymnasium, so they arrived at the university with a strong educational background that had prepared them to attend advanced lectures on topics of personal interest. Students lived off-campus in private dwellings and were free to enjoy a boat ride down the Neckar river or to coffee and beer in the gardens of the Heidelberg Palace. In contrast, simply visiting a bar-room or other place where "spirituous or intoxicating liquor"was sold was grounds for suspension at Furman University.
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| A German professor socializing with his students From A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain |
At Heidelberg, Hart's studies focused on the mathematics and the natural science. Heidelberg students did not receive grades for coursework completed. Instead, they received by passing comprehensive exams, and Hart passed exams in mathematics, chemistry, and physics.
The late 1860s were an exciting time to study mathematics at Heidelberg. Hart's classmates included a number of accomplished mathematicians. Paul De Bois-Reymond, Heinrich Weber, and Jakob Lüroth all completed dissertations under Hesse's supervision during this time. Weber later recalled what it was like attending Hesse's lectures:
Hesse lectured freely and without written notes, but he was exceptionally clear and easy to understand. He taught two semesters of differential calculus and integral calculus during which he also covered the foundations of the theory of differential equations and the analytic geometry of the plane and space. He conveyed to everyone the spirit of symmetry and elegance which he so loved. He also taught Mechanics, Calculus of Variations, and a course titled "Encyclopedia of Mathematics" in which we learned the foundations of the so-called "algebraic analysis," combinatorics, series, higher equations. Of particular interest were the weekly exercise sections where Hesse primarily dealt with geometric questions.
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| A depiction of a classroom in Heidelberg From A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain |
Only a few months after Hart arrived at Heidelberg, his world was turned upside-down by events in America. In October 1860, Abraham Lincoln was declared president, and the state of South Carolina responded by declaring that it was leaving the Union. On January 9, 1861, political leaders in South Carolina demonstrated that they were willing to support their decision by military force if necessary. An unarmed civilian merchant ship, the Star of the West, was sent to Charleston Harbor to resupply a federal army base. This was seen as challenge to secession, and cadets from the Citadel Academy responded by opening fire on the ship. The ship was struck several times, and although the damage was not serious, the captain abandoned his plans to resupply the army base and departed.
The shots fired on the Star of the West were the first shots of the Civil War. The moment that cadets had been trained for was upon them. Academy graduates turned out in large numbers for Confederate military service. Of the twelve students T. E. Hart graduated with, only one did not serve in the army: a student (J. J. Jenkins) who had died seven years earlier. Some southerners in Germany even returned home to serve in the army. John Julius Pringle, a Heidelberg law student from a Georgetown county rice planation, ran a blockade in order to return to South Carolina and help defend the state.
Hart remained in Germany for the duration of the war. This was no small matter. The Hart family had everything to lose. A Union victory meant the loss of the workforce they enslaved and, with it, the fortunes they had accumulated. Hart's brothers, John Lide and Jesse Hartwell, served as officers in the Confederate army. Both paid dearly for their support of the Confederacy. Both died in 1864 of wounds sustained in battle.
I haven't been able to any information about T. E. Hart's decision to remain in Germany. It may be that there is not much there. Traveling from Germany to South Carolina during a civil war war no small matter, and Hart was already quite busy. His wife gave birth to his first child, Sophie L, during the second year of the war. A second child, Louise S., was born in 1865.
Whatever his reasons, Hart flourished as a student. In March 1866, after passing oral examinations and submitted his dissertation Elemente Der Geometry und der Gerade Linie, he was awarded the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy. This was a high honor. His dissertation compared favorable with the best mathematical research being done in America.
Any enjoyment Hart took over his academic achievements was tempered. When he returned to the United State in 1866, he found his world turned upside down. The state of South Carolina was in ruins, two of his brothers and many of his former classmates had been killed, and his family's financial were ruined. To add to this, his wife died on August 1.
Hart did his best carry on despite these catastrophic events. Furman University has closed during the Civil War, and when it reopened in 1866, Hart was hired as the professor of chemistry and natural philosophy. He was reunited with his former classmate and brother-in-law J. F. Lanneau, who was now professor of mathematics and astronomy. Hart began his position at a difficult time. Not only had Furman's finances been devastated by the war, but the state government was undergoing earthshaking changes. In 1868, the state was required to ratify a new constitution which enfranchise Black men. The first election held under that constitution resulting in a legislature that included substantial numbers of former slaves and largely excluded the planters who had dominated politics in the antebellum. Perhaps in an effort to escape the resulting turmoil, Hart spent the 1867-68 academic year teaching at college in Kentucky. (The name of the college has gone unrecorded.)
Hart returned to South Carolina in 1869 to serve as a professor at South Carolina College, or rather the University of South Carolina as it had been renamed. Hart must have had mixed feelings about his new position. A professorship at the university had long been the pinnacle of academic success for South Carolinians. This was still the case, but the university had been greatly diminished by the war. The student body was largely former Confederate soldiers. Their studies had been completely disrupted by the war, and many bore physical and mental scars from their military service. Hart and the students were surrounded by reminders that they were living in a state that had been defeated in war. A garrison of Union soldiers was stationed next door to campus, and only a short walk the university was the statehouse where former slaves and ex-Union soldiers served as legislators.
In many ways, Hart embodied the pinnacle of antebellum South Carolina. A planter's son and the product of the Citadel Academy, he had gone on to complete advanced studies at a center for scientific research and shown that he could hold his own among men who had been educated in Germany's excellent gymnasium system. None of these appears to matter to the public in Reconstruction-era South Carolina.
Although the press closely followed developments at the university, it paid little attention to Hart. Shortly after he was hired, The Charleston daily news published an article on developments at the university. The bulk of the article was spent deploring how political developments were dragging down what had been an institution with "an enviable reputation for its high standard of character and scholarship." While Hart's election was mentioned, nothing was said of his qualifications except that "we hope to say more anon." In constant, four full paragraphs were developed to Hart's predecessor.
The university was allowed carry on with little political interference for a few years. However, in 1872, state politicians began efforts to reorganize the university and put in alignment with their broader political goals. These included curbing the power of ex-planters and former Confederate and empowering freedmen. Most controversially, they began planning the racial integration of the university.
The board of trustees, dominated by politicians hostile to former Confederates, began hiring professors who were more politically reliable. Professors like Hart who had been supportive of the Confederacy became worried about their professorship, and many feared that it was only a matter of time before there was a wholesale replacement of the faculty.
Once again, personal tragedy struck Hart while he was struggling with heavy professional and political challenges. He began experiencing mobility issues. Around the time he returned from Europe, he began walking with a slight limp. The limp worsened, and he began experiencing serious health problems and was often bedridden. His health was so bad that often had to hold his class at his home.
In June 1872, Hart left the university. Some histories of the university state that he was removed by the trustees for political reasons, but contemporaneous records do not show any political concerns surrounding his departure, and certainly, Hart's health problems were rendering him unable to teach. Regardless of why he left, the circumstances surrounding it were ignominious. Hart was one of the best educated men in the state, and one of the few who had made an original research contribution, yet when it announced the hiring of Hart's replacement, the Anderson intelligencer erroneously called him "John Heart" and simply reported that he had left.
Hart's departure was the end of academic career. His health problems worsened and became partially paralyzed. He spent the remained of his life a bedridden invalid. He and his two daughters moved to Hartsville to live with his sister, Mary, and her husband, Thomas C. Law. On December 3, 1891, while living in Charleston with one of his wife's relatives (Charles B. Lanneau), Hart died of a heart attack. He is buried in First Baptist Churchyard in the town of Darlington.
Sources
1. "Hotel Arrivals." The daily phoenix. [volume], August 11, 1869, Image 2
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