Charles Louis Flint (May 8, 1824 – February 26, 1889) was a lawyer, cofounder and first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, a lecturer in cattle and dairy farming, the first secretary of the Massachusetts Agricultural College Board of Trustees (now known as the University of Massachusetts Amherst) and the college's fourth president.
Flint was born in Middleton, Massachusetts, on May 8, 1824. He graduated from Harvard University in 1849 and entered the Law School in 1850. In 1853, he became secretary of the newly formed Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, remaining in that position for 27 years. He was a member of the Boston School Committee and was involved in founding of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Flint was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, where he lectured on dairy farming for four years. He served as elected secretary of the board of trustees for 22 years. On the resignation of President Clark during a budgetary crisis in 1879, Flint was elected president and served without a salary. After reorganizing the debt-ridden college with some success, he placed his resignation in the spring of 1880, and eventually left his post as secretary of the college board in 1885. In the later years of his life, Flint worked as president of the New England Mortgage Security Company, and remained an active member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and the Boston Society of Natural History. After a period of declining health he died during a trip to the South, on February 26, 1889, at a hotel in Hillman, Georgia.
Education and early life Charles Flint, born in Middleton, Massachusetts, on May 8, 1824, was the second son of farmers Jeremiah and Mary Flint (née Howard). Thomas Flint, the first of the Flint family to come America, departed from Wales, settling on his homestead in present-day Peabody in 1640. Charles Flint and his siblings would be the seventh generation to farm on the family's heirloom estate; as a child, much of his time was divided between doing chores on the farm and attending school in the winter, both of which unquestionably influenced his careers in agriculture and education later in life. At the age of 12 everything changed when his mother died, and after the two years that followed he was sent to live with his uncle, owner a large farm in Norway, Maine There he would continue his studies in the local school, dedicating much of his remaining time to working on his uncle's farm. Flint would credit this entire turn of events as what ultimately gave him his drive as well as his ability to write concisely and fervently about agricultural, but his passion for writing had only begun to manifest itself. It was around this time that a teacher of his, having not accomplished the same, convinced him that to get liberal education in order benefit him in his future interests; ever determined to better himself, Flint left Maine at the age of 17, enrolling in the Phillips Academy of Andover, Massachusetts.Notable Alumni- 1800s , Philips Academy. Unfortunately Flint would later attribute these trying times for his poor health in later years, having to constantly support himself while gaining his education. He would graduate from Philips in 1845, entering Harvard in the fall of that same year; ever having trust in the future, Flint attended both institutions virtually unaided financially. To pay for schooling he would constantly contribute essays, stories and prose to whichever publishers would accept them. One day, while waiting in the Salem railroad depot, Flint noticed an ad for the Essex Agricultural Society offering a $20 prize for the best essay on Indian corn, after a moment's consideration, Flint decided to give it a chance. Upon returning to Cambridge he began to research the subject, becoming increasingly interested in its history until, by the time he had finished, it was a thorough history of the crop going back to its introduction as a staple to human civilization. Flint's essay would not only win the prize, but years later this paper would be responsible for his career as the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture. In addition to this Flint entered several literary contests, winning $40Approx. equivalent to $1000 in 2010 US currency. WestEgg.com Inflation Calculator for first place in Harvard's prestigious Bowdoin prize for an essay on "The Different Representations of the Character of Socrates, by Plato, Xenophon, and Socrates".Bowdoin Prize Dissertations, Catalog of the officers and students of the University at Cambridge, 1849 He would also enter twice in the college's Boylston prize, winning first place in 1848 and second place in his senior year. After four years of rigorous schooling and working to pay for this education, Flint graduated from Harvard debt-free, with honors, in the class of 1849.
Upon graduation Flint was offered a position as principal of a grammar school, and would teach there for two years.Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, Volume 24 Though brief, this fleeting experience would prompt much of his later interests in the cause of furthering higher education.Charles L. Flint , UMass Presidents Towards the end of 1850 he enrolled in the Dane Law School at Cambridge to prepare for a career in court law over the next two years. During this time he entered a Harvard post-graduate essay prize, winning $50 for the best paper discussing the "Representative System at Different Times and in Different Countries." Meanwhile, he was commended with a silver medal from the New York State Agricultural Society, whose members and chairman had found his 1846 essay on Indian corn "very successful in throwing much and additional interest" over the crop's history. For part of the time that he was attending law school, Flint worked under the supervision then-Commodore Charles Henry Davis for the American Nautical Almanac in Boston. Upon graduation in 1852, Flint was invited to practice at law firm in New York City. For the first several months he studied the New York code of law and was admitted to the New York bar in October, 1852; of which he would remain a member for much of his life.
Massachusetts Board of Agriculture The organization of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture had begun following the Governor's signing of its Act of Legislation on April 21, 1852, around the same time that Flint was finishing his studies in law. Led by the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, a merchant and advocate of agricultural education for more than a decade prior, the goal was to create a permanent government body that would accurately gather statistics on the crop returns of the county agricultural societies as well as provide a forum for the advancement of the state's agriculture. This Board was to be a representative body reporting to the state's senate and house, connected with to executive government with the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of the Commonwealth serving as members ex officiis.Within the time that Flint was involved with the Board, the State Agricultural Chemist (known for a time as the "State Inspector of Fertilizers") and President of the Massachusetts Agricultural College would be added as two more members ex officiis. See the Fourteenth and Twenty-First Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Mass. Board of Agr. The governor and this executive council would then appoint 3 members considered of scientific background, with the remaining membership being elected delegates from each county agricultural society, serving in terms of 3 years each.
The first order of business for the Board would be to find a secretary of competent administrative ability but familiar with the sciences as well; Wilder saw such a figure is as imperative for the organization's survival. Initially the members petitioned Dr. Edward Hitchcock, the president of Amherst College, to fill the position, to which he consistently declined. By this time Charles Flint had gained some distinction in the field of agricultural studies, having been a regular contributor to the Boston monthly "Journal of Agriculture", many of his articles had been reprinted in other periodicals in the United States and Europe. After reading Flint's essay on Indian corn, which had received two prizes by this time, Wilder and the other members of the Board became convinced that he was just the person they needed to fill the position. He was immediate writ a letter by a member of the Board, asking what he believed the duties of such a title would involve, to which Flint, ignorant to the fact that he was their prime candidate, responded to in great length. The Board was exceedingly impressed by this and promptly invited him to take the position, to which Flint emphatically declined. He felt that it would be a complete change from everything he had spent his life planning for, but after persistent solicitation by former Governor Everett, Wilder and others, along with the consultation of several close friends, Flint ultimately renounced his New York practice and accepted the position. Flint began his duties on February 14, 1853, spending the first several months conducting research at the Sheffield Scientific School of New Haven, Connecticut. He would hold this position for 27 years.Flint Laboratory , Memorial Buildings, UMass Amherst
Up until the time of the Board's founding (and those in other states) agricultural science had been in a state of relative neglect in this country, with the small amount of literature printed mainly being reprints from European journals, and the journals of other sciences, industry and the arts dwarfing the agricultural literature that did exist. Over the next two decades Flint would help to rectify this through the publishing of numerous annual reports and outside literature. Some examples of this include the first of his reports which contained an extensive history of agriculture in the Commonwealth, the fourth of which contained a treatise on "Grasses and Foraging Plants", a revised edition of Harris's Injurious Insects, and a 450 book on "Milch Cows and Dairy Farming", all of which would go on to be printed for several more editions. His work was well received: Paul A. Chadbourne, a board member and future president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College himself, once stated Flint's treatise on grasses "embodies the most practical and scientific information on the history, culture and nutritive value of the grasses and the grains. His style of writing is plain, simple, forcible and judiciously adapted to the ends he has in view. The large number of illustrations of the different species of grasses are drawn with great care and accuracy, and greatly facilitate the study and identification of unknown specimens."
After 25 years of service, Flint submitted his resignation to the Board. Originally he had been told that, ideally, he would hold the position for some twenty years, and having contemplated leaving for some years prior, Flint had decided that the time was overdue. After consideration, the committee declined his resignation, unanimously adopting the following resolution: Whereas, Hon. Charles L. Flint has presented to the Board a statement concerning his connection with the same during the past twenty-five years, and has offered his resignation as secretary: Resolved, That the Board desires to express its high appreciation of the valuable services of Secretary Flint, and hereby earnestly requests him to withdraw his resignation, and continue the good work on behalf of the agricultural interests of the Commonwealth, in which he has achieved so enviable a reputation. Marshall Wilder also added to the resolution the following amendment: