Bennington

BURNHAM, William A.

Vermont Historical Magazine, No XI, October 1867, p 207

William A. BURNHAM, was born 29 December 1805 in Derry [Rockingham County], 
New Hampshire. Trained to a life of toil, he nevertheless possessed a mind 
thirsty for improvement, and early in life aspired to intellectual eminence. 
By industrious employment of seasons of respite from outdoor avocations, the 
instructions of his father at home and occasional attendance at the Academy 
in his native town, he acquired the amount of knowledge necessary to qualify 
him to take charge of a common school. In this employment, undertaken when 
he was scarcely eighteen years of age, he was uncommonly successful. Such 
was the reputation he acquired for tact and ability, that his services as 
teacher were greatly in demand. Indeed the success which crowned his labors 
in this employment strengthened an early predilection, and led him to resolve 
that teaching should be his life work. For a while he farther pursued his 
studies at the Teachers Seminary at Andover [Essex County], Massachusetts. 
In 1835 he was invited to take charge of the Preparatory Department of the 
Burr Seminary, at Manchester [Bennington County, Vermont]. Not satisfied 
with ordinary attainments, he pushed resolutely on until though, 
comparatively unaided, he mastered not only several modern languages, but 
also the Latin and Greek, sufficiently to be deemed amply qualified at length 
to take charge of the classical department in this institution, an 
institution, by the way, of which it is not too much to say, that as a 
preparatory school for a collegiate course, it has been, for many years, 
without a successful rival in the State.

Mr. BURNHAM remained to the close of his life connected with the 
aforementioned institution. He [William A. BURNHAM] died 08 May 1860. While 
at the Teachers Seminary, at Andover, Mr. BURNHAM attained to a settled 
Christian hope. From a child, however, he had known the Scriptures, and his 
association had ever been strictly moral and correct. As a Christian he was 
very earnest, decided, active, exemplary in all his work, and inculcating not 
only by word, but by the spirit with which every duty was discharged, the 
doctrine he himself had so cordially and willingly embraced. As an 
instructor Mr. BURNHAM was unrivalled, gifted by nature with a bright and 
vigorous intellect, quick discernment of character, and an almost intuitive 
judgment of the right. Plain, practical and direct in his method, and 
ardently devoted to his calling, we shall not we feel assured institute too 
high a claim in his behalf if we characterize him the model teacher.

Submitted by Cathy Kubly