EBEN ALEXANDER was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on the 9th day of March, 1851.
His father, Ebenezer Alexander, son of Adam Rankin and Leah Reagan Alexander, a man of singular justice, kindness and thoughtfulness for others, was for fifteen years judge of the second Circuit Court of Tennessee. Adam Rankin Alexander was a man of influence in his section, which he represented in the United States Congress from 1822-27.
His mother, Margaret McClung, was admired by all who knew her for her fine judgment, and was beloved for her gentle manners and wide charities. Although she died when her son was only fourteen years old, her influence has profoundly affected his whole life. She was the daughter of Charles McClung, an able young surveyor, who laid off the streets of the new town, married the daughter of the founder, became a member of the constitutional convention of Tennessee and left a large estate. Her mother’s brother, Hugh Lawson White, represented Tennessee in the United States Senate, and received the electoral vote of several States for the Presidency in 1836. Her grandfather, James White, was a native of Iredell County, North Carolina; located land grants received for services in the Revolutionary War near the mouth of the French Broad River, was the founder of Knoxville, took a prominent part in the movements that led to the formation of the State government, was a member of the third United States Congress and a general in the Creek War.
In boyhood young Alexander showed such fondness for books that his guardian determined to put him in the path that leads to a literary life. Accordingly, after thorough preparation at home, in the fall of 1869 he was sent to Yale College at New Haven, Connecticut. And, indeed, Yale has well served North Carolina through the training she gave George E. Badger, Elisha Mitchell, W.N.H. Smith, Denison Olmstead, Thomas P. Devereux, Edwin A. Anderson and Eben Alexander. The opportunities, the associations, the traditions of this great institution charmed the young student and fired his ambition. His popularity is attested by his election to the Psi Upsilon and Skull and Bones societies, and his high rank in class is shown by his election to Phi Beta Kappa, membership in which is restricted to men of the highest grade in scholarship. His alma mater has never had a more loyal son, and to this day no one watches with greater eagerness every contest in which her representatives engage, and no one hails with greater joy the triumph of the dark blue pennants of Yale.
The year in which he was graduated, 1873, he returned to his old home to become tutor of ancient languages in the University of Tennessee. The writer of this sketch remembers that it fell to the lot of the young teacher to take charge of a Greek class whose members had been pupils of Frederick D. Allen. Some of the students were as old as their teacher. It must have been a trying time for the young collegian, but his victory was as quickly won as Caesar’s over Pharnaces. Every man realized that there stood before him not
“A tutor rough to common men, But honeying at the whisper of a lord.”
Each one recognized, instead, the gentleman, the scholar and the born teacher, who had come like Edith in Aylmer’s Field,
“With a voice of comfort and an open hand of help.”
He was married to Miss Marion Howard Smith, the daughter of the Rev. J. Howard Smith, the rector of the Episcopal Church at Knoxville, and subsequently pastor of the Reformed Episcopal Church at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Four children have been born to them:
- Eleanor, the wife of Professor A. H. Patterson of Athens, Georgia;
- Eben, a physician of Knoxville, Tennessee;
- John Howard, who died in 1899 while a student at the University of North Carolina, and
- Margaret McClung.
At the age of twenty-six Dr. Alexander was elected professor of ancient languages in the University of Tennessee, and a few years later was made chairman of the faculty. However, feeling that his tastes were essentially literary rather than administrative, he resigned his position in the Tennessee University to accept the professorship of Greek in the University of North Carolina. He began his work in this State in the fall of 1886. How skillfully and faithfully that work has been done is known by all who have come under his tuition.
It is not alone in his department that he endeavors to be of real service to those about him. The college library claims his attention next to his class-room work. In an address at the Carnegie Library at Charlotte, 1904, he stated that there had scarcely been a day in thirty years in which he had not spent an hour’s time in a college library. Among those who have long been laboring to build up the great library now at the University, no one is entitled to greater praise, and no one rejoices more at the prospect of the speedy culmination of the plans which have been formed for a new library building.
He has shown in many ways his deep interest in college athletics and in all that tends to develop Bhystahy mentally and spiritually the young men around him.
In April, 1893, he was appointed by President Cleveland envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Greece, Roumania and Servia. The Charlotte Observer said at the time: “Dr. Alexander will be in entire sympathy with Greek feeling, thought and traditions.” The Raleigh News and Observer compared the appointment to that of Hawthorne, Irving, Bancroft, Motley and others who had received similar recognition because of scholarship and literary ability. Securing leave of absence from the trustees . of the University, he sailed for Athens in May, 1893, and remained abroad four years. These were fruitful years for the Greek professor and useful to his country. It is safe to say that at no foreign port were American interests more honestly and zealously guarded, and at no court in Europe were American courtesy and dignity more delicately shown than at the court of Greece by our minister and his charming wife and daughter. He entered heartily into the plan for the revival of the Olympic games, which took place in Athens in 1896, and were the most splendid athletic exhibitions of modern times. Harpers Weekly, September 28, 1895, said:
“The first subscription that reached the committee’s hands was not from a born Greek, but from Mr. E. Alexander, United States Minister to Greece, who, nevertheless, is looked upon and claimed as a true Hellene, both by his wide acquaintance with the Greek language and literature and his whole-hearted sympathy with the country and its people.”
The Acropolis, the leading newspaper of Athens, contained the following reference to the American minister and his work:
“The Athenian people have heard with sorrow of the proposed departure of the American Minister, Mr. Alexander. Greece is indeed losing a highly valued friend, and Athens especially will miss one of her most sympathetic personalities. A scholar in the widest significance of the word, but not, for all that, the less of a diplomat, although the diplomatic activity of the American legation at Athens is limited; deeply learned in Greek language and literature, he has loved Greece not with the soulless interest of an archeologist, but with the warm love of a man interested in the prosperity of Greece of to-day. He has let no opportunity pass of showing this interest practically. The success of the Olympic games, through the coming of the American athletes, who gave such life to that athletic meeting and insured its success, was due to Mr. Alexander. A genuine representative of a democratic people, he has maintained a charming simplicity of manner without petty diplomatic affectation, and his house has been open with the utmost hospitality to every Greek who sought an interview with the American Minister, and to all of his compatriots, who have carried away the same good impressions of their diplomatic representative. It is a pity that we are losing such a friend.”
Meanwhile, recognition of his worth had come in the form of the degree of Doctor of Laws from institutions in his native State and in the State of his adoption.
It is a far cry from the Acropolis to a professor's chair at Chapel Hill, but when his term of office expired, the diplomat gladly put aside the business of the nation to take up again his work for the young men of North Carolina.
At home again among the cedars, in the midst of his books and pictures and pets, he spends in the spirit of service a life whose law is the Golden Rule.
“We live in deeds, not years; In feelings, not in figures on a dial.”
Edward P. Moses.
