Early Life and Education
Born in West Stockbridge, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Spencer was generally esteemed a bright boy. At age twelve he contracted a fever that nearly killed him and left him with a permanent limp. At age fifteen, the town sheriff was so struck by him that he offered to finance Spencer's education. That same year he entered Lenox Academy. In 1824, Spencer graduated with honors from Union College at Schenectady, New York.
In 1825 Spencer took a job as a school teacher in Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia. While in Georgia he also began the study of law.
In 1827, Spencer joined the Baptist church and decided to become a pastor. He attended the theological college at Hamilton, New York (now known as Colgate University), and graduated as class valedictorian in 1829. Spencer served as pastor at three congregations throughout New England between 1829 and 1841.
Read more about this topic: Orson Spencer
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“I could be, I discovered, by turns stern, loving, wise, silly, youthful, aged, racial, universal, indulgent, strict, with a remarkably easy and often cunning detachment ... various ways that an adult, spurred by guilt, by annoyance, by condescension, by loneliness, deals with the prerogatives of power and love.”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“I am not describing a distant utopia, but the kind of education which must be the great urgent work of our time. By the end of this decade, unless the work is well along, our opportunity will have slipped by.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)