Paul LeClerc traced the course of his career and cited Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, as a constant companion during a keynote address at the annual Founders Day gathering in Memorial Chapel.
At the February event, LeClerc received the inaugural John Bigelow Medal, established by President Stephen C. Ainlay to recognize friends of the College who have contributed to the advancement of humanity. Bigelow, Class of 1835, was an author, publisher, lawyer and statesman who was instrumental in the formation of the New York Public Library, which LeClerc has led since 1993.
As a scholar, LeClerc specializes in 18th century French literature and the Enlightenment, a field he researched beginning in 1966 using Bigelow’s personal library. The collection was donated to the College and is housed in Special Collections. “My career at Union began with Minerva. It began with Bigelow’s books. Minerva stayed with [Bigelow]. Minerva, for him, became a symbol for the New York Public Library. Minerva and the Enlightenment became core principles that guide this College and guide so many of us,” LeClerc said.
The College’s seal bears the image of Minerva and a French phrase meaning, “We all become brothers under the laws of Minerva.” The New York Public Library also holds Minerva as an important symbol of the pursuit of knowledge, as does Hunter College, where LeClerc served as president from 1988 to 1993.
LeClerc, who was a professor of French at Union from 1966 to 1979, expanded the College motto in connecting Minerva with Union and the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement in the 18th century which rejected traditional social, religious and political ideas in favor of rationalism and individual rights.
“The motto, ‘We all become brothers and sisters under the laws of Minerva,’ is a direct result of the philosophy of the 18th century,” LeClerc said. “If you give people access to information and you prepare them to look at that information and think about it in critical way, they will achieve the discovery of truth.”
LeClerc was chair of Union’s Department of Modern Languages and Literatures from 1971 through 1977. He is the author of five scholarly volumes on writers of the French Enlightenment. His contributions to French culture have earned him the Order of the Academic Palms (Officer) and the French Legion of Honor (Chevalier). He is a trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is a director of the National Book Foundation, which gives out National Book Awards and seeks to expand the audience for the best American literature.
Founders Day commemorated the 213th anniversary of the granting of the College’s charter from the New York State Board of Regents. Prior to his speech, Ainlay gave LeClerc the Bigelow Medal and discussed the importance of the College’s history.
“We look to our past as a source of inspiration, we should remember our history of firsts, our history of contribution as a matter of pride, to be sure,” Ainlay said. “But we should also view them as reminders of the ongoing opportunity and ongoing responsibility we have to make a difference. Making a difference—this is our history; this is central to our mission; this is who we are.”
John Bigelow
John Bigelow Union may have been fortunate to avoid John Bigelow’s first few college years in the early 1830s. Bigelow entered a college in Hartford, Conn. two months shy of his 14th birthday and became known as a prankster with strong opinions who was often quick to anger.
At Union, Bigelow matured and became a dedicated intellectual but still held tight to passionate opinions. Bigelow joined Union in the spring 1834 and was active in the Sigma Phi Society, joined a debating club and spent hours reading at the Union library. He was awarded a bachelor’s degree in July 1835 but was passed over as Commencement speaker.
“I left burning with indignation against the faculty and the institution. The reason given by Professor [Alonzo] Potter for refusing to grant the honor was not true and I have never been able to feel toward the College again as my Alma Mater,” Bigelow wrote.
But time seems to have healed that wound. Bigelow later donated his large personal collection of books to Union. And in 1869 he addressed Union graduates at a New York City meeting and recalled the “learned and accomplished” teachers from Union who left an “inheritance of usefulness,” according to an essay by former Union professor Joseph D. Doty.
After leaving Union, Bigelow became an author, publisher, lawyer and statesman who helped form the New York Public Library. He worked for several years as an attorney in the 1840s and by 1849 became the managing editor and part owner, with poet William Cullen Bryant, of the New York Evening Post. “Bigelow became noted, as editor, for sincerity, undeviating regard for principle, and biting strength of expression,” wrote Margaret Clapp, former Wellesley College president who won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1947 Bigelow biography called Forgotten First Citizen.
In 1861, Bigelow became U.S. consul in Paris during the Civil War. In that role he prevented the delivery of warships from France to the Confederacy, which he detailed in his book, France and the Confederate Navy, 1862–1868.
While living in Paris, Bigelow discovered and published the lost manuscript for The e Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin; he later edited Franklin’s complete works. He wrote a biography of U.S. presidential candidate Samuel Jones Tilden, a close friend, and several works on the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg.
“There was no room for laziness in his schedule. Hours empty of thought or purposeful activity did not exist. There was too much to be known, too many ideas to explore in conversation and in reading, just as there had been in college,” Clapp wrote.
He was politically active, serving as New York’s secretary of state; an advisor to the Republican’s first presidential candidate, John Charles Frémont. He was a proponent of the construction of the Panama Canal, and exposed the political corruption of William “Boss” Tweed’s Tammany Hall in New York City.
As a student at Union, Bigelow found the College’s library a revelation. With Tilden and others, he worked tirelessly to form the New York Public Library that he said would play an important role in creating an informed citizenry that is basic to democracy. In 1911, seven months before he died, Bigelow saw the completion of the main branch of the New York Public Library.
Though he championed the library’s formation, Bigelow often cautioned against reading too much too quickly: “Beware of the ambition of reading fast or much. It is the most certain way you can adopt of being a long time in learning very little. You should read to get new ideas and not distractions… Reading without meditation is like eating without digestion.