Editing Timothy Dwight IV (section)

===Presidency of Yale College (1795–1817)===
[[File:Timothy Dwight IV eighth president Yale College.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Engraving of Dwight and his signature, circa 1820 to 1840]]
Dwight was the leader of the evangelical [[New Divinity]] faction of [[Congregational church|Congregationalism]], a group closely identified with Connecticut's emerging commercial elite. Although fiercely opposed by religious moderates, most notably Yale President [[Ezra Stiles]], he was elected to the presidency of Yale on Stiles's death in 1795. Shortly afterwards, Dwight was elected an honorary member of the Connecticut [[Society of the Cincinnati]]. His ability as a teacher and his talents as a religious and political leader soon made the college the largest institution of higher education in North America. Dwight had a genius for recognizing able protégé such as [[James Murdock (scholar)|James Murdock]],<ref>"James Murdock" in James Strong and John McClintock. (1880). ''The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature''; New York: Harper and Brothers. [https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/M/murdock-james-dd.html McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia] Retrieved 9 June 2023.</ref> [[Lyman Beecher]], [[Nathaniel W. Taylor]], and [[Leonard Bacon]], all of whom would become major religious leaders and theological innovators in the antebellum decades.

During troubled times at Yale College, President Timothy Dwight saw his students drawn to the radical republicanism and "infidel philosophy" of the [[French Revolution]], including the philosophies of [[David Hume|Hume]], [[Thomas Hobbes|Hobbes]], Tindal, and Lords Shaftesbury and [[Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke|Bolingbroke]]. Between 1797 and 1800, Dwight frequently warned audiences against the threats of this "infidel philosophy" in America. An address to the candidates for the baccalaureate in Yale College called "The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy, Exhibited in Two Discourses, Addressed to the Candidates for the Baccalaureate, In Yale College" was delivered on September 9, 1797. It was published by George Bunce in 1798. This book is credited as one of the embers of the [[Second Great Awakening]].

Dr. Dwight has made a contribution to science though he was not trained in any particular field.<ref>Whitford, Kathryn, and Philip Whitford. “Timothy Dwight's Place in Eighteenth-Century American Science.” ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'', vol. 114, no. 1, 1970, pp. 60–71. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/985724 JSTOR website] Retrieved 9 June 2023.</ref> Yale's faculty, still small and theological at the end of its first century, significantly transformed when Dwight hired three new professors between 1801 and 1803: [[Jeremiah Day]], professor of mathematics; [[James Luce Kingsley]], professor of classical languages; and [[Benjamin Silliman]], professor of chemistry and geology.{{sfn|Kelley|1999|pp=130}} Silliman, Yale's first chemist, who introduced science education at Yale, became the patriarch of American science.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Conniff |first=Richard |title=How The Sciences Came to Yale |journal=Yale Alumni Magazine |date=March 2015 |url=https://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4066/how-science-came-to-yale |access-date=April 29, 2015}}</ref> Day, a minister as well as a mathematician, succeeded Dwight as Yale College president upon his death.