Hale, Benjamin, 1797–1863, American educator, b. Newburyport, Mass., grad. Bowdoin, 1818. He served as tutor at Bowdoin and in 1823 founded and became principal of Gardiner Lyceum, Gardiner, Maine, where he organized practical technical courses which were widely influential, and contributed to the development of vocational schools and agricultural colleges. He was professor of chemistry and mineralogy at Dartmouth from 1827 to 1835 and was active also as an Episcopal minister. In 1836 he became president of Geneva College (now Hobart and William Smith Colleges) at Geneva, N.Y. Before his retirement in 1858, Hale liberalized the curriculum of the college, stabilized its finances, and increased its reputation.
See A. D. White, The Work of Benjamin Hale (1911).
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