HILL, John Henry

[s. 310] : Born 1791; graduated at Columbia College, New York; for several years was engaged in commercial pursuits; pursued a theological course at the seminary, Alexandria, Va., and was ordained deacon and presbyter by Bishop Meade in Norfolk, 1830. He and Dr. were appointed by the American Episcopal Mi ionary Society as mi ionaries to Greece. They sailed October, 1830, landing on the island of Tenos, where they remained six months, and then removed to Athens. In 1832 Mrs. Hill, aided by her sister, Mi Mulligan, opened a female school in their own house, with the Bible as a text-book. From the first the school was crowded and within two years more than 300 children were daily instructed in a stone building erected for it. Three generations of Greek women have there received a Christian education. Other schools for boys and girls were soon established. The schools of the mi ionary were the models for the municipal and national schools afterward established, and furnished teachers for them. The normal school, too, was placed in charge of graduates from the Hill institution. Once a week Mr. Hill met the boys of all the schools for the study of the Septuagint, which they translated into modern Greek and which he then explained. On Sunday the scholars were taught the Gospel for the day, or the Bible in course containing the history of Christ’s life. Four years later he wrote: “When we think of our humble origin from a dark, dirty, vaulted cellar of an old Venetian tower, our progre thence to an old Turkish house and two miserable chambers, and gradually to our own residence, and the filling up first of one room and then of another, and now look at our large and commodious schoolhouse, the largest in Athens, completely filled from top to bottom with industrious children, numbering nearly six hundred, Robertson we are astonished.” In 1845 Mr. Hill was appointed chaplain to the British Legation, and for many years officiated as such in the English Chapel of St. Paul at Athens. The appointment was unsolicited by him, and “it was justly due to him for his gratuitous services to the English residents for twelve years past.” In 1869, in view of his advanced years and that of his wife, he handed in his resignation to the Board. The committee resolved to “provide for his comfortable support in Athens, the city of his adoption and life s work, until his death.” In token of the appreciation by the nation of his educational work. Dr. Hill received from the Minister of Education an official document, dated June 18, 1881, in which occurs the following paragraph: “Upon the fiftieth anniversary of your school, which was the beginning of the more systematic education of the young women of Hellas, I take pleasure in transmitting herewith the congratulations of his Majesty.” While Dr. Hill’s main work was the education of the young, he performed other useful labors. In connection with Dr. Robertson and others of the mi ion he translated valuable English textbooks, secular and religious, into modern Greek. By his preaching, teaching and personal intercourse he communicated much Christian truth to the clergy. He died at Athens July 1, 1882, aged ninety. The Greek Government gave him a public funeral. 311