Languages in the Early Years of the University

Modern foreign languages were among the first subjects taught at the University of North Carolina.  As John and Ebenezer Pettigrew wrote to their father in 1795, "All of our class study french (sic) one half of the day, and lattin (sic) the other half" (Pettigrew Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, UNC).  Thereafter, the record is spotty. We know that French and German had a place in the curriculum, and that the teacher of French or German was expected to teach Spanish. Nicolas Marcellus Hentz, who had the impressive title of Professor of Modern Languages (1826), was the first UNC professor whose duties were to teach French and Spanish regularly. This early inclusion of modern languages in the university curriculum was bolstered by Harvard's appointment of George Ticknor to the Smith Professorship of French and Spanish and belles lettres (1819) and Princeton's (or the College of New Jersey as it was then known) appointment of Louis Hargouis (1830) as instructor of French and Spanish.