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Robert William Rogers arrived at Drew in 1893 to fill the chair in exegetical theology. He had received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1886, a second B.A. from Johns Hopkins, and a Ph.D. from Haverford in 1890, as well as other earned and honorary degrees. Rogers had an international reputation for scholarship , but and he remained a distinguished faculty member at Drew for thirty-six years. He died in 19231930.
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Robert Rogers was a tall, slender, sharp-featured, thin-lipped schoolman and came into the Drew faculty just as the hoary patriarch, James Strong, was succumbing to the infirmities of age. It marked the beginning of a new era. The "Big Five," who had reigned in the Forest for a quarter of a century, was breaking up. The novus homo had a promising pedigree, biologically and academically. The Rogers family was already remarkable for the number of educators on its rolls. The latest-and greatest-showed an awakened interest in the study of Hebrew when a mere boy in Philadelphia. This is Dr. Rogers' account of the incident which determined his course of life. Though the story has been told before, it must be told again and again, and in his own words:
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The boy was indeed father of the man. Hungry for learning, he was always seeking it wherever there were stores of it in the Old World. When found and mastered, he put it to service for mankind in the form of books which were true to the existing state of knowledge, and yet expressed in language which the general public could not understand and with which the most learned could find no fault. This gift of presenting the results of his own and others' researches into the ancient past in such form as to engage the attention of the public made his lectures on Assyriology as fascinating as a tale of adventure. Not only university audiences, but pastors in Annual Conferences, and much more miscellaneous groups, listened eagerly as the dim figures of the past moved before them in color, action and life under the magic touch of the master.
Robert Rogers' graduation at the University of Pennsylvania was only the beginning. He had heard of a new fountain of knowledge, and promptly joined the select body of ambitious young scholars who flocked to Johns Hopkins for advanced study. Before he was 26 he had been teaching the Biblical langauges languages and Semitic history at Haverford and Dickinson. Not yet 30, he was nominated with others for the chair which Dr. Strong had filled since 1868, and-wonder of wonders!-he was elected over the veteran nominees.
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Reproduced from The Teachers of Drew, 1867-9421942, A Commemorative Volume issued on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of Drew Theological Seminary, October 15, 1942. Edited by James Richard Joy. (Drew University, Madison, N.J., 1942)
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