I'm John Bachelor. I'm with Ron White. His new book is on great fields of life and unlikely

heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. If you've heard that name before, yes, we're headed to Gettysburg, but right now we're at Bowdoin College, one of the esteemed higher learning centers in America, and Bowdoin College sees the talent that

Lawrence Chamberlain represents and invites him to be a member of the faculty

temporarily. He marries in 1855 to Fanny and they go

to Bowden College, Brunswick, 100 miles south of Brewer. And right away he has interest in the pupils.

Was that unusual for an educator in these days, Ron?

Well, he had a wide-ranging interest,

although he very much valued his own education as a student, he felt that as a teacher

he had to open up a wider range of possibilities, both in terms of what the students read,

but also in the way that he taught.

Sometimes the students were viewed simply by the other faculty as boys who needed to be regimented.

He wanted to teach them what we might call critical thinking. Let them

think for themselves. He was on probation with the faculty. How did he think of it?

This is a temporary position.

The college didn't probably have the funding to do this, so he wasn't sure whether this would continue.

Even in the first six months, he still entertained conversations with two different churches

perhaps he would become a pastor

and possibly a missionary wants to travel sometimes I would think of him

as the Jimmy Stewart character and it's a wonderful life.

Always trying to get away and always being pulled back.

That's a good way to think about it.

He has siblings, younger siblings.

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