Boston City (part 10 of 67)

octavo, besides many valuable memoirs and 2 [It should be remarked that the writer of occasional papers, which have been published this notice most faithfully served the Society as separately. These publications are of such a Librarian for more than thirty years, and until it character as to give the society additional repu- moved into its present quarters, and saw the tation at home and abroad. library increase from two hundred to six thou- pose of educating blind persons, the institution to be under the direction and man¬ agement of twelve trustees, eight to be elected by the corporation, and four by the Board of Visitors. The Governor, Lieut. -Governor, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Chaplains of the Legislature constituted the Board of Visitors. The Legislature might send to the Asylum, for maintenance and education, such blind persons as they might think proper, not exceeding thirty, pay¬ ing for each such sum as is charged for other persons in the Asylum. In 1830 the first Board of Trustees was elected, with Hon. Jonathan Phillips for President. Dr. Fisher, who had been foremost in promoting this beneficent enterprise, being unable to engage in it personally, had enlisted the sympathy and co-operation of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, who was soon appointed superintendent. Immediately after his appoint¬ ment he visited Europe, by request of the trustees, to make himself fully acquainted with the mode of conducting such an institution, to procure one, or at the most two, trained assistant teachers, and also the necessary apparatus. He returned in the fol¬ lowing year, bringing with him Mr. Trencheri, a graduate of the Paris Institution, as literary teacher, and John Pringle, of the Edinburgh Institution, as teacher of handi¬ crafts. In 1832 the school was opened with six pupils, varying in age from six to twenty. Early in the following year, Dr. Howe exhibited before the Legislature the results of his six months' instruction, and so satisfactorily proved the practicability of educating the blind, that an appropriation of $6,000 per annum was at once made for the Institution, on condition that it should receive and educate free of cost twentyfour blind persons belonging to the State.

A number of public exhibitions were then given in Boston and elsewhere, and an address, containing much valuable information collected by Dr. Howe while in Europe, was widely circulated. The result of these efforts was far more favorable than was expected, and sympathetic interest so thoroughly excited that subscriptions and do¬ nations were freely given. The ladies of Boston held a Fair, by which a large sum was realized. An additional stimulus was given to public liberality when Colonel Thomas H. Perkins gave his estate in Pearl Street, valued at $25,000, as a permanent residence for the blind, provided a sufficient sum could be raised to assure the es¬ tablishment of the institution. This liberal spirit was so warmly seconded by the com¬ munity that within one month over $50,000 were added to the funds. Connecticut afterward voted an appropriation of $1,000 per annum, for twelve years, for as many blind children as could be educated for that sum; Vermont appropriated $1,200 for ten years, and New Hampshire made a temporary appropriation of $500 ; the States of Maine and Rhode Island afterward made appropriations, - and thus the in¬ stitution became the educational establishment for the blind of all the New-England States, as the Asylum at Hartford already was for the deaf and dumb. The institution being now well established, Dr. Howe, by his own exertions, raised subscriptions for a printing fund ; and after many and costly experiments with the ordinary printing presses, a new press, especially adapted to printing for the blind, was obtained. A series of experiments in adapting the alphabet to the sense of touch resulted in the adoption of a slight modification of the ordinary Roman letters of the lower-case. This was the first printing office for the blind opened in any English or American in¬ stitution, and its work was so actively carried on that very flattering testimonials of its work were soon received, in the shape of orders from England, Ireland, and Holland.1

Instruction in the literary department included not only the simpler branches of a common-school education, but some of the higher mathematics, history, astronomy, and languages. In addition to vocal music, with instruction upon the piano and organ, the foundation for a band was begun, with favorable results.1 Instruction was given to male pupils in the manufacture of mattresses, cushions, mats, and baskets, while the girls were taught sewing, knitting, braiding, and some household duties.

One of the earliest scholars of Dr. Howe was Laura Bridgman,2 whose education has probably attracted more attention than that of any living person. The success which attended her intellectual development has encouraged multitudes of teachers, and favored the foundation of twenty-seven institutions for the blind in this country.

In 1829 increased accommodations having become necessary for the New England Institution, it was removed to its present location at South Boston. At this time its name was changed to the " Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind," in honor of its greatest benefactor. In 1840 an additional department was opened to provide employment for those who had acquired their education and learned to work, but could not carry on business alone. The making, cleansing, and renovat¬ ing of beds, mattresses, and cushions ; the manufacture of mats, and cane-seating chairs, - these were the occupations in which the blind could best compete with seeing workmen. The test of years proved this department to be a valuable auxiliary in assisting the blind to self-maintenance.

The evils attendant upon congregating so many persons laboring under a common infirmity were perceived at an early date in the history of this institution. Additional buildings being absolutely necessary, the trustees applied to the Legislature for an additional grant. They asked the Commonwealth to furnish the means of educating her blind children in some slight degree proportionate to the means so liberally fur¬ nished for educating her seeing children. They did not ask it as a charity, but ex¬ pected it as a part of the obligation, early assumed, to educate every son and daughter of the Commonwealth. The Legislature of 1869, admitting the justice of the claim, granted an appropriation of $80,000 for erecting suitable buildings. In addition to this sum, $15,000 were contributed by friends of the institution.3

By the death of Dr. Howe, Jan. 4, 1876, the institution lost not only its Director, but its life-long friend and benefactor.4 In accordance with his often expressed wish to remove it from the class of charitable institutions, and place it on the same footing with other educational institutions, the trustees voted, Oct. 3, 1877, that its name

1 For music and poetry the blind have long manifested peculiar taste and capacity. The names of Stanley, Gautier, and Chauvain are widely known among musical composers. Of sightless bards we have a long array, headed by the "blind old man of Scio's rocky isle," whose verse has charmed every age, and been repeated in every tongue. That the blind have abundant capacity for the highest education is manifest from the number of those who have become eminent. Ancient history abounds with these. The names of Didymus of Alexandria, Eusebius, and Aufidius are well known. In modern times we have Saunderson, a distinguished Profes¬ sor of Mathematics in the University of Cam¬ bridge, England ; Dr. Henry Moyes, Professor of Philosophical Chemistry in Manchester; Rev.

Vol. Iv. - 35

3 Two dwelling houses to accommodate four families were erected, and a school-house, with music rooms, etc. The number of blind persons connected with the institution is one hundred and fifty-six ; of these, one hundred and thirtyseven are in the school proper, and nineteen in the workshops for adults.

4 See the Memoir of Samuel Gridley Howe, by Julia Ward Howe, with other memorial tri¬ butes, published by the Howe Memorial Com¬ mittee, Boston, 1S76; and the paper in James Freeman Clarke's Memorials.

should be the " Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind." The present officers of the Corporation are Samuel Eliot, president ; John Cummings, vice-president; P. T. Jackson, treasurer; M. Anagnos, secretary; Robert E. Apthorp, John S. Dwight, Joseph B. Glover, J. Theodore Heard, M.D., Henry Lee Higginson, James H. Means, D.D., Andrew P. Peabody, D.D., Edward N. Perkins, Samuel M. Quincy, Samuel G. Snelling, James Sturgis, George W. Wales, - trustees.1

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. - In the years 1858-59, an associa¬ tion of gentlemen, residing in and near Boston, became interested in securing a site on which to erect in close proximity such buildings as might be suitable and necessary for the museums and collections of the Natural History Society, the Horticultural Society, and such others as might be formed, representing the industrial and fine arts, so as by their union and co-operation to constitute a comprehensive museum or conservatory of arts and sciences. With this view they organized a " Committee of Associated Insti¬ tutions," and petitioned the Legislature for a grant of land on the Back Bay, suitable for their purpose. This petition failed of its object. In i860 Professor William B. Rogers prepared a memorial to the Legislature, which was adopted by the committee, in which we find the first suggestion of " a school of applied science or comprehensive Polytechnic College, fitted to equip its students with the scientific and technical prin¬ ciples applicable to industrial pursuits." This also failed to obtain the favor of the Legislature, but led the way to the more definite organization developed in the report by Professor Rogers entitled, Objects and Plan of an Institute of Technology, etc. The wide circulation of this report, accompanied by an appeal to the public for co-op¬ eration and aid, resulted in the calling of a meeting on Jan. 11, 1861, for the purpose of adopting measures for the organization of the Institute, and in furtherance of a petition to the Legislature for a charter and a portion of the Back-Bay land.2

In 1861 an act of incorporation under the name of "The Massachusetts Institute of Technology " was granted by the Legislature " to William B. Rogers and others, their associates and successors, for the purpose of instituting and maintaining a society of arts, a museum of arts, and a school of industrial science ; and aiding generally, by suitable means, the advancement, development, and practical application of science in connection with arts, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce." The Legislature also granted one square of land bounded by Boylston, Berkeley, Newbury, and Clarendon streets. The easterly one-third to the Boston Society of Natural History,3 and the re¬ maining two-thirds to the Institute of Technology. The Institute was formerly organ¬ ized by the election of William B. Rogers, president ; John Amory Lowell, Jacob

1 Institutions for the blind made slow pro¬ gress in Europe, but they have multiplied rapidly in the United States, numbering at present twenty-nine. The "American Printing House for the Blind " is the only chartered institution for printing for the blind in the world. It is much the largest in its productions and the most varied in the character of its works ; being the only printing establishment of its kind that runs its press by steam. The press was invented for this company, and has no equal. When the en¬ terprise began, the price of stereotyping was five dollars a page; now, through the inventions of the superintendent, Mr. Huntoon, the work is done at a cost of ten cents a page. The stereo¬ type plate may be made from a paper page, or may consist of a brass plate, which costs but a small sum, and requires little room for storage. Report of the Commissioner of Education in 1879.

2 At this meeting the following committee was appointed to carry out the purpose referred to: William B. Rogers, Chairman ; J. M. Beebe, E. S. Tobey, S. H. Gookin, E. B. Bigelow, M. D. Ross, J. D. Philbrick, F. H. Storer, J. D. Runkle, C. H. Dalton, J. B. Francis, J. C. Hoadley, M. P. Wilder, C. L. Flint, Thomas Rice, John Chase, J. P. Robinson, F. W. Lincoln, Jr., Thomas Aspinwall, J. A. Dupee, E. C. Cabot.

Bigelow, Marshall P. Wilder, and John Chase, vice-presidents ; Thomas H. Webb, secretary ; Charles H. Dalton, treasurer ; and through the liberality of friends suffi¬ cient funds were raised to initiate the plan by establishing the Society of Arts. The first meeting of this society was held Dec. 17, 1862, since which time it has continued to have two meetings in each month of the sessions of the Institute, on which occasions are presented communications on various topics in applied science, with the exhibition of machines and apparatus illustrating important inventions in the useful arts.

Through the activity of the Society of Arts and other means, the practical objects of the Institute soon became more widely known and appreciated, and a generous gift from Dr. William J. Walker, with large contributions from other friends, prepared the way for establishing the proposed school of Industrial Science. A report by Professor Rogers on the " Scope and Plan of a School of Industrial Science " was adopted May 30, 1864, and the scheme therein set forth has continued to form the basis of the in¬ struction in all departments of the school, with only such changes and additions in the details of the organization and equipment of the laboratories as time and experience could determine.

The school of the Institute was opened in February, 1865, with a class of twentyseven students, in hired rooms in the Mercantile Hall, Summer Street, where the Society of Arts also held its meetings. In 1866 the Institute took possession of its building in Boylston Street, under the same officers, with the exception of the secretary. Dr. Webb having died, was succeeded by Dr. Samuel Kneeland, who continued in office until 1879.

The following regular courses of study have been arranged in the Institute, each extending through four years, for proficiency in any one of which the degree of Bach¬ elor of Science (S.B.) may be conferred : I. Civil and Topographical Engineering; II. Mechanical Engineering; III. Mining Engineering, or Geology and Mining ; IV. Building and Architecture; V. Chemistry; VI. Metallurgy; VII. Natural History; VIII. Physics ; IX. An Elective Course ; X. Science and Literature. Advanced courses of study are prescribed for the degree of Doctor of Science. Provision is also made for persons who desire to pursue special portions only of any of the regular courses.

A novel feature in the original plan of the Institute - which has been fully carried out by its professors, and has since been adopted in many other institutions in this country - was the introduction of Laboratory teaching (hitherto confined to the depart¬ ment of chemistry) in the departments of physics, mechanics, and mining. Special laboratories have been provided for the instruction of women in chemical analysis, industrial chemistry, mineralogy, and biology through the co-operation of the Woman's Educational Association of Boston.1

A school of mechanic arts has been established in the Institute, adapted by Presi¬ dent J. D. Runkle from the Russian system of shop work, for the instruction of those who wish to pursue industrial trades, as well as for those who are preparing to become scientific engineers. The Institute, in addition to the objects set forth in its act of in¬ corporation, is required to provide for instruction in military tactics, and has a large drill-hall, including a gymnasium.

Beside the systematic day-courses, the Institute proposed as a part of its work " to provide evening instruction to persons of both sexes, who, being unable to study dur¬ ing the day, desire to avail themselves of systematic evening lessons or lectures." The trustee of the Lowell Institute, John Amory Lowell, has, since the opening of the school, provided the funds for the maintenance of this department free to the pupils. These courses are more or less varied from year to year, but include in their entire scope instruction in a great variety of scientific and literary subjects. Mr. Lowell also provides for a course of free instruction in practical designs for manufacturers.

In 1870 Professor Rogers resigned the presidency of the Institute, and was suc¬ ceeded by Professor John D. Runkle, who continued in office until 1878, when Pro¬ fessor Rogers was again appointed.

The annual income of the Institute is derived from bequests and gifts of its friends, from a portion of the State fund arising out of the Congressional grant of public lands in aid of industrial education, and mainly from the fees of its students. The most im¬ portant bequest was that received from Dr. William J. Walker ; also generous bequests have been received from Ralph Huntington, James Hayward, Powell Mason, James Savage, Nathaniel Nash, Henry Harris, James McGregor, and A. K. Welch.

The officers of the Institute at present are : President, William B. Rogers, LL.D. ; Treasurer, John Cummings; Chairman of the Faculty, Professor John M. Ordway ; Secretary of the Faculty, Professor Robert H. Richards. The number of professors and other officers of instruction is thirty-seven ; the number of students is three hundred and fifty-six.

Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Children. - In 1839 an idiotic blind child was brought to our Institution for the Blind. Pie was not only unsound in mind, but infirm in body. Although not a fit subject for the Institution, he excited the sympathy of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, the superintendent, who decided to retain and try to improve the unfortunate child ; and he was convinced beyond doubt that idiots were capable of being improved in their bodily habits, in their mental ca¬ pacities, and even in their spiritual natures.

An appeal was made to the Legislature urging upon its members that considera¬ tions of duty, humanity, and economy all demanded that the condition of idiots at public charge should be inquired into with a view to its speedy improvement. The result of this appeal was the appointment of a commission, of which Dr. Howe was chairman ; and their report induced the Legislature to appropriate $2,500 annually for three years for the training and teaching of ten idiotic children. An arrangement was soon made with the trustees of the Institution for the Blind to assume the responsi¬ bility, and to Dr. Howe was intrusted the carrying out of the experiment, which proved so successful that at the end of two years the Legislature doubled the appropriation, and made provision for converting the experimental school into a permanent one.

Samuel Eliot, LL.D., is President, and Edward Jarvis, M.D., Vice-President of the Board of Trustees. Dr. Jarvis is also Superintendent of the Institution.

Boston University. - This institution was founded in 1869, and owes its origin to the combined efforts and beneficence of Isaac Rich, Jacob Sleeper, and the late Lee Claflin, father of Governor Claflin. Mr. Rich bequeathed to it the larger part of an estate valued by the official appraisers after his death at over $1,700,000. The plan of this institution is unique and comprehensive, including colleges, professional schools, and a department of universal post-graduate instruction called a " School of All Sciences." The first of these are designed to prepare students for the higher in¬ dustries and arts of civilization and for the study of the learned professions ; the second, to qualify them theoretically and practically for professional life ; the third, including and supplementing the general or non-technical instruction of the profes¬ sional schools, to be a universal and non-professional school of elective post-graduate studies with special degrees, scholarships, and fellowships.

Of the colleges, three have already been organized, - that of Liberal Arts, in 1873 ; of Music, in 1872 ; of Agriculture, supplied by the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst, associated with the University in 1875. The College of Liberal Arts an¬ swers to what is called in many universities "the academic department." Its courses of instruction qualify students for the degrees of bachelor of arts and bachelor of phil¬ osophy. The College of Music is designed for students of the average proficiency of graduates of the best American conservatories. The regular courses of instruction for vocalists, pianists, organists, and orchestral performers extend through four years.

In 1871 the trustees of the Boston Theological Seminary - the oldest and largest of the theological schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church - legally conveyed and transferred their property and trusts to the University, the assets amounting to nearly a quarter of a million dollars. The school is open to candidates of all Christian denomi¬ nations, and was the first to give to women regular theological instruction and degrees.

The School of Law was opened in 1872. Under the administration of the genial and scholarly George S. Hillard, its first dean, aided by his friend and successor Judge Bennett, Judges Thomas, Curtis, Lord, Lowell, Foster, and other eminent lectur¬ ers, the school quickly became one of the largest in the country.

In 1873 the trustees of the New-England Female Medical College - said to be the oldest of the class in the world - leased their building to the University for a medical school; and in 1874, in accordance with a special Act of the Legislature, transferred all their properties and franchises to the University Corporation, and the College was thus merged into the broader co-educative University School of Medicine. This de¬ partment also had a rapid growth, so that as early as 1875 the aggregate of theologi¬ cal, legal, and medical students in the University exceeded that of any other American university.

In 1874 negotiations were opened with the authorities of the National University of Athens, and of the Royal University of Rome, which resulted in securing to the members of the graduate department, or School of All Sciences, of Boston Uni¬ versity free instruction in those institutions.

The University has already contributed largely to elevate the standards of profes¬ sional education and of degrees in this country. Notwithstanding its youth and financial limitations, its requisitions for admission to the College of Liberal Arts, and to the classical degrees, are higher than in any other American college.1 Its minimum re¬ quirement for theological graduation and degrees is higher than in any other. It was the first to present and maintain a three-years' graded course of instruction in law, and its requirements for the higher legal degrees are unequalled. In medicine it was the first to present courses of instruction four years in duration, and to re-instate the baccalaureate degrees of medicine and surgery.

A fundamental idea with the founders of the University was that such an institution should be equally for both sexes. Hence in all departments the principles of co-edu¬ cation are thoroughly carried out. Men and women are welcomed to all the advan¬ tages of the University on precisely the same conditions, - not only to the bench of

1 Since the above was written, the University cently agreed upon by the New-England College has accepted, as alternatives, the requisitions re- Association, in Latin, Greek, and Mathematics.

Throughout Christendom the age of exclusive male education is fast disappearing ; and in duly representing and advocating the broader movement of the new era, Boston University, both by its example and its publications, has played no unimportant part. Thus far it has carried out its comprehensive plan with distinguished success. It has already graduated over one thousand students. During the past five years its annual attendance has exceeded six hundred. The proportion of female students has grad¬ ually risen until they now constitute about thirty per cent of the whole. Already in 1875 the number annually graduated from the schools of theology, law, and medicine exceeded that from the corresponding schools of Harvard or Yale. Its financial con¬ dition is prosperous, notwithstanding its great loss by the Boston fire of 1872. The President of the Institution is William F. Warren, S.T.D., LL.D., son of Mather War¬ ren, of a family connected with the Mathers, Whites, and Cottons of Boston's early history. Ex-Governor William Claflin, LL.D., is President of the Board of Trustees.

The deans of the several departments are : James E. Latimer, S.T.D., Theology ; Edmund H. Bennett, LL.D., Law; I. Tisdale Talbot, M.D., Medicine; John W. Lindsay, S.T.D., All Sciences; Eben. Tourjee, Mus.D., Music; Hon. Levi Stockbridge, Agriculture; John W. Lindsay, S.T.D., Liberal Arts. The number of officers of instruction and government is ninety-six.

Boston College. - Boston College, under the care of Fathers of the Society of Jesus, was incorporated in 1863, with power "to confer such degrees as are usually conferred by colleges in Massachusetts, except medical degrees." Although a Catholic institution it is not a proselyting one, students from other denominations being received, and not required to participate in any distinctive Catholic exercises ; and no influence is exerted to induce a change of belief. The institution is supported by fees for in¬ struction and by scholarships founded by friends of the College. The professors receive no compensation except their board and clothing ; they devote their lives to this work, and look for rewards beyond. The schools began unpretendingly, and have not yet reached any great proportions ; but one fact is noticeable, - since the year they were opened the number of pupils has been steadily increasing, and is now two hundred and fifty. The course of study includes the Latin, Greek, French, and German languages, mathematics, chemistry, English literature, mental and natural philosophy. In one department this institution, young as it is, affords an example which might be followed with advantage in other colleges, - the scholars are taught to converse in Latin, and to discuss philosophical subjects in that language. Its President is the Rev. Jeremiah O'Connor, S.J.

By Justin Winsor

-1 books for public use sometime before the Indian outbreak of 1675. Robert Iveayne, in his curious will 1 dated in 1653, beside leaving money for building a town house, mentions a room for a library, and books for it, as among the public provisions which he desired to make ; 2 but we have no trace of such a library earlier than the bequest of John Oxenbridge in his will dated 12th day of the first month, 1673-74, by which he leaves a few books " to the public library in Boston," etc. ; 3 and not long after, Feb. 16, 1676, a London bookseller sends tidings to Increase Mather of an invoice of books which he had shipped, hoping Mather would " recommend some to your public library." 4 There is in the Boston Athenaeum a copy of Samuel Mather's Testimony against Idolatry atid Superstition , which was printed at Cambridge in 1670; and upon this copy is inscribed, " fifor the Publike Library at Boston, 1674." In 1686 the Town Records mention "the library room at the east end of the town house; " and in Sewall's diary5 Andros is recorded as meeting the ministers, the same year, "in the library" at the Town House. In 1695, March 11, there is another reference to the library of the town. We have only such fragmentary knowledge of this earliest public library ; and whatever it may have been, it was probably the foun¬ dation of that accumulation of " ancient books," whose destruction is men¬ tioned at the time of the burning of the Town House in 1747.

The Library of Harvard College had been begun on the death of its first benefactor, in 1638, with his bequest of three hundred and twenty volumes,6 and was added to from time to time by the care of its friends. The Mathers were seemingly the largest accumulators of books in their day; but few or none of their treasures, so far as we know, passed into the

College collection, and if any did, they disappeared in the destruction of that library which came so heavily upon the College and the community in 1764.1 What Increase Mather inherited or began, Cotton Mather aug¬ mented; and a collection which excited Dunton's admiration 2 in 1686 grew to be the chief wealth of the family, numbering seven or eight thou¬ sand volumes, and was in the end consumed in part, if not wholly, in 1775, at Charlestown, during the battle of Bunker Hill.3

But while Harvard College Library was growing, because it had friends in England as well as in the colony, one of its chief foreign benefactors was urging its authorities to chain their books to desks, as they did at the Bod¬ leian, to prevent their being carried away. This was in 1725 ; 4 but that very year Allan Ramsay in Edinburgh was founding a circulating library, - the earliest of its kind, - for the purpose of allowing its books to be taken to firesides; and a few years later the earlier removal of Franklin to Phila¬ delphia gave that town in 1731, instead of Boston, the credit of establishing the first subscription library in America, - now the flourishing Philadelphia Library.5 It was more than thirty years after this, in 1764, that John Mein, a Scotchman, opened in Boston its first circulating library of twelve hun¬ dred volumes.6

Meanwhile, however, the town, by virtue of the scholarly sympathy of Thomas Prince, had in effect received the gift of a library. He had begun to form a collection of books upon entering college in 1703, and the design sub¬ sequently took shape in two separate schemes. He went abroad after gradu¬ ation and continued his collecting. Upon his return, he became a colleague pastor of the Old South, and then his two aims developed. The later of these objects was to form what was practically a theological collection, which he terms in his will, " my books that are in Latin, Greek, and the Oriental languages," - a collection dating from 1718. The other object he defines in his will as the gathering of "a number of books, pamphlets, maps, papers, in print and manuscript, either published in New England or per¬ taining to its history and public affairs, to which collection I have given [he says] the name of the New England Library." It was in books of this character that he put his book-plate : " Begun to be collected by Thomas Prince upon his entring Harvard College, July 6, 1703 ; " and in his will he says regarding them : "I made the collection from a public view, and desire that the memory of many important transactions might be preserved, which otherwise would be lost; " and he enjoins " that no person shall borrow any book or paper therefrom, but that any person, whom the pastors and

1 Vol. IT. p. 432. See also Public Libraries in grandfather, and was really very curious and theU. S., Washington, 1876, p. 22, - avastaccumu- valuable, is irreparable." - John Adams to lation of information, gathered under the super- Abigail Adams , July 7, 1775.

vision of the Comm'r of Education; but its con- 4 The first printed catalogue of the College tents might well be condensed into a hand-book. Library had been issued two years before, in

Libraries In Boston

That during Prince's life the library was publicly used seems evident from notices in the Boston newspapers for the return of its books ; and after his death (1758), when by his will the books were transferred to the custody of the deacons of the Old South, it is well known that Hutchinson and other scholars availed themselves of it; 1 as indeed they might have used the accumulations of the other learned men of their day, including those of Hutchinson himself, one of the most assiduous of collectors in the colony's history. The Probate Office yields us not a few inventories of private collections -occasionally dispersed by the death of their proprietors. In 1717 the library of the Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton was scattered by public auction, - the first instance, it is thought, of such a dispersement in Boston.2

At the era of Independence (1776), it has been reckoned that there were twenty-nine collections of books, fairly called in some sort public ones, in the colonies, and they contained in the whole less than fifty thousand volumes. The war was not over when the foundation of one of our most important collections of books in physical science was laid with the organi¬ zation of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1780. 3 Before 1800 there had been from twenty to thirty such libraries additionally formed, and of these one third were in Massachusetts. In the last decade of that century two libraries, still flourishing, were established. The first of these followed soon upon the founding, in 1791, of the Massachusetts His¬ torical Society, whose property it is.4 The other, " The Boston Library," as its act of incorporation in 1794 terms it, is a proprietary library, with a

1 Of its later vicissitudes something has al¬ ready been said in Vol. II. pp. 221, 426; and a fuller account will be found, together with some¬ thing of the history of some of its manuscript and other treasures, in the present writer's in¬ troduction to the Catalogue of the Prince Li¬ brary , Boston, 1870. Books with Prince's name in them, and sometimes with his book-plate, are not infrequently found in some of the choicer collections of Americana throughout the land, and attest the depredations to which the col¬ lection has been subjected. The Brinley Cata¬ logue shows such. See also Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1879, p. 173, from which it would appear that Prince, at one time at least, made sale of some of his books.

2 See Vol. II. p. 419 ; also p 428, for notices of some law libraries. Joseph Green, the Boston wit, is said to have had the largest private library in New England in his day.

8 See the account of the Academy in Mr. Dillaway's chapter in this volume, and the con¬ stant reference to its members in Professor Lov¬ ering's. Its first printed catalogue was issued in 1802.

4 This society was not incorporated till 1794, and the course of its inception and early progress can be traced in its Proceedings , vol. i. Of its ten original members, eight were Boston men, - the Rev. Jeremy Belknap, D.D. ; the Rev. John Eliot, D.D. ; the Rev. James Freeman, D.D ; the Hon. James Sullivan, LL.D. ; the Rev. Peter Thacher, D.D. ; the Plon. William Tudor ; Thomas Wallcut ; and the Plon. George Richard Minot. The other two were the Hon. James Winthrop of Cambridge, and the Hon. Wil¬ liam Baylies of Dighton. Its presidents to the present time have all been Boston men, - James Sullivan, Christopher Gore, John Davis, Thomas L. Winthrop, James Savage, Robert C. Winthrop. The first catalogue of its library was printed in 1796 (1,000 titles) ; a second in iS 1 1 (4,000 titles); and a new one in 1859-60, when it contained 18,000 volumes. The Dowse Collection, formed of English authors chiefly, fine editions in fine bindings, 5,000 volumes in all, was bequeathed by its owner, Thomas Dowse, currier, of Cambridge, in 1856; and a separate catalogue of it was printed the same year. See Mr. Cummings's chapter in Vol. III.

During the early years of the present century the deficiencies of our libraries began to be remarked upon, since research was stopped in every direction by want of books. It was not, however, a time of munificent sup¬ port of libraries.2 In 1817 it was estimated that in Boston and Cambridge all the public and semi-public libraries could not present over sixty thousand volumes, including their large duplication of one another.

In 1804 the beginning of our principal law library, now known as the Social Law Library, was made, when Theophilus Parsons and others under¬ took a collection of such books intended for common use among a few law¬ yers associated together. From an humble start, it has grown by assessments of money, by gifts of books, and by appropriations of funds from Suffolk County. It was incorporated in 1814. 3 Meanwhile the principal of the pro¬ prietary libraries had been started in 1807, growing out of an organization called the Anthology Club, which became finally the parent of the Boston Athenaeum, of which William Smith Shaw was the first librarian.4 The col¬ lection has always grown healthily. In 1820 it held nearly 20,000 volumes, and in 1822 it was housed in the mansion in Pearl Street, bequeathed by Mr. James Perkins; and here it remained till 1849, when its present house on Beacon Street was first occupied. It has absorbed from time to time va¬ rious minor collections,5 has received munificent donations of money,6 and has been in the charge of librarians distinguished in their profession.7 8

8 The library of King's Chapel, which began with a present of books from the King in 1698; the theological library of the Boston Association of Ministers, which its printed catalogue, in 180S, calls the fourth social library in Boston ; the Boston Medical Library, of which a catalogue was printed in 1818; and the library of the Massachusetts Scientific Library Association.

Of the collection first named the Rev. II. W. Foote gives an account in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., May, 1S81, p. 423, with a register of the titles. The books were stamped on their covers, De Bibliotheca de Boston. One hundred and ten volumes remain.

6 Principal among them are $160,000 from William B. Howes in 1879; $25,000 from Na¬ than Appleton in 1S53; $20,000 each from John Bromfield in 1S46 and from George Bernis in 1879; $8,000 in 1826 each from Colonel Thomas H. Perkins and James Perkins (son of the James before named) conditioned upon a subscription of a like sum, which was obtained ; and $5,000 in 1858 from Thomas W. Ward.

7 Mr. Charles Folsom, the literary mentor of so many distinguished Boston writers, was for ten years its head, - Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Decem¬ ber 1872; and (by Theophilus Parsons) April, 1S73. Re was succeeded in 1S56 by Mr. William F. Poole, who had had the charge of the Mercan¬ tile Library, and is now the librarian of the Chi¬ cago Public Library. He is well known as a student in American history (see his chapter on " Witchcraft," in Vol. II.) and for his labors in the present, as well as in the past, in his Index to Periodical Literature. He was followed in 1S69 by Mr. Charles A. Cutter, the present librarian, to whom the fraternity of librarians award the

To Boston belongs the credit of having started the first of a class of libra¬ ries which were of parallel growth with the movements in education that characterized the early half of the present century, - libraries which were intended mainly to help the self-education of the younger members of the commercial classes.1 The Boston Mercantile Library was begun in 1820, antedating by a few months the similar institution in New York, and by a year that in Philadelphia, both still flourishing; while the Boston institution, after many mischances, having the helpful encouragement at times of emi¬ nent men, and floated for some years by the most popular system of public lectures in the town, succumbed in 1877 (when it contained twenty-three thousand volumes) before the progressive work of the Public Library, and became the nucleus of its South End branch.2 Mr. William Wood started during the same year (1820) a somewhat similar institution, the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library, - which is still, however, with its five thousand vol¬ umes, doing a quiet work.3

The Legislature of the State had voted in 1811 to exchange its docu¬ ments with other States; and Congress, in 1813, agreeing to furnish its pub¬ lications, a collection of books was gradually formed at the State House, which grew to such proportions that in 1826 it was formally organized as a library. Though some of the States, even during the Revolutionary War, had begun libraries at their Capitals, the law of Massachusetts in 1811 is conceded to have been the most noticeable cause which has instigated the present system of State Libraries.4 Under the fostering care of the Legisla¬ ture, and with the aid of the reciprocity system, the State Library has now grown to be of large size, when we consider that its scope is chiefly that of legislative productions, with the addition of works on the history of the country. Its expansion has recently rendered necessary an enlargement of its rooms in the State House.6

We must assign to the period now under consideration three significant special collections, still in full usefulness, - that of the Handel and Haydn Society, started in 1815, rich in the works and scores of the musical pro¬ fession; that of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Misheadship in the science of cataloguing. His Rules for a printed Dictionary Catalogue, pub¬ lished as Part II. of the report of the Bureau of Education (Washington, 1876) on The Pub¬ lic Libraries of the United States, is the most ex¬ haustive survey of an intricate subject which has ever been made, and is recognized as such in Europe and in this country. He is the pres¬ ent editor of the Library Journal, and has lately begun the arrangement of the library on a novel plan. The first catalogue of the Athenaeum was printed in 1809 (5,750 volumes); other issues appeared in 1827, 1829, 1834, and 1840, with smaller supplements of later dates, which have now the form of an annotated bulletin of acces¬ sions. The late Mr. Charles Russell Lowell be¬ gan the preparation of a final critical catalogue under Mr. Poole, but his death threw the comple¬ tion and printing of it into Mr. Cutter's hands, who issued vol. i. in 1874. This monument of bibliographical scholarship is not yet finished.

5 It printed catalogues in 1831, 1839, 1846, 1858, and 1880, - the last, ample and creditable. The library at present has forty-six thousand volumes, ten thousand pamphlets, two hundred volumes of manuscripts, and is under the charge of Mr. C. B. Tillinghast as acting librarian.

The decade from 1830 to 1840 was not prolific in new attempts. The small beginnings, however, of what is now the excellent library of the Boston Society of Natural History were undertaken in 1831. Harvard College Library had grown to be of considerable value ; but President Quincy in 1833 failed to influence the Legislature to protect it by a suit¬ able building, and Gore Hall rose from private munificence.2 In 1837 an article in the North American Review drew attention to the poverty of American libraries. In 1838 Mr. Lemuel Shattuck, in the city council, offered some suggestions about the preservation of documents; but no ac¬ tion was taken. In 1837 a movement, copied after action in New York State, had been set on foot by Horace Mann to establish district-school libraries; and up to 1850, when the law was repealed, near one hundred thousand volumes were accumulated in over two thousand such collections, - which, however, did not prove to have vitality, and little or no trace of the system is now observable. A more fruitful movement was preparing.

As early as 1825 there had been a scheme of co-operation proposed, by which all the libraries and allied institutions in Boston should be united under one roof,3 but it came to nought. The next effort was to proceed from one who had acquired some notoriety as a French conjurer, M. Alexandre. Preferring to be known by his patronymic in this more serious business, M. Vattemare, as Guizot said, entered as early as 1830, " with the energy of a man possessed of a fixed thought," upon a mission to build up libraries through international exchanges. On his second visit to America in 1840-41, securing the countenance of Abbott Lawrence, he introduced his scheme to Congress.4 John Quincy Adams gave him a god-speed to Boston, and in April, 1841, the Daily Advertiser and other papers were writing up his project. President Quincy encouraged him, and saw " but few obstacles and great advantages " in the grand conglomerate institution with its great public library, which should gather together all the collec¬ tions and unify the intellectual movements of the city. Distinguished cit¬ izens called a public meeting. Edwin P. Whipple moved resolutions of affiliation in the Mercantile Library Association. Judge Story smiled upon the undertaking. At the meeting, May 5, the mayor, Jonathan Chapman, presided ; a committee was appointed, and fourteen associations were in¬ vited to enter the league. A showing was made that $100,000, to be raised by subscription with aid from the city, would be sufficient to begin with. A committee of the Athenaeum (W. T. Andrews, Edward Wigglesworth, and N. I. Bowditch) first uttered the sentiment of those who had kept

3 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. i. 384. The younger persed by public sale after his death. Lives of Buckminster had had dreams of one grand the Buckminsters, 323, 398, 438.

outside the range of Vattemare's enthusiasm, and held that institution in opposition ; and the fever subsided almost as rapidly as it had arisen.

The agitation, however, had induced the public to look at what their library facilities really were. Taking all kinds of libraries, some of them insignificant, and divided into circulating (10), social (36), and school (15),

1 This cut follows a portrait by Stuart, painted about 1824, and owned by Mr. John A. Lowell, by whose kind permission it is engraved. Mr. Lowell was one of the founders of the Athe¬ naeum ; later, its president ; and the original draft of its charter still exists, in his hand. Quincy's History of the Boston Athenmim. The Lowell family figures so largely in several chapters of this work, that it may be desirable to make clear here their kinship : - it was found that Boston, then containing eighty-one thousand nine hundred and eighty-four inhabitants, had, of a somewhat public kind, about sixty libraries, mostly very small, containing in the aggregate one hundred and fourteen thousand six hundred and eighty-three volumes, - largely dupli¬ cates, of course, but still sufficient, if the College Library at Cambridge be added, to place Boston of all American cities far ahead for such facilities.

Meanwhile, Vattemare was pushing his favorite project of international exchanges, and in return for some gifts of books which had been forwarded through him to the Municipal Council of Paris, the Mayor received in 1843 a set of about fifty volumes, - the incipient collection, which, grow¬ ing a little afterward by accessions from the same source, in a few years, under other auspices, became the nucleus of our great Public Library.1

It was certainly now high time that something should be done, to enable American scholars to pursue studies in a creditable way. Judge Story might well doubt if America could furnish a single library where Gibbon's refer¬ ences could be verified. George Livermore said, in 1850, that all our libraries did not enable us to write the history of the New England Primer. Ticknor and Prescott could not pursue their studies without gathering libra¬ ries for the purpose. Professor Jewett, in 1847, said that not one American library could meet the wants of a student in any department. It was this poverty of our public collections which induced the formation of not a few important private collections in different parts of the country; and they have exemplified the truth expressed by Thomas Watts of the British Museum, that the chief use of private libraries is to feed public collections.2

The town of Orange, Mass., as early as 1846 had made a small appro¬ priation to support a town library, though no enabling act had at that time been passed by the State Legislature. In 1847 President Wayland of Brown

1 Whatever we think of Vattemare, whether we call him an enthusiast, or something worse or better, we must recognize his contagious energy, which induced State after State to suc¬ cumb to his representations, so that by 1853 he had brought one hundred and thirty libraries and institutions within his operations; and between 1847 and 1851 had brought from France for American libraries 30,655 volumes, beside maps, engravings, etc. See U. S. House Doc. 1844, No. 539; 1848, Nos. 99, 590, 839; Senate Doc. 1848, No. 46; 1850, No. 126; Mass. Senate Doc. 1845, Nos. 26, 40; 1850, No. 1 17; Mass. House Doc. 1849, No. 1 51. It is certain that Vattemare con¬ sidered the pioneers of 1841 as the originators of our great Public Library. The Hon. R. C. Winthrop in 1S55, in his address at the laying the corner-stone of the Boylston Street build¬ ing, in some sort recognized this claim. When the same gentleman spoke, Jan. 1, 1858, at the dedication of the building, he said that he left it to others to " do justice to the original projectors and founders of the institution ; " but no one on that occasion attempted to indicate them, because unseemly feelings of disparagement and pretension had been shown here and there over the question of individual relations to the pro¬ ject. The papers growing out of this 1841 movement are now, by the act both of Vatte¬ mare and Mr. Quincy, in the Public Library. The exchange system gradually lost favor. George Livermore discouraged it in 1850; Panizzi disapproved it ; Henry Stevens showed the cost of it to be much more than the return. All this time Guizot and some others were con¬ vinced of its great value. Vattemare continued some fitful performances in this way till his death in 1864. His son proposed to continue the arrangement; but the State Department at Washington, seeking the advice of Professor Jewett, fortunately failed to be again led into it.

2 Of the chief private libraries of thirty years ago, the Force Collection (Washington) is now a part of the Library of Congress ; the Lenox (New York) has become a public library ; the Barton (of New York) and a principal part of the Ticknor (Boston) collections are now in the Public Library of this city.

University offered five hundred dollars to the town of Wayland, Mass., pro¬ vided an equal sum should be granted by the town. The question of the le¬ gality of such an appropriation was raised, and it resulted in rendering each tax-payer's burden voluntary, not compulsory. In this way the library was established, and was opened in 1850. Under this state of affairs, a repre¬ sentative from that town introduced into the State Legislature, in 1851, a bill to legalize within moderate limits a tax-levy for the founding and support of public libraries by towns. It became a law, and was subsequently so modified that in the end ( 1 866)- all limitation as to amount was removed, and later still (1870) even parts of townships could combine for such purposes.

But before this general action Boston had taken steps in the same direc¬ tion. Its city council had appointed in 1847 a joint committee on a libra¬ ry. Its mayor (Josiah Quincy, Jr.) had offered $5,000 for such a library, on condition that $10,000 should be added; but the city council and the public neglected the offer. On March 12 of the next year (1848), however, a special act of the Legislature was passed which authorized the city of Boston to found and maintain a library ; and on April 3 the city accepted the act. Efforts were at once made to effect a union of inter¬ ests with the Athenaeum,1 with a view to making that library the foundation of the new library ; but the efforts failed, and, it seems now, happily. The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop gave, in 1849, the first books under the new incen¬ tive. The next year, August 5, the Hon. John P. Bigelow, then mayor of the city, agreed with his friends that the sum of $1,000, which had been raised as a personal testimonial to him, should go toward a library fund, - and this proved to be the first gift of money. Some time before this the Hon. Ed¬ ward Everett had signified his intention of making a more important gift, but (through no fault of Mr. Everett) it was not consummated till two days after Mr. Bigelow's; and this was a thousand volumes of United States doc¬ uments, the fruit of his collecting at Washington, and which, with the subse¬ quent accession of the collection of Josiah Quincy, and other additions, has formed what is considered the best set of such documents in existence.

The accumulations having now become considerable, a librarian (Mr. Edward Capen) was appointed May 13, 1852, by the Mayor, who antici¬ pated an action properly belonging to its Board of Trustees, which was organized only a few days later, May 24, when Mr. Everett became its first president.2 On July 6 this board made a preliminary report, sketching with some fulness the idea which they entertained of what such a library should be. The body of this report was drawn by George Ticknor,8 who threw him- president, who has served already as trustee a Monthly, 1872. The Annual Reports of the literm of twenty-five years, marked by a devoted brary are the best summary of its progress and self heartily into the movement, with a spirit of progress and liberality much in advance of what some of his associates of the board, particularly Mr. Everett, thought desirable. The views of the report were so acceptable that they elicited some generous responses from the citizens; but it was destined to produce the most striking results in the mind of a distinguished citizen of London, then at the head of the great banking-house of Baring Brothers. This gentleman, Joshua Bates, was a native of Weymouth in this State, and had suffered from the want of public facilities for reading when, as a young man, he was making his way in Boston. The city was now applying to his firm for a loan; and, as evidences of its prosperity, had sent to him various documents, among others this report of July 6. He recognized among tlie signers of it the names of gentlemen in whom he had confi¬ dence ; and remembering his early experience, and incited by kindly feelings toward a city which was almost the place of his nativity, he promptly, on October I, communicated to the Mayor his willingness to expend $50,000 for books, if the city would provide a building. A week before this letter was received, the city council had passed the first library ordinance. The offer of Mr. Bates made sure at once what was likely, however, in due time to have been attained; for it was not then known that the Hon. Jon¬ athan Phillips had before this (Sept. 28, 1849) drawn a will bequeathing $20,000 " to the maintenance of a free public library." The same gentle¬ man now, under the impulse of the general feeling, made a separate, imme¬ diate gift of $10,000 " for the purchase of books." 1 Thus encouraged, the trustees started a reading-room in Mason Street on March 20, 1854, and on May 2 a library connected with it was also opened. In the following No¬ vember a commission was appointed to erect the library building, with the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop as chairman, and the corner-stone was laid Sept. 1 7, 1855. The building was completed and dedicated Jan. 1, 1858. 2 Mean¬ while the collection of popular books in Mason Street had been success¬ fully administered under Mr. Capen ; while a rich accumulation of the higher class of books had been constantly arriving from Mr. Bates, whose agents purchased according to lists sent from Boston. These accessions were made ready for future shelving in a building in Boylston Place, hired for the purpose. To organize this most important part of the library, and to give the chief control of the whole to a skilled hand, an ordinance of the city was passed, March, 1853, creating the office of superintendent;

1 This was on April 14, 1853.. The other benefit of the Charlestown branch ; $4,000 from sum was received, after his death, April, 1S61 ; Mr. George Ticknor; $5,000 from Hon. Henry and the two to-day constitute, after Mr. Bates's L. Pierce; $1,500 from Dr. Samuel A. Green; $50,000, the largest single fund of the library, and $1,000 each from Samuel Appleton, Esq. In addition to this fund Mr. Bates also spent and The Franklin Club.

$50,000 for books. See A Memorial to Joshua 2 It had cost, with the land, $365,000. A Bates from the City of Boston , 1865. volume was issued, giving the Proceedings of the

The other principal money gifts have been : Dedication , which includes a history of the move- $10,000 under Hon. Abbott Lawrence's will ; rnent and description of the building, together $4,000 from Miss Mary P. Townsend's execu- with the addresses by Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Everett, tors ; $10,000 from Charlotte Harris for the and Mayor Rice.

Charles Coffin Jewett.1

To fill the new office, choice was made of Charles Coffin Jewett, who thus became the first general executive of the library. Under his supervi-

1 This cut follows a photograph now in the library. Mr. Jewett was born in Lebanon, Maine, in 1816; graduated at Brown University in 1835 ; and pursued Oriental and theological studies at Andover with the intention of becoming a mis¬ sionary, but so narrow a chance as missing the sailing of a vessel changed the current of his life. He became librarian of Brown University in 1841, and subsequently, in the same institu¬ tion, a professor of modern languages and liter¬ ature, still keeping the librarianship, and visit¬ ing Europe for the purchase of books. In 1848 VOL. IV. - 37.

he resigned, to become assistant secretary and librarian of the Smithsonian Institution at Wash¬ ington. While here he published the earliest general survey of American libraries, - Notices of Public Libraries in the United States, - which remained the only considerable account (supple¬ mented by another, by the present writer, in the Report of the Boston Public Library, in 1869) till the bureau of education issued their ency¬ clopedic volume in 1S76. He also proposed a system of national cataloguing, through the agency of the Smithsonian Institution, in stereo- sion the library flourished for ten years. It received, - beyond the ordinary accessions from its funds and casual gifts, - first, in 1858, the library which had been formed by the late Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch,1 and which, since his death, had been maintained by his sons as a public library of reference ; then, in 1 860, that of the Rev. Theodore Parker ; 2 several special collec¬ tions, including ancient classics and books on Moliere and in the Provencal literature, from Mr. Ticknor; the Prince Library, by deposit (a collection referred to earlier in this chapter) ; and the earnest and promise of the Patent Specifications of Great Britain, a donation still in progress. The library funds were also considerably increased.3

In the autumn and early winter of 1858 the reading-room and the lowerhall library of the new building were opened.4 The main collection of the upper hall was not made accessible till 1861. 5 Mr. Jewett added to a care¬ ful bibliographical training an inventive mind and great industry; and under his care the library developed a system suited to a large circulation, with all the attendant and necessary complexity of checks which could render that circulation safe while being free. It was not long before the library became the centre of experience the most valuable for all charged with similar duties, far and near.6 typing titles for distribution ; but it was never practically applied, except in an experimental wTay. In the diverse interpretations of Smith¬ son's will, Professor Jewett argued for a great library as the most efficient method for the dif¬ fusion of knowledge ; and Professor Henry, for exclusive devotion to science and publication of treatises. This led to a' controversy, under these champions, between the literary and scien¬ tific classes of that day, acting through their representatives in the Board of Regents. It resulted in a numerical defeat of Mr. Jewett's side, and led to his resignation and that of Mr. Rufus Choate, who had urgently supported his views in the Board of Regents. The necessary sequel was the transfer of the library, which Mr. Jewett had gathered, to the library of Congress.

1 Largely mathematical, two thousand five hundred and fifty volumes ; and increased since 1877 by a yearly gift of $500 from Mr. J. Ingersoll Bowditch, a son of the original owner.

4 A catalogue of the Mason Street Library had been printed in 1S54, and the original lower-hall catalogue was issued in 1858, on a plan since widely followed, which is the fruit of Mr. Jewett's discrimination.

5 It was opened with seventy-four thousand volumes, and, with the lower hall, the entire li¬ brary now held ninety-seven thousand three hun¬ dred and eighty-six volumes. The first volume of what is now known as the Bates Hall Index (catalogue) was issued at this time ; and it was the most advanced specimen of library catalogu¬ ing which had then been produced in America. Before its Supplement was issued in 1S66 Mr. Bates had died, Sept. 24, 1864, and the upper hall was then styled the Bates Hall. It was a just recognition of what he had done for the library, and happily fell short of the unwise proceeding, so common, in giving to an institu¬ tion the name of a prominent or even chief bene¬ factor. It usually happens that such prominence finds no one later anxious to dispute it. We are not .without melancholy instances of such handi¬ capping among libraries in this country.

6 Among the more important of the devices which this library has bestowed upon others was the displacement of the old traditional method of recording loans, on a ledger system, by a plan of slips, introduced by Mr. Jewett in 1866, but improved upon to insure much greater expedition, as experience grew. The card sys¬ tem for the catalogue w'as due rather to Mr. Folsom of the Athenaeum, but under Mr. Jewett it became much better known, and is now widely adopted. It is not by any means certain, how¬ ever, that it will continue to be so highly es¬ teemed as it has been in the past. What has been called the " decimal system," in the arrange¬ ment of the books on the shelves, was due to one of the trustees, Dr. N. B. Shurtleff, who, however, failed to give it all the flexibility which belongs to it, and which renders it in other hands far better in adaptation than in the hands

Mr. Jewett died suddenly on Jan. 9, 1868. The shock was a severe one to the library. The assistant superintendent, Professor William E. Jillson,1 was in confirmed ill health, and, declining advancement, soon died.

In the absence of any responsible executive the care of the institution devolved upon Mr. Justin Winsor, one of its trustees, who a few weeks later (February 25) was confirmed in the executive office by his late asso¬ ciates on the board.

Of Mr. Winsor's administration, which lasted for nearly ten years, his Annual Reports , and particularly his last, that for 1877, recapitulating the library's progress during his connection with it, must tell the story. The library increased from 144,000 volumes to 320,000. Its first branch was established at East Boston in 1871, and seven others were added.2 Its circulation grew from 209,000 to nearly 1,200,000; the daily average issues from 754 to 4,000. The loss of books from unfaithful borrowers, mean¬ while, had been so checked that while in 1867 it was more than one in a thousand, in 1877 it was one in ten thousand, delivered. The number of days on which the library was closed was reduced from eighty-six to the five legal holidays.3 The capacity of the central building was doubled by changes in the interior and by extensions. In the printed catalogues some new developments took place, calculated to assist the readers to a more intelligent choice of books.4 of its projector. See A Decimal System for the Arrangement and Administration of Libraries , by N. B. Shurtleff, Boston, privately printed, 1S56.

1 Mr. Jillson was the head of the catalogue department, and was succeeded in this duty by Mr. William A. Wheeler, well known for his lexicographical labors, at whose death in Octo¬ ber, 1874, the library suffered another great loss. His assistant, Mr. James L. Whitney, was ad¬ vanced to the chief position, and has since held it.

2 These were at South Boston in 1S72-73 ; at Roxbury in 1873-74, where a union was made with the Fellowes Athenaeum, and a new building erected; at Charlestown and Brighton, the same year, by assuming the charge of the libraries existing in those places before the annexation of them; at Dorchester in 1874-75 ; at the South End, where the Mercantile Library added their books, and at Jamaica Plain, in 1877-78. There was also a delivery at Dorchester Lower Mills, dependent on the Branch at Field's Corner. Since this date a delivery has been established at Roslindale, and a secondary branch at West Roxbury, upon the basis of the privately sup¬ ported free library previously existing there.

8 This was brought about by the introduction, in 1869, of a method of continuous examination of the library, instead of a periodic one, a pro¬ cess impracticable but for the slip system of registration of loans, and never before attempted in a large library, with the aim of keeping the

4 This system, which has earned the name of the Educational Catalogue, began first with an experiment of arranging the titles of historical fiction in their relation to chronological events, and by countries and persons. The first issue of the Chronological Index to Historical Fiction was made in 1871. A second enlarged edition appeared in 1875. ^ was subsequently embodied as notes to a Catalogue of English Prose Fiction , in 1877, in which were also given, as parallels, the books for the general reader, essential to give an historical narrative as an accompani¬ ment to the imaginative rendering. Before this an annotated Catalogue of History , Biography, and Travel had been largely illustrated with notes for the reader's guidance. These cata¬ logues, giving system and development to a plan barely indicated in any similar way before, had large effect upon the character of the reading in the popular departments of the library, and were copied and borrowed from throughout the coun¬ try. The same system was also applied to the catalogues of the branches, notably to that of the Roxbury Branch. Just before Mr. Jewett's death he had issued the first number of a Bul¬ letin of accessions, and this was afterward made the vehicle of bibliographical contributions per¬ taining to the higher as well as more popular literature. Notes of a more scholarly character, which were added in some degree to the Prince

It had soon become evident, after Mr. Bates's gift was assured, that the experiment of a free library was to be tried in Boston on a scale of consid¬ erable magnitude; but in the beginning no just conception of the possi¬ bilities of the scheme was entertained. When its building, calculated to hold less than a quarter of a million of volumes, was dedicated, the orator was thought to anticipate correctly when he proclaimed it to be sufficiently large for a century to come. In less than twenty years it was enlarged to hold twice its original complement. The library's success has proved the possibility of organizing, for very large free use, an extensive collection of books ; and none of the free libraries of England, whose system is of even date of origin with the American, has wholly matched it in develop¬ ment. It soon became an anxious question how far its management could remain with safety in close connection with the city government. Some of its original friends and organizers very early saw signs of the coming evil, and thought the fatal issue was sure in due time to arrive. In 1877 it came. It was a period of general financial distress. The cost of main¬ taining the library was large, although its expenses had fallen far short of being commensurate with its increase of accessions and attendant business. In fact the cost of circulating its books, proportioned to the grand total of expenditure, was only two-fifths in 1877 of what it had been in 1867. It seemed to the best citizens, however, that the time had come to econo¬ mize. The library had a management which was ready to apportion its expenses to the exigencies which had arisen; but the city council assumed to regulate the details of a method of economy, and so encroached upon the necessary functions of the management, and did it with such lack of knowledge, that confusion and injustice resulted. In this contingency Mr. Winsor resigned, and accepted the librarianship of Harvard University. The friends of the library rallied in its defence; and even the city council, on a sober second thought, did not oppose an application to the State Legislature for an act of incorporation for the library, which was in due time secured. This practically limited the interference of the city govern¬ ment to defining the gross limit of expenditures, so far as they were met from the city treasury.

During an interval of abeyance, one of its trustees, Dr. Samuel A. Green, at much personal sacrifice, filled its chief executive office until, in 1878, the Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, resigning his seat on the bench of the municipal court, was chosen its first librarian (as the officer was now called) under the new constitution.1

Catalogue , assumed much larger proportions in the Ticknor Catalogue. Arrangements for sim¬ ilar notes to the Shakespeare part of the Barton Catalogue , which had been made and tentatively exemplified during Mr. Winsor's term in his Monthly Reports, were abandoned with the change of administration in 1877.

brary and the public schools are to work in uni¬ son in fostering, under direction, an inclination for reading among the younger classes. Methods of assisting readers in selecting books, which had long been contemplated (see Report of 1873, p. 30), but which had been checked by the con¬ trol then exercised by the city council over the pay-roll, have been put in operation with suc¬ cess. In 1880, a petition asking for a grant of

It is necessary now to trace briefly the progress of the general library system of the city during this development of its crowning institution.

In 1850 Mr. George Livermore, in a timely article in the North American Review , had pointed out the deficiencies of our American libraries, and did much to draw attention to the subject. The period was a favorable one for fo rming libraries. The political disturbances in Europe had thrown vast collections of books upon the market; and Dr. Cogswell, who was at this time in Europe purchasing for the Astor Library, gave European collectors the first serious competition they had from America. Still prices ruled low. Although he was buying for a reference, rather than for a popular, library, he brought away from Europe sixty thousand volumes for sixtythree thousand dollars.

At this time (1850) the College Library at Cambridge, with its seventytwo thousand volumes, stood at the head of American libraries ; and the census of this year gave Massachusetts seventy-eight libraries and about two hundred thousand volumes, - no other State approaching her.1

Boston was certainly at this time and in this respect the favored section of America; and in addition to her public collection, her private libraries were often put at the service of any accredited scholar.2 Already a few years earlier, in 1845, the foundations had been laid of the collection which now makes the rooms of the New England Historic Genealogical Society one of the centres of antiquarian research. The Theological School, which subse¬ quently became a part of the Boston University, began its collection in 1847. At Roxbury, its Athenaeum started in 1848, and is still at work; though its namesake, the Dorchester Athenaeum, dating ten years later, has recently come to an end. The twin workers which early brought books to bear as a part of their appliances for good, the Young Men's Christian Association and land on the corner of Dartmouth and Boylston streets, for the erection of a new central build¬ ing, was presented to the legislature. The friends of the measure, to secure its passage, consented to a provision which gave all inhabi¬ tants of the Commonwealth privileges in the library to be kept in this building equal to those enjoyed by the citizens of Boston. In this form the bill was passed; but by some oversight the bill which was presented to the governor for his approval was without this provision, and the city council promptly accepted the untrammelled offer. The grant of land not being large enough, it is now in contemplation to buy adjacent lots. A beginning of the building must be made within three years from the date of grant to secure the land.

1 The city of Paris at this time had half as many more volumes in her libraries as all the United States together; and the city of Munich nearly as many. If we reckon the volumes in public libraries at so many per capita, the United States could hardly show more than four or five, while Great Britain showed fifty-three ; Prussia,

2 We have some means of forming an ap¬ proximate estimate of many of these private collections at that time, in Luther Farnham's Private Libraries of Boston , in Mr. Livermore's paper already referred to, and in an article in the Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1850. A part of them were as follows : Charles Francis Adams (gen¬ eral, 18,000 volumes) ; George Ticknor (classics, modern literature, particularly Spanish and Portuguese, 13,000 volumes) ; Theodore Parker (general, 13,000 volumes) ; Abbott Lawrence (10,000); Edward Everett (7,500); Dr. John C. Warren (6,000) ; Francis C. Gray (4,000) ; Frank¬ lin Haven (4,000) ; David Sears (4,000) ; Richard Frothingham (in Charlestown, 4,000) ; George Livermore (in Cambridge, 2,000 to 3,000) ; Charles Deane (in Cambridge, 2,500) ; W. H. Prescott (6,000); Rufus Choate (6,500); E. A. Crowninshield (2,500); Jared Sparks (in Cam¬ bridge, 6,000) ; Thomas Dowse (in Cambridge, 5,000) ; Nathaniel Bowditch (2,500) ; Samuel G. Drake (6,000) ; etc.

the Young Men's Christian Union, began their labors each in 1851. In 1853 the first collections were formed of the Congregational Library, which, under the assiduous care of its librarian, has become a place of resort for the student in our history. In i860 the General Theological Library was begun; 1 and in 1875, what is destined to be a special collection of import¬ ance was established by the Boston Medical Library Association.2 Apart from collections which naturally grow up under the influence of literary or other special institutions, these are the latest libraries founded in Boston.

2 Beside the departments of the Public Li- and Boston Universities, and that of the City brary and the Athenaeum devoted to this subject, Hospital.

By George Ripley, Ll.D., And George P. Bradford

' I ''HE brief space allotted to the subject of the present chapter permits only a few rapid notices (mostly from personal recollections) of some of the eminent men who have exerted a marked influence on the tendency and development of thought in Boston during the nineteenth century, with¬ out any attempt at the profound discussion of philosophical principles, or the illustration of their character and influence. No powerful school of philosophy, with the qualities of unity and permanence, has sprung up among the people of Boston ; but several individual, isolated essays have been made by her studious and thoughtful men to reach a higher sphere of intellectual life, which are perhaps entitled to a place in the modest records of speculative opinion.

In treating the subject of the following pages, I shall regard the Uni¬ versity of Cambridge and the city of Boston as so closely identified in all the relations of literature and cultivation, that no account can be given of the intellectual progress of one, without assigning a large and most con¬ spicuous place to the influence of the other. The prominent thinkers of Boston, with few exceptions, have been children of Harvard ; most of them have been the pupils of her schools ; many of them teachers in her halls, and the ministers of her discipline. With the widest differences of mental habit and achievement, wearing their opinions like the Hebrew garment of many colors, forming no sect for winning proselytes, no clan for urging conquests, they have met only on the common ground of love of learning, interest in the pursuit of truth, and affectionate devotion to the fair and venerable " mother of their minds."

Soon after the beginning of the present century an intellectual move¬ ment arose in Massachusetts which has been not unhappily compared to the Renaissance in Italy, that succeeded the dreary monotony of the Middle Ages. Art, letters, poetry, philosophy, social intercourse, domestic culture, public education, alike felt the genial impulse. The cradle and centre of this movement was Harvard College. Without precisely defining the date, the accession of John Thornton Kirkland to the presidency of the college, in 1810, may be said to mark the beginning of the era which has been so - prolific in its results and so auspicious in its influence.

President Kirkland, indeed, made no pretensions to the character of a pioneer or a discoverer in the sphere of philosophy. His admirably bal¬ anced mind was not speculative, much less controversial. He had little genius, and no taste for the discussion of purely abstract questions; nor was he profoundly versed in the history of opinions : but the transparent clearness of his mental perceptions, the fine and subtile delicacy of his ethical instincts, his sympathy with whatever was rare and beautiful in literature, and the sagacity and firmness of his common-sense created around him an atmosphere in the highest degree favorable to the cultiva¬ tion of thought, freedom of research, and frankness of expression. His personal aversion to the toil of composition has prevented him from leaving any adequate memorial of his affluent mind ; but the magnetic charm of his conversation, the sweet amenity of his manner, and the quaint and fertile suggestions of his original imagination, must always be noted among the influences which led to the revival of a sound literature and an ideal philosophy among the descendants of the Puritans.

Seven years after the entrance of Dr. Kirkland upon the presidency, the chair of Moral Philosophy was filled by the appointment of Professor Levi Frisbie (1817), a graduate of the celebrated class of 1802, who held the office until his death, in 1822. During the brief period of five years he gave an impulse to the study of philsophy, and a direction to its subsequent development, which form an important feature in the history of modern thought in the vicinity of Boston. Professor Frisbie was a man of a peculiar and remarkable nature. His influence was founded on his per¬ sonal character rather than on his writings. A chronic infirmity of sight prevented his free use of the pen, and his stores of learning and specula¬ tion were illustrated by his oral teachings in the class-room, and not by the composition of books. His presence afforded a lucid example of the ideal beauty of human character, or, to use the words of Professor Norton, his friend and biographer, of " the holy charm of moral loveliness," while the sweetness and dignity of his discourse inspired the fancy that the classical bees of Plato had once more settled on modern lips. A devotee of ancient literature, especially of the Latin classics, he was deeply interested in the whole range of elegant letters in the English language. He was a fervent admirer of the terse vigor and ethical severity of Tacitus, while his aesthetic tastes inspired him with a profound sympathy with the graceful ease and masculine sense of the writings of Maria Edgeworth. He was equally addicted to the cultivation of poetry and the study of philosophy. His rare speculative insight was united with singular critical acuteness, a lively and delicate fancy, and an unerring taste in literary composition. The in¬ fluence of Professor Frisbie was not lost on the plastic minds that waited reverently on his words, and has been reproduced more or less directly

Philosophic Thought In Boston

Professor hnsbie's examination of Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Senti¬ ments, rst published in 1819, is a master-piece of philosophical analy¬ sis, pointing out the defects and shortcomings of the author with equal insight and discrimination, and incidentally exposing the superficial and un-

1 [This cut follows Stuart's likeness of Dr. the exception of this defect, it is a splendid Kirkland (b. 1770, d. 1840) owned by his nephew, portrait and an admirable likeness." It was the Rev. Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, D.D., who probably painted in 1810, when Kirkland was kindly permitted it to be engraved, and says : forty years old, and was just become President "It is painted on wood, badly prepared. With of Harvard College. - Ed.]

tenable conclusions of Paley, who until that time had been an important eth¬ ical authority with American students. The point which Professor Frisbie insisted on most urgently in his lectures on moral philosphy was the in¬ dependent character of the idea of Right. This was an emphatic depart¬ ure from the empirical theory of the sensuous philosophy, - the philosophy founded on the experience of the senses, as the antithesis of the intuitions of the soul, and which will be designated respectively in this chapter, and without any invidious intent, as the Sensuous and the Intuitive systems, - in which the followers of Locke and Paley had found a placid repose, and which had been made the cardinal principle of ethics in some of the most prom¬ inent seats of learning in this country. The spirit of Professor Frisbie's teachings is tersely expressed in a sentence from his inaugural discourse: " There will always be a Hobbes, a Rousseau, and a Godwin; let us then have also our Cudworths, our Butlers, and our Stewarts." The term Right, according to his theory, denotes an action which an intelligent moral agent is morally obliged to perform. Absolute right is a perception of the under¬ standing - or, as we should say, the reason - discerning a real and inhe¬ rent quality in actions. The idea of right is essentially distinct from that of utility, of the greatest happiness, of obedience to the divine will, or of a course of conduct determined by the assurance of reward or punishment. It is a simple idea; it can be described only by synonymous words; it pos¬ sesses an identity of its own by its very essence, independent of any tend¬ ency or consequence. It is that which impresses the belief that an action should be performed, which we approve in the actions of others, and reflect upon with satisfaction in our own ; which is perceived in a manner precisely similar to the perception of other ideas. The general tendency of right actions, Professor Frisbie affirms, is indeed to produce good or happiness; but the perception of right is distinct from the perception of happiness. There is another principle of action by which good is to be distributed besides a regard to the greatest good ; and this principle is rectitude, or, in the widest sense, justice. Hence those actions are right which, on the whole, are of a nature to produce good or prevent harm, under the control of the principle of rectitude ; but the idea of rectitude or absolute right is simple and intuitive, not the fruit of sensuous experience, of traditional teaching, of external authority, or of a rapacious selfhood. The ethical theory thus enunciated by Professor Frisbie forms the silver thread that runs through the most conspicuous philosophical suggestions - we can scarcely call them systems - which have found powerful representatives among the thinkers of Boston. It was the dawm of the intuitive philos¬ ophy, in its application to ethics, which has since cast a healing splen¬ dor over modern thought, and illustrated the place of Boston in the development of philosophy.

The name of Professor Levi Hedge, who succeeded to the chair of Moral Philosophy after the death of Professor Frisbie, although he had previously taught for a series of years in a kindred department of the college, recalls the memory of a modest, capable, and faithful worker in the sphere of philosophy, whose example was a lesson in the pursuit of truth, in exact¬ ness of expression, in felicity of illustration, and in thoroughness of exposi¬ tion. He was an adherent of the Scottish philosophy, as represented by Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown; and, as an expounder of their protest against the principles ol Locke and of Paley, may be regarded as the fellowlaborer of Frisbie in anticipating the developments of the intuitive philos¬ ophy. His clearness of mind, his native good sense, his sound learning, and his austere integrity, gave him a wide influence among the clerisy of Massachusetts ; and he will always hold an eminent place among the pioneers of philosophic thought in the capital of the State.

Contemporary with Professor Frisbie, and united with him by the most intimate ties of friendship and sympathy, was Andrews Norton, who, though trained in a different philosophical school, the principles of which he always cher¬ ished with singular tenacity, holds a dis¬ tinguished place among the intellectual influences which have helped to stamp the society of Boston with an impress of liberal inquiry and origi¬ nal thought in the sphere of letters, philosophy, and art. Mr. Norton may be said to have formed a connecting link between the past and the future in American literary cultivation. He appeared at the moment when the scholastic attainments since the period of the Revolution were about to ripen into a more generous development. In early life he was far in advance of most of his contemporaries in sound and exact learn¬ ing, and in what was then deemed an excessive freedom of speculation. He was connected with Harvard, first as tutor, then as librarian, and afterward as Professor of Sacred Literature. I11 each of these offices his influence was marked and salutary. His thorough scholarship served to give form and substance to the literary enthusiasm which at that time prevailed in Cambridge. His refined and exquisite taste cast an air of purity and elegance around the spirit of the place. His habits were as severe as those of a mediaeval monk. Plis love of literature was a passion. The predominant qualities of his mind were clearness of perception, rigidity of judgment, accuracy of expression, and a chaste imagination. His peculiar sphere was that of theology and criticism, but no department of elegant letters was foreign to his tastes. Every scholar in Cambridge received an inspiring impulse from his example. The lucidity of his intellect, the depth of his erudition, and the choice felicities of his language presented a new standard of excellence, and gave a higher tone to the literary character of Boston. But the personal traits of Mr. Norton exerted a still more power¬ ful influence. His hatred of pretension was equalled only by his devotion to truth. He spurned with a beautiful disdain whatever he deemed to be false, or shallow, or insincere. He demanded the stamp of genuineness, reality, harmony of proportion and perspective on everything which chal¬ lenged his approval. His sympathies were not easily won, nor was he lavish in the expression of even favorable judgments. He was free, perhaps, from what may be called moral suspicion, but he certainly often evinced an excess of intellectual caution. A man of stainless purity of purpose, of high integrity of life, with a profound sense of religion, and severe simplic¬ ity of manners, his example was a perpetual rebuke to the conceitedness of learning, the vanity of youthful scholarship, and the habit of " vain and shallow thought." His influence is deeply stamped on the literature of Harvard ; the intellectual atmosphere has not yet lost the fragrance of his presence; and if he solved no deep problems of philosophy, if his insight was restricted within a comparatively narrow compass, and he failed to appreciate justly the philosophic tendencies of the age, yet the course of speculative thought in Boston, it is believed, is largely indebted to the in¬ fluence of his character and example for whatever tincture of sound learning it may exhibit, for its thoroughness of inquiry, its accuracy of research, and its comparative freedom from extreme and erratic conclusions.

The tendency of Mr. Norton's mind in regard to themes of philosophi¬ cal inquiry was in a sceptical direction. Adopting the cardinal principles of Locke and Hume in regard to the origin of knowledge and the founda¬ tions of belief, he pursued them with strict logical sequence to their natural conclusions. In his view there could be but two sources of ideas, - ex¬ perience and testimony, - which in the final analysis were resolved into one. We have the teachings of experience in regard to the facts of the material universe; and concerning the realm of spiritualities, we are dependent on the authority of divine revelation. The human mind has no inherent faculty of perception in the sphere of facts which transcend the cognizance of the senses. We cannot rely upon the intuitions of reason as the ground of faith in the suggestions of the soul. The veracity of the human spirit as the condition of truth formed no part of his scheme of philosophy. There is no absolute certainty, Mr. Norton affirms, beyond the limit of momentary consciousness, - a certainty that vanishes at once into the region of meta¬ physical doubt. The doctrine of an intuitive faculty for discovering the truths of religion is utterly untenable ; we are not conscious of possessing any such faculty, and there can be no other proof of its existence. Intu¬ ition can inform us of nothing but what exists in our own minds, including the relations of our own ideas ; it is therefore a mere absurdity to maintain that we have an intuitive knowledge of the truths of religion. I am not aware that Mr. Norton reduced these principles to the form of a connected system, or that he would not have shrunk from the ultimate consequences which they involved. He held them, I think, as incidental to certain theories of dogmatic theology, of which he was the strenuous champion, rather than as a formal, coherent, and uniting body of philosophical truth; but that their spirit pervaded his writings, especially in the latter years of his life, and that they were interwoven with the whole fabric of his mental convic¬ tions, will not, I believe, be called in question by those who are the most intimately acquainted with the character of his mind and the tendency of his opinions. The influence of Mr. Norton in philosophy, however, was provocative rather than creative ; he led to doubt with regard to the ancient foundations rather than to sympathy with his peculiar ideas ; he prepared the way for vigorous combat, and not for docile acceptance ; and, like the influence of Hume on the virile mind of Kant, which " aroused him from his dogmatic slumbers," and sent him forth in quest of new achievements in the pursuit of truth, he inspired not a few of the earnest-minded young men of the day with a passionate zeal for the conquest of the holy Graal, the discovery of the golden chalice which was brimming with pure wine for the life of the soul.

Mr. Ripley was prevented from completing this chapter by his death. In accordance with his plan, of which he left a sketch, we shall continue the subject principally with an account of some of the persons and writers who may be considered as the exponents or organs of the various phases of thought, and whose works had a special influence in developing or directing its tendencies. The period beginning in 1830, or a little earlier, may be noted as one of especial activity and fertility in this respect as well as in many others. Among the salient points and conspicuous influences which marked this period we may signalize the early days of the Liberator and of Garrison, like "a voice crying in the wilderness;" the preaching and writings of Dr. Channing ; the lectures and writings of Mr. Emerson ; Dr. Hedge's articles in the Christian Examiner on German Philosophy, Coleridge, and other topics, and his Dudleian Lecture ; Theodore Parker at West Roxbury, and later in Boston ; Carlyle's various writings; the writings of Dr. O. A. Brownson ; the conversations at the house of Dr. Channing, in which Mr. Jonathan Phillips, Dr. Follen, George Ripley, and others took part; the controversy between Professor Norton and Mr. Ripley; and the inception of the Brook Farm enterprise, and the steps taken for its actual realization in 1841.

The period thus indicated was one of great excitement of thought on moral and intellectual questions, especially with the young and the genera¬ tion just coming upon the stage. Before the impulse given to the revival of thought which Mr. Ripley, in a general way, places about the time of the accession of Dr. Kirkland to the presidency of Harvard College, there had been little taste for abstract speculation, and the Sensuous System of Locke (to adopt, for convenience, the term used by Mr. Ripley) was generally accepted as authority on questions of this kind. A step away from this was taken when the famous Essay on the Understanding was disused as a text-book at Harvard, and the rational, but not very profound, metaphysics of the Scotch school adopted in its place. The Natural The¬ ology , Evidences of Christianity, and Moral Philosophy of Paley were text¬ books in the college, and were accepted, and perhaps generally acquiesced in, as authority in the fields of morals and theology. In this condition of thought the fervent eloquence of Channing, the inspiring words of Emerson and Carlyle, the stirring appeals of Parker and other reformers to high and abstract principles, came like a fresh and invigorating breeze into a dull and sluggish atmosphere.