Cambridge City (part 6 of 12)

Presidents Of Harvard University

Of the College professors who gave to Cambridge its distinctive atmosphere, there were many who bore names famous outside of the academic world. George Ticknor, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell served successively as Professors of Belles- Lettres; Norton, Palfrey, Willard, Noyes and Francis were upbuilding the Divinity School, and Joseph Story was laying the foundations were willing to give up their holiday's for the sake of attending. Richard H. Dana, just back from his famous "Two Years Before the Mast," was one of the students. He wrote: "At the close of a term there was one more case than there was an afternoon to hear it in, unless we took Saturday. Judge Story said: 'Gentlemen, the only time we can hear this case is Saturday afternoon. No one is obliged or expected to attend. I am to hold Court in Boston until two o'clock. I will ride directly out, take a hasty dinner, and be here by halfpast three o'clock, and hear the case, if you are willing.' He looked round the school for a reply. We felt ashamed, in our own business, where we were alone interested, to be outdone in zeal and labor by this aged and distinguished man, to whom the case was but child's play, a tale twice told, and who was himself pressed down by almost incredible labours. The proposal was unanimously accepted. The judge was on the spot at the hour, the school was never more full, and he sat until late in the evening, hardly a man leaving the room."

Among the law students in 1838 was Lowell. "I am reading Blackstone," he wrote, "with as good a grace and as few wry faces as I may." Eight months later he could write more cheerfully. " I begin to like the law. And therefore it is quite interesting. I am determined that I will like it, and therefore I do." On Story's death, in 1845, the school numbered one hundred and sixty-five students, who had flocked to his teaching, not only from New England, but from almost every State in the Union.

During the sixteen years in which he filled the chair Judge Story wrote all of his legal textbooks and his treatises, filling no less than thirteen volumes. He lived in the house on Brattle Street which is still standing near to the comer of the street which bears his name. "With fully two men's stated work," wrote Dr. Peabody, "he had time for every good cause and worthy enterprise. There was no public meeting for a needed charity, for educational interests, in behalf of art or letters, or for the advancement of a conservatively liberal theology, in which his advocacy was not an essential part of the programme. When there were no other speakers of note, it was enough to hear him; and he was not unwilling to occupy, and never failed to fill to the delight of his hearers, all the time that could be given him. When there were others whom it was desirable to hear, he was generally made chairman; and in his opening speech he always contrived to say as much as all those who followed him, and often unconsciously took the wind out of their sails. He formed a large part of the life of Cambridge society. His son is the only other man that I have ever known who could talk almost continuously for several successive hours, and leave his hearers with an appetite for more. Wherever Judge Story was, he did not usurp the conversation, but the floor was spontaneously and gladly conceded to him; and his listeners were entertained with an unintermitted flow of wit, himior, anecdote, literary criticism, comments on passing events, talk on the highest themes of thought, - the transition from topic to topic never abrupt, but always nattu-al and graceful. . . . Judge Story was a good citizen of Cambridge, and took an active part in all important municipal affairs. No man did more than he in securing for Cambridge the right to enclose the Common, in opposition to the towns lying farther in the interior, which claimed as of immemorial prescription the unrestricted and unbounded right of way for the herds of cattle that were driven through Cambridge to Brighton. In fine, one can hardly have filled a larger place in the community of his residence than he filled, with prompt and faithful service, with overflowing kindness and good will, and with the grateful recognition of people of every class and condition."

The theologians played a large part in the social and intellectual life of Cambridge. Professor Andrews Norton lived in Cambridge for forty-three years, and made his beautiful house at Shady Hill a place of pilgrimage for two generations of students. For twenty years he served as tutor, librarian and lectiirer; and then for twenty-three he gave himself to his independent work as a Biblical scholar. His successor in the Professorship of Sacred Literature was John Gorham Palfrey, who was not only famous for the thoroughness of his scholarship and the charm of his teaching, but also for his labors as editor of the North American Review, and for his anti-slavery words and works. After his withdrawal from teaching he continued to live on the ample estate which he had made at the end of Divinity Avenue, and added to his fame by writing his "History of New England," and by serving as a member of Congress and as the Postmaster of Boston.

Sidney Willard was another theological professor who was also a useful citizen. He held the Hancock professorship of Hebrew, and was editor of the American Monthly Review and later of the Christian Register. Like Dr. Palfrey, after withdrawing from teaching, he gave his time and ability to the public service. He was for several terms in the Legislature, then a member of the Governor's Council, and for three years Mayor of Cambridge after the organization of the city.

Among the professors of the College proper under the administration of Presidents Kirkland and Quincy there were many others who gave unique quality to Cambridge life. There was Edward Everett, who left the pulpit to become the first incumbent of the Eliot Professorship of Greek, and who was afterwards for four years president of the University; and there was John Quincy Adams, who was the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory. These are great names in American history, but the bearers of these names walked our Cambridge streets and stopped for their letters at the Post-office along with the humblest of their fellow-citizens. Their successors were men of lesser fame, but their personalities gave flavor to the town. Professor John S. Popkin was the best Greek scholar of his generation. He was a man of majestic presence, but of very odd appearance and manner. Lowell describes his "great silver spectacles of the heroic period, such as scarce twelve noses of these degenerate days could bear;" and Dr. Peabody said: "Shyness and solitude gave him an aspect and manners more eccentric than can easily be imagined in these days, when, under the assimilating influence of modern habits, idiosyncrasies have faded out, and every man means and aims to look like every other. His dress, indeed, was, in an historical sense, that of a gentleman; but his tailor must have been the last strr\avor of an else long extinct race. He never walked. His gait was always what is termed a dog-trot, slightly accelerated as he approached its terminus. He jerked out his words as if they were forced from him by a nervous spasm, and closed every utterance with a sound that seemed like a muscular movement of suction. In his recitation-room he sat by a table rather than behind it, and grasped his right leg, generally ^\^th both hands, lifting it as if he were making attempts to shoulder it, and more nearly accomplishing that feat daily than an ordinary gjTnnast would after a year's special training. As chairman of the parietal government, he regarded it as his official duty to preserve order in the College Yard: but he was the frequent cause of disorder; for nothing so amused the students as to see him in full chase after an offender, or dancing round a bonfire; while it was well understood that as a detective, he was almost always at fault.

"Oddities were then not rare, and excited less surprise and animadversion than they woiild now. The students held him in reverence, and at the same time liked him. His were the only windows of parietal officers that were never broken. Personal insult or outrage to him would have been resented by those who took the greatest delight in indirect methods of annoying him. Once, indeed, when he was groping on the floor in quest of smothered fire, in a room that had been shattered by an explosion of gunpowder, a bucket of water was throwTi on him by a youth, whose summary expulsion was the only case of the kind that I then knew in which the judgment of the students was in entire harmony with that of the Faculty. As may be supposed, he was not without a nickname, which he accepted as a matter of course from the students ; but hearing it on one occasion from a young man of dapper, jaunty, unacademic aspect, he said to a friend who was standing with him, 'What right has that man to call me " Old Pop " ? He was never a member of Harvard College.'

"Dr. Popkin's only luxury was the ver>' moderate use of tobacco. Every noon and every evening, Sundaj^s excepted, he trotted to an apothecary's shop, laid down two cents, then the price for what would now cost five times as much, and carried to his room a single Spanish cigar. Of course, though the shop was open, he would not go to it on Sunday ; and he would not duplicate his Saturday's purchase, lest he might be tempted to duplicate his Saturday evening's indulgence. A friend who often visited him on Sunday evening always took with him two cigars, one of which the doctor gratefully accepted."

Dr. Popkin retired in 1833, but lived, chiefly occupied in reading the Greek Testament and the Greek poets, until 1852. During his teaching days he had lived at first in a College room and later in the old Wigglesworth house next to the President's house. He afterwards built a house on Massachusetts Avenue (then North Avenue) next to the house of his classmate and lifelong Associate, Professor Levi Hedge. The old gentlemen held pleasant intercourse daily over the fence, but it is said that neither, ever entered the other's house. Dr. Hedge was for many years the professor of logic and metaphysics. He had written the text-book which was used in his classes. He did not attempt to teach, but expected his students to memorize the book. According to common report he was in the habit of sajdng: " It took me fourteen years, with the assistance of the adult members of my family, to write this book, and I am sure that you cannot do better than to employ the precise words of the learned author." He is best remembered, by a later generation, as the father of Dr. Frederic Henry Hedge, the great preacher, theologian and German scholar.

The successors of John Quincy Adams in the Boylston professorship were both noteworthy men, Joseph McKean (1809- 1818) and Edward T. Channing (1819- 1851). Channing it was who formed the English style of a generation of American writers and speakers who belonged to what is sometimes called the golden age of American literature.

Three learned and beloved professors of this period became successively presidents of the University. Jared Sparks was the professor of history from 1838 to 1849, and president from 1849 to 1853. His voluminous and painstaking work as author and editor sustained the literary pre-eminence of the College. James Walker, one of the most influential preachers of his generation, became professor of philosophy in 1838, and was president from 1853 to 1860. After his retirement his home on Sparks Street was the resort of innumerable leaders of the yoimger generation who sought the guidance of his farseeing wisdom and rich experience. Cornelius C. Felton began to teach Greek at Cambridge in 1832, succeeded Dr. Popkin in the Eliot pro-

Divinity Hall

The great name of Benjamin Pierce appeared in fifty-four of the annual catalogues of the University, and he died at the beginning of his fiftieth year of continuous service as tutor and professor. His fame as a mathematician early became worldwide, and added not a little to the renown of Cambridge. Asa Gray came to Cambridge in 1842, and for forty-six years his name and fame made Cambridge illustrious in the eyes of all who loved plants and flowers, or who sought to find the secrets of natiire. He established the Botanic Garden on Garden Street, and was the foremost of American botanists. The Observatory was established in President Quincy's administration, and under the guidance of William Cranch Bond soon became the most renowned place of astronomical research in America.

Finally, among the scholars who gave to Cambridge its unique distinction, were a number of distinguished gentlemen of foreign birth, who came to the town because of its literary associations, or were connected with the University life. Francis Sales, a high-bred French gentleman, was the tutor in French and Spanish from 1816 to 1854, and was worthily held in high regard in the society of his adopted town, introducing into what may well have been a somewhat prim and formal intercourse, a perpetually youthful vivacity, and the manners and dress of a Frenchman of the Old Regime. Lowell wrote of him: "Perpetual childhood dwelt in him, the childhood of his native Southem France, and its fixed air was all the time bubbling up and sparkling and winking in his eyes. It seemed as if his placid old face were only a mask behind which a merry Cupid had ambushed himself, peeping out all the while, and ready to drop it when the play grew tiresome. Every word he uttered seemed to be hilarious, no matter what the occasion. If he were sick, and you \4sited him, if he had met with a misfortune (and there are few men so wise that they can look even at the back of a retiring sorrow with composure), it was all one; his great laugh went off as if it were set like an alarm clock, to run down, whether he would or no, at a certain nick. Even after an ordinary Good morning! (especially if to an old pupil, and in French), the wonderful Haw, haw, haw! by Shorge! would burst upon you unexpectedly.

would it have occurred to him to turn it into view, and insist that his friends should look at it with him. Nor was this a mere outside goodhumor ; its source was deeper, in a true Christian kindliness and amenity." t- I .

Charles Follen was the first teacher of German at Harvard, and a man of remarkable gifts. He had been a student and professor at the University of Giessen; and when driven from Germany because of his participation in certain patriotic and insurrectionary' demonstrations, found refuge in Switzerland. Encouraged by Lafayette and by Professor Ticknor he came to like a salute of artillery on some holiday which you had forgotten. Ever^-thing was a joke to him, - that the oath of allegiance had been administered to him by your grandfather, - that he had taught Prescott his first Spanish (of which he was proud), - no matter what. Everything came to him marked by Nature Right side up, with care, and he kept it so. The world to him, as to all of us, was like a medal, on the obverse of which is stamped the image of Joy, and on the reverse that of Care. S. never took the fooUsh pains to look at that other side, even if he knew its existence; much less

America, and in 1825 became instructor in German at Cambridge and proved a most stimulating leader. It was Dr. Follen who introduced g^-mnastics in the College. Under his enthusiastic direction the Delta, where Memorial Hall now stands, was fitted up as an out-of-door gymnasimn; and imder Dr. Pollen's leadership there first began the interest in athletics which has in later years filled so prominent a place in student life. Dr. Follen married Miss Eliza Lee Cabot, and built a house on Waterhouse Street, at the comer of the street that now bears his name. Withdrawing from teaching in 1835, he took up the work of the ministry and was the founder of what is now the FoUen Chiirch at East Lexington. He lost his life in 1840, in the burning of the steamer Lexington on Long Island Sound.

Charles Beck was another notable German scholar who was implicated in the same demonstrations against autocratic government in Germany that had forced Dr. FoUen to fly. They were comrades on the voyage to America; and, in 1832, he became professor of Latin at Harvard. He taught for eighteen years and then retired, but his home, at the corner of Quincy and Harvard Streets where the Harvard his boundless sympathies, his extraordinary gift of making friends, his genial personality, led all his hearers captive. In 1848 the Lawrence Scientific School was organized at Cambridge ; and Agassiz became Professor of Natiu-al History, and another great scientist who was Cambridge trained, Jeffries Wyman, became Professor of Anatomy. Agassiz at once established himself at Cambridge with a company of friends and assistants who had followed him from Europe, and who together made a cheerful household. In this domestic group were Count Francois de Pourtales, M. Edward Desor, M. Jaques Burkhard, the draughtsman, and M. A.

Union now stands, was long the center of a boundless hospitality. Beck Hall, the earliest of the privately-owned dormitories for students, was built by his daughter on part of the estate ; and his name is also borne by the old Cambridge Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was a most ardent patriot, and foremost among Cambridge citizens at the time of the Civil War in recruiting and providing hospital suppUes.

Most famous among these memorable Camt)ridge citizens of foreign birth was Louis Agassiz. Agassiz came to Boston in 1846 to lecture at the Lowell Institute. His scientific enthusiasm,

Sourel, the lithographic artist. M. Christison, an old Swiss minister, was their housekeeper and -homemaker. Later, Professor Guyot arrived and many guests, chiefly foreign scientists, were constantly coming and going. Down on the marsh by the Boylston Street Bridge was an old shanty on piles. This Agassiz utilized for the storage of his first collections. Boards nailed against the walls were the cases for specimens, and a single rough table completed the laboratory. Such were, in 1848, the htmible beginnings of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, now one of the greatest institutions of the kind in the world. In 1850 Agassiz married Miss Elizabeth Cabot Gary, an alliance which made him a member of a large and happy family circle, and brought him into especial intimacy with his colleague. Professor C. C. Felton, who became his brother-in-law. Agassiz not only lectured in all parts of the country, but carried on a vast scientific correspondence; and Cambridge became the Mecca of an everincreasing body of students of zoology, geology and cognate subjects. In 1854 the Agassizs moved into the house which the CoUege had built for them, at the comer of Quincy Street and Broadway, and there they carried on for eight years, in addition to all the great public labors, a private school of the highest reputation. The Museum building, which is popularly known by the name of Agassiz, was begun in 1860. To the life and work of this most eminent of all American students of nature and his associates and successors, Cambridge owes not only its incomparable Museum, but also its fame as the chief American center for scientific research. Such were some of the remarkable group that made the old Cambridge of the first half of the nineteenth century a singularly interesting place of residence. A more agreeable or stimulating society, or one more united in habits of life, common intellectual interests and happy personal relationships it would be difficult to recall. Longfellow, writing from Rome, told of a talk he had had with Darwin: "Why," said Darwin, "what a set of men you have in Cambridge. Both our Universities put together cannot furnish the like. Why, there is Agassiz, he counts for three."

If Cambridge was thus renowned for the quality of the people who lived there, it is interesting to record that new reputation came to the town in the nineteenth centurj' because of the fame of the people whose bodies were brought to rest in Cambridge soil. In 1831 the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, which owned a beautifully variegated tract of land at the western end of Cambridge, was authorized by act of legislature to establish there a rural cemetery-. Judge Story was the leader in this movement, and he it was who delivered the dedication address on September 24, 1831. Mount Auburn was laid out in accordance with designs made by Mr. Alexander Wadsworth, and was the first, as it is still the most beautiful, of the wellplanned country cemeteries in the United States. Mount Auburn is in no small degree the Westminster Abbey of our Nation, for \vithin its gates rest many of the most famous of Americans.

The City

THE time had arrived when Cambridge must become a city. Between 1840 and 1845 the population had nearly doubled and with this sudden growth in mmibers there had been an almost equal increase in the town's valuation. The habits of local government which were suited to a community of a few thousand people were strained to meet the needs of a population of over twelve thousand. The stormy debates about the inclosing of the Common had demonstrated the inadequacy of the old Court-house at Har\'ard Square to accommodate the voters, and the town meeting had been obliged to adjourn across the street to the Meeting-house. An agitation for larger quarters resulted in the building, in 1832, of anew townhouse on Norfolk Street in Cambridgeport. This was another grievance for the people of the Old Village who had already seen the County Courts transferred from Harvard Square to East Cambridge. Most of the new population and wealth were in the new villages, and jealousy between the three sections still disturbed the civic life of the town. The spirit of rivalry between "the Port" and "the Point," which had begun -ndth the building of the two bridges, was still active and both of the new villages had a long-standing grievance against Old Cambridge, because of the real or supposed unwillingness of the taxpayers who lived there to be taxed for the building of schools and streets in the newer parts of the town. Communication between the three villages was slow and at some seasons even difficult. No one section was strong enough to control the town meeting, but there was constant wrangling. One solution of the difficulty was to still further subdivide the town which had already seen Lexington, West Cambridge (ArHngton), Newton and Brighton carved out of its original territory. Another solution was to effect "a more perfect union" by adopting a city form of government. The latter course prevailed. A petition of some of the residents of Old Cambridge, presented to the General Court in 1842, and praying to be set off as a distinct town, was rejected; and a petition for a City Charter adopted at a town meeting held on January 14, 1846, was granted by the General Court with a referendum to the voters of the to\\Ti. The act incorporating the city was signed by Governor Briggs on March 17, 1846. On March 30th, the voters, by a vote of 645 to 224, adopted the charter, and on May 4th the first city government was inaugurated. It was no easy task to care for the fast-growing needs of the young city. It is difficult to realize how very recent in discovery and adoption are all the conveniences of community life which the people of a modem city take for granted. The old town of Cambridge had indeed provided for schools and for vet}' inexpensive schoolhouses, for the care of the poor in an almshouse, and for the occasional repair of the dirt roads, but that was all. When the citizens had arranged for the primary education of the children and made decent provision for the destitute, their civic obligations appeared to them to be fulfilled. Everything else that contributed to the health, comfort, protection and happiness of the people was disregarded or left to the initiative of private individuals. When the city was incorporated the streets were unpaved and unlighted. The sidewalks were uncurbed and neglected. Water was drawn from wells or rain-tanks attached to the individual houses. There were no sewers and no system of garbage collection. Not until 1852 was an ordinance adopted establishing a system of sewers, and not until 1865 did the city tmdertake to provide water. There was no provision for the care of the public health, nor means for preventing or checking epidemics: no hospital, no ambulance, no nurses. The people were accustomed to pasture their cattle on the grassy roads, and there was a good deal of resentment when the new city government tried to put a stop to that practice. A watchman or constable was employed in each of the three villages, but there was no police force, and indeed, to the credit of the citizens, it must be said that there was very seldom any occasion for the services of a policeman. There were several volunteer fire companies, but it sometimes happened that their efforts did more damage to property than the fire they were supposed to extinguish . There was no public library, and parks and playgrounds were undreamed of. The two bridges connecting Cambridge with Boston were both privately owned toll bridges, and did not become free until 1858. The hourly stage sufficed for public conveyance. Save for the works of the New England Glass Company at East Cambridge, some small soap factories in the Port, the brick-making on the Fresh Pond meadows, and the printing business at Harvard Square, there was no manufacturing. The chief industry was still the College, which, with the Divinity School and the Law School, had in the middle of the century some five hundred students. The business of teaching, lodging, boarding, clothing and generally providing for these temporary residents was the occupation of the majority of the households of the Old Village.

The new city government went to work promptly and judiciously. The first mayor was James D. Green, who had been the minister of the Unitarian Church in East Cambridge, and who had already served as a selectman and as a representative in the General Court. He served two terms and was succeeded by Professor Sidney Willard for three terms. Mr. Green was mayor again in 1853, and again during the early years of the Civil War. Police and fire departments were organized, roads began to be paved and sidewalks to be constructed. The "Old Villagers," the "Porters" and the "Pointers" began to lose their sectional distinctions. Houses grew up on the intervening fields and marshes until the three villages could no longer be distinguished. A community feeling more and more superseded the old rivalries. Conveniences and comforts multiplied, population continued to grow rapidly, and if the tax rate showed a steady increase there was no complaint, because the people received their money's worth. In twenty years in the place of the three villages there was a united, busy, suburban city, with many and

John Fiske, in his oration at the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the city pointed out that the chief causes of the growth of Cambridge were three in number : proximity to Boston, the reputation and growth of the University and its allied interests, and the availability of the city as a manufacturing center. The whole city shared in the general prosperity of the metropolitan district of Boston, and the early development of a transportation system gave Cambridge a good start. The Union Railway Company was organized in 1855, under the leadership of Gardiner G. Hubbard, Charles C. Little, Estes Howe and other active and sanguine citizens, and the first street cars began to run over the West Boston Bridge between Harvard Square and Bowdoin Square in Boston in the following year. The transportation facilities have since kept pace with the needs of the people. Electricity took the place of horses as a motive power on the street railways in 1889, and the rapid transit afforded by the new system of subways will undoubtedly again stimulate the growth of population.

Many of the leading merchants and professional men of Boston make their homes in Cambridge, where their families can enjoy access to sunlight and fresh air, to green lawns and gardens, where the schools are admirably conducted, where health conditions are the best of any city in the state, where there are no saloons and where the libraries and parks and the various activities of the University provide unusual facilities for education, recreation and social enjoyment. Famous lawyers like Henry W. Paine, Richard H. Dana and Chauncy Smith, who were leaders of the Boston Bar, were thus Cambridge residents; and among the many honorable business men who lived in Cambridge while conducting their affairs in Boston two should be especially remembered, both because of the service which they rendered to the civic life of their home city, and because they manufactured and distributed a characteristic Cambridge product. Henry 0. Houghton was the founder of the Riverside Press, and senior partner of the great publishing house of Houghton, Mifflin & Company. He served one year as Mayor of Cambridge. Charles C. Little was the founder of another great publishing firm, Little, Brown & Company, and he was the active promoter of many of the local enterprises which contributed to the development and welfare of Cambridge.

The growth of Cambridge has, in the second place, been influenced by the presence of the University. More than four thousand officers and students live in Cambridge and in the long vacation a thousand other students come to attend the summer courses. Every year a considerable number of families move to Cambridge in order to educate their children, and others come because of teaching appointments, or for purposes of scientific research. The cooperation between the University and the city for the public welfare is close and cordial. The great literary and scientific collections of the University are open to all under suitable restrictions. The Library, the Botanic Garden, the University Museum, the Fogg Museum of. Arts, the Peabody Museum, the Semitic Museum, the Germanic Museum, the Social Museum, are all places of large public resort. The University chapel is a center of interest for many Cambridge people, for throughout the year services are conducted there by eminent preachers of many different denominations. The University also provides a very large number of evening lectures open to the public. These lectures cover a wide range of subjects and afford to Cambridge people many opportunities of seeing and hearing distinguished men. The Boston Symphony Orchestra has for many years given an annual series of concerts under the auspices of the University, and there are many other opportunities of musical culture afforded by the presence of the College.

live in a city through which pours an ever-rising tide of healthy and manly youth making ready for worthy service in the world, but not yet burdened by its cares and griefs. It is agreeable to live where hundreds of men work with their minds bent primarily on intellectual pursuits, and kindled by enthusiasms which have nothing material as their object. "A society," said Horace Scudder, "in which a university is planted cannot easily make riches the measvire of social rank, and Cambridge thus still attracts the lovers of a literary life, who value in society the coin which is struck from the same mint as that they carry about with them in their empty pockets;" and William D. Howells wrote of his Cambridge experiences: "One could be openly poor in Cambridge without shame, for no one was very r i c.h there, and no one was proud of his riches. . . . The air of the Cambridge that I knew was sufficiently cool to be bracing but what was of good import in me flourished in it. The life of the place had its lateral limitations; sometimes its lights failed to detect excellent things that lay beyond it; but upward it opened inimitably."

It is easy to see that Cambridge should profit by its advantages as a place of suburban residence and as a resort for scholars, but it is more surprising to discover how its growth has been expedited by the establishment of numerous factories. In recent years the combined facilities for railroad and water communication in the eastern part of the city have proved peculiarly favorable to great maniifacturing plants. The Fitchburg Railroad skirts the northern boundary of the city and the main line of the Boston and Albany Railroad is just across the ri\-er on the south. The Grand Junction freight tracks run through the eastern end of Cambridgeport and East Cambridge, connecting these trunk lines that enter Boston and giving to that section of Cambridge unusual transportation advantages. The chief manufacturers are of various kinds of machinery, and among the other important industries may be mentioned printing and publishing, musical instruments (especially pianos and organs), furnitixre, clothing, soap and candles, biscuit-making, carriage-making and wheelwright's work, plumbing and plumber's materials, bricks and tiles and confectionery. "Most of the steel railway bridges in New England," said Mr. Fiske in the semi-centennial oration, "are built in Cambridge, and a considerable part of the world is supplied with hydraulic engines. The United States Navy comes to Cambridge for its pimaps, and this Cambridge product may be seen at work in Honolulu, in Sydney, in St. Petersburg. In the dimensions of its pork-packing industry Cambridge comes next after Chicago and Kansas City. Fifty years ago all the fish-netting used in America was made in England; today it is chiefly made in East Cambridge. The potteries on Walden Street turn out most of the flowerpots used in this coimtry." Such facts as these bear witness to the unusual facilities of the city, where coal can be taken and freight can be shipped at the very door of the factory, where the protection against fire is efficient, where skilled labor is easy to get, because good workmen find life comfortable and attractive, with healthy conditions of Kfe and unrivalled means of education for their children.

Among the Cambridge industries, several are especially characteristic and famous. The University Press is the successor of the first printing establishment in America, of which we have spoken as beginning in 1639. The Riverside Press sets the standards of bookmaking as one of the fine arts. The Athenaeum Press, founded by the ability and practical foresight of Edwin Ginn and his associates, turns out the school books that are used all over the country. The past half century has seen Cambridge come into the foremost rank among the printing and publishing centers of the world. A unique industry goes on in a modest establishment on Brookline Street, where, just before crossing the bridge, one comes upon a pleasant dwelling house, with a private observatory, and hard by it a plain brick building. That is the shop of Alvan Clark and Sons, who have carried the art of telescope-making to a height never reached before. There have been made the most powerful refracting telescopes in the world. The Mason and Hamlin Company built its factories on Broadway in 1874, and sends its famous organs and pianos all over the globe. The gardens of the world are watered, its fires quenched, its wheels tired, by the products of the Woven Hose Company, which, starting from very small beginnings in 1870, has grown into an enormous concern. The Cambridgeport plant of the New York Biscuit Company, formerly the famous factory of Mr. Frank A. Kennedy, is the second largest in the country. The John P. Squire Company Corporation, leading pork-packers; Ginn and Company, leading publishers.

The prosperity of Cambridge has also been upbuilt and its political and social life unified by the energies of its municipal administration and the supply of the varied needs of the community. When the city was organized its people drank from a thousand different private wells. All now drink alike from one public supply. It was in 1852 that a charter was granted to the Cambridge Water Works, and four years later Fresh Pond was set aside as the source of supply. A high service reservoir was established at the corner of Reservoir Street and Highland Street with a tower which was long a landmark. "I shall hardly expect to know mj^ native Cambridge when I come back," wrote Lowell from Europe, "what with railroads and water-works. . . . The waterworks I have no manner of conception of. Whence is the water to come? Where is the reservoir to be? And will a pipe run through Elmwood lane and cut off all the roots of the ash-trees? Will there be any fountains? Will it be against the law to mix anjrthing with the water?" And on his return he wrote: "Rome, Venice, Cambridge! I take it for an ascending scale, Rome being the first step and Cambridge the glowing apex. But you wouldn't know Cambridge - with its railroad and its waterworks and its new houses. . . . Think of a reservoir behind Mr. Wells's! And then think of Royal Morse and John Holmes and me in the midst of these phenomena! I seem to see our dear old village wriggling itself out of its

As the demand for water increased new sources of supply were utilized: Spy Pond (afterwards abandoned) and Wellington Brook, then Stony Brook, and Hobbs Brook, where large storage basins have been constructed. Fresh Pond is now practically the distributing reservoir, and the high ser\ace reservoir is now on the hill in Pay son Park at the west of the Pond. The surroundings of the Pond are now a Park under the control of the Water Board and appropriately named for Chester W. Kingsley, who was for dedicated with an address by President Edward Everett. In 1886 the high school, then located in the building at the comer of Broadway and Fayette Streets, was divided, the classical department becoming the Cambridge Latin School, and the remaining departments, the Cambridge English High School. The grammar schools of Cambridge take high rank among the similar organizations and the city has always enjoyed the ser\'ices of able and high-minded superintendents. The standards of attainment are such as befit a university town, and Cambridge spends more money on its schools than

At the time when Cambridge became a city a high school and a grammar school was conducted in each of the three villages; and one of the first steps of the new government was to bring the high schools together in a central school in Cambridgeport. This step still further reduced the sectional jealousies and promoted the growth of more sympathetic relations between the different parts of the city. The first building of this united high school stood at the comer of Simimer and Amory Streets and was most American cities. In addition to the public schools Cambridge enjoys the presence of a number of famous private schools. The Browm'e and Nichols School was started in 1883 and at once attained a very high reputation as a preparatory school for Harvard. The Cambridge School for Girls was opened in 1886, and has had a large success and an increasing influence. The Buckingham School for children on Buckingham Place and the School of the Misses Smith on Buckingham Street are also well known.

neighborhood not only these preparatory schools, but also independent professional schools. Particularly Cambridge has become the great center for the education of ministers. The Harvard Divinity School has had a long and honorable history. In 1867 the Episcopal Theological School was established at Cambridge on account of the advantages to be had from the academic associations. St. John's Memorial Chapel was built in 1869. Reed Hall, adjoining the Hbrary and commemorating the name of the chief founder of the School, was built in 1875, Lawrence Hall in 1880, and Winthrop Hall in 1893. In 1889 the New Church Theological School moved to Cambridge, and for its use there was purchased the residence of President Sparks. Tw0 years later the adjoining Greenough estate was purchased, so that the grounds of the School now extend along Quincy Street from Cambridge to Kirkland. In 1910 the Andover Theological School removed from Andover to Cambridge, and in the following year its beautiful and commodious building was dedicated.

Radcliffe College was begun in 1879 under the name of the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women. This Society was incorporated in 1882; at which time the Fay House, which is the oldest of the present group of buildings, was purchased, enlarged and improved. In 1894 the Society became Radcliffe College and entered in close and official relationship with Harvard University. The buildings of the College, opposite the Washington elm, already form a conspicuous and handsome group.

The need for parks and playgrounds did not arise in Cambridge until after the rapid growth of population had brought about undesirable congestion in several sections of the city. It was not until 1892 that the committee was appointed to consider the subject of parks. Since that time the development has been rapid. The embankment along the Charles River has been laid out with a continuous parkway. A tract of twelve acres in East Cambridge has been set aside and improved as the Cambridge Field, and a large tract in North Cambridge as a playground known as Rindge Field. The building of a dam across the mouth of the Charles River has turned the entire river into a splendid water 'park. At Captain's Island on the river bank a park of some thirty-eight acres is being developed. The new impulse for the purchase of playgrounds is effective, and considerable purchases of ground for these purposes have been made in the year in which this book goes to the press.

In 1846 when the City Charter was granted there were fourteen Protestant churches and one Catholic Church in Cambridge. The two branches of the First Church, the First Parish (Unitarian) and the Shepard Congregational Society dated from 1636 and Christ Church from 1761. The Cambridgeport Parish (Unitarian) had been organized in 1808. The first Methodist Church was organized in East Cambridge in 1813, the first Baptist Church in Cambridgeport (Central Square) in 1817, and the first Universalist Church in Cambridgeport in 1822. The first Roman Catholic Church was founded in East Cambridge in 1842. There are now fifty-three churches in Cambridge, representing all denominations.

In the care of the needy, in the adoption of modern methods of charity and correction, in the application of the best intelligence to the prevention of disease and the amelioration of suffering, Cambridge has been as much a pioneer as in education and religion. The Cambridge Humane Society was one of the eariiest organizations in the world for village improvement and community welfare. It was founded in 1814 under the guidance of Dr. Abiel Holmes. It had a long and honorable career and has now ceased to exist, save as it survives in one of its offshoots, the Female Humane Society. There are now a score or more of vigorous philanthropic agencies at work in Cambridge. The thoroughly organized and efficient Associated Charities date from 1881. The Cambridge Hospital was incorporated in 1871, the Avon Home for Children began in 1874, and the Homes for Aged People a little later. Among the other well-known institutions there should be mentioned such educational and social centers as the Cambridge Social Union, the Prospect Union and the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations; such social settlements as the East End Christian Union, the Neighborhood House, the Margaret Fuller House, the James A. Woolson House and the Riverside House. In recent years there have arisen the Anti-Tuberculosis Association, the Visiting

Nitrsing Association, the Home Savings Association and other vigorous and useful organizations for the prevention or the cure of poverty and sickness. It would be difficult to discover any physical, moral or spiritual need that is unof these was designated simply by the name of the city. The public service corporations are admirably administered. The Boston Elevated Railway Company, whose president General Wm. A. Bancroft is a citizen and former

The banking institutions of Cambridge are numerous and sound. The first bank was chartered in 1826, the first savings bank in 1834, and the first trust company in 1890. Each mayor of Cambridge, furnishes rapid and reliable transportation in and through all parts of the city. The New England Telephone Company provides ample facilities for telephonic communication. The Cambridge Gas Company was organized in 1852 by the same energetic group of men that originated the Street Railway, and has done a large and constantly increasing business. The Cambridge Electric Light Company was incorporated in 1886 and provides an excellent system of illvmiination for the city.

In 1887 Mr. Frederick H. Rindge began a series of gifts to his native city which provide for a noble group of buildings. The first building erected by Mr. Rindge was that for the Public Library, an ample, convenient and beautiful building which houses a large and valuable collection. Mr. Rindge supplemented this gift in the following year by building near the Library a Manual Training School, and later he built on an adjacent lot a large and handsome High School, and then a home for the Latin School. Meanwhile, in 1889, he had further provided for the erection of a beautiful City Hall, a building remarkable for its fine proportions and imposing dignity. Mr. Rindge was a son of Cambridge, but he spent the years of his manhood in California. His gifts were made during the mayoralty of William E. Russell, the brilliant j-oung leader of public opinion, Cambridge born and educated, who was afterwards for three years Governor of Massachusetts, and who, but for his early death, would svirely have risen to still higher places of responsibility and honor in a nation that knows how to secure for its service men of wide vision, integrity of purpose and administrative ability.

In the thirty years between 1880 and 1910 Cambridge again almost exactly doubled in population, a gain chiefly accounted for by an extraordinary increase in the number of families of foreign birth, and even as this book is published two events which foretoken further changes in the aspect and life of Cambridge are taking place. The completion of the subway from Harvard Square to Park Street in Boston, and the consequent rapid transit, will presumably be followed by another rapid increase in population, for Cambridge is the most quickly and easily accessible of all the towns and cities adjacent to Boston; and the purchase by the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyof fifty acres of land on the Charles River embankment and the removal of that great and famous school to Cambridge will both increase the renown of the place as the chief educational center of the country and insirre the rapid development and improvement of all the property on the river front between the Harvard and Cambridge bridges.

Patriotism was inevitable in a place of such heroic memories as Cambridge. It was not by accident that the first company received into the service of the Union in the war for the Union was a Cambridge company. It was not by accident that it was from Cambridge that the "Bigelow Papers" went out, and, by their mingled himior and reproach, pleaded the cause of freedom and brotherhood. It was not by accident that when the war was done, here was recited the "Commemoration Ode," the noblest lyric utterance that owns an American origin. In the war for the preservation of the Union, Cambridge furnished to the army 4,135 men, and to the navy 453 men, which was about one-sixth of the entire popvdation, and, as at the time of the Revolution, must have taken nearly every able-bodied man of military age in the community. To Cambridge belongs the honor of organizing the first company of United States Volunteers. Soon after the presidential election of 1860 it became apparent to far-seeing men that an irrepressible conflict was on foot. With patriotic energy James P. Richardson, great grandson of Moses Richardson, who fell at the battle of Lexington, organized a company of -\'olunteers. When after the fall of Sumter President Lincoln issued his call for 75,000 soldiers, on the very next morning Captain Richardson and ninety-five rnembers of his company marched to the State House and reported for duty to Governor Andrew. There were ninety-seven men in the company that enlisted for three months; and at the end of that time ninety-three of them re-enlisted for the war. In the words of one of these men, who expressed the feeling of all, he was "determined to go back to the seat of war and to fight till the war was over, and if need be he would leave his bones to bleach on Southern soil." The name of that man, Edwin T. Richardson, is inscribed upon the soldiers' monimient on the Common, one of twenty-one of this first company, more than one in five, who gave their lives for the country's salvation.

like it, " he said, "no, not even for taxes. ' ' When he was ambassador in London, Mr. Lowell was asked if he did not long to visit Egj-pt and see the works of Ramses. "No." he answered, "but I should like to see Ramsays in Harvard Square." Next to Lowell the most ardent lover of Cambridge was his particular crony, John Holmes, the brother of the "Autocrat," who "held his native town," said Mr. Howells, "in an idolatry which was not blind but which was none the less devoted because he was aware of her droll points and her weak points. He alwaj's celebrated these as so many virtues." His wit was as sparkling as that of his more famous brother, and he had equal kindliness with more of modesty. His fame is local, but he was the cherished companion of those who occupied a greater place in the public eye, and they acknowledged him their peer.

Richard Henry Dana was another scion of the best Cambridge stock, a blend of aristocratic inheritances with democratic principles, which is highly characteristic of the place. He was a lawyer in active practice in Boston and fulfilled the just expectations of his fellow citizens by the way in which he measured up to every public dut}'. He was part of the history of the anti-slavery movement and his rare gifts were always and everywhere at the service of the oppressed. The book of his sea-faring experiences, "Two Years Before the Mast," is a classic, and it probably has had a wider circulation than any American book, unless it be ' ' Uncle Tom's Cabin. ' ' The well-deserved fame of that book has ecUpsed the later reputation of its author as a noble-minded citizen and leader of public opinion, but Cambridge cherishes his renown, and in no small measure bears today the stamp of his public-spirited and progressive influence.

Charles Eliot Norton was another Cambridgeborn author of the same generation. He inherited the beautiful estate of his father, Professor Andrews Norton, at Shady Hill, and there lived a life that came as near to the ideal as the conditions of the nineteenth century permitted. He was for many years Professor of Art in the Univcrsit}^ and kindled high ideals in the minds and hearts of two generations. He was the mediator between the best culture of the past and the active life of the present, interpreting the Greek ideals to our hurrj-ing generation, rebuking our materialism while he encouraged our better hopes. Ruskin and Carlyle were his European correspondents; Lowell and George William Curtis were his intimates. His contributions to literature only ^ partially represent what he did for the humani- | ties in America, for it was his creative sympathy j that set the standards of our literar>' and artistic ', life and inspired the endeavors of artists and poets. He edited the letters of Ruskin and of Lowell, collected the orations of Curtis, wrote the biographical sketch of Longfellow, translated Dante's "Di\'ine Comedy," conducted the North American Review, and was the friend and helper of the leading men of letters in England and America.

But Cambridge drew to itself many distinguished men of letters who were not native bom. It would be sufficient honor to be known as the birthplace of Lowell, Holmes, Higginson and their comrades, but there are names of equal distinction that are associated with the place. "We are potted plants here in Cambridge," said the witty Frances Wharton, explaining to an English visitor that the men of whom he inquired were not natives of Cambridge, but were drawn thither by its University and its kindred spirits. Hither in the fifties came from his Oxford fellowship and his principalship of University Hall in London, Arthur Hugh Clough. His stay was short, but it is good to remember the contact wdth the life of the community of a poet whose word, as Mr. Lowell said, "will be thought a hundreds year hence to have been the truest expression in verse of the moral and intellectual tendencies, the doubt and struggle toward settled con\dctions, of the period in which he lived." Hither came later Elisha Mulford, who brought with him the reputation built upon "The Nation," a book that sets forth his masterly interpretation of our federal union, and here he wrought upon his great conception of "The Republic of God," making in these books "two pillars for sustaining the great arch of our social philosophy." Christopher P. Cranch, a man with the soul of an artist and a gift of poesy, lived on Dana Hill, and joined a tuneful voice to the chorus of minor singers who met at Longfellow's table. He wrote good poetry, painted pictures that are not so good, and lived

It was in December of 1836 that Mr. Longfellow established himself in Cambridge, and entered upon the duties of the Smith professorship. He first roomed in the house of Dr. Stearns, on Kirkland Street - then called Professors' Row, where Cornelius Conway Felton, Professor of Greek and aftenvards President of the College, was already established. Their acquaintance soon ripened into a warm friendship, which continued through life. Charles Sumner was then lecturing in the Law School, and with him sprang up an equally close and lifelong intimacy. George Stillman Hilliard, his law partner, and Henry R. Cleveland, then living at Jamaica Plain - both men of literary tastes - completed the friendly circle. These five young men formed themselves into what they came to call "The Five of Clubs." Somewhat later on, when they began to write favorable comments on each other's books in the Reviews, the newspapers gave them the name of "the Mutual Admiration Society."

In Cambridge and Boston Mr. Longfellow was everywhere welcomed. His sunny presence, his native refinement, his cultivated mind and his growing reputation united to make a favorite. He was not exempt from some social criticism, particularly in the matter of dress, for he was fond of using bright colors in his waistcoats, and neck-ties. In 1837 he first occupied rooms at the Craigie house, where Mrs. Craigie took lodgers. Established in these comfortable quarters he pursued with diligence his various occupations, academic, poetic and social. At the early dinner or the evening supper one or more of his friends were usually his companions. Felton was coming and going at all hours of the day, with some new book or criticism, or for friendly talk, prolonged into the night. Sumner and Hilliard came frequently from Boston, and often Allston and Palfrey were guests at the round table. In 1842 when Charies Dickens came over from London, there was a bright little breakfast, at which Felton's mirthfulness helped, and Andrews Norton's gra\'ity did not in the least hinder, the exuberant liveliness of the author of "Pickwick." In 1843 Mr. Longfellow married his second wife, and his father-inlaw, Mr. Nathan Appleton, bought the Craigie house for their occupancy. It became the social and literary center of the community. Hawthorne, Emerson, Lowell, Holmes, Agassiz, James T. Fields, Charles EHot Norton were frequent visitors. What Emerson did for Concord that Longfellow did for Cambridge. He made it the port at which every ship that sailed the sea of literature was sure to put in. There is no house so much the object of pilgrimage as the beautiful mansion which so unites the memories of patriot and poet as to make each contribute to the other's fame.

The pages of Longfellow's diary are set thick with the names of the people, great and small, who lifted the knocker at his hospitable door. In the journals we find the names, among others, of Thomas Hughes, James Anthony Froude, Anthony TroUope, Wilkie Collins, William Black, Charles Kingsley and his daughter, Professor Bonamy Price, Dr. Plumtre, the admirable translator of Greek tragedies; Dean Stanley, Athanase Coquerel, Lord Houghton, Lord and Lady Dufferin, the Duke of Argyll, Salvini, who read to him scenes from Alfieri to his great delight; Madame Titjens, Christine Nilson, the Governor of Victoria ; Admiral Coffin, of the British Navy ; and Lord Ronald Gower, who has given the story of his visit in company with Mr. Sam. Ward. When the Emperor Dom Pedro, of Brazil, was traveling half-incognito through the United States, he came to a dinner, having named the guests he would like to meet - Agassiz, Holmes, Emerson and Lowell. At the close of 1879, Ole Bull appeared from Norway, to spend the winter at Elmwood, re-viving its relations with Craigie house, and delighting Mr. Longfellow alike with his music and his ov/n charmingly simple and sincere nature.

On one day the journal records "fourteen \4sits, thirteen of them Englishmen." All who came were received with unfailing kindness and courtesy, and a quick, instinctive adaptation of his conversation as to their measure. If, as was usual, they turned the conversation to his writings, he thanked them for the sjinpathy, which gratified him, but very quickly and easily turned the talk to some other topic. Doubtless his courtesy and his kindness were often subjected to a heavy strain, by some who forgot the law of limits in the diu-ation or frequency of their visits and their claims. Mr. Norton relates that he once gently remonstrated wnth his friend for suffering an unworthy protege to impose himself so long upon him; when he replied, with a humorous look, "Charles, who will be kind to him if I am not'"

"The key to Mr. Longfellow's character," said his biographer, "was sympathy. This made him the gentle and courteous receiver of every visitor, however obscure, however tedious; the ready responder to every appeal to his pity and his purse; the kindly encotirager of literary aspirants, however unpromising ; the charitable judge of motives, and excuser of mistakes and offences; the delicate yet large liker; the lenient critic, quick to see every merit beyond every defect. This gave to his poetrj'- the human element, which made thousands feel as if this poem or that verse was written for each of them especially, and made in thousands of hearts in many lands a shrine of reverence and affection for his name."

William Dean Howells came to live in Cambridge in 1866, first taking a "box of a house" on Sacramento Street, thence mo\dng to Berkeley Street, and finally building a house on Concord Avenue. His account of his Cambridge neighbors, printed in 1900, adds another charming description of the characteristic life of the place. "Cambridge society," he WTote, "kept what was best of its \'illage traditions, and chose to keep them in the full knowledge of different things. Nearly every one had been abroad; and nearly everyone had acquired the taste for olives without losing a relish for native sauces; through the intellectual life there was an entire democracy, and I do not believe that since the capitalistic era began there was ever a community in which money counted for less. There was little show of what money could bu}^; I remember but one private carriage (naturally, a publisher's); and there was not one livery except a livery in the larger sense kept by the stableman Pike, who made us pay now a quarter and now a half dollar for a seat in his carriages, according as he lost or gathered courage for the charge. We thought him extortionate, and we mostly walked through snow and mud of amazing depth and thickness.

salary of untried elasticity. If there were distinctions made in Cambridge they were not against literature, and we found ourselves in the midst of a charming society, indifferent, apparently, to all questions but those of the higher education which comes so largely by nature. That is to say, in the Cambridge of that day (and, I dare say, of this) a mind cultivated in some sort was essential, and after that came civil manners, and the willingness and abilit}"- to be agreeable and interesting; but the question of riches or poverty did not enter. Even the question of family, which is of so great concern in New England, was in abeyance. Perhaps it was taken for granted that every one in Old Cambridge society must be of good family, or he could not be there ; perhaps his mere residence tacitly ennobled him; certainly his acceptance was an informal patent of gentility. To my mind, the structure of society was almost ideal, and until we have a perfectly socialized condition of things I do not believe we shall ever have a more perfect society. The instincts which governed it were not such as can arise from the sordid competition of interests; they flowed from a devotion to letters, and from a self-sacrifice in material things which I can give no better notion of than by saying that the outlay of the richest college magnate seemed to be graduated to the income of the poorest.

"In those days the men whose names have given splendor to Cambridge were still living there. I shall forget some of them in the alphabetical enumeration of Louis Agassiz, Francis C. Child, Richard Henr\- Dana, Jun., John Fiske, Dr. Asa Gray, the family of the Jameses, father and sons, Lowell, Longfellow, Charles Eliot Norton, Dr. John G. Palfrey, James Pierce, Dr. Peabody, Professor Parsons, Professor Sophocles. The variety of talents and of achievements was indeed so great that Mr. Bret Harte, when fresh from his Pacific slope, justly said, after listening to a partial rehearsal of them, 'Why, you couldn't fire a revolver from your front porch any^^'here without bringing down a two-volumnerl' Ever>'body had written a book, or an article, or a poem ; or was in the process or expectation of doing it, and doubtless those whose names escape me will have greater difficulty in eluding fame. These kindly, these gifted folk each came to see us and to make us at home among them; and my home is still among them, on this side and on that side of the line between the liWng and the dead, which in\-isibly passes through all the streets of the cities of men."

Some of these "kindly, gifted folk" have already been described. The others are equally worthy of remembrance, for they made that Cambridge atmosphere that Howells enjoyed. Never was man more fitly named, "for no man ever kept here more perfectly and purely the heart of such as the Kingdom of Heaven is of," than Francis J. Child. His outward appearance, too, expressed the inner man as happily as his name. He was short of stature and round of body so that the students affectionately called him "Stubby." His e^-es looked through his gold spectacles with naive simplicity and directness, his thick sunny hair, which never grew gray, curled tightly over his head. His smile was infectious, and his face bore the brightness of inextinguishable youth. With playful humor and profound scholarship he taught the English language and literature and was the world's first exp2rt in the study of English and Scottish balladry. He was a poet in nature, and he wrought with passion as well as knowledge in the achievement of as monumental a task as any American has performed. But he might have been less intellectually keen, and yet been precious to those who knew him for the gentleness and the goodness which in him were protected from misconception by a dignity as delicate and a reserve as in\'iolable as that of Longfellow himself. "He was," wnrote Mr. Howells, "most amusingly dramatic in reproducing the consciousness of certain inefTectual alumni who used to overwhelm him at Commencement solemnities with some such pompous acknowledgment as, "Professor Child, all that I have become, sir. I owe to your influence in my college career." He did, with delicious mockery, the old-fashioned intellectual poseurs among the students, who used to walk the groves of Harvard with bent head, and the left arm crossing ; the back, while the other lodged its hand in the breast of the high-buttoned frock-coat; and I could fancy that his classes did not form the sunniest exposure for young folly and vanity."

only because he had learned to love the town during his college years, but also because he found it the most congenial place for his literary work, and because there he found access to two of the largest libraries in America and many smaller special collections. A residence in Cambridge kept him also in neighborly relations \\"ith his publishers and in immediate connections wth the printers of his books. As Mr. Fiske's house on Berkeley Street was the resort of those who loved to discourse of history and philosophy and the arts, so the house of Charles Deane on Sparks Street gathered people from all over the world who were interested in matters of genealogical and antiquarian research. He, and later his own neighbor, Justin Winsor, the librarian of the University, were our foremost authorities on the sources of American histor\' and the maps and pictures, the family records, the original manuscripts and letters, which illustrate it.

Henry James, ranked by no less a critic than Tolstoi as the keenest and most enlightening of American philosophers, lived on Quincy Street in the house now occupied by the Colonial Club, and his two sons have won an even larger fame, William as the foremost of American psychologists, and Henr\- as a novelist and man of letters. Horace E. Scudder lived on Buckingham Street and thence sent out his famous books for children. John Bartlett btult a house on Brattle Street just above the Lee house. His indispensable "Familiar Quotations" made his name a household word in many American families. Adiniral Charles H. Davis and later Colonel Theodore A. Dodge lived in the house on Quincy Street at the comer of Broadway. There Colonel Dodge wrote his treatises on the art of war and the stor\' of many a campaign of the Civil War, and Admiral Davis there prepared the scientific papers that made his name as well known in the world of higher mathematics as in the naval history of the Civil War.

Then there was Joseph E. Worcester, the busy compiler of the great dictionary; William J. Rolfe, the erudite and genial Shakespearean scholar; William W. Newell, the foremost American authority on folk-lore; Alexander V. G. Allen, the biographer of Phillips Brooks and the historian of the "Continuity of Christian

Thought;" and Frank Bolles, who relieved his arduous and remarkable work at the College office by excursions into the country round about Cambridge and into the New Hampshire woods and hills. He was one of the lovers of wild life, whose books have opened the eyes and enriched the lives of our generation.

It is of course the presence of the University that accounts for the Cambridge residence of such scientific leaders as the great geologist, Josiah D. Whitney, the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, long the head of the United States Geological Survey; of Josiah P. Cooke, the Erving Professor of Chemistry and one of the pioneers of chemical research in this country ; of Joseph Lovering, the Hollis Professor of Physics, whose lectiires were dominated by a philosophy which kept them free of narrowness or technicality; and Nathanael S. Shaler, the inspiring teacher of ardent nature and remarkably varied gifts of mind and heart. The Law School brought to Cambridge such famous teachers of the law as Theophilus Parsons, Emory Washburn, who also served as Governor of the Commonwealth; Christopher C. Langdell, who revolutionized the teaching of the law in this country; and his distinguished colleagues, James B. Thayer and James B. Ames. The Divinity School brought to Cambridge such scholars as Charles Carroll Everett, a theologian of exquisitely-balanced mind, keen insight and liberal spirit; Ezra Abbott, the most learned and kindly of Biblical critics, a well-remembered Cambridge figure, "alert, nervous and almost furtively shy, skimming along the walk, his eyes bent on his book, which he read as he walked; the deadly foe of error on the printed page, his own work as faultlessly accurate as his handwriting was unmistakably legible;" and his successor, Joseph Henry Thayer, the editor of the monumental dictionary of the New Testament Greek and the American member of the distinguished company that prepared and published the Revised Version of the Bible. Finally, we should recall the courtly presence of Charles Folsom, who, wrote Mr. Scudder, "well deserved the English title of corrector of the press, but whose chastening for the time seemed scarcely joyous to the printer as he waited impatiently for the proof-sheets which Mr. Folsom carried around in his pocket till he could, after long search in the libraries of the neighborhood, relieve them of possible errors of statement. Of the same indefatigable temper in exorcising the black art was George Nichols, for whose aid Lowell stipiilated when he undertook to edit The Atlantic Monthly. It would be hard to overestimate the value of these two subterranean builders of literature. Their own craft recognized their power ; every author whose books passed through their hands blessed them, with occasional lapses, and the reputation which the great printing-offices of Cambridge enjoy is due largelj' to the standard which these men raised, and to the traditions which they established."

These are a few of the names among the dead that give distinction to modem Cambridge as a literary center. It would be in-vidious to distinguish among the living, nor is it prudent, for though some names could be mentioned that may safely now be added to the roll of honor in American letters, who knows what names there are which need but a little more time to carry them into higher niches than now are occupied? The alcove in the Cambridge library which holds the books of Cambridge authors is but a beginning of a literary treasure-house, for there is a contagion of literature, and though Cambridge becomes more urban with each decade, there is that about a bookish community which stimulates literary endeavor. To prove that traditions are well maintained let it suffice to mention the names of Charles W. Eliot, George H. Palmer and Josiah Royce, the philosophers; of Edward Channing and Albert B. Hart, the American historians; of William R. Thayer, the biographer of Cavour and the historian of Italy; of preachers and essayists Hke Samuel M. Crothers, John O'Brien, George Hodges and Michael J. Doody; of writers on social ethics like Francis G. Peabody and John Graham Brooks ; of interpreters one to the other of Gennany and America like Kuno Francke and Hugo Munsterberg; of critics and inspirers of the literary art like Bliss Perry and George P. Baker; of economists like Frank W. Taussig; of educational guides and prophets like LcBaron R. Briggs; of leaders in the world of science like John Trowbridge and William M. Davis and Theodore W. Richards; of poets like Jeaimette Peabody Marks.

It is true of Cambridge as Emerson said of Boston: "It is not an accident, nor a windmill, or a railroad station, or a cross-roads tavern, or an army barracks grown up by time and luck to a place of wealth; but a seat of humanity.

of men of principle, obeying a sentiment and marching loyally whither that should lead them; so that its annals are great historical Unes, inextricably national, parts of the history of poUtical liberty."

CAMBRIDGE has not the natural attractions of many of the other tovms and cities of the MetropoUtan district. Its territory is comparatively fiat and in natural beauty it is inferior to the varied charm of Winchester, Medford or Milton. The Cambridge streets cannot be compared with those of BrookHne, nor the houses with those which cluster on the hillsides overlooking the Chestnut Hill reservoir. What is it that gives Cambridge her prestige? Is it not such institutions, such events, such lives, as those that are recorded in this book? It is the human element in the landscape that gives it its charm. The town where the first college in the land was planted, where the first church council was held, where the fi r s t printingpress was set up and the first book printed; the place of the Puritan leaders in Church and State, the scene of many of the noteworthy events in the colonial history of New England; the point where the British soldiers began their march to Lexington at the opening of the Revolution; the soil on which occurred some of the hardest fighting of that eventful day; the gathering-place and headquarters of the patriot army during the siege of Boston; the point of departure for the epoch-making battle of Bunker Hill; the place where Washington took command of the American army; the sender-forth of the first company to be received into the service of the nation in its struggle to destroy slavery and keep the Union whole; an intellectual center unequaled on the hither side of the Atlantic ; the home of three of our most famous poets, and the place where so many renowned scholars and men of letters have done their work; a community always plain, simple and democratic in its social habits and believing in intelligence and character above all other things, - it is obvious that Cambridge is a place of which its citizens may well be proud. It is not the part of an historian to also play the prophet, community. For most people the next thing is more interesting than the last thing. What we want is more fascinating than what we have. Civic pride is a quick soil in which to grow civic patriotism. When men glory in the history of their city, in its beauty, its influence, its famous men and great institutions, it is comparatively easy to inspire sacrifice in order to render the present worthy of so great a past. The great classic centers of ci\dlization and the free cities of the Middle Ages could command the enthusiastic devotion of their people, who were proud of their citizenship. Most American cities exist under radically different conditions. Their past is not old enough to be overgrown and beautified by legend and romance as ancient castles are with ivy. There is no twilight to stimulate the imagination. There is as little in their past to gratify men's love of the heroic as there is in their present to satisfy the sense of the beautiful. Cambridge is exceptionally fortunate in this respect. But like all Americans its people look forward more readily than backward. It is not simply because of the heroic generations which have gone, but because of those which are to come, that Cambridge appeals to the imagination. The future is more roomy than the past, and we may bave part in its history, for it is even now in the making.

Americans are free to have the kind of civic development and administration they want. They get the kind of government which they deserve to get. In no other civilized country is municipal government so completely within the control of public opinion. Everywhere else there are deeplyrooted habits, long-established customs, muchrespected vested rights and cherished prejudices to be dealt with, before any satisfactory framework of city government can be set up. In America the situation is absolutely controlled by popular sentiment. There is comparatively white paper to write on. Our cities, therefore, might easily have been made the model cities of the modem world. It is America which ought to have shown the Old World how to live comfortably in great masses in one place. We have no city walls to pull down, or ghettos to clear out, or guilds to buy up, or privileges to extingvdsh. We have simply to provide, in our own way, according to the latest experience in business, art and science, the facilities, comforts and conditions which will enable large bodies of free men to live contentedly together within a certain more or less artificially restricted area. The problems of transportation, Hght, water, fire and police protection, health, education, recreation, are all fundamental to city life. These services are the life-blood of the community. The law recognizes the rights of individuals to control many of these enterprises, but hiamanity is more important than private gain. The citizens of Cambridge must increasingly give attention to the things that are beyond the immediate necessities of today and plan their city so as to destroy what is ugly, promote what is beautiful, protect the poor, educate the children and upbuild the convenience and well-being of the entire community. In Cambridge, as in most American cities, there is a complicated division of responsibility about these matters. The municipality is almost solely responsible for the assessing and collection of taxes, for the care of the streets, sideand public buildings, for the and the registry of supervision of elections voters, for fire and police protection, for the supply of water, for the sewers and drains, and for various minor services of a public nature such as the collection of ashes and garbage, the inspection of milk and other foods, the issuing of licenses and the verification of weights and measures. The city is primarily responsible for the care of the public health, for the education of the children, for providing parks, playgrounds and opportunities for recreation, for the relief of the destitute and for the maintenance of cemeteries; but in all these functions the public agencies have the aid of many private institutions and volunteer organizations. Trans- portation facilities, lighting, telephone and telegraph service, and all building operations are in Cambridge carried on by private corporations or individuals under more or less municipal supervision or restraint.

The administration of the city is vested in a mayor and a city council consisting of a Board of Aldermen of eleven members and a common council of twenty-two members. The schools are in charge of a special school committee of five members. The various functions of the city government indicated by the names of the different departments : Executive, City Clerk, Treasury, Auditing, Messenger, Law, Engineering, Fire, Inspection of Buildings, Health, Police, Street, Assessors, Electrical, Inspection of Animals, Bridge, School, Cemetery, Public Library, Water Works, Park, Registry of Votes, Overseers of the Poor, Sinking Fund, Soldier's Aid, and various special trusts or inspectorships.

This list indicates not only the variety of the functions discharged by the municipality, but also by its omissions it reveals how many public needs are still left to be met by private initiative.

As Cambridge has become more densely populated, all the problems of administration multiply in number and complexity. A mistake is further reaching ; it has a longer leverage ; and as efficient government grows more essential it becomes increasingly difficult. To administer the affairs of a village of a thousand inhabitants requires only ordinary intelligence and integrity, but the government of a city of a hundred thousand people demands expert knowledge, abiHty and character of the highest order. Cambridge has almost always been able to command the services of high-minded men to serve the public interests and there is a well-established tradition of efficiency in most of the city departments.

The street plan of Cambridge grew naturally and followed the lines of public convenience. It escaped the miserable checkerboard plan of so many unfortunate American cities. The main arteries radiate from the principal bridges and while reasonably direct are by no means monotonous . The curves of Brattle Street following the original lines of the river and the marsh are peculiarly charming. Massachusetts Avenue turns not infrequently and opens opportunities for vistas and for the location of hands cm e buildings denied to a perfectly straight street.

Cambridge is also fortunate in the characteristic names of many of its streets. The hopeless prosaic system of numerical or alphabetical names has been completely avoided. The local color has been preserved. Many of the street names, as we saw in the opening chapter of this book, preserve the local history and traditions, remind us of the men and women of distinction who have lived in Cambridge and record the community's interests and admira- tions. It would be a good plan if simple and permanent tablets setting forth briefly the careers of the men for whom the streets are named could be placed at the comers of many of the streets.

There is, however, a present peril which should be promptly met. In the newer parts of the city real estate speculators are laying out new streets without any regard to beauty or right adjustment to the neighboring streets. Patchwork improvements which disregard the plan of adjacent districts will soon disfigure what might be a well-designed and interrelated street design. The city needs to take such situations in hand and to avoid the oversights and mistakes that will follow inaction. The Engineering Department should forestall the action of private owners and adopt a comprehensive plan for new streets. It is increasingly difficult to remedy a bad plan after it has once been adopted.

to preventing the unnecessary repetition of the same evils. The futvire should not be taken at haphazard. Too often the municipality is listless or inert. Railroad approaches must be made right; grade crossings eliminated; adequate highway lines established; public buildings conveniently grouped; open spaces secured. In order to do this it is indispensable to recognize the value of expert judgment. "The people," said John Stuart Mill, "should be masters employing servants more skilful than themselves."

itself, but an enormous amount of traffic which simply passes through the city. Automobiles, trucks, market wagons, expresses and pleasure vehicles of all kinds use the Cambridge streets in passage to and fro between Boston and the towns and cities lying to the west and north. The towns that are thus accommodated pay nothing toward the maintenance of the Cambridge pavements and bridges and the wear and tear is excessive. The best and most expensive pavements must be used in Cambridge if its streets are to be kept in decent order, and these pavements must be constantly kept in repair and thoroughly cleaned. In 1911 a special commission made a comprehensive report to the City Government and laid out a plan of action for ten years ahead.

The report of the Commission recommends the construction in the near future of a much larger proportion of durable pavements than have been previously provided and the provision of several wellpaved parallel thoroughfares. It recommends the prompt and thorough repair of defects in the street service and the strict supervision of the excavation and refilling of trenches. It advocates systematic, frequent and thorough cleaning of the streets and the adoption and efficient execution of scientific methods of dust laying. The adoption of these recommendations will add greatly to the comfort of the people.

The schools have always been the special pride of the city. A complete course of education is provided from the Elindergarten up to the High and Latin Schools. There is a school for training teachers, a famous manual training school, and thirty-one grammar and primary schools. The buildings are for the most part modem and satisfactory in regard to lighting, ventilation and safety from fire. Some of the old buildings need more or less reconstruction. A few of the buildings are without proper yards, but in the majority of cases there is ample room for the play and physical development of the children. The school buildings should be further used as social centers, and as soon as financial arrangements can be made the facilities the buildings offer can be more largely utilized in the evenings. By arrangement with Harvard College, free tuition in their freshman year is offered to Cambridge boys from the High and Latin School whose parents cannot afford to pay their expenses in college; and the university athletic fields are as far as possible offered as playgrounds for Cambridge children in summer. The policy of the School Board has been almost always broad-minded and far-sighted and devoted to the welfare of the children.

The public library is an important factor in the educational life of the community. It co-operates closely with the schools, maintains traveling libraries and deposit stations in different parts of the city, and substantial branches in East Cambridge and in North Cambridge. The total number of books is a little less than one hundred thousand, and the circulation is more than three times that number.

The fire fighting force of the city is adequate and competent. The Department as now organized consists of seven steam engine companies, four chemical engine companies and four

In the Police Department there is also a gratifying condition. Cambridge maintains a larger police force than almost any other city of its size in the country, not because it is conspicuous for crime, but because it believes in adequate protection. The Department consists of a chief, four captains, four inspectors, eight heutenants, twelve sergeants, one hundred and two patrolmen, twenty-two reserve patrolmen, eight wagon and ambulance drivers and two matrons.

In health statistics Cambridge ranks among the highest of American cities. The Water Department has always been ably administered and the water supply is pure and wholesome. The record of Cambridge brings additional testimony to the fact that even in a densely settled community urban conditions are usually better for health than country conditions. Cambridge has an entirely satisfactory system of sewerage. It maintains a hospital for contagious diseases and a special tuberculosis hospital. The Cambridge Hospital with its contagious wards and the Stillman Infirmary of Harvard College are under private control, but available for the use of many citizens. The District Nursing Association is another private corporation which greatly aids in preserving the high standards of health and promoting sanitation.

The care of the poor is under the direction of a Board of Overseers. There have been times when there were very few cases of destitution in the city. Of recent years some four hundred people have annually found shelter at the City Home, and perhaps two hundred more have been under the charge of the City at various other hospitals and institutions. The private institutions and relief societies do a large beneficent work.

The Outlook

The territory of Cambridge is four and a half miles long and from one to two miles wide. Across the center of the city runs the modest elevation known as Dana Hill. To the east the svirface is level and was formerly meadow and marsh. To the west the land is a trifle higher, though never much above the old hightide levels imtil near the western boundary of the city, where there is another line of low hills rtmning northeasterly from the Mount Auburn tower, over the elevation where the Reservoir formerly stood, by the hill now crowned by the dome of the Harvard Observatory, and terminating in what was formerly known as Gallows Hill just west of Massachusetts Avenue.

that should be more amply availed of and preserved. The charm or significance of a city is in something more than the picturesqueness of its siUTOundings.

In one respect Cambridge is topographically fortunate. At either end of the city there is a large permanent body of water, and along the entire southern boimdary stretches another permanent open space, the channel of the Charles River. At the eastern end of the city the Charles River Basin forms a great water park of more than five hundred acres, and at the western end the Fresh Pond basin makes another natural water park of some three hundred acres. Both of these areas, as well as the

The territory is comparatively lacking in distinction or picturesque features. There are no rugged crags like those which contribute such regal possibilities to the Riverside Drive in New York; no mountain such as rises behind the city of Montreal; no panorama of a snowclad range such as greets the eye from Capitol Hill in Denver; no outlook across a shining lake to distant mountains as at Burlington, Vt. There is no superb Castle Rock such as dominates the .site of Edinburgh, no Acropolis, no Cathedral-crowned hilltop. The site of Cambridge is comparatively commonplace and yet there are opportunities of beauty and attractiveness

In his epoch-making report of 1893 upon the Park development of the Metropolitan District, Charles Eliot first drew public attention to these advantages and showed how they should and could be preserved. In his special report of the same year to the newly organized Cambridge Park Commission he pointed out how the river bank should be utilized and what other properties should be acquired for public use. He first recommended the acquisition by the city of the river frontage at the extreme eastern end of the city between the two canals which penetrate the manufactirring district of East Cambridge. He advocated a water front reservation of considerable breadth and available for the recreation of a crowded population. This reservation, which he called "The Front," would extend nearly 1,500 feet along the river bank and be enclosed by a sea wall. Provision was to be made for children's games and for boating on the river.

Next there was pointed out the value of the public esplanade, already planned by the Cambridge Embankment Company, which provided an avenue and promenade 200 feet wide along the whole river front between the Cambridge and

In order to complete this admirable park development it is still necessary to provide for finishing the river parkway between Captain's Island and the Western Avenue Bridge. Most of the work has been done, and it is to be hoped that within another year the incomplete section between River Street and Western Avenue will be constructed. This is the most expensive part of the parkway, as it involves some rearrangement of the buildings of the Riverside Press and the Cambridge Electric Light Company.

The New Cambridge

the Brookline bridges. Above the Brookline Bridge, Mr. Eliot recommended the acquisition of the whole of the Captain's Island property with the marshes about it for a playground and a bathing beach. From Captain's Island to the Cambridge Hospital he recommended a continuous river front parkway and the acquisition of the bordering marshes. These properties, together wnth two inland fields, the Rindge Field in North Cambridge and the Binney Field, now known as the Cambridge Field, in East Cambridge, were rapidly secured, and the fields have since been laid out as attractive recreation parks.

driving and automobiling, and the more thickly settled centers of the city. Particvilarly a parkway connection should be made between the river parkway and Quincy Square along the line of the present DeWolf Street. This will provide a much-needed driving connection between the grounds of Harvard College and Boston.

Still another improvement is the opening of a boulevard or parkway which will connect the Harvard Bridge with the Wellington Bridge in Somerville. At present traffic and pleasuredriving between Boston and the northern suburbs has to find its way through an intricate labyrinth of streets, either in the North End of Boston and Charlestown or in Cambridgeport and Somerville. The MetropoUtan Commission has made excellent plans for the proposed parkway, and these plans should be carried out as soon as financial conditions permit.

Finally, the Fresh Pond Parkway should be promptly extended through the marshes at the north of Fresh Pond to connect with the parkway now under construction along Alewife Brook and the Mystic River. This will give a complete circumferential road for pleasuredriving, and connect the great Metropolitan park reservations to the south of the Charles with those to the north of the river.

enlargement is needed at the Boston end of the bridge to provide space to allow the traffic to be distributed. The Charles River Parkway ftirther needs, for the sake of Boston traffic solely, to be extended through this new square in a broad, direct street following the line of Parkman and Fruit Streets, Sudbury Place and Eaton Street to the North Station. There is no street improvement in Boston more urgently needed than this direct connection between the North Station and the Cambridge Bridge and the Charles River Parkway. The present narrow, crooked and inconvenient connections are disgracefully insufficient.