" 1. Resolved, That, for the present, the promotion of Pri
mary or Common-School Education, by such means or agencies
as now exist or may need to be created, be the leading object of
the Board in the use of the fund placed at its disposal.

" 2. Resolved, That, in aid of the above general design, and
as promotive of the same, the Board will have in view the fur
therance of Normal-School Education for the preparation of
teachers, as well by the endowment of scholarships in exist
ing Southern institutions, as by the establishing of Normal
Schools, and the aiding of such Normal Schools as may now
be in operation, in the Southern and South-western States ;
including such measures as may be feasible, and as experience
shall dictate to be expedient, for the promotion of education in
the application of Science to the industrial pursuits of human
life.

" 8. Resolved, That a General Agent, of the highest quali
fications, be appointed by the Board, to whom shall be in
trusted, under an Executive Committee, the whole charge of
carrying out the designs of Mr. Peabody in his great gift, under
such resolutions and instructions as the Board shall from time
to time adopt."

Under this last resolution, our friend, Dr. Sears, then Presi
dent of Brown University, Rhode Island, was unanimously
appointed the General Agent of the Board ; and his letter
accepting the appointment bears date the 30th of the same
month. With that acceptance, the practical work committed
to us may fairly be considered as having commenced.

How extensive and how successful that work has been, can
only be ascertained by a careful perusal of Dr. Sears s reports.



54 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND.

Three of those reports are already in print, in the published
proceedings of the Board, the first of them presented at the
meeting of the Trustees in Richmond, Virginia, on the 21st
of January, 1868 ; the second presented at a meeting of the
Trustees in New York, on the 16th of July, 1868; and the
third presented at the meeting of the Trustees held at Balti
more, on the 21st of January, 1869.

I may say for myself, gentlemen, and I am sure I may say
for you all, that we had enjoyed no adequate opportunity
for fully appreciating the labors which have thus far been per
formed, and the results which have thus far been accomplished,
by our General Agent, until these three reports, in connection
with all the proceedings of the Board, were recently printed
together for the use of the Trustees. And I should be wanting
to my own feelings, and to my responsibilities both to the living
and the dead, as the organ at once of Mr. Peabody and of
this Board, if I failed to give some formal and public expres
sion to the gratification, and, I must say, the astonishment, I
have experienced, on a deliberate examination of those reports.
The Report which is to cover the whole of the past year is still
to be presented, and we shall soon have the satisfaction of
listening to it. But I could not but feel, as I recently finished
a second or a third reading of those which are already in print,
that, if they had included a period twice, or even thrice, that
which they do include, they would have afforded ample evidence
of extraordinary diligence, of ardent devotion, of consummate
practical wisdom, and of signal success.

This, I know, was the feeling of our lamented founder and
friend. You all remember, that, on the first day of July last,
our Board held a special meeting at Newport, Rhode Island,
at the immediate request of Mr. Peabody. He had informed
me confidentially, before I took leave of him in London, in the
previous summer, that he intended to visit his native country
again, God willing, during the present year ; and that he should
then make a considerable addition to our Fund. He was then
strong and hopeful, and had great confidence that he might live
at least ten years longer. But his health soon afterwards began
to decline ; and, as the next spring opened, he was led to enter-



PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 55

tain serious apprehensions that he might not live even until
another year. After a careful consultation with his medical
advisers, he suddenly resolved to come over at once, and com
plete his designs.

On the very day of his arrival in Boston, he informed Dr.
Sears, Governor Clifford, and myself, who had met him at the
station, and accompanied him to the hospitable home of his
friend, Mr. Dana, that the first desire of his heart, and that
which he had crossed the Atlantic especially to gratify, was
to meet our Board once more, and to increase our means for
carrying on the great work in which we were engaged. He
met us accordingly at Newport, and added a second million
of dollars to our cash capital, besides adding largely to the
deferred securities which he had included in the original dona
tion ; all of which, he had the fullest faith, would, at no very
distant day, become productive.

In the letter addressed to us, communicating this second
princely gift, he used the following language :

" I have constantly watched with great interest and careful
attention, the proceedings of your Board, and it is most gratify
ing to me now to be able to express my warmest thanks, for the
interest and zeal you have manifested in maturing and carrying
out the designs of my letter of trust, and to assure you of my
cordial concurrence in all the steps you have taken.

" At the same time, I must not omit to congratulate you, and
all who have at heart the best interests of this educational
enterprise, upon your obtaining the highly valuable services
of Dr. Sears, as your General Agent, services valuable, not
merely in the organization of schools, and of a system of public
education ; but in the good effect which his conciliatory and
sympathizing course has had, wherever he has met or become
associated with the communities of the South, in social or
business relations.

" And I beg to take this opportunity of thanking, with all
my heart, the people of the South themselves, for the cordial
spirit with which they have received the Trust, and for the
energetic efforts which they have made, in co-operation with
yourselves and Dr. Sears, for carrying out the plans which have






56 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND.

been proposed and matured for the diffusion of the blessings of
education in their respective States."

This letter of Mr. Peabody concluded as follows :

" I do this with the earnest hope and in the sincere trust, that,
with God s blessing upon the gift and upon the deliberations
and future action of yourselves and your General Agent, it may
enlarge the sphere of usefulness already entered upon, and prove
a permanent and lasting boon, not only to the Southern States,
but to the whole of our dear country, which I have ever loved
so well, but never so much as now in my declining years, and
at this time (probably the last occasion I shall ever have to
address you) as I look back over the changes and the progress
of nearty three-quarters of a century. And I pray that Almighty
God will grant to it a future as happy and noble in the intelli
gence and virtues of its citizens, as it will be glorious in unex
ampled power and prosperity."

This second letter has, indeed, proved to be, as he himself
anticipated, his last letter to this Board. But more than one
of us have enjoyed opportunities, at a still later day, of ascer
taining his views and feelings in regard to our course. Our
General Agent, as you know, spent many weeks in immediate
attendance upon him, at the White Sulphur Springs, in Virginia,
during the months of August and September last, and was in
daily conversation and consultation with him as to our plans of
proceeding. He will not fail to give us the results of those
interviews. And I may add, that I was myself with him for
several hours of the last three or four days before he finally
embarked for Liverpool. And nothing, certainly, could have
been more emphatic than his expressions, on these occasions, not
only of interest in all we were doing, and of approbation of all
we had done, but of earnest desire and confidence that we should
adhere firmly to the policy and the plans which had thus far
been adopted and pursued.

The Common-School education of the children of the South,
" without other distinction than their needs and the opportu
nities of usefulness to them," and with such incidental encour
agement and support of Normal Schools as might secure an
adequate supply of competent teachers, this was the simple



PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 57

but grand design of Mr. Peabody, in establishing the Trust
committed to us ; and he did not fail to enforce that design upon
us in his latest conversations, as well as in his earlier public
letters.

He understood perfectly, that this design was not to be carried
out by buying any thing, or by building any thing. He saw
clearly that the purchase of lots, and the erection of school-
houses, for the children of so many States, would exhaust our
funds long before our legitimate work could be commenced.
He was fully persuaded, that the best way in which his munifi
cent donation could be employed, under existing circumstances,
for the greatest good of the greatest number, was by sending
out our Agent, as a sort of Missionary of Education, with all the
annual interest of our Fund at his command, to help those who
were willing to help themselves ; to eke out the insufficiencies
of local appropriations ; to provide in succession for the imme
diate temporary wants of particular communities; and, above
all that mere money could do, to give them the advantage of
the largest information, the highest practical wisdom, and the
longest personal experience, in the work of education. He
perceived that this was precisely what we had done, and he was
more than satisfied.

He did not fail to understand that other kinds of education,
besides that of Common Schools, were in need of encourage
ment in the Southern States. He would gladly have had aid
afforded to their Industrial Schools, whenever it were practi
cable. He knew, too, that there were young men of the highest
promise there, whom recent events had deprived of the means
of entering on a collegiate course. He was not insensible to
their claims. Nor was he without an earnest hope that his
example might call forth some benefactor, for that precise exi
gency, from among those, in the Southern States themselves,
whose fortunes have been comparatively unimpaired. But his
own Fund he evidently considered as pledged, for the present,
to " the young of the entire population," until some change of
circumstances should render a change of policy expedient, or
until, at the end of thirty years, it should be devoted to other
purposes.



58 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND.

And now, gentlemen, having had the benefit of his advice,
his approbation, his cheering assistance and encouragement, for
these three initiatory years of our work, we are called to enter
upon a new term without him. It is a loss which we shall all
deeply feel ; and which will be felt hardly less deeply, I think,
by those who shall succeed us, when our places shall in turn
become vacant. His wise counsels, his lofty and generous aims,
his genial and magnetic presence, can never be forgotten by
those of us who have personally enjoyed them ; nor will they
ever fail to inspire us with a determination to discharge the
obligations we have assumed at his hands, in the spirit in which
they were impose d upon us.

Let us hope that his memory, and his great commission, may
be held equally sacred by all who shall come after us ; and that
the faithful administration of this noble Trust, as long as it
shall last, may fulfil all those wishes, which, living and dying,
he so ardently cherished, for the prosperity and welfare of the
Southern States, and for the harmony and happiness of our
whole beloved Country.



A GLANCE AT THE CHANGES OF
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.



SPEECH AT THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE BOSTON MER
CANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, IN THE MUSIC HALL, BOSTON, 11
MARCH, 1870.



I AM most glad to remember, Mr. President, at this late hour
of the evening, in view of all that has been already said and
sung, and in view of what remains to be sung too, for I had
rather you would lose eveiy thing that is in these poor notes of
mine than that we should lose a single note of that charming
music of which we have already enjoyed so much, I repeat,
sir, that I rejoice to remember, in view of all this, that I have
rendered myself responsible this evening only for a few, a very
few, informal words. Absent from home, as I have been for
many weeks past, and uncertain almost to the last hour whether
I could be here at all, it would have been quite out of my power
to fulfil any larger expectations, even had I ever authorized
them.

But, indeed, my friends, you have not come together to-night
to listen to any long or labored addresses from any one. The
occasion is rather one for congratulation and emotion, than for
instruction or argument. The interesting sketch of the rise and
progress of this Association, which we have all heard with so
much pleasure from the lips of its past and present Presidents ;
the encouraging and excellent words of His Excellency the
Governor, the Mayor, arid the President of the Board of Trade ;
the charming solos of our Boston contralto, 1 and the noble

1 Miss Adelaide Phillips.

[59]



60 A GLANCE AT THE CHANGES

choruses of this ancient and honorable Musical Association, 1
always ready to lend its aid upon every worthy occasion of com
memoration, whether of the living or the dead, and whose
existence dates back at least five years behind and beyond the
date of the original organization of this Association, even
to the close of that war with England, in 1815, which, I pray
God, in spite of all the animosities and irritations and indig
nation which truculent " Alabamas" or remorseless " Bombays"
may have occasioned, may still and always stand recorded
in histoiy as our last war with the old Mother Country ;
these words from so many distinguished persons, these choruses
from so many noble voices, I am sure have been quite enough
to gratify and satisfy you all, and I might well ask to be
excused myself, even from the few off-hand words which I
have somewhat rashly promised and somewhat hastily pre
pared.

And yet, Mr. President, I would not willingly have been
wholly absent or wholly silent upon this occasion. The Gov
ernor has come to speak for our beloved Commonwealth. The
Mayor has come to represent the good old city of Boston. My
eloquent friend, Mr. Rice, is here to respond for that Board of
Trade over which he so worthily presides. For myself, ladies
and gentlemen, I am here only as the representative of the Past.
But I feel that it is fit that the Past should not be left wholly
unrepresented on such an occasion.

I have not forgotten that anniversary of yours twenty-five
years ago, to which allusion has been repeatedly made this
evening. The associations and memories of that evening have
clustered thickly, and I must say sadly, about me, as I have
prepared myself to address you to-night. Though I had then
already represented my native city for at least five years in the
Congress of the United States, I was still comparatively a young
man ; and the honor of being selected as your orator for that
special celebration was not likely to be lost upon me. It was
not lost upon me ; and I am glad of the renewed opportunity to
express my gratitude for that and for many other compliments
which have been paid me by your Association. But I look

i The Handel and Haydn Society.



OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 61

around me in vain, my friends, this evening, for the men who
were then the pride and the strength of our community, and not
a few of whom surrounded me on that occasion as your friends
and as my own friends. The Lawrences, the princely Abbott,
and the kind, generous, amiable Amos, of whom you have
already given so pleasant an anecdote to-night ; the Appletons,

"Nathan, the Wise," whose opinion at this hour upon any
question of finance or currency, I hazard nothing in saying,
would be sought for more eagerly than that of any man living,
and would have been placed almost in comparison with that of any
of our own earliest and greatest statesmen, such as Alexander
Hamilton or Albert Gallatin ; Samuel Appleton, the benevolent,
and the excellent William ; the noble-hearted old Colonel I
hardly need add the name of Perkins to any one who knew him,

who was one of your earliest and largest benefactors ; Wil
liam Sturgis, Josiah Bradlee, and Robert G. Shaw ; Theodore
Lyman, who presided at your original organization just fifty
years ago to-night; Samuel A. Eliot and Martin Brimmer; the
venerated Quincj ; Choate, Everett, Webster ; all of whom took
so warm an interest in the welfare of your Association, and did
so much to animate and sustain it by liberal deeds or eloquent
words : I look for them I had almost said I look for their like

in vain. I see, it may be, some of the sons who have risen to
honor ; but of the fathers, not one is left, save in those proud
and precious memories of the good and great, which can never
die. The veiy Hall in which that celebration was held has long
ago been levelled to the ground, and its name is hardly remem
bered by the present generation. 1

Yet of what account, after all, my friends, are changes like
these, in the men or in the places of our city, compared with
those marvellous changes in the condition of the world, and
more particularly of our part of the world, which have signal
ized that second quarter of a century which your Association
has now completed ! Who can ever review the grand procession
of events abroad and at home, during that most eventful period,
without an almost bewildering amazement?

I remember well, that, in that twenty-fifth Anniversary Ad-

1 The Odeon.



62 A GLANCE AT THE CHANGES

dress, 1 I endeavored to enforce .and illustrate the idea that Com
merce was the great antagonist of war, and war, as my friend
Mr. Rice has just said, the ruthless destroyer of Commerce ;
and I ventured to express a hope, that, through the prevailing
influence of the mercantile spirit, if of nothing higher or
nobler, the martial spirit of the world might at last be exor
cised or held in check. But when has the world ever seen such
wars as those which have raged successively and almost contin
uously since that time on both sides of the ocean ? Mexican
wars, I know not how many of them, the Crimean war,
the Italian war, the Prussian war, the Abyssinian war, and our
own stupendous and incomparable Civil War, these are but a
part of the catalogue ! Meantime, however, my friends, what
glorious triumphs have been witnessed, in spite of those wars,
or, in some cases, as their immediate attendants or results,
triumphs of science and triumphs of art as well as triumphs of
arms, and, above all for us, and for the whole world if it did
but know it, the great and final triumph of the American Union !
And then, my friends, add to such a consideration the successful
application of ether to relieve pain ; the Ocean Telegraph ; the
apparition of Monitors upon the sea ; the Pacific Railroad ; the
Suez Canal ; the Chinese Mission, so sadly interrupted by
the death of our lamented Burlingame ; the grand benefactions
and grander example of your late honorary member, George
Peabody ; and greater, a thousand-fold greater, than all, the
final disappearance of African Slavery from our land, a con
summation which I do not forget that the poet of that twenty-
fifth Anniversary my good friend Mr. Waterston, who is with
us here to-night ventured to pray for in rhyme, but which the
wildest rhapsodist would hardly have dared at that day to pre
dict in sober prose as within " the prospect of belief" for a hun
dred years still to come. What quarter of a century has there
been in the past, in all the past, since the coming of our Lord,
what quarter of a century can be anticipated in the future,
in all the future, till our Lord shall come again, so filled and
crowded with wonderful events?

Let me not call them, my friends, merely wonderful events,

l Winthrop s Addresses and Speeches, Vol. I. pp. 39-69.



OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 63

but, as our Puritan Fathers would have called them, let me say
Wonderful Providences ; and let me no longer delay the singing
of the chorus which is to close these exercises, 1 the only chorus
which is adequate to express the emotions which belong to the
contemplation of the events which have crowded the quarter of
a century since your last great celebration by any reverential,
I had as well said by any reflecting, mind.

i Handel s " Hallelujah Chorus."



VERPLANCK AND FROTHINGHAM.



REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY,

APRIL 14, 1870.



You are aware, gentlemen, that this is our Annual Meeting ;
but, agreeably to usage, we proceed with our regular monthly
business before entering on the more formal routine of Annual
Reports and Elections. Before we pass, however, to any thing
of a merely business character, it is fit that I should remind
you that, since we met last, two names on our rolls have
ceased to be the names of living members. One of them is
the name of an Honorary Member, who was the contemporary
and associate of Irving and Paulding and Sands and Cooper
and Bryant of New York. The other is the name of a Resi
dent Member, who was the associate and friend of our own
Prescott and Everett and Sparks and Ticknor, and of others
whom I see around me.

The name of the Honorable GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, LL.D.,
has stood, for several years past, first in the order of seniority
on our Honorary Roll. He was elected on the 27th of Janu-
ar} r , 1820, more than fifty years ago. He died in the city
of New York, his native place, on the 18th of March last, in
the eighty-fourth year of his age.

Mr. Verplanck was a graduate of Columbia College, and a
lawyer by profession. His life was, however, mainly devoted
to politics, literature, and works of public usefulness. He was
a representative in the Legislature of New York as early as
1814 ; and, after several years service in that capacity, he was

[64]



VERPLANCK AND PROTHINGHAM. 65

elected a representative in Congress in 1825, and was a con
spicuous and valuable member of the National Councils for
eight years. He subsequently served for some years in the
Senate of his native State.

His labors, however, during this period, were by no means
confined to political subjects. In 1818, he delivered a lecture
before the New York Historical Society, on " The Early Euro
pean Friends of America," which attracted much attention and
passed through several editions. In 1821, he was chosen to a
Professorship on " The Evidences of Christianity," in the Gen
eral Episcopal Seminary established at New York, and not long
afterwards published a collection of essays on " The Nature
and Uses of the various Evidences of Revealed Religion." In
1825, he published a work, well known to the Bar, on the
"Doctrine of Contracts." In 1827, he was associated with the
late Robert C. Sands and with William C. Bryant in publishing
one of the earliest of our American Illustrated " Annuals,"
called the " Talisman," of which three volumes were issued in
successive years, and afterwards all republished, with the names
of the authors, in 1833. During the same year, Mr. Verplanck
published a volume of his collected " Discourses and Addresses
on Subjects of American History, Arts, and Literature." Many
other Discourses and Addresses were delivered by him in sub
sequent years; and between the years 1844 and 1847 he
published an edition of Shakspeare, in three volumes, with
illustrations and annotations, which gave ample evidence of his
taste and accomplishments as an editor and interpreter of the
immortal dramatist.

About this same year, 1847, the Board of Emigration Com
missioners was established in New York, for the protection of
foreigners when first arriving on our shores, and Mr. Ver
planck was immediately elected its President, an office which
he continued to hold and discharge with great zeal and energy
until his death. He was connected, too, with many other
boards and bodies of a charitable or religious character, and
rendered valuable service to them all.

Nor did his literary labors entirely cease but with his life.
Besides the annual reports which he prepared for fifteen years

5



66 VERPLANCK AND FROTHINGHAM.

on the subject of emigration, and which were published in a
volume in 1861, his "Twelfth Night at the Century Club," in