WILLIAM EDWARD PARKER 
 
 1861-1911 
 
 AN Al'PREClyVTION 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 Z720 .A51 
 
 William Edward Parker, an fjPPK,'S'|?"' 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 029 530 262 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029530262 
 
WILLIAM EDWARD PARKER 
 
y^C^^iIa^^^ '2^.Vo~^,.,.^^Lc 
 
WILLIAM EDWARD PARKER 
 
 AN APPRECIATION 
 
 1861-1911 
 
 "Thy marble bright in dark appears* 
 A» slowly steals a silver flame 
 Along the letters of thy namCt 
 And o'er the number of thy years." 
 
 THE CLASS OF EIGHTY-POUR 
 OF AMHERST COLLEGE, 1912 
 
THE RUMFORD PRESS 
 CONCORD, H. H. 
 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM E. PARKER Frontispiece 
 
 PAOE 
 
 An Appreciation 7 
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND PERSONAL ESTIMATES 
 
 The Amhehst Class of '84 IS 
 
 "The Villaqebs" 18 
 
 Directors of the Library Bttbeau 20 
 
 EiiWTN G. Preston 21 
 
 F. E. Spaulding, Superintendent of Schooi^, New- 
 ton, Mass 23 
 
 TYPICAL PUBLIC ADDRESSES BY MR, PARKER 
 
 Preparedness 29 
 
 Address before the Alumni of the Barnstable 
 High School 41 
 
 American Sculpture 48 
 
 "THE PROGRESS OF THE RACE" 61 
 
WILLIAM E. PARKER 
 
 Half a century is a very brief period in which 
 to compass all the achievements and events of an 
 important human life. It allows so little time to 
 grow to maturity, to acquire an education, to fight 
 for and win success and enduring reputation, 
 both in business and the community. 
 
 However much is accomplished in a life which 
 terminates at fifty, much still remains to be done, 
 — ^proportiona^te in amoimt, indeed, to the energy 
 and intellectual power of the one who passes 
 hence. On the other hand, a life attainiag to 
 the Biblical standard of three score years and 
 ten, although it may be, and often is, regarded 
 as ending prematurely even at that age, nev- 
 ertheless reasonably covers a long period of 
 effectiveness and activity. It can be said truth- 
 fully, indeed, that Fate has not hastened unduly 
 the movements of such a man, but has allowed 
 to him deUberation and maturity for each move 
 in the affairs of life. He who departs at seventy 
 at least has lived the full day, from sunrise to 
 sunset and has seen the twilight begin to fall. 
 
 Fifty years of hfe, however, means that half 
 this period was spent in preparation and in "find- 
 ing oneself." The other half, a meagre twenty- 
 five years only, remains for positive accomplish- 
 ment. Severe, therefore, is the loss to the home 
 7 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 and community from which departs at fifty one 
 whose conspicuous achievement was an earnest 
 of more that might be done. There are such 
 vistas of great things, such possibilities of devel- 
 opment. Judgment has grown so mature, and 
 experience is at last available which is both broad 
 and ripe. 
 
 It is because of these evident truths that this 
 little book has been made. It commemorates 
 the untimely death of one whose task was seem- 
 ingly far from completed. William Edward 
 Parker, a son of the old New England and Cape 
 Cod stock, a graduate of Amherst, class of '84, 
 a Boston manufacturer and practically the creator 
 of an industry, an honored and useful citizen of 
 Newton Center, Massachusetts, lived but a short 
 half century. In the brief twenty-five years 
 available to him for productive work, he strug- 
 gled from the bottom upward; he lived a life of 
 effort and devotion; he reared a family and 
 created a business. Yet amid all the cares of 
 life and work he held to high ideals, — almost 
 poetic in loftiness and purity. 
 
 "For while he wrought with strenuous will 
 The work his hands had found to do. 
 
 He heard the fitful music still 
 
 Of winds that out of dreamland blew." 
 
 To the comrades of college days and the many 
 
 devoted friends of later years, the death of Mr. 
 
 Parker brought a personal loss. He had done 
 
 so much, he had endeared himself to so many, 
 
 8 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 that his was an assured and important place in 
 the lives and affairs of men. The mere facts and 
 dates of his life which follow, and which are com- 
 monly considered a man's "record," are no more 
 suggestive of the Parker of friendship's mem- 
 ory, than ashes suggest the glowing embers 
 which preceded them. 
 
 Here is the judgment of those who knew him 
 best: 
 
 A singularly gracious personality; a gentle 
 and chivalric nature which lost no part of its 
 charm and attractiveness amid care and dis- 
 couragement; a believer in humanity who did not 
 falter even amid events that p)erhaps justified a 
 readjustment of faith; the possessor of patience 
 which comjjelled silence under provocation, and 
 permitted the utterance of no harsh word; a 
 kind employer; a devoted husband and father, 
 and an imchanging friend. 
 
 William E. Parker was bom in Hyannis, Mass., 
 December 9, 1861. He died at his home in 
 Newton Center, Mass., November 2, 1911. 
 
 From the High School at Barnstable, Mass., 
 Mr. Parker entered Amherst College and grad- 
 uated in the class of 1884. After a brief service 
 as assistant to the librarian of Columbia Univer- 
 sity, New York, he became interested in a new 
 project of furnishing library and office supplies, 
 and removed to Boston where he was one of the 
 founders of the Library Bureau. Largely due to 
 his ability and untiring energy this enterprise 
 9 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 steadily developed to a business of large propor- 
 tions and became New England's contribution 
 to what has proved to be a new and important 
 industry. 
 
 The industrial history of the United States is 
 largely the record of the calling of new enter- 
 prises one by one into existence by strong men 
 who devoted their lives to actual creation. Ex- 
 ploring new paths of business they were not merely 
 competitors with others, but the benefactors 
 alike of consimier and employee. In this sense 
 Mr. Parker reared an enduring monument for 
 himself. Few men, however, who pass their 
 lives in the stress of complicated commercial Ufe, 
 preserve such serene gentleness of character and 
 unfailing thought for the welfare of others. These 
 qualities made Mr. Parker beloved in his college 
 days and made and retained for him a host of 
 devoted friends in after years. No bitterness of 
 competition or the crossing purposes of business 
 associates or employees ever encroached upon the 
 high personal respect and affection in which Mr. 
 Parker was held. In his business affairs he 
 was thus aptly described by one of his associates : 
 
 "To me Mr. Parker stands for absolute straight- 
 forward reliability, and this quality is so marked 
 and dominant that you can take it for a complete 
 description. He was sincere, direct, dependable." 
 
 He resided for many years in Newton Center 
 and was an active and influential citizen in the 
 affairs of his home community. He was a mem- 
 ber of the First Church of Newton. While a 
 10 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 member of the School Board of Newton (from 
 1903 to 1909) he was the leading spirit in building, 
 equipping and organizing the new Technical 
 High School which is regarded as a model in this 
 class of educational institutions. 
 
 Mr. Parker was married November 18, 1891, to 
 Miss Tena Bartlett, daughter of Alvin G. Bart- 
 lett of Roxbury. His wife, and three children, 
 Virginia, William E. and Catherine, survive. 
 He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and 
 D. K. E. Societies, the University Club of Boston, 
 the Republican Club of New York, and the Am- 
 herst Alumni Association of Boston, of which he 
 was President in 1904. 
 
 The funeral services were held on Saturday 
 afternoon November 4, in the First Church of 
 Newton in whose affairs Mr. Parker had been 
 so long active and influential. At the time of 
 his death, he was a member of the Prudential 
 Committee. 
 
 His classmate and intimate friend Prof. James 
 H. Tufts, of Chicago University, conducted the 
 services assisted by Rev. Edward M. Noyes, the 
 Pastor of the Church. Samuel Fischer Miller 
 of New York, another classmate, was the soloist. 
 
 The pall bearers also were college classmates: — 
 James L. White and Willard H. Wheeler, of 
 New York, Walter S. Robinson of Springfield, 
 Dr. Arthur B. Lyon of Brockton, and Alfred E. 
 Alvord, Dr. Edward M. Greene, Charles E. 
 Kelsey, James Mahoney, William S. Rossiter 
 and Rev. Charles F. Weeden, of Boston. Dele- 
 11 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 gations were present from various clubs and 
 organizations of which. Mr. Parker was a mem- 
 ber, and also the officers and several hundred 
 employees of the Library Bureau. 
 
 A marked feature of the large audience which 
 filled the church was the great preponderance of 
 business and professional men, Mr. Parker's 
 neighbors and associates, who assembled to pay 
 their last tribute to one who had endeared him- 
 self to them by high quahties of mind and heart. 
 
 Floral tributes were sent in great profusion, 
 among them were those of the London, Canadian 
 and New York offices of the Library Bureau and 
 of the Class of '84. 
 
 Among the trees and shrubs of the beautiful 
 Newton Cemetery, a massive boulder of natural 
 field stone on a grassy hillside marks the last 
 resting place of one who labored faithfully and 
 well. 
 
 H 
 
RESOLUTIONS AND 
 PERSONAL ESTIMATES 
 
RESOLUTIONS 
 
 THE CLASS OF '84 
 
 (Adopted at the thirty-fourth reunion of the class, held at Spring- 
 field, Mass., December 29, 1911.) 
 
 On November 2, 1911, our classmate and 
 friend, William Edward Parker, passed to his 
 rest. It is impossible fittingly to express the 
 sense of loss which has been sustained by his 
 family, his comrades of '84, and the community 
 in which he lived, from the death of this large- 
 hearted and loyal man. He was a devoted hus- 
 band and father, a successful man of affairs, a 
 citizen who gave unselfishly of strength and 
 time to the educational progress of his city and 
 to the improvement of civic conditions. He 
 was a friend whose esteem it was an honor to 
 possess. 
 
 In his family life, Parker was unfailingly gentle 
 and thoughtful of others. Whatever the cares 
 and imcertainties of the business day, within his 
 home his sunny and serene disposition knew no 
 change. His passing has removed an ideal 
 husband and parent. 
 
 In the world of business it is the privilege of 
 few men, however great their success or evident 
 their genius, to achieve the reputation for fairness, 
 sagacity and faithfulness in positions of public 
 and private trust, which came so freely and natu- 
 15 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 rally to this member of our class. He was the 
 builder of a new industry. He labored to place 
 it upon secure foimdations, and his daily effort, 
 the strain and stress of which were the cause of 
 his fatal illness, was directed not so much toward 
 wealth for himself as to make permanent and 
 profitable the employment of hundreds of men 
 and women, in scores of cities in this country 
 and abroad. 
 
 The college life of this comrade of ours is known 
 to you all. He was ever the same quiet, sincere, 
 able leader of thought and action from the begin- 
 ning of his college career to his graduation. The 
 exceptional bonds of friendship which unite the 
 class of Eighty-four were in no small degree his 
 handiwork. During the twenty-seven years which 
 have elapsed since our first reunion, Parker was 
 one of the leaders in class life and enthusiasm. 
 Upon this imfaltering friend and mate we relied 
 in all the activities which attended our reimions. 
 So keen his appreciation of our friendship, so 
 high his ideal of '84 that we called more frequently 
 upon him than upon any other of our number to 
 respond at our annual gatherings to the sentiment 
 of "The Class." It is impossible to realize his 
 passing, or to reckon the loss to '84. 
 
 Yet in our sorrow we would not be unmindful 
 of our privilege. In reviewing the life of this 
 comrade and friend, we are grateful that it has 
 been our high privilege to walk by his side all 
 these busy and eventful years — ^to know the 
 purity of his mind— to rejoice in his business 
 
 16 
 
Resolutions and Estimates 
 
 achievement — ^to understand the high purpose 
 of his life, both public and private — ^to possess 
 his friendship and his aflFection. In the silence of 
 the years to come these are the memories that 
 will last. Not in vain has any man lived, whose 
 life, long after his departure, inspires those who 
 knew him best. Now, therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, By the Class of '84 assembled at 
 their 34th reunion, that we seek to express our 
 sense of irreparable loss in the deatii of our class- 
 mate, WilKam Edward Parker, our appreciation 
 of what he has been and will ever be to us in our 
 class and individual life, and our deep, abiding 
 sympathy with his family, and. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of this estimate of our 
 classmate and this resolution, be transmitted 
 by the secretary of the Class of '84 to Mrs. 
 Parker. 
 
 17 
 
"THE VILLAGERS" 
 
 Newton Center, Mabb. 
 
 We desire hereby to record our deep sense of 
 the loss to the companionship and general life 
 of the Club that has befallen us in the dea:th of 
 our comrade, William Edward Parker. 
 
 We would thoughtfully a^d thankfully com- 
 memorate thus his rare personal worth, his great 
 devotiojQ to his business undei^takings and his 
 achievements therein, his faithful civic usefulness 
 in the community. 
 
 We would thus attest our keen appreciation of 
 his unselfish spirit, his genial and helpful disposi- 
 tion, his natural and unvarying courtesy, his 
 rich culture, his fundamental and discerning 
 optimism, his refined and beautiful view of life, 
 his ever-ready and cheerful temper of co-opera- 
 tion and charity. 
 
 The effluence of his life will be always with us 
 in remembrance: an atmosphere of sensitive and 
 adequate ideals, personal and social — reasonable 
 and constant; not enshrined afar, but ever-pres- 
 ent; not lofty and nebulous beyond practical 
 reach, but inherent and intimate in his daily 
 life — constantly fertile and fruitful in his thought 
 and action. 
 
 We shall always remember him as, withal, es- 
 18 
 
Resolutions and Estimates 
 
 sentially simple, sincere, earnest, steadfast, brave 
 and loyal — as friend, neighbor and comrade. 
 
 We shall ever honor and cherish this memory 
 as a precious association and an inspiration to 
 higher life and service. 
 
 19 
 
LIBRARY BUREAU 
 
 The Boabd of Dibectobs 
 
 luasmuch as we, the Board of Directors of 
 Library Bureau, have met with such a severe 
 loss in the death of our fellow member, Mr. 
 William E. Parker, we desire to make some expres- 
 sion of our appreciation of his remarkable charac- 
 ter and to attempt a statement of sorrow which 
 comes to us in this bereavement. 
 
 For twenty-five years Mr. Parker has been con- 
 nected with the Library Bureau. Hehas given to the 
 business the benefit of his commercial training. He 
 has been one of its wisest counselors and most active 
 factors. He has always given it his best thought 
 and supported it with imboimded enthusiasm. 
 
 Not only has he supported the business with 
 wisdom and energy, but he has brought to it the 
 rich and refining influences of a cultured. Chris- 
 tian gentleman. His words have been an inspira- 
 tion. His acts have been a worthy example. 
 His life has been an uplift. 
 
 In his death not only have we, as a company 
 of directors, met with an irreparable loss, but 
 each one of us knows there has gone from his circle 
 of personal friends a beloved and honored member. 
 
 We therefore make this slight expression of our 
 esteem and direct that a copy of this minute be 
 signed and sent to his bereaved family. 
 20 
 
PERSONAL ESTIMATES 
 
 MODESTY AND STRENGTH 
 
 What was it that created for Parker such a 
 large place in the community among his friends 
 and business associates? Speaking for myself at 
 least, I think I can see what it was. 
 
 First, Parker was a man of great reserve 
 strength, but withal one of the most modest men 
 I ever knew. His opinions and judgment were 
 of the highest value but he expressed them as 
 though they were of no great importance, and 
 was most generous in his recognition of the opin- 
 ion of others. I distinctly recollect, and I have 
 no doubt you do, instances where he gave the 
 credit for ideas to others which were clearly 
 evolved out of his own suggestions. He never 
 asked anything for himself. He was willing to 
 give and to assist and to promote but he never 
 seemed to want himself to be ia the lime hght or 
 on parade. 
 
 The other thing which has impressed me most 
 as I have thought over Parker's life, was his 
 obvious sincerity. One always thought of Parker 
 instinctively as the real thing, — ^no sham, no pre- 
 tense, no evasion. He was sound to the core. 
 
 These things count large in a man's life. There 
 are scores of men whom I have known very much 
 21 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 better than I have known Parker during the 
 twenty years of our acquaintance, and for whom 
 I have entertained very high regard, but whose 
 death would not seem so much of a personal loss 
 to me as his. 
 
 Elwyn G. Pkeston. 
 
 22 
 
SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY 
 
 A mere recital of Mr. Parker's membership in 
 educational boards and of the prominent posi- 
 tions which he held therein gives slight indication 
 of the breadth and character of his interest and 
 influence in matters of public education. He 
 began service as a member of the School Commit- 
 tee in 1904 and served two terms of three years 
 each. He was an original member of the Board 
 of Trustees of the Newton Independent Indus- 
 trial School, established early in 1909, a position 
 which he held imtil his death. On leaving the 
 School Committee he at once became a member 
 of the newly formed Advisory Board of Twenty- 
 five, which was organized on invitation of the 
 School Committee to assist in the development 
 of the new Technical High School. 
 
 Mr. Parker was no mere figure-head in any of 
 these boards. In the work and deKberations of 
 every one he always took a prominent — often a 
 most prominent part. He was invariably made 
 a member of every important sub-committee 
 that might be formed. So, without question, 
 he became one of the three representatives from 
 the School Committee, who, with an equal num- 
 ber of representatives from the Board of Alder- 
 men, constituted the so-called Joint Committee 
 that was appointed in 1906 to study technical 
 23 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 education and the needs of increased high school 
 accoDunodations. The report of this Committee, 
 in whose investigations, studies and conferences, 
 Mr. Parker took a leading part, resulted finally 
 in the building and organization of the Newton 
 Technical High School. This whole project Mr. 
 Parker aided with wise counsel and much helpful 
 work from its beginning to the end of his life. 
 One of the last things he did, as chairman of an 
 especially active sub-committee of the Advisory 
 Board of that school, was to draw up a letter to 
 send to a large niunber of citizens for the purpose 
 of interesting them in the furnishing of the library 
 of the school. 
 
 Mr. Parker had rare qualifications for the 
 important educational work that he did for his 
 city. Added to his spontaneous interest in edu- 
 cation, as indeed in every agency for human 
 betterment, he brought to bear on educational 
 problems a practical and well-trained mind. The 
 breadth of his grasp, the accuracy of his apprecia- 
 tion, the depth of his insight, applied to educa- 
 tional affairs were quite unusual. He was an 
 ardent and thoughtful believer in progress; he 
 believed the schoob of today are better than 
 those of yesterday; he was sure the schools of 
 tomorrow could be made better than those of 
 today. He was ideally constituted to interpret 
 to the people the meaning and the value of pro- 
 gressive educational movements, for he not only 
 appreciated these movements but he understood 
 as by instinct the attitude, the sentiments, the 
 24 
 
Resolutions and E stimates 
 
 prejudices of the people of all classes and condi- 
 tions; and lie knew how in the most tactful and 
 persuasive manner to get a fair consideration and 
 a fair trial of any plan that promised improvement. 
 For example, he performed no small service in 
 enlightening the people of his district concerning 
 the modified plan of sessions for the elementary 
 schools which was first tried out in Newton Center 
 and then adopted throughout the city — & plan 
 which has attracted much attention elsewhere 
 and is being adopted in other cities. 
 
 While Mr. Parker's interests in all phases of 
 the problem of education were well-balanced, 
 he was perhaps especially interested in every- 
 thing that pertains to the good health and soimd 
 physical development of children. Playgrounds, 
 outdoor games, athletics appealed to him as 
 educational agencies in the larger sense. 
 
 Mr. Parker was a frequent and most welcome 
 visitor in the schools of his own district. His 
 wise counsel with teachers and his inspiring ad- 
 dresses to the children made lasting impression. 
 
 F. E. Spaulding. 
 
 23 
 
TYPICAL PUBLIC ADDRESSES 
 
PREPAREDNESS 
 
 It has been foiind in Massachusetts that only 
 twenty-five per cent, of the grammar school 
 scholars reach the high school and that at four- 
 teen years of age a great many boys and girls 
 leave school unfitted to earn a living except as 
 unskilled laborers. The matter isn't remedied 
 yet, but the establishment of manual training and 
 trade schools and such schools as Boston's High 
 School of Commerce are evidences of attempts, 
 first — ^to keep the children in school and second 
 — ^to begin their training in practical things not 
 foreign to what they will find in the world when 
 the time for graduation has come. 
 
 But with all the expenditure of time and money 
 the fact remains that the boys of today are not 
 prepared to take up and do the work that the 
 commercial or business world has to do — that 
 they are not prepared. 
 
 Therefore I shall take as my subject "Prepared- 
 ness." 
 
 I always like to know the meaning of a word 
 
 when that word is the subject of a talk. This 
 
 word Preparedness then is made up of two words 
 
 "pre" meaning before and "pare" which is to 
 
 >e cut away or pare away what isn't useful as the 
 
 rad of an apple or the hoof of a horse. So to- 
 
 gther the word means a readiness beforehand 
 
 t 29 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 after the useless things have been cast aside. 
 The prepared man was Paid Revere whose horse 
 stood saddled by the Old North Church — ^who 
 tightened his saddle girth as he awaited the signal 
 from the old church tower "ready" to ride and 
 spread the alarm. 
 
 The Kttle Japanese nation was victorious in 
 the field over Russia for the same reason — ^they 
 were prepared — ^prepared by taking only what 
 they needed, prepared with their food, with 
 their hospitals and hospital supplies, their trains, 
 their tents and every conceivable thing they 
 might need, and prepared by having left behind 
 everything that might be a hindrance. They 
 were prepared with everything ready in advance — 
 and this preparation had begun not when war 
 was declared but way back in Japan months 
 and years before. So they were victors because 
 they were prepared and because Russia was 
 unprepared. 
 
 Suppose we consider the things that make 
 preparedness in a boy when the day comes for 
 him to begin his work in the world. 
 
 First: There must be a sense of truth. I 
 don't mean only that he must speak the truth: 
 I mean that his standards must be true. I don't 
 mean that he must learn certain precepts of 
 honesty in school, but that his conduct at home, 
 on the playground and in school must be square 
 so that not only what he says but what he does 
 and what he makes must be true and square. 
 
 Second: He must have knowledge if he is to 
 so 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 be prepared. Now there are two gateways to 
 knowledge: learning and observation. The first 
 the schools should supply. Written down in 
 books is the experience and are the facts of learn- 
 ing. In the schools are the teachers to explain 
 and interpret these facts. To the boy has been 
 given a memory to appropriate and store away 
 these facts for future use. This is learning. 
 But another way to knowledge is by observation. 
 That may be cultivated iu school but vastly 
 more outside — at home, on the street, on the 
 playgroimd, at the Wild West show — ^wherever 
 the wakiQg hours find the boy, there by observa- 
 tion he may so add to his learning iu the schools 
 that both shall give him knowledge, which for 
 our purpose is the "know how" which once ac- 
 quired as a part of preparedness makes the boy 
 ready for his work. 
 
 As a business man I don't expect to get a boy 
 out of high school who knows my business or its 
 methods, but I ought to expect to get a boy who 
 knows how to get a mastery of the details of 
 work assigned him. 
 
 And this runs iato a third element of prepared- 
 ness and that is the power to reason — logic the 
 scholars call it — we may call it "putting two and 
 two together." Learning is worth nothing toward 
 a livelihood unless it can be used, unless the boy 
 can by reasoning it out apply his observation and 
 his learning to the thing at his hand. 
 
 And then comes the next element of prepared- 
 ness and that is expression, as sense of truth, 
 31 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 learning axid observation and the power to reason 
 are not enough — of what good are they unless 
 the boy can tell it out — can give expression to 
 what he believes and knows. So to be prepared 
 the boy must be able to use good English and to 
 use it effectively. 
 
 A little while ago there was a convention at the 
 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Presi- 
 dent Benjamin Ide Wheeler of one of the great 
 California universities was the speaker. He was 
 talking to men later to graduate from Technology 
 and go out to be engineers, to work in mines and 
 on bridges and in investigating laboratories — 
 scientific men all of them — and they seemed to 
 be interested in everything but the common 
 English course. But he said to them, "When you 
 are graduated and out at work yoiu- success will 
 be almost in proportion as you can express your 
 knowledge in good English." 
 
 So I believe that when a boy possesses a sense 
 of truth; when he has acquired knowledge by 
 the learning of the schools and the observations 
 of things; when he has learned to reason out and 
 answer the question "why"; when finally he has 
 by practice in good English learned to express 
 all this, then he is prepared and his preparedness 
 will let him go in and get his share, according to 
 his ability, of the common wealth. 
 
 Now how much of these elements of truth, 
 
 learning, observation, reasoning and expression, 
 
 without the possession of which the boy is not 
 
 prepared, how much of these does he get at school? 
 
 32 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 Isn't it true that seventy-five per cent, at least 
 of what he gets out of school is pure memorizing 
 from books? In addition he gets his training 
 in English. Where shall he get the rest? 
 
 I wonder if the answer must not come from 
 you. I wonder if the boy must not look to you 
 to furnish him with his sense for true things; for 
 his development in observation; for (to a large 
 extent) his reasoning ability. For after this pre- 
 paredness there still remains the effectiveness 
 of it: i. e. what in quality and quantity the boy 
 will do — and that depends almost altogether on 
 you. For the results of this preparedness which 
 your boy will get as compared with other boys or 
 the average boy, depends on his nat;ive ability; 
 i. e. what he has inherited from you, on how much 
 of a leader he is, whether he can compel others 
 to follow him and on how social his qualities are; 
 i. e. whether he is likeable and agreeable or, as we 
 sometimes say, "a good mixer" and these char- 
 acteristics are the ones that make valuable his 
 preparedness and these almost all must come 
 from and be encouraged and developed by you. 
 
 Don't you see then that the future of the boy's 
 usefulness is dependent on you — more even than 
 on the schools? And what can we say of those 
 who leave thar boys to the schools and the street? 
 "WeU," but you say, "it's so hard to interest a 
 boy; he is so fond of play." Is it? Do you 
 know how early the call of the working world 
 comes to a boy? 
 
 A mother thinks she has lost her baby when 
 
 3 33 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 first his hair is cut after the fashion of a man; or 
 when he gets his first trousers or feels in the depths 
 of his first little pockets his emancipation from 
 babyhood, but oftener and more keenly the 
 loss of her baby seems to her when for the first 
 time she calls him from his toys and play and 
 takes him to the public school. Yet despite 
 these happenings he is still her baby boy. But 
 after a time, when he has been sent to school for 
 a number of days in succession, there comes a 
 morning when the boy himself out of his own 
 inner consciousness drops his toys, suspends his 
 play ajid coming of his own initiative to his 
 mother says, "Mother it's time I went to school"; 
 and as the mother, standing on the threshold, 
 sees the sturdy little form turn the comer of the 
 road, and closing the door climbs to the nursery 
 and sees the toys abandoned and feels the pain- 
 ful silence of the place, then she reahzes that this 
 volimtary act of her little son marks his passing 
 from babyhood to boyhood, is his first mental 
 step towards being a man. 
 
 And you remember how when the boy Christ, 
 missing from the carpenter's shop, was found in 
 the temple among the doctors both hearing and 
 answering their questions he answered, "Wist ye 
 not that I must be about my Father's business." 
 So almost in babyhood there comes to the boy 
 this call to the man's work and he goes out to be 
 fitted for his task. 
 
 If as in so many, many cases the call ceases to 
 be heard and the boy losing interest gives up, 
 34 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 leaves school and drifts from one unskilled posi- 
 tion to another, never fulfilling the promise of 
 his beginning, whose fault is it? I believe it is 
 not the boy's. You have three or more chil- 
 dren. Don't you know that no two of them 
 are alike — ^neither can their characteristics be 
 accounted for by the traits of father or mother. 
 Back along the line of father's or mother's ances- 
 tors must you look to find and know the sources 
 of their natures and so direct your treatment of 
 them from a study of heredity. This you, the 
 father and mother, can do if you know yourselves. 
 
 But imagine the teacher. Instead of three 
 children she has thirty or forty; instead of natures 
 known to her, these natures are unknown enigmas 
 to be solved only as she has time and as she can 
 penetrate into the hidden places of the boy and 
 girl and find the meanings of their lives. Most 
 times the teacher can't get far — only through the 
 ante-rooms and open rooms of the boy, till, if she 
 gets so far, she only finds a chamber locked for 
 which she has no key. But you should have the 
 key and be able to go in and know the very soul 
 of your boy — out of which are coming aU the real 
 impulses of his life. Suppose you can get back 
 to that chamber, suppose the door stands ever 
 open to you — ^how marvelous are the opportuni- 
 ties for you in preparing that boy for the world. 
 
 Then have you thought how this awakened 
 
 interest in your boy's development will react on 
 
 you — ^how your youth will come back as you live 
 
 over again your lives in the lives of your chil- 
 
 85 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 dren — ^how they, having known you as chums as 
 well as parents, will come back to you even when 
 they are strong and independent and you are 
 growing old, and will make you feel of continued 
 use in the world? Is it worth the while? 
 
 We hear a great deal about this new policy — 
 the conservation of our natural resources, of our 
 forests, of oiu- minerals, the reclamation of arid, 
 sterile lands by irrigation, the draining of the 
 non-productive swamps — and it is perhaps the 
 greatest of our material problems to the solution 
 of which we have set our hands. 
 
 But the sum total of human betterment thereby 
 is as nothing compared with that which wiU 
 come by the conservation of our boys. The 
 waste of our natural resources has been colossal, 
 almost ruinous; but how about the waste from 
 not developing these boys; from not bringing 
 them to that state of preparedness we have out- 
 lined? What can this association, what can you 
 do toward the cutting out of the waste in the 
 development of these boys — ^La making them 
 efficient agents of production? 
 
 And what of the rewards — ^well first in pro- 
 duction, for production is the fruit, the logical 
 result of preparedness and more than that: on 
 every prepared man and woman is laid the com- 
 pelling responsibility to produce, to produce 
 according to the measure of the preparation. I 
 am a firm believer ia the equality of opportunity — 
 on the future I am an optimist. I believe in 
 this great country of ours; I beHeve in New Eng- 
 36 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 land; I believe in Boston. Did you read that 
 inspiring speech of Mr. Mellen last week where 
 he said: 
 
 "Let us see which shall tire first in making this 
 city what we would have it, if not first in popula- 
 tion, at least the gateway through which the 
 population and the business of this country shall 
 go and return to all the peoples and countries of 
 the earth." 
 
 Surely here is opportunity to try your boy's 
 preparedness when he is ready to produce. And 
 according to the measure of preparedness shall 
 be his reward. 
 
 And so I come back to my text, "Prepared- 
 ness." It is necessary, if your boy is to pass out 
 of the army of the unskilled into the ranks of the 
 skilled labor and beyond that maybe into the 
 directing class — ^that class that has the prepared- 
 ness, the quality of leadership, of executive abil- 
 ity which can direct the work of other men and 
 make many more productive by the skill of such 
 direction. 
 
 But preparedness accomplishes something more 
 than the ability to do the routine work of the day 
 and do it well, though that brings the longer life 
 and larger share in the common wealth. It fits the 
 boy to meet as a man the crises of lite — crises 
 which come without warning and to which are 
 summoned on the instant all the resources of the 
 trained mind and heart and life. Nothing illus- 
 trates what I mean so well as Kipling's poem 
 37 
 
W illiam Edward Parker 
 
 "East and West;" Up in Northern Indiai, wlifere 
 the mountains come down, a robber chief, Kamel, 
 had made repeated attacks on the English. A 
 company of English cavalry were guarding, the 
 approach to the plains ]but from under their very 
 eyes the robber chief had come down and as a,n 
 act of bravado had stolen the Colonel's mare from 
 the stable. Then the (^plonel's son alone, unaided, 
 starts in pursuit till he catches sight of the chief 
 and the stolen mare. Then : 
 
 "It's up and over the Tongue of Jagai, ' 
 As blown dust devils go. 
 The dun he fled like a stag of ten 
 But the mare like a barren doe." 
 
 TiU: 
 
 "The dun he fell at a water course, 
 In a woful heap fell he; 
 And Kamel has turned the red mare back 
 And pulled the rider free." 
 
 His horse down, his pistol struck from his hand, 
 he is told: 
 
 "There is not a rock for twenty mile 
 There is not a clump of a tree 
 But covers a man of my own men 
 With his rifle cocked on his knee." 
 
 Then the Colonel's son showed himself the sol- 
 dier — ^stripped, trapped and alone he dared the 
 border chief to kUI him, in such a fashion that the 
 manliness in the one appealed to the manliness in 
 the other. The robber chief gave him back his 
 88 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 father's mare, his pistol, and, summoning his own 
 son, gave him too into the service of the English, 
 saying: 
 
 "Thy father has sent his son to me, 
 I'll send my son to him." 
 
 So that: 
 
 "Two came back to Fort BuMop 
 
 Where there came forth but one." 
 
 I have given this not to draw KipHng's moral, 
 the fraternity of two strong spirits, but to draw 
 my own. The Colonel's son came back not with 
 the mare alone. He brought back the chief's 
 son, a hostage, for better treatment in the future. 
 He had impressed on those native brigands the 
 intrepidity and power of all England and he won 
 by the adventure peace for the whole border-side. 
 That ride had been a crisis. He had met it and 
 won. But why? Because he was prepared. In 
 his person and character there was the evolution 
 of the soldier and the man, the early days of 
 study and drill in England, the obedience to his 
 superiors always, the orderliness of his gun and 
 trappings, the long dull marches, the dreary 
 routine and work in the barracks, the lonely and 
 inactive patrol, the rigor of his life, the barrenness 
 of luxury — ^but the comradeship of the men and 
 over all the flag of his country and the letters 
 from home — all these had mingled in his life till 
 alert, alive, equipped with these years of service 
 he stood ready prepared when the test came. 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 Your boy can't escape his test. How it will 
 come or when — ^whether others will cheer him on 
 or whether he meets it alone — ^you cannot tell, 
 but some day it will come. Some day he will 
 have the chance to prove himself a man — ^to do 
 a man's work, affecting, maybe, not his welfare 
 alone but that of another or many more, and how 
 he acquits himself when the call comes will depend 
 on whether he is prepared. 
 
 40 
 
ADDRESS BEFORE THE ALUMNI 
 ASSOCIATION 
 
 Baenstable High School, June 22, 1911 
 
 As I survey this presence from the "oldest 
 living graduate" to the youngest alumnus or 
 alumna, as I imagine the school of your past, as 
 I recall the school of my past, as I hear of the 
 school of today, and as I contemplate the Cape 
 Cod that was and observe the Cape Cod that is, 
 there comes to me these words: 
 
 "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfills himself in many ways 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 
 
 Contrasts, the words imply surely but the 
 deeper meaning to me is this — change in custom, 
 but permanence in character; yielding order but 
 unchanging Creator and always advance, always 
 "fulfillment." 
 
 The physical Cape Cod has not greatly changed; 
 stUl the right arm of the Commonwealth, it half 
 encircles and presses to its shores the deep waters 
 of the ancient Ocean; still the mists of the sea 
 bring her children their health giving blessings; 
 still the ponds amid the pines hidden in hollows 
 give back to the eye that finds them the rich blue 
 of the sailing sky above; still the sunsets glorify 
 41 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 the marshes in October and the sand dnnes glis- 
 ten as the gulls fly screaoning out to sea. 
 
 But the life on Cape Cod is different. We 
 whose immediate ancestors "went down to the 
 sea in ships" are not increasing in number. Long 
 since the sons of Cape Cod who go, go to the great 
 cities while you who remain have (q)ened up your 
 lands to the great influx of people who find their 
 country homes along your shores. 
 
 ,The greatest material question, to the solution 
 of which we as a naticHi have set our hands, is the 
 conservation of our natural resources. It is not 
 my purpose to speak of the ccHiservation of Cape 
 Cod's natural or material wealth but you as. 
 graduates of this cJd school are profoundly inter- 
 ested in the conservation of that product of Cape 
 Cod which makes or mars the permanency of her 
 influence — ^the conservation of her boys and girls. 
 And this thought we may appropriately consider 
 tonight because it rests on the school and the 
 home for its fulfillment. Dr. Fitch, the head of 
 Andover Theological Seminary, said recently, 
 "I have been increasingly impressed that more 
 and more the moral guidance of this nation, its 
 ethical and spiritual inspiraticHi, is issumg from 
 our schools, of learning." 
 
 From the economic standpoint an educational 
 revolution is in progress in our schools.. We have 
 awakened, as you know, to find that the marvelous 
 industrial changes that have gMie on in such gigan- 
 tic proportions have carried the life far and away 
 from the goals to which the schools were carrying 
 a 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 the children until these graduates and business 
 were strangers to one another. So serious was 
 this that here in Massachusetts 1 seventy- five per 
 cent, of our boys and girls left school before 
 reaching the high school age and at an average 
 age of less than foTirteen, with no fitness ior any 
 practical service, entered a period of industrial 
 vagabondage from which disheartened and un- 
 happy they were drifting into unskilled labor, 
 thus wasting untold eflSciency; while the high 
 school graduates, fed on the food of college re- 
 quirements yet not going up to college, offered 
 themselves, lacking fitness, to the complex con- 
 ditions of business where efficiency is the only 
 standard to success. 
 
 The waste has been incalculable and our boys, 
 veritable armies in number, have been marching 
 into action without arms and ammunition that is 
 adequate and without knowledge to use the poor 
 equipment they possessed. 
 
 Today the tide is turning; industrial or voca- 
 tional' education is in order. Slowly, painfully 
 the schools are realizing that the small boy who 
 eomes to school, having heard an undefined call 
 from out the world to become a man fit to do a 
 man's WOTk, must be so treated that never shall 
 the "call" be smothered; that always there shall 
 be related the work of the school room and the 
 beckoning world beyond; that always there shall 
 be present what President Eliot calls the "Life 
 Career Motive." Slowly the business man and 
 more slowly the parent is finding out that they 
 43 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 must co-operate with the schools to effect tliis 
 transformation and this result. 
 
 Happy was the day for Hyannis when, with 
 wisdom greater than they knew, those who were 
 here, and some of us who were away, by sacrifice 
 and labor brought one of the normal schools of 
 the Commonwealth to Cape Cod that their new 
 ideals might not only be taught to teachers but 
 that your own training schools might become a 
 laboratory for such ideab sanely applied. 
 
 Today in Boston there is being worked out a 
 great corollary to vocational education and that 
 is vocational guidance. From the schools this 
 month the annual thousands are entering the 
 tense effort of these restless times. We somehow 
 trust that the tide of opportunity may carry them 
 to some vocational destination. What becomes 
 of this young multitude and whose business is it 
 to f oUow up the results of this change from school 
 to work? 
 
 With some vague appreciation of this in mind 
 I recall that when I once, several years ago, had 
 the honor of addressing you I said when your 
 boys go away from home help them to find not a 
 place but the place in the world. 
 
 So in Boston under the inspiration and direc- 
 tion of the Vocational Bureau and the leadership 
 of Bloomfield there is a committee of Vocational 
 Counsellors of about one hundred men and 
 women from the elementary and high schools of 
 the city — all exceptional teachers. — ^This body of 
 counsellors is supplemented by a larger advisory 
 44 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 council with delegates from the Chamber of Com- 
 merce, several trade associations, labor miions, 
 together with prominent business men and 
 educators. 
 
 This combination of effort works downward 
 through the teachers to the children and their 
 parents as to traits of character, social incKnation, 
 and outward in getting facts as to industries and 
 their requirements and recording them in printed 
 booklets. There is no guess work about it. It 
 is scientific investigation that is sought for, and 
 in the finality it does not mean "getting a job" 
 for the boy or girl; the decision must come in the 
 home; direction and guidance are the watch- 
 words to the end that the conservation of the 
 potential boy may be secured. 
 
 Only a few weeks ago I was invited to speak at 
 a regular meeting of the Parents and Teachers 
 Association of the Dorchester High School in 
 South Boston. There I found that that associa- 
 tion was actively co-operating with the South 
 Boston Board of Trade in guiding the vocational 
 future of its boys and girls, a less scientific, but a 
 very practical combination, intimately associating 
 the school and the community. 
 
 From such a trend in education, from such 
 awakening activities among business and educa- 
 tional men, what economic results are not possible ! 
 K the Roosevelt Dam among the hills of Arizona 
 can gather up the wasted waters of a single stream 
 into a great deep lake and holding them back till 
 needed can send them by created power broad- 
 45 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 cast over the arid lands below, transforming a 
 region from sterility to abundance, giving worth- 
 less land a value of hundreds of dollars an acre 
 and making homes and happiness and wealth for 
 men and women and little children, all material 
 things, what will these, not one but many, directed 
 streams of living boys and girls accomplish when 
 enriched with preparation and with power! 
 
 Cape Cod must in the future as in the past 
 send this product of its homes and schools into 
 our great cities. Rewards are waiting there but 
 rewards will come almost commensurably with 
 the efficiency of the preparation. I don't propose 
 to enumerate the elements of preparedness but 
 they include, as touching the schools, a sense of 
 truth (I don't mean truth speaking but the doing 
 and the acting things that are square and true) ; 
 they include too knowledge that is the joint 
 residt of observation and learning and then they 
 include too the ability to use such English as shall 
 give adequate expression to what they know. 
 
 Such conservation of the potential abilities 
 and so the potential usefulness of boys and girls 
 should be cultivated by all communities; but 
 there are certain characteristics of Cape Cod 
 stock which makes the conservation of them the 
 duty, the privilege and the pride of all of you. 
 
 And the first is obedience. Someone said the 
 other day that we are a "law-ridden country" 
 and I agree with the statement. Our legislators 
 with a frenzy are enacting half baked legislation 
 for the conduct of men under every conceivable 
 
 46 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 happening forgetting that the respect for law 
 comes from within and cannot be applied from 
 without; the polish of the cheap furniture comes 
 from the pot of the finisher but the polished shaft 
 of the enduring marble is the product of what 
 the marble itself gives out. 
 
 Next to knowing how to do the work of the 
 world is the inherent quality of doing it with 
 respect to superiors in station and with regard to 
 the worker at your side. At the memorial or 
 State pageants in the parks and streets of London 
 the crowds need the police rather as guides and 
 not for repression, so inherently is the mind of the 
 Englishman attuned to law and order. 
 
 A lack of these qualities is amazingly prevalent 
 in the attitude of our young people as they 
 emerge from the schools and colleges into business 
 Ufe. 
 
 But we of Cape Cod have come from a line of 
 sailors to whom obedience and order were accorded 
 intuitively as a right not only on the quarter-deck 
 but in their homes as well. See to it that you, 
 whose environment so differs, conserve in your 
 boys and girls this old quality in Cape Cod char- 
 acter so needed in the world today. 
 
 47 
 
AMERICAN SCULPTURE 
 
 No more composite nation than the United 
 States has existed in modern times. The influx 
 of foreign elements has been enormous; yet, 
 despite the varied antecedents and the wide 
 affinities of the American people, our language 
 remains English and our traditions (such as exist) 
 are and always have been English. In matters 
 of religion and law, the inheritance was adequate, 
 and familiar principles were readily harmonized 
 with a new environment. In our literature, 
 likewise, the ancestral traditions have been posi- 
 tive and potent; but in regard to the other fine 
 arts they have been negative, though not less 
 significant, since they explain, in large measure, 
 the unpromising conditions amid which our na- 
 tional art was cradled. 
 
 England's patronage of foreign artists has 
 always been liberal, but until comparatively 
 recent times her native production has been 
 exceedingly meagre. If British painting was 
 imimportant in England at the time when the 
 American colonies were in process of making, it 
 may be said that British sculpture did not exist 
 at all. And thus it came about that our ancestors 
 here in America were without sculptural tradition. 
 Not only this, but in large measure they were of 
 a humble class — ^working people unacquainted 
 48 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 with even the allied arts — and often, with the 
 prejudice of ignorance, attributing the arts one 
 and all to the invention of the devil. The Pil- 
 grim Fathers were the elder brothers of those 
 men who decapitated the cathedral statuary, 
 who burned paintings and tabooed the drama. 
 Even their music was of an unhappy sort. This 
 world was to them a vale of tears, and art was a 
 temptation to be strenuously resisted. 
 
 It is not surprising, then, that stock of this 
 character transplanted to an unsettled and in- 
 hospitable shore should have been practically 
 immune from artistic inspirations; that painting 
 should not have come into vogue for many a long 
 year, and that two whole centuries were to elapse 
 before sculpture should make a shy appearance. 
 It may be urged that the Virginian colonies were 
 made up of different material; that the cavaliers 
 and adventurers who founded Jamestown were 
 to some extent men of culture and luxury. To 
 this fact may be attributed the earliest patronage 
 of sculpture in America — the commissions given 
 by Virginia to Houdon in 1781 and 1785 for 
 representations of Lafayette and of Washington; 
 but beyond this we find no appreciable results, 
 since native production in the South came even 
 later than in the North. 
 
 The Quakers who followed in Pennsylvania 
 were hardly more favorable to the fine arts than 
 were their brothers of New England, and although 
 some of our best artists are of Quaker descent, 
 there was nothing to encourage plastic expression 
 4 49 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 in Philadelphia until recent times. The early 
 Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam came direct 
 from the land where Rembrandt and Franz Hals 
 were even then producing their masterpieces; 
 but there was neither a Rembrandt nor a Hals 
 among them, nor by any possibiUty a sculptor, 
 since the artistic expression of the Hollanders 
 has always been pictorial rather than plastic. 
 
 So this broad land laid in the sun and waited — 
 waited without knowing it for the day of art to 
 appear. Meanwhile, to be sure, there was some- 
 thing else to be done. Six days of arduous toil 
 every week, grubbing and ploughing and building; 
 weaving and baking and brewing; and then the 
 abrupt pause of the Sabbath, bringing with its 
 inevitable recurrence a sort of rhythm into the 
 patient lives of these plain men and women. The 
 preachers did their share of work, like the others, 
 and despite their long-drawn-out sermons found 
 time for writing chronicles and tracts, and even 
 hymns of questionable rhyme and metre. By the 
 time these had given way in part to political 
 pamphlets, painting had made its appearance 
 here and there. Benjamin West's triumphs in 
 England lent a glamour to the craft, and Copley 
 and Gilbert Stuart successively produced their 
 admirable portraits in Boston and elsewhere. 
 But as yet no sculpture appeared. 
 
 A few works of art had been imported into the 
 country during this period, and some of the more 
 elegant homes, like Mount Vernon, even boasted 
 of marble reliefs brought from Italy. Houdon 
 
 60 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 and other foreign sculptors came and went; but 
 until the third decade of the nineteenth century 
 there was no native sculpture other than the 
 wax reliefs of Patience Wright, the wood-carvings 
 of William Rush, and the unrelated efforts of 
 Hezekiah Augur. Oiu: first professional sculptor 
 was born in 1805. Thus the record of the glyptic 
 art in the United States is practically bounded by 
 the short span of a single century. In other 
 countries the chronicle of the last hundred years 
 is but a fragment, a brief sequel to the story of 
 ages of endeavor. It is difficult to realize that 
 our actual achievement from the very kindergarten 
 stage of an unknown art to the proud position 
 held by American sculpture in the Paris Exposi- 
 tion of 1900 has been the work of three score years 
 and ten — has been seen in its entirety by not a 
 few men now living. 
 
 As beginners seldom attempt groups, but work 
 timidly on single figures, so the beginnings of 
 American sculpture are discovered in isolated 
 workers appearing here and there in most unex- 
 pected localities: Rush in Philadelphia; Augur 
 in New Haven; Frazee in New Jersey. Then, 
 with the opening years of the last century, came 
 the first Americans destined to make sculpture 
 a profession; Greenough in Boston, Crawford in 
 New York, Powers in Cincinnati. One is re- 
 minded of the first adventurous flowers of early 
 spring peeping out inquiringly from sheltered 
 nooks, but soon to be re-enforced by a host 
 of companions. Today our sculptors thrive in 
 51 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 groups; the isolated practitioners of the art are 
 few. 
 
 Almost without exception these sculptors of the 
 first half of the century were animated by a single 
 desire, — to get to Italy as soon as possible. The 
 reasons for this are not far to seek. Their own 
 coimtry afforded neither sculptural instruction 
 nor examples. Those who went abroad remained 
 there; hence no returning current of helpful 
 knowledge and counsel came to aid those left 
 behind. Nor was there even the privilege of 
 study from nature. The Puritan horror of the 
 "flesh" made the introduction of life classes very 
 difficult. As late as 1870 a sculptor's opportunity 
 for study in Boston was hmited to Dr. Rimmer's 
 lectures on anatomy; in 1876 a model posed one 
 evening in the week at the Lowell Institute. 
 
 While paintings were to be met with in the 
 homes of wealth and in the growing art collections, 
 works of sculpture were still extremely rare. A 
 few casts from the antique, brought over from 
 Paris and exhibited in Philadelphia about 1845, 
 are said to have caused a grave scandal. The 
 initial collection of the National Academy of 
 Design remained boxed for several years, but was 
 on view in 1820 and thereafter. The condition, 
 so far as concerned sculpture, was in most cities 
 what it is today in the smaller towns of the West 
 and the South, excepting for the important differ- 
 ence that seventy-five years ago there were no 
 photographs and no popular illustrated magazines 
 to famiUarize the pubhc with current works of 
 
 S2 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 art. Steel engravings were to be found in rare 
 and expensive volumes, and rude woodcuts in 
 cheaper works; but beyond these there was 
 nothing to suggest sculpture in any form. The 
 old-time prejudice had weakened somewhat, but 
 a dense ignorance of the art still persisted. Can 
 there be much wonder, then, that all sculptors' 
 eyes turned eagerly toward that almost fabled 
 land beyond the sea where art was knoAvn and 
 appreciated? 
 
 Another sufficient reason for the unanimous 
 hegira of this time lay in the dearth of good 
 materials in this country. Our early sculptors 
 were as a rule expert carvers according to the 
 standard of the day, but America offered them 
 no fine marble. What httle they used was im- 
 ported at great expense and with exasperating 
 delays from Italy. As for bronze casting, the 
 case was still more hopeless. Suitable sand was 
 not to be had, and the experts who knew the 
 caster's art guarded their secret well in Munich 
 and in Paris. It was not until 1847 that the 
 first bronze statue was cast in the United States, 
 and this attempt was not a briUiant success. 
 
 With these conditions in mind, it may seem 
 strange that so many aspirants should have 
 suddenly turned to sculpture as a profession. 
 When it is recalled, however, that the discovery 
 of the daguerreotype was not announced until 
 1839, and that up to that time almost the only 
 available reproductions of the human countenance 
 had been paintings and silhouettes, it is not 
 53 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 surprising that portrait sculpture should have 
 been favored by the well-to-do, nor that Yankee 
 ingenuity should have come to discover its re- 
 sources in this direction. Almost all of these 
 early sculptors were intelligent but uncultivated 
 men who had come to their craft by way of the 
 marble yard, and who troubled themselves little 
 with politics, philosophy or poetry. Greenough 
 was exceptional in this education; Powers and 
 Crawford in their later mental development; but 
 the rank and file were largely of the character 
 described. They had nothing in particular to 
 say, but had early discovered an aptitude for the 
 chisel and the modelling tool, as the next one 
 might for music or rhyming. Opportunity came 
 — or was made — and the modest talent was 
 cultivated, often through hardships which were 
 silently borne or perhaps quite overlooked in the 
 radiant vision of a career as distinguished and as 
 profitable as that of the sculptor then promised 
 to be. 
 
 With one accord these early men hastened to 
 Italy, where in Florence or Rome they carved 
 portrait busts for a living, and modelled figures as 
 nearly in the style of Canova and Thorwaldsen 
 as their unschooled hands and minds would 
 permit. There were no masters among them, 
 for masters come only with the high tides of art. 
 The great artist is rarely foimd in a season of 
 mediocrity. He comes usually as a culmination; 
 hardly ever by way of antithesis. Hence it was 
 impossible that there should be a great American 
 
 54 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 sculptor in the first half of the nineteenth century, 
 just as it was impossible that there should have 
 been any at all during the two preceding cen- 
 turies of colonial life. There was nothing to make 
 sculptors out of, and even had there been a latent 
 sense of form, there was nothing to bring it to 
 fruition. 
 
 It has been well said of the Late Renaissance 
 that "it did not think, it merely adapted thought; 
 it did not feel, it appropriated the masks of classic 
 feeling." How much more true is this of the 
 later classic revival in Italy which followed with 
 such servility the letter, but failed so completely 
 to catch the spirit, of Greek art! We have 
 grown so far away from its "classic" formula, 
 which our primitives were reared upon, that we 
 are scarcely able to do these men justice today. 
 In the presence of their uninspired works we can 
 sympathize with Emerson, who thought, back in 
 the thirties, that "the art of sculpture has long 
 ago perished to any real e£Pect." We can under- 
 stand, too, Hawthorne's petulance toward the 
 succeeding phase of Italo- American art, — "this 
 universal prettiness, which seems to be the high- 
 est conception of the crowd of modern sculptors." 
 No doubt it was the reaction from such irre- 
 sponsibility and childishness on the part of our 
 sculptors which led Sidney Lanier to make the 
 surprising claim for John Rogers' war groups 
 that they revealed "the brightest examples of 
 genius in the art yet aflForded by our country." 
 For it must be acknowledged that up to the time 
 55 
 
W illiam Edward Parker 
 
 of the Centennial but little significance had crept 
 into American sculpture. It was alien and imper- 
 sonal, expressing in no way the spirit of the people 
 nor even the emotions of its authors. The lyric 
 strain was almost unknown; our sculptors were 
 executants, not composers. They thought that 
 they were doing original work, but with most of 
 them it was mere rearrangement and recitation 
 by rote. 
 
 Since that time the evolution of taste has been 
 so rapid that many a worthy craftsman has been 
 left stranded and bewildered by the receding tide 
 of popularity. A few bridged over the period of 
 artistic revolution and adjusted themselves to a 
 new environment; a few — a very few — escaped 
 the levelling influence of Italy. Generally this 
 was the result of failure to go abroad; sometimes 
 it was the price of ignorance; but in more than 
 one case it was the protest of a natural independ- 
 ence which disdained to follow the beaten path 
 and proposed by its own unaided efforts to blaze 
 new trails to fame. Such men are indeed excep- 
 tional and stand out, rugged and distinct, in the 
 history of our art. Their works speak for them- 
 selves and demand attention. Other men of less 
 note must be mentioned in the early annals be- 
 cause they were first, or because of special achieve- 
 ment, or of the influence which they exerted, or 
 for some other reason; but there must neces- 
 sarily remain a colorless and nameless multitude, 
 the now silenced "Greek chorus" of endeavor. 
 These are as necessary in all periods as are the 
 S6 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 master performers, — ^without them are no mas- 
 ters, — ^but they leave sUght record. For their 
 unheralded efforts and their forgotten contribu- 
 tions we should be thankful. They had their 
 value in the sequence of progress. 
 
 With the Centennial Exposition of 1876 came 
 an artistic quickening such as our country never 
 had known before. A new and growing apprecia- 
 tion dates from that year. It began with the 
 recognition of our own shortcomings as compared 
 with other lands. France in particular made 
 strong appeal to our newly awakened tastes, and 
 the work of one or two Americans who had stud- 
 ied in Paris had great influence. The demand for 
 a better and more forceful art was not long to 
 remain unanswered. With the advent of Saint 
 Gaudens there came a notable change in the spirit 
 of American sculpture, while the rapid trans- 
 formation of its technic was no less marked and 
 significant. Though we owe this change largely 
 to Paris, the result has not been French sculpture. 
 Paris has vitaUzed the dormant tastes and energies 
 of America — that is all. A pronounced and 
 helpful feature of the new order is the fact that 
 as a rule the Parisian-trained sculptors do not 
 remain abroad; they return to hve with their 
 own people, and, Uke the French masters, they 
 deUght in teaching. The influence of such a man 
 as Saint Gaudens, for instance, becomes incal- 
 culable when multiphed through the pupils whom 
 he has brought up to share his labors and his 
 triumphs. Thus the art schools of America are 
 67 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 at the present time in a flourishing condition, 
 and the opportunity for study from nature is so 
 abundant in all of our large cities that it is no 
 longer necessary for a student of sculpture to go 
 abroad excepting for travel and observation- 
 Hands have grown skilful and eyes discerning 
 here in America, while not a few of our sculptors 
 have learned the art of thinking and expressing 
 themselves in truly sculptural terms — something 
 which is quite distinct, it may be said in passing, 
 from reaUstic imitation, and which presupposes a 
 motive very different from one of either a pic- 
 turesque or a literary character. 
 
 But while the men of the new generation have 
 acquired such mastery of the "mechanics" of the 
 profession as wins the praise of their foreign 
 instructors and fellow-workers, their language is 
 not always understood at home. Our people have 
 no intuitive grasp of its meaning. In spite of 
 the oft-repeated assurance that we know what we 
 Uke, we do not even know what we are saying 
 when we say it. It is true that we recognize 
 what we like, and that we like it well, for the 
 time at least. On the other hand, we do not have 
 a "grand passion" for sculpture, taking it to 
 heart like the modem French. Our feehngs are 
 not outraged by bad work, nor by transgressions 
 of venerated laws of style, of balance, of move- 
 ment, and of other sacred traditions. Likewise 
 are we insensible, in large measure, to the charm 
 of these fundamental virtues. Unless a work of 
 sculpture shows something more; unless it makes 
 
 59 
 
Typical Public Addresses 
 
 special appeal by its significance, its emotion, or 
 its insistent beauty of face or form, we are as 
 indifferent to it as though it were not; we do not, 
 perhaps, even see it. 
 
 We lose much, of course, but there is after all 
 something rather fine in tliis sturdy independence. 
 It may, indeed it must, result in an art of greater 
 meaning and intensity than we have heretofore 
 known. We say to the artist, as it were, "Put 
 in all the 'composition,' all the 'technic' you 
 please; we have nothing against them; but 
 first of all give us something that we can under- 
 stand and sympathize with." Hence it follows 
 that the mere "Beaux-Arts figure" so closely 
 allied to the objet de Paris, has already had its 
 day with a considerable portion of our commu- 
 nity. It has followed the Graces and the Cupids 
 of our ItaHan age. 
 
 Perhaps, however, we underestimate our own 
 development in the appreciation of form for its 
 own sake. Unconsciously the better technic 
 has made itself a necessity; the Parisian bronze, 
 the Paris-trained sculptor, and — let it not be 
 forgotten — increasing famiharity with the real 
 masterpieces of the past have raised the standard 
 all along the line. While we may not be able to 
 formulate an artistic creed, innumerably more 
 people enjoy good art in this country at present 
 than was the case a generation ago. In monu- 
 mental sculpture the change is particularly 
 59 
 
William Edward Parker 
 
 noticeable. Fully one-half of our existing public 
 monuments would fail to pass muster today with 
 the municipal art commissions which have recently 
 been created to protect the parks and avenues of 
 our great cities. 
 
 60 
 
"THE PROGRESS OF THE RACE" 
 
 Meantime, as some schools are shells because 
 the teachers do not get into the boy's lives, and 
 some schools take a hopeless boy and make him 
 find himself, so some churches grip the people 
 because they have a preacher — ^not relying on 
 sensations, but on the abUity to understand 
 human hearts and bring together the need and 
 the blessing. 
 
 I have a great admiration for such men as 
 keep aUve, as the church did in the dark ages, 
 the fire of enUghtenment, at which some day 
 the torches of a new renaissance may be lighted. 
 
 And I am optimistic enough to beKeve that 
 
 the long slow swings of the pendulum show on 
 
 the dial the progress of the race. 
 
 [Extract from u seven-page letter written by Mr. Parker 
 October IS, three weeks before his death, in which his thoughts 
 dwell upon religious and educational matters.] 
 
 61