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Charles Bradford Goff 
 
 1 834-1 898 
 
 Privately Printed 
 

THE office of a teacher is an office of great 
 responsibility and is entitled to high honor. 
 When a young man of unusual talents and ac- 
 quirements turns away from the more lucrative pro- 
 fessions and from the allurements of a business 
 life, and deliberately selects the office of a teacher 
 of youth, he should be commended and honored 
 for his choice. It is true that he assumes grave 
 responsibilities, but he is also putting himself in 
 a position to do important work for the elevation 
 of the race. Every one knows that a well-quali- 
 fied and thoroughly earnest teacher exerts a tre- 
 mendous influence in moulding the lives of his 
 pupils. This is particularly true when his work 
 is to fit young men for the college and the uni- 
 versity. But when such a man is privileged to 
 continue his labors during the period of a whole 
 generation, and to receive under his instruction 
 many children whose parents had been prepared 
 by him for the university, he is specially favored. 
 
pii Slnceetrp 
 
 Charles Bradford Goff came of good stock. He 
 was of the sixth generation in this counti-y. His 
 ancestors for two centuries were of the honest, 
 earnest, New England yeomanry. Robert Goff, 
 his first ancestor in America, came from old Eng- 
 land nearly two hundred years ago. The exact 
 time of his migration is not known, neither have 
 we been able to ascertain from what part of 
 England he came. He settled in Dighton, Mass., 
 and there, in the year 1740, his son Enoch was 
 born. Enoch was well known throughout that 
 region as a devout man and an earnest preacher. 
 He married, in 1760, Deborah Talbot, and their 
 married life extended over a full half-century. 
 He lived to the good old age of threescore and 
 ten, and died in Dighton, March 6, 18 10. There 
 were many sincere mourners at the death of Elder 
 Enoch Goff. His wife died six years later, being 
 seventy-six years old. 
 
 His son, Shubael Goff, was born in Dighton 
 in 1 76 1. He married Sibyl Phillips. He died in 
 Dighton Aug. 17, 1833, at the age of seventy-two 
 years. His wife, Sibyl, died at the same place in 
 1824, being a little over sixty years of age. 
 
His son, Shubael Goff, Jr., for many years 
 known as Captain Shubael Goff, was born also in 
 Dighton, March 4, 1 783. He married Sally Briggs 
 Goff, who was born in Rehoboth in 1787. She 
 belonged to another branch of the Goff family. 
 He died Oct. 14, 1854, and his wife died Nov. 4, 
 1855, in Rehoboth. By this record it will be seen 
 that Captain Goff, like his father and grand- 
 father, lived past the allotted age of seventy years. 
 He lived on the " Ministerial Place," and had 
 fifteen children, thirteen of whom lived to ma- 
 turity. 
 
 Captain Shubael had a son, also named Shu- 
 bael, who was born in Rehoboth in the year 
 1807. He married Elizabeth Mason Ripley in 
 1833. He lived in his native town until about 
 1836, when he moved to Fall River. This Shu- 
 bael Goff, the third generation bearing the same 
 name, was the father of the subject of this 
 sketch. 
 
 It was on the fourth day of March, 1834, that 
 Charles Bradford Goff was born, in the ancient 
 town of Rehoboth, Mass. He graduated from 
 Brown University at the age of twenty-two, and 
 a year later, Aug. 26, 1857, in the city of Provi- 
 dence, R. I., he was married to Almira J. Bean. 
 
 3 
 
The marriage ceremony was performed by the 
 Rev. Barnas Sears, D.D., President of Brown 
 University. Five children were born to them, 
 one of whom died in infancy, another in early 
 childhood, and a third, William Francis, a prom- 
 ising boy, when he was thirteen years of age. 
 Two children and their mother survive, Robert 
 Remington Goff, a teacher in the same school of 
 which his father was principal for so many years, 
 and Mrs. Jennie Martin, wife of Mr. Frederick 
 R. Martin, of Providence. 
 
 Mr. Goff's boyhood, like many another New 
 England boy who has succeeded in reaching a 
 high plane of usefulness and success in life, was 
 one continued struggle to acquire the means of 
 an education. He was subject to constant hard- 
 ships, and each year, even to the time of his 
 graduation from college, was marked by that 
 heroic devotion to a great purpose which no ob- 
 stacles could thwart, and that determined will 
 which no discouragement could baffle. He at- 
 tended the public schools of Fall River till he 
 was about fourteen years of age. At that time 
 he went to Middleboro and entered the Pierce 
 
Academy. He remained there about a year and 
 a half. After this he taught school one winter in 
 the town of Westport, and then connected him- 
 self with the well-known University Grammar 
 School, in Providence, which was merged with 
 his school the year before he died. This school 
 was then taught by Messrs. Lyon and Frieze, 
 two very superior classical teachers. Here, for 
 a year and a half, Mr. Goff studied eleven hours 
 a day. Here he was prepared for college, and 
 entered Brown University in 1852. He took high 
 rank at once in his class, both as a scholar and 
 socially. During his college course he supported 
 himself by selling goods in one of the large retail 
 stores of the city, on Saturday evenings, during 
 the holiday season, and at other times, and by 
 private tutoring. He graduated at the head of 
 his class and delivered the valedictory at com- 
 mencement. He was elected a member of the 
 Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity, and his Alma Mater 
 subsequently conferred upon him the degree of 
 Doctor of Philosophy. For a term of years be- 
 fore his death he was an active and honored 
 member of the corporation of the college. 
 
JFall Eibet |)iffl) ^cl)ool 
 
 Immediately after completing his college 
 course, he was engaged as principal of the Pre- 
 paratory Department of Union College, Schenec- 
 tady, N. Y. He remained in this position but a 
 single year, when he returned to his Alma Mater 
 and spent another year in graduate study. In 
 1858 he was elected principal of the Fall River 
 High School, a position which he filled to the 
 great satisfaction of the people of that city for 
 six years. He was instrumental in reorganizing 
 the entire school and putting it on a much more 
 efficient basis. He graduated six classes of fine 
 scholars and sent many of them to college, well 
 prepared for a successful course. Some of them 
 have since risen to distinction in the professions 
 and in business life. His work in this school 
 was highly appreciated, and the people expressed 
 great regret when he left that city. 
 
 (3nt6 to {}robitience 
 
 Mr. Goff came to Providence when he was 
 thirty years of age, and here began what proved 
 to be the great work of his life. As principal of 
 the Classical Department in the " English and 
 
 6 
 
Classical School," he devoted himself for the 
 long period of almost thirty-five years to the 
 preparation of young men for college. That was 
 just the same length of time that Dr. Samuel H. 
 Taylor presided over Phillips Academy, Andover. 
 Dr. Wayland was president of Brown University 
 but twentv-eight years. The work of Mark Hop- 
 kins at Williams College covered a period of 
 thirty-six years. The thirty-four classes which 
 graduated during Mr. Goff's administration in 
 this school numbered about five hundred young 
 men. Connected with the school during this 
 period there must have been more than two 
 thousand pupils. 
 
 The circumstances of his coming to Providence 
 are not devoid of interest. During the last two 
 years of his college course a strong friendship 
 had grown up between him and Mr. William A. 
 Mowry. They were both members of the Brown 
 Chapter of the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, of 
 which during the last year of his college course 
 Mr. Goff was president. For five years preced- 
 ing February, 1864, Mr. Mowry had been princi- 
 pal of the English Department in the Providence 
 High School. Mr. John J. Ladd was at the same 
 time principal of the Classical Department. 
 
 7 
 
These two teachers resigned their positions in 
 the pubhc school, and on the twenty-second of 
 February, 1864, opened a private school for boys. 
 About the first of July following Mr. Ladd re- 
 ceived an appointment as paymaster in the army. 
 Mr. Mowry, having bought his interest in the 
 school, went immediately to Fall River and 
 offered the position to his friend Mr. Goff, as the 
 only man to be thought of in that connection. 
 Mr. Goff said that he would like to think the 
 matter over, and suggested that he would go to 
 Providence the next Saturday and give an answer 
 to the proposition. Meanwhile, some of the lead- 
 ing men of the city, learning of this new plan, 
 conferred with him in regard to it. They were 
 anxious that he should remain in Fall River, and 
 offered to guarantee him a greatly increased 
 salary if he would remain. Mr. Goff told them 
 that he had engaged to see Mr. Mowry on Satur- 
 day, and he must keep his promise. He thanked 
 them for their confidence in him, and told them 
 that he would give their proposition careful atten- 
 tion, but he could not decide until he had seen 
 Mr. Mowry. 
 
 Mr. Goff went to Providence on Saturday and 
 completed the arrangements by which he became 
 
 8 
 
partner in the new school on equal terms with 
 the founder, and entered upon his duties the first 
 of September. 
 
 Now these two young men took a bold step. 
 Of course they could not tell how much might be 
 lost by the withdrawal of Mr. Ladd. It was also 
 a problem as to how well known Mr. Goff was, 
 and how much favor he might bring to the 
 school. Up to this time there had been but two 
 regular teachers. They now determined to add a 
 third, and secured for that purpose the services 
 of Mr. James W. Colwell, a recent graduate of 
 Brown University. They also raised the price of 
 tuition. The largest number of scholars hitherto 
 had been sixty-five. They opened the school in 
 the fall with eighty-five pupils, and were obliged 
 to secure an additional room to accommodate the 
 increased number. From this time onward the 
 school proved a great success and its numbers 
 constantly increased. Six months later they 
 moved into the new Narragansett block and en- 
 gaged the services of an additional teacher, Mr. 
 Howard M. Rice, then principal of the High 
 School in Woonsocket, now Mr. Goff's successor 
 
and the sole principal and proprietor of the 
 school. They soon afterwards added to their 
 corps of instructors Mr. Oscar Lapham, who for 
 many years past has been a distinguished mem- 
 ber of the bar at Providence and has served 
 his State for several terms as a representative in 
 Congress. The next year, Mr. Laban E. Warren, 
 now professor in Colby College, Maine, was 
 called to the school from the principalship of the 
 High School at Taunton, Mass. The school con- 
 tinued increasing in the number of scholars and 
 teachers. It remained in the Narragansett block 
 five years and then found more commodious 
 quarters in the new Fletcher building, now occu- 
 pied by the P?'ovidence Journal. This building is 
 two hundred feet long and thirty feet wide. The 
 school occupied the whole of one floor and one- 
 half of two other floors. It remained in this 
 place for six years and was constantly increasing 
 in numbers and importance. 
 
 d)e Beto ^ttilUinff 
 
 By this time it seemed clear that the school 
 needed and deserved a home of its own. Early 
 in 1874 Mowry and Goff purchased an eligible 
 lot with buildings thereon, on Snow and Moulton 
 
 10 
 
Streets. The buildings were removed and they 
 proceeded to erect a large brick building some- 
 thing over ninety feet square, of three stories, 
 planned and finished with special reference to 
 the needs of the school. The first floor was for 
 twenty years occupied by the Providence Public 
 Library, while the school was amply accommo- 
 dated on the second and third floors. The build- 
 ing was admirably lighted, heated, and ventilated. 
 The organization of the school was decidedly 
 improved, and courses of study were mapped 
 out on the most approved pedagogical principles. 
 The entire course covered a period of ten years. 
 The Preparatory Department, so-called, embraced 
 three years, the Junior Department three years, 
 and the Senior Department four years. Pupils 
 were received into the preparatory room at eight 
 years of age. The Grammar Department was 
 arranged in two divisions, one termed Junior 
 English, the other Junior Classical. The Senior 
 Department in like manner had two divisions, 
 the English and Scientific course and the Classi- 
 cal course. 
 
 II 
 
Courcefi of ;§)tttl[j) 
 
 In the Classical course the study of Latin was 
 begun by pupils at about ten or eleven years of 
 age and continued for seven years before being 
 fitted for college. The Greek was studied for 
 four years. The English grammar was pursued 
 together with the Latin grammar. The boys 
 would study the Latin nouns and then English 
 nouns ; Latin verbs and then English verbs ; and 
 so on through the etymology and syntax of both 
 Latin and English. The course in the reading 
 of Latin authors included Nepos, Caesar, Sallust, 
 Ovid, Cicero (eight Orations and Senectute), and 
 Vergil's Eclogues, and the ^neid. The Greek 
 authors read were Xenophon, Herodotus, and 
 Homer. In the English Department much atten- 
 tion was paid to the philosophical order and se- 
 quence of studies. A careful foundation was laid 
 in the study of arithmetic, geography, elementary 
 science, grammar and composition, writing, spell- 
 ing, and reading. Under this latter head great 
 attention was paid to the reading of standard 
 literature from the best English authors. The 
 English High School course was planned to em- 
 brace several lines of work philosophically ar- 
 
 12 
 
ranged on a pedagogical basis, with particular 
 reference to a consistent, all-round, mental de- 
 velopment. First came the three grand divisions 
 of learning; viz., (i) the Mathematics, (2) the 
 Sciences, (3) Language and Literature. In 
 addition to these three separate lines of study- 
 carried on simultaneously, the practical studies of 
 Commercial Arithmetic, Book-keeping, and Civil 
 Government were added, and History and Psy- 
 chology, or as it was called in those days, Intel- 
 lectual Philosophy or Mental Science. Still 
 further, the principals of this school determined 
 that it was not essential to pursue with equal 
 thoroughness all the Hues of the natural sciences. 
 They thought that Physics and Chemistry should 
 be studied carefully and thoroughly, on the lab- 
 oratory plan. A briefer course was given in 
 Astronomy, and — largely by informal lectures — 
 a round of studies participated in by three classes, 
 taking one year Geology and Mineralogy, the 
 next year Botany, and the third year Physiology 
 and Zoology. 
 
 13 
 
titms 
 
 In this new home the school remained for 
 twenty-five years. In 1884 Mr. Mowry severed 
 his connection with the school, and it then went 
 into the hands of Goff, Rice, and Smith. Mr. Gofif, 
 from this time until his death, Dec. i, 1898, was 
 the Senior Principal of the institution. During 
 the whole history of the school, its success and 
 popularity were largely dependent upon the fact 
 that the managers kept ahead of public-school 
 methods and courses. Many examples illustra- 
 ting this fagt could be named. When the school 
 went into its new quarters in 1875 and revised 
 its courses of study, it built into the new school- 
 house a complete arrangement for laboratory 
 work in the sciences. No elementary text-book 
 upon the laboratory plan of teaching chemistry 
 was at that time to be found. The principals, 
 therefore, called upon Prof. John H. Appleton, 
 of Brown University, and urged him to make for 
 them a text-book of this sort. He consented, and 
 wrote for their especial use an elementary text- 
 book based upon the laboratory method of teach- 
 ing, which he called " The Young Chemist." 
 
 14 
 
The proprietors of the school had this book 
 printed at their own expense and for their own 
 use. Soon after, the Rhode Island Normal School 
 and another private school in the city adopted it 
 and bought copies of this edition from the pro- 
 prietors of this school. Afterward, Professor 
 Appleton enlarged the book somewhat, added 
 illustrative cuts and diagrams, and a second 
 edition was published by one of the leading book- 
 houses. To-day there are many excellent text- 
 books on chemistry based upon this plan of 
 teaching. 
 
 ^ttppUmentarp EeaJiuff 
 
 In 1880 three papers were read before the 
 Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, looking to 
 advanced lines of work upon reading and the study 
 of English literature in the schools. One of these 
 was a paper by Mr. Amos M. Leonard, master of 
 the Lawrence School, Boston, upon " Supplemen- 
 tary Reading in the Primary and Grammar 
 Schools." Mr. Leonard recommended reading 
 English authors instead of the hitherto custom of 
 short extracts from the reading-books. Mr. Mowry 
 was appointed to open the discussion upon this 
 paper, and in his address he named several series 
 
 IS 
 
of books from the best authors, which had been 
 read in a certain school of his acquaintance in 
 the several grades indicated during the last three 
 years. In one of these years the following books 
 were read : — 
 
 In the Junior English Room — Six selections 
 from Irving's Sketch Book, The Seven American 
 Classics, A Virtuoso's Collection, by Hawthorne, 
 Oliver Cromwell, by Carlyle, Dickens's Christmas 
 Carol, Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair. 
 
 In the Junior Classical Room — Irving's Six 
 Selections from the Sketch Book, Scott's Lady 
 of the Lake, Dickens's Christmas Carol, Haw- 
 thorne's Wonder-Book. 
 
 In the English and Scientific Room — Hia- 
 watha, Seaside and Fireside, Spanish Student, 
 Evangeline, Tales of a Wayside Inn, and Hype- 
 rion, all by Longfellow, and Hamlet and Mac- 
 beth, by Shakespeare. 
 
 In the Senior Classical Room — Longfellow's 
 poems Seaside and Fireside, Hiawatha, Tales of 
 a Wayside Inn, and others, Scottish History, 
 Songs of the Scotch Cavaliers, by Aytoon, Ma- 
 caulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, Greek and 
 Roman Mythology, Thackeray's Henry Esmond, 
 Scott's Marmion, Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient 
 i6 
 
Mariner, Life of Addison and his DeCoverly 
 Papers. 
 
 It should be observed that not all of these 
 books were read by the same pupils. There were 
 four classes in each of the Senior rooms and two 
 classes in each of the Junior rooms. In the 
 Senior rooms essays upon what had been read 
 were from time to time required. This method 
 was characterized as " reading for information 
 and culture and an introduction to English litera- 
 ture." It was added that as the pupils in this 
 way while at school became acquainted with the 
 writings of good authors, they would most likely 
 have a desire to extend this acquaintance by 
 reading other books by the same authors later in 
 life. 
 
 It has already been stated that a seven years' 
 course in Latin was commenced twenty-five years 
 ago. Within two or three years past the public 
 high schools of Providence have begun, at least 
 in one or two schools, to extend the Latin course 
 from four to six years. 
 
 Incidentally, it might be remarked that when 
 this new schoolhouse was built, twenty-five years 
 ago, very few, if any, blackboards in the public 
 schools in the city were placed low enough on 
 
 17 
 
the walls to be properly accessible to the pupils. 
 The blackboards in this new schoolhouse were 
 placed at a proper height from the floor. To-day, 
 it would be difficult to find, in any of the newer 
 schoolhouses of the city, blackboards not placed 
 as they should be. 
 
 When the city was building the new High School 
 edifice on Summer Street, the principal of the 
 school asked permission from Mowry and Goff to 
 examine their chemical and physical laboratories 
 and take measurements and notes of the same to 
 be used in equipping the new High School lab- 
 oratories. Permission was cheerfully given and 
 the measurements and notes were taken, for it 
 was the wish of Mr. Goff , as well as his associate, 
 to aid the public schools and the cause of general 
 education in every possible way. For many years 
 prior to his death Mr. Goff was an active and 
 efficient member of the Barnard Club, and a co- 
 worker in the Rhode Island Institute of Instruc- 
 tion, the oldest State Teachers' Association in 
 the country. 
 
 Dr. Arnold expressed what he wished to find 
 in his older boys, or the boys of the " Sixth 
 i8 
 
form," as follows: "And what I have often said 
 before I repeat now : What we must look for 
 here is, first, religious and moral principles ; sec- 
 ondly, gentlemanly conduct ; thirdly, intellectual 
 ability." And at the end of one of his farewell 
 addresses, he said : " When I have confidence in 
 the Sixth, there is no post in England which I 
 would exchange for this ; but if they do not sup- 
 port me I must go." These two statements of 
 Dr. Arnold, especially the first, apply to the 
 teaching of Dr. Goff. By precept and example 
 he insisted, first of all, upon moral and religious 
 principles. In all his teaching and in all his ex- 
 ample he emphasized the Christian gentleman. 
 Next to these two great qualities he placed intel- 
 lectual ability. He was never sensational. Froth 
 and gush were foreign to his nature. Thorough- 
 ness, earnestness, steadfastness, he strove to cul- 
 tivate. Great purposes, a high, laudable ambition, 
 concentration of mind, indomitable perseverance, 
 — these were among the things which he held in 
 high esteem. He believed in a classical educa- 
 tion. He insisted that there could be no substitute 
 for a knowledge of the Latin and Greek tongues. 
 The logic and the philosophy found in the gram- 
 mar of these two languages were believed by him 
 
 19 
 
to be largely educative and disciplinary in their 
 effect upon the minds of the young people who 
 mastered them. He fully believed that the great 
 thoughts, beautiful expressions, the elegant 
 poetry, the courtly imagery, of the poets who 
 wrote in these ancient languages were refining 
 and elevating to the human soul. He sincerely 
 deprecated the modern short cuts in education 
 which would leave out the study of these two 
 great languages and their literatures. He agreed 
 with Dr. William T. Harris, who, in an address 
 before Mr. Goff's pupils, said, "Given a new 
 town on our Western frontier with just one hun- 
 dred men, fifty of whom had studied Latin and 
 fifty who had not, the first fifty after a time would 
 come to the top and be the leading men in that 
 community." Mr. Goff would heartily agree with 
 an eminent classical teacher who at one of the 
 large New England educational gatherings used 
 this simile : " If I had a field of grass to cut, I 
 think it would be wise for me to spend a half-hour 
 of the morning at the grindstone." 
 
 There was nothing light, flippant, or superfi- 
 cial in his character, teaching, or intercourse 
 with his pupils. He was far, however, from being 
 always serious or sedate, and he was never mo- 
 20 
 
rose. He had a keen sense of humor and fre- 
 quently indulged in dry jokes that were often 
 afterward called to mind by the students. He 
 was always reaching forward to the strongest and 
 the highest life-work of his students, but he never 
 neglected their present feelings, views, and 
 conditions. 
 
 Dr. Arnold laid great stress upon his Sixth 
 Form boys. Dr. Goff always had easily the 
 confidence, approval, and support of his Senior 
 Class, and indeed of all his scholars. His teach- 
 ing was always thorough and correct, and his 
 discipline easy and efficient. The writer must 
 also be permitted to add that in a daily inter- 
 course of twenty years, while we frequently dif- 
 fered in judgment, we always, after the requisite 
 discussion, came to a full and amicable agree- 
 ment ; and never in the whole period did a single 
 sharp or angry word pass between us. 
 
 Eefiit jFoUotod tl)e ^ttcp ^ap 
 
 Dr. Goff was in good health until a short time 
 before his death. He was attacked by pneumonia, 
 and appeared to be doing well, apparently throw- 
 ing off the disease, until the night of November 
 30, when he was suddenly taken worse and died 
 
 21 
 
a little after midnight. The physicians pro- 
 nounced it heart failure. The simple service at 
 the funeral was attended by many sorrowing 
 hearts, including a large number of the leading 
 men of the city, who had been his pupils in the 
 years gone by. The Providence Journal said of 
 him : " The city loses a most popular educator 
 and citizen." His end was peaceful. His work 
 was done. Although he had not reached the full 
 age of man, yet a full life's work had been fin- 
 ished, a life's work of great value, and rest should 
 follow the busy day. 
 
 " Leaves have their time to fall, 
 And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, 
 
 And stars to set; but all, 
 Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death." 
 
 For thirty years Daniel Webster stood at the 
 head of the bar and of the Senate, the first law- 
 yer and the first statesman of the United States, 
 yet in the last year of his life he said to Professor 
 Silliman : " I have given my life to law and poli- 
 tics. Law is uncertain, and politics are utterly 
 vain." 
 
 Dr. Goff turned away from law and politics, 
 and for more than forty years his life was one of 
 arduous labor in instructing young men. He had 
 
 22 
 
his reward. His life-work was one unbroken 
 success. His pupils, whom he had helped to 
 battle successfully in the conflict of life, rise up 
 by the hundreds in grateful recognition, and 
 bless his name. 
 
 W. A. M. 
 
 23 
 
^tt^itt^ at tl^e J^cl^ool 
 
 SERVICES in memory of Charles Bradford 
 Goff were held in the chapel of the English 
 and Classical School, 48 Snow Street, on Friday, 
 Jan. 13, 1899. A full report of the exercises 
 was printed in a brochure by Dr. Goff 's associate 
 and successor in the school, Mr. Howard M. 
 Rice, who has kindly given permission that it be 
 reprinted. The service began with the reading 
 of the Scriptures by Rev. James W. Colwell, a 
 former teacher in the school, and prayer by Rev. 
 Edward L. Thomas, of the class of 1884. 
 
 fHv. |)otoarti JH, Eite 
 
 Mr. Howard M. Rice then spoke in substance 
 as follows : — 
 
 We have assembled here to-day to pay our sad 
 tribute of love and esteem to one who stood to 
 us in the varied relations of pupil, teacher, asso- 
 ciate, and friend. Little did we realize, little did 
 he think, perhaps, as he dismissed his class and 
 24 
 
 I 
 
passed out of these doors a few short weeks ago, 
 that we should never see him here again. That 
 bright eye, that alert step, that cheerful greeting, 
 have indeed forever gone, or remain to us only 
 as a memory of the past. 
 
 Amid the throng of recollections that crowd 
 into one's mind at such a time as this, my own 
 memory reverts most frequently to those days 
 more than thirty years ago when I first became 
 a teacher in this school. Mr. Goff's studies and 
 mine were at the time closely allied, and we 
 spent many delightful evenings together reading 
 for our own pleasure and improvement our 
 favorite classical authors. He was then in the 
 full vigor of active manhood, enthusiastic in his 
 profession and overflowing with life and playful 
 humor. The loss of his oldest son in later years 
 threw a shadow over his life from which he never 
 wholly emerged ; yet there are some of his pupils 
 here to-day who will recall the sportive way in 
 which he would now and again turn from the 
 more serious work of recitation to comment in an 
 amusing way on some lighter topic suggested by 
 the day's lesson. 
 
 Sad indeed would it be if, to such a life, this 
 earth were the end of all, but 
 
 25 
 
" Immortal is our friend, we know; 
 Not summer turf, nor winter's snow. 
 Nor depth of earth, could bring to nought 
 So much of life, and love, and thought;" 
 
 and cheered and comforted by the assurances 
 of that Christian faith in which he was so sin- 
 cere and earnest a believer, we feel sure that he 
 has passed on into a life of still more active ser- 
 vice in the world beyond the grave. 
 
 aiumnt Refioltttioufi 
 
 At a meeting of the Alumni Association held 
 just before the memorial service, the following 
 resolutions were passed, and were now read 
 by Rathbone Gardner, Esq., of the class of 
 
 1873 — 
 
 The Alumni Association of the English and 
 
 Classical School, realizing their great loss in the 
 death of their late principal, Charles B. Goff, 
 Ph.D., hereby give expression to their apprecia- 
 tion of his character and work. He was a 
 strong, modest, self-reliant, self-respecting man, 
 a man of real learning, possessed not only with 
 the knowledge derived from books, but so thor- 
 oughly imbued with all that had come to him 
 from study and experience as to make really 
 
 26 
 
new and peculiarly his own the learning which 
 he knew so well how to impart to others ; a man 
 who taught and imparted by example even more 
 than by precept ; whose whole demeanor im- 
 pressed upon his pupils the beauty and dignity 
 of true culture ; a man who asserted no superior- 
 ity, but to whom unquestioned pre-eminence in his 
 profession was uniformly accorded ; a man who 
 with no effort save the constant exercise of the 
 courtesy which was his by nature, won not only 
 the respect but the love of all who knew him. 
 
 He lived a life of such usefulness as is ac- 
 corded to few men. For more than forty years 
 he remained at the post of duty which he had 
 chosen for himself, quietly, modestly, doing a 
 work the value of which to this community can- 
 not be overestimated. 
 
 Hundreds of men to-day owe to him a debt 
 of gratitude which they hesitate even to try to 
 express in words. They feel that to him more 
 perhaps than to any one else they owe all that is 
 best, not only of what they have attained, but of 
 what they are. 
 
 Year after year he has sent out from this 
 school men who have carried what he gave them 
 into every sphere and calling of life, and for 
 
 27 
 
whatever of good each and every one of these 
 men has accompUshed he is entitled to a share 
 of praise. No man could be named to-day to 
 whom this city and State are more deeply in- 
 debted than to Charles B. Goff. Now, perhaps, 
 we realize this and wish we could give him our 
 assurance of it. Few have appreciated him at 
 his full value. It is not too late, however, now 
 to acknowledge our debt to this strong, noble, 
 and simple man. 
 
 After the singing of Tennyson's " Crossing 
 the Bar," by the Quartette of the First Congre- 
 gational (Unitarian) Church, William A. Mowry, 
 Ph.D., of Hyde Park, Mass., one of the founders 
 of the school, spoke as follows : — 
 
 Professor Agassiz, the great naturalist, chose 
 for his epitaph the simple inscription, " Louis 
 Agassiz, Teacher." He was one of the world's 
 most distinguished men in the realm of scientific 
 research and knowledge, yet he took no motto 
 from his favorite studies, nothing to indicate 
 his special line of scientific thought, but with 
 consummate wisdom emphasized his calling as 
 that of an instructor. In this he not only dis- 
 28 
 
played his breadth of mind,, but his high and 
 proper appreciation of his chosen profession, — 
 the teacher of youth. 
 
 Surely this is the highest, the noblest, the most 
 blessed calling within the reach of mortal man. 
 Christ himself was the great teacher of mankind. 
 Confucius was the teacher of his people nearly 
 twenty-five hundred years ago. Socrates, the 
 soldier, senator, philosopher, was greatest as a 
 teacher, and now, after the lapse of twenty-three 
 centuries, is best known in that relation. Few 
 men of England — that land of statesmen, phi- 
 losophers, warriors, poets, and painters — have 
 exerted so wide an influence upon the future of 
 their country and their race as Thomas Arnold, 
 the head master of the school at Rugby. Half a 
 century ago, Samuel H. Taylor, Principal of 
 Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., was invited to 
 become President of his Alma Mater, Dartmouth 
 College. His reply was, in the words of Nehe- 
 miah, the Jew : " I am doing a great work, so 
 that I cannot come down." He felt that the 
 moulding of the characters of some hundreds of 
 young men, changing their bent and inducing 
 many of them to go forward in the great work of 
 obtaining a college education, was of far greater 
 
 29 
 
importance than the management of a college 
 and the guiding of such young men as had al- 
 ready passed the crucial point of decision and 
 had entered upon the pursuit of the higher 
 education. 
 
 I confess that it has often seemed to me that 
 the greatest work a teacher can do is to influence 
 his pupils to strive to obtain a liberal education. 
 As I look back upon more than half a century of 
 busy, educational work, I remember nothing 
 which gives me more satisfaction than the recol- 
 lection that by personal influence I have turned 
 this and that young man from a shorter course of 
 secondary education to a full college line of study. 
 This may seem somewhat more unusual when I 
 say that for more than half of that period my 
 own work was on the English High School side, 
 while my associate, Mr. Goff, was the principal 
 of the Classical Department, and his special work 
 was to prepare young men for college. 
 
 I have always enjoyed teaching the English 
 language and literature. I have never wearied 
 of the mathematics, the natural sciences, history, 
 civil government, or the metaphysics ; but I have 
 always advised the ancient languages and a full 
 college course, not merely to prepare for one of 
 
 30 
 
the so-called professions, but for the higher walks 
 of business life. 
 
 Mr. Goff, in memory of whose great work in 
 life we are assembled here to-day, early chose as 
 his special and particular department the teach- 
 ing of Latin and Greek. In that I beUeve he 
 was wise. 
 
 Dr. Wayland, in an address to teachers, nearly 
 three-quarters of a century ago, used the follow- 
 ing language : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, you have chosen a noble profes- 
 sion. What though it do not confer upon us 
 wealth ? It confers upon us a higher boon, the 
 privilege of being useful. What though it leads 
 not to the falsely named heights of political 
 eminence ? It leads us to what is far better, the 
 sources of real power ; for it renders intellectual 
 ability necessary to success. I do verily believe 
 that nothing so cultivates the powers of a man's 
 own mind as thorough, generous, liberal, and 
 indefatigable teaching. But our profession has 
 rewards, rich rewards, peculiar to itself. What 
 can be more delightful to a philanthropic mind 
 than to behold intellectual power increase a hun- 
 dred-fold by our exertions, talent developed by 
 our assiduity, passions eradicated by our counsel, 
 
 31 
 
and a multitude of men pouring abroad over 
 society the lustre of a virtuous example, and be- 
 coming meet to be inheritors with the saints in 
 light — and all in consequence of the direction 
 which we have given them in youth ? I ask 
 again, What profession has any higher re- 
 wards? " 
 
 This prosaic age, so devoted to science and to 
 money-getting, may not fully appreciate such lofty 
 sentiments as these from the pen of Dr. Way- 
 land, but they are true and will stand the test of 
 the ages. 
 
 Hon. Emery Washburn, a distinguished lawyer, 
 jurist, and governor of Massachusetts, once said : 
 '' Whoever has been within the walls of a school- 
 room must have observed how much the character 
 of every scholar, for the time being, seems to 
 borrow its form and hue from him who presides 
 there . . . even in the very manner of thinking 
 and feeling. . . . Who has forgotten or can 
 ever forget the look, the manner, the tone, the 
 oracular response, the unbounded learning, and 
 the infallible wisdom of the master who urged 
 our lagging steps along the early stages of the 
 uphill and tangled path of learning? And who, 
 to the latest hour of life, can root out of his 
 
 32 
 
mind impressions that he there received ? . . . 
 How shall we measure the influence of the 
 schoolmaster upon the social and political condi- 
 tion of his country ? Her future men of influence, 
 who are to lead in the management of her affairs, 
 and to leave the impress of their own character 
 upon everything around them, are placed under 
 his control at that susceptible period of life when 
 the deepest impressions are the most easily re- 
 ceived, and which, when once received, can 
 never be wholly effaced. . . . And if the teacher 
 could gather around him from their various 
 walks and employments the men of influence 
 whose intellectual powers were developed by his 
 efforts, how justly could he, like the Roman 
 mother of old, point to them as the priceless 
 jewels with which he had enriched his country." 
 
 What but the school and the college has made 
 America what she is to-day among the nations of 
 the world ? She has again and again succeeded 
 where other nations would have failed. 
 
 A hundred years ago our young republic ex- 
 tended westward from the Atlantic only to the 
 Mississippi River. The total population was 
 then about 5,000,000. Its people now number 
 75,000,000. Its area was then not far from 
 
 33 
 
8oo,ooo square miles. It is now 3,800,000 square 
 miles. This expansion of territory and increase 
 of population have brought upon the country 
 great responsibilities and gigantic difficulties. 
 Yet the intelligence of the people has been so 
 general that we have battled successfully with 
 every difficulty, and the development in indus- 
 tries and inventions has been so great that the 
 actual increase in wealth is without precedent in 
 the history of the world. 
 
 May it not be confidently asserted, without 
 fear of contradiction, that these great results 
 have been produced more by the aid of the 
 school and the college — in other words, by the 
 teacher — than by all other causes combined ? 
 Moreover, has not the highest culture — that is, 
 classical study — done the most to bring about 
 this marvellous result? 
 
 Mr. Goff was a model teacher in many re- 
 spects. He had a deep and abiding interest in 
 the struggles of young men for an education. He 
 was a pattern of propriety and dignity. His 
 manliness was apparent to all. His daily walk 
 showed himself to be a Christian gentleman. His 
 reliability, his exact and thorough scholarship, 
 and his teaching power only became known by 
 
 34 
 
long-continued acquaintance and personal con- 
 tact. He was always and everywhere devoted to 
 the best interests of his school, its pupils and 
 its teachers. He had a strong distaste, almost 
 abhorrence, for anything superficial, and that 
 which partook of the nature of showy parades. 
 But he studied the wants of the times and was 
 fully abreast of the day in all things pertaining 
 both to the subject-matter of instruction and the 
 best methods of teaching. He was never a pes- 
 simist — but always hopeful and progressive. 
 With him everything new must be first examined, 
 and only that which proved itself right and true 
 and needful was to be adopted and introduced. 
 No experiments were ever tried in this school. 
 Anything new must have passed the experimental 
 stage before it could be approved, and when once 
 put in operation there would then be no neces- 
 sity to abandon it. New principles of pedagogy, 
 new methods of teaching, new devices, must be 
 studied and weighed before they ever had a trial 
 here. But when once shown to be improvements, 
 whether in subject-matter or methods of study 
 and teaching, they were at once approved, intro- 
 duced, and defended. 
 
 May I mention, as illustrations, two or three 
 
 35 
 
things introduced here, in advance of most if not 
 all schools of the time. 
 
 When the school moved into this building, so 
 admirably adapted for the purpose, most prepara- 
 tory schools had a three years' course in Latin 
 and Greek. Some of the best of them had added 
 a fourth year. This school had had a four years' 
 course for some years before that. But in 1876 
 Mr. Goff introduced a new course of study, 
 which proposed a seven years' course in Latin. 
 Young lads of ten years of age began the Latin 
 and pursued it in connection with the arithmetic, 
 geography, and other so-called grammar-school 
 studies. This course has proved eminently suc- 
 cessful, and the example has of late been followed 
 here and there by our best schools. 
 
 Almost a quarter of a century ago, when the 
 school came to occupy this building, Mr. Goff, 
 with his associates, paid great attention to the 
 health of the pupils, and in particular to their 
 eyesight. They believed the rooms were so 
 lighted that the eyesight would not be injured 
 by study in them. The services of a distin- 
 guished oculist were secured, who examined the 
 eyes of all the pupils in the school and made a 
 permanent record of their condition. Two years 
 
 36 
 
later he made a second examination, and after 
 another two years a third. The result showed 
 conclusively that, in general, the eyesight of 
 these pupils had improved, and even in cases of 
 myopia, where the difficulty usually increases at 
 the age of these children, the increase had been 
 less than the average. Although the practice had 
 already begun in some countries in Europe, this 
 is believed to have been one of the first cases in 
 this country of careful and systematic medical 
 examination of pupils' eyes in school. 
 
 New methods, even new principles, are con- 
 stantly presented, especially to the teacher of the 
 ancient languages. No age is exempt from them. 
 With some, anything new is at once believed to 
 be true, and everything true is supposed to be 
 new. With others, nothing new is true and noth- 
 ing true is new. This seems to belong to no one 
 period in particular, but to every age. 
 
 Nearly seventy years ago. Professor Cornelius 
 C. Felton, afterward President of Harvard Col- 
 lege, wrote as follows : — 
 
 " I am no advocate for the old scholastic sys- 
 tems of teaching. I have no wish to see young 
 scholars forced to spend tedious days and months 
 and years in conning page after page of barba- 
 
 37 
 
rous Latinity before they understand the meaning 
 of a single word. But I do believe, and I think 
 my opinion is borne out by literary history, that 
 the old-fashioned systems, bad, absurd, oppres- 
 sive, as many of them were, produced better 
 scholars, riper intellects, cooler heads, than any 
 of the labor-saving machines which have in such 
 multitudes been the playthings of this self-in- 
 dulging age. I doubt not they have apparently 
 promoted the rapid and easy attainment of learn- 
 ing, but, if they have been successful in the final 
 issue, it has been only through the skill of the 
 teacher and the genius of the learner, which 
 gained the object in spite of them." 
 
 Mr. Goff would never decry the accurate clas- 
 sical scholarship of the fathers at a time '• when 
 men could talk Greek," as Cotton Mather says, 
 "by the hour, and write Hebrew as fast as their 
 mother tongue ; " nor, on the other hand, would 
 he undervalue the modern methods, especially 
 that principle of pedagogy which proposed to put 
 every new thing learned into practice as soon as 
 possible. His method of teaching was ever fresh, 
 ever new, ever interesting. Yet he was always 
 conservative. He believed in the solid, substantial 
 things of education, and the results of this method 
 
 38 
 
of teaching are abundantly seen in the active 
 lives of the graduates of the school over which 
 for so many years he presided with such wisdom 
 and success. 
 
 Two or three years ago I had occasion to look 
 over the curreht catalogite of Brown University. 
 I could not fail to notice the names of seven or 
 eight members of the faculty who were graduates 
 of this school, where they had been under the 
 tuition of Mr. Goff. What significance is there 
 in that one simple fact ? When a college vale- 
 dictorian settles down in the university town to 
 spend his whole life in preparing young men for 
 college, and in his own lifetime sees his former 
 pupils filling successfully chairs in that university 
 in such numbers as would in our great Western 
 country make a whole college faculty, surely he 
 may be congratulated upon the success of his work. 
 
 Sometime since I collated the list of graduates 
 of this school to see into what professions and 
 kinds of business they had gone. The five 
 hundred (in round numbers) who have graduated 
 were occupying positions in literally all parts of 
 the country and even of the world, and their 
 various vocations, being classified, were embraced 
 under more than fifty different kinds of business. 
 
 39 
 
Among them were engineers, — civil, electrical, 
 and mechanical, — architects, editors and pub- 
 lishers, railway and insurance men, pharmacists, 
 chemists, and druggists ; and it was especially 
 observable that there were eleven clergymen, 
 twelve teachers, twelve college professors, thir- 
 teen engaged in banking business, twenty-six 
 lawyers, twenty-eight physicians, forty in various 
 positions in mercantile life, and nearly sixty 
 manufacturers of jewelry, cotton and woolen, and 
 other kinds of goods. 
 
 Such a record as this speaks volumes for the 
 character of the school and for the greatness of 
 the work of its late senior principal. 
 
 The life-work of Mr. Goff is ended. No one 
 can correctly estimate its value in this city, this 
 State, the nation, or the world. Its worth in 
 money, in influence, in intellectual activity, in 
 moral force, borders upon the infinite. 
 
 What does such a life, such a work of forty 
 full years, — nearly the whole of it in this city, — 
 demand from the citizens of this large and beau- 
 tiful city ? This municipality has greatly im- 
 proved within the last thirty-five years. To-day 
 many of the leading members of the city council, 
 the school board, the State Legislature, and other 
 40 
 
state and municipal officers are graduates of this 
 school, and while members of it were under the 
 instruction of him whom we honor here to-day. 
 
 Surely the teacher who has laid down his work, 
 who has died with his harness on, who has now 
 gone beyond the recognition by those who re- 
 main, — surely his memory deserves well from 
 his late fellow citizens ; and does not the institu- 
 tion which he has been so largely instrumental 
 in building up deserve high recognition for im- 
 portant service faithfully and successfully per- 
 formed ? 
 
 The graduates of this institution will never fail 
 to be loyal to its welfare, and I am sure will al- 
 ways hold in grateful estimation the high services 
 done for the cause of sound learning by its late 
 senior principal. Dr. Charles B. Goff. 
 
 The choice motto upon the seal of the school, 
 Deo DoctrincBque (" For God and Sound Learn- 
 ing"), was of his own choosing. It voices the 
 guiding aim and purpose of his life. 
 
 The next speaker was Albert Harkness, Ph.D., 
 LL.D., of Brown University : — 
 
 One feeling pervades all our hearts as we 
 
 41 
 
gather here to-day. I read it in the countenances 
 of these bereaved pupils and of these sympathiz- 
 ing friends. We meet under the shadow of a 
 great affliction. One of the founders of this 
 school, one who has put his very life into it, 
 alike his hand, his head, and his heart, one who 
 has so often been cheered and gladdened in his 
 arduous task by its growing usefulness and influ- 
 ence, now rests from his labors. A beloved and 
 venerated teacher, in the fulness of his useful- 
 ness, with all his stores of learning and of ripe 
 experience, has departed, never again to gladden 
 us by his genial countenance. Even if our lips 
 were silent, our hearts would pay a grateful 
 tribute to his memory. 
 
 But in the years that are past the name of 
 Dr. Goff has been wont to awaken in our hearts 
 only emotions of gladness. So let it be here to- 
 day ; so he would have it. Dismissing, therefore, 
 as far as we may, all thought of our own loss, we 
 do well, it seems to me, to think and to speak 
 more especially of the joy and the blessing which 
 he has brought into all our lives, and into the 
 lives of hundreds of his pupils scattered over the 
 land, filling positions of trust and influence, 
 stronger and better and happier to-day because 
 
 42 
 
of the inspiring influences which they carried 
 with them into Ufe from that well-remembered 
 class-room. It has been the unspeakable happi- 
 ness of many of us to have known Dr. Goff inti- 
 mately for many years. The memory of his 
 words and deeds and of his spotless life will go 
 with us as long as we live. He has left us, but 
 his influence remains with us as an abiding 
 blessing. 
 
 My first acquaintance with Dr. Goff was in his 
 senior year, in 1855. I was then just entering 
 upon my work at Brown University, and he was 
 the first senior to put down his name for my 
 class in Elective Greek. He at once exhibited 
 unmistakable characteristics of the true scholar, — 
 a zeal that never flagged and an ideal that could 
 be satisfied with nothing short of the highest 
 possible excellence. His ready perception of 
 truth, whether in science or in letters, his remark- 
 able memory, and his unusual facility of acquisi- 
 tion enabled him to attain that finished scholar- 
 ship which almost from the outset made him 
 facile priiueps in his class and ultimately secured 
 to him the highest honors at graduation. 
 
 But the early promise of college days is some- 
 times but imperfectly fulfilled in subsequent life. 
 
 43 
 
Not so with Dr. Goff. With him commencement 
 marked not the end of his educational career, 
 but only a single stage in its course. The high 
 academic rank attained at graduation was only 
 an omen of the scholarly life which characterized 
 all his subsequent years. With him life itself 
 was a season of education, of scholarly attain- 
 ments, and of intellectual growth. Year by year, 
 by patient study and thought, he continued to 
 add to his garnered treasures of knowledge. 
 
 During his senior year the grave question of 
 the choice of a profession became the subject of 
 serious deliberation and of long and earnest 
 thought. From the first he seems to have been 
 drawn to the special work to which he subse- 
 quently devoted all his powers with such eminent 
 success. Some of his classmates and friends, 
 indeed, questioned the wisdom of his choice, and 
 argued that only the law opened suitable avenues 
 to public recognition and honor for gifted and 
 ambitious young men ; but in his judgment the 
 profession which had been honored by such 
 names as Arnold at Rugby and Wayland at 
 Brown offered a field of usefulness, influence, 
 and even of honor, which ought to satisfy any 
 man's ambition. 
 
 44 
 
From the hour when I first met Mr. Goff as a 
 student in my lecture-room till the day of his 
 death I have watched his career of usefulness 
 and honor with ever-increasing interest, first as 
 the head of the Preparatory Department of 
 Union College, later as the principal of the High 
 School at Fall River, and finally as one of the 
 founders of this institution, where the great work 
 of his life has been done. The story is a very 
 simple one, that of a life devoted to duty, but it 
 means more for the welfare of this community, 
 city, and State than many another life that is 
 loaded with honors. In public stations brilliant 
 success attracts immediate attention ; the achieve- 
 ments of the statesman and the orator receive 
 prompt recognition ; indeed, on any public arena 
 glory at once crowns the victor. Contrast with 
 this the work and reward of the teacher. In the 
 quiet of the class-room, far removed from the 
 public gaze, he is slowly but surely building 
 character, developing and training the God-given 
 powers of the human soul, storing the mind with 
 useful knowledge, introducing it to garnered 
 treasures of literature, to the best thought of the 
 great thinkers of the world, teaching it to explore 
 the secrets of nature and to look through nature 
 
 45 
 
up to nature's God. Now in all this there may 
 be little to elicit the loud plaudits of the multi- 
 tude, but it furnishes the substantial foundation 
 on which our government rests — the foundation 
 for all our most cherished institutions, civil and 
 religious. The statesman makes the laws, but 
 the teacher makes the statesman. From the 
 class-room of our departed friend have gone 
 forth men who have occupied important positions 
 in all the varied walks of life, at the bar, in the 
 pulpit, on the bench, and in the halls of legisla- 
 tion. Into all these important positions they 
 have carried, consciously or unconsciously, the in- 
 fluence of their teacher. They are living wit- 
 nesses of the priceless value of his life's work ; 
 through them he speaks to-day. Could we gather 
 up all the influences for good which successive 
 classes for a whole generation have been carrying 
 forth from that quiet class-room, — in trained intel- 
 lect, in stored minds, in refined tastes, in sympa- 
 thetic hearts, and in substantial character, — who 
 in view of such results would dare say that the 
 teacher's life and vocation do not offer scope for 
 the best powers of mind and heart, and that they 
 do not ultimately have ample reward, if not in 
 public recognition, at least in the inner conscious- 
 ness of the soul ? 
 46 
 
 \ 
 
For upwards of forty years Dr. Goff has sus- 
 tained a very intimate relationship to Brown 
 University, a relationship fraught with blessings 
 to both parties. Himself the product of its best 
 culture, he was ever a true and loyal son, ever 
 ready to acknowledge his indebtedness to his 
 loved Alma Mater, and ever ready to serve her in 
 word or deed as occasion offered. It would be 
 difficult to exaggerate the value of his services in 
 this regard. As a teacher, as a member of her 
 corporation and of the Library Committee, he 
 labored with untiring zeal to promote her pros- 
 perity and success. 
 
 Dr. Goff was eminently fitted, both by natural 
 endowment and by careful study and training, 
 for the high and responsible duties of the teacher. 
 With quick and generous sympathies that brought 
 him into close contact with all the members of 
 his classes, he entered readily and heartily into 
 all their youthful feelings, appreciated their diffi- 
 culties, and gladly furnished them the needed 
 encouragement and help. With a kind word of 
 admonition for the wayward and indolent, he 
 was ever ready to recognize and reward not only 
 marked success, but all honest effort. 
 
 Fidelity to duty was his chosen motto ; his de- 
 
 47 
 
votion to his school was well-nigh sublime ; no 
 sacrifice of time or labor was deemed too great 
 if it could add to his professional success. For 
 the good of his school he was ever ready " to 
 scorn delights and live laborious days." 
 
 Dr. Goff was a master workman in his chosen 
 field of labor. Wisely conservative, he was yet 
 in the best sense truly progressive. Never seek- 
 ing change for its own sake, he yet recognized 
 the fact that the world moves and that he who 
 remains stationary in any of the important posi- 
 tions in life will soon find himself left behind. 
 Ever ready to prove all things, he was yet deter- 
 mined to hold fast that which is good. 
 
 But in speaking of a life like that of Dr. Goff 
 we do well to remember that it is often the man, 
 even more than the teacher, that moulds char- 
 acter. The very presence of a true man of high 
 culture, of refined taste, and of a pure and spot- 
 less life is itself a liberal education. Example is 
 often more potent than precept : — 
 
 Longum iter est per prcecepta^ breve per exempla. 
 
 The Quartette then sang "A Hymn of the 
 Home Land," by Haweis. 
 
 48 
 
The following tribute was then given by Rev. 
 William H. Lyon, of Brookline, Mass., a former 
 pupil of Dr. Goff in the Fall River High 
 School : — 
 
 I entered the Fall River High School in the 
 fall of i860, and finished my teaching at the 
 Mowry and Goff English and Classical School in 
 Providence in June, 1870. Since then I have 
 seen Mr. Goff only occasionally. I count him 
 one of the strongest and finest forces of my life. 
 During the four years of my High-School course 
 he was not only my instructor, but my ideal. I 
 count myself extremely fortunate to have been 
 under his influence at that plastic and formative 
 period of my character. 
 
 He was then in the early prime of life, not far 
 from twenty-five. He was slight, fair-haired, 
 scholarly in appearance, gentle and courteous in 
 his bearing, scrupulous and neat in his dress, 
 and gave the impression of what is described in 
 the rather trite phrase of " a gentleman and a 
 scholar." I can think of no better influence to 
 fall upon a boy who is looking forward to a 
 scholarly career. 
 
 49 
 
He was not a prig, however. He could not 
 have been beloved of boys, as he was, if he had 
 been. He had a good laugh, a capacity for such 
 jokes as it were wise to indulge in among one's 
 pupils, and left always the impression that in 
 college and among his fellows he must have been 
 capable of having a very good time. That idea 
 did not interfere with his popularity among us. 
 He had a good voice and was told by a well- 
 known teacher of music, Mr. Parker Borden, 
 that he could sing. He was rather incredulous 
 as to this, but applied himself so vigorously to 
 practice that he soon developed a fine high tenor 
 quality of voice. He became the first tenor of a 
 male quartette, of which Mr. Borden was the 
 second, and I the second bass. We went about 
 among the surrounding towns singing on various 
 public occasions. On these excursions Mr. Goff 
 was one of the most delightful of companions. 
 He let his boyish spirits loose, yet kept the re- 
 spect of his pupil ; and when he appeared at his 
 desk the next morning was again the master, 
 more beloved but not less obeyed. 
 
 He had a very high ideal of his office in its 
 moral as well as intellectual side. His whole 
 scheme of discipline was built on a high level. 
 
 SO 
 
The older classes were placed on their honor in 
 many things. We went freely into the library to 
 study together, and in summer we were often 
 allowed to go out into the yard and upon the 
 terraces in front of the old schoolhouse. Our 
 ideas of honor were a little lax, and we did many 
 things which we should not have done if the 
 eyes of the master had been upon us. But, on 
 the whole, the trust that was reposed in us did us 
 good, and it seems to me now to have been a very 
 wise scheme sensibly carried out. I am inclined 
 to think that it was quite as much love for the 
 master as a sentiment of honor that kept us from 
 utterly disregarding the rules; but that love was 
 so strong and had so great an element of respect 
 that it was a very potent influence on the side of 
 good conduct.' 
 
 To this scholarly, courteous, and unobtrusively 
 moral character, Mr. Goff added a very deep and 
 sincere religious nature. Those who were in the 
 High School during the early part of my course 
 must remember well the revival which swept 
 through the town and gathered in nearly every 
 member of the school. There was the usual large 
 element of mere contagion and imitation, but 
 there was also substantial and permanent good. 
 
 51 
 
Mr. Goff was one of those who became interested 
 in religion at that time, and henceforth it was a 
 power in his life. I remember well the morning 
 on which he rose for the usual brief devotions, 
 and, with a broken voice, confessed his sorrow 
 that he had not cared much for such things be- 
 fore and that he had perhaps neglected his duty 
 as to leading the young under his charge in the 
 right way. The devotional exercises after that 
 had an accession of fervor, and, though naturally 
 they could not remain at the height of emotion 
 which belonged to an exceptional period, yet they 
 were always after that more warm and loving 
 than most such regular exercises are apt to be. 
 
 It was in the year of our graduation, 1864, that 
 Mr. Goff came to Providence. It was a good 
 time to leave his school in Fall Ri\^er, for it was 
 in the best of order. He had sent off the largest 
 class of boys in its history to college, and they 
 won the largest number of prizes for many years 
 before or since. I saw little of him during my 
 college course, but knew that his school pros- 
 pered and saw that his boys took more than their 
 share of prizes on entering college. Six months 
 after graduation, I was delighted to receive an 
 invitation from Mowry and Goff to become Mr. 
 
 52 
 
Goif's assistant in the Classical Department. To 
 have only the classics to teach, to have no dis- 
 cipline to administer, and, above all, to be asso- 
 ciated with my old master, made the year and a 
 half which followed one of the happiest periods 
 of my life. I found Mr. Goff the same gentle, 
 gentlemanly, thorough, high-minded man he had 
 been in Fall River. The boys were of the best 
 to be found in the city or its suburbs. We were 
 all warmly attached to our principal, and I am 
 sure that, though many years have passed over 
 us since that time and many experiences have 
 overlaid its events, there is not one of us who did 
 not have, when we heard of his death, something 
 of the same feeling that Tom Brown had when 
 he heard at his fishing that his old master, Arnold 
 of Rugby, was gone. Across the years we look 
 back to a man who in his school relations had a 
 most unusual power of winning the love of his 
 pupils and getting out of them all that was possi- 
 ble of work for love's sake. I am not competent 
 to judge of his pedagogical methods. The science 
 of pedagogy has almost sprung up since our day. 
 But if faith that worketh by love is the highest 
 Christian virtue, the power of inspiring young 
 men to do their best by love is one of the finest 
 of human capacities. ^, 
 
As I look about this room and see the photo- 
 graphs of the various classes, I am impressed 
 anew with the breadth as well as the depth of 
 the teacher's influence ; for every one of this 
 multitude of boys has become a centre from 
 which the influence he has received from his 
 master is going out upon all sides into the world. 
 So let us think of him whom we commemorate 
 to-day as not dead, but as still radiating out over 
 the world the refinement and the loveliness of his 
 character. 
 
 ^uffttgtttfi ^. f^illtv 
 
 The closing address w^as made by Augustus S. 
 Miller, A.M., of the class of 1867 : — 
 
 I have been asked to say a few words here to- 
 day for the alumni of this school, to speak for 
 them their appreciation of their former teacher 
 and always friend. Dr. Goff. 
 
 I entered this school at the same time that 
 Mr. Goff became connected with it, in the autumn 
 of 1864, and I was a member of the first class to 
 take the complete course in the Classical Depart- 
 ment under him, in preparation for college, gradu- 
 ating from the school in 1867. 
 
 I remember distinctly my first impressions of 
 
 54 
 
Mr. Goff when I went to see him about entering 
 the school. I recall the genial way in which he 
 greeted me, and I know that I thought then that 
 I should enjoy being his pupil. 
 
 As was his manner on that day, so was it the 
 last time I saw him, not long before his death, 
 and my first impressions of him were never* 
 changed. 
 
 In a school so large as this, with the number 
 of teachers there are here, it would be strange if 
 the boys should not form different estimates of 
 their several instructors, and if, when leaving the 
 school, some should not carry away with them 
 more pleasant memories of this teacher, others of 
 that teacher ; and it is, I think, a very remarkable 
 fact that of all the alumni of this school, those 
 who have graduated from here for more than 
 thirty years past, not one, so far as I can learn, 
 was ever heard to speak otherwise than in the 
 highest terms of Mr. Goff. 
 
 The alumni all had great love for him, for they 
 felt that he was their friend as much after gradua- 
 tion as before, always interested in their lives 
 and their work. At every meeting of the Alumni 
 Association we wanted a word from him. He was 
 a modest man, not given to much talking, but 
 
 55 
 
when he acceded to our request for a speech it 
 was always worth one's while to listen to his few 
 words. 
 
 Perhaps I cannot express better how the alumni 
 regarded him than by saying that as the years 
 went by, as we grew to be boys no longer but 
 *«men, acquainted with the ways of the world and 
 with men, he never grew less in our estimation of 
 him. 
 
 The shattering of youthful ideals is one of the 
 painful things which come to us with age and 
 worldly experience, — to find that the idol which, 
 with boyish ardor, we raised on lofty pedestal 
 was really fashioned from the poorest clay ; that 
 the man whom as boys we deemed almost a god 
 was at best a most ordinary mortal. 
 
 Our appreciation of Mr. Goff never changed. 
 As boys we regarded him as a great teacher, and 
 respected and admired him as a man, and in 
 after-years, our school days long past, we sent 
 our sons to him because he was a great teacher, 
 and because, as ever, we respected and admired 
 him. 
 
 In these days of educational rush, when 
 quantity, not quality, seems to be the desideratum 
 of the many who uphold popular education as the 
 
 56 
 
panacea for all our ills, political and social, and 
 when from our schools continually come forth in 
 great numbers those who have acquired some 
 education, too often fragmentary, and too often 
 an education disserved from culture, it is a pleas- 
 ure to take a look backward, to recall this gentle- 
 man teacher, who by his own good breeding and 
 polite bearing exerted a refining influence upon 
 all the youth who came under his care, impressing 
 upon them that not alone their aim should be 
 high and accurate scholarship, but that gentle- 
 manly conduct was also desirable. 
 
 As the resolutions of the alumni, presented 
 here to-day, have so well said, " He impressed 
 upon his pupils the beauty and dignity of true 
 culture." 
 
 I was affected forcibly by the closing words of 
 the last speaker, when, looking about these walls 
 upon the pictured faces of all the graduates who 
 have gone out from this school, he spoke of the 
 influence of this great teacher whose labors here 
 are ended. 
 
 This city, this State, this country, can estimate 
 never too highly the influence exerted by such an 
 instructor of youth as was he who has gone from 
 us ; it is an influence for good in this world which 
 must live forever. _^ 
 
(Qxtvatt$ from Setter^ 
 
 NEARLY a year ago Mr. Rice published a 
 beautiful edition of the " Service in Re- 
 membrance of Charles Bradford Goff," and 
 kindly sent a copy to every graduate of the 
 school. He received hundreds of letters from 
 them in reply. Mr. Rice has kindly permitted 
 extracts to be made from these letters, and these 
 extracts which follow emphasize the strong affec- 
 tion and high regard which all his pupils enter- 
 tained for the character and worth of Dr. Goff. 
 Selections will be made from only a few of these 
 letters. 
 
 A practising physician writes : " I regret sin- 
 cerely my inability to be present at the service 
 in memory of the best friend any schoolboy ever 
 had. Professional duties alone prevented my be- 
 ing present. Mr. Goff was more to me than a 
 teacher, more like a kind and thoughtful friend, 
 always careful in criticism and still more thought- 
 
 58 
 
ful in commendation. My two years in the school 
 were to me the happiest in my life." 
 
 A strong business man in the Rocky Mountain 
 region of the great West writes : " Mr. Goff was 
 always to my mind a model teacher, and I look 
 back upon my connection with his school and 
 the advantages enjoyed there with a great deal 
 of pleasure. I hear from time to time with great 
 interest, to me, that you are prosecuting the work 
 with which you have been so long connected 
 with the same zeal and along the same lines 
 which originally gave the school its prominent 
 place as an educational institution, and I wish 
 you continued prosperity and success." 
 
 Another business man from a neighboring 
 State writes : " Very soon after entering college 
 I began to realize my good fortune in having 
 acquired my preparation under the direction of 
 Mr. Goff. Years and experience of men have 
 added to my appreciation of his many excellent 
 qualities as a man and a teacher, and the re- 
 markably thorough training in classics which I 
 received at his hands is continually and increas- 
 ingly proving its inestimable value to me. It 
 seems to me that the teaching of Mr. Goff had 
 
 59 
 
results which are enduring to a remarkable de- 
 gree. With sincere regard and best wishes for 
 the future of the school and all connected with 
 it, I remain, Yours very truly." 
 
 Another says : " No words of mine can add or 
 detract from the reputation which Mr. Goff has 
 left behind. His pupils are a living monument 
 to his worth as a teacher. As time passes the 
 feeling grows upon me that the years which I 
 spent under his tuition were the most profitable 
 of my school days." 
 
 From one of our colleges : " I cannot express 
 the sadness which I felt when informed of the 
 death of Mr. Goff. It was as the loss of a dear 
 friend. The pamphlet will be kept in grateful 
 remembrance of the dead. Mr. Goff was always 
 a gentleman as well as a scholar; a friend in 
 need, a genial, kind-hearted man, who left his 
 influence upon his scholars. I think I owe my 
 decision to take a college course as much to him 
 as to any one man. He was always speaking of 
 the superior advantages of a college man, whether 
 in business or the professions. I shall always 
 hold him in grateful remembrance." 
 
 A business man in Providence : " My memory 
 60 
 
of Mr. Goff is more of a personal friend than of 
 a teacher. ... I felt his kindly familiar interest 
 in me even after leaving the school, as long as 
 his earthly life continued. ... I think of him as 
 a benefactor to me beyond any other earthly 
 friend." 
 
 Another says : " I heartily indorse everything 
 that has been said concerning the ability and 
 upright character of our beloved teacher. Truly 
 he was a Christian gentleman in the broadest 
 sense, and the world would be much better if 
 there were more men of his integrity and sterling 
 character in it." 
 
 From North Carolina : ** I wish to acknowledge 
 the receipt of the pamphlet issued in remem- 
 brance of my highly esteemed teacher and friend, 
 Charles Bradford Goff. His influence and train- 
 ing I shall hold dear throughout life, and I feel 
 that in his death I have indeed lost a dear 
 friend." 
 
 A Providence man writes : " It was not my 
 good fortune to be under the instruction of Mr. 
 Goff while at the school, but it was my good for- 
 tune to be in his Bible class at church, and I 
 shall always look back at it with a great deal of 
 
 6i 
 
satisfaction ; and I always felt and remarked that 
 while all the teachers of the old school had their 
 admirers, Mr. Goff was loved and respected by 
 all the boys. We have all lost a true friend." 
 
 A successful business man writes : " The ap- 
 preciative words which were spoken during the 
 memorial service a year ago and recorded in this 
 book are singularly heartfelt and well deserved. 
 I shall preserve the work with pleasure, and only 
 wish my own tribute of love and respect could be 
 added to the worthier ones set down there." 
 
 From New York City : " I have read the 
 pamphlet with great interest and no little feeling. 
 Mr. Goff's personal influence was remarkably 
 intense, and his individuality impressed itself 
 strongly upon at least one boy I know who was 
 not very susceptible to good influence of any 
 sort." 
 
 From a New York lawyer : " I value much the 
 copy of * Service in Remembrance of Charles 
 Bradford Goff,' which you so thoughtfully sent 
 me. I have read with pleasure the splendid trib- 
 utes paid to Mr. Goff in this service. He was 
 worthy of them all. He was an ideal teacher, 
 scholarly, kind, sympathetic, and helpful. He 
 
 62 
 
was a lovable man. I shall not forget the genial 
 way in which he greeted me when I became his 
 pupil years ago. All his pupils admired and 
 respected him as a teacher and had an abiding 
 affection for him as a friend. The days I spent 
 with him as one of his scholars I count among 
 the happiest of my life. He will be gratefully 
 remembered as a teacher and friend by all those 
 who had the happy privilege of being his pupils." 
 
 Another from Providence : " Too much could 
 not be said of the affectionate regard in which 
 the memory of Mr. Goff is held by all who knew 
 him. Every boy of his class respected and loved 
 Mr. Goff both as a man and as a teacher. His 
 kindly nature will never be forgotten. I think 
 he held the same position in the regard of his 
 scholars as was held by Professor Lincoln with 
 his pupils." 
 
 From Northern California : " I was not di- 
 rectly brought under the instruction of Mr. Goff 
 while attending your school, yet my recollections 
 of him are of the most pleasant character. From 
 one of my intimate friends in the school I learned 
 many instances of Mr. Goff's ways and methods 
 in the schoolroom and of the high esteem in 
 
 63 
 
which he was held by those who had been under 
 his influence. Only this summer I met a pupil 
 of his who was in the school a short time only, 
 but who spoke of the pleasure he had in meeting 
 Mr. Goff a few years ago. Some of the pleas- 
 antest memories of my life are connected with 
 the hours spent in the old schoolroom — now, as 
 then, under your watchful eye. I can assure you 
 that none of those who have listened to your 
 earnest voice in explanation of the questions 
 brought up in recitation feel more gratitude than 
 I do." 
 
 The following from the British Provinces : " I 
 have read with more than usual interest the ac- 
 count of the service held at the school in his 
 memory. Mr. Goff as a teacher made an impres- 
 sion on me different from any other teacher ex- 
 cepting Professor Lincoln, and I have always 
 considered myself most fortunate in having been 
 under his instruction. He was not only our 
 teacher, but our friend and our companion, who 
 had our highest respect and love." 
 
 The following is from a college professor in 
 Ohio : " The little memorial pamphlet of Mr. Goff 
 came a few days ago. I was very glad to re- 
 
 64 
 
ceive it, and thank you for sending it to me. I 
 think that you know of my great admiration and 
 affection for Mr. Goff. I am very thankful, as I 
 think of him, to remember that I took particular 
 pains every summer that I saw him for a number 
 of years back to tell him how much I owe to 
 him and how grateful I was for it. He did more 
 for me than any other teacher that I ever had, 
 and there is seldom a week passes now that I do 
 not think of him as I do my work in my recita- 
 tion-room. I would have been glad to have been 
 present at the service had it been possible. As 
 long as I teach Greek I shall remember him with 
 grateful pleasure and mention him frequently." 
 
 A Rhode Island business man : " Aside from 
 the impression which he made on me in a serious 
 way, I shall always remember the twinkle in his 
 eye when either he or one of the boys (as we 
 sometimes did) made a little joke. His freedom 
 from the stereotyped schoolmaster's manner was 
 also a thing that always appealed to me, and I 
 always think of him as a scholar and a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 Another writes : "As a student in the old 
 ' Mowry and Goff ' school, I was never under 
 
 65 
 
Mr. Goff 's instruction, as you probably know, and 
 in fact, I was not well acquainted with him. But 
 it would have been impossible to come in contact 
 with him almost every day and not form an esti- 
 mate of the man. It may probably be said that 
 the judgment of young fellows of sixteen or 
 eighteen would not be worth much, but after all 
 I am inclined to think that teachers are * sized 
 up ' by their students with a good deal of accuracy 
 in the long run. I always had a deep respect for 
 Mr. Goff. He impressed me as being a gentle- 
 man in the highest and broadest sense of the 
 term ; a man who influenced the students not so 
 much through fear as by the power of his own 
 example, and their desire to emulate a man whom 
 they so thoroughly liked and respected." 
 
 From Brooklyn, N. Y. : " Very many thanks 
 for the pamphlet received last week. Sorrow for 
 the loss of Mr. Goff and the deep appreciation of 
 his sterling qualities are therein expressed far 
 better than it would be possible for me to do. 
 As I grow older I realize more and more how 
 great was my good fortune in being one of his 
 pupils, and I recall the many happy hours spent 
 in his class-room as the most pleasant and profit- 
 66 
 
able of my life. One of the most valuable lessons 
 learned from him, and one that has been of great 
 value to me in my teaching here at the medical 
 college, is that the way to impart knowledge is by 
 leading, not driving, the student. Surely in his 
 passing from us we have sustained a great loss, 
 and in our sorrow we can but feel that with such 
 true and noble spirits as his the whole mass of 
 mankind is leavened." 
 
 From a well-known clergyman : "I received 
 and have read with pleasure and grief the beau- 
 tiful memorial of my beloved teacher, Mr. Goff . 
 Please accept my deepest gratitude therefor. My 
 recollections of Mr. Goff are of the pleasantest 
 kind. He was easily my greatest teacher up to 
 the time I came under his instruction. His high 
 ideal of a scholar which he held up before his 
 pupils was very stimulating. Nothing but exact 
 work would pass muster with him. His English 
 style was, to my thought, the acme of perfection. 
 His rendering of Vergil was from time to time 
 surprisingly beautiful, and one of the greatest 
 happinesses of my life was the reading of the 
 ^neid under his instruction. I believe that if 
 Mr. Goff had given his attention to literature he 
 
 67 
 
would have made his mark therein. I used to 
 look forward to his week in chapel, and his con- 
 duct of that beautiful service was always a great 
 delight to me. His departure is to me the loss of 
 a very dear friend." 
 
 From Editorial Rooms, Boston : " I thank you 
 for sending me the pamphlet descriptive of the 
 service in memory of Mr. Goff . I am glad to read 
 it and to recall my pleasant recollections of the 
 days when I sat at his feet. His death must be 
 a great loss to you. I can well understand what 
 his companionship must have meant to you and 
 how you must miss it." 
 
 From a college professor in Maine : " It is 
 most fitting and touching throughout, and I am 
 very grateful for it. Mr. Goff contributed to my 
 life one of its strongest formative influences. He 
 held up and exemplified high ideals, both in 
 study and in character, and I recall now exer- 
 cises in Latin composition when his genial hearty 
 nature, without the least apparent effort, lighted 
 up the task with real merriment, yet without loss 
 of scholarly exactness or intellectual or moral 
 earnestness. He always seemed simple, natural, 
 direct, and cheery. How brightly his face would 
 68 
 
light up with smiles ! Yet I think one could well 
 call him a quiet man, whose influence was effect- 
 ive more through what he was than what he said. 
 His life is an inspiration to us all who try to 
 walk in the teacher's holy calling." 
 
 A Rhode Island man says : " I was not able to 
 be present on that occasion and I read the pam- 
 phlet with the greatest interest. It will be twenty 
 years in June since I left Mowry and Goif's 
 school, but the remembrance of Mr. Goff's kind 
 treatment and careful instruction is as fresh now 
 as then, and I trust it will always remain with 
 me." 
 
 From Minnesota : " Please accept my thanks 
 for the pamphlet, memorial of Mr. Goff, which I 
 have read with much satisfaction. The remarks 
 therein beautifully express what I think every 
 pupil of his has felt. His influence did much to 
 form what high ideals of life we each possess, 
 and I look back with the pleasantest memories 
 to the three years' school life under him. Such 
 a teacher, unassuming, able, inspiring, leaves a 
 rich bequest when called hence after forty years' 
 professional work." 
 
 A college professor in the West writes : "Any- 
 
 69 
 
thing that has to do with my old master is always 
 filled with pleasant recollections and even sweet 
 memories. He was a man in ten thousand." 
 
 From a gentleman in Pawtucket : '' I beg leave 
 to acknowledge the receipt of the pamphlet in 
 memory of my former esteemed teacher and 
 friend, Charles Bradford Goff. As the years have 
 gone by since my departure from the school and 
 from among you, many pleasant reminiscences 
 have been brought to mind of recollections and 
 conversations with Mr. Goff and with others who 
 then composed the corps of instructors. Though 
 I have not had the pleasure of meeting my old 
 friends and instructors of the E. and C. school 
 for several years, yet I vividly recall their faces 
 and am always glad to hear from the good work 
 of the school." 
 
 From an undergraduate in college : " I shall 
 always think of Mr. Goff as one who has done 
 more for me than any other man I know. And if 
 there ever was a person who set us young fellows 
 the example of what a true man ought to be, he 
 certainly was the man. His was a life that needed 
 no written memorial to endear him to the hearts 
 of his pupils, but the memory of such a service 
 70 
 
as the one held in the old chapel last year is, it 
 seems to me, most fitting, and will serve to re- 
 mind us often of the man who had an ideal and 
 lived up to it." 
 
 From a Boston business man : " Accept my 
 thanks for your kindness in remembering me with 
 a copy of the service held in memory of my 
 teacher Dr. Goff. Among the many true and 
 good things said of him were some that brought 
 to mind the great good his work in the English 
 and Classical School really accomplished. His 
 teaching and influence will go through life with 
 many of us, and his example cannot but be pro- 
 ductive of an effort, at least, on the part of all of 
 us to make ourselves more useful and better 
 men." 
 
 Another from New York : " I cannot express 
 to you the emotion I had in reading what the 
 speakers had to say in eulogy of this man's life 
 and character. . . . Mr. Goff had a great influ- 
 ence over me during those four years at the 
 school, and I shall never cease to revere his 
 memory for what he did for me in the way of 
 example and teaching." 
 
 From New York City : " I was much pleased 
 
 71 
 
to receive the pamphlet, ' Service in Remembrance 
 of Charles Bradford Goff,' which I read with 
 deep interest. I can heartily indorse the senti- 
 ments expressed therein, and consider myself 
 very fortunate in having had such a noble man 
 as one of my teachers." 
 
 From a Chicago lawyer ; " I beg to acknowl- 
 edge the receipt of the tasteful memorial to the 
 late Mr. Goff. I can cordially say ' Amen ' to 
 all that is there so well said. The influence of 
 his personality and example have made a lasting 
 impression upon my life. I have never had a 
 teacher whose memory-picture is so clear and 
 distinct in my mind to-day as his." 
 
 72 
 
PRINTED AT THE EVERETT PRESS 
 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
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