\j / PROCEEDINGS 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 TOWN HALL, WAYLAND i 
 
 December 24, 1878 
 
 WITH BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF PUBLIC 
 BUILDINGS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 WAYLAND 
 
 PREPARED AxVD PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF THE TOWN 
 
 M D C C C L X X I X 
 
PROCEEDINGS 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 TOWN HALL, WAYLAND 
 
 December 24, 1878 
 
 WITH BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF PUBLIC 
 BUILDINGS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 WAYLAND 
 PREPARED AND PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF THE TOWN 
 
 MDCCCLXXIX 
 
\ k » 
 
 
 Woodward & Lothrop 
 
 ^ Mareli 21 1901. 
 
ORDER OF EXERCISES. 
 
 The Order of Exercises at the Dedication was as 
 follows: — 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 CocHiTUATE Brass Band. 
 INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
 
 Jas. S. Draper, Esq., President of the Day. 
 
 VOCAL MUSIC. 
 By a Sei.ect Choir. 
 
 Delivery of the Keys, by H. B. Braman, Esq., Chairman of 
 
 Building Committee ; Reception of the Same, by 
 
 Dr. C. H. Boodey, Chairman of the Board 
 
 of Selectmen. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 By the Band. 
 
 DEDICATORY PRAYER. 
 
 Rev. E. L. Chase. 
 
 VOCAL MUSIC. 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 Elbridge Smith, Esq., Principal of Dorchester High School, 
 a native of Wayland. 
 
 SINGING. 
 Old Hundred, by the Audience. 
 
 BENEDICTION. 
 Rev. T. A. Merrill. 
 
EXERCISES. 
 
 At the appointed hour for the dedicatory services the 
 seats of the spacious hall were tilled with citizens of 
 Wayland and others interested in the occasion. 
 
 On the platform were seated some of the more ven- 
 erable gentlemen of the town, prominent among whom 
 was the Rev. John B. Wight, whose silvery hairs and 
 benign countenance entitled him to peculiar respect. 
 
 Select music having been performed by the band, the 
 opening address was then delivered by James S. 
 Draper, Esq. 
 
 Fellozv-citizens of Wayland ; Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 The occasion which brings us together so pleasantly to-day 
 has no slight significance in the affairs of this town. The erec- 
 tion of this building, and the construction of the Cochituate 
 Water Works, — begun and carried on with an unusual degree 
 of unanimity in the pubhc voice, — will mark the year 1878 as 
 one of the most important in its history ; while the events them- 
 selves will stand conspicuous on its annals. The one, providing 
 a good supply of pure water, — so suggestive of health, con- 
 venience, the protection of property, and of general pros- 
 perity;— and the other, with its suite of rooms for town 
 officers, its ample apartments for the Public Library, and 
 
this capacious hall for public meetings, — with their several 
 arrangements for convenience, their beauty of design and 
 thoroughness of finish, — must both be classed, not as ephemeral, 
 fanciful results, but as important, substantial, permanent public 
 works. 
 
 Expenditures for such projects may startle the conservative 
 elements, and evoke words of denunciation at their alleged 
 extravagance. But, from another point of view, may it not be 
 asked. Is Wayland doing anything more than keeping her proper 
 place in the grand movements of the hour? Is she not acting 
 in compliance with the principles of universal law, by which all 
 higher civilization is reached, all nobler destiny wrought out? 
 
 To attempt no improvement is equivalent to going backward. 
 To have no aspirations for something higher and better, to be 
 entirely content with present attainments, indicates the near 
 approach to a condition more to be dreaded than death. The 
 individual or the community that fails to seize every golden 
 opportunity to advance personal or social interests, is false to a 
 trust delegated by an authority higher than human. 
 
 Under pressure of such considerations as these, what intense 
 activity prevails at the present time in all departments of human 
 knowledge and pursuit ! With what startling rapidity the Old 
 is supplanted by the New ! 
 
 Where are the implements and tools indispensable to the 
 mechanic and farmer only a few years ago? Laid aside for 
 the better ones of to-day. Where are hosts of utensils for 
 household use that were once the pride of the good housewife? 
 Preserved in her attic as relics ; she has something better for 
 daily use. Where are civil governments and social customs 
 once venerated for their long line of descent or their supposed 
 divine origin? Retired or retiring before the majestic march 
 of enfranchised man. Ask that venerable person, surnamed 
 
Theology, why he so often feels obliged to restate his old 
 dogmas, — to remodel his dress, so to speak, — and, if he tells 
 the truth, his reply will be, "To keep up with the present 
 advanced style of thought, and make a respectable appearance 
 in modern society." 
 
 The daily press of to-morrow will announce projects, discov- 
 eries, inventions, that seem among the impossibilities of to-day. 
 A distinguished journalist declared a few weeks ago that more 
 than a thousand men were at work perfecting the new processes 
 for producing artificial light. And since the comparatively 
 modern way of lighting this halP was contracted for by our ex- 
 cellent Building Committee (whose fidelity to their trust be- 
 speaks our gratitude), the active brains of scientific and inven- 
 tive genius have so far completed new plans as to announce the 
 fact that all the brilliant effects of the electric light can be pro- 
 duced by incandescence only, without the consumption of a 
 particle of charcoal.^ An almost costless illumination. 
 
 Verily, we may almost say this gas is an antiquated affair, 
 and must be consigned to the kitchen to cook our breakfast 
 with until Nature's storehouse is rummaged for something 
 
 better. 
 
 But, to return to sober earnestness, the Great Deific Mind 
 seems to be unlocking the chambers of his treasure-house, and 
 inviting, yes. urging, his intelligent offspring to examine his 
 hitherto secret methods, whereby this grand Cosmos has been 
 evolved from universal chaos. And to observe how the same 
 all-contriving mind and all-executing hand are, even now, in the 
 full tension of their activity. 
 
 At no former time has the human mind reached such sublime 
 
 ' Aerated gas from gasoline. 
 
 ^ By using the charcoal pencils in hermetically sealed vessels filled with pure nitrogen 
 
 gas. 
 
heights of knowledge. At no period have its future destinies 
 been so fully unfolded, and the paths by which those destinies 
 may be reached been so clearly defined. And yet no limit can 
 be fixed, no barrier erected to prevent (scarcely to check, 
 even) the upward and onward course of human thought and 
 human power. If, three centuries ago, a Copernicus received 
 a heretic's doom for disclosing the true movements of half a 
 dozen planets, what should be the fate of the scientists of our 
 day, whose vision pierces to the very " soul of things," and 
 before whom the mighty agencies of the uncounted ages, so 
 utterly inscrutable to the past, now are seen to move in all the 
 harmony of a Divine order? 
 
 Our duty, then, seems plain. IVe must accept the New inevi- 
 tably, if progression and not retrogression be our motto. 
 Accept it with the grumbling protest of the conservative, if 
 that is our highest ideal of propriety, — or with the cheerful 
 gratitude of the pioneer, as we may and ought. Standing ever 
 ready to say farewell to the once fondly cherished, while with 
 equal readiness we welcome the better conditions of the ever 
 freshly opening future. 
 
 In this spirit, we this day pass from the Old to the New, — 
 hopefully,, trustfully, joyously. These walls, planned by archi- 
 tectural science, and now fresh from the skilled hands of artist 
 and artisan, will be our teachers in aesthetic culture. Their 
 purity and harmony will rebuke all vulgar-voiced expression ; 
 and even the floor we tread upon will invite to cleanliness and 
 utter its protest against some habits for the indulgence of 
 . which humanity should blush for very shame. 
 
 Looking back from the position we now occupy to the " Old 
 Hall " across the street, — to its predecessor over the " Green 
 Store," — to the " Old Meeting-house," that did double service 
 beneath the tall sycamore, and to its predecessors in the " Old 
 
Burying-ground," where stood the primitive structure for public 
 use, with its walls of logs and roof of thatch, — all of which 
 served well their day, and are to be remembered with feelings 
 of veneration, for they were the lower leaves of that archi- 
 tectural plant now expanded and flowering in more stately 
 dimensions of beauty above us, — we see what progress has 
 been made during the two centuries and over of our municipal 
 life. 
 
 Is there now a citizen of Wayland who would willingly return 
 to any of these former conditions? Any who would retrace 
 even by a single step the path by which the present has been 
 reached ? If any such anomaly may be found, it may possibly 
 be accounted for on the ground that a very few minds, for- 
 tunately or unfortunately, seem to reach an iiltinia tJiule — a 
 point of " thus far shalt thou go and no farther ; " — in fact, 
 they exhibit some pretty, clearly defined symptoms of being on 
 the verge of fossilization. 
 
 One of the latest writers on our National Government has 
 said: "The good order of society; the protection of our lives 
 and our property; the promotion of religion and learning; 
 the enforcement of statutes, or the upholding of the unwritten 
 laws of just moral restraints, — mainly depend on the wisdom of 
 the inhabitants of townships. Our town officers are, in the 
 aggregate, of more importance than our Congressmen."^ Ac- 
 cepting these sentiments, may we not add, that in providing 
 this structure, where free deliberation, discussion, and action 
 will be accorded to every citizen voter, and from whose 
 apartments specially appropriated to our Free Public Library 
 will flow, as from a perennial fountain, streams of refreshing 
 literature to gladden, instruct, and elevate the individual mem- 
 
 ' H. Seymour, LL.D., in " North American Review" for Sept. — Oct., 1878. 
 
lO 
 
 bers of all our homes, — we have contributed something towards 
 attaining in a higher degree the results enumerated as lying 
 at the basis, not only of our municipal but of our national 
 prosperity. 
 
 The speed of the fleeting years, seemingly accelerated as life 
 advances, admonishes us that our works of to-day, whether 
 wisely or unwisely planned, — whether successfully or unsuc- 
 cessfully carried out, — must soon be transmitted to posterity. 
 In doing this, as one by one we are relieved from duty at these 
 outposts of life for nobler service elsewhere, may we not truly, 
 and with a just sense of pride, say of this edifice, We leave an in- 
 heritance for others worthy of the public spirit of our times. 
 
 After vocal music by a select choir, H. B. Braman, 
 Esq., accompanied the delivery of the keys by the fol- 
 lowing address and statements : — 
 
 Mr. President and Fellow-citizens: — 
 
 As Chairman of the Building Committee it devolves upon 
 me at the present time to submit to you a brief statement of 
 our doings. We received our appointment in Town Meeting 
 Oct. 5, 1877, when it was " Voted, That H. B. Braman, Horace 
 Heard, R. T. Lombard, Thos. J. Damon, and Alfred H. Bry- 
 ant, be a committee with full powers to contract for and super- 
 intend the erection of a Town House in the central part of the 
 town, suitable for Town Meetings, Town Officers, and the Pub- 
 lic Library, at an expense not exceeding ten thousand 
 dollars, to dispose of the present Town House, purchase land, 
 if necessary, and obtain plans and specifications." 
 
 In compliance with the foregoing instructions, the committee 
 invited competitions of architects and received drawings from 
 fourteen well-known artists. 
 
II 
 
 After a careful examination of the different plans submitted, 
 the one made by Mr. Geo. F. Fuller, of Boston, was adopted by 
 the committee. 
 
 As soon as drawings and specifications were prepared by the 
 architect, they were submitted to contractors ; and twenty- 
 three proposals were received from responsible parties, varying 
 in amount from eleven thousand to sixteen thousand five hundred 
 dollars. 
 
 Mr. Wm. B. Stinson, of Maiden, being the lowest, the contract 
 was awarded to him, with a few changes in the plans, for the sum 
 of nine thousand seven hundred dollars. 
 
 The building was commenced early in the month of May, and 
 completed and accepted on the 26th day of October. We 
 have had a constant supervision from its commencement until 
 its completion, and have no hesitation in saying that the con- 
 struction has been most thorough and complete. In the course 
 of erection, very few changes were found necessary ; the only 
 extra expense incurred amounts to seven dollars, making the 
 whole cost of construction, including the architect's commission, 
 ten thousand and thirty-five dollars. 
 
 The contractor, Mr. Wm. B. Stinson, has fulfilled his contract 
 in a faithful and honorable manner, according to the plans and 
 specifications. We bear cheerful testimony to his ability and 
 fidelity, and heartily commend him to any in want of his services. 
 
 We feel that much credit is due to the architect, Mr. Geo. 
 F. Fuller, for the tasteful design and for the very careful 
 preparation of drawings and specifications, thereby enabling 
 the committee to complete the structure without any material 
 alterations of the original plans. The fact that but a few dollars 
 extra expense has been incurred by the committee in the con- 
 struction of this beautiful edifice, is chiefly due to the forethought 
 and skill of the architect. 
 
12 
 
 Mr. Chairman of the Board of Selectmen: — This building, 
 having been completed and accepted by the Building Commit- 
 tee, in their behalf I present to you these keys. The care and 
 responsibility which has rested upon us will now devolve upon 
 you. We have endeavored to carry out the vote of the Town, 
 and feel confident that we have, this day, surrendered to you, 
 the representative of the Town, " a building suitable for Town 
 meetings, Town officers, and the Public Library," — a structure 
 ornamental to our village, and well adapted to the present and 
 prospective wants of the whole community. 
 
 Dr. C. H. BooDEY, on receiving the keys, replied as 
 follows: — 
 Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Building Committee : ^— 
 
 It is with pleasure that I am permitted to thank you for the 
 interest, the good taste, and the sound judgment which you 
 have manifested in selecting and adopting plans for this building, 
 resulting in such convenience of arrangement, and so much 
 artistic beauty; and also for your faithful superintendence of its. 
 construction. 
 
 You may be assured that these valuable services are appre- 
 ciated by the inhabitants of this town, who are ready this day 
 to congratulate you on the successful completion of your labors. 
 
 In their name and behalf I accept these keys, trusting, as the 
 edifice now passes into the custody of the public, that it will ever 
 be held sacred for all proper uses, and especially for the free 
 exercise of the Elective Franchise, — that sovereign right by 
 which the enjoyment of all other rights of citizenship is assured. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, let it ever be regarded as our privilege, as it 
 will be our duty, so to use this building that our every act 
 within its walls may adorn our individual lives as its architect- 
 ural appearance beautifies this village. 
 
^3 
 
 Following a performance by the band, Rev. E. S. 
 Chase offered the Dedicatory Prayer. After a selection 
 by the choir, the Dedicatory Address was delivered, as 
 follows : — 
 
 DEDICATORY ADDRESS 
 
 By Elbridge Smith, Esq., A.M. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: — 
 
 The occasion which calls us together prescribes to me the 
 subject of my address ; and that subject is so broad and invit- 
 ing, that I shall waste no words in apology or introduction. I 
 was, I confess, inclined to criticise your choice of a speaker for 
 this occasion ; but I concluded that if you had erred in your 
 selection, I had more inexcusably erred in my acceptance ; and 
 that it ill became me to question the correctness of a judg- 
 ment which I had the best possible means of correcting. Many 
 a friend of my boyhood would have brought you a clearer head, 
 but none, I maintain, would have brought you a warmer heart. 
 You have come, I trust, in the full exercise of that charity that 
 suffereth long and is kind, and will excuse a freer use of the 
 first personal pronoun than the canons of a strict criticism would 
 sanction. 
 
 Those of you whose privilege it has been to live from child- 
 hood to manhood, and even to old age, amid the scenery of this 
 dear old town, little understand, I imagine, the fond enthusiasm 
 that swells in the breasts of those who return to these scenes 
 ■of their childhood from other and distant fields of toil and 
 ■duty. 
 
 On the eve of your first centennial, ninety-nine years since 
 your separate corporate existence began, you throw open for 
 public convenience these ample apartments. It is well that you 
 
H 
 
 signalize this event by a formal act of dedication. The event 
 will mark an era in your social and civil history. It means 
 that the town has outgrown its previous accommodations, and 
 that its municipal, intellectual, and social life has taken a wider 
 range. It is not often the case that the outward marks of prog- 
 ress for a century can be so distinctly traced as can now be done 
 in this beautiful country village. At the beginning of your cor- 
 porate life, and for nearly forty years afterwards, our fathers felt 
 no need of a town-house save what they found in their meeting- 
 house. Their religious, military, and civil life was so blended 
 that they felt no incongruity in voting their taxes, laying out 
 their highways, marshalling their trainbands, and, in fact, order- 
 ing their whole secular life where they met to worship God. 
 The meeting-house was the armory and the magazine, not only 
 of their spiritual but of their temporal warfare. The exhorta- 
 tion of the great Cromwell, "Trust in the Lord and keep your 
 powder dry," sunk deep into the Puritan heart. The Puritan 
 churches were literally as well as figuratively militant. 
 
 The meeting-house of a hundred years ago, in which the first 
 town-meetings of East Sudbury were held, still stands in a modi- 
 fied form beside its more imposing successor. When the present 
 meeting-house of the first parish was built, it was rightly judged 
 too nice for the stirring and sometimes tumultuous scenes which 
 characterized the town-meeting. The old meeting-house was 
 transformed into the town-hall, which, for twenty-five years, was 
 found sufficient for the varied municipal, secular, and social 
 wants of the town. The town-hall, however, had a pretty active 
 rival on the opposite side of the brook. The tavern-hall had 
 certain conveniences and attractions which the town-hall could 
 not boast; and the successive landlords had little hesitation, and 
 suffered no loss, in showing a generous hospitality to the lyceum, 
 to the dancing-school, to the private grammar-school, the sci- 
 entific or popular lecture, and sometimes to the justice court. 
 
15 
 
 Meanwhile, the centre school-house had served nearly two gen- 
 erations, and was beginning to feel the infirmities of age. A 
 new school-house must be built, and the occasion was a favor- 
 able one for the erection of a larger building, which should at 
 once accommodate the district and the town. And there was 
 soon made provision for a public library which was destined to 
 achieve so honorable a distinction as to give the free public 
 library to the State, and become a great example to the 
 nation. 
 
 It would be most grateful to my own feelings to pause here and 
 notice at some length the events and the characters with which 
 these structures are associated, and give utterance to the thoughts 
 which they suggest to the mind. I would gladly dwell upon 
 the old meeting-house, — the meeting-house of the revolution, — 
 which I never saw in its primitive form, but which I so thoroughly 
 learned by tradition that I feel scarcely less acquainted with it 
 than with that to which I was led to worship in my childhood. 
 Built by loyal subjects of the house of Hanover, in its devotions 
 were often heard supplications for the success of our colonial 
 arms at Louisburg and in the West Indies, on the St. Lawrence, 
 on the Ohio, at Ticonderoga, and Crown Point, and devout thanks- 
 givings for victories at Dettingen, at Cape Breton, at Minden, at 
 Quebec, at Saratoga, and Yorktown. Its pulpit did its full share 
 in training its congregation for the almost ceaseless conflicts with 
 the mother country, through which the colonies passed during 
 the last century. Fain would I notice the long pastorate of 
 the Rev. Josiah Bridge, whose descendants in the last generation 
 were so conspicuous in your social and civil life. Born in 
 Lexington, and trained, in his youth, under the ministries of 
 the Revs. John Hancock and Jonas Clarke, with two of his 
 near kinsmen in Capt. Parker's company, we may well suppose 
 that the east parish of Sudbury heard no uncertain sound from 
 their spiritual watchman when the sword came on the land in 
 
i6 
 
 the earlier years of his ministry. I would glance at the much 
 briefer ministry of the Rev. Joel Foster, in a period of even 
 greater bitterness in political controversy and of scarcely less 
 moment in our national history. 
 
 I would gladly follow the old meeting-house across the brook, 
 after it had resigned the care of the church, which it sheltered 
 for almost a century, there still to show its fondness for the 
 town. Its stout timbers of sturdy oak, so thoroughly seasoned 
 by the stern Calvinism of the Rev. Israel Loring, and the milder 
 theology of the Rev. William Cooke, by discussions on the 
 Stamp Act and the Boston Port Bill, would take no alarm from 
 the vociferous debates on questions of local policy ; and it was 
 in no spirit of jealousy or schism that it welcomed back some 
 portion of its former spiritual charge, and felt its young life 
 renewed by the eloquence of that son of thunder, Lyman 
 Beecher. I would gladly venture, with reverent steps, upon still 
 more sacred ground, and recall scenes still fresh in the memories 
 of some who hear me. I would take you with me upon some 
 summer Sabbath morning to the first parish meeting-house, 
 then in the freshness and beauty of its youth ; and, after a long 
 walk beneath the burning sun, we would pause for a moment 
 in the delicious shade of its northern front, and climb the iron 
 balustrade to enjoy the cool north-western breeze until the pastor 
 should arrive. From the farm, the street, the plain, the Concord 
 and the South roads, the devout worshippers are rapidly assem- 
 bling. The horses come up the gentle slope at a smart trot, and 
 after discharging their precious freight, the matrons and maidens 
 of the parish, retire silently across the beautiful green carpet to 
 the sheds in the rear. The leading men of the town exchange 
 their cordial weekly greetings in the porch or on the steps ; the 
 silver tones of the tolling bell, mingling with the radiance and 
 stillness of the hour, diffuse a pleasing serenity over the scene, 
 and raise the soul to that rapture of emotion — that divinest 
 
17 
 
 melancholy of which Milton speaks — and though not the essence 
 of worship, is its essential preparative. 
 
 I would point you to the loved and loving pastor, then in the 
 prime of his virtuous manhood (whose gray hairs and venerable 
 form on the verge of fourscore and ten are our pride and delight 
 here to-day), entering the meeting-house with that benignity and 
 courtesy which were in themselves an educating force. I would 
 have you see him pass up the broad aisle and climb the long 
 winding pulpit stairs, robed in that surplice of flowing silk in 
 which the ladies of the town had clothed the pastor that they 
 loved. I would have you listen with the ears of childhood to 
 the invocation, to tiie reading of the Ninteenth Psalm in the 
 good old Saxon of King James, and to the singing of the same 
 in the metrical version of Dr. Watts : " The heavens declare the 
 glory of God and the firmament showeth his handy work. Day 
 unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowl- 
 edge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not 
 heard. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is 
 as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoiceth as a 
 strong man to run a race. The law of the Lord is perfect 
 converting the soul ; the testimony of the Lord is sure making 
 wise the simple. Who can understand his errors, cleanse thou 
 me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from 
 presumptuous sins. Let the words of my mouth and the 
 meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord 
 my strength and my Redeemer." 
 
 Behold, the morning sun 
 
 Begins his glorious way; 
 His beams through all the nations run 
 
 And life and light convey. 
 But where the Gospel comes 
 
 It spreads diviner light; 
 It calls dead sinners from their tombs 
 
 And gives the blind their sight. 
 
i8 
 
 My gracious God, how plain 
 
 Are thy directions given ! 
 Oh, may I never read in vain. 
 
 But find the path to heaven. 
 
 I have attended, not without interest, the imposing service of 
 vast cathedrals, in which were combined all the influences that 
 attract the eye or charm the ear. I have heard 
 
 the pealing organ blow 
 To the full-voiced choir below 
 In service high and anthems clear. 
 
 I have seen ecclesiastical dignitaries arrayed in all the splen- 
 dors of sacerdotal power ; but in the simple, sincere, and artless 
 worship of yonder meeting-house there was an impressiveness 
 and a sanctity which conflicting creeds and scholastic dogmas 
 have never been able to eff'ace. And so, with Mr. Emerson, 
 
 I love the venerable house 
 Our fathers built to God. 
 
 There holy thoughts a light have shed 
 
 From many a radiant face, 
 And prayers of tender hope have spread 
 
 A perfume through the place. 
 
 From humble tenements around 
 
 Came up the pensive train 
 And in the church a blessing found 
 
 That filled their homes again. 
 
 They dwell with God, their homes are dust, 
 
 But there their children pray, 
 And in this fleeting lifetime trust 
 
 To find the narrow way. 
 
 I would take you to the Lyceum of forty years ago ; but you 
 must pause a moment ere you cross the threshold, and lay aside 
 all your sectarian robes and theological phylacteries ; neither 
 Unitarian nor Trinitarian nor Baptist nor Methodist can enter 
 here. You must go as the conflicting states of ancient Greece 
 
19 
 
 went up to their Olympia, under strict bonds of religious and 
 political neutrality. You should listen to the lectures, and de- 
 bates, and the essays, and learn that the Lyceum of to-day, with 
 its intinerant lecturer with his pompous rhetoric and sensational 
 eloquence, is far inferior, as an educator, to the original Lyceum 
 as it came from the pure mind and heart of Josiah Holbrook, 
 and in which were trained so many effective speakers and de- 
 baters, in which so many mature minds gained broader views, 
 and so many young minds first felt the thirst for knowledge. It 
 was in the Lyceum of the adjoining town that a young shoe- 
 maker began a career that ended in the Vice-Presidency of the 
 United States. 
 
 I would take you into the district school-houses, those brick 
 martello towers which used to dot our cross-roads and hillsides. 
 You should there see the barefooted infantry just beginning to 
 learn 
 
 How hard it is to climb the steep 
 Where Fame's proud temple shines afar. 
 
 Those little urchins and bright-eyed misses look as shy and 
 wary as the young partridges in the neighboring thickets. But 
 when they take the floor you shall see no skulking nor timidity. 
 In the flash of their eyes, the smile of their countenances, and 
 the clear ring of their voices, sending forth their words like 
 pistol-shots, you would find a promise to be realized in all the 
 fair fields of manly and womanly achievement. That boy at 
 the head, with a ten-cent piece hung from his neck, is the intel- 
 lectual bellwether of the class. In a few years you will be very 
 likely to see him at the Cambridge Commencement, in his Ox- 
 ford cap and gown, delivering the valedictory or salutatory. I 
 would by all means have you there on committee day. You. 
 would find that the school-house had been most thoroughly 
 
20 
 
 swept, washed, and garnished the preceding evening from turret 
 to foundation-stone. Plentiful supplies of pine, hemlock, and 
 evergreen have been plundered from the adjoining woods. Any 
 want of taste in the arrangement is more than compensated by 
 the abundance of the supply of the raw material. The teacher's 
 work is light to-day. Sometime before the regular hour, all the 
 scholars, in their best attire, are in their seats; the parents have 
 gathered and filled all the vacant space, and all is hushed 
 awaiting a crisis. Those scholars in District No. 4 are resolved 
 not to be outdone in conduct or scholarship by those of Nos. i, 
 2, 3, 5, or 6. That girl who sits near the window, and can com- 
 mand a view of the road, is the sentinel of the occasion. She is 
 very studious, but she will do what girls so well know how to 
 do, — she will keep watch of the road. At last her countenance 
 proclaims by a gentle flush and a glance of the eye that the 
 committee have arrived. In a moment a rap is heard at the 
 door. The master opens it, and the scholars all arise and remain 
 standing until the committee are seated. In a moment the grand 
 review begins in the old Roman fashion, with the skirmishing of 
 the light troops — the a-b-c-darians ; and then the classes pro- 
 ceed in long array from the alphabet to Blair's Rhetoric, from the 
 multiplication table to the profound mysteries of single and 
 double position, from the punctuation to the canons of Aristotle ; 
 from the a-b abs to the concert spelling of the long sesquipeda 
 lian words ; from the primer to the tale of Troy divine ; from the 
 calling of Abraham to the Declaration of Independence, until 
 the committee, wearied and amazed that so small heads can 
 carry so much knowledge, kindly remark, " That is sufficient." 
 
 Clatidite jam vivos, piieri ; sat prata biberwit. 
 
 Meanwhile, the writing-books and manuscripts are passed 
 round for examination ; specimens of map-drawing are exhibited, 
 
21 
 
 and some samplers display the skill of cunning fingers and record 
 the family history. The evening shadows have become too deep 
 for continued work, and in the dim religious twilight you may 
 listen for a moment to words of wisdom, warning, and encour- 
 agement from lips of gentleness and grace, and the scene will 
 close with prayer from one whose reverent demeanor and con- 
 sistent life will give double sway to his utterance. 
 
 I would most gladly continue to trace these threads of thrill- 
 ing, sad, humorous, and pleasing reminiscence. I would trace 
 them to the riverside and to the fireside, to hill and valley, to 
 field and grove, to streamlet and stream ; but the occasion 
 demands a more serious word and more directly suited to the 
 time and place. 
 
 Why has this building been reared? Why, in times called 
 hard, have you esteemed this structure not a luxury, not a con- 
 venience merely, but a necessity? What is its real civil and 
 political significance? It has been built by no party; it is 
 appropriated to no sect. The man who pays only his poll-tax 
 owns as much of this building as your wealthiest citizen. 
 Such a building is hardly required out of New England. Had 
 you a fine old feudal castle with its towers and battlements, 
 its hall and bower, its moat and drawbridge, upon the top of 
 Reeves's hill, you would never have needed this town-house, or 
 I should rather say you might never have felt its need. Had 
 our fathers maintained their loyalty to his most gracious maj- 
 esty beyond the sea, we might even now be sharing with our 
 Canadian brethren all the honors that flow from the presence 
 of a royal princess. Had they Been willing to give up their 
 town-meeting, and drop all meddling with questions of State 
 policy, you would never have been inclined to add this orna- 
 ment to your village. But they had a very profound impres- 
 sion that they knew their own business best, and that no one 
 
22 
 
 should do for them what they could do for themselves. You 
 have and need a town-house, then, for the very simple reason 
 that you are in the habit of holding town-meetings. 
 
 We are but just beginning to learn the greatness of a town 
 government. It was a great French publicist, who came among 
 us more than forty years ago, and taught us the real significance 
 and greatness of the town organization and the town-meeting. 
 Whence came the New England' town? What Lycurgus or 
 Solon, what Bacon or Locke, what seven wise men, what con- 
 clave or synod, laid down the laws which have so completely 
 harmonized conflicting interests and welded into one glowing 
 and fervid body politic the secular and religious forces which 
 have so often sundered states and empires? The New England 
 town-meeting was a growth, not a creation. No lawgiver 
 devised and balanced its framework. Its several elements 
 appeared as the occasion demanded. Its executive feature — the 
 Board of Selectmen — may be clearly traced to its source in the 
 meeting of the freeholders of Dorchester on the eighth of 
 Oct., 1633. "It is ordered that for the general good and well 
 ordering of the affairs of the plantation, there shall be every 
 Monday before the Court, by 8 o'clock A.M., and presently by 
 the beating of the drum, a general meeting of the inhabitants of 
 the plantation at the meeting-house, there to settle and set down 
 such orders as may tend to the general good as aforesaid, and 
 every man to be bound thereby without gainsaying or resist- 
 ance. It is also agreed that there shall be twelve men 
 selected out of the company, that may, or the greatest part of 
 them, meet as aforesaid to determine as aforesaid ; yet so far 
 as it is desired that the most of the plantation will keep the 
 meeting constantly, and all that are there, though not of the 
 twelve, shall have a free voice as any of the twelve, and that the 
 greater vote, both of the twelve and the other, shall be of force 
 
23 
 
 and efficacy as aforesaid. And it is likewise ordered, that all 
 things concluded as aforesaid shall stand in force and be obeyed 
 until the next monthly meeting, and afterwards if it be not con- 
 tradicted and otherwise ordered at said monthly meeting by the 
 greatest vote of those that are present as aforesaid." 
 
 This vote, but a temporary arrangement at the time, was 
 adopted the next year by Watertown, and in the year following 
 by Charlestown. It was little thought by the earnest freemen of 
 that meeting that they had founded a prime feature in a civil 
 institution which, at the distance of two centuries and a quarter, 
 should guide the destinies of nearly fifteen hundred municipal- 
 ities in New England, and, in a modified form, should have carried 
 civilization across the continent. This form of town government, 
 little different from what we see to-day, was approved and per- 
 fected by the General Court in 1636, and soon extended to the 
 other colonies, — Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, — and 
 in ten years, at the time of the formation of the New England 
 Confederacy, there were forty-nine distinct townships. Think for 
 a moment upon their relative importance to the world's progress 
 and civilization, or, as our Darwinian friends would say, consider 
 their environment. 
 
 It was an important era in the history of this town. It 
 was the year in which John Rutter built your first meeting- 
 house for six pounds (and his name is a guarantee that he 
 did the work well ; and it seems worthy of mention that it 
 was, as I suppose, a descendant of his — Gen. Micah Maynard 
 Rutter — who was chairman of the committee who built the last 
 church built by the town). It was the year in which Louis 
 XIV. came to the throne of France, and began the longest 
 reign in European history ; it was the year in which the French 
 began to colonize South America ; it was the year in which 
 Conde won the battle of Rocroi ; it was the year in which these 
 
24 
 
 settlers in Sudbury were saddened by the news of the deaths 
 of Hampden and Pym. (They probably did not hear that a 
 cousin of Hampden's was enlisting and drilling a regiment of 
 horse ; they will hear of them the next year at Marston Moor, 
 and the year following at Naseby.) Charles I. was fighting his 
 parliament; Germany was in the last agonies of the thirty years' 
 war; Lutheran, Calvinist, and Romanist will soon agree at 
 Westphalia to live and let live in matters of conscience. 
 Galileo has just died ; Isaac Newton is one year old ; Descartes 
 is busy with his vortices and analysis ; Kepler will soon lay down 
 the laws of planetary motion. These are some of the salient 
 points in the political, religious, and scientific worlds. Absolut- 
 ism is in the ascendant, and democracy, shielded by three thou- 
 sand miles of ocean, unnoticed and scarcely known, is learning 
 to debate civil and religious questions freely, to respect the 
 will of the majority in town-meeting, to bow reverently to the 
 verdict of a jury and the decisions of a magistrate. 
 
 These settlers in Sudbury, occupying one of the outposts of civ- 
 ilized life, gazed westward across their little Mississippi (in whose 
 spring-tide they saw no unworthy compeer of the Great Father 
 of Waters) upon a continent vast, unexplored, and uncultivated, 
 the home of savage beasts and of more savage men. Its in- 
 land seas had been unvisited ; its rivers flowed in unappreciated 
 beauty and magnificence to distant and undiscovered oceans ; 
 
 its continuous woods, 
 
 Where rolled the Oregon, and heard no sound 
 Save his own dashings, 
 
 waved over solemn and awful solitudes ; its boundless prairies 
 were deepening their dark rich mould and affording a paradise 
 for the buffalo and the antelope ; its cataracts, its Niagaras and 
 Yosemites, wasted their thunders on the desert air. It is true 
 
25 
 
 that the great valley had been the abode of something like a 
 civilization, but its Cyclopean remains, stretching from the lakes 
 to the isthmus, undiscovered then, even now serve rather to 
 deepen and intensify the mysteries which enshroud a country 
 where man has been, but has ceased to be, than to bring it 
 within the range of human sympathies, associations, and tradi- 
 tions. 
 
 The wilderness immediately around them was filled with real 
 and imaginary horrors. Both the flora and the fauna were new 
 and strange. The esculent vegetation was unknown or but 
 sparingly and suspiciously tasted. The river and its numerous 
 tributaries furnished many a delicious meal to appetites that 
 had been strengthened by toil and sharpened by scarcity. The 
 woods, with their stout growth of timber, oak, pine, and hemlock, 
 and the thickets, sometimes almost impenetrable, were peopled 
 by reptiles more dreaded than the wolf and the wildcat. When 
 we contemplate these colonists in their log-huts, cut off from 
 all communication with the old abodes of civilization, just 
 fringing the eastern coastline of this vast continent, our feelings 
 vibrate between admiration and pity. It is hard to see how 
 any theory of " natural election," or "survival of the fittest," or 
 " power without us tending to righteousness," can satisfy all the 
 conditions of the problem. We rise instinctively above the 
 range of second causes and natural laws, and find repose only 
 in the sublime faith which filled and fired their souls. We leave 
 them for a few moments with their Bible, their meeting-house, 
 and their town-meeting. 
 
 Turn now to the very focus and centre of the world's culture, 
 wealth, and power. In the year 1643, as I have already stated, 
 the very year in which the forty-nine hamlets in New England 
 had united in a common league against the wilderness and its 
 savage tenants, Louis XIV. ascended the throne of France. 
 
26 
 
 That throne was reared upon trophies which had been accumu- 
 latyig during sixteen centuries. JuHus Csesar, Clovis, Charles 
 Martel, Charlemagne, had each in his turn contributed to its 
 strength. Overrun by the Roman legions, France received 
 language, laws, and institutions from her conquerors, and early 
 took her place at the head of the march of European civiliza- 
 tion. She led the van in the Holy War, which, for more than 
 two centuries, enlisted the enterprise and the fanaticism of Eu- 
 rope for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and she received 
 in return her full share of the benefits and the curses re- 
 sulting from those expeditions. The genius of Richelieu had 
 contrived, that, while Spain, Germany, and Holland had been 
 prostrated by thirty years of war, France should derive all the 
 real advantages resulting from the conflict. 
 
 It is not, however, to coincidence of time merely, but rather to 
 the absolute contrast in civil and political procedure, — the im- 
 posing array of rank, power, and precedent on the one side, and 
 the utter absence of them on the other, — to which I desire to 
 direct your attention. It is from these positive and negative 
 theories of government, as illustrated in French and American 
 history, — the theory of absolute monarchy and of absolute 
 democracy, — that I think we may gather instruction suited to 
 this time and place. Louis XIV. announced his theory of gov- 
 ernment in that celebrated saying, which has passed into proverb, 
 " I AM THE State." And for a time that concise theory seemed 
 triumphantly successful. Europe had never seen such display. 
 The proconsuls and Caesars in their three hundred triuriiphs, 
 their arches and their amphitheatres, had far less of real grandeur 
 than was seen in the magnificence of Versailles, Marly, and 
 Paris. In all the great departments of human action, in the arts 
 of peace or war, in literature, in science, — everything that can 
 fire the imagination or please the fancy, — the court of the 
 
2-7 
 
 grand monarch attained a distinction that awakened no less 
 alarm than admiration. 
 
 Vauban carried the science of attack and defence to the 
 highest perfection — reared or repaired three hundred citadels* 
 directed fifty-three sieges, and was present in one hundred and 
 forty-three battles. In the Cabinet there were names of equaj 
 distinction. In the Church, Massillon, Bourdaloue, and Bossuet 
 reached the summit of pulpit eloquence, while Fenelon eclipsed 
 them all, not indeed in the finish and force of his periods, but in 
 that higher eloquence of life and power of character which made 
 Louis, as centuries before it had made Felix, tremble. Cassini 
 and Pascal taught science ; Perrault built the Louvre; Mansard 
 gave new architectural glories to Paris ; Lebrun and Poissin 
 painted ; Racine and Corneille wrote tragedy, and Moliere com- 
 edy. Nor w^as the ambition of Louis confined to the Old World- 
 The time was when his rule seemed as firmly established from 
 the mouth of the St. Lawrence, along the lakes and down the 
 valley to the mouth of the Mississippi, as from the Seine to the 
 Loire. For some years the Mississippi bore the name Colbert, 
 in honor of his great minister, and Louisiana still retains the 
 name which Lasalle gave it to express his loyalty to his sover- 
 eign ; and the patron saint of France has given name to that 
 great city whose geographical position seems to mark it for 
 the future capital of the nation. 
 
 " The heir of all ages foremost in the files of time," there stood 
 Old France, threatening the liberties of Europe, conquering by 
 her arms or corrupting by her gold. New France, or France in 
 America, held by unquestioned claims territories equal to all 
 Europe, — territories extending from tropical heat to polar cold. 
 Spain and Portugal divided between them the rest of the conti- 
 nent, with the exception of the coastline occupied by colonies 
 from England. As Spain, France, and Portugal were foremost 
 
28 
 
 in the work of discovery, so were they also in attempts at the 
 work of colonization. Old Europe was thus to be transferred 
 to the New World. Castilian pride and French culture with 
 feudal notions of government, English pluck and manhood, in 
 its Puritan form, were placed upon this great theatre to struggle 
 for its mastery under their respective forms of civil and religious 
 polity. New Spain wa? organized indolence ; New France was a 
 modified feudalism ; and New England was organized industry, 
 thrift, and enterprise. Which shall win the continent? 
 
 The New England, to all outward appearance, is greatly sur- 
 passed by the new^ France and the new Spain. She has left her 
 loved island-home with no parental blessing, but v/ith the foul 
 stain of non-conformity in religion and disloyalty in politics. 
 She occupies byt a strip of territory, but she starts with the 
 TOWN-MEETING. With no abstract theories of government, and 
 no great affection for dynasties or nobilities, these sturdy Britons 
 legislated for each emergency as it arose. All questions of 
 boundary, of equity, taxation, religion, and magistracy were dis- 
 cussed and settled by the whole body of freemen. When the 
 labor became too great, and the meetings too frequent, and, we 
 may suppose, the debates too protracted, they followed the 
 Mosaic injunction, and selected wise men, who were to hear the 
 cause that was too hard, and decide it with the right of appeal 
 to the town. And so in five years from the arrival of the first 
 settlers of Salem, Dorchester, Boston, and Charlestown, we find 
 all the essential elements of a town government as it now exists 
 in New England, and w^here it has become the wonder and 
 admiration of the civilized world. If you will spread out before 
 you a map of North America, and, without the least reference to 
 political organization, mark with intelligent care those portions 
 in which the great ends of human society have been most com- 
 pletely attained, where life, liberty, and property have been 
 
29 
 
 the most abundant and at the same time the most sacred, and 
 where intellect has put forth in its richest luxuriance, you will 
 find, when your work is complete, that you have marked with 
 reniarkable accuracy the habitat of the town-meeting ; you will 
 find that you have included those divisions where the rights of 
 majorities and minorities are both regarded ; where the verdict 
 of a jury is respected because it is honest and intelligent; and 
 where all bow with respectful submission to the decision of a 
 judge, because they know that judge cannot be bought. Nor is 
 it difficult, I apprehend, to find the secrets of this strange power 
 which resides in the town organization. It recognizes the rights 
 of the humblest, and it cowers not in the presence of the wealth- 
 iest and most powerful. 
 
 It is worthy of remark how early the tenderest regard for the 
 rights of all became manifest. I find in the early history of 
 Dorchester that any man, though not a freeman, was allowed to 
 attend town-meeting and lay before the town any grievance, and 
 in an orderly manner to ask for redress. As its. great aim was 
 to protect the persons and property of all, so it presented a 
 strong stimulus to the minds of all, and thus became an educat- 
 ing force of the highest order. The numberless questions aris- 
 ing in their new relations, — questions of education and religion, 
 of boundary, territory, and highway; questions of subsistence 
 for the passing hour, and questions of well-being when the 
 heavens and earth should have passed away, — all these were 
 pressed upon the mind of the New England colonists with an 
 urgency from which there was no escape. The tough problems 
 of their secular life, and the tougher problems of their the- 
 ology, allowed no sluggishness of spirit, no indolence of body 
 or mind. And when they gathered in town-meeting, discussion 
 became a relief to minds burdened with thought, and interchange 
 of opinions taught them to respect conflicting views, and to yield 
 
30 
 
 in form, if not in feeling, to the vote of the majority. Nor did 
 their debates cease in the town-meeting ; they were adjourned 
 to the field and the fireside. The cheerful circle of neighbors, 
 gathered by chance or by invitation around the winter fire, or 
 in the sheltering shade from summer heat, discussed the articles 
 of the town-warrant, and anticipated or supplemented the action 
 of the town-meeting. And this process of education you will 
 readily perceive extended to all ages and conditions. The child 
 of tender years shared its influence and partook of its power; 
 maidens and matrons, with no right of suffrage recognized by 
 law, not unfrequently directed that sufi'rage by a higher law than 
 legislators and lawgivers can ordain or revoke. And so, with 
 diversities of manners sometimes strongly marked, there grew up 
 a unity of aim and spirit which had more than the force of a 
 great central power. These little independent states, or nations, 
 as they have been termed, have grown up side by side, have 
 been multiplied, divided, and subdivided to the round number 
 of fifteen hundred without shedding one drop of blood in 
 civil strife, and without one conflict of interest which could not 
 be settled in the supreme or General Court. Questions which 
 have shaken the very pillars of continental Europe, and let loose 
 the havoc of war from Cadiz to Archangel, from the Dardanelles 
 to the Orkneys, have been settled by a vote in town-meeting by 
 twelve men in a jury-box, or by a few calm words from the 
 chief justice of the supreme court. The central force around 
 which these communities have crystallized has been the toivn- 
 meeting. 
 
 The religious controversies of New England, bitter though 
 they have sometimes been, have never shaken the deep and 
 solid foundations of the town- meeting polity. It is true that 
 church and state have been separated, parishes have been sun- 
 dered, families have been divided, but these changes, unlike 
 
31 
 
 similar ones in the old world, have kindled no Smithfield fires, 
 nor left behind them the blackened and smouldering ruins of 
 whole cities to mark their career of desolation. Our fathers, 
 and some of us now present, have differed about the strait and 
 narrow way that leadeth unto life, but we have travelled in per- 
 fect harmony the rugged highways that lead us to the school- 
 house and the meeting-house. We have not always sat around 
 the same communion table, but we have always used precisely 
 the same multiplication table; and so the school — the great bul- 
 wark reared by the fathers against Satan — has remained beloved 
 and inviolate. The people of Old Sudbury have once and again 
 divided their territory, but they all still retain the same govern- 
 ment. The original town acknowledged, nay was proud of its 
 loyalty to Charles Stuart ; it was even more loyal to the Com- 
 monwealth and its great Protector; it returned to the Stuarts; it 
 shook off the tyranny of James II. ; it welcomed the Prince of 
 Orange, and was ardently devoted to the House of Brunswick ; it 
 defied George III. ; it adhered to the Provincial and Continental 
 Congresses ; it upheld the Confederation, and for ninety years has 
 been true to the Federal Constitution. Changes of dynasty, 
 revolutions and reconstructions, have left your succession of 
 boards of selectmen more peaceful and perfect than was that of 
 the Pharaohs or Caesars. Nor is this all : the town-meeting has 
 been the special object of royal displeasure. James II. ordered 
 its discontinuance; George III. obtained with supreme satisfac- 
 tion from his parliament an act abolishing town-meetings in 
 Massachusetts. Abolish town-meetings ! Why did he not abol- 
 ish the Gulf Stream, and stay the ebb and flow of the tide in 
 Boston Harbor? And so this form of government proceeding 
 from the people, carried on by the people for the people, has 
 been the adamantine foundation upon which your higher polit- 
 ical structures have been reared ; your legislatures, your courts, 
 
32 
 
 your county commissions, your city charters, all rest upon the 
 primitive granite of the town. The " stars and stripes " do not 
 float from the summit of Beacon Hill in Boston on the first 
 Monday in March. Governor and councillor, senator and 
 representative, from Barnstable to Berkshire, presume not to sit 
 in council while the sovereigns to whom they owe allegiance are 
 holding court at the town-house. Once only in our history has 
 there been the semblance of domestic violence ; but even that 
 was not directed against the towns ; it was aimed at the courts 
 and the Legislature. I do not justify it, but I cannot wonder 
 at it. 
 
 When I have stood upon the summit or slopes of Reeves's Hill, 
 which command the river view from Beaver Hole to Sherman's 
 Bridge, and gazed upon one of the fairest scenes in Middlesex, — 
 fields clothed in the richest luxuriance of Ceres' golden reign, 
 melting into the meadows at one time clinging close to the 
 river banks, and then widening into the broad expanse of 
 Sweetham and Landham ; the causeways with their willow-tufted 
 banks ; the river creeping on its silver-winding way ; the farm 
 with its fertile and fruitful acres, its giant oaks, its historic elms 
 with their pendent branches waving gracefully in the breeze ; the 
 cattle reposing beneath their shade, or grazing on the green- 
 sward, 
 
 Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood 
 Arrayed in living green; 
 
 the copses and the thickets ; the woods rising in grandeur around 
 the cultivated plain, with Nobscut, Green, and Goodman's Hills 
 in the immediate background, and Wachusett, Monadnock, and 
 Chicorua in the horizon, rearing their Atlantean summits against 
 the sky, — when I have seen these meadows, intended by boun- 
 teous Heaven for the sustenance of your flocks and herds, con- 
 
33 
 
 verted into a millpond or pestilential marsh, and reflected that 
 for two centuries you have been denied relief in the county and 
 General Courts, and that all this has been borne without one act of 
 violence, — I realize the truth of what De Tocqueville said when 
 he affirmed that nowhere in the world is the authority of law so 
 absolute as in America. And I may be allowed to add that 
 you seem to me to have carried your obedience close to 
 that point where it ceases to be a virtue. May we not hope 
 that this part of our fair domain shall yet be redeemed. When 
 Boston shall have taken from the head-waters of the river all 
 she needs for her health, cleanliness, and adornment ; when im- 
 proved drainage, dredging, and engineering shall have cleared 
 the stream ; when Miss Hosmer and Mr. Gary shall complete their 
 magnetic motors, which they promise us shall work so much 
 cheaper than water, may we not hope that our river shall be 
 allowed to flow unobstructed to the sea, and be no longer (to 
 use the emphatic language of one of your citizens) " dammed 
 at both ends, and cussed in the middle." 
 
 A few facts from our history will show that I have not over- 
 stated the efficiency of the town organization in those great 
 crises which test the strength and tax the resources of states. I 
 have tried to sketch the aspect of Europe and America at the 
 time of the confederation of 1643. Advance a century in 
 European and colonial history. Europe is in one of her 
 dynastic convulsions, — the Silesian wars. France and England 
 were arrayed on opposite sides in the conflict. War between 
 Old France and Old England was also war between New France 
 and New England. France was more liberal as a military power 
 in her colonial policy than England. She had exhausted her 
 military science and had spent thirty millions of francs in 
 building the Dunkirk of America to guard her fisheries on 
 the Grand Banks, to protect the valley of the St. Lawrence, and 
 
34 
 
 to menace New England. The town-meeting colonies, without 
 one soldier or one dollar from the mother country, and with 
 but little aid from her navy, planted the provincial flag of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay on the battlements of Louisburg, — the most 
 brilliant achievement in a war made memorable by Dettingen 
 and Fontenoy. 
 
 The loss of Louisburg was a keen affront to the military pride 
 of France, and marked the colonies as objects for early and ter- 
 rible revenge. Scarcely ten years had passed before* the alarms 
 of war again were heard along three thousand miles of frontier. 
 France took to her alliance the untamed savage, and thought 
 of nothing less than absolute submission or complete extermina- 
 tion. Possessed of twenty of the twenty-five parts of the conti- 
 nent, and leaving four twenty-fifths to Spain, it seemed an easy 
 matter to conquer and appropriate the remaining twenty-fifth. 
 But France did not consider the vast difference between subject 
 and citizen, nor had England but a dreamy conception of it. The 
 French colonists flocked to no town-meeting ; in danger and 
 difficulty, their only resort was to the governor and to the 
 throne. But the five hundred parliaments that gathered in the 
 meeting-houses along the Connecticut, the Charles, and the Mer- 
 rimac, and on the shores of Narragansett Bay, were more than a 
 match for the war-councils of the savage, and in practical wisdom 
 in colonial affairs, were as much superior to the great parliament 
 in Westminster. Caesar tells us that in one of his battles, when 
 he fought, not for victory but for life, it was of the greatest ad- 
 vantage that the soldiers, trained in previous conflicts, knew 
 exactly what to do, and without waiting for orders, took their 
 places in the ranks and did good service against the enemy. 
 This was precisely the case in our colonial history. The colon- 
 ists were always in advance of the mother country. The pom- 
 pous Braddocks, the cowardly Abercrombies, and the haughty 
 
35 
 
 Loudouns, sent over at the beginning of the seven years' war, 
 to patronize, to discipline, and lead to victory the yeomen of 
 America, were despised by half the soldiers whom they led to 
 slaughter. 
 
 But a brighter day was at hand. The great English com- 
 moner was called to the helm of state. His imperial will was 
 guided by intelligence, and his commanding eloquence spake 
 not for prerogative or rank alone, but for all England. He 
 sympathized with the colonists, and they rallied to his call as 
 clansmen to the summons of their chief. The exertions and 
 sacrifices of these towns at this crisis almost surpass belief. 
 But they knew the nature of the conflict, and marched to the 
 plains of Abraham as cheerfully as to their ov/n village parade. 
 Massachusetts sent six thousand eight hundred men, and she had 
 spent a million in the cause the previous years. In the conflict 
 on that memorable field were staked the destinies of colonial 
 America. It was one of the most dramatic fields in all history. 
 Numbers nor multitudes, it is true, were not ordained to the 
 contest ; but all the interest that can be derived from variety of 
 character and culture, race and religion, from the near and 
 the remote, from antecedents and consequents, from influences 
 reaching backward to the first upheaval of the continent and 
 forward to its final doom, representatives of the highest civiliza- 
 tion which the world had reached, ranged side by side with those 
 who knew only the rude arts of the stone age ; from the disciples 
 of Rome and Geneva, prelatical absolutism and pure Congrega- 
 tionalism, worshippers of the Virgin and of the Great Spirit, 
 memories of Champlain, Lasalle, Brebeuf, and Guercheville ; 
 from the holy rites and solemn vows with which the city was 
 founded, with its seminary, its hospital, and its convent, before 
 it had a population ; memories of the captivities and cruelties of 
 more than a century of border warfare ; the desolation of Acadia 
 
36 
 
 (now partially atoned for by the verses of our own Longfellow) ; 
 Louisburg, twice captured and dismantled ; from naval and 
 military display ; from natural scenery in the full blaze of its au- 
 tumnal glories, — these were some of the influences that centred 
 on a field where a continent was the price of the conflict. 
 There was Montcalm, our most dangerous and most honorable 
 foe, a scholar, a soldier, a gentleman, and a patriot, with scars 
 and honor brought from German and Italian fields ; there was 
 Wolfe, weak and diminutive in body but great and valiant in 
 soul, uttering from his scholarly lips, in the very manner and 
 spirit of the Greek chorus, as he moved on his pathway of glory 
 to his grave : — 
 
 The heavens above him for his tent, 
 And all around the night, 
 
 the verses of that immortal Elegy : — 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave. 
 
 Await alike the inevitable hour, — 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said he to his fellow-officers in the boat, " I 
 would rather be the author of that poem than to take Quebec." 
 In the fleet was James Cook, then unknown to fame, studying his 
 Euclid and improving his seamanship. In ten years he will be 
 observing the transit of Venus on the other side of the globe, 
 will give his name to lands and waters then undiscovered and 
 his life to science and to man. Side by side with Montcalm 
 was Bourgainville, then a soldier, soon to become a sailor and 
 rival Cook as a navigator, explore Pacific archipelagos, be the 
 first to carry the flag of France around the world, then mount 
 the quarter-deck in the French navy and help us gain our inde- 
 pendence. There was Isaac Barr6, the adjutant of Wolfe, 
 
37 
 
 destined to lose his eyesight in the struggle, then to become 
 our defender in parliament, and for ever remain the admir- 
 ation of every American school-boy. There was Richard Mont- 
 gomery, the promising young soldier, now risking his life to 
 plant the standard of St. George on the battlements of Quebec 
 and in sixteen years destined to lose that life on that very spot 
 in an attempt to replace it by the provincial flag of America. 
 There was Richard Gridley, artillerist and engineer, who planned 
 Long Wharf in Boston Harbor and built its first pier, dropped 
 the first bombshell in the citadel of Louisburg fourteen years be- 
 fore, now raising to the heights, by the strong arms of his pro- 
 vincial troops, all the artillery to be used in the battle; in six- 
 teen years he will draw the lines and direct the fortifications on 
 Bunker Hill and be wounded in their defence ; then, from his 
 works on Dorchester Heights, compel his superior officer to 
 evacuate Boston, and drive forever from the waters of Massachu- 
 setts Bay the hostile flag of England. That superior officer was 
 William Howe, who was learning, under Wolfe, those arts of war 
 by which he was to force at such fearful cost the lines at Bunker 
 Hill and gain a Pyrrhine victory. Such were some of the per- 
 sonnel gathered upon that memorable field. 
 
 But more than all, and above all, more interesting because 
 more interested, were the Canadian peasantry and the New 
 England yeomen ; more than the English veteran, whose tattered 
 banner told of victories beyond the sea; more than the plaided 
 Highlander; more than the regiments of Languedoc, Bearne 
 and Guienne, — names which carry the imagination back to feu- 
 dal scenes and mediaeval conflicts ; more than the titled leaders 
 who fought with equal courage on either continent, and followed 
 their banners without questioning the merits of their cause, — 
 were those who fought, not for the smiles of princes, but for their 
 wives and children, their faith and their firesides. Foes by 
 
38 
 
 race and national traditions, the followers of creeds more hostile 
 than race or nation could make them, they now stood face to 
 face on a fairer field than any on which they had before met. 
 On the one side was political and religious absolutism, the most 
 extreme form of unquestioning and unquestioned obedience ; on 
 the other, the extreme doctrine of individual freedom and re- 
 sponsibility — the Spartan and the Athenian, the subject and the 
 citizen, the man who does what he is told to do and the man 
 who commands himself. Of the regiments who bore the brunt 
 of that charge, led by Montcalm in person, and held their fire as 
 they did afterwards at Bunker Hill till not a bullet should be 
 wasted, three out of four were Americans, — Americans who had 
 debated and voted in your town-meetings, held your ploughs, 
 manned your fishermen, swung your scythes and axes, tilled 
 your fields, and reaped your harvests. 
 
 That bloody day virtually gave the continent of North Amer- 
 ica to the British crown and placed England on the highest pin- 
 nacle of glory that she has ever attained. And had she known 
 at the Treaty of Paris the things that belonged to her peace and 
 prosperity, had she followed the teachings of her Chathams and 
 her Burkes, the world's history would have a very different read- 
 ing for the last century to-day ; but they were hidden from her 
 eyes. Take another step forward in the course of empire, and 
 you find England arrayed against the colonial town-meet- 
 ings. 
 
 Up to that period the towns had done, as they do now, their 
 own taxing, and they had done it well. Thirteen shillings in the 
 pound had been cheerfully paid for their own defence and for 
 England's aggrandizement. Massachusetts had sent more men 
 into the field in proportion to her population than Napoleon's se- 
 verest conscription took from France. But this was not enough. 
 Ministers beyond the sea who knew not Joseph insisted on taxing 
 
39 
 
 and governing. They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. 
 I will ask your attention only to a single scene. The rights of 
 Englishmen as established by the English constitution, defined 
 in Magna Charta, ratified no less than thirty-five times by the 
 Plantagenet kings, sealed by the blood of Simon De Montfort, 
 reaffirmed in the Grand Remonstrance and the Petitions of 
 Right, vindicated on all the hard-fought fields from Edgehill to 
 Naseby, — these rights were expounded in the Boston town- 
 meetings by the great New England commoner, Samuel Adams, 
 with a force of logic and vigor of rhetoric which aroused the as- 
 tonishment and admiration of all British statesmen, but were met 
 by the scoffs and jeers of a subservient ministry and an obsti- 
 nate king. The debate lasted ten years, and was transferred 
 from the formulas of logic to the ultima ratio regiim on Lex- 
 ington Green. The great commoner of Old England, Chatham, 
 the veteran of a score of parliamentary campaigns, whose en- 
 ergy had carried victory to the Ohio and the Ganges, warned 
 and thundered in vain. France, twenty years before, had tried 
 to exterminate the town-meeting civilization, and had been made 
 to drink deep of the cup of humiliation in consequence. The 
 young giant of the wilderness, who had been her deadliest foe, 
 she was now willing to make her offensive and defensive ally. 
 Just one hundred years ago, in the early months of the year, 
 England was trying to corrupt by her gold where she had failed 
 to conquer by her armies, and was willing to become a suppliant 
 where she had been a tyrant. At this awful moment the great 
 English commoner entered the English Parliament for the last 
 time. Burdened by age and disease, but with eye undimmed 
 and mental force unabated, he rose to protest against the dis- 
 memberment of that monarchy, which, for more than forty years, 
 he had faithfully and brilliantly served. It was the realization of 
 the sublime scene which Milton imagined a century before, — 
 
40 
 
 With grave 
 Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed 
 A pillar of state ; deep on his front engraven 
 Deliberation sat and public care ; 
 And princelj' counsel in his face yet shone 
 Majestic though in ruin ; sage he stood 
 With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear 
 The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look 
 Drew audience and attention still as night. 
 Or summer's noontide air. 
 
 That voice which had sent CHve to Plassey and Wolfe to 
 Quebec was now heard for a moment in opposition to Amer- 
 ican independence ; but it was too late. In a second attempt 
 to speak, his strength failed, and he sank into the arms of his 
 son to rise no more. It was, perhaps, the most solemn and 
 impressive scene in English parliamentary history. 
 
 At the same time the great New England commoner spoke, 
 not now to the town-meeting of Boston, but from his seat in 
 the colonial congress to America, and the voice of the New 
 England commoner prevailed even over the dying eloquence of 
 Chatham. As England, by the aid of the town-meeting, had 
 stripped France of four-fifths of the continent, so now France, 
 by the aid of the same town-meeting, deprived the royal house 
 of Brunswick of their fairest inheritance. 
 
 Call now to mind the state of affairs at the time of the 
 confederation of 1643, and think again for a moment of the 
 splendor, the pomp, the power, and the pride of the French 
 monarchy at that period. Compare it with these exiles in the 
 wilderness, sheltered by their log-houses and defended by their 
 stockades. Since that period we have seen these infant States 
 with their town-meeting polity subdue the wilderness, conquer 
 the savage, scale the battlements of Louisburg, climb the 
 heights of Abraham, drive from Boston Harbor the most 
 powerful navy in the world without firing a shot, fling defiance 
 
41 
 
 at France, Spain, and England, compel their alliance andc laim 
 the continent as their own. 
 
 Look once more ere we leave this " specular mount." We 
 began this panoramic sketch with a glance at absolute mon- 
 archy in France, and of absolute democracy in New England ; 
 let us close it with a glance at both at the close of a century 
 and a half. In 1789, the French monarchy, ruined by its own 
 excesses and abhorred by the nation, went down in its " impe- 
 rial maelstrom of blood and fire ; " and for three generations 
 we have seen this great nation struggling to construct a govern- 
 ment, subverting this year the constitution of the last, passing 
 from monarchy to republicanism, from the wildest anarchy to 
 the sternest military despotism, scourged and betrayed by each 
 new dictator, tribune, and demagogue, shaking every throne in 
 Europe in its frenzied agonies, and threatening the moral foun- 
 dations of the world while it plunged with fatal recklessness 
 from experiment to experiment of bloodshed and ruin. 
 
 In that very year the thirteen colonies, with George Wash- 
 ington at their head, not by the sword, not by usurpation, not 
 by intrigue, not by corruption, but by the spontaneous choice 
 of an enfranchised and grateful people, put on the sovereign 
 robes of their separate national existence, and joined for peace 
 and for war, the great procession of the nations, — 
 
 Magnus ab integro sjeclorum nascitur ordo. 
 Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna 
 . et incipiunt magni procedere menses. 
 
 In this imperfect sketch of some leading events in our his- 
 tory, it has been my aim to give prominence and emphasis to 
 the town-meeting as the great force which underlies our 
 national strength, and the want of which in some parts of the 
 country is the great source of our national weakness. But do 
 
42 
 
 not understand me to say that the town-meeting or the town 
 organization is in itself possessed of any magical power. A 
 microscope or a steam-engine would be of no use to a New 
 Zealand savage. He would spoil the former, and be blown up 
 by the latter. Intelligent foreigners who come among us 
 cannot hold a town-meeting. They can debate, sometimes five 
 or six at a time, but they cannot, to use the significant phrase 
 of the Charlestown freeholders in 1635, — they cannot "bring 
 things to a joint issue." What a blessing would the town- 
 meeting be to-day in France if she knew how to use it ! Who 
 can estimate its value to the Southern States of our own country, 
 if they would train themselves to wear its easy yoke, and sub- 
 mit to its mild discipline? These peaceful and unostentatious 
 gatherings under forms prescribed by law, where nearly all the 
 great functions of States are performed, mark the highest point 
 which social science has yet reached. To those who are 
 captivated by ceremony, by stars, garters, and titles of nobility, 
 the opening of an English parliament, the throne, the robes 01 
 state, the mace, the orders and vestments of the nobility, the 
 Commons at the foot of the throne, the forms of procedure 
 handed down from Saxons to Normans, from Normans to 
 Plantagenets, from Plantagenets to Tudors, from Tudors to 
 Stuarts, and from Stuarts to Hanoverians, — all this would seem 
 very grand to grown-up children, nor, indeed, is the scene with- 
 out interest to a reflecting and cultivated mind ; but to the 
 philosophic statesman who looks through show to substance, 
 who regards realities, and not gaudy colors, character, and not 
 ceremony, the quiet meeting of the farmer, the mechanic, the 
 merchant, the manufacturer, the scholar, the artist, and the 
 day-laborer, to talk over their common interests and decide 
 upon their management, — this is the meeting where he discerns 
 the strength of States ; and it is this spectacle which De 
 
43 
 
 Tocqueville has pronounced in human affairs the height of the 
 moral subhme. 
 
 It is often said that it is but a step from the sublime to the 
 ridiculous ; and, in the case of the town-meeting, it is safe to 
 say that the ridiculous is a part of the sublime. In the lives of 
 towns, as in the lives of nations, crises occur and questions 
 arise which seem, for the moment, to threaten the destruction of 
 the very foundations of civil and social order. Conflicting in- 
 terests, excited passions, intense ambitions, tear and rend these 
 fierce democracies as tempest and tornadoes sweep the skies. 
 These exciting contests, it is true, have their evils, but it is also 
 true that they have their benefits ; and in the long run it will be 
 found that the benefits greatly outnumber the evils. When 
 these storms are past it is wonderful how few are the marks of 
 injury which they leave behind them. In far the greater num- 
 ber of cases the community is elevated, its deeper life has been 
 stirred, and powers which had lain dormant are waked to health- 
 ful and vigorous action. How often has it been the case tha 
 when these contests have reached the verge of the tragic, a 
 comic scene, adroitly introduced, has prevented the threatened 
 catastrophe ! It is one of the chief elements of strength in the 
 town-meeting that it is not insufferably respectable. It gives 
 human nature a fair chance and full play, and weaves into the 
 strength of its political fabric the grave, the gay, the lively, and 
 the severe. A stroke of broad humor has sometimes, without 
 answering, annihilated the most pompous and elaborate argu- 
 ment. The striped frock has often been found more than a 
 match for the finest broadcloth. The sterling common-sense 
 trained at the plough, the anvil, or the shoemaker's bench, has 
 proved too much for wits that could boast their collegiate, their 
 legal, or their theological learning, and the broad-axe of the 
 carpenter, or the cleaver of the butcher, has cut many a Gordian 
 
44 
 
 knot of sophistry, which no logic could penetrate or refute. 
 Faction and unreason, it is true, will sometimes gain the ascen- 
 dency; but in the long run nowhere is talent or wisdom better 
 appreciated and rewarded, or humbug more mercilessly chas- 
 tised, than in town legislation. James Russell Lowell has shown 
 in Hosea Biglow's March-meeting speech what elements of 
 power reside in the homely Yankee dialect, and that something 
 more than orthography and technical grammar is essential 
 in effective speaking. When the University of Oxford con- 
 ferred upon Mr. Lowell the highest of her academic honors, 
 the Biglow Papers were mentioned as the special merit which 
 gained their author his distinction. What treasures of wit and 
 wisdom are slumbering in the records and recollections of 
 these rural legislatures awaiting the touch of some " Great 
 Wizard " of the future to give them form and life in the 
 nation's literature ! 
 
 It cost East Sudbury twenty-six town-meetings before the six 
 brick school-houses were completed seventy years ago ; but the 
 discussions and contentions, the passionate utterances of those 
 meetings, I doubt not, carried the town forward a generation in 
 her educational life. The seven years' contest, from 1806 to 
 1 81 3, that preceded the erection of yonder meeting-house, the 
 thirty-four battles which were fought in this village parliament, 
 to decide on which side of the brook it should stand, made all 
 feel happier when, at last, by a unanimous vote, it was decided 
 to build it on its present beautiful site. The traditions of those 
 parliamentary strifes are among the pleasantest recollections of 
 my boyhood. The teachers and actors of fifty years ago, in 
 the town of East Sudbury, were men of which any community 
 might, without vanity, be proud. They marched at the front of 
 your municipal progress, because the soundness of their judg- 
 ments, the correctness of their lives, in short, because that 
 
45 
 
 mysterious compound, which, without self-assertion, will, never- 
 theless, always assert itself, and which we call character, placed 
 them there. 
 
 You must allow me to improve this opportunity of acknowl- 
 edging a debt, " the debt immense of endless gratitude," 
 which has been accumulating for threescore years, — a debt 
 which I owe to those who, now gathered to their fathers, 
 were then your trusted and trustworthy leaders in town affairs. 
 I ren^ember them on Sunday, and on the we^-day, at the altar 
 and at the plough, at the public meeting, and at the social 
 fireside. The Reeveses, the Heards, the Shermans, the Glezens, 
 the Damons, the Lokers, the Johnsons, the Drapers, and the 
 Rices. And when I was at school and in college, I felt an 
 obligation resting on me to do no discredit to a town which 
 contained so many men whose approbation was worthy of 
 my ambition. Had I incurred censure in conduct or scholar- 
 ship, I should not have dared to look them in the face. 
 
 From men like these New England's grandeur springs, 
 Who make her loved at home revered abroad ; 
 
 Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 
 But honest men the noblest work of God. 
 
 It is a most interesting feature in the structure which we 
 dedicate to-day that it marks so distinctly the intellectual 
 growth of the town, and makes provision for its greater devel- 
 opment. As I gazed upon the well-kept library of seven 
 thousand volumes in its new home, I could easily have made 
 myself unhappy in cherishing the wish that I had been born 
 sixty years later, that I might satiate the " thirst that from the 
 soul doth spring" at that abundant fountain. Yet I feel that I 
 was fortunate in having my lot cast in this community, for the 
 
46 
 
 very reason that it was a reading community a half century ago. 
 The parish Hbrary and the social library, with which I early 
 became acquainted, though they would seem meagre to-day in 
 comparison with their successor, were treasures, I imagine, which 
 but few towns possessed. You enjoy a proud distinction among 
 the three hundred towns and cities of this Commonwealth. When, 
 more than thirty years ago, you received a generous gift from a 
 source which greatly increased its value, you were not content 
 to enjoy it alone. You seized the golden opportunity of placing, 
 through your reverend representative, this great blessing within 
 the reach of every town and city in the State. Other com- 
 munities have received more princely benefactions, have erected 
 more imposing buildings, have gathered a larger number of 
 volumes ; but it has been your peculiar glory to give a bright 
 example of that Fabian wisdom which saved Rome in her 
 extremity, — the wisdom of doing much with comparatively 
 little expenditure. It is a pleasure to me to reflect how the 
 money with which your library was founded was obtained. 
 The first five hundred dollars was earned by honest brain-work 
 in teaching, first to the senior class of Brown University, and 
 then publishing to the world the great principles of moral and 
 political philosophy. The second five hundred was earned upon 
 your own farms and in your own shops ; and the document that 
 records these gifts in their original form is one of the proudest 
 in your whole history. The third was the product of honest 
 agricultural industry, or it may have been in part derived from 
 one of those useful applications by 
 
 Searching wits of more mechanic parts 
 Who've graced our age with new-invented arts. 
 
 The remainder has been furnished by your annual taxation. 
 If so grand a result can be elsewhere found from the same 
 
47 
 
 means, I know not where to direct you to search for it. There 
 is another feature connected with your Hbrary which I must not 
 pass over. You have called in the aid of art to enforce the in- 
 structions of the printed page. You would remind all who 
 repair thither for instruction not merely of the names but of the 
 countenances of those to whom they are so deeply indebted. 
 I want words and judgment to do them justice as I pass them 
 briefly in review. There, in lines of startling beauty and accu- 
 racy, you may be sure that you behold the features which gave 
 expression to the thought and feeling of one of the ablest men^ 
 of the past generation ; of whom it might be said, as Dr. 
 Johnson said of Edmund Burke, that if a man were to go by 
 chance with him under a shed to shun a shower, he would say, 
 " This is an extraordinary man." You see the countenance in 
 repose, and can hardly realize that so much gravity could dis- 
 solve into the most contagious laughter and play with the most 
 mischievous and mirth-provoking humor. His personal pres- 
 ence was most imposing, and his intellectual and moral powers 
 were in admirable harmony with his physical proportions. 
 
 In another you behold the village pastor,^ who, in the earlier 
 years of his ministry, felt that the intellectual and moral wants of 
 his parish demanded his care along with their spiritual and religious 
 culture ; whose lot it was, not by chance but by choice, when 
 representing you in the Legislature, to propose a measure which 
 marks an era in the educational history of the State.^ It was 
 a peculiar pleasure to me, a few wee1<s since, to find that he was 
 well remembered at the office of the Secretary of State. You 
 are familiar with his venerable form, and ask no aid from art to 
 keep his memory fresh ; but the time will come when you will 
 
 1 Rev. Francis Wayland, D.D., LL.D. 
 ^ Rev. John B. Wight. 
 
 ^See Fortieth Report of Mass. Board of Education, where a full account of the Wayland 
 Library will be found. 
 
48 
 
 point with pride your children and your friends to the founder 
 of free pubHc Hbraries in Massachusetts, and say, in the lan- 
 guage of Bryant: — 
 
 Let the mimic canvas show 
 
 His calm benevolent features ; let the light 
 
 Stream on his deeds of love, that shunned the sight 
 
 Of all but Heaven ; and in the book of fame 
 The glorious record of his virtues write 
 
 And hold it up to men, and bid them claim 
 
 A palm like his, and catch froin liim the hallowed flame. 
 
 Again you behold, with admirable correctness, the features of 
 one,^ who, establishing himself here in the profession of law, at 
 once became interested, not only in your schools, but in the 
 scholars that composed them. To superior scholarship and 
 sound judgment he united a suavity of manner, a quickness of 
 perception, and a sympathy with young minds, that won their 
 confidence, and made his visits to the schools occasions of en- 
 joyment and excitement. Nor did he confine his labors to the 
 school-rooms. The delight which he took in teaching, and in 
 communion with scholarly minds soon drew to his hospitable 
 home a circle who were stimulated and charmed by his instruc- 
 tions, and who learned from him to admire the "imperial minds 
 who rule our spirits from their urns." How many of the best 
 verses of Homer, Virgil, Milton, and Scott, of the stately 
 periods of Cicero, Burke, Webster, and Everett, of the brilliant 
 essays of Macaulay, have been read and reread, studied and ad- 
 mired, in parlors almost within the reach of my voice ! Nor was 
 this all ; that home was presided over by a lady who possessed 
 the rare art of entertaining without formality, of welcoming 
 without ceremony, and of delighting without affectation. 
 Nor need I inform this audience how many scenes of sorrow 
 
 ' Hon. Edward Mellen, formerly Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. 
 
49 
 
 and of joy have been alleviated or heightened, how many hours 
 of devotion hallowed, by strains of vocal music, untaught by 
 art, and beyond its reach, proceeding from a soul — 
 
 Whose raptures moved the vocal air 
 To testify their hidden residence. 
 
 And so that modest mansion became a private high school 
 of the first order, where no tuition was asked or received, but 
 where some of the best minds of the town were trained to 
 virtue and sound learning. 
 
 There is another countenance,^ of a former pastor of the first 
 parish, of a scholar, a divine, a Christian, dear to this community, 
 nor to this community alone, whose life was a signal illus- 
 tration of that purity and power of character which is content 
 with the possession of the highest excellence without aspiration 
 for place and preferment. He wrote, not from the promptings 
 of ambition, but from the impulses of a warm heart and a highly 
 gifted mind, and his writings have gained a permanent place 
 in our higher religious literature ; and he sung those " melodious 
 strains," which, this very evening, will be wafted from thousands 
 of devout lips upon the " listening ear of night." 
 
 Still through the cloven skies they came. 
 
 With peaceful wings unfurled. 
 And still their heavenly music floats 
 
 O'er all the weary world ; 
 
 and they will continue to do so until the language we speak 
 shall fail from the tongues of men. 
 
 There is still another ~ countenance ; it is of a benefactor not 
 inferior in the amount of his benefaction to that of the founder 
 himself. His long life was passed among you, and he was often 
 
 ' Rev. Edmund H. Sears. 
 - Deacon James Draper. 
 
50 
 
 selected by you to perform the varied and responsible duties 
 of your municipal life, — a fine example of those unostentatious 
 virtues which are at once the cause and consequence of our 
 New England character. 
 
 By the aid of plastic art you have presented the features of 
 one ^ whose name is destined to hold forever no second place in 
 our national literature. What lessons of labor under difficulty, 
 of high aims and successful achievement are suggested by those 
 features of classic beauty ! The New World's discovery and 
 discoverer, his royal patrons, the conquerors and their con- 
 quests, the Incas and Montezumas, the romantic daring that 
 awakens our admiration, and the heartless cruelty that moves 
 our hatred ; the great career of Charles V., when all Eu- 
 rope woke from its mediseval dreams, — all these vast fields of 
 research explored by one compelled to use eyes not his own, 
 and dictate his classic English to his amanuensis. With every 
 avenue of sensual pleasure open before him, and a fortune to 
 stimulate the desire for indulgence, he nobly made the choice of 
 Hercules ; and as he sought the honors of his country, so he felt 
 that he must remember what name he bore, and, like his ances- 
 tor, must serve that country greatly. 
 
 In another plastic form you see the features of the great 
 leader ^ of Christian thought in New England for this century, — 
 the man perhaps who has done more to emancipate Christian 
 character from the thraldom of scholastic forms and restore it 
 to its primitive purity and power, to redeem it from the letter 
 that killeth, and inspire it with the spirit that giveth life, than 
 any one man in Europe or America during the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. In him, Puritanism gained the highest point which it has 
 yet reached. 
 
 1 The bust of William H. Prescott. 
 
 - William Ellery Channing. 
 
51 
 
 Finally, you behold in the same plastic form, the countenance 
 of one ^ who belongs not to you alone nor to our country alone, 
 — the country of his choice, — but to the civilized world. The 
 pupil and friend of Cuvier, it was his rare fortune to enlarge the 
 boundaries of human knowledge, to become one of the great 
 interpreters of Nature, to study in fossil and living forms the 
 thoughts of the Divine Mind. As I gaze upon those features of 
 manly beauty, I recognize the same benignant smile which they 
 always wore when he came to give his weekly lecture in my 
 school at Cambridge twenty-five years ago. Such was his in- 
 terest in our public schools that for a whole year he lectured 
 gratuitously upon his specialties in that school, and bore a 
 noble part in bringing Harvard College into closer sympathy 
 with the-public school system of the city and the Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 These are the men of local, national, and world-wide renown 
 whom you have .chosen to grace your library. In their several 
 spheres of action they have richly earned the distinction which 
 you have given them. 
 
 To this great communion of the wise and good of every 
 country and of every age, to the fellowship of the imperial lords 
 of thought, to the great cloud of witnesses to the varied forms 
 of truth, the people of VVayland are invited. There is a sacred 
 fitness in the observance of the proprieties enjoined upon us as we 
 enter that apartment. For who would stand with covered head 
 or talk in boisterous speech in the very presence-chamber, as it 
 were, of those sovereign minds appointed to rule us by the 
 anointing of the Most High? Shall we rear piles of monu- 
 mental marble over their unconscious dust and feel no emotion 
 of awe where their spirits still linger and speak to us in their 
 
 1 Louis Agassiz. 
 
52 
 
 breathing thoughts and burning words ? Shall we tread with 
 reverent step and bated breath where dust is returning to dust, 
 and waken to no rapture ; where spirit is holding mysterious 
 contact with spirit, and thought kindling at the fire of living 
 thought? 
 
 Citizens of Wayland, you have been true to your trust. The 
 five talents entrusted to your keeping have gained other five 
 talents. They have given you a distinguished place in our so- 
 cial and intellectual history. And where the Free Public 
 Library of Massachusetts had its birth, there may it 
 always live in its pristine purity and with ever increasing useful- 
 ness and renown. 
 
 Pardon, I pray you, the well-meant earnestness which must 
 have sorely tried your patience, and permit me, in conclusion, to 
 urge you to guard and cherish the fond memorials of this an- 
 cient and beloved town. In these centennial years the thoughts 
 of the nation are reverently turned to the past. Remember the 
 toils and hardships of those who redeemed these fields from the 
 rule of the wilderness, and 
 
 The village Hampdens, that with dauntless breast, 
 
 withstood, not merely the petty tyrants of their fields, but the 
 dread and incensed sovereign of a mighty empire when he came 
 with his embattled host to subdue them. Their individual names 
 may be gathered, in some cases, alas ! not without difficulty 
 from the headstones of yonder graveyard ; but let the family 
 names be found upon your streets, your streams, your hills, 
 your valleys, and your plains. 
 
 I most heartily congratulate my old neighbors in the South 
 Part upon having an abundant supply of pure water. I could, 
 wish however, that they might no longer drink from Snake 
 Brook. Call it Damon's or Bent's, or Rice's, or Bond's Brook, 
 
53 
 
 and, if it does not improve the character of the water, it will at 
 least sweeten the associations. It was a pleasure to me, in 
 looking over the plan of Cochituate, to find Loker Avenue. 
 
 The high-toned sentimentality of the City of Boston could 
 not drink from good old " Long Pond," and so she has re- 
 stored a barbarous name for our old skating and fishing ground, 
 and takes her water from Lake Cochituate. She is content 
 I believe, to take the water of Dudley Pond without meddling 
 with the name. I hope she will not remove Bullard's Island. 
 I think, sometimes, not without pleasure, when I see this water 
 at so many points about my school-house, and enjoy the mild 
 and comfortable heat from its steam, of the pleasant scenery 
 which it has left so far away, and travelled its dark subterranean 
 journey, and feel as though I had a little better right to it than 
 my neighbors. But Boston has her virtues well mixed with her 
 notions. She gives names to her schools which remind their 
 scholars of high character and good men. You have names 
 in your history which ought to mark your schools, and thus 
 speak the gratitude which you feel to those who have gone 
 before. And you have springs as pure and as sweet as Cas- 
 talia, or Pieria, as Hippocrene, or Aganippe. Beginning with 
 one not fifty rods from where you sit, which gushes from the 
 hallowed feet of your village Zion, and flows into your Kedron ; 
 they may be found all along the skirts of the meadow to where 
 the river, leaving the higher lands, sinks into the level of Beaver 
 Hole. One of these, laid down in the atlas of Middlesex 
 County, as a " never-failing spring," ought not to be allowed to 
 lose the name of the first white man who settled by it. He 
 came forth from the land of his fathers, inspired by a faith not 
 unlike that which led the Father of the Faithful from Ur of the 
 Chaldees, and pitched beside this spring, and drank thereof 
 himself, his children, and his cattle ; and, like the great Chal- 
 
54 
 
 dean sheik, he has become the founder of a race which is as 
 the stars of heaven for multitude. And while that spring shall 
 continue to pour forth its limpid, healthful waters, not warmed 
 by summer heat nor frozen by winter cold, let it bear the name 
 of a family which has nobly done its work in church and state, 
 in peace and war, and thither let his descendants repair to 
 remotest generations in honor of their founder, Edmund Rice. 
 You can well afford to sell the water of your rivers and your 
 ponds while you retain these sweet and sparkling fountains for 
 home consumption. Heard's Pond is well named, suggesting 
 as it does some of the best character which the town has pro- 
 duced, and Baldwin's Pond always reminds me of some of the 
 brightest intellects which it has been my fortune to meet in 
 life. 
 
 One thing more you need, and that is an historian, and you 
 have not far to seek to find him. You will find him already 
 well trained and furnished for his work. And, if necessary to 
 secure his service, you would be justified in taking him by the 
 right of eminent domain, and exacting his services, as our fathers 
 did that of their magistrates, on penalty of a fine. The citizen 
 who has served you in so many important relations, and has 
 contributed so much to the efficiency and beauty of your 
 library, and has, from time to time, published your annals, owes 
 it to himself and to you to connect his name with your interests 
 by becoming your historian. 
 
 You will soon be gathering in this spacious hall for the 
 transaction of the business of the town. A large number of 
 the direct descendants of those who came here two hundred 
 and fifty years ago will come here to legislate in the place of 
 their fathers. The spirits of the departed are in high commun- 
 ion with the spirit of the place. We see no light, we hear no 
 sound addressed to the outward sense, nor do we need it to 
 
55 
 
 catch the exhortation which they give. Let pubHc and not 
 party spirit reign as the presiding genius within these walls. 
 Use the ballot as in the presence of the Most High, as the most 
 sacred duty you are called upon to discharge. Let the school- 
 house, and the town-house, and the meeting-house, still con- 
 tinue to be the landmarks and the symbols of this ancient 
 village. Let it be your children's boast as it is yours, that they 
 inherit a land of liberty and light. Let freedom, and knowl- 
 edge, and morals, and religion, as they are your birthright, be 
 the birthright of your children to the end of time. 
 
 The audience having joined in singing " Old Hun- 
 dred," the Benediction was pronounced by Rev. T. A. 
 Merrill. 
 
 Opportunity was then afforded for visitors to examine 
 the Library apartments, and the other rooms and offices 
 of the building. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 The District School. 
 
 This institution is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. " The 
 District School as it was," so graphically described and ridiculed by 
 the Rev. Warren Burton, was not the district school of Wa}land, or 
 East Sudbury, rather, fifty years ago. I am not so much in love 
 with the past as to be unable to appreciate the present, nor so radi- 
 cally bent on improvement as not to feel that all real progress must 
 rest on principles and usages that have been tested by experience. 
 I have seen something of schools, and been conversant with some 
 variety of methods in education ; but I have never seen a greater love 
 of study for its own sake, for the pleasure which it imparts by calling 
 into exercise our higher faculties ; I have never seen a more generous 
 emulation, free from all pollution of envy or jealousy, than in the dis- 
 trict schools of East Sudbury. My allusions to them in the text of 
 my address will seem to many as rhetorical extravagance, or playful 
 hyperbole, but they are almost literally true. If the kindly emula- 
 tion between districts and pupils ever gave rise to the least unkind- 
 ness, I never heard of it. I well remember the stimulus that I re- 
 ceived at an examination in the Street School, then under the 
 instruction of Mr. William C. Grout. There is not a teacher in 
 Boston to-'day who would not be proud, and justly proud, of such 
 scholarship as I saw on that occasion. Nor can I forget that one of 
 my earliest associates in the work of instruction, one who had dis- 
 tanced in promise and scholarship all her classmates at the Normal 
 School, began her brief and brilliant career in that same district. 
 Owing to fcimily relationships, or young friendships, visits were often 
 exchanged by the scholars between the schools of the town. I need 
 not say that while these visitors were always kindly received, they 
 were also pretty carefully watched. From one of them I heard for 
 the first time in my life a specimen of really natural and spirited 
 reading. If I may be allowed to boast a little of the Thomas School 
 in my native district, I should say that there may still be seen specimens 
 of map-drawing executed by girls in that school, under the instruction 
 of Mr. Beman Stone, which cannot be surpassed in our best schools 
 to-day. History was studied with great enthusiasm. Worcester's 
 Epitome and General History, and Whelpley's Compend, to say noth- 
 ing of Goodrich's U.S. History, and smaller works, were despatched 
 with an earnestness that would seem quite marvellous to the present 
 
58 
 
 generation. Hedge's Logic, Blair's Rhetoric, Chemistry, and Natural 
 Philosophy were committed thoroughly to memoiy, and partially to 
 the undei'standing. Natural History did not receive much attention 
 in the school-room ; but before school, and after school, and at 
 "noontime," it was pursued with great ardor. Pouts and eels, 
 perch and pickerel, which had strayed from Dudley pond down the 
 intermittent brook, reptiles of all sorts and sizes, squirrels red, 
 striped, flying, and gray, woodchucks, and rabbits, birds in great 
 variety, and not least, our articulate enemies, with whom we waged 
 unceasing warfare, the black wasps, the mud wasps, the yellow 
 wasps, the hornets, the butterflies, the grasshoppers, and the devil's 
 darning-needles, — from all these we gathered much knowledge, 
 though but little science. We learned their habits and modes of 
 existence, but heard nothing of genera, species, oixlers, and families, 
 etc. It was from specimens furnished from this district, as Agassiz 
 informed me, that he first had the pleasure of witnessing a long- 
 coveted sight of young bats at the breast of the mother. At home we 
 had abundant opportunity in " taking care of the cattle " to become 
 acquainted with some of the larger mammalia. And this Avas the 
 style of education generally in all the schools of the town. 
 
 The Rutter District was famous for its scholarship. There I felt 
 my ambition roused in hearing Mr. Josiah Rutter teach Virgil to a 
 fine class of young ladies. There also I listened to the instruction 
 of Mr. John N. Sherman from the North District, and of Mr. Josiah 
 H. Temple from Framingham. It always seemed to me that a 
 remarkable spirit of order and self-respect pervaded this school. It 
 had, or seemed to have, a kind of traditional reputation for good 
 behavior, which it took pride in sustaining. Private schools were 
 frequently taught here between the winter and summer terms, and 
 these I sometimes attended. When I say that just forty years ago 
 the school committee pronounced this school the first in the town in 
 spite of the crudity, awkwardness, and inexperience of its teacher, 
 a young sophomore from Brown University, it will be readily 
 understood that it had scholars of no common merit to gain this 
 distinction in the face of such obstacles. 
 
 The Centre District was, however, all things considered, the first in 
 the town. There was taught one who afterwards became the teacher 
 of Laura Bridgman ; and another lady who attained distinction in 
 her native town, and also in Waltham received her early education 
 there. I have had myself the opportunity of testing the scholarship 
 and teaching ability of two other ladies who were trained in that 
 school. I readily call to mind six young men who went to college 
 from this district, — one to Harvard, one to Yale, three to Brown, 
 and one to Williams, and some I remember who did not go to 
 college because as I suppose they belong to that class of men of 
 whom Cicero speaks : Ego mtiltos homines excellentl afiimo ac 
 virtute fiiisse et sine doctrina^ naturae ipsius habitu prope divino 
 
59 
 
 per se ipsos et nioderatos et graves exstitisse fateor ; etiam illud 
 adjtmgo scepius ad laiidem atque virtutem naturam sine doctrina 
 qua?n sine 7iatura valuisse doctrinam. Of the North and South 
 Districts I had less personal knowledge. Their character was, how- 
 ever, ^substantially the same as that of the rest. Three of my 
 teachers in the Thomas School came from those districts. It was a 
 principle or practice rather (the practice was based upon a principle) 
 to employ in one district teachers who had been taught in another. 
 Teacliers as well as prophets were likely not to be honored in their 
 own country until they had shown their work in some other. And 
 this interchange between the schools had a salutary influence upon 
 the social character of the town. Families and neighborhoods were 
 brought into more intimate and friendly relations, and the deficiencies 
 of some were replaced by the excellencies of others. 
 
 I have said the town or township is a growth, not a creation. 
 The remark is equally true of the district and its school. The first 
 settlers brought with them no elaborate theories of education, and 
 they had no time to construct them. The schools, at first, bore 
 some resemblance to their English originals. It was without doubt 
 the Grammar School of England that our fathers sought to establish 
 here. And it is a fact, which I have nowhere seen noticed, that the 
 early school-houses were constructed internally very closely upon 
 the English models. Let any one compare the interiors of the Mer- 
 chant Tailors', St. Paul's, and other English school-houses, as 
 shown in " Staunton's Great Schools of England," with those of East 
 Sudbury, Sudbury, and Weston fifty years ago and he will see at 
 once that they are all of the same type. The large open space in 
 the centre, the teacher's desk at the farther end, opposite the door, 
 three rows of desks or forms (this is the English term) rising one 
 above the other on the right and left of the central floor, — this was 
 the arrangement of all, or nearly all, the school-rooms which I saw in 
 my boyhood, and which may still be seen in the Grammar Schools 
 of England. The branches taught at flrst were those of the English 
 Grammar School, and so Latin and Greek at once gained a pretty firm 
 foothold in New England, and though they yielded to the practical pres- 
 sure and povert}^ of the Colonial era, the}' were always treated kindly 
 and welcomed often to the district school, though not required by 
 statute, v^dien the teacher's scholarship admitted of their introduction. 
 I learned French with great advantage while still at the district 
 school, and taught Latin in a town school the first winter I was in 
 college. The sciences were seldom, if ever, taught before the close 
 of the first quarter of the present century ; in fact, there was little 
 science to teach. But in the second quarter of the centur^^ there was 
 a great enlargement of the course of study. The great revival of 
 common-school leai-ning which began with the writings of James G. 
 Carter, and in which the Alcotts, the Emersons, Josiah Holbrook, 
 and Horace Mann soon joined, was felt in every school district in 
 
6o 
 
 the Commonwealth, and the district schools soon became universi- 
 ties in a small way, in which nearly all the osophies and ologies 
 known to modern science w^ere studied with more enterprise per- 
 haps than wisdom. The schools were flexible and elastic, and al- 
 lowed the claim of each new science as soon as it was urged. The 
 Lyceum appeared at this crisis, and exeixised a powerful influence 
 upon the schools, and the schools in their turn reacted upon the Ly- 
 ceum. The curriculum of the schools became so extended under 
 this influence as to be practically unmanageable, and hence arose the 
 demand for division of labor in the work of instruction, the conse- 
 quent gradation of the schools, and the abolition of the district sys' 
 tem. 
 
 The district system has passed, or is rapidly passing, into history. 
 Its defects and shortcomings were sufficiently exposed in the long 
 debates which preceded its abolition. Its virtues have been but par- 
 tially appreciated. In the critical period of our history when the 
 urgent questions were, not those of wages or currency, but of bare 
 existence, this system brought the elements of knowledge to the veiy 
 door of the farmer and the day laborer. When I consider the influ- 
 ence of the district schools in giving to all the means of passing 
 through the great triviutn of learning, to read, to write, and to cipher ; 
 of educating those who were to serve the towns as selectmen, as 
 justices of the peace, as representatives in the General Court, of 
 awakening in a smaller number a desire for knowledge which could 
 only be satisfied at college ; when I reflect that these schools were 
 taught in a great measure by the students of the colleges, and that a 
 large part of the money paid to the teachers went directly to the 
 empty treasuries of the colleges, and that the schools supported the 
 colleges while the colleges sent their students to teach the schools, 
 that it was by this grand systole and diastole between the highest 
 and the lowest schools throughout the whole body politic that some 
 of the choicest spirits were recruited for the learned professions and 
 for the highest offices of State, — I cannot but feel that the district 
 system served its day and generation well. 
 
 The district system has generally given place to the graded system ; 
 the territorial divisions, which included all ages and all degrees of 
 attainment, have been replaced by the high, the grammar, the inter- 
 mediate, and the primary schools, — a classification based on acquire- 
 ments and capacity for progress. This system, if wisely administered 
 will retain the essential virtues of the old organization and afford 
 advantages to which that could never attain. The success which it 
 has already attained has abundantly vindicated its adoption. It ad- 
 mits of even a closer relation and a stronger sympathy with the higher 
 schools of learning than was formerly possible. There was, of 
 necessity, a break between the district school and the college, and 
 this break was supplied by the parish clergyman, the pi-ivate teacher, 
 or the academy. In the graded system the pupil advances by regu- 
 
6i 
 
 lai- stages from the primary to the professional school, from the 
 nursery to manhood. The college may make itself felt in every 
 grade of school and in every class in society, and the primary teacher 
 may feel that she is "fitting her pupils for college" as well as the 
 teacher who is dealing with Greek accents and Latin subjunctives. 
 The theory is perfect and the practice under it may be made so. 
 The case has never been more forcibly or beautifully stated than 
 it was by Edward Everett, at the dedication of the Cambridge High 
 School thirty years ago. " Connected as I am with another place 
 of education," [Mr. Everett was at that time President of Harvard 
 College] " of a kind which is commonly regarded of a higher order, 
 it is precisely in that connection that I learn to feel and appreciate 
 the importance of good schools. I am not so ignorant of the history 
 of our fathers as not to know that the spirit which founded and 
 fostered Harvard College is the spirit which has founded and upheld, 
 and will continue to support and cherish, the schools of New Eng- 
 land. I know well, sir, that universities can neither flourish nor 
 even stand alone. You might as well attempt to build 3-our second 
 and third stories in the air, without a first floor or basement, as to 
 have collegiate institutions without good schools for preparatory 
 education and diffusion of general information throughout the 
 community. If the day should ever come (which I do not fear in 
 our beloved country) when this genei^al education shall be neglected 
 and these preparatory institutions allowed to perish ; if the day 
 should ever come (of which I have no apprehension) when the 
 schools of New England shall go down, — depend upon it, sir, the 
 colleges will go with them. It will be with them as it was with the 
 granite warehouses the day before yesterday in Federal street, in 
 Boston : if the piers at the foundation give way, the upper stories 
 will come down in one undistinguished ruin." 
 
 Such were the views of a great scholar and statesman, in 1848, 
 respecting the importance of our public school system, as related to 
 higher institutions of learning, and such his confidence in its perma- 
 nence and progress. In its establishment, he had himself borne a 
 most distinguished part. The period of his administration of our 
 State government was a critical one in our educational history, and it 
 was under his wise direction that the broad and deep foundations of 
 our educational prosperity were laid. He was not content with 
 giving his formal sanction, by his official signature, to legislative acts 
 which have changed the whole course of our school polity. He 
 labored personally in all parts of the State. He pleaded for the 
 cause with an eloquence which no other man in the State could 
 command ; and his pleadings, which have taken a permanent place 
 in our literature, were based, not on considerations of party politics, 
 but of profound statesmanship. But what would Mr. Everett have 
 said had he been told that, ere the audience which he addressed had 
 passed from the stage, that school system in which he had such 
 
62 
 
 jDcrfect faith would be assailed as hostile to religion and morals, that 
 all that is grovelling in human nature would be appealed to, all that 
 is selfish cajoled, all that is noble beguiled by sophistry or blinded by 
 bigotry, half truths (those deadliest and most malicious of lies) and 
 whole falsehoods would be published as eternal verities ; nay, more, 
 that from his "own ancient and beloved Harvard" there would go 
 forth an educational philosophy in direct opposition to the teachings 
 of Sparks and Walker and Felton and Agassiz ! 
 
 One of the dangers threatening our schools is the unwise and 
 undue deference shown to everything foreign and especially to every- 
 thing German. " And so they do in Germany," is the end of all 
 controversy in many School Boards. The finest scholars of New 
 England can hardly hope for the choicest positions until they have 
 first learned to smoke and drink in Berlin, Leipsic, or Halle. The 
 stanza which Porson threw in disgust at some of his teasing inquisitors, 
 after his return from Germany would be the best testimonial that could 
 be presented to some educational functionaries. 
 
 I went to Frankfort and got drunk 
 With that most learned Professor Brunck. 
 I went to Wortz and got more drunken 
 With that more learned Professor Rhunken. 
 
 I mean no sneer at Germany or Germans. The first pilgrims 
 from this country who found their way to the great seats of German 
 learning, — the Everetts, the Bancrofts, and the Searses, — returned 
 laden with the seeds of that precious lore which have found a 
 congenial soil in our colleges and schools and give promise of an 
 abundant harvest. They went Americans and returned Americans, 
 in thought, in feeling, in purpose ; they were not dazzled or misled by 
 tinsel and gewgaw. The leaden casket with its treasure attracted them 
 more than the gold and silver which covered emptiness and vanity ; 
 and so they gave an impulse to our schools of every grade which 
 will be felt as long as those schools exist. And so, too, the German 
 exiles, who have come over to us, because they could not rest in the 
 luxuries and delights of mere learning and culture, were not content 
 
 To sport with Amaryllis in the shade 
 Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair. 
 
 The Pollens, the Liebers, and the Becks have been welcomed to our 
 homes, to our hearts, to our citizenship, to our academic and legis- 
 lative halls, and have a thousand times repaid us for the political free- 
 dom which they received. Peace and honor to all such who deal in 
 the sound learning which Europe has been long centuries in garnei"- 
 ing, and to which we have only given a few decades. But let us 
 never forget that American education, to be successful, must be 
 American ; it must not be an exotic. Our educational must be in 
 
63 
 
 perfect accord with our political principles and procedure. Absolu- 
 tism and republicanism will not harmonize. It is a century since the 
 new wine of America burst the old bottles of Europe, and the fact 
 may as well be considered as settled that we are in some way to 
 work out our own salvation or destruction. 
 
 God means to make this land 
 
 Clear thru from sea to sea, 
 Believe an' understand 
 
 The wuth o' bein' free. 
 
 And this is as true of our education as of our politics. Our district 
 schools have given or are giving place to graded schools ; and nor- 
 mal, art, technical, and scientific schools are springing up like the 
 creations of Fairyland. Universities are born in a da}^ ; but they are 
 hornyotm^-; they come forth, not like Athene from the head of her 
 sire perfect in wisdom equipment and power, but in helpless, trem- 
 bling infancy. What is universal and permanent in the old world 
 can be transported without injury to the new ; what is local and 
 transient must remain on the soil from which it sprung. The 
 verses of Homer, Virgil, and Milton were sung for the world and the 
 world understands and appreciates them ; the science of Newton is 
 as true in the constellation Hercules as on the banks of the Cam ; 
 and the phases of Venus appear with greater distinctness through 
 the great refractors of the New World than when they were first re- 
 vealed to the eyes of Galileo through " the poor little spyglass " 
 which now is shown at Florence. 
 
 What is permanent and universal in English and German schools 
 will find its way to America, and be warmly welcomed and cherished. 
 W^hat is local and transient, what has grown out of the social and 
 political condition of those countries, must forever remain there. 
 The work of Thomas Arnold was universal, and every year adds to 
 his influence and to his fame. The work of Samuel Parr was pedan- 
 tic and transient, and his cumbrous octavos have long since passed 
 to the upper shelves or to the closets. Those who think that they 
 can catch the vitality of Eton and Rugby by adopting cricket and the 
 " six forms" with their " removes," and those who think they have only 
 to vo^e a gymnasium in order to get one, simply show that they are 
 neither statesmen nor educators. Those who think that by sending 
 their sons and daughters to France, to Italy, and to Germany to be 
 educated thev will, of necessity, become scholars, citizens, men, and 
 women, will find that they have simply become denationalized with 
 no country to love and no country that loves them. 
 
 Reeves's Hill. 
 
 Reeves's Hill takes its name from a family honorably known in 
 the social and civil history of the town. Before the advent of turn- 
 
64 
 
 pikes and railroads, when the produce of the country towns found its 
 way to Boston market, along the county roads, which were still 
 steep, or rough, or miiy, Reeves's tavern was a favorite resting or 
 recruiting place for the farmers from Framingham, Southboro', Hop- 
 kinton, and even for the more westerly parts of the State. The hill 
 was almost as serious for the wayfaring farmer as was the Hill Diffi- 
 culty to Bunyan's pilgrims. The wayside inn at the top of this hill 
 has not been so fortunate as its more celebrated contemporary on the 
 west side of the river, in having a poet to give it immortality ; but 
 Mr. Longfellow might have found here all the stimulus for his 
 imagination that he found 
 
 in Sudbury town, 
 Across the meadows bare and brown. 
 
 The last landlord of this ancient hostelry, Jacob Reeves, was one 
 of those men who have given such character and strength to our 
 country life. He was a model landlord — cheerful, kind and coui"- 
 teous — ^ not like Chaucer's Reeve, " a colerick man," but of remark- 
 able evenness of temper and soundness of judgment. His patrons 
 found in his bar-room no temptation to the excesses which were often 
 seen in the village tavern, but in the tempei-ate speech and exemplary 
 self-control of their host they saw an example worthy of their imita- 
 tion. For eighteen years he was town-clerk, and received the office 
 from bis kinsman, Nathaniel Reeves, who had held it for fifteen years. 
 As justice of the peace, he conducted a large part of the minor law 
 business of the town, and for many years was representative in the 
 General Court. As deacon of the first parish church, the purity and 
 rectitude of his character were in perfect harmony with the sacred 
 functions of his office. 
 
 The Inns of Old and New England, from the " Tabard" to the 
 " Wayside," from Chaucer to Longfellow, from the pilgrimage to 
 Cantei"bury to the ride of Paul Revere, have ceased to exist. But the 
 historian of New England who overlooks the tavern will fail to notice 
 an institution. It was a centre of social influence ; it supplied in part 
 the place of our daily newspaper ; the farmers of the town or neigh- 
 borhood repaired to the bar-room of the tavern to discuss town, 
 county, and State politics, the agiuculture of the day, to tell stories, 
 and, last and worst, to drink y?/^. These meetings were sometimes 
 profitable, always entertaining, but frequently too convivial in their 
 character. Jacob Reeves often felt obliged to shake his head, not 
 in anger, but in sorrow, when a glass too much was called for, and 
 the applicant had so much confidence in "Squire Jake" that no 
 offence was taken. 
 
 Edmund Rice. 
 
 After alluding to the first white settler by this spring, I cannot 
 persuade myself to allow this opportunity to pass without a brief 
 
65 
 
 notice of the last — Edmund Rice — who lived upon the old home- 
 stead. He died in May, 1841, at the age of eighty-six. He was at 
 once a fine representative of the old colonial farmer and of the revolu- 
 tionary soldier. He was at Bunker Hill, in Capt. Russell's company, 
 but was not stationed in the redoubt. He served, also, in the same 
 company in Bi'ewer's regiment of eight months' men. When Lafay- 
 ette revisited this country, in 1824, he repaired again to Bunker Hill, 
 with all the ardor of a patriot and soldier, to greet his old companion- 
 in-arms. A fellow-townsman, who valued dollars rather too highly, 
 remarked to Mr. Rice that Congress was too generous in their expres- 
 sions of gratitude to the nation's benefactor. The old soldier's eye 
 flashed with indignation, wdiile he exclaimed, " Dumb it all ! they 
 can't do too much for him ! How much did he do for us when we 
 were too poor to help ourselves? I tell you they can't do too much 
 for him." He was blessed with a "large increase." His sons and 
 daughters — with the exception of one son who died in early life — 
 all attained to an honorable manhood and womanhood. His home 
 was celebrated for a quiet and generous hospitality. On Thanks- 
 giving days it was always the scene of the most exemplary festivity. 
 It was a " feast of harvest," fashioned very much after the Hebrew 
 pattern. The best that his farm and farm-yard could furnish was 
 served for this occasion. The " first of the first fruits" were alwa3-s 
 " oftered to the Lord" in this feast of ingathering, and if he detected 
 his excellent wife in making use of any specked apples in preparing 
 her mince-pies for Thanksgiving, he peremptorily forbade it at once. 
 As a farmer, he was rather conservative. He did not take kindly to 
 new tools and new methods. He had more faith in hard work than 
 in new-fangled notions ; patent forks and ploughs with him were 
 rather objects of scorn and suspicion than of admiration. But he was 
 always esteemed a good man to work for. No man or beast upon 
 his premises was allowed to suffer from want of care or food. In 
 his last years he suffered much from lameness. He spent much of 
 his time in the warm season in reading his famil)' Bible at the open 
 window, but esteemed it no profanation to turn from it for a little 
 pleasantry with his neighbors. Such, substantially, I have good 
 reason to believe, were all the Edmund Rices who lived by the 
 spring and "honored the Lord with their substance, and with the 
 first fruits of all their increase." 
 
 Towns, Counties, etc. 
 
 The "town system" of local government, advocated and com- 
 mended in my address, is confined to New England. I have thought 
 it worth a while to quote Mr. S. A. Galpin's admirable digest of 
 the minor political divisions of the United States contained in Prof, 
 Francis A. Walker's Statistical Atlas, which is based on the returns 
 of the ninth census, 1870: — 
 
66 
 
 I. The Town System. 
 
 The "Town" system, pure and simple, prevails only in the six 
 New England States : Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New 
 Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The area of these States 
 is 68,343 ^^h '^^- ' their population 3,487,924. They thus contain 
 about one-thirteenth of the area and one-eleventh of the population of 
 the States of the Union. Under this system, the *■' town," which, in 
 its area and general characteristics conforms closely to the " town- 
 ship " of the West, is the important political division of the State. 
 It is a body corporate and politic, deriving its charter from the Leg- 
 islature of the State, and generally entitled to an independent repre- 
 sentation in the lower branch of that Legislature. 
 
 It has power to elect its own officers, to manage in its own way its 
 own I'oads, schools, local police, and other domestic concerns, and 
 collects, through its own officers, not only its self-imposed taxes for 
 local purposes, but also those levied by the Legislature for the sup- 
 port of the vState, or by the County officers for the limited objects of 
 their expenditures. 
 
 Reference to the following table shows that the average area of the 
 New England " town" — deduction having been made for the estimated 
 unsettled area of Maine — is 34 sq. m., the number of its inhabitants 
 averaging at the same time 2,450, or about 72 to the sq. m. Deduct- 
 ing the population of cities and towns having over 10,000 inhabitants, 
 the average population of the town is 1,700, or 50 to the sq. m. In 
 a community of such area and numbers, meetings of the legal voters 
 to examine the accounts and official conduct of the town officers and 
 to consider subjects of common interest are possible ; and the in- 
 creased strength of public sentiment serves no less than this direct 
 supervision to induce a proper execution of public trust. 
 
 Where so much political power is vested in the town any larger 
 subdivision of the State must necessarih' have but a limited function. 
 The County thus becomes, in New England, mainly a judicial, not a 
 political, subdivision of the State. The jurisdiction of the executive 
 officers of the County over the towns within it extends to the laying 
 out of new highways, and is then in the nature of an appellative one 
 only, while such duties of those officers as relate exclusively to 
 County affairs are confined to the care and control of the County 
 buildings. 
 
 II. — The County System. 
 
 The " County" system, which is so markedly in contrast with that 
 just noticed, is now found in seventeen States, viz., Alabama, Arkan- 
 sas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, 
 Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South 
 Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. These " County" States have an 
 area of 1,234,295 sq. m., with a population of 11,955,731, — about 
 
67 
 
 two-thirds of the area and more than one-third of the population of 
 all the States. 
 
 Until a recent date the County system prevailed in every State 
 south of the Ohio river and Pennsylvania. Within the last decade, 
 however, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia have taken 
 measures for dividing their counties into townships and for clothino- 
 those townships with more or less of political power ; although 
 South Carolina subsequently retraced its steps and abolished the 
 townships thus erected. In view of this recent action of Virginia, 
 the opinions of her great statesman, Mr. Jefferson, upon the merits 
 of the ''township" svstem, may not be irrelevant. Extracts from 
 three of his letters are, therefore, inserted ; the order of their dates 
 being, for convenience of citation, reversed : — 
 
 Among other improvements, I hope they (a proposed constitutional con- 
 vention) will adopt the subdivision of our counties into wards. The former 
 may be estimated at an average of twenty-four miles square ; the latter should 
 be about six miles square each, and would answer to the hundreds of your 
 Saxon Alfred. 
 
 In each of these might be, ist. An elementary school ; 2d. A company of 
 Militia, with its officers; 3d. A justice of the peace and constable; 4th. Each 
 ward should take care of their own poor ; 5th. Their own roads ; 6th. Their 
 own police; 7th. Elect within themselves one or more jurors to attend the 
 courts of justice ; and Sth. Give in at their Folk House, their votes for all 
 functionaries reserved to their election. (Letter of June 5th, 1824, to Major 
 John Cartwright, Opera, Vol. VII., p. 357.) 
 
 In a letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816 (Opera, Vol. vii., 
 p. 13), Mr. Jefferson, after describing at greater length such a divi- 
 sion of the County, adds : — 
 
 Tliese wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of 
 their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever 
 devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for 
 its preservation. We should thus marshal our government into, ist, The gen- 
 eral federal republic, for all concerns, foreign and federal ; 2d, That of the 
 State, forwhat relates to our own citizens exclusively; 3d, The County repub- 
 lics, for the duties and concerns of the County; and 4th, The ward republics, 
 for the small, yet numerous and interesting concerns of the neighborhood ; 
 and in government, as well as in every other business of life, it is by division 
 and subdivision of duties alone, that all matters, great and small, can be man- 
 aged to perfection. And the whole is cemented by giving to every citizen 
 personally a part in the administration of the public affairs. 
 
 And again. May 26, 1810, writing to Gov. Tyler, Mr. Jefferson 
 says (Opera, Vol. v., p. 525) : — 
 
 These little republics will be the main strength of the great one. We owe 
 to them the vigor given to our Revolution in its commencement in the 
 Eastern States, and by them the Eastern States were enabled to repeal the 
 embargo in opposition to the Middle, Southern, and Western States, and their 
 
68 
 
 large and lubberly divisions into Counties which can never be assembled. 
 General orders are given out from a centre to the foreman of every hundred, 
 as to the sergeants of an army, and the whole nation is thrown into energetic 
 action in the same direction in one instant, and as one man, and becomes 
 absolutely irresistible. 
 
 Resuming the consideration of the County system, it is to be noted, 
 that under it all the conditions of the "town" system are reversed. 
 The names of the greater and lesser subdivisions of the State may 
 remain unchanged, but the powers and position of these subdivisions 
 are in no case or degree the same. The town or township is but the 
 skeleton of the New England town, while the County is clothed with 
 all the political power. It derives its charter from the Legislature, 
 and is responsible to the State authorities for its share of the State 
 taxation. Its subordinate divisions formed — Delaware and Mary- 
 land being excepted — by its own officers, have no political power 
 whatever, and exist only for convenience at the general elections, or 
 to mark the district of a justice of the peace and a constable. The 
 average area of the County in the State adopting this system is 1,040 
 sq. m., its populaton 11,236, the unorganized portions of these States 
 being excluded in the computation ; or, excluding also the partially 
 organized and settled States of the Pacific slope, its area averages 
 734 sq. m.,its population 1 1,515, or about 15 inhabitants to the sq. m. 
 The radical differences between these two types may, perhaps, be 
 emphasized by comparing the States of Rhode Island and South 
 Carolina in respect to their organization. The area of Rhode Island, 
 as given by the General Land Office, is 1,306 sq. m., less than double 
 the average area of the political unit under the County system, yet it 
 has within its limits 36 towns and cities, each being an independent 
 political organization ; while South Carolina, with an area 0^34,000 
 sq. m., has only 31 organized Counties, which are in no respect the 
 superiors of the Rhode Island towns in political power. On the 
 other hand, the population of the Rhode Island town averages 6,038, 
 or, excluding cities, 4,000 inhabitants, the area being about 36 sq. 
 m. ; that of the South Carolina County, 22,731, distributed over an 
 average area of nearly i,iop sq. m. Under these conditions of set- 
 tlement and organization, differing widely as they do from those of 
 New England, the methods of administration must also differ. The 
 area of the County forbids any general gathering of its inhabitants 
 vested with the legislative and executive functions of the " tovvn- 
 meetings " as well as any intimate mutual acquaintance between the 
 inhabitants of its different sections. Of necessity, therefore, the ad- 
 ministration of all local affairs is entrusted wholly to the county 
 officers, and the political duty and privilege of the citizen begins and 
 ends on election day. 
 
 The duly authorized officers of the Countv are thus charged with 
 the care and control of the Coimty property, the levy and collection 
 of all State and County taxes, the division of the County in election 
 
69 
 
 districts, the laying out and repairing of roads and bridges, the care 
 of the poor, the police of the County, and, in general, all County and 
 local affairs. 
 
 III. The Compromise System. 
 
 There yet remains to be noted, however, what I have ventured 
 to call the " Compromise" system, which, having its home in States 
 lying between those already named, is itself the result of a fusion of 
 the systems which prevail on either side of it. This third general type 
 has been adopted in the organization of the States of the north-west, and 
 now prevails in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, 
 New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vir- 
 ginia, West Vii'ginia, and Wisconsin. These fourteen States con- 
 tain 673,824 sq. m., and 22,671,986 inhabitants, their area being 
 about one-third of that of the States of the Union, their population 
 nearly two-thirds. The average number of inhabitants to the sq. m. 
 is nearly thirty-four. The States above-named may be again sub- 
 divided with reference to the manner of electing their County officers 
 into the " New York" system, and the "Pennsylvania" system, the 
 former prevailing in Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, 
 Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin ; the latter in the other 
 States of this group. The difference between these two systems is 
 one of form and name rather than substance. In New York the 
 powers of the County are exercised by a Board of Supervisors, in 
 which Board the towns of the County are represented as equal polit- 
 ical communities. In Pennsylvania, on the other hand, the affairs of 
 the County are managed by a Board of three Commissioners elected 
 from the body of the County. In New York, also, the Supervisor 
 who represents the town in the County Board has other town duties, 
 and is thus an officer both of the town and the County, while the 
 County Commissioner in Pennsylvania has no township duties 
 whatever. 
 
 In the "Compromise" system, as seen in the largest and most 
 important States of the Union, the political power, which, in New 
 England is lodged with the town, and at the south with the County, 
 is divided between the two organizations. The County is the creation 
 of the State Legislature and the political unit. It is, however, sub- 
 divided into towns or townships, which possess considerable political 
 rights, and thus become a miniature of a State as subdivided for 
 local purposes into its Counties. The townships are laid out by the 
 County officers in New Jersey only, by the Legislature of the State — 
 and have power to elect their own officers, to lay out and repair their 
 highways, to determine in township-meetings the amount of taxes to 
 beraisedfor school and other local purposes, and submit an estimate 
 of the same to the County authorities for approval, and, in general, 
 to act upon all local matters in much the same way as the New 
 England town, subject, however, to the supervisory control of the 
 
County. , The County tluis becomes a more important factor in the 
 administration of local affairs than in New England. Its executive 
 officers are required to discharge all duties properly connected with 
 the County administration, and, in addition, to audit the accounts of 
 township officers and accounts and claims against the township, and 
 direct the raising of funds for their payment, to approve the votes of 
 the township for borrowing money, or incurring any extraordinary 
 expenditure, and to levy on the property of the township such taxes 
 for township purposes as may be duly certified to them by the town- 
 ship officers. 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 
 
 Total 
 Number. 
 
 Average 
 Area. 
 
 Averag'e 
 Population. 
 
 Average 
 population ex- 
 cluding towns 
 and cities hav- 
 ing overio,ooo 
 inhabitants. 
 
 The 
 
 ' Town " System 
 
 1,424 
 
 34 
 
 2,450 
 
 1,700 
 
 The 
 
 "County" System .... 
 
 6,961 
 
 79 
 
 1,301 
 
 1,255 
 
 The ' 
 
 ' Compromise " System . . 
 
 ".915 
 
 59 
 
 1,923 
 
 1,504 
 
 
 
 20,300 
 
 69 
 
 1,695 
 
 1,433 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCHES 
 
 Among the peculiarities of the Puritan settlers of New England, 
 their views of civil and religious polity stand forth in a certain indi- 
 viduality of aspect at once unique and worthy of study. In the 
 " mother country" they were the " come-outers " of their day, pro- 
 testing alike against pontifical rule and the established forms of 
 ecclesiasticism backed by civil power. But, while holding such 
 views of dissociation with the most zealous intensity, they brought 
 with them to these shores, in their " heart of hearts," a fixed belief 
 that all human governments must not only be based upon religious 
 principles, but that those principles must penetrate and permeate all 
 civil institutions, to make them truly subserve human weal. 
 
 In accordance with such views, perhaps growing out of them as 
 their natural fruit, it is found that at the establishment of their town- 
 ships, and for a century or more after, while the meeting-house was 
 the first public building to be erected, it was made not only to sei"ve 
 for public worship and religious instruction, but for such civil pur- 
 poses as town meetings, courts of justice, for military drills, and, 
 during the Indian hostilities, they were fortified as points of retire- 
 ment for active defence in cases of invasion. The religious element 
 was required by custom to interblend with and sanctify, outwardly 
 at least, all public meetings for municipal business, by the exercise 
 of formal prayer at their opening. 
 
 In this town, from the erection of the first meeting-house, in 1643, 
 on the spot now seen in the North Cemetery, then the centre of 
 business and population, to the year 1815, and through a succession 
 of four generations of these structures, all the functions of both its 
 civil and religious institutions found shelter and wei'e conducted 
 harmoniouslv vmder a common roof. 
 
 MEETING-HOUSES. 
 
 The first of these was a building twenty by thirty feet, with log 
 walls probably, six feet high. It had no floor but the earth, and was 
 without seats. Its cost was six pounds sterling, which was paid in 
 the produce of the farms. 
 
 The second, erected nine years after, on the same site, was a 
 framed house, twenty-five by "forty feet, with posts twelve feet high. 
 It had gable ends, with two pinnacles, two entrance doors, and four 
 
72 
 
 transom windows. The inside was finished with smooth boards, and 
 contained oak benches. It continued in use thirty-four years. 
 
 In i6S6 the town voted to build, on the site of the old house (that 
 being sold for six pounds), a meeting-house "just like the new one in 
 Dedham," at a cost of two hundred pounds sterling money. This 
 was accomplished; and it served the entire town until 1723. At 
 that date many settlers of the township occupied the territory on 
 the west side of the river, and demanded a meeting-house for 
 their special accommodation. This was granted, and a house was 
 erected, probably on the site now occupied by the Unitarian church 
 in Sudbury, at a cost of three hundred and eighty pounds. Hence- 
 forward, until 1780, town meetings were held alternately at the two 
 houses. 
 
 The division of the territory of Sudbury into two townships by 
 legislative act, in 1780, giving to the portion lying east of the river 
 the name of East Sudbury, found its settlers spread over an area of 
 seven miles in length. It is not surprising that occupants of the 
 southern extremity soon perceived the inequality of distance from 
 their common centre of business, — the meeting-house. A warm 
 sectional contest ensued. The interference of the General Court was 
 successfully invoked, which, by its special committee, selected a 
 more central spot, and ordered the removal of the house. It was not 
 moved entire, however, but taken to pieces, defective timbers re- 
 placed w^ith new, and again set up, divested of its external orna- 
 ments, and supplied with a gable instead of a hip roof. The work 
 was completed in 1726-7, at a cost of about two hundred and fifty 
 pounds. Its unadorned appearance is remembered by the writer and 
 others still living. It was the last building to serve the double pur- 
 pose of municipal and religious operations. By agreement it was 
 conveyed, in 1815, to J. F. Heard and Luther Gleason, on condition 
 that they remove it to a convenient spot, and finish a hall in the 
 second story for the free use of the town during thirty years. It was 
 known for many years after as the " Old Green Store," from the color 
 of its original paint. 
 
 In 1S40, the common land on which the old meeting-house had 
 stood having been sold in the mean time to Dea. James Draper, he 
 proposed to erect a new building on a part of the same, for the use 
 of the town, to contain a town-hall, a school-i^oom, with anterooms, 
 etc., for the sum of seventeen hundred dollars. His proposal was 
 accepted, and the building was first occupied for town meetings Nov. 
 8, 1S41. Subsequently the hall was used also for an academy, under 
 Rev. L. P. Frost. The library occupied a part of the lower floor, 
 and for this and other public uses it served the town until the erec- 
 tion of the new building in 1878. 
 
 The periods of time covered by the above data are rich in those 
 incidents that make the historic page interesting and valuable, and 
 would well reward the patient annalist for the necessary time and 
 toil required to bring them to light. 
 
73 
 
 EAST SUDBURY CENTRE IN 1S14. 
 
 With a little effort of recollection, the " middle of the town" may 
 be restored in pen portraiture as it appeared when the old meeting- 
 house stood faithful to its last year of sacred duty, in 1814. 
 
 From the old elm, then in its prime, in front of the hotel, as a 
 centre, and over a space swept by a radius of one-fourth of a mile, 
 let all 'modern improvements effected since that time be banished. 
 These will include every house and building, except the following, 
 viz. : a part of the hotel and stable, of the Roby House, the S. 
 Reeves' House, Mr. Braman's farm-house, the walls of Mrs Rus- 
 sell's house, Mr. Kernan's low house, and Dea. Morse's house; 
 obliterate the Bridle Point road and the new Mill road ; open the 
 old drive-wav, twenty-five feet wide, through the brook next to 
 Captain Pous'land's land, and narrow the road over the brook by re- 
 moving fifteen feet of the sluice at its east end ; remove the fences 
 from the fronts of the houses ; dispense with all wmdow-blmds, and 
 the territory is ready to restore the buildings to their former con- 
 dition, r i. -u *.U 
 
 Beginning with the tavern, we have a two-story front with the 
 roof on the back sloping down to cover a one-story kitchen ; the 
 front and ends appear of a dirty yellow color, and the back is 
 painted red. The tavern barn stands side to the road, with great 
 doors on each end. The old bar-room must not be forgotten, with 
 its ample supply of " creature comforts" ; and notice the great wood 
 fire in the spacious fireplace, with stout andirons, and half-a-dozen 
 loc^eerheads ready in the live coals for use. 
 
 Here at the intermission of divine services on Sunday, the boys 
 come to buy their cent's worth of gingerbread, and their elders to 
 warm their half-frozen feet in winter, and have a talk about politics, 
 the proo-ress of the war, and to circulate news generally ; always 
 remembering to buy a " mug of flip," from a sense ot generosity to 
 
 the landlords. 1 . , , ^ i- • . 
 
 That dilapidated little building once painted red, standnig just 
 beyond the tavern barn, was formerly a store.^ The blacksmith shop 
 a little farther on is Silas Grout's.^ His house without ells, and the 
 barn a little back, are near by, in front of the sand-bank, with tall, 
 slim poplars standing guard.4 ., • „ .c t?..i Qf^v^ " 
 
 On the other side of the road, nearly opposite,^ is the -RedStoie, 
 occupied by Heard & Reeves, for the sale of \\ est India and Dry 
 Goods. On that - heater" piece, where the Concord and Sudbury 
 roads diverge, is Dr. Rice's little one-story house facing_the Sudbury 
 road 5 The new unfinished house, just beyond it is N. Reeves, Jr s.6 
 
 : ISSSo^^e^- - - ^ - - S-^"™ °^ ''^ - ^- «-- 
 
 1 Heard & Reeves, 
 lot. 
 
 4 The present site of the new Town House. 
 
 5 Site now occupied by Capt. Dudley's house. 
 f^ Now standing. 
 
74 
 
 At the left, farther on, is seen EHsha Cutting's large house ; ^ and a 
 few steps farther the little gambrel-roof cottage of N. Reeves, Sr., 
 Esq., is seen \^ the " bridle-way " to the river meadows passing be- 
 tween them. 
 
 Now, starting from Mr. Jona. Parmenter's towards the centre, first 
 comes Alex. Smith's little house on Pea-porridge hill, the right-hand 
 side of the road ; "^ then on the left, beneath the shade of the two 
 great elms, William Roby's fine two-story front and one-story back 
 dwelling appears,^ with his- barn on higher ground a little farther on. 
 Opposite the Roby house stands the small brick tenement (once the 
 office of Dr. Roby), where '' Mitchell" lives. 
 
 Now pass the centre elm, cross the brook, and, going towards 
 Framingham, the first house passed on the right is Mr. Samuel Rus- 
 sell's, with two stories in front and one back ; ^ it enjoys a coat of 
 yellow ochre. In one of the front chambers is heard the clacketv- 
 bump of " Old Mrs. Sanderson's loom." 
 
 Around the generous fires of this domicil gathered the church- 
 going dames to fill their foot-stoves during the cold season, and to 
 speak of the sick and sorrowing ; especiallv if at the morning ser- 
 vice some one "• had up a note " asking for prayers on account of the 
 death of a relative, or to " return thanks for favors lately received." 
 
 Still south and on the left is Mr. Tim. Underwood's little low 
 dwelling,^ and over " Pine Brook," on the right, is seen the two-story 
 house of Mr. John Cutting.'^ 
 
 Returning to the centre and on the road to Weston, Jerry Haws' 
 house, the first on the left, is passed, with one story facing the road 
 and a "cellar kitchen" beneath facing the east. In an ell to this, 
 projecting east, Mr. J. F. Heard has opened a store for " Dry and 
 West India Goods." ^ The little ten-footer on the opposite side of 
 the road is where Johnny Bracket, the cobbler, lives. Daniel Learned's 
 old two-storv front and long low roof back is next passed on the right 
 just back of the two elms.^ In the right-hand front chamber may be 
 seen, sitting at work with his legs doubled under him, Timothy Allen, 
 tailor. 
 
 On the left, just bevond, is the low, yellow house of William 
 Bracket, the shoemaker ; '^ and farther on, back of the two elms, is the 
 fine homestead of William Wyman. the miller. ^^ 
 
 1 Location now covered by Mr. H. B. Braman's residence. The old house has been moved 
 towards the centre, and remodelled. 
 
 2 Site now occupied by the " Grout house " moved there, owned and occupied by Mrs. S. E. 
 Heard. 
 
 s Present site of Miss M. E. Reeves' house. 
 
 * Now remodelled and owned by Mr. W. G. Roby. 
 
 f' Site now occupied by Capt. Pousland's residence. ' 
 
 " Now the location of Rev. J. B. Wight's house. 
 
 ' Location now covered bv Mr. J. Bullard's house. 
 
 " The cellar to this ell was filled in 1S7S. 
 
 " Spot now occupied by the " Fisk Heard house." 
 '» Now standing and owned by M. Kernon. 
 '' Dea. Morse and sister are the present owners and occupants. 
 
75 
 
 Resuming a position at the centre, - The Common demands 
 attent'om It contains about one acre, and was purd^ased by t^.e 
 tovv in 1736-7 as a site, ordered by a Committee of the General 
 Court on which to place the meeting-house; to be used also as 
 a tr-iinin-field. Its form was nearly square, the southerly side 
 bounrcrby the "Farm road" and its easterly by the " Greatroad. 
 On ^sol-westerly corner is seen the school-house, with two win- 
 dows on the side next the - Farm road," three on the sides east and 
 weTt wiUrtle entrance door on the east side at the north-easterly 
 Toinei It had a hip-roof.'^ On the south-easterly corner stood the 
 Mee'i^;-houi removed to this place from the Old Burying Ground 
 D opprnow the use of foot-notes, let it be understood that the 
 frame of the building known as the - Old green store " is that of the 
 "0h\ meettn'-house of 1814," with partially dim nished proportion , 
 and except n^ the timbers of the roof. Replace it then, in imagina- 
 tion on ks old site, with its side fronting the street and standing 
 neii-ly on a Hne with Mr. J. Mullen's fi^nt fence, and let >ts -thei ly 
 1 /u ^5Mni- nr ten feet within Mr. M.'s house, in place ot its 
 ' H^TnL^erect a common gable-roof with slight pediments 
 
 present ^^P-' °°^ ^^^'^.^ ' aTorectino- porch on the front side, and one 
 dsorS eiS wi eig£ wrndows'in front, four on each end and 
 ou-o. the back, with one large civcular-top window back of t^ 
 
 ^mMinrThe'twn Pou^nd^fovmerly^^an^.poi-^ appendage) 
 occupied the corner now covered by the Law Ottice. 
 
 LIBRARIES. 
 
 " •'^'ThlTe 'p^SicTw:.-kr of the late Rev.,and pious Mr Rictavd 
 Samuel Holden, Esq., of L^nclon ana ^^^^ ^^^^^^_^^ 
 
 r„a l:'S;4a^::t l"S%^'"Ct'« tow„ o^ Su*ut„ „ow 
 
 ^^T-^fe rri?k walTs Wi^ tlZ^noZt^^e the residence of M«. Russell. 
 
76 
 
 under the care of the Rev. Mr. Cook, by the direction and disposal 
 of the Rev. Mr. Benj. Colman, Pastor of a Church in Boston. 
 
 Boston, July 19, 1731." 
 
 These appear to be the first books owned by the town and kept for 
 public use. They were kept in the meeting-house. 
 
 EAST SUDBURY SOCIAL LIBRARY. 
 
 This association was oi-ganized April 6, 1796, by several citizens, 
 who were "fully convinced that public as well as private happiness 
 essentially depends on the general diffusion of knowledge ; and that 
 the easiest and most direct way to obtain that knowledge is by the free 
 use of well-chosen books." 
 
 The above quotation from their records clearly indicates that the 
 germ of Free Public JLibraries existed among the citizens at that 
 early date. It took root in a good soil and grew apace ; but its fruit 
 was gathered only by the proprietors who could afford to pay a four- 
 dollar membership, with an annual assessment of twenty-five cents. 
 It began with thirty-two members. Their first purchase was thirty- 
 six volumes. In 1833 it contained two hundred and twenty-seven 
 volumes. It was kept at the private houses of its successive libra- 
 rians. Its Book of Records and eighty-two of its volumes are now in 
 the Public Library. 
 
 EAST SUDBURY CHARITABLE LIBRARY. 
 
 The Rev. John Burt Wight, on becoming the settled minister of 
 the only religious society in the town in 1815, brought with him 
 clear and enlarged views of the value of books. He soon commenced 
 the formation of a Library, composed largely, but not exclusively, of 
 moral and religious works, for the free use of any citizen of the town 
 who might apply for them. It increased in a few years, by donations, 
 and by purchases made from contributions taken occasionally at the 
 meeting-house, to about three hundred volumes. For many years it 
 was kept at the house of Mr. Wight, who gave his attention to the 
 care and delivery of the books. Afterwards it was removed to the 
 vestibule of the meeting-house, and through neglect many volumes 
 were lost. Seventy-one of the books 3re now found in the Public 
 Library. 
 
 COMMON-SCHOOL LIBRARIES. 
 
 In 1845 the town ordered the purchase of books, to be kept in 
 each of its six districts, for the use of scholars and others, under 
 proper regulations. These libraries contained six difierent sets of 
 
77 
 
 books (about sixty in each), and they were annually exchanged, in 
 rotation, among the districts. Under this arrangement they were 
 extensively read. In November, 1S51, they were consolidated with 
 the Public Library by vote of the town. 
 
 WAYLAND FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 
 
 On commencement day at Brown University, R. I., in 1847, the 
 president of that institution, Rev. Francis Wayland, D.D., made the 
 verbal proposition to the Hon. Edward Mellen, a resident of the 
 town of Wayland, and a trustee of the University, that he would 
 give to the town the sum of five hundred dollars to establish a free 
 public library, provided the inhabitants of the town would raise an 
 equal amount for the same purpose. 
 
 This proposal was submitted in writing by Mr. Mellen at a meet- 
 ing of the citizens held January 17, 1848. At that meeting an agent 
 (J. S. Draper) was appointed to canvass the town for the necessary 
 sum. The paper circulated (now in the archives of the Library) 
 bears date of January 23, 1S4S, and contains the names of two hun- 
 dred and eight persons, whose subscriptions amount to five hundred 
 and fifty-three dollai's and ninety cents, all of which was paid before 
 the tenth day of February following. This sum, with five hundred 
 dollars received from Dr. Wayland, was formally tendered to the town, 
 and accepted by vote, at the annual town meeting, held March 6, 
 1848. Under an article in the warrant for that meeting, " To see if 
 the town will provide a suitable room or building in which said 
 Library shall be kept." the town voted to refer the matter to a special 
 committee. 
 
 In effect, then, the Library was founded at this date. 
 
 The committee, with Hon. E. Mellen as chairman, were soon 
 convinced that, w^ithout farther legislation, either special or general, 
 no movement could be legally made by the town to incur any public 
 expenditure for founding or sustaining a Public Library. 
 
 Soon after, a proposal came from a private individual to erect a 
 suitable building for the object desired. It being presented at a town 
 meeting. May 8, 1848, the town chose a committee, with discretionary 
 power, to accept such building when completed, or otherwise. At 
 the same meeting a committee was chosen to purchase books for the 
 Librar}', and a set of regulations for its management was adopted. 
 The building was not deemed suitable for the purpose intended, and 
 therefore was not accepted by the committee. 
 
 Becoming desperate under the delays, the town, at a meeting held 
 March 4, 1S50, voted to authorize a committee to prepare a room 
 for the books in some proper and convenient place, and to borrow 
 money on the town's credit to defray the expense. Under this au- 
 thority a room was fitted up for the library on the front lower floor 
 
78 
 
 of the Town House. On the shelves in this room the books were 
 phiced as fast as purchased. 
 
 The formal opening of the Library for the delivery of books to the 
 public for reading occurred August 7? 1S50. 
 
 In 1S61, the number of books having increased beyond the 
 capacity of its shelf-room, the town voted to fit up the room on the 
 lower floor of the Town House, formerly used as a school-room, with 
 suitable alcoves and cases, and transfer the books thereto. In this 
 room, on the 4th day of July, 1861, the Library was again opened to 
 the public. In December, 1878, the books were removed to the fine 
 apartments designed for them in the new building ; and on the 28th 
 of the month they were again called for, and distributed to the 
 readers throughout the town. 
 
 The present number of volumes is 7,485. 
 
 The number in circulation is 519. 
 
 Mr. Henrv Wight was librarian during the first fifteen years, and 
 was succeeded, in 1865, by J. S. Draper, the present occupant of that 
 position. 
 
 To the above sketch, comprising the substantial facts of its history, 
 may be added -a few correlative statements. 
 
 Without a doubt it is the firstFree Public Library in Massachusetts 
 supported at the public expense. Consequent upon the discussions 
 in the town meetings and among the citizens of Wayland relative to 
 its complete establishment as a Public Institution, the Legislature of 
 Massachusetts, through the efforts of Rev. J. B. Wight, a member 
 of the House of Representatives from Wayland, in 1851, passed a 
 law enabling any city or town in the State to " establish and main- 
 tain libraries for the use of the inhabitants thereof," etc. The 
 results of this law are now seen in the very large number of public 
 libraries in this State, and in others where similar provisions have 
 been enacted. 
 
 In 185 1 an invitation w^as extended to Dr. Wayland to visit the 
 town, which was accepted August 36th of that year. The occasion 
 was made one of the most interesting in the history of the town. 
 The people assembled ett masse to see and greet their noble-hearted 
 benefactor. Men of literary distinction from other places were 
 present to contribute an increased interest by their addresses, and to 
 witness for themselves the anomaly of a new institution destined to 
 work important and highly beneficial results in popular education. 
 
 ENDOWMENT. 
 
 In 1863, James Draper, deacon of the First Church in Wayland, 
 gave the sum of five hundred dollars as a permanent fund, the in- 
 terest of which is to be annually expended in the purchase of books. 
 He had been a resident in the town since 1810. 
 
79 
 
 WORKS OF ART. 
 
 Life-size portraits of Rev. Francis Wayland, D.D., Rev. John B. 
 Wi^ht, Hon. Edward Mellen, Rev. Edmund H. Sears, and Deacon 
 James Draper, have been presented to the Library, and adorn its 
 
 walls. , . 1 in- 17 
 
 Life-size busts of Wm. H. Prescott, Louis Agassiz, and Wm. E. 
 Channing, have also been donated, and are placed in the Library.