The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 | Page 8

was Harrison Gray Otis. During the excitement of the war, the school was closed for a short time, but was again opened in June, 1776, under the rule of Mr. Samuel Hunt. He was in authority for twenty-nine years and was then succeeded by William Bigelow of Salem, who held the sceptre until 1813, when it passed to Benjamin Apthorp Gould, and in 1828 to Frederick P. Leverett. The later masters have been Charles K. Dilloway, who succeeded in 1831, Epes Sargent Dixwell in 1836, Francis Gardner in 1851, Augustine W. Gay in 1876, and in 1877 Moses Merrill, the present efficient master. Among these many school teachers, some have been famous for their marked abilities. This is especially true of Ezekiel Cheever, John Lovell, and Francis Gardner.
"Cheever and Lovell and Gardner, the Puritan, the Tory, and shall not we say, in some fuller sense, the man--are they not characteristic figures? One belongs to the century of Milton, one to the century of Johnson, one to the century of Carlisle. One's eye is on the New Jerusalem; one's soul is all wrapped up in Boston; one has caught sight of humanity. One is of the century of faith, one of the century of common-sense, one of the century of conscience. One leaches his boys the Christian doctrine, one bids them keep the order of the school, one inspires them to do their duty. The times they represent are great expanses in the sea of time. One shallower, one deeper than the other; through them all sails on the constant school with its monotonous routine, like the clattering machine of a great ship which over many waters of different depths, feeling now the deepness and now the shallowness under its keel, presses along to some sea of the future which shall be better than them all."[1]
The first school-house stood until 1748. Another was then erected on the opposite side of School street, where the Parker House now stands. In 1812 a new building was erected here. The Latin school was moved in 1844 to Bedford street, where it occupied the building recently torn down, until 1881, when the magnificent structure on Warren Avenue became its home.
A glance over the list of those who have graduated reveals the names of John Hull, Benjamin Franklin and his four fellow-signers of the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock, Sam Adams, Robert Treat Paine, William Hooper; Presidents Leverett, Langdon, Everett and Eliot of Harvard, and Pynchon of Trinity College; Governors James Bowdoin and William Eustis; Lieutenant-Governors Cushing and Winthrop; James Lovell; Adino Paddock, who planted the "Paddock Elms"; Judges Francis Dana, Thomas Dawes, and Charles Jackson; Drs. John C. Warren, James Jackson and Henry I. Bowditch; Professors William D. Peck, Henry W. Torrey, Francis J. Child, Josiah P. Cooke, and William R. Dimmock; Mayors Harrison G. Otis, Samuel A. Eliot and Frederick O. Prince; Honorables Robert C. Winthrop, Charles Francis Adams, George S. Hillard, Charles Sumner, William M. Evarts and Charles Devens; such writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Lothrop Motley, and divines as Right Rev. John B. Fitzpatrick, Roman Catholic bishop of Boston, Right Rev. Theodore Dehon, bishop of South Carolina, and Revs. Cotton Mather, Benjamin Colman, Andrew Eliot, Joseph Tuckerman, William Jenks, Samuel Cooper Thacher, Francis Parkman, N.L. Frothingham, William H. Furness, Alexander Young, Frederick A. Farley, James Freeman Clarke, William Henry Channing, Henry Ward Beecher, John F.W. Ware, Edward E. Hale and Phillips Brooks.
[Footnote 1: Rev. Phillips Brooks.]
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THE WHITE AND FRANCONIA MOUNTAINS.
By Fred Myron Colby.
[Illustration: WHITE MOUNTAIN RANGE FROM MILAN.]
What would the world be without mountains? Geographically, one vast monotony of unchanging surface; geologically, a desert waste. Mountains are the rib-bones of the great skeleton of nature, and they hold together the gorgeous outline of river, valley, lake, and savannah that gives the earth all its varied beauty. Beautiful and grand as they are, they are as useful as ornamental, and serve a momentous necessity in mundane affairs. They are grand landmarks of the Almighty's power and mercy and goodness, and historically occupy a high position in the lives of nations.
The seers and saints of the old time speak of the strength of the hills as if they were the special gifts of the Creator to his favored people for their defence. The history of later nations has shown us that they have found more in the strength of the hills than defences against the attacks of outside enemies; that they have drawn from them a moral vigor of character, a keenness and activity of intellect, and a love of country, which has produced the most enduring and elevated patriotism. And, indeed, we must bless God for mountains; those who live near them are larger, better, nobler than the denizens of the plains. "Flee to the mountains," cried