George B. Emerson, who was one of our teachers, gave a great impetus to the art of teaching grammar. He discarded books, and beginning with an object, as a bell or an orange, he would give a child at the age of twelve years a very good knowledge of the science in six lessons of an hour each. Dr. Lowell Mason was a teacher in the institutes during my entire period of service, although he offered to retire on account of age. He was an excellent teacher, and in the art practically, perhaps, the best of all. Professor William Russell was the teacher of elocution. His recitations were good, as were his criticisms on language, but as a teacher, he had not a high rank. After the retirement of Professor Agassiz, I employed Sanborn Tenney, a young man of great industry and enthusiasm. He had in him the promise of a great career in natural science, but he died prematurely in the State of Michigan while upon a lecturing tour. From first to last I had the benefit of a good corps of teachers with a single exception. In drawing I inherited from Dr. Sears a young man of English parentage. His statements were so extraordinary often, that I lost confidence in him. One day he wandered from his subject and indulged himself in denunciations of the English aristocracy. He closed with this remark: "Although I belong to the haristocracy, I 'ate 'em!" At the end of the autumn term, I dismissed him.
During my service as Secretary, I made the acquaintance of several persons whom I should not otherwise have known. Among them were President Hopkins of Williams College, President Hitchcock of Amherst College, and President Felton of Harvard College. Hopkins might properly be termed a wise man. He resembled President Walker who for several years presided over Harvard. Felton was a genial man, of sufficient learning for his office, and exceedingly popular with the students and with the public. It was during his administration that I was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, through his influence, and the influence of the professors at the College.
I resigned the office of Secretary, January 1, 1861, with the purpose of resuming the practice of law. During my term of office, I prepared five annual reports, the last of which, the twenty-fourth in the Series, was devoted to an analysis of the school laws with a history of the educational and reformatory institutions of the State. I also published a volume of educational papers, which had a considerable sale, especially in the State of Ohio, where a copy was ordered for each school library.
XXIII PHI BETA KAPPA ADDRESS AT CAMBRIDGE
About ten days before the 18th of June, 1861, Judge Hoar called at my office and invited me to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Cambridge on the 18th of the month. Although I had but little time for preparation, I accepted the invitation upon the understanding, or rather upon his request, that I was to deal with the questions then agitating the country. Among my hearers was the venerable Josiah Quincy, formerly President of the College. My address was so radical that the timid condemned it, and even Republican papers deprecated the violence of my language—they then living in the delusion that concessions, mild words and attitudes of humility could save the Union. Mr. Quincy was not of those. He gave to my address unqualified support, and I had no doubt that the majority of my audience sympathized with my views. There were, however, copperheads, and peace-men at any price, and gradually there appeared a more troublesome class of men who professed to be for the prosecution of the war, but criticized and condemned all the means employed. They were the hypocrites in politics—a class of men who affect virtue, and who tolerate and protect vice in government.
My address was called "The Conspiracy—Its Purpose and Power," and as far as I know, it was the first time that emancipation was demanded publicly, as a means of ending the war and saving the nation. The demand was made in a qualified form, but I renewed it in the December following in an address that I delivered before the Emancipation League. This address gave rise to similar or even to severer criticisms from the same classes. They were never a majority in Massachusetts, but they had sufficient power to impair the strength of the state, and in 1862 under the style of the People's Party, they endangered the election of Governor Andrew.
These criticisms made no impression upon me, for my confidence was unbounded that emancipation was inevitable and I was willing to wait for an improved public opinion.
I quote a portion of my remarks at Cambridge, which gave rise to criticism in some quarters, and provoked hostility among those whose sympathies were with the South:
"The settlers at Jamestown and Plymouth did not merely found towns or counties or colonies, or States even; they also founded a great nation, and upon the idea of its unity.
"Their colonial charters extended from sea to sea. Their origin, their language, their laws, their civilization, their ideas, and now their history, constitute us one nation. In the geological structure of this continent, Nature seems to have prepared it for the occupation of a single people. I cannot doubt, then, that continental unity is the great, the supreme law of our public life.