Congress. To our own State there was given from the same stock one of its most useful and honored citizens and brightest examples.

Of Judge Hall's early life little can now be gathered. Enough, however, remains to show-what to us is of chief interest that in the home of his childhood those elements of strong intellectual and moral character, which he inherited from a virtuous ancestry, found their appropriate nurture and development.

It is not unlikely that his early mental training received some direction from his grandfather, the Rev. Willard Hall, who resided in the same town, being for more than half a century the pastor of the Congregational Church at Westford. The grandfather is represented as an eminently pious and useful minister, scholarly and cultured, yet practical and of great decision,—a graduate of Harvard University, of the class of 1722. Dr. Payson, perhaps the most distinguished divine of that day in New England, highly estimated his acquaintance, and represented him as a man of remarkable intellectual endowments. His long ministry at Westford was one of marked success and usefulness. He evinced, even at that early day, something of the interest. in popular education which so distinguished the grandson in after-years. On one occasion, when his town, considering itself excused by some special circumstances, refused to lay the required school tax, he complained to the General Court, and arraigned his own charge, though by so doing he greatly offended many of his people—not unexpectedly, either, to himself. It was not improbably the fruit of efforts such as these that in 1792 an academy was estab

lished at Westford, and the way thus opened to the grandson for a liberal education. The moral sentiments of the boy, naturally strong, could not have been otherwise than invigorated by contact with such a grandfather; but the early development of that delicate moral and religious sensibility which so toned and regulated his whole character, bearing the rich fruits of his after-life, is directly traceable to the mother's hand. The moral and religious life has its basis in the affections and sentiments; and of these the best culture lies within woman's province.

Mrs. Hall was a woman of much force of character and of fervent piety,-trained in early life under the ministry and personal influence of Rev. Daniel Emerson, the pastor of her native town of Hollis. Mr. Emerson was a convert under the preaching of Whitefield, and partook largely of the fervent, evangelizing spirit of that truly apostolic man. He became himself a preacher, eminent for eloquence, learning, and for a certain indefinable moral elevation and purity, which, blended with a sympathetic spirit, bringing it into a close and warm contact with the hearts of men, was, by its assimilating influence, more effective than his eloquence or logic in moulding the religious life of his people at Hollis. It was the spirit of such a teaching and example that Mrs. Hall received and imparted to her own family life. What was the precise mould into which that family life was cast,-what its methods of instruction and discipline for the younger members,-of all this we need not inquire. In these respects families vary endlessly, each having its own proper individuality. But what it concerns. us to know is that the law of this household-by which is

meant the general direction given to the aspirations, aims, and habits of the family- was based on such principles as these, reverence for the divine, faith in the unseen, obedience to just authority, the subjection of inclination to duty, love of truth, unwearied effort for self-improvement, living not for one's self alone. Such were the germinal principles out of which grew and matured the life and character we this day commemorate. The early bloom his mother lived to see, but not the rich fruitage. She died in 1802, just as her son was entering upon his manhood.

Of Judge Hall's school and college life few incidents. remain to us. It was one of hardship, marked by the determination and struggles of a lad, conscious of strong mental capacities, to develop them, with inadequate means and against difficulties and discouragements. For, his father had what are not unfrequently found associated,—a large family and small means; but, in this instance, these were associated also with noble aspirations. Writing, in years long after, Judge Hall touchingly alludes to his father's sacrifices to keep his children at the school in Westford. He also, in this connection, refers, with not a little satisfaction, to the time when, a small boy, he trudged two miles on foot to school, with dinner in his pocket—a discipline to which he ascribed largely his fitness to encounter the stern responsibilities of after-life.

As the boy grew, the academy at Westford, established mainly through his grandfather's efforts, held out hope to his maturing aspirations after an education. Here he remained two years, with such proficiency and promise as to enlist on the part of his preceptor, Levi Hedge, an interest

which ripened into a never-forgotten friendship. Mr. Hedge afterwards became a tutor at Harvard, and was the father of Dr. Hedge, at the present time a professor in that institution. The friendship of the preceptor and the aid given to his young pupil in this crisis were ever gratefully remembered. The accumulating infirmities of ninety-three years could not dim the recollection of it. Writing as late in life as August 14, 1873, to Mr. Sibley, an officer of the university, he adverts, with a touching pathos, to his early Harvard struggles, and to the friend who had sustained him. "I should like," he writes, "to hear something of Levi Hedge, to whose partiality for me I owe my education, through privations and hardships and conflict, that placed me at last in the upper current of the struggle; by which I trust I have done something for the good of others. I remember him with lively gratitude." At thirteen years of age (in 1794) he was examined and received into the Freshman class at Harvard University. But from some unexplained cause, most likely prompted by that abhorrence of the superficial which through life was one of his marked characteristics, he seems to have reconsidered his plan. He returned to the academy at Westford and spent another year in preparation for the university course. He entered the Freshman class in 1795, and graduated in 1799. Harvard was then under the presidency of his kinsman, Rev. Joseph Willard, distinguished both as a scholar and as a divine, whose administration through a period of twentythree years was eminently successful. It may be doubted whether Harvard, at any period of its long service to the country, has given to it so many young men who have

since attained great eminence. Among Judge Hall's contemporaries at college were Horace Binney, William Ellery Channing, Joseph Story, Washington Allston, and Lemuel Shaw, not to speak of many of less note. He estimated the value of his college training all the more because it was severe, taxing his powers to the utmost. His views of education were after the old school; rejecting, with little patience, all schemes of learning made easy, holding the true object and value of education to be, not so much to lay up some definite stock of knowledge as a sort of capital to trade upon, but rather by discipline to develop the mental faculties, rendering them vigorous and discriminating, capable of grappling with and solving the problems of life,—a discipline to be effected only by the habitual exercise of the faculties to their utmost capacity for the time being. His proficiency as a college student must have been excellent in all branches; but there is reason to suppose that his leading interest was in the ancient classics, which at that day held as yet unchallenged a predominant place in the college curriculum. His appointment to deliver a Latin oration. in the Junior year would seem to mark some distinction in that department of study. Besides, his style of composition, in its purity, terseness, and vigor, bore strong traces of early and thorough classical culture. It was in later life his earnest advice to young men at the bar to continue and improve upon their classical studies by rigorously appropriating to them some small part of each day.

After graduating at Harvard, in March, 1800, he took his place as a law student in the office of Mr. Dana, then a practicing lawyer at Groton. There he realized the inesti