others whom they regarded as intruders," attracted much attention; Mr. F. E. E. Hamilton, a graduate of the English High School, and since an alumnus of Harvard College; Mr. Robert M. Lovett, a graduate of the Boston Latin School, who led his class at Harvard College; Miss Caroline E. Stecker, who took prizes in two successive years; and Mr. Leo R. Lewis, of the English High School, now a professor in Tufts College. Others there are who may be expected hereafter to distinguish themselves in the line of work for which the writing of their essays was the beginning of a preparation.

The whole number of Old South essayists is now over 100. About 20 of these have been or still are students in colleges, some proceeding thither in regular course from the Latin schools, but others in less easy ways, being impelled to the effort undoubtedly by a desire for higher education that had grown out of their historical studies for their essays. But among the essayists who have not become college students, the interest in historical studies has been no less abiding. The Old South Historical Society, formed about two years ago, is composed of persons who have written historical essays for the Old South prizes. Quarterly meetings are held for the reading of papers and for discussion on historical subjects. This society may well be regarded with peculiar interest by our teachers, because it represents the best historical scholarship of successive years in the high schools of Boston. It may soon become, if it be not already, one of the most important learned societies in this city.

But historical study and writing are not for the many, nor are they enough to satisfy the few. A broader influence may touch the hearts of all through music. Out of this thought has grown the society known as "The Old South Young People's Chorus."

At many of "the Old South lectures" there has been singing of national patriotic hymns by large choruses of boys and girls from the public schools, three or four hundred often taking part. On the Washington's Birthday celebrations there has always been singing by the public-school children. These interesting exercises have led to a more permanent organization for the practice of patriotic music, which flourishes now under the name of "Young People's Chorus."

Finally, let us note the extension of "the Old South work" to other cities, as Providence, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee, and others. Everywhere the idea of bringing our national history home to the minds and hearts of young people through an awakened interest in monuments and memorials of the past has been enthusiastically received. Philadelphia, no less than Boston, has her shrines of freedom. There is no city or town in the land that does not possess something interesting as a memorial of past events-events which the national historian may regard as of no more than local importance, but which, by the very circumstance of being local, best show the child the stuff out of which the fabric of our national history is woven. Everywhere, therefore, the materials for "the Old South work" are at hand, and the plan of this work is so simple that it can be adopted every where.

*

#

[From the address by James A. Page, master of the Dwight School.]

Of the public-spirited woman in whose honor we are met it may be said, in the language of Sydney Smith, that she was three women, not one woman.

Practical as a business man, she was yet tender and generous to many different sorts of people. Expecting always faithful and loyal service, she was considerate of those carrying forward her great plans. She delighted to spend money, as she was spending it, for lofty purposes. She had strength-the strength of opposite qualities, the strength that fits for public service. The city was fortunate that at such a time, or at any time, such service was to be had.

The woman who gave this service saw very surely that any institution, to be lasting, must be firmly founded; and her motto therefore in this, as in other things, was "Go slowly." We had had "systems" of gymnastics before, and they had vanished. We had had "fads" of this kind, and they had perished one by one. The thing to be done now was to secure a plan that should be workable, and yet should be based on well-ascertained physiological and psychological data.

She gave her mind to this. In 1888 the cooperation of twenty-five teachers was secured, and the work was carried on for a considerable time in rooms at Boylston Place. After much experience had been gained and circumstances had seemed to justify it, larger rooms were obtained, and in 1889 the masters of the schools were invited to interest themselves in the movement and to take part in the exercises. They responded to the call without an exception, I believe, and the work took on a wider scope. It was in this year also (1889) that the Conference on Physical Training took place under the auspices of this school, and the advocates of many different systems were invited to take part, and each to show by example and on the stage the special excellencies of his own school of work. The German pupils, those of the Christian associations, of Delsarte, of the colleges, of the Swedish, and of some private

schools took the stage successively, and had ample opportunity to demonstrate the value of their several systems. A brilliant reception was given in the evening. It was determined, I think, at this time by a very general consensus of opinion that for the public schools of this city as a whole, and with all their limitations, the Swedish system was the best adapted.

From this time, convinced it was on the right track, the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics has continned a constantly growing power and success. Under the same firm but fostering hand as at the beginning it outgrew its quarters in Park street, and since 1890 has been located in more commodious rooms at the Paine Memorial Building. It has graduated three classes, that of 1891 consisting of 12 students, that of 1892 also of 12, and that of 1893 consisting of 43 students, and this with a constantly advancing standard as to conditions of admission. In addition to these regular graduates 30 pupils have received one-year certificates, and some of them are now doing good work as teachers.

The school has at its head Miss Amy Morris Homans and in its staff such men as Dr. Enebuske, the professor of philosophy at Harvard University, the dean of the Harvard Medical School, and the professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It is not strange, then, that the services of pupils trained in such a way should be in demand in all parts of the country. Two have gone to the Drexel Institute of Philadelphia; 2 have gone to Smith College, Northampton; 2 to Radcliffe College, Cambridge; 1 to Bryn Mawr, Pa.; 4 to different State normal schools in Massachusetts; 1 to Oshkosh, Wis.; 1 to Denver, Colo.; 1 to the Normal College, Milledgeville, Ga.; and 1 each to Gloucester, Lynn, Lawrence, Dedham, Cambridge, and Pawtucket.

The aggregate salaries paid to the young ladies of the three classes already graduated are not less than $50,000, the highest single salary reaching $1,800, and the average being slightly less than $1,000.

These statements give but a faint idea of the work of the school-its fineness, its scope, its far-reaching quality. But we can see that the bread cast on the waters is beginning to return. These centers throughout the country are already established. Imagine them, as the years go by, multiplied a thousand fold, making a better and happier, because a stronger, people, and then bring the threads back to this place and connect them with the deed of one noble, public-spirited woman.

The counterpart of this picture is the one of 60,000 children taking the Swedish exercises daily in our own city schools, under the direction of teachers acquainted with the system from actual contact with it, and under the supervision of an expert like Dr. Hartwell. Who that saw the exposition of it at the English High School on Saturday last can hesitate in his hearty Godspeed or forget the one whose initiative made it all possible?

[From the address of Dr. Larkin Dunton, head master of the Boston Normal School.]

If a man has wisdom and money, but no heart, he does nothing for his fellow-men. If his purse is full and his heart is warm, yet, if he lacks wisdom to guide his efforts, he is as likely to harm as to help. But happy is it for the world when wisdom, love, and wealth are the joint possession of one great soul. They then constitute an irresistible force. Mrs. Mary Hemenway possessed them all in largest measure. Let us note briefly the comprehensiveness of view and kindness of heart that are shown in the work of this grand woman.

She was allowed to grow up, as she said, without learning to do things; and she noticed that girls who were efficient workers were happy. She felt that she had been deprived of her birthright. This was her first inspiration for teaching girls to sew; though she saw also the effect of a knowledge of this work in their future homes as well as in helpfulness to their mothers. Through her efforts sewing was introduced into the schools of Boston. But she was too wise to allow this branch of instruction to depend upon the life of any one person. She began at once to interest the school committee and teachers in the work, to the end that it might be incorporated into the regular programme of the schools, be given to all the girls, and, more than this, be made perpetual by being put under the fostering care of the immortal city. The example of Boston has been widely copied, so that the influence of the work thus unostentatiously begun, but so wisely managed, has extended and will extend to millions of children and millions of homes.

A legitimate result of the introduction of this new branch of instruction has been the creation of a department of sewing in the Boston Normal School, so that hereafter sewing is to be taught by women as able and as well educated as those who teach arithmetic or language, and is, therefore, to take its place as an educational force in the development of our girls.

Through various experiments in vacation schools in summer Mrs. Hemenway came to see that it would be possible to raise the standard of cooking in the homes of the people by teaching the art to the children in the public schools. This, she thought,

would not only raise up a stronger race of men and women, but would make their homes happier and more attractive, and so would lesson the temptation of fathers and sons to spend their evenings at the saloon. And thus good cooking came to stand in her mind as the handmaid of temperance.

But she was wise enough to see that the realization of her ideal, namely, the universality and perpetuity of good cooking, depended upon two conditions-first, that the work must be under the care and support of an abiding power; and second, that the instruction must be given by competent teachers. Hence she set herself to work to demonstrate the feasibility of the plan to the school authorities, to the end that they would undertake it for all the girls of the city. At the same time, seeing that there were no suitable teachers for this new branch of education, she established a normal school of cooking, which she has maintained to the present time.

This normal school has not only supplied the school kitchens of Boston with competent teachers, but has supplied other cities with teachers, so that other centers of like influence could be created. This institution has also shown the authorities here the necessity of training teachers for this kind of school work, and a department of cooking has been provided for in the city normal school. So the continuation and improvement of the work are secured.

When Mrs. Hemenway's attention was called to physical training as a means of improving the health, physique, and graceful bearing of the young, she immediately began experimenting with various systems of gymnastics for the purpose of ascer taining which was best adapted to the needs of American children.

She soon became so favorably impressed with the Swedish system that she invited 25 Boston teachers to assist her in making her experiment with it. Their judgment of the result was so favorable that she made an offer to the school committee to train a hundred teachers in the system, on condition that they be allowed to use the exercises in their classes in case they chose to do so. The offer was accepted, and the result proved a success.

Mrs. Hemenway saw at the outset that what she could do personally was but a trifle compared to what ought to be done, so she decided to start the work in such a way that it would become as broad as Boston and as lasting. Hence she began at once to share the responsibility with the city and to train the teachers for the work. She soon gained such a broad view of the possibilities of the system that she decided to make it more generally known. This led to the great Conference on Physical Training in Boston in 1889, which did so much to arouse an interest in the subject and to create a demand for teachers specially trained for the work. But it was not enough to create a demand for teachers; the demand must be met; so she established the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics for the education and training of teachers of gymnastics.

Mere imitators would not do for this work. She believed the body to be the temple of God, and that it should be guarded and adorned by those who knew it so well as to believe in its possibilities and its sacredness. This school has done much to qualify the teachers of Boston for conducting the Swedish exercises, and it has sent its graduates into many other cities, which in turn have become centers of inspiration and help along the same line. Mrs. Hemenway, through this school, will improve the physical power, health, and morality of millions of our children.

But she was not satisfied with all this. She saw that to make this work perpetual in Boston the education of teachers of gymnastics must be made perpetual: it must not depend upon one frail life; so she furnished the best equipped teacher that she could procure to give instruction in the theory and art of gymnastics in the Boston Normal School till a woman could be educated for the place. When this was done and the school committee had appointed a competent teacher, Mrs. Hemenway's influence was gradually withdrawn, so that now every graduate of our normal school goes out prepared to direct intelligently the work in gymnastics, and all is done that human foresight could devise to make instruction in this subject perpetual. Her work in connection with the Old South had the same general aim. It was to improve the morals of the people by teaching patriotism widely and perpetually. She once said: "I have just given $100,000 to save the Old South, yet I care nothing for the church or the corner lot; but if I live, such teaching shall be done in that old building and such an influence shall go out from it as shall make the children of future generations love their country so tenderly that there can never be another civil war in this country." This sentiment accounts for her support of Old South summer lectures and Old South prize essays for the development of patriotism in the

young.

Mrs. Hemenway spent $100,000 in building up the Tileston Normal School, in Wilmington, N. C. Wlien asked why she gave money to support schools in the South, she replied: "When my country called for her sons to defend the flag, I had none to give. Mine was but a lad of 12. I gave my money as a thank offering that I was not called to suffer as other mothers who gave their sons and lost them. I gave it that the children of this generation might be taught to love the flag their fathers tore down."

THE OLD SOUTH WORK.

[By Edwin D. Mead.']

The extent of the obligation of Boston and of America to Mrs. Hemenway for her devotion to the historical and political education of our young people is something which we only now begin to properly appreciate, when she has left us and we view her work as a whole. I do not think it is too much to say that she has done more than any other single individual in the same time to promote popular interest in American history and to promote intelligent patriotism.

Mary Hemenway was a woman whose interests and sympathies were as broad as the world; but she was a great patriot-and she was preeminently that. She was an enthusiastic lover of freedom and of democracy, and there was not a day of her life that she did not think of the great price with which our own heritage of freedom had been purchased. Her patriotism was loyalty. She had a deep feeling of personal gratitude to the founders of New England and the fathers of the Republic. She had a reverent pride in our position of leadership in the history and movement of modern democracy, and she had a consuming zeal to keep the nation strong and pure and worthy of its best traditions, and to kindle this zeal among the young people of the nation. With all her great enthusiasms, she was an amazingly practical and definite woman. She wasted no time or strength in vague generalities, either of speech or action. Others might long for the time when the kingdom of God should cover the earth as the waters cover the sea-and she longed for it; but while others longed she devoted herself to doing what she could to bring that corner of God's world in which she was set into conformity with the laws of God-and this by every means in her power, by teaching poor girls how to make better clothes and cook better dinners and make better homes, by teaching people to value health and respect and train their bodies, by inciting people to read better books and love better music and better pictures and be interested in more important things. Others might long for the parliament of man and the federation of the world-and so did she; but while others longed she devoted herself to doing what she could to make this nation, for which she was particularly responsible, fitter for the federation when it comes. The good patriot, to her thinking, was not the worse cosmopolite. The good state for which she worked was a good Massachusetts, and her chief interest, while others talked municipal reform, was to make a better Boston.

American history, people used to say, is not interesting; and they read about Ivry and Marathon and Zama, about Pym and Pepin and Pericles, the ephors, the tribunes, and the House of Lords. American history, said Mrs. Hemenway, is to us the most interesting and the most important history in the world, if we would only open our eyes to it and look at it in the right way-and I will help people to look at it in the right way. Our very archæology, she said, is of the highest interest; and through the researches of Mr. Cushing and Dr. Fewkes and others among the Zuñis and the Moquis, sustained by her at the cost of thousands of dollars, she did an immense work to make interest in it general. Boston, the Puritan city-how proud she was of its great line of heroic men, from Winthrop and Cotton and Eliot and Harvard to Sumner and Garrison and Parker and Phillips! How proud she was that Harry Vane once trod its soil and here felt himself at home! How she loved Hancock and Otis and Warren and Revere and the great men of the Boston town meetings-above all, Samuel Adams, the very mention of whose name always thrilled her, and whose portrait was the only one save Washington's which hung on the oaken walls of her great dining room! The Boston historians, Prescott, Motley, Parkman; the Boston poets, Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson-each word of every one she treasured. She would have enjoyed and would have understood, as few others, that recent declaration of Charles Francis Adams, that the founding of Boston was fraught with consequences hardly less important than those of the founding of Rome. All other Boston men and women must see Boston as she saw it-that was her high resolve; they must know and take to heart that they were citizens of no mean city; they must be roused to the sacredness of their inheritance, that so they might be roused to the nobility of their citizenship and the greatness of their duty. It was with this aim and with this spirit, not with the spirit of the mere antiquarian, that Mrs. Hemenway inaugurated the Old South work. History with her was for use-the history of Boston, the history of New England, the history of America.

In the first place she saved the Old South Meeting House. She contributed $100,000 toward the fund necessary to prevent its destruction. It is hard for us to realize, so much deeper is the reverence for historic places which the great anniversaries of these late years have done so much to beget, that in our very centennial year, 1876, the Old South Meeting House, the most sacred and historic structure in Boston, was in danger of destruction. The old Hancock house, for which, could it be

1 Reprinted from the Journal of Education, August 30-September 13, 1894.

restored, Boston would to-day pour out unlimited treasure, had gone, with but feeble protest, only a dozen years before; and but for Mrs. Hemenway the Old South Meeting House would have gone in 1876. She saved it, and, having saved it, she determined that it should not stand an idle monument, the tomb of the great ghosts, but a living temple of patriotism. She knew the didactic power of great associations; and everyone who in these fifteen years has been in the habit of going to the lectures and celebrations at the Old South knows with what added force many a lesson has been taught within the walls which heard the tread of Washington, and which still echo the words of Samuel Adams and James Otis and Joseph Warren.

The machinery of the Old South work has been the simplest. That is why any city, if it has public spirited people to sustain it, can easily carry on such work. That is why work like it, owing its parentage and impulse to it, has been undertaken in Providence and Brooklyn and Philadelphia and Indianapolis and Chicago and elsewhere. That is why men and women all over the country, organized in societies or not, who are really in earnest about good citizenship, can do much to promote similar work in the cities and towns in which they live. We have believed at the Old South Meeting House simply in the power of the spoken word and the printed page. We have had lectures and we have circulated historical leaflets.

What is an Old South lecture course like? That is what many of the teachers and many of the young people who read the Journal of Education, and who are not conversant with the work, will like to know. What kind of subjects do we think will attract and instruct bright young people of 15 or 16, set them to reading in American history, make them more interested in their country, and make better citizens of them? That question can not, perhaps, be better answered than by giving the Old South programme for the present summer. This course is devoted to "The Founders of New England," and the eight lectures are as follows: "William Brewster, the elder of Plymouth," by Rev. Edward Everett Hale; "William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth," by Rev. William Elliot Griffis; "John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts," by Hon. Frederic T. Greenhalge; "John Harvard, and the founding of Harvard College," by Mr. William R. Thayer; "John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians," by Rev. James de Normandie; "John Cotton, the minister of Boston," by Rev. John Cotton Brooks; "Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island," by President E. Benjamin Andrews; "Thomas Hooker, the founder of Connecticut," by Rev. Joseph H. Twichell.

It will be noticed that the several subjects in this course are presented by representative men-men especially identified in one way or another with their special themes. Thus, Edward Everett Hale, who spoke on Elder Brewster, is certainly our greatest New England "elder" to-day. Dr. Griffis, whose book on "Brave Little Holland" is being read at this time by many of our young people, is an authority in Pilgrim history, having now in preparation a work on "The Pilgrim Fathers in England, Holland, and America." It was singularly fortunate that the present governor of Massachusetts could speak upon Governor Winthrop. Mr. Thayer is the editor of the Harvard Graduates' Magazine, and a special student of John Harvard's life and times. Mr. De Normandie is John Eliot's successor as minister of the old church in Roxbury. Rev. John Cotton Brooks, Phillips Brooks's brother, is a lineal descendant of John Cotton, and has preached in his pulpit in St. Botolph's church at old Boston, in England. President Andrews, of Brown University, is the very best person to come from Rhode Island to tell of that little State's great founder. Mr. Twichell, the eminent Hartford minister, was the chosen orator at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Connecticut, in 1889. With such a list of speakers as this, this course upon "The founding of New England" could not help being a strong, brilliant, and valuable course; and so it has proved.

The Old South lectures-thanks to Mrs. Hemenway's generosity, still active by provision of her will-are entirely free to all young people. Tickets are sent to all persons under 20, applying in their own handwriting to the directors of the Old South studies, at the Old South Meeting House, and inclosing stamps. Older people can come if they wish to-and a great many do come-but these pay for their tickets; it is understood that the lectures are designed for the young people. We tell our lecturers to aim at the bright boy and girl of 15, and forget that there is anybody else in the audience. If the lecturer hits them, he is sure to interest everybody; if he does not, he is a failure as an Old South lecturer. We tell them to be graphic and picturesque-dullness, however learned, is the one thing which young people will not pardon; we tell them to speak without notes-if they do not always satisfy themselves quite so well, they please everybody else a great deal better; and we tell them never to speak over an hour-we pardon fifty-nine minutes, but we do not pardon sixty-one. Persons starting work like the Old South work in other cities would do well to remember these simple rules. Any persons looking in upon the great audience of young people which, on the Wednesday afternoons of summer, fills the Old South Meeting House, will quickly satisfy themselves whether American history taught by such lectures is interesting.