Mr.

charges, but the feeling of jealousy remained. Parker, then master of the school, who wrote a sketch of its history, which was printed in a pamphlet at Roxbury in 1826, wrote: "Unfortunately for the town and also for the interests of the institution, an invidious prejudice has existed in former years which has prevented many from enjoying its benefits, which prejudice had its origin without doubt, in the circumstance that it was governed by individuals and not by the town. This prejudice has within a few years been nearly dissipated, and it is thought that nothing will tend so effectually to its complete removal as a candid statement of its origin, its history and the principles upon which it has been conducted."

Mr. Parker's candid statement may have done some of the good which he proposed, but it did not obliterate the prejudice, which, though perhaps less violent than formerly, has survived him and will doubtless survive us. This in part caused the failure of the two attempts, one in 1839 and the second in 1852 and continuing for five years, to connect this school with the town school system, but no doubt the unwillingness of the trustees to be in any way hampered in their independence by a connection with the town or city government, tended to make joint action. more difficult and a rupture of joint relations easier.

In my time this jealous feeling found expression in a perpetual feud between the town school boys and the Latin school boys, with a good deal of fighting, in single combat or in companies somewhat carefully organized and skilfully led. Once, I remember, we were besieged in our own school-house by a large force of Washington school boys exasperated by some recent occurrence. We were about ready to make a sortie, armed with ball clubs and other weapons of that character, confidently expecting to

1 A Sketch of the History of the Grammar School in the Easterly Part of Roxbury. Compiled from the Original Records of the School by R. G. Parker, A.M., Master of the Upper Department of the School. Roxbury: Printed by Thomas S. Watts, 1826.

defeat and disperse the enemy, who numbered about ten to our one, or to cut our way through and retreat without serious loss, when the higher powers, represented by a selectman and a constable, appeared upon the scene and raised the siege.

Toward the end of Mr. Gould's mastership he was ill for a week or two and sent one of his classmates as a substitute. Then occurred one of the two rebellions which I remember at the school. The scholars did not actually depose the master, for the older boys were shrewd enough to see that that would bring about a crisis. They simply did as they pleased, allowing the master to remain, but paying no more regard to his authority than was needed to prevent him from abdicating or appealing to the trustees. He tried appealing to force, but was quickly made to understand that, if that was the ultima ratio, we were better reasoners than he. The temporary master had the form, but not the substance of authority, he reigned but did not govern. The real power was in the hands of a few of the big boys. But the facts soon came to the notice of the trustees and an investigation was followed by the expulsion of three or four boys who deserved it.

This rebellion was followed shortly by an exhibition and an award of prizes. I gained one, I remember, for a translation from the Latin. It was a silver medal, bearing the motto "Sic itur ad astra," indicating, I suppose, that, in the judgment of the trustees, the way to the stars for me was by translation, notwithstanding the very few examples in sacred or profane history of the passage being made that way.

The principals of the school in my time (I left it in 1849), were Mr. Gould, Henry B. Wheelwright and Charles Short. Mr. Gould I am sure had the respect and affection of all of us. Mr. Short we knew as an exact and exacting scholar. I think the idea of scholarship in the sense of thorough and precise knowledge first came to us

through him. He was dissatisfied with the versions of the classics published in this country and insisted upon our using as text books copies of foreign editions imported by himself. The revival of learning at this school and the attainment of a high standard of proficiency by its scholars, as tested by comparison with the pupils of other schools in their examinations and work at college, seems to me to have begun with him. I am giving my own impressions only. Mr. Gould might have left the same impression if I had come under his influence later or remained under it longer, but a boy of nine or ten years cannot be expected to think much of scholarship.

To my mind the interesting facts in the history of this school, unquestionably the oldest by far, if not the only free school in this country not supported or aided by the proceeds of public taxation, are its continuity and the wisdom and faithfulness with which its property has been preserved and increased for nearly two hundred and fifty years, with scarcely any additional endowments after the first fifty years. It has lived within, but always up to its income, it has spent nothing in pretentious or stately architecture, but its teachers and scholars have been sheltered as cheaply as was consistent with comfort and reasonable convenience. Some of its trustees did in earlier days receive occasionally small sums for special services, but for more than forty years all their duties have been performed without payment, and not a dollar of the funds has, I believe, ever been spent for banquets or any form of personal gratification to the trustees.

Among the eminent and honored men who have been connected with the school as trustees or teachers, I will mention only a few: John Eliot, whose name should be worth more than a title of nobility to those who bear it, Governors Joseph Dudley and Increase Sumner, William Cushing, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the two John Lowells, father and son, Joseph

Warren, William Emerson, the father of Ralph Waldo, and in our own time the late Rev. George Putnam, besides those who have been mentioned in other parts of this paper. If the school shall live so long as some of these names will be remembered, a posterity more remote in the future than the earliest dawn of history is in the past will be grateful to its founders.

SELECTIONS FROM LETTERS RECEIVED BY DAVID DAGGETT, 1786-1802.

COMMUNICATED BY FRANKLIN B. DEXTER.

THE following extracts are selected from the correspondence of Chief Justice David Daggett, in the possession of the Library of Yale University.

Judge Daggett was born in Attleborough, Mass., in 1764, and was graduated at Yale in 1783. He remained in New Haven, as a student and practitioner of law, and early became prominent as a leader of the Connecticut Federalists.

The first extract presented is from a letter of a classmate on his return from a prospecting tour in the South. He finally settled in Philadelphia.

"BALTIMORE, Oct. 13th, 1786.

I have lived a very roving life, since my last confab with you, and tho' it hath turned out nothing better than barely satiating my curiosity, yet I consider myself richly paid. I find not so great a disparity between the Northern and Southern States as I expected, before I made my tour. I find in them neither rivers of gold nor rocks of diamonds, neither are we fed with the quails of heaven nor with the manna that comes down from above. But the curse is entailed upon the people in this climate as well as in New England-with the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread.'

North Carolina which hath been the Elisium of some as has been pretended, is the most wretched place in nature and the poorest State in the Union. Virginia is better, but the inhabitants are a disagreeable set of beings. What militates against the young lads who come this way from Yale and Harvard is that many young professional men came at the end of the war and are still coming out from