d purpose.
A royal impulse was imparted to the educational machinery of our State, which from that time began to work with wonderful activity.
Favoring laws were enacted; a State Board of Education was established; normal schools sprang into existence, and the public schools of the State soon began to assume the form and features they wear at the present day.
Upon the crest of that wave were such men as Rev. Charles Brooks, a native of Medford, and at that time a pastor in Hingham; Hon. Horace Mann, the first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education; and Rev. Francis Wayland, D. D., president of Brown University.
The light emanating from such luminaries was as inextinguishable as the solar rays.
In some localities, as welcome as the sun in haying time, it struck into and dissipated darkness that was almost solid.
In others the curtains were closely drawn against it and remained so for many years.
Effect in Medford.
Some of Medford's influential citizens hailed th
ial meeting on September 21, the three hundredth anniversary of the coming here of white men.
Report of recent meeting at Hingham of the Bay State League was given.
It was attended by Dr. Green, Messrs. Ackerman, Dunham and Eddy and Mr. and Mrs. Mann.
A letter and program of celebration was received from the Annapolis, N. S., Historical Society.
A finely executed book of their anniversaries was later received.
The president then announced the subject of the evening, The visit of Mylent issue of the register.
The president then called attention to a large framed lithograph hanging at the right of the chair.
It was published in 1873 and is now very rare.
It is the March of Myles Standish, and was loaned to the society by Mr. Mann the next speaker called upon, who reviewed the story just read in the original.
He traced the march of the Pilgrim band from their landing place, where Charlestown was yet to be, in armes up through the country, and located the places mentioned
Election of officers and interests of society discussed.
The March meeting on evening of 19th was at the close of a rainy, dismal day. Fourteen (including three visitors from Somerville society) braved the sudden cold to attend.
Miss Marion Hosmer, West Medford, read an interesting story of the old Woburn road and the Count Rumford house at North Woburn, which is preserved and owned by the Rumford Historical Society.
Her mention of the Jug Baptist church in Woburn elicited inquiry, and Mr. Mann, who is conversant with its history, told something of it and how it got the name.
April 16.
A general discussion of April events to make note of occupied this evening.
May 21.
The heavy rain of the day ceased at nightfall but for only two hours, and the closing meeting was but lightly attended, those present coming the longest distances.
Rev. Anson Titus of West Somerville spoke on Jim Franklin, Ben's Big Brother, making special reference to Samuel Hall of Medford, spiritual hei
nt with Hell. "--Garrison's Liberator, June 20, 1856.
"Until we cease to strike hands religiously, politically and governmentally, with the South, and declare the Union to be at an end, I believe we can do nothing even against the encroachments of the slave power upon our rights.
Let the Union be accursed."-- Liberator.
"Better disunion — better a civil war or a servile war — better anything that God, in His Providence, shall send, than an extension of the bounds of slavery."-- Horace Mann in the House of Representatives, Thirty first Congress.
"Daniel Webster says of New England: 'You are a law-abiding people.' Shame on it, if this be true; if ever the religion of New England sinks as low as its statute book.
But I say we are not a law-abiding community.
God be thanked for it."-- Wendell Phillips.
"We are disunionist, not from any love of separate confederacies, but we would get rid of this Union."--Wendell Phillips.
"There is a higher law than the Constit
Horace Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, written during the Seven Years War, expresses himself wearied with the slow process of military events.
He says that no doubt the occurrences of Cæsar's day seemed to drag themselves along quite as tediously, although the conquests of Cæsar are proverbial for their rapidity.
We read the commentaries, or the campaigns of Frederick, all in the bulk.
We do not go through the tedious details of military operations in the newspapers, catching the news of a moment one day, and resting upon our information thus picked up for several others to come.
The newspapers, and the dispatches and bulletins of the generals, only let us see a little at a time.
A six months campaign gathered this way, in detail, is wearisome enough.
We must wait for the historian if we wish to read operations in the mass.
In addition to other causes of uneasiness, the great anxiety necessarily felt by contemporaries — especially by that portion of them who
